Dogmeat, Ever Loyal Voltron

Commander Overview

Dogmeat is one of the coolest commanders from the fallout set, it works very well thematically and overall is a powerful commander, being able to search through our deck for the best of our equipment/auras is extremly valuable, being able to create Junk tokens quite easily is really nice as well, getting our artifact count up for cards like All that Glitters and Nettlecyst is very strong. Dogmeat’s first ability works well with the deck, too, since we have quite a bit of recursion in the deck. Naya really is the perfect commander for Voltron, and having Dogmeat at the helm truly feels great.

How to Play the Deck

Our whole deck is built around playing Auras/equpiment and swinging as hard as we can, the main goal of the deck is to spend our early turns commiting our cheap equipment/base creatures and once we get them down start swinging out and swinging hard, this deck doesnt care about anything but attacking and because of equipment/auras like All that Glitters, Strong Back and Nettlecyst we can push a lot of damage at our opponents, often we don’t even need to hit them, with cards like Mage Slayer which can really threaten our opponents. Beyond that, we don’t really care or interact with what our opponents are doing and are almost fully focused on ourselves.

Synergy’s in the deck

Some of our most significant synergies in the deck come from our artifact/enchantment count with cards like All that Glitters and Nettlecyst. Dogmeat helps a ton with this effort. It is one of the most significant synergies in the deck. We can produce a lot of junk tokens, which not only provide additional card advantage for the deck but also allow us to increase our artifact count, which is quite valuable for the deck. The mill and recursion from Dogmeat are also powerful for our deck.
Some of our biggest synergies in the deck come from cards like Strong Back, which allows us to make almost all of our auras / equipments cheaper and allows us to speed out our gameplan at a way faster pace than normal. We are a Voltron deck through and through, while we can totally spread the stuff around if we want, we have no problem with loading up specific creatures, some of my favorites being Bruenor Battlehammer and Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Our early-game is all about establishing our gameplan, casting some of our ramp creatures like Birds of Paradise and committing some of our cheap equipment to the board.

Mid-Game: Mid-game is where we really start to feast. By this point, we have usually Dogmeat out and a few pieces of equipment, and we can start swinging. We don’t try to be super aggressive, but we always take good attacking opportunities.

Late-Game: Our late game is all about swinging hard. With cards like Mage Slayer, we can easily damage our opponents. By the late game, we are typically strong in combat.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We have a low overall cost. Still, we do have some ramp cards. For the most part, it’s really color fixing more than anything else. We do have Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach, which can help us get ahead on mana, but since we have so much cheap stuff, we don’t really need these to succeed. While not directly a piece of ramp, we do have Smothering Tithe, which can help us to produce mana at a huge rate.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We don’t have a lot of card draw in the deck, but we do have a decent amount of card advantage, especially through our tutors like Steelshaper’s Gift and Open the Armory being able to grab whatever we want is amazing for the deck and allows us to attack our opponents and speed out our threats easily. I also really like Well Rested it is quite slow but if its out for only a few turns it can be very strong.

Removal

Our removal package is pretty light, but we do have some efficient removal like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. We aren’t super heavy on removal, but we are a very “selfish” deck; we just oftentimes care far more about our game plan than anything our opponents are doing. We do have Blasphemous Act if we fall behind, and it can be a great way to wipe out opponents who are growing too quickly.

Protection

Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves are some powerful pieces of protection for our deck and allow us to keep our best and most enormous creatures on the board and ready to attack, we also have Teferi’s Protection which is more of the nuclear option when it comes to protection but will undoubtedly save you if you are about to die. While not strictly a piece of protection, having the ability to copy a boots or greaves is really powerful. For the most part, we have a lot of graveyard recursion in our deck, we don’t care much if our auras or equipment get destroyed.

Utility / Support

The whole deck is a support piece really, our auras interact so well with each other with bombs like All that Glitters while this card is extremely. This card will draw a lot of attention to you, something you don’t want to drop super early. One of the best is Forge Anew. This card really is the whole package, giving recursion and a free equip every turn (perfect for Colossus Hammer), and since we can equip at instant speed, it is really easy for us to fight through opponents’ removal by moving a boots or greaves. Junk Jet is another powerful support piece for the deck, and very on theme as well, being able to produce multiple artifacts and turn our junk into doubling one of our creatures’ power truly spells disaster for our opponents. It can give them a lot of trouble in combat.Grim Reaper’s Sprint is another really good card. If we have a good combat and take our opponents’ creatures out, we can cast this for very cheap, and most opponents do not survive the additional combat.

Mana Base

Axgard Armory is my favorite land we have in our mana base, what a cool piece of equipment, it is almost always used as a land, but havingt the abiliy to tutor for an aura or equipment is very strong for the deck, sure its a little pricey but being able to tutor easily is always very strong. Beyond that, the mana base is efficient but not very interesting. We are playing every on-color fetch and shock, and that helps a lot with mana fixing. Our manabase isn’t anything amazing, but it gets the job done and allows the overall game plan to run smoothly.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is combat, that’s the true name of our game, we want to swing as hard and as much as we possibly can, its quite easy for us to hit 40 damage on someone, our deck snowballs out of control very quickly, the most important aspect about this deck is combat assessment, knowing when to attack and ensuring that you don’t leave yourself open, typically we do spread around our aura’s/equipment but making sure you are not vulnearble to an opponent attacking you back is key.

Strengths of the Deck

We can hit really hard and decently quickly

We have a lot of recursion, an equipment or aura being destroyed is not the end of that card.

Weaknesses of the Deck

We can have a rough matchup against very heavy control decks, which can be tough for us to deal with.

Since we have so many recursion decks that have a lot of graveyard hate, it can be quite tough for us.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed . Matchup Record: 1-4

This was a very rough one, i played against a very control heavy version of Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed and it was tough, they often counter a lot of our stuff and drain and gain us a lot, and if they ever fall behind they do have access to powerful board wipes like Merciless Eviction and Farewell which are very strong against us.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Grim Reaper’s Sprint,Smothering Tithe and Heroic Intervention

Game 2: Vs Lady Octopus, Inspired Inventor . Matchup Record: 3-1

This was a perfect matchup. They are a lot more artifact-heavy than control-heavy, and that works to our advantage. Some of their bounce spells can be problematic, but in our games, I just ran them over with a Voltron creature.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
All that Glitters.With Great Power and Heroic Intervention

Game 3: Vs Calix, Guided by Fate. Matchup Record: 2-2

This was a tough matchup for us. The copies can be overwhelming. Calix really depends a lot on their starting hand and what they draw early. Using your removal against Calix himself is also very strong. This matchup is winnable, but I would mulligan aggressively for a strong hand.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Swords to Plowshares, Blasphemous Act and Teferi’s Protection

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! Dogmeat is such an awesome commander, I love that this deck is not only on theme since it runs a lot of Fallout cards but is also just a good Voltron deck. Naya has always been a great Voltron color and allows us to be really strong, keep making junk, and keep on swinging.