Bring the Night to your Opponents on a Budget!

“When the night comes, your opponents won’t be safe!”

Dark Creatures in the Woods

We’re one week closer to Halloween, and with Halloween comes plenty of terrifying creatures to pick from as our commander. Duskmourn provided an ensemble cast of terrifying and powerful creatures, such as Arabella, which I previously covered. For this week however, I decided to take a step back into the dark woods that is Bloomburrow to see what kind of terrifying creatures I can find. There is one bird in particular that has captured my attention, and with All Hallow’s Eve on the horizon, I think it would be fitting to bring this bird of darkness into the spotlight.

The Bird of Prey

Bloomburrow offered us plenty of critters and animals of the forest to play around with, but this owl is no joke. Just reading this card will give us a good idea of why this bird is the apex predator in these woods. It's a monoblack giant flier with trample, great stats of 6/5, removal deterrence in the form of ward, and this card is already solid for a 5 drop. However, the last sentence added under its abilities is what truly puts it above the top. All creatures your opponents control have base toughness 1. That’s correct, ALL of your opponent's creatures, no matter what they are, shrivel and turn into measly creatures with 1 toughness the second this card comes out of your command zone. Let’s see what cards we can utilize to truly bring to the table a night your opponent won’t survive.

The Denizens of the Forest

The apex predator of the night is not the only creature lurking in the shadows of these woods. We have plenty of other creatures just waiting to spring out onto the field once the night sets. I like to think of Maha as a repeatable creature board wipe in the command zone, as when it hits the field all of your opponent’s creatures base toughness becomes 1 which in tandem sets up the field nicely for the other creatures in our deck. We are running plenty of creatures that on entry debuff the board, which allows us to repeatedly boardwipe our opponent’s creatures as long as our commander stays out on the field. Below are a few of my personal favorites, namely Doomwake Giant, Kaervek, the Spiteful, Massacre Wurm, Plague Mare, and Night Clubber. Kaervek is particularly great, as if you have Maha, all of your opponent's creatures will go straight to the graveyard once they hit the field, no matter how big or small. Other cards such as Pestilence Demon let us choose when to boardwipe, even on our opponent's turn, as long as Maha is out. There are a few other non-creature cards that work in tandem to choke out your opponents’ creatures, a few of which I highlight further below.

To go along with our assortment of creatures that weaken others on entry, we are also running a plentiful assortment of instant and sorcery board wipes in our deck to keep our opponent’s boards empty. A lot of our instants and sorceries function very much in the same way that our creatures do. Asymmetric board wipes that let us keep our creatures, while our opponents struggle to put anything on their board. Cards that give –1/-1 are a dime a dozen, and throughout the history of Magic, we’ve had plenty that have not had a proper home. Maha welcomes them with open wings to bring the curtain down on our opponent's creatures. The Black Breath, Dry Spell, Cower in Fear, Make Obsolete, and Suffocating Fumes are a few of my top choices here.

Now, while Maha’s ability is incredible on its own, and works perfectly with our asymmetric board wipes on a stick, there are a few creatures that might slip past our removal. For example, while board wipes are nice, some creatures might have a way to gain more toughness, such as with +1/+1 counters. We have some targeted removal made perfect for those pesky creatures. We’ve added Infernal Grasp, Feed the Swarm, and Fell to let us remove creatures that do not fall prey to Maha.

Swoop in with the Bird

One of the ways we’re going to win with the deck is by swinging out with Maha itself. As mentioned before, its power and toughness are nothing to scoff at. With our other creatures and spells wiping the opponent’s boards clean, Maha puts each opponent on a clock, as 4 hits with Maha will spell goodnight via commander damage. With trample and flying, it is not hard to swing for lethal with Maha, especially when it has a few terrifying trinkets attached to it. Fireshrieker is an easy auto-include in the deck, giving Maha a double strike and effectively cutting in half the amount of turns it takes to kill an opponent from 4 to 2 with commander damage. Blackblade Reforged and Lashwrithe both do the same thing, buffing our bird to be able to take out opponents with only a few swings. Vorpal Sword is a neat card as well, giving us a pretty cool mana sink as well as an alternate loss condition for our opponents. While the cards mentioned above provide amazing firepower for Maha, we also have a few cards that work together with Maha to protect our own lives from damage. Tarrian’s Soulcleaver gives Maha vigilance, letting us freely swing with our big bird and simultaneously using it as a blocker should any of your opponent’s creatures survive, while a card like Caltrops completely prevents your opponent from attacking you as long as Maha is out on the field, as it will deal 1 damage to any attacking creature.

The Dawn after the Night

With Maha on our field, it will not be difficult to control the field. With her powerful ability to bring every creature in Magic history to its knees, from Eldrazi to dragons, it won’t be hard to pave the road to our victory. The equipment I mentioned above is perfect to buff our bird, turning her into a serious threat as we layer out equipment onto her. While our combination of board wipes and removal should be enough to put most decks in check, I’ve also included a few cards to ensure total control. Whispersilk Cloak and Rogue’s Passage will let us fly right over our opponent's defenses, while Pestilence lets us decide what lives and what dies if we have the mana to pay for it. In late game we can use it as an efficient mana sink, as long as we are careful to keep Maha alive on our field, letting us win via commander damage from Maha, or simply bringing everyone down to zero through a combination of cards such as Pestilence mentioned above.  

In Review

In conclusion, Maha is a great budget commander from Bloomburrow. My particular build will set you back only around 50 USD at the time of writing this article. The giant owl is a powerful commander, controlling the board state and pace of the game via her ability. There are not many strategies that work around her ability, and even fewer that can do so through all the removal we have in our deck. While she may be a little expensive to play for 5 mana, it is well worth it to bring ruin to our opponents. Try it for yourself, and see how Maha works for you! With this powerful bird of prey at your side, your next game of commander will surely be a night to remember!

You can field the Moxfield deck list here!