JundLegendary Creature — Human WarriorMaarika, Brutal Gladiator
Mana value5Rank#10,179
The Commander
Maarika, Brutal Gladiator must be blocked if able.
As long as it's your turn, Maarika has indestructible.
Whenever Maarika deals damage to a creature, if that creature was dealt excess damage this turn, that creature's controller sacrifices a noncreature, nonland permanent.
Guide
Gameplan
Maarika is a Jund Voltron beatstick that pressures opponents every turn: she must be blocked, has indestructible during your turn, and trades excess combat damage into Edict-style noncreature sacrifices. You stack pump and trample/double strike, swing in, and use her forced-block plus indestructibility to win combats while stripping artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers off the board. Close games by going wide with sacrifice synergies or simply going tall and connecting for commander damage.
Strengths
- Indestructible on your turn makes her nearly impossible to remove in combat or via your own pump/sac sweepers
- 'Must be blocked' guarantees combat triggers and forces bad blocks
- Excess-damage trigger acts as repeatable noncreature removal, hitting artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers
- Jund colors give the best removal, ramp, and recursion in the format
Weaknesses
- Trigger only fires when Maarika deals excess (lethal-plus) damage to a creature, so it needs trample or overkill setups to be reliable
- Indestructibility lapses on opponents' turns, leaving her vulnerable to removal
- Exile, bounce, and -X/-X effects bypass her protection entirely
- Heavy reliance on the commander makes the deck stumble if she's repeatedly answered or taxed by commander tax
Key Cards
- Rancor — Cheap recurring trample enabler that ensures excess damage spills through blockers to trigger her sacrifice clause.
- Fireshrieker — Double strike lets her deal first-strike damage to a blocker then assign excess, comboing with her trigger and stacking commander damage.
- Bloodforged Battle-Axe — Doubles each time she connects, snowballing her power so blocks always produce lethal excess damage.
- Goring Ceratops — Grants double strike to power her trigger and threaten lethal commander damage quickly.
- Ohran Frostfang — Gives trample/deathtouch-style value and card draw, ensuring excess damage tramples through to fire her ability.
Upgrade Path
Add trample and double-strike enablers (Berserkers' Onslaught, Loxodon Warhammer, Grappling Hook) so the excess-damage trigger fires every combat, plus protection like Lightning Greaves and Heroic Intervention to cover opponents' turns. Lean into fast mana (Sol Ring, signets) and tutors (Sword Coast, Open the Armory, Steelshaper's Gift) to assemble the Voltron package consistently. Top-end recursion such as Phyrexian Reclamation and Eternal Witness keeps the engine resilient against exile-light tables.
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 from a pumped, double-striking Maarika
- ▸Grinding opponents out of resources via repeated noncreature sacrifices then beating down
- ▸Going wide with Jund tokens/aristocrats while Maarika dismantles defenses
Archetypes
- Voltron — Indestructibility on your turn and forced blocks make her an ideal carrier for auras and equipment aiming for commander damage.
- Stax/Edict Control — Her trigger repeatedly forces opponents to sacrifice noncreature permanents, grinding down artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers.
- Aristocrats — Jund colors and a built-in sacrifice theme support a value engine of death triggers and recursion.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BGR), by popularity.
