Pattern Recognition #328 - Mayor Comm-bal

Features Pattern Recognition

berryjon

20 June 2024

249 views

Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

And welcome back!

So for this week, I'm going to be taking my Kambal Brawl deck from two weeks ago, and upgrading it into a full Commander Deck. For review purposes, here it is:

Kambrawl, Mayor of Tokens

Standard Brawl* berryjon

SCORE: 1 | 68 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

So, after playing this deck a few more times, I've come a couple of conclusions. First is that my Commander needs a lot more protection. The Lavaspur Boots are good, but I'll need more. Second, I need to be more aggressive with both my token making and in my removal. I also want to make my mana fixing a lot more reliable, but that's always a case for every deck.

But before I get to punching up the deck, I need to say something that people miss every year.

THIS IS NOT A NEW DECK. The goal it to take a Standard legal Brawl deck and add forty more cards to it to turn it into a Commander deck. Not take out five and add 45 as people seem to think every year. Just add 40.

Anyway, let's get to this, shall we?

Reorganization

When I built the deck two weeks ago, I think I poorly implemented the way I was sorting out the way I wanted to bring cards into the deck. I had some awkward divisions that I really don't like now. I mean, making a distinction between Direct and Indirect token makers? Why? And Flex was just a grab bag of cards I found interesting rather than trying to shore up what this deck does. Let's start by fixing all this.

With 100 cards, and one Commander, I am left with 99 cards. I want to reserve 35 cards for lands, which leaves me with 64 cards for the deck. From here, I can divide that into 8 groups of 8, instead of five groups of 7. More groupings, but I'm much more aligned with the idea that I can duplicate a group into a set of 16 and move from there. But what are these groupings going to be?

I'm not a big fan of everything they do, but The Command Zone put down a video a couple years ago that still holds up today. I'll be keeping this in mind, but in the end, my decisions are my own.

Well, first, let's get the basics out of the way. Even though I have 35 lands, I know that I'll want more sources of mana. I know that repeatable Token generation costs mana, and the more I have, the better off I will be. So the first section will be Acceleration. Mana rocks and even a couple of mana dorks will go here.

Next, knowing just how vulnerable Kambal is and how required he is for the deck, I want to dedicate a whole 8 cards - if not more - to Protection. Things like giving him multiple pairs of shoes, to sources of Indestructible or Hexproof to Phasing him out if that becomes an option. These cards should also be able to protect other important pieces as well, but it's Kambal that I have to think of first and foremost.

The third set is going to be Removal. I've noticed in my games that there are simply better value engines out there that I can't properly disrupt, and they should be removed as best I can. I can't expect to shoulder all the effort, but being able to contribute is vital.

Fourth is Card Draw. may be short on it in general, but can and does do it relatively reliably.

Fifth is where I get back into my dedicated gameplan. In this set of eight, which I previously called "Direct" token makers, I want to rephrase that as Dedicated Tokens. These are cards that when I put them in the deck, are dedicated to making me tokens. Other factors are allowed, but at the end of the day, these cards make tokens.

Sixth is a rephrasing of Indirect. This time, I'm calling them Secondary Tokens where again, the effect that makes the tokens is redundant to the actual effect of the card itself. It's the difference between Murder and Generous Gift, if you will.

Seventh is Flexible Tokens. Here is where cards and effects that make tokens but are either overflow from the previous go, or are good choices for the deck but don't fit directly elsewhere.

Lastly, Eight is True Flex. Token making is irrelevant, but it is here for Overflow as needed, plus 'fun' effects if required.

Ramp/Acceleration

This is, thankfully, going to be easy. The basic deck I'm starting with is pretty threadbare when it comes to ramp, only having these three to start with:

• Arcane Signet
• Magnifying Glass
• Phyrexian Atlas

Filling this out is quite simple, and I don't feel the need to explain my choices here. They are all rocks. They all tap for either or . Or are Sol Ring.

• Sol Ring
• Orzhov Signet
• Orzhov Locket
• Mind Stone
• Orzhov Cluestone

Eight rocks should be good. And three of them can be cracked for emergency card draw too!

I could probably get a couple more pieces, but for now I'll leave it at this. I want to see what pressures are put on my Flex space before I consider anything there.

Protection

• Lavaspur Boots
• Fake Your Own Death

Oh wow, this is weak. And in dire need of improvement. Let's fix that.

• Mother of Runes
• Giver of Runes
• Swiftfoot Boots
• Lightning Greaves
• Against All Odds
• Teferi's Protection

Aside from the Mother and Daughter of Runes, and the Boots, I feel that Teferi's Protection is a good choice in general. That leaves the odd card out in Against All Odds. This card an flick Kambal out of the way of targeted removal and/or get a creature back from the graveyard whose mana value includes Kambal himself. It's a nice piece of utility to have, and outside of board wipes, I'm probably going to use both sides at the same time.

Removal

My removal suite in this deck is pretty... all over the place. I'm going to be honest with myself here and accept that I really should have put more thought into this, but I had all these cards rolled into general interaction and flex. Let's see what I have to work with here first...

• Get Lost
• Stroke of Midnight
• Deadly Derision
• Rat Out
• Bovine Intervention
• Loran of the Third Path
• No Witnesses
• Charge of the Mites

... Oh god, this is horrible. 8 pieces of removal in the deck, one of which is a global removal spell. Now, I could move Loran into Card draw, but there's no guarantee that she'll make it, and trying to slide the Charge into one of the Token maker slots ignores that it's also effective removal as well.

I want to add more, and this is going to take a huge chunk out of my flex space unless I go out of my way to get removal spells that leave Kambal around and make tokens. Which means March of Souls is right out unless I protect Kambal first.

OK, that one may be worthwhile, but right now, it's being shoved into the 'later' pile.

But don't worry, I will be coming back to this. This needs fixing.

Card Draw

Oh hey, something that I can work with here! I've already put Loran into Removal because of her Disenchant effect, but I do have a couple options already here, as well as mana rocks I can crack for extra draw as needed.

• Platoon Dispenser
• Collector's Vault
• Fanatical Offering
• Corrupted Conviction
• Insatiable Avarice

OK, so that's one conditional draw effect in the Dispenser, and one 'Search/Draw' Spree modal spell. Let's do some proper draw here.

• Love Song of Night and Day
• Armistice
• Bennie Bracks, Zoologist

OK, this requires some explanation, and the explanation is because I want to. But more accurately, the Love Song synergizes with Kambal in making a Token later on as well as drawing two cards right away. Armistice isn't that hard to find, and is a repeatable source of card draw as long as you don't mind giving an opponent three life.

Which can be quite deadly if you're not paying attention, but in Commander, it's a trade I'm willing to make. That and people are less likely to hate on it if they feel they are getting something out of it. Which leaves me with the Zoologist. This guy is basically here to be stapled to Kambal's butt as while I get the card draw only once per turn, it's usually tied to Kambal making a token in the process and thus also draining life. It's just too synergistic to not include him.

Token Makers

OK, you know what? Let's make this a little cleaner. I'm going to throw all my Token Makers into a group of 24 - putting all of Sections 5, 6 and 7 together into one whole rather than trying to finangle a mess.

• Baron Bertram Graywater
• Thousand Moons Smithy  ^Flip
• Envoy of Okinec Ahau
• Compleated Huntmaster
• Transmutation Font
• Threefold Thunderhulk
• Invasion of Tolvada  ^Flip
• Greedy Freebooter
• Hunted Bonebrute
• Hopeful Vigil
• Emergency Weld
• Spellbook Vendor
• Teysa, Opulent Oligarch
• Oltec Matterweaver
• Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation  ^Flip
• Kaya, Spirits' Justice
• Charge of the Mites

There's 17 cards here, meaning I have up to 7 cards to add that are here to make tokens and chew bublegum. And well, there are a couple of cards here I want to include to make things better.

• Anointed Procession
• Smothering Tithe
• Divine Visitation

OK, so these three are the start, as they are what I would put into any deck with tokens. I don't think I need to justify the procession as a token doubler. Smothering Tithe works wonders as it allows me to passively make tokens on other players turns without triggering Kamabal's copy clause and those treasures can be spent on other things with ease.

And Divine Visitation? Well, that glorious piece of cardboard turns anything Kambal makes into a 4/4 Angel with Flying and Vigilance. No more getting a lame Zombie from Jarar, you get something cool instead! Yes, they still come into play tapped, but that's beside the point!

Four more... Then 8 True Flex....

• Starnheim Unleashed
• Court of Grace
• March of the Canonized
• Master of Ceremonies

In fact, lets add to that angel pile with Starnheim Unleashed. Foretell it, make people think you have Doomskar instead and watch them play around your boardwipe when you have a massive source of tokens ready to fire off.

Court of Grace is another reliable token maker, doing it on your upkeep. And introduces the Monarch to allow for more fun things involving Card Draw and making Angels. The March is also a repeatable token maker, though it does require a little bit of a Board state first. I did have Doom Foretold here, but that was just a bit soft for what I was looking to do, so that didn't make the cut. And finally the Master rewards me and my opponents for their choices. Though I expect a lot of card draw out of this one while Kambal is in play.

Flex Space

Which leaves us with the last eight. I know I wanted at least one more piece of ramp here, a few more pieces of removal, and then see what I had left. For the mana rock, let's grab Hedron Archive, which is a decent ramp card but also cracks for card draw.

Ajani, Strength of the Pride is a very good synergy card that creates a token, triggering Kambal, which in turn gains life for the Token.

The Meathook Massacre depends a lot on what your opponent is running, but here, Kambal's 4 Toughness is in his favor as a simple sweeper of everything with a toughness three or less will work out in your favor.

Austere Command is another mass removal card that I can tailor to the problems at hand.

Akroan Horse is a fun potential card that I can use to force my opponents to make tokens when its not my turn.

Blot Out the Sky does double duty in making tokens and blowing up non-land, non-creature permanents, which can work well in a variety of situations.

Working as an alternate, or even a backup Commander, Shadrix Silverquill does a lot each turn, which includes making a token, drawing cards or making my board bigger.

And finally, Elspeth, Sun's Champion Makes tokens. Sweeps the Board. Makes my creatures even more lethal. What's not to like?

Lands

Which leaves me with my mana base. Going from 24 to 35 lands is just 11 more, so that would be... Caves of Koilos, Desolate Mire, Fetid Heath, Isolated Chapel, Shattered Sanctum, Temple of Silence, Silent Clearing, Vault of Champions, Shineshadow Snarl, Godless Shrine and Silverquill Campus. There, that should do it. Let's plug all these into the decklist and....

The Deck

Mayor Com-bal of Tokens

Commander / EDH berryjon

17 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Let's see. The mana curve looks good. A bit thin on White sources, so I'm moving 2 Swamps to Plains. You won't see that, but while I know I said that I wouldn't change the core Brawl deck, these are Basic Lands. They don't count.

And there you have it. One Brawl Deck upgraded to a Commander deck. With just 40 extra cards. I'm not sure how well it will play. There are a couple cards I couldn't find in my collection and tomorrow is Pride Week Partner Commander as my LGS, so I have a deck for that. I'll try to get the cards I'm missing and build the deck for next week and report back. We'll see how it goes.

Join me next week when I finally advance a project I've been slow-cooking for a while. Maybe even two of them!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!