The more Commander I play, the more I realize this game, for me, is about having fun. It's not about winning. "Winning" a game gives me a goal toward which to work, because often the point of my deck is to try to win. That goal is worthwhile. But if I miss that goal - if I don't win - it doesn't mean I haven't achieved the point of playing the game, which is to have fun.

Last night I played and lost two games of Commander. In both cases, the games were great fun. Everyone had fun, and there were plenty of cool plays. Everyone's deck demonstrated what it could do. Everyone looked like the threat at different points. We were excited to watch other players' decks do their thing, excited when our own decks worked, enjoyed seeing how things played out, and were all happy with the outcome of the games. It was a fun night with friends, playing a game we all enjoy.

This leads me to feel even more strongly that building decks like the one I'm doing today is a good idea. You don't have to play the strongest new Legend or run all the staples. You can play goofy old Legendaries and "bad" three-mana rocks and your favorite cards (::cough:: RIDE DOWN ::cough::) and have a great time playing. You won't dominate every table where you sit down. You'll lose more often than you win. But you'll have fun playing cards you love, pulling off silly interactions, looking at the artwork you want to see, or whatever else you want to do.

Today's pairing of Commanders has fewer than 270 decks on EDHREC.com, which is criminal in my opinion. The two Commanders alone get an opponent half way to dead via Commander damage. I think we can make this work.

This combination is nuts. Karlach gives us an extra Combat Phase. Sword Coast Sailor makes it so our Commander can't be blocked (we just have to attack the player with the most life). Put them together and with just these two cards we're doing 10 Commander damage, unblockable, in a single turn. Let's see if we can make that 21, shall we?

With a five-mana Commander and needing that Commander to play our game, we're going to want to hit our Land drops. Karlach is also likely to die a time or two along the way, and we'll need to be able to pay the tax. Forty Lands should do a decent job of getting us enough mana to do our thing. We've got a few utility Lands like Rogue's Passage (in case we need to kill someone other than the player with the highest life total) and Rivendell, plus a few duals and some Basics. This should get us there. While we're at it, we're also running 10 Mana Rocks, all at odd mana costs. Sol Ring is bonkers, of course, but beyond that it's three-mana rocks which tap for one. Why? Because we cast Sword Coast Sailor on turn two. Always. Every time. Just play it out. So turn one tapped Land, turn two Sword Coast Sailor, turn three Rock, turn four Karlach, turn five kill someone. That's the order of play. (I've said before in this column one advantage of three-mana rocks is they have further utility, so they're valuable in the later game as well, cashing in for cards or otherwise doing good things.)

Because we'll often be doing Combat Damage twice or even four times a turn (more on that later), we're going to draw cards with things like Curiosity and Bident of Thassa. We've got a few Auras and a couple of Artifacts which do this, and it works great. If we're not attacking, we're not winning anyway, so our Combat Researches and Coastal Piracys will keep the cards we need moving into our Hand.

We need to do 21 damage with Karlach to kill a player. Karlach has five on the card. Sword Coast Sailor doubles that to make it 10. If we can give Karlach one extra power and Double Strike, that number goes to 24 and people are dead. So, we have just about every possible way to give something Double Strike in our colors in the deck. We have Fireshrieker and Berserkers' Onslaught. We have Blood Mist and Brass Knuckles. We have Lizard Blades and Inquisitor's Flail, which doesn't give Double Strike but works fine for our purposes. We also have Twinferno and Temur Battle Rage-style effects to grant Double Strike at Instant Speed. Jeska, Thrice Reborn is a bit of overkill but she's cheap and makes Karlach lethal too, so we'll take it. (Note Jeska cares about how many times you've cast a Commander, and Sword Coast Sailor counts as a Commander. So, we can cast Jeska before casting Karlach and she'll survive.)

We've also got several ways to buff up Karlach's power; fortunately, we don't have to do much, so we can run things like Rabbit Battery. While we're at it, we've also got a number of ways to grant Haste, and Rabbit Battery does both. Urabrask the Hidden also slows down attacks on us, Bloodsworn Steward gives the power boost and Haste we need, and Rising of the Day is a great new Enchantment for us, doing exactly everything we need it to do.

We have a few random spells to answer occasional issues, mostly around things that will kill Karlach. Dispel is a great example - we attack, someone attempts to Swords to Plowshares, and we Dispel it and still get through. Pongify can stop our own death by big Creature, and Swerve is a particularly funny one to pull off.

If all goes well, we're killing our first opponent on turn five. Land, Sword Coast Sailor, rock, Karlach, Double Strike and +1 and we're off to the races. The game is over on turn seven.

One card worth noting is Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar. With Kediss out, when Karlach hits someone (say for 24), each other opponent will also take 24 damage. However, note this isn't combat damage, so it's not tracked as Commander damage - it doesn't make all our opponents die at once. However, it will bring everyone's life totals down pretty substantially, so it's worth the slot. Makes them easier to kill with other stuff in case our plan gets foiled.

Karlach, Sword Coast Sailor | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus

• Background (1)
• 1 Sword Coast Sailor

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Bloodsworn Steward
• 1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar
• 1 Lizard Blades
• 1 Rabbit Battery
• 1 Urabrask the Hidden

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jeska, Thrice Reborn

• Instants (15)
• 1 Bolt Bend
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Counterflux
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Critical Hit
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Raking Claws
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Shore Up
• 1 Swerve
• 1 Temur Battle Rage
• 1 Twinferno
• 1 Uncaged Fury
• 1 Unleash Fury

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Preordain

• Enchantments (12)
• 1 Aqueous Form
• 1 Berserkers' Onslaught
• 1 Blood Mist
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Combat Research
• 1 Curiosity
• 1 Curious Obsession
• 1 Eel Umbra
• 1 Rage Reflection
• 1 Reconnaissance Mission
• 1 Rising of the Day
• 1 Uncivil Unrest

• Artifacts (24)
• 1 Beamtown Beatstick
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Bonder's Ornament
• 1 Boots of Speed
• 1 Brass Knuckles
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Cursed Mirror
• 1 Dueling Rapier
• 1 Embercleave
• 1 Fireshrieker
• 1 Gavel of the Righteous
• 1 Goggles of Night
• 1 Goldvein Pick
• 1 Grappling Hook
• 1 Heraldic Banner
• 1 Honored Heirloom
• 1 Inquisitor's Flail
• 1 Lantern of Revealing
• 1 Letter of Acceptance
• 1 Mask of Memory
• 1 Midnight Clock
• 1 Patriar's Seal
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Two-Handed Axe

• Lands (40)
• 13 Island
• 13 Mountain
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Frostboil Snarl
• 1 Rivendell
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Training Center
• 1 War Room

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This is the sort of hilarious thing I love to do at Commander tables. It's fast, it's decently fair, it's kind of a combo deck but kind of not, and it's surprising, because people see Izzet () and aren't expecting this kind of Combat-centered Voltron win.

There are more ways to double (or triple) damage; Angrath's Marauders and City on Fire are great examples. They are often really expensive to cast, and several of them require , but if you find you're reliably either not getting the doubling you need or those things get destroyed, there are more options. Additionally, Silent Arbiter could be a great addition if you regularly play with faster decks. Sure, we'll often kill someone on turn five, but if your opponents are all strong on board by then, Silent Arbiter can at least slow things down to where our one-hit kill gets there.

Let us know what unloved Commanders you're playing! How's it going? Hit us up on socials!

Thanks for reading.