MTG Commander of the Week: Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
Check out a new featured Commander to add to your build list! This week features Purphors, Bronze-Blooded, a god from Theros with a hammer and a cannon.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our new series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander. For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering. You use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, aka, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory. EDHRec.com is an excellent source for Commander info and can give you ideas to build your next Commander deck or tune an existing one.
The Commander
One of the “Devotion Gods” from Theros, Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded is the second incarnation of the mighty forge god. Like the other Gods, he is indestructible, and he isn’t a creature unless your devotion to Red is at least five. He contributes one himself, and since there are so many double pips in Red, you’ll have a 7/6 creature in no time. However, like the other Theros Gods, his real power comes from his static abilities.
Purphoros gives all your other creatures haste, which might not be great at five mana but is still a potent ability. It’s his second ability that really makes him nasty, though. For three mana, Purphoros can cheat in a Red or Artifact creature, which will have haste but must then be sacrificed at the end of the turn. This allows you to not only throw out your largest and deadliest creatures for a discount but also Evoke some powerful ETBs. You’ll want big cards with echo costs, cards with incredible ETBs, or cards that have on-hit abilities.
Featured Cards
Ryusei is a powerful 5/5 flyer, but that isn’t the only reason you cheat him out. Since Purphoros requires you to sacrifice the token at the end of the turn, you want to get as much worth as possible. When Ryusei dies, he explodes and deals 5 damage to every non-flyer. Talk about bang for your buck.
Ilharg is another great choice because he gives you ANOTHER cheat in. He’s a 6/6 with trample that brings a friend along for the party, which then pops back into your hand. You can either cheat that creature in the next turn or wait for Ilharg to come back in three turns, thanks to his death ability.
MTG is ever-changing, with new busted and broken cards rising to the top. Check back in next week for another featured Commander.
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