By Jeremy Rose
Battlebond was undoubtedly one of Magic’s more entertaining supplemental products, at least since I’ve been playing, and brought a ton of exciting new cards including cards that have the ‘Partner with’ mechanic. Easily the most exciting partners from this set for me were Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom and Okaun, Eye of Chaos. One of my closest friends loves flipping coins to make decisions and is known for being lucky so the two of us decided to build this deck together. While Okaun is more like my physical stature and Zndrsplt more closely resembles my friend, our Magic playstyles are often the opposite. It was an interesting experience to partner with a friend to build a partner deck and I would recommend that everyone build a deck with a friend or
member of their playgroup at least once.
Eyes of Wisdom and Chaos
Our commanders for this coin flipping monstrosity of a deck are Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom and Okaun, Eye of Chaos. Both are funny looking things only have one eye and like to flip coins, but that is where the similarities end. Okaun is a hulking beast that only gets bigger and beefier when coins get flipped while Zndrsplt prefers to sit back and accrue some long-term value by drawing cards. These two play off each other beautifully and work extremely well towards the same goal, which is flipping coins. The number of coins these two will flip by themselves might surprise you.
Ramp and Card Draw
The pillars of the commander format, ramp and card draw are pivotal to any deck and its ability to win. Running two five mana commanders is fairly mana intensive, so we have got to make sure we can cast them reliably. In addition, drawing cards is going to ensure we have the cards we need to not only make our deck function, but also close out games when the time comes.
We play the classic ramp package of Sol Ring and Arcane Signet. We also run Izzet Signet as well as Talisman of Creativity for cheap acceleration and color fixing. Mind Stone and Commander’s Sphere are also in here due to lack of easy green ramp. We got lucky with our Commander Legends boxes and opened a Jeweled Lotus. While I do not believe this card is as good as most people seem to think it is, it does power out both of our commanders early and it works well with all the artifact synergies we have going on. Rounding out our ramp category is Thought Vessel because we plan on drawing a lot of cards and a two-mana rock that also keeps our cards in our hand is worth it.
Card draw comes a little easier in this deck seeing as how one of our commanders, Zndrsplt, does a great job of doing that for us. That said, redundancy is important in a 100-card singleton format, so we also have a solid selection of card draw spells in the deck. We have got commander staples Rhystic Study, Treasure Cruise, and Fact or Fiction as well as more efficient card draw in the form of Izzet Charm and Opt. We are also running some new cards that are going to have a solid place in Commander going forward. MDFCs like Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge and Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn really pull their weight in this deck and are versatile. Commander Legends gave us Wheel of Misfortune which is as flavorful as it is impactful in our deck.
Heads or Tails?
The overall strategy of this deck is to benefit from flipping coins, mainly using our commanders’ abilities as payoffs for doing so. While our commanders will flip tons of coins on their own, we also included quite a few other cards to increase the volume of coins flipped in a game. Karplusan Minotaur is an interesting card with a cumulative upkeep that requires you to flip a coin, increasing the number of coins flipped on each upkeep.
One of the most powerful things you can do in a game of Magic is take extra turns and our deck runs two ways to accomplish that, both involving coin flipping. First is a card called Stitch in Time which has you flip a coin and, if you win the flip, take an extra turn. At worst, it is three mana for a 50/50 shot at an extra turn, but the goal of this deck is to never have our flips be 50/50. More on that later. Our other extra turn spell is a planeswalker, Ral Zarek. This electric, four loyalty planeswalker does a lot of things. A +1 ability for tapping or untapping, a -2 ability for removing creatures, and a -7 ability to flip FIVE coins and take an extra turn for each ‘heads’ result. We have only managed to pull off the ultimate once, but it was an easy win after that.
There are a bunch of other cards that flip coins, many of them specifically to enable our commanders’ abilities. Cards like Game of Chaos and Mana Clash are fun to mess around with and winning three flips with Fiery Gambit is still a dream of mine. There are even two flip related board wipes in Boompile and Puppet’s Verdict. Commander Legends gave us Krark, the Thumbless which is going to be a high-risk high reward value card that we are excited to try out.
Krark’s Thumb
Before we go any further, we must talk about the absolute best card in this deck, Krark’s Thumb. This card makes it so much easier to take advantage of all our coin flipping shenanigans, especially when we have one or even both of our commanders out. Being able to get ‘advantage’ on coin flips might seem silly and cute, but it is surprisingly powerful. Many of the toolbox type cards in this deck are dedicated to or centered around Krark’s Thumb. We have a big artifact package in this deck involving tutoring for artifacts as well as recurring them. These synergies will allow us to make the most out of Krark’s Thumb every game, in addition to the fact that our other, not Krark’s Thumb, artifacts will also provide us value if we need them instead.
A Hearty Helping of Hot Garbage
You may have noticed that a lot of the cards in this deck kind of…suck. Dedicated coin flip decks are not left with many options in terms of hard hitting, powerful, and busted cards. We do play a lot of hot garbage. There is a very select few cards in the deck that are centered around making the deck more consistent and making our crappy cards less crappy, namely cards that help us access Krark’s Thumb.
Tribute Mage and Fabricate will just outright tutor for it and get it into our hand. Mystical Tutor can search for any of our counterspells, draw spells, or Cyclonic Rift, but it can also tutor for Fabricate which can then be used to get Krark’s Thumb into our hand. Muddle the Mixture is part counterspell, part Krark’s Thumb tutor in this deck which makes the value of this card go way up. It might be a bit of a stretch, but we also run Inventor’s Fair as another way to tutor for Krark’s Thumb. We run about 15 artifacts, so it is feasible to have the chance to get Inventor’s Fair online.
Spellseeker can find us any number of other tutors and even our small counterspell package to protect our win conditions, most of which Spellseeker can also get for us. Additionally, Spellseeker being able to find Cyclonic Rift means that this card is really going to come in clutch sometimes. Archaeomancer and Mystic Retrieval are both used to get back some of our other tutors to reuse them, but we run a decent number of instants and sorceries in this deck so there should not be a shortage of targets for these cards. Gamble is another tutor for Krark’s Thumb, but you will want to make sure you have a way to get it out of the grave in case you discard it with Gamble.
Speaking of getting Krark’s Thumb out of the graveyard, because it will be targeted, we have a few tricks up our sleeve for recovering from a position where we are forced to flip coins without advantage. Buried Ruin is a land that can bring an artifact from the graveyard to your hand and we run Expedition Map almost exclusively to get Buried Ruin out of our deck when we need it. Last is Goblin Welder, a card that allows you to trade an artifact on your field for one in your graveyard. We run a fair number of artifacts in this deck, including the artifact lands in our colors, so being able to Welder back Krark’s Thumb is not all that unlikely.
So…How Do You Win?
As much as I like just spinning my wheels and seeing how ridiculous I can make my board state or test the limits of my deck, we do have to win at some point. Luckily, we have a win condition in our command zone. Okaun, Eye of Chaos can get insanely large quickly and swing for way more than lethal.
Winning only four coin flips with his trigger makes him a 48/48 and ready to take our opponents out. Combat damage is great and only three flips give us lethal commander damage if the way is clear for attacking. If we need a little help getting the damage through, we do run Rogue’s Passage to make Okaun unblockable. To help Okaun get as swole as we can, we also run Frenetic Efreet to stack the coin flip ability and flip an obscene number of coins to make Okaun obscenely large.
Better than combat damage though, is the ability to cast a spell while Okaun is huge and win out of nowhere. That is where Fling and Thud come in. Sacrificing Okaun and dealing damage equal to his power is sure to knock someone out of the game. Zendikar Rising also gave us a MDFC with a fling effect called Kazuul’s Fury with Kazuul’s Cliffs as a red land on the other side. If we want to keep our commander around when we do this, it will cost us a little more mana, but Soul’s Fire deals the damage without the sacrifice. In addition, Gravitic Punch allows us to cast the spell more than once and hit multiple targets with it. Winning a Krark, the Thumbless flip with one of these on the stack will also knock out more than one opponent and we always have our instant and sorcery retrieval cards to do it again if we need to. Possibly the best version of this effect is Chandra’s Ignition, which hits each other creature and each opponent with the creature’s power for a full table kill.
The highest power and toughness I ever got Okaun to was 3,145,728 and I won that game with a Chandra’s Ignition after combat. This threat can get real, even if it seems like a stretch.
Another way we can secure victory is a good old fashioned Lab man win. Frenetic Efreet’s ability can be stacked as many times as we want and, even if it is phased out or sacrificed, we still flip coins. So, with Zndrsplt and a Lab Man (or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries) out, we can flip as many coins as we need to draw our whole deck and win the game. This combo is a little more fragile than flinging the big guy, so be sure to have some protection for it and choose the moment carefully.
Lastly, we have Chance Encounter. I am not really a fan of alternate win condition cards that require counters and trigger on upkeep like this, but we just could not resist putting this in. If it works out, great. If not, it is only one card and we are not all that worried about it.
Dextras
There are not a whole lot of changes I can see making to this deck that would drastically change its functionality or power level. That said, a couple cards I would like to add are Wheel of Fortune or Reforge the Soul. Wheel is prohibitively expensive, so I do not think that will be happening anytime soon, but a couple of wheel effects would do well in this deck.
Another change I would like to make is the inclusion of Dockside Extortionist. The price tag of this card is the only reason it is not currently in here, but it is simply one of the best red creatures in the game. If you do not want to shell out for it, you could always pick up a nice proxy like this!
A dream of mine is to be able to put a Mana Crypt in this deck. If you have got the funds for it, Crypt just fits so perfectly. It is already good in just about every deck, but in this deck, it also fits right into the gameplan because it flips a coin on our upkeep. Extra value from Mana Crypt? Yes please.
Full Deck List
Creature (11)
· 1x Archaeomancer
· 1x Goblin Welder
· 1x Karplusan Minotaur
· 1x Krark, the Thumbless
· 1x Laboratory Maniac
· 1x Mogg Assassin
· 1x Okaun, Eye of Chaos
· 1x Spellseeker
· 1x Treasure Nabber
· 1x Tribute Mage
· 1x Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom
Enchantment (4)
· 1x Chance Encounter
· 1x Goblin Bomb
· 1x Propaganda
· 1x Rhystic Study
Planeswalker (2)
· 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
· 1x Ral Zarek
Artifact (13)
· 1x Arcane Signet
· 1x Boompile
· 1x Commander’s Sphere
· 1x Expedition Map
· 1x Izzet Signet
· 1x Jeweled Lotus
· 1x Krark’s Thumb
· 1x Mind Stone
· 1x Sol Ring
· 1x Strionic Resonator
· 1x Swiftfoot Boots
· 1x Talisman of Creativity
· 1x Thought Vessel
Instant (17)
· 1x Chaos Warp
· 1x Counterspell
· 1x Cyclonic Rift
· 1x Fact or Fiction
· 1x Fling
· 1x Izzet Charm
· 1x Kazuul’s Fury // Kazuul’s Cliffs
· 1x Muddle the Mixture
· 1x Mystical Tutor
· 1x Narset’s Reversal
· 1x Opt
· 1x Puppet’s Verdict
· 1x Rapid Hybridization
· 1x Remand
· 1x Soul’s Fire
· 1x Swan Song
· 1x Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge
Sorcery (16)
· 1x Chandra’s Ignition
· 1x Blasphemous Act
· 1x Fabricate
· 1x Fiery Gambit
· 1x Gamble
· 1x Game of Chaos
· 1x Gravitic Punch
· 1x Mana Clash
· 1x Mystic Retrieval
· 1x Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn
· 1x Stitch in Time
· 1x Squee’s Revenge
· 1x Thud
· 1x Treasure Cruise
· 1x Vandalblast
· 1x Wheel of Misfortune
Land (37)
· 1x Buried Alive
· 1x Cascade Bluffs
· 1x Command Beacon
· 1x Command Tower
· 1x Evolving Wilds
· 1x Fabled Passage
· 1x Forgotten Cave
· 1x Ghost Quarter
· 1x Great Furnace
· 1x Inventor’s Fair
· 7x Island
· 1x Lonely Sandbar
· 9x Mountain
· 1x Reliquary Tower
· 1x Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway
· 1x Rogue’s Passage
· 1x Seat of the Synod
· 1x Shivan Reef
· 1x Spirebluff Canal
· 1x Steam Vents
· 1x Sulfur Falls
· 1x Terramorphic Expanse
· 1x Training Center
Jeremy Rose is a relatively new Magic player, having only started in Battle for Zendikar. When he's not being a filthy, filthy blue player, he enjoys jamming fun games with his friends. He's also a lifelong martial artist and a professionally employed teacher. He sometimes paints minis adequately.
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