Zurgo Helmsmasher Voltron

Commander Overview

Zurgo is a true Khans of Tarkir legend and is here to do one thing and one thing only: swing super hard at your opponents and crush them in just a few swings. This is a Voltron deck through and through. Zurgo can be a real nasty commander for our deck. Not only does he have seven power and haste, but he is indestructible on our turn, which means it’s quite hard for our opponents to kill Zurgo. Zurgo is five mana but can be a speedy deck, with an early Sol Ring and some cheap equipment, we can easily commander damage kill our opponents.

How to Play the Deck

Our only gameplan is to swing with Zurgo as much as we possibly can, since we are a commander damage focused deck and Zurgo drops on the field with seven power, twenty-one commander damgae kills are what we primarily go for and they are shockingly easy to do, now don’t get me wrong we can absoutlely play as slow as we need to, the potential for a one-shot in this deck is very high and its just super easy to do, its made even easier by cards like Jeska, Thrice Reborn which can easily allow us to one-shot an opponent if they cant block, ive been able to pull this off many times. The whole goal of the deck is to drop early equipment/enchantments and then swing for the fences with Zurgo.

Synergy’s in the deck

We have so many Voltron synergies in the deck with cards like Bruenor Battlehammer, which can allow us to equip huge artifacts super early, nothing better than throwing a Colossus Hammer on Zurgo the second he comes out for free! We also have Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar who is a powerful piece of synergy for the deck being able to strike one opponent with Zurgo and then deal that damage to every opponent is super strong and if its the mid/late-game already this can easily kill opponents, dropping Kediss before combat and swinging for the fences allows us to output a crazy amount of damage.
We also have a ton of synergies with equipment cost reduction with cards like Danitha Capashen, Paragon,Puresteel Paladin and Codsworth, Handy Helper all of these allow us to get our gameplan out quicker and a lot cheaper, getting equips for free especially with cards that have high equip costs like Colossus Hammer or Bilbo’s Ring is super strong. The Synergies in this deck are all really strong, and the deck works amazingly well together.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: The early-game for this deck is all about getting our support cards down, cheap support enchantments like Forge Anew and Fighter Class. Dropping these early is strong for our deck and allows the game plan to go a lot quicker and a lot smoother. Jeska, Thrice Reborn is another card that is really handy to drop in the early game. If we can get Zurgo out shortly, after that, we can drop Jeska, and we can easily hit an opponent for a one-shot. While it doesn’t happen all the time, it is very awesome when we can do it.

Mid-Game: The mid-game is where things start heating up for our deck. By this point, Zurgo is typically very huge and can easily one-shot opponents. The mid-game is also the point in the game when Zurgo typically has keyword soup in their text box, and they are not only a menace in combat but also hard to deal with, with removal as well.

Late-Game: The late game is something we typically try not to get too. We have almost always eliminated at least one or two opponents by this point, so that is a positive. Only having to deal with one or two people, the core game plan stays the same here, but this is where we start going for kill shots. Using cards like Akroma’s Will and Archetype of Aggression, getting a commander damage kill shot on an opponent is quite easy to do.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We don’t have a lot of ramp in the deck, but since we have a pretty low overall cost, ramping isn’t something we typically need to do a lot of. We do have Arcane Signet, which is quite helpful for mana fixing, and I love Sol Ring in this deck because it allows for a very early Zurgo.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We aren’t super heavy on card draw. I chose to be purposefully not heavy on it and way more heavy on tutoring (with cards like Open the Armory. We do have some card draw like Akiri, Fearless Voyager, which can draw a lot of cards over the course of the game. Since we don’t have a ton of traditional card draw, we have more instances of card selection and tutors like Astor, Bearer of Blades, which can help us sift through the top of our deck and only get the good stuff!

Removal

Mardu is very good at removal, and we certainly aren’t a control deck. Still, if an opponent drops a problematic permanent, we can easily deal with it, with strong removal pieces like Anguished Unmaking, which I especially like since we can exile it, which can hurt combo-focused decks a lot. We also have Generous Gift, which is also amazing for our deck. In my testing games, I used it to take out a Cabal Coffers. Having the ability to take out any permanent is very strong for only three mana.

Protection

I love Deflecting Swat in this deck, when it’s not our turn, Zurgo gets targeted a lot by our opponents’ target removal, and being able to change the target and stop it is strong. The whole name of our game is keeping Zurgo on the field as long as we can. If we fall behind and the opponent is going to kill us, having Teferi’s Protection] allows us to survive a combat situation that is otherwise unsurvivable. [[Boros Charm is another cheap way to protect ourselves from a board wipe, with the bonus that we can give Zurgo double strike!

Utility / Support

We have a lot of excellent support equipment that helps our overall gameplan of commander damage killing our opponent, Embercleave is one of my favorites, double strike and trample at instant speed allows us to not only hit for a ton but can easily commander damage kill an opponent if they are close to twenty one. I also love The Reaver Cleaver. The Reaver Cleaver gives us the ability to produce treasure tokens at an alarming rate, and Trample is fantastic as well. We have many instances of trample in the deck, and it’s always strong, even if an opponent blocks early, and we can trample through that, making getting a commander damage kill on them later that much easier. Some of our best damage-dealing Voltron pieces in the deck are Thran Power Suit and All that Glitters. They both do the same thing, but Power Suit has the added ability of ward for Zurgo, which is very strong and makes him that much harder to remove.
While all of our equipment is great for the deck, we have some powerful support pieces like Mantle of the Ancients, which is the best way we have to recover after a board wipe or Zurgo dying for any reason. I’m also a massive fan of Reconnaissance, which can allow us to remove Zurgo from a bad combat situation if an opponent has a combat trick.

Mana Base

We have a very efficient mana base that allows us to get all of our colors pretty easily since we have all on-color shocks and fetches as well as Savai Triome which can be fetched and is a nice piece of color fixing for the deck, beyond that we don’t have much in our mana base for support besides The Black Gate, The black gate is crazy for the deck especially when we haven’t attacked for Zurgo yet, this is another card that works very well with Jeska and can easily allow us to one-shot an opponent.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is combat; that is, pretty much the only thing we do or care about. Swinging out with Zurgo as quickly as we can is the primary objective of the deck.

Strengths of the Deck

Commander damage kills are very easy for our deck to do.

Zurgo can be very hard to kill with removal and is hard to deal with in combat.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Artifact/Enchantment removal is strong against us.

We can struggle against control decks or against decks that keep Zurgo off the field for a large majority of the game.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Rafiq of the Many. Matchup Record: 2-2

Truly a race of a matchup, we both need three colors to cast our commander. Still, Zurgo does attack a lot quicker since we have haste. This matchup really comes down to who has a better starting hand. The one advantage we do have is that Zurgo is indestructible on our turn, so we can’t be harmed by their removal during our turn. This matchup is truly 50/50.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Jeska, Thrice Reborn,Raiyuu, Storm’s Edge and Mantle of the Ancients

Game 2: Vs Ezuri, Renegade Leader. Matchup Record: 1-3

This was a very rough matchup for the deck; they are just a lot faster than us and can go a lot wider. If they stumble, we can hit hard and kill them, which is what I did in the game I won, but overall, this is a tough matchup for our deck.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Anguished Unmaking,Combat Celebrant and Archetype of Aggression

Game 3: Vs Koll, the Forgemaster. Matchup Record: 3-0

I had no trouble with this matchup. Koll is a really cool commander, but a lot of the tokens they produce are small and aren’t great against Zurgo. Trample is important in this matchup, and we can easily go over the top with it. Finding trample is a key to this matchup, but I had no trouble with it.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Embercleave,The Reaver Cleaver and Archetype of Aggression

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end. Zurgo is a commander I have been playing for multiple years now, and I love this deck. Khans was one of the first sets I experienced when I first started playing, and I fell in love with this huge 7/2 warrior!