Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Szadek, Lord of Secrets!

Szadek is a seven mana 5/5 with flying and when Szadek deals combat damage to a player, instead put that many +1/+1 counters on Szadek and that player mills that many cards.

A combat based mill deck is an interesting version of the archetype, eschewing Commander Damage with mill is an interesting way to combine an aggro and mill strategy, but not one that should be too difficult to make happen.

The biggest thing is that we need the mana to cast Szadek because they cost seven mana to play, and that is going to be a bit tricky in our colors, and once we do get Szadek in play we need to make sure that we keep him safe from being destroyed and get him stronger while we are milling at the same time. There is going to be a lot that we need to do.

The first thing we need to do is have ways we can ramp to get Szadek into play as soon as possible.

Bubbling Muck and High Tide are ideal cards for the deck because they make your Swamps and Islands tap for an additional black and blue respectively, which along with other common mana rocks like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet can help significantly as well.

We can also make use of The Water Crystal, which not only makes our blue spells cheaper by one mana, but if an opponent would mill cards, that many cards plus four are milled instead, which definitely helps our mill strategy especially in the late game where we can pay six mana to mill each opponent equal to the number of cards in our hand.

The Darkness Crystal isn’t as effective for us in terms of our strategy, but it does make our black spells cheaper and exiles nontoken creatures our opponents control when they die while also gaining us 2 life in the process and for six mana can bring a creature exiled with it back tapped with two +1/+1 counters on it.

We can also use Heartless Summoning as a way to discount all creature spells we cast to cost two mana less, at the downside that all creatures we control get -1/-1, which does make Szadek a little less effective, but does make him five mana instead of seven.

The next thing we need are ways to make sure that once Szadek is in play that he stays in play, while also finding ways to get him stronger and difficult to interact with.

Darksteel Plate is a solid option because not only is it indestructible but it also gives the equipped creature indestructible all at the Equip cost of only two mana. We can definitely get it set up while we are getting the mana ready for Szadek.

Lightning Greaves is a way to give the equipped creature shroud and haste, Trailblazer’s Boots is nice because it gives the equipped creature nonbasic landwalk, and Prowler’s Helm just makes it so that the only thing that can block the equipped creature is Walls.

In terms of power, there are several ways we can go about it. Leyline Axe is a favorable option because it acts as a Leyline in that if the card is in our opening hand we can begin the game with it on the battlefield and it gives the equipped creature +1/+1, trample, and double strike which helps give us two mill triggers with Szadek while trampling over blockers.

Slip Out the Back can work really well in protecting Szadek since it phases out the creature while also putting a +1/+1 counter on it, Armor of Shadows gives the creature +1/+0 and indestructible, and Feign Death has it that if the targeted creature would die it comes back tapped with a +1/+1 counter on it.

Bonehoard is probably one of the better Equipment for Szadek because it gives the equipped creature +X/+X where X is the number of creatures in all graveyards, which for a mill deck that wants Szadek to go tall in order to mill a lot, this becomes a massive boon for us to mill out our opponents quicker.

As far as Auras go we can use Vanishing to have it so that the enchanted creature can phase out to protect it from a board wipe, Protective Bubble to give the enchanted creature unblockable and shroud, and Curator’s Ward to give the enchanted permanent hexproof and if the permanent leaves the battlefield and was historic then we draw two cards.

The last thing we need are additional source of mill, because while Szadek can do a lot of milling, it’s only against one player and the more mill we have and can do the better.

Riverchurn Monument is perfect for this since we can have any number of target players each mill two cards and for four mana and tap as an Exhaust ability we can have any number of target players mill cards equal to the number of cards in their graveyard, which can win us the game.

Since we should have a decent amount of access to mana then Fascination can work really well for us to use all of that mana to either have every player draw X cards, or more ideal for us to have each player mill X cards from their library, which won’t be too bad for us but could be devastating to our opponents.

Countermand is a counter spell that mills the controller of the countered spell four cards, Drown in Dreams to either have target player draw X cards or target player mill X cards or if we control our Commander both effects, and Increasing Confusion to have target player mill X cards where if it was cast from the graveyard then that player mills twice X cards instead.

Court of Cunning is probably one of the better mill cards for us because when it enters we become the monarch and at the beginning of our upkeep any number of target players mill two cards but if we are the monarch then each of those players mills ten cards instead.

Szadek is a build around Commander that takes Commander Damage and turns it into mill, and he can make it so that the opponent that he deals damage to can mill a lot of cards while he gets bigger and bigger to mill more and more cards.

The biggest downside of the deck is that Szadek is seven mana. Higher mana value Commanders tend to struggle if they don’t have adequate sources of ramp, and in our colors it is harder to pull off consistently. A lot of the time we will need to be relying on our other mill sources rather than Szadek to mill our opponents, using Szadek as more of a finisher.

That being said, Szadek is pretty good for a lower powered mill Commander. You can make it pretty cheaply, and in lower power tables can get onto the battlefield much more consistently to actually get working and also pretty likely to win a decent number of games.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual