Command Zone: Connect Four - Part 1
If youâre reading this sentence, you are likely aware of Commander (2016 Edition). Commander gets its very own produce once a year in November, and this yearâs decks have the previously-impossible theme of four-color commanders. Novelty! A thing players have asked about for years! The format of tomorrowâŚtoday!
Four-color cards are basically impossible to design, so each deck only contains one true four-color legend. In order to help support that color theme, the partner mechanic was created to allow a deck to use two two-color creatures as commanders. Each deck comes with four legendary creatures: a four-color commander, an ally-color commander with partner, and two enemy-color commanders with partner. Thatâs twenty brand-new legends to build decks around!
I always talk about the new commanders for each product, and Commander (2016 Edition) is no different. Twenty creatures are just too much for one article, however, so this will be a two-parter. Today Iâm going to look at the four-color commanders and the ally-color commanders, which means next week will be about the ten enemy-color commanders. Iâll be covering a lot today, so letâs just get to it!
Breya, Etherium Shaper has rediscovered the lost technique of making etherium, the magical metal coveted by the shard of Esper. Obviously, that makes her the artifact-centric commander of the not-Green set of colors.
Breya does a lot of stuff. Sheâs 6 power for four mana, which is smexy given that 2 of it has flying. She can also trash her Thopters for some useful effects: reach to win a game, removal to tidy up the board, and life to play defense with. Maximizing her potential means building around these abilities, which means fueling that âsacrifice two artifactsâ cost.
You can do this two ways. One, make even more tokens! Thopters from the Shards of Alara block and Magic Origins, Myr from Mirrodin and Scars of Mirrodin blocks, and Servos from Kaladesh (and I assume Aether Revolt) are expendable minions in a legendary war. You can also leverage White and Black to recur artifacts from your graveyard to sacrifice again and again. This is especially easy if you focus on artifact creatures.
Fittingly, there are a lot of modular game plans you can build around Breya. Depending on which of her abilities you focus on, and how to fuel them, your deck could look drastically different than someone elseâs.
Or is playtime just beginning? Nah, itâs ogre.
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder wields the Maelstrom of Alara, a chaotic blob of mana at the convergence of the five shards. The Maelstrom is associated with the cascade mechanic, which Yidris gratefully grants to all your spells if he gets to smash into your opponents.
And yes, if you give Yidris double strike, his ability will trigger twice and give your spells two instances of cascade. And yes, that means casting a spell will get you two free spells. I suggest trying to do this, especially because double strike and trample will make it very easy to get Yidris through your opponentsâ defenses.
Thatâs about it. Cascade is a game of value, so just fill your deck with good cards and youâll be fine. Once you find ways to protect Yidris and make sure he can connect with an opponentâs face, just play whatever you want.
Social Justice Warrior Soldier
I donât get her type line either.
Saskia the Unyielding does not take her foot off the gas. This is an aggro deck commander through and through.
Vigilance and haste mean Saskia is going to play offense and defense whenever she hits the battlefield, so itâs probably a good idea to surround her with creatures that do the same. The harder and faster you beat up your opponents, the more damage youâll get out of Saskiaâs ability.
Aggro decks have a rough time in Commander, so youâll want to include some ways to protect your army from removal. Cards that grant indestructible or regenerate your board are going to help keep the beats coming.
Because Saskia wants to go fast, but also play four colors, youâre going to need to make some concessions in your mana base. You donât have time for lands that enter the battlefield tapped. The pain lands like Caves of Koilos, Crumbling Vestige, Mana Confluence, fast lands like Razorverge Thicket, and others should form the core of your mana fixing.
Kynaios on the left and Tiro on the right.
Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis founded Meletis by beating the snot out of a tyrannical Archon. Woo-hoo! They were the heralds of a long period of peace and were loved by everyone. Thatâs why they command the group hug deck.
Itâs worth noting that K & T donât grant equal benefits to all players. Your opponents will all ramp or draw once a turn, but youâll always draw and then ramp or draw. So while your opponents reap the benefit of your hugging, youâre still getting out ahead of them. How you leverage that advantage is up to you.
If youâre playing a dedicated group hug deck with no way to win, then your advantage will help you sculpt the game easier. Youâll be able to lend bigger hands to the players in need, so make sure youâre using your benevolence responsibly. Donât extend games too long.
You might also want to use your advantage to turn the corner and just smash everyone else real fast. Youâre commanding the kings, so go for it if thatâs your will.
You know, eventually. No rush.
Urabrask doesnât like hanging out with the other leaders of New Phyrexia, so they compleated Atraxa, Praetorâs Voice without him. Sheâs the courier of Phyrexiaâs might and a creeping force to be reckoned with.
Proliferating every turn makes Atraxa the perfect commander for a counters deck. These come in five basic flavors:
+1/+1 counters: Cast creatures, put +1/+1 counters on them, and proliferate until theyâre huge. Thereâs a lot of value to be found for this in Green and Blue.
-1/-1 counters: Control the board by tainting your enemies with -1/-1 counters and proliferating them to death. Atraxa is powerful enough to attack by herself and win so long as youâre controlling the game.
Poison counters: Infect is the main mechanic of New Phyrexia, so use it to kill your opponents with toxic proliferation. Get them to ten poison counters and end them.
Loyalty counters: Superfriends decks filled with planeswalkers can go the extra mile when they all get an extra loyalty counter each turn. Control the board and work towards your planeswalker ultimates.
Energy counters: Like poison counters, energy counters go on players and can be proliferated. We donât have a lot of energy cards so far, so Atraxa lets you play almost all of them in the same deck due to her color identity.
I Speak for the Trees Dragons
Wings help with the physical parts of speaking draconic. That was a neat detail from the lore.
Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker has a fairly blunt title. She speaks on behalf of the Dragonlord Ojutai, conveying his words to the monks and laypeople that practice his martial arts.
I usually donât get excited about four-mana 1/1s, but Ishai can easily be a 4/4 after one round of turns in a four-player game. Your opponents have to cast spells, which means Ishai will always be growing. Thatâs a good deal for a commander with evasion.
Partner is interesting in that you donât have to use Ishai alone. No matter her partner, the Dragonspeaker always has value as an evasive beatstick. Sheâs a great companion to any commander that needs help rockinâ it in the red zone.
Would be a jerkbody too if he still had one.
Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is a rival of Tezzeret. Iâm not sure who ends up being the bigger asshole, nor am I interested in finding out. They both suck.
But Silas is quite a powerful card. Deathtouch is a great ability, allowing the lowly 2/2 Silas to block and kill much larger threats. It also functions like evasion on Silas, who has a nifty ability that triggers when he deals combat damage to an opponent. Your opponents have a choice when Silas attacks: block and lose a creature or take damage and let the magic happen.
Silas lets you recast artifacts from your graveyard, which gives him a clear plan to build around. Play lots of artifacts, dump them into your graveyard, and start recurring them for value. Heâs a lot like Glissa, the Traitor in that he works best looping cheap artifacts to gain incremental advantages over the course of a game.
Ankle Shanker in a lost timeline, but Vial Smasher the Fierce in the Tarkir that Sarkhan remade. Sheâs a Goblin of the Kolaghan brood who wantonly attacks others with vials of electrified dragonfire.
Thereâs not a lot to do to âbuild aroundâ Vial Smasher, as she provides value no matter what cards you cast. You can build basically any deck and get value out of her.
You can, however, maximize damage with her if you want. She cares about the first spell you cast each turn, not just your turn, so you can produce a lot more damage if you play a lot of instants.
She also cares about the converted mana cost of your spells, so go big or go home. Spells with X in their mana cost will be useful early, but devastating later. You can also look into cards that you can cast for cheaper than their mana cost. Madness is one mechanic to hone in on, though there are plenty of individual cards that can reduce their own cost.
The mycoids have taken a lichen to her.
We donât know where Tana, the Bloodsower is from, just that she was raised by Fungus. She likes murdering folks and using their blood to summon Saprolings, which probably makes her a buzzkill at parties.
While a 2/2 for four mana in Red/Green seems underwhelming, Tanaâs payoff has a high ceiling. Whatever damage she deals to an opponent gets translated into 1/1 Saproling tokens too. Deal 1 damage, get one token. Deal 10 damage, get ten tokens. Double strike? Double tokens.
Itâs clear that Tanaâs value involves pushing damage through to your opponents, which points to a Voltron style deck that uses Auras and Equipment to pump up Tanaâs stats. I think sheâs a great candidate for this, as successful attack leave you with a board full of tokens that can play defense until your next turn. Tokens can also pick up Equipment and rumble if necessary.
Youâre Not My Real Dad!
But you are the best dad on Dominaria.
Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa was the adoptive father of Gerrard, Urzaâs eugenically-bred piece to the Legacy. Kondoâs real son, Vuel, got jelly of Gerrard, killed his dad, and joined the Phyrexians. It was full of drams.
Iâm not that concerned with Kondoâs 2/5 flanking body. Itâs a neat ability if you want to Voltron him up, but flanking isnât going to matter much given his second ability. Other than fliers and reachers, your opponents canât block little critters (including Kondo)! That opens the floodgates for token strategies, morphs and manifests, weenies in general, and all kinds of sweet plays.
Remember, your 2-power creatures canât be blocked, but that doesnât mean you canât pump their power after no blockers are declared. Have your little creatures slip through unnoticed and then give them a power boost for bonus damage! Kondoâs ability works best with creatures that have a saboteur mechanic, meaning something happens when they deal combat damage to an opponent.
OhhhhhhâŚWeâre Halfway Thereee
Ohh-OHH! Partners come in pairsss!
I guess technically they come in triads since each deck has three. But thatâs just semantics. The point is that partner greatly expands the possibilities that exist in Commander. While the four-color commanders are individually neat, itâs the partners that really contribute to the format. Next week will contain the other ten partners, so youâll be able to start noticing the spicy interactions that can arise when you combine them together.
Until then, planeswalkers, may all your mana properly align for your new four-color decks