When we got the announcement Magic was doing a Sonic the Hedgehog Universes Beyond set, we at CoolStuffInc clamored to get a look at the new cards. As the claims to write came in, I jumped on my favorite character from the Sonic 'verse - Shadow.

Why Shadow? I don't know. I like dark twins; cool, broody characters; and villains generally. I also love his look. So, I did a 10 for 10 on him, highlighting a number of cards I thought would work well for him in various different deck styles. (I really hope someone builds a Goblin Kindred deck with Shadow at the helm; that thing could really work.)

I thought I'd be good, that I'd be happy with that. I'd feel settled. Complete. Finished with Sonic, ready to move on to Edge of Eternities.

Turns out... not so much. I wrote a pleading e-mail to my editor: "may I please do another article on Shadow with a full deck-build?"

That thumbs up was awesome.

Shadow the Hedgehog | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Shadow the Hedgehog

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Ball Lightning
• 1 Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant
• 1 Blistering Firecat
• 1 Captain Lannery Storm
• 1 Cavern-Hoard Dragon
• 1 Charming Scoundrel
• 1 Dire Fleet Poisoner
• 1 Dualcaster Mage
• 1 Garna, the Bloodflame
• 1 Goldspan Dragon
• 1 Hell's Thunder
• 1 Hellspark Elemental
• 1 Kellogg, Dangerous Mind
• 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1 Knuckles the Echidna
• 1 Lightning Serpent
• 1 Lightning Skelemental
• 1 Liliana's Standard Bearer
• 1 Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
• 1 Opposition Agent
• 1 Rankle and Torbran
• 1 Reckless Lackey
• 1 Rooftop Assassin
• 1 Spark Elemental
• 1 Stingblade Assassin
• 1 The Balrog, Durin's Bane
• 1 The Balrog of Moria
• 1 Tyrant's Familiar
• 1 Yidaro, Wandering Monster

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Chandra, Acolyte of Flame

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Blood Money
• 1 Contract Killing
• 1 Grim Bounty
• 1 Pirate's Pillage
• 1 Seize the Spoils
• 1 Tempt with Vengeance
• 1 Thatcher Revolt

• Instants (8)
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Costly Plunder
• 1 Deadly Derision
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Eviscerator's Insight
• 1 Reckoner's Bargain
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Unexpected Windfall

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Goblin Assault

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Bag of Devouring
• 1 Beamtown Beatstick
• 1 Diamond Pick-Axe
• 1 Goldvein Pick
• 1 Gonti's Aether Heart
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Prying Blade
• 1 Replicating Ring
• 1 Skyclave Relic
• 1 The Fire Crystal
• 1 The Reaver Cleaver

• Lands (40)
• 4 Mountain
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Akoum Refuge
• 1 Baldur's Gate
• 1 Basilisk Gate
• 1 Black Dragon Gate
• 1 Bloodfell Caves
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Cliffgate
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Drossforge Bridge
• 1 Fountainport
• 1 Gateway Plaza
• 1 Geothermal Bog
• 1 Gond Gate
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Heap Gate
• 1 High Market
• 1 Midgar, City of Mako // Reactor Raid
• 1 Mines of Moria
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Talon Gates of Madara
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 The Black Gate
• 1 The Gold Saucer
• 1 Tramway Station
• 1 Treasure Vault
• 1 Vault of Whispers
• 1 Volatile Fault

Buy This Deck Export text

I don't know how much casual Commander you play, but if you're here, it's likely a decent amount (although I suppose interest in Sonic's inclusion in Magic could have also brought you here, in which case, welcome!). And while I spend a bunch of time talking about how casual Commander isn't always about winning... let's admit it. We do care about winning. It's not the only thing, and we take it well when we don't win and we value games based on more than just our win/loss record... but winning is fun. It feels good.

And in casual Commander, it's not really about speed, is it? I mean, if you're combo-ing off on turn four, you're not really playing casually. In casual land, we're going to let people build up, do their thing, and then eventually someone will claw their way to a win. However, the thing to notice there is - more times than not, the winner is the player who drew the most cards.

Because in Magic, cards are everything. Cards are life. They are our power, our weapons, our defenses, and our strategy. The more we draw and see, the more options we have, the more responses we have, and the more threats we can deploy, not to mention the more quickly we can build back when we get hurt. So, while Shadow is capable of leading many, many things, all I saw was "Whenever Shadow the Hedgehog or another creature you control with Flash or Haste dies, draw a card."

So, this deck is effectively a Haste/Flash Kindred deck. It makes a lot of Creatures with Haste or Flash, some tokens, mostly nontoken Creatures. Sometimes they die on their own, sometimes we sacrifice them, and sometimes we don't worry about it and let the card we get when they die be a bonus. But we are constantly drawing extra cards, to the point in play-testing my most common hand size was seven.

Probably the single biggest problem is Shadow's casting cost. isn't impossible, but it's tough, and it requires a decent mix of Lands to make it work. Because we're running some Gates to help with Basilisk Gate and Baldur's Gate, plus several other colorless-producing Lands like Reliquary Tower and High Market, it can be a bit tricky to get him out on time. All of our mana rocks tap for colors, so that helps; an Arcane Signet in an opening Hand is a very good sign - but mulligan aggressively, looking for a way to cast Shadow on turn four. We can run without him, but we're a lot more powerful with him on the 'field.

We have a few mana rocks, including the two that make copies of themselves (Replicating Ring and Skyclave Relic), because casting things from Artifact sources is totally worth it. Additionally, we have several ways to make Treasures, to the point we're using sub-optimal removal that makes Treasures, like Deadly Derision or even Contract Killing, which is totally a draft card. We have plenty of mana, and it's worth it to continue to have a regular flow of Artifact mana so everything we cast in the mid- to late-game has Split Second and can't be countered. Note we also have a number of Equipments which make Treasures when we attack or do damage, so throw those out there and get to digging.

In addition to every Creature we have drawing us a card when it dies, we also have a number of additional draw spells to keep cards flowing all the time. There are these wonderful two-mana spells in Black which draw us two for sacrificing a Creature or an Artifact, so we can either sac a dude and draw an extra card, or we can sac a Treasure we happen to have lying around because we have so many. (Do keep in mind, though, you can't sac a Treasure for mana and use the same Treasure to count as the sacrificed Artifact.) There are also some more expensive Red spells like Big Score and Pirate's Pillage which draw two and make a Treasure at the expense of discarding a Card. We can afford that. Draw those cards!

We will surely win in the red zone, with an abundance of Hasty dudes. Will we win with a well-placed Ball Lightning off a Mimic Vat? A The Balrog of Moria, attacking over and over carrying a Prying Blade? A Rankle and Torbran, adding two damage to all our attackers? We won't know until we start drawing, but we throw a lot of fast heat down, and some of it is really big. Tyrant's Familiar is particularly exciting, and Garna, the Bloodflame will even give Haste to something which doesn't have it, should we wind up with something somehow.

I do want to mention the Ball Lightnings. These are great, because they all have Haste and they all sacrifice themselves. So, we pay a little mana, we swing at someone and cause a problem for them, and no matter what, we draw a card when it dies (unless someone decides to use a Path to Exile on it or something, a trade I will happily make). We don't have a serious way to get them back; Garna can do it, but it's not really a thing we're trying to do. Use them to menace your opponents, kill their blockers, and do some damage, then take the card.

Also, I should mention Unearth here, because it matters. When a Creature is Unearthed, when it Dies, it Exiles. It's a replacement effect, so unlike a Token which taps the Graveyard on its way to Exile, if you sacrifice an Unearthed Creature (or it dies in combat), it doesn't die, so we don't draw the card off Shadow. Bummer, but still worth it for Hell's Thunder and Hellspark Elemental.

(That said, if you sacrifice it with Bag of Holding, for example, you will draw the card off Bag of Holding, because you've satisfied the Bag's requirements to draw a card. You just won't get a second one from Shadow.)

We've already talked about some of our removal; we have more. Blood Money is the perfect reset for us, since if we have to lose our entire team, we may as well have enough Treasures to rebuild super fast. We also have some Creatures with Flash that serve as interaction, with cards like Opposition Agent, Stingblade Assassin, and Dualcaster Mage. Remember, with the Assassin, you don't have to have done the damage - if someone's big thing gets pinged during another player's turn, you can drop the Assassin with Flash and finish the job. Terminate is the outlier, but it's so solid it seems worth including.

We have a few ways to sacrifice things just in case we need to, like Bag of Holding and High Market. I also love the card Goblin Assault, and having a non-Goblin place to use it is super fun. We do have two other Goblins in the deck, including Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, so keep that in mind and maybe activate Kiki-Jiki before Combat so he isn't forced to attack.

Kiki-Jiki, The Fire Crystal, and Mimic Vat are fun little synergy pieces which grant Haste to everything they copy, so as long as the token dies, we'll draw an extra card off Shadow. Keep in mind while Kiki-Jiki's and The Fire Crystal's Tokens sac themselves, thereby dying, Mimic Vat's Exile themselves, so we need to sacrifice them ourselves (or get them to die in Combat) if we want the card off Shadow.

Gonti's Aether Heart is kind of a win-con one-off; if it lands and sticks, it's very likely we'll get to the eight Energy quite quickly. A simple attack from a Cavern-Hoard Dragon after playing out the Heart could lead to all the Energy we need to activate it and take that extra turn. If we don't win on that second turn, we'll come darn close with all the damage we throw around.

I'm building this deck in real life as soon as I can get my hands on the cards. I suspect it will be subject to a great deal of adjustment over the years, as more cards with Flash and Haste come out. I also think it's possible the mana base needs some work - too many colorless Lands (they're so good, though!). It should be fun to play against, too, though every player in a casual game is likely to feel like Shadow is the threat from the very start, because who runs Lightning Skelemental in a Commander game? That's going to be scary. Then you'll drop Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant and start spitting out Zombie Knights and give them all Haste with The Fire Crystal, drawing too many cards and dealing a ton of damage every turn.

I hope you are finding ways to build decks that bring you excitement and joy like this did for me.

Thanks for reading.