Commander Deck Tech: Syr Carah, the Bold

Throne of Eldraine made a huge impact in every format. Legendary cards from this set are The Great Henge, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, Questing Beast, Rankle, Master of Pranks, Embercleave, Chulane, Teller of Tales, among others.

One of the highlights is the knights cycle, which are uncommon legends with different power levels and acceptance, the most popular being Syr Konrad, the Grim, and the most powerful Syr Carah, the Bold.

The knight of Embereth is a sleeper, that is, a card with immense potential to be discovered. Its particularities have been tested with greater commitment in the cEDH community, seeking to structure a deck that allows them to develop their skills to the fullest, having made interesting results in competitions and being little explored at casual tables.

This article introduces a Group Slug using Syr Carah, the Bold to create a powerful card advantage and, to the same extent, reduces the opponents' main resource: life totals.

Syr Carah, the Bold represents well the audacity of red , after all, making a large number of impulsive draws generates immense advantage and has great risks, since if we cannot play these cards, they will be lost for the entire game.

Courage guarantees your rewards, explosive turns, creating vast resources quickly or even winning the game in a surprising sequence of spells.

In the book Throne of Eldraine: The Wildered Quest we don't have the direct participation of Syr Carah, or any of the champion knights of the Eldraine courts, only the information that the best knights were sent on a search for the lost king with the twins Rowan and Will, The Royal Scions.

Due to her ability, Syr Carah, the Bold is a versatile commander, spanning numerous spell-based archetypes — the most common of which is Burn, which consists of defeating opponents quickly using spells and abilities,

Other archetypes that can be made are the Spellslinger, which is centered around playing as many instants and sorceries as possible in quick succession, and the Group Slug, which is meant to cause a huge resource reduction to all players in symmetrically, the Spell Copy, which duplicate the effects of cast spells. We also have two creature-based archetypes, which are Treasures and Dragons, both of which may or may not be based on Dragon's Approach.

The reason to choose Group Slug, among the many existing ones, is the symmetrical spells that tend to have a lower mana cost, and the main one: an additional draw. After all, drawing four cards is always better than drawing three.

Syr Carah, the Bold permeates courage. This means that when we damage our life points, we also draw a card with her.

Although we can classify the deck this way, we opted for a mixed and optimized approach so as not to give up excellent cards like Fiery Confluence, which triggers up to nine times in a standard game, or Delayed Blast Fireball, which when played from exile by our commander's ability deals 5 damage to all opponents and creatures they control, for just mana.

Mana Generators

Since its release, Runaway Steam-Kin has significantly changed the ways to generate additional mana in red decks. Prior to it, we had Treasonous Ogre as our main mana-source creature, trading life for additional mana.

Its successor has further expanded its generating capacity, Birgi, God of Storytelling is much less demanding and equally efficient, since its mana is generated with each spell, unlike Steam-Kin which has a mana rate for every three spells, even if the resulting mana amount is the same.

To keep up with the design changes, we have Storm-Kiln Artist which has one more subtle change when generating treasure tokens allowing mana to be stored for later use. It is also a more affordable option, due to its lower rarity and higher mana cost, compatible with token interactions, however, vulnerable to artifact destruction.

Rituals

In the initial turns we need to accelerate the available mana to the maximum and the rituals are perfect for this, allowing the game to develop quickly - whether by playing a larger number of or mana rocks, or to join our commander earlier and generate a greater advantage over opponents.

Rite of Flame and other small rituals are ideal for this. As we advance the game, the major rituals correct our mana.

Seething Song and Mana Geyser allow you to play a significant number of spells, while Geosurge is specific to artifacts, which in this deck is no problem at all.

Mana Rocks

Most of our artifacts are dedicated to producing additional mana, which is the fuel for our spells.

We can divide our mana rocks into different groups according to their qualities.

The first group is capable of generating mana, whether colored or colorless, these are our options in the initial turns.

Also for the initial turns, the use of tutors to locate specific lands or artifacts is ideal. For this, we have between the options Expedition Map and Moonsilver Key.

Next are the rocks capable of generating multiple mana, where we have the classic Sol Ring and the powerful Basalt Monolith and Gilded Lotus. At this point, we want complementary mana for our Mana Dorks.

What would spellslingers be without mana cost reductions? Fundamental to our game's development.

That's why we run two of them, capable of reducing the cost of our instant and sorcery spells: Helm of Awakening and Cloud Key.

An alternative way to generate mana with our big rocks is to untap them, or even copy the untap ability. For that, we have the cards Manifold Key, Voltaic Key and Rings of Brighthearth.

Direct Damage

Most of our interactions with opponents can be defined as direct damage, the famous Burn.

Our effects are global and aim to hit as many targets as possible, including our creatures and life total. Following the trend of Rakdos decks , here our life is a resource, and this is true from Syr Carah, the Bold's ability.

Very much reminiscent of the Spellslingers strategy, with the difference that we are focused on causing damage, our primary objective is to play as many spells as possible and inflict small damage several times, allowing us to draw tons of cards.

Although some spells can't eliminate flying targets, remember that if the player falls, the creatures fall with them.

To reinforce the damage we added Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Guttersnipe generating strong asymmetry. Another card added for this purpose is Passionate Archaeologist, an enchantment that expands the commander's capabilities, causing her to deal additional damage and generating even more additional draws.

Draw Spells

All damage spells are potential deck draws when Syr Carah, the Bold is present on the battlefield.

Dragon's Rage Channeler assists in filtering your draws, removing any unwanted card from the top of the deck, being preferred to Burning Prophet, not only for the mana cost, but for the advantage generated by surveil, since putting cards into the graveyard reduces the possibility of drawing that card again after performing a shuffle. Her delirium requirements are easily achievable, thus having equivalent resistances.

There are some cards always present in the red decks that generate virtual draws when exchanging the cards in your hand for new cards, they are Faithless Looting, Magmatic Insight and Molten Psyche, the latter of which generates a real advantage over rummaging as it damages opponents by spawning up to three additional cards.

Past in Flames and Bonus Round double the value of our spells, either by playing a copy, or by allowing us to use each one of them an additional time.

Galvanic Relay maintains our gas by allowing for an explosive second turn if the first one fails for some reason.

We can use our artifacts and lands in the middle of the spell sequence to draw additional cards, or even as a way to shuffle the deck to replace the top card.

Winconditions

The deck is centered around our commander, and her ability is the engine for our flurry of spells. Since she is our main threat, it is natural that we are the target of our opponents. With that in mind we added Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, and to bypass enchantments and permanents Chaos Warp is always the best option.

Other direct interactions with the commander can occur, especially damage from our own spells. Sword of War and Peace and Shield of the Realm have been added to deal with this eventuality.

The Combo

The deck has an infinite mana combo that allows you to keep your mana high, especially when we combine it with one of our Mana Dorks to generate red mana, creating an extremely favorable situation and possibly ending the game.

The notorious interaction between Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth to generate infinite mana is widely recognized in the format and works as follows:

1. Tap Basalt Monolith to add mana to your mana pool;

2. Untap using the artifact's own ability;

3. Copy the untap ability with the Rings of Brighthearth trigger. You will start adding mana, using ( to untap and to copy).

4. Keep repeating to get infinite mana.

When using the combo, we can end the game with Rolling Thunder or any cost spells, or alternatively keep playing spells until we win the game.

Two alternative versions follow to complement your experience.

Syr Carah PDH

In the first one, we have a Pauper version, aimed at casual tables or the PDH format, focused on Burn.

It differs from our original list by having more creature participation to deal additional damage. We also have a Storm engine and infinite ETBs with Brighthearth Banneret plus Grinning Ignus, ending with Witty Roastmaster, Cinder Pyromancer or Impact Tremors.

Enhanced EDH Version

Our second version improves the manabase by adding positive mana rocks, Jeska's Will, Neheb, the Eternal and Dockside Extortionist, extremely efficient mana generators.

The biggest addition is the presence of Chromatic Orrery, which allows us to pay colored mana using colorless mana, which allows the different infinite mana lines to be potentiated.

Another combo line is Sensei's Divining Top and Mystic Forge, which allow us to draw our entire deck.

The Red Commanders Hall of Fame has been changing with each set, as the color develops new and interesting possibilities within its identity. The Goblin tribe remains the most popular, with Krenko, Mob Boss as the main red commander.

However, the recent Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell are vying for second place and preference, as are the Artifacts and Burn archetypes. Syr Carah, the Bold enters a secondary line where we find Spellslingers, Groups Slugs and Chaos, where we have excellent and complex commanders.

Playing with a Storm without blue was a rich experience, Syr Carah, the Bold made it to my favorite commanders list — as no two games are the same with her. Correctly timing the cards played from exile is the most challenging part, and also the most fun. And gradually, dealing 120 points of damage in a single turn is very satisfying.

Thanks for reading and good games!

Any questions, I'm available in the comments!