RedLegendary Creature — Human SamuraiHeiko Yamazaki, the General
Mana value4Rank#9,321
The Commander
Trample
Whenever a Samurai or Warrior you control attacks alone, you may cast target artifact card from your graveyard this turn.
Guide
Gameplan
Curve out with cheap, hard-hitting Samurai and Warriors, then send a lone attacker each turn to recast artifacts from your graveyard for value. You grind aggressive damage while reusing burn-on-a-stick equipment, mana rocks, and impactful artifacts, snowballing into a wide-or-tall mono-red beatdown.
Strengths
- Repeatable artifact recursion turns dead cards in your graveyard into a steady value engine no other mono-red commander offers.
- Cheap to cast at four mana with trample, so she pressures opponents and recovers from board wipes quickly.
- Plays well with sacrifice/aristocrat artifacts and Equipment you can recur and reattach for free.
- Mono-red aggro is consistent and resilient against targeted disruption since damage comes from many sources.
Weaknesses
- The 'attacks alone' clause fights against going wide, creating tension between token strategies and the recursion trigger.
- Mono-red lacks card draw and ramp depth, so you can run out of gas against grindy multiplayer tables.
- Removal-heavy decks can pick off your lone attacker before the trigger pays off.
- No built-in evasion beyond trample means big blockers can stall your attacker and shut off the engine.
Key Cards
- Goldnight Castigator — A cheap big trampler is irrelevant—instead lean on Samurai/Warrior enablers; Heiko wants efficient lone attackers like this archetype to push the trigger.
- Reckoner Bankbuster — A repeatable artifact you can recur to draw cards, directly answering mono-red's card-advantage problem.
- Embercleave — Cheap to cast on a lone attacker, recurs from the graveyard via Heiko, and ends games out of nowhere.
- Solemn Simulacrum — An artifact creature that ramps and draws when it dies, then comes back via Heiko for repeat value.
- Kazuul's Toll Collector — A Warrior that moves Equipment for free, enabling solo attacks loaded with recurred gear.
- Lightning Greaves — Haste and protection on your lone attacker keeps the engine online and dodges removal.
Upgrade Path
Tighten the curve with the most efficient evasive Samurai/Warriors and prioritize Equipment that wins through a single attacker (Embercleave, Sword of Feast and Famine, Fireshrieker). Add artifact-based card advantage and recursion targets (Reckoner Bankbuster, Solemn Simulacrum, Treasure makers) so the graveyard trigger always has fuel, plus protection like Lightning Greaves and Heroic Intervention to keep your lone attacker alive. Top-end finishers such as extra-combat effects (Aggravated Assault, Combat Celebrant) convert the trigger into explosive lethal turns.
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
- ▸Commander damage and trample through with an Equipment-loaded lone attacker like Embercleave-armed Heiko.
- ▸Repeated recursion of impactful artifacts (Bankbuster, removal, burn) grinds the table out of resources and life.
- ▸A buffed solo swinger with double strike or extra combat steps deals lethal in one or two attacks.
- ▸Death-by-a-thousand-cuts aggro chipping each opponent down with consistent unblocked damage.
Archetypes
- Samurai/Warrior Aggro — Heiko rewards aggressive single-attacker beatdowns from a tribal base of Samurai and Warriors.
- Voltron — Recurring Equipment and a lone trampling attacker make her a natural fit for suiting up one threat.
- Artifact Value/Recursion — The cast-from-graveyard ability turns mana rocks, removal artifacts, and ETB bodies into a reusable engine.
- Aristocrats-lite — Sacrificial artifact creatures like Solemn Simulacrum can be recast endlessly for incremental advantage.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (R), by popularity.
