Hello, folks, and welcome back to Battle for Zendikar, already in progress. In this week’s episode, many legendary creatures from BFZ have already been spoiled, and many writers have already begun to write about them. Last week, we spoiled Munda, Ambush Leader right here! Well, red and white have always been my (secret) favorite color combination. It’s seems to be the perfect time to take Munda for a little ride around the Commander block.

So let’s take a look at Munda, Ambush Leader to see what you are getting.

First, you have a 3/4 creature for your investment. While that’s not a bad result from your investment in Commander, you could do a little better, particularly in Boros where your leaders tend to have better stats for swinging. Other than haste, we don’t have any keywords or useful combat triggers to help the team.

So what do we gain? Well, we have an enters-the-battlefield (ETB) trigger from your leader. When it arrives to the battlefield, you reveal four cards, and you put any Allies onto the top of your library and the non-Allies on the bottom. It sort of separates the wheat from the chaff. You will also generate this trigger whenever another Ally arrives as well. So if you bring an Ally creature token out, it will trigger Munda all day long.

Now a lot of the Allies in Battle for Zendikar that have been spoiled thus far aren’t as Ally-centric as this one. Their rally abilities help the whole team, non-Allies alike. But Munda is different. That means there are two ways to really push a Munda deck that arise to my mind.

One is to have a more insular Ally-themed deck. You can run some fun Boros-centric Allies and then call it a deck. You’ll have a good on-theme time as well! That works.

Another way is to run no other Ally cards. (You might want to add some Ally tokens from something like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar). That way, Munda always clears off the top of your library. Why would you want to do that? Well, you can always see new cards with something like Sensei's Divining Top or to reach for your combo pieces or to dig.

So which way do you build the Munda deck?

How about a little of both?

Munda Magic ? Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Abbot of Keral Keep
• 1 Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Firemane Angel
• 1 Goblin Spy
• 1 Hero of Goma Fada
• 1 Highland Berserker
• 1 Kabira Evangel
• 1 Kazuul Warlord
• 1 Lantern Scout
• 1 Mirror Entity
• 1 Murasa Pyromancer
• 1 Petra Sphinx
• 1 Prophetic Flamespeaker
• 1 Resolute Blademaster
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Taurean Mauler
• 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
• 1 Wandering Graybeard
• 1 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Brass Herald
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Iroas, God of Victory

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Ajani Goldmane
• 1 Chandra, Pyromaster
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• Spells (35)
• 1 Banishment Decree
• 1 Boros Charm
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Fated Conflagration
• 1 Judge Unworthy
• 1 Magma Jet
• 1 Orim's Thunder
• 1 Riddle of Lightning
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 1 Crib Swap
• 1 Act on Impulse
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Portent of Betrayal
• 1 Rousing of Souls
• 1 Shattered Perception
• 1 Warp World
• 1 Assemble the Legion
• 1 Flickerform
• 1 Land Tax
• 1 Outpost Siege
• 1 Retreat to Emeria
• 1 Splinter Twin
• 1 Stranglehold
• 1 Boros Keyrune
• 1 Boros Signet
• 1 Druidic Satchel
• 1 Goblin Charbelcher
• 1 Lantern of Insight
• 1 Obelisk of Urd
• 1 Riptide Replicator
• 1 Scroll Rack
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Vexing Arcanix
• 1 Volrath's Laboratory

• Lands (37)
• 12 Mountain
• 13 Plains
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 1 Battlefield forge
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Madblind Mountain
• 1 Mutavault
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

Buy This Deck

And there’s our R/W deck, all wrapped up and ready to go. Allies and Zendikar for the win!

Therefore, a card like Hada Freeblade didn’t make the cut, whereas something like Highland Berserker did. Giving the whole team first strike whenever an Ally hits the battlefield is a useful way to push the table around. In leapt cards like Kabira Evangel and Kazuul Warlord. They give you more than a temporary pump or just one counter.

There are a few seriously strong bodies though in our colors. Murasa Pyromancer is a perfect card for this deck, shooting creatures any time an Ally arrives. The Pyromancer is a nasty engine for this deck. Don’t forget you are rocking Tuktuk Scrapper as well. You are going to be hating on artifacts after the Goblin Ally arrives. We have some quality Allies from the first visit to Zendikar.

From Battle for Zendikar, catch the awesome Ally love of Hero of Goma Fada. Because you gain indestructible just for the turn, you can use it proactively to ensure your army won’t die from combat. If you have a way of putting an Ally into play instantly, you can also use it reactively to keep the team alive. Lantern Scout is pretty solid, too.

The next category I wanted to consider was of Ally enablers from other places. You can pump Allies with cards like Obelisk of Urd and Brass Herald. We have Crib Swap to shoot down things, and you can instant-kill one of your guys to put a Shapeshifter token into play under your control, triggering your stuff. We also have two artifacts that make Allies: Volrath's Laboratory and Riptide Replicator. Even Gideon, Ally of Zendikar can get in on the Ally token action.

So the first part of the deck is all nice and set, loaded with tribal action. What’s next?

Take something simple, such as Goblin Spy or Lantern of Insight. These cards can see what you and (in the case of the Lantern) your foes have on the top of their libraries, which gives you a strong knowledge of when to use something like Munda. In addition, I added a bunch of scry cards as well since they can help you set up, and they play into the same space.

Also heading in are Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack. You can use these cards to great effect since you’ll see a large part of your deck. You can use these to manipulate the top of that library in order to find the right cards. Since I have a Scroll Rack in the deck already, I added in the obscene Land Tax. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a pretty strong combination:

Do you have fewer lands than an opponent? Search your library for three basics, shuffle, and then put them into your hand. Now Scroll Rack them back to your library to gain three new cards. And you can play Munda or another Ally to clear out those lands and keep on using Top or other effects to keep things running.

There are a few other cards in there that care about the top of your library. You can tap Vexing Arcanix to draw the top card when you know what it is. You can also shoot a player for 2 damage if he or she can’t name the top card of his or her library, just in case you want to have a little fun with the Arcanix.

Check out the sweet, sweet tech of Petra Sphinx. It’s like a Vexing Arcanix without the damage or the mana requirements. That’s the sort of card that’ll earn you some style points at your next Magic night.

Want to shuffle your deck in order to reload all of this goodness for another round? Want to bring back something you stacked to the bottom of your library with Munda? I hear you! Check out Madblind Mountain. Crack a fetch land, and use Solemn Simulacrum or Land Tax.

There was another mechanic that I wanted to explore in this space, too. Since we have a lot of cards to see what the top card of your library is, this is a perfect place for the new red exile-a-card-and-then-play-it-this-turn mechanic that we have all over. Take a simple Abbot of Keral Keep. You can play it when you know that you have something playable and powerful on top. Then, you can exile and play it. You can active Chandra, Pyromaster or connect with Prophetic Flamespeaker. We have a lot of options, and this deck seemed like a great opportunity to mine that space.

One final note: This deck has a lot of creatures that just accidentally have great ETB triggers. Allies have always had something like that. I gave the deck two major tools to play around with. The first is Flickerform, which you can use on a key Ally, your Commander, or even something like Solemn Simulacrum. Then, you can Flicker it in and out of play in order to grab more effects. But an even better tool is Splinter Twin. Enchant a key Ally like Murasa Pyromancer. Tap to produce a second Murasa to generate two triggers! Really, any Ally is a great choice.

And you could explore both of these spaces. White has a lot of flickering cards, so you could run something like Cloudshift or Flickerwisp. Meanwhile, you could do more Fork-Clone-tokens with Heat Shimmer and everyone’s least favorite akki machine Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

So, what did you think? How did you see a Munda, Leader of Ambushes playing out? Was it similar to this one? Are you ready for the fight?

Get your Battle on!