Mutate is the pesky little mechanic that at first blush seemed overly parasitic, but because of its rules interactions and unique slant on creatures, I just can't get it out of my head. Thus, when it came time to brew the deck this week, my first thought was about the new interaction in Standard featuring Scute Swarm and Mutate creatures. Basically you Mutate onto a Scute Swarm and all of a sudden once you hit six lands, your land drops now make copies of that mutated creature with a larger power/toughness than the original 1/1.
It's a (s)cute interaction and one that led me to really lean on the idea of cloning mutated creatures. This also happens to be a great answer for one of the main problems any dedicated Mutate deck faces in EDH, which is, if you get your stack of mutated creatures killed, you're so far behind. So, just create a bunch of the stacked up beef bois, and let's go!
Any of the Mutate cards in the deck require a base to start with, but really I would wait till you have a creature to Mutate onto AND a clone in hand. We've got some graveyard recursion in the deck to help out in case something goes awry, but I always like to make sure my big plays land in decks like these because we're really rolling a snowball up a hill and a little stumble means you have to start all the way at the bottom of the hill again.
The clones will treat you well even as a first play because they're likely to be able to hit something your opponents have but they really shine when giving you options of where to send your Mutate spell.
Finally, Volrath, the Shapestealer is a great Commander for this deck because of his ability to copy a mutated stack, but also his ability to retain his power toughness through his rules text. You don't have to lean on Volrath, the Shapestealer for your game plan to come together but when he's on the board things tend to go well for you.
Let me know how you did with this sort of deck, or what your take on Mutate has been now that the dust has settled on the Commander precons. I'd love to hear about your brews over on twitter @Commandersbrew or on our Youtube channel!
