(Kona, Rescue Beastie || Illustrated by Brian Valeza)

Ready To Kick-Start Three More Duskmourn Commander Decks? I Got You!

Hello friends, and welcome to another Start Me Up! This column will pick three legendary creatures from the most recent Magic expansion and provide you with ideas to help get you started brewing your own Commander deck around them.

Since Duskmourn: House of Horror is the new hotness, I’ll feature three new legends from Magic’s modern horror spooky set. Hopefully you have comfy shoes for running, and an improvised weapon to fend off the monsters– let’s go!

The Jolly Balloon Man

“We all float down here.” – Pennywise the Clown, from Stephen King’s horror classic It.

Magic players love value, and in Commander creatures with sweet enters the battlefield effects are the go-to backbone of many strategies. So it’s no surprise The Jolly Balloon Man – who lets you copy those sorts of creatures very efficiently – would be one of the top new Duskmourn commanders.

Jolly compares very favorably to Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, a card with a long pedigree of copying value creatures. Both have haste, which is important when you want to generate immediate value.

Jolly’s tap activation also requires a mana that puts some limits on the ability to generate unlimited activations with untap effects, which is a good design choice for a card that’s easily accessible from the command zone.

That mana activation means you’ll usually want to cast this on the turn you have four mana available so you can activate it right away.

Let’s take a look at what EDHREC has flagged as high synergy cards to play with Jolly.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Village Bell-Ringer and Zealous Conscripts offer ways to “go off” with Jolly, letting you copy and untap Jolly over and over with as much mana as you have lying about.

Sure, each copy is only going to be a 1/1, but as a Balloon each does have flying for attacking, and they will set off any triggers that care about creatures or tokens entering the battlefield.

Any creature with a sweet enters the battlefield effect is going to be awesome to copy with Jolly. Spirited Companion will draw you a card, Solemn Simulacrum will ramp you a land and draw you card when it either dies in combat or you sacrifice it, and Sun Titan gives a trigger both of entering and attacking.

Panharmonicon loves creatures with enters effects, so when you’re also making copies with Jolly you’re going to generate a ton of value. All those creatures entering the battlefield will trigger cards like Impact Tremors to deal damage to your opponents, and since Jolly makes copies that are 1/1 Balloons, Welcoming Vampire will be happy to draw you a card for your troubles. Hey, team work makes the dream work!

1/1 is the perfect size to equip with Skullclamp and draw two extra cards – talk about value! And Patriar's Seal can untap Jolly for another activation if you don’t need the mana.

More Bang For Your Buck

Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier is a sweet enhancement to the strategy of targeting a value creature to copy with Jolly, letting you pay an extra two mana to copy all of your creatures– not that’s a lotta luft balloons!

Illusionist's Bracers and Battlemage's Bracers are great Equipment enhancers to double up Jolly’s activated ability. Warleader's Call gives a nice boost to all your creatures, and whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control you deal a damage to each of your opponents.

Token Synergies

Anointed Procession and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation are fantastic cards you’ll love having in a deck that’s creating token copies of your value creatures. What’s better than one Balloon? Two or three Balloons!

Card draw is always welcome, and Caretaker's Talent has been showing us the way in Standard so I don’t see why we can’t enjoy it in a Jolly Commander deck too! Idol of Oblivion and the awesomely named Bennie Bracks, Zoologist take advantage of Jolly activations to draw you an extra card for your troubles.

The populate mechanic gets interesting when you’re making Balloon copies of value creatures, so I really like Nesting Dovehawk and Determined Iteration.

Echoing Assault is a cool way to squeeze even more value out of your value Balloons, which is like an enchantment that backs up your commander. Inspiring Leader does a nice job of boosting your 1/1 Balloon tokens into more formidable 3/3s, and is particularly awesome when you’re able to generate a bunch of attacking tokens in a turn.

Getting Around the End of Turn Trigger

Since your Balloons are destined to pop at the end of your turn, why not cash them in for even more value? Sacrifice them to Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar for a boost in mana during your post-combat main phase. Or sacrifice one to Industrial Advancement and dig into the top of your library to find another value creature to put onto the battlefield. Remember, the Balloon copy will have the same mana value as the creature it copied.

And if popping all your Balloons makes you sad, Sundial of the Infinite is here to help. Simply put the sacrifice triggers on the stack at the beginning of the end step, and activate Sundial to end the turn. Yay, Balloons forever!

Kona, Rescue Beastie

Kona, Rescue Beastie is a really cool design. It’s obviously powerful, letting you cheat an expensive permanent onto the battlefield without paying its mana cost. But there are some hoops you need to jump through – Kona needs to be on the battlefield and tapped at the beginning of your second main phase to get the survival trigger. One way to do that is attacking and surviving combat, but there are a ton of ways to tap Kona outside of combat.

The timing of the survival trigger is interesting too– since it happens after combat, something huge with haste or a combat boosting ability isn’t as exciting. Craterhoof Behemoth comes to mind as an expensive creature you’d otherwise love to cheat into play, but that won’t work out here unless you’re going to get another combat step.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Looking at the EDHREC high synergy cards, Springleaf Drum, Relic of Legends, and Jaspera Sentinel are a good representation of cards that let you tap Kona without going into combat, and you can use them the turn you play Kona to get value right away.

Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant, Apex Altisaur, and Terastodon are big expensive monsters that provide nice value when they enter the battlefield. Kodama of the East Tree will hopefully give you a chance to put more permanents from your hand onto the battlefield. Worldspine Wurm is just good clean big monster fun!

If your playgroup is okay with mean, Portal to Phyrexia and Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger will provide huge swings in the game towards your favor, demanding fast answers from your opponents or else it’s quickly going to be game over.

Vehicles

Vehicles are an excellent way to tap Kona, and I’d lean on the cheaper ones you can deploy in the turns before you cast Kona such as Smuggler's Copter and Reckoner Bankbuster.

Both of these specifically can help you draw into your big payoff permanents too. I also might try High-Speed Hoverbike since you could use its enters the battlefield ability to tap Kona itself, rather than using the crew ability.

Hedge Shredder is the same mana cost as Kona so it probably gets cast after Kona, but I think it’s a really cool new Vehicle I’d want to try in some of my green decks.

Four Power (Or More) Matters

Since Kona has four power and will likely survival out even larger creatures, I’d definitely run Fanatic of Rhonas for its incredible mana boost. Garruk's Uprising comes down a turn early, draws a card when you cast Kona, and then draws you more cards for other large creatures entering play, and oh by the way, if any of them need trample, the little green enchantment has you covered!

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is a great choice to cheat out with Kona, but it can also be cast for cheap once you’ve got a few other large creatures on the battlefield. And once you’ve got a big creature on the battlefield, Traverse the Outlands is a great way to deploy a bunch of Forests out of your deck, erasing any mana constraints for the rest of the game.

The Skullspore Nexus should be cast at a significant discount in this deck, and provides nice insurance against mass removal, leaving behind a huge Fungus Dinosaur.

Raw Card Drawing

I’d really want to have a steady supply of raw card drawing in this deck, since it’s quite easy to find yourself out of gas after a battlefield sweeper or two. Greater Good seems perfect here, letting you sacrifice your huge creature that’s otherwise dying to dig deep into your library for fresh cards.

Harmonize is a one shot spell but three fresh cards is a great rate. Card drawing creatures like Regal Force and Disciple of Freyalise are cool because you can cheat them out with Kona.

Rishkar's Expertise can potentially draw you a bunch of extra cards, and let you cast a spell for free. And I really like the flexible utility of Season of Gathering outside of raw card drawing.

Marvin, Murderous Mimic

It's tough to make a colorless deck for Commander, but Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has made more and more colorless instant and sorcery spells to help with that. Marvin, Murderous Mimic is a really cool choice for a colorless commander, opening up all sorts of spiffy combo potential.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Pili-Pala and Farmstead Gleaner are nifty cards to include with Marvin since they have an untap activated ability, letting you combine it with an ability that taps for multiple activations. Voltaic Construct's activated ability is the ability to untap an artifact, including Marvin.

Myr Welder has a fun ability to exile an artifact from a graveyard to gain all activated abilities, so this is a way that Marvin can expand its reach into noncreature activations! Steel Overseer can tap to add +1/+1 counters to all your artifact creatures, and Marvin can do it too!

Combined with an untap ability and Marvin can throw a lot of +1/+1 counters around. Copying Gingerbrute's evasion ability means you might be able to kill with commander damage (don't leave home without Blackblade Reforged).

Speaking of +1/+1 counters there are some colorless creatures with activated abilities that appreciate +1/+1 counters. Cryptic Trilobite is a likely lynchpin for infinite activation shenanigans, allowing Marvin to remove a +1/+1 counter to add two colorless mana you can only spend on activated abilities.

Walking Ballista and Triskelioncan take any +1/+1 counters and throw them as damage to other creatures or opponents. Mindless Automaton can trade +1/+1 counters for extra cards, which is always nice to have in the mix!

Other Cool Activated Abilities

Phyrexian Devourer can really push the +1/+1 counter strategy since Marvin can borrow the activated ability to consumer your library for counters without having the self-sacrificing static ability trigger.

Drillworks Mole is another way to really rack up those counters on Marvin. Endbringer has a bunch of cool activated abilities that you can combine with Marvin, plus it's just really good on its own, especially since it untaps during each other player's untap step.

Mirage Mirror is a fun way to copy a creature your opponent controls that has a nifty activated ability you'd like Marvin to enjoy for the turn.

Artifact Synergies

Cryptothrall is a way to protect Marvin and your other artifacts from interaction, while Canoptek Spyder should help you draw a decent amount of cards.

Since artifacts are historic permanents, Excalibur, Sword of Eden should be pretty cheap to cast and is a perfect weapon for Marvin to wield! Vigilance means Marvin can beat down and then still be ready to do activated ability shenanigans.

Colorless Synergies

Forsaken Monument and Mystic Forge are powerful engines for a colorless deck, and All Is Dust is a potent battlefield sweeper that won't impact you at all. I really like running Zenith Chronicler in a deck that doesn't have any multicolor spells.

Gruesome Slaughter is going to be powerful with Marvin if you've been able to stack up counters on it (or equipped with Excalibur), letting you tap to kill opponent's creatures, and if you've got untap abilities on tap you can do it over and over.

Colorless Spells

In the early days of EDH building a colorless deck was really difficult, but in recent years WotC has given us some sweet new colorless spells like Null Elemental Blast and Eldritch Immunity.

Warping Wail and Titan's Presence gives you some cheaper removal options, while Kozilek's Command and Eldrazi Confluence provide nice and flexible utility.

Desecrate Reality is instant removal that scales well for multiplayer, as well as reanimates an odd permanent to the battlefield. Cool!

Never Stop Brewing!

Which of these three commanders do you think you might build a deck around? What other cards do you think you'll add to your deck list?

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