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In my last column, I speculated about what sort of legends we might see in the four-color decks of Commander 2016. I really enjoyed brainstorming two different cycles of legends outside of the expected Nephilim color schemes and am super-stoked to see what Wizards has in store.

It was also cool to see my friend Alli Medwin worked on the design team for the set. Before she went to work for Wizards of the Coast, Alli used to be an active judge for large tournaments up and down the East Coast, but I saw her mostly at the tournaments I went to in my home state of Virginia. Alli was an avid Commander fan and we used to talk about the format whenever we had the time to chat a bit, and there was one cool concept she talked to me about that stuck with me for years. She called it her “lord” deck, and it was chock full of changelings and then filled out with a bunch of tribal lords and other “creature type matters” cards.

I really liked the concept. When playing tribal decks, they tend to operate very linearly; each tribe with a significant card support tends to have things they do well and do often. By having a bunch of different tribal cards thrown into the deck, all tied together with a bunch of changelings, each of your games would play out quite differently depending on what mix of oddball tribal cards you happened to draw along with your changelings.

My biggest hangup was what to use as my commander. Alli used Reaper King, but that’s because she loves to crush dreams into fine grains of sand to soak up the tears of her enemies. I leaned more towards Horde of Notions, since it lets you get back changelings as they inevitably died.

But then Wizards of the Coast brought us General Tazri, and I knew I’d found my lord tribal commander.

There are two problems I saw with a deck that relied on changelings. First off, there aren’t very many of them; not counting the non-creature ones, we’ve got twenty to pick from. Second, not many are really good and some are downright terrible. In a singleton 100-card format, these two factors can make a deck reliant on them inconsistent. What I love about General Tazri is that it lets you go get good changelings. Since General Tazri is your commander, you always have access to General Tazri, which means you will always have access to your good changelings.

In particular, this one:

Mirror Entity is the oil that makes the clunkiest draws run smooth as butter. Making all your creatures all creature types means that even the non-changeling lords get the benefit of all the creature-type-matters cards. With General Tazri, you basically get to ensure you always have access to Mirror Entity!

With that idea in mind, let’s build our own spin on Alli’s lord deck.

Changelings

Mothdust Changeling, Runed Stalactite, Amoeboid Changeling, Shapesharer, Skeletal Changeling, Mirror Entity, Taurean Mauler, Moonglove Changeling, Avian Changeling, Chameleon Colossus, War-Spike Changeling, Cairn Wanderer, Game-Trail Changeling

The changelings I consider “good” in Commander are Shapesharer, Mirror Entity, Taurean Mauler, Chameleon Colossus, and to some degree Cairn Wanderer. Amoeboid Changeling straddles the line, depending on the sort of tribal shenanigans you or your opponents might be up to, and certainly in this deck it will be great.

Chameleon Colossus saw Standard play and can get nuts if you’ve got a lot of mana and your opponent is leaning too heavily on black removal spells. Taurean Mauler gets bigger the more spells get played by your opponents, and the more opponents sitting around the table, the more spells get played. Game-Trail Changeling almost didn’t make the cut because it’s a bit vanilla, but it’s got a good starting size and trample can come in handy.

Fire-Belly Changeling didn’t make the cut because its Firebreathing ability is really underwhelming in a five-color deck, and neither did Ghostly Changeling for a similar reason. Woodland Changeling’s “ability” of being a 2/2 for two isn’t nearly good enough. Changeling Sentinel’s stats are aggressively horrible considering its mana cost, even though we’d love to have vigilance in multiplayer. Turtleshell Changeling is cute and all, but its stats and ability are really subpar for the mana.

The cycle of “champion an X” changelings are decent, but I find them quite risky in the turbulent waters of multiplayer. For instance, on an empty battlefield, drawing one is just the worst.

Lords

Drogskol Captain; Diregraf Captain; Merrow Reejerey; Myr Galvanizer; Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro; Sosuke, Son of Seshiro; Pheres-Band Warchief; Reaper King; Greatbow Doyen; Timber Protector; Seshiro the Anointed

This was the really fun part, and also the most difficult. Tribal cards are some of the most popular cards in Magic and Wizards usually sprinkles at least some into every set. I grouped the cards here under “lords” since each of them grants at least +1/+1 and then some other useful ability.

Protecting your changelings – particularly Mirror Entity – is of vital importance to the deck, so cards like Drogskol Captain and Timber Protector were solid choices. Diregraf Captain is a good way to punish players who lean way too heavily on the creature removal gas pedal. I really like Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro and Sosuke, Son of Seshiro because they provide a boost to two different tribes and our changelings take advantage of both.

Archers haven’t gotten much support as a tribe outside of Greatbow Doyen, but its Archer ability is a sweet one to grant to all of our changelings and is particularly good at hunting down planeswalkers. Similarly, the Centaur tribe hasn’t gotten much support outside of Pheres-Band Warchief, but man, the two abilities it grants to our changelings are exactly what we want!

Myr Galvanizer is a fun one, granting your changelings pseudo-vigilance, and if your changelings happen to be able to tap for mana – hello, Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro – you can net a bunch of mana with the untap ability. To bolster this angle, I’m including Cryptolith Rite and Citanul Hierophants.

Type Matters

Cavern of Souls; Elephant Graveyard; Swarmyard; Artificial Evolution; Stoneforge Masterwork; Veteran’s Armaments; Rattlechains; Manaweft Sliver; Amrou Scout; Blightspeaker; Lantern Scout; Agadeem Occultist; Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero; Tuktuk Scrapper; Door of Destinies; Ramosian Revivalist; Rathi Assassin; Sliver Hivelord; Sea Gate Loremaster; Horde of Notions; Obelisk of Urd; Rooftop Storm; Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

Outside of the “lord” cards, there are plenty of other tribal goodies we can sprinkle into the deck. Keeping on the theme of protecting our changelings, we can make use of Sliver Hivelord to make them all indestructible. Elephant Graveyard and Swarmyard can tap to regenerate one. Rattlechains can flash down to protect one of our changelings from pinpoint removal or combat damage, and then afterwards all our changelings can be cast as though they had flash.

Cavern of Souls naming Ally means that we can always cast General Tazri along with all the changelings we want. Amrou Scout, Blightspeaker, Rathi Assassin, and the grandmother of them all, Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero, let us search Mirror Entity and other changelings right out of the deck. Sea Gate Loremaster is a little pricey on mana, but its raw card-draw ability is crucial in a deck that’s looking to play out a lot of cards to the battlefield. The Ally cards can be considered honorary changelings, since General Tazri can go fetch them up after you’ve already gotten Mirror Entity and can keep it on the battlefield.

Rooftop Storm is an absurd Magic card in a Zombie deck, so it makes sense we want it for our changeling shenanigans. I’m a little uncertain about Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund; the occasions where you’ll get to steal opponent’s Dragons will be fun, especially if helped out a bit with Amoeboid Changeling, but I think being able to untap all your changelings when it enters the battlefield will go nicely with any mana generation they may be able to do, and the haste for all is a big help too.

It may prove to be awkward too much, but I suspect there will be times when you cast Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund and crazy things happen—the epitome of the sort of haymaker players that makes the Commander format so amazing! Just imagine the stories in the making…

All right, without further ado, here’s the deck:

General Tazri

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 05-27-2016

Commander

Creatures (38)

Lands (38)

For the manabase I went the relatively cheaper route using the tri-lands, shocklands, and the most recently reprinted cycle of fetchlands. If you’ve got dual lands and the Zendikar fetchlands, you can obviously improve the manabase from here, but I think this configuration covers our five-color mana needs quite well.

I like Training Grounds here to turbo-charge Mirror Entity, not only as a way to fuel a huge mass pump of your team but also just to be able to activate cheaply and make all your team changelings without making them all really tiny until the end of the turn. There are a fair number of other cards with activated abilities that can make use of Training Grounds too.

I’ve obviously just scratched the surface regarding the mix of “lords” and tribal cards we could use for our changeling deck. What sort of cards have I overlooked? What do you like here, and what sorts of cards would you put in your version?

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)