Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Sophia, Dogged Detective!

Sophia is a four mana 3/4 that when they enter the battlefield you create Tiny, a legendary 2/2 green Dog Detective creature token with trample, you can pay one mana and sacrifice an artifact token to put a +1/+1 counter on each Dog you control and whenever a Dog you control deals combat damage to a player, create a Food token and then investigate.

Sophia is an interesting way to play a typal Commander in that we also need a plethora of artifact tokens to sacrifice in order to boost our Dogs in order for us to win, and in our colors we have an interesting number of ways to get artifact tokens.

The plan is to set up our Dogs so that we are in a decent position, all the while making sure that we start to accumulate both artifact tokens as well as enough mana for us to sacrifice those artifact tokens in order for all of our Dogs to get a boost.

The first thing that we need are the Dogs that we want to play, most of which having some sort of utility.

Pack Leader is great for this because not only does he give all other Dogs you control +1/+1, but whenever he attacks then you prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to Dogs you control, which is great for if we happen to have a lot of Dogs in play to swing fairly reliably, at least for a turn.

Spirited Companion draws you a card when it enters, when Loyal Warhound enter and an opponent has more lands then us then we can search for a basic Plains and put it onto the battlefield tapped, and District Mascot enters with two +1/+1 counter and we can remove two to destroy an artifact and if it attacks while saddled it gets a +1/+1 counter.

K-9, Mark I is a way for our legendary creatures to gain some protection in that it gives them ward 1 if they are untapped, but also has it so that we can pay two mana and tap it in order for target legendary creature to not be blocked for a turn.

We even have a Dog that can make mana with Tanuki Transplanter, a Reconfigure 3 creature that whenever it or the equipped creature attacks we add an amount of green mana equal to its power that isn’t lost as steps and phases end for the turn, which means we can use it to cast spells on our second main phase or immediately start boosting our Dogs.

Since our strategy also wants our Dogs to get bigger, Mowu, Loyal Companion is great to have because if one or more +1/+1 counters would be put on Mowu then we add then we add that many plus one +1/+1 counters, which for a creature with vigilance and trample is pretty great.

There are also ways for us to get a lot of Dog tokens with Release the Dogs which makes four 1/1 Dog creature tokens and Mongrel Pack, which when it dies in combat it makes four 1/1 Dog creature tokens because Hounds has been changed to Dogs.

The next thing we need are ways to get a good number of artifact tokens into play that we can sacrifice.

Luckily for us there is a Dog that does make an artifact token and that is Floodhound, who for three mana and tap can investigate, which we can do fairly reliably in the early game as a way to start setting up some tokens for us.

Officious Interrogation is pretty interesting because it costs two more mana for each target beyond the first and for each target player chosen we investigate X times where X is the number of creatures those players control. This is great if we manage to go wide or we are playing against one or more other go wide players to get a bunch of Clue tokens.

We can even make use of all those Clue tokens with Five Hundred Year Diary, which adds a blue mana for each Clue we control, while also having the utility of being able to sacrifice itself to draw us a card, but having a bunch of Clues, making blue mana to then sacrifice all of those Clues to make our Dogs bigger with Sophia is also great.

There is also another cheeky way for us to get a ton of tokens and that is by playing a board wipe like Damning Verdict which destroys all creatures with no counters on them and then play Follow the Bodies, which would normally investigate, but also has Gravestorm, which copies itself for each permanent that was put into a graveyard this turn.

While Clues are our primary token of choice, we can also make a myriad of other artifact tokens. Worldwaker Helm for example has it so that if we make one or more artifact tokens, that many tokens plus a Map token are make, while also being able to pay two mana and tap it to make a token of a target artifact token we control.

Tireless Provisoner makes a Food or a Treasure whenever we play a land, Peregrin Took makes a Food if one or more tokens would be made while also letting us sacrifice three Foods to draw a card, and of course Academy Manufactor which if we would make a Clue, Food, or Treasure, we make one of each instead.

The last thing we need are ways to win, which for us is going to rely on our Dogs attacking.

Sphere Grid is a great card because whenever a creature we control deals combat damage to a player we put a +1/+1 counter on it and creatures we control with +1/+1 counters on them have reach and trample, which helps us deal with flying creatures in a deck that normally wouldn’t have access to that.

The Earth Crystal is nice for us as well because it makes our green spells cheaper and doubles the number of +1/+1 counters that would be added to our creatures, and can also distribute some +1/+1 counters for six mana.

There are of course the classics like Overwhelming Stampede and Overrun to give our creatures a boost along with trample, Garruk’s Uprising to not only do that but to also draw us cards whenever a creature we control with power 4 or greater enters, and the ever present Craterhoof Behemoth to give a massive boost to our creatures based on the number of creatures we have as well as trample.

We have plenty of access to protection with one of the more interesting ones for us being Mutational Advantage, which gives permanents we control with counters on them hexproof and indestructible, prevents all damage that would be dealt to them for this turn and even proliferates them.

Sophia is a value engine Commander where we can self fuel with just her and a couple of Dogs in play to get artifact tokens to boost our Dogs, but if we already have some in play then we can get the value immediately and start getting our Dogs bigger.

While board wipes are a concern, there are several cards we can play that help add a bit of protection in order to mitigate that risk a bit. The issue comes in that we also need to protect our artifact tokens, which if they get destroyed before we can set up, it can be a bit of an issue.

Even though we have a couple ways to generate a decent amount of mana, there is only so much mana we can produce in a turn, especially if our massive mana makers get destroyed.

Sophia is still a reliable Dog Commander that can make our Dogs big and win us the game, and all it takes is sacrificing a few trinkets in order for them to get big and strong. A lot like real Dogs, now that I think about it.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual