Commander Top 10: Magda, Brazen Outlaw

What a great set “Nordic Commander Masters” – er, I mean Kaldheim – continues to be!  I’ve done write-ups for ten new commanders right here on StarCityGames.com, and that’s not even a third of what’s available.  There are a whopping 37 legends here, and even many of the uncommon legends are really cool to build around.  This week I’m swimming in the rare end of the pool with a really cool new tribal legend:  Magda, Brazen Outlaw!

The Dwarf tribe was long neglected in Magic until Kaladesh and Aether Revolt came along with a bunch of Dwarf creatures that cared about artifacts generally and Vehicles specifically. 

Sadly, most of the Dwarf cards from this revival where white or Boros in color and we can’t make use of them in Magda, Brazen Outlaw’s monored color-identity.  Luckily Throne of Eldraine and Kaldheim bring some fresh red Dwarf cards to the mix, along with older red Dwarfs for our Dwarf tribal deck with Magda.

But wait a minute — Magda’s card text mentions another creature type: Dragons!  When you have enough Treasure tokens by tapping Dwarfs or other means, you can sacrifice five of them to search your library for an artifact or Dragon card and put it directly onto the battlefield. There are some pretty scary and expensive Dragon cards that would be awesome to tutor directly onto the battlefield, and when I look around at the various Magda decks people are building, that’s exactly what most of them are doing…

…So, I’ve decided to go a different route.  I’ll probably include a few spicy Dragons to search up, but I think I’m going to lean more towards the other tutor target from Magda’s ability—artifacts! 

Let’s get brewing!

1. Mycosynth Lattice

I found quite a few “bomb” artifacts I’d like to cheat out directly to the battlefield, but the one that really caught my eye was Mycosynth Lattice.  There are a bunch of crazy, potentially game-ending combos with this like an overloaded Vandalblast, but I just like that this turns all of red’s nice artifact destruction spells into “destroy target permanent.” 

Here are some other artifact cards that could be nice to search up:

Kuldotha Forgemaster is a more efficient way to turn Treasure tokens into searched-up artifacts.  Eldrazi Monument helps protect your team from a battlefield sweeper. Gonti’s Aether Heart generates extra energy if we need it, and eventually can be cashed in to take an extra turn.

And then of course there is big, bad Blightsteel Colossus to bring the noise and end people!

2. Goldspan Dragon

While Magda plus a bunch of Dwarf cards can generate a fair number of Treasure tokens, why limit ourselves?  I went hunting for more cards that made Treasures and the new mythic rare Dragon from Kaldheim, Goldspan Dragon, generates Treasure and makes them more efficient at making mana if that’s what we need.

Turns out that red provides a lot of options for generating Treasures and I’ve got many of them here:

I’m excited about Treasure Map in particular since when it transforms into Treasure Cove it turns into a nice card drawing engine. 

3. Hellkite Tyrant

For removal, red is rather limited to damage-dealing spells and artifact destruction, but Hellkite Tyrant is incredible because it steals artifacts and can be searched up and put onto the battlefield by Magda’s ability.

Combine with the previously mentioned Mycosynth Lattice and you can pretty much wipe one player out of the game and very likely will win during your upkeep.  Might be a good time to crack Gonti’s Aether Heart, eh?

Liquimetal Coating is another way to broaden the reach of artifact removal and Hellkite Tyrant’s trigger.

4. Maskwood Nexus

Since Magda cares about Dwarf and Dragon cards I thought I’d add a few tribal goodies to the deck.  Maskwood Nexus can be searched up with Magda and allows you to sacrifice Treasures to search out a Dwarf if you need one or generate Treasure tokens whenever a Dragon you control becomes tapped.  Plus, you can always tap it to create 2/2 Dwarf Dragons.

Runed Stalactite does a nice mini-Maskwood Nexus impression for the one equipped creature.  Universal Automaton and Taurean Mauler’s changeling ability have it built right in!

5. Dwarven Bloodboiler

Even with some tribal boosts here and there, Dwarf cards tend to get outclassed on the battlefield quickly so I’m looking for ways to tap out Dwarf cards without necessarily attacking.  Dwarven Bloodboiler can certainly do that, with the added bonus of potentially letting one of your Dwarf cards hit way above its fighting weight.

I was super happy to find a fair number of other Dwarf cards that tap to do stuff!

6. Smuggler’s Copter

Vehicles are another great way to tap Dwarf cards outside of combat, so I made room for a few.  Smuggler’s Copter is pretty much the best of the best, allowing some card filtering to dig for what you need.

Conqueror’s Galleon is personal favorite, it can let you tap your Dwarf cards and if you attack and transform it into Conqueror’s Foothold is an incredibly powerful utility land to give you plenty of options for sinking excess mana.

7. Seven Dwarves

We need more Dwarf cards, and seven copies of Seven Dwarves deliver!  If you draw two or more with Magda on the battlefield you can definitely bring the aggro while generating lots of Treasures!

Dwarven Recruiter is a great way to ensure that you keep drawing Dwarf cards, though if Maskwood Nexus is on the battlefield you can stack your deck with any creatures you want!

8. Aetherworks Marvel

When hunting for ways to draw cards, I ran across the powerful artifact (and fetchable by Magda!) Aetherworks Marvel!  Each time a permanent you control is put into a graveyard, you get an energy, and what’s particularly nice in our deck is the rule that specifies tokens that are sacrificed are put into their owner’s graveyard before ceasing to exist… such as our Treasures!  For each six Treasures you sacrifice, you get to spin the wheel on Marvel, look six cards deep, and cast a spell from among them.  And if you have Gonti’s Aether Heart on the battlefield too, you’ll get energy each time a Treasure enters the battlefield and when it gets sacrificed.

I also snapped up a few more artifact sources of card advantage such as Skullclamp, The Immortal Sun, and Coveted Jewel.

9. Mirage Mirror

Even though a lot of deck space is dedicated to Magda shenanigans, I did want to find room for ways to interact with my opponents.  Mirage Mirror is a powerful tool to do just that by copying a permanent at instant speed when needed.  I really love this card in mono-color decks like this one since it potentially unlocks other forms of interaction your opponents might have cast, or simply becomes a copy of the biggest, baddest threat on the battlefield.

Hammer of Nazahn is a potent artifact even if we don’t play too many other Equipment cards, and with Magda’s ability we can search it to the battlefield at instant speed to protect one of our creatures from a battlefield sweeper.

10. Inspiring Statuary

Even though Magda provides some temporary mana ramp sources, I’d prefer to keep the Treasures around for her other abilities when I can, so I’m including a fair number of other ways to ramp our mana.  Inspiring Statuary is pretty cool in that you can tap the Treasures to discount non-artifact spells, effectively giving you mana from them without sacrificing them.  Hellkite Tyrant for two red mana sounds pretty good, don’t you think?

Okay, so here’s how the deck ended up:

Here’s how the deck looks graphically, thanks to our friends at Archidekt:

What do you think?  Are there any cards I’ve overlooked?  If you see any new cards from Kaldheim that should find a home here, let me know! 

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter!  I run polls and get conversations started about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun!  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.

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.