I love the card Brash Taunter and decided to see if I could build a deck around the theme of redirecting damage. Turns out that there are a lot of ways to do this and they have some really good synergy with each other.
Redirecting damage to this commander to make him grow to enormous stats.
Redirecting damage from my health to creatures like Brash Taunter equipped with a Pariah's Shield so that nobody can take the Monarch from me.
If I can get Grothama on the field then attack with Brash Taunter or Stuffy Doll, have them fight Grothama before continuing to attack and send all Grothama's power at my opponents faces.
Fun combos. Hopefully not too oppressive.
The deck is coming together, and it seems like there are a number of strategies for the deck that can either synergize with each other or work on their own individually.
First strategy I call "Growth" is to win with commander damage. To do this I need to get the Monarch so that my commander is activated to prevent damage and grow to eventually be able to eliminate players with commander damage. Cards that give trample are intended for this strategy, so that once the commander is large enough, he can get that damage through.
The second strategy, which I called "Thorns" is the inspiration for the entire deck. The idea is to have as many Brash Taunter like creatures as possible that when dealt damage, they can send that damage to my opponents health directly. Once I have enough creatures with this effect, I can use damage based board wipes to do huge amounts of damage directly to my opponents health. Most creatures with this ability are not indestructible, so there are a number of cards to try to grant them indestructible so they can survive these board wipes.
The third strategy synergizes to the first strategy by trying to out value other players by keeping the Monarch and having various cards that benefit from keeping the Monarch. There are a number of cards that when they ETB they give me the Monarch, so even if I do lose it, I can hopefully get it back without needing to take it via combat. If I can keep the Monarch, even if my commander is exiled, I should be able to maintain a powerful board state.
Cards that cause my creatures to "Fight" other creatures synergize strongly with the first and second strategies. If I have the Monarch and my commander on the board, having him fight the largest creature an opponent controls will immediately grow his power and toughness to be larger than the largest creature an opponent controls, and then he can attack with large amounts of commander damage. If my commander has enough counters on him, it also essentially becomes cheap targeted removal of opponents creatures. Also, having the Brash Taunter or similar creatures fight against large opponents creatures can directly cause large damage to opponents health.
Similarly, cards that force opponents to block can be used to great effect for both strategies. If every creature is forced to block my commander, it will grow very large immediately. But it can also be used to make my opponents block a tiny creature like Brash Taunter with their entire board, and deal tons of damage by reflection. It can also be used to get commander damage through without trample. By forcing everything to block one creature, the rest of my creatures can attack without concern of being blocked.
The en-Kor creatures synergize with the commander damage strategy by being able to redirect damage to him and grow his stats more rapidly, and also with the Monarch strategy by being great blockers. They also synergize with the Brash Taunter strategy by being able to redirect all of the damage from a board wipe or from combat to the creature that can then send it to my opponents health directly.
Cards labeled flyers are mostly intended for the Monarch value strategy, as they are mostly intended for either preventing opponents flying creatures from taking the Monarch via combat damage, or for taking the Monarch back with my own flying creatures. The cards that prevent all combat damage for a turn are also primarily only for keeping the Monarch.
