Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Kassandra, Eagle Bearer!

Kassandra is a three mana 2/2 with haste and when she enters you search your graveyard, hand, and library for a card named The Spear of Leonidas and put it onto the battlefield, then whenever a creature you control with a legendary Equipment attached to it deals combat damage to a player, you draw a card.

Kassandra being an Equipment Commander that focuses specifically on legendary Equipment does make building a deck much more interesting, especially since the set she released in came with a bunch of solid legendary Equipment.

Now we need to make sure that the equipped creatures get damage through in order to draw a lot of cards, making sure we can get a lot of legendary Equipment onto the battlefield, while also protecting the Equipment from removal.

There are also a lot of legendary Equipment that are a bit pricey to acquire, so this deck will consider some more expensive pieces, but I will mention some more affordable alternatives or you may proxy if you are able to.

We need to consider our options as far as legendary Equipment goes, while also using The Spear of Leonidas as a consistent Equipment we can use.

The Spear of Leonidas is a solid Equipment in that it can give a creature double strike, make a Horse token, and can get draw you some cards. While these modes aren’t the most powerful, they can be solid bases to build around.

Looking at the rest of the legendary Equipment suite, another ideal option to consider is Shadowspear because not only do you get +1/+1 boost and lifelink, but you also get trample which will help you get damage through, especially if you choose the double strike mode of The Spear. The activated ability to have permanents lose indestructible is also very good to have.

While you lose some of the options, Tenza, Godo’s Maul is also an Equipment that massively benefits Kassandra because if it is equipped to her then she gets +3/+3 and trample, and also has an Equip cost of only one mana. Celestial Armor is also a sneaky Equipment to have because it has flash, automatically attaches to a creature, gives it hexproof and indestructible for a turn, and a +2/+0 and flying when its equipped.

The Reaver Cleaver also benefits being equipped to a creature with double strike because it gives a +1/+1 and trample while also allowing the creature make Treasure tokens equal to the amount of damage it deals to a player or Planeswalker, which for a double striking creature means a lot of Treasure tokens.

One of the best Equipment to have is Hammer of Nazahn, which when it or another Equipment enters it attaches itself to a creature you control, which means when we tutor up The Spear, it can automatically attach itself to Kassandra for immediate benefit.

The next thing we need to consider is the assist suite of cards, more so cards that can help protect our Equipment or can help us gain value from all the Equipment we have in play.

Flare of Fortitude is a great card to have against a mass destruction spell, especially since we have the option to cast it for free if we sacrifice a nontoken white creature, of which we can do if we really need to protect ourselves.

Codsworth, Handy Helper gives Kassandra ward 2, can make mana to cast Equipment or Aura spells, and can tap to attach an Equipment to a creature we control, while Bruenor Battlehammer gives a boost for each Equipment attached to a creature while also giving the first Equip ability you activate each turn a 0 mana activation.

Akiri, Fearless Voyager also provides us value whenever one or more equipped creatures we control attack a player by drawing us a card and can protect an equipped creature we control by unattaching an Equipment attached to that creature to give that creature indestructible until end of turn.

If we want to get a bunch more Equipment onto the battlefield, then we also have access to Nahiri, Forged in Fury, which can get onto the battlefield quickly if we already have a decent number of Equipment in play and if an equipped creature we control attacks then we can exile the top card of our library to play, and if it’s an Equipment we can play it for free.

If we do have some Equipment in the graveyard, the last thing your opponents will be expecting will be an Aura in Mantle of the Ancients, which can return any number of Aura and/or Equipment cards from the graveyard to the battlefield attached to the enchanted creature, while also giving a +1/+1 bonus for each Aura and Equipment attached to the creature.

Lastly, what we need is a win condition, and since we are more of a Voltron type of deck that requires multiple attacks to win, extra combats are ideal for us.

An interesting thing about Kassandra is that she is also a Warrior, which means that Raiyuu, Storm’s Edge has a solid way to get extra combat steps going if Kassandra attacks alone, meaning that if we stack the Equipment high enough on her she can potentially take out two players in a turn through Commander Damage.

Response//Resurgence is a split card that essentially serves as either removal from an attacking or blocking creature in the early game or becomes an additional way to gain an extra combat step and main phase, and in a class of cards that can be pricey to buy this is a solid budget option.

Full Throttle is a way to gain two extra combat steps that we can use in the late game that can also untap all creatures that attacked at the beginning of each combat step, Savage Beating can be an extra combat spell but can also be Entwined to give all creatures we control double strike, and Fury of the Horde can be a late game extra combat spell or early if we exile two red cards from our hand to play it for free.

Kassandra is a Commander with a solid game plan in getting a ton of legendary Equipment in play and win via Commander Damage. It isn’t fragile per se, but it may face an uphill battle if a ton of Equipment cards end up exiled or in the graveyard without a ton of recursion. The extra combat spells help, but they can only do so much, especially if we cannot maintain a board presence.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual