Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Cloudhoof Kirin!

Cloudhoof Kirin is a five mana 4/4 with flying that whenever you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, you an opponent mills X cards where X is the Spirit or Arcane’s spell’s mana value.

A simple mill ability that is tied to two specific card types, with Arcane cards being one of the more obscure types.

The unique thing about Arcane cards is the Splice mechanic, which while not working with Cloudhoof Kirin, does allow us to staple more effects to other Arcane spells.

Now what’s the game plan? This deck benefits both from mill strategies and Spirit aggro strategies, because there is a solid amount of support for Spirits to make them a deck all to themselves.

Having followed the Pioneer scene for a little while, I remember when mono blue spirits was a solid budget archetype for players, and while the deck has evolved to include other colors, the mono blue core is still solid.

Rattlechains is a way to act as a form of protection in giving a Spirit we control hexproof until the end of turn, it also gives our Spirit spells flash.

This means that not only can we keep counter spells up at the ready, but we can also have a number of Spirits to bring up at the end of our opponents turns if they are too skittish to play anything big.

Something like Spectral Arcanist which allows us to cast an instant or sorcery with mana value equal to the number of Spirits we control for free.

Not only that, but there are also lords like Supreme Phantom and Patrician Geist, and utility cards like Sire of the Storm, which draws us a card whenever we cast a Spirit or Arcane spell.

Since we are also going to be using Arcane spells, this allows us an additional use for Splicing onto Arcane mechanic that many of them have.

While not every Arcane spell has the Splice mechanic, there are a few of them that are cheap enough that the spells that do have the Splice mechanic can be used effectively.

Reach Through Mists draws a card and pair that with Dampen Thought then we have a three mana spell that mills an opponent four cards and draw us one card.

Stream of Consciousness can give us the opportunity to shuffle back our used cards and pair that with Psychic Puppetry we can tap or untap a permanent along the way.

While we are limited to only blue, there are still Arcane cards that can benefit us, Ribbons of Reikai being one of the biggest ones because it draws us a card for each Spirit we control, which should be a lot if we play well.

There is even a removal spell with Splice in Reweave, which can make a player sacrifice a permanent and reveal cards until they find a permanent that shares a card type and puts on the battlefield.

Blue doesn’t get these sort of effects and it can be used on either your opponents things or on your own stuff, which broadens up its own use cases.

For example, if we have ways to manipulate the top of our deck, like a Brainstorm, then we can potentially cheat out a big Spirit like The Unspeakable onto the battlefield.

There is also a way to cheat The Unspeakable onto the battlefield via the effect of Sift Through Sands and the other associated cards, but if we have to hard cast The Unspeakable then with Cloudhoof Kirin an opponent mills nine cards.

Of course the best way to make use of any mill Commander is to have Bruvac the Grandiloquent so our opponents mill double the cards, though that card tends to err on the pricier side.

I’ve said before mill is hard to work in Commander, and while mill is a component of Cloudhoof Kirin, it’s more used as a disruption than a win condition.

Playing a large number of Spirits and Arcane spells can facilitate a mill win if we manage, but we also can pivot into a Spirit aggro deck if mill proves to be a problem.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual