Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about The Space Family Goblinson!

The Family has trample as long as you’ve rolled three or more dice this turn and whenever you roll a die you put a +1/+1 counter on The Family.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve talked about an Unfinity Commander, and this is one of the earliest Unfinity cards that was spoiled and one of the safer designs among them. Dice rolling isn’t the strongest mechanic, but there are still some ways we can make use of dice rolling to our benefit.

The plan for the deck is to roll as many dice as we can so we can grow The Family in order to get them big enough for us to win, with maybe some ways to manipulate the dice rolls in our favor.

The first thing we need are ways to roll the dice, as well as ways we can manipulate the dice.

Circuits Act is a quick way to give The Family trample since we roll thre six sided dice and for each different result we create a 1/1 Clown Robot artifact creature token. Not only does it immediately give The Family trample, but since each die roll is counted separately for The Family, we also add three +1/+1 counters to them.

Vegetation Abomination lets us tap and sacrifice it to roll a six sided die to gain life equal to the result, Pair o’ Dice Lost rolls two six sided die and it lets us return any number of cards with total mana value X or less where X is the total result from our graveyard to our hand, and Velukan Dragon has us roll as six sided die when it attacks or blocks to give it +X/+0 until end of turn where X is the result minus 1.

Clown Car is a fun card to include because it is an X cost Vehicle that let’s us roll X six sided dice and for each odd result we make a 1/1 Clown Robot and for each even result we put a +1/+1 counter on Clown Card, who also happens to have Crew 2.

Another great creature for the deck that let’s us roll multiple dice at once is Neverwinter Hydra, which let’s us roll X d6 and it enters with a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the total of those results, while also having trample and ward 4.

There are also plenty of utility dice rolling cards like Bag of Tricks which let’s us roll a d8 and we reveal cards from the top of our library until we reveal a creature card with mana value equal to the result and put it onto the battlefield as well as something like Bucknard’s Everfull Purse, which let’s us roll a d4 to make a number of Treasures equal to the result and pass control of the Purse to the player on the right.

We also have access to cards that let us reroll dice, which won’t add on to The Family but will provide more favorable results for us. Barbarian Class is the ideal example since it is a one mana Class enchantment that automatically let’s us roll one additional dice and ignore the lowest roll, while also letting us give a creature +2/+0 and menace until end of turn whenever we roll one or more dice, and can give all of our creatures haste.

The next thing we need is to accumulate as many +1/+1 counters on The Family as we can.

Invigorating Surge is an excellent start because it let’s us put a +1/+1 counter on target creature we control, and then we get to double the amount of +1/+1 counters on that creature, which we should have hopefully gotten a decent amount on The Family at this point.

Solidarity of Heroes let’s us double the number of counters on a creature we control with Strive which let’s us pay an additional cost for additional targets, Hydra’s Growth puts a +1/+1 counter on the enchanted creature and then at the beginning of our upkeep doubles the number of +1/+1 counters on it, and Gaea’s Gift puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature and gives it reach, trample, hexproof, and indestructible until end of turn.

Loyal Guardian also is a great card to include because it has the Lieutenant ability in which at the beginning of combat on our turn, if we happen to control our Commander then we can put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control.

Of course we also have the variety of ways to add additional counters to our creatures like Hardened Scales which gives an additional +1/+1 counter when one or more would be added, Kami of Whispered Hopes which also adds an additional counter when one or more would be added but can also tap for mana equal to its power, and Branching Evolution which adds double the amount of counters when one or more would be added.

The last thing we need is to make sure that The Family has a way to get damage through.

Critical Hit is a solid way to give The Family double strike, when they should ideally have trample, and if we happen to have a dice roll card that uses a d20 and roll a natural 20, then we can return Critical Hit to out hand from our graveyard.

One card that would let us potentially get a natural 20 would be Overwhelming Encounter, which gives creatures we control vigilance and trample along with a result determined by a dice roll with the lowest roll giving our creatures +2/+2 until end of turn, the middle choices giving two +1/+1 counters on each creature we control, or the natural 20 result of putting four +1/+1 counters on each creature we control.

Celebr-8000 is a cheeky way to get a multi purpose creature in play that rolls two six sided dice and for each result of 1 it gets a +1/+1 counter and if we roll doubles then it gets double strike, and depending on the roll it also gains an additional ability in either menace, flying, vigilance, lifelink, and/or indestructible.

Thunderwave can help clear the board by either dealing 3 damage to each creature, 3 damage to all but one creature, or 6 damage to each creature our opponents control, Reckless Endeavor which rolls two d12 with one result dealing that much damage to all creatures and the second result being the number of Treasure tokens we make.

We can also have our opponents deal damage to themselves while dice rolling by using Maddening Hex, which enchants a player and whenever they cast a noncreature spell we roll a d6 and deal that much damage to them, and then it hops to one of our opponents at random.

If we have a bit of money, we can also make use of all the +1/+1 counters being added to The Family by using All Will Be One, which whenever one or more counters are added on a permanent or player, it deals that much damage to target opponent, creature an opponent controls, or Planeswalker an opponent controls, and that can help us get a bit more damage through for The Family to clean things up.

The Family serves as an engine Commander in that they need to be in play for the deck to be at its most effective, and we also need to make sure that we have enough cards that care about dice rolling to get The Family big enough to win.

The hardest thing about the deck is the sheer randomness of rolling dice, which can sometimes leave less than stellar results, and then it becomes all for naught if The Family is destroyed or goes under an opponent’s control to attack us.

I still think that The Family works well for lower powered tables that are aiming to be a bit more fun and not expecting to win too many games, though with the luck of the dice you can still win a game or two.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual