Henzie "Toolbox" Torre: Riveteer Rampage Rocks!

“Magictating” is defined as getting into the zone with your Magic the Gathering collection--thinking, planning, organizing, reminiscing about past games, and imagining future games. It is a combination of hard thinking about the game and calm meditation, reveling in the joy it brings you.

Riveteer Rampage is a deck you don't have to worry about making sacrifices to your budget to get a good deal. Once again, we have a Commander Preconstructed deck which is really well put together, provides great reprints, and establishes itself with fun new cards. Sure, the flavor and the vibes surrounding this are all very Jund to the maximum, but who doesn't love a trip to value town? The only place I might prefer to make a move to would be funky town, am-I-right? This deck just screams value, and the face Commander, Henzie “Tool-Box” Torre, is a very exciting build-around card. I know that I'll probably build one or two versions of Henzie as it just seems like such a fun and interesting card.

I'd like to just quickly revisit how cool it is that each one of these preconstructed decks actually comes with a random surprise: the sample collector booster. That's a sweet little pot sweetener. Every single deck gets those two bonus cards and a sad little add card as well. I was excited to pop these open for all five of the decks. It made opening the product a little more exciting than normal. I remember they used to include a pack in some of the older non-Commander preconstructed decks to help you get started in your customizations. Those were nice little bonuses back then as well (though they didn't have any collector boosters back then).

Now, it's not just random new shiny things that make this deck so pretty. Have you noticed the stacked pile of huge monsters that were reprinted for this deck? We best make sure we consider making oblations to these creatures, or perhaps we just make them the offering by Blizting them across the battlefield. Insert football pun here…oh wait, I don't have any. Well, I punted that joke for sure. Speaking of crushingly good puns, did you check out the Chaos Warp and Kodama's Reach reprints. Those are quality cards and about has ubiquitous as cards can be in this format. I find staples like these to be slightly less offensive as they are fun–who doesn't love a little chaos? And Kodama's Reach is just good old-fashioned land ramp–good clean fun. Anyway, let's just briefly touch on the ridiculous beaters that this deck can threaten to Blitz into play for maximum value: Indrik Stomphowler, Noxious Gearhulk, Treeshaker Chimera, and Artisan of Kozilek. Wow, that's some serious Jund value town. These are all solid values on the surface, but casting them for a reduced amount and then drawing cards off them is superbly powerful. It's a way to actually make the old-fashioned Jund tournament decks feel viable in a multiplayer format. So much card draw, and so much removal!

The decent reprints don't end there either. The mana rocks are awesome. Sol Ring, Fellwar Stone, Arcane Signet, and Commander's Sphere. Literally, the best of the best. Sure, some optimization nerds feel Commander's Sphere isn't in the top tier anymore, but to them I say I am not yet ready to discount such a tool, and so I'll listen to them, but politely disagree.

Currently, the most expensive cards offered up in this deck are a couple of the older cards in Kresh the Bloodbraided and Avenger of Zendikar. Kresh is a card that older Commander players are probably very familiar with. Kresh was even featured in one of the first Commander-esque products: From the Vault Legends. I have a Kresh deck, and there's plenty of overlap between my Kresh deck and the Riveteer's Rampage. However, the new Blitz ability just means that so much more can now happen. It's very exciting to consider all the fun that we can have sacrificing our creatures for profit. While we continually Blitz cards with ETB effects onto the battlefield we get to keep the cards flowing as well. That's something that most Jund styled decks can struggle with. Being able to constantly have a grip full of cards and be able to recycle huge game-ending threats like Avenger of Zendikar is really the type of thing Commander games need–big splashy plays!

I would have thought that the enchantments in a deck like this would've been the synergistic sacrificial lambs, but that's not the case. Outside of Greater Good, I feel like they really offered up some great tools in the enchantment section of this deck. Evolutionary Leap might actually be better than Survival of the Fittest in a dedicated Blitz deck. No, seriously, I mean it. Survival discards to put in your hand, but sacrificing your Blitzed creature to snag another one is also super powerful. It helps that it's way cheaper monetarily as well. Tortured Existence also seems like a decent card for this deck, and would definitely be worth checking out if you plan on upgrading this deck. Garruk's Uprising was another solid piece of synergy for this deck, and while both Warstorm Surge and Deathreap Ritual are cool pieces they are overshadowed by the sneaky inclusion of one of the best cards printed in recent memory (it's only going to get better too). Rain of Riches is a grossly strong card, and is the icing on top of this Jund sacrificial altar of Commander culinary perfection.

Read over Rain of Riches carefully. No, seriously, read it over before you read what I'm about to write. I want you to see if you're seeing the same things I'm seeing. Yes, it's a five mana enchantment that only gives you two Lotus Petals. Wait, sorry, you get treasures, because those are technically better than Lotus Petals. Treasures are better because of the second clause on this enchantment: the first spell you cast each turn that uses mana from treasures has Cascade. Now, cascade is an awesome ability, and it's neat to play cards with Cascade, but it can be gross when you give cards Cascade that have no business having Cascade tacked on. Now, you might think this isn't an issue, but what about all those treasure generating cards that now exist. What cards you ask? Well, how about Jolene, the Plunder Queen (she'll take your man just because she can–Dolly Parton anyone?), or the big one that shows up in this deck–Glittering Stockpile. You know, the treasure source that is repeatable. Glittering Stockpile is a permanent treasure. I don't feel like it will be the last of them either. Pairing Rain of Riches with Glittering Stockpile is gross, so do it! I really feel like Rain of Riches is only going to get better with time, and that enchantment is likely to balloon in popularity over the coming months. I suspect we will see even more treasure in Commander Legends 2: Battle for Baldur's Gate. Cards from that set are likely going to make cards like Rain of Riches skyrocket in price. Exciting times to be a Riveteer, my friends.

Wave of Rats in another new card that should be highly sought after as well. This time it isn't because of the promise of more new synergies, but instead because an established archetype, rats, has one more new toy to play with. SImilarly, Caldaia Guardian also brings the Blitz. These new Blitz cards offer up tools for our toolbox leader, but they also look like great pieces for other decks as well. Likewise, Mezzio Mugger is a fun tool to play with as well. All three colors get new mono-colored Blitz action, and those tools themselves look like fantastic fun in other decks as well. There's a part of me that really wants to be able to play around with graveyard recursion and Blitz. I really like the idea of using Tortured Existence in a deck filled with Bltizing creatures. Perhaps God-Pharaoh's Gift would work as well? Oh, that reminds me. Have you considered how good Henzie could be leading a primarily mono-brown deck?

Looking at cards like Solemn Simulacrum and Artisan of Kozilek as easy to cast cards is fairly accurate. They require just about any mana you can find to get the job done. Meanwhile, when you have a card like Henzie “Toolbox” Torre leading your team you start considering how you can cast him as often as possible. Then, you start looking at other powerful colorless cards as methods of abusing Henzie's cost reduction. Perhaps cards that generate more mana like Solemn so you can sacrifice Henzie to recast Henzie to keep the Blitz coming. Cards like Mitotic Slime and others are great because they leave bodies behind after they blitz, and there's some pretty neat cards out there in the land of artifacts that play nicely with these concepts. I'm looking at you Myr Battlesphere! If you're looking for a couple more, then how about considering Precursor Golem, Triskelavus, Tetravus, Pentavus, Hangarback Walker, and Thopter Squadron. Just a few ideas to get your brewing brain back into action.

I'm going to get going now before I start building a third idea for a Commander deck out of this one. Overall, I think the Riveteer Rampage deck is a fun deck. It has a solid core of cards to build out a Blitz themed deck, but also has so many solid pieces that you could easily justify parting this thing out to give your other decks fun new tools. Overall, I'll likely end up buying this deck twice or at least a bunch of the new singles from it. It really is a solid deal with very little filler within. All of these New Capenna decks are just so well done. This, like I said before, is an all-star collection of Commander decks, and I'm so happy to be leafing through them and building out my buy-list of cards to have multiples! May the reprints, new toys, and all the other cards be ever in your favor!