How do you choose a new commander?

I was looking through the various Wilds of Eldraine legendary creatures with an eye for what my next column would be about. There were some spicy nuggets in there, to be sure. I scrolled past a few that have cost reduction built in, a really interesting burn-oriented commander, and came upon one that got me asking a question I had never asked myself before.

What would a deck built around Scouts look like?

That led to other questions... "Do my readers know the Welcome to Night Vale podcast well enough for me to drop references to the Night Vale Boy Scouts into my writing?" If you don't know Welcome to Night Vale, you should do yourself a favor and go dig up that old podcast - it's a weird one and a pretty good time if you have a taste for something out of the ordinary, and at times out of this world.

I'm no longer following Welcome to Night Vale, but I couldn't shake that question. Scouts are a creature type that isn't on my radar as one that matters much. An army might need a significant number of Soldiers or Warriors, or whatever creature type you are building around, but it's not likely to need more than a few Scouts. How would it look if they became the focus of a deck?

There's no better way to find out than to brew up a list, step back and give it a good look. First let's scout out the card we'll be building around.

This three-mana Simic commander is a Vedalken Scout with 1 power and 3 toughness. Those stats aren't very inspiring, but like most commanders, he's got a few tricks up his sleeve. He can tap to make 2 mana, but that mana can only be used to cast spells with mana value 5 or greater, or spells with X in their mana cost. He can also tap for a Blue mana to let you draw a card and then discard a card.

Scouts aren't likely to cost 5 mana or more, and they are even less likely to have X in their casting cost. I'm not holding my breath for WotC to cast the first ever X-costed Hydra Scout, but a little digging showed that there have been plenty of Scouts printed over the years.

Scouting Out a Game Plan

The first thing to know about Scouts is that they are all about lands. Some, like Wood Elves, Primeval Herald, Frontier Guide, Silkwing Scout, and Viridian Emissary, can tutor a land directly onto the battlefield. Others, like Borderland Ranger, Sylvan Ranger, Realm Seekers, and Nissa, Vastwood Seer, can tutor a land into your hand. That means that not only are we unlikely to be missing any land drops, we'd also to well to consider a landfall strategy.

Landfall is a tried-and-true way to squeeze extra advantage out of an already powerful strategy - playing extra lands so you do more on your turn. Whether you're playing lots of small spells or just having an easier time playing big spells, producing and using more mana than anyone else at the table is always a good thing.

This list runs Rampaging Baloths and Scute Swarm, both of which can get out of hand quickly with lots of land drops. The former makes 3/3 Beast tokens and the latter makes insects until you get 6 or more lands, at which point it makes additional Scute Swarm tokens. I'm also running a pair of Scouts with landfall triggers. Tireless Tracker is a Human Scout who makes Clue tokens when lands hit the battlefield and Tireless Provisioner is an Elf Scout who makes Food or Treasure tokens when a land hits the battlefield.

The Scouts led me to landfall and landfall led me to a bunch of creatures, not the least of which is a 5/5 Green Elemental creature named Avenger of Zendikar. Avenger and the very high creature count in today's list made me throw in Craterhoof Behemoth and to tutor those two up, there's no better card than Tooth and Nail. That's one wincon.

Another possible wincon is a 2/2 Elf Scout Ally named Turntimber Ranger. It will make a 2/2 Green Wolf creature token when it or another Ally enters the battlefield. Throw in Maskwood Nexus or Arcane Adaptation to make all of my creatures Allies, and each new Wolf token will also be an Ally and will trigger Turntimber to make another Wolf. I'll make as many as I want and that's a second wincon.

I also decided that a Navigator is as thematically close to a Scout as you can get and the list has plenty of creatures with enter-the-battlefield triggers, so Deadeye Navigator would fit in nicely. I threw in the cards that go infinite with Deadeye because I'm clearly not worried about avoiding combos.

For good measure I decided Scouts exploring the woods might come across their fair share of Squirrels so Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest would fit in nicely as well. Between these wincons, my landfall triggers and a Coat of Arms, there's every reason to think this list could win a few games despite being loaded up with way, way too many Scouts.

Troyan, Gutsy Scout

If this list has way too many combos for your taste, or you don't see the point of loading up a Scout tribal list with any combos at all, I hear you. I don't mind mixing high and low, janky and competitive strategies into the same list, but I think you could drop out all the combo nonsense and have a fun, low-powered list that will reliably play out a ton of lands. You might replace the combo pieces with bigger threats like Vigor, Terastodon, and other familiar faces that play a "fairer" game of Magic.

I'm not sure there's much point in trying to tune this list up, but it could be done. Sylvan Library would fit in nicely, but if you tune this deck up enough you'll probably start looking at other commanders. One of the many Tatyovas could represent a step up from a commander that is really just a glorified mana dork.

Troyan, Gutsy Scout | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Troyan, Gutsy Explorer

• Creatures (45)
• 1 Aven Surveyor
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Borderland Ranger
• 1 Coralhelm Guide
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 District Guide
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Frontier Guide
• 1 Great Whale
• 1 Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea
• 1 Heartwood Storyteller
• 1 Jeskai Windscout
• 1 Lonis, Cryptozoologist
• 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 1 Merfolk Branchwalker
• 1 Merfolk Seastalkers
• 1 Merfolk Skyscout
• 1 Merfolk Wayfinder
• 1 Nael, Avizoa Aeronaut
• 1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
• 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
• 1 Palinchron
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Primeval Herald
• 1 Primordial Sage
• 1 Quirion Ranger
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Realm Seekers
• 1 Regal Force
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1 Silhana Wayfinder
• 1 Silkwing Scout
• 1 Skyclave Aerialist
• 1 Skyrider Patrol
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Sylvan Ranger
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Turntimber Ranger
• 1 Viridian Emissary
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Woodland Sleuth

• Instants (7)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Kindred Summons
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Swan Song

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Tooth and Nail

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Arcane Adaptation
• 1 Concordant Crossroads
• 1 Earthcraft
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Squirrel Nest

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Coat of Arms
• 1 Maskwood Nexus

• Lands (37)
• 16 Forest
• 10 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 The Grey Havens
• 1 Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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I didn't sweat the details on the mana base for this list, but with as many land-focused as I'm running, I'm comfortable running 37 lands. If you're of those 40-land purists, it won't be hard to identify three of the Scouts that bring the least to the party. I always say that I'd rather be mana-screwed than mana-flooded, but plenty of smart people feel the other way and prefer to run 40 lands regardless of how much ramp and land tutors they've got in the deck.

I'm not personally tied to the Scout creature type, but lots of you were probably Boy Scouts and some of you might decide a Scouts deck is just the thing to round out your deck collection. I think that's great, but don't be fooled into thinking this is some overpowered creature type. You'll probably have a lot of fun with your gutsy Scouts deck but unless you go the extra mile you may have trouble at high powered tables and Troyan is definitely not a cEDH commander.

This summer I've gotten into the habit of occasionally packing 2 lists into a single column. I don't do that often, but today's commander is just begging for a second look. I may be done talking about Scouts, but that just means I'm getting ready to talk about Vedalkens!

Talkin' Vedalkens

It was an easy step to go from wondering what a Scout deck might look like to building a list and figuring out a strategy. It took building that list and giving it a good look to come to another question. I don't know why it didn't occur to me at the outset, but I found myself asking...

What would a deck built around Vedalken creatures look like?

I'm not steeped in the lore of Magic well enough to even know exactly what a Vedalken is, but I've looked at plenty and I have a few ideas. They care about artifacts, so they are probably smart and crafty. They seem like they probably live a long time and they remind me of Vulcans from Star Trek just a little.

As it turns out, my gut reaction was spot on. A little research online and I confirmed that Vedalken are tall, thin, hairless Blue-skinned humanoids. They're very smart, are usually printed on Blue cards, and are often Artificers or Mages. They replaced Merfolk as the go-to Blue creature for Wizards of the Coast for a while, though Moonfolk showed up in Kamigawa.

When looking through Vedalken creatures I saw a few things that begged for a second look. I found a Vedalken that cared about charge counters. There was also a good number of Vedalken starting in Kaladesh who cared about energy counters. I've never been big on building a hundred card deck around either of those themes, at least not in Simic, but there was another theme that seemed like a build path worth considering: Artifacts!

Master of Etherium, Etherium Sculptor, and Chief Engineer can all make my artifacts cheaper, though the latter only does so by giving my artifacts convoke. Master of Etherium and Unctus, Grand Metatect give my artifact creatures +1/+1. Padeem, Consul of Innovation gives my artifacts hexproof. Synod Artificer can either tap or untap artifacts for me. Schema Thief can make me token copies of artifacts my opponents control. These guys just love their artifacts.

There are also lots of Vedalken who have other interests. Some, like Troyan, are mana dorks. Vedalken Plotter will let me exchange control of a land I control and a land an opponent controls. Vedalken Mastermind will bounce a permanent I control to my hand. They're not all useful, but they have a lot of different abilities and I was genuinely surprised at how varied and versatile this creature type is.

V is for Victory

V is also for Vedalken, but this is where I look at ways this deck can actually win games. Troyan, Gutsy Scouts had lots of ways to close out games, but a Vedalken deck built around Troyan is going to go in an different direction.

Grand Architect is a notable Vedalken Artificer who gives Blue creatures I control +1/+1. He can also turn target artifact creature Blue until end of turn and he'll let me tap an untapped Blue creature I control to add two colorless mana. That mana can only be used to cast artifact spells or activate abilities of artifacts. Fortunately I've got an artifact creature who pairs with Grand Architect quite nicely.

Pili-Pala is an artifact creature who can untap for 2 mana to add one mana of any color. Combine it with Grand Architect and bing bang boom, you can make infinite mana. Staff of Domination can take that mana and draw you as many cards as you like. From there, this deck has a number of convoluted ways to close out the game.

Filigree Sages is another Vedalken with a cool party trick. For 3 mana, one of which must be Blue, it can untap target artifact. If I've got a mana rock like Chromatic Orrery or Nyx Lotus on the field, I can tap for more mana than it costs to untap and make infinite mana. I'm running Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter as well, though I suspect the list might benefit from a few more artifacts that draw cards.

Infinite mana isn't that useful if you don't have anywhere to put it, but Helix Pinnacle should help me with that. This Green enchantment will let me pay to put tower counters on it. At the beginning of my upkeep if there are 100 or more tower counters on Helix Pinnacle I win the game.

Troyan, Gutsy Vedalken

The fact that a few notable combo pieces happened to be of the Vedalken persuasion went a long way to persuading me to run those combos in this list. If combo isn't your jam, I think this build could be turned into a "fair" no-combo list. You could drop out Staff of Domination, Pili-Pala, Aetherflux Reservoir and pick another lane to drive in. You might throw in a few artifact creatures like Steel Hellkite and a Colossus or two and see how it goes.

Troyan, Gutsy Vedalken | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Troyan, Gutsy Explorer

• Creatures (37)
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Chief Engineer
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Court Hussar
• 1 Crystal Seer
• 1 Dispersal Technician
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Filigree Sages
• 1 Grand Architect
• 1 Gyre Engineer
• 1 Isperia's Skywatch
• 1 Jace's Archivist
• 1 Lumengrid Augur
• 1 Master of Etherium
• 1 Mizzium Meddler
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Nimble Innovator
• 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
• 1 Pili-Pala
• 1 Sage's Row Denizen
• 1 Sage's Row Savant
• 1 Schema Thief
• 1 Sharding Sphinx
• 1 Synod Artificer
• 1 Temur Sabertooth
• 1 Troyan, Gutsy Explorer
• 1 Unctus, Grand Metatect
• 1 Vedalken Anatomist
• 1 Vedalken Archmage
• 1 Vedalken Certarch
• 1 Vedalken Dismisser
• 1 Vedalken Engineer
• 1 Vedalken Heretic
• 1 Vedalken Humiliator
• 1 Vedalken Infiltrator
• 1 Vedalken Mastermind
• 1 Vedalken Plotter

• Instants (6)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Dramatic Reversal
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Worldly Tutor

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Fabricate
• 1 Overrun
• 1 Shamanic Revelation

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Concordant Crossroads
• 1 Ensoul Artifact
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Helix Pinnacle

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Encroaching Mycosynth
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Isochron Scepter
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Domination
• 1 Vedalken Orrery
• 1 Vedalken Shackles

• Lands (37)
• 10 Forest
• 16 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 The Grey Havens
• 1 Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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I'll freely admit that I am still curious as to whether an energy counter Troyan deck would have enough support to actually work well. Vedalken creatures do a lot of things, but energy counter creatures are in all five colors and Troyan is limited to Blue and Green. I just didn't think there would be enough support to make that theme worth exploring in a singleton 100 card deck.

Final Thoughts

Troyan may not have an incredibly high ceiling as a commander, but I think there's definitely fun to be had with a Troyan deck. I don't know that I'd build with quite so many Scouts or with such a focus on Vedalken if I were to build this in paper. These lists are essentially first drafts and sleeving up the deck for real will nearly always see a few tweaks and modifications before the deck even sees a game.

Commander deckbuilding is an iterative process and for me part of the fun is constantly tweaking and experimenting with a list even if a change will make it less powerful. I like variety, and making changes either up or down in competitiveness can give me a new experience. I also happen to play at an LGS where I end up seeing a wide variety of power levels, sometimes even in a single night.

I may have picked a lower powered commander for my first Wilds of Eldraine column, but I expect I will be looking at some more serious decks in the weeks to come. This is an exciting new set and there are some really exciting commanders in it.

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