Commander Focus: Prepare, Off-Color Storm, & Lluwen, Exchange Student

School's back in session, and with it arrives a new Instants & Sorceries-matter mechanic, in the form of Prepare. Magecraft is out, it's old news—instead of Creatures benefiting from your casting or copying of these impermanent Spells, they're the ones casting them. That's the flavor, anyway. There's a ton to be said about the specifics, but it's best to think of these as repeatable Adventures which live on your Creatures, available once conditions are met. Arriving in Secrets of Strixhaven is a cycle of our Lorwyn Five (was that the name we settled on?), each with new art, stories, and crucially, prepared Spells. While they're merely uncommons meant to show off this new take on Spellshapers, there is one particular member of the five that drew my eye upon his reveal: Lluwen, Exchange Student//Pest Friend. This Lorwyn native may have the trappings of an uncommon, but he exists in the context of his constituent text; between managing to be in just the right colors, with Pest Friend having just the right cost for its effect, this Commander enables a highly nontraditional Storm strategy in Green & Black. For those Prismari mages who are feeling a little Witherbloom-curious, come home to roost here, as we prepare to sling spells with Lluwen.

"Lluwen Becomes Prepared"

Given his core mechanic is so new, it's worth talking about Prepare before we dive into what we're doing with Lluwen, specifically. Any Creature with a potential Spell to cast exists in a Boolean state: Prepared, or Unprepared. While a unit is Prepared, the Instant or Sorcery you see on the right side of their textbox exists as a Spell in Exile, waiting for you to cast it during an appropriate timing window. When you do, and that Spell enters the stack, that Creature becomes Unprepared, and that Spell ceases to exist beyond the stack until its originator once again becomes Prepared. There's a few key takeaways from this: The Spell is cast from Exile, it's entirely repeatable so long as you re-Prepare, and (from my understanding as a judge) the Spell is not your Commander, but instead merely a linked game object (see CR109.3). Back to our boy Lluwen, his Prepare condition requires you exile a Creature card from your Graveyard at Sorcery-speed, to ready the Sorcery 'Pest Friend', which for {G/B} makes one of the new attack-centric Pests. While Lluwen is the most expensive to cast out of our new Lorwyn Five, at 4 mana, Pest Friend is only a single mana, and to that end excites me the most from among their lot. After all, the moment we cast it for a second time, we'll have made back more mana compared to something like Abigale, Poet Laureate//Heroic Stanza.

Explaining why requires a few pieces of context, which we'll dive into a bit deeper later on: Pest Friend is a repeatable, multicolored Sorcery that produces a Green & Black Creature token. It's a Spell we're casting, not just an activated ability, and at a fairly cheap rate; this drives me to see Lluwen as a Golgari Storm Commander, able to sling Pest Friend over and over to build storm count while making use of a stocked Graveyard. This is fairly new ground for the colors, not traditionally seen as those of a spellslinger gameplan, but because of that we're able to make use of tools little-appreciated by Witherbloom mages until now. I'm referring specifically to Storm pieces like Reaping the Graves & Chatterstorm, which essentially add their own line of text to each instance of Pest Friend, adding back a Creature from the bin or making a 1/1. The more that we abuse the fact Prepared Spells are actually cast, the better, and as I'll divulge shortly, some of Lluwen's best tools come from the fact that Pest Friend dips into both his colors, in spite of being just 1 mana.

Lluwen's Technicolor Dreamcoat

Perhaps some of the value engines prove...excessive.

The first facet of Pest Friend I'm interested in is the fact that it's both Green & Black, a repeatable multicolored Spell. Multicolor-matters is a tried and true archetype in Commander, with options like General Ferrous Rokiric being popular stand-outs...although this is new ground for Golgari. Sure, Savra, Queen of the Golgari has existed since the times of preDH, but we can do far more than stick a Grave Pact on legs. I'd like to call to attention the Eidolons, Verdant Eidolon & Entropic Eidolon, from back in Dissension—this cycle of Spirits returns from the yard to ones' hand every time you cast a Multicolored Spell, being both excellent discard fodder, and ways to trigger 'leaves the Graveyard' effects. Couple those with a Skirge Familiar, and buddy, you've got a stew going. If you're looking for more substantial card advantage though, why not turn your eyes to The Mana Rig & Tome of the Guildpact; each of these allows Pest Friend to cantrip-ish, whether in the form of Powerstone tokens you can pay into the Rig's ability, or literally just drawing a card. While it just barely missed the cut, there's also Invasion of Ravnica//Guildpact Paragon, which can help you dig for a number of multicolor tools, and has been in and out of the 99 more than a few times in testing. Some of the best removal, tutoring, and mana generation in the Golgari is conveniently both colors, so adding another way to allow for Pest Friend to cantrip feels strong if enabled.

There is, however, one more multicolored-matters payoff that's worth discussing, one of the cards which inspired me to cover Lluwen in a full article: Fallaji Wayfarer. Wayfarer is inexplicably multicolored (though not exactly two colors, sorry Invasion of Ravnica), and gives your other Multicolored Spells Convoke—this of course includes Pest Friend, a 1-cost Sorcery that makes a Green & Black 1/1. If you've not caught on, that means we effectively get to cast the Prepared Spell for free, so long as we can enable Lluwen's condition of exiling a Creature card from our yard. Similar to Wayfarer is Hoarding Broodlord, because as established our Prepared Spells originate in Exile, meaning he'd also provide them Convoke. Beyond that, there's a few slightly more awkward ways to make Pest Friend costless, whether in the form of K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth or sac/enters outlets that turn our Pest token into mana (e.g. Carnival of Souls, Phyrexian Altar, Sedgemoor Witch). These are...less mechanically elegant than the big two Convoke enablers, as we're giving up life or the body in the process, but you know what they say about eggs and omelettes. It's vital we play a critical density of these effects, so when two or more appear on the table we begin to go mana-positive; with Storm as a goal, that's paramount to steering towards our endgame. Okay, so now we have payoffs for casting Pest Friend a bunch, and easy means of ensuring it's free—how do we pay for Lluwen's activated ability, and better yet, accrue value from it?

Have a Gravebreak. Have a KitKat.

He don't bite.

Let's talk about cards entering and leaving the Graveyard. It's going to happen often, with Lluwen at the helm, given he only Prepares by ridding yourself of access to a Creature card for the rest of the game. While we can do things like trigger our multicolor-matters effects, and build storm count, in a vacuum it's not great rate to merely re-up on casting a 1/1 for {G/B}. In order to make doing so worthwhile, even if Pest Friend costs {0}, we're going to need additional payoffs: Enter Gravebreak. Gravebreak is neither a keyword nor ability word, but instead the dubious name of a Limited archetype, bestowed to BG in Murders at Karlov Manor. While not an especially popular piece of Magic lingo, its triggers have ballooned in number since MKM, with cards like Dredger's Insight & Teval's Judgment. If this is going to be a mechanic Wizards keeps repeating, we may as well have a term for it. Gravebreaking is extremely easy to do in this deck, between things like Lluwen's ability, or our Eidolons (another reason they're so sweet!), and unless we're truly popping off limitations on it like Teval's Judgment only getting each trigger once isn't a problem. Far more things incidentally Gravebreak than you might think, from Dredging with Golgari Grave-Troll, to returning cards with Ripples of Undeath. It just needs to at some point enter the yard first, during an effect's resolution (meaning sadly Malevolent Rumble is only good, instead of great here).

That being said, two cards really push these effects into overdrive: Poxwalkers, and returning Commander Focus favorite, Eternal Scourge. Lluwen without Scourge is capped at the number of Creatures we play, even if Pest Friend is free to actually cast, and ~32 is less than infinity last I checked. Not only, however, are we casting Eternal Scourge (adding to our Storm Count) but we're also doing so from exile. That means it can be Convoked out with Broodlord, sure, but it's yet another way for Poxwalkers to himself Gravebreak. After all, Prepared Spells also exist in Exile first, so they're innately being cast from beyond the hand. Chuck something like Ashnod's Altar or similar in there, and things snowball rather quickly. First we fill the yard with things like Mesmeric Orb, Hermit Druid, & Stitcher's Supplier, and then do the hokey pokey with the Creatures therein. I'm referring, of course, to putting them in, putting them out—and if so inclined—shaking them all about. With this metaphor rapidly degenerating, let's turn our eyes to those win conditions.

New Toy Syndrome

How bad can an infinite 3/3 for {3} be?

Lluwen, Exchange Student is new, and I mean "one deck on EDHREC" new, as I pen this down. To that end, it's been a struggle in terms of deciding on the best endgame for the deck, much less the harder question of what his ideal mana acceleration looks like. I pride myself on well-researched, well-tested coverage, but my hands are tied by the shackles of Chronos here, and all I can promise is that the list will continue to evolve as I get more time with the boy. Couching out of the way, our intended win condition is threefold: Get Eternal Scourge into the bin, Lluwen Prepared with Pest Friend, and some means of translating casts of the former into the latter (usually by way of a sacrifice outlet). This in turn builds infinite Storm count and potentially infinite mana depending on the tools at our disposal, which should eventually allow us to find Ancient Cellarspawn and kill the table from there. Of course, resolving this with an Aetherflux Reservoir on the board does the same thing, or indeed Tome of the Guildpact, Skullclamp, etc. If you can do the thing, you can push for a win most of the time (this is where a flipped Invasion of Ravnica could eventually filter into Witherbloom Apprentice for reference). Given we want to make use of the Eidolons & Grave-Troll, most of our tutor lineup exists to accommodate a Creature-based casting wincon, with Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest, & Formidable Speaker (and I've even considered Insidious Dreams). Assume we will be also Gravebreaking infinitely, meaning a removal spell like Soul Enervation that's stuck around also kills the table, and plenty more result in bodies enough to win with.

The question is not necessarily what outlets to play, but in what density; you only need one of them to result in a kill, so the others need to be independently good enough throughout the midgame to be worth their slot. Is something like Soul Enervation better than Teval's Judgment, for the fact that it assist in a kill? Or do we prefer grindier midrange tools which assist in getting us to that endgame? I've settled on a fair mix of the two, but your mileage may vary (and so will the list, over time). The next big question for a Storm/combo deck comes down to mana: How are we accelerating fast enough for our pop-off turn? I've decided on a fiscally inappropriate method, being Gaea's Cradle effects aplenty alongside Land untappers. Golgari has access to both Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth & Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, meaning that should we play a great enough number of nonbasic Land tutors we can be wildly greedy with our manabase. By the time the midgame rolls around, we intend to have access to either Cradle, Cabal Coffers, Evendo, Waking Haven, or even Growing Rites of Itlimoc//Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun—if we spend mana wisely, tapping everything we can to create plenty of Pest tokens, Cradle effects then push us over the hump now that we've got a full board of bodies. Naturally, you might be sacrificing these Pests over the course of your turn, but there should be some point at which you can squeeze 5+ mana from one of these Lands in-between. To supplement this, we've got a couple Voyaging Satyr effects, and it took every ounce of restraint not to jam Harold and Bob, First Numens in here. Currently, we're not on fetches, but if we ever do find room enough for them between our utility Lands that's a far more realistic idea (Plus Flare of Cultivation, etc). There's maybe even a world where, courtesy of digging via Invasion, we re-enact the classic Cadaverous Bloom combo route that took Mike Long to a Pro Tour win in 1997. In short, the bones of Lluwen are strong, and versatile, but testing is the only way to discern the best route to victory in terms of combo outlets & mana.

Example Decklist: Lluwen, No Exchanges, No Refunds

Before covering some of my favorite cards we've not yet talked about, I feel it necessary to cover cards we're not running, namely Chain of Smog & Food Chain. Obviously, alongside any Magecraft payoff Chain of Smog kills your opponents, and Food Chain famously produces both infinite storm count & Creature-locked mana with Eternal Scourge; these are cards which are excellent with other pieces present in the list that present a concise endgame. I've built Lluwen as a mid-to-high Bracket 3 Commander, and thus avoided these quick 2-card combos. Purely out of the interest of showing what Prepare as a new mechanic can do, I've opted to push for wins that utilize it, and those are still extremely competent despite involving 3+ cards.

This deck is sweet, and I've not been able to stop talking about it since Lluwen was revealed. Obviously cards like Insidious Roots were top of the mind after reading his text, but what about Spymaster's Vault as a way to rip through the deck and load up the yard during a Storm turn? We're on a ton of Land flexibility, and even if it gets binned we can spring for Floral Evoker(Who loves discarding Eidolons) or Echoing Deeps (which can also copy Cradle, etc). Speaking of Lands, Lluwen encourages you to max out on one of my favorite things: MDFCs. There's a total of five Creature MDFCs legal in Golgari, and honey we're on all of them. Being Creatures to pitch for Survival of the Fittest or exile to Prepare Lluwen is amazing, and the opportunity cost is fairly light with us having Yavimaya & Urborg to mana fix. Lethal Scheme is standout removal, usually being free, and the fact we can flex Connive to Dredge Grave-Troll, discard it, and repeat 3 times makes for a nasty mill enabler; on the flip side, the brand-new Immortal Bargain is something I wanted to test, as a one-sided Culling Ritual of sorts, with greater reach. This list does opt for more interaction than I normally pack, because Golgari is the king of making it benefit you proactively in some way.

Decklists are kept updated, and may change with set releases.

Can we take Lluwen to Bracket 4? I think so, and that does open up the floodgates to playing more concise combos like Food Chain/Chain of Smog, but the problem you always run up against in those scenarios is a dilution of the deck's 'soul'. I think the coolest parts of Lluwen are still available in higher-power scenarios, with Convoking out Pest Friend still being quite strong, but it would require we reckon with the fact our Commander is a 4 mana uncommon, which feels rough in the face of what 4 mana gets you with more straightforward options. Now, can you push Lluwen down, to a low B3, or high B2? Oh yes. There, you're given far more freedom to explore his jankier angles, with additional Magecraft synergies and a few other Prepare effects that missed the cut here (Sorry Grave Researcher//Reanimate). I think folks who want a more freeform Storm deck in weird colors are very happily-served there, as with the removal of strict combos Lluwen is a tremendous puzzle to solve. Do keep an eye on your turn timer though, as non-linear Storm is perhaps most infamous not as an archetype people enjoy facing...but for taking 30+ minute turns.

Pest Day Ever

Victor Adame Minguez ensures the Wayfarer herself is the colorful centerpoint, as she should be.

As the number of Magic cards ascends, with current Standard nearly having as many cards legal as Modern when it first debuted thanks to the 3-year rotation, Wizards has needed to get more and more outlandish with their formatting & mechanics. Complexity is at an all-time high. That can be ascribed to Commander now being the most popular format—to such an extent players learn Magic playing what used to be meant for judges in their off hours—and such an environment rewards knowledge of those new mechanics' intricacies. Lluwen is an amazing example of a card that's been already a bit written off, an uncommon with but a single deck on EDHREC at time of writing (mine, from the looks of it). All five of the cycle are worth a look in my opinion, if only because Prepare is a wildly interesting mechanic; once I have a bit more time with it, I intend to do a breakdown of some of its key synergies, as Lluwen is but the first that's shown merit.

Being an 'early mover', as it were, on a given Commander can be a bit harrowing. The popularity of the format has led to a ton of information overflow, with even modestly-played Commanders having hundreds of lists available at ones' fingertips. This is both good, in that it makes writing a baseline list easier, but bad insofar as players missing key synergies or cool interactions. Once a deck's "ecosystem" is established, aggregators like EDHREC have a hard time showcasing alternate build paths. I say all of this because Lluwen was revealed on Tuesday, I finished the deck on Wednesday, and this article went live on Thursday, feverishly composed with the excitement only a new Commander can bring. I felt the need to talk about Lluwen, and some of the Prepare synergies on the whole, because I desperately hope he doesn't get lost in the shuffle of excitement surrounding Secrets of Strixhaven. He deserves better than that. You deserve better than that, dear reader.

Until next time, Lluwen some, you lose some.

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