Sometimes my mind wanders. Does yours? I hope so: it can be a time of great creativity. Your brain, going off in whatever direction it wants, without concern for what people think or any responsibility... it's freeing. And it can lead to some excellent ideas. Some crazy ones, too.

Recently, I found myself wandering off and thinking about a couple of things. First, I was thinking about how I believe very strongly that most Commander decks run too few Lands. I also was thinking about unusual deck-building restrictions and how they often lead to some wacky and fun decks. So, I put the two things together: can I build a deck which runs fewer than 40 Lands correctly, but also has an unusual restriction? How about nothing costs more than one mana?

My first thought was to build a deck using just Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh as the Commander (I'm a fan of running Partner Commanders without a Partner), but I decided to look at the Partner Commanders and see what my options were. At one mana, there is one: Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful. I actually adore Yoshimaru, and Boros () is perfect for a Voltron/Equipment build (the direction I was thinking anyway), but all the wonderful pupper does is add to the equation. I suppose there might be a deck in the 20 Legendary permanents with a Mana Value of one (run, like Zurgo Bellstriker and The Ozolith, plus everyone's favorite monkey these days, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer), and if you're willing to expand to two mana, it opens up our possibilities quite a bit more with 70 Legendary permanents in the colors and cost. (Note to self: build Rograkh and Yoshimaru Legendary Permanents with MV two or less for a future article.)

If we look at two-mana Commanders with Partner, though, our possibilities increase a lot. There are a number of them which could be interesting, but I was looking primarily for one thing: card draw. I wanted a Partner for Rograkh who would allow me to draw into more action with excess mana. That made the choice fairly simple.

Thrasios gives us access to two more colors, which actually doesn't matter all that much but there you go, and more importantly, lets us dump extra mana into his ability to put Lands into play or just straight draw. In the event we get wrathed, pouring our mana into a couple activations of Thrasios and getting some of our engine back could make a big difference; additionally, he can dig us to that one more Land we need or just put a touch more gas in the tank to push us over the finish line. Either way, that ability is what we are looking for.

Additionally, he's the most expensive card in our deck!

Rograkh and Thrasios | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commanders (2)
• 1 Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh
• 1 Thrasios, Triton Hero

• Creatures (2)
• 1 Rabbit Battery
• 1 Simian Sling

• Instants (1)
• 1 Magnetic Theft

• Enchantments (15)
• 1 Aqueous Form
• 1 Audacity
• 1 Bind the Monster
• 1 Bubble Snare
• 1 Combat Research
• 1 Curiosity
• 1 Curious Obsession
• 1 Dust Corona
• 1 Furor of the Bitten
• 1 Hammerhand
• 1 Keen Sense
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Spider Umbra
• 1 Taste for Mayhem
• 1 Wizard Class

• Artifacts (44)
• 1 Adventuring Gear
• 1 Arc Spitter
• 1 Avacyn's Collar
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Beamtown Beatstick
• 1 Bloodforged Battle-Axe
• 1 Bone Saw
• 1 Bonesplitter
• 1 Boots of Speed
• 1 Bronze Cudgels
• 1 Bronze Sword
• 1 Ceremonial Knife
• 1 Colossus Hammer
• 1 Copper Carapace
• 1 Darksteel Axe
• 1 Dueling Rapier
• 1 Elven Bow
• 1 Explorer's Scope
• 1 Flayer Husk
• 1 Ghostfire Blade
• 1 Giant's Amulet
• 1 Golem-Skin Gauntlets
• 1 Greataxe
• 1 Honed Khopesh
• 1 Infiltration Lens
• 1 Leonin Scimitar
• 1 Mantle of Tides
• 1 Masterwork of Ingenuity
• 1 Mirran Banesplitter
• 1 Prying Blade
• 1 Rosethorn Halberd
• 1 Sai of the Shinobi
• 1 Short Sword
• 1 Shuko
• 1 Sigil of Distinction
• 1 Skeleton Key
• 1 Skyblinder Staff
• 1 Skyclave Pick-Axe
• 1 Strength-Testing Hammer
• 1 Tormentor's Helm
• 1 Trusty Machete
• 1 Utility Knife
• 1 Vanquisher's Axe
• 1 Zephyr Boots

• Lands (36)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 1 Ash Barrens
• 1 Blighted Cataract
• 1 Blighted Gorge
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cathedral of War
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 1 Fire-Lit Thicket
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Forge of Heroes
• 1 Frontier Bivouac
• 1 Gateway Plaza
• 1 Hall of Tagsin
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Lumbering Falls
• 1 Memorial to Genius
• 1 Memorial to War
• 1 Raging Ravine
• 1 Roadside Reliquary
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Wandering Fumarole
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Rivendell

Buy This Deck Export text format

The idea here is fairly simple. Play Rograkh on turn one, along with a Land and, if you can, an Equipment (or stick an Aura on him - Hammerhand is great on turn one). Then, start swinging, remembering Rograkh has Menace. Every turn, we'll drop more Equipment and the occasional Aura, buffing Rograkh up even more, to the point where Menace is no longer the thing that needs to be noticed but First Strike. Attack your opponents till they're dead.

If that doesn't work out, you can play out Thrasios and start drawing extra cards to put more beef on Rograkh or draw into the occasional answer to deal with something locking us up - though I confess, we are very thin on answers.

We're running 36 Lands. It's very likely some of you are saying "that's how many I run and my deck isn't all 1-drops!", and I'm here to tell you you're running too few Lands. Cut some cards, bump up to 40 Lands, and watch how much more smoothly your deck runs. Anyway, ideally we have two (or more) in our opening hand. Because our first Creature doesn't cost anything, we can play a tapped Land on turn one, so we have a bunch of them. I looked for Lands which gave us abilities we could use with excess mana, like Bonders' Enclave and Alchemist's Refuge and Rogue's Passage, of course. And because we're a Voltron deck, Cathedral of War seemed pretty good. Kessig Wolf Run is a nice addition - that thing can end a game out of nowhere.

We don't need any ramp, because once we have two or 3 mana on the 'field we'll run just fine. Hopefully we have something which is pulling extra cards so we can cycle extra Lands away, like Zephyr Boots, or we're just rolling with Thrasios to drop the extra Lands straight to the 'field.

It turns out the Equipment which draws a lot of cards costs more than more often than not, but we do a have a few things. Strength-Testing Hammer is kind of fun, sometimes giving us a huge buff and all the while running the possibility of drawing us a card. Skeleton Key is one of many like Zephyr Boots, which loots us through our deck quite nicely. Infiltration Lens is a favorite of mine, and I think woefully underplayed - often times people don't want to take 12 damage or whatever, and would much rather hand you two cards. In this deck it might be a bit of a win more (if people are blocking Rograkh they're probably already in trouble), but still, worth the cost of admission. Curiosity, its slightly-less-good-sibling Curious Obsession, and its Timeshifted cousin Keen Sense are all great as long as you can give Rograkh at least one power. Combat Research is probably the best of the bunch, drawing cards, buffing Rograkh and protecting him all for . And Wizard Class is a slow, cheap Divination, but it also will help us continue to buff up our champion.

Then we have less obvious forms of card advantage, like making tokens, Treasures, and whatnot. Bloodforged Battle-Axe is probably the best (and most out-of-hand) example, but Beamtown Beatstick and Prying Blade are both dead useful, and even something like Elven Bow and its random Elf Token can matter. Be careful with your triggers, because it can start getting quite complex as the stuff piles on top of Rograkh. Take your time.

We have a couple of Creature-control Auras in Bind the Monster and Bubble Snare, but that's pretty much it in terms of answers. There are other things we could run, and I would encourage experimentation if you actually build and play this deck - does Lightning Bolt make the cut? How about Nature's Claim? What about Red Elemental Blast? There are several options, including tons of ways to destroy opposing Artifacts and even some straight-up Creature destruction in Pongify. My thinking was to start with very few solutions and see what the problems are, then build to those, rather than the other way around, but hey, you do you.

The real fun comes in all the things we can do past casting cost. Giant's Amulet is fun, giving us a big ol' token to hang around and be in the way while we attack with Rograkh. We can sacrifice Blood Tokens we make with Ceremonial Knife. We can draw cards with Arch of Orazca, make Powerstone tokens with Hall of Tagsin, throw Kobolds at the problem with Kher Keep, and of course, we can Scry and draw cards with Thrasios. In all my play-testing, I have used all my mana every turn.

This deck, among other things, happens to be relatively cheap at around $72. The biggest culprit here is Thrasios, who's currently sitting at around $22. If you don't have one and don't want to buy one for this deck, I hear you. Unfortunately, there's no other comparable Partner - Thrasios is the only one who adds two additional colors and, more importantly, gives us that excellent card draw ability (which is, I suspect, a big part of his current price). You could do the deck with Yoshimaru, and there's probably a deck there, but it's not going to be this deck at all, so I haven't helped you. Keleth, Sunmane Familiar would still change the deck a lot, but at least you could stick to the Voltron theme. If you go to three mana for your Partner, there might be something with Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist, but it won't be as good; losing Kessig Wolf Run, among other things, just hurts. I suspect what I'd suggest you do is simply drop the Partner entirely and run the deck as Mono-Red. Add a single remaining Equipment - hopefully one which provides card advantage - and run a riskier version of the deck. It'd be wild!

You could try to spend more money to make it "better", but I'm not sure how. Ancient Tomb? Why? Sol Ring? For what purpose? It becomes a different deck then, which is fine but isn't this deck anymore, so I wouldn't bother.

I'm curious if any of you have built a deck with this kind of restriction. How has it gone? Please let us know on social media, and I'll make sure I hear about it.

Thanks for reading.