Meet the Commmander
Odric in my opinion is one of the best commanders to build around if you are on a budget. Both Odric, Lunarch Marshal and Odric, Master Tactician make appearences in this deck and either can be used as commanders depending on your preference, both have their own strengths and weaknesses being in the commanders chair. Odric, Lunarch Marshal is great at multiplying the power of your board giving you the extra power you need to kill of players, while Odric, Master Tactician can control combat by letting you get through for damage as if your oppents had no blockers whatsoever. It's for these reasons I think it makes are great deck to introduce new players to commander.
Plan of Attack
This deck was built with a few goals in mind:
- Simple to play and Understand.
- Be mana efficient, and build a fast deck with a low curve.
- Stick to the theme of soldiers or humans as closely as possible.
The deck does all these things very well and of all the decks I own I feel it uses a lot of fun unique cards that you normally just don't see in commander too often. Most commander players have an unspoken rule that the first few turns are about setting up for the big crazy tricks that involve casting crazy big creatures or massive enchantments that normally you wouldn't see in any other format which means that for the most part the early turns of commander games are usually uneventful with players mana fixing or playing ramp spells maybe a few utility creatures or draw outlets to set themselves up for the later turns. Instead I decided to exploit this common occurrence buy building a deck that is designed to be fast with a very low mana curve.
The color white is widely considered the weakest choice for a dominate color in the commander format because of its lack of ramp, and card draw effects, and while I completely understand these complaints it really saddens me that such a powerful color has gotten such a lackluster reputation in my favorite format. I wanted to prove to the "Nay Sayers" that white can be a very effective mono color deck despite its flaws. Rather than trying to force the deck to do things that it won't excel at, I built this deck to be able to function at a very low curve. By having a low curve it we don't have to worry as much about ramping since the deck can play 97% of cards at 4 mana, not too mention it also means we don't need as much land as a typical commander deck in order to function properly. At the same time white does a lot of great things which makes it a very popular complimentary color. White has some of best removal effects in all of the colors and it can be very effective at producing tokens, gaining life, recursion, and protection effects. One of the other pro's to running a mono white commander deck is that in multiplayer is that it almost always will be underestimated at first glance. Play conservatively and let the other people on the board sign off on you as a non-threat, then turn on the gas in an instant and dump a ton of soldiers into play and kill a player in an instant, or hit the door running and show off how fast a deck really can be. Because it is a mono color deck you don't have to worry about spending a ton of money on the mana base unlike the other multi-color decks that are very popular in the format. I have to awknowledge to some extent this goes against the spirit of the commander meta which is completely focused on getting into the later turns and playing massive bomb cards that cost 5+ mana to cast, but it is for its uniqueness that I really love this deck. It plays like a just like a ferrari, fast and powerful, but be careful as it can run out of gas fast if your not careful.
Table Politics
"This deck in a multiplayer (3+) game really doesn't have any. Your best bet is to pick one guy on the table and wail on him until he dies then work your way down the table. Choose wisely which guy you choose as your first victim because it may end up being your last. Assuming you have managed to kill your first victim, it's highly likely that the other two are gunning for you. This is always the most critical moment of the game. I find a board wipe is usually what ends up being needed in order to weaken the remaining foe's enough for you to hopefully kill off the others. Be mindful, it's hard to win if you start to sprint right out of the gate in a game that requires politics with a deck that doesn't have any but a clear picture of what it's intended goal is. Kill you fast.
Amassing an Army
One of the most effective ways to really pull out a win with this deck is to use the power of white to produce tons and tons of solider tokens to beat down our opponents, and this deck is loaded with cards that excel in this area. Precinct Captain, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, and Hero of Bladehold all do fantastic jobs of producing tokens as a result of combat damage which are really easy to trigger if you have Master Tactician as your commander. In addition to the creatures there are several instants, sorcery's, and enchantments that do the same thing, though I am sad that Assemble the Legion isn't in the deck colors. Raise the Alarm and Timely Reinforcements are pretty strait forward and provide cheap bodies. Launch the Fleet is an all star in this category especially when its used in combination with anthem effects i.e. Honor of the Pure.
With the second Conspiracy came Recruiter of the Guard which is such a powerful tutor in this deck. With so many bodies being of low cost their are so many targets for Recruiter of the Guard to retrieve one of my favorites being Preeminent Captain which can really accelerate the punishment our attacks. That being said with so much of the deck being under 2 toughness, their is a ton of freedom to choose whatever is most needed at the current situation of the game.
Weapons of War
In addition to tokens their are several useful equipment included in the deck that have great synergy with Odric, Lunarch Marshal.Sword of Vengeance, Lightning Greaves, and Chariot of Victory all really ramp up his abilities. I would also consider Basilisk Collar as another powerful option in this category even though I am not currently running it in the deck at this time. Skeleton Key is another new addition providing all of our creatures with skulk which is amazing with our low power soldiers. Godsend also makes an appearance and while it doesn't give any effects it does make it harder for opponents to block key creatures that we simply need to connect for damage to the player.
Mirror Entity is gross. If you have an excess of mana and this guy is on the board, people are going to disappear fast.Intrepid Hero is great for dealing with big problem creatures like flyers or other nasty things our opponent my play and Champion of the Parish is just great early game power for only 1 mana.
Strengthening Positions
Okay so we have an army of 1/1's how do we really make these little tokens kill stuff? Make them bigger of course! Que all of the Anthem effects! These really are so powerful in this deck and they are so efficient on mana its scary Honor of the Pure, Konda's Banner, and Dictate of Heliod are all pretty straight forward, but Marshal's Anthem and Spear of Heliod both do double duty by giving us a little recursion and removal. I almost forgot about Mobilization.
Logistics
As I mentioned before in the introduction, ramp and card draw has never been a strong suit for white but despite that there is still several options the deck has to keep dumping out creatures and keep our solider war machine rolling. Relic Seeker, Open the Armory and Steelshaper's Gift are cheap tutors that can fetch us some fun stuff. Knight of the White Orchid can help prevent the from falling behind on land drops. Mentor of the Meek lets us draw cards almost every time we play a creature from our hand. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for science. And lets not forget about Explorer's Scope. It's not the most powerful ramp effect in existence but boy is it cheap to play. Emeria, The Sky Ruin is a great land that should be in every mono white deck in my personal opinion while it may take some time for it's effect to pay dividends, there is no double about how powerful it's effect can be. In the early turns Terrain Generator can help us put extra lands into play at the cost of a little mana, and Skeleton Key does double duty here by letting us draw then discard.
Special Forces
Bonds of Faith is probably one of my favorite utility cards in the deck. Since there are so many humans you have plenty of targets if you want to use it too buff your own creatures, and alternitively in can be used as a pacify against your opponents non humans. Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Grand Abolisher are just there to make it a little harder on our opponents by slowing them down in places and preventing them doing anything on our turns. If things get out of hand Martial Coup can wipe the board and still leave us with a board state. Finally lets not forget about Bastion Protector which helps protect our commander from removal.
Closing Statement
I have been working on this deck for several years now after playing someone who introduced me to Odric, Master Tactician when I was still just getting involved in commander and I never forgot how much fun I had playing against that deck. Later that day I found myself collecting cards towards my own deck and eventually it evolved into what you see now. While Tribal decks are not at all new to the format, I don't think I have ever run into another Mono white solider tribal weenie deck in the four years I have been playing commander. It's because of that uniqueness that I love this deck and in my playgroup it is hated and feared for its power in 1v1 games being able to keep pace with my friends goblin and elf tribal decks respectfully. Thanks for taking the time to check it out and as always if you have any questions at all feel free to message me and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
