Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Magnus the Red!

Magnus is a five mana 4/5 with flying, instants and sorcery spells you cast cost 1 less for each creature token you control and whenever Magnus deals combat damage to a player you make a 3/3 red Spawn creature token.

Magnus is an interesting blend of a go wide strategy with a spellslinger strategy that benefits for how wide of a board you develop. The most interesting thing about Magnus is that the cost reduction of the spells counts all creature tokens you have, and not differently named tokens.

This means that if we can continuously generate creature tokens then we can have a ton of expensive instants and sorceries become extremely cheap to cast. There are several avenues in going about this, but since there isn’t a specific clause in what kind of creature tokens, I do have an idea.

If we want to have a continuous supply of creature tokens in an efficient fashion, then Goblins are our best bet.

Searslicer Goblin makes a Goblin at the beginning of your end step if you attacked this turn, and there are plenty of one mana Goblins like Fanatical Firebrand and Goblin Javelineer that have haste to trigger Searslicer Goblin consistently and early.

If we can get a couple of cheap artifacts in play like an Ichor Wellspring to draw us a card when it comes into play and is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, then we can use something like Gleeful Demolition or Kuldotha Rebirth to sacrifice Ichor Wellspring to draw an additional card and make three Goblin tokens.

Dragon Fodder and Krenko’s Command each make two Goblin tokens for only two mana, Mogg War Marshall makes a Goblin when it enters or dies, Goblin Assault makes a Goblin with haste at the beginning of your upkeep all Goblins must attack if able, and if we want a ton of Goblins after casting a bunch of spells then Empty the Warrens is a must.

As we get more and more tokens into the game to make our spells cheaper, we also need ways to generate some card advantage to get a bunch spells into our hand.

Pore Over the Pages is one example of a card that generates some advantage by drawing us three cards, untapping two of our lands, and discarding a card which if we are able to discount to being only two mana then we can continue the cheap spell train.

In a similar vein, Frantic Search is a way for us draw two cards and discarding two while also untapping three lands, which we can use before Magnus comes into play to get some new cards or we can use after Magnus comes into play so we actually go up in the number of lands we untap to keep on casting spells.

If we develop a wide enough board, then Treasure Cruise just becomes an Ancestral Recall without having to Delve any cards away, Spell Swindle becomes Counterspell that puts us up in mana in the form of Treasure tokens, and Alrund’s Epiphany becomes a Time Walk that makes two more tokens we can use to make our spells cheaper.

When going for a way to get a massive discount on our instants and sorceries, one of the best ways to take it is with expensive X spells.

Crackle With Power is one of the better ways to finish games because even if we have three creature tokens on board, that still means we do 5 damage to a single target, with six creatures giving us 10 damage, and twenty four creature tokens being able to deal 40 damage to up to eight targets, which seems like a tall order, but Goblins can get out of hand if not handled quickly.

There is also Jaya’s Immolating Inferno which can be used as an alternate finisher because it deals X damage to each of up to three targets, and if our board is massive then we can win the game.

We can cast Tempt with Vengeance for a ton of Elemental tokens with haste, which also gives our opponents some tokens, but for each opponent that does make tokens then we make even more tokens, which help discount our spells even more.

If we want a massive way to win then we can use Storm King’s Thunder to copy something as simple as a Lightning Bolt X times to deal damage, Drown in Dreams to mill our opponents out by having them draw their entire library, or use Clone Legion to make an enormous clone army of all of our opponents or our own creatures.

Magnus is a value Commander that can generate a ton of value if we happen to be making a ton of tokens to make cheaper spells. This can snowball into a pseudo Storm turn, or an actual Storm turn if you want to play into it.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual