[Duel Commander] Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Duel Commander* Aggro Artifact Burn Combo Competitive Dragons Dwarf Mono-Red Tokens

DuelCommander

Creature (39)

• 1x Adaptive Automaton
• 1x Axgard Cavalry
• 1x Blightsteel Colossus
• 1x Bloodfire Dwarf
• 1x Bonecrusher Giant
• 1x Breakneck Berserker
• 1x Captain Lannery Storm
• 1x Duplicant
• 1x Dwarven Armorer
• 1x Dwarven Blastminer
• 1x Dwarven Bloodboiler
• 1x Dwarven Grunt
• 1x Dwarven Miner
• 1x Dwarven Scorcher
• 1x Dwarven Trader
• 1x Enslaved Dwarf
• 1x Fearless Liberator
• 1x Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
• 1x Glorybringer
• 1x Goblin Engineer
• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Goldspan Dragon
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Liberated Dwarf
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Meteor Golem
• 1x Painter's Servant
• 1x Pardic Miner
• 1x Reckless Fireweaver
• 1x Rimrock Knight
• 1x Robber of the Rich
• 1x Seasoned Pyromancer
• 1x Simian Spirit Guide
• 1x Spark Mage
• 1x Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1x Universal Automaton
• 1x Vault Robber
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine

Land (35)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Castle Embereth
• 1x Dwarven Mine
• 1x Faceless Haven
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Mutavault
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrying Sheets
• 1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
• 21x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Instant (7)

• 1x Abrade
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Urza's Rage
• 1x Valakut Awakening  ^Flip

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Daretti, Scrap Savant
• 1x Karn, Scion of Urza

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x The Flame of Keld

Commander (1)

Artifact (8)

• 1x Aethersphere Harvester
• 1x Funeral Longboat
• 1x Grindstone
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Sky Skiff
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Springleaf Drum
• 1x Tangle Wire

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Banefire
• 1x Chain Lightning
• 1x Flame Slash
• 1x Jeska's Will
• 1x Lava Coil
• 1x Song-Mad Treachery  ^Flip

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Loyal Apprentice
• 1x Storm-Kiln Artist
• 1x Sundering Titan

Artifact (3)

• 1x Batterskull
• 1x Ensnaring Bridge
• 1x Mizzium Tank

Land (1)

• 1x Inventors' Fair

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Main Gameplan

Generating Treasures...

The backbones of the deck and the main strategy is to generate a lot of treasures. To do so, we favor repeatable treasure generation, mostly using creatures in order to also remain aggressive and generate pressure. Due to the nature of the format, many cards that are usually good at generating treasures (mainly Dockside Extortionist ) have been left out, in favor of other cards, generally low costed dwarves, that can generate treasures with our commander.

• Captain Lannery Storm generates treasures in a similar way to a dwarf attacking with Magda. Unfortunately, she won't generate a treasure from simply being tapped, she needs to attack, but she comes with the ability to swing for some massive damage, if unblocked with a lot of treasures on the battlefield.

• Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge will give us treasures when our creatures die, but also when a blocker on the opposite side of the field dies, which might make your opponent think twice before blocking. It is pretty easy to turn on in this deck (sometimes as soon as it enters the battlefield), and it can still block even if it can't attack. It is an amazing target for Dwarven Bloodboiler .

• Goldspan Dragon generates treasures by attacking or by being targetted, which means that an opponent trying to remove it will at least let you get a mana out of it. Being a dragon with a CMC of 5, it is within reach of being casted, while also being a tutor target for Magda. It opens up new lines, for example if other big tutor targets are stuck in your hands, allowing you to generate tons of mana to be able to hardcast them.

• Magda, Brazen Outlaw is our commander and our main treasures generator. With a CMC of 2, it is not impossible to cast it turn 1 (while turn 2 is a lot more frequent), allowing early treasure generation. Usually, we want to combine it with a 1 drop dwarf, in order to start generating treasures the turn she comes into play. Individually, the dwarves are not that good, but a combination of the +1/+0 and the treasures they now generate makes them a lot better.

• Vault Robber is pretty interesting in this deck, since it can generate two treasures at the same time (if Magda is in play), simply by reusing the corpses of dead dwarves, which would be useless otherwise. If nothing is available in the graveyard, it can still be used to attack.

... Without Attacking...

Our main way to generate treasures, Magda, Brazen Outlaw , does not require dwarves to attack. It only requires them to become tapped, which makes this deck a little bit more playable against other aggro decks that would have access to blockers for our early attacks. This deck makes use of some of the best available cards that allow tapping our dwarves without attacking, which also add other lines of play and depth to the deck.

• Dwarven Bloodboiler will tap dwarves to generate tokens, even summoning sick dwarves (and if he is summoning sick)! By doing so, we will also deal a lot of damage with an unblocked creature (not that it can be any target creature, not only a dwarf), which is especially good with the dragons we play.

• Smuggler's Copter (and other vehicles), in addition to being a staple in the format for aggro decks to dig through the deck, allows to tap dwarves in order to crew it and turn it into a creature. Note that even if it only is Crew 1, we can tap any number of creatures, letting us tap multiple dwarves and generate more tokens. On another note, it also allows us to loot some of our bigger creatures (such as Blightsteel Colossus ) that would be stuck in our hands, allowing us to either reshuffle them, or reanimate them later. As for the other vehicles, the barrier of entry is being able to be crewed for 1, not costing more than 3 and having some other relevant effects, such has evasion ( Sky Skiff ), life gain ( Aethersphere Harvester ) or another interesting effect ( Funeral Longboat ).

... As Fast As Possible...

In order to win as fast as possible, Magda, Brazen Outlaw  needs to be put on the battlefield as fast as possible, turn 1 being the best. This deck uses cards to allow Magda the be cast on turn 1, making it possible to start generating tokens and put pressure on our opponent as fast as possible.

• Lotus Petal

• Simian Spirit Guide

... To Kill Our Opponent

Once we have enough treasures, we can use them to fetch artifacts and dragons from our deck. This part of the deck is the most meta dependant one, since you can slot in utility artifacts and/or dragons to better interact with decks in your meta. The deck as shown her will use some of the best cards for blind metas, but you can always swap them with more meta specific cards.

• Blightsteel Colossus probably is the best artifact finisher available. Against some decks, it is a one hit swing, given no removal or blockers. Even if not a one hit kill, it usually is a must answer. We might not want to tutor for this in all cases, but most of the time, it will be a good target.

• Grindstone + Painter's Servant is a combo that fits nicely in this deck. We can tutor both halves with our commander, and if need be, we can also wait a little longer before tutoring them, allowing us to activate the ability as soon as they are both on the battlefield (this can happen on average on turn 6). We should not always rush the combo, but it is a nice option to have if we find ourselves not being the fastest deck against other aggro matchups. By itself, Grindstone is not the most useful card in the deck (while it can still be ok-ish against mono-colored decks), while Painter's Servant allows us to play Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast , two interaction spells that usually are simply ok (because blue is present in a lot of decks), making them a lot better by choosing blue.

• Wurmcoil Engine  is a card I really like for multiple reasons: it is big, it is hard to get rid of (especially thanks to effects like Goblin Welder ) and it gains us life. Against another aggro deck, this one is amazing if we are low on life, easily getting back from critical situations. Deathtouch on a 6/6 is also no joke, making it hard to decide if we want to block and lose a creature or not. As mentioned above, thanks to Goblin Welder  effects, it can easily be recurred from the graveyard, in case it is dealt with, or simply if the game drags and we can sacrifice it repeatedly in order to start generating lifelink or deathtouch tokens.

Individual Cards

Imperial Recruiter

This card could have been listed in the "Too Good To Pass" section, but I wanted a separate block to talk about the package that comes with it, and all the targets we have for it in the deck. While not a really aggro creature, and not one a typical red deck wins would play, it is really good in this deck, allowing us to tutor for almost any creature we could want, sometimes to combo off, sometimes to help the main gameplan, sometimes to get out of tough situations.

• Captain Lannery Storm  can be tutored if we have a lot of treasures and an opening, letting her swing for some massive damage.

• Dwarven Bloodboiler  can be tutored if we need to generate treasures really fast by tapping down our entire dwarven army. It can also be a good target if we have one of our flying creatures (dragon or vehicle) that can swing unblocked, allowing for some massive damage.

• Goblin Engineer  can be tutored if we need to "tutor" an artifact (for example if we already have Painter's Servant  and we need to fetch Grindstone ). This card will be covered in more details in its own section, being another great tutor with its own package.

• Magus of the Moon  can be tutored if we play against a 3-4 colors decks, since they play really few basic lands, which could us the advantage against them.

• Painter's Servant is a really good target, being part of a two cards combo with Grindstone . It can also be tutored if we have a Red Elemental Blast or a Pyroblast in hands and need to interact with a non-blue permanent or spell later on. On a side note, make sure not to play this if you know an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon will come soon, since it would allow to exile all lands for a whopping -0...

• Robber of the Rich  can be tutored if we have a lot of mana available and nothing else to do with it, for example if Magda, Brazen Outlaw has been locked out of the game.

Too Good To Pass

The cards described in this section are simply too good to pass in this deck. They are not part of combos or anything fancy, simply good cards that synergize well with the main gameplan, sometimes offering alternate line of plays.

• Blood Moon + Magus of the Moon can be a win against some decks, mainly multicolored ones, if played early on. Even later in the game, it can really slow down decks that don't play a lot of basic lands.

• Robber of the Rich is really amazing with all the mana we can produce early on. There are not a lot of rogues in the deck, but he is amazing on his own. If we are lucky, we can hit some good cards from the top of our opponent's deck, in the form of creatures or interaction, that we can use almost immediately, thanks to all the treasures we can easily generate. This is simply amazing against another aggro deck, allowing us to play the creatures we get from the top of our opponent's deck, preventing him from getting them.

Probably Cutting

These are the cards that are included in the deck, but will probably end up being cut (and moved to the "Exclusions" section). These cards are sometimes placeholders, sometimes only not pulling their weight as much as I taught when initially inserting them.

• Duplicant  sure is a removal option for creatures, but I feel like it is overcosted for what it does. Sure, it can help us get rid of indestructible creatures, but I feel like it is waaaaaay to slow. I almost never want to sacrifice treasures to get this in play, and at 6 mana simply to cast it, I feel like I could do much more. There are some interactions with multiple cards in the deck ( Goblin Welder and the likes) that can be good, but I am not sure it is aggressive enough to warrant a slot here.

• Faceless Haven is no Mutavault . Sure, the creature is a little bit bigger, but simply to turn it into one, it requires tapping 4 lands (since we can't use treasures to do so), meaning it simply won't happen all that often. I'd rather have another utility land in this slot, or another red source, since it will pretty much only be used as a colorless land.

• Meteor Golem is pretty... meh. On one hand, I do like being able to tutor for some removal for almost any permanent. On the other hand, I prefer tutoring a Glorybringer  if I need to deal with a creature (it usually can deal with most of the creatures in the meta). The 7 to cast is no joke, and unlike other high costed cards in this deck, it won't win us the game by itself. Also, I feel like if I am tutoring this, I am in a loosing position, which is already too late usually.

• The Flame of Keld  is not hte best thing I have ever played. Paying two mana to discard your entire hand and waiting until next turn in order to draw 2 cards... is not always as good as it seems. When you play it with empty hands, it is not that bad, but playing it with 3+ cards in hands is not always good. I think I'd rather have another looting effect, such as Faithless Looting , since it can be casted twice, or another piece of interaction. Since I am not sure which is better for now, it will be staying in.

Exclusions

Cards listed in this section mostly have been tested, and ended up being cut from the list because they were not fast enough or simply not reliable. It doe's not mean they are necessarily bad cards, and they could still be included in other versions of this deck, depending on the meta.

• Aggravated Assault  can be an "infinite" combo with Magda, Brazen Outlaw , enough dwarves and no blockers on the opposite side of the field/a tap enabler. The problem with this line is that it requires way to much to set up, and it is an enchantment, making it really difficult to reliably assemble.

• Hanweir Battlements   + Hanweir Garrison has been removed. The melded creature, although strong, is very vulnerable to removal, and requires investing a lot of resources (and time) into melding it, which would be pretty bad for us (sacrificing treasures to meld it and then losing both a land and a creature on a single removal spell would hurt). Also, the land has no real utility for the deck, and there were too much colorless sources to my liking. The creature alone, altough not bad, has been removed in favor of some more consistency in the main gameplan.

• Impulsive Pilferer might seem good (a one drop that can generate a treasure on death), but it is far less interesting in duel commander as it can be in multiplayer. First of all, it is not a dwarf. Secondly, it only creates the treasure on death. Finally, paying 4 to reanimate it in order to generate a single token is pretty bad.

• Mindslaver has been tested, but removed due to personal preference. It might be a better card with a commander such as Daretti, Scrap Savant because it can be recurred way more easily, and that deck would be more of a control deck. In our case, we want to play an aggressive strategy, in which case the card is too slow. Also, simply controlling a single turn of another aggro deck might not always be as powerful as simply searching for something else that has a bigger impact.

• Mouth of Ronom can be used as some form of removal when combined with snow-covered lands, but it is far too slow in this deck and often is a colorless source, which I would prefer to be red.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	WUBG
Key combos	Grindstone + Painter's Servant
Legality	This deck is not Duel Commander legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.54
Tokens	Construct 0/0 C, Dwarf 1/1 R, Dwarf Berserker 2/1 R, Elemental 1/1 R, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Energy Reserve, Morph 2/2 C, On an Adventure, Treasure, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink