Hello everybody and welcome to the first edition of Brawl Haul with Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths! I have had an absolute blast playing with a ton of different commanders and I cannot wait to show them all off to all of you in the next couple of weeks. I can go on for hours about how enjoyable this set has been for me, but that is boring so let us just jump into this week’s list!

Overview

The main goal of this deck is to get non-humans on board early, lining up for us to drop Winota on 4 in order to reveal cards from our deck to put a bunch of humans to burst down the opponent. If we are able to reveal 3-4 times, it is often enough to close out the game.

Why Winota, Joiner of Forces?

With all of the new mechanics and interesting commanders, I was surprised when I started gravitating towards Winota, who in typical Boros fashion, is all about playing creatures and going to the combat phase, which is something I am usually not a huge fan of. However, her effect provides such a great deck-building challenge and rewards proper construction so well that I immediately fell in love with the card to the point where I am building a version of her in paper magic. It is hard to describe how much of a rush it is to attack with three minions only to reveal cards with a total converted mana cost of 10 or up, all attacking the opponent. I love explosive decks and while a lot of the Ikoria commanders can be explosive, I think Winota takes the cake for the one that is the fastest and possibly the biggest.

 

A majority of all the cards in the deck fit into one of three categories, non-human swarm cards, chunky humans that are great to flip into, and finally support cards that either protect us or hinder the opponents.

 

Establishing a Non-Human Board

The best way of winning quickly is to get as many non-humans to swing on turn 4 after Winota is played. This means either using cards that create non-humans tokens or just curve out well with non-humans, which the deck tries to do both of. The best cards that do this in the deck are Raise the Alarm, Skynight Vanguard, Legion Warboss, and Chandra, Acolyte of Flame.

         

When I was first theorycrafting this deck, I  discovered that all the white cards that produced tokens that came out before Throne of Eldraine did not specify the species type, resulting in a bunch of generic tokens that only have a profession. This resulted in cards like Raise the Alarm and Skynight Vanguard, which both clearly produce humans tokens as seen by the art of the token, becoming some of the best non-human token generators in the deck. Raise the Alarm being at instant speed lets us bluff removal which I think is invaluable for a deck like this while Skynight Vanguard punishes any slower deck by amassing a token army fairly quickly. Legion Warboss functions as a larger Skynight Vanguard that is able to push for three flips all by itself assuming nothing gets removed. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame essentially just spams two elementals every turn as the downtick is not very relevant and the uptick is only good with Tibalt. That being said, being able to produce two elementals continuously for only three mana is incredibly strong and her alone can close out the game with Winota.

 

Humans to Cheat into Play

Having strong creatures to hit with Winota is arguably the most important part of the deck. Due to them getting indestructible, the only requirement for the humans are that they either deal a lot of damage when they enter or have some form of relevant ability that activates at little to no cost. The best humans to flip into are Flight of the Equenauts, Victory’s Envoy, Syr Alin, the Lion’s Claw, and Bounty Agent.

         

Out of all of the possible hits, Flight of the Equenauts and Victory’s Envoy are the two that are the best hits. Flight of the Equenauts just deals a ton of damage and is hard for a lot of decks to deal with, while Victory’s Envoy does not pack a large punch initially but it can often give 4 or more counters and closes out the game incredibly quickly. In a similar fashion to Victory’s Envoy, Syr Alin, the Lion’s Claw is often able to close out games if he is given the chance to attack again as he pumps up the team incredibly well. Finally, Bounty Agent is a great hit due as almost every deck has a possible target in the command zone or somewhere else in the decklist. 

 

Support Cards

One of the biggest issues with Boros brawl decks is that they are incredibly linear and do not have many ways of generating card advantage. The main way we counteract this is by either forcing the opponent to play worse through stax effects or by using cards that can blow the opponent out of the water easily. The best cards for this are Rule of Law, Deafening Silence, Hushbringer, and Fight as One.

         

In pretty much every Boros deck I make, I love putting in Rule of Law and Deafening Silence as it nullifies white’s lack of card advantage. Both of these cards have done really well for just slowing the opponent down and making it hard for the opponent to deal with our gameplan, especially since neither hurt us at all. Hushbringer is in a similar situation, where it does next to nothing against our deck while it has the possibility of hosing the opponent’s gameplan. The last support card that stuck out to me is Fight as One, which can protect two of our creatures for one mana. It is without question the best protection spell we have access to and it can make the deck very hard to deal with for decks that lack a proper board clear.

 

Other Notable Cards

There are some other cards that stood out as being very powerful but did not fit the three main goals for the cards but excel in a lot of circumstances and deserve a mention for being so strong. The cards that fit this niche are Field of the Dead, Mace of the Valiant, and Embercleave.

      

Field of the Dead is the type of card that I try to incorporate into pretty much every deck as its strength far outweigh its weaknesses, but unlike half the decks I through it into, this one synergizes incredibly well with our commander as every zombie is able to trigger Winota. This does not spiral out of control as fast as other decks in the format, but it can give us the final push needed to close out the game. The other two notable cards fit into a similar role of being artifacts that provide a huge amount of burst.Mace of the Valiant is a lot slower, but once it ramps up a bit, it is able to turn any creature into a deadly threat while Embercleave just lets you either overrun the opponent or burst the opponent for a ton.

 

Strengths and Weaknesses

Out of all the deck I have featured, this deck is the one that is able to get a turn 4-5 lethal the most consistently. The deck is able to close out games incredibly fast and seeing all of the humans get cheated into play is just demoralizing, which causes people to concede much more often than they should. The deck can also play the long game surprisingly well given that we got in some form of early aggression.

The biggest weakness this deck has is that you really need to have Winota on the board turn 4. If she gets countered early it feels incredibly bad, and missing land drops hurt the deck considerably more than it would for a normal deck. While the deck can function without Winota, it feels like a slog to play.

 

The Decklist

If you are curious about this week’s decklist, here is a link to it!

 

Wrap Up

I know I have said this numerous times pretty much every week, but this is one of my favorite brawl decks I have played. Being able to blow people out of the water turn 4 is incredibly fun and when that does not happen, it just feels nice to have some form of card advantage in Boros through Winota. I do not really have much else to say aside from the fact I have loved playing this deck the last week and am stoked to showcase some of the other decks I have been tinkering around with as well. 

That is all for this week’s article. Like always, if there are any cards that you are interested in as a commander, make sure to let me know and I will see what I can do!  In addition, how has Ikoria treated you so far? I have been having the time of my life is limited right now, which aside from getting some sweet Godzilla alters, have been the most fun I have had in limited since Conspiracy Take the Crown. Anyway, until next week’s article, good luck brewing!