Last week, we took a look at Ms. Bumbleflower, a fun creature from Bloomburrow Commander. This week, we’re going to dig into the backup commander from the same precon deck, Mr. Foxglove. I love how formal and cute we are with their names!
In addition to lifelink, this swashbuckling Fox Rogue has an intriguing ability when it attacks. Either it lets you draw cards when you attack someone with a larger hand than you, or it lets you put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. You’ll want to draw extra cards from Mr. Foxglove until you’ve drawn a huge creature card you want to cheat onto the battlefield. This allows for a surprisingly deep number of options for building your deck, so let’s dig in and see what we can cook up!
Opponents Draw Cards
While many opponents will be drawing extra cards on their own, we’ll want to look at ways to encourage more card draw because the more cards an opponent has in hand, the more cards we might draw when Mr. Foxglove attacks. Ms. Bumbleflower, a great commander in her own right, is fantastic in a supporting role here. Secret Rendezvous draws you and an opponent an extra three cards, but you’ll have the opportunity to play out your hand before attacking. “Gift a card” cards like Dawn’s Truce can help boost an opponent’s hand along the way.
Questing Phelddagrif has three abilities, but the one that applies here is that, for a blue mana, it can give itself flying while letting an opponent draw a card. The draw is a may ability, so it will be an interesting political move to see if an opponent will have the fortitude to turn down drawing an extra card or two if you target them.
Communal Brewing is a great setup card, potentially letting three opponents draw a card and then boosting each creature you cast by extra +1/+1 counters.
When You Draw Cards
Assuming you’ll be drawing extra cards most of the time when Mr. Foxglove attacks, we might want to include some cards that take advantage of the extra draw. Wizard Class takes some time to level up, but once you get Level 3, you’ll be able to add +1/+1 counters to a creature you control whenever you draw a card. Chasm Skulker can grow large on its own as you draw all those extra cards, as will Psychosis Crawler while it also drains life from your opponents.
Play Extra Lands
On the other side of the equation is emptying your own hand of cards as quickly as possible so you’ll draw more cards with Mr. Foxglove, and the first priority should be deploying extra land drops, which will then let you cast more spells. Case of the Locked Hothouse is the gold standard of this effect; you should quickly be able to solve the Case and then start playing cards from the top of your library with ease, especially in conjunction with Mr. Foxglove’s card drawing ability. Sword of Forge and Frontier is a nice option too; equipping it to Mr. Foxglove might make it easier to attack someone and not be blocked.
Tucking Away Cards in Exile
In addition to playing extra lands, we might want to play cards we can tuck away in exile to reduce our hand size. Cards with the foretell ability are great for this, like Ravenform, Cosmic Intervention, and even Green Slime. The plot mechanic is another great option, as on Railway Brawler and Make Your Own Luck.
One of my all-time favorite Magic cards is Ice Cauldron because it’s so weird, but it might be good enough to do some work in this deck. It’s important to know that the card you exile with Ice Cauldron can be played from exile later even if Ice Cauldron is destroyed. Gustha’s Scepter is another old-school card that can exile a card in hand, but you can’t cast it from exile, so you’ll need to tap the artifact to put it back in your hand later, and if the Scepter is destroyed, the exiled cards are put into the graveyard.
Big Creatures to Put Onto the Battlefield
Of course, sometimes you’ll want to use Mr. Foxglove’s ability to put a huge creature onto the battlefield for no mana, and the one that immediately came to mind is Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant, since it will let you deploy more creatures when it enters the battlefield. But if you have any favorite expensive creatures, feel free to drop them into your deck—I’ll be looking to play Ancient Silver Dragon, Old Gnawbone, and Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl. Big mana finishers like Craterhoof Behemoth or Moonshaker Cavalry are other options.
Haste
Mr. Foxglove doesn’t do anything until it attacks, so giving it haste is a high priority. Equipment like Lavaspur Boots and Swiftfoot Boots are great choices, as are Surrak and Goreclaw and Surrak, the Hunt Caller.
Extra Attacks in Bant?
Since Mr. Foxglove’s ability happens when it attacks, getting extra attacks will double the fun, but unfortunately extra attacks are pretty much exclusive to the red slice of the color pie. The one exception I could find is Finest Hour, which allows an extra attack step if you attack with one creature.
Of course, the blue way to get an extra attack step is to get an extra turn, so if your playgroup doesn’t get too salty about extra-turn spells like Time Warp, you can go that route. In particular, I could see running Nexus of Fate and Beacon of Tomorrows; sure, they’re a bit expensive, but I like that they shuffle back into your deck to be drawn again, and since we’re making extra land drops along with some of the usual green mana ramp, I think the cost will be manageable.
Extra Triggers
Another way to get extra triggers from Mr. Foxglove is to copy the actual trigger with Strionic Resonator and Lithoform Engine. Lithoform Engine is an incredible Swiss Army knife of nifty abilities and makes for a great mana sink for all the extra lands drops we’ll be making.
Power Boost for Life!
Since Mr. Foxglove has lifelink, we can leverage that by boosting its power, giving us the ability to race better if an opponent is looking at player removal rather than commander removal. Blackblade Reforged appears in a lot of my lists, and it’s incredible in any deck that wants to attack with its commander. I haven’t thought about Hadana’s Climb in a while, but if you’re running other ways to add +1/+1 counters to your creatures, it’s a nice way to boost Mr. Foxglove and eventually transform into Winged Temple of Orazca, which can give a creature flying and a big size boost.
With all the extra land drops this deck wants to make, Felidar Retreat can create token creatures along with providing +1/+1 counter boost to all your creatures. Archangel of Thune and Nykthos Paragon will also provide a +1/+1 counter boost to all your creatures whenever you gain life.
Lifegain Matters
We might want to lean into the lifegain theme, playing other cards that gain life and then some lifegain payoffs, with Shanna, Purifying Blade being one of the first on board, since it will let you draw extra cards when you gain life. I love Accomplished Alchemist and Ezzaroot Channeler, which will provide you extra mana after combat to cast the spells you’ve drawn from Mr. Foxglove, assuming you gained life from it.
I love Celestine, the Living Saint’s ability to bring back creatures from your graveyard, depending on the amount of life you gained in the turn. And then there’s Will, Scion of Peace, which can discount white or blue spells you cast this turn by the amount of life you’ve gained.
Which other cards would work great in a deck built Mr. Foxglove? Which of Bloomburrow Commander‘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.
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