Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be taking a look at Loot, the Anomaly!

Loot is a three mana -2/4 with if Lot’s power is negative, he assigns combat damage as though his power were positive and a Threshold ability of being able to sacrifice another creature or Planeswalker to give Loot -2/-0 until end of turn that we can only activate if there are seven or more cards in our graveyard.

Game Plan

When I first saw this Loot, I was absolutely perplexed at the design space that this Loot happened to operate in. Then my mind began to wander about the possibilities that this particular Loot can explore.

One of the major things about this Loot is that we can play cards that make him very difficult to interact with while we pile on some effects that would normally reduce his power, but instead make him much more effective at winning us the game through Commander Damage.

Support

The first thing we need are as many ways to reduce Loot’s power as much as possible, and there are a lot of them that we have access to that are pretty cheap to cast.

For example, Despondency is a two mana Aura that gives the enchanted creature -2/-0 and when it is put into the graveyard from play we can return it to our hand. So not only do we have an Aura that gives a decent boost for Loot, but also if Loot is removed from the battlefield, we have a way to give that boost back.

Torment and Greel’s Caress are both two mana Aura’s that give the enchanted creature -3/-0 with Greel’s Caress having flash, meaning that if we really want to, we can have Loot be a surprise attacker or blocker with a sizeable boost.

Belbe’s Armor is one of the early takes on how Magic would do Equipment before actually doing Equipment by having an activated ability that costs X and tap to give target creature -X/+X until the end of turn. For Loot, this is essentially an artifact that gives +X/+X until end of turn.

We also have cards that we can use defensively or offensively depending on the situation. For example, Tragic Slip normally gives -1/-1 to a creature until end of turn, but if a creature died this turn then the Morbid ability of it activates making that a -13/-13 until end of turn, which can be a minor boost for Loot or a powerful removal spell if we do sacrifice a creature to Loot’s ability to fuel the Morbid trigger.

Darkblast can also help us get to our Threshold limit because it would normally give a creature -1/-1 until end of turn, however it also happens to have dredge 3, which means we mill three cards instead of drawing a card and we put it back in our hand to use again when we need it.

There is also uses for some interesting stax pieces like Ensnaring Bridge, which makes it so that creatures with power greater than the number of cards in our hand can’t attack. Since ideally Loot’s power never gets above 0, he can attack all he wants while we can have no cards in hand to keep our opponent’s aggressive decks in check.

We can even use a card like Heartless Summoning to get a two mana discount on creature spells we cast, all at the cost of creatures we control getting -1/-1, which isn’t that bad of a cost for Loot. What’s more, it can be useful for the cheap creature suite we have like Stitcher’s Supplier mill us three cards when it enters or dies or Shambling Ghast to give a creature our opponent’s control -1/-1 or make a Treasure token.

Setbacks

Since our goal is to attach Loot with as many ways to reduce his power as possible, being essentially a Voltron strategy, the main concern would be of course making sure that we can protect Loot.

While getting Loot back into play isn’t a difficult task with something like Grave Researcher which if set up properly can allow us to Reanimate every turn, Loot will still probably be an early target if your opponents realize what you are doing.

Another flaw in this particular strategy is that a lot of our ways to reduce Loot’s power are either Aura’s that can attach to him or one time instants that are a little harder for us to get back. We may be able to deal enough damage against one opponent, but we may struggle with the rest of our opponents.

The major flaw of a Voltron strategy is presented very clearly in Loot with us needing to make sure that we can deal enough damage so we can win the game, and in our colors we have a very hard time securing that without some more niche cards like Genji Glove, which would be the only way we can get an additional combat and double strike for the equipped creature that doesn’t provide a positive boost.

Another downside is that while it is tempting to put a bunch of cards that give -X/-X, we have to be careful which ones we include because while Loot does gain a bonus if his power is negative, he still dies if his toughness gets to zero or lower.

Bracket Rating: 2

I think that Loot makes for an interesting deck that can play some underused cards and can be a fun time, however I do think that the deck is still overall very fragile and will struggle against decks that are faster.

What’s more Loot may have a difficult time winning consistently, as he is able to win against one player, but if we happen to be tapped out then we are going to not have a great time.

Still, Loot is a unique take on a Voltron Commander in that we are using cards that would normally not be useful in Commander and turning them into value Auras that can potentially win us the game.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual