Legends Legends - Bartel Runeaxe
It's that time again! Once more into the breach that leads us back to 1994 and Magic's third ever expansion, Legends. Here at Legends Legends, we're building a Commander deck for each of the 55 original legendary creatures to come out of that set, and today's character is none other than the Jund Giant Warrior Bartel Runeaxe.
Bartel wields a mighty axe and has selected a cache of solely axe-bladed weapons from his armory to cleave our foes in twain. This deck is running every single axe Equipment possible as well as a host of support cards to get those axes on Bartel before swinging in for damage. How exactly does it work? Let's find out!
General Thoughts
Bartel Runeaxe is a six-mana Jund-aligned Giant Warrior with unkeyworded vigilance (which has since been updated) and an immunity to Aura spells. This means that a Voltron deck based on Bartel must omit a full half of the best permanents for modifying a single creature. Thankfully, Bartel's axes theme leaves quite a few Equipment pieces for us to choose from.
Generally, our plan with this Bartel Runeaxe Commander deck is to play Bartel on or before turn five, hopefully after we've set the stage with several of our low-cost axes. Once he hits the field, we'll throw as much Equipment on him as we can, then swing in over and over again until our opponents are all vanquished from 21 commander damage. Usually, Bartel will be so strong that a single swipe will be enough to obliterate them.
The Voltron Package
"Voltron" refers to a deck archetype where a single creature is buffed over and over again and used as the single win condition in the deck. There are number of cards that are considered staples for this archetype, especially when it comes to equipping a creature with a lot of weapons.
I get more use out of my Brass Squire than almost anything else. Skipping the equip cost on expensive weaponry like Warlord's Axe and Darksteel Plate frees up quite a bit of mana that we can use elsewhere, like casting more Equipment spells, or casting our six-mana commander.
Anrakyr the Traveller also saves us mana by letting us cast our Equipment spells using our life instead of mana while granting us some easy recursion for any destroyed Equipment.
Godo, Bandit Warlord is a classic artifact tutor and extra combat-enabler that'll untap Bartel Runeaxe as long as he's also a Samurai; we'll typically pull out Amorphous Axe to achieve this. Burning-Rune Demon acts as another general tutor for this deck and swings a big axe around in its artwork to boot.
Whenever we're hyperfocusing on a single creature's combat damage as our win condition, it behooves us to include Silent Arbiter. Granting menace to our commander while the Arbiter is on the field effectively makes him unblockable, and giving him trample means a majority of his damage will still cleave through to your opponent when they're forced to chump block.
In addition to finding ways to get around or through your opponents' blockers, we'll want to threaten the entire board with damage from Bartel's attacks. That's where Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar comes in, allowing us to spread Bartel's big damage around the board whenever he attacks. Note that the damage from Kediss won't count as commander damage for the purposes of counting up to 21 and defeating a player.
One of the quickest ways to buff our Voltron creature up significantly is with power-doubling effects, so we're running both Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus and Neyith of the Dire Hunt (who's also wielding a big axe in his artwork).
Reckless Handling is fairly new to the world of artifact-based Voltron decks, but I like it! It's effectively a Gamble with a little compensation if we accidentally discard the artifact we tutored for.
Finally, Magnetic Theft is an oft-forgotten instant that punches way above its weight class in EDH. With such a plethora of Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots running around, this instant is the perfect way to undo your opponents' protections while granting hexproof to our own Bartel Runeaxe!
A Few Swords...
Okay, sorry, the Equipment in this deck isn't entirely axes. A solid 19 of our 41 artifacts lack an axe anywhere in their art but are still worth including alongside Bartel. I promise we'll get through these quickly and move on to the real fun.
Cards like Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of the Animist are just too good to pass up in any voltron deck. Untapping our entire field of lands after combat can feel like effectively a second turn, freeing up more mana to further buff our commander.
Vanguard's Shield and Webspinner Cuff are great defensive Equipment for Bartel Runeaxe: since he comes with vigilance natively, upping the number and types of creatures he can block makes him a threat on our opponents' turns as well.
Mage Slayer is one of the best and most direct ways to get around an opponent's blockers by simply damaging them directly after the creature's been declared as an attacker.
Commander is a format known for the high number of nonbasic lands each deck runs, so Trailblazer's Boots is a no-brainer for Bartel Runeaxe. Save that four mana we'd use each turn on our Rogue's Passage for more Equipment!
Thran Power Suit gives a little extra protection, while both it and Cranial Plating can really up the stakes if they come down and attach to Bartel after he's picked up six or seven axes alone.
Finally, Hammer of Nazahn is a must-have for any Voltron deck. Anything to skip the equip costs for our axes is an absolute necessity in this deck.
...And Our Axe!
Now, onto our favorite weapons. Bartel's collection of axes may not be the strongest weapons in Magic, but we're guaranteed to have the largest collection of them.
A number of axes have a very similar effect: Bonesplitter, Darksteel Axe, Inventor's Axe, Marauder's Axe, Vanquisher's Axe, and Vulshok Splitter all give the equipped creature +2/+0 and not much else. This is the typical axe Equipment effect, which fits thematically for heavy weapons used for aggressive sweeping blows.
Bloodforged Battle-Axe is one of my favorites in this deck. While it gives a similar buff to the other basic axes, its ability to copy itself endlessly means we'll never run out of axes for Bartel.
The Reaver Cleaver and Diamond Pick-Axe are our best bets for ramping with a weapon outside of Sword of the Animist.
Typically, we won't use Paleontologist's Pick-Axe's craft effect, instead using it as a cheap loot effect during our combat step.
We love anything that doesn't need to pay to equip to Bartel, so Relic Axe, Skyclave Pick-Axe, and Obsidian Battle-Axe are all excellent choices from Bartel's weapon rack. Remember that Bartel Runeaxe is a Warrior!
Gimli's Axe grants some much-needed evasion to our commander, while Warlord's Axe and Greataxe act as just straight-up power buffs.
Leyline Axe and Two-Handed Axe help us double down on doubling the damage Bartel Runeaxe can deal in a single combat, while Bearded Axe acts as an on-theme version of our Cranial Plating effect.
Mana Base
Despite our commander's steep mana cost, a majority of the spells in this deck are colorless, two- to four-mana Equipment spells. This means we can afford to go a little light on lands as long as we keep a few ramp spells and mana dorks around.
That said, this deck runs just 35 lands, with Ignoble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise as our mana dorks. Of course, we're also running all three Signets in our colors plus Sol Ring and Arcane Signet.
Budget
TCGplayer estimates this deck to cost around $185 for every single. That's not too bad for a Legends Legend, especially considering Bartel Runeaxe himself is only $22. That's cheap for a single-printing semi-playable Legends creature!
You can save a quick $40 by cutting Neyith of the Dire Hunt and Hammer of Nazahn from the deck list. Doing this does hurt the deck's consistency a bit, but they can easily be replaced by Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder and almost any other Equipment you'd like.
Bartel Runeaxe Deck List
Wrap Up
Bartel Runeaxe is another odd legend from a time before Magic's team knew exactly what they wanted each color to represent. Instead of what probably should've been a white-green-red Giant, we got a Jund card with vigilance and pseudo-shroud. They couldn't even bite the bullet and give him a full six toughness to go along with his power!
Is this Bartel Runeaxe deck worth the axes theme? Or should we have built him as a straight-up Voltron deck and simply run the best Equipment available? Is it weird that we're running literally zero enchantments? Tell me what you think in the comments!
As always, thanks for reading! Until next time!
