This is my build of a Kinnan Brawl deck. I've played this deck on Arena a lot and can confirm: it is quite powerful. In my opinion, Kinnan should be banned as a commander in brawl.
Note:
Woodland Mystic
is legal in Arena Brawl because it was printed in the Arena Beginner's set.
Deck Plan: Mulligan to a hand with enough ramp. Ideally, you want 2 mana dorks/rocks, at least one of which costs 2 mana (not counting
Wolfwillow Haven
, which doesn't get doubled by Kinnan). Then you have the following simple play pattern:
t1: land
t2: land + 2 drop dork
t3: land, kinnan, dork (can be 2 or 3 mana, unless you played Wolfwillow on t2 or you played a tap land t3, in which case it will need to be 2 mana)
t4: untapping with your field intact gives you 7 mana to use Kinnan.
From there, you just want to fill the field with beaters and swing at your opponent.
Nuts draw: pre-KDH it was
Gilded Goose
,
Arcane Signet
,
Ilysian Caryatid
/
Tangled Florahedron
/
Woodland Mystic
, forest, island, untapped land, which lets you activate kinnan on t3. But now with
Jaspera Sentinel
, it's just that it with one of the aforementioned 2 drop dorks that it can play on t2 off Kinnan. So basically,
Jaspera Sentinel
is a crazy good dork for Kinnan.
Metagame: Arena uses an algorithm to match commanders based on their power level. It is a black box, but it does contribute to seeing the same commanders over and over, because Kinnan is obviously classified as a high power commander. The two most important commanders (besides the mirror) to keep in mind are the control decks
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
and
Narset of the Ancient Way
. I firmly believe that this build of Kinnan is much stronger than any build of those decks. My win rates against those commanders, and indeed my win rates in general, seem to support this hypothesis. However, the control decks offer the best answer to Kinnan in the form of sweepers. These include:
Extinction Event
,
Shatter the Sky
,
Storm's Wrath
,
Realm-Cloaked Giant
,
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
,
Shadows' Verdict
, and
Pestilent Haze
. The last is particularly game-breaking because it's only 3 mana. We go off t4, so a pestilent haze can kill us even if the control player is on the draw! And even a 4drop sweeper is pretty good because untapping with kinnan and 7 mana just lets us put a creature into play - not much use vs a sweeper. We need one of the two counter spells to stop the t4 sweeper. Now, if I believed that t4 sweeper merited an auto-concede, I wouldn't think this deck needs a ban because the control decks can effectively fight it. However, I have always been surprised by how well this deck can recover from such setbacks. The only thing it needs is to keep playing lands and then the stream of beaters can often get there. The control deck needs to follow up their wrath with some very productive spell - Narset isn't quite proactive enough, Ashiok is much better. But Ashiok has access to fewer wraths. Hence, I don't see control decks consistently pulling off wrath followed by win-con, which is what I need to see to concede. When they only have one of those two things, this deck can still fight a winning game.
Specific card choices:
Dorks:
Jaspera Sentinel
lets you activate Kinnan on t3 if you play a 2-drop dork off it t2. Insanely good.
Humble Naturalist
helps you play your spells (which are mainly creatures) but then doesn't help activate Kinnan?! That sucks! Wrong. The extra mana off Kinnan's ability can be used for any purpose. It's still one the less impressive dorks, but as the play pattern indicates, you really want to be playing every 2drop dork you can. If this is one of your two starting dorks, you'll need an untapped land t4 to activate Kinnan on time.
Ilysian Caryatid
is an awesome dork. Gets you blue mana even if you only have forests and frequently taps for an extra mana.
Beaters:
Koma, Cosmos Serpent
is the ideal spell against control decks. And it's a super strong bomb in general.
Kogla, the Titan Ape
is the second best card in the deck (got dethroned by Koma). It just does too much. And it combos with Kinnan to protect both of them.
Nylea, Keen-Eyed
survives most wraths, though she may temporarily lose her creature status. The mana reduction isn't bad, either.
Questing Beast
is the single most powerful green card in the format. Super important vs the walker commander control decks. Great vs Ashiok, who can't even make chumpers for it.
Thryx, the Sudden Storm
. just use flash to time this correctly and dodge countermagic, and all of a sudden many of your beaters are uncounterable and cost reduced. Very solid vs control. Flash+Flying is also particularly helpful for getting a surprise hit on a planeswalker.
Other:
Brazen Borrower
is a perfectly reasonable piece of interaction. Due to Kinnan's ability, you don't want to fill your deck with non-creature spells like counter magic and removal. So, this adventure is ideal. Hitting it off Kinnan isn't great but it's a lot better than whiffing. The 3/1 flying flash is particularly good vs the control decks for dodging sorcery speed removal and then damaging their walker. Also, Petty Theft is one of the best spells in the mirror. As the play pattern indicates, the mirror match is usually just whoever wins the coin flip. Bouncing a dork is one of the few ways you can survive on the draw.
Field of Ruin
is amusing when your opponent is playing
Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
Fierce Empath
is a versatile tutor. It finds the removal spells
Kogla, the Titan Ape
and
Thorn Mammoth
or the win-cons
Nyxbloom Ancient
and
Koma, Cosmos Serpent
Glasspool Mimic
can operate as 3drop dork, a land, or a clone of
Nyxbloom Ancient
if you're going for the BM.
Negate
,
Sublime Epiphany
and
Disdainful Stroke
. Kinnan lets you leave a ton of mana open if you want, so countermagic is good. But too much of it dilutes the deck for his ability. I play these three because they are the three best counterspells for the deck.
Sublime Epiphany
is of course a completely unbalanced card. Wins games by itself.
Negate
and
Disdainful Stroke
counter the most problematic spells. Generally I try to leave them for sweepers.
Nyxbloom Ancient
. Let's you put a bunch of creatures into play and threaten to win in a turn.
The Great Henge
. keeping this card in play is practically a win-con. Dodges Ugin and is one of the best ways to rebuild after he sweeps your board.
