(Zalto, Fire Giant Duke | Zezhou Chen)

Technically Playable - Zalto, Fire Giant Duke

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 Zalto, Fire Giant Duke!

Red is my favorite color in Magic and mono-red is my favorite color identity in Commander. I love the massive variation between all of the red commanders' effects; ranging from Daretti, Scrap Savant's artifact nonsense to Jeska, Thrice Reborn's ability to turn any creature into a powerhouse even to Betrayers of Kamigawa with Mannichi, the Fevered Dream's big toughness deck.

Venture Into The Dun-... What?

As I write this article between appointments at the doctor, hospital, work commitments, the new Hearthstone expansion, learning competitive Pokémon for Regionals in January, and trying to beat all of the Pokémon games on stream before the new DLC drops, it definitely feels nice to come back to writing about simple Magic: the Gathering cards, especially those in my favorite color! Slamming down big trampling creatures is my favorite thing to do in magic and having one of those to write about is awesome. Wait what's that under trample? Venture into the... Oh, oh no.......

Okay, well that's a lot of text. And I get to do all of these effects for free when Zalto takes damage? Seems pretty good...

All jokes aside, I actually really enjoy the Venture into the Dungeon mechanic, aside from it being a little tricky to keep track of if you forget your tokens that day. The ability to hit options that give you things outside of your deck's color identity makes for some really interesting decisions in games where the dungeons are in play, and because Zalto doesn't care about you actually completing a Dungeon (unlike a card like Sefris of the Hidden Ways), where the choice is almost always the shortest one it makes your choice of Dungeon actually matter). Do you go for a short-but-low reward, allowing you to draw cards from Lost Mine of Phandelver, something red decks often struggle with? Or do you try to get to the end of the Dungeon of the Mad Mage and go for a big splashy reward?

As I mentioned, I think Venturing into the Dungeon is a really cool mechanic and leads to lots of interesting decision trees. In fact, I've been trying to brew a Pyroclasm-focused deck since they printed Brash Taunter, and Zalto was on the list of cards I wanted to try in my Sevinne, the Chronoclasm deck before I took it apart. Of course with Zalto as the commander of the deck, the list looks quite different but there will definitely be some crossover between my old Sevinne list and the cards you should be playing with Zalto.

Burn Baby, Burn (Disco Inferno)

Red is the color of heat, passion, anger, love, and of course, burn spells.

While waiting for our opponents to run their little utility creatures into us so we can block with Zalto is a pretty efficient way to trigger his ability, it's also pretty unlikely, so we need to find some more proactive ways to do it. Luckily, all of the red board wipes deal damage rather than destroying creatures. This is perfect as it allows us to keep the board clear while also being able to make sure we choose a board wipe small enough that it doesn't kill Zalto.

Anything left over probably dies if it attacks us thanks to Zalto's huge seven power, so even though we're not completely safe, there isn't a lot that will be able to attack through Zalto without dying. Pyroclasm is the one that immediately jumps to mind, but we also have Anger of the Gods to deal with any annoying little recursive creatures or to stop our life being drained by cards like Blood Artist. We also have Sweltering Suns from Ixalan (the old one). I rate this card really highly because you can either use it to remove a lot of small creatures that you're worried about or you can cycle it if you're digging for something with a little more stopping power.

The above cards are all amazing, and for their mana cost they'll often get the job done. They also keep Zalto alive, which is really important since his base mana value is five and replaying him for seven just feels really bad. Unfortunately, we sometimes need something that will simply get rid of everything and keep us alive. For this job, the classics are the classics for a reason. Blasphemous Act is simply the best mono-red board wipe around (and I won't hear anything else). At 13 damage, it may as well say "destroy" and the fact you can cast it for a single red mana when you need it most (when the board is flooded with creatures) can be a lifesaver or utterly back-breaking for your opponents.

While 13 damage almost always destroys everything, you sometimes need a hard reset button. There's is very little better for that than Star of Extinction. If you thought 13 damage was a lot, 20 is more, and with the added benefit of destroying a land, you're able to remove those pesky Maze of Iths and Glacial Chasms that do so much heavy lifting against red's more naturally aggressive cards. And of course, there are a ton of other options in red to damage-based board wipes. Starstorm is a personal favorite, as just like Sweltering Suns, having the option to simply discard it and pay a few mana for a new card when you don't need it can be invaluable. It could be anything, even a boat!

But these are just one offs. We want to be triggering Zalto repeatedly or we'll never get to play free cards off of Dungeon of the Mad Mage. The best card to do this with is an old Neheb, the Eternal favorite of mine, [/el]Pyrohemia[/el]. Since our goal is to keep Zalto alive anyway, we never really need to worry about not having any creatures, so that line of text on the card is pretty irrelevant, but the ability to deal one damage to each creature and play for a single red is wildly powerful and combining this with Zalto's trigger to make it deal one damage and venture into the dungeon just get exponentially better.

What makes this really good is the fact that if you are holding up enough mana (which you will be; mono-red players always top deck Mountains when they need other cards) you can activate it three times in each turn for a total of 12 venturing triggers in a turn cycle. That's almost two whole Dungeon of the Mad Mage completions. While it is the best option Pyrohemia isn't the only one. Endbringer allows you to deal one damage to Zalto each turn and untap in each player's untap step for four triggers in a turn cycle while Kumano, Master Yamabushi does a really good impression of Pyrohemia, albeit one that is a little more susceptible to removal and board wipes and that only hits one target at a time.

Keeping Zalto Around

So, of course we want to keep Zalto around as long as possible to deal as much damage as possible to Zalto so we can loop through a bunch of Dungeons. A lot of decks that plan to deal damage to all of the creatures in play want to give their own creatures protection, normally with cards like Sword of Fire and Ice or any of the other Swords of something and something else. Unfortunately due to the way that Zalto's ability works, we can't do this, so what can I do to keep Zalto alive while I pummel him with damage?

Indestructible

Probably the easiest, most common, and most "catch-all" way to keep Zalto in play is giving him indestructible. This allows him to take any amount of damage without dying and also gives him protection from my opponent's non-Farewell board wipes and non-exile spot removal spells. The newest (and probably best) option is Mithril Coat. This is effectively Darksteel Plate which has been an absolute powerhouse in Commander for a long, long time but with Flash and a trigger that equips it automatically. As well as Mithril Coat there is the aforementioned Darksteel Plate and Hammer of Nazahn which itself gives indestructible and allows you to attach other Equipment.

Toughness

Indestructible is ideal, but we can also adjust Zalto's toughness to allow him to survive more damage, but without the upside of dodging removal. Accorder's Shield is at the low end of the scale, giving only three toughness while something like Slagwurm Armor gives a lot more while still remaining cheap to play and is reasonable to equip. For a weak ability like this, three mana may seem like a lot to equip but based on the Equipment that can get you an extra 3-6 venture triggers.

Protection

Yes, I know I said protection doesn't work in this deck because of the way Zalto's venture triggers work, but that's only protection from red that prevents it from your own damage. Cards like Commander's Plate or any of the Swords that do not include protection from red allow you to still damage it with your own cards but protect Zalto from anything non-red that your opponents control. This does prevent your opponents from targetting or damaging Zalto, but the downside is not being able to block opponent's creatures to venture further into the dungeon. While this is the case it's a very small issue when the payoff is keeping Zalto around.

So How Does The Deck Win?

We've talked a lot about how to Venture into the Dungeon as many times as possible and how to keep Zalto alive in the face of your own burn spells. But how do we actually win, I mean sure we could loop Lost Mine of Phandelver to make Goblins or to drain our opponents, but that will take approximately 100 years. Well, I mentioned him earlier but the way we win is with Brash Taunter and friends.

Over the years we've had a ton of creatures that deal damage when they take damage. The most iconic of these is probably Stuffy Doll but for me, Boros Reckoner was the one I saw first as it was integral in the Modern Skred deck. Sadly, this deck can't run all of these cards because of color identity. Losing out on Body of Knowledge and Vigor is a pretty big hit but realistically Brash Taunter having indestructible and with the ability to fight other creatures allows you to pull out some surprise wins. As well as Brash Taunter you also have Stuffy Doll, the original but with the limitation of having to pick an opponent to hit and not being able to change that without it coming back into play.

You also have access to Blazing Sunsteel, a piece of underrated Equipment from the Zendikar Rising Commander decks that allows you to effectively turn any creature into a Stuffy Doll and Fiendlash, another underrated Equipment that lets Zalto machinegun down opponents for seven damage every time he gets hit.

Other than looking like Blackhand from World of Warcraft, the other thing that Zalto has going for him is his power. Seven is a particularly special number in Commander, as it allows your general to knock an opponent out of the game in three hits with commander damage. Not only that but cards like City on Fire and Fiery Emancipation actually mean you can beat someone in just one combat step. Zalto makes this much easier by having trample, so as you make his power higher with damage doublers or cards that buff his power you make it easier and easier to get to that magical 21. One of the best ways of bulking up any legendary creature is Blackblade Reforged. While quite weak in mono-red because of the land of land-based ramp, the reason it's particularly good with Zalto is because it buffs both power and toughness allowing Zalto to take more damage without dying and therefore Venture more into the Dungeon.

And that's it for Zalto. As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at Zalto as a commander and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with him tick.

Let me know in the comments below if you play Zalto, if you want to build a mono-red deck, or even if you just enjoyed the article!

Read more:

Wombo Combo - Mono-Red Edition

Myth Realized - What if Any Planeswalker Could Be Your Commander? (Rakdos)

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.