Way back in January, I wrote a post about my attempt to build Wilson, Refined Grizzly and the Flaming Fist background into a voltron-style commander with +1/+1 counters and pump spells. After some playtesting, it just was not working quite right, and I eventually set it aside.
I used some of the green +1/+1 counter cards and a wide array of other cards from my collection to build a blue-green (Simic) deck with more cohesion that shows some promise, but I wanted to bring back the bear at some point. I still wanted to focus on victory through commander damage, keeping a low creature count and avoiding the typical green-white (Selesnya) token creature archetype.
The deck list is still at the same link as before, but bears (heh...) little resemblance to its old structure. I swapped out over 40 cards, which does not sound like much until you take into account the 40 lands are largely untouched. The core 60 spell cards are almost completely transformed now.
I may swap out some of the creature cards as I discover what is useful and what is not, but I am fairly pleased with the new focus for this deck. I used a combination of enchantments and equipment to make Wilson into an absolute monster. I mean, he already is. The classic Grizzly Bears card costs 2 mana (1G) for a 2/2 creature with no abilities. First released as part of the Alpha set for the game, it has made appearances ever since as a solid, if unremarkable, creature. This has been massively improved for the legend Wilson.
- He can't be countered (blue players can't fizzle the Grizzle)
- He has vigilance (he can attack without being tapped, so remains free to defend after attacking)
- He has reach (he can block creatures with flying)
- He has trample (even if his attack is blocked, any damage in excess of what would destroy the blocking creature still hits that defending player)
- He has Ward 2, (an opponent must pay an additional 2 mana to target him with spell cards)
- He can choose a background
I kept the Flaming Fist background because double strike is an excellent addition to Wilson's already overpowered suite of abilities. This means he hits first before most other creatures in combat unless they have first strike or double strike, and then he hits again at the same tempo as other creatures. With the ol' one-two punch and a few upgrades, he can absolutely destroy hordes of chump blockers, and he can smash big defenders before they can hit back.
In addition to changing the deck focus to enchantments and artifacts, I cut a lot of rare and high-price cards. In fact, only 3 cards in the deck are rares. The rest are uncommon and common. It also fits solidly into the more casual and beginner-friendly bracket 2 category. Some cards run upwards of a dollar or two online right now, but none are major collector pieces. You do not need to spend a lot for a fun, thematic deck that can still compete at most casual tables against preconstructed decks and other casual homebrews. It is not suited for the truly competitive metagames, and has room for improvement as all decks do,
This ticks the main checkbox for me as a fun deck. I balanced its aggression with a decent suite of defensive enchantments to turn off problems on my opponent's board, but this still can be weak against various strategies. If an opponent is building a big creature as fast as me, I'm in danger. If they can ramp their horde army faster than I can claw through them, I'm in trouble, and I have few options to block a go-wide strategy. There are also combo decks and instant win conditions I have no way to counter. But if I can even start to build my strategy, and somewhat delay my opponent, I can win.
Best of all, as of this post and the current deck list today, buying the singles at your local card shop should be far cheaper than a precon you would probably still want to upgrade anyway, so it is a solid starting point if this sounds like a fun deck to you. I may swap in a few new cards in coming weeks to ramp mana a bit and add more defense, but I think I'm past the "will this even work?" stage of brewing. What changes might you suggest?
If you're not on Hive yet, I invite you to join through InLeo or PeakD. If you use either of my referral links, I'll even try to delegate some Hive Power to help you get started.