(Swans of Bryn Argoll

| Art by Eric Fortune)

The Nameless Ones

Hello everyone, and welcome to another installment of Hidden Strings, the article series where we build decks whose commanders can be your favorite Joe Schmoe and plain Jane.

Last time, I shared with you my attempt at a mono-white deck that could rival Simic's ramp and draw power. That build relied heavily on the much powerful and very fun (such wow

Today, then, we'll embrace a riskier but more engaging approach, and we'll do that by building around what in my humble opinion is one of the most "should be legendary" creatures ever printed:

The Deck

Regardless of the secret commander we choose, the task of picking a face leader for the deck often comes with the temptation to go all-in on adding multiple colors. After all, red

However, in what you might start to recognize as a recurring theme of my deckbuilding philosophy, taking the easy road is often the prelude to spoiling our own fun, so I actually prefer to stick to the lowest number of colors required for the deck to work.

Inscrutable Plans

As luck would have it, Azorius is home to the perfect leader for this build, one that can easily grab the Swans

This, then, also makes for a wonderful opportunity to come up with a sweet build for a barely played commander, and that's already a win in my book!

Peck-a-boo

Of course, the first thing we'll need to do in order to enact our gameplan is to profitably resolve our commander's trigger.

This can be achieved in a number of ways, the most obvious of which is straight up looking at one of our opponents' hand. Git Probe

Duck Hunt

Once our honorary commander

Of course, we could (and should) try to thwart some of these attempts, as we certainly don't want anybody at the table to draw 13 cards for a single red mana

Fire and Reload

Like the saying goes, the best defense is often a good attack: if we're the ones setting up the duck hunt, then we should definitely be ready with the right tools for the job and try to press the advantage before the other players have a chance to join in on the fun.

While Azorius is not exactly famous for its burn spells, white mages do actually like to throw damage around when combat is happening: cards like Iron Verdict

Protected Species

Now that we have a full grip, we should start looking for measures to prevent getting hoisted by our own petard. As most group hug strategies teach us, a few cards flowing around the table can be okay, especially if they're offered as a political tool to help someone else get back into the game or deal with opposing threats. However, we surely don't want our opponents to outdraw us in the long run, so our deck should include a few cheap ways to foil the most blatant attempts at exploiting the magical feathers of our Swans

Phasing

Ugly Ducklings

A few cards remain that don't fall under any specific category but that still provide desirable effects for our deck.

Whether directly or through a couple of steps, Karmic Guide

Bounty of the Hunt

Many of our wins with this deck will come off of generic beatdown

Taking a look at more explicit win conditions, Body of Knowledge

(Snow-)Covering the Basics

And, once again, it's that time of the deckbuilding process.

Pentad Prism

Our interaction package also relies heavily on our main themes:

Remorseful Cleric

Potential Upgrades

At the time of writing, low prices for this list put it a tad above the $40 mark (excluding basic lands). As usual, let's now see what higher budgets have to offer to the deck.

$2-5

In this first price range we find a lot of small efficiency upgrades, but also a few interesting effects:

Phyrexian Vindicator

$5+

Aside form the obvious flavor win of Swan Song

Invasion of Gobakhan

Final Parting

And there you have it! A unique (and very fun) Azorius burn deck led by Isperia

Do you love it? Do you hate it? Let me know in the comments! And while you're at it, feel free to leave a suggestion for a card you'd want to see as a hidden commander: I'm always up for a deckbuilding challenge.

Until next time!