Pandemonium
Pandemonium is fun, in the same sense that running on hot coals is fun. It's actually down right dangerous but if you gear your deck up to use it well then you should be able to use it to beat your opponents before they beat you.
Before I go any further I should emphasise the rule that Commander damage is Combat damage so Pandemonium doesn't help in that regard.
Before I go any further I should emphasise the rule that Commander damage is Combat damage so Pandemonium doesn't help in that regard.
On the face of it you just use it to get an extra hit in with the creatures you cast. Cast a big creature deal lots of damage.
Something like Inferno Titan maybe? Nothing like doing 9 damage rather than 3 when you play him.
But wait a second what if we can double it?
Gratuitous Violence states if a creature you control would deal damage..... Pandemonium states "Whenever a creature enters the battlefield that creature's controller may have it deal...'
So it is the creature that is dealing the damage and therefore Gratuitous Violence will double it. So that's 18 damage from playing the Titan.
Playing Inferno Titan is one off though, you would have to hope to draw another big hitter and another. That's unreliable even if you have plenty of draw engines in play to help.
What if you could play an Inferno Titan every turn?
Mimic Vat lets you do exactly that. Okay you either need the Inferno Titan to die or a way to sacrifice him yourself but get him, or another equally large creature, exiled with Mimic Vat and you have a way to deal plenty of damage every turn without relying on what cards you draw.
Another way to achieve a similar effect is to use a card like Eldrazi Displacer.
I wrote about the Displacer in a previous article as it's such a great card. Here it just gives you such a great repeatable way to keep damaging your opponents with Pandemonium.
What if we could play more than one creature when casting a spell? Well there is a way to do that we can use spells to create token creatures. And once we start creating token creatures then we start having fun with Doubling Season, Primal Vigor and Parallel Lives.
How about Crush of Wurms? 18 damage on it's own. Doubling Season would make that 36. Then Primal Vigor would make it 72 and Parallel Lives would make it 144. Admittedly you're not likely to have all three in play but it's worth considering in a token heavy deck.
Crush of Wurms as good as it is can only, under normal circumstances be played twice, don't forget it has Flashback.
But what if we used a creature that generated tokens? Like Captain of the Watch.
Captain of the Watch comes into play first then triggers and the tokens then hit the battlefield so they are 2/2s when they do so.
So all told that's 9 points of damage via Pandemonium. If we had Doubling Season in play that would be 15 damage instead. Three 2/2 soldiers double to six is 12 damage + 3 from the captain herself.
The cool thing then is that the Captain can be flickered with Eldrazi Displacer to produce yet more damage and lots more soldiers.
Captain of the Watch is a lord which gives a certain creature type a bonus, in this case Soldiers. I discuss this in more detail here.
This is useful because it means the creatures we are putting into play have greater power and therefore deal more damage.
There are of course other ways to achieve a similar effect. Cards like Caged Sun or Obelisk of Urd give a boost to creatures of a certain colour or type. Coat of Arms goes one further in that it boosts the creatures for each other creature.
In the case of Captain of the Watch each creature including the Captain herself gets an additional +3/+3. So she ends up being 6/6 and the soldiers 5/5. That's 21 points of damage dealt by Pandemonium.
Another way to produce tokens is to use Blade of Selves
Inferno Titan is a bad example to use here as Blade of Selves won't trigger it's attack ability only it's enter the battlefield ability. But what we are really interested in is the extra creatures entering the battlefield any way.
Still that's an extra 9 damage for each opponent after the first. And what's more you can choose which opponent or creature receives that damage. That's a lot of damage being dealt from one creature attacking.
I've been talking about token creatures and neatly sidestepping the obvious - infinite combos.
Oh look here's one now:
I chose a mono red combo as Pandemonium is also red. Also Raka Mar produces 3/1 token creatures so they do a nice bit of damage already. Although in an infinite combo that doesn't really matter.
In this combo you sac the Elemental to Phyrexian Altar. The Altar gives you the mana to produce another token and Thornbite Staff allows you to untap him so that he is read to be tapped again.
So that's infinite 3/1s with Pandemonium providing the damage which equals game over.
Which ever way to use it Pandemonium is sure to live up to it's name you just need to make sure you stack the odds in your favour.
Until next time may you top deck the response you needed.
Phil
What if you could play an Inferno Titan every turn?
Mimic Vat lets you do exactly that. Okay you either need the Inferno Titan to die or a way to sacrifice him yourself but get him, or another equally large creature, exiled with Mimic Vat and you have a way to deal plenty of damage every turn without relying on what cards you draw.
Another way to achieve a similar effect is to use a card like Eldrazi Displacer.
I wrote about the Displacer in a previous article as it's such a great card. Here it just gives you such a great repeatable way to keep damaging your opponents with Pandemonium.
What if we could play more than one creature when casting a spell? Well there is a way to do that we can use spells to create token creatures. And once we start creating token creatures then we start having fun with Doubling Season, Primal Vigor and Parallel Lives.
With one or more of these in play you just then need the right card to drop plenty of tokens for you.
How about Crush of Wurms? 18 damage on it's own. Doubling Season would make that 36. Then Primal Vigor would make it 72 and Parallel Lives would make it 144. Admittedly you're not likely to have all three in play but it's worth considering in a token heavy deck.
Crush of Wurms as good as it is can only, under normal circumstances be played twice, don't forget it has Flashback.
But what if we used a creature that generated tokens? Like Captain of the Watch.
Captain of the Watch comes into play first then triggers and the tokens then hit the battlefield so they are 2/2s when they do so.
So all told that's 9 points of damage via Pandemonium. If we had Doubling Season in play that would be 15 damage instead. Three 2/2 soldiers double to six is 12 damage + 3 from the captain herself.
The cool thing then is that the Captain can be flickered with Eldrazi Displacer to produce yet more damage and lots more soldiers.
Captain of the Watch is a lord which gives a certain creature type a bonus, in this case Soldiers. I discuss this in more detail here.
This is useful because it means the creatures we are putting into play have greater power and therefore deal more damage.
There are of course other ways to achieve a similar effect. Cards like Caged Sun or Obelisk of Urd give a boost to creatures of a certain colour or type. Coat of Arms goes one further in that it boosts the creatures for each other creature.
In the case of Captain of the Watch each creature including the Captain herself gets an additional +3/+3. So she ends up being 6/6 and the soldiers 5/5. That's 21 points of damage dealt by Pandemonium.
Another way to produce tokens is to use Blade of Selves
Inferno Titan is a bad example to use here as Blade of Selves won't trigger it's attack ability only it's enter the battlefield ability. But what we are really interested in is the extra creatures entering the battlefield any way.
Still that's an extra 9 damage for each opponent after the first. And what's more you can choose which opponent or creature receives that damage. That's a lot of damage being dealt from one creature attacking.
I've been talking about token creatures and neatly sidestepping the obvious - infinite combos.
Oh look here's one now:
I chose a mono red combo as Pandemonium is also red. Also Raka Mar produces 3/1 token creatures so they do a nice bit of damage already. Although in an infinite combo that doesn't really matter.
In this combo you sac the Elemental to Phyrexian Altar. The Altar gives you the mana to produce another token and Thornbite Staff allows you to untap him so that he is read to be tapped again.
So that's infinite 3/1s with Pandemonium providing the damage which equals game over.
Which ever way to use it Pandemonium is sure to live up to it's name you just need to make sure you stack the odds in your favour.
Until next time may you top deck the response you needed.
Phil
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