I always thought Tibor and Lumia was a bit weird. Take a look at the creature type: Legendary Creature (singular) – Human Wizard. And yet the name and the art clearly indicated these were two people, and the backstory for these characters is that they are the Izzet guild champions, a husband and wife team of wizards. I suppose these individuals have been married so long they’re connected at the hip and have become a single entity that is always together, living together and dying together. Tibor was the wizard of air, so the blue spell trigger belongs to him, while Lumia was the earth wizard, so the red spell trigger belongs to her. They hold the distinction of being the only legendary creature card with “and” in the name . . . until Theros came to town.

Now, Anax and Cymede join this exclusive and rare Club And (we won’t count Rank and File because it’s just a nasty little non-legendary Zombie). So what abilities are tied to Anax and what are tied to Cymede? I’m figuring that first strike and trample are very aggressive and probably come from the male perspective—hit first and hit hard! The vigilance and a +1/+1 boost are more feminine, more motherly—watching out for the home front and building up morale.

I have to admit that Anax and Cymede didn’t inspire me on the Commander front too much at first. The heroic mechanic is quite limited in scope, triggering only when targeted by your own spells. If it triggered off your opponent’s spells or from being targeted by abilities, you could go buck wild in Commander, but I suspect that might have made heroic rather insane and maybe even broken. Plus, Anax and Cymede’s abilities suggest a fast and aggressive deck, which isn’t usually my cup of tea in Commander.

But then my good friend MJ Scott article went up documenting her Cymede cosplay, and I was inspired. It occurred to me that, yes, a fast and aggressive Commander deck is outside of my comfort zone, but I shouldn’t avoid that—I should embrace it! Playing something different can be a great learning experience, so I decided to see what I could come up.

Heroic

So . . . how do we trigger heroic? In Theros there are a bunch of juiced-up enchantment creatures that play quite nicely with heroic, but I didn’t necessarily think that would translate too well in a 100-card deck. A lot of those creatures are costed for Limited play, and I didn’t feel they’d be able to hang with the big boys of the Commander format. However, there have been some decent Auras printed over the years that when they get sent to the graveyard from play they bounce back to your hand: Spirit Loop, Brilliant Halo, Angelic Destiny, even Ghitu Firebreathing. I could target Anax and Cymede with these to trigger heroic, and if something happened to my commander, they’d bounce back to my hand ready to play again.

Of course, this line of thinking then led me to Auratog, which could sacrifice the Auras on demand and let me recast and retrigger heroic however many times I have mana available. C’mon, look at that guy—who doesn’t want to play Auratog in a deck with perpetual Auras? And I’m giving him +1/+1 and trample each time too!

It also occurred to me that spells with buyback would be worth taking a look at. For red and white there aren’t too many that jump out. Seething Anger is a good one. Anoint is borderline and basically just a heroic trigger. Searing Touch is a possibility—each time you touch Anax and Cymede for a point of damage, the heroic basically cancels out the damage dealt thanks to the first strike.

I wanted a few backup heroic guys in case something terrible happens to Anax and Cymede (it gets tucked or shuffled into my deck). Akroan Crusader, Phalanx Leader, Fabled Hero seemed like givens; Labyrinth Champion I’m not too sure about.

Tokens

Anax and Cymede is better the more creatures you have in play, but I was concerned with overextending in Commander, where creature sweepers get played early and often. I thought it might be beneficial to choose cards that produce token creatures, and there are a fair number of them in Boros colors. Rise of the Hobgoblins; Mobilization; Elspeth, Knight-Errant and the other Elspeths; Assemble the Legion; Captain of the Watch; Nomads’ Assembly; Decree of Justice . . . we could even rock Kjeldoran Outpost! Creatures with indestructible like Tajic, Blade of the Legion and Forge[/author]“]Purphoros, God of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] also provide some protection from overextending. To help provide resilience to actual creature cards without indestructible, I tossed in Eldrazi Monument and Boros Charm.

Soldiers

Looking at all the tokens made me realize that nearly all of them in Boros colors are Soldier tokens. Anax and Cymede is a Soldier card as well, so perhaps I can toss a nice juicy layer of soldier tribal synergy into the mix! There’s Field Marshal, Preeminent Captain, Daru Warchief, Catapult Master, not to mention all the good generic tribal support cards like Shared Triumph, Harsh Mercy, Shared Animosity, Door of Destinies, and Cryptic Gateway. Veteran’s Armaments looks doubly sweet while trampling!

Boros Goodies

The Boros guild likes to attack, triggering abilities like battalion, so I looked for some worthy of multiplayer and picked Akroan Hoplite, Frontline Medic, and Firemane Avenger. Aurelia, the Warleader is a great commander in her own right and deserves a spot in the 99 if I have the room.

The classic Boros equipment Sunforger is something to take a hard look at, being able to search up instants or sorceries that can target Anax and Cymede or dig up utility cards like Allay and Shattering Pulse.

With all this in mind, this is what I’ve cooked up:

Anax and Cymede

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 10-06-2013

Commander

Creatures (22)

Planeswalkers (4)

Lands (39)

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about the crazy potential of having Mana Geyser and Reiterate in the same deck together, but if I haven’t, check this out:

My roommate Chuck has been playing my Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck, and the other day while playing a game, some guys were watching over his shoulder when he played Mana Geyser. He didn’t play the Reiterate in his hand, but the guys watching it told him later that he could have made infinite red mana since the Mana Geyser was producing more than six red mana. Just target the Mana Geyser while it’s on the stack with Reiterate—paying buyback—and when Reiterate resolves you put it back in your hand, where you can cast it again and again and again, netting X – 6 red mana each time where X is how many tapped lands your opponents have. Chuck had a Pyrohemia in play and was at the highest life total at the table, so he could have ended the game on the spot.

In this deck, you can dump all that mana into Forge[/author]“]Purphoros, God of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] to pump your team to infinite power or play Fireball with Aurelia’s Fury or even Searing Touch (how’s that for annoying). You could generate infinite attack steps with Aggravated Assault, but only for creatures that have vigilance like Anax and Cymede. Mobilization and Captain of the Watch give all your Soldiers vigilance.

Mana Echoes won’t necessarily provide “infinite”—or technically “arbitrarily large”—amounts of mana but in a tribal deck like this will certainly give you lots of colorless mana to work with whenever you put a Soldier into play, whether it’s a token or a real card.

Set Mind To Purpose

Every time I see the word “Purphoros” I think of the phrase “set mind to purpose,” one of the oft-said phrases from the Spartacus TV series that recently ended over on the STARZ network. There were figures of speech and dialog in the show that had a real Ancient Rome/Gladiator flavor, nicknamed Spartacus Speech, that really did a lot to flavor the show as authentic—you know, if those people had spoken English.

I was thrilled to see previews recently advertising that we could relive the brotherhood when Spartacus returns to STARZ for the Spartacus Saga: Uncut. All four epic seasons, with extended episodes and bonus footage, begins on October 26th! I was originally drawn to the show by its stylized and graphic depiction of gladiators fighting in the arena, but I stayed because the story and characters were compelling. I’m excited to see the extended uncut episodes, but for those who never got a chance to see it the first time around, if you’re digging the flavor of Theros, then you definitely should check out Spartacus on STARZ!

What sort of cards are you running in your Anax and Cymede Commander decks? Did I miss anything big? Do you have any questions about any other cards I’ve included? Hit me up in the comments below!

Take care,

Bennie

Facebook = Bennie Smith, Writer
Twitter = @blairwitchgreen
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Blog = My fantasy and horror fiction writing

New to Commander?
If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

Commander Primer Part 1 (Why play Commander? Rules Overview, Picking your Commander)
Commander Primer Part 2 (Mana Requirements, Randomness, Card Advantage)
Commander Primer Part 3 (Power vs. Synergy, Griefing, Staples, Building a Doran Deck)
Commander Starter Kits 1 (kick start your allied two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 2 (kick start your enemy two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 3 (kick start your shard three-color decks for $25)

My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):

Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus:

Co-Commanders: Anax And Cymede