"Dragons of Tarkir" Spoiler Season has started. And with it the time to go through some commanders that have either not gotten enough support to be playable yet or those shiny new DTK-legends and brainstorm a little about possible additions to our EDH-Arsenal.
So here is my take on the first legend and the most important cards I would play in a deck along with them. I say "first legend" because I plan to write an entry like that every once a while always bearing the title Brainstorming Commanders #X and always discussing another possible commander. Most of the time, I'm more drawn to unorthodox commanders that don't seem to do too much, for the simple fact as that they'll be more likely to stay in play an allow me to build around them more reliably doing so.
Candidate #1:
First, let me specify the main aspects of the card:
- Two way evasion - avoids blockers AND removal (+)
- He does a really good job at blocking due to a toughness of 7 (+)
- He won't deal tons of damage on his own (-)
- A cmc of 6 isn't too bad but it isn't cheap either especially in colors with little ramp (-)
.....
- Sweepers play a big role in multiplayer EDH, so having a commander that can provide a board whipe can be really nice, even though this one is a bit situational (+-)
I can see building Silumgar in two different styles. The first one is to take advantage of his "two-way-evasion" and head toward a Voltron-type build with cards like:
...and you've got yourself a deck. I won't provide a list here because A) I don't have an exact one and B) deck building is an important part of magic so you're better off building the deck yourself to fit your own playstyle and needs.
Earlier I mentioned that I have two different ideas for Silumgar: Voltron and... Dragonz-Control.
The problem with building around his attack-trigger is, that UB doesn't offer too many dragons and even then two dragons will only result in -2/-2. Nonetheless I think given that the last set will most likely contain at least 3-4 playable dragons in our colors it's worth thinking about since I can't think of anything sweeter than being able to whipe an opponents board with as little as attacking with some guys.
It all starts with a simple query on magiccards.info: >>t:"dragon" (c:c or c!ub)<< resulting in a List of 19 dragons in our colors. Not all of them are even remotely playable but there are about 6 or 7 of them that I can see myself casting in an actual game.
The Top3 would consist of these bad boys which are all loved and played in other decks.
So far so good. The next way of getting a dragon-creature is by way of changelings:
Playing cards like these comes at the great risk that they won't do much if the card you're playing them for isn't in play, but since Silumgar is rather well protected I think it's worth the risk.
Just imagine having played a Silumgar the turn before, then slaming one of those bad boys and attacking like that:
Sweet baby Jesus, so value, much synergy!
But the fun doesn't stop there.
With Silumgars trigger each ability that gives -1/-1 essentially becomes -2/-2, -2/-2 becomes -3/-3, and so on and so forth...
And through all of that Silumgar should be able to stay in play as most creatures don't have a bigger toughness than 4, maybe 5, so you shouldn't have to play cards like Damnation while you'll also be able to kill indestructible creatures. And for that one creature that managed to survive you can still pack a Hero's Downfall.
If I haven't sold you on Tribal-Silumgar until now my "not-so-secret-anymore" weapon should do the trick:
While Sword of Fire and Ice is an allstar in basically any deck that has enough guys to reliably carry it around, the other two I especially like in a Silumgar-Voltron-Deck.
Crytsalline Nautilus is quite the card when bestowing it on Silumgar as his Hexproof more or less negates the "illusionous drawback". The only thing you have to keep in mind is that you should not equip/enchant Silumgar any further once you bestowed the Nautilus on him but once you've got that awesome Dragon-Nautilus-3-turn-clock in action you shouldn't need to boost him further anyway.
Qietus Spike on the other hand is a rather different approach. Silumgars main weakness when it comes to combat is his low power so blocking him without loosing a creature is rather easy. With a Spike you'll put your opponent in a very difficult spot though, as blocking now means certain death for the blocker most of the time while Silumgar survives thanks to a toughness of 7 and not blocking will hurt a lot.
Some support cards and allround-talents later...
...and you've got yourself a deck. I won't provide a list here because A) I don't have an exact one and B) deck building is an important part of magic so you're better off building the deck yourself to fit your own playstyle and needs.
Earlier I mentioned that I have two different ideas for Silumgar: Voltron and... Dragonz-Control.
The problem with building around his attack-trigger is, that UB doesn't offer too many dragons and even then two dragons will only result in -2/-2. Nonetheless I think given that the last set will most likely contain at least 3-4 playable dragons in our colors it's worth thinking about since I can't think of anything sweeter than being able to whipe an opponents board with as little as attacking with some guys.
It all starts with a simple query on magiccards.info: >>t:"dragon" (c:c or c!ub)<< resulting in a List of 19 dragons in our colors. Not all of them are even remotely playable but there are about 6 or 7 of them that I can see myself casting in an actual game.
The Top3 would consist of these bad boys which are all loved and played in other decks.
So far so good. The next way of getting a dragon-creature is by way of changelings:
Only two of them really seem playable and the later one is a bit of a stretch since the best way of using him requires you to declare him as an attacker, let the Silumgar-trigger go on the stack and then transforming him into a more hard hitting creature effectively binding 3 mana each turn.
Lastly there are a few other options available to get more dragons into your deck:
Playing cards like these comes at the great risk that they won't do much if the card you're playing them for isn't in play, but since Silumgar is rather well protected I think it's worth the risk.
Just imagine having played a Silumgar the turn before, then slaming one of those bad boys and attacking like that:
Sweet baby Jesus, so value, much synergy!
But the fun doesn't stop there.
With Silumgars trigger each ability that gives -1/-1 essentially becomes -2/-2, -2/-2 becomes -3/-3, and so on and so forth...
And through all of that Silumgar should be able to stay in play as most creatures don't have a bigger toughness than 4, maybe 5, so you shouldn't have to play cards like Damnation while you'll also be able to kill indestructible creatures. And for that one creature that managed to survive you can still pack a Hero's Downfall.
If I haven't sold you on Tribal-Silumgar until now my "not-so-secret-anymore" weapon should do the trick:
b-but... what does it do?
Weeeell, it acts like a second Silumgar, so if Sakashima and Silumgar attack together they'll trigger themselfs and eachother resulting in -4/-4 and -2/-2 for each additional dragon that attacks.
"Holy Mississippi, that's what I call Guacamole!" one might say...
That's it for the first "episode" of Brainstorming Commanders, I hope you liked it :)
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