The Commander
Guide
Gameplan
Flood the board with creatures that all swing with double strike the turn they arrive, turning fresh hasty bodies into lethal alpha strikes. You ramp into big threats, then deploy them alongside haste enablers or flash them in mid-combat for surprise damage. The deck wins by overwhelming a single opponent in one or two explosive attacks rather than grinding.
Strengths
- Doubles combat damage on every creature that entered the turn, including tokens and reanimated/blinked bodies
- Flash and Haste let Deathleaper ambush blockers or finish a player out of nowhere
- Gruul ramp powers out large creatures that hit for absurd amounts with double strike
- Combos beautifully with trample, ETB-attack triggers, and mass token generation
Weaknesses
- Effect only applies the turn a creature enters, so it favors going wide fast and can fizzle in stalled boards
- No card advantage or recursion in the command zone—runs out of gas if the alpha strike is answered
- A single board wipe or removal on Deathleaper resets your whole plan
- No evasion baked in, so well-defended boards can chump your attackers
- Heavily creature-dependent and vulnerable to stax/fog effects
Key Cards
- Craterhoof Behemoth — Enters with haste, gets double strike, and turns your whole team into a one-shot kill.
- Purphoros, God of the Forge — Each creature entering pings opponents, layering reach damage on top of your double-strike swings.
- Ghired, Conclave Exile — Spits out hasty token copies that immediately attack with double strike.
- Xenagos, God of Revels — Doubles power and grants haste, so a fresh creature swings as double strike at quadruple base power.
- Akroma's Will — Flash trick granting trample and evasion to finish through blockers after a sudden creature drop.
- Krenko, Mob Boss — Builds a token army that all attack with double strike the turn they're made.
Upgrade Path
Add haste enablers (Fervor, Hammer of Purphoros, Ogre Battledriver) and token doublers (Parallel Lives, Doubling Season) to maximize how many bodies get double strike each turn. Lean into one-shot payoffs like Craterhoof Behemoth, Pathbreaker Ibex, and Xenagos, God of Revels, and add evasion/trample (Nylea, Rancor) so your alpha strikes actually connect. Tighten the ramp base with Cultivate, fast mana like Sol Ring, and protection such as Heroic Intervention to safeguard the swing turn.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Alpha strike with a wide, hasty board where every attacker has double strike
- ▸Craterhoof Behemoth or overrun effect into double-strike trample for game-ending damage
- ▸Purphoros/impact-trigger damage stacked alongside combat for reach kills
- ▸Single enormous Xenagos-pumped creature connecting for lethal commander damage
Archetypes
- Tokens / Go-Wide Aggro — Mass token producers create hasty swarms that all attack with double strike for explosive lethal turns.
- Big Creatures / Ramp — Gruul ramp deploys huge hasty fatties that deal double damage immediately on arrival.
- Blink / Flicker — Re-entering creatures count as 'entered this turn,' so flicker effects re-enable double strike and surprise attacks.
- Combo Finish — Pairing token doublers, Craterhoof-style payoffs, and Deathleaper creates one-shot alpha-strike kills.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (GR), by popularity.
