Hello awesome folks! I hope that your day is going as well as you are!!! Today we are hitting another of my favorite series, the Random Commander challenge. I head over to EDHREC.com and hit it's random Commander button and then build around what shows! I have a few rules...

1. Sometimes illegal decks are on EDHREC.com, and we cannot take them
2. Sometimes I have already gotten a card in this series and I'll skip past. This also applies to other articles or real life decks.
3. Unless I have a unique take, if I get a powerful and/or commonly played leader, I'll skip past.

So, with that caveat, who am I grabbing?

My first choice is...Phelddagrif, and that's a heavily popular leader in the Group Hug genre, so no thanks. I don't have a unique take on it.

Next?

This 6-drop Human Monk that, when he dies, turns into a legendary enchantment that gives your team an undercurved Shiv's Embrace. I used to run Homura in Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy for years and love it lots! It won games. Homura is leading 53 decks and in just 879 so he is clearly a forgotten card. I am going to run sacrifice engines to self-sacrifices and go wide with tokens to make sure that his Shiv's Embrace version can give us a bunch of dorks, so he will be mono-Red tokens with a sacrifice element here and there. Ready?

Going Wide

Most of my token making are obvious, but not this pair of rare Goblins. The five drop makes 3 1/1s on arrival and can sac them to Shock anything for two mana. Four bodies across five mana and 5/5 total power plus the power boosts of a flipped Homura are really strong here. The six drop is a 5/4 that also makes 3 1/1s if you have three opponents in a typical 4 way game. You can tap it and four mana to double your damage from a source you control to an opponent, pretty nice for the winning as well as the token making.

Since I am in mono-Red, the triple mana of Kiki-Jiki is very doable. This 5-drop with haste can tap on arrival to the battlefield to Clone another non-legendary you control with haste and it dies at the end of the turn, which you can sacrifice to your stuff for value as well as getting another ETB trigger of your token makers and answers.

Sacrifices

Let's turn to this triple sacrifice engine. We need card flow, we are going wide, enter these two artifacts and a Red card. All three play nicely here and provide multiple options.

I have a few more obvious sacrifice cards like Goblin Bombardment and High Market and then these two. The artifact is a 5-drop that pumps your stuff and gives it flying and indestructible in case you don't control your leader, and then you can sacrifice a dork in your upkeep to keep up the glamor, and it's not bad with it as giving +3/+3 to your dorks feels pretty nice but I'd hold off dropping them both if you have a flipped leader. I pulled a Mountain for the instant. It's a Fling that can sac your Homura and then flip it, and then can be played as a land in case you need that instead.

Sacrifices Not Named Homura

I have a few dorks in here with cool death triggers to sacrifice to your engines. The former Dragon is a 4-drop 4/4 with flying, which is on curve. Your Red mana doesn't drain. Nice in a mono-Red build like this one. Then when it dies you can spend an amount of Red mana to shoot a target for that damage, nice. The latter Dragon is a 6-drop flying with 5/5, again on curve, and when it dies it shoots all ground dorks for five damage, and since your stuff flies with Homura's Essence, you won't take any damage.

Our final Dragon is also a 4/4 with flying and trample as well for 4 mana, smooth and two paths to evasion. When it dies you have two death triggers to choose from - make three Treasures for future stuff which is why I am running it here in a firebreathing deck, or exile and cast two dorks, which is nice card flow for the masses. Nice trio of flying Dragons, right?

Answers

Let's turn to some answers! The first two cards I added after Chaos Warp were these two spells. The sorcery is a four cost that destroys three key card types - artifacts, dorks, and lands, and at a cost of three life which is well worth the cost. The instant will destroy lands or dorks at instant speed but not artifacts, both will kill any creature. They have great flexibility for targets and answering dorks that are bigger than your burn. Don't sleep on the land destruction for things like Academy Ruins, Volrath's Stronghold, and Gaea's Cradle that are broken in Commander. I also tossed in two creatures that have ETB triggers for taking out lands as well (Ogre Arsonist and Avalanche Riders).

I leaned into mass removal that only sweeps grounded dorks since we can give them all flying. The split card can be cast to discard and draw two for card flow, but it's here for that three damage to each non-flying dork. I also have the classic printed in the first set 'Quake and Magmaquake as well. This will shoot all players and grounded dorks for X damage, and that's player kill as well as dork kill. I also tossed in Burn Down the House which makes tokens or sweeps for 5 damage each, but this will kill your flyers.

Synergies and Win Cons

A Demigod and a God's Monument. The artifact cuts the cost of your Red dorks by a mana (I also tossed in Ruby Medallion) as well as giving you a cast trigger to discard and draw, which is nice card flow. The creature is a 3-drop as well and has power equal to your devotion to Red, so always at least 2. You can create a 1/1 Satyr token upon creature death and two if the dying creature had at least 4 power, which Homura and my other sacrificial bodies all do.

Two strong win cons. The first is a classic token go-wide wincon that also makes sense in a any mono-Red brew with its devotion making it easy to work. It's 6/5 on four mana, indestructible, if it's a dork it immune to my damage-based removal, and it can shoot your foes for 2 damage each dork that arrives and pump your team by +1 power for three mana. The second is a new classic that costs three mana for a 3/2 on curve that turns other dorks' arrival into 1 damage per opponent. I also tossed in Impact Tremors to play into this space.

This deck needs haste, so we have Ogre Battledriver and Anger to perform it en masse. The Ogre gives other dorks haste and a double power bonus for the turn, nice with the flying and +2/+2 you are giving your team since you'll now deal 5 damage each 1/1 token dork that arrives to the party with flying and haste. The Incarnation is a 4-drop haster that gives haste to your team when it is in your graveyard if we have one of our 28 Mountains. It's also very sacrificial.

Card Flow

The front side of this 3-drop Saga will make a 2/2 token and when it attacks it makes a Treasure. It's in my card flow slot since it can also discard and draw cards, and then can creature the 2/2 that taps for 1 to copy a nonlegendary just like the Kiki-Jiki we looked at easier. Another trigger of my win cons, and another mana ramp with Treasure, copies to sacrifice and more card flow. All in one card, pretty nice right? I think so as well.

Again, a triple Red cost isn't an issue here, and the Knight can spend two to pump your team up by one power and haste, nice mana sink just like the God of the Forge. This is here for the ETB to discard and draw any number of cards, and death trigger to x damage each foe and their buddies for damage equal to the land count in your graveyard. With all my discard to draw effects probably discarding lands, this could be three or five quite ably.

Ramp and Lands

We need loads of Red mana for Leyline Tyrant and our firebreathing, so enter Neheb, the Eternal. This afflict 5-mana dork with the three pertinent tribes has a post combat trigger to make mana equal to the life lost by your foes this turn, which could be quite a lot with the flyers and their combat damage and pumpery. I'd recommend tapping out and giving your entire Firebreathing unblocked dorks a ton more damage and then make that in Red mana for your second turn to drop things. Love this thing's power loads here.

Again, we'll need to make as much Red mana as possible, enter the Sun, a 6-drop that will double the Red mana count on your lands, and then also give your Red stuff a nice +1/+1 effect. Nice right? I think so as well!

Since Homura costs 6 mana, I have added in mana rocks that makes more than one mana like the latter pair, as well as Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone, and Gilded Lotus. The Lotuses can tap for Red mana for firebreathing after our Commander dies and flips. Nyx is a 4-drop that arrives tapped and then will tap for Red mana equal to your devotion. As you can see from our heavier Red costs that's likely to be a few, and always a minimum of two if you control your commander. The Dynamo makes sure that you can drop your Commander the next turn on four lands.

I need Mountains, so I am running 27 and then just 10 nonbasics plus a nonbasic Mountain and three modal spell/lands. The Keep will tap with two mana and then make a 0/1 token of the Kobold persuasion for making for our pumping, and then Valakut will Bolt any target when a Mountain arrives to the party as long as we control five more. Nice way to finish off players after they have established control.

The Village and Battlements are here to give a key dork haste. Haste is just too important not to have it in land form as well, since haste lets you attack first after a mass removal spell or against a defense that alpha struck you and left nothing untapped for blocking since you controlled nothing. Also, you cannot block with your commander so you can get in a free attack after dropping him. Nice!

And there we go!

Humbling Homura | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Homura, Human Ascendant

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
• 1 Anger
• 1 Archetype of Aggression
• 1 Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
• 1 Avalanche Riders
• 1 Beetleback Chief
• 1 Cavalier of Flame
• 1 Dark-Dweller Oracle
• 1 Flametongue Kavu
• 1 Goblin Goliath
• 1 Goblin Marshal
• 1 Leyline Tyrant
• 1 Kiki-Jiki, the Mirror Breaker
• 1 Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1 Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
• 1 Mogg War Marshal
• 1 Neheb, the Eternal
• 1 Ogre Arsonist
• 1 Ogre Battledriver
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star
• 1 Shard Phoenix
• 1 Siege-Gang Commander
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Witty Roastmaster

• Spells (19)
• 1 Aftershock
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Burn Down the House
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Earthquake
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Fast // Furious
• 1 Fissure
• 1 Hordeling Outburst
• 1 Kazuul's Fury
• 1 Light up the Stage
• 1 Magmaquake
• 1 Pirate's Pillage
• 1 Shatterskull Smashing
• 1 Seize the Spoils
• 1 Tibalt's Trickery
• 1 Tormenting Voice
• 1 Unexpected Windfall
• 1 Valakut Awakening

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Impact Tremors

• Artifacts (15)
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Carnage Altar
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Eldrazi Monument
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Hazoret's Monument
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Relic Vial
• 1 Ruby Medallion
• 1 Skyclave Relic
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (37)
• 1 Dwarven Mine
• 1 Flamekin Village
• 1 Hanweir Battlements
• 1 High Market
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
• 1 War Room
• 27 Mountain

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Anything in there that you like...just let me know!

Appendix - Random Commander Challenges

Did you enjoy today's deck and want to check out all 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 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind 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!
13. I randomly hit Lady Zhurong, and I decide to build a Mono-Green deck around her and her husband Meng Huo, Barbarian King. Check it out!
14. I randomly open with Seasinger, and I decide to build around that rather than a legendary leader. Check out my Mono-Blue Merfolk deck!
15. I use the EDHREC Random Commander option and dial up Anya, Merciless Angel, which is the wrong colors as she feels more Rakdos to me. I lean into fun times around dropping everyone's life! Wanna check it out?
16. I use the Random Commander button and get Balthor the Defiled a Zombie Dwarf who brings back all dead Red and Black dorks over and over again. It's a fun build, check it out!
17. For my 17th challenge, I grabbed Kaervek the Merciless and built a creatureless deck around him with cards that punished the playing of dorks like Tainted Aether. We win with attacking lands and artifacts that dodge removal. Enjoy it here!
18. My 18th challenge arrived and with it the planeswalker Nahiri, the Lithomancer! You can check out this equipment loving mono-White deck here with cards that go wide and up and grab that equipment fun times!