We're building decks using my top five tips for beginning deck-builders. We've done a funny creature and a Planeswalker. I'm a big fan of doing the Partner Commanders without any Partners, but today I thought I'd look at something I've never done before: actual Partners. Let's see what happens when we shove these two Familiars together and use our Paint-by-Numbers system to build the deck.

The first one I looked at was Esior, and not just because I'm a huge fan of owls, birds, and wizards. It seems to me making targeting our Commander(s) harder is a valuable thing, and doing so on an evasive two-drop seems even better.

Of course, there are tons of options to partner here, but the idea of going with two Familiars was too much fun - in the lore, of course, you are a Planeswalker, and having two Familiars just makes sense. All of them are fun (someday I'd like to build a deck using Falthis, Shadowcat Familiar and Anara, Wolvid Familiar), but throwing Kediss into the mix seemed like it'd be really fun, since we can use both those abilities to make Esior hard to kill and hit for more damage. Plus, they're both cheap, so we can get them out early and often.

Let's up the budget again, too, shall we? How does $90 sound?

We set aside 40 slots for land. Done.

Now for ramp. The system says to set aside eight if your Commander is three mana or less, nine if your Commander is four or five mana, and ten if it's six mana or more. What are we? We have two two-mana Commanders. I think there is justification for either eight or nine, but since, unlike my friend and colleague Stephen Johnson, I would rather be flooded than screwed, I'm going to start with nine. We can always cut one later for a non-ramp spell if we're finding ourselves getting too much mana. We're also in a funny place with the two-mana costs we have, because what we probably want to do is play Esior on turn two and Kediss on turn three, then start attacking. So, we can run three-mana rocks with no problem, because we'll probably play them after we've played our Commanders anyway. The one exception is Sol Ring, because Sol Ring can get both our Commanders out on turn two. As a guide, I went for rocks which have a valuable effect, mostly drawing cards, because we may as well get extra use out of our rocks when we draw them later. Honored Heirloom is a great example; we can use it to nerf a graveyard strategy. We're also running Burnished Hart since it can also be a creature if we draw it later.

And draw. We want 10 pieces if they're reusable, 12 if they're more one-shot. We're going to tie our draw to our attacking Commander(s), so it's going to be reusable. We also have a fair amount of incidental other draw in our deck; like our rocks, there are some cards which just give us extra cards, so we should be able to keep cards flowing throughout the game. That's important for what we're trying to do. Our focused draw, however, mostly looks like a variation on Bident of Thassa: when we do damage, we draw. Rogue's Gloves does it, Tandem Lookout does it, and Coastal Piracy does it. We have a bunch of these; we'll hit, we'll refill our hand, and the following turn we'll hit again. We also have Jori En, Ruin Diver, because we'll often play more than one spell per turn, Cartouche of Knowledge which is more for the evasion and buff, and Wizard Class, which basically does all things we want to do.

Now we want some interaction. It's good to have as much breadth as possible in our interaction; a spell which targets "nonland permanents" is better than a spell which targets "creatures." On the other hand, we are limited by our colors and budget. In the board-wipe arena, we've got the marvelous Blasphemous Act and the ever-useful Whelming Wave, which is particularly good when our Commanders are so cheap. Our more targeted removal are the very fun Frogify, the catch-all Imprisoned in the Moon, the odd but useful Sigil of Sleep, and the broad-based Curse of the Swine, which can clear the board of a single opponent to leave them open for an alpha strike. Oh, and Chandra's Incinerator is kind of a fun way to keep the board clear since our Commanders will often do a bunch of noncombat damage, thanks to Kediss. We're also going to run a few Counterspells, though, because a well-placed counter will have the whole table wondering if you've got it. Specifically, we've got Counterflux, a fantastic little spell which can't be stopped but can stop a combo, Swerve, which isn't so much a counter as a nanny-nanny-boo-boo, and Admiral's Order, which will often be cast for its lower cost due to our Commanders being targeted after they've attacked but before they've hit.

Now let's build to the Commanders. There are three basic things we're going to try to do:

1. Give our Commanders (probably focusing on Esior, since the owl flies) more power, via power buffs, Equipment, Double Strike, and other power increasers,
2. Give our Commanders unblockable, and
3. Occasionally copy our effects for maximum impact.

So that's what most of the rest of the deck is. We have spells, Equipment, and Enchantments to hit harder (Brute Force, Blood Mist, Blackblade Reforged). We have ways to make our Familiars unblockable (Aqueous Form, Teleportal, Stealth Mission), and copy our spells (Increasing Vengeance, Teach by Example, Double Vision). Should make for some explosive turns.

Our one Planeswalker, Jeska, Thrice Reborn, is probably worth mentioning, because a 4-power flying Commander with Double Strike will do 24 damage to each opponent with Jeska's 0 ability.

Going back to lands, Rogue's Passage was a shoo-in, as were a couple of Cycling lands, a few duals, and Castle Vantress and Castle Embereth.

Esior and Kediss | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commanders (2)
• 1 Esior, Wardwing Familiar
• 1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Bloodsworn Steward
• 1 Chandra's Incinerator
• 1 Tandem Lookout
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Jori En, Ruin Diver

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jeska, Thrice Reborn

• Instants (16)
• 1 Admiral's Order
• 1 Brute Force
• 1 Brute Strength
• 1 Built to Smash
• 1 Counterflux
• 1 Fists of Flame
• 1 Increasing Vengeance
• 1 Nahiri's Stoneblades
• 1 Negate
• 1 Raking Claws
• 1 Swerve
• 1 Teach by Example
• 1 Temur Battle Rage
• 1 Titan's Strength
• 1 Uncaged Fury
• 1 Unleash Fury

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Insult // Injury
• 1 Screaming Fury
• 1 Slip Through Space
• 1 Stealth Mission
• 1 Teleportal
• 1 Whelming Wave

• Enchantments (14)
• 1 Aether Tunnel
• 1 Aqueous Form
• 1 Blood Mist
• 1 Cartouche of Knowledge
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Curiosity
• 1 Curious Obsession
• 1 Double Vision
• 1 Frogify
• 1 Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1 Ophidian Eye
• 1 Reconnaissance Mission
• 1 Sigil of Sleep
• 1 Wizard Class

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Banshee's Blade
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Hero's Blade
• 1 Honored Heirloom
• 1 Izzet Locket
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Magnifying Glass
• 1 Rogue's Gloves
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sol Talisman
• 1 Sword of the Chosen

• Lands (40)
• 14 Mountain
• 15 Island
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Frostboil Snarl
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Thriving Bluff
• 1 Thriving Isle

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All told, we came in at just under $60 on Cool Stuff Inc, well below our budget of $90 and even cheaper than the Estrid deck. If I wanted to spend more money, I think a Sword of the Animist would be good here. Some of the damage-doubling Enchantments could be good as well. The first land I'd put in would be Command Beacon, because it will likely be useful.

One interesting thing about this deck and my several years' experience building Commander decks is I already think it's got too much mana. I'd want to play it this way a few times, but once I had I'd almost certainly start cutting ramp and probably even one or two of lands; the mana curve is very low, and there aren't a ton of ways to use up excess mana via {X} spells or repeatable activated abilities. Keep in mind if the commanders are removed several times, the Commander Tax has to be paid, and we may need the extra mana for that. If my sense there is too much mana is right, I'd probably replace the mana with a few more cheap pump spells, preferably ones which replace themselves via cantrips, or I would consider adding a couple of mana sink spells; something like Treasure Trove or Enrage. But as I said in the last article on this subject, this is a guide, not a rule. If you start with 40 lands and 10 pieces of ramp, you'll hit your mana. After a few games, you may realize you're hitting it too well, and you can adjust, but it's way easier to adjust by cutting rocks and lands than having to cut action spells for Fellwar Stone or whatever.

If you had to put together two of the Familiars for a deck, which two would you use? And what do you want to add to this deck? Anything I missed? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for reading.