Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Kambal, Consul of Allocation!

Kambal is a three mana 2/3 with whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell, that player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.

Kambal has a simple enough ability that would normally be difficult to completely build around since we can’t always guarantee that we will be facing opponents that will play enough noncreature spells to trigger his ability.

A conditional Stax effect on a Commander isn’t bad, but it should be supplemented with other Stax effects in order to serve a much broader spectrum on what we could be facing against. So the game plan is to be a Stax deck, using Kambal’s ability as a way to help drain our opponents if they try to remove our Stax pieces.

The first thing we need are cheap creatures we can get onto the battlefield that can start the Stax effects.

Hushbringer is a really solid choice in this aspect because not only are they a two mana flying creature with lifelink, but they also stop enters the battlefield triggers from happening, and since those effects are among some of the most prevalent in Commander, stopping them would be ideal.

We can also use Spirit of the Labyrinth to prevent our opponents from drawing a ton of cards, Thalia, Heretic Cathar to have our opponents nonbasic lands and creatures enter tapped, and Clarion Conqueror to stop the activated abilities of creatures, artifacts, and Planeswalkers.

There are also cards like Aven Mindcensor, which is a flash creature that can come in to limit our opponents searching their library to only the top three cards of their library, which again since tutor effects have become more prevalent in the game, providing a limit to it can be very effective.

Speaking of preventing searches, if we don’t have as many tutors in our deck then we can also play Leonin Arbiter, which is a symmetrical way to tax any tutoring by having a player pay two mana in order to ignore the effect until the end of the turn.

Then of course we have the wide variety of tax effects made available like Aura of Silence which has our opponents needing to pay two mana extra to play artifacts and enchantments while it can sacrifice itself to destroy an artifact or enchantment and Ghostly Prison to tax our opponents for each creature they send to attack us or a Planeswalker we control.

The next thing we need to focus on is making sure we have our opponents lose life since having Stax pieces doesn’t automatically guarantee a win.

Isolation Cell is a way to cover the fact that Kambal doesn’t trigger off of creature spells, so this allows us to have an opponent lose 2 life whenever they play a creature spell unless they pay two mana, which will be a hinderance the earlier we can get it in play.

Grafdigger’s Cage is an effective way to not only prevent all players from getting creature cards from the graveyard onto the battlefield, but also preventing players from casting spells from the graveyard or the library.

If we want a similar effect but on a solid creature then we can use Kunoros, Hound of Athreos which not only prevents creatures from coming onto the battlefield from the graveyard and also preventing players from casting spells from the graveyard, it also is a 3/3 with vigilance, menace, and lifelink.

This also brings up the fact that we can play spells that would normally not be ideal over time since they drain life but since we do have a decent amount of life gain we can play things like Phyrexian Arena to draw an additional card at the cost of 1 life or a Dark Confidant in order to get the top card of our library at the cost of life equal to the mana value of the card.

There are also plenty of removal spells that we can play like Mortify to destroy a creature or enchantment, Dire Tactics to exile a creature and if don’t control a Human we lose life equal to the exiled creature’s toughness, Vanishing Verse to exile a monocolored permanent, and Utter End to exile any nonland permanent.

We also have a couple of cheeky counter spells in the form of Mana Tithe which can counter a spell unless it’s owners controller pays 1, Dash Hopes to counter a spell unless a player pays 5 life, Order of the Sacred Torch to counter a black spell, Deathgrip to target a green spell, and Rebuff the Wicked which can counter a spell that targets a permanent you control.

Now we need a way to win, and life loss is going to be one of the more effective ways we have to close out a game.

Painful Quandary is a solid card in this regard because it triggers off whenever an opponent casts any spell, and it has them either lose 5 life unless they discard a card, which is a neat way to grind out our opponents as the game goes on.

Since we are aiming for our opponents to lose a bunch of life, then we can also use Wound Reflection as a way to have each opponent lose life equal to the amount of life they had lost that turn, which if we have done our job correctly we can drain our opponents for a decent amount of life each turn.

We can continuously apply pressure with something like Court of Ambition, which when it enters we become the monarch and at the beginning of our upkeep each opponent loses 3 life unless they discard a card but if we are the monarch then our opponents lose 6 life unless they discard two cards, further depriving our opponents of resources and draining them.

In case we happen to be playing a life gain deck we can use something like Tainted Remedy or Plague Drone to prevent that life gain and have it become life loss instead, which when combined with Wound Reflection can be a nasty combo.

Kambal as a Commander dictates the play style rather than being solely being used as the focal point of the deck. He serves as a piece of the whole rather than the one steering the ship.

This means that the deck can function well enough if he is off the battlefield, but what I do like is that he serves as a some what unassuming Commander.

What I mean by this is that his ability is simple enough and there doesn’t appear to be much on the surface, until we play our first Stax piece which may have our opponents reconsider their strategy when dealing with us.

Granted our deck’s strategy is based off of making sure our Stax pieces stick, which can be a coin flip against some decks. We can take advantage of the people who need to “play more removal” to have our things have a better chance at staying around, but we can’t always guarantee that is the case.

At the very least Kambal as a control deck does build towards a win condition in a battle of attrition and having our opponents lose life.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual