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Kotis, the Fangkeeper is a part ofMagic: The Gathering’sTarkir: Dragonstorm set as one of its new commanders available to use. In lore, Kotis is the current leader of the Sultai (black/green/blue) clan that largely revolves around reanimation.
Unlike Kotis' in-world counterpart, his card is about playing spells from your opponents' libraries. You want to deal large amounts of damage to cast multiple spells for free. A Kotis deck is best built as a Voltron deck (a deck that focuses primarily on just one creature). This gives Kotis extra abilities and bigger stats to make the most from its effect.
Helm of the Host
Favor of the Overbeing
x5 Forest
x4 Island
x3 Swamp
Woodland Ceemtery
Yavimaya Coast
The decklistincludes ten creatures, 12 sorceries, seven instants, 26 artifacts, ten enchantments,and34 lands. Since Kotis is the only creature you need, the creature count in the 99 is much lower than average.
Key Card
Kotis, The Fangkeeper
Kotis, the Fangkeeper is your primary attacker, acting as yourmain way to build up more of a board presence and dealing damage. Thanks to being indestructible, it’s hard for most of your opponents to remove unless they can exile it. Sinceyou are putting as many Auras and Equipment onto it as you may, this indestructible makes it safer to do so.
Kotis will need big stats to ensure you cast everything that it exiles. Otherwise, you’ll quickly be taken out of the game due to low damage and low battlefield presence.
Youwant to make Kotis unblockable to guarantee it connects for damage. Once Kotis has a handful of Equipment and Auras on it, you can start running away with the game by casting a ton of your opponents' spells without ever needing to spend mana on them.
Inquisitor’s Flail
Normally, Inquisitor’s Flail is a pretty awful card. However, in Kotis, it’s amazing. Itdoubles all combat damage dealt to and by the creature it’s equipped to, but since Kotis is indestructible, it won’t be able to die in combat so its downsides are negated.
Dealing double damagegives youdouble the amount of cards to possibly cast from Kotis. At its base level, Kotis will deal at least four damage if equipped with Inquisitor’s Flail, and much more if its stats are boosted in any way.
Excalibur, Sword Of Eden
Excalibur, Sword of Eden is one of the best pieces of Equipment you can have out.All artifacts are historic, and since there are so many in the deck, casting Excalibur for little to no mana is a trivial goal to accomplish.
Once it’s on the battlefield,Kotis will get a massive +10/+0boost to his power. If only Excalibur is equipped to Kotis, that’s 12 damage being dealt, which should be enough to cast every card that you’ll exile from your opponent’s library.
Felix Fve-Boots
One of the few creatures in the 99, Felix Five-Boots is the most useful one. It willdouble your Kotis triggers, giving you even more spells to castandmaking your opponents' libraries even smaller. Its ward protection makes it harder for your opponents to deal with, and in a pinch, you can give it Equipment to keep it even safer.
If you need to move a piece of Equipment off of Kotis (such as to remove shroud from it so you can target Kotis), Felix Five-Boots is a great choice to put that Equipment on.
For the most part,you don’t need to spend mana on muchonce Equipment is on the battlefield. So even though Felix Five-Boots has a moderately high casting cost, this doesn’t matter since you can cast so many spells without paying mana costs.
Well Rested
There’s a handful of different Auras, but the best of them is Well Rested. This Aurawill constantly provide you life gain and cards in your handso you’ll never run out of Equipment to play or interaction for your opponent’s turns. It’ll also grow stats, making Kotis' effect that much more damaging.
The enchanted creatures have to untap when the effect goes off, so be mindful of creatures that have vigilance. It may be better to remove whatever is provided that ability to make sure Well Rested triggers.
Well Rested can quickly pump Kotis to very high stats. Inmost decks, the mana value of a lot of cards is under four, so just one activation and you may cast most of what you exile. With two activations, you can almost guarantee being able to cast anything.
How To Play The Deck
A Kotis, the Fangkeeper Commander deckwants to put as many Auras and Equipment onto Kotis as possible,keeping it safe from any form of removal, making it unable to be blocked, and giving it massive stats.Kotis is the cornerstone of the deck, with everything revolving around its effect.
There are a ton of ways to make Kotis' effect trigger for large amounts.FireshriekerandLeyline Axeboth give the equipped creature double strike, which will trigger Kotis' effect twice (more if Felix Five-Boots is on the battlefield).Making Kotis unblockable is most important, with Brotherhood Regalia, Whispersilk Cloak, and Aqueous Form all achieving this.
AKotis deck is very unique because no game is the same. If you play with a lot of different people, the cards they play in their decks will be vastly different. As such, youmay wind up with unique battlefieldsof cards you’ve never even heard of. You want to adapt to whatever spells you have access to, making the most of what’s exiled.
If you control permanents that are owned by another player that you had cast from Kotis and that player loses, the permanents they originally owned will cease to exist and you will lose control of them.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. This can be done byeither bringing life totals to zero, or taking someone out of the game through commander damage. Alternatively, in very niche situations, you could potentiallywin through millsince Kotis can exile so many cards, but an opponent will likely die to commander damage before that happens.
Thebiggest downside to the deck is its heavy reliance on Kotis. Its effect is very strong and it can keep itself safe easily, but against battlefields with a lot of creatures, you can struggle. Youwant to target opponents that can go wide first. Cards that grant lifelink help to make up for lost life, and Propaganda and Silent Arbiter can make it harder for your opponents to attack you.
