Tired of watching the Korvold player sneeze and draw half their deck? Annoyed at the mind-numbing "edict tribal" Tergrid build every new player and their grandmother's dog brings to the LGS? Want some of that sweet durdly aristocrats value but with an aggro edge and some hipster cred attached? Try Thraximundar! This boogieman of commander's yesteryear is, to put it simply, a total beast. But at seven mana in mediocre ramp colors, has taken a bit of a backseat to less unwieldy legends like Prossh, Ghave, and Edgar Markov in the aristocrats game. However, with the resources made available to us by our overlords at Hasbro (thanks, power creep!), Thraximundar has, I believe, reclaimed his throne as one of the most fun, resilient, and threatening commanders on the block. That is, if you're willing to put in the work. Let's break down Thrax's new play pattern, piloting asks, strategy, and synergy lines to give this former champ the Rocky Balboa (2006)-style comeback he richly deserves.
Ramp: Thraximundar costs seven mana in Grixis. This is mitigated a bit by him coming out swinging, as well as blue's suite of interaction (more on that later), but the simple fact of the matter is that although the deck does run auxiliary game plans, getting Thrax out early is going to be ideal since he's great at mounting pressure, a three turn clock in a vacuum, and a payoff for our more intricate lines of play. As such, we're running a solid density of the common non-green ramp staples (ring and crypt, dockside, signets, the works) but also creatures like Dread Drone and Emrakul's Hatcher. On top of almost guaranteeing us our commander the turn after they drop (turn 2 is my personal earliest), they also provide a myriad of other uses. In a nutshell, they are recurrable by multiple means, and as Dockside Extortionist has taught us, mana engines you can sac and revive are incredibly powerful. While they may be lacking his lean stats, having mana and warm bodies all in one is everything we could ask for. They also grow our commander and synergize with our numerous ETB and death pay-offs we're running if drawn later on.
Draw: A question one might have is, being in blue, why aren't we running staple draw engines like Consecrated Sphinx or splashier draw like Pull From Tomorrow. The answer to that lies in the tempo the deck is trying to set. This is first and foremost an aggressive aristocrats deck with a graveyard sub theme. As such, it's looking to use most of its mana every turn either taking small actions that add up or reaching critical mass and recurring payoffs. Taking an entire turn off to refill our hand leaves our engines and damage vectors open to disruption, or sets us up to be surpassed to the point where the extra cards aren't going to matter. While we are running staples like Rhystic, Mystic, and Skullclamp due to being low on the curve and adding up easily, our bread and butter is going to be cards that allow us to draw off our recursion loops. While requiring an engine to draw en masse, Grim Harupex and Smothering Abomination accrue passive value as we execute our strategy. Ditto mainstays such as Mulldrifter and Solemn. However, the exception to this rule come in the form of the two Planeswalkers in the deck: Liliana, Dreadhorde General and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools. While initially I was skeptical to include them due to them being one to two mana below our actual finishers (including Thrax himself), their flexibility proved ripe for abuse the more I tweaked and tested. Respectively, Liliana can serve as either a draw engine or board control if an opponent or two has gotten too big for their britches, and Tevesh can provide a burst of draw while mining death triggers and giving us either blockers or fodder.
Knowing Your Window: While ramping into Thrax early is the dream, and the deck is built to do just that, the sheer variability of having 100 cards is going to mean it's simply not going to happen some games. In these instances, it's best to go onto the backfoot and either mine value assembling an engine, or control the board and prepare for Thrax's Arrival. It's key to resolve the commander at a time when at least one player has a vulnerable board, and you're able to leave up mana for interaction either through counterspells or picking off a pesk creature/threat. On Thraximundar, Haste is an extremely potent keyword. In addition to essentially having soft Annihilator 1, he also makes blocking problematic in many situations since even if a player has two blockers (a situation the deck is designed to foster), there will often be a valuable creature standing between Thrax and 10+ commander damage at an opponent's face. In combat, he's often a two-for-one, which can force more midrange decks into a negative feedback loop, and can spell death for ones that don't resolve many creatures. Because of this, it's important to do one's best making sure Thrax sticks. Greaves is here, but so too is the fairly pushed duo of Deflecting Swat and Fierce Guardianship, as well as a suite of cheap countermagic like Swan Song and Pact, and counterspells attached to sac-able bodies like Siren Stormtamer and Glen Elendra Archmage. The sheer amount of mayhem Thrax wreaks as soon as he hits the board makes him a removal super-magnet, and it's paramount to combat that best as possible. Once removal is burned, it's easy to close out games with commander damage or one of our other high priority targets.
But what if Thrax Bites it?: Of course, you're never going to be able to protect Thrax forever. Eventually, someone will shoot him with a wrath, terminate, or (ironic) Assassin's Trophy. For these situations, we're running cheap reanimation like Animate Dead, "Reanimate," itself, and Footsteps of the Goryo. A Thrax visit after a wrath when he's already hit once is curtains more often than not, and being able to pull him back cheap is incredibly valuable. Of course, these spells also pull double duty in reanimating things with valuable ETB's after we've sacrificed them, giving them a high degree of flexibility as well as insurance.
Other Threats: But what if all that fails? What if all removal's been spent, our commander is uncastable, and there's no way to get him back into play. Well, some good ol Grixis Goodstuff never hurt. While lacking haste, Grimgrin Corpseborn is a sac outlet and a backup Thrax all in one. He enables death triggers, removes troublesome creatures, grows exponentially, and has a massive damage output all at once. While maybe slow for today's games, Sheoldred is a swampwalking edict on a stick that buries in value in the late game. And Vicious Shadows, with any form of sac synergy on board, can easily come close to taking a person out if not immediately removed, as is menace Purphoros, God of the Forge with all the bodies we'll be spitting out and pulling back. Lastly, Mikaeus the Unhallowed will win games all on his own from sheer abusability combined with almost any of the above. Simply put, a rapid succession of pressure and threats even after Thrax has been dealt with will exhaust all but the most resilient decks.
GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE: Holding all this together are our good friends The Goonies (Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, Gravecrawler, and Bloodsoaked Champion). Once an outlet is online, these will be your primary tutor targets. They can die and come back for as much mana as you can afford, making them easy clamp fodder, Purphoros triggers, Thrax food, and similar, but can also enable a combo finish. Not being the most combo-minded player in the world, the majority of these tend to be convoluted and a result of the stars aligning after a long game, but Gravecrawler and Phyrexian altar (a massive value piece in its own right) will net us infinite creature ETB's, deaths, and an infinitely large commander, as well as infinite draw or damage with minimal outside set-up. While the deck excels in slugfests that turn into grindfests and vice versa, it's nice to have an "I win" button for insurance, which is easily protectable with our volume of interaction.
NOTABLE OMISSIONS:
Tergrid, God of Fright - To put it simply, I don’t like this card. I think it’s a training wheels legend as a commander, is too variable in the 99, and fosters mind-numbingly repetitive play patterns either way. While getting a big value creature on a Thrax swing or some board control might be nice, the value in this particular build is extremely situational.
Grave Titan - As much as I love this card, it’s not quite what we’re looking for in a finisher. It does provide bodies, but not at a high enough volume we can rely on it. At the mana threshold Titan occupies, we’re looking for bodies that do something else as well, such as the Eldrazi spawners.
Stinging Study: I’ve noticed this appearing in a lot of decks with commanders with a high CMC and thought it’d be good here. In practice, though, seven life is a lot to pay for the amount of damage our mana-fixing is going to do to us.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: I’m still on the fence about this card because it provides great value and utility, but I fear we aren’t going wide enough absent our engines to get the best out of him. Decided to put a pin in him for the time being.
Thraximundar is, despite his aggressive playstyle, a fairly difficult deck to pilot. The baggage the commander carries combined with his hefty mana cost make him extremely high maintenance, demanding assessment of windows of opportunity, vulnerability moment-to-moment, and contingency plans. That said, turning him into a lean machine in the current commander environment proves incredibly rewarding, and a challenge for players accustomed to self-sustaining, oppressive value engines. He may not draw your deck, he may not give you mana, but what he's very very good at is killing people dead. Just make sure you don't get cut on his jagged edges.
