Deck List: Darien, King of Kjeldor
Darien, King of Kjeldor is that is a token producer with a very unique ability to create a 1/1 soldier token for every damage you are dealt. At its core, this deck is a fairly standard token deck, but with a fairly unusual source for those tokens: Self Damage.In the event that Darien is not available, there are several other Army Maker cards that can help you get the ball rolling, but this is a back-up plan. Then you only need one or two cards from the Army Enhancer category to weaponize your tokens and start taking out your opponents. Of course, if we are damaging ourselves to make soldiers, we will need some Life Gain to help offset that, all of which scales with the number of tokens we are making. Those tokens (as well as Darien himself) are all Soldiers, so we have the ability to take advantage of a small package of Soldier Tribal focused cards as well.
Stats
| Color | Mono-Wihte |
| Commander Importance | 5/5 |
| Power Level | 3/5 |
| Deck Speed | 3/5 |
| Average CMC | 3.56 |
| Creation Date | Late 2012 |
| Price | $317.78 |
Strengths
Let's be honest, Darien’s has less-than-stellar stats as a 3/3 for 6 CMC. But the ability to create a 1/1 soldier token for each damage dealt to you means you can surprise your opponents when they don’t expect it. Being undervalued and overlooked is one of the deck’s greatest strengths. You can use this to your advantage to set up situations where something like a well-timed Self Damage or Army Maker can suddenly leave you with 10+ creatures in play, often at instant speed. And if you back that up on your turn with the right Army Enhancer, you can go from zero board presence to swinging for lethal at multiple opponents in the blink of an eye. I’ve seen it happen before, and I am sure I will see it happen again!
Weakness
This deck is very reliant on its Commander, which is its largest weakness. Darien's unique ability is integral to the deck’s game plan, and thus we will want to get him into play quickly, and frequently. Since Darien is 6 CMC creature, this means running a lot more Ramp cards than usual. Since we are already doing that, I didn’t mind letting the average CMC for the deck be a little higher than usual, especially for a mono-white deck. But all of this means that another weak point of the deck is it’s Ramp cards, as losing too many of its mana rocks and/or Lands can cause the deck to really struggle to get back on its feet.Basic Deck Categories
| Card Draw | 8/8 |
| Recursion | 4/6 |
| Protection | 8/3.5 |
| Board Wipe | 4/3.5 |
| Removal | 10/8 |
| Ramp | 10/8 |
| Land | 38/38 |
As I touched on above, there are a large amount of Ramp cards in the deck. Because this is a mono-white deck, most of these come in the form of mana rocks like Sol Ring. Notable are the twin combo of Gauntlet of Power and Caged Sun you will see in most of my mono-colored decks to capitalize on the large number of basic Lands that a mono-colored deck can run.
There are also more Protection cards beyond the usual Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots in the deck. Darien is such an important part of this deck’s gameplan that making sure we draw consistent ways to cast him with Ramp cards, as well as consistent ways to protect him with Protection cards, is worth the cost of drawing multiple of these kinds of cards sometimes. Selfless Spirit is especially fun here, as a card that protects not just Darien, but your entire army from a Board Wipe, and can be recurred easily with a card like Sun Titan.
Speaking of which, there is not a ton of Recursion in this deck. This deck gets away with less than usual because so much of the deck relies on Darien, who has built in recursion by being a commander. Additionally, Many of the cards in the deck are fairly interchangeable in what they do, so there is no strong need to get back specific cards like there might be in other decks.
Nothing can ruin this deck's day like an opponent's Ghostly Prison! There is a decent amount of Removal in the deck to be sure we can take care of anything like that that pops up. Some of it, like Council's Judgement, plays into the more political nature of the deck by allowing you to remove things without your opponents blaming you for it. Quarantine Field is a card that scales nicely and can make good use of all the extra Ramp in the deck, but careful not to get too greedy with how many cards you put under it, or its almost guaranteed to be removed (and quickly)!
There are a typical amount of Board Wipe cards in the deck, to be used as safety valves when something goes wrong and you lose your token army and/or Darien. They really help put everyone back on the same level footing, which is where Darien thrives. You can not do much and fly under the radar while other people build their army back up, letting your opponents become the threats until the time is right to make a bunch of tokens. Martial Coup gets to that part a little early and is yet another way to make use of all of the deck’s Ramp cards. Dusk // Dawn has the side benefit of leaving all of your Soul Warden creatures on the battlefield while still emptying it of larger threats (and it can also function as Recursion to bring them back from the graveyard later with the aftermath portion, if need be.)
The deck runs a lot of Ramp cards, but with how high the average CMC of the deck and Darien are, I didn't want to run fewer Lands than I normally would. Since we are a mono-colored deck, the land base is mostly made up of basics, with cards like Emeria, the Sky Ruin to take advantage of that. Still, there are a lot of great non-basic Lands in the deck that fit into its themes; Myriad Landscape and Terrain Generator function as Ramp, and many of the self damaging Lands like Tarnished Citadel are some of the best Self Damage cards in the whole deck!
The Card Draw is about par for the course, although many of them like Hedron Archive and Dreamstone Hedron are more of a “last resort” than Card Draw. Such is life with mono-white! Mind’s Eye, Mentor of the Meek and Skullclamp are the big winners here.
Non-Basic Categories
| Army Enhancer | 12 |
| Army Maker | 6 |
| Solier | 8 |
| Soldier Tribal | 5 |
| Self Damage | 8 |
| Life Gain | 6 |
The Army Enhancer cards can turn a sudden burst of 1/1 soldiers into a win condition. These are cards that can either make the 1/1 soldier tokens huge on their own, like Cathar’s Crusade, Jazal Goldmane, and Mirror Entity, or cards that make them much harder to block, like Eldrazi Monument, Akroma’s Memorial or Odric, Master Tactician). If you have any reasonable amount of tokens along with a card from both categories, you have a very good shot at being able to swing out and kill everyone.
Darien is the main way to get this sudden burst of soldiers, but as I mentioned in the weakness section above, this deck can struggle to function without him. First Response can do an alright impression of him, but sometimes you just have to make do without the deck’s main game plan of turning Self Damage into soldiers. As a backup plan, we need some army Maker cards that can create a lot of tokens all on their own. We can put all the extra Ramp cards in the deck to good use with cards that let you trade in a bunch of mana for a bunch of tokens, like Mobilization and Decree of Justice.
Darien is the main way to get this sudden burst of soldiers, but as I mentioned in the weakness section above, this deck can struggle to function without him. First Response can do an alright impression of him, but sometimes you just have to make do without the deck’s main game plan of turning Self Damage into soldiers. As a backup plan, we need some army Maker cards that can create a lot of tokens all on their own. We can put all the extra Ramp cards in the deck to good use with cards that let you trade in a bunch of mana for a bunch of tokens, like Mobilization and Decree of Justice.
Since the tokens that all of these cards make are Soldiers, we can run a small Soldier Tribal package to further make use of our tokens. Darien himself is a Soldier (don't let the printed card type of "Human Lord" fool you), and there are a number of other Soldier creatures in the deck. But this is more of a lucky side-benefit when it comes up; none of the cards were included just because they were Soldier creatures. This means there are not that many in the deck, but trust me: you’ll make enough token ones that you won’t need to be casting many Soldier cards for the Soldier Tribal to be worth it. Instead of running all the cards that give a minor power and toughness boost to soldiers, the Soldier Tribal cards in the deck are mainly ones like Catapult Master that let you turn your pile of soldier tokens into a new resource.
Instead of just filling the deck with Soldier creatures, there are several creatures in the vein of the soul sisters, Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant, that will gain you life when a creature enters the battlefield. These Life Gain cards make a great combo with Darien out, as if you take 15 damage, you will create 15 tokens, causing them to trigger 15 times and causing you to gain that 15 life right back. With one of these cards in play, you essentially can’t take damage as long as that damage isn’t enough to kill you in one hit, and it frees you up to use your Self Damage cards as liberally as you like. With two or more of them in play, or just Healer of the Pride, your Self Damage cards actually start gaining you life! Ranger of Eos is an honorary soul sister for this deck, as its main use is to tutor up one one (or both) of the soul sisters, plus maybe Mother of Runes/Weathered Wayfarer depending on what else you need. The other Life Gain cards like True Conviction and Angelic Skirmisher work as delayed versions of this effect, where you take a bunch of damage to make an army, and gain it all back and then some once you swing out with it. Relying too much on this can lead to blow outs, but these cards are also in the deck as Army Enhancers, so the Life Gain is a nice side benefit.
Now that we have more life, we can really go nuts with the Self Damage category of cards! This category is definitely the most unique to this particular deck, and it was a lot of fun trying to find good cards in this category that fit. There isn’t much in the way of Self Damage in white, but it does have damage redirection spells like Blood of the Martyr and Jade Monolith. The damage redirection cards can be used to protect Darien or your army in a pinch, but don’t forget they can be used on opponents’ creatures as well! For example, if one opponent swings big creatures into another opponent, and the defender blocks some of them, you can redirect the damage from their chump blockers to yourself to get a massive swing in tokens! The best of the actual Self Damage cards are things like Ankh of Mishra and Angel’s Trumpet that can damage other players and not just you. That way everyone is taking some damage from the card, but only you are getting the benefit of making soldier tokens as a result.
Some of the cards in this category might look mislabeled or out of place, like the cards with the Monarch mechanic, Palace Jailer and Throne of the High City, but they aren't! They work as Self Damage cards by enticing people into swinging into you when they normally wouldn't. And, if they don't attack you, they instead function as Card Draw. It's a beautiful win-win situation for you. These are perfect for this deck in every way, even flavorfully! (Your commander IS Darien, KING of Kjeldor after all.) Bullwhip works in a similar way, where you can force someone to swing out with a big creature.If they hit you, you get tokens, and if they hit someone else, then one of your opponents has less life. What's not to love?
Instead of just filling the deck with Soldier creatures, there are several creatures in the vein of the soul sisters, Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant, that will gain you life when a creature enters the battlefield. These Life Gain cards make a great combo with Darien out, as if you take 15 damage, you will create 15 tokens, causing them to trigger 15 times and causing you to gain that 15 life right back. With one of these cards in play, you essentially can’t take damage as long as that damage isn’t enough to kill you in one hit, and it frees you up to use your Self Damage cards as liberally as you like. With two or more of them in play, or just Healer of the Pride, your Self Damage cards actually start gaining you life! Ranger of Eos is an honorary soul sister for this deck, as its main use is to tutor up one one (or both) of the soul sisters, plus maybe Mother of Runes/Weathered Wayfarer depending on what else you need. The other Life Gain cards like True Conviction and Angelic Skirmisher work as delayed versions of this effect, where you take a bunch of damage to make an army, and gain it all back and then some once you swing out with it. Relying too much on this can lead to blow outs, but these cards are also in the deck as Army Enhancers, so the Life Gain is a nice side benefit.
Now that we have more life, we can really go nuts with the Self Damage category of cards! This category is definitely the most unique to this particular deck, and it was a lot of fun trying to find good cards in this category that fit. There isn’t much in the way of Self Damage in white, but it does have damage redirection spells like Blood of the Martyr and Jade Monolith. The damage redirection cards can be used to protect Darien or your army in a pinch, but don’t forget they can be used on opponents’ creatures as well! For example, if one opponent swings big creatures into another opponent, and the defender blocks some of them, you can redirect the damage from their chump blockers to yourself to get a massive swing in tokens! The best of the actual Self Damage cards are things like Ankh of Mishra and Angel’s Trumpet that can damage other players and not just you. That way everyone is taking some damage from the card, but only you are getting the benefit of making soldier tokens as a result.
Some of the cards in this category might look mislabeled or out of place, like the cards with the Monarch mechanic, Palace Jailer and Throne of the High City, but they aren't! They work as Self Damage cards by enticing people into swinging into you when they normally wouldn't. And, if they don't attack you, they instead function as Card Draw. It's a beautiful win-win situation for you. These are perfect for this deck in every way, even flavorfully! (Your commander IS Darien, KING of Kjeldor after all.) Bullwhip works in a similar way, where you can force someone to swing out with a big creature.If they hit you, you get tokens, and if they hit someone else, then one of your opponents has less life. What's not to love?
Notable Cards and Combos
Okay, I won’t list every combo with Darien, as that’s the entire deck. But this one is just too perfect for what the deck is trying to do! I usually wouldn’t (and can't afford to) put Mana Crypt or its slightly less ridiculously expensive cousin, Mana Vault, in just any deck I made. But more cheap Ramp plus a Self Damage ability that Darien turns into all upside is just too perfect for this deck! Plus, the deck is weak enough from a power level standpoint that it could use the power boost.
Sun Titan plus anything cheap that gets you Land when you sacrifice it is the closest thing you'll get to repeatable Ramp in white. but I'll will take what we can get! This also works with Terramporphic Expanse, Wayfarer's Bauble, and Surveryor's Scope, just to name a few.
Cards I Used to Run
These are all cards I used to run and cut for one reason or another.
Solemn Simulacrum: There are better colorless Ramp cards and better colorless Card Draw. With no easy way to abuse its ETB effect, or to recur it from the graveyard, this guy under performed.
Veteran Swordsmith, Veteran Armorsmith, Daru Warchief, Field Marshal: These Soldier Tribal cards just didn’t end up doing enough on their own. This will be a theme for a lot of these cards that sounded good on paper, but I found that I wanted the cards that buffed my army to give more than just one or two points of power/toughness. The cost reduction on the warchief is nice but it only actually applies to the eight or so Soldier cards in the deck, and Darien, which is not enough. The Field Marshal was the last to go as the addition of first strike is nice when the army gets large, but that was still not enough to help.
Precinct Captain, Hero of Bladehold: These are sweet cards, but making only one or two tokens a turn is not enough for the Army Maker category in this deck. It really wants to create a sizable army out of nowhere, not build one up slowly over time. And as mentioned above, the small boost granted by Battle Cry was not enough to matter much of the time.
Deploy to the Front, Nomad Assembly: The whole point of the Army Maker cards is to use them to get an army going when you have an empty board, so the ones that scaled based on the number of creatures you had never did anything when I needed them too.
Conqueror's Pledge: In fact, the one-shot cards that do not scale generally tended to be awkward to work around, costing too much early on and doing too little later in the game.
Glorious Anthem, Dictate of Heliod, Honor of the Pure: Again, I wanted my Army Enhancers to do more than just add one or two points of power/toughness, as that proved to not be doing enough on its own. It didn’t get a number of tokens into lethal-wing territory, and it didn’t help them get their damage through, so they ended up not having enough impact most of the time.
Adarkar Valkyrie, Reya Dawnbringer: This deck ended up needing less Recursion than I expected, and these two were just a bit too situational and a bit too expensive.
Mindstorm Crown, Staff of Nin: These cards also looked like shoe-ins on paper, helping with mono-white's poor Card Draw and also being Self Damage cards! But in practice they were bad card drawers at barely one a turn, if any, and bad self damagers at barely one token a turn, if any. They ended up being replaced by cards that were better in one or both categories. I still miss the Staff of Nin every now and then though.
Mindstone, Marble Diamond: The vast majority of he 2 CMC Ramp artifacts tended to fall at an awkward spot for this deck. It either wanted cheaper Ramp that provided multiple mana (with drawbacks), or it wanted more expensive Ramp that provided multiple mana. These single mana producing mana rocks turned out to not quite do enough to be worth it most of the time.
EDHREC Analysis
In this section, I take a look at what cards are in the Signature Cards and Top Cards categories for this commander on edhrec.com (in this case its Darien, King of Kjeldor), and explain why I haven't included the ones that aren't in the deck.
Signature Cards Not included: Suture Priest, Daru Warchief, Field Marshal
I touched on why I don't run Daru Warchief, or Field Marshal above, as I used to run them. Actually, all of these were in the deck at one point! I took out Suture Priest when I added Ranger of Eos as an honorary soul sister. It was simply the worst of these Life Gain creatures that remained in the deck, as it costs twice as much and only triggering off of your creatures entering and not everyone's creatures. Ultimately, I could see wanting one more effect like this in the deck, and if I did include another one it would probably still be Suture Priest.
Top Cards Not included: Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Honor of the Pure, Pearl Medallion, Path to Exile
Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a perfect card for what this deck is trying to do, being equal parts Army Maker, Board Wipe, and Army Enhancer, and I would include it in a heart beat, except none of my decks have planeswalkers in them.
Pearl Medallion seems like a perfect Ramp card for the deck, until you realize just how many colorless cards the deck runs between all the mana rocks and Protection equipment, etc. There are only 37 white cards in the deck, 7 of which have no generic mana symbols in the cost. That means it only works on less than a third of the deck! Add in that it can't help pay for activated abilities, and the medallion is more trouble than its worth I think. For these reasons I actually used to be off the Medallion cycle in all my mono-colored decks, but I came around for a few of the other decks where it seemed like they would actually help more than they hurt. But I still think they are a bit overplayed and less of an auto-include than people seem to think they are, and Pearl Medallion is certainly not good enough in this deck.
Honor of the Pure I touched on already above, as I used to run it and now don't.
Path to Exile is a great card and a great Removal spell, but I simply had too many other targeted Removal spells that only hit creatures that I wanted to run in this deck, like Intrepid Hero and Angel of Serenity, for example. In a more combo-heavy meta or a more power-focused version of the deck, this would definitely be an auto-include.
Conclusion
It's nice that we got to start out with a deck I am so happy with! Overall I think Darien is one of the most successful decks in my collection, simply because it is always a fun and relatively novel strategy to see play out from either side of the table. It is a very "fair" deck, and it has just the right amount of power to feel like an underdog when it wins, but to still hold its own against a variety of different decks. The themes of Self Damage make building for this deck very unique across all 32+ of my decks, which is saying a lot. It's stayed for a long time, and I don't anticipate another mono-white commander will be replacing it anytime soon.
Deckbuilder Satisfaction: 5/5
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