Bebop & Rocksteady Commander Deck Tech

Bebop & Rocksteady | Art by Néstor Ossandón Leal

What drew me to Bebop & Rocksteady, apart from having an awesome name, is their flavor. I didn't know much about these two characters until a quick Wikipedia search, which told me that they're the two dimwitted henchmen of Shredder.

Bebop and Rocksteady were mutated by Shredder, originally being a warthog and rhino, respectively. Two creatures that fight and destroy everything around them seemed very in line with the dimwittedness of the duo.

Let's build a Commander deck around them.

Theory Crafting

Naturally, I wasn't oblivious to the fact that building this deck and making it good would be relatively difficult. I looked first to Tergrid, God of Fright deck lists. I wanted payoffs for sacrificing creatures and discarding cards; but I hit sort of a wall.

Most of the benefits Tergrid cards get are from making opponents discard cards and sac creatures. Bebop & Rocksteady wanted some benefit from self sac and self discard. At least, that was my first thought.

I thought then to a Ziatora, the Incinerator deck that I'd built a while ago. It liked to Fling things for damage. I hoped I could start there?

Unfortunately, all the good Fling effects were locked to red. I moved on to Kefka, Court Mage deck lists for insight. I was hoping to see if self discard had some avenues, but sadly a lot of good self discard synergy relies heavily on blue. Cards like Teferi, Master of Time are locked to blue.

I tried the Norman Osborn avenue to see if some Green Gobbo synergy would help me. I found a few cards that benefited me with self discard, like Waste Not and Cryptcaller Chariot, but sadly not enough yet.

Usually there are people much smarter than me building decks on EDHREC, so I went to the EDHREC page for Bebop & Rocksteady. I was surprised to see that no one tried to cook this deck.

But then I read it's effect again and sort of understood. Trying to make this playable, let alone good, was killing me.

The Stats

It makes me laugh to think that Wizards of the Coast purposefully gave Bebop & Rocksteady a color identity and ability that would make them bad. It would be flavorful to do that, considering how destructive and dimwitted they're portrayed as.

Every avenue I'd looked into seemed to be pointing out to me how incredibly not intuitive this deck would be; but I didn't want to give up on my dimwitted duo.

Well, first let's talk about what they do, so you can understanding where I'm coming from.

They cost , with a power and toughness at a hefty 7/5. Their ability reads: "Whenever Bebop & Rocksteady attack or block, sacrifice a permanent unless you discard a card."

How could I turn a drawback to a benefit? It's a forced discard or sacrifice every time they enter combat, which is good, I suppose, if I can abuse it. Death, sac, or discard on command isn't a bad start. I'm not sure what the green color identity of this card can offer for this other than big stompies, but black is very effective at death, sac, and discard.

If I could just figure out a sort of Reanimator plan with the discard and sac-ing, I might have a strategy.

To Scryfall

I got to looking up "Whenever you discard" and "Whenever a creature you control dies" on Scryfall. I was looking for anything that provided a useful benefit for doing any of those things. Ravenous Squirrel, Gixian Infiltrator, and Lightless Evangel were some good ones that I found. If I was sacrificing creatures each turn, I could at least make my creatures bigger.

I wanted to protect those counters on other creatures to hopefully transfer onto Bebop & Rocksteady, so I included Death's Presence. I also included Railway Brawler to make my creatures enter bigger, including Bebop & Rocksteady. There isn't enough counter synergy to encourage this fully with Hardened Scales type effects, but it's something.

Some of the discard engines that I found were Containment Construct, which gives me access to the cards I discard. I can get the discard trigger and still get to play the card on that turn. It was a staple in the Norman Osborn decks I looked over.

Syr Konrad, the Grim deals damage each time I sac or discard a creature card, or exile a creature from my graveyard, which could be some ping damage each turn with our commander.

Ultimately all these strategies put creatures into the graveyard, which is ideal for Reanimation.

Engine

I'm running the Reanimation package with cards like Reanimate, Dance of the Dead, and Animate Dead. This is to keep the creatures I sac to Bebop & Rocksteady's effects. It helps me attack often with the duo without worrying that the creatures are gone forever. I'm also running big creatures that are oppressive in combat.

I can hold back with Bebop & Rocksteady. I'll get them out early and start attacking for big damage before people can stop them. A Dark Ritual to get them out early, alongside an Elvish Mystic for early sac fodder.

I'll try to get in with a Surrak and Goreclaw or a Ghalta, Primal Hunger early too. I could cast Ghalta pretty quickly after casting Bebop & Rocksteady because of their power. Surrak and Goreclaw and Kogla, the Titan Ape are good reanimation targets after discarding them to the duo's effect.

For big Hail Marys, I'm even running big mass reanimation spells, like Living Death, Breach the Multiverse, and Rise of the Dark Realms. I want to be able to rebuild from a board wipe over and over again. I want the creatures to cycle through from removal and be persistent, like any other Reanimator deck.

Bebop & Rocksteady has a clever way to fill up the graveyard. I'm also putting creatures into my graveyard with Entomb and Buried Alive in hopes of paying less for them down the road.

Card Draw

Discarding and sac-ing creatures makes your hand a little bit of a weakness here. I'm running cards like Necropotence, Black Market Connections, and Moldervine Reclamation. I want a good way to refill my hand after a turn of discarding and sac-ing creatures. These are recurring draw, especially Moldervine Reclamation which draws for creature deaths.

I'm also running Braids, Arisen Nightmare as a little card draw as well. Most times Braids forces tough choices with what opponents keep. If I can choose correctly, I can draw cards - a lot of cards.

Additionally, part of the beauty of Reanimation is that the graveyard becomes sort of an extended hand. It gives you access to the things you entomb and discard if they're creatures.

Interaction and Removal

Aside from Living Death and The Meathook Massacre, I'm not running board wipes. I'll usually be the most powerful and oppressive deck into terms of creature presence at any given point, so blowing my own board seems to be a bad idea. Plus I need the space in the deck for more creatures to sac or discard.

I'm running a handful of targeted removal spells. Bitter Triumph, Bone Shards, and Lethal Scheme are a few that have removal built in with discard. I can try to get some value that way, getting an additional thing in my graveyard while removing a pesky creature from an opponent's board.

Argentum Masticore is another removal type, but a little more finicky. It can hit any nonland permanent, but only with mana value less than or equal to the discarded card. It's tough finding synergistic removal.

Death Synergy

Cards like Bastion of Remembrance, The Meathook Massacre, and Caldaia Guardian are a good way to keep damage coming through with pings or creature production.

Caldaia Guardian is perfect because it replaces each nontoken creature that dies to Bebop & Rocksteady's trigger with two token creatures. You can use those tokens for future Bebop & Rocksteady triggers. Bastion of Remembrance and The Meathook Massacre will get pings from each sac.

It's not strong enough to be a full strategy, but everything helps.

Ideas I Couldn't Get to Work

There were a few strategies that kept coming up as I looked up cards for this color combination. I wondered if I should include sac-ing lands or Food tokens more. There are a lot of good Landfall and Food synergies in green, but it felt like leaning into those archetypes meant there were decks I should be playing instead of Bebop & Rocksteady.

I should be playing Titania, Protector of Argoth if I want to lean into more land sac-ing. I couldn't just lean into slight land sac-ing, a little Food, a little discard, and a little of something else with Bebop & Rocksteady if I wanted to the engine to work well.

There were a lot of payoffs for specific things like sac-ing a Food, for example. I don't want to end up sac-ing a land without the land sac-ing benefit piece on board. This was also true with Foods. I should play Sam, Loyal Attendant or Peregrin Took as the commander if I want to do Food synergies completely.

Bebop & Rocksteady Commander Deck List

Conclusion

I'm not going to hold you; this deck is very jank. The discard and sac synergies don't meld well together. The Reanimator doesn't interact with the commander well. Only getting one sac or discard per turn makes the engine really slow. It struggles with consistency in a lot of areas. The removal isn't particularly good either.

It's a fun deck though. I think most Golgari Graveyard decks are going to have a little jank in them.

What I like about the deck is that it's a commander that doesn't have all the answers stapled to it. It has an effect that seems to have some kind of a trade off. I like that. It's a little tough keeping it consistent for value, but at least I'm having fun.

I'm excited to see what the better brewers than me have to say with time. There might be a whole different angle or avenue for this deck that I haven't thought about. Let me know what you think. I'm @strixhavendropout on Blue Sky.

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