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Betor, King to All is a character introduced toMagic: The Gatheringin its Tarkir: Dragonstorm set. In lore, Betor is a Spirit Dragon that helped to free the Abzan (white/black/green) from its Dragonlord to gain freedom.
In the game, Betor acts as the perfect commander for decks that run creatures with large toughness values. In many cases, this involves taking advantage of creatures with defender and support that let them attack as if they didn’t have it. Betor is a very defensive deck, so if you like walling up (sometimes literally with Wall creatures), Betor, Kin to All is a great choice of commander.
Sight of the Scalelords
x6 Forest
x4 Forest
x4 Swamp
Vault of the Archangel
Woodland Cemetery
The decklistcontains 31 creatures, ten sorceries, seven instants, seven artifacts, ten enchantments,and34 lands. All of the creatures in the deck have a high toughness value, or support creatures that do.
Key Cards
Betor, Kin To All
Betor, Kin to Allprovides your deck with a ton of value, so long as you have a lot of combined toughness on the battlefield. Betor gives you card advantage, keeps creatures untapped, or deals a ton of burn damage.You only need a few creatures with large toughness to trigger Betor,so you’ll often get all three effects with just a handful of creatures.
Betor looks at the current toughness values at the end step, not the cards' base value. So if a card provided a stat boost that lasts until the end of turn, you can trigger all effects of Betor even easier.
Betorcounts itself for its own effect,so you only need a creature with three toughness as well to start drawing cards. In combat, Betor has amazing stats along with flying to make it harder to block. With cards that make creatures deal damage with their toughness instead of power, Betor becomes even better.
Bloodletter of Aclazotz
Bloodletter of Aclazotz can potentially one-shot the entire game with its effect and Betor. If you manageto trigger Betor’s effect to make each opponent lose half their life while Bloodletter of Aclazotz is on the battlefield,this will makeall opponents lose all their life.The combo is very easy to trigger, especially if your opponents don’t have removal.
Even without the combo in mind, Bloodletter of Aclazotz is a great support card. Yourcreatures do a lot of damageso long asthey deal damage with their toughness, and Bloodletter of Aclazotz makes those attacks much more painful.
Baldin, Century Herdmaster
Baldin, Century Herdmaster does a ton for your deck with little work. It’s one of the cardsthat let you deal damage with toughness instead of power. This is especially useful asit feeds into its second effectwhich will pump upone hundred other creatures' toughness (which in this case, translates to all of your creatures).
Baldin, Century Herdmaster was originally released as E. Honda, Sumo Champion. The cards are identical, and considered the same so you can only play one or the other, not both, despite having different names.
Youdo need a lot of cards in your handforBaldin to be effective. Luckily, Betor can draw you cards every end step, so you’ll likely have a constant stream of cards to ensure that Baldin is giving big boosts to make your creatures into bigger combat threats.
MacCready, Lamplight Mayor
Creatures with high toughnessandlow mana valuesare oftenbalanced by having low power. This is normally a downside, but with cards that let creatures deal damage with toughness and MacCready, Lamplight Mayor, this is the complete opposite of a downside.
MacCready gives creatures with power two or less skulk, meaningthey can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power. It also helps to keep you healthy by punishing your opponent for attacking you with high-power creatures byburning them and giving you life. MacCready is great both offensively and defensively, soget it on the battlefield as soon as you can.
How To Play The Deck
A Betor, Kind to All Commander deckwants to put as many high-toughness creatures on the battlefieldas possibleto make sure Betor is always triggering. 40 is the threshold you want to reach, so youdon’t want to hold creatures backto make sureyou can hit it the turn Betor enters the battlefield.
Many creatures have defender, meaning they cannot attack. As such, cards like Felothar the Steadfast and Assault Formation that let defenders attack are vital for the strategy to work.
Thanks to all of your creatures having high defenses,your opponents aren’t incentivized to attack yousince you canblock the attacks without issue. You can build up big defenses that allow you to avoid taking any damage, made strong with cards such as Barve the Sands that let your creatures block an extra creature instead of just one.
Theprimary win condition of the deckis amixture of winning through combat and burn. Betor can remove half of all your opponents' life totals, whichbecomes the entire life total if Bloodletter of AclazotzorWound Reflection are on the battlefield. Jaws of Defeat also helps to do more burn damage when creatures enter equal to their toughness. If you’re able to’t take your opponents out at once with the burn combos, you can attack with creatures to deal the last bit of damage. You justneed permanentsthat let your creaturesdeal damage with their toughness on the battlefield.
Thebiggest weakness of the deckis itsreliance on multiple permanents. You want ones that let your defenders attack as well as ones make your toughness act as if it were power instead. As such,removal can be a bane of the deckbecauseit relies so heavily on these permanents. There isn’t a ton you can do about it, but there are multiple cards with the effect, so even if one gets removed, you’ll be able to get the effect on the battlefield again.
