Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be taking a look at Tromokratis!

Tromokratis is a seven mana 8/8 that has hexproof unless it’s attacking or blocking and it can’t be blocked unlass all creatures defending player controls block it.

Game Plan

Now when I first read the ability I thought that it was just ok in that an opponent can have all of their small guys block after having their important ones already tapped to avoid it.

Then I reread it and looked at the rulings and realized that no, the opponent literally needs all of their creatures to block Tromokratis, and if there is one that is unable to block for any reason, then Tromokratis cannot be blocked.

I really like this as an interesting way to build a blue aggro Commander because it let’s you mess around with how combat works in order to get a big creature in to do a massive amount of Commander Damage to win the game.

Support

The idea for Tromokratis is to make sure that our opponents are unable to have at minimum one creature able to block us for some reason, and our best resource to do so in blue is to tap our opponents creatures down.

We have tons of ways to tap down our opponents creatures for really cheap like Rush of Ice to tap down an opponent’s creature and prevent them from untapping on their next turn, giving us at least one additional attack against them, and the bonus Awaken value if we so need it.

Dream’s Grip can be really good for us because it can let us tap or untap target permanent and for one extra mana we can Entwine both effects to tap a creature an opponent controls so we can attack them and untap a land or beneficial creature or Tromokratis as we need it.

Flood is probably one of the better ways for us to tap down creatures because it is an enchantment that for two blue mana can tap target creature without flying, or Ensnare as a way to tap down all creatures at the end of an opponents turn so you can have a free swing either for four mana or return two Islands to our hand to cast it.

The best card for us is something like Frozen Aether, which has it so that artifacts, creatures, and lands our opponents control enter tapped, which if our opponent is playing a deck that relies on creatures or artifacts, we can make it much more of a pain to do so.

We can also make use of Clone effects so we can get more copies of Tromkratis, which while they will not count for the Commander Damage aspect, we can still use to deal a ton of damage to our opponents who won’t be able to have all of their creatures block, especially if we use something like Auton Soldier which has myriad.

There are also plenty of Aura’s that allow Tromokratis some additional benefits like Eel Umbra which gives the enchanted creature +1/+1 and umbra armor, which also happens to have flash so we can us it in response to a kill spell in that period of time when Tromokratis doesn’t have hexproof.

Aqueous Form is also a solid option for us because it does bypass the restriction that all creatures need to be blocking Tromokratis in order to be unblockable because it makes the enchanted creature unblockable, and let’s us scry 1 when the enchanted creature attacks.

Setbacks

The primary reason most people aren’t seeing Tromokratis running roughshod in their Commander games is because it is seven mana to cast, and while it does have limited protection, it generally isn’t enough.

Blue has a hard enough time working up to that much mana, even while having access to something like High Tide to give a ton of mana on a single turn, and that’s because a lot of blue ramp is very conditional.

It either can be used to cast noncreature spells or for activated abilities or they don’t add blue mana and add only colorless, which isn’t that bad in a mono blue deck, but it is still something to consider for a deck that tends to be blue pip heavy.

There are cards that allow us to untap lands, but ideally we are using the tapping effects of those cards in order to get Tromokratis to attack.

There is also the case of Tromokratis having very conditional protection. While it is fine when it isn’t attacking or blocking, an opponent can still send a kill spell when they are attacking or blocking in order for us to use one one of our ways to protect it, which we do have access to, but not all the time.

It also doesn’t help that since this deck focuses on one big creature, we absolutely fold to a go wide deck that can have a ton of small creatures block us, redeploy, and swing for a bunch of lethal damage while Tromokratis is tapped out or was killed because it was blocked and we didn’t have a way to protect it.

Bracket Rating: 1

Tromokratis is a Commander that has an interesting way to handle combat and to protect itself, however both cases are so very conditional that it can’t be much higher than Bracket 1 in the best of times.

It can win, however the deck is slow and will need time to get up to the point where it can win. It is still a fun build around as a mono blue aggro Commander, just for a much more casual group.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual