Commander Deck Of The Week: Ardenn And Vial Smasher Auras

When Commander Legends came out, one of the cards that grabbed people’s attention was Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist. A powerhouse card that was shockingly just an uncommon, it immediately went into any legal deck with an Equipment theme, if not finding a home as a partner commander.

There are fewer decks that focus on creature Auras, but those decks were also quite interested in running Ardenn as well.  But there’s something in the fine print of the text box that I know I and I’m sure others initially overlooked, in particular one word:

Or player?!  What Auras or Equipment are attached to players?

Oh yeah, Curses are Auras!  And once I realized that Ardenn could move Curses around the table to different opponents depending on the state of the game, I knew I wanted to build a Curse deck with Ardenn as one of the partner commanders.  Evaluating the nonwhite Curses quickly led me to want a Rakdos legend to partner with Ardenn, and so Vial Smasher the Fierce joined the party.

Less Cursing, Please

Building around Curses specifically, and Auras/enchantments-matter generally, the deck came together pretty quickly, but after playing it a few times I came to the realization that leaning super-hard on Curses, especially the very powerful ones, can lead to some pretty miserable game states for my opponents. I’ve ended up cutting the following cards from the list for this reason:

Pretty much the optimized play is to get Curse of Misfortunes onto the battlefield and immediately search up Overwhelming Splendor, and if an opponent doesn’t have ready access to enchantment removal, things can quickly become miserable for them. Sure, you can move the Curse around with Ardenn, but anyone you attach it to is going to feel awful. I’m not a fan of locking people out of the game, so I’ve ultimately decided to cut Overwhelming Splendor, Cruel Reality, and the two “Curse tutor” cards from the list.

Okay, let’s dig into the decklist!

Curses

I’ve still got a pretty big Curse presence, but these I need to draw and cast just like any other normal enchantment. Many support attacking my opponent, which helps progress the game rather than stalling it out. It’s nice that Ardenn lets you move these around so that if one person jumps ahead on the battlefield you can change your targets.

I’m kind of in love with Maddening Hex from Forgotten Realms Commander, which moves around randomly to my opponents and deals a d6 of damage when they cast a noncreature spell.

Auras

Pushing further on the Aura theme, I’ve included a bunch of Auras that attach to creatures in the Mardu colors.  Spirit Loop and Unquenchable Fury are favorites, but I’ve also got Glistening Oil here to spread around poison counters as an alternative win condition. I’m digging Splinter Twin in this list, since you can cast it pre-combat, tap the creature to make a copy, and then move it with Ardenn to another creature in case you want both those enters-the-battlefield triggers.

Animate Dead can’t be moved to another creature card in a graveyard with Ardenn, but it plays well with other Aura synergies I have in the deck.

Auras/Enchantments Matter

Speaking of Aura synergies, here are a bunch of them!  The ones that draw cards like Sram, Senior Edificer and Mesa Enchantress are slam dunks, but I also really like the other cool effects like Ajani’s Chosen and Agent of Erebos.

The Mardu color combination gives us access to Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, which is awesome in this deck. If a Curse has outlived its usefulness in the game, you can sacrifice it to bring back some other enchantment. It can also grind out value by sacrificing an Aura like Brilliant Halo, which will come back to its owner’s hand when it goes to the graveyard. And if Tiana, Ship’s Caretaker is on the battlefield, any Aura you sacrifice will come back to its owner’s hand at the beginning of the next end step.

Enchantments

I’ve included a few more utility enchantments to help increase the synergies, from Seal of Cleansing offering nice removal options to the card-drawing power of Phyrexian Arena and getting back dead creatures with Phyrexian Reclamation.  Curse of Wizardry isn’t actually a Curse, but with “Curse” in the name, I’ve decided to include it anyway.  And you can bet that I’ll be naming green as the color in most pods, but I’ll be happy to name blue as a backup choice!

Commander Matters

Having two partner commanders makes commander-matters cards even better, so I’ve included a few of them.  One of my all-time favorite cards, Blackblade Reforged, is a slam dunk, and can even be equipped for free with Ardenn if I want to equip a nonlegendary creature—even one of my opponent’s creatures for political reasons.  I also really like Skyfire Phoenix as a medium-size body with flying that can help protect against opponents that might choose player removal as one way to get rid of their Curses!

Removal

Mardu offers a lot of fantastic removal options, and I’ve tapped into a lot of them here.  I’d like to shine a spotlight on Exterminatus, a spell that’s capable of cracking indestructible fortresses that some opponents try to assemble against removal.  Sometimes you need to blow up the world in order to move the game along. When going through my list, I was a little confused why I didn’t have Shattering Pulse as the artifact-destroying version of Allay in my deck, so I might hunt down a copy to add down the road.

Mana Ramp

I’m probably a little light on my mana ramp, but making room for all the Curses and enchantments has made flex spots a bit thin. As I consider this, I probably should find a slot for Land Tax, assuming I have one that’s not being used.

Other Goodies

Filling out the list is some card draw with the amazing Painful Truths and Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar, and graveyard recursion with Death Tyrant and Sun Titan.  Magus of the Will gives that too, and in particular I’m hoping to attach Kaya’s Ghostform to the Wizard so when I activate it and it gets exiled, I’ll be able to bring it back to the battlefield to use again later.

Okay, here is the full decklist:

Here are the deck stats from our friends at Archidekt:

What must-have cards might I have missed including in this deck?  Should I cut further back on the Curses to make room for other cards?

Talk to Me

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter!  I run polls and get conversations started about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun!  You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.

I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can.  If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel.  You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews. 

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.