Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Adelbert Steiner!

Steiner is a two mana 2/1 with lifelink and he gets +1/+1 for each Equipment we control.

While normally Steiner is pretty good as a support piece for an Equipment deck, as a Commander he is pretty simple and in some respects pretty average as an Equipment Commander. However, while I haven’t played it, I do know that there is a particular gimmick involving one of Steiner’s weapons.

The goal is to try and get that particular Equipment onto the battlefield as fast as we can, with a particular turn limit in mind for us and use that Equipment in play attached to Steiner as our primary win condition.

First we need the Equipment in play, as well as ways to make sure we get it to a state where we can win the game with it.

Excalibur II is an Equipment that whenever we gain life we put a charge counter on it and the equipped creature gets +1/+1 for each charge counter on it with an Equip of 3. In Final Fantasy IX where these come from, the only way the player can get it is if we get to near the end of the final dungeon in under twelve hours of in game time.

While our deck will be tuned to try and get it into our hand as quickly as possible, as an extra challenge for the deck we can try and get it into play as soon as possible, and while turn twelve is pretty much end game for most Commander games, we can aim to try and get it into play as soon as turn four, three if we want to be faithful to the ratio of when to get it as compared to the average play time of the game.

We’ll talk about how to get it into play in the next bit, but in order for us to properly make sure that we have it protected, and we can use something like Restoration Magic to have a cheap way to give a permanent we control hexproof and indestructible, while also fueling it by having the modal options to gain life at one extra mana or protect all of our things for four extra mana.

Thancred Waters is an interesting creature in that when he enters, at flash speed mind you, he gives another target legendary permanent we control indestructible as long as we control him and whenever we cast a noncreature spell he gains indestructible.

Loran’s Escape can give target creature or artifact hexproof and indestructible until end of turn and then scries 1, Reroute Systems can give target artifact or creature indestructible until end of turn or deal 2 damage to target tapped creature, and Ultimate Magic: Holy can give permanents we control indestructible until end of turn and if we cast it from exile we prevent all damage that we would be dealt this turn with a Foretell of three mana.

The next thing we need are quick ways for us to get to Excalibur II into play.

While the obvious answer would be to use tutors, since this deck leans on a gimmick strategy, I think slower tutors would be more interesting to play with. Relic Seeker is a way for us to tutor for an Equipment into our hand once it becomes renowned, which means all we need to do is have it deal combat damage to a player.

Open the Armory is a two mana tutor for an Equipment or an Aura and puts it in our hand, Delivery Moogle searches our library and/or graveyard for an artifact of mana value two or less, reveal it, and put into our hand, and when Taj-Nar Swordsmith enters we can pay X in order to tutor an Equipment of mana value X or less onto the battlefield.

Steelshaper’s Gift is a one mana tutor for an Equipment and puts it into our hand and that, while a bit pricey, is the cheapest way we can get an Equipment into our hand. Stoneforge Mystic and Enlightened Tutor are probably some of the better ways to get Equipment from our deck to our hand or the top of our library at instant speed respectively, but they can be a bit pricey.

Our other options to get Excalibur II into our hand other than aggressive mulligans is by draw spells, which white has been getting more and more of recently. Honor is a simple way to get a +1/+1 counter on a creature while also drawing a card for us.

Archivist of Oghma does really well for us as well because not only do we draw cards whenever an opponent searches their library, which gives us potentially multiple card draws, but once we do have Excalibur II in play is that they also gain us 1 life, which puts a charge counter onto Excalibur II to ultimately make Steiner stronger.

Collector’s Vault can be pretty useful for us to dig for cards in our library since for two mana we draw a card and then discard a card while also creating a Treasure token, which is helpful for us to potentially cast more cantrip type spells to help us dig through our deck to get Excalibur II.

The last thing we need is to make sure that we can get Excalibur II with enough charge counters on it to win, along with Steiner being able to get through to deal enough damage to do so.

Ajani’s Mantra is one of the cheapest ways for us to consistently gain life since at the beginning of our upkeep we may gain 1 life, and since all Excalibur II needs is for us to gain life, then this is an easy way for us to slowly build up charge counters each turn.

There is also Authority of the Consuls which gains us 1 life whenever a creature enters the battlefield under an opponents control while also having them enter tapped, each of which counts as a separate instance of life gain which means that whenever a creature enters the battlefield under our opponents control Excalibur II gets a charge counter.

We also need ways to give Steiner some forms of evasion, and we have several options in white. Blessed Breath is cheap way to give target creature we control protection from a color of our choice until end of turn, while also having the ability to Splice onto Arcane.

Brave the Elements is a way for us to give not just Steiner, but all white creatures we control protection from a single color of our choice for a turn, Emerge Unscathed gives protection from a color of our choice to a single creature but also has Rebound, and Gods Willing does the same while also scrying 1.

While Excalibur II is our primary artifact, we can also play a couple of others to not only boost Steiner a bit more, but in the case of Genji Glove we can give the equipped creature double strike and if it attacks and it is the first combat phase of the turn we untap the equipped creature and get an additional combat phase.

Steiner, while normally pretty effective as a support piece in other types of decks, can still serve as a Commander pretty well, and even with this gimmick version of a deck we can still get our personal gimmick online quickly and somewhat reliably.

Of course since the gimmick of the deck is to get Excalibur II into play as soon as possible and have it attached to Steiner as our only win condition, we are going to be railroading hard to make sure that we protect both to deal with how other players are dealing with their boards.

The deck will likely lose a lot more than it wins, but the fun part about this being a gimmick deck is that it is pretty ideal in lower powered tables where the games are going to be a slower so we can probably get the deck to “do its thing” pretty often.

Now is there a way where we can get it online more consistently? Probably, but that’s for you all to work on.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual