Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Samut, Vizier of Naktamun!

Samut is a three mana 2/3 with first strike, vigilance, haste and whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, if that creature entered the battlefield this turn, draw a card.

Samut wants you to go fast, which is not too much of an issue in our colors because we have access to a lot of creatures that happen to have haste. However there are also a couple of tricky ways that we can proc Samut’s ability, especially if we want to draw a ton of cards.

So the plan is pretty simple, get a lot of haste creatures in play in order to attack immediately, especially if they happen to be hard to block, and have a few tricky ways to take advantage of how Samut is worded, and draw us into our win conditions.

The first thing we need are the haste creatures that can be difficult to interact with or cheap to cast.

Questing Beast is an excellent creature for this deck because there are a lot of pieces of relevant text that help us get damage through. It has haste so it can attack immediately to get a trigger off of Samut, it can’t be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less and with it having deathtouch makes it a difficult block, and it makes it so that combat damage from our creatures can’t be prevented so any Fog effects are null against us if people get tricky.

As far as cheap haste creatures go, Reinforced Ronin is a creature that I do enjoy because it is a one mana 2/2 with haste that returns to our hand at the beginning of the end step, so we can potentially get multiple triggers from Samut, and if we need to we can discard it to draw a card.

Ruby, Daring Tracker has haste, can tap for a red or a green mana, and whenever Ruby attacks while we control a creature with power 4 or greater she gets +2/+2, which when combined with something like Enduring Courage can be great because it gives creatures +2/+0 and haste when that creature enters so it can make our non-haste creature able to attack, with a power boost to boot.

We can also lean into giving our creature haste with Urabrask the Hidden which gives creatures we control haste and has creatures our opponents control enter tapped or with something like Rhythm of the Wild which makes it so our creature spells can’t be countered and gives nontoken creatures we control Riot, which can give +1/+1 counters to our creatures that already have haste and haste to those that don’t.

The next thing are the tricky ways for us to get damage through with creatures that just entered the battlefield.

While we don’t have much of it, we do have a couple of creatures with Ninjutsu, which replaces an unblocked creature with the new creature that is tapped and attacking. Yuffie, Materia Hunter is a great shock for unexpecting opponents because when Yuffie enters we gain control of noncreature artifact an opponent controls as long as we control Yuffie.

We have access to three other Ninjutsu cards with Coiling Stalker that when it deals combat damage to a player it adds a +1/+1 counter to a creature we control without a +1/+1 counter, Spring-Leaf Avenger bringing a permanent from our graveyard to our hand when it deals combat damage, and Kappa Tech-Wrecker which when it deals combat damage to a player we can remove the deathtouch counter it enters with and when we do we exile an artifact or enchantment an opponent controls.

The other way we can take advantage of Samut’s ability are ways to make tokens that can either attack or enter tapped and attacking. Loyal Apprentice is great because at the beginning of combat on our turn, if we control our Commander then we make a 1/1 Thopter with flying and it gains haste until end of turn.

Elturel Survivors is another way to take advantage of tokens entering and attacking because it has Myriad, which makes a token copy of itself that is attacking each opponent that the original isn’t attacking, and what’s helpful there is that when they attack they get +X/+0 where X is the number of lands defending player controls and they also have trample to make sure damage gets through.

If we want to get a bit cute, we can also use Hanweir Garrison to attack and make two tapped and attacking 1/1 Human tokens and Meld it with Hanweir Battlements, which can also give a creature we control haste, into Hanweir, the Writhing Township which has trample, haste, and makes two 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens that are tapped and attacking.

The last thing we need are ways to get more damage in, especially since our creatures tend to err on the smaller side of things.

Deathleaper, Terror Weapon is perfect because we can cast it at flash speed, it has haste, and it gives creatures we control that entered the battlefield this turn double strike, meaning that our smaller creatures can potentially get rid of blockers and our bigger creatures can get more damage through, especially if those creatures have trample.

To help us get even more power through while also giving a bit of resilience is Primal Forcemage, which has it so that whenever a creature enters the battlefield under our control that creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn, which when combined with Deathleaper can be pretty devastating.

Gruul War Chant gives attacking creatures we control +1/+0 and menace, Rhonas’s Monument makes our green creature spells one mana cheaper and whenever we cast a creature spell we give a creature +2/+2 and trample until end of turn, and Legion Loyalist has it so when we attack with it and at least two other creatures we give creatures we control first strike and trample and they can’t be blocked by creature tokens this turn.

If we really want to get crazy with potentially a lot of creatures, then we can also play Mirror March. This card has it so that when a creature we control enters, we flip a coin until we lose a flip and for each coin flip we won, we create a token copy of that creature that gains haste until end of turn and is exiled at the beginning of the end step.

We can also use Tempt with Vengeance towards the end game because we can dump a ton of mana into it to make X 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste, and then each opponent can then make X 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste, and for each opponent who does we make another X 1/1 Elemental tokens with haste, which when combined with something like the previously mentioned Legion Loyalist can potentially win us the game.

Samut is a guideline Commander that provides a lot of value, meaning that there is a clear path to how we want to play Samut in playing creatures that can attack immediately or enter attacking and we get rewarded for dealing combat damage.

As is the case with aggro decks, it can be difficult to win because of the number of players we are dealing with and the amount of damage that also needs to be dealt in order for us to win. While we can find some sneaky ways to get a bit of extra damage in, we need to be aware that a surprise works only once.

If we play the deck multiple times against the same play group or even against a group of savvy players, the deck can be controlled by targeted removal or ways to get rid a bunch of attacking creatures we control.

Board wipes aren’t too much of an issue with the deck since Samut triggers off of creatures we control that entered the battlefield not ones that are still on the battlefield, though over time losing Samut over and over again can be a bit annoying to deal with.

This is an aggro deck that is all gas, no brakes, which is as I have learned is a play style that I personally really enjoy. Samut rewards our creatures dealing damage, which means our opponents will need to play more reactively, which we can take into account and still manage to make it out on top.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual