They Call Him Mr. Orfeo

Posted on May 3, 2022

Just over five years ago, I built a deck for my column in real life. (This despite the fact I made a mistake in my initial writing!) Xenagos, God of Revels just got my Timmy/Tammy-heart thumping. The deck exists as a kind of time capsule; I haven't updated it at all and play it about once a month. It works just as I expected it would (always nice when that happens!), which is to say sometimes it completely fizzles out and other times it explodes out of the gate and leaves everyone wondering how they wound up with 12 life when they were just at 40.

So imagine how I salivated when I saw this guy.

We gain some stuff and we lose some stuff, compared to Xenagos. We get a smaller, slightly-less-expensive, non-indestructible guy who can target himself. But functionally, we're doubling up on Xenagos's ability to double power, which is what I want to play with. Because if we have Mr. Orfeo and Xenagos on the table and can successfully attack with Hydra Omnivore, we'll do 32 damage to each opponent: 8 doubled is 16, which doubles again to 32/32. Give it Double Strike and we'll probably kill the table.

The original deck focused on giving creatures Trample and Double Strike, with the theory we'd play out Xenagos and start dropping big dudes and slamming in with them. It did this at the expense of everything else: it didn't ramp, draw cards, run any interaction of any kind, or do anything other than a single-minded attempt to slam in. That's fine, and it can be super fun, but let's see if we can swing the pendulum back towards the middle. We're still going to do big Tramply things, but I think we can probably make the deck work with a bit more consistency, at least by making sure we get our mana and refilling our hand from time to time.

It's worth noting we could be using Black more aggressively in this deck, but like the original, we're still not going to run any interaction. Instead, we're going to push through whatever our opponents put up with absurd amounts of attacking power. However, access to Black does mean we can get a whole slate of excellent removal. If you find you need more ways to kill opponents' stuff, don't be afraid to add in some greats, like Putrefy, Hero's Downfall, and Vraska's Contempt. Assassin's Trophy is always worth considering.

They Call Him Mr. Orfeo | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

Commander (1)
1 Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder

The goal here is quite straightforward: ramp like crazy, play Mr. Orfeo, play a huge creature (preferably with some evasion), and swing for the fences. Let's talk about the ramp, to start.

40 land is my go-to, and we're using it here. We want to hit our land drops every turn, and we want to be ahead on mana as soon as we can. As such, we have (for me) an unusual combination of mana rocks and land fetching. A variety of cheap rocks (Sol Ring, assorted Signets) join with Rampant Growth, Circuitous Route, and lots in between to come as close as we can to guaranteeing a bunch of acceleration. There are a few reasons for all this ramp. The first is we're going to be mana hungry. To play big creatures with valuable abilities, we're going to need a bunch of mana. Second, it's very likely our creatures are going to get killed, including Mr. Orfeo, so we'll probably have to play the Commander Tax a number of times before we're able to kill the table. Third, our top end has some pretty serious mana commitments (think or ), but our earliest drops are all Green, so we're running mostly Forests. All the ramp helps us go grab our Swamps and Mountains to guarantee our ability to play the things we want to play.

Our one regular source of card draw is Drumhunter, which doubles as a mana dork. The rest of it is massive draw using our creatures' huge power as a conduit. Soul's Majesty is the basic version - draw cards equal to power - but we've got a few of those, a couple which sacrifice the creature, and one which cares specifically about combat damage (Hunter's Insight, which is really good when you're swinging for 20). If you're going to draw a bunch, try to not play your land before you do in the hopes you draw into Reliquary Tower so you can keep them all, but a couple of these spells over the course of a game should make sure we have the gas we need to keep pressure up.

The idea here is pretty straightforward. We play some ramp, Mr. Orfeo, then something like Thunderfoot Baloth and attack for 14. We have a bunch of really big creatures we can play out and double, which should keep people pretty nervous. They're all different, and all relevant, but the one you play and attack with doesn't really matter. Just get a fatty down and start swinging.

The trick gets going with our other cards which matter. Unnatural Growth is a great example. Let's say in between Mr. Orfeo and Thunderfoot we play out the Enchantment. Now our 7/7 doubles twice and swings for 28. Throw in a Blood Mist and it goes to 56. Trample. Somewhere in the realm of turn eight.

The only difference between Double Strike and Mr. Orfeo's doubling ability in our deck is we can't stack Double Strike, so there's no real reason to play out more than one Double Strike enabler at a time. If you've got Fireshrieker down, leave Berserkers' Onslaught in your hand until the Fireshrieker gets killed.

On that note, generally we want to leave most of our creatures in our hand. Play out one big guy and swing with it until it gets killed. Then play another one. We aren't going to be blanking people's Path to Exile, but we can at least make their Wrath of God hit fewer of our creatures. It's pretty awesome when someone rejoices because they killed your Rapacious One (and it's fair for them to kill it if they're worried they're going to get walloped for 20!) and you play out Rune-Scarred Demon.

Another important thing to note is the difference between a support creature and a fatty. Archetype of Aggression should be played whenever, since we're unlikely to use it as our main attacker. Pathbreaker Ibex is probably to be held, unless you're certain someone's not holding a Wrath, because the Ibex can buff itself.

Also, keep in mind Myriad does not copy any buffs; copy effects just copy the card. So, a 16/6 Caller of the Pack with Double Strike will send 8/6s at the rest of your opponents. It's still worth it, because a Malignus without any buff effects is still a huge creature coming at you, but it's an interaction worth noting.

Oh, and Chandra's Ignition will often win the game for you. Don't cast it early if you don't have to.

Thanks for reading.