(Folio of Fancies | Art by Colin Boyer)

You Look Like You Need a Hug.

Hello! Welcome back to Nearly Identical, a series where I take a look at two commanders with similar designs and archetypes, find out what separates them, and help you find your next commander! Today, we're looking at two Azorius (blue, white) commanders that want our opponents to draw cards: Kwain, Itinerant Meddler and The Council of Four.

Azorius is best known for its access to the best Stax pieces needed to lock opponents out of the game. Slowing opponents down while durdling for a win-con was all Azorius was capable of until we started getting commanders that sped up the game. Kwain, Itinerant Meddler allows our opponents to draw cards whenever we tap him, which flips the script on the usual Stax strategy, and gives us a Group Hug commander for the first time in these colors. The Council of Four decks also run a number of group hug cards like Kami of the Crescent Moon and Dictate of Kruphix which will trigger our commander and have us drawing more than the rest. But why do we want our opponents to have so many cards?

Smothering Tithe will turn all that card draw into Treasure so long as our opponents don't have the mana to pay. Faerie Mastermind gives us card advantage whenever opponents draw their second card, while also being able to enable card draw. Folio of Fancies can be a potential win-con if we put enough mana into it, but mostly we'll be using it to mill our opponents and deny them cards.

Based on data provided by MtGDS, Kwain and The Council of Four have a similarity coefficient of 87%, meaning there's an 87% chance of a card in a Kwain deck appearing in a Council of Four deck. Group Hug isn't really Azorius' thing, so Kwain and Council of Four seem to be pulling from the same batch of cards. But I don't think Group Hug is actually the way to go for these commanders.

I think we can turn these Azorius commanders into legit aggro decks and win through combat. So for Kwain, I want to turn our card draw into creatures. And for The Council of Four, I'm leaning in on their ability to make Knight tokens and amass a scary board for us to swing with.

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Go to My Second Draw

Let's see how we're building Kwain!

Kwain's a weird guy. He allows everyone to draw an additional card with no inherent downside. He even lets everyone gain life too. There isn't a clear build path with him, but we've seen an influx of new creatures that love when we draw cards. Minn, Wily Illusionist and Alandra, Sky Dreamer both create creatures when we've drawn our second card each turn, (an incredible value given that Minn's tokens are Illusions that get bigger the more we have), and the Alandra tokens have evasion. If we have ways to untap Kwain, we can make these tokens each turn.

Prince Imrahil the Fair is the latest in this "Draw Two Trigger" theme. While Imrahil only gives 1/1 Soldiers, he can come down early since he's two-drop. The Watcher in the Water, on the other hand, gives us a 1/1 Tentacle token whenever we draw on an opponent's turn. One Brainstorm and we get three of these tokens at instant speed. Plus, they can keep annoying permanents tapped down whenever they die. Now let's see how we're untapping Kwain.

White Plume Adventurer and Sting, the Glinting Dagger allow us to untap Kwain each turn. With just one of our token makers out, we can quickly flood the board with tokens and outvalue our opponents. Tolarian Kraken synergies perfectly with Kwain. Whenever we draw, we can pay one, uptap Kwain, draw and then do it again, so long as we have the mana for it. With any combination of these untappers, we should have no trouble meeting the draw-two requirement on each turn.

And here's the deck!

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The Council Has Spoken

Now let's move on to The Council of Four.

The Council of Four isn't the strongest Knight deck out there, but they do passively create Knights whenever a player casts their second. In Commander, this isn't a hard ask, especially if everyone is drawing extra cards. I think The Council's ability to make Knight tokens gives us a great excuse to throw in Knight synergies. Xerex Strobe-Knight has an activated ability that makes more Knights whenever cast our second spell, which is conveniently something we already want to do.

Cavalier of Gales will draw us cards as it enters and trigger The Council's first ability while also manipulating the top of our deck. Finally, we have Herald of Hoofbeats which brings back Horsemanship and effectively gives all our Knights unblockable. This is pretty fitting for a deck that wants to win through combat, but I think there's so something else we can do to make this deck more efficient.

Convoke! The easiest way to cast multiple spells a turn is by casting them for free. With the ability to create up to four Knights in a turn cycle, we can cast spells like Meeting of Minds for free and trigger The Council for us on an opponent's turn. While the tokens are white, we can typically use The Council to tap for blue if needed.

There are some great Convoke spells that I've added to the deck to enhance our game plan: Clever Concealment will protect our boardstate, Bennie Bracks, Zoologist draws us cards when we make Knights every turn, and we even have Knight-Errant of Eos: a Knight that can help us dig for more Knights.

But what if we could Convoke any spell in our deck? Wand of the Worldsoul gives the next spell we cast Convoke which can be a game changer when we cast our bigger spells for free. Invasion of Segovia is another permanent that grants Convoke to spells in our hand. While limited to only noncreature spells, it does untap up to four creatures for us to help cast spells on opponents' turns. Convoke gets stronger when we have ways to untap our creatures with cards like Reconnaissance. Now let's see how we plan to win with our deck.

Akroma's Will has become my go-to win-con in white decks. Double strike and protection from all colors is a powerful combination, and it can save your team in a pinch when you need it most. Halo Fountain is our backup wincon that works well with our Convoke plan. Untapping our Knights to draw cards can help trigger The Council's first ability and it can lead toward a potential win if we have 15 tapped creatures.

Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I think Synthetic Destiny is pretty strong in this deck. Exiling all of our creatures obviously isn't appealing, but with all our token Knights we create, we could pull out every creature in our deck and end up with a huge army. And if we do this on an opponent's end step, we can swing with them the next turn. Six mana is a lot to hold up, but this becomes easier when we can potentially Convoke with Invasion of Segovia.

With all that said, let's check out the deck!

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Too Much of a Good Thing

To my surprise, Kwain, Itinerant Meddler leads with 4,000 decks, which is twice as many decks than The Council of Four with barely 2,000 decks. Kwain was a bit of a head-scratcher when he came out, but I think over time we received more cards that filled in the pieces of its puzzle. Triskaidekaphile wins you the game if you have 13 cards in hand, and there's a growing list of cards that make creatures when you draw. He's gotten stronger and I think people have finally caught on to his rabbit's tricks.

And unlike Kwain's ranking, I'm surprised The Council of Four doesn't have more decks. They provide a ton of value just from your opponents playing the game. They're not necessarily a group hug deck, just not one that's trying to Stax your opponents. Now to put 2,000 decks in perspective, The Council did come out in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, which was a big Commander set with tons of new legends. With big hitters like Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm taking up the spotlight, I can see how The Council might've gotten overlooked. Maybe in time, they'll see a rise in decks just like Kwain.

Let me know what you think of these commanders. Do you prefer to draw cards and make creatures, or sit back and let the rest of the table give you all the value? Let me know down below, and I'll see you next time!