Ruhan, a breakdown

[onering]

Ruhan of the Fomori

Infamous giant of poor threat assessment, Ruhan is one divisive chonker. In a vacuum, lets be honest, he sucks. Ruhan does, however, have a lot of interesting aspects once you break him down that serve as inspirations for decks, so I'll start with his features and then move into decks he could helm. Why? To honor St. Sheldon the Wise and give players inspiration to run his visage proudly in decks they can enjoy using the new Secret Lair.

So, first, lets break down the card into points of interest.

Ruhan is Jeskai: Long ago, Sheldon chose Ruhan for this reason, and it was good. Well, it wasn't 'good', per se, but it was reasonable. In an age of "for the colors", Jeskai was king of commanders being chosen for their colors. Today, this isn't a reason to run Ruhan, but it can add to another reason to run Ruhan, and in fact will play into every single deck I suggest inspired by Ruhan's other attributes.

Ruhan is a 4 mana 7/7: I put these two together because they are intertwined. A commander's mana value is only relevant given other attributes, of which p/t is only one, but a commander's p/t is really only relevant in combination with its mana value, so I combined them. This is a great rate, which usually isn't enough on its own to justify running Ruhan (but will for one deck!), but does, like his CI, push you to him once you've considered other attributes.

Ruhan attacks a random opponent each turn if able: Well that's a big downside, and his only ability. This mostly just holds him back, but it did inspire one deck idea (the one I've built).

Ruhan is a Giant: Obvious, as its his most popular use

Ruhan is a Warrior: Surprisingly spicy.


So, what can these attributes inspire? Let's look at potential decks:

Ruhan Jeskai Giants: I'm going to just get this one out of the way. Lorwyn had Boros Giant Tribal, Kaldheim had Izzet Giant Tribal, only Ruhan unites them. Many have seen this and built this. Ruhan quite honestly sucks here at first glance, and is really only here for the colors. He does benefit from all the tribal effects though, especially Kindred Discovery, and the many giants matter effects. Thus, his role in the deck is more valuable than his stats and abilities. Still, this deck is really straightforward, its play giants and leverage tribal, and because he has to attack and giants tend to be big you really want to be aggressive with the deck.

Ruhan Jeskai Warriors: Now this is the interesting tribal deck, and its potential exists because of the new Kamigawa block. That block introduced the new Samurai Exalted mechanic, which they had also trigger off of warriors to avoid being too narrow. This mechanic also benefits from regular Exalted cards, so you can add the best of those in there as well. The deck can already be built as Boros or Mardu using the Samurai commanders from that block, but Ruhan is literally the only Jeskai option. His stats actually matter here, because a 4 mana 7/7 is something you would want to send into the breach over and over again, and he gets bigger, and grabs abilities and sometimes even value, from all those exalted creatures and Samurai. The effect is that you can play a sort of Voltron deck that doesn't put all of its eggs in one basket, since spot removal on Ruhan still enables you to swing in with a Samurai or something else until he can attack again, and you don't have to worry about equipping him or throwing aura's on him. His random attack is a hinderance here because you can't just focus down the biggest threat, but you should have enough slots to play plenty of answers of your own. Why go Jeskai here instead of Boros? Because there are some really nice blue cards that help the strategy, particularly cards that make Ruhan unblockable and Sovereign's of Lost Alara, which can grab a handful of powerful aura's, particularly Eldrazi Conscription. I'm in the process of building this, and it looks like it will be a fun take on Voltron.

Ruhan blink: This one comes out of left field, and is inspired solely by his stats. He's a 7/7 for 4, that is always available in the CZ. The idea here is simple, rush out Pandemonium and similar effects, drop Ruhan to dome someone for 7, then blink him repeatedly to just keep doming folks (or removing threats as needed). There are plenty of options to blink Ruhan in these colors (or make copies that die to the legend rule but still trigger etb effects), and nobody will see this coming. Ruhan being a fairly solid attacker also lets you see if he is going to get in for damage before blinking him, which isn't huge but is kind of neat. This is at its heart a non-infinite combo deck, so plenty of tutors, redundancy, and ways to protect the "combo." I'm also currently building this, because its the kind of stupid that that I love. I don't actually know if Ruhan is the best commander for this, but he's definitely good for it.

Ruhan Grand Melee: Finally, the one I built, the one inspired by his drawback. Ruhan wants to fight, so why should he be the only one ready to rumble? Why not bring everyone down to his level with forced attacks, and then put up a bunch of propaganda effects so the attacks don't come my way. I'm not the first with this idea, but damn if it isn't fun. Ruhan comes down early and does his thing, swinging in blindly for big chunks of damage, and supported by things that make him unblockable, grant double strike, or protect him from damage. Meanwhile, I build protections against crack backs, making attacking me a costly decision with Propaganda effects. Then I drop cards that force everyone to attack, and oh look you can't afford to send hardly anything at me so I guess you got to fight amongst yourselves. The rest of the deck is rounded out with a control shell, letting me protect myself and my key effects (and Ruhan). Some consideration is paid in particular to reactive effects that punish attacking creatures, like Angel of the Dire Hour, to remind people why they should be attacking each other and not me. I've only played six games with this and won three, which I believe is high and due to the small sample size, but every game played as I expected, win or lose, and that's what matters. The whole experience here is supposed to be spreading Ruhan's rage and sitting back in a pillow fort while the whole board goes nuts, led by the big blind boi, and that's exactly what happens.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@Dunadain this seems relevant to your recent musings.

[Dunadain]

Sounds neat, but it sounds much more like my thantis deck then my ruhan deck.

Kind of odd that you didn't at least list Voltron as an option, but then again that one's pretty obvious, not much to say about it.

[onering]

I've built Thantis before myself, and in terms of forcing attacks Thantis is better at it. In the Ruhan deck I have to find the cards that force attacks. There's a fair number of them so it's not really a problem, but it's not in the CZ like with Thantis. Playing the Ruhan deck, it's less all in on the forced attacks, and more about setting up the combination of forcing attacks while sitting behind a pillowfort, while Ruhan randomly swings in. The forced attacks open the path to Ruhan, while the pillowfort makes it so my opponents have to send most of their stuff at each other, and it all synergizes. Jeskai just has more of the pillowfort and control cards, but fogs would work just as well. I'll have to take a look at your Thantis deck.

I left out pure Voltron and Chaos. Those are two popular builds, but there are obvious better options for pure Voltron, even in just in his colors, while Chaos tends to be a miserable experience for all involved. I was tempted to write about Chaos though, because I feel like chaos decks can serve a fun role as an enabler for a variant format, but I need to flesh that thought out more. The basic idea is that the Chaos deck (or pure Group Hug deck) would be piloted by a player who by rule cannot win the game or lose the game, and would basically serve as a plane chase deck, impacting the board state in ways that effect everyone and creating a different commander experience. Sometimes it's actually fun to ask a friend to pull out their hug deck and everyone can go nuts with low power jank, and chaos messing up everyone's plans when everyone bought into that experience from the start would be fun as well. Planechase does that, but randomly, while a "non-combatant" player could build their deck to maximize the effect while minimizing how much it would tend to benefit certain players or decks over others, and making plays to maximize the table's fun (rather than randomly or mindlessly). Obviously this needs a lot of fleshing out.