I’m a sucker for repeatability. In fact, I would say that single term encapsulates the vast majority of what I search for when I’m looking for a Commander deck; whether it’s tapping and untapping a land enchanted by Urban Burgeoning or sacrificing a creature enchanted by Gift of Immortality 4x per turn cycle, nothing excites me like repeating a game action more than I logically should. In much the same vein, the the prospect of casting a card I always have access to over and over, my Commander, is equally titillating. There’s a nasty snag in that plan though, in the form of the Commander Tax. Each time you cast your Commander from the Command Zone, an additional cost of {2} is added, preventing such freedom…but what if we didn’t cast our Commander from the Command Zone? Let’s dive in and see how to avoid taxes, through death, in this installment of The Puzzlebox.
This is part of a new shortform series for Goonhammer where I’m covering rapid-fire concepts for Commanders I couldn’t cover in a full Commander Focus, so if you like what you see, certainly let us know!
Tax Evaders
The number of Commanders with the explicit capability to be cast from the Graveyard is a scant few, in the grand scheme of things. Still, relatively popular options exist like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis which outright refuse to pay period, let alone Commander Tax. That being said, I want to focus on three underplayed Monocolor options within this data set: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Sabin, Master Monk, and The Indomitable. Each of these, in some capacity, allow us to pay ~4 mana to cast them from the yard, are Monocolor, and have some additional rider attached. There’s a great deal of comparisons to be drawn between them, because for all their similarities, each color has different tools to make use of casting cards from the bin. While their win conditions and play patterns may not differ, everything surrounding our Commanders will.
Cost & Casualty
Before we talk specifics, it’s vital we cover how this game plan generally plays out, and why it’s a compelling option for both value and a rush towards your win condition. The name of the game with these cards is cost reduction, because as soon as we reach ‘mana neutral’, suddenly things get extremely silly. In the case of something like Sabin, even if you aren’t mana-neutral, the fact his Blitz loots is a huge upside, essentially letting you rummage for {R}. Unlike simply jettisoning a card like Derevi, Empyrial Tactician from the Command Zone over & over, we get a chance to accrue value from cast triggers. This doesn’t sound like a ton of advantage, but with the right setup (cards like the Monuments from Amonkhet, or Storm-style payoffs) you can end up way ahead as the game goes on.
Better still, Commanders whose core identity is being cast from outside of the Command Zone don’t especially care about removal, given your opponent isn’t permanently increasing the mana floor to access the card your entire deck is built around. Outside of a combo turn, this essentially means your Commander is immune to removal, because it will simply trade up over the long term.
That being said, each of the options we’ll be discussing have the same mana cost to be cast from the yard: {2}{N}{N}, where N is their color. Cost reducers can get rid of that pesty {2} with great ease, but clearing the colored mana is where things get dicey. There’s Phyrexian Altar, sure, but beyond that your colorless options get a bit dicey; is Relic of Legends close enough? Whether you choose to care about actually going infinite, or merely going infinite ‘enough’ is up to you, and even if you can shave down to an effective cost of just {N}, you’ll find ample ways to generate value.
The Indomitable
I want to start with our strangest option, The Indomitable. This card only became legal as a Commander fairly recently, being a Vehicle, and has thus gone underexplored. Unlike our other contenders, this ship has a static ability, and it’s a Coastal Piracy, which is a solid start! Where it falls short is its conditionality, only being legal to cast from the yard if you already have a developed, tapped board of Pirates and/or Vehicles, and without infinite power to crew it, you can neither sac it for {U}, nor tap it with Relic. This gets a bit better with cards like Urza, Lord High Artificer on the menu, but at that point it’s possible you’re just playing a worse Urza list (an admittedly common feat). Unlike its contemporaries below, it’s less likely you’re fully looping The Indomitable, but rather just never having to pay Commander Tax on it. That, coupled with its draw effect, makes for a compelling low-power option with little risk of resulting in a game-ending combo, unlike our next option.
Sabin, Master Monk
Coming in at our stated mana cost and a discard to Blitz from the Graveyard, it’s Sabin, Master Monk. For those unfamiliar with Blitz, this alternate casting cost tacks on some extra rules to a Creature cast with it, providing Haste, and causing them to be sacrificed during the next End Step. Critically though, regardless of when that card dies, it draws a card upon its demise, a bit of rules text we’ll be using to its fullest. Unlike our other options, Sabin actually does something each time you cycle him through, namely rummage. Discard synergies get a ton of value here, and cast triggers like Flamekin Herald & Skyfire Phoenix each stretch a cast of Sabin into more cards than just the master monk. Red even has a second Altar in Thermopod, and Birgi is a functional duplicate.
With Double Strike, functional Haste, and 4 power, Sabin 3-taps players for Commander damage innately, and alongside a wealth of power increases in the color you’ve got an alternate Commander Damage game plan readily available. Much like Firion, Wild Rose Warrior (covered here), playing this odd Voltron-into-Combo game plan makes for a dynamic deck, and of our options I’d say you’re likely to have the most fun with Sabin. Sure, he comes with the foibles inherent to Monored, but the difficulty is part of the fun.
Ebondeath, Dracolich
Ebondeath, Dracolich lives in a middle space between Sabin’s all-in aggressive game plan, and the more midrangey Indomitable. So long as a Creature has died, you can cast Ebondeath from the yard, and with Flash you can do so with tremendous ease. Better still, the types here, Dragon & Zombie, are some of the most supported in the entire game, with a Phoenix-style extra body in Bladewing’s Thrall and Headless Rider making for safe means of executing a full combo by giving you additional fodder for the Altar. That’s the word that describes Ebondeath here: ‘Safe’. It’s not as fast as Sabin, but with Black being the graveyard color, having a wealth of graveyard-castable bodies beyond the Commander, it’s by far the most consistent means of executing a combo. That being said, while the redundancy that comes alongside the color is stellar from the perspective of a wincon, there’s fewer things to do if you’re hated out. Sabin can just…kill the player with gravehate, but Ebondeath is forced to draw removal or fold.
A Pointless Death
In spite of my clear preference for Sabin among these options, I want to stress that each has an allure all their own. If you’re a nascent combo player arriving from an aristocrats background, Ebondeath is likely right up your alley, and if typal and midrange thrills you, The Indomitable might be the choice. Still, the impetus for this article did arrive from a realization that Sabin only had a mere 330 decks to his name on EDHREC, and I wanted to use The Puzzlebox to help correct that. What I love about this style of Commander ultimately arises from the political aspect of the format—we all come to the table with an 8th card in hand, that our entire deck is built around, so naturally there’s a push-and-pull around removing that X-factor. Here, you turn that on its head, inviting opponents to even bother removing a piece that just keeps coming back. Not unlike your Yurikos or Derevis, it can be frustrating to see your removal bounce, so you focus on opponents, turning our single-target removal into 2-for-1s; if an opponent is spending resources dealing with another of our opponents, that’s a win-win for us. Making it clear that your opponents cannot kill you in a way that matters, not unlike a mushroom, you’ll find yourself in the driver’s seat more often than not. Perhaps neither death nor taxes are necessarily sure, in the game of Commander.
With that being said, what mechanic or Commander should I cover next on The Puzzlebox? This is a series built on essentially rapid prototyping underutilized mechanics for Commander, and while I have a few ideas kicking around, I’d love to hear options from my readers!
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