Vehicular Commander

There's a big rule change coming to Commander. Any Planeswalker can be your commander. Not yet, but soon. No, the rule change allows Legendary Vehicles to be commanders now. When I heard that, I immediately wanted to know one important fact, “Will they eratta Shirokai, Genesis Engine, and remove the clause that it can be your commander?” My second thought was to design a deck with a Legendary Vehicle at the helm (steering pun intended).

There are 21 new cards eligible to lead this thought experiment. It is certainly a thought experiment since the rule was just announced, and I haven't had a chance to test the deck yet. 21 new commanders is less than we get in a set anymore, so the change isn't going to upend the format. So my options are limited. I make it worse by excluding Universes Beyond cards from all my decks, so my card pool is really introduced to 12. If I went colorless, I would have access to strong cards like Weatherlight Compleated or Skysovereign, Consul Flagship. I think the deck would devolve right into artifact cost reducers and some pretty straightforward play patterns. I knew more colors would open the deck to more complexity. The only real choice for me is The Belligerent.

The Beligerent has a lot going on. When it attacks, I make a Treasure Token. The boat is reasonably costed at 4 mana and has a Crew 3 cost. If that was the only thing about The Beligerent that would be highly overcosted. It goes further, though, opening up the top of my deck to play lands from and cast spells. This is very powerful. I recently published a deck that cared about top deck manipulation (check out my Amareth the Lustrous deck here), so I'm going to take some lessons from that.

Blue is great at drawing cards and selecting what those cards will be with mechanics like Scry and Surveil. Crystal Ball is simple, repeatable, and effective to get the best card onto the top of my deck. I included the classic duo of Ponder and Preordain as well. They're both only 1 blue mana, so the investment is very low. I also set up the top of my library to clear out a card I can't cast or put a key card on top. There's no need to wait to cast it since The Belligerent allows me to cast from the top of my deck.

I made a big claim a the end of the last paragraph, that my commander allows me to cast cards from the top of my Library. That's the case if The Belligerent attacks. It's easy if an openent is wide open, but if the battlefield is contested, I don't want to get stuck not casting cards from the top of my deck or worse yet, lose my commander to a blocker. I added a couple of cards that allow me to get in for combat damage. Artful Dodge was the first card that came to mind here. Not only do I get to make a creature unblockable, but the spell has Flashback for only 1 Blue mana. Slip Through Space is only single use, but still just 1 mana. The Devoid ability stapled onto it is meaningless to this deck, but the additional card draw is perfect. There will be times I want to knock out an opponent, and The Belligerent alone would not be enough to eliminate a player. With Open into Wonder I can scale the spell to allow enough attackers to get in for lethal damage. It also rewards me with card draw for each creature that gets through for damage.

Funnily enough, Open into Wonder opened my eyes to some clutch spells for the deck, I'm talking about X spells. I expect to have a lot of mana available to me in the form of Treasures, so between those, my lands, and mana rocks, I can turbocharge some X spells. I included some straightforward ones like Blue Sun's Zenith. Cards in hand are very valuable, especially in the late game. Since I shuffle it back into my Library, there's a good chance I'll see it again in any game. Crackle With Power and Comet Storm are there to kill opponents outright. I may want to jam a lot of mana into X, but in a way that allows me to target multiple opponents at the same time. Crackle With Power gets around having multiple Xs in the casting cost by quintupling the damage I pay into X. Comet Storm allows me to pick the number of targets using Multikicker, so I can always target one sole opponent and maximize all the damage going his way. Smoke Spirit's Aid is a little less conventional but maximizes my fun. I pay to give as many creatures these Auras then sit back and let opponents get pinged when their enchanted creatures die and recoup my investment in the form of Treasures.

With all these greedy spells and extra cards available to me, I need to keep the Treasures flowing. Charming Scoundrel and Pludering Barbarian each offer me a Treasure when they hit the field, or other less shiny but equally important modes. Storm-Kiln Artist not only rewards me with Treasures, but also supercharges himself by pumping his power for each Artifact I happen to own. This works in opposition to Captain Lannery Storm since she requires me to sacrifice Treasures to power her up. So it's something to keep an eye out for. Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer makes Treasure in a more roundabout fashion. He Goads each opposing creature with lesser power, and then, when they attack or block and die, he gives me a Treasure token. This has some potential with Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge. If I'm attacking and kill a bunch of Goaded blockers, Gadrak will make me a bunch of tokens for me.

I wanted to push the payoffs for all these Treasures I'm making. It turns out there are a lot of ways to do that in these colors. Academy Manufactor extends my reward for creating Treasures by giving me a Food and Clue when I do. Xorn just cuts to the chase and gives me an extra Treasure when I make one. Crime Novelist doesn't make tokens of any kind, but when I sacrifice an Artifact, I get rewarded with a red mana and a +1/+1 counter. Those are great setup cards, but I can have more of a direct effect too. Ingenious Artillerist and Reckless Fireweaver turn those Tokens into damage against opponents. Pain Distributor and Sardian Avenger are in a class all their own. Pain Distributor may give opponents resources, but turns around and punishes those same players for using those resources and more. Sardian Avenger does damage to opponents in the same way, but gets a direct boost in power relative to the number of Artifacts my opponents control. With 3 opponents, that power boost can be very high. First Strike and Trample make great additions to this Goblin warrior.

If all else fails, I can weaponize my Treasures with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. Brudiclad has a wild ability to turn all my tokens into a copy of one other token. So it makes a 2/1 Myr and then allows all my Treasure tokens to become 2/1 Myrs too. The best part is that I get to do this on every turn and hammer opponents with coffers.

There is one elephant in the room I need to adress. My commander needs some set up to be able to attack. The Crew cost for The Belligerent is a little high at 3. There may be times I don't have the opportunity available to me to Crew the vehicle and get the added benefits. Siege Modification is a permanent solution and animates my Vehicle Commander. The 3 power increase, along with First Strike, will make my Commander into a 3 hit Commander Damage killer. Guidelight Matrix replaces itself on the cheap and crews any of my Vehicles, not that there are many in the deck. Katsumasa, the Animator, will also increase my commander's power thanks to those +1/+1 counters.

Let's take a look at the final draft

The Belligerent

The Indomitable	Siege Modification	Artful Dodge
Weatherlight	Guidelight Matrix	Slip Through Space
Cosima, God of the Voyage	Katsumasa, the Animator	Taigam's Strike
Hellkite Tyrant	Xorn	Open into Wonder
Reckless Fireweaver	Storm the Vault	Liquimetal Torque
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer	Academy Manufactor	Sky Diamond
Malcolm, the Eyes	Alchemist's Talent	Fire Diamond
Abrade	Baeloth Barrity, Entertainer	Crime Novelist
Narset's Reversal	Captain Lannery Storm	Sardian Avenger
Counterspell	Charming Scoundrel	Generous Plunderer
Blasphemous Act	Great Train Heist	Gemcutter Buccaneer
Chaos Warp	Plundering Barbarian	Pain Distributor
Reality Shift	Prismari Command	Professional Face Breaker
Rabid Hybridization	Seize the Spotlight	Ingenious Artillerist
Izzet Charm	Swashbuckler Extrordinaire	Expressive Iteration
Vandal Blast	Treasure Map	Ingenious Mastery
Crystal Ball	Storm-Kiln Artist	Rain of Riches
Deliberate	Gadrak, the Crown Scourge	Blue Sun's Zenith
Grabby Giant	Rose Room Treasurer	Ensoul Artifact
Forsee	Smoke Spirit's Aid	Comet Storm
Ponder	Crackle with Power	Preordain
Mech Hangar	Reef Roads	Rocky Roads
Reliquary Tower	Blast Zone	Temple of Epiphany
Restless Spire	Thundering Falls	Scavenger Grounds
Island x14	Mountain x13

There's a lot of potential here, and it deserves to be explored. I'm glad I got to include some fun cards in the deck. Just because this is a draft, I don't want to get caught adding crazy expensive cards to my build. This was a great way to include Malcolm, the Eyes. It investigates or ramps, but I expect to be able to double spell in any given turn since I get access to the top card of my Library if the conditions are right. Likewise, I get to play Hellkite Tyrant here. I can easily hit 20 Artifacts on my own and trigger the instant win clause. If I get to steal a couple of artifacts on the way, even better.

Do you think Vehicles as commanders is a meaningful change to the format? Are you excited about the inevitable future of Planeswalkers as commanders? Let me know.

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