Commander Clash S3 Episode 4: Tribal Commander

Commander Clash tribal commander Dragons Merfolk beasts shapeshifters

Hello and welcome to Commander Clash, a video series where several MTGGoldfish contributors battle in a four player Commander game for fun and bragging rights. This week, we're celebrating the announcement of Commander 2017 and its Tribal theme by playing Tribal Commander. Here's what we've got:

Tom channels his inner Timmy with a big ol' stompy Tribal Beasts deck, with the political channels his inner Timmy with a big ol' stompy Tribal Beasts deck, with the political Gahiji, Honored One leading the charge

Jennifer swims past her opponent's defenses with Tribal Merfolk, drawing extra cards with the help of swims past her opponent's defenses with Tribal Merfolk, drawing extra cards with the help of Sygg, River Cutthroat

Seth copies and steals his opponent's best stuff with Tribal Shapeshifters, led by the mercurial Lazav, Dimir Mastermind

copies and steals his opponent's best stuff with Tribal Shapeshifters, led by the mercurial Lazav, Dimir Mastermind Tomer goes big and aggressive with Tribal Dragons, tutoring up the right one for the job with Zirilan of the Claw

Three tribes are being showcased for the first time on Commander Clash, and a fourth Kibler-approved tribe returns for another shot! Which tribe will snatch victory? Let's find out! But first, a quick reminder: if you like Commander Clash and other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to keep up with the latest and greatest.

Tom's Deck (Gahiji)

Jennifer's Deck (Sygg)

Seth's Deck (Lazav)

Tomer's Deck (Zirilan)

Post-Game Thoughts

I did a poor job explaining my Zirilan of the Claw deck. The reason I picked it was that it's packed with cute cards that you rarely see played. Zirilan's ability to tutor up and cheat into play Dragons is incredibly powerful because you have dragons that can wipe boards (Balefire Dragon), deal with artifacts (Hellkite Tyrant), or make a massive board state (Utvara Hellkite), with just one swing. The downside of the ability is that the dragons are exiled at your end step, but this is where we get into the "cute cards" section of the deck: Sundial of the Infinite, Synod Sanctum, Safe Haven, Tel-Jilad Stylus, and other obscure cards all can be used to bypass the "exile this card" trigger. We also have ways to get even more out of Zirilan of the Claw's ability by untapping him to use his ability again with Magewright's Stone and Thousand-Year Elixir, and doubling his trigger with Illusionist's Bracers or doubling the dragons with Flameshadow Conjuring. This style of play is so unique that I felt compelled to run Zirilan instead of Tribal Snakes, which I initially chose to run but didn't enjoy that much in playtesting.

Unfortunately, because I never playtested Zirilan of the Claw, he might have been a bit too strong. That, or an unanswered Balefire Dragon is silly. Probably the latter! For those of you looking to try out Zirilan yourself, keep in mind that he will be hated out (and for good reason!) so build your deck to function without him: have enough mana ramp to play out your beefy dragons normally with stuff like Extraplanar Lens, and take advantage of other cheat enablers like Quicksilver Amulet and Belbe's Portal!

Oh and yes, I was running a janky combo: tons of mana + Final Fortune + Reiterate + Sundial of the Infinite! Sundial of the Infinite ends your turn so Final Fortune's lose trigger doesn't happen, effectively turning it into Red Time Walk! If you Reiterate it a bunch of times, you can take a bunch of extra turns and easily win the game. The deck had no way of tutoring up those pieces, but it would be glorious if it happened!

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Next Week: Amonkhet Gods!

Amonkhet has been released and we can't wait to get our hands on the new cards to play in Commander! We're starting things off by building decks around four of the five new mono color gods from AHK! As always, we love to hear from you guys! Tell us what you like to see, what you don't like, any ideas that we can put forward for future videos, or anything else you'd like to tell us! You can reach us in the comments section below or tweet me @BudgetCommander.