I love a good deck-building challenge. I also love Orzhov (). I love it so much I hardly ever build it, because I fear I won't live up to my own expectations. But when playing the Bloomburrow Prerelease, I just knew I had to build a Bat deck.

Three mana 3/3 with two relevant abilities? Check. Kindred leaning? Check. Fun ability to play with? Check. This should be fun.

There are a few ways to go. For one thing, there is a Tiny Leaders (or Tiny Leaders-style) deck here; ignore the Bat thing and just play a bunch of small permanents you sacrifice for value, then return with Zoraline. That's probably a Flicker-based deck, though some of the tech from this deck will also work. But flickering Creatures which make tokens or do damage or gain life or whatever, then sacrificing them and returning them to do it all again could be really fun.

This could also be a Bat Kindred lifegain deck, using Felidar Sovereign and the like as a win condition. There are a lot of Bat token generators out there, they tend to be cheap, and with a critical mass of them one could really get rolling in the life.

But to me, the interesting thing is wanting to do Bat Kindred, but I don't want to lose my Bats after they come back. That means getting rid of the Finality counters. Assuming we can do that, we can continue to recycle our Bats, sending them in to die and resurrecting them, knowing they'll safely be able to die again and come back again.

Zoraline, Cosmos Caller | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Zoraline, Cosmos Caller

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal // Temple of the Dead
• 1 Basilica Screecher
• 1 Blind Hunter
• 1 Courier Bat
• 1 Deep-Cavern Bat
• 1 Duskhunter Bat
• 1 Etched Slith
• 1 Eyetwitch
• 1 Fain, the Broker
• 1 Ferropede
• 1 Ghastly Gloomhunter
• 1 Grimclaw Bats
• 1 Gurmag Swiftwing
• 1 Hex Parasite
• 1 Hexavus
• 1 Malakir Familiar
• 1 Mirkwood Bats
• 1 Mutated Cultist
• 1 Regal Bloodlord
• 1 Ruin-Lurker Bat
• 1 Sanctuary Warden
• 1 Sanguine Evangelist
• 1 Scholar of New Horizons
• 1 Screeching Scorchbeast
• 1 Skeletal Vampire
• 1 Stirge
• 1 Thief of Blood
• 1 Thrull Parasite
• 1 Vampire Hexmage
• 1 Welcoming Vampire

• Instants (9)
• 1 Abstruse Appropriation
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Batwing Brume
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Despark
• 1 Fracture
• 1 Mortify
• 1 Treacherous Greed
• 1 Village Rites

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Aether Snap
• 1 Damn
• 1 Kaya's Wrath

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Bat Colony
• 1 Etchings of the Chosen
• 1 Tocasia's Welcome

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Bounty Board
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Crowded Crypt
• 1 Desecrated Tomb
• 1 Herald's Horn
• 1 Hourglass of the Lost
• 1 Power Conduit
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sword of the Animist
• 1 Tarrian's Journal
• 1 Well of Lost Dreams

• Battles (1)
• 1 Invasion of Fiora // Marchesa, Resolute Monarch

• Lands (40)
• 5 Plains
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Access Tunnel
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Captivating Cave
• 1 Cavernous Maw
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Concealed Courtyard
• 1 Echoing Deeps
• 1 Fetid Heath
• 1 Forgotten Monument
• 1 Hidden Courtyard
• 1 Hidden Necropolis
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Nesting Grounds
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Pit of Offerings
• 1 Promising Vein
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Shadowy Backstreet
• 1 Shattered Sanctum
• 1 Shineshadow Snarl
• 1 Sunken Citadel
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Urza's Cave
• 1 Vault of Champions
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 1 Volatile Fault

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Aside from the normal things a Commander deck needs, like card draw, ramp, and removal, we also need Bats and ways to remove counters from things. Fortunately, we have a good amount of both.

Even with the cheap Commander, don't skimp on the Land count. We've got the normal 40 Lands, and play-testing showed we really want all 40. Several of our Lands fix, but a good way to reduce the overall cost of this deck would be to run fewer of the fancy dual Lands and more Basics, plus maybe Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. Access Tunnel and Rogue's Passage are both great here; we're relying on being able to send Zoraline in because she flies, but sometimes there's just no way to break through and those Lands are great. Nesting Grounds is the one we really want, because it allows us to pull a counter off something, and Urza's Cave should probably go get it. We also have a bit of a Cave theme, running most of them. That's pretty much just for Bat Colony, though some of the abilities could be useful. (And come on, where are the bats gonna sleep during the day?)

Three-mana Commanders are tricky to ramp into. There's the fast mana of cEDH, plus Sol Ring, but otherwise it's going to be pretty hard to get Zoraline faster than turn three. So, rather than try, we're not going to bother. Instead, all our ramp comes down after Zoraline, and all of it does something. I'm a fan of the rocks which draw cards, so we have Commander's Sphere and Bonder's Ornament. Crowded Crypt should end up with a good number of corpse counters. Hourglass of the Lost can do a nice job of bringing back a few Bats if we haven't been able to return them with Zoraline, or just return something clutch if we need it. I think Bounty Board is a solid inclusion, encouraging interaction and getting your opponents to do your dirty work. The one exception to the three-mana rocks is Sword of the Animist; it's too good if we hit it in our opening Hand, since we're going to be attacking with Zoraline a lot and getting a Land for our troubles is fantastic.

We make a lot of 1/1 Bat tokens, so Skullclamp should come in handy. Tarrian's Journal is a nice sacrifice effect for a Bat we can return, which also draws us a card, and it transforms into a Land which works in tandem with Zoraline. I like Welcoming Vampire and Deadly Dispute here, too. (If nothing else, Bats should fly with the Vampires for the sake of the flavor.) Much of our card advantage (and mana usage) is going to come from making tokens and recycling our stuff. We should have enough draw to keep us going, and when in doubt, bring something back from the 'yard!

Fortunately, our Bats fly, and we have a lot of them, so we should be able to chip in damage throughout the game. That's our basic plan, though we also have several rather large Bats which can do a bit more. Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal // Temple of the Dead can't be returned with Zoraline, but he should be rather disruptive and a couple of attack steps with him should pack a punch. Screeching Scorchbeast should also do some damage, especially with Menace. Mostly, though, it's going to be attacking with little Bats, both token and non-token variety.

One reason I like so much is because the removal is practically perfect. We get Anguished Unmaking and Kaya's Wrath. We get Damn and Despark. It's all really good, and it's really flexible as well. We should be able to deal with a big threat or several over the course of a game.

Finally, we have to get rid of those pesky Finality counters. We have several ways. Nesting Grounds is probably the best one, since we are unlikely to have more than one or two at a time, but just in case, we have things like Fain, the Broker, which gives us a Treasure for our troubles, Power Conduit, which will buff up our Creatures in addition to helping them stay out of Exile, and Etched Slith, which can sneak through with Menace and buff itself up while eating those pesky Finality counters. Thief of Blood and Aether Snap are good should we end up with a few, and double as fantastic ways to deal with Superfriends decks, since they'll instantly kill all the 'walkers on the 'field. I love the synergy with Sanctuary Warden, who, for the low-low price of attacking in the air for five, will: remove a Finality counter from one of our guys, draw us a card, and leave behind a 1/1 Token (not a Bat, but still).

This deck is probably a decent 75% deck. It should win about one in every four games, and should have a chance in most. Making all the Tokens and using silly draft-chaff common Bats will be great fun. Once people realize what you're doing with the Finality counters, it should get really fun, since they'll quickly tire of getting whacked by a Gurmag Swiftwing every turn.

This is also a good deck if you have a friend who's new to Commander - or maybe you are. Perhaps you just played your first Prerelease and opened one of these in your packs, and thought "this is the Commander for me!". If so, this deck has the advantage of both being fairly straightforward, but requiring you to start to track a decent variety of triggers and pay attention to how you do things ("How many Caves did I use to cast Bat Colony?" "Does anyone have more Lands than I do?" "How many Creatures are you attacking me with? Because I have Batwing Brume here..."). And the lines of play should be complex enough to keep a more established player interested, too.

If you've ever wanted to attack with a colony of Bats, here's your chance!

Thanks for reading.