Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Braids, Cabal Minion!

Braids is a four mana 2/2 that at the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player sacrifices an artifact, creature, or land.

This version of Braids is notoriously a Commander that has had a bad reputation, namely in that if you manage to get her out as fast as possible then there is the potential to turn the game into a non-game if an unlucky player can’t get anything to stick onto the board.

I had the thought that is there a way to make a “fair” Braids deck, and I think that there is. It’s going to take a lot of work and doing what we can to avoid getting her onto the battlefield too quickly, but there is an avenue in which we can make a Braids deck that isn’t insanely oppressive.

Since we are trying to not play Braids unfairly, we need ways to help our opponents, which is why we are going to be looking at some Group Hug style cards.

Tempting Contract is solid card to have for us because not only does it give us Treasures, but it giving our opponents Treasures has several benefits. If they are low on mana then they can use the Treasures, if they need an artifact to sacrifice to Braids then they have one, and it reassure our opponents that we are not looking to “that” Braids deck.

Pendant of Prosperity is also an interesting card to play for Braids in that it enters under the control of an opponent of our choice and for two mana and tap that opponent may draw a card and put a land onto the battlefield, then we get to do the exact same thing. If the opponent no longer wants to benefit us then they can sacrifice it to Braids, but it is not likely that they would want to get rid of that much card advantage.

There is also Keen Duelist, which has us and an opponent reveal the top card of our library and we each lose life equal to the mana value of the card the other player revealed and then put the revealed cards into our hands.

Baleful Mastery is an interesting card to play in this deck because it is a four mana exile target creature or Planeswalker spell, but it can be cast for two mana if we happen to let an opponent draw a card. Having both option is nice since in the early game we can use it to get rid of a potentially problematic utility creature or in the late game for a difficult to remove threat.

We also have access to cards like Clackbridge Troll, which when it enters target opponent makes three Goat tokens and at the beginning of combat on our turn then an opponent may sacrifice a creature of their choice in order to tap Clackbridge Troll (who also happens to have trample and haste) gain us 3 life and we draw a card.

The next thing that we need is to make sure that we also have things we can sacrifice to Braids, since she is symmetrical.

Lord Skitter, Sewer King is ideal for this deck because whenever another Rat enters under our control then we can exile a card from an opponent’s graveyard and at the beginning of combat on our turn we create a 1/1 Rat creature token that can’t block, but that doesn’t matter much since it’s only purpose is to exile a card from a graveyard and to be sacrifice fodder.

In a similar vein we can take advantage of Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia to make a 2/2 Zombie token with decayed at the beginning of our end step if we don’t control a creature with decayed, Ophiomancer to make a Snake token at the beginning of each upkeep if we don’t control a Snake, and Dreadhorde Invasion to Amass a Zombie Army token at the beginning of our upkeep at the cost of 1 life.

We can also take advantage of creatures that have a way to come back from the graveyard like Nine-Lives Familiar which can come back as long as it had a revival counter on it, and if we cast it then it has eight revival counters at minimum.

Reassembling Skeleton can come back from the battlefield tapped for two mana, Cult Conscript can come back to play if a non-Skeleton creature we control died this turn, Persistent Specimen can come back for three mana, and Gravecrawler can be cast from the graveyard as long as we control a Zombie.

There are also ways we can take advantage of creatures we control dying by using Blood Artist effects, with Pitiless Plunderer being another great option to consider because whenever a creature we control dies, we make a Treasure token which can be helpful for what we are planning to do to win as well as Blood Artist to help us gain some life.

Since we aren’t going to be using Braids maliciously by having her sacrifice our opponents lands, we are going to be making use of her ability to get creatures into the graveyard for us.

Chainer, Dementia Master is an lord for Nightmares and we can pay three black mana and 3 life to put a creature from a graveyard onto the battlefield under our control that, which then also becomes black and a Nightmare in addition to its other types. It also acts as a way of a round about graveyard removal because when Chainer dies all Nightmares get exiled.

Since we are already playing with one Game Changer, then we can also make use of Bolas’s Citadel to look at the top of our library and letting us play lands and cast spells from the top of our library with the caveat that any spell we cast we pay life instead, and we can tap and sacrifice ten nonland permanents to have each opponent lose 10 life, which when combined with the Blood Artist can be pretty potent.

We can also take advantage of being a mono color deck by using K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth to replace any black mana symbols to be allowed to pay 2 life instead of paying black mana for spells we cast, and for each black spell we cast K’rrik gets a +1/+1 counter and him having lifelink to help recuperate the loss in life as well.

With that then we can finish off with some Storm wins by using Reaping the Graves as a way to get a bunch of our creatures back into our hand to cast again, and Tendrils of Agony to drain our opponents to death.

If we happen to have access to it, there is also Bitter Ordeal to exile any useful cards from our opponents libraries if we managed to get a ton of things into the graveyard in a turn because it has Gravestorm, which means we copy it for each permanent that was put into a graveyard this turn, and if we manage to get rid of a lot of things then we can get rid of all nonland cards from at least one opponent’s library.

Braids is not too difficult to be built “fairly”, the only reason she had the reputation in the first place was because people would turbo her out first turn to make it impossible for other players to play. If we remove hyper fast mana then Braids can be a challenging Commander to deal with, especially if our opponents had a slow start, but she’s not impossible to deal with.

However, since she has the bad reputation of what she was before she was banned, there is a high likelihood of her being targeted by every removal spell your opponents have, which means that some cards in the deck will be ways to keep her in play in order to make the most out of her.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual