Hello everyone! This is not Cement, you can call me TwentyNine and I wanted to write a little bit for you about a deck I made originally because I love Final Fantasy and I wanted to make a commander deck out of one of my favorite characters from the Final Fantasy universe, Adelbert Steiner.
Wait, Steiner? Not Cloud?
Not Squall? Not even Yuffie? Sephiroth? Any of the Cids?
That’s correct. Adelbert Steiner. Captain of the Knights of Pluto. Protector of Princess Garnet. The comedy relief of Final Fantasy 9.
After the set released I saw a post on the internet that said it would be one of the worst commanders in the Final Fantasy set and I wasn’t about to stand for that. Also after building a couple of high CMC commanders, I wanted to give myself a challenge of mono-white and low CMC.
How does an Adelbert Steiner Commander deck work?
Adelbert Steiner runs as a Voltron deck. You’re going to be casting Steiner, casting equipment, swinging with Steiner and gaining an impressive amount of life. This deck is low to the ground and aggressive. It can also be built on a shoestring budget if needed because a significant amount of equipment is $1 or less.
How do we win?
Most of the time you’re going to be winning with commander damage. Steiner increases in power very quickly — combined with ample equipment granting trample and double strike, he has no trouble dealing lethal commander damage. Alternatively, with Steiner’s built in lifelink, you’ll be gaining significant amounts of life and can utilize one of the lifegain payoffs like Aetherflux Reservoir in order to win.
Even if Steiner gets removed and his equipment falls off, he’s still going to get a benefit from the equipment just being on the battlefield when you recast him, so recovery is actually fairly easy.
How do we lose?
Artifact removal is a big killer of this deck. When Steiner’s swords are removed, it just makes him sad. The deck is also light on answers to flying creatures. Lastly, much like in game Steiner, this deck is not subtle. You’ll be swinging for big damage early and it will make you an early target.
Why don’t I just play a more popular mono white equipment commander?
- Unlike Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, we’re looking to just increase Steiner’s power. We’re not looking for things that grant him abilities. Also Steiner is around $19 less than Cloud.
- Unlike Sram, Senior Edificer, we’re not casting auras, we’re just going with equipment.
- Unlike Balan, Wandering Knight, Steiner is a 2 CMC commander and does not require equipment to be equipped in order to function.
- Unlike Kemba, Kha Regent we don’t have a go-wide or token component, making Steiner an ideal bar deck commander choice.
Ok, you convinced me, how does your Adelbert Steiner deck work?
Steiner’s Armory
The first thing we have to talk about here is equipment. Steiner loves equipment. He doesn’t even have to hold the sword or axe or lance or creepy living Phyrexian thing. He just gets stronger knowing there’s equipment around him.
What you don’t want to do here is to play all zero and one cost equipment though. You miss out on some powerful equipment that exists at the 2 to 4 cost zone.
What I try to do with Steiner is to stick to a mana curve of equipment. So a few 0 cost, more 1 cost, the bulk being 2-3 cost equipment, and a few 4 cost equipment. I don’t go over 4 cost in equipment (with one exception). The equipment that exists at more than 4 cost can have great effects but either the equip cost is prohibitive to where you’re basically playing a 5 cost card that says “Target Steiner gets +1/+1” or you’re holding it in your hand until you have a cost cheater on the battlefield which may or may not happen. You want to be able to play the equipment and then have the choice to equip it, even if your cheaters aren’t available.
There’s a lot of choice in equipment and you can play. You can check the decklist for what I have in the deck right now. Since a lot of equipment tends to live in the bulk bin, I swap out equipment pretty frequently. Generally what you want to look for are these characteristics:
1.) Does the equipment give a boost to Steiner’s power if equipped?
2.) Does the equipment make Steiner evasive?
3.) Does the equipment give you a benefit for other equipment?
Here’s some highlights/lowlights at various CMC:
0 Cost Equipment
I’d only run 2 or 3 of these because there are only a few that give any benefit for Steiner. I run Bone Saw and Spidersilk Net. I’d run any of the 0 cost shields (except Kite Shield because it was power crept in 2010 by Accorder’s Shield). They’re fine but the +0 on the power is kind of meh. You want to be hitting hard and fast with Steiner before your opponents get too much spot removal or gang up on you. Steiner’s here to attack, not really to block. Spidersilk Net is good because reach can help stop medium to big flyers from hitting you.
1 Cost Equipment
There’s a lot here that you can run. I stick to 5-7 of these though since there’s bigger payoffs at higher mana values. The big 3 for me are Bonesplitter, Golem-Skin Gauntlets, and Colossus Hammer. Bonesplitter becomes +3/+1 when equipped and Golem-Skin Gauntlets gets bigger the more equipment you have attached. Colossus Hammer is great at +10/+10 but removes flying and typically needs to be cheated in. Thanks to Steiner’s passive, even if you can’t cheat the equip cost, it’s still at minimum +1/+1 for 1 mana.
There are over 100 equipment options at 1 mana. Bloodforged Battle-Axe is great because the tokens all give Steiner +1/+1. Commander’s Plate or Shadowspear are wonderful if you want to spend $40 each. Explorer’s Scope can be good if you get nervous about not having a lot of ramp.
2 Cost Equipment
Here’s where you’re going to find a lot of heaters for your deck. If you get at least 1 cost reducer out, these will only cost 1 to play and can be super powerful. I run 10-13 two cost equipment and there’s some sneaky budget choices here. Also much like 1 cost equipment, you’re not hurting for options with well over one hundred 2 cost equipment. There’s really so much choice here and so much of a difference in cost, you can tailor this CMC to the amount of money you want to spend on the deck.
You can run a Robe of Stars and Brotherhood Regalia if you want to spend the money, but Thran Power Suit, Wrecking Ball Arm, Psychic Paper, Greatsword of Tyr, Short Bow, Hero’s Heirloom and Web-Shooters are great choices and not very much money.
$1.07 
$0.41 
$0.33 
$0.34 
$0.25 
$0.13
Some more generally good equipment that I would stay away from would be Blackblade Reforged (you’re likely not going to be playing with a lot of lands), Konda’s Banner (you’re likely not going to have many creatures) and Glimmer Lens (you’re most likely attacking alone). Lightning Greaves is at this level and while I do use it, be careful with shroud because it can turn into a nonbo in this deck. Often I’ll equip Lightning Greaves on a different creature I have on the board to give it a little protection and still give Steiner the +1/+1.
3 Cost Equipment
In this spot I’m running 5-7 cards and I’m also running more white cards because of the cost reduction I can get from Pearl Medallion or The Wind Crystal. There’s 95+ equipment options here and you have the option to spend A LOT of money.
You can get the Swords of Something and Something Else but remember that unlike a Cloud, Midgar Mercenary deck, you’re only getting 1 sword trigger each time you deal combat damage to a player. Also you don’t want to run any of them that give you protection from white. If you’ve got the money, by all means run a Buster Sword, Mithril Coat, and the Swords of Something and Something Else, but at lower dollar amounts you can find Nettlecyst, Loxodon Warhammer, Sword of Vengeance, Celestial Armor, Maul of the Skyclaves, Fireshrieker, Brawler’s Plate and more.
$3.72 
$2.65 
$0.79 
$0.53 
$0.28 
$0.13
4 Cost Equipment
I only run 2 or 3 equipment at this cost. Because there’s a smaller selection of them, they tend to be situationally good, or they’re really more viable in a different format. For a while I only ran Hammer of Nazahn. While it’s expensive, if you’re willing to run the Sonic the Hedgehog version of it, you can save yourself a couple bucks. I’ve started running Brass Knuckles because of the low equip cost and that they make you a second copy of them on cast and Leyline Axe because there’s a small chance it’s 0 cost (if it’s in your opening hand).
Greater Than 4 Cost Equipment
There are even fewer options here and I wouldn’t run very many of these at all. I only run Exalibur, Sword of Eden mostly because I packed a copy, but I’d still run it anyway if you have the money. I’ve tried Genji Glove but it was just too expensive to be impactful and would get removed quickly. Aettir and Priwen would be the only other equipment I would target at this CMC.
Steiner’s Knights of Pluto (other creatures in the deck)
A lot of the cards I use in my Steiner deck are similar to most equipment decks. I’m running 2 types of creatures — either creatures that help Steiner attack/defend or creatures that help to cheat out equipment costs with several that do both. Special to Steiner, Knight Exemplar and Dion, Bahamut’s Dominant work with Steiner because he is a Knight. Summon: Primal Garuda gives a little bit of spot removal along with 2 turns of flying for Steiner.
Stonehewer Giant is the only tutor that I run in this deck and I could see cutting it for a different card easily if you want to go completely without tutors. Eowyn, Lady of Rohan is an excellent card for keeping Steiner as she gives him vigilance, first strike, and reduces the cost of equip abilities by 1. This keeps Steiner available to block and keeps him safer in combat. Otherwise I use a fairly standard suite of mono-white equipment or equip cost reducers.
I would be careful about running too many creatures in your deck. Early versions of this deck that I built had far too many creatures in it and I was struggling to find any equipment at all. Beatrix, Loyal General appears in 52% of decks for Adelbert Steiner on EDHREC, but I found the card to be too expensive. At 6 Mana I would rather cast multiple equipment in a single turn. Yeah I know, flavor fail but sometimes you have to look out for the deck.
Landbase
Steiner doesn’t require much in the way of utility lands, Rogue’s Passage and Buried Ruin being the most important. I found a copy of Idyllic Grange in a bulk bin that’s done well for me. The extra +1+1 it provides has mattered. I also like Adventurer’s Inn for the Final Fantasy synergy and that it gives you a little bit of life. I really like playing Daily Bugle Building in this deck in order to get Steiner menace, it’s done well for me when going toe to toe with other Voltron decks.
War Room, Inventors Fair and Minas Tirith are also good options if you’re willing to spend the money on them. Emeria, the Sky Ruin isn’t really that important in this deck because you’re not going to have a ton of creatures in your graveyard and Steiner is cheap enough to just recast if he gets removed.
Otherwise you’re going to slap a solid chunk of plains in your deck. Because most cards in deck are 1-3 CMC, I’ve gotten away with running 34 lands and keeping 1 land hands (though I wouldn’t recommend keeping a 1 land hand).
Utility Artifacts/Enchantments
I run Archeomancer’s Map because while we don’t need to have a lot of mana, there’s nothing wrong with ramp. Sigarda’s Aid was one of my splurges of a single for this deck and it’s quite nice, allowing equipment to be combat tricks or protection — but if you’re keeping your budget down, you don’t need it. Either of these could easily be cut for more equipment if you want. I use both Pearl Medallion and The Wind Crystal for cost reduction. The Wind Crystal is expensive, but by the time you can cast it, you’ll most likely be swinging Steiner for 7 and getting 14 life back from lifelink is pretty nice.
Instant/Sorcery Package
I’m running a really standard White removal package. It’s mono white so you’re not struggling for choice in removal. You can basically run whatever you have/like (Swords to Plowshares, Stroke of Midnight, Bovine Intervention, Path to Exile, Crib Swap, Generous Gift, Personify, etc, etc, etc.) and you won’t be upset.
The 2 pieces that I recommend that would be specific to Steiner are Dispatch and Slash of Light. Dispatch gives spot removal with no downside and it will be easy to get to three artifacts for its metalcraft ability. Slash of Light generally gets to a high enough number to take out a medium to large threat.
Run whatever board wipes you want, you’re not struggling for options in mono-white. 2 that I’ve found to be good for Steiner are Single Combat and Mass Calcify. Single Combat because we’re going to be swinging Steiner by himself frequently. Mass Calcify can be a 1 sided board wipe depending on the other players.
For protection, I’m running Dawn Charm and Restoration Magic. I don’t mind Steiner getting removed a couple times as he’s only 2 CMC to start. If you’re in a removal heavy pod you may want to run more here.
I only use 2 combat tricks here — Gods Willing and Battlefield Improvisation, the latter being much more important than the former. Gods Willing can get you through a big board, just be careful about giving Steiner protection from white as it can make your white artifacts fall off. Battlefield Improvisation can be great if you got a turn 1 Colossus Hammer out, Steiner turn 2, then you can swing on turn 3, cast Battlefield Improvisation and hit for 15 (2+2+10+1). It’ll draw aggro but it’s satisfying. Even with the rough price tag for Battlefield Improvisation, I’d strongly recommend a copy.
Other Non-equipment cards
There’s 2 ways to go when thinking about win conditions with Adelbert Steiner. You can go the route of lifegain payoffs with Aetherflux Reservoir or Test of Endurance or go the route of double strike with things that give double strike like Flaming Fist, Battle Mastery, Duelist’s Heritage, or Twinblade Blessing.
If you go lifegain, after you have enough life you can have your opponents meet you at the Reservoir and you’re most likely to get at least 1 of them. Test of Endurance is a silly card that will make you enemy number 1, but if you can survive back to your upkeep you can win with it. Some combination of both will work.
Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare!
What do you think about this deck? Check out the full decklist here. Would you give Steiner a try? What kind of changes would you make to the deck? I’ll be back with another deck tech soon — let me know in the comments what you’d like to see next!