Today I'm going to cover one of my new favourite decks, and an archetype that I don't believe I've gone into full detail about yet. In my introduction to Commander article, I briefly went over some of the main archetypes in Commander, including Group Pain/Group Slog. The commander I mentioned was Nekusar, the Mindrazer as he is by far one of the most popular Generals for this type of deck. However, recently I decided I wanted to try our golden banana friend out at the helm. The deck focuses on a group variation of "stax".
Why Tasigur?
Tasigur, The Golden Fang works efficiently for a deck like this because when your opponents manage to deal with your Winter Orb, Tainted Aether, or Consecrated Sphinx he can just give them all back to you. Although there are certain cards you don't typically wish to be given back, such as Birds of Paradise or the Signets, Tasigur's Delve ability helps to ensure that this doesn't become an issue.
Alright, So Why Play a Deck Like This?
I come from a rather competitive metagame at my local college. Most our games involve four people playing infinite combos, or trying to lock the game down by turns five or six at the very latest. So while more casual play groups may find a deck like this obnoxious, most of my friends actually enjoy the challenge. And for those who don't, the looks on their faces tends to be priceless.
Noteworthy Interactions
Creates a permanent lock if your opponents don't already have removal in hand, as Tasigur can use his ability to continuously get back cards to discard to the portal's end of turn trigger.
Each opponent loses their hand, while you draw cards equal to the greatest number of cards in hand multiplied by the number of players.
Assuming your opponent does not have any mana rocks or mana dorks, this ensures that your opponent can only keep one creature alive, as they have to pay one colourless each upkeep for each creature, but can only untap one land to pay with.
Necromancy targets Leviathan in graveyard, Leviathan comes back, bounces all permanents including Necromancy. Because Necromancy has pseudo-flash, this can be used as a Devastation Tide effect over and over again, for two black at instant speed to boot!
The Decklist
Thanks everyone for reading, I hope you all enjoy this week's decklist. I'll be back next week with my take on some of the cards already spoiled from Shadows Over Innistrad (as well as whatever else gets spoiled before then).
