Building Around Warrior Tokens with Zurgo, Thunder's Decree

Posted on April 8, 2025

Hello, and I hope you're having an amazing day! This week I wanted to knock out my first legendary creature from the new set Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Zurgo was my favorite legend from our first visit to Tarkir in Commander, so let's take one of his new iterations for a spin!

Here is New Zurgo!

He costs three mana in the Mardu colors (), with a 2/4 body and Mobilize 2 when attacking to make two tapped and attacking 1/1 Warriors that die EOT. Last but not least, he has a static ability that says you don't have to sacrifice your Warrior tokens during your End Step! Let's build around that!

Mana, Rocks, Ramp and Lands

Let's start with a classic mana-fixing/ramp trio: Chromatic Lantern, Burnished Hart and Solemn Simulacrum. Lantern will tap for any color and make it so your lands can tap for any color as well. Burnished Hart can sacrifice itself for three mana to ramp two basics into play tapped!

Now let's turn to Red accelerants. Neheb has an on-curve and evasive body and turns ccombat damage into you discarding any number of cards, drawing to replace them, and then making red mana for each one. Mardu Monument will put a basic land of your three colors into your hand on arrival and then sacs at sorcery speed for five mana in our colors to make three 1/1 Warrior tokens with haste.

Let's turn to lands! Vault of the Archangel will give your team lifelink and deathtouch when activated, which is nasty for powering through blockers with your smaller team. Then, Dalkovan Encampment from Tarkir: Dragonstorm can ETB untapped under the right circumstances and then taps for three mana to make two 1/1 red Warriors tapped and attacking that sac end of turn. Then Ghitu Encampment taps for red and turns into a 2/1 Red Warrior with first strike for two mana.

Cavern of Souls taps for any color of mana for your chosen creature type and then if that mana was used to cast a creature of that type, it cannot be countered! Then Three Tree City taps with two for the color making of our Warrior count, nasty here for the ramping.

Minas Tirith often arrives untapped and then you can tap it for two to draw you that card if you've attacked with at least two creatures, which is easily done here. I also tossed in Arch of Orazca for extra go-wide card draw. And Mutavault can become a 2/2 Warrior as well! Great stuff!

Kindred

Now let's kick things off with a focus on Warrior Kindred! Banner of Kinship ETBs with a counter for each creature you control of the chosen type and then those creatures get bigger for every counter the Banner has. Gornog, the Red Reaper is a hasty Warrior that makes it so Cowards cannot block Warriors. When you swing with one or more Warriors you can make one of your opponent's creatures a Coward, and your Warrior team gets a power boost based on the number of Cowards your opponent has! Nasty! Then Shared Animosity will boost your attacking creatures by the number of attacking creatures that share a creature type with it!

[card[Bone-Cairn Butcher[/card] has Mobilize 2 and costs four mana, all in Mardu colors, and gives my attacking tokens deathtouch! Then Rushblade Commander[/card[] is a 2/2 Bear for two that gives my Warriors haste! An awesome inclusion!

Let's finish with two colorless artifacts! [card]Oketra's Monument costs three and then your White dorks cost one less mana. You also get a 1/1 White Warrior with Vigilance whenever you cast a creature spell. Then Maskwood Nexus makes all of your creatures on the Battlefield, in your library, and in your graveyard, into Warriors, as well as all other creature types. Then you can tap it for three mana to make a 2/2 Changeling token!

Synergies and Win Conditions

Now let's turn to synergies and backup win-cons! The 6-drop Rakdos legendary is a 4/3 with myriad and it makes it so the legend rule won't apply and your tokens won't die EOT or get exiled. So, he's a brilliant backup in case Zurgo is answered and cannot be recast. The 3-drop Mardu 3/4 will double all attacking triggers which this deck is clearly built around, so that's good stuff!

Now let's turn to attack win-con triggers! Within Range will make a pair of 1/1 Warriors when it ETBs and then will cause each opponent to lose life equal to the number of creatures attacking them. That's great with deathtouch because then they won't wanna block. The similarly costed 3/3 Warrior, Brutal Hordechief, has a similar attack trigger and also lets you spend five Boros mana to chose how your opponents will block this turn, which is also great with deathtouch enablers to force them to lose a bunch of stuff to your 1/1 tokens!

This 4-drop Cleric with mobilize 1 turns your dying creatures into a Zulaport Cutthroat trigger on a 3/3 body. The 1/3 3-drop Red Warrior with trample and haste doubles in power when a creature arrives on the battlefield. Then the four-drop on-curve 4/4 Warrior, also with haste then deathtouch, will exile one of your dorks and then when it swings make copies for each foe you have, like the myriad mechanic. They are sacced EOT so if you copied a Warrior you can keep it as long as you keep your leader!

Redoubled Stormsinger will turn attacking of it into making another copy of each token that ETBs this turn tapped and attacking and sacced EOT. The legendary dork with 1/4 size The Jolly Balloon Man has haste and taps with one to make a 1/1 sized flying copy of your stuff like a Kiki-Jiki and then is sacked so copy that Warrior and then the enchantment Renewed Solidarity will give your Warriors +1 power and then make a copy of each token that arrived of that type in you EOT!

Let's turn to this Red enchantment trio! The five-cost option gives our tokens menace and will create a token copy of an attacking creature as a 1/1 that's also tapped and attacking. The 2-drop one will popuulate on your combat, give the token haste before it gets sacced EOT! Then the other 5-drop gives your dorks +1/+1 and deathtouch, and when it ETBS you get a free Relentless Assault and untaps your team this turn!

Infantry Shield will give the equipped dork menace and then mobilize equal to its power. The Black similarly costed deathtouch 2/4 Avenger of the Fallen has mobilize equal to your graveyard count in dorks! This is a great pair of win cons. Then let's finish with the 4-drop legendary Red dork Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink. Orthion is a 3/3 Solider that for two mana can make a copy of your creature with haste, at sorcery speed. It can also tap for more mana and make five token copies instead, which makes it a great mana sink there! Just copy Warriors to keep them alive!

Answers

Now let's turn to answers with this section! I have four ways to make your team indestructible to save them from mass removal, the enemy of token decks everywhere. The expected Flawless Maneuver and Boros Charm are here, along with Rootborn Defenses and Duty Beyond Death. The three-cost common populates and then gives your team protection! Then the two-cost uncommon will sac a dork and give your team indestructible and a +1/+1 counter on them all. Great stuff!

Coordinated Maneuver will shoot a creature or planeswalker for an amount equal to your creature count, or destroy an enchantment! Will of the Mardu will choose both if you control Zurgo and create 1/1 Warrior tokens equal to someone's creature count and then again shoot equal to your creature count. Inevitable Defeat cannot be countered and destroys the same range of stuff as the Gift save lands.

Let's finish with a pair of mass removal spells that won't hurt us! Ruinous Ultimatum destroys all nonlands of our foes! Then the overload for six-mana Winds of Abandon will Path all opposing stuff. They'll be happy with ramp but sad about their creatures being exiled! I love this for getting blockers out of our way!

Card Flow

Now let's turn to card flow, ideally on Warrior bodies. This may not be great card draw, and I'll even swap good card draw out for more flavorful choices. The Warriors above are good examples. The three-drop Rakdos one has an on-curve 3/3 body and then at the beginning of combat I can discard one to draw two when it smashes face. Strong stuff but risky. Then the 2-drop Black creature turns Warrior type combat damage on my foes into a card draw and life loss, but just once per damage.

Now let's turn to sacs for cards! The Orzhov 2/4 three-drop Hardened Tactician can spend one mana to swap a sacked token for a card, then the one-drop enchantment Vampiric Rites is two mana for any dork and then gain a life too. The Rakdos 2/2 body Stormclaw Rager can spend a mana at sorcery speed to sac a dork or artifact and then draw and grow this with a counter in size too.

Let's finish with this Black Warrior trio! The Rakdos five-cost 5/5 menace can swing and sac and draw equal to its power and lose life to its toughness and then gain that life loss in power too. Then the three-mana Black 2/3 lifelink will trigger EOT if something died under your control, swapping a life for a card. And then if seven things died? Draw a new grip! The other new version of my Commander costs three Mardu mana for mobilize 1 and then when they die draw if attacking or otherwise your foe's will get pinged for a life loss.

There we are! Decklist time!