Created a custom Kavu Commander
Today I spent about five hours trying to find a mono-red commander that actually appealed to me. At first I thought Varn, Street Thief looked really interesting, but after playing the deck several times over the past few weeks, I ended up feeling more frustrated than anything else. So I started looking through other mono-red commanders.
What I realized is that I could never build a mono-red deck that didn't eventually win through huge storm turns, burn, or some kind of combo. What I really wanted was a grindy mono-red value commander.
So I decided to design one myself.
This is my take on Tannuk, reimagined for Edge of Eternities. The artwork is also from the Edge of Eternities spoiler season, and the original artist is credited on the card.
The main idea behind Tannuk was to combine several themes that I enjoy:
- a mono-red Landfall commander,
- synergy with Impulse Draw,
- support for Kavu tribal, especially the new Kavus from Edge of Eternities,
- and a commander that rewards playing lands from exile instead of relying on graveyard recursion.
From a power-level perspective, I think Tannuk only really works as a commander. I suspect he would be too strong in the 99, but as a build-around commander I think he's in a healthy spot. While designing him, I mainly compared his power level to commanders like Teval, Hearthull, and the official version of Tannuk.
I also wanted him to feel like a counterpart to Teval. While Teval generates value through the graveyard and Zombie tokens, Tannuk does so through exile and Landfall. His 3/3 Kavu tokens are stronger than Teval's 2/2 Zombies, but he creates them less frequently. In return, his 2-damage mode lets him pick off Zombie tokens and other small utility creatures, while his 3/5 body with reach can block Teval effectively.
I think the restrictions keep him fair. He only cheats Mountains exiled during your own turn onto the battlefield, and his second ability only allows each mode to be chosen once per turn, preventing repetitive value loops.
Overall, I don't think the deck is particularly fast. In fact, it has to jump through quite a few hoops before Tannuk really starts generating value, which is exactly what I wanted. The result is a slower, synergistic mono-red commander that wins through incremental advantage instead of explosive combo turns.
I'd love to hear what you think. Do you think the design is balanced, and would you enjoy playing against a commander like this?