Commander Overview
Jumpstart 2022 brought us Kibo, Uktabi Prince, the true ruler of all monkey or ape typal decks. This card has three levels of monkey flavor. First, and most obvious, he makes banana tokens. But secondly, he punishes opponents for eating their bananas, by buffing the squad. And finally, when he attacks, opponents are forced to sacrifice artifacts, a similar ability a lot of the monkeys and ape creatures throughout Magic have.
The flavor and synergy Kibo brings to the table is unrivaled, and everytime you play him it’s a hooting good time.
Commander Matchmaking System
The average current preconstructed deck.
- No Mass Land Denial
- No Chaining Extra Turns
- No 2-Card Infinite Combos
- No Game Changers
- Few Tutors
How to Play the Deck
The gameplan for Kibo is simple: flood the board with creatures, give opponents bananas, and create an army of juiced up monkeys by making the table sacrifice their artifacts.
In my experience, Kibo rarely ever attacks. He’s much more useful as a token generator. Getting opponents to sacrifice an artifact when he attacks is cool, but the deck has a bunch of other ways to make that happen that don’t involve risking him in combat.
If all goes well, by the end of the game, your Tree Monkey and Simian Sling are 30/30 King Kongs.
Synergy’s in the deck
Seeing as how a lot of the creatures in this deck have abilities that destroy artifacts (see Gorilla Shaman, Uktabi Orangutan, and Gearbane Orangutan) we need to support that agenda.
One of the best synergies is being able to turn nonartifacts into artifacts. We have Liquimetal Torque, which can easily target commanders or other annoying creatures so we can present a Abrade or Shattering Spree. For a larger scale, we also have Mycosynth Lattice. This card quickly gets out of hand, and in my experience, makes you a target. But, if it allows you to load up your monkeys with counters by just watching opponents duke it out, it’s worth it.
Phases of the Game
Early Game: We are light on lands in this deck because we use Kibo’s bananas to fuel our plan, so getting him out ASAP is a must. Plus, by giving opponents bananas in the early game, we are incentivizing going fast. That makes any 1-mana monkeys you played on turn 1 or 2 get bigger and compete with whatever else is coming down around the table.
Mid-Game: By turn 4 or 5, we should have some of our payoffs onboard. Fangren Marauder gains us hella life, while Viridian Revel draws us cards. We can swing out in this stage with reasonably-sized monkeys, but there’s no pressure. Pending no board wipes, we only get stronger as players sac treasures, bananas, clues, etc.
Late-Game: By turns 7 and 8, we should have enough resources and monkeys on board to push for a full swing at one or more players. Giving the monkeys trample or menace is the real goal, with cards like Overrun and Gorilla War Cry. We can also use Full Throttle for additional combats, or Preposterous Proportions for truly massive monkeys.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
This Kibo build is light on ramp. Aside from lands, we have Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Commander’s Sphere. A lot of the monkeys are cheap to cast, so you’ll almost always have a turn 1 or 2 play in your opening hand. And once we start tapping with Kibo, we’ll have more than enough mana to do what needs to be done.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
We have a few ways to draw cards in big bursts, like Inspiring Call, Rishkar’s Expertise, or Return of the Wildspeaker. But we can also draw cards from Viridian Revel once players start sacrificing bananas or treasures, or with Garruk’s Uprising when we play our bigger monkeys.
Removal
I opted not to run any of the traditional Gruul removal like Beast Within, Chaos Warp, or Lightning Bolt. Instead, I leveraged some cheaper options that do multiple things.
Abrade is a Bolt plus artifact removal, Klauth’s Will is a Vandalblast or a pretty nice boardwipe for small creatures. Welding Sparks is also cool, and can easily do 5-6 damage to something if you have a few bananas or a mana rock out.
Protection
Gruul isn’t great at protection, but we do have Fog if there is an aggro player that’s bigger than us.
If your pods run a lot of removal, you can always slot in Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots for one of the dinkier monkeys.
Utility / Support
There is a lot of support for the banana-throwing gameplan here. We can speed up the plan with Primal Vigor to double banana production and counters, and we can use Hardened Scales or Loading Zone to quickly grow the board.
Sting, the Glinting Dagger is a cool card to equip to Kibo. It allows you to tap him to throw bananas around on everyone else’s turn.
Creatures like Pain Distributor penalize players for sacrificing artifacts, while Gorilla Shaman is essentially 1 mana to blow up a token if you need to buff the board during combat.
Mana Base
The mana base is pretty simple. Ten forests, ten mountains, and a few nonbasics for value like Treetop Village (for monke) and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood to buff smaller creatures quickly.
Win Conditions
Like I mentioned above, swinging with an army of big monkeys is pretty much the way we win. Overrun and Preposterous Proportions are our endgames. You can also use Skarrg, the Rage Pits to give Kibo trample if you need to kill a player with commander damage.
Pet Cards
I love playing monkeys for the chaos and the flavor, and I run a lot of pet cards simply because they are fun. If you want to make your deck more powerful, you could consider cutting some of these cards.
Hidden Gibbons is essentially an early-game 4/4 monkey if someone casts a Brainstorm or something. But, in the late game it can feel a bit of a bad draw. I just love the art here, too.
Monkey Cage is a lot of mana for a very telegraphed play. Your opponents could just drop a mana dork and give you a 5-mana vanilla 2/2, and that feels pretty bad. But, sometimes you can use the Cage as a politicking element. I recently had a game where the person to my left cast Darksteel Colossus and pretty much ended the game by giving me 11 monkeys.
Uktabi Kong is a silver border card, so it’s not legal in this deck. But, it’s ability is not as out of pocket for an 8 mana card. It doesn’t do anything that a normal monkey wouldn’t reasonably do. I always ask the table before we start if it’s cool that I play it, and usually no one has an issue once they read the card.
Strengths of the Deck
Kibo lets us politic a bit by offering opponents mana.
Monkeys are straightforward and slot in well to the “destroy artifact then attack” gameplan.
Your creatures can quickly triple or quadruple in size as other players take game actions.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Board wipes or mass removal set us back quite a bit.
Deathtouch creatures make our monkeys vulnerable.
Propaganda effects slow us down significantly.
Deck Upgrades
This deck is pretty reasonably priced, the most expensive card being Mycosynth Lattice. If you want to improve the overall performance, here are some suggestions:
Faster Mana and Game Enders
Option for faster mana, you can also choose any of the check lands or stuff.
In the late game, a monkey that’s bigger than the rest can easily clear out the board and kill opponents with Chandra’s Ignition.
If your monkeys aren’t big enough to kill with trample, killing with infect is much more effective.
Conclusion
When I first started playing Magic 10 years ago, I really wanted to make a monkey tribal deck. But, there were no good Gruul commander options. I ended up making Mina and Denn, Wildborninto a monkey deck, and it was pretty terrible.
But Kibo has really changed the game, and he makes monkeys and apes feel pretty strong. They’re obviously not on the level of dragons, elves, or goblins, but as a unique tribal deck, it’s worth it.