(Captain Howler, Sea Scourge || art by Mark Zug)

Ready To Kick-Start Three More Aetherdrift Commander Decks? I Got You!

Hello friends, and welcome to another Start Me Up! In this column I will pick three legendary creatures from the most recent Magic expansion and provide you with ideas to help get you started brewing your own Commander deck around them.

The current set racing to spice up our Commander collections is Aetherdrift with its interplanar death race themes!

As always, there's a good number of new legendary creatures we can build Commander decks around, so I've picked three more juicy ones and a nice starter kit for each to get your deck brewing ideas flowing!

Captain Howler, Sea Scourge

I love the flavor of Captain Howler, Sea Scourge. It's a Shark Pirate! If you try to touch it, it's gonna hurt-- two extra mana and two life to get past the ward.

Mechanically it's a payoff card without a built-in engine, so it's a fun card to build a deck around. You want to stuff your deck with ways to discard one or more cards for profit, and you'll want evasive creatures that can benefit with the damage boost and let you draw a card when you deal combat damage to a player.

The Captain has a fairly decent sized body as a 5/4, but doesn't inherently have any evasion so it's hard to leverage itself to push damage through and draw a card.

Of note, ways to discard a single card multiple times are the most useful since you'll be able to toss the triggered ability to multiple creatures and hopefully draw more cards.

Also keep in mind the Captain's ability can target creatures your opponents control, so if they have an evasive creature you can boost the attack and draw a card when it connects.

Okay, let's hoist the sails and see what fortune brings!

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Ghostly Pilferer and Key to the City are perfect for the Captain, providing both discard outlets and an attacker that cannot be blocked.

Ghostly Pilferer also happens to draw you a card whenever an opponent casts their commander as a bonus!

Faithless Looting is a card I would only use if I had a creature I could ensure would get through combat unblocked so I could make sure to replace the card I'm losing to cast it.

Glint-Horn Buccaneer has a built-in ability to discard a card to draw a card but it takes mana to activate and it must be attacking to do so.

But it's a discard payoff too, dealing a damage to each opponent whenever you discard a card, and those little pings can add up. Strap on Shadowspear for lifelink and you can get even more benefit!

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is going to do excellent work in this deck not only as a discard engine but giving a target attacking creature a +1/+1 counter and trample synergizes great with the Captain.

Not only is Surly Badgersaur fun to say out loud, but it's an awesome discard payout that gives you additional resources in addition to the Captain's triggers.

Once it gets a few +1/+1 counters, it's fight ability is going to be very good and picking off problematic creatures.

While we don't have access to Shabraz, the Skyshark in this deck, Brallin, Skyshark Rider teams up well with our Shark Pirate Captain, giving it trample until the end of the turn to push through damage and draw a card.

Rielle, the Everwise is a slam-dunk for any deck where you are discarding cards regularly since it will pay you back for cards you discard by drawing you extra cards.

Wonder and Anger are easy discards, providing benefits while in the graveyard so long as you have the correct land type in the graveyard. Wonder in particular is awesome since it provides evasion in flying.

Can't Be Blocked

Evie Frye is another way to let you discard a card for profit, a freshly drawn card and, if you discard a creature, you can make one of your creatures unblockable until the end of the turn.

Silent Hallcreeper is a nifty way to get in two attacks unblocked before it becomes a copy of another target creature you control-- hopefully one with another form of evasion!

In addition to being cute, Shoreline Looter appreciates you filling graveyard with cards while discarding, and once threshold is achieved it's a nice card drawing engine.

Extra Draw Matters

Hopefully the Captain's ability will let you draw an extra card enough that you'll want to draw payoffs like Mischievous Mystic and Alandra, Sky Dreamer, which make tokens with flying.

Homunculus Horde doesn't make tokens with evasion, but making more and more copies is going to be incredibly fun!

Discard for Profit

Monument to Endurance is an eye-popping good payoff card for discarding strategies, letting you draw a card, create a Treasure, or make your opponents lose three life. It's like Gala Greeters for discard!

If you feel like you need more Pirates for your Captain, Marauding Mako and Mary Read and Anne Bonny join the crew with excellent synergy with your discard strategy.

Boosted Sloop's triggered ability works whenever you attack, even if it's not attacking itself.

There are a bunch of spells that mix discarding with card draw like Frantic Search, Thrill of Possibility, and Windfall to keep the pedal to the metal.

Magus of the Wheel is nice to get a full hand, while potentially disrupting opponents who wanted to keep their hand.

Discard Matters

There are cards that do stuff when you discard, so keep an eye out for things like Magmakin Artillerist, Scrounging Skyray, Ivora, Insatiable Heir, Containment Construct, and Conspiracy Theorist.

Graveyard Synergies

All the discarding will quickly fill up your graveyard, so you may want to pepper in some cards that like a full discard pile like Kiora, the Rising Tide, Fear of Missing Out, and Ghost of Ramirez DePietro -- another Pirate!

The Speed Demon

Magic players love drawing cards, so I'm sure people will want to give The Speed Demon a try. The floor of this is pretty great-- even if you don't have a creature that can immediately attack and deal damage to an opponent, the Demon's start your engines! ability should let you draw a card and lose a life at the beginning of your end step.

You also get a sizeable 5/5 body with flying and trample -- affectionately known as "flample" -- to smash your opponents' life totals.

Of course what you really want is to get your max speed up to four, so you get to draw four fresh cards at the end of your turn!

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

You definitely want other cards that can start your engines! earlier in the game such as Hour of Victory, Starting Column, and Racers' Scoreboard, which also have max speed benefits once you reach that level.

If you've started your engines, Creeping Bloodsucker is an excellent way to ramp up your speed without attacking, and provides a nice boost of life to offset the life loss from your commander.

Consuming Corruption is an excellent new Swamps matter card, that scales bigger and bigger as the game progresses, dealing more damage and gaining you life.

And then there's Exsanguinate, a powerful life drain card that can end games.

Psychosis Crawler hits your opponents with damage for each card you draw, while Gixian Puppeteer domes your opponents and gains you life when you draw your second card each turn.

Once you've got the city's blessing, Twilight Prophet draws you an extra card during your upkeep that has the potential of draining your opponents life and letting you gain life.

When your commander is a Demon it's a no-brainer to jam Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber into your deck, drawing an extra card and hopefully draining your opponents!

Max Speed Payoffs

There are a bunch of other start your engines! cards you can jam in a mono-black deck that aren't just Limited chaffe. Since this is a mono-black deck you can run all three lands without too much issues with your black mana -- Muraganda Raceway, Amonkhet Raceway, and Avishkar Raceway.

Momentum Breaker is a bit mean but when your commander is a black Demon that's to be expected. I'd likely make room for Gas Guzzler, Starting Column, and Risen Necroregent too.

Gain Life

To offset the life loss from all the extra cards your drawing, I'd add more ways to gain life, with Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose at the top of my list.

Crypt Ghast provides a nice mana bump for your Swamps, but that extort ability can get some nice chip damage in and gain nice bumps of life.

Speaking of chip damage there's cards like Bontu's Monument, Ayara, First of Locthwain, and Blood Artist we'd want to sprinkle into the deck, and I also really like Noxious Gearhulk to take down larger creatures with life gain equal to the destroyed creature's toughness.

Life Loss for Profit

Black has some cards that pay some benefit when you lose life, with Vilis, Broker of Blood at the top of the list giving you even more cards... just watch out for a big attack that might make you draw a lot more cards than you'd want!

Mortarion, Daemon Primarch from Warhammer 40,000 Commander is a Demon that lets you make 2/2 token creatures for each life you lost during your turn so long as you have mana to pay for them.

Defiler of Flesh offers a way to discount your black permanent spells by paying your hopefully plentiful life, and giving boosting a creature you control and giving it menace.

Power Boost

Since Speed Demon has "flample" I'd want a few ways to boost it's power, particularly Equipment cards like Blackblade Reforged, Lashwrithe, and Nightmare Lash!

Mimeoplasm, Revered One

I really love Mimeoplasm, Revered One, calling back one of the first legends made specifically for Commander -- The Mimeoplasm, the face commander from the Commander 2011 precon deck Devour for Power!

While the original could eat creature cards from any graveyard, Revered One is more focused on your own graveyard. You'll get to exile X creature cards from your graveyard, giving you three +1/+1 counters for each creature exiled with it, and for two mana you can have it become a copy of one of the cards exiled, while retaining the ability to become a copy so you can toggle it to whatever is best for the situation.

Mimeoplasm, Revered One is obviously conducive to assembling combos involving mana producers if you enjoy playing Upgraded, High Powered, or cEDH brackets, or you can just use it to copy cool creatures that get better with +1/+1 counters.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Training Grounds shakes a mana from it's activated ability, and can shave up to two mana from any activated ability of a creature you may copy.

Buried Alive is an excellent way to stock your graveyard the turn before you cast Revered One.

Grisly Salvage, Frantic Search, and Ripples of Undeath are excellent ways to dig into your deck and get some excellent creatures into your graveyard.

Copying Invisible Stalker or Giggling Skitterspike makes your commander an unblockable threat that's hard to deal with, while Blighted Agent makes poison kills easy.

Copying Cold-Eyed Selkie will make opponents with Islands cringe as you smash life totals and draw cards, while copying Phage the Untouchable threatens a game loss -- you can copy something like Invisible Stalker to get past the declare blockers step, then switch to Phage before damage is dealt.

Stocking the Graveyard

Entomb and Unmarked Grave are more ways to prime your graveyard for copying. An activation of Hermit Druid can potentially stock your graveyard with a huge amount of creature choices.

Likeness Looter and Fauna Shaman are more ways to stock your graveyard, and as creatures if they get killed they can get consumed by your commander to keep the party going.

Six can keep you hitting your land drops while you fill your graveyard, while Aftermath Analyst can ramp you big time, making it much easier to cast your commander again later in the game. I'd also consider Overlord of the Balemurk and The Ancient One for the deck.

Graveyard Payoffs

Hedge Shredder is going to love all the lands that get milled along the way, ramping you a bunch. And then there's Deadbridge Chant which can prime your graveyard with a whopping ten cards, and then providing a slow card advantage engine during your upkeep.

I'd consider Shifting Woodland too since delirium is likely easy to achieve and then it can become a copy of any powerful permanent in your graveyard for the turn.

Creatures to Become

There are no shortage of excellent creatures in Sultai to exile with Revered One, but I've picked a few here that jumped to mind.

Copying Muldrotha, the Gravetide is an excellent way to make further use of all the cards in your graveyard.

Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied is chock full of abilities, including the important indestructible, while Koma, World-Eater has a powerful ward ability and a huge base body that appreciates all those extra +1/+1 counters.

You can run Venomthrope onto the battlefield early, and if it dies it makes pretty good food for your commander Ooze. Everyone loves drawing cards so copying Ancient Silver Dragon is going to feel amazing!

+1/+1 Counter Synergy

There are a ton of powerful +1/+1 counter synergies in green and blue so you can dip into that if you'd like. At a minimum you'd probably want Kami of Whispered Hopes, but I'd also consider The Ozolith, Branching Evolution, and Hardened Scales.

Ooze Synergy

Lastly, since your commander is an Ooze you might want to consider peppering in cards that care about Oozes.

If you've built in mana combos into your deck you might consider running Aeve, Progenitor Ooze to give you an stormy, Oozy finish. There's also Biogenic Ooze and Biowaste Blob for more Ooze fun!

Never Stop Brewing!

Which of these three commanders do you think you might build a deck around? What other cards do you think you'll add to your deck list?

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Aetherdrift: Start Me Up!

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