Jeff Goldblum Commander Deck
Magic's Universes Beyond sets have been divisive, to say the least. While some fans are elated to see their favorite intellectual properties added to the Magic multiverse, others have bemoaned the Fortnite-ification of the game and how truly nothing is sacred anymore.
I'm trying to find the fun in it, though. While I'm not completely sold on mixing IPs in my Commander decks just for the sake of including the best cards, I am easily sold on wonky, sub-optimal builds with a stupid theme.
With so many real-world, actual actors represented on cards from our favorite movies, like Jurassic Park and The Princess Bride, I thought it'd be a fun challenge to craft a Commander deck based around the actor depicted on the card and not the character it represents, so, for all you Letterboxd account-holders, I'd like to introduce you to our first Hollywood Commander deck, based around Jeff Goldblum.
Jeff Goldblum Commander Deck
I'm In Jeffpardy
We're using the Jeff Goldblum Atla Palani, Nest Tender printing for our Hollywood EDH. The three-color Atla Palani-Goldblum, while not mechanically unique to Jeff's character in Jurassic Park, gives us access to a wider range of spells to better represent the plots of his various movies.
Jeff Goldblum's acting career spans nearly five decades, beginning in 1974 with the film Death Wish and 1975 with a role in Columbo: A Case of Immunity. Since then, he's become known for a variety of flicks, including action-disaster movie Independence Day, horror flick The Fly, and a whole suite of Wes Anderson films. We'll be focusing on Jeff's most popular movies to make sure the bit lands when we bust this deck out for Commander night.
I've chosen the following three movies for our deck since they'll work best for a creature-heavy Atla Palani deck. Our general strategy here will be to use the Egg tokens to quickly fly through our deck and run out various creatures from The Fly, Jurassic Park, or Independence Day. I'm using The Grand Budapest Hotel as a sort-of stand-in for our ramp and interaction spells. I didn't say the analogy was perfect. So sue me.
The Fly (1986)
The Fly focuses on Jeff Goldblum's descent into madness as an experiment gone wrong begins changing him into a grotesque human/fly hybrid. Goldblum's character's transformation begins when a fly buzzes into the "telepod" he's testing, fusing their DNA. His partner, played by Geena Davis, is pregnant and has nightmares of giving birth to a horrible fly creature, sort of like our gross Egg tokens! (Sorry, that metaphor is truly horrendous).
To represent this disgusting turn of events, some of our payoffs for Atla Palani's Egg tokens are great big Insects. Giant Adephage plays well with our populate subtheme, as do Hornet Nest and Hornet Queen. Luminous Broodmoth gives our deck some much-needed recursion, while the insectoid Fallout Vigor makes our creatures impossible to deal with in combat (while also saving us from our own Blasphemous Act).
The eccentric scientist's telepods are represented with our two big portal-looking artifacts, The Great Henge and Lithoform Engine. I considered including Planar Bridge or Planar Portal, but felt that the tutoring formed some anti-synergy with Atla Palani's triggered effect.
Independence Day (1996)
Independence Day is an action-disaster movie with a simple premise: hostile aliens arrive on earth and begin blowing everything up in a War of the Worlds-style nightmare. Goldblum's character, a satellite technician named David, analyzes and discovers an encoded message between the aliens counting down until their coordinated attack. He spends much of the movie attempting to warn the President before he and Will Smith's characters steal one of the aliens' ships and attack the mothership head on.
Predator, Flagship is one of the most alien-mothership-coded artifacts ever, so it slots right into this era of Goldblum's work. The destruction wrought by the aliens is devastating, and we'll represent this with our Blasphemous Act and Cataclysm board wipes.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Jeff Goldblum's part in The Grand Budapest Hotel is that of the Deputy Vilmos Kovacs, the lawyer representing the Hotel's interests. While his role doesn't define the movie, we can still draw inspiration from it for our deck.
People come from all over to stay at the Grand Budapest; it's a popular destination for the wealthy and powerful to vacation in the made-up country of Zubrowka. (Rule of Law and Aurelia, the Law Above represent Kovacs's power over the courts in this scene)
We're running Cabaretti Confluence to invoke the feel of a grand ballroom in the Hotel, and using the LTC Pillar of the Paruns to represent the actual building. Our ramp spells, Cultivate, Farseek, Rampant Growth, and Kodama's Reach, represent the encroaching fascist regime barrelling down on the Grand Budapest over the course of the film. They're moving across land, or the land represents the capital they have at their disposal, or something. Whatever, I'd like to see you make a better metaphor.
Finally, Trading Post slots in here as a thematic representation of the semi-isolated Hotel.
Jurassic Park (1993)
This section is the easiest, and it has the most support across Magic cards, so don't expect many surprises.
The only honest-to-god Jurassic Park cards we're running in this deck, besides Atla Palani, Nest Tender, are Ravenous Tyrannosaurus, Dino DNA, Don't Move, and, of course, Life Finds a Way.
The standard beaters are here, including Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant, Zacama, Primal Calamity, and Zetalpa, Primal Dawn. Bronzebeak Foragers and Apex Altisaur take the place of typical targeted removal, while Polyraptor and Wayward Swordtooth play into our go-wide populate theme.
Make sure you quote this scene as you explain how cloning works and cast Worldly Tutor to set a Ravenous Tyrannosaurus on top of your library. We've unearthed all that dinosaur DNA from our Animal Boneyard
Strategy
Our Jeff Goldblum/Dr. Ian Malcolm/Atla Palani, Nest Tender deck works about as you'd expect: we'll rush out our commander, make as many Egg tokens as we can, then sacrifice them with Goblin Bombardment, Fanatical Devotion, Eldrazi Monument, or Animal Boneyard to turn them into nasty Insects or terrifying Dinosaurs.
In the early game, we want to focus on sticking Jeff to the board, then start pumping out Egg tokens. As soon as we have at least one on the board, we can begin populating them to save the two mana we'd otherwise spend on activating our commander.
Midgame for the Jeff Goldblum deck should see us with a fair board presence; we'll want two to three Eggs on the field and perhaps our cheaper beaters, like Wayward Swordtooth, on the field.
Remember that those Eggs aren't just for sacrificing! Ancient Imperiosaur can be convoked using those Eggs, and Ravenous Tyrannosaurus can devour them as it comes into play (activating their death triggers at the same time).
Your opponent's curtain call comes when you've amassed an unstoppable army of Dinosaurs and Insects, or when you've snuck an Accelerated Mutation onto one of your unblocked attackers, exponentially increasing the damage a single creature deals.
Credits Roll
Many people have asked me why I'm doing this. Am I trying to force an aesthetic into a game that doesn't call for it? Yes. Is this a worthwhile exercise? No, probably not. Is a celebrity-themed Commander deck fun to joke about? Definitely. Will it win many games? Well...
Rather than look away in detestation of the new immersion-breaking Universes Beyond cards, I'm trying to lean in. I'll do what Magic players have been doing since the 90s: personalize the game around my preferences until I've found a deck that's fulfilling to play and I think conveys a certain amount of my personality. Or Jeff Goldbluim's personality.
Does this deck building archetype have legs? Will I be able to craft a My Dinner With Andre deck based around Wallace Shawn's character Baral, Chief of Compliance? What about a 90s wrestling Andre the Giant themed deck? Let me know your ideas for real-world-actor EDH decks!
Thanks for reading! I'll see you at the movies!
