Last week, I was looking over the new cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander, and when thinking about Felix Five-Boots, I wondered, “How many Equipment cards named ‘Boots’ are there in Commander?”
Turns out there are six, but one of them is Boots of Speed, which is outside Felix’s color identity. That’s right—there are exactly five “Boots” within Felix Five-Boots’s color identity. How cool is that? So, I posted this on Twitter:
Apparently I wasn’t the only Magic fan who thought it would be fun to build a mini-quest in their Felix decks to find and equip all five “Boots” to Felix—the Tweet blew up! As of this writing, there were almost 77,000 impressions, 11,000 engagements, 2,700 likes, 216 retweets, and 74 comments. I don’t recall the last time I had something go somewhat viral on Twitter, but one thing’s for sure—people love Felix, so it seems I should do a deep dive on our Ooze friend! Let’s see what I can rustle up for y’all.
Five Boots
Okay, so here are the five Boots that could be in a Felix deck. A lot of the effects are redundant, so if optimization is king, then the Boots mini-quest is probably not for you. Oh, I asked Corey Bowen, who was one of the designers for Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander, if he knew there were exactly five “Boots” Equipment for Felix, and this is what he said:
He later said that his official unofficial ruling is that if you equip all five Boots and hit a player, you get to legally put a gold star sticker on your Felix because he’s become the Sheriff in town.
Chris Mooney, also from Wizards of the Coast (WotC), pointed out that Felix would actually give you two stickers in this scenario.
Magic can be so fun when you embrace the silliness, you know?
Shopping for Footwear
I don’t typically play many tutor-style cards in my Commander decks, but if you’re going on a quest to equip Felix Five-Boots with all five “Boots” cards, I think it’s perfectly acceptable. Just think of it as going down to the local mall, looking for the coolest boots this side of Tarnation. Tezzeret the Seeker can hook you up with what you’re looking for, since all the “Boots” only cost one or two mana. Feel free to chuckle at the thought of Tezz wearing a name tag and helping Felix find just the right styles for walkin’, ridin’, and butt-kickin’.
Hoarding Broodlord is a fun choice, as you can search up footwear that costs just one mana and then tap Hoarding Broodlord to cast it right away.
More Boots?
If you want to lean even further into the silly side of things, here are the cards you can add that have the word “boot” in their names. Then you can say things like, “These boots are too fab to be free!” and “This cute little fella is nippin’ at my boots.”
Okay, let’s get into building the deck around Felix’s cool Panharmonicon-like combat damage trigger!
Combat Damage Triggers – Creatures
There are many options for creatures that do cool stuff when you deal combat damage to your opponent. What’s so cool about Felix Five-Boots is that his ability works right away, assuming you have one or more creatures on the battlefield ready to attack and get combat damage triggers. Orochi Soul-Reaver is another new card from Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander has a sweet global effect for your attacking creatures that deal combat damage; make sure you attack more than one opponent to maximize the benefits. Those Treasures are nice to help you ramp up to Old Gnawbone, and then you’ll really start cooking with Treasures!
You’ll definitely want to have Questing Beast in your Felix deck, as you want to be dealing combat damage and Fog effects that prevent combat damage will be a huge bummer.
Combat Damage Triggers – Noncreatures
All the various Sword of X and Y Equipment cards work great with Felix, but those I’ve listed here are the ones I enjoy most in Commander decks. Sword of Hearth and Home lets you ramp and blink a creature you own, which happens to be amazing against effects that steal creatures from you. Sword of Fire and Ice lets you draw cards and deal chip damage, while Sword of Light and Shadow brings creatures from your graveyard back to your hand while gaining you some life. I love The Indomitable; its static effect works fantastically with Felix and the plan to deal combat damage, and it’s a 6/6 with trample when it’s crewed, so it’s a great way to punch through small blockers.
Trash the Town is a sweet new spree card with a lot of flexibility and choices that all work well with Felix’s gameplan; being able to double that last choice and draw a whopping four cards when you crash through will feel amazing!
I love that cipher cards get another look with Felix at the helm, since you’re planning on dealing combat damage early and often. Writ of Return brings creatures back from the graveyard right to the battlefield, while Stolen Identity lets you copy the best artifact or creature on the battlefield. Predator’s Hour is a super-fun card to consider if you play in-person Commander, giving all your creatures menace and an awesome combat damage trigger.
Open into Wonder is an uncommon from Amonkhet (and reprinted in Zendikar Rising Commander) that I don’t know I’ve ever seen before, but it seems perfect in a Felix deck, since it can make multiple creatures unblockable and gives them a sweet combat damage trigger for Felix to kick in.
Deathtouch
Felix has menace and significant power, so giving it deathtouch seems like a great way to put the squeeze on blocking if you want Felix to rumble into the red zone. I really like Agent of the Shadow Thieves for this, since if Felix is attacking an opponent that is at least tied for the most life, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on Felix, and it gains indestructible as well as deathtouch.
Cultist of the Absolute is another Background that gives some sweet benefits to Felix with a drawback of needing to sacrifice a creature during your upkeep, but because we have access to black, we can have plenty of creatures that come back from the graveyard. Or, we can play a bunch of token creatures to go wide with, which can be really effective if we give them combat damage triggers, and would give us some sacrifice fodder.
Cheap Protection/Interaction
Ward 2 makes Felix a bit more difficult to take care of with pinpoint removal, but opponents will try to take it down at the most inopportune moment for you, which is why you’ll likely want to run a couple of spells that will let you save Felix in a pinch. Tamiyo’s Safekeeping is the gold standard for protection, though Slip Out the Back will save Felix from exile effects like Sunfall. Smuggler’s Surprise is a really cool new spree card that does a pretty good Heroic Intervention impression, with several other modes that gives you a ton of flexibility if you have mana to sink into it.
Ooze Matters
It might be fun going full Sultai Ooze typal with Felix leading the way, but even if you don’t, you can still rustle up a few Ooze cousins to keep Felix company. Biogenic Ooze lets you add a +1/+1 counter to each Ooze you control. Biowaste Blob gives all your Ooze creatures +1/+1, and if you control your commander during your upkeep, you get to make a token that’s a copy of Biowaste Blob. If you happen to have a bunch of copies of Slime Against Humanity, you can pile them in the deck too.
Rogues Matter
Felix is also a Rogue, so you can tap into some Rogue synergies too if you want to go that way. Anowon, the Ruin Thief can boost other Rogues like Felix by +1/+1 and give them a sweet combat damage trigger which Felix can double. Mari, the Killing Quill is cool if you’ve got a bunch of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues, giving them all deathtouch and a combat damage trigger for Felix, though you’ll want to have a fair number of ways to kill opponents’ creatures with Mari on the battlefield to set up the hit counter.
Are you going to build a Felix Five-Boots deck with five “Boots” cards in your deck? Let me know what cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander are you most excited to play with!
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!
