A warning for anyone intending to read the Fourth Wing series: The following article will contain more spoilers than any of the others I'm writing. While the other articles in this series will only give you a movie-trailer-level amount of spoiling, this one goes all the way to the end of Onyx Storm and (necessarily) gives away the big reveal from that novel, so if you don't want to know, don't read on! This is the third article of a series on decks designed to represent characters in these books.

Okay, now let's talk about Xaden.

Xaden is one of the most powerful riders of his generation. He is the son of the leader of a rebellion who was executed in front of him when he was younger. He bonded to one of the most powerful and ruthless dragons living: Sgaeyl, a large blue who is mated to Tairn.

Xaden himself is ruthless as well. In addition to being one of the best warriors the college has ever produced, he is a Shadow-Wielder, capable of manipulating shadows to do... well, anything. They can carry things, move items, snuff out fires, stop attacks... the list goes on. It's near God-like.

He is calculating, brilliant, and full of rage and fury at the way the world and his life have worked out. His emotions surrounding Violet and Sgaeyl often drive his decisions, and they come at the expense of literally everyone else. He brutally murdered several people who attacked Violet in her room after she bonded Tairn. He regularly tells Violet he doesn't care if she kills people, despite her discomfort with it. And, most importantly, when he thought he had no other choice to protect Violet, he channeled energy from the earth and became the very thing they are fighting - a Venin, one who steals magic from the very lifeforce of the planet.

As I considered where on the color pie Xaden would fall, I had to remind myself the colors are about desires and goals, not about "good" and "evil." While we often consider, for example, White mages to be the "good guys", they're not necessarily good. A paladin is locked into a code of conduct so rigorous they can't conceive of a different way of doing things. This can lead to authoritarianism - the desire to control everyone so much they have no choices but to conform or suffer. Same with Black, which we tend to think of as the power-hungry "bad guys". Wanting power isn't inherently evil, nor is being willing to seek it. It doesn't mean every mage using Black magic is willing to kill anyone who stands in their way, just that they have a flexibility of thought which allows them to consider options beyond a narrow path.

So, while I do not believe Xaden is evil, I do believe any representation of him must include Black in it - he wants power, not to be in charge, but to use it to help those who need it and to save those whom he loves. When he challenges Violet and gives her a series of special daggers imbued with power, he's not doing that out of some code of honor. He's doing it to protect her, to keep her alive, at any cost.

Additionally, his emotions constantly pull in a Red direction. Red mages may act erratically sometimes, but being emotionally-driven doesn't mean you're nuts. It means you feel, and those feelings are more important than any logical information anyone can provide. This places Xaden as a mage.

There was a clear, obvious fit.

Could this be more perfect?

A high power for a Human does a great job of representing Xaden's sheer physicality; Menace shows his intimidating nature; and that activated ability... couldn't be more spot-on. When Xaden is desperate, he broke the primal rule for all dragon riders and channeled from the earth. What better way to show that than losing life to reduce the cost of spells? Perfect.

Xaden Riorson | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Rowan, Scion of War

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Author of Shadows
• 1 Blood Celebrant
• 1 Dark Confidant
• 1 Darkstar Augur
• 1 Doom Whisperer
• 1 Elder Brain
• 1 Feral Shadow
• 1 Fiend of the Shadows
• 1 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1 Misery's Shadow
• 1 Perilous Shadow
• 1 Shadow of Mortality
• 1 Shadow, Mysterious Assassin
• 1 Shadowgrange Archfiend
• 1 Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar
• 1 Shivan Devastator
• 1 Treasonous Ogre
• 1 Vilis, Broker of Blood
• 1 Wall of Shadows

• Instants (8)
• 1 Armor of Shadows
• 1 Devour in Shadow
• 1 Dismember
• 1 Fire Covenant
• 1 Reach of Shadows
• 1 Shadowfeed
• 1 Slice from the Shadows
• 1 Tergrid's Shadow

• Sorceries (15)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Crackle with Power
• 1 Davriel's Shadowfugue
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Feed the Swarm
• 1 Jaya's Immolating Inferno
• 1 Kiku's Shadow
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Peer into the Abyss
• 1 Read the Bones
• 1 Shadow of the Enemy
• 1 Shadow Slice
• 1 Sign in Blood
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Toxic Deluge

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Agent of the Shadow Thieves
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Dragon Shadow
• 1 Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1 Grasping Shadows
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Shadows of the Past
• 1 Spiteful Shadows
• 1 Vicious Shadows

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 Altar of Shadows
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Shadowblood Egg
• 1 Shadowspear
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Indulgence

• Lands (40)
• 6 Mountain
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Barbarian Ring
• 1 Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Cabal Pit
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Ifnir Deadlands
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Mount Doom
• 1 Ramunap Ruins
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Sulfurous Springs
• 1 Tarnished Citadel
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 The Black Gate
• 1 War Room

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Xaden has two signets; in addition to the shadows, he's also able to read people's intentions through a mind-to-mind connection. This deck attempts to represent those things, as well as his fall into becoming a Venin.

The obvious one is with the shadows. There are a bunch of great spells with "shadow" in the name, and most of them are decently useful, like Tergrid's Shadow and Vicious Shadows. How about Devour in Shadow? Or Grasping Shadows? Great names, decent abilities.

The intention one was harder, but ultimately I settled on Elder Brain and Shadow of the Enemy. Xaden's ability is quite limited - he can't read your mind, just get a sense of what you're going to do. A couple of ways to steal things from our opponents seem worth it, and Elder Brain stealing specifically from the Hand feels like getting a sense of someone's intentions.

Xaden's willingness to draw power from the earth to do what he feels he needs to do is represented in a few ways. Rowan's activated ability is the obvious one, but there are a number of ways to gain power by draining life, with spells like Dark Confidant and Treasonous Ogre.

Then we have a few ways of showing his large displays of power (and, probably, winning the game) with spells like Crackle with Power, Aetherflux Reservoir, Blasphemous Act, and Exsanguinate. Personally, I love the idea of dumping a bunch of mana off Treasonous Ogre into Shivan Devastator, but Peer into the Abyss into Crackle with Power during play-testing meant I dealt 45 damage to nine different targets.

We have Lands which fix and help us, like normal, but with a lean on lands which do damage to make mana, reflecting his willingness to channel. We also have Talisman of Indulgence for the same reason, along with a spate of other mana rocks. There are also plenty of draw spells which drain life as part of the cost, which seem wonderfully appropriate here.

Interestingly, this deck ends up playing kind of like a classic Magic deck - play some mana, make some Creatures, kill some stuff, build up to a big finishing spell and cast it to win the game. Just rather than using the classic removal spells, we're running less-efficient but on-theme Shadow removal spells, and lots of ways to drain our own life. (We have a few ways to gain some life, too, so we don't just die because we have to tap City of Brass or whatever.)

My one regret is there's no great representation of Sgaeyl. Kind of the closest is that Shivan Devastator, but it felt like trying to get her in there when she's pretty actively angry at him seemed a little wrong anyway.

Thanks for reading.