Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor | Art by Eilene Cherie

Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it's going to tell one kind of story only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game.

On the last edition of Plot Twist, we built a Hydras / Clones deck around Jackal, Genius GeneticistJackal, Genius Geneticist that looked to add and remove counters from our commander to ensure we always had a creature to copy.

This week, we're returning to Avatar: the Last Airbender with Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor, the second Firebender we've featured on this series. Does that make me a firebending moon or sun? Someone let me know how Avatar astrology works in the comments.

How Does Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor Work?

Iroh has officially taken the crown of most vanilla commander ever featured on Plot Twist from Sami, Ship's Engineer. He has only one ability, which gives attacking creatures +1/+1 whenever he attacks.

At , Iroh's the sort of uncommon that supports aggressive decks in Draft rather than a build-around type of legendary creature you normally see in Commander.

With a whopping 10 decks on his EDHREC page at the time of writing, Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor doesn't really seem to have an established "best deck" yet.

Full ThrottleFull Throttle makes a lot of sense as the top card in Iroh's High Synergy section; multiple combats in a single turn means our commander could trigger multiple times. But then Komodo RhinoKomodo Rhino shows up with a 50% synergy score as well, so clearly there's plenty of room to experiment still.

A handful of staples like Blasphemous ActBlasphemous Act and Ruby MedallionRuby Medallion show up in Iroh's Top Cards section, alongside a lot of cards from Avatar like Zuko, Exiled PrinceZuko, Exiled Prince and Rough Rhino CavalryRough Rhino Cavalry which would seem to indicate that Iroh decks don't yet have an identity far beyond Avatar theme decks.

Which means there's plenty of room to create something novel and twisty!

This week, we'll see if we can trigger Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor multiple times a turn by making multiple copies of him and dodging the "legend rule" - which states that we can only have one copy of a legendary permanent on the board - with effects like Mirror BoxMirror Box and Mirror GalleryMirror Gallery.

Doing the Twist

This week's brew is a little tricky because there isn't much of an established build for Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor deck lists for us to twist away from. But the relatively vanilla text of our commander still leaves plenty of room for experimentation.

We'll want to trigger Iroh's ability multiple times a turn to buff our attackers, so extra combats make a lot of sense in a deck like this.

But we just featured a Fire Lord Ozai extra combats deck, so let's do something else instead!

The other way to easily get multiple triggers from our commander is to clone him, something red is very good at with cards like Devastating OnslaughtDevastating Onslaught, Mirror MarchMirror March, and Orthion, Hero of LavabrinkOrthion, Hero of Lavabrink. Without access to reliable token doublers, we can still reliably copy a single creature multiple times in a single turn.

Unfortunately, that pesky legend rule prevents us from easily copying our commander or other legendary creatures. Nowadays we have plenty of ways to reliably dodge the legend rule though, and we're running three of them in Helm of the HostHelm of the Host, Mirror BoxMirror Box, and Mirror GalleryMirror Gallery.

Plus red gives us cards like Reckless HandlingReckless Handling and Kuldotha ForgemasterKuldotha Forgemaster to more reliably find these key artifacts.

Since we care about copying legendary creatures, we get to pack our deck list with tons of interesting legends like Dong Zhou, the TyrantDong Zhou, the Tyrant, Éomer, Marshal of RohanÉomer, Marshal of Rohan, and Rionya, Fire DancerRionya, Fire Dancer to help shore up our plan of attack or make the game really nutty when we need to.

Put it all together and you have a Secret Commander-style deck with a Legends-Matter twist.

Copying Our Commander and Other Legendary Creatures

Since the core of our deck will revolve around copying Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor and other legendary creatures, we're running more than a dozen ways to copy target creature in this week's deck list.

We had to exclude a few excellent versions of this effect, like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror BreakerKiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker since they can't copy a legendary creature (for good reason). Though there are ways for us to get around that by making non-legendary copies and then copying the copies, that felt like too many hoops for us to jump through.

Instead, we'll look for ways to either make multiple copies at once (looking at you Devastating OnslaughtDevastating Onslaught and Orthion, Hero of LavabrinkOrthion, Hero of Lavabrink) or to do so very cheaply and repeatedly, like with Rionya, Fire DancerRionya, Fire Dancer and Mimic VatMimic Vat. While we could run cheaper versions of this effect, like Heat ShimmerHeat Shimmer, if we have to jump through the hoop of ignoring the legend rule, we'll want get more than one copy at once.

If you've never had the pleasure of getting multiple copies with Delina, Wild MageDelina, Wild Mage and Mirror MarchMirror March, then you're going to fall in love with them after you play this deck. As a bonus, the inherent randomness of their copying effects means they won't play out the same game after game.

Given our core strategy revolves around dodging the legend rule every game, adding some randomness to the way games play out is important to help keep our games fresh.

Dodging the "Legend Rule"

Rather than a single Secret Commander in our deck list this week, we have functionally three: Helm of the HostHelm of the Host, Mirror BoxMirror Box, and Mirror GalleryMirror Gallery to help us dodge the legend rule.

We're also running a handful of tutors in Inventors' FairInventors' Fair, Kuldotha ForgemasterKuldotha Forgemaster, and Reckless HandlingReckless Handling which can find any of these three key artifacts to give us additional functional copies of them and ensure we can find them more often.

Mirror BoxMirror Box is probably the best of these effects because it's the cheapest to cast at and also grants a buff to both our legends and the copies we create, as long as they have the same name as the original creature. We'll either want to find Mirror Box first if we can protect it, or save it for later in the game if we're able to create a bunch of legend copies the same turn we cast it to go for an alpha strike.

Mirror GalleryMirror Gallery is basically a strictly worse Mirror BoxMirror Box, since it also lets our opponents copy their own legendary permanents if they have their own clone effects. Should our Mirror Box get exiled to a FarewellFarewell or similar effect, we'll definitely want to have a second way to dodge the legend rule in our list, and Mirror Gallery is exactly that.

Helm of the HostHelm of the Host is the most mana-intensive way rule dodger, and it also only applies to a single creature. But it does create the copies itself and those copies get to stick around. If you wanted to power this deck up further, you could add Godo, Bandit WarlordGodo, Bandit Warlord to the list (or put Godo at the helm of the list) to add an infinite combo that would help the deck play better in Bracket 4 pods.

Other Legendary Creatures to Copy

Given the plethora of fantastic legendary creatures that come out with every new set, we have plenty of other legends we can add to our deck to copy. This has the added benefit of preventing our whole strategy from falling apart with a single, timely removal spell aimed at our commander. While copying Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor will still give us one avenue towards victory, it's hardly our whole game plan.

Éomer, Marshal of RohanÉomer, Marshal of Rohan and Moraug, Fury of AkoumMoraug, Fury of Akoum can help us chain a few extra combats together, allowing us to buff all our attacking creatures with our commander multiple times a turn. Moraug's landfall ability is easier to trigger than Éomer's, but given the density of legendary creatures we're running, it won't be unusual for one to die in combat and trigger Éomer.

Ardoz, Cobbler of WarArdoz, Cobbler of War will give +2/+0 to all of the copies we make and Gimli of the Glittering CavesGimli of the Glittering Caves will get bigger with each of them as well, giving our deck both a "go wide" and "go tall" angle of attack. These effects also scale really nicely when we copy either Ardoz or Gimli, making them excellent targets for our copy effects as well.

Dong Zhou, the TyrantDong Zhou, the Tyrant, while ridiculously expensive since it's from Portal Three Kingdoms, does give our deck some added reach by burning an opponent for the last few points of damage, provided they have a creature with sufficient power. Just the sort of weird card we live for on Plot Twist.

Eking Out Card Advantage

Mono-red has come a long way in generating card advantage through effects like Demand AnswersDemand Answers and Light Up the StageLight Up the Stage, compared to where it used to be. We'll definitely need to run plenty of it to ensure we can find either a way to dodge the legend rule, a way to copy our legendary creatures, or a good legendary creature to copy depending on the situation.

Since we have a bit of an artifacts sub-theme in our deck this week, we're running Big ScoreBig Score, Unexpected WindfallUnexpected Windfall, and a few other effects that also generate a Treasure token. These help to both smooth out our draw by turning unwanted cards into fresh draws, and also ramp ahead of curve via the Treasure tokens.

Mirror of GaladrielMirror of Galadriel and The Peregrine DynamoThe Peregrine Dynamo allow us to generate some extra card advantage in a legends-matter deck at very low costs. Keep in mind that The Peregrine Dynamo can't copy our commander, but we're running plenty of other legends with abilities it can copy. Also note that a copy of your commander is not your commander, so we could use The Peregrine Dynamo on any copies we make - as long as they're legendary copies.

It's also worth calling out a few other legends we're running that generate card advantage in Clive, Ifrit's DominantClive, Ifrit's Dominant (who I've also written a deck tech about before), Dragonhawk, Fate's TempestDragonhawk, Fate's Tempest, and Tersa LightshatterTersa Lightshatter. All of these help us dig deeper into our deck to find whatever pieces we're missing while also making for excellent backup targets for our copy effects.

Winning the Game With Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor

Beyond our primary game plan of copying our commander and attacking with a clone army that buffs itself, we have a few other ways we'll look to regularly close out the game.

Erkenbrand, Lord of WestfoldErkenbrand, Lord of Westfold has a similar effect to Iroh, Firebending InstructorIroh, Firebending Instructor, except that it triggers when a Human enters. We have 10 Humans in the deck, including our commander, so we should be able to get a few triggers off of Erkenbrand over the course of the game, and a bunch whenever we copy one of our Humans.

Heroes' PodiumHeroes' Podium gives us access to a Jodah, the UnifierJodah, the Unifier effect that'll be quite powerful, since about 20% of our deck is made up of legendary creatures. If you've never played with or against a Jodah deck, it only takes a few legends before Jodah's effect makes every creature into a must-block threat.

We're also running two legendary versions of Impact TremorsImpact Tremors in General Kreat, the BoltbringerGeneral Kreat, the Boltbringer and Purphoros, God of the ForgePurphoros, God of the Forge. These two will be fantastic targets to clone once we can ignore the legend rule, since each copy will see each other copy enter, allowing for a ridiculous amount of damage out of nowhere.

Keep in mind that Purphoros only counts as a creature if your devotion to red is five when it enters, so you'll need to have five devotion in order for the copies to trigger.

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

As always, the best part of Plot Twist is the strange cards we uncover in our Scryfall searches. You're already aware of how interesting, if underwhelming, I think Dong Zhou, the TyrantDong Zhou, the Tyrant is. But it got me curious about what other old legends might have unique abilities like this that could be power crept to be more competitive in today's Commander format.

It's a niche ability, but could be very powerful against other decks that play to the board.

Redoubled StormsingerRedoubled Stormsinger seems absolutely fantastic in our list this week, but also in token decks in general. Red is very good at making tokens, but I had a hard time finding ways to copy them for this week's deck list. Redoubled Stormsinger, however, is absolutely great at that.

Plus, the tokens will trigger even more enter-the-battlefield effects, and see each other enter for cards like General Kreat, the BoltbringerGeneral Kreat, the Boltbringer.

I definitely missed Yuffie, Materia HunterYuffie, Materia Hunter during Final Fantasy spoiler season, but being able to steal artifacts when she enters could be amazing. Plus, she can attach Helm of the HostHelm of the Host to herself in the process. There's definitely some very powerful shenanigans we can get up to with Yuffie in a deck better built to maximize her ability.

Last but not least, I want to call out Headliner ScarlettHeadliner Scarlett for her ability to make creatures target player controls unable to block this turn. We'll only need to get three Scarlett triggers in a single turn to prevent our three opponents from blocking, but we can also mess up combat on an opponent's turn by copying her at instant speed with something like Mimic VatMimic Vat.

This gives us a powerful political tool that mono-red normally doesn't have access to.

Iroh, Firebending Instructor Commander Deck List

Here's the full list for you to peruse:

Roll Credits

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring Iroh, Firebending Instructor. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my deck lists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final decklist.

You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I finally got around to assembling a Bracket 4, colorless combo deck that I'm trying (and failing) to make work and having a blast. I'm also always adding new cards to my favorite deck of all time, Secret Commander: Wild Pair.

My inner Timmy also seems to be back in full force as I've been playing my Yeva, Mono-Green Stompy list a bunch lately and falling in love with it all over again.

Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.

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