La Campina Romana by Claude Lorrain (1639). Maximize Velocity by Svetlin Velinov.

I don't always choose violence... but when I do I like to have a pretty good reason or a decent way to try to turn an aggro strategy into a win.

Commander isn't just about winning and losing, but I tend to steer my strategy towards what makes the most sense for the deck I'm playing. If I'm on a combo deck, it's much, much less likely that I'm going to be sending creatures into battle. If I don't have good attacks, I'm much less likely to go to the red zone. Keeping my guys back as blockers often makes sense, can make me seem like less of a threat, and might give me a better chance to make it to the late game.

That doesn't mean all of my decks are passive or even play a "rope-a-dope" game plan. If I'm on my Lathliss, Dragon Queen deck I generally have enough Dragons that it just makes sense to chip away at any opponents who don't have a way to block my scaly boys. If I'm on Wulfgar of Icewind Dale, I'll want to double as many attack triggers as possible. That means attacking early and often, so long as I won't be losing too many creatures in the process.

Today's subject is a Human Berserker with no keywords and a real taste for violence. This commander not only wants me to attack; she needs me to and won't do as well if I can't send my creatures into combat as often as possible.

Today's column is about the Dominaria United legend, Garna, Bloodfist of Keld.

If one of my creatures dies, I get a reward. If they were attacking I'll draw a card. If they weren't attacking Garna deals 1 damage to each opponent.

I like card draw. I really like ways to damage all of my opponents at once.

I like the idea of building a low-to-the-ground deck designed to throw creatures into the fray with reckless abandon. If my board gets big enough, I also like the idea that a single boardwipe could win me the game. Garna gives me an excuse to run some cool combat tricks and an alternate wincon I've been chasing for years but have never actually used to notch a win.

The Cannon Fodder Crew

This deck is going to want lots of creatures. I have a weakness for tribal builds so it was an easy decision to pick a tribe for at least one "slot" in my 8 x 8 deck construction process. That tribe was an easy choice: they're reliable, they're easy to come by, and they're probably not quite smart enough to know what they are in for when they hit the battlefield.

I decided to start with Goblins that bring friends to the party. Siege-Gang Commander, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Mogg War Marshal, Goblin Marshal and Pashalik Mons can all create Goblin creature tokens. Goblin Cratermaker comes with a sacrifice ability which will let me easily control when he dies. For one mana I can pop him to deal 2 damage to target creature or destroy target colorless nonland permanent. Squee, Goblin Nabob and Squee, the Immortal are also in the list for the fact that they can easily come back out of the graveyard.

As I write this column, I'm considering taking my Muxus, Goblin Grandee list and reworking it to be a Goblin tribal Garna, Bloodfist of Keld deck. I like Muxus a lot, but I'm still tempted to rebuild it into something different just to mix things up and give myself a new deck to play in paper at the LGS.

Bad Pennies

Creatures I can play or get back from the graveyard are a big part of my plan, though I am tempted to just go all in on Goblins. This next section is about creatures that, like "bad pennies," will just keep turning up again and again.

Sanitarium Skeleton, Reassembling Skeleton, Tenacious Dead, Persistent Specimen, Skeletal Vampire and Gutterbones all join the ranks as creatures that I can bring back from the graveyard. There aren't quite enough Skeletons in Magic to build a strong tribal deck around that creature type, but they make sense in this list.

Another tribe that struggles a bit in EDH is the Phoenix tribe, represented in this deck by Flamewake Phoenix. It's more common to see a Phoenix in 60-card constructed decks where you can play four of the same card and really lean into a specific strategy. I could see myself adding more of these guys to this deck, as flyers are always valuable and a lot of them could reliably give me another attacker each turn even if they die.

Tymaret, the Murder King can also come out of the graveyard, though he requires that I pay mana and sacrifice a creature. If this deck had a bigger focus on recursion, I would want to run Desecrated Tomb, which would give me a 1/1 Bat each time a creature leaves my graveyard. My first drafts often go in a few directions at once, in this case playing with Goblins but also including a minor reanimation theme. I like to explore different themes and not go all in on any one of them, but you should shift your own Garna list to play the kind of game you most enjoy.

Becoming a Problem

Playing out Garna with a handful of Goblins and/or Skeletons isn't likely to stoke fear in the hearts of my tablemates. Garna doesn't seem that powerful, but with a little help you can start putting real dents in your opponents' life totals.

If you've set yourself up to be able to sacrifice a half dozen creatures to ding your opponents for 6 life, they'll probably be happy that you are thinning your own defenses and will gladly take the damage so they can more easily murder you. With Fiendish Duo or Gratuitous Violence on the battlefield, that damage will be doubled. With the enchantment Fiery Emancipation on the field it will be tripled. In "magical Christmasland" with all three on the field, you'd only need to sacrifice four creatures to deal 48 damage to your opponents!

We don't often go to magical Christmasland, but it's fun to explore these kinds of possibilities. With Torbran out, your 1 damage will become 3, and since you control your own triggers you can then apply any doublers or triplers. Playing out a Goblin Bombardment will give me a sacrifice outlet that also deals damage, allowing me to use my sacrifices to both push out damage and target a specific player or creature. Removing chump blockers can open up an opponent to attacks and can be used to remove problem creatures that a tablemate might want to keep out of harm's way.

Another way to become a problem is to shoot your life total into the stratosphere. Basilisk Collar and Loxodon Warhammer can equip to Garna to give her lifelink. When she pushes damage out, I'll gain life equal to the amount of damage I deal, so at a four-player table that means sacrificing five creatures would push out five damage to each of my opponents and would gain me 15 life!

Tombstone Stairwell is going to be a real problem if I've got even a few creatures in my graveyard. With it on the field, each upkeep will see all players put Tombspawn creature tokens onto the battlefield equal to the number of creatures they have in their graveyard. Those creature tokens are destroyed at the end of each turn. With five creatures in the graveyard over four turns I'll get to see twenty death triggers without having to lose any of the nontoken creatures on my battlefield.

I suspect I'm not running quite enough creatures in this list to include Mortal Combat, but I'm still chasing that wincon. With Mortal Combat on the field if I've got 20 creatures in my graveyard on my upkeep I'll win the game. That's a lot of creatures, even in a 100-card format, but I'll probably keep including this weird old wincon in my lists until I've found a deck that can win with it a few times. It's an itch I've wanted to scratch for a few years now.

Bringing The Nasty

Any deck that has a death-trigger payoff right in the command zone should consider including at least one combo and this list is begging to run Nim Deathmantle.

With a creature that can make extra creature tokens and a way to sacrifice them and make mana, I can use Nim Deathmantle to create a loop. With Ashnod's Altar I can sacrifice the tokens to make four mana. I can then sacrifice Sling-Gang Lieutenant and pay four mana to attach Nim Deathmantle to it, bringing it back to the battlefield. That will create two new creature tokens, allowing me to do it again, and again, and again.

With many decks that kind of loop only makes sense if I can gain mana as a result. Some creatures can loop to create infinite mana, but some loops are "mana neutral." With Garna on the battlefield, even a mana neutral loop will kill the table, as Garna will push out damage to my tablemates with each death trigger.

This deck isn't going to rely on hitting a combo to win the game, but it's fun to have one in the mix so I can occasionally hit it to clear the table that way. Not everyone loves combo, so by all means drop Nim Deathmantle out of your list if it's not your style.

Cutting corners in EDH is as central to the format as the color pie. There's a reason we're not all smashing vanilla creatures against each other. Gaining an advantage is just good gamesmanship, provided you are playing within the rules of the game. Hitting a combo or using damage doublers to make it easier to clear the table are all well and good, but there is another way to make things easier: infect.

Infect is simply damage dealt in the form of poison counters. Whatever you have heard from guys at your LGS or around your kitchen table, in EDH a player loses the game if they get 10 or more poison counters.

Giving Garna, Bloodfist of Keld infect means she'll only have to deal 10 damage. Infect is a powerful mechanic and not all playgroups enjoy games where they have to deal with powerful cards and powerful effects. If you're lucky enough to be in a meta where you can play anything, you should at least consider using infect with Garna.

Lots of playgroups seem to be of the mindset that in EDH your infect count should be 20 because our life totals are twice the usual life total in Magic. I strongly disagree with that approach to playing EDH, but I also support playgroups playing EDH the way they want to play EDH.

I like to play with the actual rules of the game, and that includes occasionally having to deal with getting killed with 10 poison counters. Infect is already rare in Commander because it's just not that strong. When used with cards that can kill the whole table, it's not that different from combo - which is also legal in EDH and can be a lot of fun to play.

I say keep your infect count at 10 and deal with it. Infect isn't that scary and if a friend wrecks your table with an infect deck - don't house-ban it or make up new rules - just ask them to switch to a different deck for the next game.

This list is definitely going in a few different directions. If I were building a dedicated combo deck I'd run way more tutors. If I were making a dedicated tribal deck I'd have way more Goblins. An aristocrafts deck would have more reanimation and more cards like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat. All of these would be fun builds for Garna, and narrowing your focus would probably give you a stronger deck than what I've shared with you today.

I like variety. I'd rather have a list that can go in a few different directions than have a list that is keen on doing one thing but doing that one thing really, really well. Earlier I told you that I was thinking about reworking my Muxus deck into a Garna's Goblins deck. I'm now also thinking about my Thalisse, Reverent Medium and Grismold, the Dreadsower lists and wondering whether either of those could come apart to build Garna. I think that means I'm probably going to be building Garna in paper because she looks like a heck of a lot of fun.

Garna EDH Raffine | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Garna, Bloodfist of Keld

• Creatures (33)
• 1 Bloodfire Colossus
• 1 Dockside Chef
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
• 1 Fiendish Duo
• 1 Flamewake Phoenix
• 1 Garna, the Bloodflame
• 1 Goblin Cratermaker
• 1 Goblin Marshal
• 1 Grave Titan
• 1 Gutterbones
• 1 Hammerfist Giant
• 1 Mogg War Marshal
• 1 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
• 1 Pashalik Mons
• 1 Pawn of Ulamog
• 1 Persistent Specimen
• 1 Pitiless Plunderer
• 1 Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1 Rakdos, Lord of Riots
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Reassembling Skeleton
• 1 Sanitarium Skeleton
• 1 Siege-Gang Commander
• 1 Skeletal Vampire
• 1 Skirsdag High Priest
• 1 Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
• 1 Squee, the Immortal
• 1 Tenacious Dead
• 1 Tilonalli's Summoner
• 1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1 Tymaret, the Murder King

• Instants (3)
• 1 Altar's Reap
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Tainted Strike

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Damnation

• Enchantments (11)
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Breath of Fury
• 1 Fiery Emancipation
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Gratuitous Violence
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 Mortal Combat
• 1 Phyresis
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 The Meathook Massacre
• 1 Tombstone Stairwell

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Cauldron of Souls
• 1 Grafted Exoskeleton
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 1 Mask of Avacyn
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thought Vessel

• Lands (38)
• 13 Mountain
• 13 Swamp
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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If you wanted to tune this list up, I think your first question would have to revolve around what direction you wanted to build in.

There are staples for combo, reanimation, and even Goblin decks that should be in this list, and that decision will drive your upgrade path. I would recommend building around Tombstone Stairwell, as that enchantment is a fantastic engine for pushing out direct damage through Garna, but you might enjoy going in a different direction. Fast mana is an obvious upgrade, but I'm also missing staples like Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart, both of which are happy to get you lands and then make their way into the graveyard.

If you wanted to tune today's list down a bit, you'd likely start by pulling out the infect and combo. You'd end up with more room to load up on Goblins or some other tribe you like. You could instead focus on creatures that work with an aristocrat / reanimator strategy and still end up with a very capable deck.

I don't think Garna, Bloodfist of Keld is strong enough to reach up into cEDH territory, but a better deckbuilder could probably set up a fringe cEDH list and have some success with it. My thoughts on the top end of our format's spectrum should be taken with a grain of salt - I do not play cEDH and generally enjoy longer, more meandering games even when I'm playing high powered EDH.

Early Results

I was able to play this list against some friends in our weekly Thursday night Tabletop Simulator game. Two of my tablemates were on Warhammer 40k precons, which have been proving to be able to punch well above their weight, and my third tablemate was on a Negan, the Cold-Blooded list that he's been working on improving.

Never having played the deck before, I wasn't completely sure how aggressive I wanted to be, but I was able to get out my Pashalik Mons and Garna and draw a few cards early. The early and mid-game saw a lot of back and forth with me struggling just to maintain a boardstate. I did get Goblin Bombardment out early, which gave me some valuable options later on to sacrifice creatures and remove other problems with an incoming boardwipe on the stack.

I was able to get out a Grave Titan, make a couple of zombies, go to combat, make some more zombies, play Moraug, Fury of Akoum, drop a land, get an extra combat, and make even more zombies. At one point I had a pretty sweet boardstate, but my playgroup is full of strong players who play good decks well - even when they're on precons - so I wasn't able to run away with it.

The back-and-forth nature of the game worked to my advantage. I was able to push out a bit of damage, but I was never a huge problem so I didn't attract too much aggro from my tablemates. Someone else was always a bigger threat and the Negan player ended up being the first to be eliminated. I always feel a little bad when a friend gets knocked out of the game but I also never have much sympathy when a Negan player gets knocked out of the game. You put a jerk in the command zone and you often get what's coming to you. Fortunately, it was late in the game and he had been a major part of how the match had unfolded.

After an earlier boardwipe and then losing my commander to a Fleshbag Marauder, from the Negan player of course, I had finally gotten Garna back out. In the interim I had drawn into Tombstone Stairwell, Grafted Exoskeleton and Fiery Emancipation! I had three bodies in the graveyard but I didn't have enough mana to play out the cards I wanted to play out.

I ended up paying 10 for Garna, including a hefty 6 for commander tax, and on the following turn played out my Tombstone Stairwell. Everyone had 2 or 3 creatures in the graveyard but life totals were very low. I was able to help one player swing in and get through on the player with the best boardstate by using my Goblin Bombardment to knock out the 1/1 flyers that they were going to use as blockers. It had taken the entire table to bring the guy with the best boardstate - twenty-two 1/1 flyers at one point - back down to earth and my meddling let my tablemate kill him off.

I ended up winning even after my Tombstone Stairwell got removed because my last tablemate was at 2 life. I was able to play out Fiery Emancipation and sacrifice my commander to Goblin Bombardment to deal 3 damage to him. It felt good, but I also felt like the only car still able to move at the end of a demolition derby. I didn't win as much as I survived.

It's worth mentioning that of the two tablemates on 40k precons, only one of them was really familiar with Tombstone Stairwell. I did read and explain the card when I played it, but I didn't exactly point at my permanents and tell them what they should remove. They're all very good players, and I felt like it was fair to see if they could put 2 and 2 together.

It's likely things would have turned out differently if he had seen the writing on the wall, but in the end everyone had fun and it was a close game.

Final Thoughts

After putting this list together, playing it in a game and writing this column, I'm very bullish on Garna, Bloodfist of Keld. It's the kind of deck that will give you some really fun games and I think it can play well at a variety of power levels. I don't expect that it's going to be the next big cEDH commander, but when built well and piloted carefully, I'm sure it has a place in high powered EDH. This list might be up to that challenge, but I'm equally sure there are cards I should have included that I left out.

As the release of The Brothers' War approaches, I'm going to continue to focus on Dominaria United cards until that set starts to get spoiled. I wasn't that excited about DU at first. I've managed to string together a series of DU columns that have given me great new decklists that I've very much enjoyed cobbling together. I don't remember the last time I had three columns in a row that each left me seriously wanting to build a new deck in paper.

It's exciting to be building and playing new decks, though I tend to lean on old, reliably strong commanders when playing at certain tables. The games I play still run the gamut from tables where folks get cranky if you like you're going to combo off, to games where if you're not running a ton of interaction and a combo finish, it'll be hard to threaten a win. That can make it harder to play new decks, as they are often not tuned enough to stand up to stiff competition, but it's still been refreshing to stumble onto so many exciting commanders lately.

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