Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Zur the Enchanter!

Zur is a four mana 1/4 with flying and whenever he attacks you may search your library for an enchantment card with mana value 3 or less and put it onto the battlefield then shuffle.

Zur is a Commander that works perfectly for a control styled deck, and while it will be a bit slow, we can make him work. The issue does come in the fact that Zur needs to attack in order to trigger.

The game plan of the deck is to have a solid number of enchantments we can get onto the battlefield to control the game, have ways to protect Zur so that he can attack, and slow roll our way to a control win.

The first thing we need to do is find solid utility enchantments to help us get things onto the battlefield faster, while also providing some tax effects to slow our opponents down.

Inquisitive Glimmer is an ideal example of getting us to where we need to go faster, one in that it is a two drop, two in that it makes our enchantments cheaper, and three in that itself is an enchantment that Zur can get if we get Zur out into play early enough. Starfield Mystic is another cost reducer, but it is not an enchantment, but does play well if our enchantments go into the graveyard.

As far as ways to slow our opponents down, there is Spirit of the Labyrinth to limit everyone to drawing only one card, Eidolon of Rhetoric to limit everyone to only one spell per turn, and Ghostly Prison and Propaganda to force our opponents to play two mana to attack us for each creature they send towards us.

If you really want to pile on the tax effects while giving us a discount, then there is Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, which makes our white spells and blue spells cost one less while also making our opponents spells cost one more to cast. There is also Grand Abolisher, which prevents our opponents from playing spells or activate abilities of artifacts, creature, or enchantments during our turn.

The next thing we need to look at are ways to make sure that Zur sticks around to make sure that we can get continuous value from him.

Kaya’s Ghostform is a solid starting point, being a one mana enchantment that can protect Zur for a turn. It is also helpful in that it can bring him back if he dies or goes into exile, which is especially helpful against things like Path to Exile or Farewell.

Gift of Immortality is also a solid way to give Zur some recursion, which only triggers when he dies, but comes at the benefit of bringing both Zur and itself back into play at the beginning of the next end step, meaning that they will need their premium removal to get rid of Zur.

While not an enchantment Zur can tutor, Sphere of Safety is worth considering as the game progresses because it is similar to a Ghostly Prison, but actually scales with the number of enchantments that you control, and if we even have one other enchantment in play, it is another Ghostly Prison at minimum.

Curator’s Ward to give Zur hexproof and if he does leave the battlefield we draw two cards, Timely Ward is a flash option to give Zur indestructible, Turn Aside is a one mana counter spell that counters a spell targeting a permanent we control, and Render Silent to counter a spell and stops an opponent from casting spells that turn.

There are a variety of ways we can win, and while we can go for a Voltron finish, we can get a bit creative in how we get there.

Ghostly Dancers is a neat card with Eerie that whenever an enchantment we control enters or we unlock a Room, we make a 3/1 Spirit creature token with flying while also having an enters ability in bringing an enchantment from our graveyard back to our hand or unlocking a locked door of a Room we control.

Boon of the Spirit Realm has Constellation in which whenever an enchantment enters under our control then we put a blessing counter on it and each creature we control gets +1/+1 for each blessing counter on it, making our creatures more and more lethal for each attack Zur makes.

Thoughtrender Lamia forces our opponents to discard a card with its Constellation trigger, Grim Guardian and Balemurk Leech has each of our opponents lose one life when an enchantment we control enters, and Eidolon of Astral Winds gives a creature base power and toughness of 4/4 and flying until end of turn.

Ideally we have enough creatures and enchantments that we can use an All That Glitters or an Ethereal Armor to swing with Zur to close out the game, maybe adding in a Spirit Mantle as well to give Zur protection from creatures.

Zur is a value Commander, in that you can get a ton of value out of him so long as you are able to keep him in play. The toughest part is making Zur sticks around, which gets tougher and tougher as the game goes on, even with the number of tax effects that we are stacking on.

Zur can be a viable control Commander, the toughest part is knowing that you will become a target when the tax effects start to overwhelm your opponents.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual