I was originally going to call this article “The Untuckables,” and it’s a good thing I Googled to make sure I didn’t write that article already because I totally did last March. That means it’s been almost a year since the new tuck rule, and the Universe didn’t collapse in on itself like some people may have thought. Other unpopular and popular rules changes have been made since then, and when you view the rules changes on a cosmic scale, our problems are pretty insignificant. The new tuck rule, in particular, has been such a mild and intuitive change that people did about ninety-nine percent of their complaining before it went into effect since it’s mostly upside.

I am.

Skullbriar is a creature I basically forgot existed forever and rediscovered recently. Skullbriar requires you to be very aggressive, which not everyone likes. It also gets pantsed by bounce and tuck effects. Somehow, the tuck rule changing and allowing you to stash Skullbriar back in the command zone with all of his counters still on him if someone tries to Chaos Warp or Hallowed Burial him escaped my attention. Skullbriar also seems to have escaped deck-builders’ attention for the most part. He doesn’t show up in any of the “most-built” lists on the sites I check. And why not? He seems to be the perfect 75% commander—allowing us to play strong but durdly cards like Increasing Savagery and Corpsejack Menace. It isn’t very easy to scale your deck to the power level of your opponents’ decks, but it allows you to run a ton of Wrath of God effects while still being very aggressive with a big beater and being able to control the tempo of the game with a lot of board wipes, and being able to threaten lethal means the deck is surprisingly political. You can even slap an Assault Suit on him and laugh like a Banshee while your opponents grow your monster commander for you. Cyclonic Rift sure pulls your pants down, but what doesn't Cyclonic Rift do that to?

I’m glad I was thinking about overlooked commanders and restumbled upon Skullbriar. Sure, it would have been timelier to talk about this card and how it improved in light of the new tuck rules, but even the rules change didn’t make Skullbriar more popular, and I think we can work with that. It’s rare for a commander no one encounters that often to suffer from the Rafiq Problem too badly, which makes Skullbriar a decent choice for the kind of unknown meta in which we play our 75% decks. Plus, who doesn’t love an underdog? Enough preamble—let’s look at the deck already.

Skullbriar the Untuckable ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Bloodspore Thrinax
• 1 Brawn
• 1 Champion of Lambholt
• 1 Corpsejack Menace
• 1 Creakwood Liege
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Forgotten Ancient
• 1 Fungal Behemoth
• 1 Gyre Sage
• 1 Heroes' Bane
• 1 Kalonian Hydra
• 1 Lifeblood Hydra
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Mephidross Vampire
• 1 Necropolis Regent
• 1 Predator Ooze
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Scute Mob
• 1 Vastwood Hydra
• 1 Vigor
• 1 Vulturous Zombie
• 1 Yavimaya Elder
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
• 1 Ghoulcaller Gisa
• 1 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled

• Spells (34)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Momentous Fall
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Solidarity of Heroes
• 1 Strength of the Tajuru
• 1 Crux of Fate
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Life's Finale
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Soul's Might
• 1 Asceticism
• 1 Canopy Cover
• 1 Death's Presence
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Hardened Scales
• 1 Ordeal of Nylea
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Primal Vigor
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Unspeakable Symbol
• 1 Assault Suit
• 1 Blade of the Bloodchief
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 1 Grappling Hook
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Ring of Kalonia
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Trailblazer's Boots
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak
• 1 Bow of Nylea

• Lands (37)
• 12 Forest
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Cathedral of War
• 1 High Market
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

Buy This Deck

The more I looked at cards that would be sweet or taking advantage of your ability to throw your commander in the command zone rather than the ’yard and keep his counters, cards like Momentous Fall and Greater Good really stuck out. Phyrexian Arena seems to be a must-have in this deck, but I really like the idea of drawing infinite cards with a huge commander then jamming him right back out there. Saccing to Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord seems saucy as well, and it’s one of my favorite ways to win the game.

I put a lot more board wipes than I normally would, and I tried to avoid having to run Damnation since it’s expensive (until it’s reprinted in Eternal Masters, right?), but Crux of Fate is a fine replacement. Run what you want—Mutilate, Decree of Pain, Life's Finale—I find, in Commander, paying extra mana and gaining a huge benefit is better than having to play Damnation on curve. Who does more than durdle in the first four turns in Commander, anyway? I am not a big fan of Damnation, but smoke ’em if you got ’em I suppose. I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, I’m just offering alternatives. There are a ton of Wrath effects that aren’t Damnation, and running a few of them seems like value since you can replay your commander and he’s immediately a threat again.

What do we think? Is Skullbriar not as underestimated as I’m estimating? Am I overestimating how much he’s underestimated? Can you back that up or are you just estimating? Could you be overestimating how much I’m overestimating how much he’s underestimated? Leave me some love in the comments section or I’m going to start putting deliberate errors in here just to give us all something to talk about. Do you have Skullbriar in your meta? How does it do? How did I do? Do you want to build this, and what cards did I miss that you’d include? Who’s your favorite League of Legends champ? Let’s get a conversation started. Until next week!