Today’s Deck Tech comes from March of the Machine Commander and can be found as the alternate commander in the Divine Convocation precon. I saw Saint Traft and Rem Karolus (hereby known as STARK) and said hey, I’ve never played convoke or go-wide before, this looks like the best of both worlds! Without looking at the decklist (foreshadowing?), I picked up Divine Convocation and started to deck build. Let’s take a look at STARK and brainstorm the brew:

Ability 1: Tap Me, Get Creatures

STARK’s first ability reads, “Whenever Saint Traft and Rem Karolus becomes tapped, create a 1/1 red Human creature token if this is the first time this ability has resolved this turn. If it’s the second time, create a 1/1 blue Spirit creature token with flying. If it’s the third time, create a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying.”

Gatherer happily clarifies that if you continue tapping after 3 times, nothing happens. There are plenty of commanders and creatures that love to be tapped and untapped. STARK are unique in that they’re one of the few creature cards that reward you in an increasing, yet finite, way for continuous taps and untaps on a turn.

Ability 2: Whenever you cast a spell that has convoke, untap Saint Traft and Rem Karolus.

This ability, combined with the fact that STARK comes in the Divine Convocation precon, is why people typically think of them as a convoke commander. Play a bunch of convoke spells, get angels, swing for the win, right? RIGHT?!

You know what, dear reader? There just aren’t that many good convoke cards in Jeskai. At the time of writing there are a grand total of 54 qualifying cards and many of them are just overcosted versions of middling effects like Burning Sun’s Fury or a whopping 6 cmc for a 3/3 flier like Conclave Equenaut. Or my personal favorite, 6 cmc for a 3/4 flier – Thunderhead Squadron – take that, Equenaut! Powercreep!

You could pack your deck with convoke cards and get a few untaps with STARK but you’re unlikely to hit the magical 3 untaps more than a few times in a game. Even if you do you’ll spend three cards to do so, you’ll need to refill your hand constantly. There are around 5 cards with convoke that draw you cards! There are limited options to try to close out games aside from regular combat damage and even those are limited.

With these challenges in mind, today’s brew aims to tap and untap STARK to build an army of tokens without relying too heavily on Convoke. During the token making process we’ll look to build value with card draw, mana generation or incidental damage. Finally, we’ll use our army to enable end-game cards like Burn at the Stake and Court of Embereth.

Suiting Up to Build an Army

First thing’s first: We need to tap and untap STARK to build up a board state. We have a number of options here. There are creatures, enchantments and artifacts that allow you to tap creatures for some effect without you having to pay mana. Combine this with ways to repeatably untap gives us our 3 taps a turn for our 3 creatures.

Tap Outlets

Repeatable, Free Tap Outlets

Vehicles make a natural choice for tap outlets in this deck. You can crew a vehicle as many times as you want, even if it’s already an artifact creature. Vehicles are also only creatures if they’re crewed, allowing you to keep part of your board after a creature board wipe. You can dig through the list of vehicles to choose which ones to include in your build. Vehicles that are either cheap and have a crew cost STARK can accomodate, or provide you other value, are ones we’ll look to include. If you’re brave enough you can also include Mechtitan Core as a side quest for your deck. Check out the cards below for quality recommendations:

Sunshot Militia, Kyren Negotiations and Prosperous Partnership are excellent includes. The first two serve not only as tap outlets but as potential end-game threats allowing you to tap your creatures to do direct damage to players. Prosperous Partnership comes into play with two tokens and allows you to create treasures by tapping three creatures.

Non-Repeatable Tap Outlets

Sky Hussar allows you to forecast it once each turn by revealing it from your hand and tapping two white and or blue creatures. Doing so lets you draw a card. You’re unlikely to ever actually cast this card, this is just Phyrexian Arena for STARK. I didn’t know about the “Forecast” keyword until I built this deck!

Moonsnare Prototype, Springleaf Drum net you mana for tapping it and another creature. Devout Chaplain allows you to tap it and two other Humans to exile an artifact or enchantment. Any convoke spell gives you the option of tapping creatures to help pay its cost – we’ll dive into Convoke spells later.

There are a few other spells that either require you to or benefit from tapping creatures. Shared Discovery draws you 3 cards for and tapping 4 creatures. Collective Effort allows you to tap creatures to destroy buff creatures, enchantments, or to put +1/+1 counters on your whole board. The ever hilarious Burn at the Stake allows you to deal damage equal to three times the amount of creatures you tap while you cast it to target creature or player.

Untap Sources

First and foremost, let me introduce you to the STARK’s best card pairing: Aura of Dominion. This card is incredible on STARK – you can pay , Tap STARK to untap STARK. This translates to for a 1/1 Human, 1/1 Spirit and 4/4 Angel every turn with no other cards required. This can overwhelm the board alone and accelerates many of your other synergies. If you’re running enchantment tutors, this is a good card to hunt for.

Aside from this, we can run a few other ways to untap. Pemmin’s Aura and Freed from the Real both cost you to untap. Second Wind and blue’s plethora of creatures similar to Aphetto Alchemist give you 1 free tap or untap a turn. Sting, the Glinting Dagger gives you 1 untap on each combat – not just your own. Augusta, Dean of Order (backside of Plargg, Dean of Chaos) allows you to untap all of your creatures if you attack during combat, followed by allowing you to tap any amount of creatures.

Any convoke spell also untaps STARK. Wand of the Worldsoul and Flockchaser Phantom can each give one spell a turn convoke.

Invasion of Segovia‘s backside, Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia, gives all your noncreature spells convoke and allows you to untap four creatures on your endstep. Jeskai Ascendancy allows you to untap all of your creatures and loot whenever you cast a noncreature spell. Another reason to consider vehicles – they’re noncreature spells.

Moving to Endgame & Card Synergies

Bringing Down Lifetotals

We’ve discussed Burn at the Stake, Sunshot Militia and Kyren Negotiations before. Burn at the Stake can easily be a single player blowout. Sunshot and Kyren can be activated at instant speed to deal direct damage. We have other options for moving to the endgame as well.

Impact Tremors and Witty Roastmaster deal 1 damage to each opponent whenever a creature we control enters the battlefield. That’s kind of our whole deal, so expect these cards to put in work in this deck.

Wildfire Awakener has an X convoke cost, allowing us to basically tap our entire army to generate an almost equal amount of 1/1 elementals that deal 1 damage to each opponent whenever they’re tapped. Combine this with something like Sunshot Militia or Kyren Negotiations and you could be dealing a whole lot of pain every turn.

Speaking of creating more tokens – Rabble Rousing can get pretty out of hand, effectively doubling the amount of creatures you have each turn. Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive is your non-angel token’s best friend, allowing them all to get it unblocked. Court of Embereth gives you the monarch and on your upkeep a 3/1 Knight. If you manage to keep the monarch, on your upkeep Court of Embereth will deal damage to each opponent equal to the number of creatures you control. With your wide ground and sky army, hopefully you can defend the monarchy!

Lastly, City on Fire is a great include. All of your ways to deal damage are now tripled on this lovely card that you can convoke. What’s not to love?

Card Synergies

Every deck needs to worry about card draw, ramp and interaction, so let’s hunt for on-theme options.

Tocasia’s Welcome, Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek and Symmetry Matrix are all great sources of card draw in this deck. Éowen, Shieldmaiden is a bit pricy at 5 cmc but will almost always generate you even more tokens and draw you a card each turn. Minas Tirith Garrison can net you a truly incredible amount of cards with their on-attack triggered ability. You can easily have too many cards in hand in this deck. If you’re a hoarder like me, consider Thought Vessel, Reliquary Tower or Decanter of Endless Water to avoid having to toss cards at your end step.

Tapping Magda, Brazen Outlaw gets you a treasure. It’s unlikely you’ll use her activated ability but hey, maybe it’s what solves last piece of your Mechtitan Core puzzle.

Daring Thief lets you trade your 1/1 Humans for your opponents’ best creatures. What’s not to love?

Mistmeadow Vanisher can help you slow down your opponent’s plans by temporarily exiling their creatures. Or you can use her to hide your non-tokens from board wipes. Junk Winder also plays heavy control – allowing you to tap and stun an opponents creature whenever a token enters the battlefield under you control. So basically, all the time.

Convoke Spells

I’m personally running about 10 convoke spells, a far cry from the 30-40 I imagined I’d be running when I first saw this commander. Since the deck functions well just focusing on tapping and untapping, the convoke spells we’re looking to run are either great on their own or good enough to run considering the other synergies in the deck. Cut Short, Devouring Light, Temporal Cleansing, Wicked Slumber, Clever Concealment, Hour of Reckoning and Everything Comes to Dust are all contenders as some kind of interaction, protection or removal. Transcendent Message and Meeting of the Minds enhance our card draw options.

Sample Deck

I have been pleasantly surprised running this deck, flooding the board with creatures and seeing my opponents’ raised eyebrows. This sample deck version runs, though as you tinker with it you may decide to add some protection or traditional ramp, change up the vehicles, etc. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!