Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Wick, the Whorled Mind!

Wick is a four mana 2/4 that when Wick or another Rat you control enters, create a 1/1 black Snail creature token if your don’t control a Snail, otherwise put a +1/+1 counter on a Snail you control and for a blue, black, and red and sacrifice a Snail, Wick deals damage equal to the sacrificed creature’s power to each opponents then draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature’s power.

Wick wants to make a massive Snail that can be shot at each opponent in order to deal a massive amount of damage and draw a bunch of cards, and I think we can figure out a way to get the Snail to be massive enough so that one activation could do.

The game plan is to get one massive Snail in play, get a ton of Rats in play as often as we can, and then we boost the Snail up as much as we can so we need only one or two activations to sacrifice the Snail and win the game.

The first thing we need are ways to get a ton of Rats in play, and thankfully Wick triggers with any Rats entering.

This means that using a repeatable token effect like Pack Rat works wonders for us because we can pay three mana and discard a card to make a token copy of Pack Rat, who’s power and toughness is determined by the number of Rats we control, so they also work well on defense.

Speaking of making Rat tokens, Song of Totentanz is a great card for the mid-game because we can pay a good chunk of mana to make X 1/1 Rat tokens that can’t block when Wick and the Snail are in play in order to give the Snail a massive boost in power as well as attack because all of our creatures also gain haste.

Lord Skitter, Sewer King has it so that whenever another Rat enters under our control we exile a card from an opponent’s graveyard, and it also happens to self fuel itself because at the beginning of combat on our turn we make a 1/1 Rat token that can’t block, but that just adds more fuel for the Snail.

Since we are also talking about exiling things, Vren, the Relentless exiles creatures out opponents control when they die and at the beginning of each end step we make X 1/1 Rat tokens that get +1/+1 for each other Rat we control where X is the number of creatures our opponents controlled that were exiled this turn.

We can even rely on our Rats as a potential back up win with Ogre Chitterlord, which when it enters or attacks we create two 1/1 Rat tokens that can’t block then if we control five or more Rats then each Rat we control gets +2/+0 until end of turn, which we can swing for a decent bit of damage.

The next thing we need are ways we can give more +1/+1 counters to the Snail, as well as ways we can protect it from being destroyed.

Kick in the Door is a simple enough way to give a +1/+1 counter to target creature, also giving that creature haste until end of turn and it can’t be blocked by Walls this turn, while also giving us a bit of value in being able to venture in the dungeon.

Professor’s Warning acts a modal way to either give a creature a +1/+1 counter or indestructible until end of turn, Slip Out the Back gives a creature a +1/+1 counter and then has the creature phase out meaning that the Snail keeps their counters and doesn’t die or disappear, and Jailbreak Scheme can potentially put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and make it so it can’t be blocked and/or bounces an artifact or creature a player controls to the top or bottom of their library.

Spoils of War can be a really good, if a bit tricky card to use because we need to pay X with X being the number of creatures and/or artifacts in an opponent’s graveyard as we cast it, but we get to distribute X +1/+1 counters to any number of creatures we control, which will all go to the Snail of course.

We can also manage a massive life swing if we use something like Essence Infusion, which puts two +1/+1 counters on a creature and gives that creature lifelink until end of turn, and if we feel safe attacking with the Snail, then we can definitely take a massive swing to gain a bunch of life while also getting the Snail bigger. We can also make the effect more long lasting if we use Unexpected Fangs, which only gives one +1/+1 counter but also gives the creature a lifelink counter.

The last thing we need are ways we can deal as much damage as we can so that we need as few activations from Wick as possible.

Starfield Vocalist may seem like an odd pick at first, but if a permanent entering the battlefield causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, it triggers again, which means that we get more counters on our Snail.

This goes for any other similar effect like Panharmonicon the classic example of the effect and Virtue of Knowledge to get an additional Panharmonicon effect while also having Vantress Visions as an Adventure to copy Wick’s activated ability to deal even more damage to our opponents.

Speaking of copying Wick’s ability, we can use Gogo, Master of Mimicry which can copy an activated or triggered ability X times, where X can’t be zero while also not being able to copy Gogo’s ability either, but in the end game it can be just enough to copy Wick’s ability.

If we can’t get the Snail to a decent power, we can take advantage of damage multiplier cards like City on Fire which has it so that when a source we control would deal damage to a permanent or player then we deal triple that damage instead, which also increases with something like Furnace of Rath which doubles the damage and Dictate of the Twin Gods also has it so that sources we control deal double damage while also having flash.

Wick is a Commander that benefits from how prevalent Rat synergies are at making a lot of Rats in order to make a massive Snail that becomes essentially a ticking time bomb that your opponents need to deal with sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately that can be pretty soon since the token and Wick don’t have inherent protection, and since we want both of them to be in play we may be spreading our protection spells pretty thin if we want both to stay. This means that if we only have one protection spell, we have to make a choice and save only one.

Ideally we should save the token because Wick’s ability triggers when he or another Rat we control enters, meaning we can cast him again to give the Snail a +1/+1 counter, but we have to make sure that the Snail stays alive for that entire time.

Even with all of that said, Wick is a fun way to expand on a typal strategy by adding a win condition/card advantage engine ability to be able to deal damage and draw cards if we sacrifice a big Snail, and it does provide a nice deviation from the usual go wide aggro or combo nature that typal decks tend to end up being, though go wide aggro does provide a secondary way for us to win.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual