Drafting Commander

Firstly, you’ll be drafting a 60 card deck instead of the standard 100 card deck, achieved by opening three twenty card packs with your friends. Assuming a four-seater draft, that’s two full drafts per box, or a single eight-seater draft.

Secondly, and this is the big one, the singleton rule is suspended for draft. You can have as many copies of each card as you manage to draft. Fear not though for those of you who like us love the variety of Commander – the format is balanced with a very large number of cards to promote variety. 

Finally, because of the special requirements of Commander (namely actually HAVING a Commander) the set is absolutely packed with Legendary creatures that you can use as your Commander. You’ll need to think carefully about your pick, since as per normal Commander rules you’ll only have access to spells in your commander’s colour identity. For that reason, Wizards has packed the set with Partner commanders who can help you stay flexible and move into new colours if they look open. 

Tokens will work well via commons like Raise the Alarm or Doomed Traveller plus he can be cast even more cheaply if you can perform another sacrifice prior to casting him. Even something as simple as saccing a Treasure from Brazen Freebooter and then saccing two 1/1 token when casting Dargo will result in him costing a single mana!

The ability is only limited because of the initial mana investment required every turn to cast the expensive permanents that you’ll want to be putting into play in order to drop pricey goodies from your hand, as well as having to have enough high-cost permanents to fuel it. That’s where Livio comes in. With Livio, you not only get some protection options for Kodama and the high-cost creatures it puts into play by exiling them in response to removal, but by later returning them to the battlefield you will trigger Kodama’s ability again. As a pair they become a real nightmare to interact with, especially because with access to five mana and with Kodama in play, Livio can effectively allow you to flash in permanents from your hand, all while triggering and retriggering any additional ETB effects you’ve built into your deck. 

This looks like it will be a very resilient deck that will be able to happily trade creatures in combat knowing their deaths will simply boost the rest of your board. +1/+1 synergy cards like Fertilid and Ordeal of Nylea are a must in this deck. An Armorcraft Judge in particular cast after the death of Slurrk has the potential to draw you five or more cards.

But we think there is even greater value to be had by pairing him with the unassuming Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. Rograkh is a fun bit of commander design in himself, coming in at the ultimate bargain price of zero mana! He has keywords for days too, with First Stike, Menace and Trample.

Of course, the catch is that those abilities do literally nothing on their own given Rograkh’s zero power. Not to worry though, Rograkh can still serve the cause. With Tevesh Szat in play, you can sacrifice him to draw no less than three cards, thanks to Tevesh Szat drawing an additional card when he sacrifices a Commander. Rograkh will then return to the command zone where you can recast him for a mere two mana, then rinse and repeat for as long as you can keep Tevesh Szat in play. The amount of card advantage potential here is scary for such a low mana investment. If you can actually make Rograkh useful in combat with equipment or pump, you’ll have a real dream team on your hands.  And let’s not even get started on how having access to red lets you use Coercive Recruiter or Portent of Betrayal to steal an opponent’s Commander, hit them with it and then sacrifice it to Tevesh Szat to draw three cards!

He can trigger the ability himself (which is often easily done thanks to Menace) or by hitting opponents with any of the other pirates in your deck.   But who wants to look at cards from only a single library? With Kediss in play, if Breeches himself connects, you can expand your primate pirate raid to plunder the top card of every opponent’s deck. You can then pick the best of their spells to cast, as well as damaging each of those opponents into the bargain. We can’t promise this will be the best Commander deck you’ll ever draft, but it certainly promises the most booty.

This deck will be well served by cards that benefit high creature power strategies. Hunter’s insight will offer big card draw in the deck and Monstrous Onslaught can function as mass removal. Sifter Wurm is particularly excellent with both commanders in play, generating seven red mana, drawing a card and then scrying for your next big creature, all while gaining big chunks of life.

Your draft will need to be laser focused on elves, but there are huge numbers in the format, and they have excellent lord support in the form of Imperious Perfect and Immaculate Magistrate. Miara can generate a lot of card advantage with Imperious Perfect’s elf token generating ability, and Numa works particularly well with Armorcraft Judge for massive card draw.

 This partnership is even stronger if you include cards that can make use of any rocks you can’t find the mana or creatures to huck across the table. Dhund Operative is particularly great here. Since rocks are artifacts, she not only gets a power boost from having an artifact in play but gains deathtouch too, making her another ideal poison rock pitcher.  

but to ensure that all three of the cards you draw of Keskit can be made use of by putting a creature into the yard that Ravos can recover. Between them, they form a constant cycle that will rip through your deck finding creatures of higher and higher quality. Of course, Keskit’s ability demands a hefty toll of three sacrfices to activate, so you’ll certainly want to use token generating cards. Ravos grants access to some ideal commons in white, including Raise the Alarm and Captain’s Call, the latter of which provides all three sacrifices in a single card. Creatures with on-death effects are particularly good with both commanders, with Perilous Myr being a standout that generates targeted damage every time it dies. 

There are a good number of card draw effects in the set, but what Kydele is really crying out for is a partner that can offer even more. Eligeth offers that option in spades. By turning every scry into card draw, the Sphinx greatly expands the number of cards you can put in your deck that you can expect to act as card draw. Suddenly, Omenspeaker draws two cards on entering the battlefield, a creature equipped with Aqueous Form draws a card every time it attacks, and Preordain becomes Ancestral Recall.

With both commanders out, the amount of card and mana advantage you’ll be generating each turn will quickly be overwhelming.  Of course, Kydele’s mana is always colorless, so it will pay to have artifacts in your deck that will guarantee to make use of three, for or even five colorless mana if you need to use all your colored sources for the initial burst of card draw. Cards like Dreamstone Hedron and Prophetic Prism that generate even more mana and even more card draw in themselves are ideal here, as is Horizon Stone, which lets you store all of Kydele’s colorless mana for a time when you can use it.