Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Risona, Asari Commander!

A three mana 3/3 with haste that when they deal combat damage to an opponent they have an indestructible counter if they don’t have one already, but that counter goes away if you take combat damage.

This is a very straightforward Commander in wanting to win the game via Commander damage, so a Voltron type of strategy would work best, but let’s see if we can spice it up a bit.

Rather than focusing on Aura’s and Equipment, though we will still have some in the deck, let’s focus on ability counters and making sure that we always have at least one indestructible counter on Risona.

Having a focus on ability counters makes this a little more challenging because of the ones that are available in red and white, not many of them offer protection options, but there is a solution to that.

For now, we need to see what counters are offered, and there are quite a few that give first strike or flying, which are going to be the key components in making sure that we have some way to get damage through to an opponent.

There are also quite a few cards that give lifelink counters, which is also good in making sure that we can survive if we always attack.

Now, how do we protect Risona? We don’t.

You see there are quite a few cards that not only give counters to your creatures, but also reanimates them onto the battlefield from the graveyard if they are mana value three or less.

Luckily for us Risona happens to fit into that category perfectly.

While this doesn’t work with exile based removal, Risona is of a low enough mana value, that we can afford to cast them a couple of times before it become unwieldy if that happens to be the case.

Now what else are we running in this deck?

I would focus primarily on Aura’s, mostly because they provide a much more immediate buff rather than an Equipment. Yes, red and white are the colors of Equipment, but if we plan to win via Commander damage, then we need to be quicker than our opponents and keep the curve pretty low.

Speaking to that, we also want to keep in mind combat tricks that give trample, which is definitely in red’s purview

Monstrous Rage is a solid go to, but you have a plethora to choose from.

Risona is a very straightforward Commander to consider and while it isn’t the most creative deck idea, there are ways to make it your own.

Focusing on ability counters is a niche enough strategy that most people won’t be expecting it, and we can even sneak in some proliferate cards in order to give Risona a couple extra indestructible counters.

In terms of out there potential strategies, Risona does not make it easy, but I do think that Risona makes for a solid budget aggro Commander that has a lot of opportunity to scale up if you decide to upgrade the deck.

Thank you for reading, I will see you all tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From J.M. Casual