In 1847, Joseph Fry invented the first candy bar. A combination of cocoa butter, cocoa powder, and sugar poured into a mold, the original chocolate bar was far more bitter than what we have today. Thankfully, since Fry’s first bar, we’ve all but mastered the art of the candy bar, and your local convenience store probably has a plethora of options to satisfy any desire you might have. Whether you’re looking for something salty, sweet, milk chocolate, or no chocolate at all, there’s no shortage of options from which to choose. At times and with the number of legendary creatures available, choosing a commander can feel the same way. Even when you narrow it down to a singular theme you can still be left with a handful of different options. Commander players have a variety of different needs, interests, tastes, and preferences when it comes to building their decks, and, even though the themes may be the same, different commanders can drastically change the direction of a deck. The themeA strength of mono white is its interactions with equipment. White features several ways to tutor for and take advantage of the artifact subtype. As such, it’s one of the most popular strategies in mono white and can really be worked to go alongside any commander. Even so, equipment are not without some glaring weaknesses. Most notably, the weakness of equipment is the mana investment required. Few equipment provide any instantaneous value and some of the most powerful equipment have expensive equip costs. In addition, most equipment require that you have a creature to gain any benefit from the card at all. Six commanders in white reference equipment in their text and these commanders seek to overcome these weaknesses in a variety of ways. Each commander has their own strengths and weaknesses depending on the strategy a player wishes to employ. Below I’ll highlight these differences and how one might best utilize each option. Sram, Senior EdificerIf you’re looking to draw cards in mono white then there are few better commanders, possibly no better commander, than Sram, Senior Edificer. While Sram can absolutely want a deck full of equipments, he doesn’t necessarily care what the equipments do. Many Sram decks are full of zero and one mana equipments that allow the player to churn through their deck with unbridled efficiency. That said, it doesn’t mean Sram can’t be at the helm of a more traditional equipment deck. Turning each of your equipments into a cantrip is valuable if you can protect Sram, and equipments aren’t a bad way to protect him either. However, Sram doesn’t cheat on equip costs and tacking on the text “draw a card’ to an Argentum Armor doesn’t necessarily make it that much better. Nor is Sram the best champion with which to equip the artifacts that may be in the deck. However, drawing a card after casting a Mask of Memory, Sword of Feast and Famine, or Shadowspear is a fantastic upgrade to these low cost utility pieces. Regardless, it’s unlikely that equipment will be the star of your sram deck, but if you’re looking to run a versatile deck that draws cards and features a lot of equipment, Sram is a great option. Danitha Capashen, ParagonDanitha was printed as an uncommon in Dominaria along with the introduction of several other uncommon legends. Her power level is reflective of her rarity, but that doesn’t mean that she should be underestimated. While her ability isn’t as flashy or explosive as others on this list, she comes with a bevy of keywords to help her out when she’s been equipped. One of the things I like about Danitha is her unique combination of keywords. First Strike, Vigilance, and Lifelink is a combination you won’t find outside of Danitha and Sphinx of the Steel Wind — and Danitha is five mana cheaper. This makes Danitha a much better equip target than sram and work well as a Voltron style commander, a strategy into which equipment decks often lean. Her ability also works nicely in this function as well. In the context of an equipment deck, Danitha would ideally reduce equip cost, but her ability reduces the casting cost instead. However, on the first turn you cast an equipment, you’ve essentially reduced the cost to equip your creature. Being that voltron decks are looking to cast, equip, and attack with one creature in the same turn, this ability has slightly more function in the strategy. However, as Danitha doesn’t actually cheat on equip costs, you still have to remain cognizant of that feature of equipment unlike a similar commander later on the list. Kemba, Kha RegentKemba might be the most unique of the equipment commanders in mono white. Her ability has baffled many regarding the best way to build her. On one hand, she wants to be a voltron commander with several equipment attached to her at once, but she lacks the variety of keywords that Danitha has. On the other hand, she wants to be a token commander, but tokens and equipment don’t necessarily go hand in hand especially when you have to commit to heavily to the equipment gameplan. If a player is looking for a deckbuilding challenge, Kemba is a great commander to choose. The difficulty with Kemba is that it’s hard to get the strategies to work together while also protecting Kemba till the next upkeep. Kemba requires her controller to invest enough mana and resources into equipment that there are plenty of items with which to equip her. On top of that, those equipment need to be oriented on protecting kemba so that her controller can actually get the trigger. Then, upon getting that army of tokens, the player needs resources to synergize with that army as well. In most scenarios, a player can only expect to get three or four tokens from Kemba, and that might be a bit generous. It’s a deck that is pulled in a variety of directions and without the tools to necessarily achieve all of its goals. Balan, Wandering KnightThroughout this post I’ve talked about cheating equipment costs. Cheating on cost is a theme throughout magic and when trying to build the fastest and most linear decks cheating on costs is often a key. Balan is the first commander in this list that can cheat on equip costs and this can allow his caster to take advantage of some very powerful equipments with the utmost efficiency. On top of that, Balan can conditionally have double strike giving him the potential for surprisingly quick lethality via commander damage or even infect. These abilities makes Balan a natural fit as a voltron commander that can be suited up with several equipment at once. Balan’s efficiency and linear gameplan make him a great option for higher power level players trying to make a more equipment centric deck than Sram would necessarily encourage. Balan can arguably take the best advantage of equipment like Grafted Exoskeleton and allow you to win out of nowhere. When paired with flash enablers like Sigarada’s Aid and Vedalkan Orrery, these equipment can also become powerful combat tricks as well. Raksha Golden CubSo far the equipment oriented commanders in mono white have, unsurprisingly, required a critical mass of equipment to function. Kemba and Balan both want several equipment attached to them while Sram wants to be able to cast equipment repeatedly to draw cards. Raksha is fundamentally different than these commanders as he doesn’t care about the number of equipment attached to him. After the first equipment, Raksha doesn’t get any additional value. The critical mass of equipment required is much lower than other commanders. This creates an interesting dilemma for Raksha: how much emphasis do you put on the equipment synergies? Enough equipment are required that Raksha is equipped, but beyond that the commander benefits far less than other equipment strategies. Raksha makes the most since as a cat tribal commander that uses several different leonin from Mirrodin to assist in equipping him. These Leonin can protect, tutor, and recover equipment so that Raksha can always remained equip with a relatively small investment of equipment. With this plan, Raksha works best with equipment that protect him by giving him hexproof, indestructible, or other forms of protection. Raksha is fairly casual though. Being a seven mana commander and attached to a specific tribe, makes him very slow and very niche. However, for those players who like to have a tribal element to their decks, he is a natural fit. Nahiri the lithomancerNahiri is the only commander on this list that can’t be equipped because she isn’t a creature. This means that the first obstacle to consider is: what will the equipment in this deck equip? Nahiri does provide a 1/1 with her plus ability so leaning slightly out of equipment and into tokens may be a solid line of thinking. These tokens are Kor creatures as well which means one could consider focusing on the tribal component. Similar to the Leonin of Mirrodin, Kor is a tribe that actively cares about equipment as well. Leaning into this token strategy is an intriguing option as well because Nahiri, like Balan, can cheat on equipment costs, and unlike Kemba doesn’t require several equipment to be equipped at once allowing the room for flexibility. In this way, Nahiri actually does an effective job combining the two strategies as a 1/1 token can be turned into a menacing threat when attached with some powerful equipment. Nahiri actually covers up a lot of the problem that equipment decks can run into as well. If an opponent destroys the equipped creature, Nahiri can make another. If an opponent destroys the equipment, Nahiri can return it from the graveyard. The challenge with Nahiri is ensuring that she is protected as equipment won’t help with that. However, tokens work well at protecting a planeswalker as they can be blockers as well as attackers. Nahiri serves as a well rounded option to lead a commander deck, however, she is not explosive especially being at five mana. A deck with Nahiri at the helm is likely going to be grinding out advantage over the course of a longer game. In conclusionIn commander, choosing the right commander is often more subjective than objective. Unless a player is trying to create the optimal equipment list, there are numerous factors that can affect their choice, none of which is more important than what best fits their playgroup. While a voltron deck built around Balan may be more powerful, perhaps their group is more comfortable at the power level of a Danitha. They may want to build a tribal deck that’s equipment centric, in which case Raksha might fill that roll better than Sram. The key is to way the pros and cons of each commander and the playstyle to which they best lend themselves.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMonoWhiteBorder -- A man who loves MtG and his small dog. Archives
June 2021
Categories"MonoWhiteBorder" and corresponding content is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
|