Playing in a tournament last night with Mishra, Artificer Prodigy. Before we begin, the other players were confused at what the card does and eventually asked "Does this even work in commander?" and i just said "probably not, but i just like Mishra".

One of the players, using Tajic for an aggro deck, casts Probability Storm, basically thinking he locks others out of effective removal/counterspells.

I wasn't set up for it yet and had a Mana Drain in hand, but i was like 'meh', and drew a card with Sensei's Divining Top's ability, went to my turn and cast Mishra and Top, took about 10 solid minutes to explain what was happening, then had a lot of fun as i dodged removal a couple times before going off.

How nice of him to play your combo piece for you... That's brutal but you'd think people playing in a tournament would know better.

There's tons of casual play Th/Fr/Sa and basically every day, but the weekly tournament is about half casual, and half competitive. It's just $5 and the winners get a decent chunk of that money, but for $5 i guess there are plenty of people who just want to show up and figure it's no skin off their back if they lose.

Actually, the guy who played Pos Storm thought it blocked people from casting commanders as well. He got that idea because he said he's seen people play Storm so they can recast their general over and over for the 'free' creatures.
And he also thought you can keep the second spell in your hand if you choose not to cast it.

This is also coming from a store/playgroup who thinks the 10-card sideboard is the official rule, and mulligans are partial paris with 1 free mull, and you scry if you at 6 or less cards after mulls.
Someone wanted to SB against Mishra and i said, "oh didn't know you do that here i should brought one". He said yes it's in the official rules, and i said "no, it's not an official rule but it's listed under common house rules" and he got INCREDIBLY belligerent and rude the rest of the night towards me. I was also being slightly antagonistic because i like to see people get all wound up, but still.

The knowledge and skill level is all over the place here. Couple weeks ago a spell was cast, and the caster just presumed it wasn't going to be countered and just plopped in play, and i say "hang on a sec, that's still on the stack". I had priority, and before i decided to counter it someone else goes "well, before you can do anything i'm going to counter it". I was totally flabberghasted, i was next in player order and had priority, and this guy seriously thinks if you speak first then your spell resolves first?
But i was happy to keep my counter so i was like wtf-ever. And neither even gleaned the fact i had a counter in hand, and i just used it next turn cycle anyway. Smdh

That same night, in the first round we revealed commanders and one guy had two decks was like "ohhh, if everyone's playing blue i'm going to switch to Ur-Dragon". I was like, "dude, you can't counter pick generals" and someone else in our pod said "it's cool, none of us even have more than one deck anyway". Not even sure what was actually implied there.

Agh, totally offtopic. This is all for the bad players thread. Haha.

You know, I've been trying to figure out what to do with my Zada deck, as I really like the guy but didn't really have any ideas at the time I wanted to build the deck. While I don't currently have all of the arcane spells, this deck sounds like a really good direction to take him.

Ok, so I finally have one I can put here.

It's a 4-player game: Tasigur, the Golden Fang (me), Kaseto, Orochi Archmage, Iroas, God of Victory, and Rith, the Awakener.

I am holding Squall Line with Heartbeat of Spring in play, giving me enough mana to one shot the table. The problem is, Iroas has Sulfuric Vortex in play, and mine isn't the highest life total, so I'm in a bit of a pickle.

Sensing this, and seeing I have roughly 30 mana in play untapped, the Rith player opts to use his double mana to attempt to one-shot me with Fireball, knowing that if he attempts to kill the table Iroas or Kaseto will give me back a counterspell with Tasigur (but, obviously, won't if it's just me dying).

What to do? Activate Alchemist's Refuge, flash in and activate Duskmantle Guildmage, then flash Damnation. This clears the board and, more importantly, gives me the highest life total. I can now finish off the table with the Squall Line- which I promptly do, all with the lethal Fireball still on the stack. Best game with that deck ever.

You had me at Squall Line & Duskmantle Guildmage. I don't tink I've ever seen those cards played in our group.

So I had another pretty crazy game with my new Zada deck. It was a four player game with Myself as Zada, Thraximundar, Meren and Mizzix.

Thrax started off crazy with a turn one sol ring/mind stone while myself and Mizzik were both mana screwed. I had to magma jet him for the scry on turn two to try and get into a third land but failed. I got my third land on turn four and dropped a Temple Bell which help me (and Mizzix) stabilize and got my remaining land drops.

Mizzix finally got to 4 lands and played his general. Thraximundar decided to cast his general and swing at Mizzix to get rid of him. Before damage I cast Blood Frenzy on Thraximundar to turn him up to 11 and then fade into obscurity.

Few turns later, relevant board state is Thrax has Staff of Nin, some mana rocks and nothing else. Meren has Golgari Germination and a random demon. Mizzix has Mizzix with two experience counters and I have an untapped Krenko, a goblin token and a goblin Gardener plus an untapped mountain and an untapped Spinerock Knoll with a caged sun underneath. It's Thrax's turn and I say "it would be funny if you cast Thrax and swing at Meren making him sac his demon and then hit the token with the Staff so he can't block." He agrees with me and swings at Meren. Meren takes 7 and I trigger the Knoll to bring in my Caged Sun saving my goblins from future threats of nin and doubling my mana before my next turn... <3 politics.

Anyway, it comes around to me and I untap with Krenko, 4 tokens and the gardener. I cast Zada, swing at everyone with tokens and then Titan's Strength to make them all 5 or bigger and scry like 8 cards. I then cast Wheel of Fortune and pass the turn with ridiculous shenanigans in hand for the next turn...

Thrax realizes I'm a bit scary, tutors for Eldrazi Conscription and puts it on Thrax and swings at me (not sure why he didn't just grab a board wipe but whatever). I sac the gardener to kill one of his ravnica bounce lands and two tapped tokens but not before making ~7 more with Krenko. He was at 7+10 from conscription and just got 3 more from me taking him to a 20/20. I don't block and go down to ~19. Meren and Mizzix didn't draw into a wipe or anything else relevant.

My turn I cast Krenko's Command then tap Krenko making 11 more goblins. I cast Unnatural Speed spliced with Desperate Ritual targeting Zada. Mizzix casts Counterflux of all things... No more 66 mana for 3. Not relevant though. I tap the rest of my lands and cast a Blazing Shoal with x=10 and swing out with a bunch of 12/2 tokens to finish everyone off. Not quite as epic as twice as many 60+ power tokens but I'll take it.

I love it every time you splice some sweet effect onto some garbage arcane spell targeting Zada or some use some single target garbage splice to radiate a sweet untargeted effect. Thinking about Glacial Ray spliced on to Crack the Earth with a field full of 1/1 tokens gives me particular joy.

They're both in the deck. It will eventually happen... I also had another game where I arcbonded after a token was blocked by a 6/6 and did 36 to everyone. >.>

Before that game started one of the players said "Zada? She's interesting but there's not enough support for her in mono red." Considering EVERY game I've played her so far has been insane even if I didn't win, I think he'll change his mind soon enough.

That sounds incredibly fun! Any chance we could see your decklist for Zada?

I will try to put a list up this weekend...

Excellent! Thanks!

Had another pretty sick game this weekend. I was playing Zada vs Omnath, Meren, and Grimgrin.

I have Zada out and Charmbreaker Devils as well as a few other random creatures/tokens for 8 total. Omnath has a bunch of elementals out but not enough to kill anyone due to blockers but potentially if someone board wipes. Meren has nothing of merit. Grimgrin has Rooftop Storm and a few zombies out. Most notably Gray Merchant.

Omnath swings at me with everything so I cast an Aura Barbs spliced with Overblaze on Zada. He has 4 enchantments in play and Grimgrin has 1. Zada gets bounced to my hand in response but there's still 7 copies of it going off so Omnath takes 56 damage and Grimgrin takes 14. Meren does a lot of nothing and passes the turn. Grimgrin bounces/sacrifices/reanimates Gray Merchant like three times taking me and Meren down to around 10 and passes the turn.

My turn I drop Mana Flare, cast Ogre Battledriver and Zada then Heat Shimmer making sure the battledriver copy comes in first so my copies all get +4 and haste. Before I head to combat, Grimgrin casts evacuation. I respond by casting Desperate Ritual splicing on Overblaze and get 45 mana...

Recast everything in my hand, flashback Past in Flames and do the whole thing over again so everything has at least +2 and haste with token copies having +4. Add in Overblaze twice as well as several spell cast triggers on the Charmbreaker and copy. I then thank the Grimgrin player for bouncing the blockers.

Did you have flash somewhere? Surely when Grimgrin played Evacuation it was in response to you announcing your end of phase, you wouldn't have had time to re-cast everything without flash. Did I miss something?

Nope... just poor timing on the opponent. I hadn't even announced moving to combat yet...