Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl!

Storvald is a seven mana 7/7 with ward 3, gives other creatures you control ward 3 and whenever Storvald enters or attacks you can choose one or both of making a creature get base power and toughness 7/7 or 1/1.

This is a neat way to play with some combat trick shenanigans, especially if you decide to play a low to the ground evasive creatures deck where you can sneak a ton of damage through by having Storvald attack or blink him if combat would be tricky.

The goal of the deck is to sneak in some damage while giving small buffs to our creatures so that when we do get damage through it becomes more devastating.

The first thing that we should look at are creatures that can’t be blocked or have abilities that make them undesirable to block.

Slither Blade is a very cheap creature in being one mana that can’t be blocked and it is among a whole host of other cheap creatures that are similar. Invisible Stalker, Triton Shorestalker, and Mist-Cloaked Herald are cheap creatures that can’t be blocked that can get damage through early and can become major threats one Storvald is in play.

There are also plenty of one mana creatures that have deathtouch like Dragon Sniper, who also happens to have vigilance and reach to go along with it. This means not only does it become an offensive threat when Strovald gets in play, but can also be a defensive threat against a good number of creatures.

Since we are also in white, there are also low mana value creatures that have lifelink like Healer’s Hawk, which can give us a massive swing of life whenever they attack, and it also helps that Healer’s Hawk can fly which makes it more difficult for some opponents to deal with.

There are also creatures like Shrike Force, which has flying, vigilance, and more importantly double strike for three mana. This means we can potentially get 14 damage through with Storvald in play and with it having vigilance we can have it be able to block effectively against smaller creatures or bigger creatures if we have some instant speed blink effect.

The next thing we should focus on are incremental increases in our creatures power so we can slowly get more and more damage through.

Shalai, Voice of Plenty is a solid bit of protection in giving us, Planeswalkers we control, and other creatures hexproof as a bit of early protection before Storvald comes into play, but also has a mana sink ability in being able to put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control.

Brokers Ascendancy can put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control and a loyalty counter on each Planeswalker we control at the beginning of our end steps, which means we can also consider Planeswalkers like Elspeth Resplendent to put a +1/+1 counter and either a flying, first strike, lifelink, or vigilance counter on a creature we control while building to the ultimate of making five 3/3 Angels quicker.

As we go through the game, something like True Conviction also becomes favorable because it gives creatures we control double strike and lifelink, which turns any small bit of damage into larger and larger life swings, allowing us to be in a much better position when compared to our opponents.

With the massive swings of life, we can also consider a card like Feudkiller’s Verdict to gain some more life and if we have more life than an opponent we get a 5/5 Giant Warrior on the battlefield, which is always good having an additional body in play, especially as we build to our win condition.

Our win condition is being able to not just have one creature deal a ton of damage by being unable to be blocked, but for a bunch of creatures to deal a massive amount of damage.

Tanazir Quandrix is way for us to not only double counters on a creature we control when it enters, but when it attacks we may have other creatures we control to have the same base power and toughness as itself until end of turn. If we resolve Storvald’s ability first to give Tanazir Quandrix base power and toughness of 7/7, then we make our entire board 7/7 creatures.

We can also make our creatures even bigger with something like Cultivator of Blades, which can be a bit bigger because of Fabricate, but whenever it attacks we make have other attacking creatures we control get +X/+X where X is it’s power, which if we happen to have the Storvald and Quandrix in play, then we give all of our creatures a +16/+16, which is a massive swing that can beat most opponents.

Now if our opponents have ways of defending themselves from our creatures, we also have Garruk’s Uprising as a way to give our creatures trample, Keeper of Keys to make us the monarch and if we are the monarch at the beginning of our upkeep our creatures can’t be blocked, or if we have Wonder in our graveyard and have an Island to give our creatures flying.

We also have big creature finishers in Craterhoof Behemoth and Moonshaker Cavalry to make our creature massive and evasive and if we really just want to close the game and have enough creatures to manage it, then Triumph of the Hordes is an option to win via poison damage.

Storvald is a fun Commander that plays with creatures power and toughness in a way that incentivizes you to play smaller creatures that are hard to interact with in combat to win the game. Now Strovald is seven mana, so it may be more difficult to get him in play with how fast games have gotten as time has passed, but since we are also in green getting enough mana shouldn’t be too difficult.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual