(Daryl, Hunter of Walkers | Romana Kendelic)

Technically Playable - Daryl, Hunter of Walkers

Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is Technically playable" (the best kind of playable). The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card and then write about how we can build around it!

This week's random commander is from the first mechanically unique Secret Lair product, The Walking Dead: Daryl, Hunter of Walkers. They have also recently spoiled the Universes Within version, Hansk, Slayer Zealot, but I will be referring to this card as Daryl from here on out. With 528 decks, Daryl is far from the least popular Gruul commander on EDHREC but is definitely not as popular as others like Tovolar, Dire Overlord, or even Kibo, Uktabi Prince.

So what does Daryl do? Well, let's have a look at him and then walk through some of the great includes for a Daryl Commander deck.

There are a few things to pick apart here. Daryl is quite a unique card in that it gives our opponents creatures. Outside of the "Hunted cycle" (Hunted Troll and Hunted Horror), we don't really see this effect on cards a whole lot since it's not something that we want to be doing very often. With that in mind, we can get some really good benefits from giving our opponents creatures. In this case, we're giving one opponent three 2/2 Zombies. Six power and toughness across three bodies is a lot and it can get worse if our opponents have board-wide buffing effects or, even worse, if they have specific Zombie synergies. Luckily, if they stay as 2/2s, Daryl has the ability to remove them himself by tapping to deal two damage to a creature (This is any creature as well which we will come back to later). So Daryl makes our opponents creatures and can remove them, but how does that help us? Well, his last ability lets us draw a card if any Zombie dies. This means any Zombie we kill or any Zombie that's sacrificed or removed by our opponents (Fleshbag Marauder watch out).

So how are we going to build around Daryl? Obviously we don't want to deal with tons of creatures and Daryl can only remove 1 of the 3 that he makes every turn. Those undead are going to overrun us very quickly. There are a few things we want to think about while building this deck:

1. How are we going to prevent being overrun by a million shambling undead 2/2s?
2. How are we going to benefit from our opponent having so many creatures?
3. Are there any ways to benefit from Daryl's activated ability using our own creatures? (I mean, if someone has Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in play we still want to tap our guy)
4. What can we do if our opponents are able to buff the Zombies out of our two-damage ability's range?

I love Gruul, and I love puzzle-esque commanders, like this so let's break down each of these questions.

How Are We Going To Prevent Being Overrun By A Million Shambling Undead 2/2s?

This is probably one of the most important questions and requirements for the deck. Daryl's first ability is not a may so we have to give one of our opponents three 2/2s every upkeep. Now, this can act as a really powerful political tool, but your opponents will eventually want to win and these 2/2s will help immensely. There are a few ways to deal with these, and luckily the red in Daryl's color identity helps a lot here.

Spiteful Banditry is probably one of the best cards that this deck could have gotten and it works incredibly well with Daryl. Initially, Spiteful Banditry is an X-cost board wipe that allows you to remove anything in play, and because it's an X cost you can play it for X = 3 and keep Daryl while removing anything that's smaller. If you cast this on turn five after casting Daryl you'll also draw three cards from the three Zombies you gave away in your upkeep. So removing all three toughness or less creatures and drawing three cards is already amazing value, but on top of that, Spiteful Banditry also gives you a Treasure whenever the first creature on each turn dies, which means you get Treasure from the board wipe to start with and Treasure for each Zombie you kill on other player's turns with Daryl's activated ability. Absolutely wild value from one card.

Pairing nicely with Spiteful Banditry and conveniently coming from the same set is Sting, the Glinting Dagger. This allows you to untap Daryl in each player's combat step giving you another opportunity to activate his ability and shoot a Zombie. This means you can remove all three Zombies within one turn cycle and will never get overwhelmed and will draw a card in every player's turn. There are about 100 damage-based board wipes that do two or more damage to remove all of the Zombies, if I was to talk about all of them this article would go on forever but fortunately, we have a better card to talk about that just a simple board wipe thanks to Weatherlight. Aether Flash is a fantastic enchantment that deals damage to any creature whenever it enters the battlefield and fortunately, it deals just enough damage to kill any of the Zombies that Daryl creates. This turns our life-threatening creature donation into an Ancestral Recall every turn, who says red can't draw cards...

How Are We Going To Benefit From Our Opponents Having So Many Creatures?

One way to deal with our opponents having so many creatures is to (obviously) remove them so they don't have so many. An alternative is to let them build their board and turn that to our advantage. Since an important part of Magic as a game is to prioritize resources and use your cards to make sure that you have a more advantageous board state than your opponent, cards that benefit you for not doing this are few and far between. Fortunately for us, a lot of those cards fall into Gruul.

Drawing cards is probably one of the most important things in Commander. Being able to consistently commit permanents to the board, interact with your opponents or even go for the win is really only possible if you have the resources, of which "cards in hand" is one of the most important. Removing the Zombies with Daryl does help with this, but sometimes you need to draw en masse. For that, Pygmy Kavu is a really powerful creature. The earliest you cast this (after casting Daryl) is turn five and will draw you three cards. If you can hold out a little, you can draw six cards on turn six, nine cards on turn seven, and from there it just scales more and more. In addition, the math here is only taking into account Zombies from Daryl, if any opponents are playing black it can very easily get you 10+ cards for the small cost of three and a green. Drawing cards isn't the only thing we can get from our opponents though...

We're Gruul and we're all about being around for a good time, not a long time. Anyone who played Standard during Ixalan will know how wildly powerful Rampaging Ferocidon is and how quickly it can end games. Even with 40 life, the dinos can end the game very quickly, something that's pushed even further by giving our opponents three extra bodies for it to trigger off of. Add on top the cherry of players being unable to gain any life and you've got a ticking clock that will help you to close out games even against the most controlling decks.

Drawing cards and direct damage are both really important for winning games of Commander, but being able to build a board and remove your opponent's is also vital, as it helps you to stay alive while also constructing a board of creatures capable of ending a game. Ezuri's Predation is probably one of the best cards in the deck as it allows you to do both of these. For each Zombie you've given away (and any other creatures your opponents have) you create a 4/4 that will fight that creature. Four toughness is surprisingly hard for a lot of creatures in Commander to overcome. This means you'll pay eight mana for a board of big Beasts and hopefully remove some creatures. The fact that you give away creatures incapable of winning the fight with your Beasts means you're guaranteed at least three Beasts that survive, probably more. I think this card is underrated in Commander in general, but when your deck fuels it like Daryl does it gets very hard to overcome.

Are There Any Ways To Benefit From Daryl's Activated Ability Using Our Own Creatures?

We've all been in this situation: you've got a handful of removal spells but your opponent has no creatures and ends up beating you with spells from their hand. Or even more frustratingly, their only creature(s) have hexproof or Shroud which you simply can't interact with. Daryl does give away creatures, but if our opponent has a way of stopping you from being able to interact like Asceticism or something that exiles their creature like Food Chain, then we're just kind of stuck with this great activated ability we can't use.

To get around this we can benefit from one of my favorite mechanics: Enrage. The fact that Daryl says "any target" means we can target our own creatures, and if we run a small Enrage package we can really go to town on getting a bunch of value, especially if we're unable to untap with something like Sting, the Glinting Dagger. There are a lot of really good Enrage creatures but I think that Ripjaw Raptor and Ranging Raptors really stand out for the absurd amounts of value we can generate through the card draw and ramp that they offer. If you're like me and you want your Gruul decks to be really top-heavy though, you can also look towards cards like Silverclad Ferocidons or Apex Altisaur as ways to control the board in the late game and get them turning sideways once the path is clear.

As well as Enrage, there are also a lot of cards that don't strictly have the keyword but do have effects when they take damage. While Stuffy Doll is likely to be the most famous of these we've relatively recently been graced with the presence of Brash Taunter, one of my all-time favorite cards and, a Stuffy Doll that isn't locked into one target and can fight stuff bigger than itself to guarantee you'll get a good amount of damage from it (also it's a Goblin which is the best creature type in Magic). We also have Vigor as another option that will prevent any damage dealt to our creatures and put that many +1/+1 counters on them. While this is a bit of a nonbo with our enrage creatures or our Stuffy Doll-style effects it can sometimes just win us the game by making all of our blocks extremely good and pumping our board up to ridiculous levels.

What Can We Do If Our Opponents Are Able To Buff The Zombies Out Of Our Two Damage Ability's Range?

One real concern when it comes to Daryl's activated ability is that it doesn't actually destroy a creature, it deals two damage, so what if your opponent has Liliana's Mastery, or Glorious Anthem or Mirari's Wake? Suddenly we're giving away three 3/3s. Nine power and toughness across three bodies is definitely too much to give away, even if we can draw a card when they die. Well, there are a few answers to this question. The first is, of course, to turn Daryl into a machine gun. This requires two cards to do and a lot of mana but can be utterly hilarious if done correctly. First, the ability has Daryl deal the damage himself, which means if we can give him deathtouch (from something like Basilisk Collar for example) it will apply and destroy the creature outright. We can also equip Daryl with Thornbite Staff which untaps the equipped creature when another creature dies. This effectively means we can tap Daryl to kill a creature and untap him, turning him into a minigun that will destroy the creature in play and give you cards if they're Zombies. This will however almost definitely make you a huge target, so if you're going to do this, make sure you're ready to 1v3 the game.

As well as deathtouch, there are also a lot of cards that help us to deal extra damage with sources we control. The most over-the-top of these are definitely Fiery Emancipation or City on Fire causing Daryl to be able to deal six damage to a creature and destroying most creatures in the format with a free activated ability. If there's only one +1/+1 effect in play, something on the cheaper end of the spectrum like Mechanized Warfare may appeal to you more. I love this as an option because you can cast it on turn three and curve perfectly into Daryl on turn four.

As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at Daryl as a commander and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with him as the commander tick. There are tons of other amazing options like Compost, Repercussion (which just got a reprint with awesome art in Wilds of Eldraine), and Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients but I'll leave you to go and have a look on Daryl's EDHREC page to get the low down on the rest of the amazing cards you can play with this awesome, unique Gruul commander. Now that he has a Universes Within version I'll definitely be looking to make this deck in paper.

Let me know in the comments below if you play Daryl, if you want to build a Daryl deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!

Read more:

• Do Your Worst - Gruul Mill
• KingdomsTV - Rick vs Michonne vs Glenn vs Daryl | Commander Melee the Walking Dead Edition
• Cut-Rate Commander - Meria Scholar of Antiquity 

Paul Palmer

Hey there, I'm Paul. I've been writing about magic for a really long time. I love to write about obscure commanders (one of my really early articles back in 2015 was about Skeleton Ship) and how you can make decks around them work, no matter how unplayable they are. I love Gruul, I love Mountains and I love casting Lightning Bolt.