Kotis, the Fangkeeper Commander Deck Guide

Kotis, the Fangkeeper | Illustration by Evyn Fong

After events like the New Phyrexian Invasion and the Ghirapur Grand Prix, it’s a little bit of a relief that Wizards is giving us fewer legendary creatures. Quality over quantity, say I. And with all the possible commanders from Tarkir: Dragonstorm and the Tarkir Commander precons, there’s some really fun options here.

While I pounced on the Mardu Surge precon, the main set creature I wanted to build around the most is Kotis, the Fangkeeper. And why not? It gives you many different paths to build around its abilities. I chose to build a hybrid of an Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief deck and a Tasha, the Witch Queen deck, because of course I had to find a way to smash two of my favorite commanders together.

Let’s dive into it!

The Deck

Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief | Illustration by Evyn Fong

With Kotis, the Fangkeeper at the helm, you’re running a Sultai deck () that wants to get down and dirty. Well, not that dirty. You just want to deal combat damage to your opponents so that you can steal their stuff. I’ve packed in equipment, auras, and mutate creatures to enhance Kotis’s power and ability to connect with your opponents, and I’ve included support pieces to give you more threats on the board.

I’ve built this deck with an expensive mana base, and it has only four cards with a mana value of 5 or higher. No Game Changers, no quick combos, and not much in the way of tutors, but the game plan is straightforward and you’re stealing your opponents’ cards. Based on strict deck-building, you can make and argument for this to fit anywhere between Brackets 2 and 4, although my instincts have it as a 3, possibly a light 4 on a good day.

The Commander: Kotis, the Fangkeeper

It’s just a lil guy! Totally not threating. Nothing to see here….

Kotis, the Fangkeeper wants to attack and deal combat damage to a player, and it rewards you by stealing cards from the top of your opponent’s library. The natural weakness is that it can only attack one player at a time, and you aren’t exactly in the right colors to get extra combats. Or haste enablers. But Kotis makes up for that by being indestructible, so your opponents need exiling removal or toughness modifiers like Tragic Slip to send it back to the command zone.

Backup Commanders

There are only two cards that qualify as true backup commanders in this deck, but they’re notable.

Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief would be better supported if you went completely into auras and mutations, but it’s still a lot of fun. If you have both Kotis and Ivy out and piled high with auras, your opponents have a major problem. Do they prioritize the indestructible threat that steals their cards, or the pesky lil flier that copies every aura and combat trick you use on Kotis, along with the buffs that your opponents give their own creatures?

Things get interesting when you add a Spark Double to the mix. It has the same MV as Kotis, so if this illusion copies your commander, it’s almost like cheating on commander tax. Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief, Felix Five-Boots, The Thirteenth Doctor, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, and Tasha, the Witch Queen are all good options to copy with Spark Double, too.

While not a creature, Villainous Wealth is an X spell with the same ability as Kotis’s combat damage trigger. You have to pay for it instead of getting it off your commander, but you’ll still trigger your paradox payoffs.

Mods, Mutations, and More

Saboteur abilities naturally want you to modify your creature, whether you’re buffing its power, granting it protection or evasion, or (gasp) giving it more saboteur abilities.

Shadowspear is just a fantastic 1-drop, since the activated ability gets around protective abilities and combat tricks like Heroic Intervention. It’s repeatable if you need it to be, and it’s one of a few trample enablers.

Blackblade Reforged is a staple of equipment or go-tall decks, helping your creature to grow bigger over the course of the game. Power Fist is another way to ensure that your creature grows every turn. Pair it with double strike or Felix Five-Boots and it starts getting real silly, real fast.

Fireshrieker is “just” a double strike enabler, but with saboteur abilities? Yeah, gimme that flamethrower. Leyline Axe serves a similar role; it’s slower if you’re playing it normally, but this leyline is a free spell if it’s in your opening hand.

Brotherhood Regalia, Winged Boots, and Canopy Cover all offer some form of protection and evasion.

Favor of the Overbeing grants vigilance and flying to your commander, along with a +2/+2 buff. Hybrid mana also makes it resilient to mana screw. Aether Tunnel and Aqueous Form are mainly unblockable enablers. Indomitable Might lets you assign combat damage as though your creatures are unblocked, a decent failsafe for when your other unblockable enablers are stuck in your library or your graveyard.

Some of your equipment also acts as saboteur support. Bloodforged Battle-Axe has a self-replicating ability that triggers when your equipped creature deals combat damage, while Dream-Thief's Bandana gives you another source of spell theft. Goldvein Pick generates a Treasure token with its saboteur ability, and that extra bit of ramp doesn’t hurt.

Triton Wavebreaker is the only bestow creature in this deck. It’s starts at +1/+1, but prowess can be a good addition with all the low-mana spells, cheap auras, and equipment in this deck. I don’t have any fight or punch spells in this deck, but they’d work as post-combat removal with all the free spells you could get from Kotis.

One with Nature’s combat damage trigger ramps you; note that only about a third of your lands are fetchable with this ability. Combat Research is here as one of many card drawing saboteur abilities.

Audacity and Rancor are functionally identical. Both replace themselves in your hand when they go to the graveyard, one more literally than the other.

I came very, very close to making this entirely a mutate deck, but it felt weird to surround a 2025 legendary creature with support that’s mainly from 2020. But some mutate creatures are still good to include for the abilities they grant. Sea-Dasher Octopus felt nearly mandatory, as a creature that you can mutate with your commander to gain another combat damage ability.

Gemrazer gives you some extra enchantment and artifact removal, plus reach and trample for the creature you mutate it into. At worst, you’ll remove one permanent, but Ivy and Spark Double can multiply that.

Ancestral Mask and Strong Back push you toward a commander damage win condition, along with your double strike and unblockable enablers. Note that they aren’t counting the exact same things, so you’ll have to keep track of that if they’re both on the battlefield.

Inquisitor's Flail is really strong with Kotis. It drastically increases your commander’s power, and you have an indestructible commander, so the “downside” won’t matter than much to you.

They aren’t really modifications, unless they give your creature a +1/+1 counter, but combat tricks felt more natural to include here. Heroic Intervention is the staple green mass protection spell. Invigorate is here because it’s sometimes a free spell; 3 life won’t matter if you’re about to take out a player with commander damage.

Overprotect, Slip Out the Back, and Snakeskin Veil are all here to protect one creature. Note that with Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief on the field, you never actually have to target Ivy with these, so they can protect two creatures for the price of one.

Since Guardian Augmenter has flash, you can play it in response to targeted removal to make your commander hexproof. It’s not the perfect answer, but the +2/+2 buff is also really nice.

Paradox and Saboteur Support

Your commander has a saboteur ability that steals cards from your opponents and casts them from exile, so you can take advantage of either of those with some secondary pieces.

Seems that everything is getting trigger doublers these days; Felix Five-Boots is the saboteur ability doubler, and it’s a natural fit in this deck.

Toski, Bearer of Secrets and Bident of Thassa are here for some extra card draw. The Bident also gives you interaction that forces all of an opponent’s creatures to attack, hopefully leaving them wide open for you to swing for lethal commander damage.

Casting your opponents’ spells from exile lets you spread +1/+1 counters around the board when The Thirteenth Doctor is on the field, and those counters help you to reuse your attackers as blockers. You can also strike political deals: “Hey, lemme hit you and steal some of your cards, and I’ll give your commander a +1/+1 counter whenever I cast something of yours.”

Tasha, the Witch Queen is here mainly for the static ability that gives you demon tokens whenever you casts your opponents’ spells. Yay, chump blockers and board presence! The loyalty abilities are also useful, though you’ll be spending multiple turns exiling stuff just to cast something. It’s not the most efficient way to use Tasha in a Kotis build, but screw it, it’s my deck and I’ll play pet cards if I want to.

Brainstealer Dragon has two triggered abilities. One of them gives you some more card theft, while the other gives you life drain whenever your opponents’ permanents enter under your control.

Interaction Suite

This deck runs a few more counterspells than I tend to, namely An Offer You Can't Refuse, Arcane Denial, Counterspell, Negate, and Swan Song. They’re necessary because I know that an indestructible commander will attract some negative attention. It’s not that fun when nobody lets you resolve your commander; you could make the argument to include Mistrise Village for the same reason, but I did not.

For sweepers, I’ve included Damnation and Final Act. Both use “destroy” language, which means they won’t hit your commander or Toski.

For spot removal, Assassin's Trophy and Beast Within and are here to support Gemrazer; you’re likely to use some counterspells to handle threats before they resolve.

Forgotten Ancient is a kind of “passive interaction.” You aren’t disrupting your opponents’ plans, but you’re benefiting from them just playing the game. You can move its +1/+1 counters at the beginning of your upkeep, which also means it’s a great target for The Thirteenth Doctor.

The Mana Base

I tend to make mana bases that are outside of my own budget when I build them to guide you through them, so yeah, there’s fetch lands and a Zagoth Triome here.

You’ve of course got some mana rocks in Arcane Signet, Sol Ring, Talisman of Curiosity, Talisman of Dominance, and Thought Vessel. I wanted Thought Vessel for the hand size modification, but you can switch in Talisman of Resilience if you prefer.

I’ve slotted in a trio of mana dorks with Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves, and Delighted Halfling. The halfling is especially important because it makes your indestructible commander uncounterable.

You also get some help from some staple green ramp spells: Cultivate, Farseek, Kodama's Reach, and Nature's Lore. Wild Growth gives you some more ramp while counting as an enchantment for Ancestral Mask.

As far as utility lands go, Rogue's Passage seemed obvious as a last resort to make your commander unblockable. Reliquary Tower may be generally overrated, but modifies your hand size, which I thought might be relevant considering the number of combat damage triggers that draw you a card. I have Otawara, Soaring City in the list instead of Boseiju, Who Endures because I had one lying around. Boseiju offers extra removal, but you could frankly use either or both if you want to.

The Strategy

Cast your commander, make your commander big, trample-y, and/or unblockable, attack, then profit. That’s basically it.

A good opening hand has enough land or ramp to cast your commander by turn 4 or earlier and some modifications to slap onto it on your next turn. You don’t have any haste enablers apart from Swiftfoot Boots, so I wouldn’t waste time or mana loading it up with auras until the turn that I can attack with Kotis.

Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief and Spark Double each act as backup commanders, giving you the potential for a three-pronged attack if you draw well.

Pay attention to who else is at the table. If an opponent is using the graveyard for value, I recommend that you don’t actually cast their spells. Their instants and sorceries will return to their graveyard when they resolve, as will their permanents if they’re destroyed. You don’t want your spell theft abilities to play into your opponents’ game plan (and you don’t want to act as their mill enabler), so sometimes just leaving cards in exile is the best way to slow them down.

Strong Back and Ancestral Mask are the cards that lead you toward a commander damage win condition. Including Bident of Thassa and Triton Wavebreaker, this deck has 14 total enchantments. You’ve also got the combination of unblockable enablers and double strike enablers, plus Inquisitor's Flail for some extra oomph.

Combos and Interactions

This deck doesn’t have any infinite combos, so you’re pretty much all set if you know how triggered abilities work, and how to proceed when you have multiple abilities that trigger at once.

There are only two mutate creatures in the deck, but remember that Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief copies you Gemrazer and Sea-Dasher Octopus too. Copied mutate creatures become tokens that you’ll place on top of or under Ivy, as you’d expect from a mutate spell.

Rule 0 Violations Check

The only sticking point in a Rule 0 conversation might be the spell theft angle, but that’s really the only part of this deck I could describe as “not fun.” Aside from that, you have no Game Changers, you aren’t chaining extra turns, you aren’t using stax pieces to lock players out of the game, and you aren’t running mass land destruction. You should be in the clear.

Budget Options

Start in the mana base, and work with what you’ve got. Guildgates, Thriving lands, scry lands, gain lands, Evolving Wilds, Foreboding Landscape, etc.

I was lucky to find a Shadowspear when I bought a Theros Beyond Death Collector booster while god-hunting for my Esika, God of the Tree god typal deck. Most other 1-mana equipment won’t be as impactful, but you’ll save a lot of coin.

Delighted Halfling is expensive, but it’s kind of important to making sure you can cast your commander. Destiny Spinner isn’t a bad replacement since it’ll make all your creatures and enchantments uncounterable.

Damnation is a $20 black sweeper; you can swap it for basically any on-color board wipe available to you. Swan Song can slot out in favor of Refute or another cheap counterspell.

Brotherhood Regalia is here for the ward , but more importantly, the unblockable ability. Prowler's Helm is an acceptable replacement, especially if nobody you play with runs walls. I don’t have a specific replacement for Power Fist, but it’s the only other card that’s in the $10 range.

Heroic Intervention’s mass protection can be replaced by Change of Plans or March of Swirling Mist. These X spells phase out your creatures rather than giving them indestructible, which also means that you won’t be able to use them to attack or anything until they phase back in.

Other Builds

Kotis, the Fangkeeper is surprisingly versatile. You’re always attacking for value; the question is just exactly how you go about doing that. You can also focus on the combat damage triggers, the paradox triggers, auras, equipment…. And that’s just to start.

If you want something more “unbox and go,” there’s the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Grand Larceny precon. It’s a Sultai theft deck, after all, so you could certainly do worse than giving Kotis an audition at the head of that deck. And you don’t need Gonti, Canny Acquisitor’s cost reduction because Kotis lets you cast spells for free.

Another precon you could modify around Kotis, the Fangkeeper is Commander 2020’s Enhanced Evolution. I’ve included a few mutate cards in this deck, but that’s the quick way to go all-in on that theme.

You can build a Sultai deck around +1/+1 counters, including some that involve combat damage triggers. You could also slip into a poison, toxic, or infect space if you want, where proliferation is a good idea. Proliferation makes Tasha, the Witch Queen better support, and you can use equipment like Banshee's Blade (which I cut when I remembered Ancestral Mask exists).

Since Kotis has low toughness, you can play a bunch of small creatures and support them with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive to make them all unblockable.

You could also go further into a competitive space with the Thassa's Oracle alternate win condition, using a combination of draw and self-mill effects. If you build a Kotis Thoracle deck or spot one in the wild, let me know in the comments!

Commanding Conclusion

Tasha, the Witch Queen | Illustration by Martina Fackova

I can honestly say that I haven’t been this excited for a Magic set in a while. Sure, every set over the last few years has had its appeal, but there’s something about Tarkir and the flavor of the cards that come from that plane that really captures my attention. Kotis, the Fangkeeper got the hamster in my brain on its treadmill the moment I saw it.

Which path would you take with a Kotis, the Fangbearer deck? Which cards would you swap out of this build, and which cards would you swap into it? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, stay safe and happy brewing!