Vorthos Vortex: Celebrating the 4th of July with Optimus Prime

Greetings, Commander players! I'm taking a break from the Conquering the Commander Cube column to return to my original series, Vorthos Vortex, to bring you a 4th-of-July-themed Commander deck. The commander for this deck is the one and only Optimus Prime, Hero. I can think of no better commander to represent both America's ideals as well as its proclivity for the extravagant, powerful, and over-the-top. Optimus Prime is all of those things in one package, and for today's Vorthos Vortex deck, I've put together a Vehicle-themed deck packed full of flashy, powerful, and mechanically impressive Vehicles to team up with Optimus Prime, Hero to win the day.

For those who are new to this series, Vorthos Vortex builds thematic and flavorful decks on a reasonable budget (usually between $100-$150). Decks designed for this column fall within the casual sphere of Commander, usually sitting at around 5-6 out of 10 on the power scale. You will find a complete decklist at the bottom of the article, but we'll also take a look at the most important pieces and discuss how they contribute to the deck.

With that, let's take a look at the key players in this deck!

Creatures

This deck has a lot of artifacts (my build has 34), and Alibou, Ancient Witness rewards us for having tapped artifacts in particular. We have a number of artifact creatures that we'll be tapping to crew our Vehicles, which we'll then be tapping to attack with. We also have a number of artifact lands in the deck that we will be tapping for mana, so getting our artifacts tapped won't be an issue.

We have 10 Vehicles in our deck, and Astor, Bearer of Blades makes it easier for each of them to be crewed, requiring only 1 power for creatures to crew them.

Bronze Guardian is one of the sleeper hits of our deck, as it not only provides some protection for our artifacts with ward 2, but its power is also equal to the number of artifacts we control AND it has double strike, so later in the game this creature can be a win condition.

Cyberdrive Awakener is another possible game-ender in our deck, as it can both turn our noncreature artifacts, such as our artifact lands and our mana rocks, into 4/4 creatures and turn our Vehicles online without them needing to be crewed. I recommend waiting to play this card until you're ready to swing out to eliminate a player or win the game.

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar provides much-needed protection for our attacking artifacts. Given how many Vehicles we're playing, we get the most value when we play aggressively, and we want to provide as many windows as possible to open attacks for our creatures without facing the threat of blocks or removal. Padeem, Consul of Innovation is similarly important with its hexproof-granting ability for all of our artifacts.

Prowl, Stoic Strategist and Ratchet, Field Medic are both Vorthos inclusions, as they make excellent companions for the patriotic Optimus Prime, but they also provide value in the form of card theft and retrieval, respectively.

Vehicles

I've included a separate section for Vehicles, since they're a distinct card type that is the sole target of many abilities in the deck. There are 10 Vehicles in the deck, but you could certainly include a few more; you just want to be careful to avoid the scenario where you have too many Vehicles in your deck and you constantly find yourself with a board filled with Vehicles but nothing available to crew them. I find that a maximum of 8-10 Vehicles is the sweet spot.

All of the Vehicles in this build are valuable to our strategy, but there are a few that I want to highlight here.

Deluxe Dragster is a flavor win that is mostly unblockable, and when it deals damage to other players, it allows us to cast an instant and sorcery card in their graveyard without paying the cards' mana costs.

Parhelion II is a juggernaut that generates two 4/4 Angels for us when it attacks. Even if you only get to attack with it once, you'll still get plenty of value out of it.

Peacewalker Colossus gets around the obstacle of crewing Vehicles with its activated ability. Note that the ability isn't a tap ability, so you can activate it as many times as you have mana for.

Instants/Sorceries

Armed and Armored, Start Your Engines, and Rise and Shine can catch our opponents off-guard in situations where it appears as though our Vehicles cannot be turned on, so they can be win conditions in many situations.

Dispatch essentially operates as a Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares, given the number of artifacts we have in the deck.

One with the Machine and Universal Surveillance are both immensely powerful draw spells in this deck. One with the Machine is likely to draw us at least six cards when Optimus Prime is on the battlefield. Universal Surveillance allows us to use our artifacts to pay into its cost in order to draw more cards off the spell; it works particularly well in conjunction with Alibou, Ancient Witness.

Enchantments

Swift Reconfiguration is a flavor win for our deck that also operates as a form of pseudo-removal (you'll find that crew 5 ends up being too burdensome for most players to bother activating on most turns)

Thopter Spy Network provides a source of artifact generation and damage-based card draw, making it the most important enchantment in the deck and an essential inclusion.

Lands

You'll want to include as many artifact lands as you possibly can in order to up your artifact count. This includes cards such as Ancient Den and Darksteel Citadel.

Inventors' Fair is a source of life gain and artifact tutoring that makes it worth including the card in the deck, even if the card itself doesn't count as an artifact.

Spire of Industry is a flexible land that can tap for generic mana at any time and colored mana if we control an artifact, a prerequisite we'll meet most of the time.

Final Thoughts

That wraps up our Optimus Prime, Hero 4th-of-July-themed Commander deck. It has fast cars, big robots, and daring Pilots in a suite of cards that evoke the aesthetics and ideals of America, and hopefully those of you who are celebrating the holiday will consider building this deck. I hope you enjoyed this edition of Vorthos Vortex. Next time I'll be back with another Conquering the Commander Cube article, so be on the lookout for it. Happy gathering, Commander players!