Bruse and Kraum's Boorish Opus
"It lives … IT LIVES!" —Ludevic, necro-alchemist
Table of Contents
Introduction
More specifically, this deck is a Beast tribal deck that does not contain a single green mana symbol and looks to abuse Enters the Battlefield triggers. The name of the game here is synergy, and raw power on individual cards is most definitely compromised in the name of making the pieces of the puzzle come together and do something downright silly.
The selection of fun, powerful, and zany ETB Beasts in Jeskai is surprising, and the tribe and colors grant access to some other fun synergies with Deserts and Cycling. The former is neat because it contributes to some of the game winning combos in the deck without functionally taking up much space since it consists of lands, and the latter powers a card draw engine and additional ETB synergy with Astral Slide and Astral Drift.
Enjoy!
Commander Analysis
for a 3/3 Human Ally
The 3/3 body and creature types are clearly not the appeal for this particular Bruse deck. The relatively low cost and access to white, however, are just what the doctor ordered. There is no need to ramp Bruse out early, but when it is his time to shine, it's nice to know he will be quite affordable.
Whenever Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder enters the battlefield or attacks, target creature you control gains double strike and lifelink until end of turn.
Apart from having Partner and a white mana symbol, Herein lies the real reason Bruse gets to be in the command zone for this deck. His ETB trigger is quite powerful, and with the abundance of ETB enablers in the list, will likely trigger multiple times. Ideally, turning several Beasts into double strikers will close out the game if a combo isn't on board or in hand, but even if that's not the case, Bruse's ETB can lead to a lot of life gained and thus some serious resiliency.
for a 4/4 Zombie Horror with Flying and Haste
The access to blue is essential, and Kraum's cost is low enough that he can reasonably be cast on turn 3 or 4 consistently. This is all important since getting Kraum's triggered ability on board ASAP is a key milestone for the deck's early game strategy.
Haste on a decent sized flying body shouldn't be overlooked either. It plays particularly well with Bruse's double strike and lifelink clause in a pinch. While Kraum is certainly a beater, that is not his primary function in this list, but it is good to keep in mind as a tertiary win condition
Whenever an opponent casts their second spell each turn, draw a card.
Kraum provides passive card draw while not being overly threatening. Unlike Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe, opponents won't need to constantly decide whether or not they will pay a tax and thus be annoyed into pointing removal at it. The effect just happens whenever they cast their second spell for the turn. ANY turn. In a typical game of commander, it is entirely possible that this nets 2-3 cards on the turn cycle immediately after Kraum is played. It is not an absolute certainty, but it is very difficult for Kraum to not be a source of card advantage, however slight. In a deck stuffed full of 4+ card combos, card draw is king.
Deck History
As mentioned earlier, this deck is largely inspired by @tstorm823's philosophy of saturating a deck with "bad" combos as exemplified in his Zedruu build. "Bad" is in quotes because the reality is the combos are quite strong, they are only "bad" in the sense that they involve 4 or more cards which are not being tutored up. Thus, they are inefficient, slower, and what many may refer to as "bad". I was really taken by this idea and wanted to build my own deck that functioned like tstorm's Zedruu, at least in the combo capacity. I just wasn't sure where to begin, but thought I'd start by looking at some tribes.
Jeskai features some obvious tribes like Wizards, Dragons, Goblins, Angels, etc., but some really sweet overlooked tribes too, like Weirds, Homunculus (Homunculi?), Cyclops, Horrors, Devils, Noggles, Elementals, Kithkin, etc. (In fact I fairly recently posted my thought process while brewing Jeskai Zombies with Bruse and Kraum here, and that will probably be an alternate list here eventually.) I started perusing the neglected tribes for cards that would lend themselves to combo and found some cool ideas to work with. One path I brainstormed was leveraging creatures that can grow quickly, such as Okaun, Eye of Chaos, Nivix Cyclops, Erratic Cyclops, Mercurial Geists, Wee Dragonauts, and Chandra's Spitfire, and combining them with Fling, Brion Stoutarm, Bloodshot Cyclops and the like.
While researching cards down this path I bumped into Kiln Fiend, a cube favorite of mine, and Ferrovore, which made me want to look further into Beasts in Jeskai colors. Felidar Guardian seemed an obvious combo option, and I was reminded that Lumbering Battlement existed and is hilarious. Nucklavee is a card I've always like that gets edged out in favor of Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall more often than not. As I kept digging through cards I was frankly quite surprised at the potential and depth of Beast tribal around an ETB theme. I scrapped all my other deck blueprints and went full Beast mode, resulting in the decklist below.
Current Decklist
Deck Philosophy
Coming soon! Link and quotes put here as source material I will inject into my own content when I get around to it.
How Bad is a 4-card Combo?
tstorm823 wrote: ↑4 years agoSo like, step one in not letting your combo pieces be dead cards is to just play good cards...Step two is making the cards more relevant yourself by including lighter weight synergies...Step 3 is not getting into topdeck mode. If you draw multiple cards a turn, one dead card doesn't hurt. If you have scry or loot effects, you can convert dead cards into live ones. If you have practical discard outlets, you have uses for a card even if its rules text is effectively blank. And in this format, there's no reason not to have access to these things, because you have a command zone to work with. In a deck full of bad combos, you don't need a commander as a combo piece, you want a commander that helps assemble other pieces or makes bad draws worth something...And as far as dodging 2-3 card combos, you just have to be committed to it. You'll definitely run into accidents occasionally, but then it's off to gatherer again to find something more specific that fits as a 4-piece combo but not less. And the more specific card doesn't have to be worse.
tstorm823 wrote: ↑4 years agoMind you, I'm not often going to get 42 cards deep by playing a Howling Mine and then letting the game go for 17 more turns. I could draw with Jeskai Ascendancy, or Mindmoil. Or Vanish Into Memory or Mindmoil. Dig 5 deeper with Azor's Gateway or Mindmoil. Play Chance to rummage 10 cards, or Mindmoil. Draw 7 with Time Spiral, or Temporal Cascade, or Mindmoil. Play Bonus Round before those draw spells, or Mindmoil. Chain damage onto Swans of Brynn Argoll, or Mindmoil. Make 5 copies of Knowledge Pool, or Mindmoil. Put Mind's Desire into Eye of the Storm, that empties the deck real fast. Or also, I could play Mindmoil. There are tons of ways around like turn 6-10 to just sift through half the deck all at once. My primary win condition here is drawing cards.
toctheyounger wrote: ↑4 years agoyou don't really need tutors per se for this deck. At some point a critical mass of card draw happens and you just see enough of the deck to cobble something together. So long are you're doing something, something will happen. Vaguest sentence of all time, but it's true, especially when everything you cast happens under Mindmoil. That card will show you your whole damn library if you give it enough fuel.
Card Choices
Deck Strategy
Coming Soon!