Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Balthier and Fran!

Balthier and Fran are three mana 4/3 with reach, gives Vehicles you control +1/+1 and vigilance and reach, and whenever a Vehicle crewed by Balthier and Fran this turn attacks, if it’s the first combat phase of the turn, we may pay one a red and green and if we do we get an additional combat phase.

Still on the Final Fantasy train for a bit, I thought that working with a Vehicle Commander in a different color combination then most would be the most interesting. We are working towards extra combat steps using our Vehicles and since they have vigilance and reach, they can attack and block as necessary.

The game plan is pretty straightforward, we play a bunch of Vehicles along with Vehicle synergies and work our way to get a decent number of creatures on board to crew the Vehicles to get the most out of getting an additional combat step.

The first thing we are looking for are Vehicles that can be crewed by Balthier and Fran and help us get some benefit.

Thunderous Velocipede is one of these sorts of Vehicles because we can get them out pretty quickly, can be crewed for 3, is a 5/5 with trample, and also has the benefit of giving each other Vehicle and creature we control with a +1/+1 counter if its mana value is 4 or less, otherwise they enter with three +1/+1 counters.

Smuggler’s Copter and Reckoner Banbuster are Vehicles that can be cast for two mana and act as ways for us to draw cards, with Smuggler’s Copter being able to draw us a card for discarding a card whenever it attacks or blocks, and Reckoner Bankbuster to draw us at least 3 card and then makes a 1/1 Pilot token that can crew as if its power were 2 or greater and also makes a Treasure token.

Unlicensed Hearse can be used to exile problematic cards from our opponents graveyards while getting bigger, Hoard Hauler can make us Treasure tokens when it deals combat damage to a player, and Lumbering Worldwagon gets us basics from our library to the battlefield when it enters or attacks while getting bigger for each land we control.

Speaking of ramping us, Hedge Shredder is a great card to have because whenever a land goes from our library to the graveyard, then we get to put it onto the battlefield tapped, which means that if we go up against a mill strategy or we mill ourselves, we can still ramp.

If we are looking for just a sheer number of Vehicles in play, we can play Chandra, Spark Hunter for her 0 loyalty ability to make a 3/2 Vehicle token with a crew of 1, while also having the static ability to make a Vehicle we control become an artifact creature with haste, a +2 and also sacrificing an artifact or discarding a card to draw a card, and a -7 of giving us an emblem do deal 3 damage to any target whenever an artifact we control enters.

The next thing we need to concern ourselves with is making sure that we have enough creatures to crew the Vehicles.

Reckless Crew is an great card to have once we start getting some Vehicles in play because we make a number of 2/1 Dwarf Berserker creature tokens equal to the number of Vehicles plus the number of Equipment we control, and ideally we have a decent amount of Vehicles to make a decent number of tokens.

If we want a Vehicle way to make tokens, we of course have Esika’s Chariot, which enters with two 2/2 Cat tokens and whenever it attacks we make a token copy of another token we control, and while we can definitely use it on one of the Cats, we can also use it on a Pilot token that was made by our Reckoner Bankbuster.

Talking about Pilot tokens, we also have access to a modal spell in Defend the Rider, which either gives a target permanent we control hexproof and indestructible for a turn or makes a 1/1 Pilot token that can crew as though its power were 2 greater.

If we really want to cheat our Vehicles in being able to attack if we have a bunch of Vehicles and not enough creatures, then we can use the card Start Your Engines, which not only makes our Vehicles into artifact creatures until end of turn while also giving all of our creatures +2/+0 until the end of turn.

The way we win the game is getting high impact Vehicles that have combat based effects to maximize the fact we are getting an additional combat phase.

Nautiloid Ship is a way for us to use an opponent going on a graveyard heavy strategy against them by exiling their graveyard and being able to put their creatures onto the battlefield under our control when it deals combat damage, which could be a useful utility creature to crew our Vehicles, or a big creature that can help us win the game.

Magmatic Galleon enters and deals 5 damage to a target creature an opponent controls, and also makes is so whenever any excess noncombat damage is dealt to our opponents creatures, we make a Treasure token.

This also makes something like Skysovereign, Consul Flagship an even better pick because when it enters or attacks, we get to deal 3 damage to target creature or Planeswalker an opponent controls, clearing the board of small creatures while getting us some bonus Treasure tokens.

RMS Titanic is a wild card that we can only really use once because once it deals combat damage then we sacrifice it to make that many Treasure tokens, Smuggler’s Buggy can help us cheat things into play when it deals combat damage because of its Hideaway ability, and Thunderhawk Gunship not only makes two bodies for us but also gives all attacking creatures we control flying when it attacks.

Reaver Titan is probably the best Vehicle we can get also happens to have an attack trigger in dealing 5 damage to each opponent whenever it attacks, which with two combat phases is 10 damage to each opponent when it attacks while also having protection from mana value 3 or less. It can be pricey, but not too much so that it is untenable, at least for the moment.

Balthier and Fran make for an interesting value Commander for a Vehicle deck in that incentivizes you to first crew with them and then attack with your Vehicles while still having some mana open to get that extra combat phase. They make an aggro Vehicle deck possible, but the issue can come in if you can’t get your Vehicles to stick or they get removed too often to get their effect off.

This is one of the more viable aggro Commanders that I have seen that doesn’t purely rely on going wide or dealing with some damage multipliers and can make for some interesting games in my opinion.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual