Commander Deck Tech: Kona, Rescue Beastie

I always try to write at least one deck guide for each set. I pick a commander that can be built in several creative ways, add some very funny cards, and let my imagination take control. The deck we'll explore today is not like that - instead, we'll focus on a card I pulled from the 1 booster I always get whenever a new set comes out. I feel in love with it straight away, but its strategy is a lot simpler than the decks I usually build.

In today's article, we'll explore this deck's main ideas and strategies, all while we command it with a cute animal that can do a lot of damage.

Kona, Rescue Beastie creates a lot of value by letting you put permanents directly on the battlefield, without paying for their mana cost. Many cards in the history of Magic: The Gathering have worked this way; they create advantage in terms of resources and put high-cost permanents in play very early on. What they all have in common is that they prove how broken this ability is.

To use Kona, Rescue Beastie's ability, it just needs to be tapped at the beginning of your second Main Phase. It doesn't matter how it got this way; if you attacked or crewed a vehicle. The most obvious idea for this commander is to build a strategy with ways to tap it without much issue and make the most out of your biggest, most powerful permanents.

A great way to tap Kona is a Saruli Caretaker, which lets you tap an untapped creature to create mana. Survivor's Encampment is also an option, as it is a land and works in a similar way.

In general, this deck is quite simple: tap Kona, either by attacking or crewing a Smuggler's Copter, and put your biggest threat in play in your second Main Phase. Just keep in mind that, because of the recent text changes implemented by Wizards of the Coast, we're using the term "second Main Phase", and not "the Main Phase after the combat". This means you can't use Kona, Rescue Beastie's effect multiple times.

The build we'll work with is just what you'd imagine: a monogreen list with gigantic creatures and other high-cost permanents, besides many ways to tap our commander so we can use its ability in the best way possible. We'll also use ramp so we can play other high-cost cards without relying completely on our commander's ability.

This is our list. As expected, it plays a few very expensive pieces, which is natural considering they're big, game-ending threats.

Tapping Kona

As we mentioned before, you can only get the most out of this deck when Kona, Rescue Beastie is tapped at the beginning of your second Main Phase, and only then. If you try to enter this step with it untapped, you won't even get to check this ability in the stack and answer it - it simply won't trigger. Keeping track of this window of time to get your reward is easy and simple, but, if you miss it, you'll be equally punished.

Luckily, decks with this commander include many ways to tap it. You can either use vehicles (which we won't do that much), saddle some mounts from Outlaws (which we'll do even less), use specific abilities, or simply play aggressively.

As a long-term Kalamax, the Stormsire fan, obviously, I know a trick or two to tap creatures. My favorites are Survivors' Encampment and Holdout Settlement. Both work in the same way: they tap them and another untapped creature to create mana of any color, and this way make sure we can use our ability.

As for vehicles, we play two. Smuggler's Copter is a great way to tap your commander and other support creatures to create card advantage and refine your hand. Cultivator's Caravan, on the other side, is a great source of mana and has a 5/5 body, so you can use it both defensively and offensively.

Cards like Paradise Mantle, Relic of Legends, and Springleaf Drum also stand out in this sense, as they both tap our creatures to create mana and let us tap Kona, Rescue Beastie.

Overall, this deck uses a flexible mechanism to activate its commander repeatedly, even when combat isn't viable. It uses a lot of redundancy so we can use this effect, but, without it, we can't develop our game plan.

Now that we discussed how to set up our commander to use its effects, let's discuss the other side of this effect.

Creatures: What Green Does Best

This deck truly shines when your biggest, most powerful cards start to enter and dominate the board. However, in Commander, creatures with a lot of power and toughness are not enough to truly impact the game state. So, we'll use big creatures that have extremely relevant abilities as well.

It would be unfair to discuss this type of creature without starting with Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant, one of the most impressive creatures in this deck. With it, we can bring many resources from our hand into play, as it lets us put any number of creatures from your hand into the battlefield. It also makes our commander's ability even better.

Coincidently, we also use Ghalta, Primal Hunger, a dinosaur that can enter play for just two green mana if you already have numerous powerful creatures on your board. For beginners, it is not that expensive, and can be extremely relevant when there are many powerful creatures in play, as it will be cheaper than most.

As for Nyxbloom Ancient, it multiplies your mana considerably, as it creates three times more mana whenever you tap a source. This means you might be able to summon multiple creatures in a single turn, or activate several powerful abilities all at once.

Archetype of Endurance is also great in this deck; it protects your board and gives you a huge advantage. By granting hexproof to all your creatures, it makes your threats practically untouchable to most opponents, as they'll need global removals to deal with them. At the same time, it removes hexproof from enemy creatures, so we'll be able to interact with them more easily than usual.

Dawnglade Regent is a similar, lumpier version of this card, but is still great.

Titan of Industry is the most versatile card in this deck, and is excellent to deal with problematic threats on the enemy board, all while you keep increasing your own battlefield. This type of advantage is common in cards with many modal effects. Meanwhile, Terastodon is just as versatile, considering it lets you destroy three noncreature targets when it enters, including permanents like battles and planeswalkers, which green can't deal with that easily.

We could stay here all day discussing this deck's creatures, like Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, Vaultborn Tyrant, Regal Force, and many others. They all have incredibly relevant effects.

Other Relevant Permanents

Many Commander players aren't familiar with the meaning of "overkill", like us. So, how can we make our gigantic creatures that have many broken effects even better? Exactly, by making them even bigger and giving them even more effects!

Akroma's Memorial grants static, very relevant abilities to all your creatures, including flying, vigilance, trample, haste, initiative, and protection from black and from red, so it essentially turns them into Akroma, Angel of Wrath. This artifact makes your creatures hard to block and even harder to remove, and, with it, they'll be able to end the game instantly.

I don't enjoy using it on Main Phase 2 with your commander's ability because it will stand out a lot to your opponents. However, if you want to play more defensively because you're concerned about counters, putting it in play with Kona, Rescue Beastie is a great idea.

Unnatural Growth doubles the power of all your creatures during each combat phase. This, in turn, will give you fast wins against opponents that don't defend themselves well, particularly as you'll already be playing gigantic creatures that will have trample often.

Sandwurm Convergence and Lurking Predators are great ways to keep getting more creatures throughout the game, and Convergence protects you really well against flying threats. Guardian Project draws you a card whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control. This means that, whenever you play a creature, either naturally or with Kona, you'll draw a card.

Finally, we have Portal to Phyrexia. This card is frequently game-winning if your opponents can't deal with it. Besides removing the enemy board, it lets you use creatures from all graveyards, so you'll be able to increase your board presence even more and use the best your opponents have against them. It also lets you use more than just green.

Other Cards

The rest of the deck is quite straightforward. You have cards like Lightning Greaves to protect your commander and grant it haste, Tamiyo's Safekeeping to protect your creatures from removals, and Heroic Intervention to protect your permanents against global disruptions.

We also have ramp and card draw: Llanowar Elves, Cultivate, and Return of the Wildspeaker.

As we use many high-performance cards in Commander that can end matches on the spot, this deck is a bit more expensive. Threats like these usually cost a bit more, so this deck's final cost is pricier than usual.

Down below, you'll find a version that is a bit more budget friendly:

This deck is perfect if you simply enjoy putting big cards in play. Its simple strategies, such as using low-cost creatures to speed up the game or protect your threats with a few key cards, make it accessible to beginners as well. Kona's ability is quite simple, but very relevant.

Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this Kona deck, and I'm sure you will too.

What did you think of it? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!