Kotis, the Fangkeeper Voltron

Commander Overview

Kotis, the Fangkeeper is a true experiment, an experiment of what would happen if we put Villainous Wealth on a commander. Let me say, after testing this deck a bunch, it’s simply crazy. Stealing pretty much all of your opponents’ non-land stuff is just insane. Kotis is a powerhouse of a commander and is extremely strong. Kotis also works extremely well with the Voltron strategy. Buffing up Kotis and making them stronger is key to hitting more cards off the top of our opponents and dominating the game. Kotis also has the added benefit of being in Sultai, allowing us to play a lot of great cards and have access to a wonderful amount of support cards. One of the most underrated aspects of our deck is Kotis having indestructible, already making them quite hard to kill before we throw any equipment on them. Kotis is a huge part of our deck and the only thing it does.

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck is extremely straightforward: play Kotis as soon as we can and start swinging. Since Kotis is indestructible, we have almost no fear of attacking; we don’t care if an opponent blocks, because Kotis won’t die. Beyond that, we have a typical Voltron game plan: buff up Kotis as much as we can, and profit by free casting our opponents’ stuff! This deck is good for a intermediate player; it has some complicated interactions and involves a ton of spellcasting, which newer players might have trouble with.

Synergy’s in the deck

The whole deck is synergized around Kotis and buffing them up, we have a lot of amazing equipment that can change the game a lot for us, one of the best is Brotherhood Regalia an additional ward cost on an indestructible creature is extremely strong and makes them extremely hard to remove and making them unblockable guarantees we hit and get to trigger Kotis which can be a crazy power swing in the game. Our whole deck is built around building up Kotis and casting our opponents’ stuff.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: The early-game is a race for us, the race to cast Kotis. We want to get Kotis on the field as soon as possible so we can start free-casting our opponents’ stuff. Our speedy pursuit to cast Kotis is greatly aided by our cheap mana dorks like Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves. Besides casting Kotis asap, we don’t do much in the early game.

Mid-Game: This is where the game really starts to open up for us. By this point, we should have Kotis buffed up a little bit and can start doing some real damage to our opponents and steal their stuff, which always feels good. The core game plan doesn’t change much here; we swing hard and try to cast our opponents’ stuff with Kotis as much as we can.

Late-Game: Not a ton changes; by this point, we are typically quite unstoppable since we have Kotis and have stolen a ton from our opponent. Its’s very common in Kotis games for us to have an extremely full board and our opponents have next to nothing. The core game plan doesn’t change at all here.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We are pretty good at ramping; we ramp a lot through our mana dorks, which are key to our game plan since we have cheap mana dorks. Ramping has two functions in our deck: the primary one is to get out Kotis as quickly as we can and establish our colors. Being able to ramp out and pay for our equipment and equipment costs is a key aspect of the deck as well. Ramping is something we are good at in this deck.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We don’t have a ton of strict card draw in the deck, mostly because we steal our opponents so much and we can cast a lot of our opponents’ stuff, so we certainly never run out of card advantage. We do have some sources of card draw, like Baleful Strix, which is also a great blocker on turns when our defenses are down. Ohran Frostfang is another source of card draw that can be quite consistent. If we keep attacking with Kotis, which we always do, we can at least draw one card a turn. While we don’t have a lot of strict card draw, Kotis fills that void extremely nicely.

Removal

Casting our opponents’ removal spells is pretty much always an option, but if Kotis keeps getting killed or we simply can’t resolve them. We begin to fall behind; we do have removal pieces that can effectively reset the game and give us time to rebuild. Cards like Damnation and Deadly Tempest are great ways for us to reset the game fully. Once the board is wiped, if we can get Kotis back, we can be a lot farther ahead than our opponents. Outside of board wipes, we do have a good amount of single-target removal. We are in Sultai after all. Cards like Beast Within and Assassin’s Trophy]] are cheap removal that’s easy to cast. We typically don’t care a lot about what our opponents are doing. Still, if someone becomes a turbo threat quickly, we can use these to slow them down or stop them.

Protection

Kotis has indestructible, which is amazing. However, the still effects that can take them out, like -1/-1 counters and exile effects, and because of that, we need to be ready. We want Kotis on the field for pretty much every turn of the game. Kotis leaving the battlefield is not ideal for us, so being able to use cards like Tamiyo’s Safekeeping or Repulsive Mutation to stop single-target removal is very strong and allows us to continue our game plan. We also have a couple of protection spells that can also be used offensively, like Overprotect and Tyvar’s Stand. Both of these are great ways to make Kotis bigger and protect them from removal, which is pretty much everything this deck wants to do. Our protection package is great and allows us to fight through most of what our opponents have to offer.

Utility / Support

We are a Voltron deck, so let’s focus on some of the best equipment in the deck! Commander damage kills are the primary wincon in the deck, so we love equipment or auras that make Kotis unblockable and buff them up! One of the best examples of this is Indomitable Might, allowing us to assign combat damage as though Kotis wasn’t blocked, which is truly wild and guarantees we hit our opponents, which is great for commander damage and more importantly for all of our free casts. While it doesn’t make them unblockable, Winged Boots does make Kotis more evasive, and the ward four, on top of being indestructible, is truly nasty. Lastly, I want to focus on Sword of Wealth and Power, a crazy card that not only makes Kotis protected from single-target removal, but the double cast of our next instant and sorcery is crazy, especially because the next thing we cast is typically from our opponents!

We also have an excellent supporting cast of cards in the deck, like Felix Five-Boots, a card that is pretty hard to kill on its own, and its ability, making Kotis’s ability trigger twice, is absolutely insane, especially when we hit the mid-late game and can hit for a ton of damage. The same is true for Roaming Throne, another powerhouse of a card that is easy to cast. One of my favorite support pieces is, by far, Genji Glove. If you thought Kotis’s ability was terrible one time, it gets so much worse the second time. Combine that with an unblockable aura and equipment, and we can take over the game quickly. And the double strike provided by Genji Glove is excellent for the commander damage game plan as well.

Mana Base

We have nothing notable going on in the manabase. We are running a lot of bond lands, triomes, and shocks/fetches, so it is extremely easy for us to cast Kotis on turn four and ensure we have all of our colors established. I had no trouble with the manabase in any of my testing games.

Win Conditions

Our primary win condition is commander damage, with all of the equipment/auras as well as Kotis’s ability, it can be very easy for us to have a huge board and be impossible to attack into. We can also be great at blocking when we steal a lot of our opponents’ cards. I have had games where I didn’t win by commander damage, stealing opponents’ stuff with Kotis is great, and can yield us some insane creatures.

Strengths of the Deck

We have a commander who is extremely hard to kill when they resolve, and cards like Arcane Denial and Counterspell to stop our opponents from countering our commander.

Since our commander can steal anything, we can often have a very full board, kill our opponents’ stuff with their own removal, and overall just control a lot of the game.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Kotis has quite the reputation in EDH. Many people will do everything to stop Kotis from resolving. It makes total sense, but it is something to be mindful of.

We are very much a “one-trick” deck. Because of this, we will often be the target of everything forever. We can fight through a lot of it, but it can be tough depending on the hand we have.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Rafiq of the Many. Matchup Record: 4-0

This was an amazing matchup. There aren’t a ton of things they can do to stop us, and since they are also a Voltron deck, stealing their equipment and auras is really easy and benefits us a ton. It’s just a great matchup for our deck.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Security Bypass, Tyvar’s Stand and Beast Within.

Game 2: Vs Brago, King Eternal. Matchup Record: 1-3

This was a bit of a tough one, they have a lot of ways to tap down Kotis and effectively take them out of the game, in this matchup is really feels like we have to keep protection up at all times, I struggled a lot with this one, cards like Canopy Cover work overtime in this matchup but its often not enough.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Overprotect, Repulsive Mutation and Tamiyo’s Safekeeping.

Game 3: Vs Shelob, Child of Ungoliant. Matchup Record: 4-1

This was a pretty good matchup for us, we don’t care what they are doing for the most part, they do typically pack a lot of removal but if we hit them a couple times with Kotis and steal a lot of stuff they can struggle quite a bit against us, this is another deck that i just ran over a lot.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Inquisitor’s Flail, Thran Power Suit and The Thirteenth Doctor.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one. Kotis is one of the boogeymen of the Voltron archetype, and after jamming a ton of games, it makes complete sense to me. Kotis is one of those commanders who, if you let him linger around, will take over the game and do it quite quickly. This deck is great for us and not so much for our opponents!