#15dd

While I don’t like to build decks heavily reliant on the commander, I do love synergy. In making card selection choices for general utility effects I tried to make sure many of them were compatible with Muldrotha. Similarily, I included effects like Ahnod’s Altar and Cryptbreaker that let us generate value off of Muldrotha, but don’t rely on her to be useful. The only card I wouldn’t run outside of Muldrotha that I included is Elephant Grass, which is such a cheap cost for such a powerful effect.

When it comes to actually winning the game, as a midrange goodstuff list the goal is to just grind out value till you’re really ahead and can easily take the game. To do this we run a mix of slow but consistent value generators like Kalitas, and Smokestax, till we can land a bigger splashier effect like Zendikar Resurgent, or looping Kokusho. Till we can make that happen we hold a grip of counter spells to make sure nothing happens that can mess up that plan!

Zedruu is a commander all about politics. Early on you can donate symmetrical effects like Howling Mine or Curse of Opulence. Where possible, removal is in the form of permanents, like Oblivion Ring and Imprisoned in the Moon, this lets them be donated, while also enabling them to be reused by Hanna. Venser lets you trigger ETB effects while also regaining control of cards, making him a powerful inclusion. It’s also possible to ult him with enough political trickery, which basically wins the game on its own.

Smugly giving people ‘gifts’ doesn’t do much towards actually winning the game. This list has Two main methods of winning the game. The first is Laboratory Maniac, either in parallel with Zedruu and Paradox Haze, or combo’d with Thought Lash. The other method is to turn creatures sideways, either after making tonnes of tokens with Assemble the Legion, or just by casting Insurrection. 

This type of list is a lot of fun! Personally I don’t enjoy group hug as I feel it tends to hand the game to whoever turn immediately follows the group hug player, I also have a distaste for chaos lists, unless used as a stax strategy, like for Mishra Artifacts. For me, Zedruu fills the same type of political category while still being a real deck ;D;D;D

The term ‘Hate Bears’ refers to 2~ drop creatures that are disruptive toward the opponents gameplan. Thalia and Leonin Arbiter are perhaps the two most iconic hatebears in magic. With a few small exceptions, every creature in this deck is in some way going to mess up opponents plans. Causing things to come into play tapped, stopping ETBs, increasing the casting cost of spells, etc. The main goal of this deck is to play as many of these as possible before casting Armageddon or comboing out. 

Speaking of comboing out, lets talk win conditions. I mentioned Armageddon already. When spells cost +1, +2, +3 its very difficult to recover from an Armageddon. If you’re ahead on board you can just repeatedly swing into advantageous combat. Pair that with a few pillow fort elements like Ghostly Prison and Norn’s Annex and suddenly opponents cant really do much. 

Kambal steals a lot of life, pairing that with effects like Cliffhaven Vampire and Painful Quandry opponents quickly end up low on life. Sanguine Bond is extra rude with Kambal as it makes each spell cost 4 life, and deal 2 to each other player. But pair that with Exquisite Blood, and you just win.

So our gameplan is to play tempo, flood the board with some great value creatures, maybe steal some of their good stuff, and steal the game like any good pirate! Let’s get started with our creature base.

Tempo

One of our biggest advantages of our deck is that we get to play lots of cards that set our opponent back just a bit, and push us further into the lead. Hostage Taker let’s us just snatch up one of our opponents best creatures and make it ours! Freebooter is great because we can get information and steal a threat that may be harder to deal with later. We also have some great kill spells and counters to clear out anything else that may get in our way.

Support

These cards don’t win us the game alone, but they keep up some great value that keep us in the game late and help us keep our board developed. Ruin Raider is great because it’s basically Dark Confidant. We just get to draw lots of cf cards and get value just for attacking. Vanquisher’s Banner is awesome because not only is it an anthem effect, but all our pirates are cantrips! Fathom Fleet Captain is a personal favorite though, as it just creates more pirates and value. So we don’t have to spend cards to fill up our board and overrun our opponents. 

THE KILL

Over here we have some genuine murder bois. Our game plan doesn’t really involve us playing any big creatures, so we want to go wide. Dire Fleet Neckbreaker is a favorite card of mine because it just can do so much damage. With Admiral Beckett Brass and our other lord/anthem effects, she gets harder to kill and even more deadly. Dire Fleet Captain is about the closes thing we get to going tall, as we can swing a bunch of pirates at one opponent, and just one HUGE one at another with him. Lastly, Cut // Ribbons is more of a stand in for all of our other utility and thievery effects. Beckett Brass herself can help us finish off opponents by giving us their big stuff, clearing their blockers, and buffing our board. We also have some clones and other stealing effects, and last ditch casting Ribbons from the yard to really finish off the table. 

Decklist

1x Abrade 1x Admiral Beckett Brass *Commander* 1x Cancel 1x Canyon Slough 1x Cast Down 1x Chart a Course 1x Cut 1x Daring Saboteur 1x Dark Intimations 1x Deadeye Quartermaster 1x Deep Freeze 1x Dire Fleet Captain 1x Dire Fleet Daredevil 1x Dire Fleet Neckbreaker 1x Disallow 1x Dragonskull Summit 1x Dreamcaller Siren 1x Drowned Catacomb 1x Fathom Fleet Captain 1x Fell Flagship 1x Fetid Pools 1x Flood of Recollection 1x Forerunner of the Coalition 1x Highland Lake 1x Hostage Taker 6x Island 1x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider 1x Kitesail Freebooter 1x Lookout's Dispersal 1x Marauding Looter 1x March of the Drowned 1x Metallic Mimic 5x Mountain 1x Never 1x Pitiless Plunderer 1x Protean Raider 1x Pull from Tomorrow 1x Ruin Raider 6x Swamp 1x The Immortal Sun 1x Unclaimed Territory 1x Unlicensed Disintegration 1x Vanquisher's Banner 1x Vraska's Contempt 1x Walk the Plank 1x Warkite Marauder

Budget Options

This blog would be incomplete without our budget section! Luckily for this deck, we really have a lot of choices. Most of our deck is draft all stars with some powerful format staples thrown in. The Immortal Sun, Vraska’s Contempt, Disallow, and Metallic Mimic make up for most of our costs in the deck. You can simply play other counter and kill spells. This deck is very personalized, and with the variety of pirates available, you can really have some fun with it! 

That’s all for now! Have fun, and be safe!

The majority of pirates are smaller aggressive creatures. many include some kind of evasion like Daring Saboteur or Siren Stormtamer, while others support combat like Dire Fleet Neckbreaker or Dire Fleet Captain. Many of those on the higher end of the curve like Hostage Taker and Dire Fleet Ravager have a big impact on the board when they hit play.

So far as win conditions go, one of the main goals of the deck is to Revel in Riches. So many pirates generate Treasure passively it made sense to add some support to that theme. Cards like Brass’s Bounty and Spell Swindle can quickly push you into a winning scenario. Additionally, just turning pirates sideways while supported by cards like Vanquisher’s Banner and Bedlam, getting in tonnes of damage quickly and stealing permanents from your victims is more than enough to get there. Especially when backed up by cards such as Insurrection and Cyclonic Rift!

Aristocrat strategies tend to be pretty powerful in commander, they keep the board clear while systematically whittling away at each opponent. This list seeks to generate huge amounts of value off of creatures dying. Cards like Elenda and Endrek Sahr provide tonnes of bodies at once to throw into Krav or Butcher of Malakir. Other slower but more systematic token generators like Crested Sunmare and Regal Bloodlord make tokens every turn. This list doesn’t seek to go infinite with Blood Artist triggers, but instead to gain enough life that Aetherflux Reservoir can laser people into the ground. I originally wanted to include the  Sanguine Bond Exquisite Blood combo, but it was a bit over budget.

Given the amount of passive token production in the list, I thought including Divine Visitation and Anointed Procession felt like strong includes. Casting Krav into a Endrek can either lead to 5 4/4 angels or 10 thralls to immediately sacrifice to Krav. 

This type of deck is historically pretty powerful, this reminds me of a less combo focused Teysa, Orzhov Scion. If the budget allowed for it I’d include Gravepact and Dictate of Erebos!

Card’s that make people discard 1 for 1 don’t really do well in multiplayer. Instead it is better to have every discard effect either affect every opponent, or continuously trigger. Cards like Bottomless Pit or any of the spectres land and then make opponents discard every turn. Whereas cards like Mindslicer, or Delirium Skeins immediately make everyone discard. There are of course, a few exceptions to this. Hymn to Tourach and Mind Twist for example both hit a single player, and only once, but these cards are exceptionally good at what they do. Hymn’s discard is random, utterly destroying a well crafted hand. Mind Twist is an X spell, which with a single card gets rid of everything in an opponents hand. Words of Waste and Oppression are both very oppressive effects that prevent opponents from ever doing anything but top decking. The most devastating resource denial in the deck comes from a kicked Sadistic Sacrament. Gutting 15 answers from an opponent’s deck completely takes them out of the game.

Just making opponents discard isn’t enough to actually win the game. Megrim effects, like Megrim and Liliana’s Caress, pared with rack effects like Nezumi Shortfang, Quest for the Nihil Stone, and Shrieking Affliction make sure enough damage is being dealt to kill everyone. Another aspect of discard payoffs is a mix of cards like Archiend of Ifnir slowly killing every opponents creature, while things like Scion of Darkness, Ink-Eyes, and Nezumi Graverobber then steal those creatures.

As with any sort of resource denial strategy, this deck gets a lot stronger when things are one sided. Waste not and Geth’s Grimoire both refill your hand while stripping opponents of cards. Similarily madness cards like Asylum Visitor or Big Game Hunter both are free discards, making things a lot more one sided. The rest of the deck is a mix of card draw, removal, and ramp. Ensuring action is always in hand and able to be cast. 

This deck was a lot of fun. This archetype is one of my favorites, resource denial in general is often an extremely powerful and oppressive strategy. Tune in next Wednesday when we wrap up the month of Halloween with the scariest monster of all.