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Kona, Rescue Beastie is a very powerful card released inMagic: The Gathering’sDuskmourn set. Thanks to its legendary creature status, you can use it as your commander, and it is a powerful one at that.
A Kona, Rescue Beastie Commander deck is all about cheating in expensive permanents without paying their mana cost. This is done through Kona itself, and if not left in check, can very quickly snowball out of control once you start sticking permanents on the battlefield. If you like playing cards with high mana costs without actually paying the mana, then Kona will be the perfect commander for you.
Surrak and Goreclaw
Triumph of the Hordes
Return of the Wildspeaker
x25 Forest
Scene of the Crime
The Shire
War Room
The decklistconsists of 29 creatures, five sorceries, three instants, 26 artifacts, two enchantments, and 34 lands. A majority of the creatures are ones you want to cheat in with Kona, and a lot of the artifacts are enablers for Kona’s effect.
Key Cards
Kona, Rescue Beastie
The commander,Kona, Rescue Beastieis far and away the most important card of the deck. Youwant to always have it tapped before your second main phaseto makesure its survival ability triggers.
Kona lets you putany permanent onto the battlefield from your hand. There are no restrictions on what permanent you choose, which helps to pick whichever one will help you in the current game state. Thanks toVehicles and cards like Springleaf Drum, it’s trivial to tap Kona without using it in combat to make sure it stays safe.
Monster Manual
When making a Commander deck, it’s important to rememberyou aren’t always going to have access to your commander. In Beastie’s case, it’ll often be subject to removal as if it sticks on the battlefield you’ll quickly become a problem. As such, substitutions are necessary if Kona isn’t available, and this is whereMonster Manualcomes in.
The Adventure side of Monster Manual (Zoological Study) is decent, although you may wind up milling one of your powerful noncreature spells and be unable to get them back. However, if you are in desperate need of a creature, it is worth taking the risk.
Once Monster Manual is on the battlefield, forjust two mana you can put any creature directly onto the battlefield. If you have both Monster Manual and Kona on the battlefield, you will be able to get two expensive creatures for little to no mana investment.
Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
There are a lot of great options to cheat in with Kona’s effect, but perhaps the best creature isGhalta, Stampede Tyrant. This is largely because on top of being a creature with great stats and trample, it lets you bring outall other creature cards in your handwith it when it enters the battlefield.
Since Ghalta can handle cheating out the creatures in your hand,Kona can be used to cheat out enchantments and artifacts instead. These two work in tandem, helping you to amass a massive battlefield with just one Kona trigger.
Vorinclex, Voice Of Hunger
Vorinclex, Voice of Hungeris a very useful creature once it hits the battlefield if it sticks around. Your opponents will want to remove it immediately, or else riskconstantly being forced to wait two turns before their lands can untap.
Vorinclex is especially useful for your mana generation, as itdoubles up on the amount of mana your lands generate. Since your deck primarily consists of permanents with high casting costs, this excess mana is especially useful for casting them when you can’t cheat them out.
Smuggler’s Copter
In your deck, youwant many ways to ensure you can tap Konato make sure its effect can trigger. One of the best ways to do this is by crewing a Vehicle, andSmuggler’s Copteris the best choice of Vehicle for the job. It has a solid statline as a 3/3, and since it has flying as well,you can attack an opponent without a way to block itto make sure it sticks around.
WhenSmuggler’s Copter attacks, you can draw and discard a card. This helps you to dig through your deck to get to your powerful permanents quicker, and helps to get rid of any dead cards in your hand such as lands. SinceKona triggers on the second main phase, you can put whatever you drew with Smuggler’s Copter onto the battlefieldafter it attacks.
How To Play The Deck
A Kona, Rescue Beastie Commander deck requires a bit of patience to play. There is ahigh chance you will constantly be targeted, as it is almost necessary for your opponents to do so. If your opponents are light on interaction, you may very quickly run away with the game. This is thebiggest downside of the deck, as it is very easy to become a “public enemy” of the game once your game plan starts rolling.
There is a balance of permanents to cheat in and permanents to tap Kona. Youprimarily want to use Vehicles for tapping, as these are solid cards on their own rather than only supporting the primary strategy.Cybership, Rolling Hamsphere,andSkysovereign, Cosnul Flagshipare all fantastic Vehicles in combat, helping you advantage your board state and in Skysovereign’s case, deal with creatures and planeswalkers on the battlefield.
Since you have such a high mana curve, there are other ways to cheat in creatures onto the battlefield and avoid paying their mana costs.Smuggler’s Surprisecan put two creatures onto the battlefield (and ramp and give your creatures protection),Monster Manualputs creatures onto the battlefield directly, andChimil, the Inner Sunlets you discover five every end step to cast a spell with mana value five or less from your library.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. You have a massive suite of powerful creatures in your lineup, many of which have high stats. In addition, a lot of them have trample (or can grant trample) to all your creatures.Unnatural Growthespecially helps close out games by doubling the power of all your creatures.Triumph of the Hordeshelps you to close out games quicker by giving your creatures infect for the turn, meaning they only have to deal ten damage to take someone out of the game.
