General Knowledge: Regna & Krav
Some things aren’t supposed to work well together: sweet and sour, cats and dogs, and of course angels and demons. In Battlebond, the upcoming Magic the Gathering set, Wizards has revitalized a mechanic and given the Commander community some exciting new legendary creatures to lead the team.
Back in Commander 2016 Wizards finally printed 4-color legendary creatures but because of the challenges involved with designing cards that are 4-color WotC decided to give the world “Partner” where commanders with the keyword could work together to helm the deck and define its color identity. This mechanic led to some of the most powerful commanders but also some of the most disappointing. In my Battlebond First Look one of the things that I brought up was how rare it is to see the non-competitive partners and I am really glad WotC has decided to revisit partner and I think “Partner with…” takes the fun part of the mechanic but without the downfalls from the original appearance. Unlike that original appearance since “Partner with...” gives us a reason the pair is working together both flavorfully and mechanically.
Regna the Redeemer and Krav, the Unredeemed are great examples of the design possible when you have very specific pairs of partners in mind. While the mana cost for Regna specifically is higher than I would like she does come with a sneakily powerful effect. Even though the tokens are only 1/1’s the ability to create them on every end step, even our opponents, is very powerful. Krav’s strength is more apparent than Regna’s; the ability to sacrifice creatures to gain life, draw cards, and add +1/+1 counters to Krav is great and the ability scales not with the amount of mana we spend but with the number of creatures we sacrifice. Like any dynamic duo Regna and Krav’s strength lies not in their individual ability but in their combined strength. Regna’s ability provides tokens for Krav to sacrifice and Krav’s ability gains life to trigger Regna’s. If we have 3 black mana left over at the end of our turn we can trigger Krav at the end of every second main phase and get new tokens to use on the next turn. Something that I missed during my first look was that Krav doesn’t have flying, which makes the Voltron plan a bit more difficult. I would really like a piece of equipment that gives both flying and lifelink but if that exists I couldn’t find it on gatherer. Oh and a small thing about Partner is that since we have 2 commanders our main deck has to be 98 cards instead of the normal 99.
I like to use the Command Zone card categories so we are going to break down the deck in the following way: Stand Alone threats, Enablers that help our plan work, Enhancers that make our plan better, Removal to stop our opponents threats, Card Draw so we don’t run out of action, then Ramp and Lands so we can cast our cards. You can find the whole deck list broken out by categories here.
Let’s start with the Stand Alone threats. Luminarch Ascension is one of my favorite two-drops in all of Commander. Once it gets to 4 quest counters every 2 mana can be turned into a 4/4 flyer and while these probably also aren’t the tokens we would want to sacrifice to Krav we do have that as an option. Elspeth, Sun Champion, Ghoulcaller Gisa, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, and Grave Titan are all really powerful token producers as well. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim and Karlov of the Ghost Council are both efficient creatures that synergize well with our plan while acting as removal if we need it. Archangel of Thune will pump all of our creatures each time we gain making even our tokens mighty threats.
Our Enablers are the cards that help our plan come together. Some of the most upfront examples of this are tutors: Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, and Razaketh, the Foulblooded. These help us get the cards that we need in the moment whether that is the ability to answer an opposing threat or get something that furthers our own plan. In this category we also have some cards that are either less threatening or more situational token makers. Requiem Angel, Ophiomancer, and Skirsdag High Priest to name a few. We are also running Oketra’s Monument as a way to make Regna cheaper but more importantly to get another token every time we cast another creature. In this category we also are running a life gain package in Soul Warden, Soul’s Attendant, and Pious Evangel. The Soul Sisters will gain us life on an opponents turn to help with triggering Regna while Pious Evangel can be flipped to start draining life. I originally was running more of the drain cards like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat but in my initial testing I found that I typically wanted to life gain when creatures entered the battlefield rather than on death.
Enhancers need our plan to be working to shine but when the plan works these cards make it work better. We have a small equipment package with the two best boots in the business (Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves), Nim Deathmantle for the value game, and Haunted Cloak so we can both attack with Krav and still have him around for defense. Anointed Procession and Cathar’s Crusade both make Regna’s ability to make tokens better and Teysa, Orzhov Scion lets us use our tokens to either remove opposing threats or make more tokens depending in which color they are. During my initial Battlebond article I went on record saying that Support was the worst mechanic in the set but I wanted WotC to prove me wrong. I am happy to say that… well l still think Support is the worst mechanic but Together Forever is a great way to keep our creature that have counters around. I feel like there is probably a more broken way for this card to be used, such as with undying and persist, but I didn’t steer that direction to heavily. We can of course use Together Forever as a way to save Krav but it can also be used on our non-token creatures that we sacrifice to Krav so we can get them back to use later.
The Removal suite in this deck is pretty interesting. We are running Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, and Martyr's Bond as ways to use our sacrificing to also remove our opponents threats. These enchantments also make it hard for our opponents to attack into us or block our creatures without having to pay a price. I have really liked the addition of Profane Procession to Commander. The main ability to exile our opponents’ creatures and then use them against our enemies is fantastic but perhaps even better is the fact that we can keep on exiling our opponents’ commanders and never have to flip the enchantment. Other than those we have some mass removal in Merciless Eviction and Tragic Arrogance, and the normal B/W removal.
With our Card Draw I wanted to try some new cards. Azor’s Gateway lets us look through our deck and the eventually gains us life and then provides mana equal to our life total. While we are not looking to gain tons of life at one time with this deck I am thinking our incidental life gain should make sure this is always powerful for us. Conqueror’s Galleon is another card I have been wanting to test. It is hard to crew, requiring 4 power, but as long as we have one opponent who can’t kill it in combat then we get a mana sink for the rest of the game that will draw us cards. Vampiric Rites is asking to be played in this deck since it both gains us life and draws cards while the long game power of Phyrexian Arena shouldn’t be ignored. With many of our creatures being 1/1’s we are running both Mentor of the Meek and Skullclamp to take full advantage of them.
Lastly in our Ramp and Lands package we are running Ashnod’s Altar, Pawn of Ulamog, and testing Thaumatic Compass along with the normal ramp like Sol Ring, Orzhov Signet, and Solemn Simulacrum. Our lands are also pretty normal though we do have a set of lands that create tokens that we can sacrifice. Springjack Pasture, Kjeldoran Outpost, and Westvale Abbey are all great at giving us something to do with our leftover mana and they further our plan since we can sacrifice the tokens to Krav. High Market is also a great land that can protect our commanders from control effects and gains us one life to trigger Regna.
Regna and Krav are exactly what I want to see in partner commanders. They are strong cards that synergize well without being broken or autowins. If you wanted to take this deck in other directions you could run more cards like Secure the Wastes to make a bunch of creatures to swarm the board or run more ways to go Voltron and one-shot people with Krav. I am hopeful that this pair will see play and become staple B/W commanders on the fair tables of Commander.
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