Deck Rating: 5 out of 10
Deck Strategy: Aggro, Burn
My first and so far only partner commander EDH deck. Going over my Commander Legends pulls, Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh's ability to facilitate Jeska, Thrice Reborn's ETB effect was immediately apparent, and I set them aside to brew a deck around. Beyond that, I was interested in making a Mono-Red deck that didn't rely on typical Red EDH strategies (wheels, artifact interaction). With Jeska as the centerpiece, I identified these pillars to make her deck work:
- Cheap, high-power creatures (preferably with haste, trample or evasion keywords), serving as targets for her 0 loyalty ability.
- Any-target damage spells, which protect your board state by means of creature removal, and finish off weakened opponents.
- Board-wide oppression effects that prevent opponents from blocking (effectively).
Jeska's protégé Rograkh pulls double duty in this deck, of sorts.
- Primarily, he is an extremely cheap chump blocker that you can keep recurring. Normally, commander tax would cause diminishing returns; however, Jeska's ETB loyalty cares about how many times you've played a commander from the command zone. High loyalty counter totals on Jeska keep her on the board, and allow you to fuel her -X easily, letting you smack players, blast creatures and punish planeswalkers when you need it most.
- Secondarily, our fearless (and amply-keyworded) kobold can be used as a mini-Voltron target for Jeska's 0; he is a commander, after all, and Rograkh smacking a player for 21 total damage will knock them out. However, I would advise against this as your primary strategy. It draws a lot of attention, and typically prompts an outsize threat assessment. You'll become Archenemy, and Mono-Red does not do well in answering the increased volume of threats. Resist the impulse to murder your enemies with a kobold, friends - you'll live longer.
Now that we know our commanders' capabilities, we need to build a support structure that allows a Mono-Red list to keep up with other EDH decks. That means the following:
- Card Draw, as much as we are able to find. War Room is reliable and difficult to remove. Crimson Fleet Commodore and Court of Ire give you a card-drawing crown, stuck on a body and a removal enchantment respectively. Tectonic Reformation ensures you can easily cycle away late-game land draws for gas. Infiltration Lens combos well with Jeska's triple-damage effect, forcing your opponents to block and give you more cards. Risk Factor can be viewed as Red's flighty, fiery riff on Rhystic Study. Though some players will consistently deny you the draws, most don't feel eager to step up; much like its slower, bigger ancestor Browbeat, the bystander effect is on full display.
- Ramp, as achieved through rocks, fast mana, tax breaks and other dirty tricks. An EDH deck without a Sol Ring is like a king without a crown - we've got one in, of course. Seething Song, Mana Geyser and the unspectacular Vessel of Volatility constitute our fast mana; well, fast enough. Braid of Fire is a great under-the-radar card, as the ever-increasing free mana you get off it is lost after your upkeep step. Not quite so threatening on its own (though see the Combo section below); still, you can use it for instants/flash cards and activated abilities as you please. Nyx Lotus is a fine ramp card in any mono-colored deck, while the Ruby Medallion makes paying your way just a little bit easier. In the exotic category, Horizon Stone lets you build up your mana across turns, and Pyromancer's Goggles serves as a mid-game rock that doubles up your burn spells.
- Answers & Protection effects, which Red as a color is rather light on. We find it in Utility lands like Maze of Ith and Labyrinth of Skophos which allow us to guard against creatures too big to blow up, and Nephalia Academy to prevent our precious hand from getting hosed. We also run Molten Influence and Mages' Contest, mainly for their surprise value. Who would expect a Red deck to drop a counterspell, after all?
So, if Voltron is not the way to win, how do we claim victory? Glad you asked! A plan in 3 steps:
- Start slow. This deck should not draw attention to itself, especially in the early game. While it is quite possible for this deck to kill a player out of the blue, the remaining two will ally immediately until you have been knocked out too. Don't make it easy for them to put you in this corner. Destroy threats to yourself - but reactively, not proactively if at all possible. Ideally, you build up a board state and a mana base while other, flashier decks draw the focus.
- Shift gears. The right time for you to go on the offensive is immediately after dropping a splashy, value-enhancing card. Berserkers' Onslaught, Disrupt Decorum, Cosmotronic Wave or Repeated Reverberation are excellent examples; all of them will cause an immediate reassessment of your threat level. Therefore, it is key to exploit this brief window while you have the element of surprise. Few things are as satisfying as smashing a double-striking, Unleash Fury-roided Valakut Fireboar into the biggest player at the table for 84 damage out of nowhere.
- Keeping your momentum up. As soon as you murder one of your table-mates, any pretense of innocence is gone. You will be Archenemy for the remainder of the game; make peace with this. Ideally, your sudden strike will knock out the player with the most powerful board state. However, that may not always be possible. So, how do we close out the game? Repeated Reverberation into Jeska's -X at maximum will put the hurt on players that are already wounded. Brash Taunter can also be an excellent way to take out foes; remember that it can target your own creatures! Most of the time, however, you will be winning the way Red always has: swinging with high-power creatures and slinging burn spells. Nothing wrong with that!
Combos and Interactions
Though the deck does not rely on combos to win the game, a number of interesting interactions can be achieved. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Braid of Fire is a spicy little thing. If it stays on the field, before long you'll find yourself with double-digit free mana. Normally, you can only spend it on instants and activated abilities, but by sacrificing Emergence Zone at the right time, you can leverage this mana flood for other cards. Starting your turn by nuking the other players with an = 20 Jaya's Immolating Inferno is a great prelude to victory. Alternatively, invest the free mana into Crawling Barrens. Before long, it'll be enormous, a perfect target for Jeska's 0 ability.
- Contagion Clasp might seem like a niche addition, only really useful for slowly taking out indestructible creatures. However, the proliferate activated ability is useful for other things; add age counters to Braid of Fire, give Jeska more loyalty counters, grow Runaway Steam-Kin some more!
- Repeated Reverberation is, excuse my French, fucking terrifying. As a little thought experiment, imagine getting Zalto, Fire Giant Duke in using Hot Soup, while under the effect of Jeska's 0 and with Berserkers' Onslaught in play. Then we hit it with Unleash Fury, copied twice with Repeated Reverberation. So we have 7 base damage, doubled to 14, doubled again to 28, doubled again to 56, which it deals twice through double strike for 112, the result of which is tripled to 336. As the commercial goes, that's a lotta damage!
(For even more stupid, use the Pyromancer's Goggles to copy Repeated Reverberation. How does 1344 combat damage sound?)
Pet Cards
To me, Commander is a format where fun is first, and competition second. As such, almost every deck I make will have some cards that are probably not the best choice for inclusion. They're there to stay, though, for no other reason that I like their art/flavor/design.
- Sisters of the Flame - An honest-to-god mana dork! In Red! Truly, 4th Edition was a different time.
- Brash Taunter - Not just a great blocker. Any Voltron deck will come to fear this humble goblin; you don't even have to attack with him! Buffing him so he can serve as creature removal is just icing on the cake.
- Warstorm Surge - All your high-power creatures just became high-power burn spells. Have fun.
- Shivan Wumpus - The Morton's Fork beast. Your opponents deal with a big threat ahead of curve, or they lose lands to keep the Wump at bay. Either way, you come out ahead.
Maybeboard Musings
I'll keep adding maybeboard considerations to these decks, as they're a good place to discuss the has-beens, coulda-beens and also-rans that didn't make the cut.
- Dowsing Dagger
. An attempt to add more ramp, reliably achievable with the many tramplers in the deck. I don't yet own this card; you better believe it's going in if I get it.
- Fervor. A backup for Anger and Frenzied Saddlebrute. Could replace one of the lower-efficiency cards in this deck.
- Vedalken Orrery. This would be a major boost in power for this deck (and therefore likely attract spot removal). Suddenly, Braid of Fire becomes actual ramp! Play your creatures on your opponents' final end step to circumvent your need to give them haste! Honestly, there's no deck that this card won't work in; getting it is the real obstacle.
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