(Xenagos, God of RevelsXenagos, God of Revels | Art by Jason Chan)

Technically Playable - Xenagos, God of RevelsXenagos, God of Revels

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

This is a deck I've been playing for years, probably around 7 or 8 at this point, so I'm really excited to talk about some of the decklist choices I've made, some of the cool synergies and a few of the more recent cards I want to update it with or test in the list.

I could probably talk about this deck for days, but I'll try to keep it as concise as I can (while also gushing over how much I love this deck).

The Beaters

As you can see from the decklist above this deck does two main things:

1. It has big power, and

2. it tramples.

Of course these work well in tandem by being able to go over the top of any board states that opponents have developed, but also work amazingly well with Xenagos's ability to double their power and give them haste.

This means you can play haymaker after haymaker, ensuring you always have a hasty, nigh-unblockable threat in play. This deck was born from the abundance of board wipes in my old playgroup and has been updated and developed over time.

The biggest of the beaters in this list is definitely Worldspine WurmWorldspine Wurm. A favorite from my days of casting turn two and turn three Through the BreachThrough the Breaches putting this huge creature into play and often winning off of the back of it.

While Worldspine WurmWorldspine Wurm is an extremely expensive creature to cast it sheer power of a 30/30 haste trampler can sometimes be enough to remove a player from the game when you're at the point where you can cast it. The card gets better the more ways you have to cheat creatures into play (which I will talk about later).

But we don't just want semi-vanilla sticks to beat our opponents around the head with, we want cards that fuel themselves and can become exponentially bigger. Conclave Sledge-CaptainConclave Sledge-Captain is one of my favorites for this purely because of the way that backup works.

Being able to stack backup effects to get a creature to gain triple the damage that it deals means you can very easily create an insurmountable threat that has to be dealt with.

Even if you don't have another creature being able to drop three counters onto the sledge captain to make it a 7/7 that becomes a 14/14 means you can potentially get a six mana 28/28 with trample.

We also want good non-combat effects too. A card that has become quite infamous in my own playgroup is Etali, Primal ConquerorEtali, Primal Conqueror.

A seven mana 7/7 trampler that also plays four other cards for free is good enough by itself, but with Xenagos flipping Etali it's suddenly one of the best plays you can make. This is pretty much the same an infect making it a one-shot threat to anyone, no matter how much life they're able to gain.

The Payoffs

I often look at payoffs in a deck as three different kinds. Three flavors, a Neapolitan of payoffs.

Card Draw is definitely the vanilla ice cream of commander decks, everyone knows it is good, they respect it, but it's not particularly exciting. Of course you have different qualities of vanilla ice cream.

The bottom shelf supermarket tubs up to the artisan, vanilla pods included. Both Greater GoodGreater Good and Last March of the EntsLast March of the Ents work perfectly with Xenagos, allowing you to play your huge creatures and then get extra resources before they are removed, at instant speed with Greater GoodGreater Good.

But card draw isn't my only way to get these resources. There are also a number of ways you gain card advantage. Monstrous VortexMonstrous Vortex works well with the deck's high mana value to give you lots of free cards for just playing the game. The best card at doing this, however, is Lurking PredatorsLurking Predators.

While it is expensive for no effect, when you play it, if you have a high enough creature count, it can easily take over a game by your opponent's casting spell.

Mana is the strawberry ice cream. It's great, but you can easily have too much and get sick of it. Of course when it comes ot ramp your mind immediately goes to the FarseekFarseeks and CultivateCultivates of the world, but if Xenagos is anything, he's a fan of excess.

In terms of ramp running cards like Selvala, Heart of the WildsSelvala, Heart of the Wilds and Bighorner RancherBighorner Rancher allow you to easily generate enough mana to cast your top end cards like Worldspine WurmWorldspine Wurm and Last March of the EntsLast March of the Ents. The main issue is drawing into these cards when you already have enough mana, effectively making them dead draws.

This is why Selvala and the Rancher are particularly good as they both offer secondary abilities that are fairly useful. Similarly Shaman of Forgotten WaysShaman of Forgotten Ways also offers you an unbanned version of BiorhythmBiorhythm that you can use in a pinch to close out long games.

And of course winning the game is the chocolate ice cream. The one everyone loves, the one that gets you excited but equally the one that people are the most unhappy about if you eat it all.

With Xenagos I really love going over the top when it comes to winning. Using Jeska, Thrice RebornJeska, Thrice Reborn to deal literally hundreds of damage to an opponent.

Casting Last March of the EntsLast March of the Ents into Vaultborn TyrantVaultborn Tyrant to dump my hand into play and then refill it instantly. Or even just a Chandra's IgnitionChandra's Ignition targeting Ghalta, Primal HungerGhalta, Primal Hunger after doubling its power and toughness with Xenagos and Zopandrel, Hunger DominusZopandrel, Hunger Dominus. If it's over the top and overkill it's in this deck.

The Newbies

While not technically "new" I've not had a chance to play, or even see, Anzrag, the Quake-MoleAnzrag, the Quake-Mole in action. So it is still fairly new to me.

While I'm not a huge fan of extra turns or extra combat steps (which I'll talk more about in the next section), I do feel like Anzrag is restrictive enough in its requirements to gain the extra turns that it is still a card that has some counterplay and interesting lines to go down.

With Xenagos in particular, while Anzrag doesn't have trample, I feel like this actually makes the card more interesting as it presents as a huge threat that can either get a lot of free damage through or get blocked, provide an extra combat step, and then get buffed by Xenagos for even more damage.

This forces players to make decisions about how low they will allow their life total to get while also having to play around the potential of a fling effect from something like Chandra's IgnitionChandra's Ignition

Ashroot AnimistAshroot Animist is another new card, much newer than Anzrag but still not in the newest set. Ashroot AnimistAshroot Animist plays two very powerful roles alongside Xenagos. The first is a trample-enabler.

While the majority of my personal deck has trample, there are a few cards like Etali, Primal StormEtali, Primal Storm that don't have the keyword. As well as providing trample Ashroot AnimistAshroot Animist also buffs creatures by its own power, in conjunction with Xenagos this means it will always give a minimum of +8/+8 to another creature, meaning anything smaller than an 8/8 is better off this way.

This card gets even better with cards like Conclave Sledge-CaptainConclave Sledge-Captain and Railway BrawlerRailway Brawler by gaining permanent counters that can then yield greater buffs from its own ability.

Lastly, an actually new card from the newest set, Peema TrailblazerPeema Trailblazer. I'll say straight away that this is not an energy deck, but because of the way that Peema TrailblazerPeema Trailblazer works you can play it, give it +3/+3 and haste with Xenagos and get the requisite energy to activate its ability the turn you play it.

This acts as an extra, one-off Last March of the EntsLast March of the Ents that can also deal damage to players or even be used to deal with planeswalkers after its ability is gone.

The Upgrades

Lastly, I wanted to talk a little about cards I don't run. This is either to temper the power level of the deck to my playgroup, or just because these cards don't really interest me all that much.

Additional combat steps are amazing in Xenagos however I personally find them a little dull and I try to minimise the ones I use to cards that either have some kind of a restriction such as Anzrag or cards that fit into the deck perfectly, like Seize the DaySeize the Day which works so perfectly with my Xenagos game plan of dropping haymakers every turn and attacking with a single creature.

If I were to look at adding more of these kinds of effects, there are some that I'd definitely go to first. BloodthirsterBloodthirster from the Warhammer 40k Universes Beyond set is the first I'd add. I actually used to play this card, but the main issue with it is the way that it plays in reality vs how fun it seems in theory.

You play BloodthirsterBloodthirster, give it haste with Xenagos and hit player A for 12 damage, then you get an extra combat step, hit player B for 24 and then hit player C for 48.

This is great as a way of removing a player but the main issue is that it leaves that player out of the game, watching everyone else play for the rest of the game.

While BloodthirsterBloodthirster is probably the first card I'd add (if I liked the way that it played) I'd also run Aggravated AssaultAggravated Assault which is fairly well known as one of the best mana sinks for combat focused decks (comboing with Savage VentmawSavage Ventmaw very easily) and the new Full ThrottleFull Throttle as a potential game ending sorcery, akin to BloodthirsterBloodthirster.

But extra combat steps aren't the only way to upgrade my list. There are a number of powerful cards I have over the years actively chosen not to run.

One great example is MalignusMalignus. While it does work as a one-shot combo with Xenagos and Chandra's IgnitionChandra's Ignition I have really enjoyed playing my deck with the focus on creatures with trample and MalignusMalignus sadly does not fit into this category without some help.

You can also run The Skullspore NexusThe Skullspore Nexus as an additional power doubler and a way to keep a board presence in the face of board wipes that could slow you down.

And if you really want to become the archenemy of your playgroup, Vorinclex, Voice of HungerVorinclex, Voice of Hunger is an amazing way to both slow down your opponents while also speeding up your game plan significantly to land those huge beaters like Ghalta, Primal HungerGhalta, Primal Hunger and Worldspine WurmWorldspine Wurm much sooner.

As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at Xenagos, God of RevelsXenagos, God of Revels as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with Xenagos as the commander tick.

And of course this focuses a lot on my own personal Xenagos deck, so comment if I've missed any sweet tech that I should be playing.

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.