Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Rith, Liberated Primeval!

Rith is a five mana 5/5 with flying ward 2, gives other Dragons we control ward 2, and at the beginning of your end step, if a creature or Planeswalker an opponent controlled was dealt excess damage this turn, create a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying.

Dragons have always been a popular creature type to build a deck around, with several really popular Commanders for them. Rith is on the lower end of that spectrum because most Dragon decks want to ramp out to get big Dragons, with burn being more incidental and tends to go face. What makes Rith interesting is that she says excess damage, and not specifically through burn.

The game plan with Rith is to be a bit more on the midrange to control sort of things, accumulating a Dragon each turn in various ways while depriving our opponents of creatures and other resources and slowly build up our cache of Dragons.

The first thing we need are ways to have our opponents creatures take excess damage, whether through burn or other means.

Bushwhack is an excellent utility card in this aspect because in the early game it can be used to get a basic land into our hand to fix our mana, but in the late game can be used to have our creatures fight a cheap creature token so that we can get a Dragon on our end step.

Tail Swipe is an instant speed fight spell that if we cast it during our main phase then the creature we target that we control gets a +1/+1 counter, which can edge some of our lower powered creatures in order to deal some excess damage.

While fight spells are great, bite spells like Bite Down are among one of the other ways we can reliably deal excess damage, better in some cases because it’s just our creature dealing damage equal to its power to a creature and there is no risk of our creature dying.

There are also plenty of combat tricks that deal damage to attacking or blocking creatures, Osseous Exhale being a great example because we can deal 5 damage to target attacking or blocking creature and if we beheld a Dragon when we cast it, then we gain 2 life.

Ideally burn is going to be one of our primary ways of dealing excess damage to creatures, with probably the best way of doing so being Dragon Tempest, which gives flying creatures we control haste when they enter and whenever a Dragon we control enters, it deals X damage to any target, where X is the number of Dragons we control.

Since our goal is to be a bit slower, we need some more points of interaction to make sure we stay in the game.

Dawn Charm is a great utility in this regard because we can prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn, regenerate a creature which will usually likely be Rith to protect from a board wipe, or counter target spell that targets us which is not something that most people would expect.

Spiritualize is an interesting card to consider because until the end of turn whenever target creature deals damage, we gain that much life then we draw a card. This could be used to completely blank an attack from a massive creature coming our way or if a big creature is going against our opponents, we can shore up our life total against an attack coming our way.

Our interaction package can even help our game plan with something like Orim’s Thunder which can be used to destroy an artifact or enchantment but if we also pay a kicker cost of a single red mana then it also deals damage equal to that permanent’s mana value to target creature.

Rip Apart can deal 3 damage to a creature or Planesawalker or destroy an artifact or enchantment, Brotherhood’s End can deal 3 damage to each creature and Planeswalker or destroy all artifacts of mana value three or less, and Burn Away deals 6 damage to target creature and when that creature dies this turn we exile all cards from its owner’s graveyard.

Since excess damage is our game plan, we can also use it to help us ramp to cast our big Dragons by using Magmatic Galleon, which when it enters it deals 5 damage to target creature an opponent controls and whenever one or more creatures are dealt excess noncombat damage we make a Treasure token.

We can also make even more Dragons with Rith by using Annie Joins Up, which when it enters it deals 5 damage to target creature or Planeswalker an opponent control but more importantly, is a triggered ability of a legendary creature we control triggers, it triggers again, meaning we can start making two Dragons each turn.

As we are building a deck that is getting Dragons in play from Rith, we are also going to be getting other Dragons in play to help us win the game.

Balefire Dragon is a solid Dragon in this regard because when it deals combat damage to a player it then deals that much damage to each creature that player controls, which can then trigger Rith at the beginning of the end step decently reliably.

Scalelord Reckoner is a Dragon that helps us be in control of the battlefield because if a Dragon we control would become the target of a spell or ability an opponent would control, we destroy target nonland permanent that player controls, which even when our Dragons have ward 2 because of Rith, there are still some cheap removal spells that can pose an issue that this helps mitigate, especially if Rith isn’t in play.

Ganax, Astral Hunter helps us ramp whenever a Dragon we control enters by making a Treasure token, Lathliss, Dragon Queen makes a 5/5 Dragon token with flying whenever another nontoken Dragon we control enters while also able to boost Dragons by +1/+0 for two mana, and Scourge of Valkas is a Dragon Tempest on a creature in that whenever they or another Dragon we control enters it deals X damage to any target with X being the number of Dragons we control.

When we shift to a much more aggressive style towards the end game, Atarka, World Render becomes incredibly important since whenever a Dragon we control attacks, it gains double strike until end of turn, which considering the tokens that Rith makes are 4/4’s, this is a massive amount of damage.

This can be further helped with Thrakkus the Butcher which whenever he attacks we double the power of each Dragon we control until end of turn as well as something like Unnatural Growth to double the power and toughness of creatures we control at the beginning of each combat phase until the end of the turn.

Rith is a value engine Commander in that if we slow roll some damage we can start getting more and more Dragons in play that can be dealing massive amounts of damage all at once or we can have a couple take a few pot shots while we get more Dragons on hand.

Of course being that we are a go wide Dragons deck, board wipes are going to be a bit of a pain to deal with and while we have access to ways to protect our creatures from destruction based removal, we have far fewer ways to deal with exile based board wipes or toughness reduction based wipes.

Granted we are playing creatures with a higher stat line that board wipes based on reducing our creatures toughness to zero need to work a bit more for us, but they can still be a potential threat to our game plan.

Spot removal against us is a lot harder to deal with, especially since Rith has ward 2 to protect themselves and since we are in green we can ramp pretty quickly in order to get Rith in play as soon as possible.

This deck can be can play plenty of ways to control the board, up until we are ready to attack with our flight of Dragons to win the game.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual