"Smeagol brings them up secret ways that nobody else could find... And he guides them and he searches for paths... Very nice friends, O yes my precious, very nice."

I was somewhat looking forward to The Lord of the Rings products. I get that they're not necessarily for me, they're a tool for bringing new players to the game. I'm certainly not upset that it's Lord of the Rings - it's a great franchise with 3 and a half good movies and 2 and a half movies we don't talk about, plus the animated ones. The books are exciting and fun to read and when your Junior High English teacher assigns you The Hobbit, it really feels like you got away with something. The Lord of the Rings is certainly more fun for me than Dr. Who - the first time I hear someone at the LGS say "Timey Wimey" I'm going to commit a crimey wimey. All that said, I wasn't 100% on board. That all changed when they printed the 75%iest deck, yes they did, Precious.

Smeagol, Helpful Guide is everything I want in a commander. It's trivial to trigger being tempted by the ring and gaining all of that value, and Smeagol does it every turn. When that happens, you get their lands? And you get to bin a bunch of their cards? That's positively nutty. If there is one thing I like to do in Commander, it's take dead creatures from their 'yard and beat them with their own beatsticks. If there are two things I like to do in Commander, it's do that and also get landfall triggers. This deck does both, and it does it often.

I've been all about taking their lands since Coldsnap came out and introduced me to a big meany that makes appearances in many of my Rakdos decks.

Herald of Leshrac costs seven mana, which meant I never really go to cast him before Commander came along. Now I can't even remember what I did without him. In webcam games, it was as simple as using infinitokens to represent the growing stack of others' lands that I had pilfered, and it was more fun than being Smaug sitting on top of a mound of treasure and doing the weird twitches that Benedict Cumberbatch's movement coach assured him looked dragony. Treasures go away when you use them once, their lands keep on giving. Oh, and if you're using Smeagol to steal their lands, it still pumps Herald which means he gets bigger faster. Specifically, he gets to 14 toughness which is the amount of toughness you need to have him survive getting blasted by a Blasphemous Act, something that happens a lot.

The gears started to turn immediately. It was clear I wanted to be tempted by the ring a lot, which would lead to me getting their lands, which would lead to landfall triggers. I want lots and lots of those - if you get enough, Retreat to Hagra starts to be a real threat to life totals. Dump your own lands into play as deeply and greedily as you want - even if you Boundless Realms (a card I basically don't even play anymore, sadly) out your last basic, never fear - you have 3 other libraries to use to get your lands from. They come into play tapped, unless you play some of the myriad cards that allow you to put them into play untapped instead like Amulet of Vigor or Tiller Engine. Whenever we play our own lands OR get tempted by the ring, we're getting a landfall trigger? I must build this deck.

There is one hiccup, however - we need a way to reliably get a creature to die on our side of the board every turn. I'm kidding, obviously, we're in the "creature dies on your side" colors. I have been showcasing excellent and fun cards that do this for years, including one that is tailor-made for this deck but is still relatively obscure for some reason (maybe the reason is that it's old and it doesn't seem old to me because I'm old) - Perilous Forays.

We're going to do everything the deck wants with this card and I couldn't be happier to be jamming it. Isn't sacrificing our own creatures kind of a bad thing, though? It would be if there weren't a ton of cards that give you a creature when you trigger landfall! Not only that, we'll have access to their creatures and if they should fall in combat killing one of their creatures or eating a removal spell, so much the better. This deck really marries two things I love to do in Commander and gives us so much synergy between the two strategies that they're barely not just one strategy. I'm clearly really hyped to talk about my deck, so let's show you the list and I'll try to calm down.

Secret Paths | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Smeagol, Helpful Guide

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Bloodghast
• 1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare
• 1 Dunedain Rangers
• 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1 Gollum, Patient Plotter
• 1 Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Herald of Leshrac
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
• 1 Reassembling Skeleton
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Sepulchral Primordial
• 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1 Sporemound
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Tiller Engine
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Witch-king of Angmar
• 9 Nazgul

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Liliana, Waker of the Dead
• 1 Nissa of Shadowed Boughs

• Instants (3)
• 1 Bombadil's Song
• 1 Entish Restoration
• 1 Heroic Intervention

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Claim the Precious
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 The Ring Goes South
• 1 Victimize

• Enchantments (10)
• 1 Animate Dead
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Awakening Zone
• 1 Burgeoning
• 1 Call of the Ring
• 1 Exploration
• 1 From Beyond
• 1 Retreat to Hagra
• 1 Shortcut to Mushrooms
• 1 Zendikar's Roil

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Altar of Dementia
• 1 Altar of the Brood
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Zuran Orb

• Lands (36)
• 11 Swamp
• 12 Forest
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Ghost Town
• 1 High Market
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Prismatic Vista
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Urza's Saga
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 1 Woodland Chasm

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This looks like an absolute hoot. There is a ton of synergy here, and I will undoubtedly miss a lot if I try to talk about all of it, so let's instead talk about what is new.

Sac outlets are very useful for making sure you don't have Ring-bearer, which means you can get quite a bit of value here. I stayed away from cards that were in the deck just because they said "The Ring tempts you" unless they were reusable or did an effect I'd use anyway. This is very, very reusable and it's going to do some real work if it stays in play.

Speaking of reusable ways to get tempted, Gollum is a sac outlet as well as a temptation-enabler. Smeagol and Gollum both being in the deck is pretty flavorful, too, if you care about that sort of thing. Not that I can pretend I don't care since I pointed it out. Whatever, this card is cool.

I am playing with 9 copies of this. There are 9 different art treatments and I want one of each. A 1/2 deathtouch is non-trivial and having 9 of them with the ability to pump each other means that you don't have to worry about having enough ways to be tempted. I like this and I'm playing 9 of them because I can. If nothing else, it's something to target with Conjurer's Closet or sac to Helm of Possession.

There are some cards I didn't play that you may be wondering about. First up, if you're new to reading my articles, I'm not playing Rampaging Baloths because that card is bad and you shouldn't play it. Greensleeves barely made the cut and it's a slightly better Sporemound. I like Sporemound over Baloths because a 1/1 can draw you cards with Skullclamp. Skullclamp, by the way, is a card you can fetch with Urza's Saga, as is Zuran Orb, Amulet of Vigor and Altar of the Brood. It can't get a Sol Ring because Sol Ring isn't in the deck. There's only room for one ring and that's the one tempting us. I'm not playing The One Ring because it doesn't really do much in this deck besides cost four mana and deal you damage - there are easier ways to draw cards. I am not playing some popular cards like Evolutionary Leap or Greater Good - we don't lack for sac outlets and I like Forays and Attrition better. The 101st card was Curse of the Restless Dead, and I would love to find room to shove it in here but I don't know what to cut. Cursing yourself and getting creatures that have a built-in self destruct button is great for triggering Smeagol's creature dying requirement. This is a first draft, I have small list of cards I am toying with.

What do you think? Not enough ways to pilfer their yard? Is my curve too high? Is Emrakul too salt-inducing and out-of-place with only From Beyond to find it? Let me know on Twitter while you still can. Until next time!