Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be talking about Winter Soldier, Icy Assassin!

Winter Soldier is a two mana 2/2 with vigilance and menace, gets +2/+0 for each Equipment attached to him and for five mana you return him from the graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter and then you may attach an Equipment you control to him.

Game Plan

While white does have plenty of cards that deal with Equipments, black has recently had some support with regards to Equipment, especially within the Marvel set, so that means we have several additional tools that we can work with.

Our ideal game plan is to get a good number of Equipment in play, have ways to get them on the Winter Soldier, and maybe some additional benefits from Winter Soldier attacking alone as our Commander.

Support

Since we want to get Equipment attached to Winter Soldier, we should take into account the various ways we can do so.

Sigarda’s Aid is the initial choice because it allows us to cast Auras and Equipment spells as though they had flash and whenever an Equipment we control enter we may attach it to target creature we control, which is very helpful for us to flash in a way to potentially have Winter Soldier survive an attack coming our way.

Brass Squire is also a solid card for us because we can tap them in order to attach an Equipment we control to target creature we control, so if Winter Soldier is coming into play after coming back or if we had set up an Equipment beforehand, we can attach it promptly.

Weapons Vendor works well for us as well because when it enters we draw a card and at the beginning of combat on our turn if we control an Equipment, we can pay one mana to attach an Equipment we control to target creature we control.

Puresteel Paladin and Kili the Resourceful are excellent ways for us to get Equipment to have a 0 Equip cost, if we have three artifacts in play for Metalcraft for Puresteel Paladin and if we have enduring story for Kili and only for the first Equip ability we use each turn.

We have a decent variety of Equipment to choose from, with some new includes being Lich’s Relic, which when it enters we can pay two mana to destroy a creature or Planeswalker each opponent controls while also giving the equipped creature +2/+1 with Equip 2.

Sting, Bilbo’s Sword is also pretty cool in that it has flash and when it enters we put a hone counter on it for each creature an opponent controls, which means that the Equipment now adds a +1/+0 for each hone counter on it, and we can attach it to target creature we control.

Excalibur, Sword of Eden is also great for us because it costs X mana less to cast where X is the total mana value of historic permanents we control, which should be a good amount, and it gives the equipped creature +10/+0 and vigilance with Equip legendary creature 2.

If we want to win purely through Commander Damage then we can use cards like Black Widow, Double Agent which makes it so that whenever a creature we control attacks alone then it gains first strike and menace until the end of turn.

Squall, SeeD Mercenary has a similar ability that makes it so that whenever a creature we control attacks alone, then it gains double strike until end of turn, with the additional benefit that if Squal deals combat damage to an opponent then we can return target permanent card with mana value three or less from the graveyard to the battlefield, which can include Winter Soldier.

Setbacks

It is helpful that we are in the colors that can reanimate creatures fairly cheaply because odds are Winter Soldier will draw the ire of our opponents if we are swinging for a massive amount of damage or are threatening to swing for a lot of damage.

We also need to deal with cards that don’t remove or destroy the Winter Soldier, but delay us like Frozen in Ice, which makes it so that Winter Soldier is still in play, but can’t do anything or benefit from Equipment we control.

While there are ways our Equipment can protect Winter Soldier, we do need to attach them to Winter Soldier in order to do so, which leaves an opportunity for our opponents to cast a removal spell, which could waste our mana or waste a potential activation.

What’s more, we also need to make sure that our Equipment stays in play, which can be difficult against some decks that happen to play mass artifact removal or even targeted removal against artifacts.

We do have ways to protect our things, but just because we have access to ways of protecting our things doesn’t mean that we will always have those things.

There are a lot of ways we can reanimate Winter Soldier fairly cheaply, even through his own ability, we would rather have our mana up to cast more Equipment spells or attach the Equipment that we have in play to Winter Soldier to go through our opponents.

Voltron Commanders will also struggle making sure that we can beat our opponents in swift fashion because while we can probably get rid of one player through Commander Damage, that paints a large target onto Winter Soldier, making him a threat that needs to be answered swiftly, which can delay us from actually winning the game.

Bracket Rating: High 2, Low 3

I like Winter Soldier adding some more dimension to black and white in being an Equipment Commander that has a way to reanimate themselves while gaining some sort of benefit, while also being fairly cheap to cast in order to start getting the damage in early.

The difficulty is making sure that we can close out the game by beating all of our opponents as soon as possible. Once we become the threat, we need to make sure that we have ways to protect ourselves, otherwise we need to rebuild before our opponents can take advantage of us losing momentum.

Equipment Commanders are fun to play with, especially wit hthe variety of Equipment that exist, but tough to win in highly interactive brackets.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual