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Tor Wauki the Younger

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Tor Wauki the Younger

At a glance

  • Commander: Tor Wauki the Younger
  • Colors: Rakdos
  • Archetype: Rakdos pinger-lock damage control
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

The commander (real printed text)

Reach, lifelink If another source you control would deal noncombat damage to a permanent or player, it deals that much damage plus 1 to that permanent or player instead. Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, Tor Wauki deals 2 damage to any target.

Two clauses, both load-bearing, and the scout’s paraphrase checked out (commander_oracle_ok = true):

  1. The +1 amplifier. Every noncombat damage event from another source I control is bumped by 1. A pinger that pokes for 1 now deals 2. A symmetrical sweeper that deals 1 to each creature and player now deals 2 — but it’s my source, so it’s amplified, and my pingers survive the bump while opposing mana-dorks/tokens/utility creatures die. Burn spells all get +1 too.
  2. The cast trigger. Every instant or sorcery I cast makes Tor himself ping 2 to any target. That’s a second pinger stapled to my whole spellbook, and because it’s Tor dealing it (not “another source”), it is not self-amplified — it’s a flat 2, free, every spell.

Lifelink + reach keeps Tor out of burn range and lets him block fliers, which matters because the deck wants him on the board permanently.

Gameplan

Draw-go is a trap in commons EDH — there’s no hard counter density and no four-mana wrath. So this deck wins on inevitability, not on durdling into a board wipe. The plan:

  1. Early: ramp into Tor, deploy cheap pingers, trade burn and edicts for opposing threats.
  2. Mid: with Tor out, every pinger is a 2-damage repeatable removal gun. Mana dorks, X/1 and X/2 utility creatures, tokens, and small commanders simply can’t stick. The board stays clear of small stuff while my one-toughness pingers hide behind the asymmetry of my own amplified sweepers.
  3. Late (the lock + kill): the three repeatable damage engines close the game.

Win condition (explicit)

Repeatable amplified damage to all opponents via the inevitability core, backed by pinger chip and amplified burn:

  • Pestilence — : 1 to each creature and each player` becomes 2 to each with Tor. Float black mana, drain the table 2-at-a-time per activation. My pingers and Tor can die to it, so I sandbag a creature on the board to keep it alive (it self-sacs if no creatures exist at end step) — Tor with lifelink offsets the symmetry.
  • Crypt Rats — : X to each creature and player` becomes X+1. A repeatable, scalable Pestilence-on-a-body and a one-shot board reset when needed.
  • Evincar’s Justice (Buyback) — 2 damage to each player becomes 3 to each player every turn, and it returns to hand. A recurring 3-to-the-face Pestilence that never runs out.

Each of those, plus the 12+ pingers all hitting for 2 and Tor’s per-spell 2, builds a damage clock no commons board can outrun. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is the haymaker burst finisher off black devotion when someone’s already low.

Key synergy lines

  • Sweepers are one-sided. Dry Spell / Rain of Embers / Gangrenous Zombies read “1 to each creature and player” but resolve as 2 off Tor. That kills the X/2 swarm while my relevant pieces (and Tor at 4 toughness, lifelinking) live.
  • Burn is a two-for-one. Cast Lightning Bolt with Tor out: 3+1 = 4 to the target, plus Tor’s cast trigger pings 2 somewhere else. One = 6 damage split across two targets. Shock becomes 3+2, Galvanic Blast 3+2, etc.
  • Untappers double the lock. Thermo-Alchemist, Cinder Pyromancer, and Unruly Catapult untap when I cast spells — with Tor each untap is another 2 to the face, and a burn-spell-heavy turn can fire them repeatedly.
  • Jagged Barrens is a land that pings on ETB — that 1 becomes 2 off Tor.
  • Recursion grind: Unearth, Raise Dead, Mortuary Mire, and Phyrexian Rager rebuy pingers and Gary to keep the engine going through removal.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 36: 16 Swamp, 9 Mountain, 11 nonbasic (6 BR duals + Jagged Barrens pinger-land, Bojuka Bog, Mortuary Mire, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse). Black-leaning base for Pestilence/Crypt Rats double-pip and -fueled X.
  • Ramp — 10: Rakdos Signet, Rakdos Locket, Mind Stone, Charcoal Diamond, Fire Diamond, Prophetic Prism, Star Compass, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Leaden Myr, Iron Myr. Held at 10 — fixes BR and accelerates Tor; rocks also feed Crypt Rats/Pestilence activations late.
  • Card advantage — 10: Sign in Blood, Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, Deadly Dispute, Costly Plunder, Faithless Looting, Reckless Impulse, Syphon Mind, Phyrexian Rager, Big Score.
  • Spot removal / interaction — 10: Lightning Bolt, Shock, Burst Lightning, Galvanic Blast (all amplified burn), Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Cast Down, Disfigure, Diabolic Edict, Tragic Slip.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe — 6 (BR allows it): dedicated sweepers Dry Spell, Rain of Embers, Gangrenous Zombies; repeatable engines Pestilence, Crypt Rats, Evincar’s Justice (these double as the wincon).
  • Pingers / payoffs — the rest (incl. 15 dedicated pingers): Goblin Fireslinger, Cuombajj Witches, Fireslinger, Prodigal Pyromancer, Vithian Stinger, Anaba Shaman, Viashino Fangtail, Chandra’s Magmutt, Rakdos Ickspitter, Cinder Pyromancer, Thermo-Alchemist, Unruly Catapult, Viridian Longbow, Power of Fire, Razortip Whip; plus cheap recurring burn (Spark Spray, Geistflame, Lava Dart, Needle Drop, Magma Spray, Flame-Blessed Bolt, Frost Bite, Fiery Impulse), Festering Newt, recursion (Unearth, Raise Dead), and finisher Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

Curve is overwhelmingly ≤4 MV; the only 5-drops are Gary (finisher) and the X/buyback engines that you pour mana into late.

Pilot notes

  • Get Tor down and keep him down. Almost every card’s value at least doubles with him on the battlefield. He has reach + lifelink + 4 toughness, so he’s hard to kill with small attacks or burn.
  • Pestilence math: activations are 2 each with Tor. Keep a creature in play (often Tor himself, healed by his own lifelink) so Pestilence doesn’t self-sac. Against a low table, two or three activations ends it.
  • Sequence burn around Tor. Holding a Bolt until Tor resolves turns a 3-damage spell into a 6-damage swing across two targets — almost always worth the wait unless you need the removal now.
  • Mana floods into Crypt Rats. Excess lands/rocks late = X-damage table sweeps that read X+1.
  • Festering Newt + Cuombajj/pinger ping can blow out a key creature with -4/-4 if you name-match… it doesn’t (no Bogbrew), so treat Newt as a -1/-1 edict-on-death body; it’s a fine chump that pings on the way out.

Weaknesses

  • Fat creatures. A single 5+ toughness body shrugs off pings and dodges -2/-2 effects. Lean on the unconditional edicts (Diabolic Edict, Devour-style) and Doom Blade/GFTT/Cast Down for those.
  • Pinger removal / sweeps against me. My engine is a pile of fragile 1-toughness bodies. Diversify with the artifact/enchantment pingers (Razortip Whip, Viridian Longbow, Power of Fire) that survive creature wipes, and rebuy with Unearth/Raise Dead/Mortuary Mire.
  • Lifegain decks slow the burn-to-face plan — answer with the repeatable Pestilence/Evincar’s lock and just grind them out; inevitability still wins.
  • No hard counters in the pool, so a resolved problem permanent must be answered after the fact. The removal suite is deep enough to handle it.

Decklist

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

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