Hello folks! I hope your Friday is going amazingly well!

Today I want to push myself a little more. I've been in a random mood lately; I've already done two Random Commander challenges over the last two months. Let's do another! I really like pushing myself.

The challenge? Simple! I head to Wizards of the Coast's Gatherer, then I hit the random button, and I take the first legal Commander that pops up that I haven't already built around.

Ready?

My first card is a commonly used land in Commander. If it's legal in mine, then I'll use it as a meta-reference.

Next?

Hello Arc Mage! Nice to see you! Are you a legendary dork? Nope!

All right, next?

None of my next three cards will work either. They are playable, just not lead-able.

But two cards later?

This is Lady Zhurong, Warrior Queen. She is a character from Portal: Three Kingdoms. She takes the lead in the 6th battle, after Meng Huo has moved to a more defensive style after losing and being captured numerous times. She'll be captured herself. If I recall correctly, this 6th battle is when Shu General Kongming unleashes a trick he had hidden and prepared for them long ago, and which will win the battle.

As part of his leader's campaign against the Southerners united behind Meng Huo, Kongming manages to defeat them, and Meng Huo will swear allegiance to the Shu nation, for which Kongming fought.

Meng Huo was very, very popular, and as you can see, only him and Kongming can actually inspire troops to fight for them. There is this myth where Zhuge Liang capture Meng Huo, shows him the camp, and then frees him and lets him try to defeat 6 more times. On the 7th defeat, Meng Huo admits his loss and concedes.

Now I want to do something a little different. I am going to pretend that these both have Partner With Their Spouse. Neither of them are that powerful on their own in a modern day context, and giving you two five-mana Mono-Green options that are not that powerful is one I doubt any kitchen table would push back against.

I am also going to push more into Lady Zhurong than Meng Huo. This is her deck; I flipped her over. I won't be running a bunch of token makers for Meng Huo, which I would do if I had flipped him. I would just make this a Mono-Green token build a move on.

But I got Lady Zhurong. She's my build choice

Note that Meng Huo is leading Soldiers, not Barbarians. Meng Huo is the game's only Mono-Green Barbarian, which is...weird. We only have 31 Barbarians, and all but two are Red. Other than Meng Huo, we have Zombie Barbarian in Black.

Oh, just so you know:

In addition to Lady Zhurong, we have six other Ladies in the game. I have gotten, randomly, The Lady of the Mountain and Lady Caleria. I also have a budget build around Lady Orca for you too, so what's next?

As soon as I revealed Lady Zhurong, two cards leapt into my mind:

Here you go! Avenging Druid is a cheap damage-card draw sized dork that will put the top land from your library onto the battlefield. It's free ramp, and it'll net you any land, not just basics. One with Nature is strong as it'll net you a basic from your library each time you smash someone's face. It'll be ideal on Lady Zhurong!

Now, let's look at some other Avenging Druid style cards for Green.

Who wants to draw some cards? Commander players! Each of these plays nicely into the combat damage triggers I am looking to enhance. Let's net some card drawing good times! Both have a way of punishing your foes for blocking as well, and thus have the ability to slip in for cards more easily.

Who wants to draw cards in other ways? Exactly! The triggers for when it, or another non-human smashes face. Now it only draws once. But it will net you two cards if you have first strike and normal strike from two non-humans, or double strike from the Fireshrieker. And the Frostfang is amazing here! Lots of cards and death by deathtouch in the same build!

Who wants to do non-card drawing things? Yup! The Living Hive is a beefy beater than can smash for loads of droks that will spew forth across the battlefield. Are you ready for the face-punching majesty? You better be, as Meng Huo will really like it! The Questing Beast arrives and swings, while still holding back for defense, and will also let you send some combat damge to help dial back a nasty planeswalker.

How about grabbing that sweet sweet land? I know you all do! These two combat triggers keep that sweet card drawing lowing. Note that Hunting Cheetah can get any forest, including ones that aren't basic, such as Gingerbread House. The Centaur Rootcaster may cost another mana, but he's free ramp vs. the Cheetah just adding the land in question to your hand.

Now let's turn to some cards inspired by One with Nature!

Who wants to still draw more cards? I got your card drawing right over here! No problems, no muss, no fuss. Each of these one-drops are going to love getting tossed onto a powerful Lady Zhurong.

Storm the Citadel is here! It'll pump your team and give you some powerful Naturalizing triggers as well when you smash the faces of your enemies and hear their lamentations as all of their toys are broken. That +2/+2 is also really useful too, and don't sleep on it!

I know that you are going to want to connect with your team, right? Right! No worries. We got stuff here to help ensure your stuff is going to connect. You'll also see that we have some normal cards that you would normally expect to run like Whispersilk Cloak and Rogue's Passage below as well.

Note that Riding the Dilu Horse's effect doesn't end at the end of the turn. You can use it to give a permanent boost and unblockable to a key dork without needing to worry about enchantment removal. Also, since I had done a few fellow cards from their set, I tossed in Three Visits as well!

Now let's add in some cards that I think will get along well with our Warrior Queen and Barbarian King. Like Kamahl, Fist of Krosa! He's great in any Mono-Green build. Ditto Yeva, Nature's Herald, who wants to grant your team some serious flash-ery.

Now I just did a Mono-Green random build, so I am trying to keep them separate. Other than a few obvious utility cards like Beast Within and Eternal Witness, I am not going to duplicate any cards! The previous Selvala deck dipped heavily in Green-mana symbols, and ran things that cared about devotion. This time? Nope! Instead we'll run a bunch of utility lands that tap for colorless but have other values. You'll note a few ways to fetch up any land here like Ulvenwald Hydra and Reap and Sow.

By the by, how many decks have been registered over at EDHREC.com by these folks?

Meng Huo - 2

Lady Z. - 2

The Lady and the Barbarian | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (2)
• 1 Lady Zhurong Warrior Queen
• 1 Meng Huo, Barbarian King

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Ainok Survivalist
• 1 Avenging Druid
• 1 Bellowing Tanglewurm
• 1 Centaur Rootcaster
• 1 Den Protector
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fauna Shaman
• 1 Flaxen Intruder
• 1 Hornet Queen
• 1 Hunting Cheetah
• 1 Hydra Omnivore
• 1 Hystrodon
• 1 Jadelight Ranger
• 1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
• 1 Keeper of Fables
• 1 Living Hive
• 1 Manglehorn
• 1 Oakhame Adversary
• 1 Ohran Frostfang
• 1 Ohran Viper
• 1 Questing Beast
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Skalla Wolf
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Yeva, Nature's Herald
• 1 Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
• 1 Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury

• Instants (5)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Dramatic Entrance
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Veil of Summer

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Reap and Sow
• 1 Regrowth
• 1 Riding the Dilu Horse
• 1 Storm the Citadel
• 1 Sylvan Scrying
• 1 Three Visits

• Enchantments (23)
• 1 Familiar Ground
• 1 Keen Sense
• 1 Nature's Will
• 1 One with Nature
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Sixth Sense
• 1 Snake Umbra
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Bloodforged Battle-Axe
• 1 Fireshrieker
• 1 Hot Soup
• 1 Key to the City
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Rogue's Gloves
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Skeleton Key
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Sword of Sinew and Steel
• 1 Umezawa's Jitte
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (32)
• 11 Forest
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 1 Blast Zone
• 1 Cathedral of War
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Forge of Heroes
• 1 Gingerbread Cabin
• 1 High Market
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Memorial to Unity
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sapseep Forest
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Vesuva
• 1 Wasteland
• 1 Winding Canyons
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium

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And there we are! Anything in here you liked or want to add to your own brew? Anything obvious I missed? Just let me know!

Random Commander Challenges

Did you enjoy today's deck and want to check out all of the random chaos from the previous editions? Great! Here they are.

1. For my first challenge, I hit on Random Gatherer Gwendlyn di Corci from the set that introduced legendary permanents. I create a discard-matters deck around her.
2. I flip over one of the original Elder Dragon Legends that the format was initially named after - Arcades Sabboth. I decide to build around a non-Red and non-Black Dragon theme. Get ready!
3. The Random Fairy Strikes Again! This time it lands on Toshiro Umezawa, one of the major protagonists of the Kamigawa Block storyline. Check out my spell-based fun time deck!
4. My submission of the random button finds the vanilla The Lady of the Mountain. Inspired by one of the few Commander options legally printed as a common, I decide to create a Pauper EDH deck for you! Let me know what you think!
5. I hit the random button and got Kefnet the Mindful. I turned him into a budget build for fewer than $33 as part of my Budget Commander series. Enjoy!
6. Random Gatherer hits Nissa, Vastwood Seer for a fun, mono-Green Forests-matter deck! Check it out!
7. This time, we hit 1-drop Vanilla Isamaru, Hound of Konda. What do I do with him? How about Isamaru Ultron? Let's give our pet some pants.
8. Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle - This build wants to build a fun challenge around the historic recursions of Teshar's potential. You can check it out here.
9. I randomly uncover the first Niv-Mizzet from way back and build a fun damage-matters and card-drawing matters build for your consideration! Let me know what you think!
10. What happens when Gatherer give me Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner? I make one of the most fun EDH decks in this series, that's what! Check it out!
11. I flip over Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient that loves to fork artifact abilities. Want to check out this odd take on Mono-Red artifacts?
12. Gatherer gives me Selvala,Heart of the Wilds. I use it to build a fun power-matters synergetic build. Check it out! https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/abesargent-12172019-random-commander-12-selvalas-creature-manifesto