Seven Deadly Commanders: Wrath

Posted on June 20, 2016

We’ve made it all the way to the end of the seven deadly sins. Today, we’re going to work with one everyone has some experience with: Wrath.

Wrath: noun. 1) Strong, stern, or fierce anger; deeply resentful indignation; ire.

2) Vengeance or punishment as the consequence of anger.

In Magic, we’ve got “wrath effects,” named after the original board wipe, Wrath of God. Anything which destroys all creatures — even if it also destroys other stuff, like Akroma's Vengeance — becomes a “wrath effect.” Even unusual ones, like Shatterstorm or Back to Nature, are “artifact wraths” or “enchantment wraths.” (Things which destroy all lands, like Armageddon, seem to be the exception, though they often draw deeply resentful indignation.)

Here’s the thing, though: the word “wrath” in Magic is jargon — a definition specific to our game. Wrath, in traditional lexicon, means what it says up there. It’s intense anger, and sometimes the response of that anger. So while it would be perfectly reasonable to make a deck filled with wrath effects — blow up the board over and over — I’d rather build a deck which represents anger as a concept.

A few more things, though. Again, there’s an argument for making a super-flavorful deck packed with cards with names expressing wrath like Shrine of Burning Rage and Anger of the Gods. That could be fun, and certainly would be really neat to look through — there are a lot of cards with great, angry names. But this series has been about theme more than anything else — we’ve had a deck which was more thought experiment than playable stack, a fun pun on the meaning of one of the words, and a deck designed to make our opponents feel the very sin we’re talking about. That’s great, and Commander should be about what we want it to be as builders and players — a super-themed deck can be great fun.

But we can capture a feeling, a theme, in different ways. Have you ever played an EDH game where you’ve got some great board state, and you keep attacking, and things keep happening to stop you? Your creature is continually Maze of Ith’d, or someone keeps Fogging, or someone reminds you you’ve got to pay because of their Propaganda. It’s infuriating! All you want to do is hit them with your dudes! Your frustration builds until finally — FINALLY — you get through. At that point, it no longer matters who wins the game. The game is a victory for you, because you got in.

Or what about the person who keeps hitting you with their Sun Titan, even though they could attack someone else? All you need is to topdeck a kill spell, but it’s not showing up, and all your blockers are being eaten by the value creature.

Finally, for this particular article I wanted to build a deck which is competitive. Yup, it feels angry (I think), but it’s also going to try to win the game, not just demonstrate a deadly sin. I hope to demonstrate a theme deck does not need to slave to the theme so much that a good card which helps the deck doesn’t belong. It may not be as themed, but the point can be demonstrated and mana rocks can still be played.

Oh, we’re also going to raise the budget to $100. That’s a permanent change — $75 isn’t what it was two years ago when I started this experiment.

So let’s get our Wrath on.

Child of Alara

Five-color land bases are challenging for budget lists, but we’ve got reasonable options. It’s not a legacy mana base, but we don’t need that kind of speed or availability of colors. We can take a few turns to set up. We start with 10 tri-lands, the five shards from Shards of Alara block and the five wedges from Khans of Tarkir block. Command Tower taps for everything. The Karoos from Ravnica block will slow us some, but we know our rocks shouldn’t last long and Karoos increase the mana we generate without artifacts. Then we’ve got some utility, Reliquary Tower, Skarrg, the Rage Pits, and Blighted Woodland (which ramps us nicely), plus a Rogue's Passage so we can sneak our general through, should we want that sometime. Buried Ruin can get us back a key artifact, and High Market is our target for Expedition Map. The ability to kill Child when we want is quite powerful. Basic lands show up as targets for ramp effects like Kodama's Reach and Peregrination, as well as our Sword of the Animist. Finally, we’ve got a Darksteel Ingot and Commander's Sphere, which tap for any color, and a bunch of rocks which tap for colorless but, like the Sphere, can be sacrificed for cards: Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, and Dreamstone Hedron. That’s nice because we can sac them when Child blows up, though it can make sense to hold back ramp for the wrath you know is coming.

We’ve got a few solid ways to draw cards as well. Staff of Nin and Mind Unbound both hang around and just draw extra cards. Even if they blow up, if they net us a couple of extra cards before they go to the ’yard they’ve done their work. Erebos, God of the Dead is nice because, even though we’ll never bring him online, we can use his ability to draw cards whenever we have extra Black mana. Plus, he survives the Child’s wrath. Momentous Fall is an awesome way to draw a bunch of cards and, y’know, blow up EVERYTHING. Syphon Mind is worth running whenever possible. And Sphinx's Revelation, that old Standard chestnut, has dropped in price enough to run here — it’s amazing what an end of turn Rev for seven or ten can do.

Our primary threat is Child of Alara. We’ve got a 6/6 trampler to work with, which isn’t bad. We’ve got some pieces of equipment to bump it up a little. At 7 power or higher, of course, we go from a four-hit commander to a three-hit commander, but really we’re just going to swing away. The fun thing is our opponents are in a pickle. Don’t block? Take 6 commander damage. Block? Lose ALL YOUR STUFF.

We’ve also got an Omnath, Locus of Rage. Here’s a great flavorful addition which can really get out of hand, especially with Burnished Hart or Explosive Vegetation, and the Karoos help keep us playing lands. If everyone has been depleted by multiple Child explosions, Omnath could just win the game for us.

We’re very creature-light here, obviously. Instead, we get a bunch of spells which let us do things creatures don’t. We don’t really need much of a board presence; creatures just die anyway, and our general will do a good job of keeping the board clear for us. But spot-removal spells let us make some choices. We can attack into the guy with the 8/8 and the 4/4, but kill the 8/8, keeping Child alive. Or we can kill the 4/4, making Child die if they don’t want to take all the damage we’re throwing.

So we’ve got a suite of excellent, efficient spot removal cards. Modern staples like Terminate and Dreadbore join with classics like Terror and Doom Blade and more flexible ones like Valorous Stance and Aurelia's Fury. Bojuka Bog is here to help stop graveyard shenanigans, and some solid artifact and enchantment removal, mostly of the 2-for-1 variety. Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation, of course, are great, and Relic Crush and Return to Dust get rid of two things each. Kirtar's Wrath is the only classic wrath effect, mostly, and Akroma's Vengeance is Child for when Child’s not available. Boom.

There are a few interactions worth highlighting. The first is Elixir of Immortality and High Market. With both on the battlefield (and Child, of course), we can activate the Elixir. With the activation on the stack (note the Elixir is still on the battlefield, because it doesn’t sacrifice itself), we activate High Market and sacrifice Child of Alara. Child will blow up everything, including our Elixir. At that point, Elixir’s ability will resolve, gaining us five life and shuffling our graveyard (including anything we just put there) back into our library.

Trinket Mage searches up Expedition Map to get High Market (or Rogue's Passage or Reliquary Tower) or Elixir of Immortality, depending on what we feel like doing. However, there aren’t enough tutors to make the deck play too consistently. Most of the time, it will be up to our opponents if the world is going to end. That’s as it should be, and makes for a fun and varied game.

We’ve also got quite a few pieces of equipment to help out our attack plan. Many give haste: Swiftfoot Boots, Chariot of Victory, Fleetfeather Sandals. Ring of Valkas and Ring of Thune are both pretty fun too, giving counters and relevant abilities. The best one is probably Sword of Vengeance. That +2 to power is important. Argentum Armor is pricey but gives us even more options to blow things up and makes Child a 2-hit killer. Then we’ve got a few other fun ways to benefit Child. Mark of Fury makes an appearance from Anax and Cymede decks everywhere, Seething Anger can be bought back, and Runes of the Deus grants double strike and +2/+2. Slap that on Child and watch people groan. (16 commander damage? Trample? Or, uh, lose all your stuff?)

Increasing Vengeance can be fun, ‘cuz there are a lot of instants and sorceries here, and a bunch of them enjoy being copied. Heck, a copied Seething Anger can be pretty silly.

Child of Alara ? EDH | Mark Wischkaemper

Commander (1)
1 Child of Alara-

There is an argument here for more gods. Xenagos, God of Revels turns Child into a 12/12 hasty trampler as soon as it comes into play, which is rough on opponents. The budget wasn’t quite there, but you could swap it in for Chromatic Lantern, run a different mana rock there, and still fall under the budget. Some of the gods don’t do much, but some do, and they don’t go anywhere when Child does its thing.

How would you build a deck to represent wrath?

Suit up Child and swing. Let ‘em block! Show your opponents what your wrath looks like.

Total cost: $97.59

Take a look at the previous Seven Deadly Commander Articles: