Legends Legends - Arcades Sabboth
Hello, and welcome back to another exciting installment of Legends Legends. This week, we've finally hit our second Elder Dragon of the bunch, and it's none other than Arcades Sabboth! Arcades was a wise and (mostly) benevolent ruler of Dominaria during his reign before the Elder Dragon wars, and he's always had an interest in humanity's propensity to build fortresses and castles. This Arcades Sabboth Commander deck takes that classic pillow fort style and focuses it in on doing combat with Wall creatures. What makes a defender deck tick? Let's dig in!
General Thoughts
Like his cousin Elder Dragons, Arcades Sabboth is an eight-mana 7/7 Elder Dragon creature with flying and a three-mana upkeep cost. In addition, Arcades gives our untapped, non-attacking creatures +0/+2. He also has toughness-based fire breathing, which I just learned used to be called "butt breathing" (we don't have to bring this back).
Arcades's +0/+2 anthem falls off of our creatures as soon as they attack, even if we give them vigilance. If we want to get the most value out of Arcades, we'll need to incentivize our opponents to attack into our toughened-up Walls. We'll strike a careful balance of cards that switch our creatures to dealing damage via their toughness instead of power versus actual physical Walls to do that combat.
The Best Defense
...is a good defense! Defender decks are spoiled for great Wall creatures choices in this day and age. Really, your choices of Wall will come down to personal preference, but I think there are some mainstays that every Walls deck should run.
Many of our Walls are just plain ol' value when we factor in the "power-as-toughness" effects we run alongside them. Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Omens, for example, are basically two-mana 4/4 cantrip-creatures. Wall of Denial and Wall of Frost are an 8/8 and 7/7 respectively, each for just three mana.
While it's not a Wall, Charix, the Raging Isle is most useful when we don't have to waste mana to activate its ability and can instead just swing as an effective 17/17 for four mana.
Wall of Stolen Identity is a sleeper card as far as Clone effects go. For the same rate as any Clone, we can tap down that opponent's, say, Vilis, Broker of Blood and have our own 8/8 flier with an easily mitigatable defender "drawback."
Tree of Redemption is a one-trick pony, but that trick is so sweet when you pull it off. With a defender-attacker spell on the field and any of our many vigilance anthems, Tree of Redemption can effectively dump your entire life total into direct damage after it slips past blockers.
A number of our Walls function more as utility creatures than as combat-based beaters. Perimeter Captain is a pseudo-Soul Sister for our defender creatures that can generate a lot of life if it comes down early. Crashing Drawbridge lets us swing in with Arcades the turn he hits the field, and Wall of Mulch makes a great sacrifice outlet for the Walls we've had to chump block with.
Drift of Phantasms is unique in that it has transmute, so it can fetch any three-mana spell we need. In most cases, this will be High Alert, Gauntlets of Light, or Rasaad yn Bashir.
Finally, Teyo, the Shieldmage pumps out at least two 0/3 Wall tokens and gives us hexproof to keep us safe from any Fireballs thrown over our battlements.
Tough Guy, Huh?
Our next largest group of cards is our collection of defender synergies. These aren't necessarily big-butted Walls, and they aren't necessarily the "power-as-toughness" effects. Instead, these cards provide some utility or value that our defenders lack.
For example, Abzan Beastmaster is effectively a Dark Confidant in this list, as it'll be few and far between when we don't control the toughest creature on the board, while Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive makes our army of 0-power Walls unblockable.
Inga and Esika provides a vigilance anthem for our Walls while also turning them all into mana dorks with a little bit of Beast Whisperer thrown in for good measure. A number of our Walls are already excellent mana-generators (Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement, for example), so more often than not we won't even need to tap down our Wall of Denial for mana.
Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield is a LOTR Commander card I haven't seen much buzz about, and I think that's criminal. Every second spell gets us a 0/3 (read: 3/3 in this deck), and an exalted anthem across the board? That's a lot of extra damage if we just need our flying commander to break through.
Mentor of the Meek slots right into an Arcades Sabboth deck, too, given most every creature we play will have 0 power.
Finally, Arcades Sabboth's +0/+2 anthem only affects our creatures if they aren't attacking. We don't want this excellent buff to go to waste, so we need to incentivize our opponents to throw their bodies against the ramparts of our mighty fortress and perish along its Walls. Courtly Provocateur, Bloodthirsty Blade, Alluring Siren, and Psychic Impetus either goad or force an opponent's creature to attack. Forcing someone's Llanowar Elves into your Wall of Frost is funny enough without a High Alert on the field, but it gets even better when your Walls actually kill creatures as they bounce off of them.
How Much is Too Much?
The hard truth of it is our deck doesn't do much if we can't stick one of our Assault Formation-style spells to the field. To make sure we always have access to this effect, we're running no less than 10 effects that allow our creatures to assign combat damage based on their toughness rather than power. Of those effects, only five allow creatures with defender to attack, either via activated abilities or as a static effect. Those cards are:
- Huatli, the Sun's Heart
- Walking Bulwark
- Rasaad yn Bashir
- Arcades, the Strategist
- Bedrock Tortoise
- The Pride of Hull Clade
- Assault Formation
- Gauntlets of Light
- High Alert
- Treefolk Umbra
These are the key cards to making this deck work. They are the primary targets for your tutors, even if you already have one or two on hand. Enlightened Tutor, Shared Summons, Idyllic Tutor, and Drift of Phantasms should all be used liberally to fetch these cards from your library.
Mana Base
Like the other Legends Elder Dragons, Arcades Sabboth is not cheap. Eight whole mana plus a three-mana upkeep means we better have a lot to spare by the time we get around to casting him. Lucky for us, Bant defenders decks have access to some of the best ramp in the game.
Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement are like Gaea's Cradles for us. (Not really, but you see where I'm going here). Sunscape Familiar is a great Bant-cost reducer and it's a Wall, so it stays on theme! Besides those, we've also got Vine Trellis and Sylvan Caryatid as a pair of mana dorks that'll scale well into the late game once they can attack.
But that's not all! We're also running six whole mana rocks, plus Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, in addition to our 35 lands.
Strategy
Generally, our strategy for our [elArcades Sabboth[/el] defender deck is simple: play Walls, ramp into Arcades, find something to let our defenders attack, and swing away.
Two-thirds of our creatures are less than four mana, so we should have no trouble assembling a barricade of Wall creatures to shelter behind while we set up our board. Priority defenders you want to see in your opening hand include our rompers, Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement, plus Perimeter Captain, since all three will scale well into the late game if they arrive early. Any of our utility creatures that need to tap to activate make good early plays, as well, so Alluring Siren and Courtly Provocateur make good plays, too.
The absolute earliest I've been able to play Arcades in this deck is turn four, but that's with a perfect hand of ramp and Axebane Guardian into Overgrown Battlement. Realistically, we're more likely to cast Arcades on turn six or seven, using him as surprise damage in the air with Crashing Drawbridge or Lightning Greaves on the field. From then on, we should continue to dig for more high-toughness defenders while dumping our excess mana into Arcades's ability. If Arcades dies, it'll be steep to recast him. We'll usually only get one Arcades cast per game, so timing it well is paramount to your success.
Ending the game with a defender deck will look a little wonky. Instead of the typical Craterhoof Behemoth/Overcome, we'll use the much cheaper Tower Defense effectively as a +5/+5 for our board. We can swing in for big damage on any turn where we've provoked and then Aetherized all of our opponents' blockers, or simply wiped the board of anything with more than 0 power when we cast Dusk // Dawn.
Budget
This deck is dirt cheap compared to some other EDH decks, clocking in at just under $160. A majority of that is concentrated on a few expensive singles.
Enlightened Tutor is the most expensive card here, at about $15. It's one of the most important tutors for consistently grabbing our Assault Formation or High Alert, but we could downgrade to a Plea for Guidance without too much fuss.
Last March of the Ents is another expensive new rare. It generates enough value to win us the game there and then, but we could swap it out for any other draw spell. Distant Melody could work here with enough Walls in play.
Arcades Sabboth Deck List
Arcadeez
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Wrap Up
Arcades Sabboth was always a toughness-based legend, so it's no surprise that the DMU reimagining of this classic Elder Dragon saw him becoming Wall-focused. Between old Arcades, new Arcades, and Pramikon, Sky Rampart, there really aren't too many great commanders for Wall decks. These three have the broadest color identities, making them more useful for the archetype than just, say, Rasaad yn Bashir and a blue background, or The Pride of Hull Clade and its expensive activated ability.
What are your favorite Walls? How would you build an Arcades Sabboth deck? Let me know in the comments, or come harass me on Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
