This post is reposted, with permission, from Rysaer Inc. The author is one of my regular opponents when playing Commander, and I’ve been pestering him for ages to do a writeup of his Otter deck.
You can click here to visit the original post.
My favorite thing about Commander is being able to build a deck out of pretty much anything and to some degree it can work. My favorite thing full stop is Otters. So enter an Otter Tribal deck, you heard me correctly and better yet, enter an Otter Tribal deck that actually works!
Otters were largely introduced to MtG via the Bloomburrow set, which has been hands down my favorite since getting back into MtG. The option of completing a deck of these adorable little critters became viable and with the Red/Blue combination they can be a spell-slinging force to be reckoned with, initially I had two designs in mind, the First being ‘Bria, Riptide Rogue’ accting as the commander and building around multiple instances of ‘Prowess’ which makes for a great Izzet build of pinging off cheap spells for card advantage and damage, all the while powering up my otters, but initially this leaned more towards a traditional Izzet build to get more prowess and prowess like effects, instead I settled on ‘Alania, Divergent Storm’ as this card felt more on point for me as a commander, rewarding me directly for casting instants, sorcery spells and more importantly otters. This felt much more on point and later learning that it triggers on each keyword (Instant/Sorcery/Otter) Alania makes for a powerful commander who hands out some card draw to opponents (to lessen the blow) of then copying those potentially powerful spells, all the while still triggering the potential prowess inherent to a lot of otters and Bria, who I think functions well in the 99.
The main theme of the deck is simple, play out Otter creatures and then start to trigger as many spells as I can, there are some notably good otter creatures out there and they actually had a pretty big uprising in the standard format on Bloomburrow’s release. There are some great examples that I leaned into to help boost the deck, as I’m going to be spending the majority of the game casting or copying spells, getting things that trigger from this was a natural choice, Two great examples of this for damage are ‘Coruscation Mage’, ‘Kindlespark Duo’ and ‘Unruly Catapult’. These are great creatures that benefit from non-creature spells by allowing you to send ping damage to your opponents, while this is only instances of 1 damage, being able to often tap/untap these to do it multiple times in a turn, the damage can soon build up if left unchecked. Particularly Coruscation Mage who also has the benefit of ‘Offspring (2)’ to get more instances of that damage. Tack that small pool of damage onto damaging spells like ‘Electrodominance’, ‘Fiery Confluence’ and ‘Lightning Bolt’ which you can also cast and then copy multiple times, you have a deck that can quickly sling out punishing ping damage to your opponents when you need it. It’s an interesting take on burn all the while triggering ‘prowess’ and other effects via non-creature spells.
This is a solid bit of the strategy but one of the core issues with this type of deck is ‘burning’ through your own resources too quickly, so to mitigate this I’ve added a few simple cards for recursion or potential re-use, spells like ‘Daring Waverider’ who can pull cheaper spells out of your graveyard, ‘Aquatic Alchemist’ who can pull cards back from your graveyard as an ‘adventure’. Potential reuse comes in the form of spells like ‘Otterball Antics’ and ‘Galvanic Iteration’ as the ‘Flashback’ mechanic allows for multiple uses as well as triggering additional copies of spells and valuable otter tokens (with prowess!).
This is backed up by then adding cards to help reduce and mitigate costs like ‘Stormcatch Mentor’ who reduces the cost of Instants and sorcery spells. There are also a lot of great otters out there to help ‘cheat’ out spells or to increase your resource pool (mana, card draw, abilities etc), cards like ‘Kitsa, Otterball Elite’ which is a big favourite, not only having prowess, but also giving a valuable card draw engine and the potential to create even more copies of spells cast. ‘Thundertrap Trainer’ to help search for critical spells when needed, ‘Valley Floodcaller’ giving the ‘Flash’ mechanic to non-creature spells and handing out instances of +1/+1 and untapping your otters. Then as mentioned cards like ‘Bria, Riptide Rogue’ to really help cash in on your spell slinging, as not only can she help make your cuddly little otters even bigger but also turning them into unblockable threats.
There are a few typical support pieces in the deck like ‘Sol Ring’, ‘Patchwork Banner’ and ‘Path of Ancestry’ to add with mana and tribal elements further boosted by cards like ‘Big Score’, ‘Inspired Tinkering’ and ‘Contact Other Plane’ to help with card advantage and treasures. There isn’t much in the way of enchantments in the deck but the few in there are really stand-out to me, they take the form of both ‘Artist’s Talent’ and ‘Stormchaser’s Talent’ which are great value pieces that build into the deck’s archetype perfectly. On the mana base/land front the deck is very straightforward but a notable mention has to go out to ‘Rockface Village’ which can net one of your otters +1/+0 and ‘Haste’, this card probably wouldn’t show up in many decks but for fun critter decks like this, it’s a valuable and often missed perk.
The archetype and theming is really fun and while a lot of the deck is very typical ‘Izzet’ spellslinging mechanics I’ve added a few fun (and cheaper) options to make the deck a bit more fun, as a player I don’t tend to optimize much, I think there are definitely better cards to add and change but creating multiple copies of spells like ‘Baral’s Expertise, ‘Coronation of Chaos’. ‘Cone of Cold’ and ‘Wild Magic Surge’ (which should probably just be ‘Chaos Warp’) open up the game in fun and unexpected ways.
Finally there is a little planeswalker in there, once again with a fun ‘Otter’ twist in the form of ‘Ral, Crackling Wit’ who is a solid support piece and a potential route to ‘Storm’ in the deck. Creating Otters, Cycling Cards and hopefully popping off after casting enough non-creature spells, he can be a deadly problem if unchecked. I’ve only achieved his ultimate once…. but to say it was game ending was an understatement!
Is it the best deck on the block? Probably not, but I’ve had a lot of fun playing it and have even managed to sneak a few wins with it, which makes it a stand-out for my decks! Plus it’s otters, who doesn’t love those cute little guys! (Except ‘Lutri the Spellchaser’….. apparently WotC don’t) If you’d like to try my deck out or see how the final build looks, check it out here: https://moxfield.com/decks/KDBVAZmQnU-Y8H_3jsbDWQ
Also a notable shout out to @Tavendale over at ‘No Rerolls’ for trading with me, so I have the lovely full art Alania at the helm of my deck! Check out his amazing MtG and other content here!
https://norerolls.co.uk/
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