Hello and welcome to another Ikoria Commander Showdown from CommandBeacon.com. As some may have noticed when you put decks head to head in a five-deck series such as Commander 2020 you get an odd one out. Well, to make it up to the ever-playful mutant it's all Sultai Nightmares this time. We're putting the mutating beast against the deadly hydra from the Enhanced Evolution deck against each other to see who comes out the bigger nightmare.
Otrimi, the Ever-Playful
Otrimi can be seen as a simple creature, a 6/6 trample for 6 mana is solid but not exciting. It's advantages come in two forms, the mutation of a non-human creature and the recurring of other mutant beasts. While it does take a non-human body on board to mutate Otrimi onto or into the creature the initial mutation cost is 4 mana. This could come down as early as turn two or three changing a small early game creature into 6 points of Commander damage.
Regardless of whether it was mutated on top of the creature or under the creature it becomes treated as a whole, so the creature becomes your Commander for any Commander damage purposes. The advantage is also that mutating on a creature does not refresh any summoning sickness so you would be able to attack right away. In addition, it has some potential recursion for other mutants from the graveyard to hand which helps make up for mutates innate requirement of needing a second body. The version below is a creature heavy Sultai mutant deck with a mix of hexproof "bogle" creatures, flashy creatures, and pure value as mutation targets with a backup plan to overwhelm with high powered value cards.
Zaxara, the Exemplary
Within the Enhanced Evolution deck comes a new potential hydra tribal Commander in Zaxara, the Exemplary. With a mana generation ability and a bit of deathtouch this is a neat little terrifying nightmare hydra. But the real draw is the token generation. Every time you cast a spell with X in the cost you get a 0/0 green hydra token with X +1/+1 counters on it. Whether they're big threats created at instant speed or little 1/1's to Skullclamp, the bonus value for casting these spells is great.
Now there may be a splash of hydra in this deck but it's definitely not tribal. I am a high synergy combo player so we're going to go for the infinite mana route, with the hydras being an additional payoff. Zaxara taps for two of any one colour at a time, well my pals Freed from the Real and Pemmin’s Aura just so happen to untap the enchanted creature for one mana. So we'll generate infinite mana and either cast off all our spells, create some huge hydra tokens, or maybe have a nice draw spell to dig for pieces to end the game.
So which one would come out on top? There's a lot of testing and shuffling that gets done when building these decks and like most decks some matchups and starting hands can either destroy your opponents or completely fold to them. I'm rather liking the Commander 2020 Legendaries they've given us this time around. They're all unique and fun with a promise of interesting games of interaction. It's almost like they built these things for a casual multiplayer format. That can't be right. I mean they also printed Fierce Guardianship. Anyhow we have more Commanders to get through in this set, for the full breakdown check Otrimi's and Zaxara's respective articles on Command Beacon. Until next time.
