Wolverine, Best There Is "I Said Stop Fighting!" - Plot Twist #24

Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it'll tell one kind of story only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome! I'd encourage you to check out the previous articles in the series to get a sense of the types of stories we're looking to tell.

In our most recent decklist, we built an Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate deck that was equal parts dredge, Voltron, and reanimator to cheat out big creatures from our graveyard with Alesha and friends. This time, we're tackling our first ever Secret Lair commander: Wolverine, Best There Is.

While we've done the twist with Universes Beyond commanders, like The Wise Mothman from Fallout and Haytham Kenway from Assassin's Creed, before, this is the first time we're taking a look at a commander that's exclusively available in a Secret Lair product.

As someone who watched plenty of X-Men: The Animated Series while shuffling up a Type 2 deck built around Thorn Elemental, Wolverine, Best There Is is chock full of nostalgia for me.

How Does Wolverine Work?

Wolverine, Best There Is has three subtle yet complicated abilities. The first, Unrivaled Lethality, doubles all damage that Wolverine would deal. Notably, this isn't limited to combat damage so if Wolverine does noncombat damage by fighting another creature with Infectious Bite or by pinging an opponent with Thornbite Staff, that damage would be doubled, too. That certainly makes Wolverine an appealing option as a Voltron commander, but this wouldn't be a Plot Twist deck if we did what our opponents expect.

Wolverine's second ability reads "At the beginning of each end step, if Wolverine dealt damage to another creature this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on him." We can definitely take advantage of this with fight spells and effects like Ulvenwald Tracker, Ancient Animus, and Ram Through that will help Wolverine quickly grow in power in combination with cards like Hardened Scales and Rite of Passage.

In case Wolverine doesn't survive combat or a fight effect, his final ability is regenerate for only . Regenerate is a rather old mechanic that replaces what happens with a creature would be destroyed by instead having it become tapped, removed from combat, and having all damage on it 'healed'.

When you're looking to have your creatures deal damage as often as Wolverine, Best There Is wants you to, regenerate can be a very powerful ability.

By taking a look at Wolverine's EDHREC Page, that's exactly what brewers seem to be up to. In fact, Wolverine is already the fourth most popular fight commander just a few weeks after its release at the time of writing. Cards that quickly buff Wolverine, like Unnatural Growth and Xenagos, God of Revels, show up in Wolverine's high synergy section alongside fight spells, like Stump Stomp.

My only issue with this gameplan is that Wolverine, Best There Is doesn't have trample, haste, or any form of evasion, and it doesn't seem like we'll have enough fight spells to remove every 1/1 token that could potentially chump block. But you're not worried, are you? Because this is Plot Twist!

Instead of leaning into the expected, this week we're going to be taking the fight directly to our opponents' faces.

Doing the Twist

Yep, you heard that right, this week's Plot Twist decklist is looking to streamline things a bit and fight our opponents themselves with spells like Soul's Fire, Gravitic Punch, and Voldaren Thrillseeker, or take a more roundabout approach by fighting our own creatures, like Brash Taunter, Giggling Skitterspike, and Stuffy Doll, to then redirect the damage from Wolverine to our opponents' faces instead. 

We're definitely going to be leaning into plenty of fight effects to both trigger Wolverine, Best There Is and allow us to redirect damage to our opponents' faces from Brash Taunter and friends, but we'll be prioritizing instant-speed fight spells, like Cosmic Hunger and Windswift Slice, and those that allow us to target our own creatures, like Fall of the Hammer and Contest of Claws, for added flexibility.

Ultimately, we're hoping to reliably buff Wolverine's power enough that we can do tons of damage to our opponents' faces at instant speed.

Swole-verine (I'll See Myself Out)

While buffing Wolverine, Best There Is' power to take advantage of his damage-doubling ability will definitely be important for this week's deck, we're going to run a variety of ways to buff our whole team so that we're not solely reliant on our commander. Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus is going to be an all-star here, just like it was in Plot Twist #17, by doubling our creatures power and toughness at the start of each combat, simultaneously making our creatures hard to block and discouraging our opponents from trying to attack back.

Nissa, Ascended Animist will give our team a huge, one-time buff with her -7 ability, something we can do immediately either by paying her full mana cost or after triggering a few of the deck's many proliferate effects.

Vigor allows us to supercharge the number of +1/+1 counters that get put on Wolverine or another of our creatures by preventing the damage done to them and replacing it with +1/+1 counters, which is fantastic in combination with effects like Chandra's Ignition and Showstopping Surprise, which act as board wipes in this deck, but end up buffing our team instead with Vigor out.

We're also running quite a few ways to add incremental +1/+1 counters to our creatures as we go in this deck. Biophagus is an awesome mana dork that adds a +1/+1 counter to any creature we cast with its ability. I run Defiler of Vigor in my Yeva Flash Stompy deck and it spirals out of control so quickly when you're running a deck with almost 40 creatures in it like we are this week.

The trio of Thickest in the Thicket, Tribute to the World Tree, and Halana and Alena, Partners all buff our creatures with +1/+1 counters and let us get a little bit of extra value, too. These effects will be key to helping make our whole team difficult to block and able to survive a fight.

Starting the Fight(s)

Beyond the two 'mass fight' spells of Chandra's Ignition and Showstopping Surprise (both of which always create memorable moments when you manage to resolve them), we're also running more single-target fight spells, like Contest of Claws, Cosmic Hunger, Fall of the Hammer, Smell Fear, and Windswift Slice, which can act either as single-target removal, if our opponents have a problematic creature on their board, or as a way to direct damage to Brash Taunter, Giggling Skitterspike, and Stuffy Doll and help us win the game.

For this week's decklist, we prioritized fight spells that are instants, can target our own creatures, and those that provide a little extra value (a +1/+1 counter, proliferate, card advantage, etc.) over more mana-efficient options, like Prizefight, Tail Swipe, and Bushwhack.

This is a good time to talk about the handful of 'fight' effects that we can actually use to do damage directly to our opponents: Fiendlash, Gravitic Punch, Soul's Fire, Surestrike Trident, and Voldaren Thrillseeker. Each of these allows us to somewhat reliably deal damage equal to the power of Wolverine, Best There Is or another buff creature we control directly to an opponent.

Wolverine is often the best choice because its Unrivaled Lethality ability will double that damage, even if we have to sacrifice Wolverine to Voldaren Thrillseeker for example, but these will work with just about any creature we have provided its power is high enough. Soul's Fire is probably the best of these effects since it's an instant, but don't sleep on Gravitic Punch as a way to turn any old card into a huge amount of damage by casting Gravitic Punch for its jump-start cost.

A Wee Bit of Infect for Flavor

I know infect isn't everyone's jam since it doesn't scale in Commander, like life totals do, but it's important to have ways for decks like this to win even if our opponents are gaining tons of life. The single best card for us to win with infect is probably Grafted Exoskeleton, which we can equip to Wolverine, Best There Is and win with a timely Chandra's Ignition.

It's important to note that infect applies to any damage, as noted on the Gatherer page for Grafted Exoskeleton, so if Wolverine has five or more power it will do enough infect damage to knock out a single player thanks to its Unrivaled Lethality ability. It's a bit of a corner case, but one of my favorite things about Commander is running a deck like this and having to navigate my way out of edge cases like a team full of indestructible creatures protected by an Avacyn, Angel of Hope, for example.

There are a smattering of other cards in the deck that grant poison counters as well. Contaminant Grafter, which is quickly becoming a favorite in the Plot Twist series,  has toxic 1, and will help us draw cards and ramp as long as an opponent has three or more poison counters. Infectious Bite didn't end up making our final decklist, but it's another great poison counter effect that fits right in since it's a fight spell as well.

Bloated Contaminator pulls double duty by having toxic 1, trample, and allowing us to proliferate when it deals damage to an opponent, so our opponents have to block it or risk us getting to proliferate our +1/+1 counters as well as any poison counters we've managed to land. 

It's worth highlighting a few of the proliferate cards this week's deck is running here as well. Smell Fear both allows us to proliferate and fight in one card, a pairing we'll almost always be glad to have. Expand the Sphere and Glistening Sphere let us get some proliferation out of our ramp package.

I'm always a fan of cards that can serve two roles in a deck that is trying to do a ton of things at once like this week's decklist is. Urban Daggertooth seems perfectly at home here since we can trigger its Enrage ability whenever we have it fight another creature, hopefully putting additional +1/+1 counters on it in the process. Park Heights Maverick is such an intriguing card, and the only green card with the dethrone ability, which can get through a board state full of chump blockers to trigger extra proliferate effects when we need to.

While I don't think Staff of Compleation is as good by itself as Staff of Domination has proven to be time and time again, being able to turn extra life into mana, cards, or a proliferate effect is something this deck is very interested in doing.

Winning with Style

Being able to hit an opponent really hard with Brash Taunter, Giggling Skitterspike, or Stuffy Doll is very on-brand for a Plot Twist decklist. The first time you fight your own Wolverine, Best There Is with Brash Taunter to kill an opponent who's about to kill you will be a moment you never forget. Notably, Giggling Skitterspike hits each opponent and benefits from all the extra +1/+1 counters this week's decklist can give out.

It's also worth remembering that you can use Brash Taunter to fight your own creatures, so if an opponent tries to remove your biggest threat with Path to Exile, you can fight that creature with Brash Taunter in response and do a bunch of damage to them. I also want to draw your attention to the -7 ability on Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast which allows each of our creatures do do damage equal to its power to each opponent.

Normally, we'd have to wait a few turns to activate that ability, but if we can proliferate twice the turn that we cast Lukka (easy enough with cards like Evolution Sage), we can use it immediately to potentially win the game if our creatures are large enough.

Toralf, God of Fury lets us turn the excess damage our fight spells do into damage we can point at our opponents' faces, which is a great way for us to get a few extra points of damage in here and there as we go about doing our thing. Flaming Tyrannosaurus starts out as a 5/5, but if we're able to get it anywhere above 10 power, it'll take a large chunk out of each of our opponents when it dies. Similarly, Gleeful Arsonist is going to do a ton of damage to our opponents whenever they cast noncreature spells.

I'm running it in my Marchesa Wizards kindred deck right now, and it's a great way to steadily chip away at our opponents' life totals. We also have a trio of small creatures in Cacophony Scamp, Heartfire Hero, and Spikeshot Elder that will do a ton of damage when they're power gets high enough, and they're so cheap that I doubt our opponents are going to want to spend a removal spell on them either.

Spikeshot Elder seems particularly potent given we can activate its ability as many times as we can afford to pay .

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

As I started digging into this week's decklist that cared about our creature's power and allowing them to fight in unusual ways, I came across more than a few interesting cards. I'm really fascinated by using Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's -7 ability to 'burn' out the table if we have a large enough board state.

You'll need to have some way to get two extra loyalty counters onto Lukka, but that's gotten easier to achieve with the release of Phyrexia: All Will be One and Fallout over the last two years and the extra proliferate cards they added. I feel like Kami of Whispered Hopes is a great example of a card that serves two purposes in a deck like this, acting as both a Hardened Scales and a Tanuki Transplanter rolled up into one.

Surrak and Goreclaw is an amazing way to close out games in a deck filled with big creatures like this one since it also grants your creatures haste the turn they enter. Neyith of the Dire Hunt was the commander of one of the first fight decks I'd ever seen, and the fact that it draws cards whenever your creatures fight or are blocked seems perfect. I wonder if it's worth running in some more combat-centric decks like my Secret Commander: Wild Pair brew.

Last but not least, I want to call out Legolas, Master Archer, which basically doubles every fight spell we cast since they should trigger both of Legolas' abilities. Perhaps there's a different, mono-green fight deck helmed by Legolas that we could build in the future?

Here's the full decklist for you to peruse:

Roll the Credits

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring Wolverine, Best There Is. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction. I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my decklists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final decklist.

You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I've been tinkering around with my Signature Ikra/Bruse Secret Commander Wild Pair Deck lately and really enjoying looking back at the deck now that I've gotten quite a few games under my belt with it. I'm constantly toying with new ideas like this Mono-Green 'Reanimator' Deck and Colorless Combo deck and would love to hear your thoughts on them there.

Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.