Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot grabbed my attention immediately and looks to be a powerhouse in the competitive scene.
My first thought was to make a deck with lots of one-for-one damage spells as you can make a cantrip out of each one, meaning you always have tempo.
However after looking up cards I noticed the amount of spells which deal 1 damage to each opponents creatures. With Taii Wakeen activated ability you can turn any of these types of spells into one-sided Earthquake.
I've played a lot of Commander, so I have a good idea of popularity of creatures and their respective toughness. But I thought I'd back this up by looking up the top 200 creatures played in Commander as cited by EDHREC and group their respective toughness.
| Toughness | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 1 | 22% |
| 2 | 28% |
| 3 | 16% |
| 4 | 14% |
| 5 | 7% |
| 6 | 8% |
| 7 | 3% |
| 8+ | 2% |
With this in mind your ability to draw off these creatures will make Taii Wakeen a very successful Commander.
Now of course your meta might be full of Timmies stomping their way with giant creatures, but the great thing about Taii Wakeen is that you can scale up your damage cards to accommodate.
Damage Opponents Creatures
This is mainly a control deck that really has a stranglehold on creatures. With 9 cards that deal damage to only opponents creatures, you have access to a lot of one-sided mass creature removal.
The trick is that the cards themselves only cost between 1-2 mana and they deal damage to creatures opponents control and with Taii Wakeen ability you can make them do enough damage for what is most effective for you.
Now one of the bigger decision making parts of the deck is figuring out how much you want to draw versus how many creatures you might want to kill?
Let's give an example, between your opponents there are Four creatures with Toughness=1, Three creatures with Toughness=2 and Two creatures with Toughness=3.
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If you cast it to kill off more creatures then you do lose the potential to draw off the smaller creatures once they are dead. However it is a safer play and much more likely to be mana efficient.
Direct Damage
The deck does still have a lot of direct damage spells as you want to be controlling the worst threats on the board and not wanting to wait around for large board states to get maximum card advantages.
I've included a lot that have duel purpose like Abrade, Cast into the Fire, Slight Malfunction, Rip Apart, Invasion of Tarkir, Virtue of Courage // Embereth Blaze so that the deck has more flexibility and greater depth.
Remember Taii Wakeen can still scale up direct damage cards, so a Lightning Bolt is still good to kill a Etali, Primal Conqueror if you put another mana into the activated ability,
With this in mind, having cards naturally do only say 1-2 damage can be an advantage as you can scale up to get the draw, but you can't scale down. So a Lightning Bolt is not going to get the draw if you bolt a Bird. However Electrickery does and you can always use Taii Wakeen to boost it to kill a Toughness 3 creature.
Of course mana-to-damage ratio is still good for mana efficiency which is the bottleneck of the deck, so this is still a major component to card selection.
Because there is a lot of draw potential in this deck, cards that can be cast for free but come with a bit of card disadvantage at first really shine in this deck.
Fury, Cave-In, Thunderclap, Flameshot, Pyrokinesis are all cards that can be cast without mana, but the disadvantages can be regained with Taii Wakeen draw. The deck is 80% red cards so pitching to them is easy.
Firestorm and Martyr of Ashes are basically a cost reduction spells as well, in that you can deal a lot of damage for mana invested.
Damage All Creatures
Because Taii Wakeen can get draw off your own creatures, there is a token creature sub theme to leverage off this.
The deck can make a lot of token creatures with Young Pyromancer and Monastery Mentor.
You can use Marrow Shards, Martyr of Ashes and Spiteful Banditry to kill your own tokens
Comet, Stellar Pup also can produce token creatures.
Cave-In would only get the draw off Monastery Mentor monks.
Control and Win Conditions
With deathly control over creatures, there is artifact and enchantment removal to back this up to make sure opponents are kept in check.
Most of the "winning" is by out resourcing your opponents.
However Taii Wakeen ability to add damage to cards does mean that you have a long-term plan of killing your opponents by sinking mana into these cards.
Zirda, the Dawnwaker allows you to get infinite mana with either Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith. You can kill opponents with one of your deals damage to opponents cards in End the Festivities, Tectonic Hazard, Delayed Blast Fireball by sinking it into Taii Wakeen activated ability.
If you don't have one of these then you can kill a single opponent with direct damage that can target players.
I was thinking about Zirda, the Dawnwaker as a companion after drafting the initial deck, as reducing activated costs is great with Taii Wakeen ability and the infinites.
However there are some choice cards that would have to be removed, but there is definitely a version where you can trade off for this very powerful option in the companion zone.
Because you can keep the board clear of creatures, planeswalkers are good in this deck.
The bottle-neck of the deck is mana as Taii Wakeen is such a powerful draw Commander. As such the cEDH quality of mana rocks and alternative costs (no mana) is reflected in this.
As always this is a first draft, would like to know if there are cards I've missed, interactions you've thought of, or even the direction you would go with Taii Wakeen.
Taii Wakeen, Perfect Shot
Approximate Total Cost:
Zacama
