"EDH battles: Tunnel-Visioning to Victory"

"What is that I see? Is that...A way to win?"

"EDH battles: Tunnel-Visioning to Victory"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

Playing Possum is a sound tactic. Hiding one's true strengths is a page out of the Romulan playbook. "To be unknown is to be powerful." Sometimes it is also great to just let it all hang out so in one of the casual EDH games that I was in I was happy to be just be my aggressive self. Pressuring people is easy when you have a commander who keeps on getting bigger with each damage that he dishes out. In every EDH game there are some who show off their strategies and there are some who hold out to the very end. As a personal policy I always try and pressure the new guy on the table so that he would show me what his deck could do. If I meet you for the first time on an EDH battlefield, the first words out of my mouth after I put a +1/+1 counter on Skull Briar is "Welcome to the game". People usually don't mind this , it is just my way of saying hello and finding out what the deck could do. Sometimes I never find out because my opponents die but sometimes they survive long enough to show me that I should channel my aggression elsewhere. 

Sometimes I do channel my aggression elsewhere to help an opponent develop so I can see how he can pull off a win. One example was an Izzet mage who was content to just blend in to the background. This was Neil who people were teasing to have a powered deck. I never played with him before so I wanted to see why people were teasing him so much.So there I was chipping away at my other opponents life totals , deliberately not attacking the guy to see if he would have any defensive or card drawing creature that he would drop. It was odd but he did not cast anything. He was just there waiting. I was almost through with one of my opponents life totals when he decided that I was the imminent threat to everyone ( I wondered how he assessed that with a 9/9 Skull Briar already on the board) and brought out his killing combo piece. 

During my second main phase he countered a Sylvan Primordial that I cast with a Hinder. This put the Sylvan Primordial at the bottom of my library.On his turn he then used a Tunnel Vision naming Sylvan Primordial. The sorcery would then require me to Mill my library until I revealed the named card which was now at the very bottom. This effectively put 80 or so cards in my graveyard. Milling me to 1 card and killing me on the next two turns wasn't exactly a thrilling experience for me but I did appreciate the great kill combo.Assuming that he survived the other opponents that were more aware of his tricks. Everyday is another day of learning I suppose and it was great to discover another great win condition. It also showed a glaring weakness that can be fixed with one card. I swore to get an Ulamog and pay more attention the next time around. I don't ever want anyone else tunnel visioning me to a loss again. 

"I will be ready"