Strategy and Tactics (Odric budget EDH)

Commander / EDH* Budget Mono-White Soldiers Tokens Tribal Weenie

Disciple_of_Doran

Creature (28)

• 1x Archetype of Courage
• 1x Ballyrush Banneret
• 1x Benalish Commander
• 1x Captain of the Watch
• 1x Catapult Master
• 1x Consul's Lieutenant
• 1x Daru Warchief
• 1x Deftblade Elite
• 1x Evangel of Heliod
• 1x Frontline Medic
• 1x Gideon's Lawkeeper
• 1x God-Favored General
• 1x Goldmeadow Harrier
• 1x Haazda Marshal
• 1x Hanweir Militia Captain  ^Flip
• 1x Herald of Anafenza
• 1x Intrepid Hero
• 1x Knight-Captain of Eos
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mirror Entity
• 1x Odric, Lunarch Marshal
• 1x Paragon of New Dawns
• 1x Patrol Signaler
• 1x Precinct Captain
• 1x Preeminent Captain
• 1x Relic Seeker
• 1x Taj-Nar Swordsmith
• 1x Veteran Swordsmith

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Banishing Light
• 1x Brave the Sands
• 1x Conclave Tribunal
• 1x Dawn of Hope
• 1x Dictate of Heliod
• 1x Fanatical Devotion
• 1x Honor of the Pure
• 1x Marshal's Anthem
• 1x Militia's Pride
• 1x Mobilization
• 1x Oblivion Ring

Artifact (10)

• 1x Gorgon Flail
• 1x Gorgon's Head
• 1x Infiltration Lens
• 1x Mask of Memory
• 1x Oketra's Monument
• 1x Rogue's Gloves
• 1x Spear of Heliod
• 1x Strata Scythe
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Veteran's Armaments

Instant (5)

• 1x Make a Stand
• 1x Raise the Alarm
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Rootborn Defenses
• 1x Unbreakable Formation

Commander (1)

Land (37)

• 1x Blighted Steppe
• 1x Daru Encampment
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Forbidding Watchtower
• 1x New Benalia
• 29x Plains
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Shefet Dunes
• 1x Windbrisk Heights

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Captain's Call
• 1x Citywide Bust
• 1x Collective Effort
• 1x Conqueror's Pledge
• 1x Deploy to the Front
• 1x Hour of Revelation
• 1x Martial Coup
• 1x Mass Calcify

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In warfare, it is not the largest or the strongest force that wins, but the force that is utilized to the greatest effect. While magnitude of arms should not be overlooked, it is he who knows where and when to apply his forces that shall be victorious. Avoiding the battles that cannot be won, striking swiftly and decisively in those that can, and manipulating the battlefield to be ever in your favor is key. In the end, it all comes down to strategy and tactic, and in such matters, no man is better to rely upon than Odric, Master Tactician .

Strategy and Tactics is a budget deck built around the unique mechanics of Odric, Master Tactician . While the deck does lean heavily into a theme of soldier tribal, this is almost exclusively due to how well this tribe works towards Odric's primary goals: having a high number of quality creatures that can abuse Odric's abilities. In the following sections, we will discuss Odric in detail, as well as the cards that work with him divided by their role in the deck. Many cards will appear in multiple sections, due to the deck's highly synergistic nature.

Phase I: Odric, Master Tactician

Odric, Master Tactician is an incredibly unique and powerful commander, most notable for his triggered ability. Whenever you declare Odric and at least three other creatures as attackers, Odric's ability tiggers, and makes it so that you decide which creatures, if any, your opponents will block with this turn, and which creatures each of them will block. This ability has incredible depth in its applications. The first, most obvious choice is that you can decide that no blockers are declared, effectively giving all your attacking creatures unblockable for this combat. However, I would argue that the more interesting use of this ability is to force your opponent into unfavorable trades. Do they have a small utility creature fueling their engine? It may be suddenly compelled to jump in front of an incoming attacker. What a shame.

This ability also lends itself to more subtle tricks. You can abuse your power over combat to guarantee that other important triggers based on combat happen to keep your own engine running, gaining even greater value off of your attack steps. You can also grant your creatures powerful keyword abilities to make them more dangerous to block, or reducing the risk of attacking in the first place.

On that note, Odric has two notable features related to combat himself. First, he has first strike native on the card, making him an excellent removal tool against even large creatures who are short on toughness. Also, because he is your commander, letting him through unblocked allows you free commander damage, thus letting you overcome lifegain style strategies in spite of his relatively low power.

As a final positive, Odric also has the creature type soldier. Given Odric's primary strategy of, "attack with 4 or more creatures every turn," it only makes sense for there to be a lot of soldiers in the deck already (as a white tribe that is good at making lots of creatures at once and having them improve one another), which means that there is also a high incentive to run solder-based buffs. Odric benefiting from these abilities himself is great for eeking out that tiny bit of extra value.

Of course, Odric, Master Tactician is not without his weaknesses. The nature of his ability requires you to have quite a few creatures at all times, and to utilize them as well as possible those creatures also have to be pretty respectable threats. A board wipe at the wrong time can send you back to the stone age, and knowing how many creatures to play out at a time is vital in piloting the deck well. We also need most of our creatures to come out early and cheap to help us build a presence quickly, so most of them can't match up to the cards our opponents are likely to play later in the game, making threat assessment an imperative skill. Finally, being in means we don't have access to very much card draw or ramp. While the ramp isn't much of an issue given our low mana curve, running out of cards can and will happen in some games, and forces us to play some very inefficient abilities to try and keep up.

Overall, Odric, Master Tactician is a commander that takes a lot of skill to play well. Knowing exactly when and how to utilize your unique brand of control is absolutely vital if you want any hope of success. Pivoting between board control and aggro as the situation arises is integral, and sometimes your best option may be to simply bide your time and try to rebuild. However, this deck has the capacity to come out of nowhere and blindside an opponent, and your precision control will always be a powerful political tool.

Phase II: The Home Front

While it may be tempting to jump head first into the world of swords and soldiers, it is worth starting with all those cards that allow us to play the game in the first place. The deck runs 37 lands, just above the number we need to usually hit our first four land drops. This is vital for being able to play our commander on time, in order to start utilizing his abilities as soon as possible.

Plains : I'm not sure if you've ever heard of this card, but it is AMAZING. It comes into play untapped, and it generates . It's so good, we'll play a bunch of them.

Blighted Steppe : A colorless untapped land. Being a mono-colored deck, the fact that it makes usually doesn't slow us down much. While we will rarely if ever use the secondary ability to sacrifice it and gain life, our deck is usually in a good position to gain a LOT of life, and it may just buy you the time you need to stabilize and strike back.

Daru Encampment : A colorless untapped land. Again, we don't usually care that this makes , and buffing one of our many soldiers can let us trade more favorably or sneak in some extra damage when we have nothing better to do with our mana.

Desert of the True : The white cycling desert. Coming in tapped isn't ideal, but given how limited our draw cards are it is important to be able to throw away extra lands later in the game when we need more gas. Being a desert also sometimes helps one of our other lands, Shefet Dunes .

Forbidding Watchtower : The white man land. Again, we don't like that it is tapped when it enters play, but if you're hurting for another creature to activate our commander or need another couple points of damage with nothing better to spend mana on, this can make a big difference. It even becomes a soldier, so it gets all of our creature buffs, and it already has a great toughness.

New Benalia : The white scry land. Another unfortunate tapped land, but also another way to mitigate our limited card draw abilities.

Secluded Steppe : A white cycling land. Once again, tapped land isn't the best, but it's helpful if we need to cycle later in the game. This is also less expensive to cycle than similar cards in our color.

Shefet Dunes : An untapped colorless desert. Colorless mana isn't anything we want, but we can work with it. Having the option to pay mana and sacrifice this to give a one turn anthem effect can sometimes save us or help us finish a game. It gets even better with Desert of the True around to sacrifice instead so we get a second use.

Windbrisk Heights : The white hideaway land. Being tapped slows us down, but being able to cheat a card into play nearly free makes up for it, making this both kind of ramp and kind of draw. The fact that the trigger is what our deck is already built to do is also perfect.

Phase III: The "Defense" Budget

While we're on the topic of producing mana, we should also touch on ramp. While the deck has very little in the way of true ramp, it does run several cards that allow us to reduce or cheat mana costs in some way. These help us in rebuilding faster after a blowout, or racing to get our commander into play.

Windbrisk Heights : Lands also being ramp is weird... but I like it! Cheating into play a card from the top of our deck saves us about 1 mana on average (given you have to tap this and another land to use it), but it will often get something bigger since you get to pick from 4 cards, and any amount of ramp is fine by me.

Ballyrush Banneret : It makes most of our creatures cheaper, and it comes down as early as turn 2! This creature quickly pays for itself, making it an easy include.

Oketra's Monument : For three mana, this card reduces the cost of most creatures in the deck. A pretty great deal already, even grabbing our non-soldiers, and can generate tokens for us on top of that. Building your army has never been easier.

Preeminent Captain : Whenever he attacks, you can cheat a soldier into play from your hand FOR FREE. Incredibly good with your 5 and 6 CMC creatures, but still strong with even your smallest troops. This obviously gets better with your commander's ability as well.

Daru Warchief : Reducing mana costs for soldiers by a single generic mana at this cost isn't amazing. However, this big guy also comes with a big anthem stapled to him, so we won't complain.

Phase IV: The Draft

As we mentioned back in the breakdown for our commander, one of the most vital pieces of the deck is having enough creatures in play to activate Odric, Master Tactician 's ability. This means token generators are at a premium, which we'll cover in this section.

Forbidding Watchtower : Not a token maker per se, but when you need that last body to trigger an ability, this land has your back.

Haazda Marshal : The cheapest of our token makers bar none. It's costed efficiently enough to just be decent at filling the ranks by itself, but also makes us tokens (with lifelink no less!) by doing what we already do best.

Herald of Anafenza : Don't be fooled by the outlast keyword, this is really here to be able to pay 3 and make a token. Sure the token isn't a soldier, but it comes on a soldier body that will grow as you use it.

Dawn of Hope : As a token maker, this card is... ew. It does nothing when you cast it, and the tokens are expensive. That said, it has other reasons to be here, and if you're really in a bind this is better than nothing most of the time.

God-Favored General : This creature is great for filling your board without playing out your hand. When he survives combat, you get some tokens next turn. Can also be paired up with a permanent tapper to make tokens without fighting at all, and gets better when the commander is online.

Hanweir Militia Captain  : While this starts as a vanilla soldier, once you have a few creatures in play this can flip into Westvale Cult Leader , making you free tokens every turn and growing in size at the cost of losing its soldier creature type.

Martial Coup : Alright, so this card really isn't supposed to be for just making tokens, but hey, it's nice to have a slightly more expensive Captain's Call in your back pocket if you need it.

Militia's Pride : Paying just one mana when your non-tokens attack to get an attacking soldier is pretty decent. This works better with more real creatures, but even our commander alone can slowly build us up.

Patrol Signaler : While not the most efficient card, It does make us soldier tokens with an untap ability, meaning it also sort of has vigilance. This is more reliable once we have our commander online, and you can even pull some little tricks by tapping it with other cards.

Precinct Captain : Aw yeah, a great token maker at a good cost. Hitting people in the face makes you a token, and having first strike out the gate makes it hard to block against well.

Raise the Alarm : Two tokens, two mana, instant speed. Enough said.

Mobilization : Three mana isn't the worst price for a token, and since it doesn't need to tap or anything you can really sink some mana into this. Having a keyword for all soldiers is also nice, inherently making the tokens it generates already a little above average.

Oketra's Monument : Free tokens for casting creatures? Sign me up! Too bad these aren't soldiers, but this makes up for it by also cheating mana costs. Besides, warriors are kind of soldiers, right?

Rootborn Defenses : We're mostly here for the protection, but getting us another token in the process if we already have at least one is nice.

Benalish Commander : Ignore the casting cost, the suspend effect is what you came for. Getting a soldier token every turn for a long stretch is pretty awesome, and doing so can't be countered or otherwise interacted with until the actual creature enters play. Getting a big beater at the very end is just icing.

Captain's Call : Makes just enough tokens for our commander every time. A very straight-forward card.

Conqueror's Pledge : Six soldier tokens is more than enough. You might use the kicker to get an extra six tokens if games go super long, but I certainly never have.

Knight-Captain of Eos : Three total creatures is exactly what we need. While the main body isn't a soldier, and 5 mana is a bit much for just 3 creatures, the option of sacrificing a soldier to fog isn't nothing.

Captain of the Watch : Boy is this one a doozy. First of all, four creatures total, plenty for our commander to be satisfied. On top of that the main creature comes with an anthem and keyword granting effect for all soldiers, including the three others that came with it. The end effect is 9 power added to the board, plus more for all of our other soldiers. This is pure value.

Evangel of Heliod : Even if this is the only card you have in play, it makes 3 creatures, just enough for once yoru commander hits the field. Usually you'll cast this second though to get at least 5 bodies, or even more based on your enchantments and other creatures. The only real downside is that the main creature isn't a soldier itself, so we don't get to cheat costs or buff it as easily.

Deploy to the Front : For seven mana, this had better be good... Wait, what? You get HOW many tokens? Well okay then.

Literally every other creature in the deck: Oh look at that. A body that costs mana and can turn sideways. Sure is good we have those.

Phase V: Boot Camp

While it is true that getting enough creatures into play to activate Odric, Master Tactician is the primary focus, it would be nice if those creatures were a little beefier, right? As such, here is where we will discuss all things related to buffing power and toughness for multiple creatures at once.

Shefet Dunes : Sometimes one turn is all you need. When your hand is empty and victory is inches away, you know what to do. You can double up on this effect with Desert of the True as well.

Consul's Lieutenant : When this creature gets through the first time, not only does it buff itself, but it also gives you an anthem effect on the attack. Great for just two mana.

Honor of the Pure : All of our creatures are white. At only 2 mana, this can come out early, or be played later without giving up other lines of play.

Collective Effort : This is primarily a removal piece for us, but we're almost always happy to tap a creature to also share out some counters.

Make a Stand : Instant +1/+0 is sometimes all you need to finish a game. However, this is usually better used defensively to avoid blowouts.

Mirror Entity : Oh boy is this one a doozy. Pay X to make all your creatures base power toughness X/X. Most of our creatures are 1/1 tokens or similar, so even 3 or 4 mana can be a huge buff for the team for the turn. It also gives all your creatures changeling when you activate it, so your few non-soldiers can pick up those extra buffs.

Spear of Heliod : Anthem for all our creatures, and some backup removal for when we get hit. A very fair price.

Unbreakable Formation : This card is primarily to protect from board wipes, but an anthem for a turn on top of that can be a great for taking down one opponent, and vigilance makes it so we can do so without opening ourselves up.

Veteran Swordsmith : +1/+0 is almost as good as a normal anthem once our creatures have first strike or indestructible, so we're happy. Just wish it worked on our few non-soldiers as well.

Daru Warchief : +1/+2 is the second most powerful stat boost for the team in this entire deck. Add in some mana cost reduction, and we're golden. Remember it's only for the soldiers though.

Marshal's Anthem : +1/+1 for all our creatures. You really want to wait until you can kick this once or twice though to take enemies by surprise.

Paragon of New Dawns : Anthem for all your creatures! This can also give one of your big things vigilance until end of turn.

Dictate of Heliod : +2/+2 anthem, with flash. This is our biggest single anthem, and is also great for messing up math when our opponents attack us.

Captain of the Watch : Anthem effects on a creature are always nice for us, and this one comes with free vigilance and tokens too! It only buffs our soldiers, but that's almost everything anyways.

Phase VI: Heavy Artillery

Increasing the strength of our entire team is good, but upping the raw power of an individual can be just as valuable. When you need to pave someone's face or just turn stuff sideways and break things, these are your powerhouses.

Daru Encampment : For when you're just a point shy, or have nothing better to do with your mana.

Gorgon Flail : +1/+1 and Deathtouch. The keyword is the real treasure here, but the damage can add up if you're pushing through as well.

Herald of Anafenza : This creature gets bigger as you use it to make tokens! Definitely a useful fringe benefit at times.

Hanweir Militia Captain  : While making tokens is the main goal here, once this flips into Westvale Cult Leader it can certainly do the job of a beat stick with ease. While it won't get our solder buffs anymore after the flip, it will keep growing independently as it continues to generate tokens, for functionally infinite power if left unchecked.

Veteran's Armaments : +1/+1 for each attacking creature. If you're triggering your commander, he could be 3-shotting people with this. This also has the added benefit of being considered a soldier for mana reductions and cheats, and of equipping to new soldiers for free. Swing out with your commander, then make a token and slap this on it at no cost to get a good sized blocker.

Strata Scythe : +1/+1 for each plains on the battlefield, not just yours. You should have plenty of your own, but as long as there are at least 4 between all players that means you can give this to Odric, and he now kills in 3 hits, or 2 hits if there are 8+.

Benalish Commander : Making tokens is great and all, but then getting a creature with potentially massive stats at the end isn't bad either. The power is tempting, but don't get sucked into the trap of overplaying your creatures just to make this grow unless it's the difference between life and death.

Phase VII: Combat Maneuvers

It's great to have big creatures and single threats, but this deck really shines at abusing combat keywords. Abilities aimed at making combat steps safer for you or disincentivizing blocks from your opponents are the name of the game, both as a natural enhancement and a solid backup strategy for Odric, Master Tactician .

Gorgon's Head : So let's talk about deathtouch. Put it on any creature, get the option to trade with the scariest attacker. Put it on a creature with first strike, create an unbeatable combat god that nothing wants to get close to. Add in the ability to force people to block, and suddenly every other player is swinging at each other with everything important every turn just to try and stay tapped.

Brave the Sands : Vigilance all around! Swing without fear, and get some fringe benefit of blocking multiple things with each creature to make combat math hard for your opponents.

Gorgon Flail : Any deathtouch we can get is worth the price. The +1/+1 almost never matters, but it will occasionally give you the tiny boost you need to finish someone off.

Archetype of Courage : All you creatures get first strike, and everyone else's creatures lose it. This is our best first strike enabler, since we don't have to worry about enemy creatures evening it out. Just keep an eye peeled for double strikers, since this won't remove that.

Frontline Medic : One of our only non-soldiers, but with an incredible effect. If we have enough creatures to pick blockers, we also have enough to make all of our creatures indestructible, allowing us to both run our creatures into otherwise bad trades the same way we would with first strike, and also to be a little safer against removal on attack. Also has a backup sacrifice effect we can make people play around.

Mobilization : Surprise surprise, vigilance is great! Making tokens is also useful, especially later in the game when you have a lot of mana.

Unbreakable Formation : We don't always use this for vigilance, but when we do, someone dies to our army of vigilant, indestructible, unblocked soldiers with an extra anthem.

Odric, Lunarch Marshal : Wow, Odric really works well with himself! Given that our commander has first strike, this card all but guarantees that everything we control has it. With the deck's current format, this can also be handing out vigilance, lifelink, haste, hexproof, and most notably deathtouch to our entire team.

Captain of the Watch : I know I sing this card's praises a lot, but it's just that good! Vigilance for all the soldiers means you can attack without leaving yourself open to enemy fire, letting you swing for the fences without concern. The anthem is just even more free damage, as are the tokens. It's the perfect storm.

Other creatures with native keywords: For those of you who haven't noticed yet, here's the breakdown. Deathtouch, first strike, and indestructible let your creatures be used more effectively as removal during combat, and discourage combat when our commander is offline. Vigilance and lifelink let you attack with more creatures with less fear of being attacked yourself.

Phase VIII: Hair Trigger

Ah, finally, the true beauty of this strategy shines through. Not just with getting in free damage, not just by turning combat into a slaughter, but by controlling triggers. Through liberal use of Odric, Master Tactician 's abilities, we take mechanics designed to be powerful but very context dependent, and turn them into our engine. Combined with our big tokens and brutal keywords, this is how we make sure we rise to the top.

Haazda Marshal : Attacking with three creatures gets you a token. Attacking with four means this card will survive to do it again.

Infiltration Lens : I'm going to be straight with you. This is probably the single best card in the deck. Casts for 1. Equips for 1. Whenever equipped creature is blocked, we draw 2 cards. If the creature is blocked by multiple creatures, we get multiple triggers. Worst case scenario, slap this on a creature to make people let it through. With Odric, though? Force your opponent to triple block a token, draw a whole new hand of cards, pay 1 mana to equip to a new sacrificial lamb next turn. Worst case scenario.

Consul's Lieutenant : This card gives an anthem effect, but only after it hits someone if the face. Assign blockers so that it gets through the first time, then use the native first strike to start taking threats out every turn.

God-Favored General : The inspired mechanic requires that a creature becomes tapped (usually by attacking), then survives to the untap step. This is just a little guy, so keep it safe by letting it go unblocked. Besides, you get plenty of tokens for doing so.

Mask of Memory : Whenever the equipped creature isn't blocked, we draw 2 and discard 1. This would be so amazing if we could somehow make sure the equipped creature is unblockable... oh wait. We can.

Militia's Pride : Attackers are nearly guaranteed to survive combat, as are the new attacking tokens. Just remember that the new tokens don't count towards your trigger.

Patrol Signaler : Again, an ability that requires your creature to be tapped before activation tends to work better once you can make sure they survive combat by not getting blocked.

Precinct Captain : This creature is a great multi-tool once you decide blockers. Use its native first strike to remove threats, or let it go unblocked to build up your forces.

Relic Seeker : Letting this creature through for renown not only lets it grow, but it also lets you search up an artifact of your choice, providing extra draw, protection, removal, or damage.

Rogue's Gloves : It's a bit off-flavor, and it's the worst of the three equipment like this we run, but compared to what white normally gets for card draw? This is still super good.

Preeminent Captain : Keeping this creature alive on the attack lets us keep cheating in cards, plain and simple. Since the cheated in creature also comes in attacking we can decide blockers so that that lives as well.

Phase IX: Special Forces

Now, with all of this talk about how amazing our deck is when it is running well, it's worth remembering that it won't always do that. Sometimes someone has a creature that's just too big and too bad for you to take care of through the usual channels, or an opponent will be holding you back with some fancy enchantment, or maybe someone is just too fast for you to marshal your troops. That's when you turn to these cards, to keep things in line when everything else has gone to pieces.

Deftblade Elite : This creature really is the all-star of backup plans. Pay some mana to make him immune to damage. Block threats. Force your opponent's one relevant creature to block him while you get in with the team. Heck, with a couple buffs you could use him as a reasonable piece of removal when Odric isn't around. So versatile, and genuinely good in most circumstances.

Gideon's Lawkeeper : Tapping down creatures for mana isn't the most efficient way to keep yourself alive, but it does work. It can also be used to get your untap abilities working without an attack, or to open the door for other players to hit one another.

Goldmeadow Harrier : Exactly the same as Gideon's Lawkeeper , but shorter.

Martial Coup : Hey, if everyone needs to get sent back to the stone age, at least you can do it in a way that leaves you ready to start back up. This can also just be a token maker if you need it to be.

Banishing Light : When you need something gone, accept no substitutes. Not only does this get rid of a threat, but it also discourages other players from using board wipes that hit enchantments for fear of giving a foe their threat back on an empty board.

Citywide Bust : Destroying all creatures above a certain toughness threshold can hurt us too, but unless we have a TON of anthems we should still have a lot of tokens left afterwards at the very least. Too bad it always kills Odric.

Collective Effort : Destroying a creature is good. Destroying an enchantment is good. Destroying both is better. Buffing all of our creatures at the same time is even better still.

Intrepid Hero : Tap to destroy big critters. This ability is honestly so powerful, it's useful even when our main plan is running fine.

Oblivion Ring : The original Banishing Light . I love that this card had some rules hiccups in the wording, not because we can abuse it in this deck, but because it caused us to get a functional reprint.

Conclave Tribunal : Yay, a third Oblivion Ring ! This one costs a little more, but being able to tap our creatures to pay for it means it can be free if we're desperate.

Return to Dust : The most played mono-white card in commander, and for good reason. Hit two artifact/enchantments, or just one if you need the instant speed.

Catapult Master : This creature comes at a steep cost, and the effect is by no means cheap either, but unconditional, instant speed creature exiling is just good to have in your back pocket. Show those indestructible beaters who's boss.

Knight-Captain of Eos : Being able to sacrifice one of our soldier tokens to prevent combat damage can be pretty useful for buying time until we stabilize. People often won't even attack you because they know you can practically ignore it, and saving other players can be an incredible political tool. Plus, coming in with three bodies means this creature often sets us back on our main game plan an soon as it resolves.

Hour of Revelation : Look, sometimes the cards just aren't in our favor. When that happens, it's better to have a reset button than to just lose. This hits everything but lands, and between the 4 players and our token strategy, we can usually cast this for half price.

Mass Calcify : While it won't hit everything in play, you are highly likely to be the only one untouched by this at all, putting you in a prime position to clean up.

Phase X: Bunkers and Kevlar

As stated several times before, this deck requires that at least 3 other creatures are in play under your control that you can attack with in order to activate Odric, Master Tactician when it attacks. While token making is nice at making this happen, it would also be good to avoid our creatures getting destroyed by removal, or especially by board wipes, so we don't have to devote more resources to rebuilding than necessary. As such, here are our protection cards.

Swiftfoot Boots : Hexproof for your commander is great when your deck is built around their ability, keeping them safe from targeted removal. Haste can also be handy for getting enough attackers in a pinch, or for letting your commander sit safe out of play until the last moment.

Fanatical Devotion : Unless your opponent has an anti-regeneration board wipe, this enchantment will let you sacrifice the weaker half of your creature base to save the better ones instead of just losing everything. It also lets you make better trades by blocking with a good creature that would die and take what it blocks with it, then sacrificing a token to keep it alive instead.

Frontline Medic : While mostly here for more aggressive reasons, this is occasionally useful as a form of protection. Giving indestructible on our turn can let us dodge our own board wipes, and being able to sacrifice this to counter big X mana spells can also dissuade or weaken some damage based removal or just weaken other player's win conditions.

Make a Stand : Indestructible for all creatures at instant speed. You get to be the only force still standing when the dust settles, and with a temporary power bonus to boot.

Rootborn Defenses : The same as Make a Stand , but this time instead of boosting power it comes with a free copy of one of your soldier tokens so long as you already had at least one.

Unbreakable Formation : It's tempting to use this to make a huge attack against an opponent. It's also tempting to keep your creatures alive. You decide.

Marshal's Anthem : So you didn't do so hot at keeping your soldiers safe earlier. This will let you pull them back into play at a reduced mana cost, and with an anthem to boot.

Phase XI: Gathering Intelligence

In a long game format like Commander, one of the most important resources is card advantage. Being exclusively in white, this is also a resource where our abilities are significantly limited. While not all of our cards here are the most efficient, we do have access to some particular tools that our peers do not thanks to Odric, Master Tactician 's unique abilities.

Desert of the True : Cycling lets us ditch this land for a new card if we have enough lands and not enough everything else, which tends to be good in the late game. Remember you can cycle at instant speed, so don't worry about leaving up mana for a bluff if you want to cycle this anyways.

New Benalia : Scrying will allow you to see what you next draw would be, and decide if that is actually something you want. If it's something good, keep it feeling reassured. If you don't want it, send it away, and you've effectively gotten a new draw next turn.

Secluded Steppe : Cycling is still good in the late game. This one cycles for a single mana, making it more likely that you can cast something else the same turn.

Windbrisk Heights : Not only is this card helping you cheat a mana cost, but it is also effectively drawing you a card by pulling one out of the top of your deck to be cheated in later.

Infiltration Lens : Again, this is probably the best card in the deck. Especially once you control how blocks are made, this card is a goldmine. Draw 2 or more cards every turn on top of your normal draw for free, and remove blockers in the process.

Dawn of Hope : This card's utility is the only thing making it a reasonable source of card draw. The draw itself isn't too expensive as far as card draw in white goes, but because we don't have much else in the way of life gain, we almost always need to pay for the lifelink tokens as well. That makes this a total sink of 8 mana to draw our first card in most cases. That said, there are distinct upsides as well. These are soldier tokens, helping our commander and getting all of our deck's tribal benefits. We also get to break up this mana cost over several turns, which lets us get this running sooner if we don't have other things to do in the early game.

Mask of Memory : Draw two discard one is effectively drawing 1.5 cards (since you are hypothetically always discarding your worst card from your hand). Doing this every turn for free is great, but you pretty much need your commander online or an opponent who can't block you favorably, or else they'll just block whatever this is on.

Relic Seeker : Searching up an equipment is in and of itself a type of card advantage, getting you the equipment you need when you need it. However, given that several of our draw engines are equipment, we can get a more sustainable source of new cards should that be what we need the most.

Rogue's Gloves : This may just be a worse Mask of Memory , but that doesn't make it bad. We're still happy with a free card every turn to help us hold our strategy together, after all.

Mentor of the Meek : Whenever you make a low power creature you can pay an extra mana to draw a card. This becomes more efficient with token makers, since the tokens can trigger the ability, but it also has a distinct drawback that having too many anthem effects will actually shut this off because your creatures now come in too hot. If you have this in play and none of your other draw engines, you may want to wait to drop anthems until you draw into a replacement. It's also a soldier, so we can cheat the casting cost and buff this into a significant threat.

Taj-Nar Swordsmith : Never cast this without the kicker cost. This is pretty much just a more expensive version of Relic Seeker , with the upside that you get the effect as soon as you play it instead of needing a successful combat step next round. Most of our equipment is also pretty low CMC, including our draw engines, so this kicker cost is usually quite low as well.

And that's the deck! As with all decks I post, this is forever a work in progress, and any feedback is appreciated. Please, if you enjoy the deck, upvote it so that more people can see it, and if you have suggestions for changes or just want to talk about the deck and its presentation more generally leave a comment! Any changes made based on comments will be credited in this description. The only guideline(s) for suggestions are as follows:

• Please keep all suggestions under $2. This is a budget deck, and for the spirit of the format I'd like to keep it that way. Pricing for cards I have used is based on the NM cards from Card Kingdom, with no restrictions on which printing is used.

So... yeah! I hope you enjoy the deck, and look forward to hearing your feedback!

Final Phase: Credits

Original deck idea inspired by: BudgetMTGDecks

Contributors:

Willy_the_Great_ - Honor of the Pure

KayneMarco - Knight-Captain of Eos

Top Ranked	Achieved #43 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	UBRG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	31 - 0 Rares 29 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.05
Tokens	Enchantment Soldier 1/1 W, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Kithkin Soldier 1/1 W, Kor Soldier 1/1 W, Soldier 1/1 W, Soldier 1/1 W w/ Lifelink, Warrior 1/1 W, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance
Folders	Decks I Like, Odric, Mono White, favorite, Blue, Oldrich
Based on	Budget Odric, Master Tactician - EDH / Commander BudgetMTGDecks EDH