I decided this time I didn’t want to take someone else’s letter—last week’s look at a Commander I had never seen before made me want to dig through the annals of history for another old, forgotten Commander who is getting no love, and see what I came up with. Looking at my current crop of decks, I have a very obvious attraction to power—right now I have four decks, and the Commanders who lead them are pretty good. Animar. Vish Kal. Godo. Reaper King. (Okay, I lied. Three of them are pretty good.)
High power level gets me interested. Reaper King is instead a deck about synergy, because once in a while doing something oddball and weird is more fun than doing something powerful, and I wanted to chase synergy again. I also have an odd fondness for the bastard forgotten color of Commander—yes, you, you know who I’m talking about.
Let us look, then, at one of the weakest cards in Commander:
Mono-red gets very little love. Godo, Bandit Warlord can be highly competitive and played with a straight face. Ib Halfheart, well, has a lot of supporters who listen to CommanderCast. What’s the next good Red commander? Heartless Hitsedegu, the kind of Commander you probably deserve to get killed for. You can pick a few decent ones, but sooner or later you get to playing Norin the Wary with a straight face (Confusion in the Ranks, represent!), and we’re scraping the bottom of a fairly shallow barrel.
I wanted to build something I’d never seen before, and memory brought to mind an old friend:
It has been well over a decade since the last time I cast Starke of Rath. In fact, I’d be surprised if I have played him anywhere outside of a 40-card deck, and it has been a very long time indeed since Tempest was the limited format of choice. Why, then, did my brain pick up so strongly on this dude with a knife and a bit of a loyalty issue? The game has changed, and what he can do has changed with it. Within the past few months, I had a look at Konda, Lord of Eiganjo and attempted to build around his Indestructible status, and Starke of Rath asks me the same tantalizing question… what can this supposedly under-powered Commander do if only you build around him?
Looking at Starke objectively for some creative deckbuilding, he’s a solid politicky creature in that you can always just tap to kill the biggest threat on the table, and doing so gives someone else that same ability. You don’t really make an enemy, after all, you merely trade your friend for theirs… sort of. Activating Starke of Rath once is just a good way to help conspire to keep the board clear of serious threats, even before you try and do something wacky.
To do something wacky, well, you can start thinking about copying the effect, or untapping Starke in between activations to get multiple targets out of him. Wackier still, target something of yours that is indestructible, then send him on his killing spree, and at the end of the day he comes home to your side of the board with potentially quite a lot of carnage strewn in the meantime. So if we are to pursue a theme, it will be for Indestructible permanents and ways to get Starke’s “murder most foul” ability for free or working multiply.
“What we hate,” then, is by definition sacrifice outlets. Lands like High Market or Phyrexian Tower are antithetical to what Starke is trying to accomplish, and the fairly-common Miren, the Moaning Well that is likely to be in at least one person’s deck at a table of four players can give you fits just for its presence within the format. This suggests a secondary theme of land destruction, specifically nonbasic land destruction, though we are pursuing this for targeted purposes and not because trying to stunt the development of an entire table will actually get us anywhere. It also reminds me of another awesome little combo—Starke of Rath can walk the Homeward Path, and kill things as easily as you like with little to no risk.
Lands, red can kill. Creatures? Not a problem, though the damage-based removal red tends to have can be a little sticky at times, so we’ll supplement it with a secondary theme that has a few key cards in the color with Ray of Command effects. Things that work well with these tricks are going to be included anyway, after all, and you can always hand over Starke, borrow him again, and kill something else entirely—they’ll be useful. It’s a shame Bazaar Trader can’t be used to give yourself control of Starke back, but it can be used to give yourself permanent control of any creature you borrow, so it’ll likely make the cut anyway. Artifacts die easy, and are the second least-permanent class of threats in Commander overall, so while there are plenty of artifact sacrifice outlets in peoples’ decks we aren’t going to lose any sleep over them, because they die easy.
Enchantments, however, are the thorn in red’s side, and the number of cards you can play to handle a threatening spanner in the works like Attrition or Greater Good are severely limited. Each will be played, of course, but the fact of the matter remains it’s not perfect and you’ll have to worry about those cards if you want the cute trick to work all the time. Considering we’re already leaning towards a controlling deck thanks to Starke’s ability to control major problems, we’re not talking about winning fast, so these enchantment problems are going to be continually recurring and require direct attention: anyone who manages to stick a permanent of this type can actually force an attrition battle, while otherwise you can just use Starke cleverly to get your way.
There is another obvious sub-theme, though, and that is the indestructible mechanic. Untapping Starke is well and good, but you still have to end up by killing something of yours to get him back, as the first tap effect is to murder your permanent before you then untap repeatedly and wipe out whatever you actually want to kill. At the end, the destroy effect happens (it just doesn’t do anything) and Starke comes home, so there will be a high priority on cards with this keyword as well as things that regenerate… sadly, not exactly red’s strong suit.
Red also rather stinks at drawing cards, but having a class of permanents that are very difficult to push out of play should help with that, and there will be some card-selection effects that will undoubtedly help while we’re at it. That most of the creatures being chosen can gain card advantage will also be key to the deck, as it will be very much a grinding attrition deck… but to me that’s a turn-on that gets me interested, not a negative trait, because those long and grinding battles are exactly the sorts of games that your decisions as a player matter the most in, and I find most appealing the games where I can certainly win if only I find the correct path. Treading it, or failing to do so, that’s a different matter… but being in the game, and challenged to find that path towards victory, I find very engaging and pleasing, and that’s mostly what I play Commander to pursue.
So you won’t see any Ruinations here, even though the low blow is still a crippling one.
Starting to build the deck, we’ll add a little flash to the manabase then move on to the spells. Mana’s important, but there isn’t nearly as much interesting stuff going on here as there could be, so we won’t belabor the point by spending a lot of time on it:
20x Mountain — The weakest basic land in Commander.
Smoldering Crater, Forgotten Cave, Blasted Landscape—A little bit of cycling, to help moderate the mana draw as the game goes along. Small effects can have a big impact, and these can help avoid flooding out too often by changing into a spell at a critical juncture.
Spinerock Knoll — Surprisingly spell-like, though as this is a very controlling deck with a two-power commander it’s not going to trigger especially easily.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle — A little extra value for a mana-base of 20 basics. As the game goes longer, suddenly those late-game lands actually do something, and thus are not completely blank.
Dormant Volcano, Temple of the False God — Two mana out of one land is like card advantage, right? Even when that one land is kind of janky and semi-terrible, it still totally counts.
Thawing Glaciers — Speaking of terrible, this ain’t it. Thawing Glaciers + Valakut is actually a legitimate mid-game control mechanism, and can whittle away an opponent on their last ten or so life shockingly quickly.
Vesuva — Partially a LD effect for that pesky Miren, the Moaning Well, but also able to borrow Cabal Coffers if an Urborg is in play, or otherwise get extra benefits from its flexibility.
Winding Canyons — My love letter to this card continues.
High Market, Miren, the Moaning Well—Sacrificing Starke stinks when they do it, but might actually be reasonable if you do it. It’s all a matter of perception, I guess.
Strip Mine, Ghost Quarter, Dust Bowl — More cards on Miren duty, though of course being able to break up Urborg/Coffers is arguably even better than following in their footsteps, especially in a deck that is not really aimed at getting to the higher reaches of the mana curve.
Homeward Path — Everything you want to do.
Darksteel Citadel — Starke does not say ‘nonland,’ he just says ‘artifact or creature.’ Darksteel Citadel is in fact an artifact, and an indestructible one to boot, and is an easy little inclusion to your mana-base that can potentially give another card Starke works with.
That gives us 37 lands, which is about right, though this deck has fairly low needs comparatively and really likes the fact that with the cycling lands it can play as if it has as few as 34. Card drawing is not the deck’s forte at all, so getting this powerful extra utility is very meaningful to it, and it especially helps that the lands address the deck’s strange vulnerability to enemy sac outlets and one of them is literally just an awesome two-card combo with Starke.
Following the Darksteel Citadel, we then pursue a Gatherer search of the keyword “Indestructible,” and include many (but not all) of the applicable cards so noted. Thus we add:
Blightsteel Colossus …bored now!
We can pursue this theme a little bit further by finding a few cards that work to bring it to the forefront as well, and that gets us:
After all, if we’re going to all that work to have something Starke can target with his ability and come home at last, Capricious Efreet uses all the same setup cards just as effectively. Capricious Efreet is also one of the very few ways to destroy an enchantment, without having to take the rest of the table out while you’re at it…
Building in the next layer, then, is “things that can profitably put Starke to work,” and that means finding a nice list of things that help untap him or otherwise beneficially get him out of the way so that you get the destroy effect and some other value. High Market’s good for a life, but I’m thinking more than that, so we’ll figure out what we’re doing with these next batch of cards.
Sword of the Paruns — I had a goofy time with this one for the Doran, the Siege Tower deck I had a look at a long time ago, and it’s just as applicable here. There it was getting massive toughness bonuses to spread as power to an attacking army; here, we’re focusing on the ability to untap at will in order to use Starke multiple times in a row before he starts traipsing around the table.
Umbral Mantle — Same as Sword of the Paruns, though with enough mana this can actually combine fairly ridiculously with other tap effects too, so since we have a lot of overlap between these elements we’ll want some utility creatures while we’re at it.
Thousand-Year Elixir — The first time I’ve reached for this particular card in this series, and an awesome little trick… Starke effectively gains haste for the purposes of using his ability, and can get that extra untap that lets you start killing things for free.
Rings of Brighthearth — Thanks to the fact that Starke changes loyalty as part of his effect, rather than part of his cost, that is duplicated as well. So you can either just double his output by copying the effect… or target something of yours, duplicate the effect to target the thing you actually want to kill, and have Starke walk home upon resolution of this stack.
The next four give up on untapping, instead trying to get some other means to get Starke working double duty. Bouncing to the hand, blinking out of existence, sacrificing to a benefit… we’re not picky.
Tawnos’s Coffin — activate Starke, blink out of existence, blink back into existence next turn under your control again. Also just useful as a politick card, as it can pull anything out of play, and token creatures cease existing once they step into this particular chamber.
Erratic Portal — Returning Starke to your hand, to fight again another day. Also useful with comes-into-play effects, i.e., the exact sort of creatures we tend to consider playable in Commander.
Culling Dais — Sacrifice a critter, draw a card later. Starke can get prohibitively expensive if you follow this route too far, but as we’d noted red is also good at borrowing things but not great at keeping them, and this lets you trade such problems off into the future as benefits instead.
Helm of Possession — Another way to use Starke’s existence to your benefit, and ditto for the temporary-control cards as well, as this lets you mis-manage that threat out of existence and claim another body to do exactly the same with. Combine with Bazaar Trader for hilarity… borrow your guy, make him mine, untap Helm and keep him, sac your guy to borrow someone else… rinse, repeat, giggle.
This gives us 57 of 99 figured out, meaning we’re almost two-thirds there and need to really start paying attention to the balance of spells that constitute the rest of the deck. We have a theme, and a rough sketch of what some of the other things should be, but this is not a theme we can push onward through all 99 cards of the deck—Red’s strengths do not allow that, so we have to make a playable and effective control deck first, then implement the sub-theme that riffs throughout it.
So far, we have only nine creature spells (multiple of whom have zero power) and no instants at all to our name, so we’re going to need to spend most of these slots on board control spells and board-controlling creatures, and only a very few slots on things that do not specifically follow this concept but instead enhance the existing theme.
Let’s enhance away, then, before we bog down in the less-fun stuff.
Bazaar Trader — Sure, it’s fun to trade your opponent something that will kill him. It’s sad that you can’t trade yourself Starke of Rath then use him in response to kill something, because it has to be something you own on resolution to give it to yourself, defeating the purpose. It does, however, work nicely with things you’re already doing, and as noted with the Helm of Possession there are some weird little corner cases building in here.
Swiftfoot Boots, Champion’s Helm — Hexproof for your commander, to prevent the opponent from gumming up the works just as you well and truly start having fun. I dislike this used past logical extremes, so I wouldn’t want more than two such effects (plus Godo, if I want to use him that way), but I do like them enough to apply them thusly.
Oblivion Stone, Nevinyrral’s Disk, All Is Dust, Chaos Warp—Our remaining very few ways to interact with a negative enchantment like Attrition that gums up our best-laid plans, all happen to be massively powerful cards that strengthen the control stance while we’re at it, and can do so selectively while leaving a fair share of your board intact.
After that, we stop being fun, and start looking at more traditional cards. Sad, I know, but that’s life. We’ll start by filling out the spell base, then move to the rest of the creatures, strengthening our assets and shoring up our weaknesses as best we can.
ARTIFACTS
Sol Ring — Because you’d string me up as a fool if I failed to include it. (Psst: pay no attention to the lack of Sensei’s Divining Top…)
Expedition Map — If Homeward Path is perfect, more Homeward Path is more better.
SPELLS
The first eight get marked up as creature control, the last two as ‘spell control’ I guess you could say… it helps to have at least some way to interact with a spell on the stack, lest you simply lose to it.
Disaster Radius — A fun card I’ve been wanting to put to work in Commander for a while now, and this is effectively a red Plague Wind so long as you don’t mind the damage-based question of what lives and what dies. There are enough big creatures in the deck that this should just be a Wrath that doesn’t affect your side of the board, so I’m giving it the shot.
Blasphemous Act — See also ‘another awesome Wrath effect,’ then add Stuffy Doll.
Mogg Infestation — Not exactly a Wrath, but it is an awful fun way to mess with one player’s stuff.
Warstorm Surge — A little extra benefit stapled to all of your creatures, which should help keep pace with the board’s development in most cases. A smidgen of card advantage over the course of a long game can’t hurt, and the second time it triggers it’s paid for itself.
Insurrection — Usually not a card that actually makes it into my red decks, this one is on-theme since stealing the opponents’ stuff and abusing it is perfectly in keeping with your Plan A, so it fits there to begin with. It’s more ‘player control’ than ‘creature control,’ because you can often choose which creatures stay in play based on which player(s) you murder with this spell’s resolution.
Word of Seizing, Act of Aggression, Grab the Reins — More ways to interact meaningfully at instant speed, plus beg, borrow, or steal things your opponents want to use against you and maybe even trade them to yourself. Alternatively, stealing something and killing it with Starke doesn’t give Starke to the opponent, so there is a lot of room for play with these sorts of effects.
Ricochet Trap, Reiterate — “Spell control,” as I said. Both are solid at interacting in a way that red traditionally is weakest at. Only one can actually prevent a Time Stretch from giving the opponent more turns, which can suck when the problem is Time Stretch and the answer is Reiterate, but both provide unique services that are otherwise not in red’s wheelhouse, and Reiterate especially is awesome in the late-game after you’ve developed a considerable mana-base just by playing the game.
With 23 slots left and only nine creatures so far, it seemed clear it was time to dedicate the rest of the slots to the critters in play, and we’ll start adding them in casting-cost order so we see the remainder of the deck’s mana curve.
CREATURES
1cc: Soldier of Fortune
This little guy’s a bit hard to explain, since he looks suspiciously like a 1/1 for 1 with no relevant abilities. This deck does not really have the ability to manipulate the top of its deck, lacking the industry-standard Sensei’s Divining Top in favor of the ‘upgrade’-relevant Darksteel Pendant, but you can earn favors by passing a much-needed shuffle to a Top-owner, while also hosing a few tutors and other classes of cards that interact with the top of the deck. I usually think of Gorilla Shaman first here, or maybe Spikeshot Elder, but for the politick-y game I wanted to play, the little bit of extra weight on tutors and occasional ability to lend out a favor seemed more relevant to me.
2cc: Ashling the Pilgrim, Orcish Librarian, Orcish Settlers, Dwarven Miner, Dwarven Blastminer
Who knew the two-drop was so good at killing lands? Miners and Settlers exhaust enemy lands, specifically the pesky sacrifice outlet kinds, and also happen to have some convenient overlap with our enabler cards that let us work Starke harder. Orcish Librarian is a good tool for drawing action over the course of the game, especially when you need certain classes of cards but not specific individually-named copies, a standard we meet here with ‘Starke enablers’ and ‘Darksteel thingies’ on our list of things to be acquired. Ashling is just awesome for the price and able to act as board control, or can even take a player out of the game with the ability to blow up and deal damage on a massive scale.
3cc: Viashino Heretic, Mogg Assassin, Goblin Sharpshooter
… Number of Mogg Assassins previously seen in Commander decks? Zero. Mogg Assassin has a lot of characteristics in common with Starke, able to take out a problem of your choice but additionally able to work with an opponent to keep things off the table. Choose the lowliest token-creature threat in conspiratorial wink-and-nod style, and let said opponent choose that unfortunately major problem over in that corner over there, and maybe you’ll even get away with ‘indirectly’ targeting the major threat without exposing yourself to any risk. Goblin Sharpshooter is just another good board control element, while Viashino Heretic likewise controls the board, this time keeping problem artifacts at bay instead of worrying over the token critters that Sharpshooter excels at mowing down.
4cc: Solemn Simulacrum, Avalanche Riders
Both follow the bounce-or-displace theme, and potentially provide value while you use them thusly. Effectively they fill a role and a hole on the curve, because you can’t have all eight-drops in this format.
5cc: Furystoke Giant, Flowstone Overseer, Urabrask the Hidden, Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Furystoke is me stepping back into ‘Funsville’ for a while, since I have wanted to use this ability profitably for a while now and there being a bunch of untappy cards make it more interesting in this deck than in others I’ve tried it in. Urabrask is just there for filling a useful role, slowing the opponent down potentially while speeding yourself up, and taking out that one-turn delay that would otherwise apply to Starke in all cases. Flowstone Overseer and Kumano just keep the board light on small problems, or can tag-team a bigger one with some mana and another card, all good things when your commander is already good at handling the major problems.
6cc: Spitebellows, Inferno Titan, Conquering Manticore, Duplicant, Steel Hellkite
Spitebellows is basically a removal spell, but it can be more than that, while Inferno Titan is another card that clears small problems neatly and effectively so you can contain the major problems only with Starke’s focus. Conquering Manticore goes with those other Threaten-style effects that already nicely interact with your other cards, and provides a busty flier that can be recursively used with the Coffin or Portal as-needed. Duplicant is another catch-all good card, since I haven’t yet found a deck I haven’t wanted to put it in (…that wasn’t horrifically cheating at Magic, anyway…) and Steel Hellkite a boring (by now) but still good way to control permanent types that red is bad at handling.
7cc: Hateflayer
Just a solid board-controlling fattie, especially thanks to the Wither effect allowing this to add up over time to take down a threat with more than five toughness. Under-estimated by me time after time, then put to work only to be awesome again and me somehow surprised again.
8cc: Magmatic Force, Scourge of Kher Ridges
The Force is just me trying him out for once, because it scales nicely in multiplayer and can be very dangerous once a player is vulnerable or answers have been somewhat exhausted. I keep wanting to find it a home, then failing to do so, and here I believe he fits finally. Scourge of Kher Ridges is a different story, in that it’s basically about the best board control creature out there, and on top of that can even work with your commander by killing him before your opponent can untap him and use him against you.
With these very last additions, the deck has a solid, cohesive feel to it, and one that makes me very happy to have pursued this particular Commander through to a logical end-point… I’ve wanted a new deck for a while now, after all, and exploring mono-red makes me happy considering how it is traditionally considered horrifically underpowered.
Creatures (33)
- 1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
- 1 Darksteel Colossus
- 1 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Avalanche Riders
- 1 Uthden Troll
- 1 Myojin of Infinite Rage
- 1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
- 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
- 1 Duplicant
- 1 Dwarven Miner
- 1 Dwarven Blastminer
- 1 Soldier of Fortune
- 1 Orcish Librarian
- 1 Orcish Settlers
- 1 Mogg Assassin
- 1 Viashino Heretic
- 1 Flowstone Overseer
- 1 Stuffy Doll
- 1 Scourge of Kher Ridges
- 1 Ashling the Pilgrim
- 1 Spitebellows
- 1 Furystoke Giant
- 1 Hateflayer
- 1 Capricious Efreet
- 1 Bazaar Trader
- 1 Conquering Manticore
- 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 1 Steel Hellkite
- 1 Urabrask the Hidden
- 1 Magmatic Force
- 1 Creepy Doll
- 1 Manor Gargoyle
Lands (37)
- 1 Strip Mine
- 1 Thawing Glaciers
- 20 Mountain
- 1 Smoldering Crater
- 1 Temple of the False God
- 1 Forgotten Cave
- 1 Winding Canyons
- 1 Dormant Volcano
- 1 High Market
- 1 Dust Bowl
- 1 Blasted Landscape
- 1 Darksteel Citadel
- 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
- 1 Ghost Quarter
- 1 Vesuva
- 1 Spinerock Knoll
- 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
- 1 Homeward Path
Spells (29)
- 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
- 1 Sol Ring
- 1 Mogg Infestation
- 1 Darksteel Ingot
- 1 Oblivion Stone
- 1 Darksteel Pendant
- 1 Grab the Reins
- 1 Insurrection
- 1 Tawnos's Coffin
- 1 Helm of Possession
- 1 Erratic Portal
- 1 Sword of the Paruns
- 1 Reiterate
- 1 Word of Seizing
- 1 Rings of Brighthearth
- 1 Thousand-Year Elixir
- 1 Umbral Mantle
- 1 Expedition Map
- 1 Ricochet Trap
- 1 All Is Dust
- 1 Disaster Radius
- 1 Culling Dais
- 1 Darksteel Plate
- 1 Act of Aggression
- 1 Chaos Warp
- 1 Champion's Helm
- 1 Swiftfoot Boots
- 1 Warstorm Surge
- 1 Blasphemous Act
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