Am I The Bolas? - Building the Same Commander in the Playgroup

Mike Carrozza • February 19, 2025

Opinion
Feather, the Redeemed
 Illustrated by Wayne Reynolds

Hello, and welcome to Am I the Bolas?

This column is for all of you out there who have ever played some Magic and wondered if you were the bad guy. I'm here to take in your story with all of its nuances so I can bring some clarity to all those asking, "Am I the Bolas?"

I'm ready to hear you out and offer advice. All you have to do is email amithebolas@gmail.com with your story, a pseudonym you want to use, and of course, only include details you don't mind in the column! You might see your story in the column. You might even hear it on the podcast. Which podcast? 

THIS PODCAST!

I'm Mike Carrozza, aka Mark Carbonza, and my ride's here!

If I had a bigger butt, this is what I'd call it.

This week, am I stepping on toes in my playgroup if I decide to build this commander?

I'm coming to Chicago! I've been selected to be a featured creator at MagicCon Chicago!

If you get your badges for the Con here, you'd be helping me out!

Next month, I will be at MagicCon Chicago hanging out and playing games. I'm there to meet anybody and everybody who wants to meet me and sling some cardboard. I'll have more information soon. For now, follow me and the podcast at @mikecarrozza and @amithebolcast on Twitter and BlueSky. 

My Meet and Greet time slot is 10:30 am on Sunday February 23rd in Creator Central.

Put it in your calendar! Let's hang!

Anyway, let's get back to what you're really here for.

HEY, MIKE

(Post edited for brevity, clarity, and then some.

It should be noted that this is not a standard submission but rather a member of the EDHRECast Discord server asked a question I found fascinating, and, with their permission, I brought it to the series. That said, I've added a bit to make it fit into the format better.)

I have been thinking about a deck this morning, and it's brought a moral dilemma to my mind. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it makes me feel awkward, so I thought I'd discuss it here.

My friend made a fight cantrip Feather, the Redeemed

deck back when she was first released. It was all the card-drawing combat tricks and protection, etc.

Shocker, people SHOT that commander with unbelievable amounts of removal. They didn't like how aggressive people were on her, so he took the deck apart 'cause it never once popped off.

Here I am, three to four years later, considering making a spellslinger Feather deck because the idea of chaining weird spells together that happen to target Feather so I can reuse them to burn the table down sounds funny. (Grapeshot

myself every turn let's gooooo!!!)

I know exactly what he was doing wrong: he was running her out on perfect mana curve cause he only wants to be as efficient as possible, so Feather would get shot every time he cast it while he had no mana to shield it.

For some reason this feels really weird to me, so I keep hesitating. Am I the Bolas if I build a Feather deck after he did and it didn't work? Am I just laughing in their face if I show up with their failed project?

Thanks!

Galatea, Sad Robot Simulacrum
 
 

HOWDY, GALATEA!

Thank you for writing in and asking me to weigh in on your story. As I mention every week, if folks don't write to me, there's no column, so if you, the reader, want to send me a story, whether it's your own or one from Reddit or a friend's, please send it to amithebolas@gmail.com and I'll get to it here.

Also, thank you for letting me use our discussion in Discord for this. Shout out to the EDHRECast, by the way! Check them out LIVE at Magic Con Chicago at 2pm on Sunday. Also, you might recognize a certain writer for Commander's Herald helping moderate the audience participation portion of the show, eyes emoji, eyes emoji, fire emoji, dancing man emoji, basket emoji by accident but I already hit send and it's too late to correct. (Emojis don't work on this platform, so I hope you enjoyed a little humorous byproduct of this limitation!)

I love this question; not just because it's a break from the more common questions, but because I've wondered about this dynamic myself. In my playgroup, it has come up in the past that one player did not build Meren of Clan Nel Toth

because I had that deck. Especially then, when we weren't as spoiled for choice in the command zone and Meren was newish (this was in 2016), I could not fault anybody for wanting to build a Meren deck. But in this very tight pod, having a deckbuilding identity was a little harder to accomplish considering the power level and the smaller pool of legends. 

Cut to 2019 and Feather is all the rage as essentially the second Boros spellslinger to consider (Firesong and Sunspeaker

had a very brief moment in the sun). Feather is very popular and very strong; the reputation quickly becomes kill-on-sight, and if your friend kept playing Feather into no backup protection mana, that's a huge mistake. I'm sure it must have been frustrating for him to break out the deck a few times after working on it a bunch and knowing that it probably wouldn't come together. Having to take apart the deck rather than adjust his playstyle essentially means that Feather wasn't a right fit for him or the pod, and that's fair! I can't tell you how many times I've gone to build a deck and realized that it goes against what I really want from the game.

Onto whether you're the Bolas for this. It's been three or four years since your friend took apart their Feather deck. You've identified where his issue might have been and have been enticed by the idea of building the deck. So why not? Your friend doesn't own the idea of building a Feather deck, especially after having taken it apart. According to EDHREC, there are over 10k Feather decks out there. She's very popular and she remains pretty unique!

My advice as always is that if you feel any trepidation about a decision because you're inferring your playgroup's feelings on the matter, confront that thinking and get a real answer. If you're in your head wondering about someone's feelings to the point where you're preventing yourself from doing something that interests you, why not discuss it with them? You have to go into this conversation knowing that they might possibly feel exactly the way you anticipate and that they might not take it well that you want to build the deck, but on the flip side they might even be interested to see what you do different. 

Finally, you have to decide whether or not you're willing to do it even if you're met with him saying he wouldn't like that, because if that's the case, I would go into it as more of a heads up. No matter what, I don't think there's really a case of being the Bolas here with all the years removed and the deck being taken apart. It'd be a another thing if you rocked up the next week with a similar deck and sat down like "the way you play the deck is stupid, watch this" and then you kick flip your library and draw 40 cards. 

Ultimately, if you build the deck, it's for you. You're going to play the deck. If you only play with this group and it makes you uncomfortable to bring it out against him, that's something to confront in yourself and decide how you'd like to react. If you're someone who plays in multiple ways, like online or at an LGS, plus the playgroup, maybe it's just worth it to do it for yourself regardless. 

Either way, not the Bolas. Feather is incredibly popular, and nobody owns the commander, really... except maybe Cole from Hero's Blade Vibe Check and his Bloodric

deck. 

Keep track of your own feelings. Are you having fun? Yeah? Are you hurting anybody? No? Great, you're set. Shuffle up, this game's going to rule.

Mike Carrozza

Mike Carrozza

Mike Carrozza is a stand-up comedian from Montreal who’s done a lot of cool things like put out an album called Cherubic and worked with Tig Notaro, Kyle Kinane, and more people to brag about. He’s also been an avid EDH player who loves making silly stuff happen. @mikecarrozza on platforms