Killer Combo – “Join Them, Beat Them”

Throughout this week we’ve been giving you Killer Combos that directly involve the primary commanders of the five new pre-constructed decks which debuted last weekend. We’re continuing that trend today with Zedruu the Greathearted, commander of the “Political Puppets” deck. We’ll finish up tomorrow with “Devour for Power”‘s The Mimeoplasm.

If you haven’t already, check out our review of “Political Puppets”, then you’ll see exactly what Zedruu is up to and why.

“Political Puppets”, as we mentioned in our podcast this week, lived up to its name at the Commander Event. The goal of this deck is to lull your opponents into a false sense of security while you secure yourself a superior board position, ensure that you are gaining life and drawing cards at an absurd rate, and draw one of your game-ending cards, like Insurrection
Insurrection. 

While Zedruu is a great way to accomplish this goal, Bazaar Trader is going to get you there even faster. While the goblin appears to do almost precisely the same thing as Zedruu (though Zedruu can hand off ALL permanents and do so multiple times per turn) there is one key difference between the two. Bazaar Trader’s ability reads “target player”, while Zedruu’s specifies “target opponent”.

This means that if you’ve taken control of a creature via Dominus of Fealty (or for any other reason), Bazaar Trader gives you the option of “regifting it” to yourself. For example, if you’ve grabbed someone’s Avatar of Woe
Avatar of Woe with the Dominus, Bazaar Trader’s can target YOU as the player and the Avatar of Woe as the creature and give you the avatar permanently (or at least indefinitely).

So, not only does Bazaar Trader speed up what Zedruu already does, but he’ll give you a way to make creatures you’ve borrowed for a turn into creatures you control for the duration of the game.