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General Tazri

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General Tazri

At a glance

  • Commander: General Tazri
  • Colors: Five-Color
  • Archetype: Ally mill control
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander (real printed text)

When General Tazri enters, you may search your library for an Ally creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. : Ally creatures you control get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of colors among those creatures.

Two things matter: (1) the ETB tutors any Ally in the pool — almost always Halimar Excavator (the wincon) or the missing piece of the rally engine; (2) the activated ability is a one-shot finisher that, with a wide multicolor Ally board, hands out a huge team pump for alpha-strike reach. The scout paraphrase (“WUBRG activation pumps the team”) is accurate; printed text confirmed. commander_oracle_ok = true.

Gameplan

Grindy 5-color Ally-value control that wins by inevitability, not by racing. Every Ally that enters re-triggers a stack of “whenever this or another Ally enters” abilities. The payoff stack:

  • Halimar Excavator — each Ally ETB mills a player X = your Ally count. This is the primary clock; with a steady drip of cheap Allies and token-makers it decks an opponent out.
  • Kalastria Healer — each Ally ETB drains 1 / gains 1. With token-makers this is real reach and lifegain.
  • Ondu Cleric / Ondu War Cleric — stall and outlast (ETB lifegain and a Cohort lifegain tap).
  • Zulaport Chainmage / Zada’s Commando — Cohort tappers: tap an Ally to drain 2 or ping 1, repeatable inevitability that closes games and works through stalls.

You sit behind cheap interaction (counters + black removal), rebuild Ally bodies, and grind. Tazri’s ETB tutor finds whichever lever you need; her WUBRG pump is the surprise alpha-strike finisher when the mill clock is too slow.

Key synergies

  • Token-makers multiply every ETB trigger. Kyoshi Warriors, Treetop Freedom Fighters, Join the Ranks, Relief Captain (support 3) and Tajuru Beastmaster all add bodies/counters that each re-fire Excavator + Healer.
  • Cohort tappers love a wide board. Spawnbinder Mage (tap down a blocker/attacker), Zulaport Chainmage (drain), Zada’s Commando (ping), Akoum Flameseeker (loot) all tap a spare Ally — the token swarm fuels them.
  • Rally combat-grant Allies stack the alpha strike. Akoum Battlesinger (+1/+0), Highland Berserker (first strike), Joraga Bard (vigilance) and Makindi Patrol (vigilance) layer keywords onto the team so the Tazri +X/+X swing pushes through. Avatar Enthusiasts and Graypelt Hunter snowball +1/+1 counters off every Ally ETB, and Graypelt’s trample makes the go-wide finish lethal through chump blockers.
  • Stonework Puma & Skyscanner are colorless — Puma is a real Ally body that also helps the count, Skyscanner cantrips. Both dodge color-screw.
  • Tazri’s pump scales with colors present, and a 5c Ally board routinely has 4–5 colors out, so +X/+X is frequently +4 or +5 to the whole team.

Role breakdown (counts from the real list — 99 cards)

  • Lands: 36
  • Ramp / fixing (non-land): 11 — Jaspera Sentinel, Saruli Caretaker (tap-an-Ally any-color dorks), Wayfarer’s Bauble, Prophetic Prism, Mind Stone, Commander’s Sphere, Manalith, Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, Farseek, Rampant Growth.
  • Card advantage: 11 — Forecasting Fortune Teller (Clue), Mulldrifter, Inspiring Overseer, Cloudkin Seer, Sea Gate Oracle, Skyscanner, Elvish Visionary, Sign in Blood, Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, Behold the Multiverse. (Mind Stone, Commander’s Sphere and Akoum Flameseeker add more late-game card flow.)
  • Spot removal / interaction: 11 — 4 counters (Counterspell, Negate, Exclude, Arcane Denial) + 7 targeted removal (Diabolic Edict, Devour Flesh, Feed the Swarm, Cast Down, Murder, Snuff Out, Journey to Nowhere). Note: Diabolic Edict and Devour Flesh are sacrifice edicts (opponent chooses); Feed the Swarm hits creature or enchantment; the rest are conditional/unconditional kill spells.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe: 3 — Pestilence (repeatable, asymmetric vs. tokens once it’s your turn, and a backup wincon), Crypt Rats ( damage to each player + creature — secondary kill), Drown in Sorrow (-2/-2 + scry; your +1/+1-countered Allies often survive).
  • Ally bodies / payoffs: the remaining slots are the Ally suite (Excavator, Healer, the rally/counter Allies, anthems like Cliffside Lookout and Akoum Battlesinger, the keyword-granting rally Allies above, plus the token-makers).

Curve is mostly ≤4 MV; the only real top-ends are Mulldrifter, Tajuru Beastmaster, Snuff Out, and Tazri herself.

Manabase / fixing note

36 lands, all WUBRG-legal, fixing-first. 18 any-color or choose-color sources in the land slot alone: Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, Crystal Grotto, Conduit Pylons, Shimmering Grotto, Unknown Shores, Rupture Spire, Gateway Plaza, Transguild Promenade, Survivors’ Encampment, Crossroads Village, Crumbling Vestige, Captivating Cave (13 any-color) + Citadel Gate, Black Dragon Gate, Cliffgate (3 choose-a-color Gates) + Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse fetch any basic, plus Ash Barrens (basic-landcycle). Ten gain-life dual taplands cover every color pair. Bojuka Bog adds graveyard hate. Backed by green fetch-ramp (Cultivate/Kodama’s Reach/Farseek/Rampant Growth) and the any-color rocks/dorks, total fixing is well past 20 sources — color screw is unlikely. Only 7 basics, so most lands fix multiple colors. No Vivid lands or trilands exist at common in this pool, hence the heavy any-color-rainbow + gain-dual package.

Pilot notes

  • Tutor target priority: Halimar Excavator first if you’re the control deck and want the clock online; otherwise grab a token-maker or Kalastria Healer to start the drain/mill loop. If you already have the engine, fetch a Cohort tapper.
  • Sequence Allies to re-fire ETBs — drop the small bodies after Excavator/Healer are out so each one mills/drains for more.
  • Hold up counters and edicts; you’re the control deck. Use Drown in Sorrow when an aggro board outpaces you (your counter-boosted Allies often live).
  • Pestilence is your reset valve and a hidden wincon — pay repeatedly to clear a go-wide opponent or burn them out; sacrifice it before it eats your own board if needed.
  • The Tazri WUBRG pump is your closer: once the team is wide and multicolor, one activation + swing is often lethal, especially with Cliffside Lookout / Akoum Battlesinger anthems plus a Highland Berserker first-strike or Graypelt Hunter trample grant stacked on top.

Weaknesses

  • No true symmetric board wipe at common in these colors — Crypt Rats/Pestilence/Drown are the best available and are damage/-X-based, so indestructible-heavy or high-toughness boards can outsize them. Lean on edicts + counters there.
  • Engine reliance: if Halimar Excavator and the drain Allies are answered repeatedly, the clock slows to the Cohort tappers and Tazri’s pump. Card advantage (11 sources) is built in to rebuild.
  • Mill as a primary wincon is slow in multiplayer; the deck compensates with drain (Kalastria/Zulaport), Crypt Rats, Pestilence, and the alpha-strike pump for redundant kills.
  • Tapped fixing lands cost early tempo — keep untapped duals/any-color for curve-out turns.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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