Legends Legends - Barktooth Warbeard
Barktooth Warbeard by Andi Rusu
Welcome back to Legends Legends, our weekly dive into 1995's Legends and the introduction of the legendary creature type in Magic: The Gathering. This week, we're lining up a Barktooth Warbeard Commander deck, complete with an army of bearded warriors to back him up! You might be surprised just how well this beards-only deck performs; let's dive in!
General Thoughts
Barktooth Warbeard is a vanilla 6/5 creature with the staggeringly high mana cost of . Barktooth's got next to no lore; the only info we have comes from his flavor text and a reference to the 1995 novel Whispering Woods, where it's implied he fought a hydra.
Barktooth gives off the vibe of a foul-mouthed and even fouler-deeded character. What better to back him up than a cadre of unshaven belligerent brutes? Together, Barktooth and his gang of hairy warriors form the basis for a fairly punishing group slug deck.
Scryfall has 433 cards in red and black tagged as having beards in the artwork. This list isn't complete, sadly, as it doesn't even list Barktooth Warbeard amongst them. I've done some real digging to find the best beards in Magic; notably, many cards have beards on certain reprints and not on their original. Which beards make the cut? Let's find out!
Bearded Warriors
The basis of our beards deck lies in our collection of bearded creatures. A handful of staple EDH cards are here, including Zulaport Cutthroat, Inferno Titan, and the Commander Masters printing of Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder. However, we do have some unique choices here to support Barktooth specifically.
The first two Barktooth support cards are Boldwyr Intimidator and Kargan Intimidator. Barktooth was updated with the Human Warrior creature types, so Boldqyr and Kargan make great replacements for a Rogue's Passage or Whispersilk Cloak for him, spreading that evasion around to our other bearded warrior creatures, like Gimli, Counter of Kills, Neheb, the Eternal, and Tenacious Underdog.
Classic beards, like Joven's and Uncle Istvan's, help give this deck that vintage Legends 90s vibe.
Arni Metalbrow has a great amount of utility in this deck given how expensive our average creature is. If Barktooth attacks while Arni is on the field, there's almost nothing in our deck we can't drop in.
I'm aware we're stretching the definition of a true "beard" for this deck: Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar isn't technically a bearded lizard, but its frills are just what Barktooth needs to be an actual threat to the entire table. Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded and Purphoros, God of the Forge's "helmet" have a beardly protrusion along the chin, so I say count it. At least Mogis, God of Slaughter's beard is clearly visible.
Finally, how could we build a bearded deck without at least some Dwarves? Besides the aforementioned Gimli, we're also running Glóin, Dwarf Emissary, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, and seven copies of Seven Dwarves for a strong base of bear creatures.
Hair Growth Formula
The Rogaine that makes this deck work are its noncreature spells built to punish our bald foes.
First, we're running two Curses featuring the bearded planeswalker known only as The Unluckiest in Curse of Disturbance and Curse of Opulence.
The original Phyrexian Arena artwork from Apocalypse features two of Magic's most famous bearded characters, Gerrard Capashen and Yawgmoth, in a duel to the death.
Baneful Omen's beard is a bit more tentacly than the rest, but it still counts as far as I'm concerned, and it plays well with the generally high CMC in the deck.
Blood Reckoning and the Secret Lair printing of Price of Glory are both staple group slug cards that feature some bearded figures.
In place of the typical removal you'd find in Rakdos decks, we're running the Ixalan Promos printing of Walk the Plank, featuring a gray-bearded pirate. Keranos and his divine beard on Storm's Wrath take the place of a traditional board wipe, dealing just enough damage to not kill our Commander if he's on the field while still clearing away those troublesome Saproling and Elf tokens. Similarly, Ashes to Ashes is a great way to permanently remove anything our damage spells won't destroy.
The Ultimate Masters printing of Demonic Tutor features an unnamed beard rowing through the darkness, while the CLB Ambition's Cost and Strixhaven Mystical Archive Sign in Blood also feature bearded characters. I think the Orc or Goblin or whatever it is on Gamble has a beard, too, but I could be wrong.
Finally, no red deck is complete without either Seize the Day or 7th Edition's Relentless Assault, both powerful extra combat effects we can use to push the total damage that Barktooth Warbeard can throw around each turn.
A Close Shave
Despite the rest of his beardy minions' combat prowess, this deck looks to finish out games with Barktooth Warbeard himself. Barktooth's got a small arsenal of facial-hair-themed Equipment and Auras to buff him up, some of which even make sense for this bit!
The The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth version of Trailblazer's Boots, Lórien Brooch, basically makes Barktooth unblockable in Commander: you'll be hard-pressed to find an opponent who isn't running at least one nonbasic land.
The Sigiled Sword of Valeron has a beard carved right into the hilt and crossguard, perfect for matching Barktooth's.
Finally, Bearded Axe and Strength of Lunacy add just a bit more combat damage to Barktooth's attacks, and the Aura saves him from those pesky Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exiles running around the format.
As for non-beardy Equipment, we're still running a few. I find it hard to build a Commander deck without Blackblade Reforged anymore, since it really pays for itself if a game goes too long and we need to reach for a Commander damage kill with Barktooth. We've also opted for Lightning Greaves, as Barktooth needs some sort of protection, and this is about the best we can get on a budget.
Mana Base
With 23 spells or permanents with a converted mana cost of 4+, this deck is fairly mana-hungry. To combat this, we're running 36 lands and five mana rocks, plus Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual. Black Market also helps generate additional mana, which works out great because we're often still ramping when we hit five mana.
Barktooth Warbeard Commander Deck List
Budget
This deck's budget is a little tricky to figure: for the specific bearded printings of certain cards, like Magus of the Wheel and Price of Glory, you can expect to pay a little more for their SLD versions. However, there are still a few pricey beards we can replace with a quick cut!
Vilis, Broker of Blood has a medium-long beard that can be shaved away and replaced with a cheaper value engine, like Mishra, Claimed by Gix, who gets even better if we replace something else with Phyrexian Dragon Engine (not technically bearded, but we have to make compromises eventually).
If Demonic Tutor is out of your budget for now, consider Brainspoil and its transmute ability to fetch any of our five-drops, like Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded or Neheb, the Eternal.
Wrap Up
As we continue to work our way through the vanilla Legends Legends, we're forced to dig ever deeper for a deck theme. Beards: The Deck might not be competitively viable, or even really casually competitive, but it will elicit a chuckle from at least one of the players at your table, even if that player is you.
Let me know what you think of this Barktooth Warbeard Beards-flavored Commander deck! What beards would you include? Is there a better facial-hair-themed Commander?
Like always, thanks for reading!
