Tinybones, Bauble BurglarTinybones, Bauble Burglar | Art by Leonardo Santanna

Welcome back to Best At, Worst At. In this series, we look at some of Commander's most popular strategies, see which legendary creatures lead the most decks for them, and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of those cards.

In today's edition, we'll be looking at Discard decks. Discard decks are among Commander's most popular. With 33,524 decks on EDHREC, they currently sit as the 26th most popular strategy in our format! Let's see what makes this strategy work.

Why Play Discard?

Discard decks seek to strip resources out of opposing players' hands, winning the game by preventing other players from taking meaningful game actions consistently.

Discard effects are primarily found in , and cards like Syphon MindSyphon Mind and Dark DealDark Deal see heavy play. There are also some great payoffs for opponents ditching cards from their hand, like Syr Konrad, the GrimSyr Konrad, the Grim and Waste NotWaste Not.

Who's The Most Popular Discard Commander?

The most popular discard commander is Tinybones, Bauble BurglarTinybones, Bauble Burglar. This little guy leads 9,607 decks, and while other commanders may have more decks to their name overall, Tinybones has the most tagged with "discard" in EDHREC's database.

For , he's a 1/3 Skeleton Rogue that provides us with easy access to the cards that our opponents discard from their hands. He also lets us force each of our opponents to discard a card from their hand for with an activated ability.

What Makes Tinybones So Powerful?

Tinybones gives us consistent, "fair" access to our opponents' discarded stuff. We can view him as a friendlier version of Tergrid, God of FrightTergrid, God of Fright. Tergrid can inspire fear in opponents, and is frequently the target of removal spells. She's widely known as a "kill on sight" commander, and her pilots are treated with a good degree of hostility at most Commander tables.

Tinybones may not give us the same amount of free value that Tergrid does, but this Skeleton Rogue does let us access our opponents' stuff in the same way that Tergrid does. In fact, Tinybones gives us access to a bit more than Tergrid! That five-mana God only lets us steal permanent cards from our opponents' hands, while Tinybones provides us access to permanents and nonpermanents alike.

Another advantage that Tinybones has is his low mana cost. He can be cast for just , allowing him to hit the board and start making an impact on the game early. That low mana cost also allows this commander to be recast with ease, disincentivizing our opponents from removing him.

Finally, this creature's activated ability is nice to have. We'll often have more efficient discard effects available, but it's great to have this ability as a fallback. This ability makes our commander into a neat card advantage engine, in a roundabout way. We can spend to get three new cards from our opponents' hands to play with.

What's in a Tinybones Deck?

These lists include tons of effects that force our opponents to play with very few cards in hand. Effects like Painful QuandaryPainful Quandary, OppressionOppression, and Cunning LethemancerCunning Lethemancer feature heavily.

There are also a few effects that pay us off for all the cards we'll rip from opponents' hands. Bandit's TalentBandit's Talent, Tinybones, Trinket ThiefTinybones, Trinket Thief, and Entropic BattlecruiserEntropic Battlecruiser all see significant play.

Here's the average Tinybones decklist, according to EDHREC's data:

What Are Tinybones' Shortcomings?

Tinybones is a discard payoff and a way to force discard, but doesn't do either of those things in a stellar manner.

He gives us access to our opponents' cards, but those cards may not fit our game plan. If we steal a Wood ElvesWood Elves from an opponent's hand, that doesn't really do much for us. Because our decks aren't built around our opponents' game plans, it can sometimes be difficult to do anything meaningful with the cards we steal from them.

There are other commanders that force discard in slightly more efficient ways, too. Liliana, Heretical HealerLiliana, Heretical Healer's flip-side can cause discard every turn without any mana investment, and cards like Victor, Valgavoth's SeneschalVictor, Valgavoth's Seneschal can cause discard naturally as we enact our game plan.

How Can We Shore Up Tinybones' Weaknesses?

I chose to stick with a mono- commander here, as the best discard effects tend to be concentrated in this color. We'll be taking a closer look at Aclazotz, Deepest BetrayalAclazotz, Deepest Betrayal. Much like Tinybones, this flying beater both causes our opponents to discard cards and provides us with a payoff for when they do so. This Bat God costs , but he's pretty hard to get rid of permanently once he's roosted on the battlefield.

Aclazotz is more expensive to cast than Tinybones, but has some significant advantages over the Skeleton.

First, he provides us with a consistent way to force cards from other players' hands. His attack trigger causes each opponent to discard every single turn, and provides us with card advantage if they're unable to do so. It's entirely possible that our opponents will run out of cards, so it's nice that this commander can still give something tangible in that edge case.

Second, Aclazotz provides us with concrete, on-board advantage as our opponents discard land cards. He may not give us as many cards to play with as Tinybones does, but 1/1 flying creature tokens are great as attackers and blockers, and often opponents are more likely to pitch lands first, rather than spells. We can even use effects like Grim HirelingGrim Hireling or Gix, Yawgmoth PraetorGix, Yawgmoth Praetor to augment those Bats further.

Finally, it's a nice bonus that Aclazotz actually allows discarded cards to go to the graveyard. That lets us use ReanimateReanimate on some juicy creatures or steal something enticing with Dauthi VoidwalkerDauthi Voidwalker.

Decklists built around this five-drop are somewhat similar to those built around Tinybones. But, we can take advantage of the fact that Aclazotz is a great attacker with effects like Raiders' WakeRaiders' Wake. We can also use Valley RotcallerValley Rotcaller to great effect, leveraging our growing Bat battalion to drain opposing life totals.

For comparison's sake, here's the average Aclazotz decklist according to EDHREC's data:

Conclusion

Ultimately, these commanders are quite similar. Aclazotz does the same thing as Tinybones, but has more powerful abilities at a higher mana cost. Both of these creatures provide interesting ways to force consistent discard and add some meaningful payoff for our efforts. I may be partial to Aclazotz due to my love for everything to do with bats in real life, but I'd take this commander over Tinybones any day of the week.

Which of these two legends do you think is stronger? Let me know in the comments down below, and I'll see you soon for another Best at, Worst at!