Zurgo Stormrender Commander Deck Guide

Zurgo Stormrender | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Tarkir: Dragonstorm gave each clan their own Commander precon, leading to an above-average number of precons and fresh commanders. To embody the fierce, aggressive power of the Mardu, we got Zurgo Stormrender.

This commander combines token aggro with strong aristocrat potential to tap into virtually everything the Mardu wedge cares about. But does it have the strength to pull it off? Let’s see what we get from the new commander!

The Deck

Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon | Illustration by Chris Rahn

This deck impresses the fearsome nature of the Mardu onto our opponents with a powerful token aggro deck that dabbles in aristocrat synergies to make use of Zurgo’s death trigger. It applies early pressure with cheap creatures while leaning on strong burn effects and consistent token producers like Outlaws' Merriment to maintain pressure later in the game.

The Commander

Zurgo Stormrender fits into this deck as a support piece that makes all our other token producers stronger. Our opponents can easily eat the tokens from cards like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar or Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, but Zurgo gives us an effect when they do. The life loss provides vital reach in the late game when our opponents have ramped into massive threats our smaller creatures can’t break through.

Token Producers

The token producers are the star of the show. These flood the board with little bodies that Zurgo makes stronger, trigger a variety of damage and draw effects, and are generally the reason to build this particular deck. Cards in other sections might create tokens in addition to serving another role, but these are here strictly for token making.

Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah came straight from Modern Energy to this deck, because they are that good. Ajani works especially well with Skullclamp and other sacrifice outlets as a cheap planeswalker that doubles as a consistent token producer.

Ainok Strike Leader is a beast of a card from the Mardu Surge precon that applies plenty of pressure and even protects our tokens in a pinch.

Loyal Apprentice is one of my favorite designs for Commander that shines here. Making flying tokens provides much-needed evasion and lets us chip away for damage in the air.

Charismatic Conqueror doesn’t always make tokens, but the alternative of tapping down blockers or slowing down the Treasure player sounds nearly as good as the Vampire army.

Voice of Victory and Skyknight Vanguard provide cheap bodies that apply plenty of early pressure. Voice of Victory is particularly handy at disrupting countermagic so we can land some of our larger, more impactful threats.

Aligned Heart, Bitterblossom, and Outlaws' Merriment provide consistent token creation. Enchantments are especially useful since they survive the average board wipe, letting us rebuild swiftly after we incur the Wrath of God.

Forth Eorlingas! has taken Vintage Cube and other formats by storm, and it provides this deck with a powerful finisher that consumes any and all excess mana we have.

Lingering Souls puts a ton of bodies into play. You need one of the token payoffs for it to be exceptionally exciting, but I’m happy dropping all this pressure into play.

Will of the Mardu’s an astounding card. This might be the best of the new Will cycle; doubling my tokens or killing a creature is exactly the sort of flexibility I want in Commander.

Caesar, Legion's Emperor does pretty much everything in this deck. It’s a sacrifice outlet that produces excess tokens or draws cards or finishes our opponents off. Whatever we want, it does. I particularly like that stacking our triggers correctly turns Zurgo’s temporary mobilize token into two permanent ones while drawing a card.

Two of our strongest token producers are Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon due to the sheer quantity of tokens they spit out. Those tokens might not survive combat, but we don’t care much about that with Zurgo Stormrender rewarding us whenever a token dies.

Token Payoffs

This section is a hodgepodge of cards that reward us for making tokens or having a ton of bodies, and contains burn, sacrifice, and card draw effects.

I consider Impact Tremors effects to be a critical component of aggressive EDH decks. They pressure all of our opponents at once and let us maintain aggro through a stalled board. This deck has six total versions of the effect.

Corpse Knight and Impact Tremors are the most efficient, but Purphoros, God of the Forge deals the most damage and supplies additional damage via the pump effect.

One weakness of this card class is the they don’t do much if you draw them after deploying your creatures. Warleader's Call is an anthem, so it works at any point in the game.

Agate Instigator comes down whenever we like while synergizing with other token payoffs, and was probably my favorite card to come from Bloomburrow.

I would have normally stopped at that point, but Tarkir: Dragonstorm kicked it up a notch with Thunder of Unity, a saga that mitigates the downsides of too many Impact Tremors effects by drawing some cards.

Within Range provides more burn that even comes with a few tokens to enable the life loss.

Caretaker's Talent is one of the hottest bits of token tech to come out in the past few years; having a card advantage engine that doubles as an anthem makes our deck much more impactful.

Glimmer Lens loves all the tokens we make while providing another body itself.

Tymna the Weaver and Professional Face-Breaker benefit from our token production since it becomes easier to attack multiple opponents for the full benefit from these cards.

All this token production screams for a token doubler or two, so I’ve added the two strongest.

Mondrak, Glory Dominus is just a solid creature that works as a sacrifice outlet while surviving most board wipes via indestructible.

Elspeth, Storm Slayer is my pick for the best token doubler in the game, largely due to its token production. If that wasn’t enough, the 0 ability is more than capable of killing a player when drawn on a full board.

Goblin Bombardment and Attrition are two of my favorite sacrifice outlets. Bombardment ends the game in short order, especially with Zurgo and Zulaport Cutthroat amplifying the damage, while Attrition cleaves through opposing boards.

Nuts and Bolts

No Commander deck would be complete without card advantage and interaction (or ramp, but we're getting to that), and we have plenty of both. Some of these fall within the main game plan of token aggro, and some are just good cards.

I can’t resist playing Skullclamp in a deck that makes so many 1/1s. TDM brought us Desperate Measures, which gives us another cantrip. It works especially well with Zurgo; if we kill an attacking token, that’s just Ancestral Recall!

Dark Confidant and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun are excellent sources of card advantage that pressure our opponents early while drawing some cards. Darkstar Augur exists in a similar space, with token synergy.

Aurelia, the Law Above smacks your opponents around, providing card advantage and some damage later. The true charms comes from it triggering whenever your opponents attack, letting you feed off their game actions.

Speaking of, Esper Sentinel scales beautifully in Commander as a slam-dunk in pretty much any white deck. It also plays nicely with our anthems.

If you want to play a creature-based deck in Commander, you need to come ready for board wipes. Teferi's Protection and Clever Concealment are some of the best in class since they protect your from everything, including Farewell. Akroma's Will doesn’t provide such comprehensive protection, but its potential as a finisher earns it a slot.

Dismantling Wave and Soul Shatter are fantastic in Commander since they handle multiple threats for one card.

Winds of Abandon flexes between spot removal and a fairly cheap Plague Wind. Ramping your opponent can be a downside, but the fix is simple: Kill them before they untap!

Origin of the Hidden Ones is basically a thematic Flametongue Kavu that spits tokens out.

The Mana Base

This deck runs pretty light on mana accelerants since it doesn’t want to ramp in the early turns. Some mana acceleration’s pretty useful, especially for recasting Zurgo, so we have the playset of on-color Talismans. In addition to those, we Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff, and Magda, Brazen Outlaw as aggressive sources of Treasure.

We want to extract as much power from our land base as possible, starting with a slew of MDFCs. Boggart Trawler, Witch Enchanter, and Shatterskull Smashing add a little more interaction to the deck.

Malakir Rebirth adds cheap protection while Pinnacle Monk and Agadeem's Awakening provide some backup in the form of recursion.

In addition to the MDFCs, the Neon Dynasty channel lands adds plenty more interaction; we have removal thanks to Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, recursion in Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, and more hasty tokens from Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance.

Dalkovan Encampment adds aggressive power to the lands, though it needs some board presence to work.

Phyrexian Tower gives us a free sacrifice outlet that’s almost impossible for our opponents to interact with, plus it ramps.

The Strategy

I can’t pretend that this is a particularly complex deck. You want to jam some token producers alongside cards that care about tokens and rush your opponents’ life totals to zero. The two most important aspect are those token producers and something that benefits from them.

Remember that Zurgo is a support piece more than a critical part of the deck’s gameplan. Players often jam their commander the moment they have the mana, but this deck has a few cards that are stronger to develop on 3 mana, with Anim Pakal, Adeline, and Aligned Heart quickly coming to mind.

Once your opponents have 4-5 mana, be on the lookout for board wipes. Our protection spells are the best way to get around them, but you could also sandbag a few threats, or only develop enchantment-based threats like Outlaws' Merriment and Windcrag Siege that survive your average board wipe.

Combos and Interactions

This deck has no meaningful pool of complex interactions or combos to explore; it’s often as straightforward as combining cards that care about tokens or going wide with cards that go wide by producing tokens.

The most important interactions to manage are the attack triggers. Lots of our cards do something when they attack and making sure you stack them properly is important, as is remembering them so you extract the proper amount of value from them.

Rule 0 Violations Check

I can’t see any Rule 0 conversation that this deck would violate. You can’t get fairer than putting cardboard on the table and turning it sideways.

Budget Options

Most decks become cheaper when you mess with the lands; trading fetches and shocks for gates and tapped lands slashes the cost of any deck. You can also run regular lands over the MDFCs or value lands to reduce the budget. I would cut those before the untapped lands.

Elspeth, Storm Slayer has the cost you might expect of a premium new mythic; token doublers don’t really have budget options, but another planeswalker that makes tokens like Elspeth, Sun's Champion at least keeps producing bodies. Such a swap works just as well for Mondrak, Glory Dominus.

Purphoros, God of the Forge and Warleader's Call are pretty pricey, but Witty Roastmaster and Mirkwood Bats make fine budget replacements.

Many of our card advantage engines like Tymna the Weaver, Esper Sentinel, and Caretaker's Talent cost a pretty penny; you can easily replace them with Night's Whisper and other one-off draw effects as your budget allows.

Teferi's Protection and other protection spells get pretty pricey, but there are fine alternatives in Make a Stand, Selfless Spirit, and other sources of indestructible. They don’t help against Farewell or protect our other permanents, but they work in a pinch.

Orcish Bowmasters is one of the best cards in the game, which lacks replacement. I suppose you could use another token producer like Battle Screech? The same could be said for other multi-format staples like Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah.

Attrition has no true replacement, but I could get behind a Bone Shards or something similar.

Other Builds

Zurgo Stormrender ties itself closely to creating tokens, but that doesn’t mean general Mardu aggro is the only build path.

Another direction might focus harder on aristocrat synergies. Swapping the burn and some of the more aggressive token producers like Skyknight Vanguard for additional sacrifice outlets and sacrifice payoffs would lend the deck a grindier, midrange strategy.

You could also build the deck around The Master, Multiplied as a secret commander. The two work well together with cards like Legion Loyalty and Urabrask's Forge because you either benefit from the temporary tokens dying, or from them sticking around.

Commanding Conclusion

Ainok Strike Leader | Illustration by Alexander Mokhov

I think Commander could use more aggressive options. The multiplayer nature of the format favors midrange and control strategies that ramp their brains out and create long-term value engines, and it would be nice to see some aggressive strategies teach the greedy ones some respect. Because of this, I’m glad to get aggressive commanders like Zurgo Stormrender.

Do you think Zurgo Stormrender is a good aggro commander? Do you like playing aggressive EDH decks, or do you think the format’s better as a grindfest? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!