MTGGoldfish is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission.

Commander Clash 12: Old School '99

by Tomer Abramovici // Mar 19, 2016

Hello and welcome to another Commander Clash, a video series where several MTGGoldfish contributors battle in a four player Commander game for fun and bragging rights. This week we decided upon a unique deckbuilding challenge dubbed Old School '99: all the cards in our decks must have been printed somewhere between the beginning of Magic (Alpha) up to 1999 (Exodus). Here's what we came up with:

Seth plunders the graveyards while controlling the board with Skeleton Ship.
Richard Lures the opposition into making poor blocks with Vhati il-Dal.
Jake grinds out value with sacrifice and recursion led by Adun Oakenshield.
Tomer phases in and out of relevance with Taniwha.

Much like our brief stint with Pauper Commander, this game played out very differently than your average game of Commander. Unlike our Pauper game, however, we still have access to powerful cards and are able to take each other out with relative ease. Hope you enjoy it! But first, a quick reminder: if you enjoy Commander Clash and other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to keep up with the latest and greatest.

Seth's Deck (Skeleton Ship)

Richard's Deck (Vhati il-Vec)

Jake's Deck (Adun Oakenshield)

Tomer's Deck (Taniwha)

Next Week: Pirates, Ninjas, Robots, and Zombies!

A couple observations of this unorthodox game:

Mystic Remora is still an insane card.
Verdant Force is probably the strongest creature you could play in this format (honorable mention to Thundermare).
Adun Oakenshield can get a surprising amount of card advantage as your commander, even if killed a few times.
The Wretched is a well-suited name on Magic Online due to its incessant useless triggers.

Overall, I thought the decks were really cool and unique. Personally, I enjoyed Richard's deck the most, as his deck theme of forcing opponents to block and get blown out reminded me of my good old beginnings into Magic, when my favorite thing in the game was attacking with a Lure'd Thicket Basilisk. I also enjoyed my own deck, though I didn't get to show you guys the cards that really make the deck concept work: Mana Breach, Mana Vortex, and Land Equilibrium. Perhaps I'll go over it again in a future Budget Commander.

Well, that wraps up this week's Commander Clash! Come back next week when we do a special Tribal theme: Pirates, Ninjas, Robots, and Zombies! Time to answer the age-old question of which tribe would emerge victorious!