There are few things I enjoy more than building decks for other people. It feels like a very personal gift; in addition to getting direction from them, I get to share some of my personality with the recipient.

I've recently gotten the opportunity to build a deck for a friend who's getting back into Magic: The Gathering and is mostly unfamiliar with Commander.

Bracket Two is Life

The call for optimization is strong. My playgroup is filled with very nice, very smart players, but they can't help but make their decks stronger.

Each game is an opportunity to assess card quality: would another card be stronger here? How can I win more efficiently? How do I combat this strategy?

Pish posh, I say. Bracket 2 is where my heart lies. I want games that go 15 turns with 24/24 tokens that get killed by Blood Money, a seven-mana destroy all Creatures effect, rather than Damnation, its four-mana cousin.

I want the stories to be about the absurdity rather than the win condition. I want the first spell cast to be a ramp spell on turn three.

Not Everyone Likes Combat

My go-to for a big ol' Battlecruiser deck is some Naya () monstrosity that ramps like crazy, drops huge fatties, and swings for the fences

But this is where the fact I'm building for someone else matters: the pilot doesn't like that. They prefer tricks, unusual angles, and doing something unexpected.

Challenge accepted.

B's Tricksy Naya | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Samut, the Driving Force

• Instants (36)
• 1 Artifact Mutation
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Bestow Greatness
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Blitzball Shot
• 1 Blossoming Defense
• 1 Boros Charm
• 1 Bounty of Might
• 1 Brute Strength
• 1 Collective Resistance
• 1 Collision
• 1 Colossal Growth
• 1 Colossal Might
• 1 Defend the Rider
• 1 Double Cleave
• 1 Fanatical Strength
• 1 Fully Grown
• 1 Fury Charm
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Gimli's Fury
• 1 How to Start a Riot
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Invigorated Rampage
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Predator's Strike
• 1 Ride Down
• 1 Ride's End
• 1 Run Over
• 1 Selesnya Charm
• 1 Siege Smash
• 1 Strength of Cedars
• 1 Stroke of Midnight
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Temur Battle Rage
• 1 Wild Hunger
• 1 You Look Upon the Tarrasque

• Sorceries (17)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Full Throttle
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Haze of Rage
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Migration Path
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Soul's Majesty
• 1 Tragic Arrogance

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Kickoff Celebrations
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Point the Way

• Artifacts (3)
• 1 Lumbering Worldwagon
• 1 Perilous Snare
• 1 Racers' Scoreboard

• Lands (40)
• 10 Forest
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 1 Abraded Bluffs
• 1 Amonkhet Raceway
• 1 Avishkar Raceway
• 1 Blossoming Sands
• 1 Bristling Backwoods
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Creosote Heath
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Game Trail
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Muraganda Raceway
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Sheltering Landscape
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Wind-Scarred Crag

Buy This Deck Export text

Samut, the Driving Force is a 4/5 Human Warrior Cleric for . She has First Strike, Vigilance, and Haste, plus Start Your Engines!

Start Your Engines! is a Keyword Ability that gives you a Speed value, starting at 1. The first time you deal damage to an opponent on each of your turns, your Speed increases by 1, up to a maximum of 4.

Then other Creatures you control get +X/+0, where X is your Speed, and noncreature spells you cast cost less to cast, where X is your Speed.

The most common use of Samut seems to be Vehicles; she makes your Vehicles cheaper because they're not Creatures, she gives them a Power boost, and she's certainly race-themed.

The Game Plan

This is not a Vehicles deck. If anything, it's a Voltron deck: one Creature (Samut), swinging for the fences. Traditional Voltron decks use Equipment and Auras to beef themselves up, but my friend wants to be tricky.

So, we're looking at that last bit of Samut's ability to make a deck that uses the Stack and lots of Instant-speed effects to punch through Commander damage.

The Instants

There are 37 Instants in the deck. The vast majority of them give Samut a Power boost, and Trample is highly prized. Consider a card like Blitzball Shot, a Instant that gives +3/+3 and Trample.

That's perfect, exactly what we want, and only costs us with Samut on the 'field (because our Speed starts at 1). For Colossal Growth gives +4/+4 and Trample thanks to the Kicker.

Gimli's Fury only gives +3/+2, but if the Creature it's targeting is Legendary (Samut is, of course) then it gains Trample, and the Toughness matters less on a Creature with First Strike.

The idea is to cast a ton of these Instants for cheap and deal a massive amount of damage out of nowhere when someone thinks they're just taking four.

There are also protection spells here. Defend the Rider, for example, costs and lets you choose one of the following: a Permanent you control gets Hexproof and Indestructible until end of turn or make a 1/1 Pilot Creature token.

This deck will almost always use the first option (though making a blocker at Instant speed can be useful too), because it protects Samut from dying to a kill spell or a board wipe.

The Removal

The deck is going to need to clear the field of large or too many blockers; sometimes someone will feel safe because they're sitting behind a 12/12 and there might not be enough pump spells to get through, which is when Beast Within or Path to Exile do great work.

Beast Within destroys a Permanent for and leaves behind a 3/3 Beast token, and Path to Exile will exile a Creature for , allowing the Creature's controller to search for a basic Land and put it on the battlefield.

There are a few more spot removal spells, plus a couple of board wipes of our own.

Tragic Arrogance is my favorite here, because for we get to pick one Creature, one Artifact, one Enchantment, and one Planeswalker for each player, then the rest are sacrificed. We can leave them with a Treasure and a 0/1 Kobold and keep our Samut.

This deck also gets to run my favorite card of all time, Ride Down, which for says "Destroy target blocking Creature. Creatures that were blocked by that Creature this Combat gain Trample until end of turn." That will surprise people.

The Game Winners

There are a few big spells that can be used to deal substantial damage with Samut. The Instant Bounty of Might costs , which means with Max Speed we'll only pay .

It gives Target Creature +3/+3 three times, but it doesn't specify it must be a different Creature, so it basically reads "give Samut +9/+9." That's pretty good.

Strength of Cedars is also an Instant, costs , and gives +X/+X where X is the number of Lands you control. That can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Additionally, Full Throttle is a Sorcery for that gives you two additional Combat steps; a 7 Power Samut hitting the same opponent with that will deal 21 Commander Damage in a single turn.

The Rest of the Deck

One thing about using Instants is you need to refill your Hand, so there are a few cards in here which do just that. Most of them are a variation of Soul's Majesty, a Sorcery that costs and draws cards equal to the Power of target Creature you control.

With Max Speed, that will cost , which is great if Samut's Power is 4. But if she's been pumped at all, you'll get seven or ten cards for that, which is amazing and should give you plenty of options going forward.

The early turns of the game will be spent ramping; there are a number of spells that pull Lands from the deck to hurry Samut out. Because we can't do much without her, getting her out will be worthwhile.

Then the spells get cheaper once she's on the Battlefield and you'll have more mana to cast more pump spells. Then 40 Lands to fix the colors and the deck is rounded out.

Wrapping Up

This deck will not be fast. It will not win all its games. It will be slow, sometimes clunky, and everyone will wonder what on earth is happening with it.

Effectively ignoring the Creature buff portion of Samut's abilities will be very confusing to players who are trained to seek optimization.

But it will make mana, play spells, and create some surprising and memorable moments with a suddenly giant Samut coming out of nowhere. Win or lose, it should always be fun.