Commander Spotlight: Dogmeat, Ever Loyal
(If you’re looking for a full decklist, you can find it at the end of the article!)
I get to talk about Naya Dogs twice in a row? Crazy. While I personally haven’t played the Fallout games and ergo have no emotional attachment to that universe, the idea of a white-red-green voltron commander that could recur Aura and Equipment cards from the graveyard sounded interesting. Also, just look at him. He’s clearly a good boy!
I decided on a voltron approach for Dogmeat, mostly focusing on equipment, though there are some auras sprinkled in there from the precon. I think he’d make a great go wide creature token commander generating heaps of Junk, but seeing how we just had the Rin and Seri article a few weeks ago I decided to not build the deck that way. Though I will be leaning into ‘artifact count matters’ cards where it seemed relevant to do so.
This article won’t be a full deck tech. Instead I’ll go over some key pieces I included and some of the stronger synergy lines I wanted to highlight. The deck has been checked for PlayEDH Low Power as is, with plenty of breathing room left for improvement if you decide to further upgrade it. Let’s look at what the commander brings to the table!
Dogmeat’s Pros and Cons
On ETB, you mill five cards and then Regrowth an Aura or Equipment. Every time you attack with an enchanted or equipped creature, you create a Junk token, which you can sacrifice for impulse draw. All of those sound like great effects, but Dogmeat does have a downside.
Unlike other voltron options in Naya, he has no innate keywords or protection to ensure he survives several combat steps or is easy to swing with. Compared to other options like Jared Carthalion, we might have to slot in a little more utility pieces to ensure Dogmeat doesn’t die too often.
Make Creatures Count
I often notice people lean very heavily into their voltron commander and then forget to slot a backup plan. It’s not uncommon to see voltron decks with just four or five creatures in the 99. Dogmeat getting removed shouldn’t mean we’re now essentially out of the game, so I opted to slot in several Equipment-related creatures that were plenty threatening on their own should we find ourselves in a situation where we have Equipment on the field, but no access to the commander.
I’m happy I was able to include all three versions of Danitha. Danitha Capashen,Paragon and Danitha, Benalia’s Hope have first strike, vigilance and lifelink meaning most combat encounters will end up in our favor. Both Benalia’s Hope and New Benalia’s Light will make it so Dogmeat isn’t our only source of Aura and Equipment recursion should we end up milling more than one important piece with Dogmeat or after our opponents have removed some of our key pieces.
Knowing that we’ll have ways of growing our board quite tall and we have means of putting cards in the graveyard, the ever relevant Sun Titan found its way into the deck. With a grand total of 39 nonland cards it can return directly to the battlefield, he definitely feels worthwhile. I highlighted Dogmeat having no innate protection earlier, so an indestructible creature like Toski, Bearer of Secrets felt like a great option to slap some keyword and power/toughness increasing equipment on to.
It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.
Now that we have creatures to turn sideways, it’s time to make them more powerful. There’s an ever increasing pool of EDH-relevant Auras and Equipment so I tried to include some cards from the precon while also ensuring we run enough beatstick potential through already established cards.
Well Rested, EDH’s new once per turn pseudo-The Great Henge leans in on the fact that our commander doesn’t have vigilance. On top of that, we run Birds of Paradise and Delighted Halfling, ensuring we can benefit from it even without having to do combat. The brand new Idolized makes it easier to swing with just one creature and leave the rest open as blockers, which is something you naturally tend to do in the early to mid game stages of the voltron strategy already. It counts all nonland permanents you control, including Dogmeat’s Junk tokens!
The same is true for All That Glitters. Junk tokens being artifacts seems quite relevant here. Equipment like The Reaver Cleaver adds Treasure tokens which further tick up the artifact count. The equip costs of Belt of Giant Strength and Colossus Hammer might seem high at face value, but there’s a handful of cards in the deck that allow you to equip cards for 0 mana so it shouldn’t be too hard to equip them for (near) free.
Value Through Combat
Ideally we’re turning one — or several — large bodies sideways each combat we get, so tying in more value to the combat mechanic felt like a logical step. Ohran Frostfang and Nahiri, Forged in Fury add some nice card advantage to the deck, while cards like Kodama of the West Tree and Sword of the Animist ramp us ahead in lands to the field.
Komainu Battle Armor has the ability to goad one opponent’s entire board. With the ever increasing amount of go wide decks that see play, and the fact that many enablers nowadays are on backline creatures that definitely don’t want to swing, this is a great way of dealing with fragile engine pieces you might not want to spend mana on to remove. Force your opponent to swing with their Esper Sentinel, Archmage Emeritus, Blood Artist, Storm-Kiln Arist, or Seedborn Muse!
Kaldra Compleat’s buffs should make it more easy for our creature to come out on top during combat. Are you really not going to block an 8/8 Dogmeat with first strike, trample and indestructible? That’s 3 hits until lethal commander damage, with just one Equipment attached. Whichever creature they block with will get exiled too, and due to the keywords it provides it’s now way safer to swing into an opponent that has stronger or deathtouch blockers.
Gone But Not Forgotten
You don’t want to be stuck in a situation where your Aura or Equipment gets removed and you’re now a sitting duck. It’s important to have means to rebuild the board. On top of the aforementioned Danitha’s, Sevinne’s Reclamation provides a lot here, which just like Sun Titan, has almost 40 legal targets. The fact that a card that recurs permanents from the graveyard straight to the battlefield has flashback is still a wild to me. I also added Unfinished Business, which reanimates a creature – Sun Titan or Danitha, Benalia’s Hope being some prime targets – and two Aura or Equipment pieces.
This makes equipment cards like Mantle of the Ancients even more powerful and can lead to situations if opponents strip your board of its best pieces, if they’re not running graveyard exile effects, your board will be just as threatening as it was one turn ago. Forge Anew allows for similar ways of rebuilding.
While you won’t always have Mantle of the Ancients in your graveyard, getting back a card like Thran Power Suit or Mithril Coat after an opponent spent resources to remove it feels like a strong move. Paired with a card like Sigarda’s Aid, it gets increasingly more difficult for our opponents to try and make sure our creatures aren’t holding any toys.
Dimir at Heart
I couldn’t help myself and added copy effects because I’m still a Dimir player and only having access to the best card on the board just once feels significantly less fun. Masterwork of Ingenuity having the ability to become a second Colossus Hammer sounds quite frightening. Sculpting Steel copies any artifact on the battlefield, not just our own, and not just equipment. That’s a nice The One Ring you brought to the table, I’ll take one too. I even added The Mycosynth Gardens, since lands don’t seem to get removed often and I definitely wouldn’t say no to a second Robe of Stars.
No Swords?!
You’ll notice a complete lack of ‘Sword of X and Y’ cards. While obviously several of those are strong, I opted not to run them as a self imposed challenge. There’s also a bunch of cards in the deck – Ardenn, Boros Charm, Komainu, Lion Sash, Silkguard, on top of all Auras – that I didn’t want to not work because one of the Swords on accident gave my creature protection from one of those colors. We’re still playing a three color deck. I guess the 100% safe no-downside one would be Sword of Once and Future, and a case can be made that the surveil 2 would work well with the amount of recursion we’re running. It’s not because I’m choosing not to run them that you shouldn’t ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).
You can find this deck and plenty more on the PlayEDH Low Power Hub. Play the list as is in our curated tiers, or add some further upgrades. I deliberately didn’t push this deck to the absolute limit of what we’d consider Low Power so there’s plenty of room left for self expression if you wanted to use this deck as a base you could adapt to be more in line with your own vision!
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