Commander Deck Tech: Sarkhan, Soul Aflame

Frankly speaking, the introduction to March of the Machine: The Aftermath is funny. On the one hand, we clearly have quite a few cards that could make it into the main set, and some that would do better in future sets, like The Kenrith's Royal Funeral in Eldraine. But, on the other hand, we have all the consequences of the clash between the Phyrexians and the citizens of various planes of the multiverse, led by Planeswalkers.

In a very interesting story and marketing move, many of these Planeswalkers lost their sparks, that is, what made them powerful beings capable of walking through the multiverse. On the official website itself, it is possible to read that most of these characters have lost their ability to travel through the planes, and we still don't know the complete list of which of them have lost their spark, which makes everything more unpredictable.

Those who have suffered this treatment by Wizards will no longer show up on cards with the Planeswalker type, but instead as Legendary Creatures - in other words, new commanders! Luckily, in this set, we know some of them, including the main one in this article!

Here we have a great Dragon tribal commander! Sarkhan, Soul Aflame is the Legendary Creature version of the Planeswalker famous for dealing with them. Although the character has already appeared with four different colors, blue, black, red and green, our commander comes in this version only with Red and Blue.

Therefore, having a good commander, and catering to different niches for such a popular tribe ends up being great for the game, giving us more diversity and options when building our decks. That said, what effect does our new Sarkhan have?

First, it lowers the cost of all dragons by one generic mana, going a long way toward lowering the difficulty of playing such large creatures. Thus, when a dragon enters the battlefield, the shaman becomes a perfect copy of the dragon, except that it is legendary and is called Sarkhan, Soul Aflame.

Obviously, this is a pretty strong effect that will help you get the best out of your dragons, even if they don't have haste, since Sarkhan will probably be on the field for a few turns already. What I find curious is the fact that the way in which his ability was built will block effects that clone a creature without it being legendary, such as, for example, Helm of the Host.

As the creature that Sarkhan will transform into always gains the Legendary supertype, even if the creature isn't, a Sarkhan equipped with the helm and another that is not legendary, will become legendary creatures with the same name, forcing to sacrifice one of them. That is, as much as you have several Sarkhan, Soul Aflame on the battlefield, thanks to effects such as of the Helm, the advisable thing is to transform one at a time for each creature that enters the battlefield - so no abusing with four Ancient Copper Dragon hitting at the same time.

The Decklist

The deck we will use for the argument in this article is described below:

The idea is to be able to put a real swarm of dragons on the battlefield, while we draw several cards.

As already mentioned, this is a dragon deck. And while we have a lot of really cool creatures, like Swashbuckler Extraordinaire, there are obviously some giant lizards that stand out more than the others.

Ancient Copper Dragon

One card that makes it obvious why I'm here just by reading its text is Ancient Copper Dragon. Able to create buckets and buckets of treasure tokens just by connecting a very well given attack.

Creating an average of ten treasures per combat damage, going up to 20, is very well liked for this and any other deck. It's a great idea to duplicate it with Sarkhan, Soul Aflame, Helm of the Host or give it double strike with Swashbuckler Extraordinaire.

Unfortunately, this card has a hefty price tag and will often be the first to be cut from lists.

Balefire Dragon

Balefire Dragon is a monster. Capable of cleaning the board of the opponent that is hit by it, this is another dragon that is worth in itself and causes great pressure on the field, but that becomes even better if it is duplicated in some way.

For example, if it comes in near the end of the game with Haste, thanks to an effect like Anger or Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind, and then its commander becomes a copy of it, a beautiful cutscene takes place in the game, where we can send each of the dragons to attack a different opponent, granting huge losses to both of them.

Lozhan, Dragon's Legacy

Lozhan, Dragon's Legacy will always bring an extra value for each dragon that is cast, that is, even if the spell is countered, Lozhan's effect will still trigger.

To give damage based on the converted mana cost of your cards is a great effect, especially when talking about dragons, which can routinely cost 5 mana or more. This damage can be dealt to any target, except commanders, which can be a bit inconvenient. But in the end, it just proves that sometimes, better than removing a threat, is removing the player who controls it.

Lathliss, Dragon Queen

Lathliss, Dragon Queen brings a wonderful ease to your game. Whenever a non-token dragon comes into play, the dragon queen will give you a free 5/5 token with flying. Thus, your battlefield will be populated at twice the speed, with creatures with great qualities to create aggressive situations.

Also, as icing on the cake, she can convert the mana we don't use on the turn to grow all her dragons, greatly increasing the total damage they can do.

The deck doesn't just live on dragons, there are other cards in it that can help change the game state or speed up your victory.

Dragon Tempest

This one is an enchantment that fully synergizes with the deck. Not only does it give our flying creatures haste, it also makes our dragons deal X damage to any target when they enter the battlefield, that X being the number of dragons you control.

This enchantment works as a second wincondition, with the ability to deal cumulative damage to any target you choose. Really, the best possible enchantment for this deck.

Disrupt Decorum

This spell is a lot of fun, but it generates multiple instances of the "goad" effect, which is a tricky Magic ability. Goaded creatures are forced to attack every turn if possible, and if their owner has opponents other than you, those opponents must be chosen as the attack's targets.

With Disrupt Decorum on the board, games with many creatures become a real war between your beloved teammates, as you watch from the balcony.

The Curses

I really like cards in the style of Curse of Verbosity and Curse of Opulence, because they make a specific opponent a much juicier target, while you cease to be an option.

Curse of Verbosity grants a draw for any player who attacks the enchanted player, and whenever that attacking player is one of your opponents, you also draw a card. Curse of Opulence does the same, but creating treasure tokens, which can be of great use to improve your game as quickly as possible, since dragons are quite expensive.

Astral Dragon and Cursed Mirror

The combo of Astral Dragon and Cursed Mirror seems pretty cute at first, but it proves to be extremely reliable at ending the game - spawning as many creatures as you want with haste, and even copies of other permanents, thanks to Astral Dragon.

The idea involves the Astral Dragon entering the battlefield with the Cursed Mirror already placed on it, which will spawn copies of the mirror, which will turn into copies of the dragon, and spawn more copies of the first mirror, which will turn into dragons, and…

This is repeated as many times as you like.

What I like most about this combo is its versatility. Astral Dragon will always make two copies of Cursed Mirror. Due to the infinite recursion of the combo, always generating two tokens, one of the copies generated by the dragon can easily target an enchantment, such as Propaganda, to become a real wall if you don't want to end the game at that exact moment, or Dragon Tempest to kill opponents with the non-combat damage.

Perhaps even copying several treasure tokens, bringing whatever number of mana you need. It's a very fun combo with many interesting aspects.

Helm of the Host and Combat Celebrant

Since we talked earlier about how Helm of the Host can be interesting by copying Sarkhan, Soul Aflame, so we can use several different copies of dragons during the same turn, we can also talk about how to best use the equipment when we don't have the commander at our disposal.

Combat Celebrant is a creature with the ability Exert, from Amonkhet. This ability is meant to demonstrate that "The creature tried so hard to do this extra effect that it won't untap next turn." As for Combat Celebrant, this effect is to start a new combat phase for the turn, untapping all other creatures and making them ready to attack.

Helm of the Host works very synergistically with this one, allowing you to have a new copy of the creature the equipment is attached to every start of a combat phase, even if we have several during the same turn. So, all we need is to attach the card to Combat Celebrant.

The start of the combat step will create a copy with haste that can attack, allowing you to activate Exert and untap your other creatures for a new combat step, in which another Combat Celebrant will be created, ready to attack and activate its Exert, creating another combat step right after that, which will create another token and… Again, you get the idea.

If Combat Celebrant is the only creature on the battlefield, it really might look like it's not going to do much, especially if your opponents have plenty of blockers. But slamming it multiple times, forcing the same large creature, or several small ones, to block multiple times will quickly wipe out their defenses.

A cheaper and more accessible version of this deck can be found in the following list:

The only thing that makes me sad about using a blue and red shell, but without green, when making a dragons deck is the absence of Atarka, World Render, one of my favorite Magic cards. Double-strike to all of your attacking dragons is always a huge help and creates wonderful situations.

Until next time!