Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Zo-Zu the Punisher!

Zo-Zu is a three mana 2/2 that whenever a land enters the battlefield, he deals 2 damage to that land’s controller.

Zo-Zu is a way to punish decks that want to ramp with lands really hard, and since this is Commander that usually means everyone has some form of land ramp, and while it is symmetrical, we are the ones building the deck and can mitigate some of the downsides.

The plan for the deck is have ways to get some of our own ramp online, while also playing a bit into the dark side of Commander that some people may not like, and that is land denial and land destruction. We are going to try and not make it so bad, but this deck is probably not for lower power level tables as a fair warning.

The first thing we need are other ways to get mana other than lands, again since Zo-Zu is symetrical.

Cursed Mirror is great because not only does it add a red mana, but as it enters it can become a copy of any creature on the battlefield except it has haste, meaning that if an opponent has a solid early creature or their Commander out when we play it, we can get a bit of an early advantage from it.

Glittering Stockpile can be a solid card as well because it can add a red mana and put a stash counter on itself, and we can later then tap and sacrifice it to add X mana of any one color where X is the number of stash counters on it.

Extraplanar Lens also becomes a consideration since we exile a land we control as it enters the battlefield and whenever a land of the same name is tapped for mana, its controller adds one mana of any type that land produced, meaning we get double mana from our Mountains.

Koth of the Hammer would also be great because for +1 we can untap a Mountain and have it be a 4/4 Elemental until end of turn, a -2 of adding red mana for each Mountain we control, and also give us an emblem that allows out Mountains to tap and deal 1 damage to any target.

We can also take advantage of our opponents playing their mana artifacts through Treasure Nabber, which whenever an opponent taps an artifact for mana, we gain control of that artifact until the end of our next turn, and since most decks tend to play a Sol Ring or an Arcane Signet, we can make great use of them, maybe even occasionally stealing an artifact land for a turn to boot.

The next thing we need are additional ways to deal damage to our opponents for playing a lot of lands.

Tunnel Ignus has it so whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control and that player already had a land enter the battlefield under their control, then Tunnel Ignus deals 3 damage to that player, which stacks up against players who are turbo land ramping.

There is also Ankh of Mishra which deals 2 damage to a player whenever a land enters the battlefield under their control, Manabarbs that deals 1 damage to a player whenever they tap a land for mana, and Burning Earth which deals 1 damage to a player whenever they tap a nonbasic land for mana.

Cemetery Gatekeeper is also a way for us to make use of punishing our opponents for playing lands because when it enters we exile a card from a graveyard and whenever a player plays a land or casts a spell, if it shares a card type with the exiled card then Cemetery Gatekeeper deals 2 damage to that player.

Price of Progress is a way to punish players playing a lot of nonbasic lands since it deals damage to each player equal to twice the number of nonbasic lands that player controls. Sunspine Lynx is in a similar camp, only dealing damage equal to the number of nonbasic lands that player controls, but also has the benefit of preventing players from gaining life and having it so damage can’t be prevented.

Obsidian Fireheart is a pretty cool card because we can pay three mana to put a blaze counter on a land without a blaze counter on it and as long as that land has a blaze counter on it, it deals 1 damage to its controller at the beginning of their upkeep and it also happens to have the best reminder text in the game with “The land continues to burn after Obsidian Fireheart has left the battlefield.“

Finally we get onto the part that can get a little bit dicey for some play groups and that is us playing land destruction and land denial.

From the Ashes destroys all nonbasic lands and for each land destroyed this way its controller may search their library for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield. Now this does give each player untapped lands to retaliate, however if we combine the Zo-Zu punishing our opponent for getting lands and Ankh of Mishra to deal damage when those lands enter, along with Dingus Egg to deal 2 damage when lands are put into the graveyard, the damage adds up.

We can also play a bit into a controlling aspect with Price of Glory, which whenever a player taps a land for mana on another player’s turn, destroy that land, meaning that we punish people for playing cards on other players turns.

Stoneshaker Shaman is also a land punisher in that at the end of each player’s turn that player sacrifices an untapped land, Akki Blizzard-Herder has it so when it dies each player sacrifices a land, Boil to destroy all Islands, and Cleansing Wildfire to destroy a land and its controller may search their library and put it onto the battlefield tapped and we draw a card.

To help us get damage through we can use Acidic Soil to deal 1 damage to each player for each land they control, Roiling Terrain to destroy a land and then deal damage to that land’s controller for each land in their graveyard, and Lava Blister which would destroy a nonbasic land unless its controller lets lava Blister deal 6 damage to them.

If we want to lean more into the land denial side of things then we can play Storm Cauldron, which allows each player to play an additional land on each of their turns, but also has it so that when a land is tapped for mana then that land returns to its owner’s hand.

Winter Moon is an option if we want to have it so that players can’t untap more than one nonbasic land during their untap steps, Orb of Dreams to have it so that all permanents come into play tapped, and Blood Sun to draw a card and have all lands lose all abilities except mana abilities to deal with utility lands.

Zo-Zu is a Commander that wants you to play a style that can be very mean, especially if you lean hard enough into a land destruction sort of deck. I mentioned some land destruction, but I didn’t talk about mass land destruction options that are available that can definitely win you the game if you play correctly.

The down side of this deck, even if you don’t have too many land destruction options and lean more into land denial, you will most likely be targeted very early on since people do not like having their lands interacted with.

Zo-Zu can be great for some higher bracket decks and one that can absolutely punish the heavy amount of land ramp that the game has been seeing lately, though be aware that the moment you start destroying people’s lands or denying them of their cool plays, they will seek to remove you from the game first.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual