Real Life Commander (Take Three)

Posted on May 23, 2016

It’s time to build another real life project. I need a few more decks.

More decks!

For this ongoing project, I select a Commander deck I built for a previous article and then flesh it out and create a real life version of that deck, suited for the modern day, and my current card stock.

Ready to get your battle on?

One deck I’ve often enjoyed is the Diaochan, Artful Beauty deck from an earlier article. I originally built that deck as part of a quick trio of Commander decks built around the three Portal: Three Kingdoms leaders reprinted in prestige formats: Cao Cao, Lord of Wei, Sun Quan, Lord of Wu, and Diaochan, Artful Beauty. You can check out that article and see what’s up, but the whole point was to hammer out a quick trifecta of deck lists rather than belabor the project with a bunch of commentary.

Now that I’m actually making the Diaochan deck, I’m going in some different directions to better flesh out the theme. Most of my deck lists are meant to be sparks to inspire your own decks. You own different cards, have different styles, play in a different metagame, and see different things than I do. And that’s fine.

Let me give you an example:

My first deck in this project was also a Mono-Red deck, this one built around Fumiko the Lowblood. Now I’m doing Mono-Red again, and it may seem a little redundant but there are several differences that set it apart.

First, I find all of the Mono-Red Commanders are pretty tame, especially when compared with other colors. The only one capable of generating heat automatically is Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. The rest are all calm. Only one-and-a-half Mono-Red deck styles will anger most players I‘ve played against. The first is the Caged Sun/Extraplanar Lens/Gauntlet of Might into big X spells like Comet Storm and Fanning the Flames. That’s pretty irritating to run into. Even Green ramp decks run big beaters, (so accelerate into Dragons instead!). Another abhorred strategy is the “I hate non-basic lands” strategy, where you run cards like Ruination and Blood Moon.

As long as you aren’t riffing off of those rage-inducing access points, I find all other Mono-Red builds to generally be left alone. Red is the weakest color at the multiplayer table, and we all know it. Running just Red is a handicap already. Even the synergetic pro-artifact stylings of cards like Bosh, Iron Golem, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and others are nothing compared to a full-on Blue centric Esper build.

So a wonky Mono-Red deck built around a card like Fumiko or Diaochan is going to get a free pass.

Now, that’s an estimate based on my own metagames and playgroups. My local community has been increasing the potency of a lot of their decks recently, so a fun, lesser-powered deck without a bunch of “Commander’s Greatest Hits” is going to see less hate coming its way.

Let’s drill down into Diaochan and unpack her a bit:

Her ability comes from the Three Kingdoms story. She’ll actually be the one to bring down Dong Zhou, the Tyrant. In order to secure himself, Dong Zhou, the big bad of his era, secured the services of the greatest warrior of his age as a bodyguard — Lu Bu, Master-at-Arms. Diaochan caught the eye of Lu Bu when he befriended one of Dong Zhou’s older advisors. The advisor takes a liking to Lu Bu and promises Diaochan to him as a concubine. Dong Zhou arrives a few days later, and the advisor gives Diaochan to him instead, setting in motion the Lu Bu/Dong Zhou rivalry. Diaochan plays them against each other wonderfully, and eventually Lu Bu takes out Dong Zhou, and ends his era of dominance at a time when none of the other major characters could — all because of Diaochan’s gentle, behind-the-scenes manipulations. Therefore, the card destroys two things (much like she set Lu Bu and Dong Zhou against each other) but an opponent chooses the second target.

Here are a few notes —

You have to target a creature to kill it.

Then “an opponent” chooses another to target and destroy

Opponents hiding behind targeting protection, like Ivory Mask, can still be selected to kill something. Both creatures have to be targetable by Diaochan, who is a Red creature. Also note you kill the first creature first, and everyone will know who got offed before the next creature is selected.

Now, having played Diaochan I can tell you that the second target regularly depends on the board state and which opponent you select. Nothing forces you to choose the controller of the creature you destroyed. You can tap Diaochan, destroy Peter’s Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, and then give the next choice to Holly, who may blow up Rodney’s Restoration Angel, Peter’s Consecrated Sphinx, or your own Flametongue Kavu. However, there’s no guarantee your opponent will hit you on the backswing. In fact, when they look at your junky or immune small stuff, they will often skip you on principle.

Diaochan is not a major threat unless someone has a big creature deck oozing with major threats via strategies like ramp, reanimation, or stuff like Show and Tell, Eureka or Oath of Druids.

In this day and age of creature creep in Commander, Diaochan can play a strong role in keeping other players under control, especially if you have a junior partner in crime at the table. You can quickly and easily clear out all of that crap on your opponent’s boards.

Diaochan is not the only Red card playing in this space. Take a look at Starke of Rath. He taps to destroy an artifact or creature. Options abound. And then you send him to the person who’s great stuff you just blew up as an apology. But their stuff is always going to be better than your own. Mind's Eye? Stonehewer Giant? Sheoldred, Whispering One? Avenger of Zendikar? Sword of Light and Shadow? Batterskull? Shoot, even smaller utility creatures like Fauna Shaman and Stoneforge Mystic are worth taking down.

Capricious Efreet plays in this territory as well. There’s a one in three chance you’ll blow up something of yours, and a two in three chance you blow up something good of theirs. I’m sure you’ve already done the math on this one too. (If not, I talk about the many tricks of the Efreet in an article here). But even working as is, without any manipulation, it’s a fun way to take care of a few problems, and can even answer enchantments for you.

There’s a lot of synergy between Diaochan, Starke, and the Efreet, so here are some ways to make this stuff work:

Play creatures that want to die. A card like Anger is demanding to be killed off and sent to the bin, while a card like Solemn Simulacrum is happy to take one for the team. You can also equip something with Skullclamp and then put it under an Efreet.

Play stuff that comes back after it dies! Red has a strong self-recursion theme with the Phoenix creature type. By including a number of Phoenixes that can self-recur easily, we add to the resiliency of the deck. If one manages to die to something like your Trifecta of Talent, then you can bring them back later on without missing a beat. Now, I don’t own a bunch of extras that would really work here, but I do have Shard Phoenix, Akoum Firebird, Firewing Phoenix, and Magma Phoenix. I trust they’ll find a way to get the job done. Also, check out Pyrewild Shaman. You are going to be dealing combat damage to people, right? Right! So you can recur this as well when you smash, pay three mana, and either replay it or Bloodrush it as needed.

You Can’t Kill Me! What do the Efreet, Beauty and Starke have in common? All three “destroy” stuff, not exile or sacrifice them. So you can splay indestructible bodies all day long, confident that they won’t backfire to your Triad of Terror. Cards like Darksteel Sentinel are perfect adjuncts. Plus Purphoros, God of the Forge is downright nasty here. You’ll get a new Purphoros trigger each time you play that Firewing Phoenix or Pyrewild Shaman again, so it’s great from multiple angles.

Sacrifice that body! Another way to improve the value of your stuff is to include creatures that’ll sacrifice when someone tries to take them out. Burnished Hart is a prime example. Suppose you have it out and someone points your Diaochan at it. All right, well just sacrifice it then, and get some lands. We also have stuff like Goblin Bombardment to provide an outlet in case stuff gets out of hand.

It’s Just Vanilla Anyway! There are a number of creatures in the game with enter the battlefield abilities, but once they’re on the battlefield, they have little additional board presence. They are virtually vanilla. Take Beetleback Chief. It’s just a 2/2 after it arrives, and you have a pair 1/1 Goblins as well. It’s unlikely someone will target your Chief with a Diaochan or the stolen Starke of Rath. Other examples in here of weaker creatures are Hammerheim Deadeye, Ghitu Slinger, Fanatic of Mogis, Deathforge Shaman, and Avalanche Riders.

I can’t see you, you can’t see me! Another way to keep your stuff from the Diaochan/Starke problem is to run ways of keeping them from being targeted in the first place. I tossed in equipment like Whispersilk Cloak, Lightning Greaves, and Swiftfoot Boots. I don’t have any extra copies of Sword of Fire and Ice or Sword of War and Peace, or those would have leapt in.

Those creatures and permanents will all play nicely with the various needs that we have. What else?

I do want removal. What annoys me here?

Every time I’m building a deck, I have certain cards in mind so I reach a level of in-deck synergy. There are a few cards that I am looking at for this deck.

The first one is Death Spark.

Death Spark is a great poking machine. I’ve played it before, and know how to run it. As one of your guys is about to die, play Death Spark, shoot someone or something for one damage, and then recur it on your upkeep for one mana to keep on going. You can also use it to shoot something for a damage to kill it off, and then sacrifice a creature to put it on top of the Spark later for more recursion. It works very well here with your Phoenixes and Goblin Bombardment. You know what? I’ve talked myself into it. Let’s toss it in. If it doesn’t play well, I can pull it later.

I also want to run the normal stuff for Mono-Red — Chaos Warp, Scour from Existence, Into the Core, and stuff like that. That gives me the needed flexibility to face any situation.

Since most of my creatures suck, want to die, have indestructible, or can recur, there’s no reason not to add in a few damage-based sweepers. I toss in Magmaquake, Starstorm, and Crater Hellion. What about Rolling Earthquake? I have an extra copy printed in From the Vault: Annihilation . Let’s toss it in as well.

The next place I want to head is to card draw city. Some choices here are obvious — Chandra, Flamecaller, Chandra, Pyromaster and Staff of Nin. Now the Staff feels like it may be moving into “Uh oh, Starke of Rath time” but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Speaking of which, I tossed in Liar's Pendulum. That’s a great card for bluffing and figuring stuff out. Even if you only hit half of the time, on average, that’s still the occasional free card. Plus it’s fun, no one ever intentionally destroys it, and, if you have someone you can just read and out-bluff, you can draw cards very reliably. I was really good at reading a guy in our playgroup called Kevin, and I could draw at least three out of every four times with him. In a deck like this, Liar's Pendulum has a natural home.

I begin to look for cards to flesh out my deck concepts. I like Warstorm Surge, because it gives my smaller creatures a little more juice while also not changing this deck’s core concept of “My Stuff is Pretty Tame”. In other news, doesn’t this feel like a great home for Nim Deathmantle? I think so!

I also wanted to toss in some mana support. Sure, we’re not Caged Sun McGee, but we are playing and recurring stuff like Hammer of Bogardan, Death Spark, and Fun-Time Phoenix. It’s seems like having a good slate of lands and mana rocks to help out would make a lot of sense. I tossed in Temple of the False God for some extra mana, as well as Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. We also have Sword of the Animist to fetch the good stuff in addition to aforementioned cards like Burnished Hart and Solemn Simulacrum.