Bess, Soul Nourisher | Art by Leonardo Santanna

Not One, Not Two, Not Three...

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Recross the Paths, a series that gives commanders a tribal twist.

Today, I'll be talking about Bess, Soul Nourisher. With her kind help as our favorite New Capennan chef, I'll attempt to stretch the boundaries of what a tribal deck really is.

Stage One: The Deck

Bess pushes us toward playing a lot of small creatures to pump herself and later spread this buff to all of our creatures, allowing for massive swings, yet having too many small creatures might also mean that we're not having any significant impact on the board. I needed to find a way to limit the number of irrelevant bodies while maintaining viable gameplay. To do so, I had to bend the traditional concept of a "tribal" deck.

Step One: The Tribe

As I was looking for the right tribe, I remembered a funny little Insect by the name of Scute Swarm. While it's widely considered a strong card in any Landfall deck, it also fits perfectly with our commander. In fact, it's a 1/1 that generates other 1/1s, doing so faster and faster as the game goes on.

So I tried to build a normal Insect deck, but it was more of a pile of creatures than an actual synergistic list. Just when I was about to throw this idea out the window, I thought maybe Scute Swarm was all that was needed to make this commander work. After all, why can't one single creature be the "tribal" in a tribal deck?

For this reason, Scute Swarm is actually the only Insect in this list, working both as a source of additional creatures in the tribe and as a pivotal gear in our commander's engine.

Step Two: The Tutors

Given how peculiar this strategy is, we need to run a critical amount of tutors to make sure we're deploying Scute Swarm as soon as possible. In doing so, we run the usual suspects, like Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor, and Eladamri's Call, as well as a new addition, Invasion of Ikoria, which could be devastating once it flips.

Moreover, Congregation at Dawn and Shared Summons are both incredibly interesting cards. They're both instant-speed tutors, which isn't extremely relevant in this deck (but could come in handy), and they also allow us to fetch multiple creatures. While this may seem useless to our initial gameplan, in certain situations it could make the difference between losing the game and staying in it.

Step Three: The Recursion

The main liability of our strategy lies within our major strength: we rely only on one creature. This obviously makes us much more susceptible to removal, so we need to run a lot of recursion.

We have cards like Noxious Revival, Reclaim, and Salvage to put our beloved creature(s) on top of our library. Plus, Angelic Renewal, Brought Back, and Recommission can all put Scute Swarm directly back in play. Grapple with the Past, Wildest Dreams, and Evolution Charm allow us to bring Swarm back to our hand.

Moreover, we should run certain recursion cards that serve multiple purposes. Piper's Melody and Krosan Reclamation reshuffle Scute Swarm into the library, allowing us to tutor it again as soon as possible. Pull from Eternity and Riftsweeper can serve as an additional insurance, as they protect from exile-based removal, which is our main concern when playing this strategy. Road of Return is also an interesting card, as both of its modes are extremely useful; for as cheap as four mana, we can get both our actual and our unofficial commander back in our hand.

Step Four: Attack and Protect

Given the peculiarity of this tribe, our chosen anthems will be different as well. For example, Echoing Courage is normally unplayable, as it's as bad as a +2/+2 for two mana can possibly be. Still, given how all of our creatures will be named "Scute Swarm" at a certain point in the game, this card can easily catch our opponents off guard and become deadly.

On the same note, Mirror Box isn't really played outside some clone strategies. Nonetheless, if we have it on the board, all of our Scute Swarms will get an enormous buff, as their stats will be equal to their total number.

We can even take advantage of already popular cards and push them even further. A premier example is Coat of Arms, a beloved inclusion in every tribal deck that shines even brighter in this list. In fact, given how quickly we generate new Insects, our board presence will become immense as soon as it hits the battlefield.

We also need to protect our board, since wrath effects remove all of our creatures and force us in a pretty lengthy rebuild period. Evergreen cards, like Guardian of Faith, Teferi's Protection, or Clever Concealment, fit perfectly with our strategy, as they prevent our Insects from dying and have a good synergy with tokens (as they will phase in with our other permanents and not disappear). This latter point is pretty relevant, as cards like Cosmic Intervention would achieve nothing more than cleaning our board just like the mass removal we are trying to protect ourselves from.

There is also a card that falls right in the middle between aggression and protection: Akroma's Will. In fact, given how we want our commander to be permanently on the battlefield, we're basically certain to always get the most out of this card. This translates into powerful swings with built-in protection from a large array of inconveniences.

Step Five: Ramp and Lands

To no one's surprise, we want to limit our artifact ramp, as our strategy requires us to trigger Scute Swarm's Landfall ability as many times as possible. For this reason, Sol Ring is the only card that made the cut thanks to how powerful it is.

Among notorious ramp pieces like Rampant Growth or Cultivate, there is a card that shines extra bright: Scapeshift. I think it's easy to say how impactful this sorcery can be, since it can easily grant us 10 or more Landfall triggers all at once.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the lands. I usually try to avoid running fetch lands in my brews, as I think they are often unnecessary and can be replaced by different (and cheaper) lands. Nonetheless, this deck goes against both of my objections: first of all, they are pivotal, to say the least, as having access to a double Scute Swarm trigger makes a huge difference given how the whole list is built around it. Then, the topic of price had already been thrown out of the window due to some pricey inclusions I've made along the way. Hence, while I'm still not a huge fan of fetch lands (even though I recognize how powerful they are), I couldn't find any reason not to include them.

Step Six: The Complete Decklist

Stage Two: The Data Room

We're now on to the last part of this deck tech: the data room. Was this deck idea actually unique? Let's compare this list against both the average Bess and the average Insect deck to see what we gained (and lost) in the process.

The numbers tell us that our beloved citizen-chef of New Capenna isn't actually that appreciated. In fact, she's only 29^th in popularity among Selesnya commanders and 688^th overall, with only 911 decks registered.

Given how peculiar today's build is, it wouldn't really make sense to follow the usual inclusion rate scheme. Rather, I will give some more broad opinions directly comparing the average lists against our list.

For reference, here's the average Bess according to EDHREC:

When looking at this list, we understand the main reason why Bess isn't actually very popular: she's too generic as a commander. Considering what people usually include in decks piloted by Bess, it seems as if we were looking at the blueprint of the most average Selesnya deck ever. The supposed strategic and distinctive trait, which should be the inclusion of 1/1 creatures, is limited to already popular ones, like Llanowar Elves or Rhys the Redeemed, erasing any trace of real innovation. Obviously, there's no problem at all with these kinds of decks. Its only flaw is that it doesn't have any peculiarity, to the point that this same list could be easily piloted by other +1/+1 commanders, like Hamza, Guardian of Arashin, or token commander, like Emmara, Soul of the Accord.

Next, let's see what the average Insect deck looks like. In particular, we'll look at the average Grist, the Hunger Tide Insect list, as it's the most popular commander for this tribe.

Here we find another problem that frequently emerges when considering tribal strategies. In fact, the Insects in this list don't have any kind of synergies between them. Sure, Grist works as a sort of glue that justifies the inclusion of creatures of this type, but it's far from being enough to call this an actual tribal deck. Nonetheless, something seems to be moving in order to facilitate this kind of strategy, considering the recent printing of Zask, Skittering Swarmlord and the existence of potentially powerful pieces like Ant Queen. Yet, the circumstances are still grim, as there's an abysmal lack of interactions between creatures, which are the foundation of these kinds of decks.

Takeaways from Today's Article

Bess, Soul Nourisher is an interesting commander that got lost in the crowd due to her being a bit too generic. Her text box unites the two most popular strategies in Selesnya, but does so in a way that kind of prevents any real innovation. In fact, the card gives us extremely vague building guidelines, asking you to play 1/1 creatures (perhaps tokens) and also winks at +1/+1 counters. While this seems the perfect recipe for success, it actually makes her fall in the middle of the pack as, whatever road you choose to go down, there is a more well-known or more dedicated commander you could potentially choose over her.
Another critical problem is the tribe itself. In fact, Insects are widespread but not especially synergistic. This means that there are some tools to play with, like Ant Queen or Living Hive, but they don't care about their own creature type through buffs or other interactions. While Zask, Skittering Swarmlord gives us some hope for the future, the situation for Insects in Commander is still lackluster.
Given the two previous points, the only way to innovate in this context is through a complete structural shakedown. For this reason, I felt the need to push the definition of "tribal deck" to the limit, trying to stretch its boundaries. I'm very interested in your opinion: was it something excessive, meaning that it ended up not being an actual tribal deck? Or was it a true innovation that changed your perspective on Bess?
Personally, I think this innovation was extreme but effective. I would love to build a proper Insect deck, but the current card pool simply doesn't allow me to do so. At the same time, I love these kinds of borderline builds, as the extremely vast card pool available in Commander allows for strange and unexpected lists like this one. Also, I'd much rather play this deck rather than jamming together 25 random Insects and calling it a day.

That’s all from me for the moment. I hope you enjoyed this deck tech, but now it’s on to you! What do you think of it? Would you have changed anything? Is there something you particularly liked about it? Most importantly, do you believe this was a true innovation in tribal Commander? Let me know in the comments below!

pull from eternity

Recross the Paths - Bess, Soul Nourisher

Rolebuilding - Divergent Experiments