Sundial, Dawn Tyrant Commander Deck Tech

Unsummoned Skull • March 16, 2025

Deckbuilding

Sundial of the Finite

One of my favorite episodes of The Command Zone is the one where Josh Lee Kwai and Jake Boss talk about The Decks Everyone Should Build (At Least Once), Episode 358. They talk about some of the more popular archetypes in Commander and how building them will give a greater appreciation for how those decks work and how to beat them.

My suggestion for a deck everyone should build is a little different: I think everyone should build around a generic commander, like Sunastian Falconer

or Kaza, Roil Chaser
. These decks challenge the designer to be creative and to learn about their deckbuilding perspective. This is a big reason why the Muraganda cycle, which I began last week with Caelorna, Coral Tyrant
 appeals to me so much.

Cheap Artifacts

Sundial, Dawn Tyrant

is an interesting vanilla commander because it does provide a bit of a direction for the deck to take. With the secondary typing of being an artifact creature, as well as fairly aggressive stats, Sundial seems to want other artifact creatures and cheap or aggressively costed white or artifact creatures, and there are some powerful ones, like the incredible card-drawing engine of Esper Sentinel
.


Hangarback Walker

is a near curve-filler that acts as a mana sink and a way to dissuade board wipes. The two Xs in the mana cost might seem prohibitive, but it's able to grow itself slowly, take on spare counters, such as from Lion Sash
, and get popped into a piñata of Thopters when it meets its maker.


Shimmer Myr

gives artifacts flash, making it so that our commander can technically have an ability! It's also an incredibly powerful effect, as those who have seen Josh Lee Kwai go nuts with his pet card, Vedalken Orrery
, can attest. Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter
 does the same thing, and it's also a huge growing threat.


The 0-drop artifacts (Phyrexian Walker

, Ornithopter
, and Memnite
) are all free creatures that can take on the boosts the deck is capable of producing, enabling the deck's most explosive starts.


Mass Pump

The inspiration for the deck was Tempered Steel

, a huge anthem for artifact creatures, and the centerpiece of one of the most dominant World Championship showings of all time. It came out of nowhere to take half the top 8 spots, pacing the field as a hyper-aggressive white weenie deck, which is exactly what we're building here. As a history teacher, I love the idea of learning from the past.


Always Watching

is another blast from the past, having been a big part of Humans decks in the original Innistrad block. Here, it enables us to get full value out of cards like Steel Overseer
 and Hangarback Walker
 with the vigilance it grants, so we can beat down and still use their tapping abilities.


Spear of Heliod

is an anthem effect that allows us to balance offense and defense, picking off attackers and enabling us to attack with impunity. Rattlesnake cards like this help offensive decks to play politics, which is important when you're doing things that can make people feel targeted.


Marshal's Anthem

is another anthem with upside, enabling us to come back from board wipes with its multikicker. It's worth noting that 0/0 creatures, like Hangarback Walker
, can still survive with anthem effects out, which then allows them to activate their abilities to regain counters.


Ramp

Since we have big spells, like the multikicker on Marshal's Anthem

, we do need some ramp. The majority of our ramp is in the form of creatures, and the ones that reduce casting cost are the most powerful, as they allow our artifact creatures to operate like the 0-drops and make explosive starts.


In addition to the cost-reducers, mana dorks are an important source of speed. In particular, we want mana dorks that are also artifact creatures, so that they can take on the boosts provided by our anthems.


Removal

As with most aggressive decks, there is the risk that we can get stonewalled by larger creatures the longer games go. Even the four players that made Top 8 of Worlds with Tempered Steel

got grounded out by midrange green decks, which is why we need efficient spot removal, with Dispatch
 acting as a third Path to Exile
 effect, alongside it and Swords to Plowshares
.


White might not get a lot of counterspells, but, when it can deploy them, it can do so very effectively. Mana Tithe

, Reprieve
, and especially the half-Fog
 Dawn Charm
 are incredible "gotcha" cards that will inspire tales from the table.


The general plan is to make cheap artifact creatures, such as the commander, and then pump them with anthems in a thematic variant of the white weenie strategy. Ramp spells massage the intersection of the two phases, while removal prevents the deck from getting stalled out.

Sundial, Dawn Tyrant Commander Deck Tech

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Unsummoned Skull

Unsummoned Skull

Teacher, judge, DM, & Twitch Affiliate. Lover of all things Unsummon. Streams EDH, Oathbreaker, D & D, & Pokemon. Even made it to a Pro Tour!