Magic: The Gathering Commander Focus: Suspend, Dual Typal, & Francisco//Kediss

If there's one thing I've noticed in the post-pandemic boom of Commander content, it's that players and format luminaries are far more keen to look at the game under a more analytical lens. This to some extent makes sense, as specific card choice becomes more difficult given overwhelming releases, having guiding philosophy about the hows & whys of deck construction ends up more relevant. I'd like to formally throw my hat into the ring in that regard, and talk about the 'shape' of a Magic card, and how one can build for what your Commander is, rather than what it does. This is counterintuitive at first glance, given so much of the format is predicated on building for synergies with your always-accessible Commander, but with the right tools and a willingness to work backwards from your strategy's endgoal, something truly outstanding can be arrived upon.

Case in point, today I'm talking about a plucky duo of cute animals, Francisco, Fowl Marauder & Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar. Before we talk about what they do, let's focus on what they are: A pair of 2 mana Commanders in Rakdos colors. As to why that is important, these cards which talk about Pirates dealing damage and spreading out combat are actually leading a tightly-woven tapestry of Cascade enablers and Time Counter payoffs, all with an Elemental tribal/typal subtheme. No, really. Strap in for a bit of a bumpy ride as we trace our steps and cover the combo that caused me not only to pair these two to lead a Suspend strategy, but also how I've managed to commit the highest heresy: Willingly cutting Sol Ring, for an objective reason.

"Search Your Library for an Elemental Card"

Let's start from the beginning: One rainy afternoon at work I stumbled upon Rift Elemental, and followed my nose to Rousing Refrain, realizing if any opponent had 6+ cards in hand silly things could happen. This is a combo that's been explored before, and in fact it's the most common 2-card unique to those upgrading the Doctor Who precons, from which Time Counters received their largest modern swath of support. The fact Rift Elemental was a mere 1 mana immediately leapt out at me—it could be tutored a number of ways, from White's Ranger-Captain of Eos, to any number of Green means to fetch Creatures. That being said, the fact this combo involved Suspend specifically drew my eye to a synergistic way to fill opposing hands: Wheel of Fate. This is normally a fairly slow, telegraphed wheel, but for anyone who's played Modern you know that these costless Suspend cards can be Cascaded-into. and with Rift Elemental a mere 1 mana, gears started turning.

What if we played a list such that some of our only Cascade targets were these costless Suspend spells, and Rift Elemental? Flamekin Harbinger, of course, is also 1 mana and can tutor Rift...okay, are there more Elementals that synergize with exactly a hyperspecific Cascade line and are 2 mana or higher? My normal process here would normally see me fumble around Scryfall, plug in terms, and generally waste time agonizing over whether a piece slotted in. Here, though, I already knew exactly the card this deck needed: Flamekin Herald. We can choose our Commander(s), obviously, so restricting ourselves to only >1 mana options is fairly easy, and given the combo only really requires Red, the secondary color(s) are freely available, depending on Commander choice. I don't intend to just slot in a 2-card combo somewhere and call it a day, however, and having a tacit interest in the various Time Counter pieces is important to me. That's why we've settled on Black as the secondary color.

It's the Magic equivalent of loading too many plays of 'What's New Pussycat' in the jukebox.

I mentioned offhand my interest in exploring a deck that aimed to loop through Scarlet Spider, Kaine (which you can read here), and while he'd certainly be an interesting option in terms of unknown Commanders, my gut instinct told me this was a job for Partner. Or Choose a Background. Or Survivors, now, I suppose. Yes, Wizards has isolated the options for selecting two Commanders more and more, as their fear of an unbalanced combination looms over tens of thousands of possible combinations, for Partner alone. Our finalists are as follows: Wyll, Blade of Frontiers//Cultist of the Absolute, Ellie, Brick Master//Ellie, Vengeful Hunter, and Francisco, Fowl Marauder//Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar. Wyll is unique in being the only Rakdos option with a bona fide 1 mana Commander, which can isolate specifically Wheel or similar cards in the cascade pool, but Wyll himself requires a bit too much buy-in to make work as part of the gimmick, in theorycrafting. If you wanted a second 2 mana option, Scion of Halaster is an easy swap for Cultist. The Ellies are funny mostly in that you can pair two of the same character, and I do love the feel that comes with Brick Master, but lacking a second 2 mana or lower option was the deathknell. Instead, we're going with Francisco & Kediss, and finding a way to somehow make Pirate synergies also work. Let's talk about why.

Cresting the Cockatoo

It's not as though Francisco & Kediss require Pirates to function, but that having some incidentally good ones are a boon for the Commander pairing on the whole. Dire Fleet Daredevil and Glint-Horn Buccaneer are cards you'd already consider playing in the 99, Pirates or not, and picks like that are what bolster this portion of the package. Magmakin Artillerist is likely worse than Glinthorn, but it's funnily enough an Elemental, meaning this is a Pirate...we can actively tutor for. Finally, Lightning-Rig Crew is the third of these 'deal damage to each opponent' Pirates, which result in an outstanding 3 Explore triggers for Francisco. Sorely needed too, as one of our major concerns is just getting over the hump of Francisco's very first point of power. As you may have noticed, the bird has 0 to start, and cannot himself trigger that core ability...at first. The moment Fran gets a counter from seeing a nonland, this becomes a non-issue.

There are a truly shocking number of ways to pump the bird past the first point, many of which will crop up throughout this deep dive, so let's cover the pieces whose sole purpose is getting there. One of my absolute favorites is very simple: Rouse. A functionally free spell which gets Fran to 2 power is certainly good enough, though if we are paying mana, Buccaneer's Bravado sits among the best of our choices. Double Strike isn't something we're actively pursuing, as Francisco actually killing people is more of a happy accident, but it can happen to entire tables at times if paired with Kediss. Our mana base is greedy, with that in mind, fitting in such means of getting Francisco past the initial hurdle by way of awful lands like Looming Spires, Teetering Peaks & Animal Sanctuary. Beyond those, our utility lands are largely tailored towards this purpose, wringing blood from the proverbial stone of the low associated opportunity cost. If you have some drudgery needed to get your gameplan started, using your mana base in that manner is advisable.

Avast, Cascade!

Just got some draw smoothing, that's all.

The actual options to Cascade for 2 inherently are slim. So slim, in fact, that I ought to say option, singular: Bloodbraid Marauder. It falls to us, then, to find ways of making this work in less obvious ways. Dark Apostle & Sloppity Bilepiper, names fans of Warhammer on this site might be familiar with, are two such ways. We can readily tack on Cascade to any number of our 2 mana cards, and build our own Bloodbraids, with blackjack and additional costs. Wild Magic Sorcerer is another such option, although it's less freely accessible without another source of impulse draw, and we scrounge further with Zowoya's Justice, which requires either an initial 1 mana target or the risk of hitting something outside of our core pool. Finally, while expensive, Rain of Riches gives us a painless, vaguely mana neutral means of doing our thing over the course of two turns. Seeing these other options, you might now understand why I made the tutoring of Flamekin Herald so central a tenet, as it truly is the best option for doing this.

That being said, there's another Cascade piece which helps segue into another topic: Throes of Chaos. Now, Throes is not mana value-limited in the same way as our better means of Cascading, but it's repeatable by way of the Retrace ability. So many of our cards are paradoxically high mana value, in spite of never being casted as-such, with Suspend pieces like Arc Blade & Charnel Serenade at value 5. So, while the pool is wider, it's not as wide as one might think, and Francisco in theory keeps us positively loaded with Land in hand, by way of Explore. Most often, we'll be binning the majority of pieces with his trigger, as our suite of Retrace cards are hungry for the lands that represent real card advantage. Embrace the Unknown & Decaying Time Loop aren't fantastic cards, but are accessible, repeatable, and critically do so if we have the infinite Red mana provided by the best case scenario of our combo. In letting us see more cards, they push towards victory in a very real sense.

Background Time

We have two Commanders, and more than that, two Commanders with low mana value. One of the best ways of making use of that fact is through supplementing them with one of my favorite underutilized tools in the 99, Backgrounds. See, Backgrounds affect all your Commanders, so while normally they're one half of a whole, here they get to double dip and radically increase in value. Tavern Brawler & Agent of the Shadow Thieves each help Francisco get its first trigger, but more than that, actually let Kediss get in and/or provide advantage. Guild Artisan is liable to go mana-neutral at worst, but can often serve as a ritual if Kediss is clear to swing against an opponent. Finally, Passionate Archaeologist here is a very real win condition on its own, taking huge chunks of ~5 or more from our opponents as we continually cast spells off of Suspend, or impulse draw.

Big aspirations for a little guy to hold so many jobs.

Speaking of, I would contest that Red & Black make for an underrated pairing when talking about Time Counters. Of course, you lose out on some tools provided by the other colors in the Doctor Who product, but make up for it in having cards like Suspended Sentence. While Time is more of a means than an end for this particular list, that doesn't mean we're without tools to Time Travel or otherwise meddle in the pace they arrive. Fury Charm can peel away counters and turn a Suspended threat into a very real Instant-speed interaction (or pump Francisco, go figure), and The Parting of the Ways is a massive bomb if we have the mana for it. I really like The Moment as a way to preserve the counters on Francisco, should he be threatened by removal, and the fact it's rather similar to a Pernicious Deed makes for a fine enough package. Here it takes the role of an Ozolith-lite more often than a strict board wipe, but it's good to have both.

Talking about Coward//Killer requires I touch on another funny card here, Blazing Shoal. For the players not scarred by its Modern play, Shoal is quite the powerful pump spell, and because Split cards are their total mana value while not on the stack, it can deal a ton of damage with both Francisco & Kediss onboard. Back to Coward though, a 2 mana Time Travel isn't awful, and it's great at letting Kediss get in against an opponent with only a single blocker. It's played alongside Fast//Furious, however, largely for the fact it's a ton of mana and is 'good enough'. Normally, adding in a Time subtheme would be clunky, as that's a mechanic which gets better with density, but because Francisco allows us to filter an absolute ton, it's often going to feel like we have more Time Counter synergy pieces than we actually do.

Frankensteining a Victor-y

This deck is quite good at getting to the Rift Elemental combo with Rousing Refrain, and an opponent with 6+ cards in hand, but how does it actually win the game? That combo is going to result in either infinite casts of a Sorcery, at worst, or infinite Red mana and casts, at best. Our aim is to allow this to become a victory in its worst form, and at its best we'll be happy campers. A great way is turning the worst-case into the best case, by way of Electro, Assaulting Battery or Birgi, God of Storytelling//Harnfell, Horn of Bounty. With infinite casts at our disposal, this always results in the desired effect, and even lets us retain infinite casts if opponents only have max 5 cards. Professor Onyx cares not about the mana, as her Magecraft triggers will kill the table, and as an added bonus she wins alongside Fury Storm given we have Partners most of the time.

But wait! Remember those Retrace cards we had access to? They're all Red, and in theory we can line them up to dig for win conditions, or even turn something like a Decaying Time Loop into a win itself alongside our Pirates that deal damage on discard, plus Francisco. If we do the combo in Combat, Glint-Horn alone gets there with infinite Red mana. The truth of the matter, though, is that while we certainly are a combo deck, and that combo was the basis of this entire strategy, more often than not it's played for value while we get in with Francisco for lethal. The inclusion of a card like Hatred signifies as much. Despite being born of, molded by a discreet combination of pieces towards a win, we've somehow gone through the wormhole and ended up a midrange strategy. That's all part of the journey of building a deck, I find, and the sum is far greater than its parts—even the ones that it was built to serve.

Example Decklist: Fran & Ked's Excellent Adventure

The lacking of certain pieces is perhaps the most interesting part of this list not yet discussed. Fast mana is largely absent, not by choice but by necessity, so groups that frown upon even cards like Sol Ring should have few qualms about the deck. Furthermore, the best tutor options are largely absent, and combined with the previous point, this cements the strategy as best belonging in Bracket 3. We can only afford 3 Game Changers anyway, and the choice of 1 mana tutors or moxen is taken away, leading to our inclusion of Deflecting Swat, Demonic Tutor, & Jeska's Will as more obvious than they'd otherwise be. Notably, both Underworld Breach & The One Ring would be welcome inclusions, and I think you could really play 3/5 of any of them and feel good.

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

There's actually more removal & protection here than you might assume for such a straightforward aggro-combo deck, with incidental Time cards still picking apart opposing boards, and Delayed Blast Fireball cast from exile just enough to be warranted. In much the same way, its sister card Impending Flux does the same, but actually kills our opponents if we're comboing off. A card like Fury or Lethal Scheme still feels good here where it otherwise might not, without having the micro-synergies of being an Elemental, or discarding (and potentially even putting counters on Francisco). In looking for these tiny points of cleverness, however, there's been a need to cut Time cards like Jhoira's Timebug, and I feel you'd get plenty of mileage shaving the budget down by swapping the pricier pieces with more Time cards. That, and the mana base, which is so thoroughly whipped to produce a turn 1-2 swinging Francisco that it needs the Magic equivalent to aloe. You can afford to not afford that, though proxying the base will keep Francisco lean & mean.

Beyond the Textbox

Yu Maeda's take on Flamekin Harbinger makes for a spectacle when flipped off Cascade.

Even if a deck has wacky things going on in the mid-to-late game, one of the absolute best ways to ensure it remains at least reasonably functional is to plot out your exact early game. If you can look at a hand and do at least one thing you've set out to do, that which the deck is designed to open, you've done more than most midrange-y 'slop' piles. Here, that's the initial Francisco trigger, from which we intend to spiral wildly into an aileron of peculiar synergies, but doing that one thing, getting that 0 power bird in for the first time, it grounds the strategy. Explore is a fantastic keyword if you're trying to filter to keepable hands, and not miss land drops, and doing at least that means you keep some semblance of a pace with your opponents. Not to echo the mold-addled voice of a particular mouthpiece, but it's the 'cleaning your room' every day, or game, that keeps a list like this sane.

At the core of so many peculiar brews is that grounding mechanic, or play pattern, that silently makes savvy deckbuilders able to win with odd mish-mashes. Whether your goal is to assemble Kaldra or perform an overwrought joke with Grozoth, it takes only one step in the direction of functionality to transform a gimmick deck into something actually passable that you can feel good bringing to more than one game per play group. I mean to stress, this isn't a gimmick deck in spite of its veneer of being so, and there's a ton more here than just its founding combo. With the right tweaks for your budget, and your playgroup, you too can explain with glib enthusiasm that yes, your deck is pirate-elemental-time counter-cascade without Sol Ring. Don't forget the puckish smile.

Until next time, eepkay eckbuildingday.

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