Hello everyone! My name is Daniel Oney and I am excited to start providing articles for you! I started playing magic back in the early months of 2000. At this time my enjoyment of the game was really just playing with friends. I didn't really understand all the rules or how to play. After a few years I started understanding more and more until I finally took a hiatus from the game starting in 2004. In 2004 I started my college career and put magic on the back burner. A few years after graduating college, I found out a few friends of mine were still playing the game. They invited me to the Dragons of Tarkir pre-release. It was that day that my love for the game came back. Over the years I played all the constructed formats but ultimately fell in love with the most played format, Commander. I love the idea of taking a legendary creature and building a deck around it to suit your play style. Now that the introduction is out of the way, let's get into it.
Complex, yet simple. With the release of each set, new legendary creatures arrive for the Commander community to build around. The recent release of Ikoria and Commander 2020 caught my eye and a specific legendary from the Symbiotic Swarm precon is at the helm of my most recent deck.
Tayam's ability is unique. This nightmare beast is giving us access to something we have ne
ver had before, keyword counters. Tayam allows you to remove extra or preexisting counters to fill up your graveyard and gain access to a pseudo reanimation ability. This is what initially caught my eye. You can easily take advantage of this commander by using value creatures that meet the three converted mana cost or less criteria.
These enters the battlefield creatures provide value in removal and recursion!
But wait, there's more! Not only does Tayam allow the use of some key value creatures, but this nightmare beast can get back any permanent with converted mana cost three or less and put it straight onto the battlefield. This is what makes this commander a force to be reckoned with.
Flash creatures, removal, and repeated card draw? What more could you ask for?
Is that all? Now I know what you're thinking. "Only running three converted mana cost or less seems kind of weak." Well, that's where we change things up a bit. Even though we are primarily focusing on converted mana cost three or less we also have some great value cards that we can slot into this deck to make it more efficient and resilient.
The recursion you get from Sun Titan and Nethroi, Apex of Death is something that fits the theme and ultimately makes your deck more flexible. Smothering Tithe is just a straight up powerful card and most of the time your opponents won't pay for the tax effect,
granting you a mana advantage.
Lean on me.
So what other support cards can we use in this deck to help strengthen our commander? Well there are a plethora of cards that make Tayam even more amazing.
Luminous Broodmoth is just a powerhouse, especially when you pair it with enters the battlefield creatures. Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit is another "counters" support card. She helps you go big or use those counters to get something back from the graveyard. Nikara, Lair Scavenger and Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel are a great pair. One provides you with solid card draw, while the other adds additional counters so you can efficiently use Tayams ability.
Overall Tayam is an efficient and resilient commander that allows you to fill up your graveyard and recur valuable permanents. Don't sleep on this nightmare beast, or this monster may haunt your dreams.
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