Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Alena, Kessig Trapper!

Alena is a five mana 4/3 with first strike and can tap to add an amount of red mana equal to the greatest power among creatures you control that entered the battlefield this turn and also has Partner.

The idea of Alena is that we get a big creature on board, which would normally be a higher mana cost and get some amount of mana refunded for something big, but there are plenty of cheap creatures that have downsides that we can cast in order to get a ton of mana.

The plan is that we play these cheap bad creatures so we get a ton of mana in order to get bigger and better creatures. The question is what Partner we grab, and I think there is one that is incredibly appropriate.

We need a Partner that can help us get to the mana that we need in order to be able to cast Alena in the first place.

Halana, Kessig Ranger is a four mana 3/4 with reach who let’s us pay two mana when another creature enters the battlefield to have that creature deal damage to another creature equal to its power. This combines well with Alena since her ability makes mana, so if we can spare it we can use some of that mana to start taking out some problematic creatures.

This also gives us access to green, which we can use to ramp up pretty quickly so we can cast our Commanders. We have options like Utopia Sprawl in order to enchant a Forest to add an additional mana of a color we choose, Manamorphose to add two mana of any color and draw us a card to keep a chain going, and Burning-Tree Emissary to add a red and a green mana to also keep the chain of mana going.

We can also make use of lands that can produce multiple mana at a bit of a cost, like Castle Garenbrig, which for four mana and a tap can add six green mana that can only be used to cast creature spells or activate the abilities of creatures, or if we want to activate Alena’s ability immediately then we can use Arena of Glory, which we pay one red and exert it to add two red mana, which if it was used to cast a creature spell that creature gains haste until end of turn.

The next thing we need are creatures that have a low mana cost but high power in order to get the most mana we can.

Ball Lightning is pretty good here because for three mana we get a 6/1 with haste and trample, with the downside that it sacrifices itself at the beginning of the end step. It doesn’t matter in this regard because all we need for it to do is be on the battlefield when Alena is in play in order to get six mana.

If we have a way to keep it on the battlefield for a bit, we can also use Force of Savagery, which is a three mana 8/0 with trample, which would normally immediately dies when it enters the battlefield, but if we have something as simple as a Sylvan Anthem, which gives green creatures we control +1/+1 and let’s us scry 1 when we have a green creature come into play, then we get 9 mana to use.

There are plenty of creatures that are cheap with high power and a downside like Phyrexian Soulgorger a three mana 8/8 that has a cumulative upkeep of sacrificing a creature, Cosmic Larva is a three mana 7/6 with trample and at the beginning of our upkeep sacrifice it unless we sacrifice two lands, and Inferno Hellion which is a four mana 7/3 that shuffles itself back into our deck when it attacks or blocks.

We can also make use of these high powered creatures with cards like Tribute to the World Tree which draws us a card when a creature with power 3 or greater enters while giving two +1/+1 counters on creatures with lesser power. There is also something like Greater Good, which after we make the mana from Alena, we can sacrifice the creature in order to draw a ton of cards and only discard three.

If we want to attack then we can also use cards like Fires of Yavimaya to give creatures we control haste so that they can attack immediately before we make use of them, which if combined with something like Unnatural Growth which doubles the power and toughness of each creature we control until end of turn can be very effective in combat, but also have Alena make so much mana.

There is also ways we can cheat big creatures out onto the battlefield using a card like monster manual, which for two mana and tap we can put a creature card from our hand to the battlefield, which saves us some mana and gets a big creature into play to fuel Alena.

Now comes the big creatures that we actually want to get onto the battlefield, and they need to be absolute haymakers to get the most value.

Etali, Primal Conqueror is the perfect example of being a great value creature in that when they enter each player exiles the top card of their library until they exile a nonland card and we can cast any number of spells from the nonland cards exiled this way for free. Then Etali can transform into Etali, Primal Sickness to be an 11/11 with trample and indestructible that gives players poison counters when it deals combat damage to a player.

We can play Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus to double the power and toughness of creatures we control at the beginning of each combat, Anzrag, the Quake-Mole to potentially get a bunch of combat phases, Terror of the Peaks if we have access to it to deal a ton of damage to any target based on the power of a creature that entered, and Etali, Primal Storm to take more things from our opponents.

Enduring Courage would also be an interesting include in the deck because whenever another creature we control enters it gets +2/+0 and haste until end of turn, and comes back as an enchantment when it dies as a creature so we have a much harder to get rid of way to get a ton of damage in from big creatures quickly.

If we also want to make sure that we can get as much damage through as possible, we can also cast Warstorm Surge, which deals damage to any target equal to the power of a creature that entered the battlefield under our control, which can help slam down a ton of damage.

Then there is also the meme way to get effectively infinite mana in which we attack with a Jumbo Cactuar, make its power 10,000, keep it alive, and then get 10,000 red mana to cast a massive X spell like Fireball to deal a whole mess of damage to win the game.

Alena is a Commander that requires a bit of set up in order to become effective, and the biggest weakness of the deck comes from making sure we have the set up in order to win the game. Halana helps the deck in that we can now cast some early ramp spells in order to get the two of them out to be effective, but there is still plenty of consideration on what your next move should be.

This can be a fun deck, and while there can be many expensive pieces in order for the deck to be the most effective, we can still substitute many of the bigger creatures for cheaper (price wise) cards that provide different utility.

Hell, I didn’t even mention Halana and Alena, Partners who make the deck crazy good especially in being a haste enabler that makes our creature bigger, but I thought that would have made things a bit too on the nose.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual