The Commander
: Permanents your opponents control lose hexproof, indestructible, protection, shroud, and ward until end of turn.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes the target of a spell or ability you control, put a bounty counter on that creature.
Whenever a creature with a bounty counter on it dies, put two +1/+1 counters on Shay Cormac.
Guide
Gameplan
Shay Cormac is a two-mana voltron/removal hybrid who punishes opponents' creatures: tag them with bounties via your targeted removal, then cash them in by killing them to grow Shay with stacks of +1/+1 counters while the activated ability strips away the protection that usually saves problem permanents. You spend early turns deploying interaction and ramp, then snowball Shay into a lethal threat backed by repeatable removal.
Strengths
- Two-mana commander that turns your removal suite into card-advantage and a growth engine simultaneously
- The ability nullifies hexproof, indestructible, ward, protection, and shroud—answering otherwise untouchable threats and combo pieces
- Grows extremely fast: every bountied creature death is two counters, so board wipes and combat can swing the game in one turn
- Cheap to recast and abuses the entire B/W targeted-removal and edict ecosystem
Weaknesses
- Shay has no innate evasion or protection himself, making him vulnerable to removal once he's a threat
- Voltron lines fold to a single targeted Swords to Plowshares or chump-block walls without trample/menace support
- Bounty counters require you to target opponent creatures, so wraths and edicts don't generate the snowball unless you tag first
- B/W lacks card draw and ramp depth, so engine-heavy builds can stall on resources
Key Cards
- Swords to Plowshares — Premier one-mana removal that tags a creature with a bounty—but exile won't trigger the death payoff, so save it for true threats.
- Bedevil — Flexible targeted destruction that plants a bounty and kills, feeding Shay two counters when the creature dies.
- Heartless Hidetsugu style ping effects, replaced by Soul Snare — Repeatable or cheap targeting effects let you stack bounties before a board wipe.
- Toxic Deluge — After tagging multiple creatures, a wrath cashes in every bounty at once for a massive Shay buff.
- Skullclamp — Essential card draw engine in a counters/aristocrats shell to refuel B/W's thin card advantage.
- Rogue's Passage — Gives the growing Shay guaranteed evasion to push commander damage through clogged boards.
Upgrade Path
Push power by adding cheap, repeatable targeting effects (pingers, auras like Soul Snare/Journey to Nowhere, and recurring removal) so you can apply many bounties before a sweeper. Improve consistency with the best B/W ramp and card draw (Sol Ring, Talisman of Hierarchy, Phyrexian Arena, Skullclamp) and tighten the curve toward instant-speed interaction. For the kill, add reliable evasion and protection for Shay—Whispersilk Cloak, Rogue's Passage, Lightning Greaves, and Swiftfoot Boots—plus a few extra-combat or trample enablers to ensure your snowballed counters actually convert to lethal damage.
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 counter-pumped Shay with trample or unblockable evasion
- ▸Grinding the board with repeatable removal until opponents have no answers, then attacking out
- ▸Combining a wrath with multiple stacked bounties to instantly make Shay lethal
- ▸Aristocrats-style attrition draining life while Shay closes the game
Archetypes
- Voltron — Bounty-counter deaths pile +1/+1 counters onto Shay, turning him into a fast, evasion-enabled commander-damage threat.
- Removal Control — His protection-stripping ability and bounty mechanic reward a heavy targeted-removal and edict package that grinds opponents out.
- Aristocrats — Effects that force or enable creature deaths convert bounties into payoff, pairing naturally with sacrifice and death triggers.
- Stax/Punisher — Stripping indestructible and ward lets you reliably destroy mana rocks, lands, and resilient hatebears to lock opponents down.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BW), by popularity.
