Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Mabel, Heir to Cragflame!

Mabel is a three mana 3/3 that gives other Mice we control +1/+1 and when she enters we create Cragflame, a legendary colorless Equipment artifact token that gives the equipped creature +1/+1, vigilance, trample, and haste for an equip cost of 2.

With Bloomburrow coming out to release a lot of Mouse support, having a Mice lord is pretty nice. What is especially interesting is that she also plays a bit into having an Equipment subtheme with Cragflame being a pretty solid Equipment.

The goal of the deck is to get a good number of Mice into play, while also having some Equipment to boost up Mabel to have an additional way to win via Commander Damage.

The first part of the deck is to set up the Mice typal support, which there has been plenty made available because of Bloomburrow.

Manifold Mouse is one of these examples because it can give a Mouse you control either double strike or trample, but if you pay an additional 2 mana for Offspring, then you get a token copy of it that can give the other option to the same Mouse or another Mouse if it happens to have Cragflame equipped.

The reason why a lot of the abilities targeting matters is because of Valiant, which triggers when a creature is targeted for a spell or ability that you control for the first time each turn, like Heartfire Hero getting bigger because of Valiant and that being the fuel to its second ability to deal damage to each opponent equal to its power when it dies.

Flowerfoot Swordmaster is another Offspring creature that boosts all of our Mice by +1/+0 whenever it or its Offspring triggers their Valiant ability, Mouse Trapper taps creatures, Emberheart Challenger exiles the top card of our library and let’s us play it until end of turn, and Whiskervale Forerunner let’s us dig though our deck to find creatures of mana value 3 or less and put onto the battlefield or in our hand.

If we want general utility Mice the Canyon Jerboa is solid because it has a Landfall ability that gives all of our creatures +1/+1 until end of turn, Steelburr Champion to put a +1/+1 counter on itself whenever an opponents casts a noncreature spell, and Thistledown Players to untap a nonland permanent when it attacks.

While most of our effort is going to go with Mice typal, having the Equipment subtheme will help us fill in the gaps that Mice can’t answer yet.

Sram, Senior Edificer is a genrally solid card to consider when playing an Aura, Equipment, or Vehicle deck that draws us a card whenever we play any one of those spell types, which the deck can definitely use.

Bruenor Battlehammer makes equipped creatures you control stronger and can reduce the first equip cost you activate each turn to 0, Danitha Capashen, Paragon makes our Auras and Equipment cheaper by 1, and Lion Sash is a solid utility Reconfigure creature that can make itself or another creature bigger by exiling cards from graveyards.

As far as which Equipment we use, that is going to depend on personal preference, but if I can manage to give Mabel a Colossus Hammer to give her a +10/+10 while she is also equipped with the Cragflame to give her trample and double strike from Lizard Blades than I will be a happy camper.

If we want a decent swing of life then we can use Basilisk Collar to give deathtouch and lifelink, Sunforger if we want to cast an emergency instant or sorcery of mana value 4 or less from our library, or Embercleave for a potentially cheap artifact that gives a lot of upside.

If you have access to any of the swords from the Swords Of cycle then those would also be solid cards in terms of providing protection and some utility, with something like Sword of Feast and Famine giving protection from black and green and having an opponent discard a card while untapping all of your lands being a useful way for us to reuse our mana for other things.

We have several avenues in how we win, so we should plan for a typal win and a Commander Damage win.

Kindred Charge is a strong way to get a bunch of extra Mice into play by making a ton of token copies of the Mice we have in play. Pair that with something like Banner of Kinship to boost all of those Mice by +1/+1 for each fellowship counter on it, which it enters with for each creature you control of that type when it is cast, and we can have huge Mice to swing in for massive damage.

Continuing on the typal trend, if we have access to something like a Roaming Throne, any time one of our Mice activates a triggered ability like Valiant, then we get an additional trigger of that ability, which can allow us to double dip.

If we want to go in the Commander Damage route, then we either need to puch damage through with something like trample or with effects like Rogue’s Passage, which makes a creature unblockable for turn. Brotherhood Regalia is also a way we can do this since it gives an additional ward 2 and equips to a legendary creature for only 1 mana.

Mabel is a pretty straightforward Commander that has a solid game plan and solid back up plan, What hinders her currently is that while the number of good Mice cards has gone up, there are still some gaps that need to be filled with non-typal cards. While this isn’t an issue and you still have a playable deck with a lot of typal synergies, there is still some gaps that don’t gain the same benefits that some other typal decks have.

Like I said, it isn’t an issue and you can still go all in on Mice typal and have a solid Commander in Mabel and still have a great time.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual