“They don’t possess the spirit you do.”
Art:Baylen, the Haymaker
by Ryan Pancoast
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Baylen, The Haymaker is certainly a very interesting card for CEDH but a card that I think works quite well, I won’t lie; I was quite skeptical when I saw the initial hype around this card, but after jamming a bunch of games with it, I like the deck a lot and think it’s very strong, while decks that arent running blue and black can always struggle against decks that are I feel like this deck is quite well-positioned especially with the high-density of stax pieces which don’t hurt us very much and really hurt our opponents. Naya is a color I am always trying to make happen in CEDH so I’m always welcome for something new. If you love Naya, Tokens, and Stax, this is certainly the deck for you. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Baylen, the Haymaker Stax!
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Why Baylen, The Haymaker?
Baylen provides a lot for the deck and is a great piece for the deck, in my opinion, the most important thing that Baylen offers is the supplemental card draw which can go a very long way, especially in decks that arent playing blue; we do have a few ways to make infinite tokens in the deck as well so being able to use Baylen’s third ability to buff up him infinitely and kill at least one opponent can be relevant and a great way to get rid of an opponent who is giving us trouble. Overall, Baylen is a great asset for the deck, but we also don’t ever need to cast if we don’t want to, allowing us to be well-positioned against other decks running cards like Drannith Magistrate
. Baylen certainly helps with the overall game but we don’t need them to finish a game.
Gameplan:
We have a pretty simple gameplan, focusing mostly on filling up our board with tokens to get some value off our commander and, most importantly, drop as many stax pieces as we can and slow down our opponents enough that we can set up a combo win or any kind of infinite mana. The gameplan for this deck is quite adaptive, and every game is quite different. There is a ton of different situations. I often run into situations where I want to wait to drop stax pieces, and in some games it can be correct to wait to drop a card like Deafening Silence
until we are ready to go off to limit the Blue decks from countering us to oblivion. The core gameplay for this deck is always a little bit different, and it is very situation dependent. For an opening hand, I typically look for a couple of lands, at least something to mana ramp in the early-game, and at least one Stax piece, that is in the perfect world, but I mulligan very little when playing this deck; a lot of the hands I drew were quite strong.
Deck Matchups:
Since this is CEDH, there are an absolute ton of things that can tip a game in your favor or out of it. While an archetype may seem favorable, there are absolutely good and bad commanders for our deck to go up against; I have included both these, which were all played among my testing groups using various decks, and I have included the sample size for clarity purposes. This is just meant to be a guide after testing a bunch of games with this deck!
The information below is notes about specific decks that were featured in our testing pods and how we fared against them. Naturally, CEDH is a multiplayer game, so these are just a summary of my notes against different commanders and strategies. When we test these decks we try to test to its strengths and weaknesses to give a full spectrum of what the deck has to offer. Various commanders and archetypes/strategies are used to get the most accurate information.
Commanders, we have a good matchup against:
Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin
Record against Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin 5-1
Overall, I think this is a very good matchup for us. Ob nixilis can get a little grindy, but with some of our removal and stax pieces, it can be very difficult for them to cast or re-cast their commander, I think this is a very good matchup, they look to spread out the game and make it long and grindy, but that’s ok because we do as well.
Ellivere of the Wild Court
Record against Ellivere of the WIld Court 6-0
Ellivere is a stax deck just like we are; we do have the advantage of having better combo pieces than them; we can make Infinite Mana a lot easier, and we are overall better at ending the game. If they really want to get grindy, we are able to win the game solely through combat, which truthfully is not ideal but something we absolutely can do.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Talion, the Kindly Lord
Record against Talion, The Kindly Lord 2-2
Talion is a very tough matchup for us; they are typically filled to the brim with counters and can counter a lot of our Stax/combo pieces; this is a very hard matchup or the deck; it is winnable if we catch them without counters and can resolve a stax piece it can be very tough for them to win, once we are able to get our things past the stack we are usually pretty safe.
Tivit, Seller of Secrets
Record against Tivit 0-5
This deck is very good at beating us, and the speed it can combo off and stop all of our stuff when it’s on the stack makes this matchup very rough for us overall; Esper has access to the best of the best within the format, and that truly spells disaster for us.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck! For information about the combos in the deck and a step-by-step guide on how to perform them, please refer to the “Main Win Conditions” below.
Creatures:
When we are about to combo off, one of my favorite ways to stop an opponent from stopping us is Aven Interrupter
, even if we use Interrupter on turns where we are not combo-ing off, delaying a key spell for an opponent can disrupt their gameplan an absolute ton. We have an absolute ton of stax pieces in our creature speed like Collector Ouphe
, Drannith Magistrate, and Archon of Emeria
which help slow the game down to our pace and stop our opponents from getting super out of hand. Boromir, Warden of the Tower
is another cool card, especially when opponents start casting free cards; being able to make our creatures indestructible can be quite relevant if cards like Toxic Deluge
is being played. Since our commander focuses heavily on tokens, we have some awesome token producers like Farmer Cotton
and Jacked Rabbit
; with all of the additional mana production in our deck, these cards can get pretty huge pretty quickly.
Instants:
Arachnogenesis
is a card that is almost never played within CEDH, but in this deck, I think it is quite good; while there isn’t often a ton of attacking within CEDH against decks like Winota this card can shine and can produce us a ton of tokens which is an awesome way to get more mana and cards. Crop Rotation
is awesome in this deck as well being able to grab Gaea's Cradle
to pump up a huge Chord of Calling
and grab some of the best creatures we have. We also have both Pyroblast
and Red Elemental Blast
, which are the few ways that we are able to fight back against the multitude of blue counterspells within the format, I typically like to save these for when we are trying to combo off because they are the only two options we have in the deck to fight back on the stack.
Sorceries:
Our sorcery package includes mostly finishers for the deck like Finale of Devastation
as well as some of our combo pieces like Twinflame
and Molten Duplication
while its mostly finishers we do have Gamble
which is one of the few tutors within the deck which allows us to hopefully get and keep a stax or combo piece.
Artifacts:
We are quite low on artifacts mostly because of effects we are running like Null Rod
as well as the multiple others but for the early-game we do have some mana rocks of our own like Mana Vault
and Mox Diamond
while we sometimes shut them off they can still provide some additional mana for very little investment.
Enchantments:
Smothering Tithe
is no doubt a great card within the format, but it is even better in our deck because we can use the tokens we create to activate our commander, which allows us to draw cards, get a buff, and generate some extra mana. Not to mention the treasure tokens we create providing some great extra mana as well. We are very good at mana production as well, using both Utopia Sprawl
and Wild Growth
to generate some extra mana and get a little ahead of our opponents. High Noon
is another card I love within the deck, it provides an additional Deafening Silence effect while allowing us to zap a commander or even just finish off an opponent who is at low health. Stony Silence
is a redundant effect within the deck, but because of the high density of artifacts within the format, it is very effective against almost every deck within the format.
Land Base:
We have a very strong landbase with a ton of utility, Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
is a great card for the deck and can be looped with Eternal Witness
if we have infinite mana as a great way to close out the game. Another one of my favorite lands in the deck is Gaea's Cradle, which is an amazing mana producer for the deck, especially with all of the tokens we create, and can be a great way to get whatever we want with cards like Chord of Calling. We have a ton of fast mana within our landbase, including the relative duals, shocks, and fetches, which allows us to get our colors established very early and be able to cast our commander very easily. We are also running one single-plains within the deck. White is the most prevalent color within our deck, and because a lot of decks are running Assassin's Trophy
these days, having access to that can be good, especially instead of fail-to-finding.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We have a ton of combos that are quite easy to pull off, especially with cards like Grand Abolisher
. - We have quite a bit of supplemental card draw, allowing us to filter and cycle through the deck with ease.
- If a game goes long and our opponents need to attack to start to end the game, we typically have a litany of blockers.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We don’t have access to almost any counterspells or ways to stop things on the stack.
- We are quite weak to artifact/enchantment hate.
- We have tough matchups against Control Strategies especially ones with heavy counters and Thoracle decks.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
Requires:
Dualcaster Mage must be in hand. Twinflame must be in hand. At least one creature on the battlefield. Mana needed: 2RRR
Steps:
- Cast Twinflame by paying 1
- Holding priority, cast Dualcaster Mage by paying 1.
- Dualcaster Mage enters the battlefield, copying Twinflame.
- Resolve the Twinflame copy, creating a token copy of Dualcaster Mage.
- Repeat from step 3.
Results:
Infinite creature tokens with haste. Infinite ETB. Infinite magecraft triggers.
Dualcaster Mage
+ Molten Duplication
Requires:
Molten Duplication must be in hand. Dualcaster Mage must be in hand. You control at least one additional artifact or creature. Mana needed: 2RRR
- Cast Molten Duplication by paying 1R, targeting anything.
- In response, cast Dualcaster Mage by paying 1R.
- When Dualcaster Mage enters the battlefield, it triggers, copying Molten Duplication and changing the target to Dualcaster Mage.
- Resolve a Molten Duplication copy, creating an artifact creature token copy of Dualcaster Mage with haste that will be sacrificed at the next end step.
- Repeat from step 3 any number of times.
Results:
Infinite creature tokens with haste. Infinite death triggers. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite magecraft triggers. Infinite sacrifice triggers.
Emiel the Blessed
+ Dockside Extortionist
Requires:
Emiel the Blessed must be on the battlefield. Dockside Extortionist must be on the battlefield. Your opponents control at least three artifacts and/or enchantments. Mana needed: 3
Steps:
- Activate Emiel the Blessed by paying 3, blinking Dockside Extortionist.
- When Dockside Extortionist enters the battlefield, it triggers, creating at least three Treasure artifact tokens.
- Activate three Treasures by tapping and sacrificing them, adding 3R.
- Repeat.
- If opponents control at least four artifacts and/or enchantments, this combo nets infinite mana and Treasure tokens.
Results:
Infinite blinking. Infinite colored mana. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite Treasure tokens.
Dockside Extortionist + Cloudstone Curio
Requires:
Dockside Extortionist must be in hand. Cloudstone Curio must be on the battlefield. You control a nontoken nonartifact creature. Opponents control a number of artifacts and/or enchantments equal to or greater than three plus the mana value of the additional nonartifact creature card. Mana needed: 1R
Steps:
- Cast Dockside Extortionist by paying 1R.
- Dockside Extortionist enters the battlefield, triggering itself and Cloudstone Curio.
- Resolve the Dockside Extortionist trigger, creating a number of Treasure tokens equal to the number of artifacts and/or enchantments your opponent control.
- Resolve the Cloudstone Curio trigger, returning the additional nontoken nonartifact creature from the battlefield to your hand.
- Activate a Treasure token by tapping and sacrificing it, adding one mana of any color.
- Repeat step 5 until you have enough mana to cast the additional creature card.
- Cast the additional creature by paying its mana cost.
- The creature enters the battlefield, triggering Cloudstone Curio, returning Dockside Extortionist from the battlefield to your hand.
- Activate two Treasure tokens by tapping and sacrificing them, adding 1R.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite colored mana. Infinite death triggers. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite sacrifice triggers. Infinite storm count. Infinite Treasure tokens.
Basking Broodscale
+ Rosie Cotton of South Lane
Requires:
Basking Broodscale must be on the battlefield. Rosie Cotton of South Lane must be on the battlefield. Basking Broodscale does not have a +1/+1 counter on it. Mana needed: 1G
Steps:
- Activate Basking Broodscale’s adapt ability by paying 1G, putting a +1/+1 counter on it.
- Basking Broodscale triggers, creating a 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn creature token.
- Rosie Cotton of South Lane’s second ability triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on Basking Broodscale.
- Repeat from step 2.
Results:
Infinite +1/+1 counters on Basking Broodscale. Infinite colorless mana. Infinite creature tokens. Infinite death triggers. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite sacrifice triggers.
Basking Broodscale + Rosie Cotton of South Lane
Requires:
Rosie Cotton of South Lane must be on the battlefield. Scurry Oak must be on the battlefield. You have a way to put a +1/+1 counter on Scurry Oak.
Steps:
- Put a +1/+1 counter on Scurry Oak.
- Scurry Oak triggers, creating a 1/1 Squirrel creature token.
- Rosie triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on Scurry Oak.
- Repeat from step 2.
Results:
Infinite +1/+1 counters on Scurry Oak. Infinite creature tokens. Infinite ETB.
Conclusion:
Baylen is a very fun and interesting commander and one that I think will see an overall uptick in play. I don’t think this card is format warping, but I think you can take your opponents by surprise with this one. overall, it is a very strong deck and is well-positioned against other stax decks within the format and some of the other decks you may see like Kinnan. I think this deck has a lot of pitfalls, but it is definitely worth playing and exploring more. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!