Rago Monkey Magic (EDH / Commander)

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider. When she attacks you get a 2/1 legendary monkey, who is exiled at the end of combat.

Are we exited yet? Well, neither was I. Not exactly Krenko, Mob Boss is it?

The deck was strictly for (monkey) shits and giggles. But then I realized that I actually won more with this deck than with almost any other. And that includes some pretty broken green-blue ones which were no fun for anyone.

The reason this deck does so well is precisely because Kari Zev is so underwhelming. There is always a bigger threat on the board to target with removal, so Kari is a constant source of value. The contrast with power-houses like Krenko is, at first sight, not impressive. Sure, Krenko may get killed a lot. But if he is in play for like 2-3 turns (sometimes less) you win the game.

But this is deceptive for three reasons. First, not using removal on you means your opponents are free to use it on each-other, so their strategies are slowed down. Second, not re-casting your commander liberates you to play more spells out of the deck. And third, the all-or-nothing quality of really powerful commanders means that when you lose, you also have no fun, and when you win nobody else has fun.

This deck is always fun. It always interacts. And when it wins (which, like I say, is surprisingly often) nobody hates you!

And the monkey dynamic also has some subtle advantages. First, the fact that the monkey exiles itself makes opponents supremely unwilling to trade, or even to block it with a toughness 4 or 5 creature when you have mana open and cards in hand. Second, the fact that he comes in tapped and attacking makes him immune to Propaganda effects. In a multi-player format, in a colour with no enchantment removal, this is actually no small thing.

So how do you get value out of Kari and that cheeky monkey?

Well, the trick is to turn the monkey into a really angry primate with a range of power-pumping effects that turn it into something more like a good old-fashioned Ball Lightning. Because he is always entering the battlefield, effects like In the Web of War are always on. Hero's Blade and Ronin Warclub auto-equip (and make for a great mental image!). Heroe's Podium makes Kari and Ragavan pump each-other, and can get quite powerful if you have a couple of the ten other legends from the 99 in play.

The other half of the equation is tempo and just a little control. The deck has a bunch of effects to push through the deck with little card draw and impulse draw effects. When the game runs long Outpost Siege can be a star player, while Infiltration Lens is an unreliable but sometimes prolific source of cards. On one occasion a slightly powered-up Kari got gang-blocked by five 1/1s out of pure frustration, drawing me ten cards with which I duly killed everyone the next turn! Late in the game Ox of Agonas or Combustible Gearhulk can push you over the line just when it looked like you were about to run out of gas. In general it is incredibly rare that a turn comes around in which you cannot throw some fuel on the fire. Meanwhile there is enough removal and combat-trickery to keep your opponents off balance and ensure that they never quite achieve that god-board that makes attacking them impossible. You gotta get at those Green and G/U players early because they are the worst for life gain and huge creatures.

This is a kind of frog-in-saucepan game. In the early turns the clock looks ridiculously long, but as the turns go on the temperature goes up and the clock shortens at an exponential rate. First your monkey starts hitting harder due to damage boosting effects like Impact Tremors and Heraldic Banner, then bigger creatures like Warchief Giant (which also benefit from your damage boosters) turn up the heat further. Then you drop a bigboy like the Molten Primordial or Myr Battlesphere onto the board and shit gets real. But even after that, if they are still alive, your opponents are usually more worried about each-other. Finally a cheeky Mana Geyser, Twinflame or Insult // Injury puts on the afterburners to finish your opponents off a turn or three early.

Importantly, while there is much synergy between the cards in the deck, almost every card works OK on its own. A lot of decks have a 'house of cards' or 'Death-Star' feel, meaning that they are very powerful but if you remove one or two key elements (Ashnod's Altar, Food Chain, Aluren, Aetherflux Reservoir or suchlike) the strategy collapses. In this deck there is no real slam-dunk for the dreaded Dissipate, Jester's Cap etc that can put you to bed at a stroke, so you cannot be easily undone by a clever control player. This often throws people off their removal game because they keep waiting for the perfect moment to counter/exile and it never quite comes!

Overall it is an old-skool red strategy. Attack, burn and try to wear your opponents down to a low life total then finish them off with a little unexpected flourish. No infinites, no exponential tokens, no alpha-strikes. It's... primitive. So primitive that you are objectively the lowest priority in threat assessment most of the time, whether in terms of whose commander to kill or who to alpha-strike with the unblockable 20/20. And then bam! You finish them off with a little unexpected flourish!