Spitemare

| Art by Matt Cavotta

Stop Punching Yourself!

Hello, and welcome back to Singleton Shmingleton, where I bend the singleton rules of Commander by building decks with as many functional reprints of a certain card as possible.

This week's card is an absolute banger of a card: it's

! This card has captured the attention of players ever since its first printing in Eventide, and has been a cult favorite in every one of its iterations.

But

itself has an interesting lineage. All the way back in Stronghold, there were not one but two cards that resembled the horse, in

Wall of Souls

and

Mogg Maniac

.

Then Future Sight gave us

, which, with its built-in indestructibility, is the most easily usable of these effects.

Spitemare

is the first version of this effect that can actually hold its own in combat, but it certainly is not the last.

Two versions of this effect have managed to break through into the competitive scene. Back when Gatecrash was released,

was an absolute powerhouse, seeing play in many top decks for its efficiency alone.

And at the time of writing,

, an even more pushed creature, is seeing play in red aggressive decks in Standard and a fringe combo deck in Pioneer (but we'll get to that combo later).

It turns out this effect is incredibly strong at three mana, and can hold its own in a format of creature combat.

I've counted fifteen cards that reflect damage back outwards from themselves. Two are in black, three are both red and white, and ten are mono red. Here they are:

The most played of these cards, in a whopping 101,628 decks, is

. It truly is an incredible card, but I've always thought of it as just a

Stuffy Doll

that can't be played in quite as many decks, so I'm surprised to see it with more than twice the doll's deck count.

The next most played card, in 44,475 decks, is

. In a dedicated Dragons deck, this card can be terrifying since it grants this ability to all of your creatures, but in our deck it's no better than any other version. The other typal payoffs on this list,

Wrathful Raptors

and

Spiteful Sliver

, also rank well in play rate.

The least played card, in only 1,402 decks, is one of the originals,

. It can't deal damage to creatures, it's a wall, and it's not in the color of direct damage spells, but it's also cheap and is a very good way to dissuade opponents from attacking you.

All in all, not bad! The next least played card is

itself with 4619 decks. All the other versions have extra words on them, and this one is just as close to the default as it gets.

Build-a-Doll

Our first angle of attack is to try and build as many copies of

or

Brash Taunter

as possible. These creatures are incredible because they have indestructible, meaning we can point huge amounts of damage at them repeatedly (and still leave them up as blockers too).

To that end, we're running several Auras and Equipment that grant indestructible.

and

Mithril Coat

are our best bet for equipment, and our auras can include the original

Indestructibility

, as well as

Timely Ward

and

Shielded by Faith

.

Once we've got an indestructible creature on the board, we're going to need to deal it damage. Luckily, that's what red does best. Boardwipes such as

,

Star of Extinction

, and

Chain Reaction

are good cards on their own, but in this deck they can also smack our opponents for huge chunks of damage, and we can keep any of our creatures we've managed to make Indestructible.

Red also has a ton of cards that can deal tons of damage to creatures at a very cheap rate, dependent on how many mountains we control. As long as we heavily skew this deck's mana base towards including mountains, these cards will be able to double as direct damage to players or efficient removal for opponents' creatures.

and

Rockslide Ambush

are the best rate, with

Seismic Strike

close on their heels.

also works similarly as long as we run

snow

basics

, dealing damage equal to however many basics we have (plus one more if we happened to draw

Alpine Meadow

).

Finally, there's one card that can win us the game on the spot.

is basically the complementary opposite of all of our

Spitemare

s, and it'll generate a loop of damage to the creature and any target for as long as the creature survives. If we can make the creature indestructible, then any initial damage that the creature receives or deals will win us the game.

I like one-off combos like this because it gives me hope in games that otherwise feel unwinnable. If I always have a sequence of draws that could win on the spot, I'm less likely to check out when an opponent has built an insurmountable advantage. And of course, it helps that the card that enables this is some terrible Aura from Scourge.

Double, Double

Our next angle of attack draws inspiration from a Pioneer combo deck that revolves around

. The goal of the deck is to cast the first half of

Insult // Injury

to double all damage this turn, and then cast

Chandra's Defeat

targeting the

Screaming Nemesis

.

The five damage will be doubled to ten damage to the creature, but then when its trigger goes to deal ten damage to the opponent, the damage is doubled again to twenty!

s work incredibly well with damage doublers because there are two instances of dealing damage, so it gets doubled twice.

To emulate this interaction in Commander, we're going to play some of the best damage doublers.

is the cheapest at four mana, and has held its own in a format that speeds up every year.

has Flash, letting us surprise opponents mid-combat or just play it on the end step before our turn to negate the downside of a symmetrical effect. And finally,

Fiery Emancipation

is ridiculous, tripling damage (which often means nonupling in this deck) and not giving our opponents any advantage.

Let me describe Magical Christmasland for you: we control two Indestructible

s. Both of them have the ability to reflect damage onto creatures as well as players.

We also have a damage doubler. If at any point one of our

s receives damage, we can bounce the damage between the two repeatedly, doubling it each time, before finally dealing infinite damage to an opponent. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

Even if that doesn't come together, we can often deal forty damage in one turn. If we have two

s and a damage doubler, all we need to do to take one player out is to deal five damage to one.

That damage is doubled to ten, and we can reflect that damage onto our other

, which receives twenty and deals forty to a player. We've lost our board, but we've also taken out a player from full health.

To that end, we're running

,

Chandra's Defeat

, and

Scorching Shot

as the most efficient ways to deal five.

Hidden Haymakers

This strategy is super explosive, and it also allows us to play some cards that don't have much of a home elsewhere.

stops anyone from wanting to attack us, as any amount of damage we take will end up going their way. It is also just unbeatable for some decks in a deck full of ways to make creatures indestructible.

lets us pull the same trick at surprise speed, leading to some serious blowouts.

Arcbond

can really turn any combat into a nightmare, and can take out some or all players at the same time.

also combines incredibly with Lifelink. I've included

Basilisk Collar

as a classic in any deck looking to deal damage with creatures, but

Angelfire Ignition

also stands out in this deck as another way to grant Indestructible.

Finally,

is a perfect commander for this deck. She makes our creatures Indestructible when she enters, and her back side can deal damage to start our chain reactions.

I've always wanted to play with this card, but some part of my mind still thinks she costs $70 like when she was in Standard. After an Innistrad Remastered reprint, though, she's under $2! Crazy how times change.

The Decklist

This deck scratches an itch I didn't know I had. It can do incredibly explosive things, but it can also be grindy and interactive. Who knew a combo deck where the combo pieces are removal spells and efficient creatures would work so well?

Our

s dissuade most opponents from attacking us, so we can often stay at a pretty healthy life total while we're setting everything up.

And when we go for the win, it doesn't feel the same every time. Sometimes we've got everything: Indestructibility, damage doublers, guilty conscience, you name it.

Other times we have to solve the puzzle of what to target with

, what we're willing to sacrifice to double the damage one more time, and whether we're willing to risk getting blown out by a removal spell.

is definitely the star of the show, and it is a show I want to see! Almost mono-red control, with a commander who doesn't even have red on the front side, with a crazy combo finish, this deck will catch opponents off guard.

Until Next Time

Moving from this week's annoying blocker to next week's! One mana deathtouchers have proven themselves in Limited, and have long propped up

decks, but what can we do with over twenty of these creatures? Find out next time on Singleton Shmingleton!

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