There's something fun about playing with other peoples' cards. Jason Alt used to say using other people's cards against them was the fairest thing you could do - they put the card in their deck, so it should be fair game. That way they can't really complain stuff is overpowered.

Tarkir: Dragonstorm has brought us a fancy new Commander, capable of taking quite a bit of stuff from our opponents. So much, in fact, I think we can build a deck which really can only win with our opponents' stuff.

Wow, that's a lot to unpack.

We get a 2/1 Indestructible (!) for four mana in Sultai colors. In addition, any time we do combat damage, we get to Exile the number of cards on top of the defending player's Library equal to the amount of damage we've dealt. Then we can cast any of those spells we Exile with Mana Value X or less (X is still the amount of damage we did) without paying their mana costs.

This is awesome. Black and Blue are both great at getting Creatures through, and Green loves to make them big. Let's see what we can do with this.

Kotis EDH | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kotis, the Fangkeeper

• Creatures (10)
• 1 Baleful Strix
• 1 Brainstealer Dragon
• 1 Brokkos, Apex of Forever
• 1 Felix Five-Boots
• 1 Gemrazer
• 1 Guardian Augmenter
• 1 Ohran Frostfang
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 The Thirteenth Doctor
• 1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Tasha, the Witch Queen

• Instants (13)
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Astarion's Thirst
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Berserk
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Growth Spiral
• 1 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Invigorate
• 1 Negate
• 1 Overprotect
• 1 Snakeskin Veil
• 1 Tyvar's Stand

• Sorceries (13)
• 1 Culling Ritual
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Deadly Tempest
• 1 Distortion Strike
• 1 Explore
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Final Act
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Villainous Wealth

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Aether Tunnel
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Combat Research
• 1 Curiosity
• 1 Favor of the Overbeing
• 1 Indomitable Might
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Security Bypass
• 1 Strong Back

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Brotherhood Regalia
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Fireshrieker
• 1 Inquisitor's Flail
• 1 Leyline Axe
• 1 Power Fist
• 1 Staff of Eden, Vault's Key
• 1 Trailblazer's Boots
• 1 Winged Boots

• Lands (40)
• 7 Forest
• 5 Swamp
• 5 Island
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Foreboding Landscape
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Mistrise Village
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 1 Zagoth Triome

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This is a "get Kotis through and hit as hard as possible" shell if I've ever seen one. We have evasion, we have buffs, and we have Double Strike, all of which will help us drain our opponents of resources while collecting them for ourselves. Let's break it down.

Three colors is a lot, and we want to hit it on turn four at the latest, so 40 Lands are here, many of which help us with colors. We have all the tri-lands, several duals, and a few cheap fetches to make sure we get the colors we need. We also have Rogue's Passage, which is one of several ways we have of sneaking our guy through.

We are running several two-mana ramp spells, including Nature's Lore and Three Visits, which is why we have the tri-land which has the Basic Land types (we can search for it with one of these). Arcane Signet is great for this too. We also have some three mana spells in the form of Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, which don't help us get to a turn-three Kotis but are still solid in making sure we have colors and plenty of mana to mess with our opponents.

Ohran Frostfang, Coastal Piracy, Bident of Thassa, and Combat Research are all great options for card draw when we have a guy we know is going to get through. We've also got Hunter's Insight and Hunter's Prowess, two of my favorite attacky-card-draw spells. But my favorite one for this deck is Staff of Eden, Vault's Key. Yeah, it's six mana, but dang what an ability. We should be able to make that draw a bunch for us.

Our threats will be whatever we can pull out of our opponents. I mean, I suppose Kotis could ultimately end up killing someone, but the hope is we manage to get enough fun things so we can kill people with their own stuff.

We do have a few answers, like Beast Within, Counterspell, and Assassin's Trophy. Deadly Tempest is always solid, and Culling Ritual is really fun here. Final Act is an exceptionally good sweeper, too.

But the fun is in what we do to Kotis. It breaks into three basic categories, some of which overlap some.

1. Buffs
2. Evasion
3. Double Strike

For buffs, it's spells like Indomitable Might, Berserk, and Blackblade Reforged, all of which make our Commander bigger, making X = More. Guardian Augmenter helps us, and I like The Thirteenth Doctor here, because we'll be casting spells from places other than our Hand quite a bit.

Evasion is stuff like Trailblazer's Boots, Favor of the Overbeing, and Distortion Strike (which also provides a small buff). Flying, not being able to be blocked, things like that. Security Bypass is great here, as is Aether Tunnel. Don't play both of those at the same time.

Double Strike comes from Equipment. Fireshrieker is the classic, but now we have Leyline Axe too. Inquisitor's Flail isn't Double Strike, but it does double our damage, so that's close and in some ways better, given it means X = More.

We have a couple of Mutate Creatures like Gemrazer and Brokkos, Apex of Forever. And Felix Five-Boots lets us trigger Kotis twice without Double Strike - or four times with.

Finally, Brainstealer Dragon is a strange little backup plan. We have to pay for these, and it costs us life, but it gives us access to the top of each of our opponents' libraries, and we can play their Lands. While we're at it, Tasha, the Witch Queen can do a nice job of building up a little army of Demons as we play our friends' cards.

The biggest issue here is if we flood on one particular aspect of the deck and don't get a decent mix of effects. In other words, if we get all ramp and evasion but no buffs, we're going to play a lot of Sol Rings but not much else. On the other hand, all buff and no evasion means we'll probably just eat a lot of chump blockers but not much else. You could fix this with tutors, but I figure this is one of those high-risk, high-reward decks where fun is the point. Heck, the person whose stuff you use to win the game can claim partial victory for providing you with the tools you need to win!

Thanks for reading.