Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Rhoda, Geist Avenger and Timin, Youthful Geist!

Rhoda is a four mana 3/3 with vigilance and whenever an creature an opponent controls is tapped and if it isn’t declared as an attacker, put a +1/+1 counter on Rhoda. Timin is a five mana 3/4 with flying and at the beginning of each combat tap up to one target creature. They also both have Partner with each other.

Tapping opponents creatures has been a mainstay in Magic for years, but it is really only recently when there were cards that started to do a lot more effects based on tapping your opponent’s things.

Our goal here is simple, tap as many of our opponents creatures to get Rhoda as big as possible and swing for Commander lethal.

The first thing we need are ways to tap as many creatures as we can, preferably at instant speed.

Aether Shockwave is a solid way to get this working because of it being instant speed and how modal it is. More often then not we will be using the tap all non-Spirit creatures at the beginning of an opponent’s combat phase, but there may be times when we need to cast the tap all Spirits mode.

There is also Icy Blast for the later game, which requires more mana to affect more targets, but when Rhoda gets just one more +1/+1 counter then the Ferocious ability triggers meaning that those creatures become tapped down for a turn.

Blustersquall is a one mana spell that can tap one thing in the early game, but for four mana we can Overload it to tap all our opponents creatures.

We also have access to Deluge, which taps all creatures without flying, Monstrosity of the Lake for the late game to tap all of our opponents creatures and put stun counters on them, and Thoughtweft Bandit to tap everything your opponents control and untap everything you control.

As we tap our opponents things, we need to find additional benefits to having done so.

Hylda of the Icy Crown can get a bit expensive to activate her ability, but being able to make a 4/4, put a +1/+1 counter on each of our creatures, or scry 2 then draw one can become invaluable for the long game.

Solitary Sanctuary also gives a +1/+1 counter to a creature whenever we tap one of their untapped creatures, and it also taps an opponent’s creature and gives them a stun counter.

There is also Theft of Dreams, which draws us a card for each tapped creature an opponent controls. If we are playing an opponent that is going wide, then we can potentially draw a lot of cards.

We also have access to a massive removal suite of white spells that destroy or deal damage to a tapped creature or are cheaper when they target a tapped creature like Cut Short, Deadly Riposte, Seal Away, and many more.

We are going for a control style deck that involves tapping a lot of our opponents creatures, meaning that when we are ready to go for the kill, we need to be ready.

Cone of Cold when paired with Split Up is a lethal combination of cards that not only grows Rhoda to a massive size, but also clears the way for Rhoda to swing in for lethal damage.

If we want to further have a control element to our deck, then we could also play Temporal Distortion that can stop not only creatures from untapping, but also lands. Keep in mind this is affects everyone, but luckily for us Rhoda has vigilance.

Sunblast Angel also works as an effective board wipe against tapped creatures because it also gives us a creature we can use to attack.

While the deck mostly focuses on utilizing Rhoda’s ability, Timin can also be helpful in getting at least one creature tapped if we don’t have any other ways to grow Rhoda.

The two have synergy with each other, it’s just that Rhoda leads the charge between the two while Timin is there to help facilitate a win with Rhoda.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual