Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood!

Kazrov is a seven mana 4/4 with flying, whenever a creature an opponent control is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on Kazarov and for three and a red Kazarov deals 2 damage to target creature.

While expensive to cast, Kazarov presents an interesting play style in not exactly killing your opponents creatures, but instead doing a bit of damage to them. We also happen to gain counters if our own creatures get damage, including Kazarov, which means we benefit from us and our opponents going wide.

The plan is to not only give ourselves a decent number of creatures, but to also give our opponents a good number of creatures, then we cast some spells that deal a damage to all creatures to get Kazarov to get massive, while also making sure that Kazarov is protected and able to help us win the game.

The first thing we need to establish are the ways we can deal damage to a lot of creatures at once, ideally pretty cheaply.

Blazing Volley is one in a large number of spells that deals 1 damage to each creature our opponents control, and what’s great about it is that it is one mana to cast, meaning that after banking some mana, there is a chance that we can cast directly after casting Kazarov.

Electrickery is a one mana spell that either deals 1 damage target creature we don’t control or for an Overload of two mana we can deal 1 damage to every creature we don’t control, Barrage of Boulders deals 1 damage to each creature we don’t control and if we control a creature of power 4 or greater creature’s can’t block this turn, and End the Festivities deals 1 damage to each creature and Planeswalker they control.

There are a plethora of red spells that can deal 1 damage to a large number of creatures, but there are some tricky black spells we can use as well. For example Plague Spitter is a creature that deals 1 damage to each creature and player and when it dies, it deals 1 damage to each creature and player. Since it also works on our creatures, it just increases the number of +1/+1 counters Kazarov gets.

Pestilence is also an interesting card because as an enchantment is sits there and for one black it deals 1 damage to each creature and each player, while also having a built in self destruct button of sacrificing itself if there are no creatures at the beginning of the end step. This becomes a repeatable and cheap way to deal 1 damage to a bunch of creatures.

The next thing we need is to make sure that there are creatures that can get damaged for Kazarov to gain those +1/+1 counters.

Slaughter Specialist is excellent in making sure our opponents have creatures because when it enters each opponent creates a 1/1 Human creature token and also has the benefit of getting a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature an opponent controls dies.

Tribute to Horobi is also a great way for making sure our opponents have some number of creatures because the first two chapters has each opponent making a 1/1 Rat Rogue token, with the third chapter transforming it to Echo of Death’s Wail, which gains control of all Rat tokens and when it attacks we can sacrifice a creature to draw a card.

Varchild’s War-Riders is also a great card for the deck because it has a Cumulative Upkeep cost of giving an opponent a 1/1 Survivor token, all on a two mana 3/4 with trample and rampage 1. This means that early in the game we can start giving more and more Survivor tokens so that when we do get Kazarov in play, we can sweep the board to get a massive power boost.

If an opponent’s board is getting a bit unwieldy, then we can use Mogg Infestation to destroy all creatures they control and replace them with two 1/1 Goblin tokens for each creature that died this way, meaning that we can potentially double the number of creatures to deal damage to to make Kazarov bigger.

What’s more, since we are ideally getting a decent amount of mana, we can use Tempt with Vengeance, which let’s us make X 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste, and our opponents can then make X 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste and if they do then we get to make X 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste for each opponent who did, which can potentially be a massive number of creatures because remember, Kazarov triggers off of all creatures being deal damage, not just our opponents.

The last thing we need is a way for us to win, ideally to also put ourselves ahead and clear a path for Kazarov.

Chain Reaction is the starting point because it deals X damage to each creature where X is the number of creatures on the battlefield because that is a ton of damage and can get of most, if not all creatures in play. Blasphemous Act can also function here, and can be even cheaper if there are a lot of creatures in play and it does a flat 13 damage to each creature.

Rush of Vitality then becomes incredibly important to cast as a way to make sure that Kazarov stays alive while we clear the board by giving them indestructible, an additional +1/+0, and also important lifelink so that when we do swing with Kazarov we can gain a huge amount of life back.

We can also use Sudden Spoiling as a way to make sure that an opponent that has a massive number of creatures that may be problematic, as in they may have death triggers or the like, because Sudden Spoiling makes creatures target player controls become 0/2 creatures and lose all abilities while also having Split Second to make sure it happens.

If our opponents are making it difficult for Kazarov to get through, then we can also use Chandra’s Ignition to have target creature we control deal damage equal to its power to each other creature and each opponent, which if we have a massive Kazarov can deal a huge swing of damage and make Kazarov bigger to clean up any opponent who still remains.

With the number of spells we control that deal damage, we can also make use of Judith, Carnage Connoisseur which has whenever we cast an instant or sorcery we can either give that spell deathtouch and lifelink to have a bunch of one mana board wipes that gain us a bunch of life or make a 2/2 Imp token that when it dies it deals 2 damage to each opponent.

Kazarov is an engine Commander, and the heart of that engine is dealing damage to all creatures, and the more creatures our opponents have out the better and with Kazarov having flying, it can be a bit tricky for some of our opponents to deal with it.

The hardest part about the deck is that Kazarov is a seven mana Commander, meaning that we do need to spend a good chunk of time making sure that we have the mana to cast Kazarov in order to get the engine started. We can do other things in the mean time, but we have to make sure we also ramp as much as we can.

There is also the fact that Kazarov has no built in protection, which isn’t inherently a bad thing, but can also make it difficult for us to deal with Kazarov being removed constantly.

Luckily for us, the number of spells that can deal some amount of damage to each creature are usually cheap to cast, and since we don’t need the creatures to die we can generally stagger when we play them in order to get the most use out of them for Kazarov.

This is a deck that can be pretty interesting to navigate, and can be built pretty cheaply as well, which is always a bonus in my eyes.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual