Hi guys! I don't post that often but today I wanted to show you my last creation. For a long time I wanted to try and make an Enrage deck that could hold its own against stronger archetypes. But I never found that the "all Dinos" type of decks functioned very well. Too creature dependent and not many ways to win with Enrage triggers. I tried different approches and color combinations, spent a lot of time theory crafting, and finally settled on the Thrasios, Triton Hero / Jeska, Thrice Reborn combo. It's a very midrange pile with lots of burn spells that can win in very different ways. It's extremely refreshing to play since you can adapt very easily to the board state and build towards very different wincons while controlling your opponents' boards. But let's get into it.
Jeska-Thrasios Enrage Burn
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Colors
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First off let's talk about the colors I chose for this deck. Red is obviously the best color at dealing damage and thus at activating Enrage triggers, so it was a no brainer. Red is the soul of the deck, the two other colors only compliment it. After a great deal of consideration and trying different color combos, I chose Green and Blue for one simple reason: they have the best and most abusable Enrage creatures.
A fundemental thing to understand about Enrage is that there are two types of Enrage abilities. There are the official ones that stipulate that when the creature is pinged, no matter the amount of damage, it will do its thing, once per trigger. Like Ripjaw Raptor or Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients And then there are the "unofficial" ones that scale with the damage inflicted to the creature, such as Broodhatch Nantuko or Saber Ants. These are usually the most powerful effects because as it happens, Red is good at dealing a reasonable amount of damage. As for Green and Blue they are the two strongest colors in the format. We need them to make an Enrage deck really work.
A fundemental thing to understand about Enrage is that there are two types of Enrage abilities. There are the official ones that stipulate that when the creature is pinged, no matter the amount of damage, it will do its thing, once per trigger. Like Ripjaw Raptor or Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients And then there are the "unofficial" ones that scale with the damage inflicted to the creature, such as Broodhatch Nantuko or Saber Ants. These are usually the most powerful effects because as it happens, Red is good at dealing a reasonable amount of damage. As for Green and Blue they are the two strongest colors in the format. We need them to make an Enrage deck really work.
Commanders
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Jeska, Thrice Reborn is one of the best pingers in the game and because it sits in the command zone, it's repeatable and only grows more powerful as the game prolongs. We are a midrange deck with a decent number of cards that allow us to control the board, so we can stall a bit if we ever need to recast that Jeska three or four times. Not to mention that casting its partner, the cheap, cheap Thrasios, will net us one damage per cast with Jeska.
More occasionaly, she can help us close the game with its 0 ability if we target a beefed up creature of our own or even those of our opponents. The triple damage ability can also be a powerful political tool if you ever want to team up with someone to gun down a third player.
As for Thrasios, Triton Hero, it's here because of all the reasons it's a commander staple: its cheap, very good value, can hold a Mask of Memory really well early game if we need to find our land drops, and can be recasted easily. It provides stability to the gameplan and help us smooth our draws. The 3 toughness is also really good to dodge our damage-based wraths.
More occasionaly, she can help us close the game with its 0 ability if we target a beefed up creature of our own or even those of our opponents. The triple damage ability can also be a powerful political tool if you ever want to team up with someone to gun down a third player.
As for Thrasios, Triton Hero, it's here because of all the reasons it's a commander staple: its cheap, very good value, can hold a Mask of Memory really well early game if we need to find our land drops, and can be recasted easily. It provides stability to the gameplan and help us smooth our draws. The 3 toughness is also really good to dodge our damage-based wraths.
Philosophy
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We don't play nonland tutors or fast mana (except Sol Ring) in our playgroup so that's one thing. It encourages us to build strong synergies into our decks instead of relying too much on tutors to save the day. That deck was built with this idea in mind, so it's very flexible to play and nearly all the cards respond to each other in some manner. The primary goal of the deck is based around activating the Enrage creatures, the official and non official ones, to bury our opponents with either value, direct damage to the face or a %$#% ton of tokens. Most of the time, the deck does a little bit of each and manages to win out of nowhere purely because of how synergistic the pieces are.
Want to Crackle with Power your opponents but you don't have enough mana for the kill ? Try targeting your Hornet Nest instead and casting Triumph of the Hordes next turn. Drew a lot of cards with Illusory Ambusher and don't have enough mana to cast all that gas? Try pitching those dirty cards that filth your hands to the very cheap Nahiri's Wrath and ping your Stuffy Doll for 15-30 damage to the face. Quadruple that if you have a damage doubler.
Of course Jeska is there to serve as a sure way to activate our Enrage creatures when they hit the battlefield. But the truth is that a very large chunk of the spells can also do that. The strenght of this deck is that it's very modal: a lot of the cards can either give you ressources (cards or ramp) and/or damage. This means that, thanks in large part to the awesome Izzet cardpool, we are almost always able to both answer threats on the board and progress our gameplan by activating our creatures.
Want to Crackle with Power your opponents but you don't have enough mana for the kill ? Try targeting your Hornet Nest instead and casting Triumph of the Hordes next turn. Drew a lot of cards with Illusory Ambusher and don't have enough mana to cast all that gas? Try pitching those dirty cards that filth your hands to the very cheap Nahiri's Wrath and ping your Stuffy Doll for 15-30 damage to the face. Quadruple that if you have a damage doubler.
Of course Jeska is there to serve as a sure way to activate our Enrage creatures when they hit the battlefield. But the truth is that a very large chunk of the spells can also do that. The strenght of this deck is that it's very modal: a lot of the cards can either give you ressources (cards or ramp) and/or damage. This means that, thanks in large part to the awesome Izzet cardpool, we are almost always able to both answer threats on the board and progress our gameplan by activating our creatures.
Pings
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When you look at them, they are fantastic. You can set them up early, their effect is repeatable, some of them have haste and your opponents wont waste removal on them. You can amass a lot of value by repeatidly pinging your creatures over the course of a game. However the fact that they are creatures are a huge drawback because this deck wants to wrath often. This simple fact makes them a bit clunky. Pingers are at their best when there are 2 or 3 of them at once, but in this deck you don't want to commit too much to the board because of how often you reset it.
The only and most sure way to win with Enrage is to abuse effects that scale with the damage. There are some interesting and game winning effects on "official" Enrage creatures such as Silverclad Ferocidons or Polyraptor. But their mana value is too damn high and these days, in commander, your opponents won't wait until you can play your 7 or 8 drop, and then let you ping it 4 or 5 times to close the game. They're gonna Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist + Colossus Hammer you in the face twice and you'll be dead by turn 5 or 6. You need to be able to keep up.
That's why big damage instant and sorceries are the most sensible choice for that kind of deck. They are hard to interact with, you don't have to dedicate ressources to protect a permanent everyone wants destroyed. Played well, targeting the right creature, they can win you the game on the spot. I did include some ways to make "little pings" as I call them, but they are the best of the best in their categories.
Now the most important spells are in the "big pings" category. They're the spells that win you the game. Crackle with Power is of course an all-star, we all know it by now. Add in a damage doubler such as Dictate of the Twin Gods and you are cooking some serious brew. Use it on your creatures or target your opponent's face directly, it will do the job. Volcano Hellion is stupidly good, allowing you to trade as much life as you want for cards, tokens or damage to the face of your opponents, depending on the creature you control. It's also very efficient removal. It's basically a Ravenous Chupacabra that can also win you the game.
Enrage creatures
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That said, let me introduce you to Illusory Ambusher and Body of Knowledge, the all-stars of the unofficial Enrage creatures. These cards won me many, many games. People don't pay attention to them and usually don't see the threat until you fire off a Blasphemous Act for one red, draw 13 cards and procede to win the game on the spot with your open mana. Body of Knowledge is especially absurd, since its power and toughness scale with its draw effect. And it gives you no maximum hand size. Pure insanity. Now with those 20 cards in hand, you can cast that Fateful Showdown and deal massive amounts of damage while drawing 20 fresh news cards. Neat. And don't forget the mighty Firestorm. Combined with Fury Storm it can melt your opponents life in an instant.
The other payoffs are pretty straightforward. Broodhatch Nantuko, Saber Ants, Druid's Call and Hornet Nest all give you sweet tokens that you can pump with Overwhelming Stampede and Triumph of the Hordes. Brash Taunter, Stuffy Doll and Ill-Tempered Loner // Howlpack Avenger allow you to convert your creature damage to face damage. You can even quadruple that amount with Dictate of the Twin Gods and Insult // Injury, or, why not, inflict 9 times the damage with Fiery Emancipation on the board. Inga Rune-Eyes ltb effect is pretty easy to trigger, so most of the times its textbox reads "3U: scry 3, draw 3".
But the most important thing about these creatures, and that's even more true of the Enrage creatures that scale with the damage, is that people don't want to attack into it. Never, ever. It's rock solid protection against attacks and they save you a ton of life just by having them on the board. One Ripjaw Raptor or Illusory Ambusher on the board can act as efficiently as a Propaganda effect. You do not want to attack with them, unless you are going for the kill or you're certain there won't be a crackback. Playing them early is advised, if only to deter your opponents from attacking you. You will be grateful for the life you saved that way.
Weaknesses
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Admittedly, this deck runs very few counterspells, only one in fact, with Fierce Guardianship. Instead of straightup countermagic that could sit in your hand and do nothing for a while, I opted for more versatility with Expansion // Explosion and Fury Storm. Granted they don't do much against Assassin's Trophy, but they can copy counterspells or copy your big spell that's on the stack in response to an opponent trying to blow up your key piece.
Another weakness is the lack of enchantment removal. Currently only Klauth's Will can handle them. I opted against including generic removal like Chaos Warp and Beast Within for two reasons: I'm sick of seeing them everywhere, and they don't do damage. That might change in the future if I constantly get destroyed by enchantment decks. But for now, I feel like the deck can still answer a wide number of situations and is able to pressure players enough that I don't see myself being threatened by a durdly enchantment deck.
