Legends Legends - Stangg
Welcome back to Legends Legends! In this column, we explore 1994's Legends set and the first ever legendary creatures created for Magic: The Gathering. These creatures are almost entirely considered unplayable, or at least generally outclassed by most modern legendaries. Our mission, handed down to us from the divine Elder Dragon Highlander gods, is to build a functioning Commander deck for each and every one of them.
Today's Legend is Stangg, the six-mana 3/4 that comes with a buddy.
General Thoughts
Stangg is one of the most unique designs in 1994's Legends. When Stangg enters, he creates Stangg Twin, a legendary 3/4 creature token. The token is exiled whenever Stangg leaves the battlefield, and we must sacrifice Stangg if the token leaves the battlefield. Six mana may have been a fair trade for two 3/4s at some point, but it's not very exciting for today's Magic. Instead, we'll be shooting for three, four, five or more copies of Stangg using red's best duplication method: the Splinter Twin effect.
Stangg is also one of the only Legends to be reprinted in a set besides Chronicles or Antiquities, an honor he shares with the cycle of Elder Dragons and Jasmine Boreal's Timeshifted appearance. He also has basically no lore; we only know that he either has the ability to summon an echo of himself, or knows a guy that looks and fights exactly like him that follows him everywhere.
Exactly how many copies of Stangg can we make? Let's find out!
A Splinter Twin Situation is Developing
Other decks that look to manipulate the legends rule are often trying to exploit Clone effects, but our Gruul color identity prevents us from taking the easy way. Instead, we'll turn to that old faithful Splinter Twin effect to get as many temporary token copies of Stangg and his Stangg Twins as possible before unleashing them all in an identical onslaught.
We're playing with creature types just a little bit in this deck: Kindred Charge and Molten Echoes can duplicate our Stangg if we choose Human or Warrior when we cast them. Really, it'll depend on what you can see on the field at the moment, but there are advantages to choosing one over the other depending on which of the rest of our creatures we've drawn into.
Choosing Warrior lets us double up on Ogre Battledriver or Jaxis, the Troublemaker (after we've stuck our Mirror Gallery), but choosing Human could net us another Eternal Witness for recursion.
Flameshadow Conjuring and Mirror March are two more basic ways to clone Stangg as he enters the battlefield, netting us at least one copy with Flameshadow Conjuring and potentially a ton more with Mirror March.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker can't technically copy Stangg or his Twin token, but it can copy anything else in our deck when we need another trigger off our Molten Gatekeeper or Witty Roastmaster. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker eventually works the same way after creating some astounding value for three mana.
Jaxis, the Troublemaker's ability to create blitzed tokens means we'll always have the option to dig a little further into our library and she'll be safe from combat.
Delina, Wild Mage and Felhide Spiritbinder have to attack (or tap and then untap) to trigger their Twin effects, making them a little risky but still easy value and a no-brainer choice for this theme.
Besides these permanent-based spells, we're also running Electroduplicate, Heat Shimmer, and Twinflame to eke out that extra copy or two when we really need it.
Finally, Blade of Selves and Helm of the Host are two more basically free copies of Stangg each turn, and they let us threaten the entire table at once. Once we've filled our field with copies of Stangg's Twin, we can use Second Harvest to double the number of tokens we control. This should be more than enough to end the game, but just in case, we've also got Parallel Lives for good measure.
Remember, Stangg isn't the only great target for our Twinning effects. Wood Elves, Reclamation Sage, Solemn Simulacrum and Craterhoof Behemoth are all excellent choices to Twinflame for an extra trigger of their ETBs.
The Impact Effect
We can't rely on attacking with the Stangg Twin tokens, since Splinter Twin effects won't grant haste to the token created by our original Stangg's effect. However, we can increase our chances with Enduring Courage and Ogre Battledriver.
Even so, the tokens created as part of Stangg copies entering the battlefield from our Blade of Selves's myriad effect still won't be able to attack. To ensure we're not wasting precious copy effects without any upside, we'll guarantee some damage from those tokens using Impact Tremors effects.
Purphoros, God of the Forge and Warstorm Surge are my favorites, but I like the utility of including Witty Roastmaster and Agate Instigator as well. Plus, any of these creatures can be copied with one of our Twinning effects in a pinch!
Tribute to the World Tree becomes a huge draw engine in this deck designed to create as many copies of our three-power commander as possible. Each of those Splinter Twinned Stanggs will draw us a card on the way into play, and its Twin will too!
We'll use Crown of Gondor to become the monarch and stay that way with our army of legendary creatures hitting the field multiple times per turn.
Legends Never Die
This deck basically can't run without one of our legend-rule-nullifying effects. Without Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, we're left with two: Mirror Box and Mirror Gallery. Sticking one of these to the board is essential to our strategy.
One or the other will no doubt be the target of our Reckless Handling, and often our Gamble, as well.
Sundial of the Infinite is another key card we'll often find ourselves tutoring up. With the Sundial, we can end the turn before/while the "exile/sacrifice this token" effects from our various Splinter Twin effects are on the stack, removing those triggers and saving our duplicate tokens until the next turn.
Asceticism makes Stangg and his Twin immune to targeted removal, and lets us regenerate them both should an opponent drop a Wrath of God on our board.
If we can't find our hexproof-ing enchantment in time, I like to keep an Avoid Fate up my sleeve to deal with targeted Infernal Grasps and Darksteel Mutations. In a pinch, we can sacrifice Plaza of Heroes to save our battlefield from a board wipe, as well.
Mana Base
Our mana base for this Stangg Commander deck is pretty typical of most Gruul builds. Where it differs is we're favoring ramp effects that come on an enters-the-battlefield effect rather than boring ol' mana dorks. Rather than a Llanowar Elves, we're using Wood Elves, Prosperous Innkeeper, Springbloom Druid, and Yavimaya Granger to tutor lands to the battlefield.
These creatures can each be copied for an additional trigger of their effect when we don't have Stangg or his tokens out to copy, so they make for effective repeatable ramp in a pinch. Note that Yavimaya Granger can fetch up our Plaza of Heroes for defending our commander(s) and Inventors' Fair for tutoring up our Mirror Box effects.
Budget
All told, this Stangg Commander deck rounds out to about $300. Its most important cards are, unfortunately, some of its most expensive.
Craterhoof Behemoth is hands down one of the best top-end Overrun effects green can get. That said, it's still $25 or so for the cheapest printings. It can easily be cut and replaced with an End-Raze Forerunners, but you won't see that full +10/+10 from having so many extra Stanggs lying around.
Parallel Lives also turns up the heat on our Splinter Twin situation by making two hasted tokens per splinter, but at $30 it's quite expensive these days. We could save $5 by opting for Doubling Season instead, but I'm certain we'll miss that extra mana we need to cast it, and its +1/+1 counters effect won't see as much synergy as we'd hope. Or, if you're looking to drop another $25 on this deck, consider adding the Doubling Season in addition to the Parallel Lives and watch the tokens roll in.
Stangg Deck List
Wrap Up
This deck takes a lot of skill to pilot. Knowing exactly when it's safe to activate all of our Splinter Twin effects requires you to learn your opponents' decks and analyze the best moment to strike, like a true warrior.
Other Stangg token builds could make use of the scant few red cards that can populate, like Ghired's Belligerence, but would still require a Mirror Box to function properly. Let me know how you would build Stangg in the comments!
Like always, thanks for reading!
