A Commander Compulsion #3

A Commander Compulsion

squire1

22 December 2014

5863 views

Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of "A Commander Compulsion", where we take an in depth look at commander deckbuilding from a casual multiplayer perspective. Today we have a special edition of "A Commander Compulsion". Rather than spinning the Wheel of Fate to get a random Commander, we are exploring a Commander that has not yet been released. One of the first spoilers from Fate Reforged showed us a presumable ancestor of Surrak Dragonclaw and people have been excited about the Commander possibilities from the start. So here she is in all her ancient glory:

Yasova Dragonclaw

So when I first saw this creature, I was happy but not excited to be honest. I do not play standard anymore for the most part so I have no idea what it will do there; but it seems sort of lackluster from a Commander perspective. I was happy though because WOTC was clearly trying to keep her color identity as TEMUR () which allows more options in commander while making her a green creature. I also think the design is nice, its simple and complex and has a lot of potential. All that said, let's stop discussing my personal opinions on design and build a sweet deck around her.

While inspecting Yasova for commander potential, we have to first realize that we do have to work with, so simply inspecting the cards in those colors might be a good idea (NOTE: I did this and there was nothing in TEMUR colors that really jumped out as adds.). She has trample which is not much of a deck design starting point. Then there is that last ability. I have been in love with Threaten effects since Disharmony (yeah I'm old). Something to note about Threaten effects is that they are often not really playable except in limited usage in draft or sealed. But anyway, this card has some sweet play to it with how repeatable the ability to Threaten creatures is. Something to keep in mind is that this is bound by the Old Man of the Sea-like ability, capping what you steal as a 3 power creature. This is both a limitation and a possible sub-theme of pumping her up to increase what can be stolen. I think that the stealing of creatures temporarily is a good theme to work from for this build.

When I started to build this deck, my mind went all over the place. There are a lot of great cards and directions from which to work. I started out with the theme of temporarily stealing creatures and moved into some heavy synergies on how to keep them permanently. Another thing that I noticed is that her ability can activate at the beginning of your combat. This is a nuance in design that yields more deckbuilding space. The way it is worded, if you have multiple combat steps in a turn, you can steal multiple creatures in a turn. So the categories of design I came up with were Threaten effects, power buffs, blinking cards under my control, Fling effects, and extra combats. In addition there is normal tech like removal and ramp. Well this is a lot to look into and can create a very crazy design; but let's see how it comes out shall we?

Threaten effects

In this section, I actually combined Threaten effects with some regular stealing effects. Not all stealing effects in MTG are the same. We have a lot of things to consider with these types of effects. For example, what is it stealing? Some cards are only good against creatures, some look for any type of permanent like Dominus of Fealty, Blatant Thievery, Word of Seizing, Zealous Conscripts and for a lot of mana Memnarch. Stealing permanents, even temporarily, can swing the game in a big way. You can let your opponents spend the whole game building up to a planeswalker limit break, then steal it for one turn, popping it and killing it in one fell swoop. Love it! Cards like Dack Fayden, Empress Galina and Willow Satyr all steal permanents of various types each with different limitations as well, but only a narrower range of targets. Of these permanent stealers, I am going to go with Zealous Conscripts and Dominus of Fealty because I value a body on my effects a great deal as you have seen in the past. I am also including Blatant Thievery because I have never seen that spell do anything less than amazing things in multiplayer. The rest are a bit too narrow and as I continued to build, space got tighter and tighter.

Like with Blatant Thievery though, we have to also consider how many targets a stealing effect can have. Since this is a multiplayer format, more targets is usually better. Dominating Will, Harness by Force, Insurrection, Mass Mutiny, Molten Primordial, Reins of Power, Twist Allegiance and Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded's ultimate each steal multiple creatures temporarily. Now an aside about Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded. OK...His art looks cool. His ultimate looks cool. He only costs two. You want him to be good. You never, ever play him. I have tried because...reasons, and all he causes is pain (to you) and disappointment. Just say no. Of the other cards mentioned previously, Mass Mutiny and Insurrection are both potentially game winning cards on their own, so these are a must. Molten Primordial is a Mass Mutiny on a body, so yes. I am not a fan of switching creatures with players using Reins of Power or Twist Allegiance; it allows for too many shenanigans that I would rather avoid. Dominating Will and Harness by Force are both very cool cards and could be added to the deck if room permitted, but it did not in this case and they are outclassed by the aforementioned cards that were included.

Actual Threaten effects seem to be a perfect fit in this deck. In designing the deck, I considered the following Threaten effects:

• Act of Aggression
• Act of Treason
• Chamber of Manipulation
• Conquering Manticore
• Disharmony
• Grab the Reins
• Jeering Instigator
• Mark of Mutiny
• Might Makes Right
• Overtaker
• Ray of Command
• Sarkhan Vol
• Smelt-Ward Gatekeepers
• Temporary Insanity
• Threaten
• Traitorous Blood
• Traitorous Instinct
• Unwilling Recruit

I actually had a decent amount of these in my first build of this deck and then ended up taking almost all of them out unless they had another use. The reason was that once I had Yasova Dragonclaw online, I needed all my mana and I had a Threaten every turn anyway. These cards became redundant and dead in hand. I did keep Conquering Manticore since it was a great flying creature on its own. I kept Sarkhan Vol for two reasons; he has a Threaten effect that does not impact my mana and is a source of power increase to make Yasova Dragonclaw more effective. The last one I kept (yes only three) was Grab the Reins. This card steals the biggest threat and kills it all while dealing damage. A very efficient and solid card. Many of the others are good cards (not Smelt-Ward Gatekeepers, do not play that), but simply cannot fit in the build and are not needed.

For good measure, I also added Keiga, the Tide Star into the deck. He is a pretty solid creature and could be used for other value by stealing a creature. If we have sacrifice outlets in this deck, he would seem to get better.

Temporary to permanently

As a Johnny, just because I can steal something forever with Govern the Guildless does not mean that I want to steal it permanently, jeez. I want to steal things temporarily, and then make them never leave my control or never go back to their owner. So much better! As soon as I started to consider stealing things temporarily, I began examining what to do with them. I first thought of Bazaar Trader so that I could easily keep creatures indefinitely. I then started to think about exiling them with effects that made them come back to me. Cards like Conjurer's Closet and Deadeye Navigator would both facilitate this and also allow for some cute tricks with enter the battlefield effects on things like Conquering Manticore and Zealous Conscripts. While other cards like Nephalia Smuggler also have these effects, many of them seem too weak and/or vulnerable to use card slots on. Another possibility is using cards like Synod Sanctum and Cold Storage to create a similar effect with stealing creatures permanently, but also have another benefit altogether. These cards help to play around Wrath of God effects while also coming back from them with opponents' creatures. These can also be used even more effectively in Two-Headed Giant Commander to prep yourself for your teammate's wrath.

Fling effects

The other thing that came to mind to do with temporarily stolen creatures was to sacrifice them for beneficial effects. Since we already included Grab the Reins, this concept is already in the deck and is a potential removal strategy. This deck is very tight on space and because of that will lack removal spells. These cards which allow us to sacrifice what we have stolen will allow us to get rid of creatures in our way. I want all of these to be as reusable as possible, so cards like Barrage of Expendables, Goblin Bombardment, Scorched Rusalka, High Market, Magmaw, and Bloodshot Cyclops all fit the bill. I think that you have all heard me harp enough at this point as to why I will select some. I want bodies on my effects, but good bodies; so Magmaw and Bloodshot Cyclops are in. Goblin Bombardment also makes the cut because it is so low cost to get out and use. The same is true of High Market. Another card I want to point out that is repeatable in green is Freyalise Supplicant. Now its a little to conditional and frail for this, but kinda cool, just not cool enough to use here. Now, just because reusable effects are usually best, does not mean that one-shots should not be considered. These cards have a great way of surprising players. I considered Fling due to its efficiency. I am also including Rupture. I feel like this could be a pseudo-sweeper and a great surprise. I also considered artilerize but it's just a bad Fling in most situations. And finally I thought about Soulblast. I just had the vision in my head of some epic moment late game when I pull this out for some ridiculous blowout. But no, magical Christmas land, I will not submit to your temptation!

Increasing Power

Since Yasova Dragonclaw's ability is limited by her power and the Commander format is dominated by big beasties, I think it is important to look at ways to increase her power and give her some extra reach. We already discussed how Sarkhan Vol can complement her in multiple ways. With the rest of the buffs for her, I think it is important to have multipurpose cards or at least cards that effect our entire board. Let's start with lands Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers has no drawback other than being nonbasic and can easily buff our girl. Opal Palace, Llanowar Reborn, Novijen, Heart of Progress, and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood all put counters on our creature while only taking up land slots, so I am pretty well sold, but I think that Novijen, Heart of Progress is a little too mana intensive and only creates colorless so that one is maybe not that great.

Equipment cards do not seem like a good way to work this angle, but in Commander, protecting your Commander is always needed, so adding in Champion's Helm and Mask of Avacyn seem like a great way to multitask here. I briefly considered some single use items like Boon Satyr and Dragon Mantle (which scales up by putting in more mana for you to steal even bigger creatures), but all of the aura's I looked at just tested to be too narrow and not good enough so they get cut. I am adding in Xenagos, God of Revels to pump Yasova up +4/+4 at least which allows us to steal 7/7s. I think that beastmaster's ascension will also be good here. When we steal something, there is little reason not to swing with it, so getting the ascension online should be doable and when it is, Yasova steals up to 8/8s. I also like Master Biomancer to have everything we cast come in a bit bigger and it feeds our Commander's ability as well. I liked the idea of how Dragon Mantle scaled her ability as needed, but it seems a bit weak as an aura with a low area of influence. I do however like doing that with all of my creatures and especially my Commander with Moonveil Dragon. I think that the only single creature pump 'until end of turn' card that we will want is Kessig Wolf Run. This card turns a lot of interactions into very different ones and can be used to scale up our Commander's ability. The last pump card is a little weak on the pump but it has reuse and is very versatile, Bow of Nylea. I think just the counters and the deathtouch make this card worth putting in, but it has some other utility that might be useful as well.

Additional combats

As mentioned earlier, Yasova Dragonclaw's ability will trigger fro activation at the beginning of each combat step, so if we build in ways to get multiple combat steps, we will have the ability for multiple triggers. Note that this will do the same for Xenagos, God of Revels which will make Yasova at least a 16/14 by the second combat step and she already has trample. I think it is important not to commit too many resources to this strategy though as space is limited. I like Hellkite Charger here because it is a decent attacker and blocker regardless of the ability. Now due to Hellkite Charger being added a case could be made to add Bear Umbra for infinite attacks and mana to trigger the charger and Yasova each turn. I did not originally have this in the build, but that seems a little too good to pass up. In addition to infinite attacks with the Hellkite Charger and Bear Umbra, we could achieve similar effects by using Bear Umbra on any creature and Aggravated Assault as long as we have the right lands out. Scourge of the Throne is also going in as a free extra attack engine on a substantial body. To round out the extra attack strategy, I am adding Seize the Day for its re-usability. Keep in mind that there are a ton of cards that allow for extra attacks like, Fury of the Horde and Relentless Assault. I have added in and discussed the one's that are most applicable to our strategy as I have with many of the sections throughout this article.

Other tech

Card draw

Since we are in both blue and green, card draw is not really a problem. At this point in the process resources become a problem. We have the continuing problem of diminishing card slots, but now we also have diminishing mana. We have a lot of cards that require activation or high casting costs. We will add some ramp later, but that will not solve the problem completely. For card draw, I would like to investigate some high yield passive card draw engines. Both Consecrated Sphinx and Soul of the Harvest are solid card draw and decent creatures regardless of those abilities. Sacrificing a lot of the creatures we steal will lead to death triggers as well. I think that Fecundity is a great way to take advantage of that. Rhystic Study is one of my favorite multiplayer cards for card draw. I would say that you end up drawing on other peoples' turns at least 50% of the time. People do not want to be slowed down a turn or two and let you draw because of it. I considered cards like Bident of Thassa or Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but just didn't have room in the end. Sylvan Library however, did make the cut. We may end up short on mana, but we can still pay life and it filters are draws too. Lastly, I am adding in Greater Good, this is another great sac outlet for all of the creatures we steal and allows for some serious filtering. A lot of people have talked about Yasova with Life's Legacy in standard, but in Commander I like Momentous Fall. A seven mana investment to steal a creature, attack an opponent with it, kill the creature, draw cards, and gain life is just fine with me; but in this case, there was no room. This was actually a last minute switch for Greater Good.

Removal

I usually have a ton of cards built into a removal package in Commander, but in this deck the idea of stealing a creature and sacrificing it or keeping it in a variety of ways is really our removal suite too. Cards like Fling or Rupture can also be used as removal. I think that a couple of sweepers to take care of untargetable creatures might be in order in addition to Rupture. Cyclonic Rift is an auto add for me in blue. Now the timing of this could be dangerous depending on if you have creatures under your control that you do not own, plenty of room for misplays, so be careful. I also think that Blasphemous Act will fit nicely in here as another red sweeper.

I do not see being afraid of many specific cards or scenarios with the current deck structure. There is one card that is of concern though, Homeward Path. If you see these in your playgroup, they can completely dismantle the strategy that we have put together so far. So I think we should look at a couple of cards to take care of that alone. Woodfall Primus, Acidic Slime, Decimate, Rain of Thorns, Desert Twister and Fissure are all one shot strategies that use a card slot up just for Homeward Path, but can be used on other things. These spells are all multipurpose which is great for us. I think we only use Woodfall Primus and Decimate from these as they are never just one-for-one scenarios. I think our best bet in dealing with Homeward Path is to fight lands with lands. Now we have options from Wasteland to Ghost Quarter. In this case we will go with Strip Mine, Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge. I also want to add in a couple of other multi-use cards that kill lands. Frenzied Tilling and Reap and Sow are great cards that are often overlooked, but since they kill Maze of Ith and Homeward Path as well as ramp I would like to make room for them. In the end only Reap and Sow made the cut since we were running out of slots and it can look for any land unlike Frenzied Tilling.

Flash

being able to play non-instant cards at instant speed helps a great deal with responding to threats as they develop rather than attempting to anticipate them. In Commander it is always helpful to add some flash into your deck. I think the easiest way to accomplish this is through lands again, via Winding Canyons and Alchemist's Refuge. I considered both Vedalken Orrery and Leyline of Anticipation also. Now one time out of 30 or so, leyline is strictly better. The rest of the time they are almost the same, except Vedalken Orrery is easier to cast. In this case I am only using the orrery because in a three color deck I want to b able to play whatever I can without worrying about mana. In mono-blue deck the leyeline is king, no question. I think to this point we are a bit creature light so I do not mind making room for Yeva, Nature's Herald, which has the added benefit of granting flash to some of our cards. Yeva is not a super strong choice here and is easily a flex spot in this build for anything else you might find useful. these are the types of slots you use to tailor decks to your particular meta. That should be enough Flash effects in here.

Ramp

Since we are in green, similar to the card draw section, we have a million options for ramp. I am not going to list all of the options. We have already added Bear Umbra for some ramp. Now, we are playing a three color deck and we only have a finite number of slots for ramp. I think it is important to keep in mind that we want at least a few of these to fix our mana base rather than hard ramp. As far as mana fixing artifacts go, we will be including Chromatic Lantern (best fixing in Commander hands down IMHO), Darksteel Ingot, Commander's Sphere, and Temur Banner. The latter of which also allow for more draw if we get flooded and desperate. Again, some of these are flex spots too, you may not feel this ramp/fixing is needed, so you can switch it out. In my experience, these artifacts will help in ensuring we can cast what we need to throughout the game. We added Reap and Sow above and are also going to include Kodama's Reach, Skyshroud Claim and Wood Elves to help in searching up the lands we need to smooth out our mana base. And of course we will be adding the obligatory Sol Ring. On that topic, people swear by this thing and from a competitive standpoint I agree; but in casual, these are not as necessary and I came very close to taking this out through the building process. Aside from that, I am suggesting that we add another more ramp card that hearkens back to our flash section, Prophet of Kruphix. This is an amazing card in Commander and takes the place of Seedborn Muse in many decks. Our last little piece of ramp is Yavimaya Elder, which is not really ramp and the card draw just really replaces it. A note on this card; I never really saw the point to him until I finally added one based on a suggestion from a T/O user. Since then I have never gone back, Yavimaya Elder is flat out awesome in Commander, and if you haven't yet discovered this, give him a try and see.

Loose ends

Some last pieces of tech to add are some recursion cards, in this case we will be using Deadwood Treefolk and Eternal Witness for the synergy with the blink effects we have in the deck already. I definitely considered Creeping Renaissance because of the double use, but I do not think we need extra recursion. The only tutor cards we are going to use are Fabricate for things like Conjurer's Closet or mana rocks and Tooth and Nail to grab our big threats or retrieve a tucked commander. Illusionist's Bracers will be added as a nice way to copy our commander's ability once equipped. I did consider Rings of Brighthearth as well, but it is a little mana intensive. And out last piece of tech is the old Sensei's Divining Top. It spins and spins and filters those draws; always a good thing in 100 card singleton format.

Lands

Lands are the last thing to talk about and I will not spend much time on them. We already added a ton of utility lands earlier and I want to add one more, Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep. I can't really see a reason not to run it. It makes our 4/2 commander better in battle and makes , seems good. Now for mana and fixing, we will start with Taiga, Tropical Island, Volcanic Island (I know they are expensive, use guildgates or other tapped dual lands and you will be fine in casual games). Continuing we will add Breeding Pool, Steam Vents, and Stomping Ground. Please note that we are using Wood Elves and Skyshroud Claim which each lend themselves to using both sets out dual lands. If you are not using any of the dual lands, I would change to more standard Cultivate effects and Farhaven Elf. For additional fixing, Fire-Lit Thicket, Cascade Bluffs, and Flooded Grove really hit the spot along with three color fixers like Command Tower, Frontier Bivouac, Reflecting Pool, and City of Brass. The karoo lands (Gruul Turf, [izzet boilerworks]], and Simic Growth Chamber) will help us never miss a land drop. And finally we round it out with a few basics, in this case 3x Mountain, 2x Island, and 4x Forest.

So here is the final deck. Take a look and let me know what you think of the deck and the article in general. Give me your thoughts on how to build this deck.

A Commander Compulsion #3

Commander / EDH* squire1

SCORE: 22 | 16 COMMENTS | 1983 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS

Whew...Well that felt like a long one. This was a tough build. There are so many directions to go in building a Yasova deck that you can get really unfocused and tight on space very early on. I think we ended up with a very versatile deck, but it may have a some problems launching. I think the thing I noticed about Yasova Dragonclaw the most while building this is that she will make a very versatile Commander. I do not think it will be a very popular one, but the builds you do see will likely all be different. I hope you all enjoyed this editions of "A Commander Compulsion". I will be back in a week or two with our regular random commander from which to build. Until then, have fun brewing and playing out there.