(Takeno, Samurai General | Matt Cavotta)

Technically Playable - Takeno, Samurai General

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 Takeno, Samurai General.

Unlike my last article, this one covers the color identity I like the least. White is probably my least favorite color in Commander it lacks too many tools, but with that in mind, I still think a lot of people underestimate it and I think that by no means is it the worst color in the format anymore.

The White Problem

I love Commander, a lot. I love the deckbuilding, the ability for people to express themselves, and their preferred playstyles. I also love the gameplay of the format. 100-card Singleton is a fantastic way to almost guarantee that each game will be different. It's why I'm not a big fan of tutors. The other thing about Commander that I love is the splashiness of the cards that you can play, and that's where my primary issue with playing mono-white lies.

But with that in mind, we come to the problem with mono-white. Since the beginning of Magic, white has always been the color of individual and board-wide removal/exile, ranging from Swords to Plowshares to Armageddon. As time passed, white became the color of resource denial; Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Aven Mindcensor, and Rishadan Port all created the core of the "Death and Taxes" deck fully built around denying your opponent resources and using small white creatures ("white weenies") to chip down your opponent's life total. The name Death and Taxes comes from the saying that the only things inevitable in life are Death, Taxes and mono-white weenies.

I digress. This section is called "The White Problem" not "History Time With Paul". The issue with mono-white's usual cards is that they don't fit well into the social contract of most playgroups, people don't like their resources being denied. They want to play the game, and of course, mass land destruction turns that idea of resource denial up to eleven. Due to this, a lot of white's best cards that people didn't play meaning Wizards of the Coast had the compensate by printing a lot of cards that were particularly good in Commander at doing things whites don't normally do (however a lot of people, myself included think some of these cards went too far. I could probably write an entire article on Smothering Tithe or Drannith Magistrate).

Bushido? More Like Bushidon't.

These pun headings are getting worse. Sorry, not sorry.

Kamigawa is a set known for many things. Umezawa's Jitte is arguably one of the most broken Limited, Standard, and Modern cards of all time. The new set of Channel lands are incredibly powerful and versatile tools in competitive tools. And of course, there are a lot of bulk rares and terrible keywords. When was the last time you Spliced onto Arcane?

One of these terrible keywords is Bushido. Bushido pumps your creatures for X (e.g. Bushido 2 gives the creature +2/+2) whenever they block an opponent's creature or whenever they're blocked by an opponent's creature. This gives you some sneaky power and toughness to try to win combat with. On top of this, Takeno acts as an anthem for all of your other creatures for each point of Bushido that they have. Sadly this means Takeno himself doesn't get the buff, the reason for which I couldn't possibly tell you. This means that he remains a six-mana 3/3 unless you actively buff him yourself.

Historically, Bushido is a moral code for Samurai attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyles, originating from the Edo period. As such, it makes sense that the only creatures with the Bushido keyword are Samurai (and Greater Morphling but we don't talk about silver border cards here... yet). The main issue with Samurai as a creature type, is that a lot of them suck. I'm not talking about the few good ones out there like Samurai of the Pale Curtain who does a really good impression of Rest in Peace, Bushi Tenderfoot who can flip into a double striking powerhouse or even Konda, Lord of Eiganjo who fills out your top end with a vigilant, indestructible threat bumped up to an 8/8 with Takeno in play. I'm talking about the rest of your options like Kitsune Dawnblade, a five mana 2/3, or Mothrider Samurai who, as much as I love the Mark Zug art on this card, is still a four mana 2/2 with flying. Samurai are unfortunately not a good creature type to build an entire deck around, so what's the answer here? Enter Changelings.

It often feels like a bit of a cop out to fill out your niche kindred deck with Changelings. for a Samurai deck in particular, it's an absolute necessity. Of the 39 Samurai with Bushido that exist, 20 of them are white. And of all of the Samurai in Magic's history, only 39 are white. This may seem like enough creatures for a deck, but then you have to take into account how many of these are just too weak to play. I'm not saying you're going to build a Takeno deck and then go to a bunch of tournaments and win, but no one likes to spend the time and money building a deck only for it to lose every game. Yes, you can build a full Samurai deck, but I think there is no shame in going down the Changeling route for a deck like this.

Of the Changelings we can play, a couple stand out. Mirror Entity is probably the best. It acts as an approximation of a second copy of Takeno with the ability to sink any spare mana into it to buff all of your creatures. This can sometimes be a downside since it doesn't just pump creatures' power and toughness but instead replaces their base. This is fine for our Samurai however, as they all have very low power and toughness. I also think Avian Changeling is very good. We're pretty light on evasive threats in mono-white, and if we can use something like Sensei Golden-Tail to stack up Bushido on it we can very quickly get a large flying creature that can close out some games.

"Overruns"

An "Overrun" is a term used to describe a card that you can play to pump up your entire board, with the goal of closing out the game that turn. Craterhoof Behemoth is arguably the best Overrun ever printed with Jetmir, Nexus of Revels being a close second, I would even argue that it's as powerful in Commander with the fact that you can always have access to it in your command zone. Takeno does a decent impression of an Overrun but doesn't give any evasion and only pumps creatures that have Bushido. With this in mind, and also keeping in mind that our deck will need to be pretty creature-heavy to benefit from Takeno and cards like Mirror Entity it'd be good to look at other ways we can get our board through for lethal.

The obvious answer here is Moonshaker Cavalry the new "mono-white Craterhoof" printed in Wilds of Eldraine gives the same +X/+X that Craterhoof gives and flying instead of trample, which has the benefit of completely ignoring the ground creatures your opponents have but also being able to be chump blocked by a 1/1 Bird token. You can also run an anthem with another terrible keyword, Sweep. Charge Across the Araba is another original Kamigawa block card that uses the keyword sweep that forces you to return basic lands of a specific type (in this case, plains) to to a specific effect. Charge Across the Araba gives all of your creatures +1/+1 for each land you return, and with it being an instant you can swing out with your board of small creatures and then make the massive gamble after your opponents don't block to return all of your plains for a huge amount of damage... or a huge blowout.

We can also fit Anthems into this section too. If you want to stick thematically with a focus on creatures, there are some really good ones. Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" and Crovax, Ascendant Hero are good for the decks that are trying to curb their power level and really focus on their deck's creature count. Then you also have Metallic Mimic, which is cheap, still a creature, and also gives counters to creatures instead of just giving a bump to their power and toughness, meaning if it dies you keep the benefit around. And of course, we have Odric, Lunarch Marshal. Not strictly an "Anthem" but it does allow you to spread all of your keywords around. Unfortunately, this is a newer card, so the list doesn't include Bushido, but if you have Konda, Lord of Eiganjo in play all of your creatures will have vigilance and indestructible. Brass Herald is another card I think is criminally underrated, it's expensive for its effect, but in a low-powered deck like this, a card that doubles up as both an anthem for your creatures and a way to put up to four Samurai into your hand can be really powerful.

Overruns don't just need to be a power and toughness buff either. I've already mentioned Odric, Lunarch Marshal but we also have cards like Akroma's Will don't necessarily increase your board's power and toughness but by giving keywords like Double Strike or protection from all colors it does allow you to get through twice the damage you expected and prevent any opponent's from blocking. Finally, Konda's Banner is a great anthem in this deck, it buffs Takeno to make him more than just a six-mana 3/3 while also buffing all of your white Samurai as well.

And of course, as a kindred deck, you will want to run all of the typical Anthems/kindred-matters cards Vanquisher's Banner is particularly important for the card draw but also Icon of Ancestry, Herald's Horn and Door of Destinies all work well.

Sadly, there's not a huge amount of room for variation with these niche decks. And until we get a new Kamigawa set (and/or a return) we likely won't get any more Bushido cards. So, I'd recommend you go as deep into the Samurai rabbit hole as you feel comfortable and then fill out the deck with your favorite white cards. You'll also want some interaction. I'd recommend Generous Gift and Stroke of Midnight as a starting point since they're the most flexible. Grab some ways to protect your board since you're a very combat-focused deck; something like Flawless Maneuver so you still have interaction when you tap out to cast Takeno or Teferi's Protection to keep yourself alive. And yes, as much as I hate the card, you should probably run Smothering Tithe.

As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at Takeno as a commander. I decided to look at a bit more of the history of white's color identity in Magic as a whole and Commander, so let me know if you'd want to see more of that. Also let me know in the comments if you play any original Kamigawa commanders, if you want to build a Samurai kindred deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!

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