This week I'm going to dive into an odd little commander who lends herself to a voltron build. This deck leans towards playing lots and lots of artifacts with an emphasis on artifacts that can sacrifice themselves for some benefit. The reason, and the catch, is that we'll have to rely solely upon colorless spells and permanents because our commander is... a Gingerbread Knight!

This 3/1 Food Knight has a bunch of keywords, but only if an opponent controls a planeswalker. Trample, hexproof, and haste aren't game-breaking, but they sure will help us out, so we might want to hold back from killing our tablemates' last planeswalker.

Whenever an artifact I control is put into a graveyard from play, I'll get to put a +1/+1 counter on her and I'll scry 1. I can pay 2 mana and tap her to gain life equal to her power. That might not seem like much, but if she's going to die or get exiled anyways, it's a way to get one last bite... er... benefit out of her before she goes.

This build will try to win games through combat damage. Syr Ginger will be my primary focus, but I've got a few other threats I can play if she isn't available for some reason.

Artifact Sacrifice

This commander may not give me all of the usual suspects in WUBRG colors for generating Treasure and Clue tokens, but that doesn't mean there aren't cards I can run to spam out as many of those shiny little trinkets as possible.

Bucknard's Everfull Purse is a delightful little artifact that lets you get at least one Treasure and possibly up to four Treasures. Once you use it, you pass it to the player to your right so it turns into this interesting little subgame where you see who will use it and who will keep it to themselves and deny their tablemates the fun of seeing if they can ramp a little. I've got to shout out the Temple of the False Pod podcast for reminding me about this card in a recent episode.

I'm also running Collector's Vault, Gilded Pinions, Tempting Contract, Treasure Chest and Treasure Map. Treasures are the best tokens for Syr Ginger by a long shot. Tamiyo's Journal will give me a Clue on my upkeep and I can tap it to sacrifice three of them to search my library for a card and put it into my hand. I'll be running Academy Manufactor so if I turn a single Treasure, Clue or Food into one of each. I've got Wayfarer's Bauble and Expedition Map as ways to tutor up lands and also load up Syr Ginger with +1/+1 counters.

While Burnished Hart might feel a little slow for today's commander decks, getting two lands and putting a counter on my commander was enough for me to throw it into the mix. Most of my creatures aren't able to sacrifice themselves. Skyscanner will draw me a card on ETB, Pilgrim's Eye and Skittering Surveyor will tutor a basic land to my hand, Hedron Crawler can tap for mana, and both Jhoira's Familiar and Foundry Inspector reduce the cost of my artifact spells.

Two of my artifact creatures deserve a special mention. Pentavus and Foundry Inspector both enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters and let me pay mana to remove counters from them to create artifact creature tokens. I can then pay another mana to sacrifice the token and put a +1/+1 counter back onto the original creature. Pentavus creates Pentavites and Thopter Squadron creates Thopters. This 2 mana back-and-forth will put a +1/+1 counter on Syr Ginger, giving me a way to spend extra mana and pump up my commander.

Becoming a Threat

Adding +1/+1 counters isn't really enough to make Syr Ginger a problem for the table. She can be blocked with a Saproling and it takes a lot of counters to turn a 3 power commander into a legitimate threat. That tells me I need to run ways to get her through blockers and to do a bit more damage.

Equipment is the easiest way to let me get an attacker through blockers. Trailblazer's Boots give her nonbasic landwalk, so she'll be unblockable for any opponent who controls a nonbasic land. Prowler's Helm is in the list and makes equipped creature unblockable except by Walls. Commander's Plate gives protection from each color that's not in your commander's color identity, which works great for a colorless commander. I'm even running Gilded Pinions, which gives flying and creates a Treasure when it enters the battlefield.

Pumping Syr Ginger up is another matter. Nettlecyst is a living weapon, creating a 0/0 Black Phyrexian Germ creature token and attaching to it when it enters the battlefield. It gives +1/+1 for each artifact and enchantment I control. Strata Scythe will have me exile a land from my library and will give +1/+1 for each land on the battlefield with the same name as the exiled card. I'll be exiling a Wastes, and will likely be the only person at the table playing those basic lands, but it can still be a nice bit of pump for the equipped creature. Blackblade Reforged also cares about lands, giving +1/+1 for each land I control.

With a smattering of evasion and pump equipment I should have a good chance at making Syr Ginger a threat. I'm running The Ozolith so that all those +1/+1 counters won't just be lost if she gets exiled or killed. That legendary artifact will get her counters and will let me put them back onto a creature at the beginning of combat on my turn.

I'm running a few other creatures that could be a problem for my opponents if Syr Ginger gets locked down, imprisoned in the moon, turned into an Elk or has some other misfortune happen to her. Metalwork Colossus is a 10/10 Construct who could end up costing only a few mana. Platinum Angel only has a 4/4 body, but as long as it's on the field I can't lose the game and my opponents can't win the game. Wurmcoil Engine is a 6/6 with deathtouch and lifelink and if it dies I'll create a 3/3 deathtouch Wurm token and a 3/3 lifelink Wurm token. Stonecoil Serpent has reach, trample, protection from multicolored, and with an X casting cost can be a little blocker early in the game or a big problem later in the game if I've got lots of mana to pour into that X value.

Dealing with Problems

Colorless decks are often bad at dealing with problem permanents and threats on the stack that simply cannot resolve. Simply put, you're not going to be playing a control game with this deck, but there are a few answers in the list.

Scour from Existence is an incredibly overcosted removal spell that is as versatile as it is expensive. Exile target permanent is pretty powerful, even if you'll probably have to wait until the late game to be able to cast it. Spatial Contortion gives +3/-3 to target creature until end of turn, but I see "destroy target creature with toughness of 3 or less" when I read this card. Titan's Presence requires me to have a colorless creature in my hand, which isn't ideal, and it only lets me exile target creature if its power is less than or equal to the revealed card's power, which also isn't ideal. Some removal is better than no removal, but I could see this card getting dropped out if it proves to not really pull its weight.

Unstable Obelisk is a 3-drop mana rock that for 7 mana can tap and destroy target permanent. That's expensive, but also versatile. All is Dust and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon both represent ways to deal with colored permanents. In a colorless deck these are auto-includes as they will be one-sided wipes that should leave my board completely untouched. The latter is more powerful, but Ugin's -X ability can be a great in the right situation. It exiles permanents, and you can activate it for -0 to simply wipe out an army of tokens provided those tokens aren't colorless.

Ending the Meal

Aside from a few cards like All is Dust, this list is far from set in stone. You could swap out Metalwork Colossus for Triplicate Titan, Darksteel Colossus or even Blightsteel Colossus if you want to be "that guy". You could load up on fast mana to speed the deck up a bit, but I don't think this will ever really get up into high power or fringe cEDH territory. It feels to me like a relatively fair, fun, colorless deck that leans towards voltron strategies. It'll be a little more limited than similar decks that have access to colored mana, but that might make it a more interesting and challenging build.

Syr Ginger EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Academy Manufactor
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Gingerbrute
• 1 Hedron Crawler
• 1 Jhoira's Familiar
• 1 Lodestone Golem
• 1 Metalwork Colossus
• 1 Mycosynth Golem
• 1 Palladium Myr
• 1 Pentavus
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Platinum Angel
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Skyscanner
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Steel Overseer
• 1 Stonecoil Serpent
• 1 Thopter Squadron
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Instants (3)
• 1 Scour from Existence
• 1 Spatial Contortion
• 1 Titan's Presence

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 All is Dust

• Artifacts (35)
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Bucknard's Everfull Purse
• 1 Candy Trail
• 1 Cloud Key
• 1 Collector's Vault
• 1 Commander's Plate
• 1 Darksteel Forge
• 1 Endless Atlas
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Gilded Pinions
• 1 Howling Mine
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Nettlecyst
• 1 Prowler's Helm
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Nin
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of the Animist
• 1 Tamiyo's Journal
• 1 Temple Bell
• 1 Tempting Contract
• 1 The Immortal Sun
• 1 The Ozolith
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Trailblazer's Boots
• 1 Treasure Chest
• 1 Treasure Map Flip
• 1 Umezawa's Jitte
• 1 Unstable Obelisk
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (37)
• 26 Wastes
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Forge of Heroes
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sanctum of Ugin
• 1 Terrain Generator
• 1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Urza's Mine
• 1 Urza's Power Plant
• 1 Urza's Tower

Buy This Deck Export text format

I'm increasingly of the opinion that more competitive players who struggle to keep from overwhelming their playgroups would benefit from building decks that restrict them and force them away from powerful combos and synergy. This deck, or a more tuned up version of it, could be that kind of low or mid-powered deck if you want a list you can play at lower powered tables. You might still min/max the heck out of it and play all the best cards you can find, but you'll find your ceiling is lower than voltron decks that have access to more than just colorless cards.

Early Results

I was able to play this deck in my Thursday night Tabletop Simulator game. A one game sample size is never enough to fully evaluate a deck, but I came away with a few thoughts.

Bucknard's Everfull Purse hit the table on turn two and was a fun little mini-game. Everyone played along, choosing to roll that d4 and see how many treasures they got. The fact that it passes to the player to your right means you don't feel like you're handing the rest of the table a huge gift. It's a gift to one player each turn cycle, rather than a gift to all of them, and I think that makes it much easier to pay your 1 mana and see if you can ramp a little.

I was able to get Academy Manufactor out and found that it didn't really provide as much benefit in this list. I made a few Treasures and got a few Clues and Food, but this is at its best in decks where you are creating a lot of Food and Clues and can turn that into Treasures.

I threw around a bit of damage, but wasn't able to provide support for the table when we had to answer problems. I think towards the end I was able to get out a Metalwork Colossus and a few other decent cards, but I didn't have a combo to dig for and I was basically playing a "fair" game of Magic. It was fun, and my tablemates weren't playing overpowered decks, but I never drew into anything that let me overwhelm the table and push for the win.

Final Thoughts

If you play Commander with random people at an LGS, it's common to sit down and jam more than just a single game. It's incredibly important to have at least one deck you can play that represents a drop down in power if you usually play towards the higher end of the EDH power scale. That's not easy for some deckbuilders, but having constraints around your deck construction is a great way to force yourself into a lower powered build.

One way to do that is just to impose random rules on a build, but by choosing a commander like Syr Ginger, you can ratchet that power down really easily. A Syr Ginger deck can absolutely crush a table if you draw into the right things and manage to dodge removal, but it's unlikely that you will run roughshod over your playgroup for months on end with her. If nothing else, your friends will start running Vandalblast to put you in your place. You might load in Eldrazi Monument to make your team indestructible, but you'll probably never see the kind of continued, overwhelming success that a strong, multicolored, high-powered commander can see. That's not a bad thing.

If you're looking for a colorless deck and Syr Ginger appeals to you for her flavor, her mechanics, or just because you happened to open a copy in a booster pack, I think she can be a lot of fun and will give you a very fair deck that shouldn't elicit groans and eye-rolling when you her out... unless you've gotten lucky and played that All is Dust in a bunch of games in a row.

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