Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Jon Irenicus, Shattered One!

Irenicus is a four mana 3/3 that at the beginning of the end step has a target opponent gain control of up to one target creature you control, with two +1/+1 counters and tapped while that creature becomes goaded for the rest of the game and it can’t be sacrificed and whenever a creature we own but don’t control attacks, we draw a card.

It’s not often that we have a Commander that has us give our things to our opponents, but what that usually means is that we are going to be playing some of the most bottom of the barrel creatures with massive downsides and then give them to our opponents.

Irenicus also has the benefit of making those creatures able to do some more proactive things in making them goaded for the rest of the game, which does help speed things up if we help play into that with the creatures we donate. It’s going to be a control deck where we give control of things to take control of things.

The first thing we need are creatures that we are planning on donating that can get in play quickly.

Flesh Reaver is a solid choice because it is a two mana 4/4 with the downside in that whenever it deals damage to a creature or an opponent then it does an equal amount of damage to us, which we can tank in the early game when we get it out, but when Irenicus is in play then it becomes much more of an issue for our opponents.

Demonic Taskmaster has it so that at the beginning of our upkeep we sacrifice a creature other than this creature, which is doubly painful since all the creatures we donate happen to get the rider of being unable to be sacrificed, meaning that they need other fodder that must be sacrficed.

If we really want to be mean in that regard, there is also Desecration Elemental, which triggers whenever a player plays a spell to sacrifice a creature, who then becomes even more potent since it is at base an 8/8, which then becomes a goaded 10/10 that also has Fear, meaning that only black creatures or artifact creatures can block it when Irenicus donates it to an opponent.

The strongest version of this effect, which may be a bit too mean would be Phyrexian Negator, which whenever it is dealt damage you sacrifice that many permanents, which in order to get it off the battlefield would require you to either spend a removal spell to do so or to effectively sacrifice five permanents. This one is a bit better for higher power games where permanent destruction would be more accepted than in lower power games.

The next thing we want is a way to make sure it is difficult for our opponents to be able to retaliate against us.

Thought Eater, and the other two member of their vertical cycle Thought Nibbler and Thought Devourer, reduces the maximum hand size, with Nibbler reducing by two, Eater reducing by three, and Devourer reducing by four, which if we can attach Eater and Devourer to an opponent, then they have no hand to retaliate.

Taniwha is a way to give our opponents a massive creature that is only available sometimes to make a big swing, but when it does come into play it phases out all lands you control at the beginning of your upkeep, meaning the faster you donate this the more likely you are to deprive an opponent of using their lands for a turn.

We can also use creatures we donate to our opponents to benefit us with resources with something like Master of the Feast, which at the beginning of your upkeep each opponent draws a card, which would normally be bad for us, but when given to opponent it becomes a Howling Mine for everyone except them. It also helps that it is a 5/5 with flying which can deal some serious damage.

If we happen to be dealing with a major creature based deck we can use Grid Monitor and Steel Golem to prevent them from casting creature spells, Rotting Regisaur can be used to have our opponents discard a card at the beginning of their upkeep, and Rust Elemental can also be used to have our opponents sacrifice an artifact (other than Rust Elemental) and if they can’t then they tap Rust Elemental and lose 4 life.

Finally we need ways for us to win, and there are few avenues we can take in order to achieve this.

Phyrexian Vatmother can very quickly become an issue since not only does it have Infect, which becomes more lethal when it gets two more +1/+1 counters, but also gives the controller a poison counter at the beginning of the upkeep, and there are several ways we can proliferate that.

Sower of Discord is also a great to get damage to be distributed even more because we choose two players and whenever damage is dealt to one player, the other player loses that much life, and since the creatures we give away happen to be goaded and must attack, we can snowball our opponents losing life very quickly.

One of the more foreseen ways to have a creature win us the game would be to use Archfiend of the Dross, which enters with four oil counters on it and at the beginning of your upkeep an oil counter is removed and if there are no counters on it, you lose the game, with the upside that whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, its controller loses 2 life.

If all else fails and we need to make sure we can attack without there being any major downsides against us, then we can always use Dress Down to remove all the abilities of all creatures until the end step, where we have these massive beat sticks that can help us win the game.

Irenicus does what a donate Commander does best, and that is take creatures that would be awful for us to play with and gives them another use by giving them to our opponents.

Surviving to the end game is not the hardest part of the deck, what is the most difficult part is making sure that we can win the end game without succumbing to our own creature being our downfall.

Originally I had a whole section talking about how we can use Altar of Dementia to sacrifice the creatures to mill our opponents out, until I remembered that the creatures can’t be sacrificed as part of their rider, so that threw out that way to win.

Irenicus wants us to give control of bad things to our opponents, but when those things come back to our control, it can become a hinderance if we don’t find a way to win immediately. It’ll take some tinkering, but I do think that Irenicus can make for a fun Commander that can mess with our opponents.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual