This week's deck does a couple of weird things with a really fun new Commander from Kaldheim, Svella, Ice Shaper. Usually, if we're talking Gruul ramp, it's not typically of the artifact persuasion. And if we're ramping in Gruul you can generally bet on the fact that that mana will be used to cast some gigantic creatures and smash some face with them. Not this deck, oh no, this deck uses one of the all-time most flavourful Magic mechanics, paying one red mana to give your creature +1/+0, also known as firebreathing!
Firebreathing isn't really thought of as a Commander ability mainly because its just not a super-efficient use of mana. Pumping power and not toughness and not having it last past the current turn just isn't a great deal. But if we can take advantage of our temporary power boost in other ways, like doubling THAT power with Xenagos, God of Revels or turning that power into saproling tokens via Tana, the Bloodsower or Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor all of a sudden the old alpha mechanic doesn't look so bad after all.
This deck wants you to ramp up hard using Svella's Icy Manalith-making ability several times (untappers do great here) and even some traditional ramp too, and then get a few payoffs rolling and pump up your team. Some of the best firebreathers in the deck are things like Moonveil Dragon (pumps the team) and Nesting Dragon (making eggs into firebreathing dragons) but don't sleep on an enchantment like Ghitu War Cry which makes it possible for my favourite combo in the deck: get some tokens going, firebreathe Svella a bunch and equip her with Dragon Throne of Tarkir and turn your firebreathing into a giant overrun for the win!
Between this and the sacrifice moves like Greater Good providing card advantage we think you'll have a ton of fun with this unconventional take on a brand new unconventional commander!
