Winota for the Win! [Budget|Primer]

Commander / EDH Aggro Allies Budget Creature Cheat Humans Rally RW (Boros)

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Creature (39)

Land (35)

Artifact (7)

Planeswalker (1)

1x Chandra, Acolyte of Flame

Commander (1)

Instant (10)

Sorcery (7)

Sideboard

Enchantment (2)

Creature (1)

1x Rionya, Fire Dancer

Instant (1)

1x Chance for Glory

Maybeboard

Creature (30)

Instant (19)

Sorcery (9)

Land (7)

Enchantment (15)

Artifact (12)

Planeswalker (1)

1x Basri Ket

Boros gonna do, what Boros gonna do.

Introduction

Welcome to a small primer to one of the best Boros Commander there is, Winota, Joiner of Forces.

You might be bored with Boros attack decks, but let me tell you that Boros does mostly only that at the moment, and even if Strixhaven and its clever card design tried to give us a new way to play this color combination, this deck will still crush them faster and harder that they won't even be able to say "Mommy please take me home...".

Also, this is a budget deck that tries to stay under 100 bucks.

Commander, Deck Strategy and Secret Tech

THE COMMANDER AND ITS STRATEGY

The strategy of this deck is pretty straightforward and is all written on your Commander Winota, Joiner of Forces

You want to have some Non-Human creatures on the board
Then you also want to have Winota, Joiner of Forces on the board
You want to swing with your Non-Humans
To be able to cheat Humans into play
And then, rinse and repeat until all your opponents are dead. With each following turn, you will have bigger and meaner creatures and cheat even more Humans.

The only important things to remember is that:

Winota, Joiner of Forces triggers for EACH Non-Human creature that you attack with.
This is not a may ability.
And it is not because a Token looks like a Human, that it is a Human. Some Token art displays a Human, but the creature type of the Token is only Soldier or Knight, which makes an enormous difference because they will still trigger our Commander. Keep that in mind.

So for each Non-human with which you attack, you will need to check the top 6 cards of your Library and put a Human from among those cards on the battlefield.

So be careful to not over-commit too much to the board, otherwise the crackback after a board wipe will be even worse.

SECRET TECH

As a fun little bonus, I've put into the deck a very little Ally tribal synergy to trigger some Rally abilities, and let me tell you that this idea has proven powerful results.

The cards in question are:

All of them are Humans (except for the Claws) that you will be able to fetch and their ability will trigger each time another one enters the battlefield.

Having Resolute Blademaster and Angrath's Marauders both enter the battlefield on the same turn is ridiculous and won me a lot of games with this deck.

And if one swing can't do the trick Captain's Claws will trigger all of your Allies turn after turn.

On top of that the new addition Duke Ulder Ravengard allows you to trigger Rally abilities really easily by giving Myriad to another one of your Ally and swinging with them.

Part 1: Ramp Up those Non-Humans

Your first turns before being able to cast Winota, Joiner of Forces are crucial!

You need to do either or both of those things:

Ramp

Those cards help you do that:

And as you can see, most of them are on creatures. Non-Human creatures to be precise and make a HUGE difference in our deck because it will allow us to transform them into triggers when our Commander hits the field.

Putting Non-Humans creatures on the board with low costed and efficient spells

FAQ

Why should I ramp? Wouldn't it be more useful to just play Non-Humans until turn 4 to be able to cast Winota and do basically the same thing?

First of all, who says you will absolutely have 4 lands on turn 4?

Secondly, having more mana is really useful when you will need to protect your board at instant speed, trust me, this deck paints a HUGE target on your back and you need to be ready to face the consequences of your actions.

Part 2: Play Winota and Cheat the Human race

Now that you have some Non-Human creatures on the battlefield, it is time to bring out the big guns, your Commander Winota, Joiner of Forces.

What's fun with this deck is that you don't have to put your Commander in danger to reap the benefits of combats. Just swing with your Non-Humans, find some Humans, put them on the battlefield, and smack face.

The Humans you have in the deck can be divided into 6 categories:

The Buff Squad:

A squad of Humans that can help increase your damage output either by buffing your creatures, giving them double-strike, or even doubling the damage they inflict.

The Protection Team:

A team of Humans dedicated to protecting your Commander or your board from annihilation and preventing your life points to stumble to zero.

The Removal Brigade:

This small brigade of Humans allows you to remove some troublesome threats before charging into action.

Brutal Cathar | Eomer, King of Rohan | Pia and Kiran Nalaar

The Tokens Company:

This company of utmost importance is there to provide you with more Non-Human tokens than you could ever imagine. Use them to your advantage to bring even more Humans on your side and get you closer to victory.

The Evasion Troupe:

This little troupe of Humans will allow you to pass around your enemy's defenses more easily or even completely.

Firemantle Mage | Frontier Warmonger | Odric, Master Tactician

The Big Gang:

This gang of big Humans wants to hit faces and they want to hit hard!

Eomer, King of Rohan | Geist-Honored Monk | Silverwing Squadron

Hint: Sometimes you will find more than one human and you will need to make a decision on which to cheat on the board. The best thing to do in this situation is to check which categories of Humans are already on the board and which missing ones could be the most useful to you in this situation.

Part 3: Smack some Faces

Now that your Non-Humans called forth your Humans and that your Humans are there in search of blood to spill, direct them toward the opponent of your choosing to smack face or destroy their creatures.

You don't have to think too hard about it since Winota gives them Indestructible until the end of the turn anyway.

That is the pure joy of playing this aggressive Boros deck .

Part 4: Protect your board

Some faces were hit, so prepare for the crackback.

Your opponents will definitely not let this pass and they will surely try to destroy your board, your Commander, or even you, because there is no better removal than player removal.

Fortunately, this deck is more than capable to protect itself and go at it on the next turn. On top of that, since we are most of the time never casting spells or very low-costed ones, we always have some mana open to cost our protection spells at Instant speed.

Commander protection

Those cards will allow you to prevent any harm to would directly be presented toward your Commander Winota, Joiner of Forces or any other creature you deem worthy of protecting.

Lightning Greaves | Boromir, Warden of the Tower | Selfless Savior

If that doesn't work, just ask your opponents if they can live with the feeling that they wanted to remove, nay even eliminate, a handicapped character from the game. How dare they? They have no hearth, that's for sure! You must cancel them.

Board protection

Protecting a single creature is great, but protecting your whole board is even better when someone tries to resolve a board wipe.

Face protection

You don't have a lot of protection for your face, but usually, you will always have some human blockers left from your previous turns to help you. If that isn't enough for you, this card will do the rest:

Reveille Squad

I found that card by pure chance when helping a friend on Scryfall with a very specific search parameter. When I saw it I couldn't believe its effect and then I found out it was errata to be a Human and I immediately knew it would be a great fit for this deck. Not only it is fetchable with Winotas' ability, but it is also correctly costed for his effect. And oh boy does this effect deliver a punch when it works. When untapped this card will untap all of your threats to help you block if someones attack you and god knows how many tap threats you have on your board when it is not your turn! Simple, elegant, useful. I love it and you should too!

Part 5: Other interesting cards and interaction

The Card Draw:

Thanks to our Commander, Card Draw is not that much of a necessity (which is a really good thing considering we are in Boros wink wink).

We can close games pretty rapidly so card draw is most useful to get us out of bad situations like recovering after a board wipe, finding lands when we are mana-screwed, or just digging to find some non-human to cast.

Those cards should help us in those situations:

Cathartic Reunion | Skullclamp | Thrill of Possibility | Tormenting Voice | Your Temple is Under Attack

The Removal Options:

Removal is really useful in longer games, which won't really be the case when you play this deck.

Regardless it is useful to have some to remove one or two troublesome blockers, protect yourselves from some worrisome attackers, or destroy some pesky permanents.

The deck currently lacks some removal for permanent types other than creatures, but right now it never seemed to really matter when we consider how fast this deck can close games. If you found the need to add some please do so. Everyone Meta is different and one deck can be awesome in one and terrible in another.

Some Hints:

Sometimes a card can do more than what we understand from our first read.

To help you with that I thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of those cards and how to use them in another way in this section.

Hint for Odric, Master Tactician

What is important to note from this card is that with this line:

"you choose which creatures block this combat and how those creatures block"

You can definitely choose that no creature your opponent's control can block this turn, making all of your creatures unblockable, even those that come afterward with Winotas' effect.

On the other hand, you can also choose to make some creatures block some of your threats and die as a result as a form of removal. To do so, you should stack your attack triggers so that Winotas' triggers resolve first to then force some block with those new humans with Odric.

Hint for Mirage Phalanx

Soulbond is a weird mechanic, but what took me a long time to understand is that a creature that is bonded can be unbonded when the other creature dies. This means it can Soulbond again whenever another creature comes into play. So don't think that because your first bond didn't last you can't create another one later to do something different!

Hint for Fight to the Death

This is one hell of a removal card.

You can use it in a bunch of ways to get rid of a bunch of creatures and save yours and that's why I love it!

Use it during your turn when your Indestructible creatures from Winotas' effect get blocked to destroy only your opponents' creatures.
Use one of your protection spells that gives Indestructible in response to this one to save your creatures, but still destroy those of your opponents.
Use it with the effect of Odric, Master Tactician to destroy exactly what you want.
Use it during an opponent's turn to destroy their creatures blocking or blocked. Even better if they were swinging at another opponent, that is a two-for-one and the most fun way to use that card. Trust me.

Hint for Prosperous Partnership

I suggest using the activated ability on this card at the end of the turn just before yours. That way you can keep some defense for your face all the way until your next turn and ramp at the last minute by using those blockers that you've kept instead.

Another suggestion is to use it when blocking creatures. If your creatures will die anyway as the result of the block then why not juice some value out of it anyway.

One of the best interactions with this card in this deck is with one of my pet cards Reveille Squad. Get attacked, untap all of your creatures, and block with some if you want, but mostly use them to ramp! Rinse and repeat if you get attacked by another opponent before your next turn.

Hint for Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

The Channel effect on this land is an ability, so you can use it at Instant speed just before your turn if you want. It is not totally necessary since the tokens already have Haste, but it can be useful to reduce its cost since a lot of the Humans you found with Winota are Legendary.

Hint for Skullclamp

If you already know about Skullclamp, well you know. If you don't, well welcome to one of the most broken cards ever printed. Since the card gives +1/-1 you can instantly kill any of your Tokens to draw two cards when equipping it on them. And you can do that over and over for each token for only each. 1 Mana draw two is busted. I mostly use it to draw a bunch of new cards to come back into the game after a board wipe or a shit ton of removal.

Deck Changes and Updates

2023

(12)

(08)

Removed: Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel to Add: Boromir, Warden of the Tower
Removed: Haktos the Unscarred to Add: Stalwart Pathlighter

(03)

2022

Removed: Cartographer's Hawk to Add: Phoenix Chick
Removed: Plains to Add: Sacred Peaks

2021

Cards to consider

Goldhound

A neat Non-Human 1 drop that can be sac for a single mana if needed. The card is good, I just don't know what to cut for it.

Cathar Commando

Removal on a Human is not bad, I just don't know if the effect is that good to be on a Human that is fetched by Winota.

Curse of Conformity

This card is a bit overkill, but technically it can transform all your Humans into Non-Humans which makes them able to trigger Winota. For now, I've never felt like I needed this effect, but I keep it in mind.

Penance

An Enchantment that can allow you to put back on top of your Library a Human stuck in your hand to you want to cheat out. This card was in the deck, but I've never used it. I still keep it in mind if ever my Meta shift towards a lot of Red and Black decks for which I could need some defense.

Guardian of Faith

A protection spell directly on a Non-Human that could keep all my tokens alive is a good idea. I've just never found out what to cut for it. Maybe I could remove Rootborn Defenses for this.

Retreat to Emeria

A Landfall Enchantment that can create some Non-Human tokens, but most importantly, some Ally creatures to trigger my Rally abilities. I just think the mana cost and the fact that I don't run that much land is not worth it for this card.

Rionya, Fire Dancer

A Human that can create a least a single copy of any other creature I have every single turn. It could be useful to create more Non-Human or to trigger again some ETB effects. I'll think about it.

Born to Drive

The only thing useful for this card in this deck is the Channel ability which is basically an uncounterable Non-Human token-creating card. It could be useful if my Meta shift towards more Counterspell, but for now I think I will pass.

Priest of the Blessed Graf

This card was super interesting when I first saw it. But after playing with it I found it quite underwhelming. Since Winota puts pressure on games really early on, I found that it was rarely producing Non-Human tokens for me to use or if it did they sometimes didn't make it to the next turn. I think I prefer cards that give me Tokens on ETB and before or during combat instead. With all that said, I still love the card and it might come back eventually.

Felidar Retreat

A great card, but I see the same issue in it as what I said for Retreat to Emeria.

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94% Casual

Competitive

Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 1 Mythic Rares 38 - 2 Rares 21 - 1 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Citizen 1/1 GW, Copy Clone, Day, Elemental 1/1 R, Goblin 1/1 R, Knight 2/2 W w/ Vigilance, Kor Ally 1/1 W, Night, Servo 1/1 C, Soldier 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 W, The Monarch, The Ring, The Ring Tempts You, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure, Vampire 1/1 W
Folders	Commander deck ideas, WIP Winota budget
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