The Commander
Whenever Ian the Reckless attacks, if it's modified, you may have it deal damage equal to its power to you and any target. (Equipment, Auras you control, and counters are modifications.)
Guide
Gameplan
Suit up Ian with equipment, auras, and counters early, swing for the fence, and on each attack deal his power as direct damage to any target (while paying the same in life yourself). You race the table by stacking power and damage doublers so a single connect — plus the bonus ping — burns out a player. It's an aggressive mono-red Voltron/burn hybrid that thrives on speed and forces opponents to deal with your equipped threat immediately.
Strengths
- Built-in reach: the attack trigger hits any target, so you can finish a player even when blocked or behind walls
- Cheap two-mana commander that gets going fast and is hard to ignore
- Doubles up with damage doublers and 'deal X to each opponent' effects for explosive turns
- Mono-red gives the deck consistency, cheap equipment, and strong burn/recursion options
Weaknesses
- The self-damage clause can kill you if you push power too high without lifegain or a sacrifice for the trigger
- Heavily commander-dependent — repeated removal taxes you and stalls the plan
- Mono-red lacks card draw and struggles in long, grindy games
- Vulnerable to fog, lifegain walls, and creatures with high toughness or protection
Key Cards
- Embercleave — Cheap to cast with extra attackers, grants +1/+1 and double strike, and stacks power so the attack ping is lethal.
- Fireshrieker — Double strike means the modified trigger and combat both connect, effectively doubling Ian's burn output.
- Sword of Fire and Ice — Adds power, protection from red/blue, a 2-damage ping, and a card on hit — premium Voltron equipment.
- Aggravated Assault — Extra combat steps re-trigger the attack ability, letting you ping multiple times in one turn.
- Sundial of the Infinite — Lets you control timing and protect Ian, and helps manage the self-damage on stacked triggers.
- Boros Charm — Indestructible protects your equipped Ian from board wipes and also doubles as reach damage.
Upgrade Path
Add damage doublers (Gratuitous Violence, Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Furies) so each attack ping is twice as lethal, and lean into Embercleave, the colorless Swords, and double strike. Include lifegain or fight-style sacrifice outlets to offset the self-damage, plus extra-combat enablers (Aggravated Assault, Combat Celebrant) and protection like Lightning Greaves and Boros Charm. Round out with cheap card advantage (Wheel of Misfortune, Outpost Siege) to refuel mono-red's limited draw.
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
- ▸Connect with a heavily-equipped Ian and burn a player out with the attack-damage trigger
- ▸Double the trigger's damage with effects like Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twins Fang, or Gratuitous Violence
- ▸Generate extra combats to ping multiple times in a single turn for lethal
- ▸Standard combat damage from an oversized double-strike Voltron threat
Archetypes
- Voltron — Ian wants to be loaded with equipment, auras, and counters to maximize attack-trigger burn.
- Equipment Aggro — Mono-red equipment package modifies Ian cheaply and reliably to keep the trigger online.
- Burn/Spellslinger — His repeatable any-target damage pairs with burn and damage doublers to close games from across the table.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (R), by popularity.
