Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald!

Faldorn is a three mana 3/3 with whenever you cast a spell from exile or a land enters the battlefield under your control from exile, you make a 2/2 green Wolf creature token and for one mana and tap and discard a card, you exile the top card of your library and you may play it this turn.

There have been a few Commanders that have synergies with playing cards from exile and it is an interesting bit of space that Wizards has been playing around with recently.

Faldorn plays into that space by being able to fuel itself at least once each turn, but we should find ways to take advantage of any other ways to play cards from exile.

The first thing we need to look at are the variety of cards that can exile cards and allow us to play with those exiled cards.

Escape to the Wilds is a great example of this because it exiles the top five cards on our library and play them until the end of our next turn and allows us an additional land this turn, which is incredibly helpful.

Urabrask, Heretic Praetor exiles the top card of our library at the beginning of our upkeep and allows us to play it this turn, while it exiles the first draw our opponents get on each of their turns, which while it does allow them to play that card that turn, it can hinder an opponent if they can’t play it and they need to play it.

Ignite the Future is also an interesting card to play around with because it exiles the top three cards and allows us to play them until the end of our next turn, but if we cast it from the graveyard then we can play those spells without paying their mana costs.

If we want consistent cards in exile that we can play, Wild Wasteland is perfect for that because while it does skip our draw step, we exile the top two cards of our library and can play those cards this turn.

We can even steal our opponents cards with Stolen Strategy, which allows us to take the top card of our opponents libraries and cast spells from among them this turn and spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast them.

Where the deck really shines is the variety of other ways we can cast spells from exile.

Adventures are going to be a major source of this, especially ones that can provide a utility like Bonecrusher Giant and its Adventure Stomp, which doesn’t let damage be prevented and deals 2 damage to any target while the Giant itself has a form of protection in that whenever it becomes the target of a spell it deals 2 damage to the controller.

Another useful creature with Adventure is Tlincalli Hunter, which is a big creature that allows us once each turn to pay 0 for the mana cost of a creature spell we cast from exile while its Adventure Retrieve Prey allows us to exile a creature from our graveyard and allows us to cast it until the end of our next turn.

Foretell and Plot can also be used to great effect, especially if we want to set some things up before we get Faldorn into play. Green Slime can be a surprise Foretell because it counters artifacts and enchantments activated or triggered abilities and destroys it while something like Demonic Ruckus is a cheap way to give Faldorn a boost and some evasion while allowing some card draw if it goes to the graveyard from the battlefield.

We should also be able to make sure we can cast spells a bit cheaper from exile, so Savvy Trader becomes incredibly important since it makes spells we cast from anywhere other than our hand 1 mana cheaper.

Of course one of the best ways to gain advantage from casting a card from exile is by Cascade. Bloodbraid Elf is a four mana body that can allow us to cast some of our smaller ramp or removal spells if we didn’t draw them, or if we want to go big Cascade then Apex Devastator can Cascade practically anything in our deck four times.

Now that we are playing cards from exile and getting a bunch of Wolves, we should have ways to making use of all of them.

Warstorm Surge turns any Wolf we make into a Shock, and if we cast a bigger creature then that damage can finish a player off. Add in any buff effects like a Sylvan Anthem or a Howlpack Resurgence and suddenly those Wolves are doing a lot more than just 2 damage.

If we want to lean in on aggro with the Wolves, then Roar of Resistance is a massive buff because it gives creature tokens we control haste and whenever one or more creatures attack we can pay an additional two mana to buff creatures that are attacking our opponents or Planeswalkers they control by +2/+0 until end of turn.

If we want to have an additional way to make use of casting spells from exile, then Keeper of Secrets deals damage to an opponent equal to the mana value of a spell we cast from exile and Unstable Amulet deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever we cast a spell from exile while also being able to exile a card we can play for two energy, which it also happens to make.

To help us close out the game, there is Impending Flux, which has a Paradox ability that deals X plus 1 damage to each opponent and each creature they control where X is the number of spells cast from exile this turn while also having a Foretell cast, which means it would count itself if we cast it from exile. At worst it can be a way to clear the board of smaller creatures, but if we manage to cast a decent number of spells from exile then it can be a one sided board wipe that can deal a huge swing of damage for our Wolves to finish off.

Faldorn is a Commander that can be incredibly threatening in that it can make a large number of Wolves, however the strategy is incredibly fragile. Playing cards from exile does protect what cards we can play, but if we exile some big piece early and can’t play it then we can fall behind fairly quickly.

It can work, especially if we can fiddle with how many lands we can play each turn and can ramp early enough where it doesn’t become a major concern, but there will be games where the exile whiffs and you lose access to things you may need but can’t play.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual