Hey guys! Welcome back to Konglicker's Premiere Primers, the series where I take a brand-new, never-before-played Legendary Creature from the latest MTG product and build a commander deck around it, speculating its ideal strategy. I began the series with Azor the Lawbringer: The Premiere Primer all the way back when Rivals of Ixalan dropped. I hope you'll check it out!
When Core Set 2019 Spoilers started flying around on the internet and players noted the ridiculous impact the set will have on all formats, especially Modern, I started digging around for a juicy commander to brew around. Sure enough, I found one on my favorite podcast: The Command Zone! Their exclusive preview card is Arcades, the Strategist, a commander that immediately captivated me. The OG Bant Elder Dragon, revamped for Defenders?? I couldn't resist.
90% of the card's allure stemmed from the first Pauper deck I ever homebrewed, a Dimir Wall Mill deck built around Doorkeeper and Drift of Phantasms that I later made Simic. It won a decent amount of games simply because nobody saw it coming, so creatures with Defender have a special place in my heart. Man your defenses and lets talk Arcades Wall Tribal! Because Defenders are usually obscure in most formats, this deck can be built rather cheaply!
The General
Until the actual card is released, Arcades Sabboth is a placeholder.
Arcades, the Strategist is a 3/5 Legendary Creature-Elder Dragon for with Flying and Vigilance. It reads: "Whenever a creature with defender enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card. Each creature you control with defender assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power and can attack as though it didn't have defender".
Aside from Rafiq and Roon, Arcades may be the most busted Bant commander ever printed. He certainly is the spiciest. What makes him shine is how straightforward he is. What is it that makes him so powerful?
...have you ever looked at your average creature with defender???
Almost all of them are relatively cheap, often with 4 or more toughness and 0 power. Take Drift of Phantasms, a personal favorite of mine, for example. With Arcades on the battlefield, it effectively becomes a 5/5 flyer for with Transmute AND "when Drift of Phantasms enters the battlefield, draw a card". THAT IS NUTS. Now cram a whole deck full of those and you have an army of cantrips nobody can laugh at.
Deck Strategy and Playstyle
Obviously, this deck is going to abuse creatures with defender. Arcades turns all of them into Wall of Omens (which will now draw you two cards by the way, that's fair). However, if all we do is cram a bunch of defenders into a deck, it's nothing more than a glorified Bant stompy deck that does nothing if Arcades isn't out. They need support and a backup plan or two.
Enter Doorkeeper, another personal favorite of mine given its origin in my first Pauper brew. Once we build a big enough wall of creatures, we can just tap this guy repeatedly to mill people out. We can do this with a method I've used before involving a broken card: Paradox Engine. If we have a bunch of mana rocks out (three to pay for the Doorkeeper's ability and some more to save for casting spells) alongside Arcades, we can win instantly by:
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Tapping all of the rocks to float the mana.
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Using 3 of it to pay for the Doorkeeper, tapping it to mill.
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Use some or all of the remaining mana to cast a creature with Defender, triggering Arcades to draw a card.
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Paradox Engine also triggers, untapping the Doorkeeper and all of your mana rocks.
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Repeat until all opposing decks are empty.
If Arcades is not in play, you can substitute Soul of the Harvest or Primordial Sage. If Panharmonicon is in play, I draw twice as many cards. You do the math and tell me how that's fair. It is highly possible for us to draw and cast our entire deck if the proper permanents are in play.
Since 95% of our creatures are cantrips and we play both Blue and White, we can also employ another alternate win condition involving card draw: Approach of the Second Sun. We can easily dig through our deck and build defenses simultaneously.
As for countermagic, counterspells are surprisingly not as important in this deck, even though it's a little weak to boardwipes. Include one or two just to stop opposing game-winning pieces from resolving. Our creatures will rarely die in combat, so our opponents will quickly find that Wrath effects are their best plays. Teferi's Protection, Heroic Intervention and Eerie Interlude are our silver bullets for those scenarios. Thanks to Arcades' ability making all Walls cantrips, we can easily rebuild from a boardwipe and draw into gas. Our own boardwipes should not destroy, but instead return all nonland permanents to their owners' hands. That's fantastic for us, since the entry of our creatures into the battlefield nets us resources. Coastal Breach, Crush of Tentacles and Devastation Tide are our best bets. Don't bother countering an opposing Cyclonic Rift. Welcome it!
If our hand is ever in desperate need of refuelling, we can use fan-favorite blinkers like Eldrazi Displacer, Roon of the Hidden Realm, Deadeye Navigator and Eerie Interlude to blink our army and draw loads of cards. This can also help us find and recast Approach of the Second Sun faster.
This deck has green, so ramp isn't an issue. Include spells that pull lands from your deck and place them straight onto the battlefield, nothing less. The sooner Arcades is out, the better. We'll also want standard protection for our commander, since no opponent with a brain will tolerate us receiving a steady stream of card advantage. Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots will do since we aren't on the Voltron plan.
I hope you enjoyed the latest Premiere Primer! I'll be sure to cook up another one before the set drops, and put Arcades in this list as soon as possible.
