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A Starfish riding a sea Turtle while wearing a Jellyfish as a hat and blowing bubbles sounds like a scene straight out of SpongeBob SquarePants, but it’s actually a card fromMagic: The Gathering’s Foundations Jumpstart set. Plagon, Lord of the Beach is here to conquer the sandbars and your Commander pod.
Plagon, Lord of the Beach offers a unique incentive while brewing your deck: it likes big blocks, and it cannot lie. Stack up all of your bottom-heavy creatures and pack a picnic, it’s time to head to the beach with Plagon.
Island x10
Plains x11
Sea of Clouds
The Commander
Plagon, Lord of the Beach is a0/3 legendary Starfish Wizardthat costs two generic and one blue mana. Whenever it comes into play, youdraw one card for each creature you control with higher toughness than power. Since Plagon, Lord of the Beach counts itself, your worst-case scenario is to draw one card for three mana, which isn’t a terrible rate.
Additional bottom-heavy creatures will lead to a better rate, andyou don’t actually have to cast Plagon: flicker effects will activate its ability, and can also be used to protect it from targeted removal.
That ability makes Plagon an excellent addition to any toughness-matters deck that includes Azorius (white/blue) colors, like Arcades, the Strategist, but it has an additional ability: for one white or blue mana, you canhave any creature you control assign combat damage based on its toughness instead of its powerfor the turn.
While this ability doesn’t give creatures with defender the ability to attack, it doesallow you to pull some sneaky tricks, like using Access Tunnel to make the 0/17 Leviathan Crab Charix, the Raging Isle unblockable and swinging for the kill.
How To Build The Deck
Plagon, Lord of the Beach isa perfect commander for a “toughness kindred” deck, and there are plenty of creatures in Azorius colors with higher toughness than power that also have excellent abilities. With such a broad range of abilities available, you can build based on what shows up in your local pod.
Your commander has a few drawbacks: it hasno built-in protection,the draw ability is single-usein normal play, and thedamage modifier can get expensive, since you need to pay for every creature that gets the benefit. Flicker effects like Ephemerate can take care of the first two at once, offering a way to protect Plagon and get more draws at the same time.
High toughness doesn’t always mean low power (just look at the 7/8 Hullbreaker Horror), but you’ll finda lot of your key creatures clocking in under three power. This gives you access to a lot of neat tech in white that makes life miserable for larger creatures, adding a bit of a pillowfort feel to the deck, but also gives you access to a lot of boardwipes that will usually be asymmetrical.
Ramp
Azorius has a pretty weak ramp package, relying heavily on mana rocks to make up for the lack of land-based acceleration and rituals. This is partiallymitigated by the low mana cost of most of the key cards, giving the sample decklist an average mana value of less than three, and by access to some of white’s catchup mechanics.
Birds of Paradise would be an excellent inclusion, but it’s unfortunately outside of Plagon’s color identity.Ornithopter of Paradisemakes a good alternative, offeringcolored mana on a flyer with two toughness and no power, which contributes to Plagon’s draw ability.
Including this along with a robust mana rock package that includes Decanter of Endless Water, Azorius Signet, and Talisman of Progress should give you pretty reliable colorless mana fixing.
On top of the mana rocks,Land Tax allows you to tutor for three basic land cards whenever an opponent controls more land than you, which is pretty reliable if anyone at the table plays green. You may get several triggers before you catch up to a ramping opponent, thinning your deck and giving you reliable land drops throughout the game.
Land Tax also synergizes with Baldin, Century Herdmaster, allowing you to build a huge hand and buff all your creatures.
Smothering Tithe takes a few turns to get into play, but it usually pays for itself by your next turn. Most players won’t have enough extra mana to keep paying to prevent you from gaining Treasure tokens, so you can build up a stash. With a low mana curve,you’ll often end up with more Treasure than you can use.
Draw
Plagon, Lord of the Beach provides a draw opportunity as soon as it comes into play, which can be reused any time you bounce or blink it. But you shouldalways have a backup planin case your opponents counter it or otherwise Stifle its ability.
Welcoming Vampire allows you todraw a card each time a creature with less than three power enters under your control, provided it’s the first time that turn. This gets you an extra draw from Plagon, certainly, but if you have a way to play creatures on your opponents' turns, you may keep your hand full indefinitely.
Scuttletide combos with Welcoming Vampire, allowing you to cycle a card in all but name every turn while creating a growing swarm of Crabs. Just remember to limit it to once per turn for maximum effect.
The Council of Four isn’t a foolproof way to draw cards, butit will usually get you a couple each turn cycle, since most players will have a way to draw a couple of extra cards. And even when it isn’t drawing cards, it will create 2/2 white Knights that you can put to use as attackers or chump blockers.
Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield gives youtwo effects similar to The Council of Four’s draw and token generation, but they’re both linked to casting a second spell, and can be used on any turn. The 0/3 Walls aren’t quite as useful as Knights, but they each get exalted so that you can buff a single attacking creature.
The Reality Chip isn’t exactly card draw, but itallows you to look at and play the top card of your library, making it act like an extra card in your hand. That’s on top of triggering your other draw effects, including Plagon’s, if it hasn’t been reconfigured.
The One Ring is another great draw option, especially with the flicker and bounce effects available in Azorius colors. While most of those included on the sample decklist can only affect creatures,there are a few options to exile and return other permanents, allowing you to reset the burden counterson The One Ring when the life loss gets too high.
Flicker And Bounce
Your commanderisn’t the only way to draw cards, but itwill often be the most cost-effective card draw in the deck,especially if you don’t need to wait for it to die and re-cast it with the Commander tax.A cheap way to reuse Plagon is to exile it and then return it to play, but you’re able to also bounce it to your hand. Both techniques also cause targeted removal spells to fizzle, and can get around some boardwipes.
Ephemerate is the most cost-effective flicker, since you get the effect twice for just one white mana. The only downside is that the Plagon (or whatever other creature you targeted) will have summoning sickness on your next turn. This isn’t an issue for Plagon, Lord of the Beach, who won’t usually attack, but may set you back if you use it on a big attacker like Charix, the Raging Isle.
Soulherder is a powerful addition, since it not only flickers a creature on each of your turns,it also gets a +1/+1 counter every time any creature is exiled. This makes any one of your creatures act like it has vigilance by bringing it back into play untapped after it attacks, or triggers Plagon every turn.
Using Soulherder with Felidar Guardian or Restoration Angel gives you an extra +1/+1 counter on Soulherder for free. If you have both in play, you can use them on each other forinfinite enter and leave effects.
Bounce effects, like the one found on Dour Port-Mage, area little less optimal, but they have their place. While Ephemerate can cause a Murder to fizzle, it won’t protect from a Wrath of God, because the creature will come back into play before that spell resolves.
Returning a creature to your hand allows it to dodge a board wipeso that you’re able to play it again on your next turn. Dour Port-Mage is particularly useful, because not only does it allow you to bounce any of your creatures for just two mana, it also rewards you with a draw every time one of your creatures is exiled, bounced, or otherwise leaves play without dying.
Beach Cleanup
Playing a bunch of creatures with low power gives you access to several unique board wipes. While you don’t want to play them every turn, it’s a good idea to include a few, so that you don’t need to dig for one when you need it.
The Battle of Bywater has gone largely unnoticed, but it’sa perfect fit in this deck. For three mana, it destroys all creatures with power greater than two. There are only two creatures in the sample decklist which are affected, but this will take care of a lot of threats under your opponents' control. Better yet,it gives you a pile of Food tokens based on how many of your creatures survive.
Creatures tend to be symmetric, with the same power and toughness. Because of that pattern,Wave of Reckoning will kill most of your opponents' creatures while leaving yours untouched. The only creature at risk is Soulherder (and the 2/2 Knights from The Council of Four), but it can devastate everyone else’s creatures.
Slaughter the Strong forces each player to choose a group of their creatures with no more than four total power between them, then sacrifice the rest. This immediately takes care of indestructible creatures like Blightsteel Collossus and limits your opponents' resources, butsince nearly half of your creatures have zero power and a third have one power, you’ll come through mostly unscathed.
Dusk // Dawn is a flexible card, givingthe same boardwipe as The Battle of Bywater(minus Food tokens),but doubling as recursion. Once it’s in your graveyard, you’re able to cast the Dawn side for five mana to return all of your creatures with less than two power from your graveyard to your hand.
The best part is thatit doesn’t matter how Dusk // Dawn got to your graveyard: if you chuck it with Scuttletide and then cast it, that works just as well as casting Dusk and waiting a turn to reanimate fetch your creatures.
Deck Tech
Azorius has access to a lot of useful options for dealing with different situations, and that can make each game unique.
There are so many incredible instants that cost two or less mana thatit doesn’t make sense not to include Isochron Scepter in this deck. Counterspell, Snap, and Swords to Plowshares all give you repeatable control, while your assorted flicker effects become reusable for a measly two mana.
Final-Word Phantom allows you tocast any spell as if it had flash, but only at the end of your opponents' turns. It isn’t as powerful as Leyline of Anticipation (which you could just swap in, if you want), but it allows you to drop spend your mana after your opponents have made their biggest moves, and as a 1/4, it contributes to Plagon’s draw effect.
Plagon, Lord of the Beach doesn’t have any built-in protection, butGold-Forged Thopteryx gives Plagon and your few other legendary permanents ward two. It isn’t much, but stack it on Rhystic Study and keep a handful of flickers in your hand, and your opponents will have to put some thought on how much mana they’re willing to waste just trying to get a spell through to your commander.
The high number of flicker effects gives youa good reason to include Preston, the Vanisher. Whenever a nontoken creature enters under your control without being cast, Preston creates a 0/1 Illusion copy of that creature. All of these Illusions have the same abilities of the original, and also count towards Plagon’s enter effect.
Preston, the Vanisher also offers targeted removal, allowing you to pay two mana and sacrifice five Illusions to exile any nonland permanent. Don’t forget that exiling an opponent’s creature counts for growing your Soulherder!
Preston, the Vanishergoes, infinite with either Restoration Angel or Felidar Guardian. Since both have optional enter effects, use Preston’s ability to make an Illusion copy that flickers the original, which will come into play and trigger Preston again.
There are a handful of ways to make creatures with low power unblockable, but you’re able to alsoswing with a few 0/X creatures and see what gets throughbefore using Plagon to make them deal damage from toughness.
A nasty surprise isStoneskin, which would make a measly 0/2 Ornithopter hit like a truck. Or toss it on Plagon to deal massive commander damage. Pair it with Refuse to Yield to hit harder than any Starfish has ever hit before.
