Have you ever tapped a Thermo-Alchemist to ping each of your opponents for 1 damage and wished you were actually doing 10 damage? How about 20 damage?

No and no?

I don't blame you. Nobody expects a little pinger like Thermo-Alchemist to push out a ton of damage, but today's list is going to try to make that a reality. We might still have as hard a time clearing table as my recent Imodane, the Pyrohammer deck did, but it's still a lot of fun to try to push the envelope on mono-red burn in EDH.

Today's commander is no mere Human Knight like Imodane - today we're going to be talking about a God.

Ojer Axonil is a 4/4 God with trample, a cool ability and a flip side that is worth checking out. His party trick is that if a red source I control would deal an amount of noncombat damage less that his power, that source deals damage equal to his power instead. If Ojer Axonil dies, I can return him to the battlefield transformed into Temple of Power, a land that taps for Red mana and which can transform back into Ojer Axonil. There are conditions around that last ability so I'll probably just put him into the command zone instead of jumping through a bunch of hoops to have access to my commander.

This deck is going to focus heavily on ways to ping all of my opponents at once. I'll be running a combination of pump spells and equipment that can help me push out damage even faster. My goal might not be to tap a pinger and do 10 or 20 damage to all of my opponents at once, but the higher I can get Ojer Axonil's power the faster I'll be able to close out the game.

The big risk, as I found out with Imodane, is that it can be very scary for your commander to bring everyone down to under 20 life and it can be very easy for them to gang up and knock you out. That doesn't mean it isn't fun to play a deck where you know you're going to do your very best to be "the problem" at the table. It is fun... but be prepared to get dogpiled and to lose your share of games as a result.

Pingers

The first key part of this deck is my squadron of pingers. These come in all shapes and sizes and the common theme is that they can push out a small amount of damage to all of my opponents at once.

Your traditional pinger has to tap to deal damage. Lots of them untap so you can do it again. Thermo-Alchemist taps to do 1 damage to each opponent and untapped whenever I cast an instant or sorcery spell. It's got a near-doppleganger in Unruly Capatult, which also has defender, but costs one more and is an artifact creature instead of just a creature. Spear Spewer is a Goblin Warrior pinger with Defender. Electrostatic Field, Erebor Flamesmith and Guttersnipe will ping my opponents whenever I cast an instant or sorcery spell. Guttersnipe pushes out two damage, where the other two only push out 1 point of damage. Kessig Flamebreather and Firebrand Archer both push out 1 damage whenever I cast a noncreature spell.

As you can see, there are a lot of these guys. Since I've got a bunch of creatures, I'm also running ways to push out damage based upon creatures entering the battlefield. Witty Roastmaster and the enchantment Impact Tremors both push out 1 damage and Purphoros, God of the Forge pushes out 2 damage when another creature enters the battlefield under my control. I'm even running a landfall pinger in Tunnelling Geopede, which deals 1 damage to each opponent when a land enters the battlefield under my control. I'm even running Inferno Titan, which pushes out 3 damage divided as I choose among one, two or three targets when it enter the battlefield or attacks.

Pump

All of these ways to push out damage are great, but I want to kill the table before they fully realize how much trouble they're in. If I keep Ojer Axonil at 4 power I'll need 10 pings to push out 40 damage, but if I increase his power I can speed things up a lot.

Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat will trigger whenever I cast a noncreature spell and will let me pump a creature +X/+0 until end of turn where X is that spell's mana value. A sorcery spell like Reckless Charge can pump a creature +3/+0 and has flashback, so if I have the mana I can do it twice in the same turn. I'm also running Titan's Strength, Fists of the Anvil, Invigorated Rampage and Screaming Fury as ways to pump a creature up. If I can pump Ojer Axonil up and keep two mana open I can cast Unleash Fury to double the power of target creature until end of turn.

My equipment package has a bunch of options to make him bigger. Hero's Blade pumps equipped creature +3/+2 and can automatically attach to a legendary creature when it enters the battlefield. I'm also running Strata Scythe and Blackblade Reforged, both of which will scale up with the number of lands I have. My goal is to set up my pinger activations in advance, but since many of them untap when I cast certain types of spells, I'll want to pay attention to what I've got available to me.

Ojer Como Va

The key to playing Ojer Axonil is probably going to involve having good timing and a lot of luck. If your tablemates can figure out what's coming and just keep your commander off the battlefield, it's going to be hard to make a serious push to kill the table. This first draft is fairly straightforward and that means you'll have a good chance at executing your game plan. Even if you never manage to pump your commander much, you can still deal a ton of damage. You won't have many good answers to combo decks or to ridiculously high life totals, but in a mid-powered casual game of EDH you should have a decent shot at pinging your way to victory.

Ojer Axonil | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Birgi, God of Storytelling Flip
• 1 Blisterspit Gremlin
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Electrostatic Field
• 1 Erebor Flamesmith
• 1 Firebrand Archer
• 1 Goblin Chainwhirler
• 1 Guttersnipe
• 1 Humble Defector
• 1 Inferno Titan
• 1 Iron Myr
• 1 Kessig Flamebreather
• 1 Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat
• 1 Neheb, the Eternal
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Runaway Steam-Kin
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• 1 Spear Spewer
• 1 Storm-Kiln Artist
• 1 Thermo-Alchemist
• 1 Tunneling Geopede
• 1 Unruly Catapult
• 1 Urabrask Flip
• 1 Witty Roastmaster

• Instants (10)
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Antagonize
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Deflecting Swat
• 1 Fists of the Anvil
• 1 Invigorated Rampage
• 1 Tibalt's Trickery
• 1 Titan's Strength
• 1 Unleash Fury
• 1 Volcanic Fallout

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 End the Festivities
• 1 Grapeshot
• 1 Jeska's Will
• 1 Past in Flames
• 1 Reckless Charge
• 1 Screaming Fury

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Dictate of the Twin Gods
• 1 Fiery Inscription
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Pyrohemia
• 1 Tavern Brawler
• 1 Underworld Breach

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Colossus Hammer
• 1 Cursed Mirror
• 1 Endless Atlas
• 1 Hero's Blade
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1 Ruby Medallion
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Planeswalker (1)
• 1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno

• Lands (38)
• 37 Mountain
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Buy This Deck Export text

If you wanted to tune this list down, you'd probably start by dropping out some of the higher priced cards like Dockside Extortionist, Deflecting Swat and Jeska's Will. Dropping the price tag of a deck doesn't automatically drop your power level but it's a good place to start if you're looking to go towards lower-powered play.

The ceiling on this commander isn't incredibly high. I think it will do well in mid-powered play and might hang at a high-powered table, but increased interaction will make it a lot harder for this deck to keep up. Tapping or activating a pinger for 1 or 2 damage isn't going to strike fear in the hearts of many players at a truly high-powered Commander table. You might still be able to eke out a win every now and then, but I think this deck probably belongs at mid-to-high power tables, not high-to-cEDH.

Early Results

I was able to play this deck in one of our Thursday night Tabletop Simulator games and I'm happy to report that it was both fun and powerful. I also have to report that some of my worst fears about the deck as it is presented here did come true.

I suspected that this list would do well in mid-power games but would have trouble dealing with combo and with situations where a player shot their life total into the stratosphere. In the game in question, I got to see the best and the worst of what this deck can do.

The most damage I was able to throw out was in the early game. I had a slow start, keeping a 3 land hand but not drawing into much to get me rolling. It was a six-player table, which is always a questionable situation, but I figured I could push damage out at everyone since most of my pingers would hit each opponent.

I played out a few lands and a Lightning Greaves and then tapped four mountains to cast a Nyx Lotus. Nyx Lotus comes in tapped and taps for my devotion to the chosen color (red, of course). I had no devotion at the time and didn't expect it to make much mana for a while, but the player to my right decided to counter it. I was pretty stunned, as a six-player table would surely have better targets for a counterspell, but I had no way to stop the counter. I proceeded to do nothing else and got knocked down to around 30 life over the following turn cycle.

On my next turn I started out by paying one mana for a Blasphemous Act. What followed was a series of responses, none of which stopped my boardwipe from happening. One player gave their stuff indestructible. Another gave their creatures protection from Red. The counter-happy tablemate to my right - who had insisted going into the game that they weren't playing tribal counterspells - played Perplex, a counter that itself could be countered if the player discarded their hand. That counter was not targeting the boardwipe and it was indeed countered by the player discarding their hand. I had no idea things were going to get that complicated!

I followed up the boardwipe with a Dockside Extortionist, which made me eight Treasures, cast my commander, equipped him with Lightning Greaves and then cast Grapeshot. The storm count was eight so I had eight instances of 1 damage to deal out, but that 1 damage would instead be 4 because my commander's power was 4.

In retrospect I should have pointed every single one of those instances of damage at the player who countered my Nyx Lotus, but I decided to spread the love and hit four players for four damage each and the tablemate to my right for 16. I wanted to send some kind of message that you can't just be a jerk and not get hit back in some way. Message sent.

The rest of the game, and the ending, did not play out nearly as well for your hero.

My friend on a mono-White Odric, Lunarch Marshal deck, had successfully protected their board - discarding their hand in the process - and proceeded to swing out every turn with a small team of very effective attackers. Odric shares keywords amongst your creatures at the start of combat so every turn they had flying, vigilance, lifelink, double-strike and indestructible. Before long they were sending their life total way higher than everyone else's.

This was a problem for me because if I played my deck out the way I wanted to, I'd likely have killed the table except for the Odric player, who would have easily knocked me out for the win. That was what I wanted to do, but another one of my buddies has a real issue with kingmaking. He just hates it. I don't blame him, to be honest, so I just did my best to rally the troops and keep everyone's focus on the Odric player.

I was in a position at one point in the game to drop a Dictate of the Twin Gods on an end step, tap a pinger to deal eight to everyone, play a burn spell to do another eight - untapping my pinger in the process, and then tap it to deal yet another eight. I would have been pushing 120 damage to my opponents!

It would have felt great, but it wouldn't have dealt with the problem of a player having a life total in the 50s or 60s, and it would have been kingmaking. I kept my powder dry, so to speak, and vowed to only "go off" when faced with lethal damage. I would be like a mono-Red piņata, blowing up and hurting everyone if someone hit me too hard!

Sadly, I wasn't even able to do that. Another tablemate overloaded an Urza's Ruinous Blast and not long after that the game ended. The details of the ending aren't worth sharing, but it was a major letdown for nearly everyone in the game.

I still think Ojer Axonil is a fun and explosive commander who will absolutely be able to clear tables, but this first game found me in a position where I ended up choosing the fun of the table over my own fun. Lots of players don't mind kingmaking and it's possible I should have just blown up the table anyways, but this first game definitely felt a bit disappointing in how things played out.

Final Thoughts

While my own experiences playing mono-Red burn in EDH haven't been very successful recently, it's still been a fun time. I just haven't won with Imodane or Axonil. That could be because of matchups, the power levels of the tables I'm playing with, or just bad luck.

I have very fond memories of a Purphoros, God of the Forge deck that I had together for many years. It was explosive and could absolutely clear a table but it also suffered from always having to play archenemy. If the table didn't gang up against the Purph player, they would have a hard time winning, especially if the game went long enough and nobody was aiming to combo off.

While Purphoros was indestructible and usually wouldn't even be a creature, both Imodane and Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might are easily removed. I think today's deck will be a lot of fun to play and I'm sure there are stronger builds that better deckbuilders could cobble together. I'm even thinking I might play my Imodane a few more times and then pivot over to this bad boy if I am lucky enough to open one in a booster pack.

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