Cut #7 Finals - Hallowed Be Thy Cut

It might seem ironic as I write a series about deckbuilding and challenges therein, but recently I have been having a form of "deck builders" block. I went out and purchased the Innistrad Midnight Hunt Commander decks, then proceeded to build 3 whole decks out of them. One The Scarab God

Lets see what the poll says..

Congrats to Lenny and Jake! You have made it to this week's article. A big thank you to Jevin who showed us the power of curses with Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

The challenges that were sent out to our finalists this week were as follows:

• Max 10 Rares/Mythics

• Commander(s) must be a Human, Wolf, and/or Werewolf (and not have been used in the last article)

• You can have a max of 13 of a card type (not including Lands)

Presenting their spoils first is Lenny!

For this challenge I wanted to build either a Wolf or a Werewolf commander, but I didn't find the available options appealing. Instead, I settled on using a secret commander with a human as my real commander. Orvar, the All-Form

I set out to build a Wolf tribal deck with the purpose of using Orvar to make a bunch of copies of Silverfur Partisan

Once she finds Orvar, there is still work for Tazri to do. We can copy her to find any ally so there are a few more targets for her to find. Kalastria Healer

Most of the 13 instants and 13 sorceries in the deck are dedicated to targeting permanents to get mileage out of Orvar. Whim of Volrath

Since we're leaning on so many one shot effects, it's important to keep the cards flowing. Having a maximum of ten rares or mythics can make this a little awkward, but with only 13 creature spells in the deck, Whirlwind of Thought

Unfortunately one place the deck suffers is the mana base. Much of the best fixing in the game is rare and I didn't want to spend my limited slots on that so the deck may stumble a bit in early turns. I recommend taking a mulligan for a green source.

Overall I'm really into this idea. I was not expecting the overlap in Wolf and Ally tribal and the deck is certainly unique. While I have experience building these kinds of decks with my own General Tazri five color Zada, Hedron Grinder

Thanks Lenny! That was a heck of a deck and General Tazri

Next up is Jake FitzSimons!

Whale Wolf Warrior Wombo Combo

This week's cut challenge was... not easy. There are a total of two legendary werewolves, three legendary wolves, and a whopping 409 legendary humans. I was caught between a tiny pool of furry friends and a great ocean of fleshy ones.

My heart told me wolves, but my brain told me humans. I'd love to have built Tovolar, Dire Overlord

The moment I realized I was in Sultai and working with such powerhouse commanders, I figured that if I was in for a penny, I'd be in for a pound. So I present to you the most outrageously busted deck I could possibly build within the restrictions I was given.

To begin with, Cazur essentially does what he says on the tin. Whenever we connect with a creature, that creature will grow just a little bigger, a little more threatening. It isn't much to look at given the quality of creatures we have at our disposal, but nevermind that. The real meat of the deck revolves around Ukkima.

Ukkima is a slippery threat that can't be blocked, and is available as early as turn two with a mana dork opener. Growing every turn with Cazur, he can get out of hand quickly. Ukkima is also the centrepiece of the namesake combo, but we'll get to that.

Building a three colour deck with a rare/mythic budget of 10 means that some of the best lands are out of reach. We can't run fetches, bondlands or even painlands, so I've had to be creative with where we get our colours. Thankfully, good mana rocks and land tutors are plentiful.

These uncommon fixers should solve any mana problems. As far as what to spend that mana on, it's no secret that Sultai contains the finest card advantage pieces in the format.

Can you believe none of these cards were rare on printing? On a powerlevel axis, they could pass for mythics in Commander. Landing even one of these should give you more cards than you know what to do with. While Ukkima swings with impunity, your hand will stay full, giving you all the interaction and advantage you could ask for.

Speaking of swinging, we've also got Curiosity

Unassuming, but with high versatility and low CMC, protecting our board is easy. Crucially, they also protect our win, a cheeky infinite combo that uses Ukkima to its maximum potential.

What's better than swinging with Ukkima? Having Ukkima leave the battlefield for direct damage. What's better than having Ukkima leave once? Having it leave infinitely. To do so, gaze upon the ugliest card from Mercadian Masques and despair.

Yuck. What are we even looking at? What it may be, Food Chain allows us to exile creatures for mana, an effect that ranges from barely useful to gamebreaking, depending entirely on what you're feeding it.

Whenever we exile these Innistradian monsters, we're free to recast them from exile. Everytime we do this, we net one mana. See what I'm driving at? We can do this until we have infinite mana, at which point we loop with Ukkima instead. This loop drains 2 life with each repetition, effectively killing every other player at once. Pretty damn cheesy, right?

I thought this would be enough, but I wanted to go full throttle, so I also found room for the dreaded Thoracle combo. It's beyond obnoxious and utterly broken, but I'm not here to pull my punches. Demonic Consultation

The usual combo is as easy as ever as long as you name a card that isn't in your deck (I like to name Pot of Greed or Blue Eyes White Dragon) but Demonic Consultation

Yes, sometimes you'll name Food Chain and hit it in the top six, but that's part of the thrill of playing with this sort of power. And that's the wolf whale warrior wombo combo in a nutshell!

Thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone who voted for Adeline last week!

Awesome stuff Jake! Love to see some "partner with" commanders getting some love on this series. Way to see the challenges and make them work in your favor! Check out Jake's article series "Revising the Rules" here on Commander's Herald.

Thank you both for your fantastic submissions. This is going to be one fierce round of competition, that's for sure. You know what to do now, vote below for the winner of this round of CUT. Next round we have some familiar faces returning to the CUT stage to get some redemption from their last time on the series. Until next time, stay sharp, and if you don't love it, CUT it!

As always if you or anyone you know would be interested in being on a future CUT article feel free to email the.only.travis.stanley@gmail.com

The challenges our deck builders will be facing next article:

• Commander has to have 500 decks or less on EDHREC
• You can only use 4 out of these card types and none of the others (Creature, Enchantment, Artifact, Planeswalker, Instant or Sorcery)
• You can only have 4 rare/mythic Land cards

Poll Closes November 13, 2021