When I first started building magic decks, one of the ideas I was chasing was the idea of raw defense. I saw Dorin back in the day, and was amazed! "Wow! A commander that cares about toughness? A 0/5 in the command zone? That's so novel!" However, Dorin felt slow and clunky. Ultimately, my big bootied blockers were reduced to bad beaters.
Iteration 2 came years later when I built Karona defenders. Finally, a purpose for my big, beefy bois. They could sit back and block while Karona smashed into people. This was satisfying, but turned into more of a pillow forty enchantment deck with some defenders backing me up through the early game.
A few years passed, and I tried my third iteration of the concept with Arcades, the Strategist. Now here was a fun idea! All my blockers would become massive beaters and even draw cards!? This commander was insane! I even added a bunch of blink spells for protection, which doubled as card draw with the walls. The deck worked well, but maybe a little too well. You see, there's a problem with Arcades, all of your secrets are out in the open. The whole table knows exactly what's coming when you show them your commander, and they're going to be prepared for it.
Enter Rigo. Rigo is a little cat. He draws some cards, sure, but also, he's not exactly threatening. When you sit down with Rigo, no one pegs you as archenemy. He's only a 2/2, and he doesn't incentivize you to swing for big damage. Heck, even his card draw ability really only draws 1-3 cards a turn in a normal game. The value is fair, and incremental, you aren't just storming off. He really is a fair and non threatening commander to some extent, and the humor of spending your first few turns attacking with some funny little 0/3's just to send a message will probably earn you some good laughs. It also allows you to sometimes get away with amassing a pretty sizable board of little guys to eventually win with. The best part is, because Rigo only incentivizes you swinging with as many creatures as their are opponents, your big toughness creatures can hang back and do what they were designed to do, block.
To that end, my favorite card in the deck, and a personal pet card of mine is Defensive Formation. Like Rigo, this card also has a subtle, but powerful effect. Your creatures can now double block and soak up huge amounts of damage without dying, because you can divide it as you choose. Even if they have a creature that's too big for your whole squad to block, you're still only going to loose one creature due to your ability to choose to have all the damage dealt to your least valuable asset. Ohh, and did I mention this turns off trample? Trample isn't automatic, it's actually assigned, so if you decide that your opponent should deal all their damage to your worst creature, instead of letting it trample over and hit you. This has long been a favorite card of mine, and hopefully you can see why.
With this in our arsenal, our biggest threat is our opponents going wide. Cards like Fell the Mighty The Battle of Bywater and Dusk / Dawn can be virtually one sided board wipes.
Finally, in addition to the normal Arcades style backup pieces like Assault Formation and High Alert I'm also running some sweet alternative finishers, like Tanazir Quandrix and Blossoming Bogbeast who can trigger on attacks, after you've drawn your cards with Rigo.
The deck also got some new cards like Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
and Delney, Streetwise Lookout, which have increased the deck's budget, but they honestly aren't necessary to run, and can always be cut for more interaction in a pinch.
Right now the deck is still fairly budget, but if you wanted to do some upgrades to this list, I'd say start with the mana base, which can be a bit clunky at times. Luckily, Rigo is pretty flexible to cast, and can smooth out our draws, so I haven't really seen too much strain from running mostly basics.
I hope this deck brings some attention to a pretty underrated commander. I've never really seen anyone else run him, so I feel like he's a unique thing to pull out and play, and offers some fun and funny interactions as you make deals to hit people for 0.
