I gotta say, this process has been fun. The limitation on deck-building has been a fun and curious challenge, and there is always a bit of excitement around seeing how the two 50-card decks play against each other. Will one stomp the other? Will it be the one I expect? Then there's the 100-card Commander deck. Does that work? Can the mana do what it needs to do? It's really been a lot of fun. (I encourage you to play around with deck-building limitations too - it's a great process for your brain, and the obvious thoughts aren't always the best!)

One interesting balance point is trying to get two 50-card decks which aren't basically identical but, when put together, are synergistic enough to feel like we're actually following a plan, not just slamming two different ideas together with no sense of how to use them. So, perusing the Partner options, I thought it might be interesting to see what happens if we put these two guys together.

Both of these guys lean in a Landfall direction; Thrasios because we can activate his ability to drop extra Lands every turn, and Toggo because the more Lands we play, the more Rocks we get to hurl at our opponents. However, given Thrasios's more slow pace and Toggo's desire to just throw Rocks at everyone, we'll have two different enough decks when separate to be interesting and a consistent strategy when they come together. Let's see what we can do here.

50/50 Thrasios & Toggo | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commanders (2)
• 1 Thrasios, Triton Hero
• 1 Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Biomancer's Familiar
• 1 Coiling Oracle
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Springheart Nantuko
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Akki Scrapchomper
• 1 Crime Novelist
• 1 Embraal Gear-Smasher
• 1 Fathom Fleet Swordjack
• 1 Geode Rager
• 1 Hedron Detonator
• 1 Ingenious Artillerist
• 1 Reckless Fireweaver
• 1 Sabotender
• 1 Spitfire Lagac
• 1 Tunneling Geopede
• 1 Valduk, Keeper of the Flame

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Kiora, Master of the Depths
• 1 Koth, Fire of Resistance

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Explore
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Nahiri's Lithoforming
• 1 Reckless Crew
• 1 Vandalblast

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1 Training Grounds
• 1 Wilderness Reclamation
• 1 Zendikar's Roil
• 1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
• 1 Retreat to Valakut
• 1 Valakut Exploration

• Artifacts (3)
• 1 Chocobo Racetrack
• 1 Conduit of Worlds
• 1 Bearded Axe

• Lands (46)
• 8 Forest
• 5 Island
• 21 Mountain
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hedge Maze
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Mistrise Village
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Rimewood Falls
• 1 Tangled Islet
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Mines of Moria

Buy This Deck Export text

The first thing to notice is the wildly high Land count - 46, to be precise, 23 per 50-card deck. That's a good amount (though regular readers of my column will know I regularly skew high with my Land counts). But we're a Landfall deck, so we don't mind hitting those Lands; worse comes to worse, we're making a Rock for our trouble. Sometimes it's a lot better than that.

We have a decent amount of Basics, mostly to handle things like Cultivate. Because Toggo is Mono-Red, it's a lot of Mountains, but in play-testing I had no trouble getting my colors. The big trick is sticking Thrasios on turn two and Toggo on turn three, but it happens a lot more than you'd expect.

The ramp exists almost exclusively on Thrasios's side. Koth, Fire of Resistance is a solid way to make sure we keep hitting our Land drops every turn, but doing something as powerful as Sakura-Tribe Elder or Cultivate in Red is hard. So, we don't really bother - when Toggo's on his own, he sticks his Land drop every turn and keeps making those Rocks, but doesn't try to hurry all that much. On the other hand, Thrasios has all kinds of ramp, from Explore to Kodama's Reach to Lotus Cobra. This helps Toggo spit out more Rocks when they're together, and helps ramp Thrasios into many activations of his ability whatever the configuration.

Thrasios is helpful because he draws for us; each activation has the potential of putting another card in our Hand. And because we make so much mana, the deck rarely seems to struggle with cards. Toggo needs to be able to refill a little, though, when he's alone, so we've got Big Score and my favorite for him, Demand Answers, since we can sacrifice a Rock instead of discard. Nahiri's Lithoforming is interesting, since it can work out very poorly if you don't draw any Lands, but it's a fun gamble and can certainly be powerful as a (potential) win-con.

Toggo will probably win with a combination of Rocks and effects like that on Tunneling Geopede. There are a number of cards out there which care about Lands or Artifacts entering or leaving the Battlefield, and when they do, they do damage to your opponents. We stick one or two of those, keep making our Land drops, and do a bunch of damage, then we push through with random dudes carrying Rocks or we just sacrifice them to deal damage.

Thrasios, on the other hand, plays out more like a tempo deck, where you set up your mana, then you lay out your utility and achieve a superior board state, then you deploy a win-condition and win at your leisure. Those win-cons stand out; Zendikar's Roil and Chocobo Racetrack do basically the same thing (though the nod is slightly to the Racetrack), and Scute Swarm kind of plays in the same space but exponentially. Avenger of Zendikar is a well-worn Creature in Landfall decks, and makes sense here.

Combined, it all comes together. In Commander, part of the setting up is getting the Rocks going and starting to punch some damage with the Geopedes, then eventually we drop some massive threat and win in the red zone.

We have a few removal spells like Galvanic Blast (better here than Lightning Bolt) and Pongify, but we are lacking any sort of large-scale removal, since we're really the ones making a lot of dudes. However, it's possible Toggo wants Blasphemous Act or Thrasios wants to be able to bounce all the Creatures back to Hand or something. More testing is required to be sure. I do like Heroic Intervention here, but honestly Negate would probably work just as well, since it's most likely going to be used to prevent our own board from being destroyed.

The synergy is built in. Nothing is wildly surprising here except, perhaps, Conduit of Worlds, since we're not actually putting Lands in the 'yard. I mean, it would be a solid play after a big Nahiri's Lithoforming (actually, with the Conduit out you could simply replay every Land you sacrificed right out of the 'yard), but it's mostly here to be able to use that second ability and play things again. Nothing quite like following up Avenger of Zendikar with Avenger of Zendikar. Otherwise, it's all Lands, all the time.

I was fairly convinced the Toggo deck would beat the Thrasios deck most of the time, and play-testing suggested otherwise. If Toggo can get out ahead of Thrasios and Thrasios stumbles on ramp, Toggo will run Thrasios over, but most of the time, they're nicely matched with good balance between them. As a Commander deck, this one works really well because both halves are trying to do the same thing, and they benefit from the help the other half provides. It's a strong pair.

I'll be watching if the deck needs some mass removal or some countermagic as I play with it more. What do you think? Does this deck need Blasphemous Act?

Thanks for reading.