Commander Overview
Rasaad yn Bashir is such a cool commander for the format. Not only do they support high-toughness creatures, but they also support dungeons, and having the initiative allows us to hit even harder. Having the Initiative in this deck is quite easy for us to do, combine that with Dungeon Delver and our ability to trigger our dungeon room abilities an additional time, which can be very helpful. Our commander and background are both powerful and key to our decks. Initiative and dungeons are mechanics that can help us get quite ahead in a game.
Our background for this deck is Dungeon Delver
The dungeons we are using in the deck are: Dungeon of the mad mage, Lost Mine of Phandelver, Tomb of Annihilation and the Undercity
How to Play the Deck
We are firmly a midrange deck, we have some control element but we really like to drop our commander/background as soon as possible and start getting dungeons done and retaining the initiative, this is made a lot easier because we have a lot of high toughness creatures in the deck that allow us to be pretty good at blocking even against trample creatures. We close out games through combat, and with the help of our dungeons/initiative, we aren’t very aggressive but can have some strong early turns, and if we let it get to the late-game, we can get pretty big and hit hard as well. The pace of the game doesn’t concern us that much.
Synergy’s in the deck
The whole deck is solely based around high-toughness as well as dungeons/initative, because of that we have a lot of synergies, we have a whole host of cards that advance a dungeon room like Ranger’s Hawk and Veteran Dungeoneer both of these are great creatures for the deck and if we have Dungeon Delver out can trigger those rooms twice. We also have some strong initiative creatures, and the Undercity that we enter is strong and interacts very well with our commander and the rest of the deck. I also love our blink package, which is small. Still, since a lot of our cards are ETBs for Initiative and venturing into the dungeon, we can retrigger them to take back the initiative or further ourselves in the dungeon. This deck works together so well.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: Besides our ramp and cheap creatures like Aegis Turtle, we also always make sure in the early-game that we drop both our commander and our background. Having both of these out allows us to deal additional damage and speed up the dungeon gameplan.
Mid-Game: Typically, by the mid-game, we have completed the dungeon, so we get the benefits from that. We typically also have our big tough creatures out and, hopefully, have the initiative. Once we have all that done, we keep on swinging with our big toughness creatures and hopefully the benefit of our commander. We can dish out a lot of damage at this point in the game.
Late-Game: In the late-game, we typically have a powerful board presence, and we typically have the initiative. Because of that, we focus most of our efforts on combat in the late game. With double toughness from Rasaad, we can often swing and take out opponents. Making sure we leave up blockers is very important at this stage of the game.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Beyond some cheap mana rocks like Sky Diamond and Marble Diamond we dont care very much about ramp, we have a pretty low overall cost in the deck with a lot of our stuff including our commander and background are less than four mana, we can have a very effective gameplan even if we only have four or five mana sources. Ramp just isn’t significant to our deck; we are perfectly fine with the game going long or short, and don’t care about speeding out our game plan.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Since we have a low overall cost within the deck we often use all of the cards in our hand and we need supplemental card draw to keep our gameplan going, we have very cheap options like Ponder and Preordain which are both cheap and strong assets for the deck and allow us to shuffle away bad cards or scry them away. Lorien Revealed is a draw source in the deck that is very strong, drawing three and getting cards we can play can swing the game in our favor a lot. While not directly a source of card draw, I do like Arcane Denial in the deck; temporarily stopping an opponent and then getting to draw soon after can be very strong. We don’t need a ton of card draw, but having access to the ones we do have in the deck is very strong.
Removal
In a lot of ways our deck is very selfish, we don’t care a ton about what our opponents are doing, we do have counterspells which we do like to cast but we aren’t very heavy on traditional removal, its very hard to attack into us and in a format that is very creature heavy like PDH, i have no problem bringing essentially only Generous Gift into a game. We don’t have a lot of traditional removal. Still, we can certainly hurt opponents’ creatures/commanders with cards like Fall From Favor and Witness Protection. Being able to take an opponent’s useful creature and reduce it to nothing is so strong. It can easily swing the momentum our way. Removal is not our strong suit, but it really doesn’t have to be.
Protection
ETBs and protection are a huge part of the deck, while not always used for protection, being able to ETB powerful creatures like Aarakocra Sneak and Shipwreck Dowser helps the overall game plan a lot, retaking the initiative can allow us to become a threat in combat where we previously weren’t because of Rasaad. Since we have awesome ETB, we do have some blink effects like Ephemerate and Acrobatic Maneuver. These are not only pieces of protection that we can use in response to an opponent’s piece of removal, but we can also use them proactively as well to re-ETB our creatures to help with Rasaad’s ability. We have quite a few instances of protection if our opponents try to take out our commander, or any of our creatures, with cards like Turn Aside and Shore Up. Being able to keep Rasaad on the battlefield is an essential part of our deck.
Utility / Support
High-Toughness creatures are a great piece of utility for our deck because of Rasaad. We have some very high toughness creatures that can hit like a truck if we have the initiative, some of my favorites include Dream Prowler which we do have to attack with alone but if we have Rasaad’s ability and can attack for ten this card is just plain insane, Gray Harbor Merfolk is a nice attacker as well for the deck, unblockable is very strong in this deck, its so strong that we also have Mistford River Turtle which helps if we want to attack with multiple creatures, we do have some humans in the deck. Still, in my testing games, this restriction never came up.
Completing our dungeons and keeping the initiative is another massive part of our deck, being able to not only take advantage of double-triggering our dungeon rooms from Dungeon Delver but having cards like Gloom Stalker, which can be a super nasty attacker. Completing dungeons in this deck is relatively easy.
Speaking of our dungeons, looking at the Undercity and Dungeon of the Mad Mage, you realize just how strong Dungeon Delver is, while triggering something scry two twice isn’t super impressive, being able to trigger the last ability of dungeon of the mad mage can be truly game changing for the deck. Venturing into the dungeon is very easy for this deck, with cards like Veteran Dungeoneer and Ranger’s Hawk. Dungeons provide so much utility for our deck and allow us to do a lot of busted things two times!
Mana Base
Cycling lands like Remote Isle and Lonely Sandbar are a huge part of our mana base, since we have a low overall cost within the deck, being able to cycle a land instead of simply having a dead draw is awesome, i play these on-color cycling lands in nearly all of my PDH for this exact reason. We do need both white and blue to cast our commander/background. We achieve this by having strong dual lands like Command Tower and Idyllic Beachfront and Citadel Gate being able to get these down early is great for the deck and allows us to execute our gameplan smoothly, lastly one of my favorite nonbasics is Sejiri Steppe being able to give one of our very high toughness creatures protection for a turn allows us to be a menace in combat and hit an opponent for a lot of damage, depending on what stage of the game it is it can often be a killshot on an opponent.
Win Conditions
For the most part, our only win condition is through combat; we don’t have any combos or anything fancy. This win condition is greatly helped by Rasaad, oftentimes allowing us to have double toughness, which on creatures like Yoked Ox or Dragon’s Eye Savants it can get very out of hand.
Strengths of the Deck
We are strong at both attacking and blocking, and since we have early creatures with huge toughness, aggressive decks can have tough matchups against us.
Completing the dungeons and triggering the rooms twice can give us a big advantage in the game, especially triggering the last rooms twice.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Rasaad is an amazing commander, but because of their abilities, they are a bit of a removal magnet.
Decks that don’t care at all about combat can be tough for us, especially combo decks. We don’t have a lot of removal, and if they are focused on a non-combat combo, there isn’t a ton we can do.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Diamond Weapon. Matchup Record: 3-2
This was an entertaining matchup for the deck. It can be a very tough matchup, but if you save your counterspells for Diamond Weapon and don’t let them go crazy, it is quite a good matchup. If they can drop it really early and you can’t stop it, you totally can get run over. This is a matchup that you need to be very mindful of their commander, and just be careful and counter it if you can.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Arcane Denial, Generous Gift and Turn Aside
Game 2: Vs Twisted Sewer-Witch. Matchup Record: 1-3
Struggled a lot with this matchup, the drain and gain can be quite problematic for us, and since we don’t have trample on nearly any of our creatures, they can very easily chump block our huge creatures, even if they have double toughness. Our unblockable creatures shine a lot in this matchup, but they typically aren’t quick enough.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Dream Prowler, Gray Harbor Merfolk and Enter the Enigma/Slip through Space
Game 3: Vs Phoenix Chick. Matchup Record: 4-0
Aggressive decks have so much trouble against us, being able to drop early huge toughness creatures like Aegis Turtle allows us to shut down one of the most important things an aggro deck can do, deal damage to us early. They just typically can’t break through our stout defense and have a lot of trouble against us.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Armored Armadillo, Giant Ox and Secret Door
Conclusion
I hope you all enjoyed this deck, Dungeons and initiative are something i had never really interacted with since the mechanics came out and I’m very happy i did, its a lot of fun to play with Rasaad/Delver, being able to buff up our creatures and double trigger our dungeon rooms is so strong for the deck and can swing the momentum of the game in our favor easily. Rasaad / Delver is such a strong combination, and if you haven’t tried it out, I totally recommend it!