ever since I cracked a EA, alt art, foil Vadrok (which basically screamed at me GET the other 99 and build me NOW), I've being playing lacklustre games with Vadrok.
I trawled the internet on how to make him work. Like seriously. The work done here is one of the most extensive on the dinosaur elemental cat, and yet even then it felt like something was missing (I'm not pissing on Meow's work, I'm sure we all feel the same way about Vadrok).
Last night as I was mulling over how none of us could bring out his full potential instead of sleeping like a normal human, an approach occurred to me that I hadn't seen on the internet yet.
We've all figured that Vadrok's weird shortcoming was that his value isn't exactly value if you bounce him, playing a lot of mutate creatures just doesn't feel powerful (it would have made more sense if their P/T just kept adding up but nope). You get into this very awkward 99 with recur targets jostle with ramp which jostles with protection spells or bounce spells which jostles with mutate creatures with jostles with wincons....
What if, we play towards consistency? What if Vadrok himself is the wincon? How about playing Vadrok, voltron-style, but more precisely, like Sram but different?
I started thinking about how Vadrok would be better than Sram. Sram basically "storms" or cantrips through the deck minus the mana flow, quickly slapping pieces on himself. Having played extensively against Sram in my playgroup, however, it becomes immediately apparent that Sram depends a lot on topdecks, and destroyed equipment doesn't quite come back if destroyed, especially auras. Since although the tutors are in only white, there are just so many you can jam in: Spellshaper's gift, Idyllic tutor, enlightened tutor, open the armory, heliod's pilgrim.
Vadrok has access to Jeskai, which is just insane when it comes to tutoring key equipment.
Steelshaper's Gift*
Open the armory*
Idyllic Tutor*
Enlightened Tutor*
Stoneforge mystic
Goblin Engineer
Gamble
Treasure/Trophy/Trinket Mages
Tinker*
Fabricate*
And I'm pretty darn sure there's more, this is just off the top of my head. The tutors with the * next to them are the ones we can recur with Vadrok. Recurring a tutor for equipment with your voltron commander is just crazy. Now, one might think creatures are less favorable since they can't be recurred, but I think they solve the problem of having a body to mutate with.
Goblin Engineer is particularly exciting to me. He comes in, bins swiftfoot boots or whatever you need next, and Vadrok conveniently mutates over him and recurs said equipment so you don't even have to cast it. Then, think about how crazy
Gamble is. What's the worst part about Gamble? Clearly, the random discard hitting what you just gambled! Oh no, the blackblade is now in the graveyard! Boohoo- wait, what does Vadrok do again?
The equipment/aura targets? We don't have to make a long list, since now the rest of the deck will be jammed with interaction to keep our opponents off balance before our voltron commander can do their job. Here are the ones I have in mind, in the order you probably want to fetch them;
Swiftfoot Boots (first priority - protection)
Mask of Avacyn (in case swiftfoot is somehow exiled)
Blackblade reforged (damage level 1 - getting that power up)
Fireshrieker (damage level 2 - double strike)
Battle Mastery (back up for fireshrieker)
Darksteel Plate (for the midgame onwards where board wipes can be expected)
Everything up there can be recurred with Vadrok. Unlike Sram, who if somehow thrust back into the command zone will not see most of his auras ever again, Vadrok not only recurs them but does it on his way back onto the battlefield. Mutating Vadrok, getting back battle mastery and then slapping Swiftfoot boots and blackblade back on? yummy! Someone crack a Nev disk? No problem, Vadrok can get his gear back, too.
So, we have a commander who, like Sram, likes to slap on equipment. Unlike Sram, he doesn't stuff the deck full of half-baked equipment to cantrip thru, but focuses on using tutors to get only the best equipment (under 3 cmc anyway), can recur auras and equipment that got destroyed, and then has the rest of the Jeskai interaction suite to protect himself from stuff his gear can't handle, like Toxic Deluge.
Of course, we would do well to include *some* mutate creatures, but only the best, naturally. Mutate creatures in the 99 still play an important role, because they help to further tutor up additional equipment to further speed along the game.
I'm thinking:
Lore Drakkis
Sea-Dasher Octopus
Archipelagore
Vulpikeet
Drakiss and Octopus are straightforward adds. Archipelagore is mostly there to be the top card, because recurring a tutor or equipment and adding 4 power to the base at once, seems like a sweet deal. Vulpikeet is there because of the low cost and the potential to grow the commander bigger, although if we run a smaller mutate suite in favor of interaction, then realistically we aren't going to see this effect much. But for
2w, it's hard to complain since it will break parity recurring a 3 cmc/tutor and adding a +1/+1 counter.
I haven't thought up the rest of the 99 apart from the gear and tutor packages, but unlike all the other Vadrok iterations I've tried before, for once I feel like this might actually work. Consistency, Resilience and interaction.
So far, the pie I have in mind looks like this:
lands - 36
rocks/ramp - 12
tutors - 12
gear - 9
mutate - 4
interaction - 26
That's a lot of space for interaction. It's already 3 am here and this time I've got work in the morning so I'd better stop here.
I'm 99% sure I own those cards, but for the life of me don't know where they could be. Thankfully most of them are dirt cheap and I can replace them in short order. In the meantime I used the opportunity to slip 
Needless to say all of the forests in their deck were on the battlefield before their next turn.
and I'm pretty sure I would have gotten infinite turns too! Well, since I wouldn't have an upkeep, that meant that Drana was gone. Gone gone. Roon was in a position where commander damage or something infinte was going to be the only way to kill him, and Gishath wasn't going to be able to handle the 
