Decklist: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/aegars-giant-burn/
Power Level: 4
I’d always wanted a Giant deck, but none of the Giant commanders really moved me. Then Aegar appeared recently, and I fell in love. I used to have a Keranos burn deck, but it felt clunky, and the commander wasn’t all that synergistic with what I wanted to do. Aegar incentivizes all my damage-based removal, and even synergizes with the X-based removal scaling over the course of the game. I didn’t have to make that many changes to the original UR burn deck; I just added a bunch of Giants!
Every nonland card in this deck can deal damage, whether it be the bird from Swan Song , the birds from Alrund’s Epiphany , the creatures, or from a classic Lightning Bolt . Being a damage-dealing deck, aka Burn, we can win through direct damage to our opponents. Spells like Comet Storm and Giant’s Ire usually end up finishing off low-life opponents. However, we put the most pressure on life totals by attacking with our high-powered Giants (and a few useful Wizards, too).
Our Giants have a lot of synergy. Calamity Bearer is a damage-doubler for a third of our deck, even for our upkeep-pinging Quakebringer . Sunrise Sovereign remedies the problem of our powerful Giants not having trample, while Cyclone Summoner can clear the board of blockers completely (most of the time). Giants like Hammerfist Giant , Magma Giant and Thundercloud Shaman double as removal, potentially being one-sided boardwipes. This includes my favorite Giant, Bloodfire Colossus , who sacs himself to deal 6 to everything!
We refill our hand pretty easily in this deck. For 3+ mana, we play Aegar, and then wipe the board with spells like Blasphemous Act . For each of our opponents’ creatures we deal excess damage to, we draw a card. It is important to save our high-damage boardwipes for boards full of creatures, so that we aren’t killing Aegar just to draw a few cards. Yup, most of these boardwipes will result in Aegar dying, so be mindful of that. Think of Aegar as “Sac, 5 mana (For the Board Wipe): Draw 7 cards”. There will be times when we are picking off our opponents’ commanders every other turn and drawing a card each time, but that doesn’t happen as often as you might hope.
This is a fun, yet powerful casual deck that swings big creatures while burning our opponents and their creatures. We find it difficult to remove non-creature threats, so save the few counterspells we have to deal with powerful enchantments and game-winning instants and/or sorceries. If your friends only have precons, this deck is a great choice to offer them a challenge while not overwhelming them. Quite an accomplishment for a Johnny like me. 🙂
Disciple of the Vault 