I tried to start early on this week's column but hit a point where I was stuck. Maybe I've built too many Red decks lately. Maybe I was just looking for more than what today's subject brings to a game. Not every build flows smoothly from start to finish and this time around I got a little stuck.

Today's subject is a Legendary Dwarf Noble who has an interesting ability that points me towards building around Equipment. That isn't a problem. Equipment can be very helpful in winning games of EDH but that's where I was getting stuck. I couldn't initially see how I'd ever get this guy over the finish line.

Thorin, Mountain-king is a 3/4 with Trample. When he enters, I'll attach any number of target Equipment I control to target Creature I control. When one or more Equipment become attached to that Creature this way, that Creature will deal damage equal to its power to up to one other target Creature.

That's a lot of targeting, so I know I'm not going to be running Lightning Greaves. Beyond that, I think I'm going to be looking at Equipment that gives the equipped Creature helpful abilities. I want Lifelink so I can gain a little life as I go about my business, and I want Deathtouch so I can easily remove Creatures that aren't Indestructible.

After putting my pile of cards and my plans aside for a few days I eventually set upon something to get a little excited about. That's what I had been looking for--a way to get this deck to not only do something but do something big and splashy. I'm getting ahead of myself though, so let's take a look at the Equipment I settled upon for Thorin.

Basic Equipment for Thorin

There are basically three categories of Equipment I looked at for this build. Equip costs aren't going to matter much, as I'm planning on using Thorin's Enter the Battlefield (ETB) ability to equip everything to a Creature. Basilisk Collar, which is a one-mana Equipment that gives Deathtouch and Lifelink and equips for , is the poster child for what I'm looking for, but it's worth having backup options for both of those keywords.

Loxodon Warhammer and Shadowspear are both in the list and both provide Trample and Lifelink to the equipped Creature, but Resurrection Orb is the card I wanted to shine a spotlight on.

This 2-mana Equipment gives Lifelink, and whenever equipped Creature dies, I'll return it to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step. That's another ETB if I use it on Thorin. I'm not running sacrifice outlets, but this card has me reconsidering that choice.

Gorgon Flail and Gorgon's Head both give equipped Creature Deathtouch, and the former also gives it +1/+1. Trample and Deathtouch are a wonderful combination. Thorin has Trample, so when attacking, he'll just assign one damage to each blocking creature and the rest will carry over and will hit the defending player.

Making the equipped Creature big is the last piece of this puzzle. Colossus Hammer costs one mana and gives a cool +10/+10 to equipped Creature. It's got an equip cost of , but Thorin gets around that quite nicely.

I'm also running Blackblade Reforged and Strata Scythe, both of which pump the equipped Creature based upon Lands in play. The former counts only my Lands and the latter has me exile a Land from my Library when it enters and counts all Lands in play with the exiled Land's name.

Having Thorin enter and equip just Colossus Hammer and Basilisk Collar will let him deal 13 damage to a Creature and I'll gain 13 life. That's not bad, but it hardly sets me up to win a game. The next step was obvious: I need to be running the right Creatures.

Brash Thorin

The Creatures I want to target with Thorin's ETB ability are ones that let me push damage out to my opponents. Brash Taunter and Stuffy Doll are the classic examples of this type of Creature. Instead of targeting an opponent's Creature, I'll be targeting my own. They are both Indestructible but have key differences.

When the former is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target opponent. The latter has me choose a player when it enters, and when it's dealt damage it deals that much damage to the chosen player.

The best Creature for this deck isn't Brash Taunter or Stuffy Doll, it's Coalhauler Swine. When this 4/4 Beast is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to each player. That's risky if I don't have a way to give it Lifelink, but if I'm going to be gaining life as part of the process, it should work just fine. Hitting it for 13 damage will kill it, but it will still deal 13 damage to each player and in a four-player game I'll end up gaining 39 life.

If I've got Resurrection Orb in play, my little piggy will come back so it can do it again. I'm also running Wrathful Red Dragon and Screaming Nemesis as backup options, but this deck will be at its best with both Coalhauler Swine and Equipment that gives it Lifelink in play.

Excess damage is damage over and above what would normally kill a Creature. Toralf, God of Fury may not be perfect for this deck, but he serves a key role to take damage assigned to an opponent's Creature and turn it into damage to a player.

He's a 5/4 God with Trample, and whenever a Creature or Planeswalker an opponent controls is dealt excess noncombat damage, Toralf will deal damage equal to the excess to any other target. He turns spells like Chandra's Ignition and Blasphemous Act into potential wincons, and he works really nicely with Thorin's ability to damage a Creature -- so long as I choose to damage an opponent's Creature.

The last key piece of this puzzle is the ability to get additional ETB triggers once Thorin is already in play. An Equipment like Blade of Selves is perfect for Thorin, as it will give him Myriad. When he attacks with Blade of Selves, he'll create token copies of himself. They will die to the Legend rule, but they will give me ETB triggers. I'm also running Flamerush Rider, Electroduplicate, Heat Shimmer, and Twinflame as additional ways to make a token copy of Thorin.

Multiplying Thorin's Damage Output

Damage doublers are another classic Red card type in Magic: The Gathering. The ability to amplify your damage output is often a key to taking a good deck and turning it into a great deck. In today's brew damage doubling really opens up the ability to win the game.

Gratuitous Violence is a classic Red damage doubler. If a Creature I control would deal damage to a permanent or player, it deals double that damage instead. While I've got a few other doublers, damage triplers are even more enticing. Fiery Emancipation and City on Fire both do that, and they both only care about sources of damage I control. An opponent could theoretically make a copy of one of them, but these are less risky to run than a card that amplifies damage for everyone.

The key thing to remember is that I'm hoping to play a Creature that takes some amount of damage and then lets me redirect that damage to a player. With a damage doubler or tripler, that happens each time damage is dealt.

If I had Brash Taunter in play alongside City on Fire and a humble Loxodon Warhammer, I'd be able to play Thorin, Mountain-king and equip my Warhammer to Brash Taunter when Thorin enters play, Taunter would go from 1 power to 4 power and I'd have him deal 4 damage to himself, which would get tripled and become 12 damage.

Brash Taunter would then let me deal 12 damage to any target, which would get tripled and become 36 damage -- enough to easily kill an opponent if they've taken a little damage already. I'd also gain 36 life.

Earlier I mentioned that I wasn't initially that excited about this deck until I figured out that there was something big and splashy I could do with it. This is that big and splashy thing. If I were to target a Coalhauler Swine with a Thorin ETB, equipped that Beast with Colossus Hammer and Loxodon Warhammer, I could have him deal 17 damage to himself, which would be tripled to 51 damage, and then he'd deal 153 damage to each player. He'd have Lifelink from Loxodon Warhammer so I'd survive, but it's unlikely any of my tablemates would survive that much damage.

If you're skeptical, remember that damage and Lifelink happen at the same time, so getting hit by my own Creature when it has Lifelink results in the damage essentially getting cancelled out by the Lifegain. Without that Lifegain, Coalhauler Swine represents a much different scenario. I could easily kill myself if it's pushing out more damage than my current life total.

Tuning our Thorin, Mountain-king Decklist

Any list you find online should be viewed as a starting point. You should always tune a deck to match both your playstyle and the power level of the tables you're playing at. This list is relatively low powered, aiming to push out damage with a somewhat convoluted combination of Equipment, Creatures that can redirect damage, and other support cards that may or may not show up in a given game.

I chose not to run any tutors or Game Changers, so this comfortably fits into a Bracket 2 meta. I don't think Thorin, Mountain-king will see play above Bracket 3, as he relies upon too much help to be able to reliably hit players with damage. There might be ETB combos you could run in this deck, but in Red it's a lot harder to set up the kind of infinite loops you commonly find in high powered White and Azorius decks.

Thorin, Mountain-king | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Thorin, Mountain-king

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Angrath's Marauders
• 1 Brash Taunter
• 1 Coalhauler Swine
• 1 Flamerush Rider
• 1 Goblin Matron
• 1 Imperial Recruiter
• 1 Knollspine Dragon
• 1 Moggcatcher
• 1 Neheb, the Eternal
• 1 Screaming Nemesis
• 1 Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• 1 Stuffy Doll
• 1 Toralf, God of Fury
• 1 Twinflame Tyrant
• 1 Urabrask, Heretic Praetor
• 1 Wrathful Red Dragon

• Instants (7)
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Sarkhan's Triumph
• 1 Untimely Malfunction
• 1 Valakut Awakening
• 1 Wild Magic Surge

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Electroduplicate
• 1 Grab the Prize
• 1 Heat Shimmer
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Mizzium Mortars
• 1 Reforge the Soul
• 1 Twinflame

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 City on Fire
• 1 Descent into Avernus
• 1 Fall of Cair Andros
• 1 Fiery Emancipation
• 1 Gratuitous Violence
• 1 Last Light of Durin's Day
• 1 Pain for All

• Artifacts (26)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Blade of Selves
• 1 Colossus Hammer
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Coveted Jewel
• 1 Cursed Mirror
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Excalibur, Sword of Eden
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Gorgon Flail
• 1 Gorgon's Head
• 1 Hammer of Nazahn
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mithril Coat
• 1 Resurrection Orb
• 1 Ruby Medallion
• 1 Shadowspear
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 The Fire Crystal
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (36)
• 33 Mountain
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

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Lowering the Power Level

While this is already a lower powered list, if you felt like you needed to kneecap it even further you might want to pull out some of the ways the deck can amplify damage and/or gain life. The reality is that this list isn't going to reliably be hitting its wincons without the benefit of tutors or the kinds of explosive card draw you more easily find in Blue and Green . I still think it could be a fun and quirky list to play but I'd nearly always feel like I had an uphill battle ahead of me, especially at Bracket 3 tables.

Increasing the Power Level

Thorin, Mountain-king's best trick might be to cheat Equipment costs and if you wanted to increase this deck's power level you might look at that as the thing to try to abuse. I would probably look at either setting up for a Voltron gameplan with more Equipment that lets a Creature be unblockable.

My focus was on abusing cards like Brash Taunter, and while that might still be a fun way to play, getting up to 21 Commander Damage might be a more reliable plan of attack.

This card isn't going to be pushing up into Bracket 4 and 5, but you might consider looking at Equipment that gives Infect as a way to make wins come more easily. Throwing in Grafted Exoskeleton and Gamble to try to get it could help you knock people out, but you'll probably still need the equipped Creature to be unblockable.

Final Thoughts

I was able to get this list into a game, and while I didn't do much in the early game it was a low powered table and that gave me the time to play out Lands and get something onto the battlefield. A Zedruu the Greathearted deck gave out an Akroan Horse early in the game and that helped everyone else get blockers.

In the end I was able to make a big, splashy play by having my Brash Taunter fight someone's 64 power Commander after equipping it with Pain for All. The only reason I didn't end up winning is that the Bracket 3 Zedruu player had a Nine Lives out and a Teferi's Protection in hand, cutting off any chance that I could close out the game after they and I were the last players alive. It's always frustrating to be on a lower powered list and see Game Changers pop up, but Game Changers weren't the reason they won.

I have a paper list for Thorin, Mountain-king in the works but I'm not yet sure I'm going to complete the build. I've got other decks I want to work on and Thorin just doesn't feel like it will be able to keep up at the B3 tables I'm often finding myself at these days.

If you've been looking for an interesting Commander deck built to use Brash Taunter effects to try to kill players or even win games, I think Thorin, Mountain-king is well worth a look. He's got a novel ability, and you won't find yourself piloting just another Dwarf typal EDH deck.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!