Last week, we dug into the sort of cards you might want to start with when you build Commander decks around three cool new legendary creatures from Bloomburrow: Lumra, Bellow of the Woods; Helga, Skittish Seer; and The Infamous Cruelclaw.
This week, we’ve got three more cool new legendary creatures from Bloomburrow to explore, so let’s hop to it!
Bria, Riptide Rogue
I’ve never been all that interested in building a spellslinger deck for Commander, but Wizards of the Coast (WotC) keeps pushing the theme in interesting ways, and with Bria, Riptide Rogue, they might finally make a believer out of me. This card suggests the sort of deck that’s not just interested in casting a flurry of spells, but it wants creatures on the battlefield so that your flurry of spells translates into big damage, with some number of your creatures becoming unblockable for the turn. My preferred way to win in Commander is through creature combat, so this sounds perfect to me!
Make Creature Tokens
We’ve got a lot of great options for generating a lot of creature tokens in the Izzet colors. Let’s start with good ol’ Dragon Fodder and cards of its ilk, noncreature spells to trigger Bria while making the tokens you want to pump up. Empty the Warrens is a storm card that can potentially generate a ton of Goblins to add to the team.
Then there are the creatures that give you tokens for casting noncreature spells, like Third Path Iconoclast and Ovika, Enigma Goliath. I haven’t seen Manaform Hellkite show up in many decks, but I’d imagine it would do some serious work here.
Rite of Replication will be fun if you can copy some large creature with trample – especially if you cast it with kicker! – that will be pumped up with prowess.
Combat Damage Triggers
Bria makes a creature unblockable each time you cast a noncreature spell, so even if you aren’t casting a flurry of spells for a game-ending alpha strike, you can benefit from triggers that give you benefit for hitting an opponent with combat damage. Magnus the Red is the perfect team player for Bria, discounting instant and sorcery spells, and when it deals combat damage to a player, it will make a token creature that can benefit from prowess later. Since Bria can make itself unblockable, you have a good chance of unlocking the freerunning cost for the Assassin’s Creed cards Eagle Vision and Overpowering Attack.
One of my favorite cards is Surge to Victory, which gives a nice boost to a go-wide, spell-heavy strategy, and gives the potential for an explosive flurry of copied spells when combat damage is done. I’d love to make a bunch of copies of Rite of Replication!
Noncreature Spells Matter
We might want a few other cards that care about noncreature spells for added benefit, such as Storm-Kiln Artist to provide Treasures. Bothersome Quasit goading creatures makes it much more likely potential blockers won’t be there to stop your token assault.
Otters or Rogues Matter
Since Bria is an Otter, you’ll likely be able to cast Pearl of Wisdom for at most two mana, which is a great bargain for two fresh cards! Also, since Bria is a Rogue that might attack unblocked, you could even tap into the prowl mechanic and cast something like Notorious Throng to take an extra turn.
Glarb, Calamity’s Augur
Like Helga, Skittish Seer, which I talked about last week, Glarb also supports the “spell with mana value four or greater” theme that runs in Bloomburrow; that theme is incredibly good in a format like Commander, which was conceived as the exact place where more expensive spells can shine. When you sit down across from a commander like Glarb, you know that the game is going to go long enough for everyone to have fun and “do the thing.”
Glarb manifests that “mana value 4 or greater” theme by being another spin on Future Sight, letting you play certain cards from the top of your library. Glarb also has an activated ability which very much helps you manage the top of your library to maximize the value.
Play Extra Lands
One thing that slows any card that plays cards from the top of the library is when lands show up in a clump, and since you can only normally play one land a turn, it can stop your card advantage in its tracks. While Glarb’s surveil ability can help with that, you do have access to all of the green cards that let you play extra lands each turn, like Oracle of Mul Daya and Case of the Locked Hothouse. In a show of Frog solidarity, you can play The Gitrog Monster in the deck, which can also be a card draw engine to help push past cards on the top of your deck.
Untap Glarb
To better leverage Glarb’s surveil ability, you can play stuff that untaps Glarb. Thousand-Year Elixir is a classic way to give your tap abilities haste and untap it too. Saryth, the Viper’s Fang can give a lot of value, and since it costs four mana to cast, you can play it off the top of your library with Glarb. Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner can untap Glarb and also gives you extra card-drawing power when a creature you control with power four or greater enters. There’s even an adorable Bloomburrow-themed version of this card available in a Secret Lair drop.
Surveil Matters
Since surveil works so great with the commander, you might want to have a fair number of surveil cards in the deck along with cards that care about surveilling, like Enhanced Surveillance or Eye of Duskmantle – which costs four or more.
Frogs or Wizards Matter
Lastly, there are some cards that care about Glarb being a Frog and a Wizard that we might want to consider. I especially like Cyclone Summoner, which you could cast from the top of your library with Glarb.
Baylen, the Haymaker
Baylen has a ton of things going on, all centered around Baylen using tokens to generate mana, draw cards, or “go tall” by adding +1/+1 counters and gaining trample for the turn. Since Baylen already starts at four power, it won’t take many of that last activation to make Baylen a true beatdown menace to your opponents, crashing through blockers and threatening to end someone with combat damage.
Creature Tokens
Creature tokens are likely the most useful to a Baylen deck, offering up blockers and attackers in addition to fueling Baylen’s abilities. I especially like ones that can generate a ton of token creatures, like Aura Mutation and March of the Multitudes. Grand Crescendo is perfect for this strategy, generating a ton of token creatures at instant speed and protecting your horde from most battlefield sweepers. I love that we can play Illustrious Wanderglyph alongside Tendershoot Dryad in this deck!
Other Tokens
Farmer Cotton is a two-fer, giving you X Halfling tokens and X Food tokens that Baylen can work with! Peregrin Took generates an extra Food token whenever you create one or more tokens. I don’t usually advocate playing Smothering Tithe, but the Treasure tokens it generates will be more useful sticking around and tapping for Baylen rather than fueling some huge turn of big, game-breaking spells.
Tokens Matter
Access to white and green gives the deck tons of token support, from doubling your tokens with Doubling Season and Mondrak, Glory Dominus to even tripling your creature tokens with Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest gives you a more efficient mana-producing option than Baylen’s first ability, so long as green mana is helpful to you. The wonderfully named Bennie Bracks, Zoologist provides some nice extra card draw to keep the gas pedal pushed and the engine roaring.
Untap Stuff
I really like Halo Fountain in a lot of decks, even though that last activation isn’t really happening very often. However, I think in this deck you just might be able to pull it off, especially if you really lean hard on creature tokens in particular. I’d probably add a Skyshroud Elf to the deck to wash the mana enough to have five white mana for that activation cost.
Tapping a bunch of creature tokens for Baylen shenanigans can leave you vulnerable to attacks, so I like Seedborn Muse and Drumbellower as ways to untap and keep up a strong defense. It doesn’t hurt that you can then do even more Baylen shenanigans on your opponents’ turns!
Vitalize can lure someone into thinking that you’ve tapped all your blockers down and they can freely attack you.
The spree spell Rustler Rampage from Outlaws of Thunder Junction is really cool in this deck, not only can you untap all your creatures, but giving Baylen double strike too can mean a surprise game-ending attack from your trampling commander.
Which other cards would work great in a deck built around Bria, Glarb, or Baylen? Which of Bloomburrow‘s new legendary creatures are you most excited to build around?
Talk to Me
Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter! I run polls and start conversations 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.
Visit my Decklist Database to see my decklists and the articles where they appeared!
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