Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Braulios of Pheres Band!

Braulios is a five mana */* whose power and toughness is equal to the number of lands we control, and whenever he attacks you draw a card and then you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.

Probably one of the most green cards I’ve ever covered, Braulios is a land matters Commander through and through. While he would work better as a synergy piece with other Commanders that happen to have green, I do think having a simple lands matter Commander can be a good teaching tool for new players.

The goal is pretty simple, get a ton of lands into play and get value from playing a lot of lands.

The first thing we need to do is get to ramping, which in green is not a difficult task to accomplish.

Explore is one of the simplest ways to accomplish this by allowing us to play an additional land, and we get to draw another card. Simple is as simple gets and this helps us get to Braulios faster as he is five mana.

We want more land ramp than creature ramp in this sort of deck, so the usual suspects of Cultivate, Rampant Growth, Nature’s Lore, etc. go into the deck, but we also have newer cards to consider like Roamer’s Routine, which puts a basic onto the battlefield tapped but has Harmonize to do it again, being able to tap a creature for its power to help pay for the generic part of the Harmonize cost.

Lumbering Worldwagon is also an interesting card to consider because it’s power is also determined by the number of lands we have, and when it enters or attacks we can put a basic onto the battlefield tapped, making the Worldwagon and Braulios bigger in the process.

Beanstalk Giant works well in the late game in this regard because we can play the Adventure Fertile Footsteps to get a land and then cast it later to have a massive body in play.

Cultivator Colossus is the one of the bigger ways to get a ton of lands into play, especially if we play closer to 40 lands, because we just draw and put a ton of lands into play to make itself, Beanstalk Giant, and Braulios huge.

Most of the time the lands will enter the battlefield tapped, but we can play something like Spelunking to make that a nonfactor since it can have tapped lands enter untapped, which means we can also make immediate use of the lands we ramp into.

Next we need to consider the ways we get immediate payoff from lands entering the battlefield, Landfall being the primary payoff.

Mossborn Hydra is great because it can get into play pretty early, get bigger really quickly especially when Braulios is in play, and also happens to have trample to make sure that damage gets through.

Scute Swarm is also a fun card to play around with if you don’t mind a it of bookkeeping in making sure you keep track of how many Scute Swarm copies you make when you start making copies of itself instead of Insect tokens.

For some easier tracking there is Zendikar’s Roil which makes a 2/2 Elemental token whenever a land enters under your control, Retreat to Kazandu to either put a +1/+1 counter on a creature or gain 2 life, and Primeval Bounty to gain you 3 life whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control but also gets you a 3/3 Beast token whenever you cast a creature spell and put three +1/+1 counters on a creature you control whenever you cast a noncreature spell.

If you want to be a bit cute with having a ton of Forests in play, then the Equipment Strata Scythe is one to play around with because you need to exile a land from your library and the equipped creature gets +1/+1 for each land on the battlefield with the same name as the exiled card. Keep note that it counts all Forests, not just yours.

To get additional land value from Equipment, you can also play Staff of Titania, which gives the equipped creature +X/+X where X is the number of Forests you control and whenever the equipped creature attacks you make a 1/1 Forest Dryad land creature token, which triggers Landfall and makes Braulios bigger as well.

In order to close out the game, we need to make immediate use of all the mana that we have available to us.

Nissa, Ascended Animist is one such massive payoff that we can actually play in the early game if we want to start developing a board by making a token equal to Nissa’s loyalty, keep the board in parity by getting rid of problematic artifacts or enchantments, but if we cast Nissa for the full seven mana then she keeps her 7 starting loyalty and we can minus seven to give a massive power boost to our creatures while also giving them trample.

Another Planeswalker to consider is Garruk, Primal Hunter, which makes a 3/3 Beast, draws us cards equal to the greatest power of creatures we control which should be a lot if we played correctly, and finally ultimates into making a 6/6 Wurm token for each land we control, which when combined with Nissa can end games.

Stonehoof Chieftain is a neat big mana payoff in that it gives other creatures you control trample and indestructible until end of turn whenever they attack, Ashaya, Soul of the Wild to turn all of your creatures into Forests while also becoming a massive threat, Avenger of Zendikar to get a ton of Plant tokens that can get bigger and bigger the more lands we play, and Apex Devastator for the quadruple Cascade.

We can also consider the big mana Eldrazi like any of the Ulamogs for removal, the Kozileks for card advantage, and Emrakuls for a massive control swing, though most of those tend to err on the pricey side, but its always good to consider our options.

Braulios is a simple enough Commander to play with and while he can help the deck get more lands into play, the deck is still functional if he isn’t in play. He does get a massive advantage if we get to play the deck as intended, especially with people’s reticence to play land destruction and any land destruction that is played usually targeting nonbasics, which doesn’t matter for our deck.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual