The Jolly Balloon Man - A Commander Deck Tech

Throughout history, no character trope is quite as hard to fathom as the clown. A figure steeped in history with mythical and controversial depictions, in media from ages immemorial to now, the idea of the clown is highly divisive. Adults may often find them amusing, children may find them terrifying, and many find them downright uncanny. Nevertheless, Magic: The Gathering has chosen to embrace humankind's utter dread surrounding these figures in their newest set, Duskmourn: House of Horror, with the advent of The Jolly Balloon Man

On the other hand, I have decided to embrace the humor of the humble fool with this deck tech. Be warned! The deck tech you are about to peruse contains the lead-up to perhaps one of the silliest ideas this humble author has devised when building a Commander deck. With that... Ladies and gentlemen, neither, both, or in-between! Step right up as we astound you with what might be the most derivative, most absurd, and somehow still competent, deck this side of Duskmourn!

The Setup For A Rough Idea

Picture this: an otherwise normal pod of casual Commander players forms. You sit down with your deck, the players to your left and right sit down with theirs and I with mine opposite yours. We strike up a relatively normal Rule Zero conversation. We begin the game, when a few turns in you notice something peculiar: some of my cards begin to rhyme. Sure, it must be mere coincidence that I've played both High Noon

And then, before long, you see this hit the table:

That's right, this deck cares not just about Balloons, but Judoon Balloons upon the Moon at High Noon!

Alright, it's a wishful board state, and one that only provides me with a spiritual victory, but then again, there are a ton of Stax-style cards on my board.

Is it possible that this deck concept, based initially upon a really stupid joke... Is good?

With that, dear readers, let us look at what this deck is and what it does. The answer to the above question may yet astound you.

The One-Two Punchline

The Jolly Balloon Man is a commander that does a very good impression of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Want a Balloon, Georgie?

The primary strategy in a deck like this is that we will want to produce as many Balloon tokens as possible during every one of our turns. Since The Jolly Balloon Man's ability can only be activated at sorcery speed, we want to capitalize on this on our turns to compensate for the lack of Balloon production at other times. To this end, Illusionist's Bracers

Nevertheless, we can also utilize a few combo lines to reach a critical mass of Balloons. To ensure we can make enough of the red rubber abominations to close out a game, Village Bell-Ringer

Blink and You'll Miss It

Blink is defined as a permanent entering exile and then immediately re-entering the battlefield. While this deck wants to utilize a major blink strategy (in that effects like Sun Titan

Once You (Don't) Pop, You Can't Stop

Smaller effects, like Haystack

This is because The Jolly Balloon Man's wording creates a delayed trigger with every Balloon that's created. At the beginning of the next end step, Ballo0n tokens get sacrificed. However, that sly little word "next" is in there, and it's one worth exploiting. Once you're past that end step, your Balloons stick around until something else pops them.

A Brief Interlude About Jackdaws

There are even more minute manipulations that we can exploit in this deck. For example, this little factoid might shock you: Balloons can fly! Because The Jolly Balloon Man gives the copies flying, a first for effects like this, some players might overlook this concept. But, being the smart lads and lasses (et al) that we are, we know to make use of this.

Jackdaw Savior

Humor is a Battlefield

The final mechanical aspect to cover is exactly what to do with all of those Balloons. They have to lead to a win condition of some sort, and that's what we need to discuss next.

Impact Tremors

Note: we have purposefully omitted Purphoros, God of the Forge

Potential Upgrades

There are plenty of cards we have chosen not to add to this deck but might be worthwhile as additions for your build. Besides Purphoros and Kiki-Jiki, Felidar Guardian

A Demented Clown's Decklist

"But That One Joke From Earlier!"

We nearly forgot about the most important takeaway for this entire article. The joke, Judoon Balloons upon the Moon at High Noon, is extremely derivative. It's a masterclass in absurdity first found in the beloved Universes Beyond product-turned-BBC sci-fi show Doctor Who. As it were, a few methods can be found to make this build even more... that. For one, you can add Blood Moon

99 Red Balloons Go By

As it stands, The Jolly Balloon Man is a card that thematically hearkens back to a couple of current pieces of media. Stephen King's It has not only received a miniseries and two major films, but it is due for a television series based on the property. The other work is the short horror manga The Hanging Balloons by Junji Ito. While an illustrated work (and an animated entry in the Maniac anthology), it is no less horrifying.

And then there's this abomination of deckbuilding. Do you have any plans to build a deck based around The Jolly Balloon Man? Feel free to sound off below!

Author's Note: Previously, this deck tech featured a copy of Dockside Extortionist