#decklist

I first played Final Fantasy IV on the Wii Virtual Console sometime in the 2000s. It remains one of my favorite Final Fantasy titles, and Cecil and Kain remain some of my favorite characters. Getting to play them in Dissidia 012 further solidified my love for them.

While not nearly as catchy as "Blorbo from my Planes," my Archidekt title for this deck is "Some Scars Don't Heal." Of all the Kain quotes I could have used, I somehow settled on a Dissidia NT line. Gross, but it's stuck at this point. What is commander damage but a scar that doesn't heal?

I describe this list as a group-hug Voltron deck. The goal is to play Kain, suit him up with progressively better equipment, pass him around the table, gain resources, reduce life totals, then finally start knocking out players with my beefed up Commander.

My early game equipment either boosts Kain's power a little or offers some sort of triggered ability that gives me value even when I don't control Kain. Mask of Memory is a good example of the latter.

I have around 20 Equipment with a mana value plus equip cost that equals 3 or 4, that way I can consistently gear up Kain on the turn of his first attack. This is why I'm playing oddball cards like Ace's Baseball Bat. The power-to-mana ratio is good, and 3 total mana really is the sweet spot. I draw a lot of cards, so I'm running less lands than I usually would. All I need is 3 in order to play Kain, and then I'm likely to draw into the other lands I need.

Because I'm passing my Commander around, I originally felt inclined to imitate the play patterns of decks like Slicer or Alexios: maximize the attacks per turn cycle by passing Kain as much as possible. Handing off Kain and then taking my hands off the wheel can be fun in its own way, but I decided I want to have proactive use for my mana and cards. Also because doing this doesn't necessarily get the result I want.

I want to choose my Kain targets deliberately, usually favoring whatever player is the most behind. Ideally, I ask for volunteers, because it's important that my opponents want to attack with Kain. (You'd assume most players wouldn't say no to free mana and card advantage, but alas some people do.) The reason why it's so important that they want it so that I can leverage my signature deal: "If I attack you with Kain, please attack me back with him." I can't maximize the number of times Kain attacks per turn cycle, but I can try to maximize the number of times I get to attack with him. Again, I'd like to make use of my cards and mana, and I want to do that by suiting up Kain with more stuff.

Whether it's the mid or late game, I need to get a source of lifegain eventually. Taking combat damage and life loss from Kain adds up quickly. Like many of the other cards in this deck, I like it best when my lifegain helps me more than it helps my opponents. An MVP in this regard is Deadly Wanderings, which makes sure Kain only has Lifelink whenever I control him. Instants and Sorceries that give Lifelink also help, but obviously don't offer repeated lifegain. Ultimately, it's not the end of the world if my opponents get to attack with a Lifelinking Kain, especially since I still get the most use out of lifegain once I start eliminating players.

After I've passed Kain around a few times and softened up the table, I need to land the plane. Good news, there's a lot of individually powerful equipment that turn players with a little commander damage into players with 21 commander damage. Since I play a lot of equipment and Kain makes a lot of Treasure, cards like Cranial Plating are among my best options. I've also got a few cards like Inquisitor's Flail which offer large power boosts without quite as much work required. Overall, I don't tend to need an excessive amount of damage to win, since I usually have some amount of chip damage all around the table.

KOing players is important for all of the usual reasons, but it's especially important for this deck. Dealing lethal damage to an opponent means you get to actually keep Kain, and you finally get to increase your life total with Lifelink. Easy to take those things for granted until you play a deck where you can't do either consistently.

Pet cards aren't a huge part of this deck, but I've got a few.

I'm playing Aether Snap because I think it has synergy, but I'm also a bit nostalgic for it. My first precon was Freyalise from Commander 2014. I played it against other C14 decks, such as the Ob Nixilis deck. That's what first put Aether Snap on my radar. There are some games where I'm stuck with Snap in hand against a board of lethal nontoken creatures. Other times, Snap is utterly backbreaking. (In case you didn't know, Commander players really like tokens and counters.) Plus, the synergy with Kain is pretty diabolical. Sure, I might give somebody half a dozen tapped Treasures for free, but that doesn't mean they'll actually get to use them. I'll dispose of all those pesky token creatures while I'm at it, all the while leaving Kain and my equipment untouched (except for Lost Jitte, just ignore that).

Deadly Tempest is another wrath that I consider to be a pet card. I can see in my mind's eye the game where I cast Deadly Tempest, remove several dozen creatures from play, and immediately win the game on the spot. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm chasing that dream.

I'd also consider Blackblade Reforged to be a pet card. I'm not ramping lands, so I don't get quite as much benefit out of it as other decks do. However, I have a Signature Spellbook: Gideon version that I haven't found cause to play anywhere else. As long as I'm not stuck on 3 lands, I think Blackblade is fine in most situations.

As a Voltron deck, I have to contend with the flaws inherent to the strategy.

Firstly, I'm putting all my eggs in one basket. How do I stop my opponents from thermonuclear bombing said basket? And because I'm a deck hipster, I can't do it in just any 'ole way. 

It took me a while to make a Voltron deck because I could never find a happy middle ground between "my shields are always down and I fold to any removal" and "my commander is always hexproof + indestructible and I'm just playing solitaire." I think Kain strikes the perfect balance because I use cards like Kaya's Ghostform and Malakir Rebirth. My opponents can meaningfully disrupt me by killing Kain, removing him from combat, and making me re-equip all my stuff. However, I don't have to recast Kain, and he's immediately ready to attack again when I untap. Also, these effects are great for cheeky opponents who try to sacrifice Kain.

These cards also pull double duty as a way for me to re-aquire Kain from opponents who don't deserve him anymore, such as when they try to kill me or when they refuse to attack. I have a good suite of Instant removal spells, and I draw a lot of cards in this deck. So, I'm all too happy to burn an Infernal Grasp on my own Kain if it means I'm the one who gets to attack with him next.

While not a major presence here, Ward is also a good tool in protecting Kain. It makes my opponents think twice about removing Kain, but done in a fair way. Ward also allows me to still remove Kain myself if needed. These reasons are why Shroud and Hexproof don't make any appearances in this list, in addition to the hipster considerations.

Unrelated to Voltron issues, but kill spells and wraths are my best tools to avoid dying to my opponents. Giving people free resources is dangerous, but it often encourages people to dump their hands into the loving embrace of mass disruption. And because I also draw a lot of cards, I don't feel bad about using my removal proactively.

As far as the second big Voltron weakness goes, I unfortunately have no tools for killing three opponents at once. At least this isn't a problem that necessarily needs to be solved. Some Voltron decks just take three turns to win, and such is what I've resolved to do. Because passing Kain around inflicts a lot of chip damage, I can cross my fingers and hope one or more of my opponents eliminate someone for me. However, this isn't something I'm counting on as a core part of my strategy.

I'm finding I also just have a weakness to bad players? Some people don't want you to touch their precious life total even when they're chilling with 2 cards in hand and have missed multiple land drops. Can't do much about that, save for be a bit pickier about who I give Kain to. Make sure they will return my boy rather than kill him or hold on to him indefinitely.

In my continuing quest to build unique commander decks, I think Kain fits the bill wonderfully. I've also got plenty of revisions to look forward to, since many of my cards are less than ideal inclusions straight from my collection. There are some obviously good cards I haven't acquired for budget reasons, Shadowspear chief among them. I like this deck a lot, and I think I'll continue to enjoy it for some time.

Jabari allows you to loot a card once per turn cycle when you attack with a knight. On its own, this isn't that powerful, giving you a small amount of card selection. The true power comes out when Jabari himself hits the battlefield. His last ability lets you reanimate any knight in your graveyard, returning it to the battle for free, as long as Jabari can connect with an opponent. He has flying to help him get through, and first strike allows you to pull shenanigans, since what you reanimate will hit the battlefield before normal damage happens. This means you can bring back a lord effect during first strike damage and pump the rest of your knights when they all connect afterwards.

The obvious way to build Sidar Jabari is knight typal, but you can also go more of a reanimator route, playing cheap knights that let you put your finishers into the graveyard to reanimate in any number of ways. You could also go for an aristocrats strategy: there are multiple knights that have a blood artist-adjacent effect. One last option is to build around the card Nazgûl, as they're knights that scale each other up, and you can run nine of them in the deck. You could even run Conspiracy-type effects and make all your creatures wraiths as well as knights!

The Decklist

Since this is my first decklist in the challenge, I decided to go the obvious route and build a knight typal deck. There will be other chances to go in a more goofy direction. The name of the deck, Snoozetown, Zhalfir, is a reference to the fact that I admittedly went the boring route and also because you're trying to go Knighty Knight lol.

This is a creature heavy deck, with 43 total creatures including the commander. There are a surprisingly high number of lords for the knight type. We have 14 total lord effects in the deck, ranging from pumping power and toughness to giving them abilities like double strike, indestructible, and even horsemanship.

The lands and ramp are from a basic manabase package of lands and rocks that I'll be using in most of my decks, filling it out with basics, unless they call for any additions or changes. For this deck, I've added a Three Tree City to the lands, and an Urza's Incubator to the ramp.

The Standout Cards

Haakon is an absolute house in this deck. He acts as a backup way to get your knights back from the graveyard, if your commander is starting to get prohibitively expensive. He also allows for some of my favorite tech in the game: he specifically allows you to recast knight spells from your graveyard, and you know what are technically knight spells?

That's right: Kindred Changeling cards! We are running two removal spells that count as knights, so you can cast them as many times as you'd like when Haakon is out.

The Council of Four is the one non-knight creature in the deck, but I assure you, it's well worth the inclusion! The best part of this card's text is the word "player" because then you can trigger its effect as well. Even if your opponents are avoiding triggering The Council, you can feel free to cast two spells to make another body, or swing with a knight to loot, triggering the first ability and drawing you an additional card.

The Win Conditions

The first, most obvious way to win is to build up a board of knights and turn them sideways. With enough lords and bodies, you should get through eventually, and cards like Knights' Charge and Moonshaker Cavalry just speed up the process.

If, for some reason, you can't attack, be it a board stall or pillowfort cards, you can just work on building up a decent board, then cast Curry Favor, draining everyone out, or work towards some Syr Konrad or Corpse Knight shenanigans.

Final Thoughts

This was a fun place to start! Typal decks are usually fairly straightforward, but knights have some fun options. All-in-all, I feel good about my first deck in the Challenge.

DAY 1

R1: Win in Game 2 vs Gardevoir ex

R2: Tie in Game 3 vs Dragapult ex

R3: Loss in Game 2 vs Eevee Box

R4: Loss in Game 2 vs Noctowl Charizard

R5: Win in Game 2 vs Dragapult ex

R6: Win in Game 2 vs Gardevoir ex

R7: Win in Game 2 vs Pidgeot Charizard

R8: Win in Game 2 vs Gardevoir

DAY 2

R9: Loss in Game 3 vs Grimmsnarl

R10: Loss in Game 3 vs Gholdengo

R11: Win in Game 2 vs Gholdengo

R12: Win in Game 2 vs Gholdengo