In my younger years I felt strongly pulled to Bant. It was my favorite color combination and I enjoyed the nobility that came through from the lore at the time. I certainly didn't mind letting a game develop slowly, playing enchantments, gaining life. I had a sweet unblockable hexproof casual deck that has since been cannibalized. In my old age I found a kinship with Jeskai. More toward the lore than the colors when Tarkir was standard legal but the wedge continued to impress me. With those three colors I can play my favorite voltron commander, Shun Yun, Smiling Tempest. So many commanders in that combination have an explosive line of play.
Speaking of explosions...When I first started playing commander board wipes were everywhere. The only thing you could predict would happen in a game is that the board would get nuked more than once. These days people are pushing for targeted removal. They just want to deal with THE threat at the time and avoid feel-bads for slowing down a game. That's weak. I want to kill every threat in the game. If I can knock out the threat and a developing threat I will choose that every time. I let this idea percolate and it got me thinking about moving into board wipe tribal. Narrowing down a commander for such a deck proved a little tricky. Indestructibility would be a fine quality, but that doesn't inherently support playing board wipes. The Theros gods fit this way, but need other permanents to turn them online. That wasn't going to scratch the itch for board wipes anyway. When Commander Legends released it dropped Mr boardwipe into the format. Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant is happy to play a spiteful game. If he dies, he's happy to take everything with him. Just let the table know your intentions, that if you mess with him its going down, always keep one mana open and hold the table hostage. Push the blame off on whoever blocks with a 6/6 or casts Murder on him.
But even this was too simple for me. I want to do something unique here, Make EDH Weird Again, right? How else could I push this board wipe idea without being too predictable? I did what I usually do, look through old cards for inspiration. It didn't take long to find such a card. Hidden Spider, an enchantment that becomes a creature when an opponent triggers it to animate. I had this in casual decks before, it can be underwhelming and even frustrating if an opponent never triggers it. But I knew I found my hook. With some digging, I came across a series of cards in almost every color that acted similarly. Veiled, Hidden, Opal, take your pick. As long as these are enchantments they dodge creature wraths. The only thing, they all don't stop being creatures once the condition is met. So they die to my board wipes. That defeats the purpose entirely. I was too stubborn to give up. Which is a good thing but largely unnecessary since it was an easy jump from those enchantments to some of my favorite mana rocks, the keyrunes from Return To Ravnica. I bought a lot of RTR years ago and I'm sitting on a lot of keyrunes and cluestones that I use regularly. The keyrunes at least lose their creature status at the end of turn. I'm naturally protected from boardwipes this way and I can get access to a lot of ramp. I get even more options just expanding into the dragon monument cycle from Tarkir. They may be more expensive to animate but are considerably more powerful than the keyrunes. With a pile of enchantments and artifacts I was now on the hunt for a commander that would support the boardwipe plan and provide a payoff for all these artifacts and enchantments. This proved a little more difficult to put together. An enchantress deck didn't get helped by the artifacts, and an artificer strategy didn't get powered up by the enchantments. I was stuck.
I keep a short list of cool cards and specifically commanders I would one day like to build around. That list is always growing and I never have enough time to go through all of them. I did a quick run through of the list and nothing came stood out to me. I went through the stack again for another project shortly thereafter and I found it. Kykar, Winds Fury. As long as Kykar is out I get paid off playing my enchantments and artifacts with a flying spirit. I can also sack that spirit for more mana. A couple of things became clear. I was going to maximize this artifact/enchantment route, I would find a payoff for all this mana from the rock and spirits, and I would have to move beyond my inspiration, Hidden Spider. There's no green in Jeskai, but the spirit of Hidden Spider will live on.
The first part was easy. I went through the opal and veiled cycle and narrowed it down to a couple standouts. Opal Acrolith and Veiled Sentry specifically. Acrolith dodges creature removal by paying a whopping 0. The Sentry scales interestingly, providing board presence early or becoming a big threat later on when people start playing bombs. Whoever brings it to life is the prime target. That is not a lot in the way of Hidden Spider analogues that fueled this idea but not the end of my animate options. My keyrunes and monument expanded to include some totems. Thunder Totem and Foriysian Totem, as well as Guardian Idol and Fountain of Ichor. My non mana producing options had both artifacts and enchantments. Glint Hawk Idol, Angel's Tomb, and Answered Prayers all made the cut. Myth Realized is also fueled by playing these artifacts and enchantments and can be turned into a big threat when an opportunity presents itself. I even snuck a piece of equipment in. Haunted Plate Mail can pump a creature or become a threat after a wrath. That was not a lot of playable options at first and the deck was quickly becoming mana hungry. I needed more ramp either way and looked a little deeper. My last piece of inspiration for this section came from Cultivator's Caravan. Yeah it ramped, but it was a vehicle, and vehicles lose their creature status at end of turn. This blew the doors off my options. Silent Submersible puts cards in hand. Mizzium Tank gets around the Crew cost while Peacewalker Colossus animates other vehicles getting around their Crew cost. Dermotaxi acts as a little graveyard removal and can then become a sizeable threat depending on what it exiles.
So with part one behind me I waned to figure out what to do with all these spirits and mana rocks. The first thing I want to do is pay for board wipes. The creature wipes were the easiest, Time Wipe and Slaughter The Strong protect Kykar. Doomskar can be very cheap and saved for a rainy day while Rout can be more expensive when cast at instant speed. Descend Upon The Sinful and Hallowed Burial get around indestructability and graveyard shenanigans. I'm also packing Wear//Tear for flexible spot removal and Valorous Stance for flexibility between protection and removal. Vandal Blast clears a ton of artifacts when overloaded. I would like to experiment with Heliod's Intervention or Release The Gremlins for big payoff X spells. It was a debate between Release the Gremlins and By Force for a while. The gremlins would win as I could pour more mana into it and get payed off with creature tokens. But right now I want to use those spirits. I can even tap out and sack those spirits at the right time to cast a Devil's Play or Fall Of The Titans to finish an unsuspecting opponent off. Make sure you attack with those spirits first and eek out an extra damage each before powering up an X spell. Or even block with those tokens then sacrifice them before damage to help pay Sphinx's Revelation.
With Kykar, Wind's Fury having such a powerful effect and being so important and rewarding to the game plan I know I need to pack serious protection. The aforementioned Valorous Stance offers single target protection, as does Blacksmith's Skill. I can extend the benefit of Ajani's Presence the more mana I pour into it and enjoy a little pump along the way. Make A Stand, protects all my creatures on the cheap. If all goes wrong and my artifacts and enchantments get blown out I also threw in Dawn Charm to pull back all those permanents.
The last bit of flavor for the animated permanents theme I could squeeze in is in the land base. Manlands don't have a great reputation in the format. The biggest complaint people tend to level is that they come in tapped. That can come across as a big tempo loss at quicker or hyper competitive tables. Conventional wisdom be damned. These offer a fair amount of protection in the format. So many people are afraid to attack lands out of fear of being in violation of some social norms. So beat them to death with your lands and call them hypocrites if they try and cast a Murder on your creature land. With that out of the way let's get specific. Newer options like Den of The Bugbear and Cave of The Frost Dragon are both here. I have small options like Mutavault and Faerie Conclave to get in on the cheap. Or I can pay more for more power with cards like Dread Statuary or Mobilized District. Needle Spires may even survive if you block smart because of that double strike.
So what does the deck look like?
Descend Upon The Sinful Drogskol Captain Myth Realized
Slaughter The Strong Dawn Charm Answered Prayers
By Invitation Only Gift Of Immortality Opal Arcolith
Farewell Ajani's Presence Riddleform
Citywide Bust Blacksmith's Skill Veiled Sentry
Promise Of Loyalty Rootborn Defenses Chimeric Egg
Time Wipe Make A Stand Glint Hawk Idol
Hallowed Burial Dermotaxi Haunted Plate Mail
Phyrexian Rebirth Cultivator's Caravan Angel's Tomb
Valorous Stance Skysovereign, Consul Flagship Guardian Idol
Wear//Tear Fleetwheel Cruiser Fountain Of Ichor
Crush Contraband Weatherlight Azorious Keyrune
Fall Of The Titans Conqueror's Galleon/Foothold Boros Keyrune
Electrodominance Peacewalker Colossus Izzet Keyrune
Devil's Play Mizzium Tank Ojutain Monument
Starnheim Courser Silent Submersible Thunder Totem
Goblin Electromancer The Omenkeel/Cosima Foriysian Totem
Foundry Inspector Whirlwind Of Thought Sphinx's Revelation
Raugrin Crystal Jeskai Ascendency Dovin's Acuity
Midnight Clock Shaheeli, Sublime Artificer Dance Of The Manse
Hanna, Ship's Navigator Ugin, The Ineffable
Cave Of The Frost Dragon Needle Spires Celestial Colonade
Dread Statuary Mobilized District Ghitu Encampment
Faerie Conclave Mishra's Factory Wandering Fumarole
Moorland Haunt Mutavault Den Of The Bugbear
Island x8 Mountain x8 Plains x9
This deck went in a lot of different directions to get to this point. I'm very happy with it and think I captured the original spirit even if I lost the original inspiration. I think this deck will be easy to tune up as new sets come out as well. Every year there are a handful of mana producers that animate. The cheapest to play or animate will naturally fit in here. Vehicles aren't going away any time soon either, so they will be easy to swap in. Be on the look out for options that offer some level of recursion and graveyard hate to continue to round out the deck.
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