Let's bug some people.

This funky Insect has the potential to make a whole bunch of Insects when it enters the Battlefield, and should they all happen to die, he gets bigger and our opponents suffer for it. I think this is designed to work with the Vehicles of Aetherdrift: Aatchik counts Artifacts (which Vehicles are) in addition to Creatures, and making all those little dudes are perfect crew for a Vehicles build.

But that's not what I want to do. Nope. In honor of the new Bracket system, I want to build a deck solidly Bracket two, maybe even 1.8 - something lighter, more fun, a bit more theme-y, that might be able to eek out a win but mostly is going to be about playing with bugs.

Aatchik EDH | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Aatchik, Emerald Radian

• Creatures (43)
• 1 Agency Coroner
• 1 Amzu, Swarm's Hunger
• 1 Ant Queen
• 1 Bane of Progress
• 1 Blightbeetle
• 1 Broodhatch Nantuko
• 1 Canoptek Scarab Swarm
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Circuit Mender
• 1 Deathbringer Regent
• 1 Druid of the Emerald Grove
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Fell Stinger
• 1 Fumulus, the Infestation
• 1 Grim Giganotosaurus
• 1 Grist, Voracious Larva
• 1 Haywire Mite
• 1 Hermit of the Natterknolls
• 1 Hornet Nest
• 1 Hornet Queen
• 1 Izoni, Center of the Web
• 1 Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Loathsome Curator
• 1 Minister of Pain
• 1 Mirkwood Bats
• 1 Moriok Replica
• 1 Nothic
• 1 Ondu Giant
• 1 Qarsi Sadist
• 1 Rot-Tide Gargantua
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Silumgar Butcher
• 1 Silumgar Scavenger
• 1 Springheart Nantuko
• 1 The Swarmweaver
• 1 Topiary Stomper
• 1 Vulturous Aven
• 1 Wild Wanderer
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Yavimaya Elder
• 1 Zask, Skittering Swarmlord

• Spells (10)
• 1 Corrupted Conviction
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Plumb the Forbidden
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Swarmyard Massacre
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Grist, the Hunger Tide

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Hedge Shredder
• 1 Skullclamp

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Crawling Infestation
• 1 Crawling Sensation
• 1 Moldervine Reclamation
• 1 The Hunger Tide Rises

• Lands (40)
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darkmoss Bridge
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 Haunted Mire
• 1 High Market
• 1 Necroblossom Snarl
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Swarmyard
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 1 Underground Mortuary
• 1 Viridescent Bog
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 1 Woodland Chasm
• 12 Forest
• 10 Swamp

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This looks like fun. There are more powerful ways to approach Aatchik, using self-mill and sacrifice effects to make a million tokens and sacrificing them to win the game, but that's not why we're here. Nope, we're going to play out a bunch of Insects and attack with them, and we might - might - get lucky with a big swarm of Insects or a possible mass event which does a ton of damage.

We start, as always, with mana. Because this deck wants Creatures in the 'yard, I decided to lean in a fair bit to Creatures which ramp us - not everything is a Creature, but lots of them are. We do have Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, as well as Rampant Growth and a few other two-mana Land fetch spells (we have a few which look for a "Forest" so we also have dual Lands which have that type). But we've got Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant... the list goes on. We're not ramping for anything in particular (we don't desperately need our Commander to win or play the game), so we're just making a bunch of mana for the late game, when there's a good chance we'll want to do a few huge things.

We've got a couple of Lands which let us do things, too. Swarmyard is sort of the most obvious, allowing us to save our Insects if we want, but Grim Backwoods and High Market offer a place for us to sacrifice something should we want to do that. I love chump blocking with a Farhaven Elf then sacrificing it to the Backwoods to draw the card.

Speaking of, we have Skullclamp because decks which make 1/1 Tokens should probably have Skullclamp. Corrupted Conviction, Deadly Dispute, and Plumb the Forbidden each offer us a way to turn a token into cards, and the last one is particularly important (we'll get there later). Then we have our Creature-based ways, like Fell Stinger and Vulturous Aven, among others.

Those Exploit Creatures are great here, because in addition to those two (and their card draw), we get a bunch of other effects from them. I love a card like Loathsome Curator here; it's an expensive removal spell, but it does stuff we want - either kills an Insect or puts itself in the 'yard as it comes in, building up our 'yard for when we cast our Commander. All of our removal comes in the form of Creatures like this: Caustic Caterpillar, Rot-Tide Gargantua, Deathbringer Regent. We don't have to actively fill our 'yard in order to make sure it happens!

The one non-Creature removal we have is Swarmyard Massacre, which makes a couple of Insects when we play it and then likely leaves us with the only board state left, if we do it right.

We have a few cards which care about Insects beyond Swarmyard Massacre, too. Fumulus, the Infestation makes our attacks that much more brutal. Izoni, Thousand-Eyed makes even more Insects and lets us sac them for value. Zask, Skittering Swarmlord does a ton of great things for us, but I'm particularly fond of the pump effect; remember we can pour as much mana as we want into this, so if someone blocks several of our Tokens but one of them sneaks through, we can pay 10 mana and do an extra five damage - or just give all the ones blocked Deathtouch and kill their board. See? Bug people.

Most likely, should we win, we're going to do it the old-fashioned way, attacking with our Creatures. However, there is one way I can see an "oops, I win" coming together, and it's this:

With a whole lot of mana out, we probably have to play Izoni and Aatchik in the same turn (though if we can get through a turn cycle having played one, that'll work too). It's very likely we'll want Mirkwood Bats out for this, too, since it will add to the damage. Then, upon playing our Commander, we play good old Plumb the Forbidden and sacrifice all our Tokens, killing our opponents. This is an unsearchable, four- or five-card combo which could only possibly come together in the late game (because it needs so much mana), so it certainly doesn't kick us into Bracket 3. We also need to be careful, because Plumb the Forbidden could also kill us, so it's possible an attack would be necessary to get to the full kill-everyone else level.

One more card I want to mention, because it's random: Blightbeetle. We needed another Insect at a low mana cost, and this one got the nod because it will randomly absolutely destroy a particular deck. A person with a +1/+1 counter thing in Simic they swear is Bracket 2 is likely to be absolutely hosed by this little dude, and that will occasionally be awesome. Worth it for the slot.

Interestingly, this deck is also not terribly expensive! You could lose a couple of the Insects (Amzu and Canoptek Scarab Swarm), drop the Phyrexian Tower for a Swamp and put a Forest in for the Underground Mortuary and you'll get this down to right about $100 for the whole thing.

A deck like this is also a fun upgrade platform. You put it together and play it like this, then you can start leaning in a direction - more Tokens? More toward the combo? Add in self-mill and really try to generate a bunch of Tokens with Aatchik? Lots of options as new cards both come out and enter your collection.

Thanks for reading.