Commander’s Insight - Kels, Fight Fixer
Commander’s Insight is a new article series we are starting here at PlayEDH. The aim for this series is to showcase a specific commander and how decks can be built for them on all of our power levels. Detailed card choices and play patterns will help anyone wanting to tune the commanders to their power level of choice.
Today we will be highlighting a highly underutilized general and one of my personal favorites: Kels, Fight Fixer. Released in July 2020 as part of the unique Jumpstart set, Kels is a commander powerhouse, seeing play from the most casual “beer and pretzels” tables to some of the most competitive tournament pods. So, why have you never seen or heard of this awesome Azra warlock? Perhaps partially due to Jumpstart’s very limited release paired with her low price compared to valuable chase rares within the set, or perhaps partially the oddity of a non-zombie-based aristocrat commander in Dimir, Kels largely flew under the radar. However, what she lacks in notoriety Kels more than makes up for in versatility, power, and amazing art. So, let's jump in and fix the mysteries behind the Fight Fixer.
As a 4/3 menace for a CMC of 4, Kels already packs a pretty solid punch at casual EDH tables. Her Dimir color identity means that she can run all of the high-impact mono-black aristocrat staples and protect them through a wall of counterspells. Kels is already off to a great start, but it is her other two abilities that make her truly shine. The first reads “Whenever you sacrifice a creature, you may pay U/B. If you do, draw a card.” This is an incredibly powerful tool to have in the command zone of a deck that is looking to constantly sacrifice its other creatures to accrue value. This means that every activation of tools like Ashnod’s Altar, Priest of Forgotten Gods, and Phyrexian Tower can now provide you with card advantage in addition to their other benefits. But what if there is no sacrifice outlet available and you desperately need to draw cards? That’s where Kels’ second ability comes in handy, stating “1, Sacrifice a creature: Kels, Fight Fixer gains indestructible until end of turn.” This means that so long as you can cast your commander, you have a way to sacrifice creatures and therefore draw cards! Having this internal synergy makes Kels a nice value piece, with the added benefit of being able to make herself indestructible. Not many value commanders can do that!
Now that we have outlined Kels’ arsenal of abilities, let’s discuss what cards in casual play truly make her shine. First, it’s essential to have reliable creature generation in order to efficiently play off of Kels abilities. Therefore, cards like Bitterblossom, Ophiomancer, Endrek Sahr, Reef Worm, and Sengir Autocrat are excellent additions as they either reliably pump out tokens on a turn by turn basis, or provide a surplus of sacrifice targets upon being cast. Beyond these more “standard” options, two of my personal favorite cards to play with Kels are Chasm Skulker and Nadir Kraken. Both cards synergize incredibly well with Kels’ built in draw, while also providing sufficient sacrifice fodder if necessary. With Chasm Skulker, you can draw tons of cards with Kels to accrue lots of counters, then sacrifice it in order to gain an army of squids ready to draw you cards! Couple this with a reanimation spell and you can bring the Chasm Skulker back, make it huge by sacrificing and drawing off all the squids it just made, and then sacrifice it again. Nadir Kraken provides a similar advantage for a little more mana, as each time you draw a card you must pay 1 mana in order to put a counter on the kraken and create a tentacle token, but comes with the added benefit of not needing to sacrifice it!
Now, you may be saying to yourself “Wow this all sounds fun, but it's not exactly the most competitive; I thought you said Kels was competitive!” This is true, Dimir Aristocrats is not the most efficient strategy and, yes, I did say Kels can play competitively. Dimir is already quite strong in competitive pods, as it brings the powerful combo of Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact and Thassa’s Oracle/Labman along with efficient tutors, a massive counter suite, and other powerful commander staples. Any commander with blue and black in their identity can get these though, so what makes Kels so special? The key to her efficiency lies in the small details. Let’s take another look at the wording of her second ability; “Sacrifice a creature”. Yes, sacrifice a creature, not another creature. Therefore, we can sacrifice Kels to her own ability! We can also respond to the sacrifice trigger, and choose to pay one blue or black to use her first ability. What does this all mean? Well, it means not only is Kels a solid value piece sitting in the command zone, she also doubles as an outlet for infinite mana! Therefore, in addition to consultation lines Kels, Fight Fixer can efficiently pull off combos like Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal. At a power level where every little thing counts, having a commander that brings all that to the table sure is convenient!
At this point, hopefully you are excited by the endless possibilities Kels brings to the table, and are eager to get out and try this truly awesome commander! If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few examples of how you can play Kels at each of the power levels on PlayEDH, from Battlecruiser all the way to Maximum! Let’s take a closer look at each!
Battlecruiser
Starting off, we’ve got lots and lots of fun ways to provide Kels with disposable creatures we can sacrifice. Chasm Skulker, Nadir Kraken, Reef Worm, and Sengir Autocrat are of course all present. However, since we are playing in Battlecruiser we can also afford to run some really fun creatures that may otherwise be a bit too slow to effectively pull off! My personal favorite of these is Josu Vess, who we can kick in order to get not one but 9 total creatures! Phyrexian Triniform is another neat creature I wouldn’t normally run due to its mana cost, but provides excellent value both on its initial death trigger and after encoring it back to the battlefield. What you may have noticed, however, is that I have avoided Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos effects here. The amount of disposable creatures we have here, in conjunction with the easy sacrifice outlet and draw advantage Kels provides means that these effects would be far too oppressive for Battlecruiser. We have also limited the amount of free/easy sacrifice outlets outside of Kels. There is a time and place for those cards, which we will get to next!
Low Power
The first changes you may notice here is that now we are running Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos along with an Ashnod’s Altar which, with all of our disposable creatures, can greatly accelerate our game plan and grind out some serious value. Our creature base has also become a little more focused, with high mana value creatures with low in-game value getting the axe. Instead we have slotted in things like Endrek Sahr Master Breeder, Pitiless Plunderer, and Ophiomancer with tons and tons of repeatable value. We have also improved our control package a bit more, and included cards like Teferi’s Ageless Insight to best-capitalize on the draw that Kels provides. Overall, our main gameplan here is still focused on using Kels and our other aristocrats to out value our opponents, supplemented with forced sacrifice and other methods of control to keep us ahead. Oddly enough, there is actually one incredibly janky combo in the list, though it is not remotely efficient. With Kels, Nadir Kraken, Pitiless Plunderer, and Ashnod’s Altar on the board you can sacrifice a creature to the Ashnod’s Altar, generating two colorless mana and a treasure from Plunderer, as well as triggering Kels’ first ability. Using the treasure to pay, you draw a card with Kels which then trigger’s Nadir Kraken’s ability, allowing you to pay one colorless mana whenever you draw a card to put a +1/+1 counter on the kraken and create a 1/1 Blue Tentacle token. You now have 1 colorless mana unspent, an extra card in your hand, a slightly larger kraken, and a new token to sacrifice to start the cycle over! Thus, this loop will generate “infinite” (limited by library of course) colorless mana, “infinite” draw, and an “infinitely” large Nadir Kraken! This will also drain the table if you have a Zulaport Cutthroat or other Blood Artist-type effect on board. Pretty fun, if incredibly inconsistent, combo! The more efficient combo lines come with our Mid list!
Mid Power
With stronger power levels come stronger wincons, and this deck is no different! The criteria for which creatures make the cut here has gone up, which most creatures either contributing to our combo-finishers or providing some sort of consistent value. The addition of Nim Deathmantle, Chittering Witch, and Grave Titan, combined with our Blood Artist effects and Ashnod’s Altar provides an efficient loop very fitting of our aristocrat theme! This combo works by sacrificing a creature that enters the battlefield with 1 or more tokens to Ashnod’s Altar along with 1 token, generating 4 mana. This 4 mana can be used to pay the deathmantle’s cost to return our original creature and repeat the loop. If we have a blood artist effect, this will result in infinitely draining the table. If our creature creates more than one token, we will also be able to generate infinite tokens and infinite colorless mana. Should deathmantle be removed, though we have plenty of counters to protect it, we still have plenty of ways to win in this list. Our other main win con is the ever-reliable combination of Aetherflux Reservoir and Bolas’s Citadel. While this pairing can technically stall out once we start hitting lands off the top deck, Kels provides so much draw that we should be able to fairly easily filter off the first few lands, at which point we have likely reached a boardstate that will allow us to guarantee victory. The addition of several tutors also helps us to make sure we can reliably reach our win cons.
High Power
Glancing at this list, you may notice that this deck is the most different from its predecessors. Overall, we have completely shifted the focus of the deck away from aristocrat play patterns in order to make room for a hyper-efficient ramp package, very strong control spells, and fast wincons like Demonic Consultation with Laboratory Maniac and Isochron Scepter/Dramatic Reversal. There are still token generators to funnel sacrifice fodder through Kels, but each one has been carefully selected to ensure it provides enough value and does not take up space in our hand and slow us down. This list is looking to hit its efficient wincons incredibly fast, with tons and tons of fast mana rocks and rituals supplemented with a strong tutor package, but it is also capable of playing the long game against faster lists. In these matchups, our list is able to bunker down behind its staggering thirty-one instants to ensure that nothing happens that we don’t want to happen.
Maximum Power
Our final list looks a lot similar to our High list, with a bit of a heftier price tag! Max Power means we are making zero concessions in our build and looking to make our list as efficient and powerful as possible. We have dropped Jace in favor of the much faster Thassa’s Oracle to win off of our Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact plays, added even more tutors and draw to help dig for our wincons, and filled out the rest of the manabase with any lands or fast rocks we were missing in our previous list such as Mox Diamond and Underground Sea. This list is one mean, lean, fight-fixing machine and is ready to play at tables with the best of the best! If this list interests you don’t be intimidated by the price, simply fire up the nearest printer and get ready to have some great games on PlayEDH!
Conclusion
As you can see, the possibilities for Kels Fight Fixer are endless! Regardless of what power level you want to play her at on PlayEDH, you are guaranteed to be able to build a solid deck that will provide hours and hours of fun. And the limit doesn’t stop with these five decks! There are many other strategies, especially in Low and Mid, that Kels can work extremely well with. So grab your favorite aristocrats, your counterspells, and your Watery Graves and get to brewing! I cannot wait to see what you all come up with!
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