“Saruman of Isengard” Theme Commander Deck Tech

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I had a lot of fun trying to write a Commander deck tech before. It’s a great way to motivate me to actually build decks rather than just gather 60-something themed picks and say I’ll figure out a mana base later. Since the release of The Lord of the Rings Tales of Middle Earth I’ve had my eye on building a deck around the traitorous wizard Saruman. This Magic set kind of leaves no stone unturned in terms of representing characters from The Lord of the Rings, having four cards representing Saruman in it. It was a hard choice, but I ultimately decided on Saruman, the White Hand for his army-raising abilities, while still keeping the spell-slinger flavor befitting a wizard character. With a staff in hand and and tide of orcs at our disposal, this deck will handily set the stage for our dark master to make its return. Read on to see how Saruman foresees victory!

Saruman, the White Hand

I was so excited when I saw that amass was making a return for this set, and Saruman, the White Hand not only lets us grow a huge army by casting noncreature spells, but also protect them with its passive ability that grants Orcs and Goblins ward (2). This deck’s main theme is using Saruman’s first ability to amass Orcs X equal to the mana value of our noncreature spells combined with spells that also amass to let us create formidable armies out of nowhere. Our plan is simple: we create a massive orc army token and smash our opponents’ faces with it, either by attacking with it or throwing it directly at our opponents with spells like Fling and Soul’s Fire.

We want to play cards that have Amass Orcs, so this deck includes several cards from Tales of Middle Earth and its commander set. My partner was lucky enough to pull the 2-drop powerhouse Orcish Bowmasters, and was nice enough to let me use it in this deck! Bowmasters’ ability to amass an army token and ping specific targets to discourage extra card draw makes it a threat in the Legacy format, which is why it commands such a hefty price. It’s such a high powered card, I only really feel comfortable running it because it’s on flavor in this deck; Mauhúr, Uruk-hai Captain is a good budget alternative. All Will Be One has great synergy with our strategy as each time we amass and put +1/+1 counters on our army, we can deal that much damage to a target of our choice. Barad-dûr is a mana sink we can pump our extra mana into on slow turns to keep growing our Orc Army, but ideally we’re casting spells that let us cheat out more spells, triggering Saruman’s amass effect multiple times on our turn.

Big spells means big X values for our commander’s amass trigger, and we can add to that value with Shark Typhoon. Flying shark tokens make for great blockers, and can apply pressure once we have a few of them. We can always cycle it if we draw it too early. Past in Flames and a few other spells with flashback are in this deck, so we don’t mind sending cards to our graveyard. Cascade spells like Call Forth the Tempest trigger additional casts for Saruman. I decided to only run one, but a budget option might be to add more cascade spells, particularly those found in The Ruinous Powers Warhammer 40,000 Commander Deck. Storm of Saruman copies the second spell we cast each turn; a powerful ability, but keep in mind that “copying” doesn’t count as a cast trigger, so it’s important to cast spells in the right order to get the most out of the effect. It’s worth noting that if a spell with X in its cost is copied, the copied spell has the same X value as the original, but if you cascade out a spell with X in its cost, its value will be 0. For that reason I decided not to run too many cascade cards to reduce the chance of whiffing on a combo, but it’s a viable strategy if you choose to focus on it.

“FIRE! FEAR! FOES! AWAKE!”

We’re investing a lot into our army, so we’re running a two cards to guarantee that when we decide to strike, damage can’t be prevented. Fear, Fire, Foes!, the rallying war cry of the orc army in the book, clears our opponent’s board of annoying 1 toughness blockers, and works as single target removal for larger creatures. Isengard Unleashed triples the our damage output for a turn, and can be cast with flashback if our first assault fails to do the job. Embercleave doubles our army’s damage with double strike at instant speed, making perfect for a surprise burst of damage when our opponents let our army through without blocking. In this context equipping a single sword onto an army is a little silly, but we can say we’re giving it to the Uruk-hai captain leading the charge.

“I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly.”

One of Saruman’s signature traits is his hunger for power. He wants the things he doesn’t have, and I think that’s captured mechanically in the card Saruman of Many Colors. Unfortunately, that version of Saruman isn’t in our colors but I wanted to capture some of its mechanics to cast our opponent’s cards for free and trigger our commander’s ability. Gríma, Saruman’s Footman is a decent blocker who can nip at our opponents without fear of being blocked, and when it does we can cast an instant or sorcery of theirs for free. Wake the Dragon is a sorcery that gives us a body in the air that can permanently give us control of our opponent’s artifacts. Subjugate the Hobbits is a flavor include that will give us control of all our opponent’s low mana value creatures and tokens. When we take things from our opponents with these cards it isn’t conditional, so they’re great for taking control of the board.

“…Power to order all things as we will…”

Our utility cards aim to make our opponents feel powerless against us. The Ozolith will take the counters we put on our army in the case that it’s ever bounced or removed, and then redistribute those counters on a new army we create at the beginning of combat, which synergizes really well with All Will Be One above. Sharkey, Tyrant of the Shire represents Saruman at his least glamorous, during the scouring of the shire, and locks down utility lands our opponents control. We’re also running some powerful utility lands, like Boseiju, Who Shelters All. Normally I’d be against including a card like this that discourages interaction, but the Tales of Middle Earth reprint as Isengard is too flavorful to pass up, and our deck will be stronger for it.

“And now… perfected: my fighting Uruk-hai.”

Saruman’s armies were enhanced by the wizard’s dark meddling with the orcs’ genes, creating the powerful Uruk-hai. We can modify our orc armies too by playing creatures that give them different keywords. Orcish Siegemaster is a flavorful battering ram of a creature that gives our army trample, while Warg Rider and Gleaming Overseer can give it menace and hexproof. There are a lot of options for these slots, like Eternal Skylord, that can give our army evasive keywords to help us get to our opponent’s life totals. Be mindful of Tales of Middle Earth‘s amass cards vs War of the Spark‘s version: while they both add to our army’s +1/+1 counters, War of the Spark featured amass Zombies, not amass Orcs. Playing an amass Zombies card while we have an Orc Army in play turns it into a Zombie Orc Army, adding the Zombie creature type. You could build around this, but generally I think the additional creature type is a potential weakness, although it won’t come up very often.

“Sauron’s victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those who aided it.”

Our backup plan is Sauron, the Dark Lord. Sauron is a powerhouse of abilities, and is difficult to remove thanks to its Ward ability. If we’re rebuilding an army, Sauron’s second ability taxes our opponents’ spells by amassing 1 each time they cast a spell. Moreover, if we’re in a stalemate its the Ring tempts you trigger provides additional value for our Army, giving us an unblockable creature and card draw. Sauron doesn’t synergize with our deck as well as Saruman so I wouldn’t swap them as commanders, but it provides great support to our board and can help us build up a response if we’re behind. We love our nonbinary king.

The full decklist can be found here. I had a lot of fun building another themed commander deck, although admittedly because of the Universes Beyond crossover this list almost feels more like an upgrade for the “The Hosts of Mordor” preconstructed deck. Still, it was fun to look through all the cards available and refine it to the 100 card list. I got very lucky on my card pulls with this set, so if you’re shopping with more of a budget, The One Ring is an easy place to start making changes; I only included it for flavor. I’ve already seen a few cards I would consider swapping into this deck since finishing it, so if I have the opportunity to play it a few times, I can see myself coming back to this deck to make some changes. Having said that, I don’t think this version of Saruman will have any trouble standing with the tougher decks at my next commander night, and I think it’s going to be a blast to play.

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