When Azor, the Lawbringer was first spoiled, I cracked a huge smile. I immediately thought, "you could build one helluva degenerate deck in commander around this guy." So, I put my brewer's cap on and got to work. I love being on the innovating edge of a brand new legendary creature so here it is, ladies and gentlemen! You saw it here first: The Premiere Azor Primer!
The General
The founder of the Azorius Senate (yes, you read that right. Lore win! Ba-dum-tsss) is 2 colorless, 2 blue and 2 white for a 6/6 Legendary Creature--Sphinx with Flying that reads "When Azor, the Lawbringer enters the battlefield, each opponent can't cast instant or sorcery spells during that player's next turn. Whenever Azor attacks, you may pay XWUU. If you do, gain X life and draw X cards."
Obviously, this guy is ridiculous. Azor, the Lawbringer is essentially Sphinx's Revelation IN THE COMMAND ZONE. This new commander is screaming to be abused, and I'm going to show y'all how.
Deck Strategy and Playstyle
To get a sense of how this deck should be built and played, we must first understand all of the strategic implications that Azor's abilities have on the game. His first ability bans the use of instants and sorceries by your opponents on their turns for a single turn cycle after he hits the board. In English, your opponents are limited to casting ONLY creatures, artifacts, planeswalkers and enchantments on their next respective turn, AND IF ANYTHING THEY CAST ON THEIR TURN IS COUNTERED, THEY CANNOT RESPOND WITH A COUNTER OF THEIR OWN. This allows for some political wiggle room. Let's say you're player 1 and you just played Azor. It's player 2's turn and he's the biggest threat at the table, with the scariest board state. Players 3 and 4 may allow Azor to resolve, as scary as he is, because it means they can counter anything player 2 does on his turn and he cannot respond with an instant. This is powerful leverage we must exploit. To abuse this further, the deck should include blink effects that can we can use in the turns after we cast him to keep this mini-lock going, since the ability activates on ETB.
His second ability, as I've said before, makes him Sphinx's Revelation on a stick. Note that this ability DOES NOT trigger explicitly when he deals combat damage to a player, but when you DECLARE him as an attacker. He can be blocked (unlikely since he's a FLYER) and it will still resolve. Because of this, opponents will most likely declare him the number one target for removal on the board if they even allow him to resolve. Azor is indeed a threat, so a big chunk of the deck must go towards protecting him. This is already a control deck, so the counter package will serve two purpose: countering the biggest threats, and protecting Azor. Since most removal in commander comes in instant or sorcery form, our opponents' only options to get rid of him are to either counter him or use spot removal immediately after he resolves, most likely during our end step. We need mana up for cheap, hard counters if we intend to cast him.
Since we get to Sphinx's Revelation every turn if we choose, we want to capitalize on that lifegain and card draw. Our hand will already be refilled with answers, but we need more than that. We want to use some cards that disincentivize our opponents from attacking us or playing things on our turn so we can preserve the life we gain.
Since that second ability is mana intensive (and since we're a control deck), we desperately need ramp and mana advantage, something the Azorius color pair is AWFUL at. We'll need every mana rock we can get and some card draw to make sure we hit our land drops every turn without fail. "Mana advantage" can also come in the form of taxing our opponents. However, you do not want to draw too much hate, or else you won't be able to set up your alternate win conditions.
When I originally started designing this deck, I may have placed a little too much emphasis on prison effects. They are hilarious and all, but they will not win you the game. In this format, lifegain and overwhelming card advantage will.
I've also learned through goldfishing that this deck is NOT likely to win through traditional means (ie combat damage to players with creatures). This is not likely to happen because all of the creatures in this deck offer some sort of utility, whether it is protection, a taxing effect or a locking effect. You cannot afford to recklessly swing with them. You will need to play defensively and focus on alternate win conditions involving card draw and large amounts of lifegain. This deck has infamous card advantage pieces like Consecrated Sphinx, Rhystic Study and Isperia, Supreme Judge to keep your hand full, with cards like Venser's Journal to capitalize off of the ridiculous number of cards we draw and Approach of the Second Sun to convert that card draw into a win. With cards like Venser's Journal, True Conviction, Beacon of Immortality and others, Felidar Sovereign, Test of Endurance and Aetherflux Reservoir allow us to win the game with our lifegain.
A solid Azor, the Lawbringer build uses control and the THREAT of punishment to protect the commander and stop only the biggest threats, while blinking the commander to preserve his mini-lock. Use that Sphinx's Revelation on a stick as often as you can. Gain a bunch of life, draw a bunch of cards, and keep the board in check until your win conditions come online.
Card Categories
The counters in this deck must be hard counters, spells that can't be overwritten with a mana payment. Here are a few that should shine in this deck.
Desertion: Since your opponent is limited only to artifacts, creatures and enchantments on their turn after Azor hits the board, this counterspell will almost always have a juicy target for you to steal.
Disallow: Not all counterspells come in the form of instants. Some are activated abilities on permanents. Although rare, they can still threaten Azor. This card offers flexibility for those situations.
Stubborn Denial: When Azor is on the field, this is a 1-mana catch-all hard counter. Hard to beat that.
Turn Aside and Dispel: You'll need a few cheap hard counters like these for that situation where your opponents try to use instants on YOUR turn to kill Azor.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner: The best protection for Azor, unless it gets countered. This card forces opponents to cooperate to take Azor out, which isn't likely to happen. Nobody wants to waste a spell.
Prison effects in this deck can help by disincentivising your opponents from attacking you, but as another user pointed out, they do not do anything to drive the game forward. Azor is THE LAW. You piss him off, there WILL be consequences. We don't want soft control or soft prison per se, we want hard control. The prison cards that you choose for this deck need to have a physical penalty that your opponent suffers for daring to defy you, whether it's you getting more value or them losing it. We're already preventing our opponents from casting instants and sorceries on their turns, so let's make sure they also can't do anything on OUR turn or place threats on the battlefield. Here are a few taxing all-stars.
Rhystic Study: Slap a 1 mana tax on everything unless your opponents are fine with you getting ridiculous card advantage.
Isperia, Supreme Judge: If your opponents dare to attack you, you get cards.
Blind Obedience: A flavor win for sure. 2 of the only 4 types of cards your opponents can play enter the battlefield tapped, and you can drain life with every spell you cast.
Monastery Siege: Set to Dragons and your opponents will have to pay 2 extra to get rid of Azor or any of your annoying enchantments...when they actually have a chance.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Buff Azor and wipe out your opponents' weenies. Token swarms can overrun this deck, and Elesh Norn singlehandedly shuts that down.
Angelic Arbiter: A fantastic, unique kind of tax/prison hybrid effect.
Grand Abolisher: Great protection for Azor, as your opponents can do absolutely nothing on your turn.
Bastion Protector: Buff Azor and make him indestructible.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: Tell the mono-colored player to piss off.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence: Not having access to instants and sorceries doesn't completely prevent your opponent from doing things. Linvala keeps creatures with the activated ability loophole in check.
Azorius is notorious for being bad at ramp. The best ramp we can hope for as a control deck are mana rocks and permanents that make our things cheaper to cast. Here are a few notable inclusions.
Land Tax: Great in the early game, but awful otherwise.
The Immortal Sun: Flavor win. Buffs Azor, hoses planeswalkers, draws a card, makes your stuff cheaper.
Sapphire Medallion, Pearl Medallion, Azorius Signet: Great Azorius Staples.
Win Cons
There are three cards in the deck (so far) that allow us to convert our life total into a win:
Felidar Sovereign,
Test of Endurance and
Aetherflux Reservoir. Use counterspells to protect them at all cost. To keep our life total at these levels, we can use Azor's attack ability as a mana sink.
Beacon of Immortality doubles our life total, and
Venser's Journal is perfect synergy, allowing us to gain additional life from the cards we just drew from Azor's Revelation.
True Conviction turns all of our utility creatures into a giant lifelinking wall.
We can use
Approach of the Second Sun to win the game and because our deck draws SO many cards, this is actually a feasible strategy. Just make sure you have some mana open for counterspells each time you cast it. You'll draw through your deck so quickly with Azor's Revelation,
Rhystic Study,
Consecrated Sphinx and others. You can bounce
Palinchron with
Deadeye Navigator repeatedly for infinite mana so you can draw your whole deck with Azor's Revelation.
Azor's Elocutors is a weird alternate win condition that I thought I'd throw in here for fun. No,
Glacial Chasm will not work for this, because if you put it in, it means Azor can't attack and therefore can't do his Revelation trick.
