Toolboxing for Fun and Profit

Whoever designed this card must have
known exactly what they were doing,
but playing this combo feels more like
playing Yugioh than Magic; you can do
it from so few resources it isn't funny 

Newly printed in Ravnica Allegiance is Prime Speaker Vannifar, the Elf / Ooze / Wizard / Birthing Pod hybrid!

Fans of the Modern format would remember the dark days of Birthing Pod and the infinite looping combo kills it would pull off. Now, Vannifar being a creature makes these sort of shenanigans even easier to pull off, and indeed, there's a deck than can kill on turn four off the Elf Ooze Wizard and a mana dork, with two forests in play. The kill proceeds as follows:

1) Use Vannifar's ability to turn the mana dork into Scryb Ranger. Return a forest to hand and untap her.

2) Turn Scryb Ranger into Renegade Rallier. When Rallier enters the battlefield, return Scryb Ranger to play and untap Vannifar by returning a second forest.

3) Turn Scryb Ranger into Deceiver Exarch, and untap Vannifar when it enters play.

4) Turn Renegade Rallier into Restoration Angel; flicker Deceiver Exarch and untap our girl again

5) Turn Restoration Angel into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and make an unbounded number of Deceiver Exarch tokens with haste to murder your opponent.

Yeah, the boss must be talking about
playing black cards again - Ed           

Prime Speaker Vannifar is also not quite Birthing Pod; she's vulnerable to removal not named Lightning Bolt and requires a turn before she can do anything, so she's unlikely to get a ban anytime soon. Now, we're going to look at putting her in a Commander deck, and I don't think it needs to have red and white included so we can pull these sort of shenanigans off - it seems boring to me, and as you know, I have a severe colour preference towards black in Magic: the Gathering. Such a deck wouldn't include this colour. We also have a problem that if we make the Elf Ooze Wizard our commander, we can't play this colour either. Simic tends to be especially weak against creature based combo strategies due to a dearth of removal, so the addition of black helps us survive the long game and interact better with the opponent. 

We're instead going to make a Birthing Pod toolbox deck including Prime Speaker Vannifar as part of the 99 and hope that we can draw her, the Pod itself, or a way to find them. Both are great at sending creatures to the graveyard, so we probably want a commander that takes advantage of this, perhaps including that colour I have such a preference towards. We're going to play Muldrotha, the Gravetide as general. This will allow us to be able to build two "pod-chains" - a row of creatures with increasing mana costs - like the combo kill above did when it returned Scryb Ranger to play with Renegade Rallier and searched up a second three-drop. Rather than use a reanimation effect, we can just replay the sacrificed creature via Muldrotha's ability and start another chain

Note that rather than going for a cheap instant win, we're just trying to accumulate value throughout the game as we turn one resource into another, then use our commander's ability to replay the sacrificed resource. If you've never played a toolbox deck before, it's all about having multiple search targets of the same type (creatures in this instance) which you might not want in your hand at all times, but would like access to over the course of the game to deal with specific problems presented by your opponents.

The entire deck below is filled with effects that turn one resource into another - or preferably, multiple - resources, in order to deal with your opponents' messes until they are buried under your card advantage machines. The deck is over 40% creatures - which is a huge ratio - and each one has an effect when they enter or leave play, or sometimes both. As our General allows us to play a permanent of each type from the graveyard on our turn, many creatures have additional types, e.g. Courser of Kruphix is an enchantment and Noxious Gearhulk an artifact; we could play these two plus another creature in the same turn. We're also using self-sacrificing artifacts and enchantments to accumulate resources and remove opposing creatures. What we are not doing is playing Intruder Alarm and attempting to go infinite, finding every creature from our deck and smashing it into play with haste to murder everybody at once. It's just a friendly toolbox deck that uses Birthing Pod and Prime Speaker Vannifar to answer problem permanents across the table, with a lands-and-creatures based draw engine that works beautifully with our Commander, who includes a minor Crucible of Worlds effect. There are none of the ubiquitous blue and green spells here like Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study, Zendikar Resurgent or the time-consuming Seedborn Muse - despite that card being great for the deck - because we are already consuming too much time with our search effects, and this can get obnoxious. Memorise your Birthing Pod chains so you know what effect you can find at what converted mana cost

Our creature base (in order of increasing converted mana costs) and their effects are below:

Dryad Arbor (0) adds mana, but is also a land

Elves of Deep Shadow (1) adds mana

Birds of Paradise (1) adds mana

Llanowar Elves (1) adds mana

Kiora's Follower (2) allows for a second pod use

Scryb Ranger (2) allows for a second pod use, lets you make a missed land drop

Coiling Oracle (2) ETB: ramps or draws a card

Wall of Blossoms (2) ETB: draws a card

Soldevi Adnate (2) sacrifices creatures for mana

Sakura-Tribe Elder (2) sacrifices itself to ramp, terminating the chain. But the interaction with Muldrotha makes it pretty good here

Yavimaya Elder (3) XTB: adds basic lands to hand 

Wood Elves (3) ETB: ramps

Reclamation Sage (3) ETB: destroys and artifact or enchantment

Eternal Witness (3) ETB: returns a card from graveyard to hand

Ramunap Excavator (3) allows for lands to be returned from graveyard

Bone Shredder (3) ETB: destroys a non-black creature, then automatically dies to be replayed next turn and start a new chain if we don't sacrifice it immediately

Plaguecrafter (3) ETB: non-targeting edict for all players

Loaming Shaman (3) ETB: shuffles reanimator-opponent's graveyard into library, or recharges your pod chains

Courser of Kruphix (3) is also an enchantment. Allows land drops to be made from top of deck and converts lands entering play into life points

Deceiver Exarch (3) ETB: allows a second pod use

Prime Speaker Vannifar (4) the reason why we are building this deck

Disciple of Bolas (4) ETB: sacrifices a creature for cards and life

Solemn Simulacrum (4) ETB: ramps XTB: draws a card. Also an artifact

World Shaper (4) XTB: returns all lands from graveyard to play

Hell's Caretaker (4) allows one creature to be exchanged from graveyard for another in play - allowing pod chains to start at a different point

Altered Ego (4) ETB: is an opponent's creature

Glen Elendra Archmage (4) sacrifices to counter a spell, and self-resurrects, allowing a new chain to start

Fatestitcher (4) allows a second pod use, and self-resurrects from the graveyard to allow a third use and a new chain to begin. This guy is nuts here

Phyrexian Delver (5) ETB: reanimate a creature, allowing a new chain to start

Thragtusk (5) ETB: gain 5 life XTB: make a token, allowing a new chain to start

Peregrine Drake (5) ETB: untaps lands, allowing more spells to be cast this turn. We don't have a way to make this go infinite in this deck; five additional mana when we sacrifice our four drop is sufficient for our needs

Acidic Slime (5) ETB: destroys artifact, enchantment or land

Body Double (5) ETB: is most likely a copy of the creature you just destroyed to find it

Tatyova, Benthic Druid (5) converts lands entering play into card draw and life points

The Gitrog Monster (5) converts lands leaving play into card draw; allows more land drops

Chainer, Dementia Master (5) repeatedly reanimates creatures, including our opponents' ones, to re-use their abilities and allowing new pod chains to start. A great supplement to our Commander's ability, and a new pet card of mine for its interaction with Soldevi Adnate

Wurmcoil Engine (6) XTB: leaves two tokens, allowing new chains to start. Is also an artifact for Muldrotha purposes

Kokusho, the Evening Star (6) XTB: drains five life from each opponent

Noxious Gearhulk (6) ETB: kill something and gain life points. An artifact for Muldrotha

Greenwarden of Murasa (6) ETB: return a card from graveyard to hand (also optional XTB that we probably don't want to activate)
Woodland Bellower (6) ETB: searches out a green 3-drop, allowing new chains to start

Muldrotha, the Gravetide (6) the boss; in this list so I don't forget to count him!

Diluvian Primordial (7) ETB: cast instants and sorceries from all opponents' graveyards, a very useful ability given the small quantity of instants and sorceries in this deck

Rune-Scarred Demon (7) ETB: finds any card from deck

Razaketh, the Foulblooded (8 - the top of the line) sacrifices leftover guys to find Living Death and return all the things you sent to the bin back into play

Supporting our whopping 43 creatures - some of which are very expensive - in this deck are the below cards

Wayfarer's Bauble (1) artifact ramp that can be played from the graveyard

Font of Fertility (1) enchantment-based ramp that can be played from the graveyard

Ratchet Bomb (2) pinpoint mass removal that can be played out of the graveyard

Pernicious Deed (3, X) mass removal enchantment that can be played from the graveyard

Seal of Doom (3) spot creature removal that can be played from the graveyard

Seal of Primordium (2) spot artifact or enchantment removal, playable from the graveyard. Are we noticing a theme here yet? Muldrotha's replay ability encourages us to use different types of cards than usual to take care of our problems. We aren't playing much in the way of instant and sorcery spells in this deck - they are one-shot effects and we can do better in most cases

Exploration (1) allows two land drops per turn

Explore (2) cantrip and ramp

Growth Spiral (2) cantrip and ramp

Diabolic Intent (2) generic tutor effect that triggers an XTB 

Rites of Flourishing (3) allows an additional draw and land drop for all players, and...

Horn of Greed (3) converts land drops into card draw. Note that both effect share with your opponents, but with our Gitrog Monster, Tatyova, Explore and Exploration, we will most definitely be getting the bulk of the benefits

Crucible of Worlds (3) allows land drops from graveyard

Birthing Pod (4) you know why this card is here

Eldritch Evolution (3) a one-shot Birthing Pod effect, useful for finding Prime Speaker Vannifar from a two or three-drop

Thousand-Year Elixir (3) allows a second pod use, and allows creature tap abilities to work on the turn they are played

Victimize (3) double reanimation and triggers any XTB effects

Living Death (5) our power play, this is what we do with all the guys we put into the bin earlier! We can loop this with Eternal Witness effects unless our opponents intervene, but we don't have a "sacrifice for mana" ability that works more than once per turn - and it's a tap ability - so we will be constrained from going infinite by mana concerns

Guardian Project (4) with 43 creatures, this will be drawing extra cards every turn, but it gets even better, as this card triggers on creatures entering the battlefield, unlike the cast trigger on the overused Zendikar Resurgent which we are not playing here. If we activate Prime Speaker or Birthing Pod, we draw; if we reanimate, we draw; if we play Woodland Bellower, we draw twice. If we play Living Death more than once, we risk decking ourselves out - please note that the draw is not optional. The only time this card doesn't work is when we copy a dead creature with Body Double and this is fine.

Lands, we'll play what we can afford. Your budget may allow for Underground Sea; mine does not. Note, however, there are several cards that we can't afford NOT to play in the mana base. These are:

Alchemist's Refuge allows us to play cards at instant speed for a turn.
Fetch Lands the synergy between Tatyova, The Gitrog Monster and our commander means you can't avoid these, as they will provide endless card advantage, deck thinning and ramp effects over the course of the game. Don't play off-colour fetches, they look ugly and shout "I'm rich" but Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse will also be well worth a slot here
Dakmor Salvage this card does so many things, mostly involving drawing multiple cards per turn with The Gitrog Monster and charging up your graveyard
A big ol' stack of Basic Lands or you'll run out after fetching  - I promise this will happen!
Dual lands with the forest type so Wood Elves can find them
Wirewood Lodge lets you untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for another use
Westvale Abbey allows you to start a new chain from zero by creating a token. Reusable token generation on a land does not come mana-cheap (re: Urza's Factory) so you could use man-lands instead like Faerie Conclave which will trigger The Gitrog Monster when they are sent to the graveyard.

So, a non-broken toolbox deck that should have plays forever. Now you, dear reader, may note that both in this deck and the "I like to pay life to draw cards" deck I built recently have shied away from degenerate combos, instant wins, and too many cards that make it harder for your opponent to play the game, for two reasons. I'm going to spend a little time discussing the first, due to the inevitable arms race that occurs at Commander tables in stores and within local play groups. It's very easy for a play environment to become insular and toxic, with players specifically targeting other decks out of the game.

It's that I'm a firm believer in the Social Contract; the idea that when you sit down at a Commander table, your personal goal is to have a fun and interactive game of multiplayer Magic, regardless of the goal of your deck - and Commander decks are usually created with a goal in mind; "don't let the game get too far out of control, then win" or "make the largest possible number of squirrels" or "only punish players that go after you" are examples of goals I have seen recently in Commander decks.

Certain strategies and deck building goals, such as "only allow the opponents to untap one land and creature per turn" are in direct conflict with the "fun and interactive" ideal, and should probably be left behind in most cases, while other strategies that neglect the "multiplayer" aspect will either be risky, get you targeted by other players, or be inefficient in the environment. We've got two examples to investigate here.

Firstly, Infect - the poison counter strategy, which is in direct conflict with both ideals. The first thing to consider is the speed of the strategy; you can kill a player four times as fast, so you'll immediately be the threat at the table, since you can kill a player before they can interact. The second consideration is that none of the other players are likely to be playing Infect; after all, this isn't the Scars of Mirrodin limited format. Any damage you do to a player does nothing to advance the game plan of your opponents; neither does any damage they do to each other matter to you. Whether they realise it at first or not, it's you vs. all of them - and once they do, you'll be ganged up on.

The second example is mill. While not in direct conflict with either ideal, and a pet strategy of many players, milling a player usually results in one of two results; either they don't have a lot of recursion - which means they get upset at you for not allowing them to play their cards and they target you out of the game, or you take a huge risk when you mill a graveyard-based deck and provide them with so much indirect card advantage that you lose the game rapidly, along with all the other players at the table. It's not off the table, but you take a risk in playing the strategy.

The second reason is that I already have a deck that makes it harder to play the game (Vial Smasher and Tymna the Weaver) which is full of cards that punish players for playing ridiculous combos. Cards like Suture Priest and Fate Unraveler make it difficult for opponents to create a near-infinite number of creatures or draw their entire deck, but if you're playing fair, you're just going to take a little ping here and there.

Until next time, remember that you can play a powerful deck full of strong cards without going completely stupid, and you might all just have a little more fun at the multiplayer table!