Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to take a look at Arthur, Marigold Knight!

Arthur is a five mana 4/5 with haste and whenever Arthur and at least one other creature attacks, look at the top six cards of your library. You may put a creature card from among them onto the battlefield tapped and attacking while putting the rest of the cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. Return that creature to its owner’s hand at the end of combat.

Game Plan

Arthur is playing into an aggressive strategy that wants strong enters the battlefield triggers or combat damage triggers from the creatures that it happens to pull in. What’s more, we can also potentially reuse those powerful effects again when those creatures return to our hands.

Our plan is simple enough, make sure we have creature in play that can attack with Arthur, have a solid density of creatures that we want to cheat out with Arthur’s ability, and maybe have a way to sneak those creatures back into our library or back onto the battlefield.

Support

The first thing we need are creatures that can be casted for a cheap enough cost, but can also provide some solid utility if they are chosen from Arthur’s ability.

One that comes to mind is Aether Channeler, which when it enters we can either make a 1/1 Bird token with flying, bounce a nonland permanent to it’s owners hand or draw a card. Solid enough utility when they enter, and also can make a body if it was chosen from Arthur’s ability that can either block or help trigger Arthur again.

Claim Jumper is also a solid option because when it enters and an opponent controls more lands than we do the we can search our library for a Plains and put it onto the battlefield tapped and we can repeat this process once if an opponent still controls more lands than we do.

While not as flashy as Claim Jumper, Knight of the White Orchid can search for a Plains card that enters the battlefield untapped when it enters and an opponent control more lands than we do, and Loyal Warhound can search for a basic Plains and puts it onto the battlefield tapped when it enters and an opponent controls more lands than we do.

Enduring Courage is also a solid option for us because whenever another creature we control enters it gives that creature a +2/+0 boost and hast until end of turn while also coming back as an enchantment if it dies as a creature.

As we move along to some of the stronger hits, we have cards like Port Razer, which when it deals combat damage to a player we can untap each creature we control and gain an additional combat phase after this combat phase, with the downside that Port Razer can’t attack a player it has already attacked this turn.

Cavalier of Gales can also be a great hit for us because when it enters we draw three cards and put two cards from our hand back to the top of our library and when it dies we shuffle it back into the library and scry 2. Not only can we return the creatures that were bounced from his ability.

Medomai the Ageless is probably one of the other better hits for us because when it deals combat damage to a player, we take an extra turn after this one, with the downside that Medomai can’t attack during extra turns.

If we do manage to have an abundance of creatures in our hand and a bit of excess mana, then we can also make use of Sneak Attack, which for one red mana can put a creature card from our hand onto the battlefield with haste that gets sacrificed at the beginning of the next end step.

We can circumvent that particular trigger if we use something like Teleportation Circle in order to blink a creature at the beginning of our next end step, so we can get a solid creature back into play with Sneak Attack and blink it in order to not sacrifice it.

Setbacks

While Arthur seems like a pretty strong Commander that can cheat out a ton of ways to win us the game on the spot, Arthur has a few things that limit what the deck can do.

First off, Arthur returns the creatures at the end of combat, meaning that in order to exploit multiple extra combats, we need to have an additional way to get the creature that is making the additional combats happen back onto the battlefield when the next combat starts.

Second, Arthur needs an additional creature to attack with in order to trigger their ability, so we need a mix of either cheap creatures or ways to get some tokens onto the battlefield to be ready to attack when Arthur comes in.

Despite being five mana, having haste is a massive boon for this deck, because otherwise the deck would be too slow in what it wants to do. unfortunately because it has haste, that means that it becomes the target of our opponent’s removal spells if we happen to attack them.

There is also the issue that Winota, Joiner of Forces faces in these sort of instances where there is a chance where we don’t hit a creature at all from the top six cards of our library. Despite us having a higher density of creatures in the deck, we have lands and other spells as well so that means that there is a nonzero chance that we whiff on an Arthur trigger.

Bracket Rating: High 2, Low 3

Arthur has a lot going for it in being able to cheat any creature out and make use of their enters triggers and combat damage triggers while also being able to save them by returning them to our hand at the end of combat.

However, there are some challenges in getting this deck to be as aggressive as we would like since we do bounce our creatures instead of them staying on the battlefield or even sacrificing them at the end of combat to make use of death triggers.

Still, Arthur is a solid enough Commander to hold their ground, and while they may have a bit of trouble in bracket three because of some of the better interaction pieces, Arthur can still manage a win or two if you happen to play well and get a bit lucky.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual