Welcome to our new Commander Pageant series! In this post, we will be going over our personal picks from Innistrad Midnight Hunt. The decks are mainly for casual play between friends & family. You can also check out our YouTube version of this post (LINK).
Here are the Commanders we picked:
- Tony - Vadrik, Astral Archmage
- Joseph - Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
- Lawrence - Slogurk, the Overslime
For Tony's pick, he would like to build Vadrik into a spell themed deck accompanied with card draw, scry, and splashy haymaker. Vadrik is the latest Izzet commander with spellsplinger theme abilities paired with the new day/night mechanics introduced in Midnight Hunt. Vadrik can make instants & sorceries cheaper to cast by based on his power, so his effect can become enormous if left alone. Instants & sorceries will be the deck's bread & butter, and Midnight Hunt adds some interesting options including Burn Down the House, Vivisection, and Lunar Frenzy. Other cards that can support a spellslinger deck and may be a good idea to include for redundancies in case Vadrik gets removed are Cloud Key, Jace's Sanctum, Storm Skreelix, and Goblin Electromancer can offer similar benefits if you can fit them in. In the game while setting up your win, you probably need to dig through your library for solutions, cards like Tezzeret's Gambit, Frantic Search, and Epic Experiment can help you speed up that process. Finally in the end game, if all has gone well you should be able to cast out some splashing high CMC spells to clinch the game. Since it was recently unbanned, Worldfire deserves a mention here. If you get Vadrik's power up to 6, you could pair it with Dragon's Approach to win with only RRRR. Other popular options include Insurrection and Expropriate.
Other suggestions from Lawrence & Joseph are Solve the Equation, Cyclonic Rift, Component Collector, The Celestus, and The Ozolith.
For my pick, I would like to build Adeline into a white weenie creature or creature token deck, buff them with enchantments or equipments and go wide. The wider you go, the stronger Adeline can get with her power being based on the number of creatures you control. There are many white weenie creatures to choose from with additional benefits, such as Loyal Warhound, Containment Priest, Whitemane Lion, and Expedition Healer. These weenies all have some added benefits that can help react to different situations during the game. On top of weenie creatures, I would like to include cards that can generate creature tokens, such as Leonin Warleader, Custodi Soulbinders, and Clarion Spirit. After your army is wide enough, it is time to give them additional muscle, such as Felidar Retreat, Cathars' Crusade, Glorious Anthem, and Intrepid Adversary. Now your creatures are formidable, it's time give them some equipments to so they can go to work. Some equipments that might help with this deck's strategy are Konda's Banner on Adeline which will help buff all your creatures, Mace of the Valiant will can be attached to any creature to just make it big, and Skullclamp for the buff and card draw. Once that your army is wide and buffed, your opponent can will probably need a few boardwipes to get back into the game.
Other suggestions from Tony & Lawrence are Sword of the Meek, Intangible Virtue, Crusader of Odric, Angelic Exaltation, and Silverwing Squadron.
For Lawrence's pick, he would like to power Slogurk up with +1/+1 counters using graveyard land recursion and include landfall cards as backup. With graveyard land recursion, you can consider Ancient Greenwarden, Crucible of Worlds, and Ramunap Excavator. All 3 cards allow you to play lands from your graveyard. Pair them with fetch lands like Evolving Wilds, Fabled Passage, and Terramorphic Expanse, and your Slogurk is going to buff up in no time. Now you don't need to worry about not having enough lands to play, you will probably want to play additional lands each turn. Let's maximize the number of lands you can play each turn with Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Oracle of Mul Daya, Exploration, and Courser of Kruphix. If you think your Slogurk still needs to pack more muscle, consider adding Sword of the Animist, Hardened Scales, and Blanchwood Armor. Also to protect the +1/+1 counters you built up on Slogurk, might want to protect those counters with The Ozolith. With land recursion and able to play multiple lands each turn, it's time to add some landfall cards into the mix. Scute Swarm, Rampaging Baloths, Titania, Protector of Argoth are all some good choices. They all generate creature tokens, just in case Slogurk needs help pushing through.
Other suggestions from Tony & Joseph are Trade Routes, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Blighted Woodland, Myriad Landscape, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, and Zuran Orb.
We hope you liked our picks! You can check out our discussion on YouTube (LINK). Please leave a comment and let us know would consider building any of these commanders in a different way.