Akiri, Fearless Voyager + Zirda the Dawnwaker - Buddy Cops with Swords [Brainstorming]
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:53 am
So I'm really excited for the new Akiri - Boros finally got an honest-to-goodness equipment commander - not artifacts in general, not auras AND equipment AND it sucks, but straight up, no kidding, strong equipment synergy in the two most equipment-focused colors.
It's about damn time.
Akiri is really cool. I dig the flavor of her mechanics, I like how she works better in multiplayer than 1v1, and I like her nice trim mana cost, perfect for the ramp-light boros colors. But most of all, I like that she has an activated ability, thus enabling her to partner up with the wise-cracking fox who's an expert in getting kitted out on the cheap.
(free upvote to whoever noticed the pun)
So what have we got to work with here?
Obviously equipment is the first and most obvious thing. Zirda reduces the equip costs, and Akiri protects our voltronned up duo while providing card draw, so long as we have equipment to move around. To take maximum value from zirda we're especially looking for equip costs of more than 1, with 3 being the sweet spot, although obviously better equipment is still better equipment. Akiri wants cheap equipment to have reliable indestructible shields, and easy card draw, which incentivizes cards like Lightning Greaves.
The second thing is that we'll probably want to be hitting 3 attackers when possible, so we can get maximum value from the draw trigger. We don't actually need to connect, so evasion isn't mandatory. living weapon in particular seems like a great keyword to enable this, and Batterskull is perfect since Zirda also reduces the bounce cost. Manlands and token lands also might have a role here, especially with cheap equip costs, to avoid wasting slots on creatures just to trigger Akiri.
Of course Zirda's ability is more flexible than just equipment, so there might be other activated abilities worth including. Obviously there's the infinite mana combos, which are kind of boring but might be fine here so long as we avoid having any effective outlets for the mana. Besides that, there are some ok synergies but tbh I don't see anything that really excites me from EDHrec.
We could use Akiri's indestructible ability more offensively, as a means to play asymmetrical board wipes. Gets pretty tricky if we're playing a bunch of creatures, but if it's mostly just Zirda + Akiri + manlands, then we could fire off a functional plague wind for a cheap 6 mana. So at least a few creature wipes are likely worth including.
Since Zirda isn't technically a commander, we'll probably want at least some protection for it beyond indestructible. Of course hexproof/shroud equipment is great, but some cards (i.e. Toxic Deluge) just can't be avoided. So we'll probably want to have some sort of plan for recurring Zirda, maybe even from exile.
Finally, there's Sunforger, arguably the most fun card in existence. Obviously this is a great card with Zirda, and having dual commanders means we should be able to reliably be able to activate Mistveil Plains, so that's a nice bonus. And it fits nicely into that 3 mana equip cost.
One thing that occurs to me as I'm looking at the list is that we've got:
3 cmc commander
3 cmc partner
a whole lot of powerful 3 cmc equipment (swords of X and Y)
So the curve might be a little bumpy. We're not really heavily motivated to play a lot of 2-cmc rocks since they don't accelerate us into a better turn 3 play very often, though probably at least some are worth it. But I think we're really looking to focus on 0-1 mana ramp. So we're talking:
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Gemstone Caverns
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox
Jeweled Amulet
Lotus Petal maybe?
Simian Spirit Guide maybe?
Mox Opal if we have enough artifacts, though T2 seems ambitious. I guess we can run artifact lands?
Mox Amber doesn't accelerate us to 3, but it can make it easier to hold up protection mana.
The sooner Akiri hits, the sooner we can start getting CA to recoup whatever we lost off moxen or whatnot. We're also motivated to run Gamble and Enlightened Tutor to tutor up fast mana to play Akiri or Zirda T2. Finally, any good 2 cmc equipment is gold, so greaves, Sword of the Animist, Umezawa's Jitte all give us something worthwhile to do T2 to set up a strong T4 - for example, T2 SotA, T3 Akiri, T4 Zirda, equip, attack.
So roughly I'm looking at an outline something like this:
Commander 1
Partner 1
Recursion 5
Removal 10
Equipment 25
Tutors 7
Ramp 10
Lands 35
Miscellaneous 7
Input welcome!
It's about damn time.
Akiri is really cool. I dig the flavor of her mechanics, I like how she works better in multiplayer than 1v1, and I like her nice trim mana cost, perfect for the ramp-light boros colors. But most of all, I like that she has an activated ability, thus enabling her to partner up with the wise-cracking fox who's an expert in getting kitted out on the cheap.
(free upvote to whoever noticed the pun)
So what have we got to work with here?
Obviously equipment is the first and most obvious thing. Zirda reduces the equip costs, and Akiri protects our voltronned up duo while providing card draw, so long as we have equipment to move around. To take maximum value from zirda we're especially looking for equip costs of more than 1, with 3 being the sweet spot, although obviously better equipment is still better equipment. Akiri wants cheap equipment to have reliable indestructible shields, and easy card draw, which incentivizes cards like Lightning Greaves.
The second thing is that we'll probably want to be hitting 3 attackers when possible, so we can get maximum value from the draw trigger. We don't actually need to connect, so evasion isn't mandatory. living weapon in particular seems like a great keyword to enable this, and Batterskull is perfect since Zirda also reduces the bounce cost. Manlands and token lands also might have a role here, especially with cheap equip costs, to avoid wasting slots on creatures just to trigger Akiri.
Of course Zirda's ability is more flexible than just equipment, so there might be other activated abilities worth including. Obviously there's the infinite mana combos, which are kind of boring but might be fine here so long as we avoid having any effective outlets for the mana. Besides that, there are some ok synergies but tbh I don't see anything that really excites me from EDHrec.
We could use Akiri's indestructible ability more offensively, as a means to play asymmetrical board wipes. Gets pretty tricky if we're playing a bunch of creatures, but if it's mostly just Zirda + Akiri + manlands, then we could fire off a functional plague wind for a cheap 6 mana. So at least a few creature wipes are likely worth including.
Since Zirda isn't technically a commander, we'll probably want at least some protection for it beyond indestructible. Of course hexproof/shroud equipment is great, but some cards (i.e. Toxic Deluge) just can't be avoided. So we'll probably want to have some sort of plan for recurring Zirda, maybe even from exile.
Finally, there's Sunforger, arguably the most fun card in existence. Obviously this is a great card with Zirda, and having dual commanders means we should be able to reliably be able to activate Mistveil Plains, so that's a nice bonus. And it fits nicely into that 3 mana equip cost.
One thing that occurs to me as I'm looking at the list is that we've got:
3 cmc commander
3 cmc partner
a whole lot of powerful 3 cmc equipment (swords of X and Y)
So the curve might be a little bumpy. We're not really heavily motivated to play a lot of 2-cmc rocks since they don't accelerate us into a better turn 3 play very often, though probably at least some are worth it. But I think we're really looking to focus on 0-1 mana ramp. So we're talking:
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Gemstone Caverns
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox
Jeweled Amulet
Lotus Petal maybe?
Simian Spirit Guide maybe?
Mox Opal if we have enough artifacts, though T2 seems ambitious. I guess we can run artifact lands?
Mox Amber doesn't accelerate us to 3, but it can make it easier to hold up protection mana.
The sooner Akiri hits, the sooner we can start getting CA to recoup whatever we lost off moxen or whatnot. We're also motivated to run Gamble and Enlightened Tutor to tutor up fast mana to play Akiri or Zirda T2. Finally, any good 2 cmc equipment is gold, so greaves, Sword of the Animist, Umezawa's Jitte all give us something worthwhile to do T2 to set up a strong T4 - for example, T2 SotA, T3 Akiri, T4 Zirda, equip, attack.
So roughly I'm looking at an outline something like this:
Commander 1
Partner 1
Recursion 5
Removal 10
Equipment 25
Tutors 7
Ramp 10
Lands 35
Miscellaneous 7
Input welcome!