Kotis, the Fangkeeper is a part of Magic: The Gathering’s Tarkir: 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.
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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.
Decklist
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Commander: Kotis, the Fangkeeper |
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Elves of Deep Shadow |
Elvish Mystic |
Felix Five-Boots |
Forgotten Ancient |
Fyndhorn Elves |
Gonti, Night Minister |
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Llanowar Elves |
Slippery Bogbonder |
Slippery Bogle |
The Thirteenth Doctor |
Bontu’s Last Reckoning |
Silent Arbiter |
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Farseek |
Nature’s Lore |
Rampant Growth |
Damnation |
Scale Up |
Slip Through Space |
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Three Visits |
Toxic Deluge |
Villainous Wealth |
An Offer You Can’t Refuse |
Arcane Denial |
Beast Within |
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Counterspell |
Negate |
Deadly Cover-Up |
Surge of Brilliance |
Tainted Strike |
Arcane Signet |
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Basilisk Collar |
Blackblade Reforged |
Brotherhood Regalia |
Champion’s Helm |
Commander’s Sphere |
Dragonfire Blade |
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Excalibur, Sword of Eden |
Fellwar Stone |
Fireshrieker |
Helm of the Host |
Inquisitor’s Flail |
Leyline Axe |
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Lightning Greaves |
Loxodon Warhammer |
Mindcrank |
Power Fist |
Sol Ring |
Swiftfoot Boots |
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Talisman of Curiosity |
Talisman of Resilience |
Thought Vessel |
Trailblazer’s Boots |
Vorrac Battlehorns |
Whispersilk Cloak |
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Winged Boots |
Aqueous Form |
Bear Umbra |
Favor of the Overbeing |
Indomitable Might |
Phyresis |
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Propaganda |
Rancor |
Strong Back |
Unspeakable Symbol |
Well Rested |
Command Tower |
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Deathcap Glade |
Dreamroot Cascade |
Drowned Catacomb |
Exotic Orchard |
Flooded Grove |
x5 Forest |
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Hinterland Harbor |
x4 Island |
Karn’s Bastion |
Llonwar Wastes |
Opulent Palace |
Rejuvenating Springs |
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Reliquary Tower |
Shipwreck Marsh |
Shizo, Death’s Storehouse |
Sunken Hollow |
x3 Swamp |
Tainted Isle |
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Tainted Wood |
The Black Gate |
Twilight Mire |
Underground River |
Woodland Ceemtery |
Yavimaya Coast |
The decklist includes ten creatures, 12 sorceries, seven instants, 26 artifacts, ten enchantments, and 34 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 your main 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. Since you are putting as many Auras and Equipment onto it as you can, 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.
You want 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. It doubles 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 damage gives you double 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/+0 boost 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 will double your Kotis triggers, giving you even more spells to cast and making 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 much once 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 Aura will constantly provide you life gain and cards in your hand so 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. In most decks, the mana value of a lot of cards is under four, so just one activation and you can 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 deck wants 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. Fireshrieker and Leyline Axe both 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.
A Kotis 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, you may wind up with unique battlefields of 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.
The primary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. This can be done by either bringing life totals to zero, or taking someone out of the game through commander damage. Alternatively, in very niche situations, you could potentially win through mill since Kotis can exile so many cards, but an opponent will likely die to commander damage before that happens.
The biggest 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. You want 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.
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