Commander Deck Tech: Liara Portyr

In Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, we'll learn more about the Sword Coast, its heroes and villains and organizations. Our Commander Liara Portyr leads the Flaming Fist.

The Flaming Fist is an organization of mercenaries known for their military service in guarding Baldur's Gate and across the Sword Coast. They were one of the most powerful fighting forces in all the Realms, motivated primarily by the glory of victory and their riches, though they positioned themselves on the side of promoting order throughout the Realms, acting as the elite guard of cities.

Liara Portyr is a high-ranking commander of this organization. She was born into the traditional and wealthy Portyr Family of Baldur's Gate, niece of Grand Duke Dillard Portyr. During her command at Fort Beluarian, she made a deal with the pirates of Jahaka Anchorage, granting her and her soldiers great riches, along with safe passage for Baldurian ships.

When Grand Duke Ravengard became trapped in Elturgard during the city's descent to Avernus, Liara Portyr was summoned back to Baldur's Gate to lead the Flaming Fist.

Liara's card demonstrates all her creativity, experience and bravery in battle. Whenever we attack an opponent we give an impulsive draw, that is, we exile the top card of our deck, and can play it until the end of the turn, and whenever we play a card from exile its mana cost is reduced by the same number of attacked opponents.

Although at first glance we have a more balanced version of Winota, Joiner of Forces, Commander Liara Portyr brings the differentiated proposal of drawing additional cards, a very present characteristic of blue, a fact that makes her unique at her proposal.

Seeking to expand the possibilities of using the deck, we built this version, being legal both in Commander and in its Pauper EDH variant.

Our goal is to play Commander Liara Portyr in the first few turns, and as soon as she enters the battlefield, we start a quick offensive aiming to end the game, attacking as many opponents as possible to generate an advantage by casting cards cheating on their mana. To preserve our creatures, especially the commander, we added some evasion in the form of equipment and auras.

Extracting value from offensive plays is our main tool for victory. Therefore, the list is focused on generating maximum advantage with Commander Liara Portyr proactively advancing and developing the board as quickly as possible.

The commander's ability to play cards at a reduced cost is great for this. We select creatures that have reduced mana cost, mostly or equal to or less than , that had all or part of their cost in colorless mana.

The Manabase

Our manabase was made up largely of basic lands. The few utility lands added were cycling lands, with activation cost , scry lands or Strixhaven Campus, artifact lands in color identity { {R}} and Cave of Temptation.

This deck includes an expressive number of mana rocks, one of which can be divided between those that are only mana generators or filters.

And the utility rocks with different abilities, such as Honored Heirloom that is a graveyard hate and the artifacts that have abilities that trigger when entering or leaving the battlefield.

The additional draw generator rocks, important in our color identity.

Mana dorks are also present as artifact creatures. The Goldhound, a treasure creature, the classics Gold Myr and Iron Myr, plus Ornithopter of Paradise.

We also have Foundry Inspector which is a cost reducer for artifacts. Another cost reducer is the Starnheim Courser which, while not an artifact creature, reduces the cost of artifact and enchantment spells by .

Our commander is a powerful cost reducer, after all, we are talking about a reduction of up to mana in the cost of our spells played from exile.

Interactions

Interactivity is one of the parameters for defining the power of a Commander deck. With this in mind, we chose a set of proactive interactions or removals where we can mention the occasional Detainment Spell, Galvanic Blast, Abrade, among the others present in this deck, which we will see next.

Sweepers are present with Krark-Clan Shaman and Rolling Thunder. We also have specific graveyard hate such as Honored Heirloom, punctual, Relic of Progenitus.

We also have reactive spells like Red Elemental Blast, Benevolent Bodyguard, and Stave Off.

Card Advantage

Along with the mana artifacts already mentioned, we also use other ways to draw cards. Pyrite Spellbomb in addition to a removal is a one-time draw. Sticky Fingers also grants a draw if the enchanted creature dies, and Filigree Familiar works the same upon its death, granting a draw.

When it comes to card advantage, Commander Liara Portyr is wonderful as it is similar to having an Boros Arcanis the Omnipotent in the command zone. Experimental Synthesizer is very strong given its synergy with the commander, since its draw is through exile. Other impulsive draws are Reckless Impulse and Galvanic Relay, the latter having Storm.

Resource recovery is a good way to generate advantage, for this, we have Myr Retriever, Workshop Assistant and Frantic Salvage.

Like most Boros decks, our goal is to reduce the opponent's life to zero. This can occur through direct combat, which is a not-so-unusual means, given that we have the nostalgic Atog, and through effect damage, in this case the creatures Reckless Fireweaver and Witty Roastmaster. Or even in the synergy between Battered Golem and Viridian Longbow.

Finishers

Combo lines

Our combo is composed of the interaction of the creatures Myr Retriever + Workshop Assistant that when sacrificed to generate mana with Ashnod's Altar, in the presence of a cost reducer, allow infinite ETBs, storm or infinite mana. Another possibility is to replace the reducers with Dross Scorpion. It can also end the game with Golem Foundry creating infinite tokens.

EDH Version

This release wants to follow a natural evolution of the proposed deck, bringing changes to the manabase and adding powerful artifacts. Brings an additional, more consistent combo line, based on Myr Turbine and Dross Scorpion.

The combo

• Tap Myr Turbine to create a Myr token;
• Sacrifice the Myr token with Ashnod's Altar to add two mana;
• Dross Scorpion's ability will trigger, untap Myr Turbine;
• Repeat process for infinite mana.

We can search for other combo lines using the Cards Realm combo search page, here.

The new cards in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate bring old and powerful mechanics of which we should highlight myriad, which allows you to create multiple tokens when attacking, one for each opponent.

An interesting upgrade is precisely to include this cycle of creatures: Wyrm's Crossing Patrol, Tabaxi Toucaneers and Tiamat's Fanatics.

Commander Liara Portyr is an extremely fun commander, especially for those looking for a gradual, value-based strategy. The commander has the new face of Boros, red has increasingly received impulsive draws and other means of conditional draws.

I think we still have a long way to go to balance color identities, but whether on a budget or not, it's been a pretty solid game for casual tables.