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Ezio Auditore da Firenze is one of the many cards released inMagic: The Gathering’sAssassin’s Creed set, a part of Magic’s Universes Beyond product line that brings other franchises into the world of Magic. The set features a ton of Assassin cards, with Ezio Auditore da Firenze taking the slot of the five-color Commander available to play all the Assassins in one deck.
Ezio as a commander makes it very easy to cast all of your Assassin spells cheaply, allowing you to quickly flood the battlefield so that you may become a quick threat in combat. If you’re looking for a way to play the most Assassin’s Creed cards in one deck, an Ezio Auditore da Firenze Commander deck is what you’ll want.
x2 Forest
x1 Island
x2 Mountain
x1 Plains
x3 Swamp
Unclaimed Territory
Woodland Cemetery
This sample decklist consists of27 creatures, 12 sorceries, seven instants, 14 artifacts, five enchantments, and 34 lands. Outside of a small handful of creatures (mostly mana dorks), every creature included in the decklist is an Assassin.
Key Cards
Ezio Auditore da Firenze
The commander of the deck,Ezio Auditore da Firenze is one of the most important cards in the deck. Since your entire deck is (mostly)made up of Assassins,just one Assassin dealing damage gives all your Assassinsfreerunning, which lets you cast them for just two black mana.
While the effect of making a player lose the game by paying one mana of every color is a nice shortcut, since it requires your opponent to have ten or less life, most of the time you’re better off saving that mana for spells since they’ll be defeated soon anyways.
Ezio only costs two mana to cast, and with a solid statline and ability, turning on freerunning is very easy. You can startdumping your expensive Assassin spells onto the battlefield early, getting ahead of your opponents if Ezio sticks to the battlefield.
Only an Assassin needs to deal combat damage to be able to cast for the two black mana freerunning cost, meaning Ezio can sit back on the battlefield to keep himself safe in combat while still taking advantage of his passive ability.
Ezio, Blade Of Vengeance
Ezio has not one, not two, but three separate cards, each depicting a different point of his life.Ezio, Blade of Vengeancemakes up one of the deck’s best sources of card draw. It turns any Assassin dealing combat damage to a player into a card draw.
This fills your handwith more Assassin creaturesthat you can then cast for their freerunning cost.Thiseffect doesn’t trigger once, meaning that every Assassin who dealt combat damage while out on the battlefield will draw a card for each one that hit an opponent.
Mari, The Killing Quill
Mari, the Killing Quillmakes all of your Assassins more threatening bygiving them all deathtouch and the ability to draw extra cards. While the effect relating to hit counters is nice (and shuts down graveyard decks), the deathtouch passive is the real attraction.
Mari, the Killing Quill is easy to cast, and with deathtouch, your opponents will be less likely to block your Assassins out of fear of losing their own important creatures. This makes it much easier to turn on freerunning.
Edward Kenway
An Ezio Auditore da Firenze deck is all five colors, which means it may become awkward to have all of your colors available. Edward Kenway helps resolve this issue bygenerating a ton of Treasure tokens.
Since your entire deck is primarily made up of Assassin creatures,all of them that are tapped after combat willgive you a Treasure token. This makes it much easier to ramp out your creatures later, or have mana available for interaction on your opponents' turns.
When it comes back to your turn, once freerunning gets active, these Treasure tokens make it possible to easily play out your entire hand of creatures.
Raise The Palisade
Every Commander deck should pack a board wipe or twoto make sure you can handle a board that is getting out of hand that you won’t be able to play through.Raise The Palisadeis the best option, as most of the time it isa one-sided board wipe.
Raise the Palisade returns all creatures that don’t share a type with the named creature type. You will always be naming Assassins, which will keep most of your creatures on the battlefield. Assassins aren’t a very commonly played creature type, so outside of someone else playing an Assassin-based deck, Raise the Palisade will get rid of most creatures.
Shared Animosity
Shared Animosity is important as it makes all your Assassins much scarier to block, and makes it easier to drain your opponents' life. Since you’re going to attack with (almost) exclusivelyAssassins, each one will give the others a +1/+0 stat boost.
Many Assassins have various keyword abilities such as menace, which makes them not only harder to block, but more likely to take out your opponents, especially if their life total hits 10 for Ezio Auditore da Firenze to make them lose the game with its triggered ability.
How To Play The Deck
Ezio Auditore de Firenze decks arevery aggressive and want to flood the battlefield with creaturesto get out of hand before any of your opponents stabilize. Thanks to freerunning, it becomes trivial, especially since Ezio can hit the battlefield as early as turn two.
Ramp cards are an important part of the deck due to it being five colors. You always want to have access to all your colors so you may cast any spell that may find itself in your hand.
Freerunning is a key part of the deck’s strategy,so making sure Ezio sticks to the battlefield is vital. Cards likeWhispersilk CloakandBrotherhood Regaliahelp to keep it protected from removal, as well as unblockable to make it easy to make the ability live for the turn.
Many of the cards in the deckcare about dealing combat damage or interacting with historic permanents(which most cards are since legendary and artifact cards are considered such). These together make the deck very synergistic and let itfunction when Ezio Auditore de Firenze is off the battlefield.
While combat is the main way the deck wins with boosts fromcards likeShared Animosity,there’s another alternate win condition withRamses, Assassin Lord. When a player loses the game, so long as they were attacked by an Assassin, Ramses will cause you to win the game. This combined with Ezio’s ability to make an opponent with ten or less life can lead to wins much quicker.
