COMMANDER: KAGEMARO, FIRST TO SUFFER
The Peacemaker's Dilemma
Deck Brew by Commander Labs
He's a loaded gun everyone at the table can see, held by the one player who would rather not fire it.
Kagemaro, First to Suffer is a five-mana Demon from Saviors of Kamigawa with one printing and very few pilots. His power and toughness equal the number of cards in your hand. For {B} and a sacrifice, every creature on the battlefield gets -X/-X, where X is your hand size.
On paper that reads as a board wipe that kills its own owner. In play it's something stranger: a loaded gun everyone at the table can see, held by the one player who would rather not fire it.
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Who is this deck for?
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You like being the player the table negotiates with.
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You would rather hold a threat than fire it, and the attack that never happens satisfies you more than the one that does.
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You're comfortable sitting on seven cards and passing the turn, which most black players never do.
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You still want to win. You just want the table to remember you as the reason the game stayed fun.
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If you want to dump your hand and turn sideways, or you can't leave a loaded trigger alone, this isn't your deck.
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DECK PROFILE
Play Pattern
Engine / Control / Chaos / Political / Combo
Experience
Holding a board wipe the whole table can see, and deciding who it protects
Table Politics
Manipulative / Neutral / Aggressive / Invisible
Win Style
Incremental / Explosive / Inevitable / Unexpected
Piloting Difficulty
Threat Profile
Loaded from turn five, fired only when someone forces it
Opponent's Reactions
Why is the black player saving me?
Fun to Power Ratio
5:3
Piloting Difficulty
Threat Profile
Loaded from turn five, fired only when someone forces it
Opponent's Reactions
Why is the black player saving me?
Fun to Power Ratio
5:3
OVERVIEW
How Kagemaro works
Two numbers run this deck, and they are the same number. Your hand size is Kagemaro's power and toughness, and it is also the X in his wipe. Every card you draw makes the sheriff bigger and the threat heavier; every card you spend makes both smaller.
The ruling that makes the deck work: X is determined as the ability resolves. You activate first, then adjust your hand in response. A blunt instrument becomes a precision tool.
Tuning down. Discard at instant speed after you activate. Putrid Imp discards for free. Junk Golem pays {1} per discard and gains a +1/+1 counter each time, so it gets tougher exactly as X drops. Skirge Familiar turns every discard into {B}. Fodder Tosser, Key to the City, The Underworld Cookbook and Faerie Macabre fill in. Library of Leng lets you put discarded cards on top of your library, so heavy tuning doesn't cost you the cards.
Tuning up. Draw at instant speed. Greed, Temple Bell, Underworld Connections and Mind Stone all raise X in response, and the same draws pump Kagemaro mid-combat.
Two more rules notes. The wipe gives -X/-X, so indestructible and regeneration do nothing against it. And it hits your creatures too, so the 99 runs few of them, mostly cheap, evasive or tough enough to outlast a small X. Reliquary Tower, Thought Vessel, Library of Leng and Venser's Journal remove your maximum hand size so the engine never caps out.
EARLY GAME
Acquire ammunition
The first few turns are about mana and infrastructure. Sol Ring, Charcoal Diamond, Mind Stone and Thought Vessel ramp toward a five-mana commander, and Cabal Coffers turns 33 Swamps into a lot of black mana later. Reliquary Tower and Library of Leng go down early, because the deck's whole plan is a hand bigger than seven.
Howling Mine is the first act of diplomacy. Every player draws an extra card, and you get to be the generous one at the table. Scrawling Crawler charges opponents 1 life for each card they draw, a fair toll on a free card, and it quietly starts a clock.
The ninja package does real work here. Changeling Outcast and Tormented Soul are one-mana creatures that can't be blocked, so they connect every turn. Ninjutsu Ink-Eyes or Skullsnatcher off them, and the returned attacker goes back to your hand: +1 hand size, which is +1/+1 on the sheriff.
Don't rush Kagemaro. Casting him taps you down, so land him when you can hold {B} open the following turn.
Piloting Tip
Announce your policy before anyone asks. "I only fire at boards that get out of control" costs nothing, and it buys trust you will need later.
MID GAME
A loaded gun
A visible wipe changes how everyone else plays. Your hand size is public, so every player can count exactly which creatures would die. Token decks hold back. Voltron players stop overcommitting. Deals at the table get concrete: "Swing at him, not me, and I keep holding it."
The dead man's switch
This is the most interesting decision point in the deck. If an opponent targets Kagemaro with removal while you have {B} open, you sacrifice him in response and the wipe still happens. The removal caster just authored a board wipe, and you never fired first.
That turns removal into a group decision. The token player will almost never target Kagemaro, because they lose the most. The player with the smallest board, usually the control deck, is the one who comes for you, and that makes the threat predictable.
You also choose the size of the punishment. Discard down to make it surgical, draw up to make it hurt, or discard to zero and make it a dud on purpose. That last option matters against exile: sacrifice him in response to Swords to Plowshares, and he lands in your graveyard, ready for a cheap reanimation.
Reputation and the kingmaker problem
Your first wipe sets the table's trust for the rest of the game, so make it a surgical one. Choosing which board to clear is choosing who gets ahead, and the table knows it. The rule that keeps you honest: clear the board that threatens to end the game, not the board that threatens you.
Bringing the sheriff back
Commander rules let you choose whether a dead commander goes to the command zone. Kagemaro wants the graveyard. Reanimate and Animate Dead bring him back for almost nothing, and Whip of Erebos returns him with haste for a swing before he's exiled at end of turn. A reanimated Kagemaro can fire his wipe immediately, because his ability doesn't tap.
No Rest for the Wicked may be the best card in the deck. Sacrifice it after a wipe and every creature card that went from the battlefield to your graveyard this turn returns to your hand, Kagemaro included. He's back for a tax-free recast, and your hand just got bigger. The Underworld Cookbook can also exile itself to return him to hand, and Shadow of the Grave returns every card you discarded this turn, so tuning X down costs you nothing by the end step.
The wipe also refuels the board. Black Market gets a charge counter for every creature that dies and pays it back as {B} each precombat main phase. Rise of the Dread Marn (one of our personal favorite cards) makes a 2/2 Zombie for each nontoken creature that died this turn.
Rules corner: the timing trap
The natural way to keep Kagemaro is a death trigger like Kaya's Ghostform or Fake Your Own Death. It doesn't work. He dies as part of the cost, the return trigger goes on the stack above the wipe and resolves first, and he comes back just in time to get hit. His toughness equals your hand size, X equals your hand size, and he dies again.
The fix is Undying Malice. Cast it on Kagemaro before you activate, since the sacrifice is a cost and you can't respond in the middle of paying it. He dies, returns with a +1/+1 counter, and his toughness is now one more than X. He survives his own wipe as a 1/1 until end of turn, then grows back to full size.
Piloting Tip
Once Kagemaro is on the battlefield, keep {B} untapped. Open black mana is the safety catch, and good opponents will learn to read it.
END GAME
The sheriff draws
Here is the dilemma at the center of the deck. The same hand that powers the wipe is also your win condition: with eleven cards in hand, Kagemaro is an 11/11, and 21 commander damage takes two hits. Every time you police the table, you sacrifice the sheriff, pay to rebuild him and push your own win back a turn or more.
When you do go for it, it's time to make him huge. There are several sorcery speed cards that you can cast before combat phase, such as Damnable Pact and Peer into the Abyss included here for exactly this purpose. At this late stage you'll likely have Greed or Temple Bell out to pump him further.
Evasion keeps the swing from being chumped. Whispersilk Cloak makes him unblockable and gives him shroud, Dauthi Embrace and Traitor's Clutch give him quasi-unblockable by way of shadow, and Shadowspear adds trample plus lifelink to offset the deck's life payments.
Other ways to close
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Damnable Pact: cast it on yourself before combat and Kagemaro grows by X for the lethal swing, with Cabal Coffers making X large. Or point it at an opponent: they lose X life, and Scrawling Crawler makes them lose X more as they draw.
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Psychosis Crawler: each opponent loses 1 life whenever you draw a card. Peer into the Abyss on yourself, drawing half your library, usually ends the game.
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Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Exsanguinate, with Cabal Coffers fueling a large X.
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Parting Thoughts: destroy a creature and draw a card for each counter on it, pumping Kagemaro and the Crawler at instant speed.
Piloting Tip
Only swing for lethal. Any attack that doesn't end a player exposes your deterrent for nothing.
The Moment
Turn eight, four players. The token player has sixteen 1/1 Saprolings and swings all of them at the Voltron player, who sits at 14 life behind a 6/6. Nobody else at the table has an answer. Everyone looks at you: seven cards in hand, Kagemaro on the battlefield, four Swamps open, Black Market and Putrid Imp in play.
You cast Undying Malice on Kagemaro, pay {B} and sacrifice him. In response, Putrid Imp eats five cards, leaving one in hand: X is 1. Kagemaro returns with a +1/+1 counter before the wipe resolves and survives as a 1/1. Sixteen Saprolings die. The 6/6 shrinks to a 5/5 for the turn and survives, and so does your Junk Golem. Nobody’s real board was touched.
At end of turn, you cast your last card, Shadow of the Grave, and the five discarded cards return to your hand. On your next precombat main phase, Black Market pays out seventeen black mana and you hold six cards.
CONSIDERATIONS
Weaknesses and counterplay
The sheriff controls the board, not the stack, and that is where the deck is exposed.
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Noncreature combos walk past him. Storm, Thassa's Oracle lines and artifact engines never put a creature in front of your wipe. Pithing Needle, Bojuka Bog, Unlicensed Hearse and Faerie Macabre help, but artifact removal is thin.
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Some removal gets past the switch. Split second spells like Krosan Grip can't be answered, Pithing Needle or Cursed Totem shut off his ability, Humility-style effects strip it, and anything cast while you're tapped out of {B} lands cleanly.
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The life budget is tight. Greed, Phyrexian Arena, Underworld Connections, Bitterblossom and the sorcery draw spells all cost life. Ivory Tower, Venser's Journal, Shadowspear and Gray Merchant pay it back, but watch your total.
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Most unlimited discard outlets are creatures. Putrid Imp, Junk Golem and Skirge Familiar handle big tune-downs, and removal on them before you fire limits your precision.
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A paranoid table may focus you anyway. Some players will treat a visible wipe as the biggest threat at the table no matter how you play it. Your reputation is the only real defense.
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Forced discard would be a problem to contend with, but it's rare at casual tables for the same reasons land destruction is. In practice it's a footnote.
Closing thoughts
This deck takes Kagemaro's downside, a board wipe that kills its own owner, and turns it into leverage. X is counted when the ability resolves, so the same sacrifice can clear a token army or the whole table, and every opponent can count your hand to see which. The sheriff rarely fires, but he shapes every attack, every removal spell and every deal at the table. Players who treat that open {B} as a bluff are going to find out it isn't.
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