May I suggest a fun deck building restriction

Me and my girlfriend may have gone overboard with our new cat tree for our cats....

The deck now leaned into the life gain focus a lot more and also was a low to the ground orzhov value deck with the main win condition of commander damage and the ability to grind like crazy especially with some choice recursion especially from foundations and some key old ones

And then I started playing the new hotness in pioneer Amalia Combo. And I fell in love once again first I just added her to my lurrus deck but then I realized every game I played that I drew her was infinitely more fun than when I didn't so by the time MH3 I decided to completely revamp the deck

Lost caverns of ixalan was a gem not only giving me Bartolome who actually solved a huge problem in the deck a lack of really good free sac outlets at the 2 mana range you had Altar of Dementia, Carrion Feeder, and spawning pool and not a lot else. But i was already drifting from the strong sac deck

And then in dominaria united they printed Elas il Kor and that became my new commander solidly a zulaport in the command zone was too much value to good for an aristocrats deck. But there were others I tried in the meantime too. But I ended up getting a little tired of the deck till last year...

Ayli was usually the go to commander for me but I usually always tried new ones which they printed surprising often even ones that let you be more than just 2 color and that's part of the reason why I love the companions in commander they really do make for interesting deck choices.

Now that wasn't a problem for me especially because I love both of these cards. After debating a lot I went with Ayli because while both of these decks want to play life gain ayli played into anaristocrats vibe which is one of my favorite strategies of all time and it let me play some cool cards

Now you might ask "Zach why not just play lurrus as your commander his restriction must suck in commander every deck will just go over you". And to that I say because I'm not a coward and as we all say "restrictions breed creativity". Especially when in 2020 there were only 2 legal commanders

Though there was one companion that stood out to me above all others the only card I have ever seen banned in vintage in any regards, Lurrus of the dream-den. This card was nuts pre nerf and honestly still amazing post nerf. So much so to point it is banned in almost every format it was playable in.

The showcase was amazing and I loved the godzilla alternates. Though I think the part of this set that stuck with the most people were the infamous Companions. A mechanic so broken it caused probably one of the only power level errata to happen in magic during my time playing the game.

As a huge kaiju fan the premise of magic doing a huge monster plane was incredibly exciting and that was before I knew about the godzilla crossover. One of my prized possession is a Japanese foil Mothra! While the set didn't do everything perfect for me. It's one of my favorite sets in recent years.

So our story brings us first to early 2020 a very tumultuous year for a lot of people for obvious reasons. But between Covid, getting dumped and my Uncle (who was the reason I became a chef) dying I buried myself in Magic especially with my insane hype level for the next set that year Ikoria!

Working on a new special for our menu at work. A chive and harissa crepe with duck confit, buttered leeks, maitake mushrooms and a preserved lemon labneh. Real excited with how this turned out!