Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to talk about Far Fortune, End Boss!

Far Fortune is a four mana 4/5 with Start your Engines!, whenever you attack Far Fortune deals 1 damage to each opponent and once you hit Max Speed if a source you control would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls, it deals that much damage plus 1 instead.

A damage increasing Commander is not inherently unique, especially in black and red, but what makes Far Fortune interesting is us needing to be at Max Speed in order to deal extra damage. This adds a bit of an extra game plan for us to get working towards in order to get Far Fortune to be as effective as possible.

So the plan becomes us needing to get to Max Speed as soon as we can, maybe get a couple of benefits from that, and have ways to consistently deal damage to our opponents so that we can effectively burn our opponents.

The first thing that we need to do is get our Speed going so we can hit Max Speed as soon as we can, as well as get some Max Speed benefits later in the game.

Amonkhet Raceway is a solid way for us to get our Speed started early because it is a land that taps for colorless that also has Start Your Engines! and once we happen to have Max Speed, then we can give a creature we control haste.

Avishkar Raceway let’s us to discard a card the draw a card for three mana and Muraganda Raceway can eventually tap for two colorless mana once we hit Max Speed, which again we can get started as early as turn one as a land drop.

Gastal Thrillseeker is pretty solid because not only does it have Start Your Engines! but also when it enters it deals 1 damage to an opponent and gains us 1 life, which then immediately increases our Speed by one increment without having it need to attack while also gaining deathtouch and haste once we hit Max Speed.

Racers’ Scoreboard draws us two cards and then discards a card and once we hit Max Speed our spells cost one mana less to cast, Hazoret, Godseeker can give a creature we control with power 2 or less can’t be blocked and can only attack or block if we have Max Speed, and Kickoff Celebrations has us discard a card to draw two cards and when we have Max Speed we can sacrifice it to give creatures and Vehicles we control haste until end of turn.

The Speed Demon is a way for us to gain an increasing bit of value for us because at the beginning of our end step we draw X cards and lose X life where X is our Speed, meaning that if we somehow don’t get any Speed until The Speed Demon comes into play, at the very least we draw one card and lose 1 life, but it gets better and better the more Speed we accrue.

The next thing we need are ways to deal damage to our opponents, ideally with a way to deal damage via a punisher type of effect.

Harsh Mentor is great for this because we can get it out early and have it so that whenever an opponent activates an ability of an artifact, creature, or land that isn’t a mana ability, Harsh Mentor deals 2 damage to that player.

Agate Instigator is also a great way for us to get little bits of damage in because whenever another creature we control enters it deals 1 damage to each opponent and also happens to have Offspring for two mana, which means we get an additional token copy of it that is a 1/1 with the same effect, turning 1 damage into 2 and then into 4 with Far Fortune in play.

Having gotten cheaper after a while, The Lord of Pain can also get some damage through because whenever a player casts their first spell each turn we choose another target player, and then The Lord of Pain deals damage to that player equal to the mana value of the spell that was cast, and we also prevent our opponents from gaining life.

We also have plenty of access to creatures like Guttersnipe which whenever we cast an instant or sorcery we deal 2 damage to each opponent, Firebrand Archer which deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever we cast a noncreature spell, and Coruscation Mage which deals 1 damage whenever we cast a noncreature spell with Offspring.

As far as other punisher effects that we can make use of, Underworld Dreams and Razorkin Needlehead are good because whenever an opponent draws a card it deals 1 damage to them which also happens to work well with Stormfist Crusader which has each player draw a card at the beginning of our upkeep and lose 1 life, which will trigger the other draw punishers to deal even more damage.

The last thing we need to help us close out the game are other damage increasers and multipliers, since we are only doing minimum 2 damage at a time at Max Speed with Far Fortune in play.

Tor Wauki, the Younger is a solid damage increaser since if we deal noncombat damage with a source we control to a player or permanent then we deal that much damage plus 1 instead, and whenever we cast an instant or sorcery, Tor Wauki deals 2 damage to any target, which combines really well with the lifelink we also happens to have in gaining us a bit of life.

Mechanized Warfare has it so if a red or artifact source we control deals damage to an opponent or permanent that they control it deals that much plus 1 instead, Pain for All has it so that whenever the enchanted creature we control is dealt damage it deals that much damage to each opponent, and of course City on Fire and Fiery Emancipation having sources we control deal triple damage to a permanent or player.

Luckily for us Far Fortune’s ability triggers off of any damage and isn’t limited to noncombat or combat damage meaning we can attack with our creatures to deal even more damage. Mogis, God of Slaughter is pretty good for this as an indestructible 7/5 that at the beginning of an opponent’s upkeep deals 2 damage to them unless they sacrifice a creature.

Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate is a sneaky solid way to reanimate things because whenever they attack we put a +1/+1 counter on them and at the beginning of our end step we return a creature card with mana value less than or equal to Alesha’s power back to the battlefield, meaning that we can return any of our cheap creatures, a solid chunk of them, to the battlefield so long as we attack, which can also potentially help us avoid Commander Tax if Far Fortune is removed.

Far Fortune plays well into a burn type of play style with the caveat that we need to work to have a consistent way to deal an extra bit of damage, that once we do get there then the deck is firing on all cylinders, pun intended.

What is not ideal is us not being able to up our Speed quick enough to get Far Fortune to be active for us to start getting a ton of damage through, even if we do manage our other multipliers. What’s also difficult is that Speed can only be increased on our turn by one step, barring if we manage to deal some damage after we hit the first Start Your Engines!

Ironically it can be a slow mechanic despite us being able to consistently get damage through on our opponent’s turns, and that can make getting to where we need soon enough a bit difficult.

Far Fortune is still a fun way to have a bit of a build around burn Commander that gets better the more burn we have, and can potentially do pretty well at lower powered tables, and even potentially mid powered tables if the deck is tuned enough.

High power is where burn will struggle the most, and Speed is too slow for it to be effective in those higher powered tables, but there is still plenty of fun to be had at lower powered tables, with us being able to get a couple of wins at the very least.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual