From the Forge to the Field!
Art: Zurgo Helmsmasher
by Aleksi Briclot
Welcome to another installment of Brewed EDH:
Zurgo is a well stat-ed and fun Voltron commander, him being Mardu not only lets us have a decent amount of hate cards but also lets us have some combo potential. Zurgo is very easy to cast and well stat-ed creature with a lot of abilities, since Zurgo coming out as as 7/2 with haste and indestructible on our turn, Zurgo is very easy to set up a commander damage kill. Voltron is a perfect archetype for Zurgo to succeed in, Zurgo makes games 21 health for our opponents!
The Deck:
Zurgo Voltron!
Why Zurgo Helmsmasher?
There are many great Voltron commander options like Rafiq of the Many
and Isshin, Two Heavens as One
. I think that Zurgo is a great Voltron commander because not only he is a big creature he can come out and immediately start swinging, with just a couple of equipment on Zurgo he can come become a one shot machine especially if he has double strike. Zurgo’s ability to gain indestructible on your turn makes it so he can evade sorcery speed creature destruction and he can often times be the only creature left standing. Zurgo is a fast and fun Voltron commander with potential to end games very quickly.
Deck Overview:
Since we are a Voltron deck our main goal is to cast Zurgo as fast as possible and start swinging. Since we are not in green and don’t have access to conventional ramp we can utilize artifact ramp to get Zurgo out as fast as possible. Once we have Zurgo out its all about casting our equipment’s and start snowballing opponents by compounding our equipment’s effects. One of the best equipment’s we have is Colossus Hammer
which when combined with Puresteel Paladin
can make Zurgo huge for almost nothing. O-Naginata
is also a great and cheap way to make Zurgo bigger and give him trample very easily. We are also packing Sword of Feast and Famine
and Sword of Forge and Frontier
. Sword of Forge and Frontier is more of utility / protection sword, where feast and famine lets us combo off when combined with aggravated assault. One of our best equipment’s is Nettlecyst
since it gives equipped creature +1/+1 for each artifact we control we are able to make this get out of hand very quickly. We have a lot of utility creatures to either recur our equipment or attach it for cheap, Brass Squire
is a very cheap artifact at only 3 colorless mana and lets us tap and attach an equipment to one of our creatures, this is a great way to cheaply equip huge equipments to Zurgo or other creatures. Tiana, Ship's Caretaker
lets us return equipment from the graveyard if it gets blown up. We also have Danitha, Benalia's Hope
she lets us grab equipment from hand and graveyard and throw it onto a creature. We also have some small warrior subtheme with the main two payoff cards being Raiyuu, Storm's Edge
and Heiko Yamazaki, the General
. Both of these cards will trigger when Zurgo attacks and can let us return destroyed equipment and take an extra combat phase. We are not packing many planeswalkers in our deck but we do have Jeska, Thrice Reborn
who can make Zurgo deal triple damage which if an opponent cant block can end the game the first turn Zurgo can come out. Speaking of triple damage we also play City on Fire
which has the same effect as Jeska but for all of our damage sources. Since we are Voltron deck we are mostly focused on having Zurgo on the battlefield but we do have some alternate creatures that can act as our Voltron commander if needed. In a pinch we can utilize Bruenor Battlehammer
or Aurelia, the Warleader
as a our fallback Voltron targets if the need arises. Some other cards id like to highlight are Astor, Bearer of Blades
which we can use to make all of our equipment’s only cast one to equip, as well as Reyav, Master Smith
which gives an equipped creature double strike, when we combine this with something like City on Fire this can get out of hand very quickly. Overall Zurgo is a very strong and fun Voltron commander with a lot of different angles to accomplish the same goal.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Zurgo can commander damage kill opponents quickly
- Board wipes at sorcery speed don’t kill Zurgo
- Large amount of equipment that can be applied quickly
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to artifact destruction
- Can be difficult to cast after multiple kills of Zurgo
- Weak to Combo decks as we cannot interact with spells
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
Our main win condition is to buff up Zurgo with our equipment and swing for the fences, but we are also packing a few combos!
The Reaver Cleaver
+ Aggravated Assault
Result: Infinite combat phases. Infinite combat damage. Infinite Treasure tokens. Infinite colored mana. Infinite untap of creatures you control.
Sword of Feast and Famine + Aggravated Assault
Result: Infinite combat phases.
While these are not the primary way that we can close out games it can be nice in a pinch where an opponent can untap and win we can take back control and close out the game!
Conclusion:
In conclusion Zurgo is a fun and fast Voltron deck that can allow for really quick and easy kills, I think that Zurgo would be a lot of fun to play at a pod with a lot of other creature decks, but with our speed we can hang at some of the stronger pods although we are weak against combo strategies. We are weak to explosive combo strategies but can hang with some of the slower combo strategies. Overall Zurgo is a very fun Voltron deck with a lot of cool lines of play!
Thanks for Reading to the End!
