Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Sokka, Tenacious Tactician!

Sokka is a four mana 3/3 with menace, prowess, gives other Allies you control menace and prowess, and whenever you cast a noncreature spell you create a 1/1 white Ally creature token.

With the Avatar set coming around the corner, I wanted to start talking about a couple of the Commanders that I find personally interesting. This Sokka is one of them because it presents an interesting mix of a go wide Commander, a typal Commander, and a spell slinger Commander in which that having all three on one card makes for a easy enough build around.

The with the way that Sokka works, we can actually have fewer creatures in our deck then normal and work on casting a bunch of cheap noncreature spells to fill up our board with Sokka’s ability to make Allies, add in some ways to get some cheeky extra damage, add some rituals to keep the spell casting going, and then swing wide with an army of Allies.

Allies Aplenty

The first thing that we need to consider for the deck are the Allies that we are going to be including, which isn’t going to be a majority of the deck so we need to be a bit selective.

Avatar Enthusiasts is actually pretty solid for us because whenever another Ally we control enters, then we put a +1/+1 counter on it, and since Sokka makes Allies whenever we cast a noncreature spell, we can get make it into a decent sized creature.

There has been some decent Ally support over the years, with Seascape Aerialist being a great way for us to give our creatures a form of evasion because whenever it or another Ally we control enters then we can give Ally creatures we control flying until end of turn.

We have plenty more Allies that have similar types of abilities like Chasm Guide giving our creatures haste when they or another Ally we control enters, Akoum Battlesinger to give Ally creatures we control +1/+0 until end of turn when they or another Ally we control enters, and Resolute Blademaster to give creatures we control double strike whenever they or another Ally we control enters.

Halimar Excavator can be a neat piece of disruption and a secondary win condition because whenever they or another Ally we control enters, then target player mills X cards where X is the number of Allies we control, which should be a decent amount when we’re done.

Speaking of having a lot of Allies, Sun Warriors plays excellently with our deck since it has firebending X where X is the number of creatures we control, which means we gain X red mana when it attacks that lasts until the end of combat, which if we have nothing else to spend it on in that turn we can use five mana to make another Ally creature token.

In a similar vein, Iroh, Dragon of the West has a similar function in that at the beginning of combat on our turn, we can give creatures we control that have counters on them firebending 2 until end of turn, and we can give some counters with Iroh’s Mentor ability.

Slinging Spells

Now that we have our Allies in place, we next need to look at the spells that we want to cast.

Some to consider are the zero cost spells like Mishra’s Bauble, which we can sacrifice to look at the top card of a player’s library and then draw a card at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep. This can be a nice cheap way to peek at a card from an opponent or even ourselves if we need it and then get a card back.

Since we need noncreature spells to make more Allies with Sokka, as well as to get all of those prowess triggers, we can’t use the zero mana artifact creatures like Ornithopter and Memnite, but we can use Darksteel Relic, a zero mana artifact that is indestructible to help up our spell count.

If you happen to have access to them, there are also the various Moxen that are legally available in Commander like Chrome Mox which has us exile a nonland, nonartifact card to get a Mox that taps for mana of the exiled card’s color, Mox Amber to tap for a mana of a color of a legendary creature we control, and for a more “budget” friendly Mox there is Mox Tantalite which has Suspend 3 for zero mana so we can get a Mox in three turns.

Speaking of Suspend cards, we can use those sorts of spells along with other “free” spells to keep a decent amount of mana available to keep casting spells. Wheel of Fate is one of the better options because it has a cheap Suspend 4 cost of two mana, but when we do cast it then it has every player discard their hand and then draw seven cards, which since we are going to be playing with some light hands works well for us to maintain card advantage.

Ancestral Vision can draw us three cards, Inevitable Betrayal can steal creature from an opponents deck and let’s us cheat it into play on our side, Force of Rage can give us two 3/1 Elemental creature tokens with trample and haste that we sacrifice at the beginning of our next upkeep, and Abolish to let us discard a Plains to destroy an artifact or enchantment.

Of course there is the reliable way of just casting spells normally, and I personally would opt for some modal spells to make sure that we have our bases covered as much as possible, with Azorius Charm being a solid example by either giving our creatures lifelink, drawing us a card, or putting an attacking or blocking creature on top of that player’s library.

Abrade can deal 3 damage to a creature or destroy an artifact, Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast to counter a blue or red spell or destroy a blue or red permanent respectively, and Dawn Charm to prevent combat damage that would be dealt this turn, regenerate a creature, or counter target spell that targets us are some decent cards to consider.

Protect the Board

Now the deck’s biggest weakness is us having made a massive commitment to the board and having everything we control get removed and ways that keep us from casting a lot of spells.

Chaos Warp can do pretty well in removing things from the board since we can have the owner of target permanent shuffle it into their library and reveal the top card of their library, and if that permanent was a permanent that it’s put onto the battlefield, which can be risky, but can also be a way to get something off the board at a decent rate.

Generous gift can also work pretty well for us since we can use it to get rid of any permanent and have the owner of that permanent get a 3/3 Elephant in return. In a similar vein their is also Pongify, which only targets creatures, but can destroy that creature and makes a 3/3 Ape token instead.

Our primary concern is making sure our creatures stay on the board. Clever Concealment is great in this regard because we can cast it with Convoke, and since our Allies are white we can pay the colored mana cost to play it, and have any number of nonland permanents we control phase out.

If we want to just prevent board wipes that destroy our creatures, then we can use something like Dawn’s Truce, which can give permanents we control hexproof, but if we Gift a card to an opponent then we can also give our permanents indestructible until end of turn as well.

Perch Protection may be a bit expensive to cast, but if we do and we Gift an extra turn to another player, then we can make four 2/2 Bird tokens with flying and if we promised a gift then all permanents we control phase out and our life total can’t change and we have protection from everything.

This leads nicely onto the Game Changers, where if you want a Game Changer in the deck that does what Perch Protection does for much cheaper then we can use Teferi’s Protection, which does the same thing that Perch Protection does, except we don’t make Bird tokens and its only three mana instead of six mana.

Another Game Changer to consider are cards like Fierce Guardianship, which if we control a Commander we can cast for free and we can use it to counter a noncreature spell or Cyclonic Rift to either bounce one thing an opponent controls or everything our opponents control to clear the board for us to win.

If you are feeling daring, then you can lean the deck into a more spell slinging style and use Underworld Breach as a way to cast a ton of spells again since it gives nonland cards in our graveyard Escape for its mana cost and exiling three other cards from our graveyard, combine it with some rituals to make a bunch of Ally tokens, get a lot of prowess triggers, and work to win the game.

Allied Attack

Now we need to win the game, and we actually have a decent variety of options available to us.

One of better ways we can go about it is through extra combat spells, like Great Train Heist, and since its a Spree card we can invest as much mana as we can to get as many benefits as we can, with the primary use being able to untap all creatures we control and gain an additional combat phase if it is the combat phase, give creatures we control +1/+0 and first strike until end of turn, and/or have it so when our creatures deal damage to target opponent we make a Treasure token.

Aggravated Assault can also be an effective way for us to sink a lot of mana in if we don’t have too many spells to cast since for five mana we can untap all creatures we control and after this main phase there is an additional combat phase and followed by an additional main phase, which while we can only activate it at sorcery speed, it can still be really effective.

Since we are also making a ton of tokens, we can use something like Warleader’s Call, which is an anthem that gives creatures we control +1/+1 and whenever a creature we control enters, Warleader’s Call deals 1 damage to each opponent.

While it doesn’t give the anthem, Impact Tremors can be really helpful to play early on since it also deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever a creature we control enters and if we want to be a bit more selective, then Warstorm Surge can be excellent since whenever another creature we control enters we deal damage equal to its power to any target.

If we want to lean on the spell slinger route, then Thousand Year Storm can be great for some extra shenanigans since whenever we cast an instant or sorcery spell , we copy it for each other instant and sorcery we cast this turn, choosing new targets if we want as well and can really make for a zany board.

We can also take advantage of something like Ral, Crackling Wit, which gets a loyalty counter whenever we cast a noncreature spell, and can make a 1/1 Otter with prowess, draw us three cards and then discard two, or what we are aiming to get, the ultimate of drawing three cards and then getting an emblem that gives instants and sorcery spells we have Storm, which while they won’t trigger making tokens from Sokka or prowess, it can still be a great way to build the deck to take advantage of all the spells we are casting.

In Conclusion

The new Avatar set has brought about a lot of interesting and neat Commanders to play around with, and this Sokka is pretty neat.

While it can be pretty linear in some regards to playing a lot of spells to make a lot of Allies that we can use for combat, it can be played around with a bit depending on how much you want to deviate from the path.

If you want to focus on typal then you can take some of the cheap spells out and add more Ally and generic typal synergies, whereas if you want to focus on the spell slinger aspect of the deck then you go the opposite direction and build a pseudo Storm deck that happens to have a token payoff, or do some creative things involving cheap bounce spells and free artifacts to get a lot of triggers from Sokka, there is some ways to play Sokka.

The main concern from the deck does come from board wipes if we are leaning into the go wide aspect of the deck or ways that prevent us from casting a lot of spells if we want to lean more towards the spell slinger aspect.

While we have cards that can deal with it, it does become a bit tougher if we use them and another board wipe or tax effect comes into play.

Still, Sokka has enough flexibility as a Commander to switch up how you want to play the deck and make for an interesting enough deck that you don’t get bored. It may not be as flashy as some other decks, but with a bit of hard work, Sokka can manage to pull through.

Thank you all for reading, see you next week for the next Weekly Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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