Commander:
With a plethora of shiny rare and mythic legends available to the Brawl format, it can be easy to overlook an unassuming 3 mana planeswalker (although...). Following in the footsteps of Domanaria, War of the Spark introduced a huge selection of legends and now even planeswalkers at the Uncommon level- with many intended for use in Commander, singleton, and other casual formats.
So why is
Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner
a great Brawl Commander?
From my experience in singleton- be it historic, commander, or brawl; one of the biggest issues facing any deck is an eventual loss of momentum due to the lack of card consistency and a reliable engine. Card draw, removal, and ramp are just a few examples of the common elements/strategies used/needed for a deck to be successful. This logic can apply to most formats. The major challenge with singleton is that while many cards interact to fuel these various game plans, many of these same cards get stronger the more consistently they can be paired with synergistic partners. Standard is still Magic's mainstay format; many cards are designed with this in mind, and many players follow the 4x9 rule for deckbuilding (9 cards, 4 copies each) to provide the greatest consistency in card draws. Having a deck of ~36 unique cards + ~X different non basic lands invalidates this strategy, and as a result the gameplay has far more variance.
As a Commander,
Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner
gives us a great starting point for a consistent engine. She costs a very reasonable , allowing her to come down as early as turn 2 at 7 loyalty!. Her passive ability allows us to draw a card when a creature with power 4 or greater enters the battlefield, while her -1 lets us Untap any target permanent. This is both card draw and ramp, on one piece- which we have available to us every single game. This makes Kiora a great starting point for building a singleton deck with access to a consistent gameplan.
Gameplan:
Play Kiora, ramp into efficient bodies, use board presence to go under/ over your opponent and card draw (via Kiora's passive ability) to go long. A high density of creatures (27) allows the deck to power through most removal, and ensures that we routinely find the threats we need. In the late game, its important to have a high chance of drawing into more creatures- as this will allow us to draw more cards.
Ramp:
Removal:
This deck relies on creatures to remove most threats, classic style. Kiora's abilities don't mesh well with non-creature spells (aside from ramp-casting them). The same thing can be said of our other planeswalkers. We can fight and enchant remove if we need to- but our main goal is just to stay ahead on board presence and force our opponents to use removal.
-
Frilled Mystic
While this is not direct removal, a counterspell on a body is always a huge swing.
-
Frogify
As any commander player knows, the only penalty worse than death, or exile is... 'Frogification'. These spells nerf the opponent's commander whilst keeping it in play. This means it first needs to die or be removed in order to re enter the command zone. Ribbit.
-
Kasmina's Transmutation
Frogify copy #2
-
Kenrith's Transformation
Frogify copy #3. Another interesting interaction is that these spells can target your own creatures if you have
Gargos, Vicious Watcher
in play and need to fight something. I've frogged many a goose to eat things.
Behemoths:
Planeswalkers:
