Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Kellan, the Kid!

Kellan is a three mana 3/3 with flying, lifelink, and whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand you may cast a permanent spell with equal or lesser mana value from your hand without paying its mana cost and if you don’t, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.

An interesting take on an exile Commander by adding a way for us to cheat things into play whenever we play something from exile, ideally cheap permanents that provide some sort of value like a mana rock or a way to draw us cards or at the worst a land.

What we are going to do is to set up cards that we want to cast from exile, all the while holding onto some decently cheap permanents that we want to cheat into play that give a value of some sort, accruing value until we get a solid value engine to cheat things out consistently.

The first thing we need are ways to get things into exile that we can cast for cheap or for free if possible.

Make Your Own Luck is a solid card that let’s us look at the top three cards of our library and exiles a nonland card from among them and if we do that spell becomes plotted while putting the rest into our hand. This can also help us set us up to get a permanent into our hand that we can get for free from the plotted spell.

Step Between Worlds is a bit risky since it gives the option for each player to shuffle their graveyards and hands into their library in order to draw seven cards, but it is five mana to cast and six mana to Plot so we could cast it for free later to set us up in a better position either way.

Plot is not the only way we can cast cards from our of our hand, and Venture Forth is actually a solid way to make use of a Suspend spell that actually has a mana value and it lets us exile cards from the top of our library until we hit a land card and then we put that land onto the battlefield with the rest going to the bottom of our library in a random order and it also exiles itself with three time counters so we can do it again.

Foretell is another way for us to cast cards from out of our hand, and if we really want to take advantage of getting a free permanent our of our hands, then Alrund’s Epiphany works wonders because we make two 1/1 Bird tokens with flying and take an extra turn, and since it is normally seven mana we can cheat a decent sized permanent into play.

Deep Analysis has Flashback that is cheaper than its mana value and it let’s us draw two cards, Beanstalk Giant has the Adventure Fertile Footsteps that let’s us get a basic land onto the battlefield while it itself has power and toughness equal to the number of lands we control, and Starwinder has a Warp of four mana and whenever a creature we control deals combat damage to a player we draw that many cards.

The next thing we need are the permanents that we want to cheat out, and I think leaning a bit into Planeswalkers can be one of our better options.

Archangel Elspeth is solid because she makes a 1/1 Soldier with lifelink, can put two +1/+1 counters on a creature and makes it an Angel and gives it flying, and we can then return all nonland permanents with mana value three or less from our graveyard to the battlefield.

To help us control the board, we can also use Teferi, Time Raveler which makes it so that each opponent can only cast spells at sorcery speed, let’s us cast sorcery spells as though they had flash until our next turn, and can bounce an artifact, creature, or enchantment to their owner’s hand and draw a card.

Teyo, the Shieldmage gives us hexproof and can make 0/3 Walls with defender, Dovin, Hand of Control makes artifacts, instants, and sorceries our opponents cast cost one more to cast and prevents all combat damage dealt by a creature an opponent controls for a turn, and Narset, Parter of Veils can make it so our opponents can only draw one card each turn and let’s us dig for a noncreature, nonland card and puts it into out hand after revealing it if you don’t mind a Game Changer.

While I do think that Planeswalkers will be the primary game plan, we can still make use of other cheap permanents that help us control the board like Rod of Absorption which has it so whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery that spell is exiled as it resolves and we can pay X, tap and sacrifice it to cast any number of spells exiled with it with total mana value X without paying their mana costs.

Ghostly Prison and Propaganda can make it so that our opponents need to pay two mana for each creature that attacks us, Temporary Lockdown exiles each permanent with mana value two or less until it leaves the battlefield, and Future Sight which lets us play the top card of our library though we do play with the top of our library revealed.

The last thing we need are ways to continuously let us get value from casting spells from exile.

Chimil, the Inner Sun is excellent because not only do we discover 5 at the beginning of our end step, but spells we control can’t be countered, which means we can be a bit more flexible on casting things whenever we want.

Apex Devastator is also a great way to get multiple payoffs from Kellen because it has cascade four times, meaning that we can get four permanents onto the battlefield in addition to casting four free spells or get four lands onto the battlefield after casting four spells for free.

We can even make use of our opponents spells with Spelljack, which counters target spell and exiles it, and we can play that spell for as long as it remains exiled and we can cast it for free, meaning that if an opponent plays an expensive spell that would make them win the game, we can instead take it and set us ahead and potentially win as well.

One with the Multiverse is also a solid choice for us because we look at the top card of our library at any point, play lands and cast spells from the top of our library, and once during each our turns we can cast a spell from our hand or the top of our library for free.

Since some of our big payoff spells are expensive to cast, we can also make use of Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty, which has cascade and spells we control with mana value six or greater also have cascade, which again just gives us more free things to play.

Kellan provides a vale engine with casting cards from places other than our hand, and the fact that we can cheat out cheaper costing permanents makes it better because we can gain even more value each turn, even if it is just another land.

The difficult thing is making sure that we have something in our hand that we can get out after casting a spell from outside of our hand, which means that we need a decent amount of card draw or ways to refill our hand, which isn’t difficult in our colors but can be a point to hate us out if our opponents play discard spells or prevent us from drawing.

What’s more, our game plan is a slow accrual of value, meaning that quick aggro decks are going to make it much more difficult for us if we don’t have a land or a permanent to put onto the battlefield. Our deckbuilding parameters of having a decent balance of things to put into play along with cards to facilitate that will be tested.

If we manage to get that balance correct, then we can get a bunch of things in play that give us enough value that we can use it to overwhelm our opponents and win the game. A battle of attrition that we have a chance of winning.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual