(Bayek of Siwa | Art by JB Casacop)

Lands Beyond

Good day, friends! Welcome back to Commander Fusion, the series where we scratch that ol’ Simic Biomancer itch and see if we can combine two random commanders into one (semi)coherent deck, using EDHREC data!

Today, our challenge is to fuse the play-styles of an Ancient Egyptian assassin with an Elemental and Force of Nature (literally and figuratively.) Bayek of Siwa and Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer are our two commanders up on the fusion block! Simple enough, right? Read on, and let’s see what we can brew up!

I Siwa-t You Did There

Our very first Universes Beyond commander to appear in this series, Bayek of Siwa made his debut earlier this year in Assassin’s Creed. While this set released a slew of new Assassins into the mix for us deckbuilders, Bayek is not just any Assassin.

Spoilers for the ending of Assassin's Creed: Origins below:

According to the Assassin’s Creed Wiki, he would co-found the Hidden Ones alongside his wife Aya, and this organization would go on to be called the Assassin Brotherhood. So yeah, evidently this is the guy that started it all. How does this translate to his strategy?

Bayek likes a Brotherhood after all, so it’s no surprise that he wants as many other historic creatures (mostly legends) in his deck as possible. He’s a skilled combatant as a 3/4 with double strike, and he shares these skills with his historic friends by giving them double strike as well, making even a small board pretty intimidating very quickly.

You can also get the jump on your opponents by casting Bayek facedown and then paying his disguise cost during combat for a surprise double-strike. Let’s a take a look at the most synergistic cards Bayek players are using, taken straight from his EDHREC page:

1. Aya of Alexandria
2. Arbaaz Mir
3. Overpowering Attack
4. Djeru and Hazoret
5. Senu, Keen-Eyed Protector
6. Rising of the Day
7. Layla Hassan
8. Tori D'Avenant, Fury Rider
9. Urza's Ruinous Blast
10. Gimli of the Glittering Caves

Bayek’s plan is simple- play legendary creatures, then hit REALLY hard. His better half Aya rewards connecting with your creatures by giving you an Assassin for each hit, and Arbaaz Mir can slowly drain the table and gain you precious life for all your historic permanents entering.

Djeru and Hazoret almost guarantees a free creature later in the turn, while Senu gives repeated lifegain and card advantage.

Layla Hassan helps get your historic cards back from the graveyard, Tori D'Avenant, Fury Rider gives a significant power boost to your creatures (especially the red AND white ones), and Gimli slowly gets bigger as your legendary army grows and can help you ramp with Treasure.

Urza's Ruinous Blast can clear the board for an especially deadly Overpowering Attack, and if Rising of the Day is on board to pump your legends and make them hasty, you won’t need too many turns before your opponents are begging for mercy.

With all that said, however, Bayek only leads 49 decks on EDHREC at this time. What gives? First of all, he comes from a Universes Beyond set, and those sets are controversial in and of themselves.

However, a discussion on that topic is beyond the scope of this little series; we just use the commanders we're given! Secondly, while undeniably powerful, Bayek’s ability isn’t exactly…interesting.

I’ve heard Magic described before as “the most complicated card game in history,” and while I have no idea if that is true, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say most players are looking for something that takes a bit more thought to build.

We like figuring things out! Take a look at Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the same set; both offer similar aggressive and Assassin-based tactics, but in a much more interesting framework, and Bayek works wonders in the 99 in each.

Vihaan, Goldwaker, another commander from this year, also likes Bayek to give double strike to his Treasure Assassins. The data is clear: we like Bayek…just not in the command zone.

I'll Do it To-Maro

Our second commander today is Molimo, a Dominarian Maro-Sorcerer a la Multani, Titania, Greensleeves, etc.

First appearing in Invasion, Molimo is the Maro-Sorcerer for none other than Llanowar, that place we know with all the Elves. Molimo is green, and he wants you to know it, too, because he costs seven mana, has trample, and has power and toughness equal to the number of lands you control.

What does a deck with Molimo at the helm look like? Let’s take a look at his EDHREC page and find out.

1. Beanstalk Giant
2. Blanchwood Armor
3. Khalni Heart Expedition
4. Blackblade Reforged
5. Explosive Vegetation
6. Flourishing Bloom-Kin
7. Ranger's Path
8. Rampant Growth
9. Kalonian Twingrove
10. Staff of Titania

Ramp, ramp, and more ramp! For our new players, “ramp” is a term used to describe getting extra resources onto your side of the battlefield before your opponents- especially lands and/or mana in general. Every deck needs some form of ramp, but this deck is all about it.

Kalonian Twingrove and Beanstalk Giant act as cousins to Molimo, both getting their power and toughness from the number of Forests you have on board, while Beanstalk Giant has the added benefit of doubling as a ramp spell from its adventure side.

Flourishing Bloom-Kin can also help to find some Forests if you can flip it face-up for five mana. Explosive Vegetation, Ranger's Path, Khalni Heart Expedition, and Rampant Growth can also help us fill our battlefield with forests; the more the better, which is why we’re willing to pay for four-mana ramp spells to get us two lands.

Blackblade Reforged doubles Molimo’s power, and Blanchwood Armor and Staff of Titania can also give a significant boost, while the Staff will increase our land count through Forest Dryad tokens.

Not that long ago, in an earlier article, we took a look at Dakkon Blackblade. Dakkon and Molimo are identical in terms of their abilities, except that Molimo even has trample to boot. So why does Molimo lead only 176 decks, while Dakkon has over one thousand?

Well, like I mentioned in that previous article, any deck that cares about lands that also doesn’t include green is unusual, and thus gives a unique challenge to build around and a fun payoff. In mono-Green…not so much.

Take a look at other Mono-Green commanders that do this, I would argue, a bit better: Ashaya, Soul of the Wild turns all your creatures into Forests, while Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer makes Badgers to go with all your lands. Note, too, they cost two less mana than Molimo.

Adding blue gives you commanders like Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait and Bonny Pall, Clearcutter that provide card advantage in addition to ramping your lands. Maybe Multani can help Molimo find a nice, quiet spot in Llanowar to retire; power creep just has not been kind.

Legendary Lands

Time for a fusion! We’ve looked at the pros, cons, and strategies of both of these commanders: now, can we come up with a new commander that can combine their tactics? We have access to red, green, and white mana (), a combination also called Naya.

When we examine the synergistic cards from each of these commanders, we can see what Naya commanders also like to use them, and hopefully we can find a sweet spot to build a deck around. Here’s the top five, according to EDHREC:

1. Havi, the All-Father
2. Eivor, Wolf-Kissed
3. Sigurd, Jarl of Ravensthorpe
4. Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor
5. Zacama, Primal Calamity

Legendary- and Historic-matters were big themes for Assassin’s Creed this year, making it no large shock to see three of those commanders on top here. I’m not complaining! Havi, Eivor, and Sigurd all play very well together already.

They also introduce a graveyard focused strategy. Obuun does landfall very well in Naya, and there are plenty of ways to ramp in those colors while keeping our Historic theme, and a multitude of ways to recur and play lands from our graveyard, too. Havi’s Legendary Landfall has a decent ring to it!

All-Father of the Year

Here’s our gameplan with Havi: we want to fill up our graveyard to the brim with historic permanents. While legendary cards, artifacts, and Sagas are all historic, we’re going to keep the focus mostly on legends due to Havi’s second ability. This will make Havi indestructible, allowing us to swing in with our 6/6 commander to put the hurt on our opponents.

We’re also going to include as many legends and other historic cards that will let us recur lands out of our graveyard; this focus on ramping up our land count will not only let us cast Havi ideally before turn six, but give us a nice sub-theme to give our deck some direction.

Let’s look first at the key synergies of the deck: legendary creatures that not only care about lands, but also interact with our graveyard. Eivor, Wolf-Kissed is easily the second-best card in this deck, and to be perfectly honest, could easily be swapped out with Havi in the command zone.

She comes out swinging hard, helping us to fill our graveyard and get more lands onto the battlefield. Yuma, Proud Protector is another great Naya option in our deck; you’ll almost never pay the full eight mana to cast him, but in addition to drawing us cards and putting lands in our graveyard, can be used to get any other creature in our deck out of the graveyard when he dies with Havi’s second ability.

All three iterations of Titania also make an appearance in this deck, each having their own reward for having lands in our graveyard. Lumra, Bellow of the Woods fills our graveyard and recurs all our lands, leading to an abundance of landfall triggers, while Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar gets his power from our lands no matter if they’re on the battlefield or in the graveyard. He’s also an excellent target for Havi’s second ability, as he’s a big mana legend that can get himself out of the graveyard, too.

Once Havi is indestructible, it’s time to start swinging. Both Blackblade Reforged and Excalibur, Sword of Eden are great historic ways to pump Havi’s power from intimidating to game-ending. Brotherhood Regalia gives additional protection through ward, on top of simply making Havi impossible to block.

We know Bayek of Siwa can also make his appearance to give Havi double strike, and Mina and Denn, Wildborn can give him trample by bouncing a land back to hand.

Now, for Havi’s second ability: we want our legendary creatures to die, too, so we can profit off recurring our other legends back to the battlefield. Hofri Ghostforge and Feldon of the Third Path can make copies of our legends in the graveyard without us needing to bring them back to life.

Here’s a fun little trick: because a token copy of a legendary creature is also legendary with the same mana value, the token Feldon makes will trigger Havi when it is sacrificed; same with Hofri’s Spirits, if they die, meaning you can easily take advantage of Havi’s trigger to get your other creatures back to the battlefield.

Altar of Dementia and Greater Good both give us easy ways to kill our legends, and both can reward us with additional cards in the graveyard. Samwise the Stouthearted and Othelm, Sigardian Outcast can bring a sacrificed legend back from the brink, and they can bring a friend, too, from Havi’s trigger.

When you’re ready to finish the game, as always, we have options. We’ve already discussed how to make sure Havi is powerful enough to swing out to end the game, but how would you like to swing with everything instead? The Capitoline Triad can give all our creatures base power and toughness 9/9 for the low price of exiling most, if not all, of our graveyard.

If you like combos, Saffi Eriksdotter and Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury can deal infinite damage together with Havi on the field; head over to Commander Spellbook to see how it works!

All-Father, All the Time

That’s it for this fusion! I hope you’re feeling refreshed and inspired in your own deckbuilding process to look at commanders in a new light. I think another fun way to build a budget version of this deck is to go all in on deserts with more help from Yuma, Proud Protector and Hazezon, Shaper of Sand.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below. See you next time, and remember, you don’t need Reanimate to have fun in the graveyard!

Quinn Lambert

Quinn has been playing Magic since Kaladesh. A Bant player at heart, his number-one goal in any game is always to have more cards in hand than anyone else at the table. Outside of Magic, he is a licensed mental health counselor, non-professional but eager Jesus-imitator, and totally unlicensed toddler-wrangler.