There are few things I love more than an old-school {R}{G} deck. My very first deck, back in 1993, was a {R}{G} deck with Llanowar Elves, Fire Sprites, and later, when the Dark came out, Scarwood Goblins. The Force of Nature from that deck is framed around here somewhere.

So as I was plundering the depts of the Uncommon Legends from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, one particular larcenous boxer entered the ring.

You know what's a good thing? When you get more power than the total Mana you paid for it. Jolene is no slouch, coming in at 3 mana with 4 power. Even better, whenever she (or anything else with power 4 or greater) attacks, she makes a Treasure token. Then (for a cost) we can even chuck those Treasures at something to deal one final damage and polish something (or someone) off. It's the punch Ali never gave Foreman on the way to the mat.

There are a few ways you can take Jolene. There is a Treasure deck here, chock full of Treasure makers and a bunch of ways to exploit them. There's also a decent Voltron deck in Jolene, with the power and the ability to ping something in the event you don't like the blocking or something. But as a guy who lived and breathed Naya during Shards of Alara block (even when everyone else just played Esper all the time), I thought it would be fun to make a high-power Kindred deck. (Back in Shards it was Power 5. Jolene is power 4, and there are some which care about power 3. We're going to focus on 4 with some synergy from both directions.)

Jolene, Plundering Pugilist | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Jolene, Plundering Pugilist

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
• 1 Beastbond Outcaster
• 1 Boundary Lands Ranger
• 1 Cactusfolk Sureshot
• 1 Challenger Troll
• 1 Dragonborn Champion
• 1 Drumhunter
• 1 Fanatic of Rhonas
• 1 Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1 Goldspan Dragon
• 1 Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1 Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Ilysian Caryatid
• 1 Jolene, the Plunder Queen
• 1 Leafkin Avenger
• 1 Magda, the Hoardmaster
• 1 Mosstodon
• 1 Ohran Frostfang
• 1 Outcaster Trailblazer
• 1 Paleoloth
• 1 Railway Brawler
• 1 Rhonas the Indomitable
• 1 Roxanne, Starfall Savant
• 1 Ruby, Daring Tracker
• 1 Spearbreaker Behemoth
• 1 Temur Sabertooth
• 1 Vaultborn Tyrant
• 1 Whisperer of the Wilds

• Instants (10)
• 1 Bolt Bend
• 1 Entish Restoration
• 1 Flames of the Raze-Boar
• 1 Gold Rush
• 1 Great Train Heist
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Smuggler's Surprise
• 1 Temur Battle Rage
• 1 Wild Slash
• 1 Winds of Qal Sisma

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Barrage of Boulders
• 1 Blessing of Frost
• 1 Crater's Claws
• 1 Hunter's Edge
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Mouth // Feed
• 1 Roar of Challenge
• 1 Savage Punch
• 1 See the Unwritten
• 1 Shamanic Revelation

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Colossal Majesty
• 1 Dragon Grip
• 1 Elemental Bond
• 1 Furious Rise
• 1 Garruk's Uprising
• 1 Glorious Sunrise
• 1 The First Iroan Games
• 1 Where Ancients Tread

• Lands (40)
• 12 Snow-Covered Forest
• 7 Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Castle Garenbrig
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Emergence Zone
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Game Trail
• 1 Highland Weald
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Raging Ravine
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rockfall Vale
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Sandstorm Verge
• 1 Scavenger Grounds
• 1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 War Room

Buy This Deck Export text

The idea here is to build a deck much like a Creature-type Kindred deck. In decks like that, one tends to put a lot of Creatures of that Creature type into the deck, plus run spells that go with whatever the theme the type gives you and cards which help your type. In this case, we're going to be building around Creatures with power 4 or greater. We're going to do some things for flavor, but we're not going to be exclusive - if a card doesn't say "power 4 or greater" on it, it doesn't mean it's out if the effect helps what the deck is trying to do.

Big Creatures means big mana, and here's where we leaned into flavor. Of course we have 40 Lands, to make sure we hit Jolene on time, but hopefully before we cast her we cast one of our mana dorks. We have a few guys like Fanatic of Rhonas, which works marvels with Jolene. Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea is a little pricier at three mana, but she adds two and buffs herself up. Leafkin Avenger can make a LOT of mana with the right board state. I had one game in testing where Outcaster Trailblazer's extra mana saved my curve. Glorious Sunrise is mostly here for the card draw, but adding three mana isn't bad either. Entish Restoration is Harrow but better, because it'll almost always pull three Lands for us. Of course Jolene is also making Treasure tokens for us, and she's not the only one. Goldspan Dragon can churn out a lot of Treasure.

Draw is also interesting. Drawing cards in Green decks with big Creatures is super easy, but less so if we keep with the theme. So instead of Rishkar's Expertise and Momentous Fall, we're going with Elemental Bond, Garruk's Uprising, and Outcaster Trailblazer. We have a few of these "draw a card if you have a big dude" effects, so watch because they stack and most of them aren't "may" abilities, which means you might wind up with more cards than you actually want. Bonders' Enclave was built for us. Furious Rise seems great here, and Vaultborn Tyrant is too, though the deck will function fine with another big Creature here (looking at you, Rampaging Baloths) if you don't want to shell out the cash for that guy. We also have a few ways to get a bunch of cards at once, including Hunter's Insight and Hunter's Prowess. Blessing of Frost and Shamanic Revelation can both fill our grips (Blessing of Frost is also the reason for the Snow-Covered Basic Lands). Ohran Frostfang would be an example of our Kindred Enablers: it doesn't say the text, but the effect is fantastic in our deck.

I specifically want to talk about Drumhunter, because I love Drumhunter. A 2/2 for four mana who taps for mana (why? Because in Shards of Alara Naya, a four-mana spell which ramped for one colorless could mean a turn five Bull Cerodon, which won games in a hurry) and draws us cards for playing big guys? Sign me up. Every facet of this Creature has been useful in at least one game of Commander. Anyway, he draws at an unusual time and only when we have to have a 5 or greater power Creature, so keep your eyes on that when he's out.

We have a lot of synergy going on here, and Jolene herself has power 4 so she turns most of our synergy on, but it'll help us to have some Creatures with high power. It's fun when the Creatures are both synergistic and big, like Challenger Troll, but sometimes we just need something big, like Ghalta, Primal Hunger. Railway Brawler is awfully nice to our other Creatures, and Temur Sabertooth is just darn useful. Ideally, we get a few of these out and turn them sideways to win. That Challenger Troll can probably come in useful there, as can our fliers and Trample-enablers. Roar of Challenge looks like a fun way to end someone's game. Barrage of Boulders takes away the one-player limit. You can always Crater's Claws someone to death with all that Treasure mana.

We have some interesting ways of interacting with the board. The obvious stuff is Beast Within and Blasphemous Act, but why do that when we can do things on-theme? So we get that Crater's Claws, and we get that Barrage of Boulders, and we play them proudly because they reward us for having our big dudes. Hunter's Edge can take out something pretty substantial. Savage Punch, of course, is great, and I'm liking Flames of the Raze-Boar here. Smuggler's Surprise is awesome because in addition to improving our board, we can Heroic Intervention most of our Creatures. Winds of Qal Sisma can keep us alive through a crackback, or make it so all our blockers survive. Where Ancients Tread isn't perfect, but it's still worth the slot. Five damage is a lot.

The really fun thing about Kindred decks to me is watching the interactions come together. I love following all the triggers and tracking all the various effects. "Okay, I have a 13/8 - no, wait, I'll activate Rhonas here, so it's a 15/8 - with Trample... twice, because Garruk's Uprising is a thing... Deathtouch, and all of your Creatures which can have to block it. Oh, and just because I can, I activate Spearbreaker Behemoth and make it Indestructible. How many Creatures do you have?" This deck is filled with interactions - things that happen when big Creatures enter, things that happen when they attack, things that happen because they exist. We might end up making a bunch of Satyr tokens with Anax. Cactusfolk Sureshot might turn every one of our Creatures into a Bull Ceradon. Maybe Hellkite Tyrant snags enough junk (along with all our Treasures) that we just randomly win. The interactions will be fun, and different most games, so the deck should be fun to play with and against.

While this deck will often be quite quick and throw a lot of damage around, not to mention force the table to interact and choose blockers and such, you'll also get the pleasure of playing with a Commander whom most people will have to read and many will wonder why you're playing. There are better Commanders, right? But when they see just what the deck can do, they'll sit up and notice.

There are a bunch of different cards you could choose for this deck. Beastmaster Ascension might be great. Domri, Anarch of Bolas almost made the cut. There's an argument to not sticking so hard to the theme and just running better cards, like Cultivate and Harmonize. Some Equipment might be nice, like Lightning Greaves or the Reaver Cleaver. Even a humble Loxodon Warhammer could be good. But me? I'm going to stick to my guns and stay on-theme.

Thanks for reading.