Fynn, the Fangbearer: An Introduction to Commander

Commander / EDH Deathtouch Mono-Green Primer Trample

BrassLord

Creature (24)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Aggressive Mammoth
• 1x Ambush Viper
• 1x Brawn
• 1x Daggerback Basilisk
• 1x Dawnglade Regent
• 1x Deadly Recluse
• 1x End-Raze Forerunners
• 1x Halana, Kessig Ranger
• 1x Hornet Nest
• 1x Hornet Queen
• 1x Keeper of Fables
• 1x Kogla, the Titan Ape
• 1x Magus of the Order
• 1x Moss Viper
• 1x Narnam Renegade
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sedge Scorpion
• 1x Tajuru Blightblade
• 1x Taunting Elf
• 1x Thornweald Archer
• 1x Thrashing Brontodon
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Land (35)

• 31x Forest
• 1x Haunted Fengraf
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Slippery Karst

Artifact (15)

• 1x Bow of Nylea
• 1x Chariot of Victory
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Fireshrieker
• 1x Fleetfeather Sandals
• 1x Forebear's Blade
• 1x Grappling Hook
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Pathway Arrows
• 1x Sharpened Pitchfork
• 1x Skeleton Key
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Trailblazer's Boots
• 1x Viridian Longbow
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Instant (8)

• 1x Ambuscade
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Clear Shot
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Ram Through
• 1x Reclaim
• 1x Verdant Rebirth

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Garruk, Unleashed

Commander (1)

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Enlarge
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Howl of the Night Pack
• 1x Nature's Way
• 1x Overrun
• 1x Overwhelming Stampede
• 1x Primal Might
• 1x Rabid Bite
• 1x Road of Return

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Foster
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Lure
• 1x Rancor
• 1x Snake Umbra
• 1x Song of Freyalise
• 1x Wild Growth

---

Maybeboard

Creature (4)

• 1x Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
• 1x Ohran Frostfang
• 1x Ohran Viper
• 1x Toski, Bearer of Secrets

---

(Made for Aaron, you beautiful bearded bastard!)

LET THE HUNT BEGIN!

Welcome to the Commander format! Before getting down to the nitty gritty on what the deck aims to do, there are a few things to go over about the commander format that is different from a regular game of magic

On Commander

As the name suggests, in the Commander format, each deck is made around your commander. A commander card can be any legendary creature. Each deck should have 100 cards, including your commander. The decks should also only be in the "color identity" of the legendary creature you've chosen as your commander (In this case, green, or G for short). You can also include colorless cards, like artifacts, that don't include any colored mana symbols. In addition, each deck should contain no duplicate cards aside from basic lands. This leads to games being different every time you play, and can lead to fun games!

Special Commander Rules

The commander of this deck is Fynn, the Fangbearer . Before the game starts, place this card in a face up separate pile from the rest of the deck. This pile is called the command zone. Separate from your hand, you can cast your commander from the command zone as though it were in your hand (but it does not count towards your overall hand size). If your commander should move to ANY other zone (exile, back to hand, the graveyard, etc.) you may choose to INSTEAD move the creature back to the command zone, from which you can cast it again! However, the next time you cast your commander from the command zone, you will need to pay an additional 2 mana, called a commander tax. I would recommend using a d6 to keep track of how many times you've cast your commander from the command zone.

Since the Commander format uses bigger decks and can be played with multiple players, you will start the game with more life than a regular game of magic. I'd recommend starting each player's life at 40 life in a multi player game, or 30 life for a 1v1 game. I would also recommend having around 4 players for the best experience, any more and the game can get a little long. That being said, play with how many players you'd like! Also, since it is a multiplayer game, the first mulligan is free! If playing with more than 2 players, the first player will also be allowed to draw a card during their first draw step.

Another special thing about your commander is called commander damage. If any commander deals 21 points of COMBAT damage, the player on the receiving end is eliminated from the game! Any other means of winning the game (Loss of Life, Not being able to draw cards from the library, Infect/Poison damage still apply as well!

While not an official rule, if you want to play a shorter game, you can choose to use the "Bottom Land" rule. With this, each player reveals cars from the bottom of the library until they reveal a basic land (In your deck's case, this will be a Forest). Each player then starts the game with this land already in play. In my experience, this helps the game speed up and allows decks to be a lot faster and more consistent. I'd recommend trying to play with and without this rule to see what you like!

On to our deck! As stated before, the commander of this deck is Fynn, the Fangbearer . At 2CMC, he's pretty low to the ground as far as commander's go, meaning your should have no trouble casting him on turn 2 every game, making him a relatively aggressive commander!

Gameplan

The gameplan of this deck is to flood the board early and get an early win via Poison Damage! Fynn's ability reads that if ANY of our creatures with deathtouch damage a player, that player receives 2 poison counters. Deathtouch is an ability that means ANY damage dealt by the creature is considered lethal damage, no matter the toughness of the creature it's against. If a player gets 10 Poison counters, they lose the game! So our deck is full of quirky little deathtouch creatures, like Deadly Recluse , Sedge Scorpion ,and Thornweald Archer . The plan is to get these guys out early so you can quickly start to accumulate poison damage. With Fynn's ability, this leads to us only having to damage our opponent 5 times with deathtouch creatures for us to win! HUZZAH! We also have some other creatures that do stuff in addition to having deathtouch, like Acidic Slime and Oakhame Adversary . These guys will help us interact with our opponents stuff while still being a threat. The deck also aims to take advantage of a few interactions between Deathtouch and Trample, leading to situations in which our opponent will simply wither away from poison!

Early, Mid, Late game

In the beginning of the game, we want to keep a hand with a few 1CMC creatures that have deathtouch so we can try to bein to accumulate poison damage once our commander is on the field. After that, we want to start leveraging advantage from having little deathtouch guys on our field! We can quickly turn these little guys into versatile threats with equipment! Sharpened Pitchfork gives our creatures firststrike, meaning they deal their combat damage BEFORE our opponent's creatures do. When combined with deathtouch, this leads to our deathtouch creature dealing lethal damage to the blocking creature and that creature dying before they have a chance to kill our creature! (The only downside to this is if they block with MULTIPLE creatures, as we can only kill as many creatures as we have power).

In addition, Fireshrieker and Grappling Hook give our creatures double strike, meaning our creatures will deal BOTH first strike damage AND THEN regular combat damage! If a deathtouch creature with firststrike hits an opponent, this will trigger Fynn's ability TWICE, giving that player FOUR poison counters!

Furthering the tricks up our sleeve, cards like Trailblazer's Boots and Whispersilk Cloak make our creatures difficult to block in combat, leading to a fast clock if our opponent can't deal with our threats.

Speaking of dealing with threats, we have some cheeky ways of killing our opponents creatures. cards like Viridian Longbow allow us to tap our creature to deal damage to our opponents creatures. BUT since most of our deck is deathtouch, any of our creatures damage is considered LETHAL, essentially making it so we can shoot poisoned arrows and simply kill any creature we can target! The same thing goes for other cards like Nature's Way and Rabid Bite , allowing us to kill our opponent's stuff while keeping our little guys safe from harm.

Eventually, we aim to overrun our opponents by taking advantage of the interaction between Deathtouch and Trample. The trample ability means that any excess combat damage we deal is dealt to the opponent. When combined with deathtouch (being that ONE damage is considered lethal) that means that we only have to deal ONE damage to a blocking creature and then the rest WILL GO THROUGH to our opponent! This means that our opponent can find themselves in a situation where they cannot stop the accumulation of poison EVEN IF they block all of our little creatures! For that reason, cards like Overrun , Overwhelming Stampede , and End-Raze Forerunners serve as win condition to help us ram in that last needed poison counters!

Notable Rules you should know

Deathtouch: One combat damage dealt by the creature is considered lethal

First Strike: Combat damage is dealt from our creature AND THEN the opponent's. If both creatures have first strike, damage calculation is applied normally.

Trample: Any excess combat damage over a blocking creature's toughness is dealt to the player.

Flying: A creature with flying can only be blocked by another creature with flying or a creature with Reach. That creature can still block other nonflying creatures

Reach: The creature is able to block creatures with flying.

Vigilance: The creature does not need to tap when attacking, making it useful to poke opponent's defences while still leaving up a potential blocker.

Indestructible: The creature does not die from damage. (an unfortunate weakness of the deck is indestructible creatures. You can still deal with these creatures by using -1/-1 counters, exiling them, or simply trampling over them.)

Overall, I tried to make this deck have a lot of interaction while still working towards the gameplan of winning via poison damage! There are a lot of mean things to do with deathtouch! Hopefully the deck will serve as a good introduction to the Commander format! Commander is super fun, with everyone trying to do different crazy things! Happy hunting!

Top Ranked	Achieved #38 position overall 2 years ago Achieved #28 position in Commander / EDH 2 years ago Achieved #2 position in Commander / EDH Primer 2 years ago
Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 19 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.97
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Emblem Garruk, Unleashed, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Monarch Emblem, Wolf 2/2 G
Folders	Commander Decks