It’s Not Just a Stupid Budget Deck, IT’S A ROCK!
There I was holed up in this quarry when some Elves came nosing around they were getting closer… and closer…
And?
I THREW A ROCK AT THEM!
It was a Big Rock…
If you’re at all like me, you’ve been diving hard into Commander Legends to avoid the literal trash fire of a world that we’re currently living in. With everything crumbling around us it’s kind of reassuring to have something like Commander Legends to hype us up.
I know a lot of y’all are excited for commanders like Neville’O Diskman, Thumbless Clark or…Jared. But for me, the one preview that really shocked me and hit me like an rockslide was Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith!
The Most Electrifying Goblin In Magic Entertainment!
For me, Toggo is the apotheosis of thoughtful card design. It is both functionally sound and dripping with flavor. A “genius” amongst Goblins, Toggo was first referenced in the flavor text of “Shock” in Onslaught way back in 2002.
The inventor was the first among his people to realize that Rocks were nature’s perfect weapon. Much of Toggo’s flavor text revolve around weapon design or comparing things to Rocks. Often meant for comedic effect.
You could say that he’s a goblin who knows a thing or two about Moggs mauling with minerals.
And it’s within knowing all this that we begin to see the appeal Toggo.
Here we have Toggo lifting up his prized creation: A ROCK. It’s not just a stupid boulder…it’s a ROCK! A ROCK! But if you look closer you’ll notice he’s surrounded by his next best “invention”: Lightning!
Now, let’s look at the card design itself
Toggo, understandably, finds his Rocks lying on the ground so, everytime you play a land he ‘finds’ another Rock. Even the Rocks themselves are thematic dealing 2 damage to any target after they’re equipped and thrown.
2 damage.
The same amount as Shock so it makes sense why he would compare the two!
Looking at Toggo I thought to myself: Man, this is such a fun commander. I really want to a build a deck with him and just make as many Rocks as possible. It doesn’t matter if the deck is good I just want to make Rocks. And Boy, does this deck do that.
Together Again For the First Time…
Originally, I wanted to pair him with the new Sakashima because what’s better than a Rock making goblin? Two Rock making goblins! But the more I thought about it the more I realized that having green to enable land fetching would make more sense. And then it dawned on me… what I needed wasn’t Sakashima but another denizen of Kamigawa all together:
Not only does Kodama of the East Tree enable more landfall incidentally but also when mixed with Toggo he creates a land-rock chain that has the possibility to become an infinite loop.
PARTY ROCK IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT!
How does this work? Well. let’s say both Toggo and Kodama are out and I play a land.
Toggo Triggers and Kodama Triggers
1. I resolve Kodama’s ability and put out a permanent with converted mana cost less than or equal to the land (so likely 0). For the sake of argument let’s say it’s not a land, but more often than not it will be.
2. After resolving Kodama’s trigger I resolve Toggo’s. Toggo generates a Rock token. A 0 converted mana cost permanent.
Kodama Triggers
This process then repeats itself until you run out of land in hand or put a nonland permanent into play that won’t trigger Toggo.
Having a pseudo-Manabond alone is pretty sick and can net us a lot of Rocks but what if…we had infinite land drops?
COMMON COMMON COMMON CHAMELEON!
YOU COME AND GO…YOU COME AND GOOOOO!
Enter Gruul Turf and the newly printed: Guildless Commons! Guildless Commons much like Gruul Turf is a Karoo land, or a type of land that requires you to retur a land to your hand when it enters the battlefield.
So let’s imagine that combo but with the third additional trigger of Guildless Commons or Gruul Turf in the mix.
1. You play Guildless Commons.
Trigger Toggo, Trigger Kodama, Trigger Guildless Commons
2. Resolving Guildless Commons first you choose to PUT it back into your hand. Resolving Kodama’s you put whatever back on the field (even Guildless Commons) then resolve Toggo’s ability making a Rock Token.
Trigger Kodama
3. Using Kodama’s Trigger you put Guildless Commons into play
Trigger Toggo, Trigger Kodama, Trigger Guildless Commons
And you get the idea. This reeats Ad Nauseum. You use your commanders together along with a Ravnica bounce land in order to make infinite Rocks. But for what purpose? Can you really win with all these Rocks?
Have Any of You Considered How Will We Destroy the Human Race?
ROCKS!
ROCKS!
I HAVE COLLECTED MANY ROCKS!
So you have all these Rocks, now what? Well you could spend your time equipping and hucking them at your opponents until they’re buried in a cragly crypt. Or…we could find other ways of utilizing our perfect murder weapons.
Ghirapur Aether Grid: Ghirapur Aether Grid is a fairly straight forward win con: after you have an obscenely large pile of Rocks you can start tapping two of them in order to do direct damage to your opponents slowly zapping them without having to sacrifice any of them.
Reckless Fireweaver: Reckless Fireweaver is another card from the plane of Kaladesh. It is fantastic as a win condition because it costs very little to cast and can cause a lot of incidental damage even if you aren’t making infinite Rocks. That said, if you have this out there’s a good chance people will get tired of your **** so maybe Rock your opponent’s socks off sooner rather than later.
Fathom Fleet Swordjack: This is a brand new card from Commander Legends that can do a lot of damage! Having an attack trigger is nice because that means it doesn’t even need to connect in order to do massive amounts of damage to your opponents. And even if they do kill this scurvy sea orc, it’s Encore ability means it can chill in your graveyard until you’re ready to deliver the coup de grâce to the table.
Goblin Gaveler/Golem Skin Gauntlets: As this is a budget build I didn’t want to entirely focus on comboing out to win. Sometimes just beating someone to 0 life with Rocks is it’s own kind of victory. One thing I like in particular about Rocks (aside from everything) is that they’re equipment. Which means equipment matter cards like Gaveler or Golem Skin Gauntlets means you can swing for massive amounts of damage for a mere 1 Equip cost per rock. What value!
Now, this is all well and good but how are we getting there?
…IT’S A ROCK!
The Pioneers Used To Ride These Babies for Miles!
So how are going to enable this spectacular victory? One thing I like about this particular deck is that much of it is very grindy however there are one or two cards that when mixed with a large number of Rocks, allow you to just dump out most of your deck and win.
I’m like the rest of you. I do not like Warp World. Warp World is a terrible card played by terrible people. People with no sense of decency.
That’s why I’ve only cast it once…
This week.
But seriously, I’m well aware of how frustratingly futile it feels to play or play against Warp World. Often it’s about ten minutes of work from the table for very little payoff … but here I offer you the rare chance of victory!
You see when you have at least 100 Rocks (which is very small compared to infinite Rocks) And your commanders aren’t in exile or the command zone but your win cons are in the deck you can simply cast Warp World and the end result is this:
You shuffle everything in.
Reveal your entire deck.
And lots of triggers happen.
If Reckless Fireweaver doesn’t kill them then you should have 37 or so Rocks that can chip away at them with Ghiraur Aether Grid And if not that then there’s a Goblin Charbelcher that’s just chilling and should be able to hit some poor sucker for 20+ Damage. No matter what hapens you will Rock their world.
To a lesser extent, the Great Aurora should be able to put you so far ahead of everyone else that being able to play out your deck should be as easy as bashing your brother over the head with a rock thus damning your entire bloodline in the eyes of the lord. All the lands come into play untapped and you’ll have your full deck in hand to play out Fireweaver, Toggo, Kodama and whatever else your heart desires!
FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK WE SALUTE YOU!!!
I built this deck because I loved Toggo but the more time and energy I put into the deck, the more I became enamored and impressed by it’s different lines of play. I thought that by making the deck budget it’d detract from the functionality. But in actuality all it did was increased the flexibility and the overall play experience it provides.
There are so many fascinating and innovative ways to use Rock tokens to enable your win cons or power out exciting plays. Cards like Clock of Omens or Inspiring Statuary let you turn your tokens into ramp by untapping mana rocks or using them to help pay for spells. Other cards like Aid from the Cowl allow you to keep generating value even if you’re just using the rocks to bean someone in the head. No Rock will go to waste!
I’m really looking forward to playing this deck both online and in paper. I won’t win often but man every time I do I know I’ll have won because I THREW A ROCK AT THEM!
For now though, I have one last question for all of you:
CAN YOU SMELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
What THE ROCK….IS COOKING!
Join me next article when I discuss: Ninjas, the only tribe that matters!
