The Jolly Ballon Man is a legendary creature introduced inMagic: The Gathering’s Commander format. This Boros (red/white) commander is all about copying your creatures and taking advantage of their various enter the battlefield and death triggers.
The Jolly Balloon Man plays a bit like a blink deck, slowly building up advantage until you are ready to win the game. You’ll be drawing a ton of cards and generating a ton of creature tokens with a Jolly Balloon Man deck. If this is the gameplay style you like in your Commander deck, then The Jolly Balloon Man is the right commander for you.
Mentor of the Meek
Overlord of the Boilerbilges
Overlord of the Mistmoors
Sundial of the Infinite
x8 Mountain
x11 Plains
Sunscorched Divide
War Room
The decklistconsists of 37 creatures, three sorceries, six instants, 14 artifacts, five enchantments,and34 lands. For the most part, creatures and lands are all you need in the deck, with the rest of the cards acting as support for them.
Key Cards
The Jolly Balloon Man
The commander of the deck,The Jolly Balloon Manis amajor part of what makes the deck stand out.For just one mana, you can create a token of any creatureyou control (but as a 1/1 with flying). There are multiple creatures you can copy that will untap The Jolly Balloon Man, letting you use the effect for however much mana you have.
Since The Jolly Balloon Man has haste, you canuse its effect the same turn it enters the battlefield. you’re able to copyany creature, not just nonlegendary. While copying a legendary will cause it to immediately die due to the legend rule, you still take advantage of its enter the battlefield trigger, or often more importantly, its death trigger.
Nesting Dovehawk
Nesting Dovehawkis the most consistentway to keep the tokens you generate with Jolly Balloon Man around. When you populate, you create a copy of a creature token, and whilethe Jolly Ballon Man token has to be sacrificed,copies of the token do not. This means the token Nesting Dovehawk creates will stay on the battlefield at the end step.
Nesting Dovehawk is a way to double up on the effects that you are utilizing with Jolly Balloon Man. Thishelps you to draw a ton of cards and start creating a permanent board presence. Nesting Dovehawk also grows in stats as more creature tokens enter, making it a powerful offensive and defensive creature later in the game.
Wurmcoil Engine
Wurmcoil Engineis one of the best cards you can copy with Jolly Balloon Man. While a 1/1 token won’t do much,it will still create the two 3/3 tokens on its sacrifice(one with deathtouch and one with lifelink).
Since nothing will happen to the original Wurmcoil Engine, you cankeep copying it to make more of the Phyrexian Wurm tokens. This, combined with other burn damage cards, can snowball out of control if your opponents don’t take care of the original Wurmcoil Engine.
Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier
The best card, when combined with your commander,Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier,can turn Jolly Balloon Man copying one creature into copying all of your creatures, so long as you have two mana to pay. This gives you a ton of triggers to work with and extra tokens, which can be enough to swing out for lethal damage.
Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier will cause a ton of tokens to be created, soit’s especially strong with cards that deal burn damage when a creature enters the battlefield. The effect applies to any ability that targets it and sets you up for infinite combos.
If Jolly Ballon Man, Agrus Kos, Priest of Urabrask, and Village Bell-Ringer are on the battlefield, you may create an infinite amount of tokens. Use Jolly Balloon Man on Agrus Kos, activating it to use the effect on all creatures you control to make token copies of them. Village Bell-Ringer will untap Jolly Balloon Man and Priest of Urabrask will give you three mana to be able to afford looping this combo infinitely.
Combat Celebrant
Combat Celebrantis a way to gain a lot of extra combat steps, especially late-game when you have the excess mana to be able to use Jolly Balloon Man’s effect multiple times a turn.You always want to be exerting it, gaining extra combat steps to constantly be dealing damage.
There are a lot of different ways to keep using Combat Celerant’s effect. IfKiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is on the battlefield, you may get infinite combatswithout needing the mana to do so by copying it by tapping Kiki-Jiki. Alternatively, Jolly Balloon Man is a way to have the combo in the command zone (although it is not infinite in this case).
How To Play The Deck
The Jolly Balloon Man isall about generating advantage, drawing cards until you reach your primary win conditions. Despite Boros being infamously bad at drawing cards, thanks to copying permanents likeWall of Omens, Spirited Companion, andInspiring Overseer, this downside is erased entirely.
There are a ton of useful cards for Jolly Balloon Man to copy.Trumpeting Carnosaurlets you discover five to cast another spell for free;Atsushi, the Blazing Skyenters then dies to the legend rule, letting you create three Treasure tokens, andKarmic Guidecan return any creature from your graveyard back to the battlefield.
Onedownside of the deckis that it is very weak to interaction. Youhave to target a creature for Jolly Ballon Man’s effect, meaningyour opponents have the chance to use a removal spellbefore it resolves. In addition,a board wipe will set you back drastically, as it can struggle to build back up from nothing.
Themain win conditions of the deck arewinning through combat, burn damage, or by using Approach of the Second Sun. Since you may draw so many cards, casting Approach from the Second Sun is very easy, and will instantly win you the game if it resolves. Alternatively,there are a lot of ways to generate infinite combat and infinite creaturesto swing out. With the cards that burn for creatures entering the battlefield, your opponents' life totals will melt away and clear a path for victory.
