Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Tatsunari, Toad Rider!

Tatsunari is a three mana 3/3 that whenever you cast an enchantment spell, if you don’t control a creature named Keimi, create Keimi, a legendary 3/3 black and green Frog creature token with “Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.” and for one and either a blue or green Tatsunari and a target Frog you control can’t be blocked this turn except by creatures with flying or reach.

A fun spin on the enchantress archetype in incentivizing us to be a bit more low to the ground with the enchantments that we cast in order to drain our opponents, and while it can seem a bit slow, we also have a way to get damage through with Tatsunari and Keimi.

The plan is to play cheap enchantments in order to get the drain going, all the while looking for ways to recur any destroyed enchantments while steadily boosting Tatsunari in order to have a way for us to swing for damage if need be.

The first thing we need are the cheap enchantments that we want to cast in order to create and get some triggers off of Keimi.

Meltstrider’s Resolve can work really well as a starter enchantment since it has the enchanted creature fight up to one target creature an opponent controls, while giving the enchanted creature +0/+2 and it can’t be blocked by more than one creature, which can help in the long game as needed.

There are also plenty of cheap enchantments that we can use in order to get some more mana like Wild Growth which makes the enchanted land add an additional green mana when its tapped for mana, Fertile Ground having the enchanted land add an additional mana of any color when tapped, and Overgrowth which has the land add an additional two green mana when tapped for mana.

We can also use the fact that we gain life from playing enchantments to our advantage by using Phyrexian Arena, which at the beginning of our upkeep let’s us draw a card at the price of 1 life, which is not too much of an issue considering most of our enchantments are cheap enough to offset the life loss.

One of our primary forms of removal will be enchantment based as well because of all the cheap, one mana enchantments that turn creatures into low power and toughness creatures with no abilities. Something like Unable to Scream, which turns a creature into a 0/2 Toy artifact creature with no abilities or Eaten by Piranhas which turns a creature into a 1/1 Skeleton with no abilities at instant speed.

There are also of course the plethora of enchantress effects that also happen to be enchantments like Eidolon of Blossoms which when it or another enchantment we control enters we draw a card or Enchantress’s Presence which draws us a card whenever we cast an enchantment spell.

The next thing we need are ways for us to recast any enchantments to the graveyard, especially since the Aura’s will most likely be removed often.

Remember, in order for Keimi to trigger we need to cast the enchantments, which means that reanimating them won’t work for us. Magus of the Will is great because we can pay three mana and exile it in order for us to play lands and cast spells from our graveyard for the turn, with anything from the battlefield that does go to the graveyard this turn getting exiled instead. If you have access to Yawgmoth’s Will that would be better, but since most people won’t, Magus of the Will is a solid substitute, if a bit slow.

In a similar vein we can also use Gaea’s Will, which like Magus of the Will let’s us cast spells and play lands from our graveyard while exiling cards that would go to our graveyard this turn, but also has Suspend, which means that we need to time when we want to Suspend it while having valid targets in our graveyard to play.

One of the next best things for us are Regrowth spells or spells that bring cards from the graveyard back into our hand. Auroral Procession, Treasured Find, and Recollect are ways to get any card from our graveyard back into our hand.

While it is nice to get any card from our graveyard back, we just need ways to get the enchantments back into our hand, as well as creatures if need be. So something like Nature’s Spiral, which only returns permanents to our hand, works perfectly fine for what we need.

Season of Renewal is also great because we can either return a creature from our graveyard and put it into our hand or return and enchantment from our graveyard to our hand or both if we have valid targets in our graveyard.

We also have access to tutoring a card into our graveyard while bringing two things from our graveyard back with Mythos of Brokkos, which let’s us put a card from our library to the graveyard if we also pay with blue and black mana.

The last thing we need are ways for us to boost Tatsunari and Keimi so we can win by dealing damage.

Since there are a lot of enchantress effects that draw us cards, Proft’s Eidetic Memory is really good for us, one in that it draws us a card, two in that it gives us no maximum hand size, and three at the beginning of combat on our turn if we drew more than one card this turn we put X +1/+1 counters where X is the number of cards we drew minus one.

We can also up our opponents losing life whenever we have an enchantment enter the battlefield by using Grim Guardian, which has a Constellation ability in whenever it or another enchantment we control enters, each opponent loses 1 life.

In terms of pure damage dealing though, Ancestral Mask is one of our best bets because we give the enchanted creature +2/+2 for each other enchantment on the battlefield. We can make this work wonder for us by using it in tandem with Asinine Antics, which we can cast as if it had flash for two more mana, but for each creature our opponents control we create a Cursed Role token attached to that creature.

Eutropia the Twice-Favored also becomes a great way for us to take advantage of getting a lot of enchantments in play to boost Tatsunari because when an enchantment we control enters we put a +1/+1 counter on target creature we control while also giving that creature flying for a turn.

Tatsunari is an engine Commander in that we need him and Keimi in play in order to make the most of us playing our enchantments, and we have the additional backup plan of being able to get damage through if we don’t have the ability to cast enchantments.

Which is the biggest fault of the deck, in that we need to actually cast the enchantments in order to drain our opponents, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but we will often be playing with little to no mana, which may leave Tatsunari vulnerable.

We have plenty of access to card advantage through our enchantress payoffs, and plenty of removal through enchantments as well as ways to recur them, but we do need to be able to cast them and if they are exiled from our graveyard then we lose access to some potential removal.

Still, Tatsunari is a nice blend of being a midrange type of enchantress deck that gains us advantage when we play enchantments and slowly build us up to deal a massive swing with Tatsunari or Keimi.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual