The Magic community eagerly awaits preview season to officially kick off for the upcoming set, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, which begins this month! Building Worlds and the stories kick off this week on January 12, and the official set debut begins on January 17.
We did get teased a few cards late in 2022, and I did a deep dive on Slobad, Iron Goblin a couple of weeks back. Sheldon Menery shared his thoughts on Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines around the same time. There is still one potential commander that was teased around the same time that still needs some love, and I intend to remedy that today—Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden!
Remember Me?
Like the others, this isn’t Jor Kadeen’s first Magic card rodeo.
Quite a few years ago, I actually had a Commander deck built around The Prevailer version, using it as a “lord” for my Boros Myr tribal deck. The Prevailer is a hidden gem these days, but I always take a hard look at it whenever I’m playing an artifact-heavy deck with a fair number of creatures and have red and white in my color identity. The +3 power boost to all your creature hits super-hard! I definitely think Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer should find a home in the 99 where Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden is the commander.
Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden has plenty going for it, namely being a two-mana commander with “draw a card” in the text box. This means you can potentially get your commander on the battlefield and drawing cards while your opponents are busy doing the typical mana ramp and other early setup moves. You’ll want a cheap Equipment card with a power boost that can also equip cheaply to Jor Kadeen, so I expect the deck to have a fairly high density of cards meeting that criteria. This make Jor Kadeen have at least four power, so you can draw a card.
Let’s dive in!
Cheap Equipment
Skullclamp is probably the ideal cheap Equipment with a cheap equip cost for this deck: Turn 1 Skullclamp, Turn 2 Jor Kadeen, Turn 3 equip Jor Kadeen making it a 3/1 and attack, with the trigger making Jor Kadeen a 4/2 and you draw a card. And if Jor Kadeen dies, you get to draw two more cards. Bone Saw can be a tricky way to set this up so that your opponents’ guards are down; if you hold it in your hand until the turn after you cast Jor Kadeen, you can cast it for zero mana, equip for one, and Jor Kadeen will attack with four power to draw a card.
Assuming you hit your land drops, on the turn after you cast your commander, you can cast a two mana Equipment card with a one-mana equip cost, like Goldvein Pick or Captain’s Claws, to meet the criteria.
I also like Ancestral Blade and Citizen’s Crowbar since they enter the battlefield and immediately equip themselves to the token they created, which will add to Jor Kadeen’s attack trigger.
The math gets a bit easier with cards that make Equipment cheaper, like Foundry Inspector and Danitha Capashen, Paragon, but I wouldn’t include too many Equipment cards that are more expensive to cast and equip.
Equip for Cheap
There are a lot of ways to make equip costs cheaper, and we’ll want to include a fair number of them in this deck, starting with Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist, which can take any of your Equipment cards and pile them onto one creature.
Note that Jor Kadeen’s trigger gets better the more equipped creatures you control, so you might want to spread around your Equipment. Puresteel Paladin is perfect for this; once you’ve got metalcraft, your equip costs are all reduced to zero. Cards like Bruenor Battlehammer; Halvar, God of Battle; and Brass Squire can make it super-easy to spread your Equipment to as many creatures as you can. Sigarda’s Aid and Hammer of Nazahn let your Equipment attach for free when they enter the battlefield.
Extra Attack Steps
Jor Kadeen triggers when it attacks, and luckily for us, Boros offers a bunch of ways to get additional attacks, which means more cards drawn and an ever-growing commander—don’t forget the trample ability! I always like considering Savage Beating for this slot, since casting it with entwine is such a literal beating, and who can get angry at getting pummeled with a card called Savage Beating?
Akki Battle Squad seems perfectly suited for this sort of deck, since you’re already incentivized to spread around your Equipment to different creatures, all of whom will be considered modified for Akki Battle Squad’s triggered ability. I love that its ability isn’t conditional on the card itself attacking, so its ability “has haste” so long as you have at least one equipped creature ready and able to attack.
Equipment Matters
Boros has a deep, deep roster of cards that care about Equipment or being equipped, so we’ve got a lot of flexibility in what we’ll want to fill out our list with. The card advantage of Sram, Senior Edificer and Akiri, Fearless Voyager will certainly earn their slots. I imagine I’d also lean towards the smaller, aggressive creatures like Champion of the Flame and Goblin Gaveleer, which can get quite scary when backed with the double strike ability of Reyav, Master Smith.
I’d also find room for cards like Tiana, Ship’s Caretaker and Mantle of the Ancients, which give us some resilience to battlefield sweepers that might destroy all of our artifacts, like Vandalblast or Cleansing Nova.
Artifacts Matter
Since Equipment cards are artifacts, we might want some of these artifact synergy cards. I like Inspiring Statuary in Equipment decks. Because most Equipment cards don’t care about being tapped, they act as mana rocks for nonartifact spells. Nettlecyst comes down and immediately equips to a Phyrexian Germ token, and gets bigger and more threatening the more artifacts (and enchantments) you have on the battlefield; plus, the equip cost is still quite reasonable if the Germ dies.
Scrap Trawler and Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero are additional ways to recover from battlefield sweepers, and then there’s Brilliant Restoration, which can recover them from your graveyard if they’ve been destroyed or countered piecemeal along the way.
Drawing Cards Matters
Having card draw attached to your commander means you can bank on having a pretty full hand, so Equipment cards like Hand of Vecna and Empyrial Plate become attractive inclusions. Artifact synergies make Alhammarret’s Archive and Psychosis Crawler appealing as well.
Protect Your Voltron…
Even though the plan is to spread Equipment around to as many different creatures as you can, Jor Kadeen’s triggered ability still makes it into a bigger and bigger threat as the game goes on. The trample and commander damage can add up in a hurry! Opponents will have incentive to take it off the battlefield, and while its cheap mana cost means commander tax isn’t as onerous as it is with other commanders, you’ll want ways to keep Jor Kadeen on the battlefield and able to attack again, possibly pushing through for victory.
Loran’s Escape and Blacksmith’s Skill are fantastic choices for this and only cost one mana at instant speed. Boros Charm is a classic, and occasionally its other modes can certainly play a surprise role in an aggressive deck such as this one.
Tibalt’s Trickery is a nice surprise counterspell from a nonblue deck that can occasionally backfire, but if it does so in spectacular fashion, that just makes for a great story we can tell our friends later.
Of note, many of these cards can be tutored up with a piece of Equipment that is often the star of a Boros deck: Sunforger. I’d be hard-pressed not to include that in the 99.
… Or Go For Broke
I’d also consider Chance for Glory, which can definitely surprise your opponents, who might have been planning your demise on their next turn so that you wouldn’t get another turn. At instant speed, you can even use this to interject your extra turn before another player gets a chance to untap and wreck your day.
You could play with some safety net cards – Cloudsteel Kirin seems perfect, and you could even run The Golden Throne – but I’d be tempted to stick it in the deck without a safety net.
Rebels Matter?
Lastly, take a look at Jor Kadeen’s creature type: Human Rebel. The Rebel creature type debuted in Mercadian Masques and is exemplified by the card Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero from Nemesis. Most of the Rebels from that era had a mechanic that let them tap to search up a Rebel from your deck and put it on the battlefield, but I can’t imagine that working very well in this style of deck.
That said, I might include Rebels as a small Tribal theme that you could lean towards with something like Heirloom Blade. It’s possible that Phyrexia: All Will Be One and maybe even March of the Machine might have more Rebel cards and cards that care about Rebels. It’s something to keep an eye out for this deck!
So what do you think of Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden? Do you like it more or less than other Equipment-matters Boros leaders? What cards have I overlooked that would play well here?
Talk to Me
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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