Magic Monday 26/08/24: Fun With Borb

It’s no secret that when it comes to Age of Sigmar, I love the Sons of Behemat! They’re probably my most played army in third edition, and were the army that I took to several events, even managing to go 3-0 in one. One of the best additions to that faction that came as part of the Dawnbringers campaign was the ability for Mega Gargants in the Brodd’s Stomp Army of Renown to pick up bits of terrain and throw them at the enemy.

The prospect of replicating this in Commander was very appealing. Enter Borborygmos Enraged:

I love the image of him throwing terrain around, which is why I flagged him as an interesting option in my previous MTG post. So, let’s give it a go. I had a shot of him last night, trying him out in a 2-player game. It was a quick game.

I’m going to talk through it, but I acknowledge that I am very new to Magic, and to Commander. As such, I’m still learning, and these posts very much represent me starting to find my way. I also know that this is not a serious, competitive,m or even decent deck, but it’s a bit of fun.

The key, of course, is that last part of the card:

“Discard a land card: Borborygmos Enraged deals 3 damage to target creature or player.“

This can be used plenty of times; as many times as you have lands in your hand. What we need to do to really dominate and crush the game would be to turn it into a loop. I used the card, Keen Sense, which is an enchantment that triggers whenever a creature does damage (note: not just combat damage) to another player, allowing you to draw a card. There are alternative cards that do the same, such as Snake Umbra, among others.

That’s us at, what? Three non-land cards. We don’t need all that many more, at least as a first step. What we need is to be able to get to those Keen Sense and Snake Umbra cards. Let’s fish. There are plenty of cards that will let you start rummaging through your deck. Some of my favourites for this colour combination, and for affordability, are Abundance and Throes of Chaos. Both are great options for this setup, allowing you to really rummage for those all-important enchantments. I do feel that my Warhammer 40,000 Abundance card does look a little out of place, even if it does feature my beloved Genestealer Cults!

And that’s all you really need. The deck is pretty awful. You’ll want to try a few mulligans to try to fish for anything useful. Of course, this is the bare minimum, and you can and should build in a few more creatures and spells that will help you cycle through or search the deck, protect you from opponents, and/or ramp up mana more quickly. This last point is very important, given Borb’s hefty summoning cost of 8 mana.

What I did was include some interesting land cards. Fungal Reaches was the most useful card I had. I got it early on and started storing up tokens so that I could spend them to bring Borb out once I had my Keen Sense in hand. Mage-Ring Network would fulfil a similar function. Given how few other cards we’ve got in here, I have to ask…

You could also throw a bunch of lands that can generate two mana, such as Sandstone Needle and Hickory Woodlot. Hell, even if this means sacrificing lands, we only have one big cast, so you’re just looking to throwing everything at getting Borb out, enchanted, and throwing rocks within the same turn. So, you could use lands like Havenwood Battleground and Dwarven Ruins. There are a whole bunch more that would really help you to ramp up your lands, so draw on what you have. I threw in a Terrain Generator, though it only ended up getting thrown by Borb.

Once Borb is out and enchanted, you’re good to go. Just start discarding lands, one after the other. Each time you do so, you’ll be doing 3 damage to the enemy, which will trigger your enchantment to draw another card, which will more likely than not be another land, which you can then discard, and so on. Even if you draw non-lands, you’ll still have most of a handful of lands.

The deck sucks, but it’s a fun gimmick, what with the 90+ lands that you’re bringing to the table. To make it practical, you’d need to really pad it out, but as a very cheap and minimalist thrill, it’s cool. It’s a deck I’d keep to trot out once in a while for the lulz. I don’t think I really care enough about the gimmick to actually expand it out, though; I reckon I’d rather just keep it as quirky nonsense and move onto something else.

I liked my first game with it. Finding Fungal Reaches and Keen Sense early on made a huge difference.

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