Zurgo Helmsmasher - Twenty One Damage
Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:51 pm
Zurgo Helmsmasher
Zurgo Helmsmasher
Approximate Total Cost:
About the Deck
The game plan is fairly simple. Deal 21 damage to each opponent with Zurgo Helmsmasher. Zurgo starts with a healthy 7 damage meaning he kills people in three hits without any added efforts. Various effects will multiply it and/or give him double strike to speed up the clock. Depending on how fast you can come out swinging this can be pretty scary. A voltron strategy in general isn't always the easiest to win with but it can be a lot of fun trying.
The deck is very much leaning towards Zurgo as your primary win condition. If Zurgo gets priced out of being reasonable to play due to commander tax after being removed a few times, there are some other creatures that can start swinging for non-commander damage and these serve as a backup win condition. Aurelia, the Warleader, Stonehewer Giant, and Danitha Capashen, Paragon can do some good work when aided by equipment, auras, and effects from the rest of the deck, but if you are on the non-Zurgo damage plan it is going to be rough for the most part.
With the right opening hand & early draws, Zurgo can start swinging as early as turn 3 when some decks are just setting up a bit. You generally want to prioritize any opposing control/combo decks as your targets since they will be increasingly likely to be able to deal with Zurgo as the game goes on. Opposing aggro decks are generally easier to handle with all of the removal this deck usually packs.
With Zurgo being indestructible on your turn, you can feel free to run as many board wipes as you want. These will often be very effective at clearing a path for Zurgo to connect. The amount of board wipes you utilize can be adjusted up or down from what I currently have depending on your local meta conditions.
This deck includes Sunforger, which serves an excellent toolbox. In a normal red/white deck, Sunforger gives you access to quite a few great cards to pull up at a moment's notice. This can get you removal when needed, possibly protective spells, or other effects like making sure you hit land drops with Tithe. Mistveil Plains can help make sure you can reuse some of these cards. In decks that have additional colors, such as this one, you can search up quite a few other cards as long as they are red or white. In a red/white/black deck, this opens up options like Terminate, Anguished Unmaking, Utter End, Hide // Seek, etc.,. Sunforger also turns Zurgo into a two hit kill while equipped, which is not too shabby if you don't need to activate it, or if you can activate and re-equip then you can search up something like Temur Battle Rage for a one hit kill.
One of the banes of this sort of deck is opponents who run sacrifice effects like Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, Innocent Blood, etc.,. Your counter to this is either to destroy any enchantments that give these effects, suite up Zurgo Helmsmasher with an Assault Suit, or have Elspeth, Knight-Errant to put out soldier tokens to use as sacrifice fodder. Depending on how heavily an opposing deck leans into that direction you may have to slow play a bit and not be as aggressive as you'd otherwise prefer.
Other Cards to Consider
Worldslayer: If you can get this equipped to Zurgo you can sometimes just run away with the game, and it is a popular choice for Zurgo decks. I've encountered a few problems with this. Worldslayer is expensive to play and expensive to equip and while there are way to cheat at those such as Stoneforge Mystic, Sigarda's Aid, and Stonehewer Giant, you can't always rely on these. Furthermore, if an opponent is playing white then you have to be wary of cheap cost cards like Swords to Plowshares, black players can get cheap removal and sacrifice effects for 1-2 mana, and blue opponents can use bounce effects, in the face of any of these you either go for victory or you take a bad risk and end up losing all of your lands & ramp artifacts which makes it tough to recover. Worldslayer is very effective, but it can be risky. I've played it in the past but have opted to drop it for the time being due to staring at it in my hand without it being an optimal choice to use in a number of games.
Obliterate: This can serve a similar function to Worldslayer but without as many hoops to jump through and with the added benefit of leaving any enchantments you have alone. There are other similar cards like Jokulhaups. This is really a personal call to try using these things, I'm not a huge fan of it but others may be.
Armageddon: This and similar mass land destruction cards can really put a hurting on opponents but in my experience you want every mana you have available and a lot of cards that can deal with Zurgo are not super high mana cost anyway.
Savage Beating: This card is fantastic. I've dropped it for the time being to test out Akroma's Will, which serves a similar function and is Sunforger searchable. It is likely I will try to adjust my list to put this back in at some point in the future.
World at War: This is similar to Savage Beating and can be pretty effective.
Magus of the Abyss: I've tried it in the past. Much like the card it was inspired by, you can always choose Zurgo on your turn to have it basically not affect you. It isn't terrible, but it isn't a must have.
Delirium & Backlash: These are Sunforger searchable and can catch people off guard. They don't really advance the primary game plan though so I've stopped using them. I think these would be better suited to another red/white/black deck with Sunforger not led by Zurgo.
Deflecting Palm: Another great Sunforger target but it doesn't really advance the game plan so I stopped using it.
Dawn Charm: This is good to have available when things get a little too aggro. Depending on how the playgroup/meta changes and evolves I've had this in and out of the deck at various times.
Teferi's Protection: This is a great Sunforger target that I've been meaning to try out in this deck but just have not gotten around to yet.
Lethal Vapors: You can play Zurgo right into this and be safe. I wouldn't fault people for trying it since it makes someone skip their turn and can delay opposing board development but I am personally not a fan of it since you aren't recurring it in any way. If you are seeing a lot of decks that go wide, this might be worth trying.
Jeska's Will: I have not tried this out but I have been very impressed with it in other red decks. I think this might have a home here.
Court of Grace: I have not tried this out in this deck but it is a pretty great card. At minimum it gets you 1 card in return. Getting a free creature every turn in case an opponent is using sacrifice effects could be useful. Angels could serve as a good backup plan also. I don't think this deck is very effective at protecting your monarch status but you can get it back pretty easily.
Nahiri, Heir of the Ancients: I keep meaning to try this out. It serves a similar function as Elspeth, Knight-Errant for the same converted mana cost and the -2 ability seems effective for digging for equipment pieces.
Budget Options
Board wipes are great to have and some of them like Damnation are currently fairly pricey. There are a lot of cheaper alternatives like Day of Judgment that can be nearly as good. As long as the board wipe is not reliant upon -X/-X effects you can try it out and it will probably be effective.
The Abyss is certainly not a required card and I definitely would not recommend rushing out and getting one at the current price. I have it in the deck simply because I luckily own a copy I acquired when the card was much cheaper. Magus of the Abyss can serve as a good cheap alternative to this effect. Sheoldred, Whispering One is another similar effect but it is a bit pricey for some budgets. To be honest you don't really even need this effect in the deck to make it function.
All of the tutor effects are fairly pricey to some degree. You can replace these with various card draw options like Read the Bones or whatever else might fit in this color combination reasonably.
Aurelia, the Warleader isn't super cheap at the moment. You could replace her with any number of extra combat step cards or damage increasers.
Conqueror's Flail is very useful and unfortunately there isn't a great budget alternative. Grand Abolisher has a similar function but it isn't cheap either. I would just use some other equipment in its place that helps Zurgo be unblockable/fly/trample to some degree or increase his damage, or maybe Silence for a one shot instance of this effect.
Further Notes
I'll update all of the above periodically.