Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Gaddock Teeg!

Gaddock Teeg is a two mana 2/2 that makes noncreature spells with mana value cost of four or greater unable to be cast and noncreature spells with X in their mana costs also unable to be cast.

Gaddock Teeg is well known for being a Stax Commander, and while that is the most effective way to build him, what has always been an issue with Stax Commanders, in my opinion, is that there are people who tend to build them without a win condition and would rather win via attrition and our opponents conceding.

So the plan is to go down the Stax route, but to actually also have it build up to a way for us to actually win the game, of which we will have a couple that will be useful for a long term game, and a couple for alternate win conditions.

The first thing we need for the deck is to set up the Stax package, meaning ways that we hinder our opponents without hindering us too much.

Archon of Emeria is a great way for this because while it does make it so that every player can only cast one spell each turn, it has nonbasic lands our opponents control enter tapped, meaning that we slow down multicolor decks pretty harshly.

In a similar vein there is also Thalia, Heretic Cathar who has creatures and nonbasic lands our opponents control enter tapped, Deafening Silence has it so each player can only cast one noncreature spell each turn, and Eidolon of Rhetoric which also has each player only cast one spell each turn.

Containment Priest can also be a way for us to catch our opponents off guard because it can be cast with flash and if our opponents try to cheat a creature into play then we can flash it in to prevent any nontoken creature from entering play if it wasn’t cast.

Speaking of flash threats, Aven Mindcensor serves us really well because if an opponent would search a library then they are limited to the top three cards of their library instead, which with how often tutors and mana ramp has become a staple in Commander can really limit what our opponents can do while we slowly pull ahead.

Yasharn, Implacable Earth can also serve us really well, one in that it can help us by searching for a basic Forest and basic Plains and put them into our hands, but it also prevents players from paying life or sacrificing permanents to cast spells and activate abilities, which shuts down a good number of cards and strategies.

Paladin Class serves a double purpose for us because it makes spells our opponents cast during our turn cost one more to cast, it becomes an anthem, and then whenever we attack we give a creature +1/+1 for each other attacking creature while also giving them double strike.

The next thing we need to look at are ways to get around Gaddock’s restriction while also combining it with a way for us to win.

Since a lot of our strategies are creature based, have ways of making our creatures stronger is a solid start. Scale Up normally can make one creature we control a Wurm with power and toughness 6/4, but with Overload we can make all of our creatures 6/4 creatures, since Gaddock only cares about base mana value, additional costs and reductions are not factored in.

This also means that Fangs of Kalonia is a great way to get our creatures even bigger permanently from its Overload cost, because we put a +1/+1 counter on our creatures and then double the number of +1/+1 counters on the creatures that had counters put on them this way.

We can even clear the board by using Winds of Abandon to exile all creatures our opponents control and have them replace those creatures with basic lands, but if we restrict them against searching with things like Aven Mindcensor or Leonin Arbiter to have it so that everyone has to pay two mana to get to search their library for a turn, then we can be a resource denial deck with an aggro push.

There is even ways for us to get more creatures onto our side of the battlefield by using something like Oketra’s Monument, which discounts our white creature spells by one mana, and whenever we cast a creature spell we make a 1/1 Warrior creature token with vigilance.

Militia’s Pride also happens to work well if we have an aggro bent to the deck since if a nontoken creature we control attacks then we may pay a white mana to make a 1/1 Kithkin Soldier creature token that is tapped and attacking.

We can also get some additional card draw from it with effects like Tocasia’s Welcome which draws us a card whenever one or more creatures we control with mana value three or less enter as well as Welcoming Vampire which has a similar trigger but with creatures with power 2 or less.

Now as far as winning goes, we can continue on the aggressive route or do a slower route.

For the more aggressive route, we need more creatures in play so something like Vernal Sovereign works really well since when it enters or attacks we make an Elemental creature token with power and toughness equal to the the number of creature we control, which when combined with the other creature generators we have can be really effective.

We can also protect our creatures with cards like Heroic Intervention which gives permanents we control hexproof and indestructible until the end of turn, Unbreakable Formation to give creatures we control indestructible and if we cast it during our main phase we put a +1/+1 counter on all of our creatures and they gain vigilance until end of turn, and Dawn’s Truce to give our creatures and ourselves hexproof and if we gift a card then we also give our permanents indestructible.

If we want to go for a much slower route, then we can take our time with a card like Helix Pinnacle, which we can pay X mana to put X tower counters on it and if it has 100 or more tower counters at the beginning of our upkeep then we win the game.

Another slow way for us to win the game would be something like Halo Fountain, which can either make us 1/1 Citizen token, draw a card, or win us the game if we untap one, two, or fifteen creatures respectively while also tapping it and paying mana. This one is a bit more risky since there are creatures we would like to play like Collector Ouphe that prevent us from activating the abilities of artifacts.

Gaddock has a rocky reputation for wanting to go hard in on the Stax gameplay that it really is effective for since a lot of board wipes and mass removal in general is more than four mana unless it is very selective.

Adding the bit of aggression to help close out the game will make the Stax pieces and hate bears a little more palatable, and there is also plenty of cheap removal that can handle Gaddock in the early game that our opponents can have access to deal with it.

It also helps prevent us from getting bored in just sitting there with cards in our hand not having anything to play and having something to do each turn other than just land and pass.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual