Witherbloom, the Balancer Commander Deck Guide

Witherbloom, the Balancer | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Witherbloom, the Balancer is one of the five new and exciting Strixhaven dragon commanders. It’s easy to exploit Witherbloom’s main ability that grants “affinity for creatures” to your instants and sorceries, and that’s what we’re doing here. Today, I’m showing you how I’d build around this commander to take advantage of the many synergies it allows.

Many decks cheat on expensive creatures by casting them for free, and here we’re cheating on expensive instants and sorceries by reducing a huge chunk of their costs. There's even some powerful combo potential with Witherbloom. Let's see what we can put together.

The Deck

Beledros Witherbloom | Illustration by Raymond Swanland

This deck sits between Brackets 3 and 4. It doesn’t contain Game Changers, and its card choices aren’t heavily optimized, but there are some tutors and infinite combos. Without disruption, it usually needs around 6-7 turns to do its thing.

The Commander: Witherbloom, the Balancer

From Secrets of Strixhaven, Witherbloom, the Balancer is the green and black dragon from Witherbloom (), and in this set, each legendary dragon gained an ability related to instants and sorceries. Our commander costs a whopping 8 mana, but it has affinity for creatures, so it’s usually not that expensive.

A simple Llanowar Elves in play generates 2 mana by itself, 1 because it’s a creature in play, and another from its mana ability. In addition, it adds affinity for creatures to all instants and sorceries you cast. So, if you get a 5-mana discount on your commander, you get the same 5-mana discount on all instants and sorceries you cast. That opens up an avenue to cast really expensive and powerful spells, not to mention X-spells.

You can have a very explosive turn when you cast Witherbloom and follow it with a big spell, so even if your opponents kill your commander, you get the reduced cost on the instant or sorcery you cast. Some cards also go infinite with Witherbloom, the Balancer, so there are some combos to explore here.

Creatures

A big problem with some Commander decks is their A+B nature, and many times you draw a lot of As and not that many Bs, or the other way around. Here, you naturally want your deck to have creatures because MTG decks thrive on creatures, and this commander has affinity for creatures. But at the same time, the payoffs are for instants and sorceries. Thankfully, WotC made some pretty interesting creature designs that help here, including those with the prepared mechanic.

Sedgemoor Witch and prepared creatures like Studious First-Year and Eccentric Pestfinder help to bridge the gap between tokens and instants/sorceries. Studious First-Year is interesting; it casts a card you want to play (Rampant Growth), while it leaves a body behind for your commander.

Mana dorks like Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves are twice as effective mana producers in this deck.

Creatures that enter and produce tokens are very good here. Kozilek's Predator, Nest Invader, and Sengir Autocrat are in the deck to give your commander its mana discount.

I always loved Avenger of Zendikar, and it makes many tokens, ideal for recovering from a board wipe.

Token Makers

Many cards in this deck can make a lot of tokens. I’ve tried to tie in the token production mainly to instants and sorceries so that you can take advantage of Witherbloom’s ability and convoke.

Arachnogenesis and Galadhrim Ambush are ways to turn an opponent's massive attack into your own benefit. Scatter the Seeds makes three tokens using mana from your own creatures, too. Szat's Will can also make a lot of tokens at instant speed.

Rite of Belzenlok creates five creature tokens over the course of two turns, so it can ramp out your commander pretty well. You can go from turn-4 Rite into turn-5 8-mana commander.

With Witherbloom out, Lab Rats can make a token for a single mana, but Sprout Swarm goes infinite!

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools is a planeswalker that spams tokens.

Expensive Spells and Finishers

This Commander deck should be fine-tuned to cast these spells thanks to Witherbloom’s unique ability. The bad news is, they’re expensive and clunky without your commander in play.

Breach the Multiverse is value: You can get an expensive spell for free from your deck and something good off your opponents.

Ezuri's Predation and In Garruk's Wake are ways to use your bonus mana to Plague Wind the board.

Overwhelming Stampede and Finale of Devastation can give you a powerful attack if you’re doing your job with tokens.

Tooth and Nail in this deck can fetch something like Craterhoof Behemoth and Avenger of Zendikar.

Torment of Hailfire, Exsanguinate, and Stensian Sanguinist are serious wincons with affinity.

Sylvan Awakening needs some testing, but it’s a wild idea if your lands can become creatures, so you get a lot of mana in a single turn for just 3 mana or less.

The Great Aurora is a very strong card if you have a few creatures, your commander, and some lands in play (obviously, you want to have a wider board than your opponents). It’s a pretty hard reset, but in a scenario where you have 20+ permanents, you should come out on top once this resolves.

Interaction

Green and black are good at interacting via spot removal. There’s Windgrace's Judgment, which you can often cast for less then 5 mana, Fell the Profane, and Putrefy. Pest Infestation is really nice in this deck, because you can get rid of pesky artifacts, enchantments, and create Pest tokens for the glory of Witherbloom.

To protect your commander, this list also has some cards that can make it indestructible.

Combo

This commander offers a “free combo”, so to speak. The key card is Sprout Swarm. It costs with buyback, and Witherbloom reduces the , so you only need to tap the green token you’ve just produced. If you cast your commander and have Sprout Swarm in hand, you basically create infinite tokens the turn it comes in. That, coupled with the affinity for creatures ability, basically means that you can cast any X-spell for infinite, assuming you have the needed mana to pay for the green and black costs. From there, you can aim to win via Finale of Devastation, Torment of Hailfire, or Exsanguinate.

Tutors

The best part of running combos with this commander is that your tutors also get a mana discount. Let’s say you have five creatures and your commander in play. You can cast Beseech the Queen for 6 mana, and in this case, it’s free. You’ll usually tutor for X-spells that have a low mana value, so the downside of Beseech the Queen is often negligible.

Increasing Ambition can be cast and flashed back for mana total, and you’ll tutor three cards. Dark Petition gives you more mana than you’ve paid for, if you have spell mastery. Diabolic Revelation can tutor a lot of cards for , and so on. Demonic Tutor is a Game Changer because it always costs 2 mana, but these cards aren’t and can cost that or less, so I’m not running any GCs.

The Mana Base

This deck has a fairly standard green and black mana base with some Forests, Swamps, and a few mana rocks. The creatures and tokens themselves are a part of the ramp package, and you have some Eldrazi Spawn generators and cards like Cultivate.

This commander is a little bit different, in that it allows you to ramp by playing creatures. I’ve included Sylvan Awakening as a sort of ritual, so if your commander is out, each land you control generates 2 mana for that turn (a green High Tide).

The Strategy

Early game, the most important part is to have some sort of board presence, including mana dorks, mana rocks, and color fixers. Sometimes, you lack double black or double green in the early game, which is a bit annoying. Cards like Studious First-Year, Elvish Visionary, and Weaponcraft Enthusiast are ideal in the early game so that you can cast your commander on turns 4-5 reliably.

Ideally, you’ll have some way to protect your commander before you can untap and use all your mana to do broken stuff. If you have something that already combos with your commander, you can do that in the same turn, and that can be enough to win.

The worst part is when your opponents sweep your board, since you’ll need to recast your now 10-mana commander without any creatures to help. Some cards can help with the quick rebuild: Arachnogenesis, Ezuri's Predation, or Galadhrim Ambush. Token spammers like Sengir Autocrat or Rite of Belzenlok can also help you to rebuild quickly.

You can also hardcast your expensive spells if it comes down to that. Just casting a card like Army of the Damned gives you 13 bodies, letting you recast your commander for . Sometimes a single big Awaken the Woods does the trick, so you’ll have plenty of mana and creatures to use.

Combos and Interactions

This deck is built around some combos made possible by Witherbloom, but there are little interesting interactions that can happen from time to time.

Sylvan Awakening can be an interesting card. Let’s say you have seven lands, and you tapped three of them to cast this card. The other four lands will net you 8 mana total, so you’re up 1 mana. But if you cast Sylvan Awakening with your commander’s discount, tapping a mana rock, then your seven lands produce 14 mana.

One thing I find interesting with this deck is that you can cast a card like Circle of Power, which is card draw, but at the same time, the wizard it provides is part of your combo. Similarly, cards like Awaken the Woods or Pest Infestation are X-spells that give you tokens and other benefits. Awaken the Woods creates “Palladium Myrs” for you, while Pest Infestation is a super Naturalizes that leaves tokens behind.

Rule 0 Violations Check

This deck has infinite combos and the tools to search for it. The main one is Sprout Swarm + Witherbloom, the Balancer + Witherbloom Apprentice. With your commander online and a few creatures, you can cast infinite Sprout Swarm, which makes everybody lose infinite life. Another combo that pretty much ends many games is to cast an entwined Tooth and Nail, looking for Craterhoof Behemoth + Avenger of Zendikar. This gives you many creatures, trample, and a powerful +X/+X boost. You can also sacrifice your “infinite” saproling tokens to Ashnod's Altar to make infinite mana and channel that into a big X-spell.

Budget Options

If you’re not worried about budget or already have the needed cards, Earthcraft is nice in this deck because it lets you combo with Lab Rats, too. Sprout Swarm has convoke, so you can use the tokens you’ve just made to keep the combo rolling. With Earthcraft, you can tap the rat tokens you’ve just produced to pay for the black mana, since your commander reduces the generic mana to cast and buyback. Other expensive cards you can add are: Heroic Intervention, to protect your creatures, and Phyrexian Altar, to sac creatures you’ve just made and add colored mana.

I’m pretty happy with where this deck landed in terms of budget. However, to make this deck more accessible overall, one easy cut is Agadeem's Awakening. I’m mostly running it as an upgrade to a black land and in some cases, you’ll use it to rebuild after a wrath. Torment of Hailfire has never been reprinted in a big set and thus keeps getting more and more expensive as a nice big black finisher. It’s hard to replace that. And you can replace cards like Finale of Devastation or Awaken the Woods, which are pretty expensive as well, with Genesis Wave and Rude Awakening.

Other Builds

Considering the amount of mana you can generate with this commander and X-spells, milling + landfall + Splendid Reclamation is strong, and you can maximize cards like Genesis Wave.

Another way you can build this deck is around storm. Since you can cast infinite copies of Sprout Swarm, you can play storm spells or Professor Onyx.

This can also be a deck that quickly ramps into Biorhythm.

Commanding Conclusion

Beledros Witherbloom | Illustration by Daarken

Witherbloom, the Balancer is a strong commander, both for casual and competitive EDH. I’m not saying it’s easily a top Bracket 5 contender, but players should have some fun building decks around this commander, and without spending that much money. It’s interesting that we can actually run a 9-mana sorcery spell like In Garruk's Wake as a synergy piece, and that reminds me of why Commander was so cool (and cheap) in the first place.

What do you think of this commander and this decklist, guys? Do you have another hot take on how to build this deck? Let me know in the comments section below, and be sure to check out The Daily Upkeep, Draftsim’s own YouTube channel.

Until next time, stay safe!