Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be looking at Ramses, Assassin Lord!

Ramses is a four mana 4/4 with deathtouch, other Assassins you control get +1/+1, and whenever a player loses the game if they were attacked by an Assassin you controlled, you win the game.

A Commander with a built in win condition is a neat plan in theory because you build to that win condition, but there is an immediate problem that comes from it.

You will need to find a way to make sure that Ramses stays on the battlefield.

Now we have a plethora of Assassins, especially since the release of the Assassin’s Creed set, so we have those on lock. The question is how do we use them effectively?

Well if we are already taking a look at Assassin’s Creed, why don’t we look at the maxim of the Assassin’s?

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

As part of a personal deck building challenge for myself, I took a look at cards that changed creature types, and while I didn’t use Roshan, Hidden Magister, the idea was lingering.

We need to make use of two things that are quite present in blue: creature type changes and small unblockable creatures.

Blue has a few ways to change creature types like Leyline of Transformation and Xenograft, so we have ways to turn small evasive creatures into Assassin’s.

Not only that, blue has a number of small creatures that can’t be blocked, meaning that your opponents will need board wipes or single target removal to get rid of them.

Now what else can we make use of to make sure that a player loses the game after an Assassin has attacked?

While a lot players hate poison, it is the most reliable way for us to make a player lose and for us to win.

Pair those with ways to turn our creatures to Assassin’s we can make things like Thrummingbird ever the threat.

Smaller creatures make an aggro win condition much more difficult, especially with the win condition that Ramses brings to the game.

Your opponents will probably be more wary about how you set up your turns and will probably see you as an early threat.

While you can play the politics game in bargaining with your opponents, you can lean into being the heel and build this deck to be a purposeful Archenemy deck.

If you make your intentions clear in that regard, then your opponents will probably overlook you using poison as a win condition.

So what they will probably do is make sure that you don’t have many creatures, be blocking more or getting rid of your smaller creatures through board wipes.

And when we have enough creatures in the graveyard, then we pull out our backup win condition.

Like I said, if you play this deck with the intent of being the Archenemy, then you should have a backup plan.

For maximum salt, you can have a Platinum Angel on the battlefield as a way to make sure that you don’t lose and your opponents can’t win.

Sometimes it’s fun to play the villain, at least in this case make sure that you let your opponents know in advance. That way, you can make this deck as mean as you want and have your opponents figure out a way to solve the puzzle that your deck is putting out.

This is not the best mentality for deck building in general, but every once in a while its a fun way to see if you can make an intentionally toxic deck with the intent of being the problem player in a pod, and have your opponents gang up on you to see if they can beat you.

Fun every once in a while, but not a deck to bring out every night for a game of Commander.

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

Peace,

From J.M. Casual