Sometimes you see a new Commander and think "I want to do X with that Commander". Today's choice is an example of just that for me. Let's take a look at Amalia Benavides Aguirre.

Amalia is a Vampire (Scout! Scout Kindred is coming soon, I think) in Orzhov () colors. She's decently priced at 2 mana. We can use her to lose life without any additional cost. We get card selection and make sure we hit Land drops with her other ability, and it encourages us to gain life. Plus, if we get lucky, we can actually wipe the board with her.

But here's the thing. I saw Amalia and thought "I want to wipe the board with her then kill an opponent with Commander damage immediately." So, let's do that. Here's how.

I believe the flavor is attempting to say if you've gained enough life over time, her power will eventually reach 20 and she'll blow up the board. That's fine, but seems fairly unlikely; I imagine someone targeting her with a Swords to Plowshares before she hits 20, and besides, sometimes we're going to hit Land cards and not get the counter. The nice thing is, the card only cares what her power is immediately after the Explore, so we can get her power to 20 any way we want.

Power-boosting Auras and Equipment seem fairly obvious, but one of the biggest challenges there is we have to be exactly 20, and it can be hard to do that with a combination of Trusty Machetes and All that Glitters. No, I think the easiest way to do this is turn her into a Shade.

That's the one I remember from my earliest days in this game, but we've seen a variety of versions of this ability over the course Magic. Basically, it's firebreathing in Black, but it offers toughness as well. If we turn Amalia into a Shade and make enough , we can set her power to whatever we want, whenever we want it, which is clutch to this gameplan. We need her to have 20 power to wipe the board, but if we want to kill someone with her we need to get her to 21. If she's a Shade, we can just pay an additional mana after she's killed everything else.

Ok, we want to have Amalia wipe the board, then kill an opponent. Great. Here are the steps and the things we need to achieve to do this:

1. Amalia needs to be a Shade.
2. We need enough Black to make her power 21 - 20 for the wipe, then one more for the Commander damage kill.
3. We need to be able to gain life to trigger the Explore at precisely the right time.

Amalia the Shade | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Amalia Benavides Aguirre

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Auramancer
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Crystal Dragon // Rob the Hoard
• 1 Drana's Emissary
• 1 Griffin Dreamfinder
• 1 Heliod's Pilgrim
• 1 Lampad of Death's Vigil
• 1 Lost Auramancers
• 1 Magus of the Coffers
• 1 Moon-Blessed Cleric
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Nyx-Fleece Ram
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Shrine Steward
• 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1 Totem-Guide Hartebeest
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1 Liliana Vess

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Blood Money
• 1 Damn
• 1 Dark Petition
• 1 Dawn to Dusk
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Idyllic Tutor
• 1 In Garruk's Wake
• 1 Increasing Ambition
• 1 Plea for Guidance
• 1 Three Dreams

• Enchantments (14)
• 1 Act of Authority
• 1 Ajani's Mantra
• 1 Banishing Light
• 1 Banishment
• 1 Borrowed Time
• 1 Cast Out
• 1 Conclave Tribunal
• 1 Hieromancer's Cage
• 1 Midnight Covenant
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Quarantine Field
• 1 Recumbent Bliss
• 1 Shade's Form
• 1 Vampiric Rites

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chalice of Life
• 1 Charcoal Diamond
• 1 Claws of Gix
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Fountain of Renewal
• 1 Orzhov Cluestone
• 1 Orzhov Keyrune
• 1 Orzhov Locket
• 1 Phyrexian Totem
• 1 Pristine Talisman
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Hierarchy

• Lands (40)
• 7 Plains
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Concealed Courtyard
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fetid Heath
• 1 Goldmire Bridge
• 1 High Market
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Kabira Crossroads
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
• 1 Radiant Fountain
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 1 Shattered Sanctum
• 1 Shineshadow Snarl
• 1 Silverquill Campus
• 1 Sunlit Marsh
• 1 Tainted Field
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Vault of Champions
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 1 Vesuva

Buy This Deck Export text

Our plan is straightforward: we get our mana together, we turn Amalia into a Shade, we gain a little life with her power at 20, the world explodes, and we bump her one more power to kill an opponent with Commander damage (probably the one most likely to disrupt us the following turn). Next turn, we do the same thing again and kill someone else. Repeat until everyone is dead.

A deck like this demonstrates a couple of things. First, a linear deck can be fun. This sort of deck can be scaled up or down in power sheerly by the number of redundancies you build in. Remove all the face-down tutors and put pillowfort cards or other ways to interact and you've got a much more casual deck. Run even more tutors, and cheaper ones like Demonic and Vampiric, and you've got a deck which can attempt a rather aggressive win strategy. It's also interactive and can lead to a good amount of politics: "don't kill me, kill her! She's more likely to be able to kill you next turn! Or what about them? They've already shown you they have a removal spell!"

Second, don't let the obvious get in the way of what you want to do. With some creative thinking and logical breakdown of the necessary steps, you can make just about anything you want happen in the game. If you want to do something, don't let power level or likelihood of winning keep you from what you like: do what you want, play the game you want to play, and have fun.

What's your favorite example of doing what you want rather than the obvious? I'd love to hear about it on social media.

Thanks for reading.