In this experiment, we radiate—twice.

As soon as I saw Zada, Hedron Grinder previewed, I wanted to make a mono-red Commander deck around it. I immediately started jotting down notes.

And then I saw Jason Alt’s “The Nephilim That Wasn’t,” which featured basically all of the cards I’d written down, from Brute Force to Chaotic Strike. So I decided to take a different approach, limited my deck-building procedures to Standard instead of Commander, just to shake things up.

I ended up with two different ideas.

R/W Token Radiate

In order to maximize a Titan's Strength, for example, on Zada, we’ll want as many creatures as possible, and that leads us down the obvious route of token-generators. Dragon Fodder, Ghirapur Gearcrafter, Hordeling Outburst, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar are all good, red token-generators, so that’s an easy start.

Hangarback Walker has been popular, and it makes tokens, so I tossed a couple in, though my lack of experience with Standard leaves me unsure whether the Walker is actually efficient for what we’ll want to be doing—2 mana for a 1/1 that leaves a 1/1 behind is no better than Myr Sire. We’ll either have to pay or for it and then have it die or activate its Chronomaton superpower a few times before having it die.

Mardu Hordechief is an interesting source of a token for 3 mana, and Herald of Anafenza is a reasonable 1-drop to help us curve out—and it can make us more of an army later when we have excess mana. And since we’re playing white, Secure the Wastes is a strong token-generator that can give us as many creatures as we can pay for—and it can do it at the end of our opponent’s turn, setting us up for a surprise win on our turn.

Our spells to Radiate with Zada’s ability are Titan's Strength, Defiant Strike, and Mighty Leap. Titan's Strength gives us Overrun power, Defiant Strike gives us just a little power while letting us draw a bunch of cards, and Mighty Leap lets all our guys fly for a turn while giving them a good boost in power.

It’s my understanding the two previewed creature lands are the only ones in Battle for Zendikar, and that the other three to complete the cycle will be in Oath of the Gatewatch, but if the R/W creature land does happen to come out, or if you just want to be ready to add it in later, I included spots for it in the list. Otherwise, consider more copies of Wind-Scarred Crag or some Nomad Outposts.

Mighty and Defiant ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (17)
• 2 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
• 2 Mardu Hordechief
• 3 Herald of Anafenza
• 2 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
• 3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 4 Zada, Hedron Grinder

• Spells (19)
• 2 Secure the Wastes
• 2 Titan's Strength
• 3 Defiant Strike
• 4 Mighty Leap
• 4 Dragon Fodder
• 4 Hordeling Outburst

• Lands (24)
• 9 Mountain
• 9 Plains
• 2 Wind-Scarred Crag
• 4 RW Creature Land

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Grave Strength

What excited me about Grave Strength is the fact that it builds up. With the resolution of each copy, the subsequent copies will become stronger as more and more creatures are being left in the ’yard. That seems pretty cool, and it even makes me wonder if it’s the type of thing I could play with in Commander—unfortunately, just not with Zada as the commander.

The challenge from this point is the tension created by Zada and Grave Strength: Zada wants spells to Radiate while Grave Strength wants creature cards to put into the graveyard. Compounding this is that Zada had a bit of tension on her own: She needs both spells to Radiate and creatures. And then part of the problem is that, when all we want are a lot of creatures, token-generators seem to be the most efficient (see previous decklist).

Fortunately, Battle for Zendikar is bringing with it creatures that make creature tokens that, for the likes of this deck, will serve us much better than something like Dragon Fodder. Among cards previewed so far, Catacomb Sifter and Brood Butcher fit the bill, but I expect we’ll see more options later. From Beyond seems to be a good inclusion, though it’s not a creature.

To round out the creature cards that make tokens, I included Undead Servant. It’s not an exciting inclusion, but maybe things will work out if we mill a couple with Grave Strength before casting one and making a couple Zombies.

Finally, we have the spells we actually want to Radiate (in addition to Grave Strength!). Awaken the Bear is an instant-speed, 3-mana Overrun, which seems good, though perhaps Might of the Masses would be better. But the most exciting for me is Become Immense. Vitalizing Wind for seems strong, so resolving this during combat is pretty much the dream for this deck—or at least one dream. Grave Strength as a nigh-endless, misshapen Incremental Growth is pretty dreamy, too.

Grave and Immense ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (20)
• 4 Brood Butcher
• 4 Catacomb Sifter
• 4 Forerunner of Slaughter
• 4 Undead Servant
• 4 Zada, Hedron Grinder

• Spells (16)
• 4 Awaken the Bear
• 4 Become Immense
• 4 Grave Strength
• 4 From Beyond

• Lands (24)
• 4 Forest
• 4 Mountain
• 4 Swamp
• 4 Cinder Glade
• 4 Jungle Hollow
• 4 Smoldering Marsh

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Those’re all the words I have about Zada for now, but this definitely is the type of card I could see myself coming back to later.

So if you love Radiate, if you want to play Vitalizing Wind for , or if you just love nigh-endless, misshapen Incremental Growths, give these decks a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com