Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Rowan, Scion of War!

Rowan is a three mana 4/2 with menace that can tap as a sorcery to have spells you cast this turn that are black or red cost X less to cast, where X is the amount of life you lost this turn.

On the opposite side of Will from a couple days back, we are looking to reduce our life total in order to get a discount on our spells. This makes for a much more difficult, yet much more interesting way to cast our spells.

As opposed to Will who wants us to cast big spells because of our massive amount of life gain, we are going to go for a more spellslinger type of deck where we cast a bunch of spells cheaply by losing small bits of life during our turns.

In a similar vein to Will, we need ways to consistently lose life during our turns, preferably if they give us some sore of advantage.

Dark Confidant is perfect for this because, even though they give information in revealing the top card of our library, we can lose a little bit of life at a consistent rate during our turns, while also getting an additional piece of card advantage early on.

If we don’t mind doubling down on these sort of effects, we can also use Darkstar Augur, which not only has the Dark Confidant effects just at a more expensive rate, but we can get an additional token copy of Darkstar Augur by paying its Offspring cost.

Doom Whisperer is a decent body that we can cast that has flying and trample and we can pay 2 life in order to surveil 2, Stormfist Crusader to have everyone draw an additional card at the beginning of your upkeep and lose 1 life, and Exocrine in order for us to deal some damage to every player and to each other creature.

There are also the variety of spells that have us lose life for an effect, something like Blood Pact which can draw us two cards and lose 2 life, or Withering Torment which destroys a creature or enchantment and we lose 2 life, or Infernal Grasp which lets us destroy a creature for only 2 life.

There is also a way for us to get some solid advantage while also losing life, and that is with Treasonous Ogre. It let’s us pay 3 life in order to add one red mana to our mana pool, which can help us start casting some decently costed spells much cheaper while also netting us a mana for our troubles. In a similar vein Blood Celebrant let’s us pay a black mana and 1 life to add one mana of any color to our mana pool.

The next thing we need are ways to make sure that we don’t die to our own life loss effects.

K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth serves a few purposes in the deck. One is that we can pay six life in order to bring him out fairly early, two is we can replace any black mana symbol in spells we cast for paying 2 life instead, and three a body that gets bigger whenever we cast a black spell and more importantly has lifelink for us to survive.

If we have spells that can deal some damage, then Judith, Carnage Connoisseur can be effective because they can give an instant or sorcery we cast either deathtouch and lifelink or makes an Imp token that deals 2 damage to each opponent when it dies.

We can combine that effect with board wipes that do a ton of damage like Blasphemous Act, which can gain us an absurd amount of life, especially if our opponents control a bunch of creatures. If we have lost a substantial amount of life then we can cast Profane Transfusion, which has us exchange our life totals with another player and make an X/X Horror token where X is the difference in life totals.

Whip of Erebos can give creatures we control lifelink and can bring a creature from our graveyard to the battlefield and exiling it at the end of turn or when it leaves the battlefield, or we can just use Erebos’s Intervention to either give a creature -X/-X until end of turn and we gain X life or exile twice X cards from graveyards.

There is also a risky way for us to not lose to having a low life total, and that is through Pact Weapon, which as long as it is attached to a creature we don’t lose the game for having 0 or less life, and whenever the equipped creature attacks, we draw a card and reveal it to give the creature +X/+X and we lose X life where X is that creature’s mana value.

Now, since our goal is to be a spellslinger deck, in order to win we need to do a lot of spellslinging.

Crackling Spellslinger is so ideal for the strategy that its in the name. Not only do they have flash, but when they enter and we cast it, the next instant or sorcery spell we cast has storm. If we cast a couple of cheap spell prior to casting Crackling Spellslinger, we can definitely use their ability to cast a ritual like Seething Song or Dark Ritual to get a ton more mana to use.

Or we can also combine it with X spells like Storm King’s Thunder, which if an X spell gains storm then it retains the original X value, and with Storm King’s Thunder, we can copy the next instant or sorcery spell we cast X times, which even at a storm count of two, one for the Crackling Spellslinger and two for Storm King’s Thunder, copying a Lightning Bolt twice X times can deal an immense amount of damage.

Or even better yet, if you have access to it, Torment of Hailfire can drain our opponents of nonland permanents they control, cards in their hand, or the life they have, which is repeated X times from just casting it, and potential even more times with the previously mentions cards.

Rowan, is ideally providing a decent discount to these spells the entire time, and if we truly want to have a massive discount for each of these X spells or ways to get even more utility by making spells cost one or two mana, then we can cast Havoc Festival to have each player lose half their life rounded up at the beginning of their upkeep while also preventing life gain.

Rowan is an engine Commander, in that we need her in play in order to make the amount of life loss we are taking matter and not become a hindrance. The biggest worry is that we lose so much life that we lose the game due to our own life loss effects, or an opponent takes advantage of our life loss and keeps attacking us.

Since Rowan’s ability can only be activated as a sorcery this can be troublesome, but if we manage to make it to our turn and have the pieces we need since we should be drawing through a decent chunk of our deck, then there is a chance where we can win the game.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual