While we were working on Budget Commander Boot Camp, fellow Gathering Magic writer Abe Sargent demonstrated a trait I already knew he had — he makes amazing decks. He seems to remember every single card ever printed, and thinks up synergies the way most of us breathe or blink. One example of this is his Johan deck, which leveraged Johan’s pseudo-vigilance with exert creatures in a very fun and easy-to-understand way. I liked the idea and thought it might be fun to play with while we’re off-budget here at Convertible Commander.

We get some different stuff from Johan here. Samut is pretty sneaky, hits pretty hard, and has a Maelstrom Wanderer-likehaste effect for the rest of our dudes, plus we can use her after combat to untap one of our exert dudes. This seems like a good place to make some big dudes and enter the red zone.

Samut, Voice of Dissent ? Commander| Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Samut, Voice of Dissent

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Ahn-Crop Champion
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Champion of Rhonas
• 1 Duskwatch Recruiter
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 1 Glorybringer
• 1 Godsire
• 1 Iroas, God of Victory
• 1 Johan
• 1 Karametra, God of Harvests
• 1 Khenra Charioteer
• 1 Odric, Lunarch Marshal
• 1 Odric, Master Tactician
• 1 Prowling Serpopard
• 1 Rhonas the Indomitable
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Tah-Crop Elite
• 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1 Thunderfoot Baloth
• 1 Trueheart Twins
• 1 Watchful Naga
• 1 Xenagos, God of Revels
• 1 Zealous Conscripts

• Planeswalkers (9)
• 1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
• 1 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
• 1 Arlinn Kord
• 1 Domri Rade
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Samut, the Tested
• 1 Sarkhan Vol
• 1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
• 1 Xenagos, the Reveler

• Instants (3)
• 1 Naya Charm
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 1 Decimate
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Titanic Ultimatum
• 1 Wrath of God

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Tranquil Grove

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Boros Signet
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Selesnya Signet
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1 Sword of the Animist

• Lands (40)
• 3 Mountain
• 4 Plains
• 5 Forest
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Game Trail
• 1 Gavony Township
• 1 Ghitu Encampment
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Rupture Spire
• 1 Scattered Groves
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Wooded Bastion

Buy This Deck

Rishkar's Expertise and Shamanic Revelation both refill our hands with our big guys. Soul of the Harvest pays us back each time we play a creature. Most of our card advantage is going to come from other sources, though — Decimate, for example, destroys four cards for one. Sun Titan and Eternal Witness get us things back. And Planeswalkers do a nice job of giving us solid advantages.

We’ve actually got a bit of a superfriends thing going on here. We get to look at stacks of cards, put counters on things, make tokens . . .  there’s a bunch of abilities just among the plus abilities. Once we look at minus abilities and ultimates, it gets really nuts. Thunderfoot Baloth with Ajani, Caller of the Pride’s minus ability is pretty terrifying. Samut, the Tested shows up from Hour of Devastation, too, which seems too important to pass up.

A bevy of gods from Theros and Ahmonket help us out, too. Previously mentioned Xenagos does serious damage, but Karametra, God of Harvests and Iroas, God of Victory both help out a lot as well. Rhonas the Indomitable is pretty huge and cheap, can pretty much always attack in this deck, and has a useful ability in the event we have some extra mana sitting around. Godsire may not be a god itself, but it sure likes to be untapped; with Samut out, we make a pair of 8/8s every turn we take.

We’ve got some answers, like Acidic Slime, Path to Exile, and Austere Command. It’s always good to have some point removal and some blow up the world effects. Tranquil Grove is sweet — if we don’t have Enchantments which can be destroyed, why should anybody else? And finally, just for fun, Titanic Ultimatum is here; not many decks can play it, and it’s so sweet when it resolves.

Here’s the nifty part. Our optionboard transforms our deck into a more token-focused deck which wants to take infinite combat phases.

• Aurelia, the Warleader
• Avenger of Zendikar
• Combat Celebrant
• Craterhoof Behemoth
• Hellkite Charger
• Savage Ventmaw
• Aggravated Assault
• Assemble the Legion
• Beastmaster Ascension
• Cathars' Crusade

We’ll want to drop some of the Planeswalkers — the Ajanis come to mind — and a few of the larger creatures like Thunderfoot Baloth and Glorybringer. The nice trade-off is we’ll be able to do some cool stuff like spit out tokens with Elspeth or create a bunch of little dudes with Avenger of Zendikar, Samut will give them all haste, then drop a Craterhoof on their butts and crush the world. Beastmaster Ascension should be able to fire off in as few as two (or even one) turn with the right draw, making everything we’re hitting with real big. And of course, we can combo off with Sword of Feast and Famine and any of the multiple-combat-phase effects like Hellkite Charger or Aggravated Assault. Savage Ventmaw works with that too, because with Aggravated Assault it goes infinite and with Hellkite Charger the Ventmaw pays for all but of the cost, so however much mana we’ve got determines how many combat phases we get. Xenagos will trigger each combat, doubling the power of a creature every time, so Samut, for example, will hit for 6 Double-Strike the first time, 12 the second, 24 the third . . . 

There are a few cards which didn’t make this cut, but are absolutely worth considering. Hour of Revelation from Hour of Devastation is great, but with the colors are hard to hit, which makes the often lower cost less worthwhile. Djeru, With Eyes Open would add a bit of reliability to the deck, and help keep the ‘walkers alive. Skyshroud Claim can get our Forest duals, so that might be better than Burnished Hart, but the Hart comes back with Sun Titan and goes on a Mimic Vat. There are two on-color Borderposts — Wildfield Borderpost and Firewild Borderpost – which are interesting. They’re often going to be cast for their actual costs in the deck, because there are so few basics, but they add to devotion for the Theros gods. Those might be good replacements for the Signets. Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile are really wonderful choices for Green decks, but they add an amount of consistency the deck may not need.

How would you build Samut, Voice of Dissent? Would you go Voltron with Samut and play off the Double-Strike? Go straight to tokens? Tell us what you’d do in the comments!

In the meantime, go get smashy with the nastiest rebel from Amonkhet!