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Edward Kenway is one of the many new commanders introduced inMagic: The Gathering’sAssassin’s Creed set as a part of its Universes Beyond product line. Assassin’s Creed translated many characters from the titular franchise into Magic cards, with the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Edward Kenway getting a chance to shine.
With his game focusing heavily on piracy, Edward Kenway’s card is heavily focused on Pirates, Assassins, and Vehicles. He makes for a great Grixis (blue/red/black) commander, a color pairing that has a plethora of support cards for all of those card types to make for a powerful Commander deck.
Sample Decklist
Here is a sample decklist for your Edward Kenway Commander deck.
Forerunner of the Coalition
Mary Read and Anne Bonny
x4 Island
x2 Mountain
x3 Swamp
Key Cards
Edward Kenway
The commander of the deck,everything is built around Edward Kenway. The best commanders are the ones that can benefit from their effects without ever having to put themselves in danger through combat.
Edward Kenway’spassive ability gives you more cards to playfrom your opponents' libraries, so long as Vehicles are the ones that are dealing damage.
Edward Kenway’s ability to exile cards from your opponents' libraries triggerseach time a Vehicle deals combat damage, meaning if you deal damage with a ton of creatures, you get a ton of extra cards to cast whenever you want.
Since you need to tap creatures to crew Vehicles, this helps to give you aton of Treasure tokens with Edward Kenway’s abilityto make a Treasure tokenfor each tapped Pirate, Assassin, and Vehicle.. This makes it trivial to ramp, something Grixis often has problems with.
Adrestia
Vehicles make up the other important halfof Edward Kenway decks, withAdrestiabeing one of the best. Edward Kenway wants your Vehicles to connect for damage, and Adrestia’sislandwalkmakes it easier to guarantee you connect for damage.
When choosing who to attack, it’s best to send Adrestia toward an opponent that controls an Island, as they won’t be able to block Adrestia to make sure Edward Kenway’s passive ability goes off.
Since a lot of your creatures are Assassins, when Adrestia attacks it’ll often be drawing you a card. It only costs one mana to crew Adrestia, meaning almost every creature in your deck will be able to turn it into a creature.
Desynchronization
It’s always important to have a few board wipes in your decks in the case of battlefields getting too out of hand.Historic permanents are artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas, something that the majority of your deck is.
Desynchronizationbounces all non-historic permanents, and in some cases canact as a one-sided board wipe. It’s only going to affect your weakest creatures, while your Vehicles and legendary creatures get to stick around and take advantage of the empty battlefield.
The usefulness of Desynchronization is heavily depending on what your opponents are playing. If they’re playing a deck where they play a lot of historic spells, they won’t care, but in other decks such as token decks, it can be backbreaking.
Adéwalé, Breaker of Chainsis a fantastic utility card that helps you dig deeper into your deck for more Pirates, Assassins, and Vehicles. While Adéwalé isn’t great in combat due to its low toughness, Adéwalé isgood for crewing Vehicles with high power.
Adéwalé, Breaker of Chains makes for a useful blocker to trade with threatening creatures, as Adéwalé has a lot of recursion that it dying doesn’t matter.
Even if Adéwalé, Breaker of Chains dies, in an Edward Kenway deck, it’s easy to bring it back to your hand since you’ll be dealing damage with Vehicles very often.
Revel In Riches
Revel in Richesis one of the main win conditions of the deck. With how easily Edward Kenwaycan make Treasure tokens, you can reachthe ten Treasures needed to automatically winthe game in just one turn.
The win doesn’t trigger until your upkeep, so you dohave to survive a turn cyclebefore you get to win the game. However, with how many creatures and Vehicles Edward Kenway decks have access to, it’s easy to hold the line so you can win with Revel in Riches.
How To Play The Deck
Edward Kenway Commander decks are all aboutknowing how to use your resources for the given gamestate. You need to balance keeping defenses up while also dealing damage with your Vehicles.
You want to be attacking when your opponents are low on creatures or after a board wipe, and making sure there are enough solid blockers if there are too many dangerous threats on the battlefield you can’t get rid of.
The deck balances between having anequal number of Assassins and Pirates to Vehicles. You don’t want to focus too hard on one of them, as then you aren’t taking full advantage of everything Edward Kenway has to offer.
You want toget Vehicles down on the battlefield firstearly in the game, as creatures that had just entered the battlefield can still crew them despite their summoning sickness to start dealing damage.
Edward Kenway is a bit costly, especially since Grixis doesn’t have much built-in ramp in the colors. OnceEdward Kenway hits the battlefield, you want him to stickas its effect can help fund the mana needed to recast it if it ever does get removed.
Generating extra creatures is greatin Edward Kenway decks to make sure you always have stuff to crew with. This is where a lot of the enchantments come into play, withRooftop Bypassmaking Assassin tokens,Black Market Connectionsgiving Shapeshifters, andDouble Downgiving you extra copies of all your outlaws (Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues, and Warlocks).
With how strong Vehicles tend to be,combat is a very viable route towards winning the game. An Edward Kenway deck can deal large outbursts of damage. The decks also generate a lot of Treasure tokens, makingRevel in Riches a handy alternate win condition.
