Caesar, Legion’s Emperor Commander Deck Guide

Caesar, Legion's Emperor | Illustration by Alexander Gering

Come back victorious, or don’t come back.

Caesar, Fallout: New Vegas

I love roleplaying games, there’s so much replay value. You can come back over and over to make different decisions and earn different outcomes. The Fallout franchise has some stronger and weaker entries, but Fallout: New Vegas gives you lots to consider when you’re choosing whether to side with Mr. House, the New California Repulic, or Caesar’s Legion. You can even opt to take control of the New Vegas for yourself in a Yes-Man run.

I’ve really enjoyed digging into the cards from the Fallout Magic set, and I like the design for Caesar, Legion's Emperor. This card may head up its own Commander precon, but I want to take it in another direction. Consider this step one in the journey, because you can absolutely make this deck even better than what I’m presenting.

Strap on your Mysterious Magnum and make your way down to Cottonwood Cove!

The Deck

Elspeth, Sun's Champion | Illustration by Tyler Jacobson

This deck is made to give your opponents Heartaches by the Number. A commander with a sac outlet ability that relies on attacking wants tokens, tokens, tokens. You need things to attack with and things to sacrifice, and tokens do that job for you.

I could’ve leaned in on attack triggers or tokens a little harder, but I wanted to focus on humans, if only to make this deck at least slightly different from our Hail, Caesar upgrade guide.

The Commander: Caesar, Legion’s Emperor

Caesar, Legion's Emperor is a 4-mana Mardu commander with a fairly simple gameplan: Grow your army until you can take out the competition. Attack, sacrifice one of your creatures, and choose between getting more Soldiers, drawing a card, or dealing damage directly to your opponent of choice. You aren’t likely to go for the commander damage win condition in this deck, but that doesn’t mean that your commander won’t play an important role.

Attack Triggers

This deck wants you to attack to take advantage of Caesar’s ability. Isshin, Two Heavens as One is pretty great in this deck, allowing you to double up on any of your attack triggers, including your commander’s.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon each give you tokens as part of their attack triggers, and neither needs you to attack with them. The extra perk from Adeline is that its tokens are Humans, which means that they benefit from your human lords.

Commissar Severina Raine’s attack trigger can be really devastating when you’re attacking with a bunch of tokens, especially if you’ve got Isshin out to double the life loss.

Craig Boone, Novac Guard gives you an attack trigger that winds up dealing damage either to your opponents’ creatures or to your opponents themselves. The choice is in their hands, though, which means that they can choose what’s better for their deck’s playstyle or their current board state. Either way, you get lifegain thanks to lifelink.

Myrel, Shield of Argive makes sure your opponents stay quiet during your turn, and you can attack with it to gain even more tokens. Many of your nontoken and token creatures are also soldiers, which should make this attack trigger really widen your board.

Hanweir Garrison attacks to give you more Human tokens, and you can meld it with Hanweir Battlements to get Hanweir, the Writhing Township. The melded version isn’t a human, but its tokens are bigger and its attack trigger can also be doubled, so why not?

MacCready, Lamplight Mayor gives skulk to your small creatures, making them unblockable by bigger creatures and helping your attacks with tokens get through blockers, especially if you don’t have any anthem or +1/+1 counter effects out on the field.

Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy’s attack trigger draws cards and puts some free creatures into play. You’ve got a bunch that cost 3 mana or less, but you also have a few effects that can help to pump Taggerdy’s power to give you better selection.

Boomer Scrapper helps you to go through your library by giving you junk tokens when it attacks. Just be sure not to play your land for the turn until after you’ve cracked any Junk you plan on sacrificing.

Rabble Rousing triggers on attack to give you a bunch of Citizen tokens. It shouldn’t be too hard to get 10 or more creatures on board to take advantage of its hideaway ability, either.

In addition to your other buffing effects like +1/+1 counters and anthems, Fervent Charge has a trigger that gives +2/+2 to your attacking creatures.

Squads and Other Token Generators

Creatures with squad have a built-in mana sink that lets you pay to create token copies of them when they enter the battlefield. Each of Gary Clone, Powder Ganger, Securitron Squadron, and Wasteland Raider has a squad ability, and they have a mix of attack triggers and ETB triggers. Securitron Squadron is one of the few non-humans in this deck, and that’s because it gives your creature tokens a +1/+1 counter when they enter.

Horn of Gondor is an important token generator, especially when paired with your Impact Tremors effects. It’s also one of your humans-matter payoffs.

Your non-permanents that create tokens include Secure the Wastes, Call the Coppercoats, Heroic Reinforcements, and Martial Coup.

Keeper of the Accord helps to make sure that you’re never behind your opponents on lands or creatures, while General's Enforcer gives your legendary humans indestructible while giving you some graveyard hate. Captain of the Watch enters with a cadre of Soldier tokens, but it mostly serves as a lord ability for your soldiers.

Upticking Elspeth, Sun's Champion gets you a trio of Soldiers. Assemble the Legion also gets you tokens over time, and let’s be honest, the card name is hecking flavorful in this deck.

Death Payoffs

Zulaport Cutthroat, Pitiless Plunderer, and Morbid Opportunist are some of the more obvious death payoffs for any deck that’s partially black and cares about creatures dying. Mirkwood Bats cares more about specifically sacrificing or generating tokens, but it’ll trigger off your Treasure and Junk tokens, too.

Bastion of Remembrance is here for some lifegain and life drain, while Black Market gains charge counters to generate mana during your precombat main phase, perfect for pumping into your squad creatures.

I’m assuming that you’re choosing the Legion mode of Battle of Hoover Dam, because, well… I mean, look at who your commander is.

Teysa Karlov doubles up your death triggers, but it also gives your tokens lifelink and vigilance.

Juri, Master of the Revue is a cheap human that grows while you continue to sacrifice creatures. Fleshtaker both gives you a sacrifice outlet and lets you scry, which can be useful to help prepare to sacrifice a Junk token or use Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy’s attack trigger.

Other Utility Cards

There are more than a few legendary creatures in this deck, and Colonel Autumn gives them all exploit. Take advantage of that, and you’ll give all your creatures a +1/+1 counter. Given the token production in this deck, it should be easy to put quest counters on Overseer of Vault 76, which you can trade in to give your creatures more +1/+1 counters.

Elder Arthur Maxson helps your tokens grow when they attack with a bigger creature thanks to training, although it also has a sacrifice outlet that helps to keep it around.

General Kudro of Drannith and Jirina Kudro have abilities that help buff up your humans. The General gives you some graveyard hate and a sac outlet that works as removal, while Jirina enters with hopefully at least one token.

Skullclamp is here for some card advantage, and you’re most likely to attach this amazing artifact to some tokens. They won’t always die immediately depending on whether you have anthems or Securitron Squadron out, but you’ve got enough sacrifice outlets here that it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Lightning Greaves helps to protect your most important creature by granting it shroud, while Intangible Virtue is an anthem that gives you some redundancy by granting your creatures vigilance. Deadly Dispute gets you some cards, and you don’t mind sacrificing a creature as part of its cost.

Impact Tremors and Warleader's Call play similar roles to each other, giving you damage as your creatures enter the battlefield.

Bloodsoaked Champion is a cheap human creature and a combo piece. That’s it.

Removal

Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile are fairly standard white removal, and Anguished Unmaking and Wear / Tear should also be familiar.

Entrapment Maneuver works here because it gives you a bunch of tokens, and targeting an opponent as part of the sacrifice effect gets around hexproof and indestructible.

V.A.T.S. destroys a bunch of creatures of equal toughness, which can be very punishing against another token deck.

Your other board wipes are Hour of Reckoning, Ruinous Ultimatum, and The Nipton Lottery. Martial Coup also works as a sweeper if you pump an X of 5 or more into it, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion’s -3 ability and Vault 75: Middle School’s first chapter each nuke creatures with power 4 or greater.

The Mana Base

As always, this is the platonic ideal of a mana base, so adjust it to your means. There’s staple color fixing in the form of Command Tower and Exotic Orchard, and an Evolving Wilds to help you fetch a basic land that you need.

As for mana rocks, this deck runs a Sol Ring, Talisman of Conviction, Talisman of Hierarchy, Talisman of Indulgence, and Boros Signet.

Ashnod's Altar also offers you mana attached to a sacrifice outlet, and Pitiless Plunderer gives you Treasure as a death payoff.

Aside from the dual lands, there’s a little bit of utility in this mana base. Diamond City gives you the chance to move a shield counter to one of your more important creatures to protect it from being destroyed. Windbrisk Heights lets you hideaway a card and play it later for , which can help to prevent you from being forced to mill an impactful card.

The Strategy

This deck wants to go wide with tokens and use them to chip away at your opponents’ life totals. You’ve got a fair number of effects that bite their ankles even when you aren’t attacking, like Mirkwood Bats, Impact Tremors, and Warleader's Call. Regardless, you usually want to get Caesar, Legion's Emperor out as soon as you can to start taking advantage of its attack trigger to generate more tokens and dig through your library.

Your commander costs 4 mana, and your cheapest recurring token generator (Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon) costs 3, so it’ll take a minute to set up your board. You’ll want a decent mix of lands and mana rocks in your opening hand to get started, and Keeper of the Accord is great to have early as it’ll make sure you’ll keep pace with your opponents.

You can afford to hang back a little and take some damage because you’ve got some creatures with lifelink or lifegain abilities, plus Teysa Karlov gives your tokens lifelink. Your midgame is going to involve attacking, making tokens, and taking advantage of their deaths in some way or another.

This deck has a few paths to victory. There’s the standard way, relying on combat damage dealt by attacking, which can be sped up by working toward Elspeth, Sun's Champion’s emblem to grant your creatures +2/+2 and flying. You also have a few Impact Tremors effects that deal damage when your creatures ETB, which you can stack and trigger a bunch by creating large amounts of tokens with Horn of Gondor. Commissar Severina Raine’s attack trigger can deal a ton of damage, especially if doubled by Isshin, Two Heavens as One. Caesar, Legion's Emperor has an attack trigger mode that also deals damage based on the number of creature tokens that you control, and you’ve got an infinite combo based on Ashnod's Altar.

Combos and Interactions

First, I want to highlight some things to keep in mind. This deck has a mix of sacrifice, death, and attack triggers, and it’s important to know which effects double which other effects.

Teysa Karlov doubles anything that cares about your creatures dying, like Zulaport Cutthroat and Pitiless Plunderer. It doesn’t double your sacrifice triggers like Mirkwood Bats and Juri, Master of the Revue. It also doesn’t double Caesar, Legion's Emperor’s trigger, because that’s an attack trigger.

Isshin, Two Heavens as One does double Caesar’s attack trigger and any others you have, but it won’t double Overseer of Vault 76’s trigger, because that triggers at the beginning of combat.

While not infinite, you can equip Skullclamp to a series of tokens and sacrifice them to Ashnod's Altar to dig through your deck, generating some colorless mana that you can then use to cast some of what you draw.

There’s an infinite combo built around Ashnod's Altar, Bloodsoaked Champion, and Pitiless Plunderer in this deck, which breaks down as follows:

To start, you’ll need all three permanents on the battlefield any time after you’ve attacked this turn. Sacrifice Bloodsoaked Champion to Ashnod's Altar, which generates a Treasure token because of Pitiless Plunderer. Use the Treasure and 1 of the colorless mana from the Altar to pay the Champion’s raid cost, bringing it back to the battlefield. Repeat for infinite colorless mana, infinite ETB and LTB triggers, infinite death triggers, and infinite sacrifice triggers. You can also start with the Champion in your graveyard, as long as you have open to pay its raid cost to bring it back.

If you get that combo going with Warleader's Call or Impact Tremors on the board, you win. Same goes for Zulaport Cutthroat, who would also give you infinite lifegain. Juri, Master of the Revue gains infinite +1/+1 counters, which means you can sacrifice it at any time in this loop to take someone out individually. Teysa Karlov doubles your Treasure production, which means you can also gain infinite colored mana and infinite Treasure tokens. And so on, and so forth.

Rule 0 Violations Check

I think that this deck should clear most Rule 0 conversations. I intentionally left out token doublers or triplers like Anointed Procession, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, which would absolutely speed up this deck.

There’s that one infinite combo in this deck, which will be a non-starter at some tables. But you don’t have any tutors or recursion (other than the NCR mode of Battle of Hoover Dam), so you’re very much relying on luck of the draw to assemble it. You could also just not use the combo if you happen to draw into it, or you could replace Bloodsoaked Champion with Kessig Malcontents for an impactful, human-centric ETB that doesn’t lead to infinite combos.

Budget Options

Many of the cards in this deck come in the Hail, Caesar Fallout Commander precon, so you can get many of the necessary cards in one fell swoop.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Commissar Severina Raine, and Myrel, Shield of Argive are your most expensive creatures that aren’t in the precon. Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward can be a slower way to generate a lot of tokens and ETBs by exiling your army when Abdel Adrian enters and sacrificing it at your first opportunity to bring them back. You have enough creatures with power 2 or less in this deck to make the attack trigger on Alesha, Who Smiles at Death at least mildly interesting. Archetype of Courage can help your tokens survive more combats by giving everything first strike, and it counts both as a human and a soldier. And that’s just by skimming the “A” humans; there’s lots of them to help you trim this deck’s price even further.

Warleader's Call is the other more expensive non-land card, but you can slow down and cheapen the deck by using Warstorm Surge instead.

And of course, you can adjust the mana base according to what you have lying around rather than shell out for the more expensive dual lands.

If you want to bump up the price of this deck and stay in the humans theme, Rick, Steadfast Leader / Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart gives out combat keywords to your humans. It currently costs around the same amount as an Anointed Procession, so there’s that.

I didn’t include Mondrak, Glory Dominus or Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation for budget considerations and to lean further into a human theme, but you can totally include them to make even more tokens. I also left out Anointed Procession in favor of the cheaper Rabble Rousing, but if you use proxies, budget isn’t a concern, or you just have a Procession collecting dust, have at it!

Other Builds

I’ve focused on humans, but you can choose to build your deck around attack triggers and additional combats. After all, additional combats let you trigger Caesar, Legion's Emperor multiple times per turn.

If you want to lean in on tokens, Anointed Procession, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation are all fair game. If you don’t care about humans, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim gets you more ETB and death triggers.

This deck can also be altered to make it more of a myriad deck with cards like Duke Ulder Ravengard and Genasi Enforcers. Boomer Scrapper remains useful in this iteration because it gains +1/+1 counters whenever creatures leave the battlefield, which includes when you exile myriad tokens.

You can of course play so many other humans in this deck, like Jirina, Dauntless General, Thalia's Lieutenant, or Champion of the Parish. There are enough humans in this game that 100 players could build 100 rather different humans decks around Caesar, Legion’s Emperor, especially if you don’t mind building in an infinite combo around Ashnod's Altar.

I don’t include cards that aren’t released at the time that I’m writing these, but Ajani, Nacatl Pariah / Ajani, Nacatl Avenger from Modern Horizons 3 can be devastating here, almost a finishing move. You can cast the front side for 2 mana, then sacrifice the Cat Warrior token to Caesar or another sac outlet. You’ll then flip Ajani, and you’ll be able to use the 0-loyalty ability to generate a token and deal damage to an opponent based on your creature count.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Teysa Karlov | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

And that’s my take on a Caesar, Legion's Emperor deck! While not the absolute best that it could be, I like working with constraints to see what I can come up with, and this had me digging through Magic’s many, many humans. I’m sure I made the Illusive Man from Mass Effect very proud.

Which direction do you like to take your Caesar, Legion’s Emperor deck? Which humans would you slot in for a humans-only build? Let me know in the comments below, or report to the Draftsim Discord!

Now go out there and conquer some Magic tables!