Lets get into the build. When I looked at the commander the natural synergies I saw were:
- Equipment - Whenever I see a commander that is 3 or less mana I immediately start thinking about things like Sword of the Animist and Dowsing Dagger just because the natural curve options are really nice. I also saw some sweet synergy with a number of other equipment with this commander and we are in white red so I naturally started looking into some equipment options.
- Control / Removal - Instead of trying to get there fast, I wanted to play a more interactive gameplan given that given time we get more experience.
- Deathtouch - I ended up picking up a decent bit of deathtouch enabling because it makes the commander into actual removal. Beyond that though we want to kill things we ping so it changed the ping from a token killer to an anything killer. There are more means to give deathtouch but for now, I think I am deep enough to get some testing in.
- Lifelink - I lack flying and I have seen a decent number of decks going with some non combat damage wincons such as aristocrat drains or spellslinger pings. Given that my goal for this deck was more of a control concept I wanted some long game sustain which I felt gaining life was a good option for.
- Untap / Copy - If you can copy the commander's ping or untap her, its possible to put a lot of counters on fast. I used a little bit of this but I really tried to tone it back because I felt like in a lot of cases I wasn't really going to get value out of these effects outside of the commander. There were a few that seemed like good effects even outside of my commander which I included but as I started delving into things like Thousand-Year Elixir I quickly felt like those cards weren't effective enough.
- Evasion - the commander by default is terribly easy to chump block. I added some trample, protections, and a little fear stuff in. I really wanted to be more of a control deck than a voltron though so its possible I could bring this element up. It was more of a secondary concept behind the others.
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost: