A while back I made a very difficult decision. I pulled apart my favorite deck because it was one of those decks that was too powerful for casual or even mid-powered play and too slow for today's cEDH. It was playable at high powered tables but would still elicit eye-rolls and the occasional groan. I pulled apart my Narset, Enlightened Master deck.

Narset was a beast. If she got to swing, she'd probably win the game nearly half the time without anyone else getting another turn. It was super fun for me, but not much fun for anyone else at the table, and I do care that other people have fun. It wasn't an easy decision, but it was probably the right decision.

That deck was tricked out pretty nicely with foils and expensive cards, and that meant that I suddenly had three OG dual lands that were looking for new homes. The Tundra ended up in my Heliod, the Radiant Dawn deck. The Volcanic Island went into one of my favorite decks: Vadrik, Astral Archmage. That left me with a Plateau and a newfound need to build a Boros (Red/White) deck.

I was initially drawn to Queen Kayla bin-Kroog. One of the guys in my Thursday night playgroup put her together and just crushed us in a game, and that game stuck with me. After putting her aside with the intention of eventually building the deck, I just never got around to it. I spent some time going through my binder of legendary creatures but none of the Boros commanders in my collection called to me. I had set aside a few cards for the Queen Kayla build, and had been very excited to use my new full art foil Zirda, the Dawnwaker because it's such a gorgeous Magic card.

That's when it struck me - I should just build Zirda. I had no idea if I'd be able to come up with anything fun or interesting but I'd have a pretty card in the command zone. I had a foil, not a "halo foil" but it was still a stunning card and that was enough for me to pick her.

Zirda is a companion, but the restrictions for using her as a companion don't apply if I'm using her as my commander. Her "party trick" is pretty simple. Abilities I activate that aren't mana abilities cost 2 less, but that cost reduction can't reduce them to less than one mana. She can also tap for 1 mana and make target creature unable to block this turn. That last part isn't a big deal, but reducing costs can be a very big deal depending upon how you build your deck.

Bargain Shopping

Looking through my commons and uncommons was actually a lot of fun when working on this deck. I was very focused on finding cards with activated abilities that cost two to four mana. I figured activation costs of one mana wouldn't get reduced at all and much higher activation costs wouldn't benefit as much by a reduction of two.

Let's set up an imaginary scenario where I have 12 mana available and permanents with activated abilities at 2, 3, and 4 mana. With Zirda on the field those activations would cost 1, 1, and 2 mana. For now I'll assume I have whatever colors of mana I need, though in actual play having the right colors will be a concern.

I'd normally be able to activate Luminarch Ascension six times to make 4/4 white Angel creature tokens, but Zirda will let me do it 12 times. That's 48 power worth of Angels, assuming I've got my four quest counters. Mobilization lets me pay 3 mana to make a 1/1 white Soldier creature token. With my imaginary 12 mana, I'd make four but with Zirda I'll pay 1 mana for each activation and get an even dozen Soldiers. Dawn of Hope is my 4 mana example and will let me create a 1/1 White Soldier creature token with lifelink. That's not a great rate, but Zirda will let me pay 2 mana less so I'll still make a half dozen soldiers.

The sweet spot is 3, giving me a huge discount and making abilities that can don't require a tap particularly good. Activated abilities that cost a lot of mana aren't unplayable in a Zirda deck but I've got a keen eye for a good bargain and I'm not going to spend more mana than I have to.

Artifacts that draw cards are a must in this deck. Tower of Fortunes costs four mana and can draw you four cards, but at the whopping cost of eight mana. Even reduced by two mana, I don't like the feeling that I'll probably spend most of my turn paying for that card draw. Instead of running Tower of Fortunes I want to maximize my mana discount so I'm running Jayemdae Tome and Arcane Encyclopedia. They cost three and four mana respectively, which isn't nothing, but their activations are low enough that Zirda will have me pay 1 and 2 mana for my extra card. Drawing four is great, but paying six mana is a lot in Boros. I may eventually swap Tower of Fortunes into this deck but I don't want it in this first draft.

Combat Matters

These may not be combat tricks, but this deck is going to want to go to combat and I'm going to want to be able to be relevant on the battlefield if other plans don't come together. That means playing threats beyond just spitting out random creature tokens. Those threats will usually have activated abilities.

Lambholt Harrier is a 2/2 Wolf with an activated ability for three and a Red that will make target creature unable to block this turn. I can use this to help other players get through blockers if we're playing archenemy, or I can just use it to make sure I can get through when I attack. Inner-Flame Igniter is an Elemental Warrior who will let me buff my creatures' power by 1 for the cost of two and a red. They'll get first strike if I can activate that ability three or more times in a single turn. Mana Geyser could turn this guy into a bona fide wincon if I've got enough creatures on the field.

Steadfast Unicorn has a special place in my heart. I had this card in my Commander Sealed Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer deck and it really put in work. For three and a White my creatures can get +1/+1 and gain vigilance until end of turn. All these costs get reduced by two, which makes these pump abilities powerful in the late game if I've been building my board, keeping up with my land drops, and I'm able to make a lot of mana.

Sometimes all you need is one creature to finish off a table. Sun-Collared Raptor can be pumped +3/+0 for three mana, one of which must be red. If Zirda is on the field that means one red mana per activation. For lots of creatures that might not be a big deal, but this little Dinosaur has trample. Again, a Mana Geyser could set Sun-Collared Raptor up to outright kill someone if they're low on blockers, low enough on life, and don't have a removal spell on hand.

Hellkite Igniter is one of two Dragons in this list. This Dragon can get +X/+0 where X is the number of artifacts I control. That can mean some major damage, and if I can activate it multiple times it might just be a lethal threat to someone. Hoard-Smelter Dragon is the other, and can destroy target artifact for three and a red. It'll get a temporary bump to its power equal to the destroyed artifact's mana value.

The third creature shown above is one I've tried to make work in lots of decks and I think this might be just the right fit. Lord of Shatterskull Pass is a Minotaur Shaman that has Level Up for one and a Red. It starts as a 3/3 and when you level it up once it becomes a 6/6. If you level it up to level 6, it will deal 6 damage to each creature defending player controls when it attacks. The cost of all that leveling was always the challenge, but when that cost is reduced by half it becomes much easier to achieve.

Oops All Tokens

Zirda is able to combo off with a lot of different things. I don't love decks that always combo off the same way, but I don't really mind combos. They're legal in the format, they're fun to try to get off, and if you're not tutoring for them there is no guarantee that you'll see them all that often.

Basalt Monolith is in my list and can make infinite colorless mana with Zirda because she will reduce the cost of untapping it from three mana to one mana. Grim Monolith would also work, but my only copy of that old combo piece is currently in my Meria, Scholar of Antiquities deck. Mana Echoes is another card that can really put in work in the right deck. When a creature enters the battlefield with this enchantment under my control, I'll get colorless mana equal to the number of creatures I control that share a creature type with it. That means that all of those creature token generators that have reduced mana costs will eventually produce mana.

The problem with these cards is that nearly all of my activated abilities require at least one Red or white mana. Fortunately I've dealt with this issue before. I've got Stonework Packbeast, Prismite, Signpost Scarecrow and Crossroads Candleguide in the mix. These artifact creatures can all let me pay 2 mana to produce one mana of any color I want. Zirda does not help reduce the activation cost of these combo enablers, as they are mana abilities. They will be essential for being able to comboing and they'll also be very useful for turns where I simply need a single extra mana of a specific color.

Hateflayer has an activated ability that lets it untap for two and a Red and it deals damage equal to its power to target creature or player. Damage to a creature will be in the form of -1/-1 counters, as it has wither. It pairs really well with Elemental Mastery, which lets a creature tap to create X 1/1 Red Elemental creature tokens with hate into play where X is its power. Those creatures get removed from the game at end of turn, but with enough red mana this could push out a lot of damage and a lot of Elementals. With Mana Echoes and a color fixer, I'll just kill the table.

There is one creature in the deck that has an activated ability that doesn't require colored mana and it's worth a mention because it can win the game on the spot with the right enablers. Spawnsire of Ulamog costs a whopping 10 mana and I'm not running ways to cheat it into play. It has annihilator 1, can create Eldrazi Spawn creature tokens and it can let you cast Eldrazi cards from outside the game. That last part costs an even-more-whopping 20 mana and doesn't actually work in the Commander format. We simply don't have sideboards. You can "rule zero" it and allow Spawnsire to work in your playgroup, but you'll be breaking a core rule of EDH, and not everyone likes to do that.

Spawnsire's cheaper ability is what I care about. His 4-mana activated ability will let me create two 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature tokens. An Eldrazi Spawn can be sacrificed to produce 1 mana, and that 4-mana activation should only cost me 2 mana, so the math is pretty simple. I'll pay 2, make 2 Spawn tokens, sacrifice them to make 2 mana and do it again and again and again. With Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge on the field I can kill the table with enter-the-battlefield damage.

These combos aren't actually that compact. Basalt Monolith and Zirda will still need a Stonework Packbeast to deal with color fixing and I'll still need an outlet to turn that mana into something that can help me win the game. This deck probably will end up being in the mid-to-high power range, as that kind of strategy still doesn't fit as well in low powered play even in the late game.

Odds and Ends

This list will definitely get modified as it sees play. I could see Grim Monolith fitting in nicely, and I definitely think more tutors would make sense. Ring of Three Wishes would fit in nicely but is still an expensive way to tutor in EDH. Before I get to the list I should share a few more odds and ends that work nicely with Zirda's cost reduction ability.

Glint-Horn Buccaneer isn't the only discard/draw option in this deck, but it's by far the strongest. With Zirda on the field, both Glint-Horn Buccaneer and Oread of Mountain's Blaze will let me pay 1 Red mana to discard a card and draw a card. Glint-Horn turns that discard into damage by dealing 1 to each opponent whenever I discard a card. This card famously goes infinite with Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator by creating treasure when a Pirate I control deals damage to an opponent, but Malcolm is in blue and can't be included in this list. If you have a Malcolm deck in your meta, you should run Mirage Mirror and ways to make copies of that combo piece. It's always amusing to win with copies of other players' combo pieces.

I've got another Pirate that works beautifully with Zirda. Captivating Crew lets me pay three and a Red to gain control of target creature until end of turn. The new crew member will untap and gain haste. Because Zirda drops that activation cost to one and a red, I should be able to steal a lot of creatures. I won't be able to deal with a real go-wide token deck, but I should be able to nab key creatures and send them at players who can block and kill them. I might even be able to kill someone with their own creatures or get up to some other nonsense. This activated ability can only be done at sorcery speed so I won't be stealing someone's Avacyn, Angel of Hope in response to them putting a boardwipe on the stack, but it's still a powerful tool that should make this deck much more flexible and fun to play.

Evra, Halcyon Witness is a 4/4 Avatar with lifelink and the ability to pay 4 mana to switch my life total with its power. If I'm at 30 life, I can go to 4 life and make it a 30/4. It has lifelink so I'll gain that life back if it does damage, but that four-mana activation cost was always a bit steep. You don't want to just activate it once - you need to be able to activate it a second time in case someone intervenes and tries to mess with your plans. When that activation costs only 2 mana, it's suddenly much easier to have an extra two mana available. After Evra's first life/power swap and damage trigger, you should be up 4 life from your starting life total. From that point onwards you have a huge Avatar and every time it deals damage you'll be gaining a big chunk of life.

Zirda, Bargain Hunter

This deck is a first draft and is definitely missing key pieces. I built it from cards I had available, and many of my "staples" in Red and White were already in other decks. Grim Monolith is a must-have and if I had an extra copy I'd throw it in. If I had extra copies I would also throw in a bunch of high-powered staples like Chaos Warp, Esper Sentinel, Dockside Extortionist and Jeska's Will. Staples are staples for a reason. They generally just make good decks better.

I may find myself specifically looking to drop cards out so that I can add more equipment for the foil Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei that I threw into the mix. That Goblin Samurai lets me pay 5 mana, two of which must be Red, to make a 5/5 Dragon spirit creature token, but I have to control an attacking modified creature. The current list has a smattering of equipment and ways to put +1/+1 counters on creatures but not enough. I really want to make Goro-Goro work in a deck, and paying 3 to make a 5/5 Dragon is something I want to make happen.

Zirda EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Zirda, the Dawnwaker

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Akroan Phalanx
• 1 Blaring Recruiter
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Captivating Crew
• 1 Crossroads Candleguide
• 1 Dawnglare Invoker
• 1 Evra, Halcyon Witness
• 1 Furnace Gremlin
• 1 Glint-Horn Buccaneer
• 1 Gorilla Shaman
• 1 Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei
• 1 Hateflayer
• 1 Hellkite Igniter
• 1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
• 1 Inner-Flame Igniter
• 1 Lambholt Harrier
• 1 Lion Sash
• 1 Lord of Shatterskull Pass
• 1 Loyal Unicorn
• 1 Oread of Mountain's Blaze
• 1 Prismite
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Signpost Scarecrow
• 1 Sky Crier
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Spawnsire of Ulamog
• 1 Steadfast Unicorn
• 1 Stonework Packbeast
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Sun-Collared Raptor

• Spells (6)
• 1 Boros Charm
• 1 Enlightened Tutor
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Teferi's Protection
• 1 Mana Geyser

• Enchantments (12)
• 1 Aggravated Assault
• 1 Anointed Procession
• 1 Braid of Fire
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Dawn of Hope
• 1 Elemental Mastery
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Luminarch Ascension
• 1 Mana Echoes
• 1 Mobilization
• 1 Sacred Mesa
• 1 Smothering Tithe

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Arcane Encyclopedia
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Battlemage's Bracers
• 1 Boros Signet
• 1 Dispeller's Capsule
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Jayemdae Tome
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Symmetry Matrix
• 1 Thaumatic Compass Flip
• 1 Wand of Wonder
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble

• Lands (37)
• 13 Mountain
• 13 Plains
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Isolated Watchtower
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Plateau
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Sundown Pass

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If you wanted to tune this list down, you could drop out the Plateau and the combo pieces and still have a lot of fun with cards that have activated abilities in the 2-4 mana range. You might keep the color fixers even though they don't get a cost reduction. Adding in a bunch of equipment would make sense, as they each have an equip cost and those activations are often in the 2-4 mana range. Casual games go longer, so you could also run a few cards with higher activation costs just to see if they work.

To tune this deck up you'd probably add Grim Monolith, load in some faster mana rocks, and run more tutors and interaction. This list is admittedly light in removal and currently has zero boardwipes. I'm also running under 40 lands, which is low for a Boros deck, but I've got lots of mana rocks and artifacts that can tutor up lands. I always prefer to be mana-screwed than mana flooded, but that's a personal choice and you should run more lands if you'd rather have a little more mana and a few less options in your games.

Final Thoughts

If you're wondering where my first LoTR column is, I don't blame you.

I had been expecting to play a four player LoTR precon game last Thursday but those plans fell through. That game was going to be the focus of this column but I had to switch gears at the last minute and chose to write about this list instead.

It's a refreshing feeling to be excited about a new Boros deck. Red/White is famously one of the worst color pairs in Commander. I am optimistic that Zirda will be fun to play and might actually stay together for a while. The deck has a lot of interesting things it can do, and I hope to play it enough times to see a bunch of them and to figure out what direction I want to start upgrading it.

It's also a refreshing feeling to be excited about a Universes Beyond product. I'm still thinking that I may keep my LoTR cards in their own pool, only sparingly having cards cross over between Magic lore cards and LoTR cards. I'm currently thinking that any Magic card that is "lore-neutral" will be OK to bring into a Lord of the Rings deck. That means Brainstorm or Chaos Warp would be fine, but cards like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Krenko, Mob Boss, or even Urza's Ruinous Blast would be a "flavor fail" and wouldn't be among my options for building around a Lord of the Rings deck.

As I write this column I'm looking forward to playing in my LGS's Lord of the Rings prerelease this weekend. I'm also eagerly expecting the delivery of four precon decks and a collector booster box, so I'll be up to my earlobes in Universes Beyond cards for the next month or so. I'll be pivoting to writing about that set next Monday, though I have no idea what cards I'll be covering yet.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!