Mai, Scornful StrikerMai, Scornful Striker | Art by Hori Airi

Hello, fellow Human Noble Allies! I'm Brian, your usual host of Brew For Your Buck (BFYB), and I'm back with another Avatar: The Last Airbender deck tech! Last time we looked at one of the Fire Nation's leaders, and we'll stick with our fiery friends again this time.

The thing is... mono-black cards don't exactly feel too fiery. But I promise, as we get into the cards, it'll be apparent how quickly opponents will feel the "burn."

Mai, Scornful StrikerMai, Scornful Strikerbrings us something that we don't see too often in modern day Magic: a negative symmetric effect. It would have been very easy for Wizards to print this as "whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell..." Yes, the card would probably be viewed as better in most cases, but finding ways to break the symmetry is often what makes these types of cards really interesting to build around and really fun to play.

What Does Mai, Scornful StrikerMai, Scornful Striker Do?

Mai's ability is very straightforward. If anyone casts a noncreature spell, they lose two life. Simple and clean. Some other notable aspects? She's only two mana, so casting her early to start punishing the table is completely doable, and recasting her isn't too painful.

As I said, we need to find cards to help break the symmetry of her ability. In general, I started with looking at the Group Slug page on EDHREC, and the pages for a commander I'm very familiar with: Liesa, Shroud of DuskLiesa, Shroud of Dusk.

Liesa pilots will use their life total as a resource and pack ways to gain it back while opponents have to contend with an ever decreasing number on whatever they're using to track life totals. But Liesa is easy mode since that deck has access to white and its plentiful lifegain effects. We're upping the difficulty by cutting a color, but as we'll see, there are options in mono-black too.

Key Cards for MaiMai

Opponents Lose Life

The easiest place to start for building a Mai deck is to find cards that trigger when opponents lose life. The obvious ones include Exquisite BloodExquisite Blood and Bloodthirsty ConquerorBloodthirsty Conqueror, which gain us life when we drain our opponents. Since we're running them we might as well throw in the other "Blood-Bond" combo cards, like Sanguine BondSanguine Bond and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk RoseVito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose.

Together, these cards make the (in)famous infinite combo to drain and gain the table:

While we're on the subject of infinite combos, we can also throw in Bloodchief AscensionBloodchief Ascension and MindcrankMindcrank (or in this case Mai-ndcrank, hehe). Both have standalone value when coupled with our commander, but can also form another loop:

We'll also include Wound ReflectionWound Reflection and its creature incarnation, Archfiend of DespairArchfiend of Despair. These cards will simply double the pain from the life loss we're causing, and notably won't do it to us. The fact that they trigger on each end step means as the table interacts with each other and Mai pings in for damage, our opponents will continue to drain out even when it's not their turn.

Finally, we have max speed cards from Aetherdrift. We can get to max speed really fast with Mai on the battlefield, turning on the extra abilities of these cards in no time. The Raceways are up first. Since we're in mono-black, they're less of a hit to our mana base compared to decks with more colors, so the opportunity cost to include them is very low.

Leading on one of these on turn one and then casting Mai on turn two can be really strong. Muraganda RacewayMuraganda Raceway is probably the best one, but don't scoff at what the other two can offer us in terms of utility either.

The nonland speed cards to include are The Speed DemonThe Speed Demon, Racers' ScoreboardRacers' Scoreboard, and Hour of VictoryHour of Victory. Each fills a utility function for the deck really well. The Demon keeps our hand full of cards to cast while the Scoreboard helps us cast them.

Hour of VictoryHour of Victory is a flexible tutor to help find those combo pieces, and while I won't be including some of black's other tutors, I like this one since it fits the theme and opponents will have plenty of time to react to it if they're worried about what we'll go find.

Opponents Keep Losing Life

While Mai does a great job bringing life totals down, and we identified a bunch of ways to take advantage of that, why not have more ways to slash life totals? Soot ImpSoot Imp is a perfect example, and we break the symmetry just by the nature of Mai's color identity.

Polluted BondsPolluted Bonds, and Painful QuandaryPainful Quandary are classic group slug enchantments that punish opponents for playing the game, almost with complete disregard to their deck's strategy.

Underworld DreamsUnderworld Dreams and Fate UnravelerFate Unraveler teach opponents that drawing cards is not always the most fun thing to do in Commander. With so many new commanders getting stapled with card draw, and with how important card velocity is for keeping up with opponents, these two should get better and better over time.

And there's more! Blood SeekerBlood Seeker takes a little off the top for anyone only casting creature spells while Mai is on the battlefield. Deadly TempestDeadly Tempest makes for a flavorful board wipe that can also be player wipe if the game has gone on long enough. I'm also a fan of Hissing MiasmaHissing Miasma, Revenge of RavensRevenge of Ravens and Marchesa's DecreeMarchesa's Decree to disincentivize opponents from attacking us - and believe me, they'll want to.

Is black actually the best Stax color? Why bother to slow down opponents with Rule of LawRule of Law and ThaliaThalia when they can just kill themselves instead?

OPPONENTS LOSE ALL THE LIFE!

So we've managed to include a ton of ways to incrementally punish opposing life totals, but how about taking it out in giant chunks? The Wound ReflectionWound Reflections of the world become instant wins with cards like Dire Fleet RavagerDire Fleet Ravager, Repay in KindRepay in Kind, and Unstoppable SlasherUnstoppable Slasher.

Slasher is especially potent early and really hard to deal with outside of exile based removal. If someone wants to waste a Swords to PlowsharesSwords to Plowshares on it instead of Mai, great!

I'm also a big fan of Skull StormSkull Storm since Mai is so cheap to cast and opponents will likely target her. It'll either clear out opposing creatures or reduce life totals down to mere fractions of what they were before it was cast. Similar cards include Sorin MarkovSorin Markov and Tree of PerditionTree of Perdition, which can set life totals to a number we feel more comfortable with, and are especially potent against lifegain decks that we might have trouble dealing with. After playing a few of these, we might even lock out opponents from casting more spells.

Black is the best stax color!

Life Insurance

As much as we'd like to believe our game plan will go perfectly, that's not the reality with three opponents aiming at least some of their resources at us. We need a few cards to give us a little extra insurance against our own symmetric effects, especially Mai.

We're actually not playing a ton a creatures so she's going to drain us as we play too. Two of my favorite ways to mitigate this are Stunning ReversalStunning Reversal and The Golden ThroneThe Golden Throne. Having these means we get an "extra life" in case we get too greedy. The EndstoneThe Endstone will also set our life total back to 20 after each turn, giving us some buffer and providing some absurd card advantage once it gets on the battlefield.

Of course, we also have the classics: Platinum AngelPlatinum Angel and Platinum EmperionPlatinum Emperion. By being in black, we also have the means to ReanimateReanimate them as needed, so we'll include a small package of spells to allow for that. Bonus points if we go to negative life with Platinum AngelPlatinum Angel on the battlefield and hit our opponents with Repay in KindRepay in Kind. I've always wanted to do that.

While we highlighted a lot of the key cards, I want to bring up an important deck-building point. I've got 83 cards in the deck as I write this, and looking at the mana curve of the deck on Archidekt, I'm noticing that it's really high. A lot of the spells are four and five mana, with an average mana value of 4.11. Mai helps this a little bit, since we'll have access to a two-drop all the time, but we definitely need to shift the mana curve lower so we can have an impact before turn four. We'll round out the deck with extra ramp and some early interaction to make this happen.

Gameplay

As for gameplay, I think Mai is best served by a pilot that has controlling/attrition mindset. Getting Mai out early is the plan and we play "protect the queen" as we deploy more and more group slug pieces. This probably means we'll need to play board police a bit, and I've thrown in UnearthUnearth, Malakir RebirthMalakir Rebirth and similar cards to help keep Mai on the battlefield.

Don't be afraid to use wraths early and often.

Life total management is going to be important for both us and our opponents. Mai's triggers will resolve before our spells do, so we need to keep that in mind before we cast a spell like Stunning ReversalStunning Reversal or Gray Merchant of AsphodelGray Merchant of Asphodel to not die.

Lifegain decks will be our biggest threat. Aggressively target these opponents as needed to get them before their engine comes online and our group slug cards are no longer a problem for them.

Wrap Up and Mini-BFYB

Mai is the commander I'm most excited about from Avatar. I love the throwback to symmetric effects like this, and figuring out ways to break synergy, build the deck, and play around the downside is one of my favorite things to do. As is tradition with my preview deck techs, I'll include a mini-BFYB analysis for those of you looking to build the deck without breaking the bank.

• Bloodthirsty ConquerorBloodthirsty Conqueror ($32.10) --> Starscape ClericStarscape Cleric ($0.78)
• Exquisite BloodExquisite Blood ($18.18) --> Pontiff of BlightPontiff of Blight ($0.18)
• Bloodchief AscensionBloodchief Ascension ($17.30) --> Basilica ScreecherBasilica Screecher ($0.24)
• Archfiend of DespairArchfiend of Despair ($15.94) --> Defiant BloodlordDefiant Bloodlord ($0.28)
• Platinum EmperionPlatinum Emperion ($13.50) --> Elixir of ImmortalityElixir of Immortality ($0.56)

My final cut of the deck list is below, and I’d love to hear your feedback about my choices or cool tech you found for the deck. Let me know which cards or mechanics from the Avatar set you're excited about too! I've got a backlog of ideas for BFYB, but reader feedback might push something to the top of the pile!

Note: I didn't include any Game Changers to keep the price down and for the sake of being Bracket flexible, but you can always use them to power up the deck.

Happy brewing, and I’ll see you next time!

Mai, Scornful Striker Commander Deck List