MTG Salvation

So I currently have made my very first commander deck with Tajic, Blade of the Legion as my commander but I haven't built it very well. It has lacking mana sources, card draw and it really only red white big things. My next deck is Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker which is being being built a lot better from what I have learned from playing commander, Mirko being very near and dear to my heart as the very first commander I had ever played. Now my question is what to change Tajic, Blade of the Legion to? because Im pulling apart the deck but I want to use Tajic again, I even have him in foil. As this is my first post and I'm pretty new to commander, any and all advice is welcomed as well as why you picked the answered you did. What I choose will be decided on multiple things and not just the poll.

A few cards to consider for Tajic:

Sunblast Angel - You'll usually cast it when all your guys are untapped, so it will often be a one-sided boardwipe.

Desolation Giant - It wipes the board and leaves you with a creature, which is nice.

Assemble the Legion - will almost always leave you with creatures to add to your battalion, as long as you can keep it on the board.

Worldslayer - You will probably only get this off once, so make it count. If you do, though, you get to win!

Lots of reusable token generators (I personally like Cenn's Enlistment a lot), lots of mana rocks, and lots of haste enablers. With Tajic you'll probably want to always be the fastest deck at the table.

So from your advice I've gone a tokens/equipment style deck with plenty of land and card draw.

So the above list I think has too many expensive support creatures which you often wont want to risk in combat. I would add a few more tokens so that you can get Tajic down early and start swinging because IMO a long game is a hard game for Tajic so get in fast. Brimaz, King of Oreskos or any of the goblin spawning creatures/ spells would be a good fit.Perhaps also include Requiem Angel and Skullclamp to sort out some draws and get a bit more value from board wipes.

Also, if you're doing an equipment sub theme Sunforger is a good fit as it is good for Tajic to hold for bashing, a Boros flavour win and a really useful repeatable instant tutor. Load up on cheap removal (Path to Exile et al.) and a few defensive/ offensive spells like Rootborn Defenses, Temur Battle Rage and Master Warcraft and you're onto a winner.

If you wanted to get a bit nastier, Jokulhaups and similar effects are should clear the way for a final Tajic kill perhaps in combination with Rootborn Defenses to keep the team alive then happily swing into clear space. Be careful with over exploiting however as LD is often frowned upon even if it is properly employed.

If you do decide to set up a Soldier-based theme (which I do kind of suggest, because doing a tribal set up usually comes with baked-in synergy and can keep you interested in the deck long term) you'll want cards like Mobilization, Daru Warchief and Captain of the Watch, as well as cards that get your guys in unimpeded like Legion Loyalist (still a soldier!) and Preeminent Captain who by himself triggers battalion. Flooding the table with Soldiers is super easy and lets you use stuff like Door of Destinies or even Coat of Arms with some pretty guaranteed value. Try to keep them on the table with dudes like Soul of New Phyrexia or the Boros Charm I see you already have. The equipment subtheme is less effective here than it is in other Boros setups because you really do want to rush in with multiples of dudes, and spending the mana on stuff like anthems (eg., Honor of the Pure or Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon") is going to have more effect on the table.

Of course that's all just by opinion on what to do, but right now it's best to look at Tajic and his cards, consider the whole "get a bunch of Soldiers out and swinging" idea and if you realize you have cards that aren't promoting that endgame, they can be more safely cut than others. That said, hang on to your removal, can't play the game without it.

My Tajic list ran a ton of wraths coupled with expendable or resilient creatures. Battlefield Medic is a house here. So is Goblin Assault. It was a bit of a glass cannon, though. The problem is in the tension between indestructibility (which encourages board wipes) and the requirement to attack with other creatures. I switched to Zurgo and had a much better time as he's an unconditional 7 power, is indestructible when it matters, and lets you play black. Playing black fixes the deck's problems with card draw and gives you access to even more wraths and removal, plus reanimation to power Zurgo out again for cheap.

I voted "pure aggro", but in all honesty "soldier tribal" and "pure aggro" can be pretty much the same thing; I just wouldn't limit myself to just Soliders however. I think the key to making Tajic work is to focus killing one person with Commander damage while spreading other damage sources among the other players. I'm a big fan of using Sword of X&Y's to punch him through defenses unblocked, but an equipment theme is always welcome in a RW aggro deck anyway.

The biggest challenge is finding a way to curve into Tajic so that you can play him on turn 4 and always swing the next turn with Battalion. You would have to either make sure you are running cheap token makers like Dragon Fodder, Krenko's Command, Raise the Alarm, and Gather the Townsfolk, or set up your curve with several 2-drops and 3-drops that have a high enough impact so as not to be dead draws. You can also go with 3-drops into Tajic into 4/5-drops with Haste (Hellrider, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Flame-Kin Zealot, Urabrask the Hidden, and Zealous Conscripts all come to mind). Either way, you really have to manage your mana curve to make sure you are hitting the ground running on all cylinders right from the get-go.

Any way you go is going to potentially be an uphill climb with Tajic. I have yet to see a RW Aggro deck to not experience card draw and mana ramp issues that you describe in the OP. It's all part of the charm of playing RW; you either go out of your way to include these things where you can or you focus more on the aggression and hope to start killing people before these issues become problems.

Tajic likes a hybrid approach. Try to grind out tokens and value and swing when you get a chance. Wipe the board when it will save you or put you way ahead. If you can pummel someone with 21 damage from Tajic over 2-3 turns, go for it. If such an opening doesn't present itself, try to find a way to get there with equipment and/or token swarms.

You have three gears - Grinding, Voltron, and Swarm - and it's important to be able to judge well when you should be in each gear. A reasonable time to consider switching is whenever anyone, yourself included, wipes the board.

Tajic, Blade of the Legion likes equipment that create tokens. You're running equipment tutors for Worldslayer and Sunforger anyway, so it's efficient to make some of your token generators equipment.

Here are two good ones:

Captain's Claws
Sword of Body and Mind

The first one is good on Tajic himself.
The second one is unpopular in EDH, but it gives Tajic some needed evasion and creates bodies, so it's fine.

Please remember that the first one creates a creature that is already attacking, so it doesn't count as an attacker that turn when you're looking to trigger Tajic's +5/+5 ability.

Blade of Selves doesn't work for this reason coupled with the fact that the tokens don't stick around, but you should still consider the card because it can be bonkers.

Worldslayer is the only type of deck I'd run with Tajic, but that's because I'm a bad person. I'd go more for Equipment r/w good stuff, as usually that gives you enough creatures that you will need to trigger Tajic.

Okay so I have a slightly updated deck list. If you have a suggestion please tell me what to remove so I can compare the cards from myself, I'm still tossing up about Whispersilk Cloak and Razia's Purification. Also here's a tapped out link to my deck-list as well.

not even a suggestion of arcbond?

put pariah on it, and go to town with killing everyone.

I enjoy cards that allow Tajic and other critters to attack more than once in a turn. Triggering his ability multiple times, especially while he has trample and/or double strike, is great fun. Aggravated Assault, Hellkite Charger and similar effects have allowed for some rather entertaining plays.

How is he confusing you? Is it because he's probably the most flexible Boros general out there? I think you should focus on one plan, and thereby narrowing down your card choices instead of having a mish-mash of cards that have few synergy with each other.

He is awesome at the head of an equipment deck. That said, he is a very versatile commander and lends himself to many different strategies and strategy combinations.

Personally, I like to run a large equipment package, efficiently costed creatures that synergize with him, a healthy amount of artifact ramp, very few board wipes and not much of a token theme.

General recommendations for you:

- add some more mana rocks
- Tajic has synergy with things that attack, replace things like Berzerker's Onslaught with creatures that do similar things like Silverblade Paladin.
- Lower the average cost of your creatures, you have too many creatures over 6 mana, one of Tajic's(also aggro and voltron's) biggest strengths is speed, you don't want to have seven-drops sitting in your hand while you should be hitting your opponent in the face.
- Don't run Worldslayer unless you plan on trying to do nothing else but assembling that combo every game.
- Run Sunforger and Mistveil Plains with a package of 6 or more instants you wouldn't mind casting every turn. This will win you games on it's own and it will be fun nearly every time.
- Run ways to grab extra plains like Knight of the White Orchid, Tithe, Land Tax, and Weathered Wayfarer) (grabs any land, awesome card).

Imo, you need to run way more cheap creatures to use Tajic well. And trim down the non-Creatures greater than 5cmc also. Think of it this way. Your deck gives you about 3 land to start, then you will only draw a couple more by the time you run out of those you started the game with. So anything costing 5 or more won't get played until late game, unless you draw one of your 3 ramp cards, or one of your 4-5 draw cards. Odds of doing that being what they are, plan to be doing a lot with 4 mana.

Some great creatures I would use are:

Goblin Vandal - Artifact counts are really high in EDH, so kill some.
Soltari Visionary - Enchantments are less common, but might as well kill them.
Soltari Guirrellas - Getting more expensive at 4cmc, but well worth the card when you're running both boots.
Knight of the White Orchid - Definitely, get you some Plains out.
Solemn Simulacrum - Again, help your deck not get stuck.
Duergar Hedge-Mage - More killing stuff, more bodies for Battallion
Goblin Welder - Can be used to trigger Battallion in a pinch, solid for what he does otherwise

I'm sure you can find more in the 1-3 cmc range that you'll like playing. You'll thank yourself when you've got fewer games that you get stuck with your deck.