(Levia | Art by Wisnu Tan)

Welcome back to the second installment of Common & Conquer. This week we’re taking a look at some of the heroes that aren’t as easy to develop a cohesive game plan for within the format, and trying to work out some ideas on what directions to take them in a way that makes them unique, fun, and powerful.

As I touched upon in the last article, not all heroes are made equal, and this is exacerbated by Commoner’s limited card pool. A prime example of this is Dash; her ability already inherently locks her into playing one of three potential items, and taking into account the push for Hyper Driver support in Dynasty, it becomes almost trivial to fill out the rest of the deck.

Ninjas (Not Ira)

In my opinion, the Ninjas have it the worst. Taking Ira, whose ability and innate strength can take her into a few different and powerful directions, out of the equation, we’re left with Katsu and Benji, who have a hard time discovering their strengths. As mentioned previously, the omission of Mask of Momentum and powerful combo line finishers for Katsu make the available card pool a tough pill to swallow when trying to approach the format.

This translates even worse for Benji, whose marquee equipment piece of Mask of the Pouncing Lynx can enable some extremely nasty turns when paired with his specializations, but he suffers from the fact that there is virtually no way to draw cards with attacks in the format. Without cards such as Snatch, the aforementioned Mask of Momentum, Plunder Run, or the card drawing powerhouse that is Spring Tidings, Benji has few ways to actually threaten large amounts of damage when taking into account pitch costs and the available attack suite.

However, attacks such as One-Two Punch are an excellent way to extend and gain reach by eking out extra damage from your hands, and in tandem with the name-changing cards in Outsiders that can help Katsu spider-web across various combo lines as a way to extend damage in a turn, the same can be used to help Benji gain more value off Head Jab‘s inherent go again rather than ending the turn early with One-Two Punch.

Levia

Similarly, a hero such as Levia has an almost equally hard time in adjusting to the parameters of Commoner, though she’s received more love as of late in Dusk Till Dawn. A combination of “banish from hand” as the new design space to explore for the hero’s card design and the existing appealing pool of Brute cards moving towards being unable to block leaves Levia in a very strange spot. She clearly needs to be banishing 6+ strength attacks from the graveyard to both disable Blood Debt and enable her powerful above-rate attacks. She also needs to take turns in filling up the graveyard with the requisite three cards for many of her attacks, but not in a way that it gets flooded with misses for her ability.

The added tension of needing cards to be able to pitch for said attacks but also cards that you are happy to be discarded reduces the already small pool of viable cards for Levia, compounded by the statement from LSS that new 6+ strength blues would not be made.

Now that you’ve identified the issues with Levia, you have to go about trying to understand what she has access to that no one else does. In the case of Levia, it’s the fact that her attacks are extremely under-rate, both Boneyard Marauder and Graveling Growl can hit for huge damage off one-two card hands while only costing one.

Any way to give them go again can lead to some extremely high damaging turns that rivals that of Dash. Leading on from that, if you’ve already accepted that your blues are in a dire situation and the only two cards that fulfill the 6+ strength requirement are Wrecker Romp and Deadwood Rumbler, then you can view the rest of your blue lineups as all misses, which in turn translates to playing your utility and reaction cards within that spread.

The logic being that, when you’re mainly using these cards to pay for your attacks, and there’s virtually nothing you can play otherwise to help fulfill Levia’s ability’s needs, then playing cards such as Pummel and Whisper of the Oracle are perfectly serviceable as a way to gain extra utility within that part of your deck. Sure, you can fill it out with more Brute attacks, but perhaps the ability to opt 2 in order to smooth out your next turn or rig a draw and discard effect on a card such as Wild Ride while also filling the graveyard up by one card is better than a low strength attack that can be easily defended against.

Dromai

I spoke about the Illusionists broadly last article, but I want to also shine a spotlight on Dromai today. Losing out on all the invoke dragons is an extreme change to Dromai’s core game plan, but not a detrimental one. Similar to how a reorientation of what one might consider to be “standard” for a particular hero as I highlighted with ideas on the Ninjas, the same mindset needs to be applied to Dromai.

A glance at the cards available show that there are two distinct directions that Dromai can take here, namely going extremely wide with mass Ashwing production via Rake the Embers and Billowing Mirage, or going extremely over the top with the plethora of two-cost, eight-strength attacks that have trickled into the card pool in the supplemental sets. I’ve decided to highlight Dromai because I personally believe she exists in a strange spot where her two different potential build paths are quite extreme in the fields that are being hedged against. The go-wide strategy performs stronger against the hyper-defensive builds of Guardian, matches well against what Ninja wants to be doing, and serves double duty against Wizards with the built-in Arcane Barrier.

On the other hand, the taller build preys on fields with extreme aggression who are largely unable to trigger Phantasm such as Warriors, Dash, and Fai. There is clearly some overlap between the matchup spreads of both directions, but the main point is that there is a lot of extra considerations to take with a hero such as Dromai that go beyond trying to build a cohesive deck. You can build the absolute best go-tall version of her but will still struggle immensely in a room of Brutes and Guardians.

Dorinthea

Lastly, and most surprisingly, I’d like to touch upon Dorinthea and her struggles within deckbuilding. Currently, there are four unique cards with reprise, and none of them go beyond +3 in strength, meaning an experienced player who is well-versed in the Commoner card pool can block in a way that negates any potential value or damage that could get through. Similarly, the range of attack reactions available to her are less than stellar, with many of the real standouts being one-off cards such as Blade Flash, which is only available in blue, and most of the remainders being geared towards 1H weapons or additional value and bonuses on subsequent attacks, which requires the Dawnblade to hit in the first place.

While it may pain the Dorinthea diehards to adopt some Kassai technology, perhaps the Cintari Sellsword’s suite of tricks may be better utilized in this instance. Cards such as Hit and Run, Push Forward, and Blade Runner offer some extreme utility, providing either a buff or go again upfront, and then rewarding you for attacking multiple times in a turn, which a weapon spread of Cintari Sabers and Quicksilver Dagger enables much more than Dawnblade, which can be easily blocked in a world without Rout or any of Dorinthea’s powerful specializations.

While it is pitch intensive, the ability to attack with weapons multiple times in a turn with her hero ability can make for some very powerful turns that puts the onus on the defender. Giving the Saber go again is all that is needed to turn on Quicksilver Dagger, and when you’re testing your opponent on whether they’re committing to using a card to block the Dagger or risk triggering Dorinthea’s ability, you have the luxury of choosing when to deploy your swathe of reactions.

I hope that these brief thoughts on the directions to take some of these more difficult-to-build Commoner heroes help stir some deckbuilding ideas and creativity in your own Commoner games. While I planned to write about equipment next installation, the most underrated aspect of the format, instead I’ll be taking my next article discussing the impacts of Round the Table and Bright Lights on Commoner and what will help boost the format.

Daniel Yam

Daniel is a competitive psychopath who has relegated himself into playing the most casual format of Commoner. Starting Magic at the onset of Shards block, he jumped into Flesh and Blood when the Ira demo decks were being given out to Australian stores and is a proud holder of a 4-digit GEM ID. In his spare time, he enjoys trying to convince his friends to play increasingly worse cards, going to museums, and playing Guild Wars.