Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Eshki Dragonclaw!

Eshki is a four mana 4/4 with vigilance, trample, ward 1, and at the beginning of combat on your turn if you’ve cast both a creature spell and a noncreature spell this turn, draw a card and put two +1/+1 counters on Eshki.

Combining a bit of spell slinger with go wide and go tall, Eshki provides a very interesting puzzle as a Commander. We need a combination of cantrips and cheap creatures in order for Eshki to start accumulating counters, and we have several paths to achieve this.

The goal of the deck is to cast a combination of creature spells and noncreature spells to get Eshki to become massive so that when they attack we can ideally beat someone with Commander Damage.

The first thing we need are cheap noncreature spells along with cheap creature spells to cast.

Adventures are a sneaky good way for us to cast multiple spells each turn, Elusive Otter being a good example because the Adventure of Grove’s Bounty puts X +1/+1 counters on any number of target creatures with us just needing to pay one for X for a single counter and Elusive Otter also having prowess and creatures with power less than it’s power can’t block it.

Questing Druid is good because its Adventure Seek the Beast exiles the top two cards of our library and let’s us play them until our next end step with Questing Druid getting a +1/+1 counter whenever we cast a white, blue, black, or red spell.

Kellen, Inquisitive Prodigy has Tail the Suspect which investigates and then let’s us play an additional land this turn with Kellen having flying and vigilance and whenever he attacks we can destroy an artifact, and if it was one we controlled then we draw a card.

Since we need a decent amount of mana, we can also play the cheap ramp spells like Growth Spiral which draws us a card and then let’s us put a land from our hand onto the battlefield while also giving us the mana to cast a cheap mana dork like Birds of Paradise so we can get our ramp going to keep double spelling each turn consistently.

We can even gain a benefit from casting two spells each turn with Taigam, Master Opportunist which has a Flurry ability in whenever we cast our second spell each turn we copy it, exile the original with four time counters and gives it suspend. This also means we can set up to cast a spell during our later turns taking into account the suspended spells.

Mana is going to be one of our biggest forms of difficulty since we need to cast multiple spells each turn.

Manamorphose is great because we can add two mana in any combination of colors while also drawing us a card, which if we cast right after casting Burning-Tree Emissary then we can fix our mana while fulfilling the creature and noncreature spell requirement for Eshki.

Rattleclaw Mystic is pretty interesting as a mana producing creature since it can normally tap for green, blue, or red mana but it also has a cheap Morph cost of two generic mana and when it is turned face up then we add a green, blue, and red mana, which if we are able to tap it nets us four mana we can use for a massive burst.

Since we have a lot of cards that we cast from exile, we can make use of Tlincalli Hunter which once each turn let’s us pay zero mana to pay the mana cost for creature spells we cast from exile, while also having the Adventure Retrieve Prey, which exiles a creature from our graveyard and let’s us cast it until the end of our next turn.

Songcrafter Mage allows us to cast an instant or sorcery from our graveyard when it enters by giving it Harmonize until end of turn, meaning we can potentially cast it by using a creature to help cast it and pay for the generic cost of the spell by using its power to reduce the cost of the spell. This also happens to work if you have access to Snapcaster Mage, which gives an instant or sorcery in our graveyard Flashback equal to its mana cost.

Rishkar’s Expertise also works wonders for us, especially with a big Eshki since we draw cards equal to the greatest power among creatures we control while also being able to cast a spell with mana value five or less from our hand for free.

Battles are also decent at helping us cheat around mana costs a bit, especially since they count as casting when the last defense counter is removed. Invasion of Zendikar is a safe bet to cast since it gets two basics from our library and puts them onto the battlefield tapped and then is cast as Awakened Skyclave, which is a creature that is a land on the battlefield that also has vigilance, haste, and can tap for mana of any color.

The next thing we need are ways that we can guarantee that Eshki wins us through Commander Damage.

Tifa’s Limit Break is a nice modal type of spell that we can cast at any point in the game if we have the mana for it because it gives +2/+2 if we just pay the one green mana, whereas if we pay two extra mana then we can double target creature’s power and toughness until end of turn, while if pay seven mana then we triple target creature’s power and toughness until end of turn, and since Eshki already has trample, this should make it easier for us to get the damage through.

While Eshki does have ward 1, there are plenty of cheap removal spells that can be used to circumvent that, but if we use Repulsive Mutation then we can add X +1/+1 counters to target creature and then we can counter target spell unless its controller pays mana equal to the greatest power among creatures we control and that acts as additional protection.

Once Eshki’s power is massive, then we can make use of extra combat spells like Full Throttle which after this main phase we get two additional combat phases where we untap all creatures that attacked this turn, or if we want a creature way to get an extra combat then we can use Combat Celebrant, which we can exert when it attacks to get an additional combat step.

If we want to clear our opponents board then once Eshki gets to a high enough power, then we could cast Blasphemous Act to clear the board by dealing 13 damage to all creatures, with Eshki being the last one standing to deal as much damage as possible and win us the game.

Eshki is an engine Commander, in that our game plan revolves around casting creature and noncreature spells while she is in play and getting her as big as we can get her in order to win via Commander Damage.

The problems the deck will face is that we need the mana and spells to double spell reliably each turn, and while Adventures mitigates some of that risk, we may not always have the mana to do so. Also, while Eshki does have protection in ward 1, that is low enough to still be a risk against certain removal spells, and does nothing against board wipes.

While she is our primary creature and we can aim our spells to protect her, having some decent utility creatures in play can help us make sure we can cast our creature and noncreature spells each turn.

Eshki can get out of control if left unchecked, which if our opponents just let us accumulate counters on Eshki, it may be too late for them to realize that we have a creature that can win us fairly reliably with the proper set up.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual