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Thanks toMagic: The Gathering’slatest Universes Beyond expansion, the world of Assassin’s Creed has brought us an incredible new commander. Shay Cormac is the maverick assassin from Assassin’s Creed Rogue who goes on a rampage against his former brothers to save the new world.
In Magic, Shay’s prowess for murder is showcased by his activated ability which ensures your ability to kill things that might otherwise be out of reach. On top of that, with every opposing death, Shay grows into an imposing threat too great to ignore. Combine these abilities with the colors of life and death, and you’ve got everything you need to make a great Commander deck.
The Commander: Shay Cormac
Creatures are usually the mainstay of most Commander decks, and most players will do everything they can to keep their creatures safe. That usually means bestowing keywords likeprotection,indestructible,hexproof,shroud, andward, thus preventing other players from easily removing them with something like a Murder.
EnterShay Cormac. For the low cost of one mana, youcan temporarily remove every single one of those keywordsfrom every permanent your opponent controls.
However, Shay mostly cares about removing protections from creatures thanks to its triggered ability. Every time youtarget an opposing creaturewith a spell or ability,it gets a bounty counter, and whenever a creature with abounty counter dies,Shay gets two +1/+1 counters.
This makes Shaythe perfect commander topair with a lot of removal spells. Every time you target an opposing creature, the triggered ability puts a counter on it, and once the spell resolves, the creature dies, making Shay Cormac an escalating threat.
Although we’re focusing on creatures,Shay removes protections fromallpermanents, not just creatures. This means nothing will be safe when you draw your Vindicate.
But it doesn’t always have to be a straight-up kill spell.Targeting opposing creatureswith softer abilities will stillgive them a bounty counter, and if they happen to die due to some other means, Shay still gets the benefit.
Building Your Shay Cormac Commander Deck
With Shay’s powers in mind, the idea is tobuild a Commander deck that focuses on targeting opposing creatures. The easiest and most efficient way to do that is with kill spells, something that Magic’s black and white colors have a lot of.
Shay’s ability only triggers when a creature dies, so cards that exile creatures like Swords fo Plowshares and Path to Exile won’t trigger Shay’s bounty counters.
Although the deck has several sources of repeated removal, the majority of your spells are one-time-use only. For that reason, you’ll also want toinclude plenty of ways to refill your handif you have to burn a lot of kill spells to keep opponents away from you.
With theflexibility to remove any threat, all you need is a few high-power cards to tip games in your favor as you slice and dice your way through opposing armies.
Removal
As you’d expect, there’s a lot of removal in Shay’s deck.Cut Down,Bovine Intervention,Ultimate Price,Go for the Throat, andMurderare examples. Cards likeVindicate,Mortify, andFracturegive you the ability to remove cards other than creatures, but the focus is on killing creatures to give Shay more +1/+1 counters, using Shay’s activated ability if that creature happens to have any protective keywords.
There are plenty of one-time kill creatures, such asRavenous Chupacabra,Noxious Gearhulk, andShriekmaw, but also some repeated-use kill creatures likeRoyal Assassin,Avatar or Woe, andGuul Draz Assassin.Bounty Huntercan even speed up its usually two-turn kill rate by pairing with Shay to kill anything that already has a bounty counter through some other means (more on those later).
Shay Synergies
Bounty Hunter and anything that helps with bounty counters (such asTermination FacilitatorandBounty Board) are the most obvious things to include in a Shay Cormac deck, but there are other ways to get the most out of Shay.Killian, Ink Duelist, for example, reduces the cost of all those kill spells by two mana, andKaervek, the Punishergives you a double use for your kill spells.
Endbringer,Giant Killer, andWalking Ballistaare great examples of “soft” ways to throw out bounty counters through their abilities.The Ozolithhelps to bank Shay’s tokens so that even if he dies, he can come back later at the same size he died. AndBlack Marketis a great card to include as every death gives you more and more black mana to work with.
Black/White Staples
BesidesVindicate,Mortify, and otherblack-and-white removal spells, both colors provide something that a Shay deck can use. White provides excellent board sweepers likeAustere Command, while black provides card draw from the likes ofBarbed Servitor,Syphon Mind, andNight’s Whisper.
Of course, don’t forgetSmuggler’s Share, a white enchantment that’ll give you extra cards and Treasure tokens if your opponent happens to draw more than one card or play more than one land: fair’s fair, and all that.
Game Winners and Big Bombs
Two great enchantments come to mind for winning games. Since there will certainly be a lot of dead creatures in any game with Shay Cormac,Debtor’s Knellwill bring them back into play under your control. You can even pair this card with an evokedShriekmawfor repeated kills on every turn.
Grave Betrayalis the other card that immediately springs. This enchantment will bring back any creature you killed under your control with an additional +1/+1 counter to boot. And since you’ll be killing a lot with Shay, Grave Betrayal will quickly provide you with an army of monsters.
Besides these enchantments,Avatar of Woecan quickly get out of hand with Shay,Tetzimocis often a one-sided board wipe, andAthreosis a lot like a cheaper Grave Betrayal.
Servant of the Stinger
Go for the Throat
Vault of the Archangel
Plains (7)
Budget Substitutions
The good news for Magic players on a budget is thatmany of the cards you’ll need for Shay are relatively cheap instants and sorceries. The bad news is that white and black aren’t the easiest colors to make a mana base for, and there are a few pricey cards in the suggested deck list.
