Commander blueprint · Avatar: The Last Airbender

How to build Sokka, Tenacious Tactician

Every noncreature spell you cast becomes a 1/1 Ally with menace and prowess, so this list runs fifty eight spells and only seven creatures, each picked to pay off a spell being cast or an Ally arriving.

Art by Robin Har

A creature spell is the one card in your hand that makes no Ally

The trigger reads noncreature spell, and that single word decides the shape of the list. Avatar: The Last Airbender is full of Ally creatures, and a typal reading of the card fills the ninety nine with them. Every one of those you cast is a turn Sokka sat still, because casting a creature makes no token. A two mana Ally creature is one body. A two mana Talisman is a mana source and a 1/1 menace Ally, and so is a one mana cantrip.

So the creature count is seven, and each one earns its slot by caring that Allies arrive rather than by being one. Kazuul Warlord puts a +1/+1 counter on each Ally you control whenever another Ally enters, which means every spell after it lands grows your whole board permanently, the new token included. Hero of Goma Fada gives your creatures indestructible each time an Ally enters, and Wartime Protestors hands each new Ally a counter and haste. South Pole Voyager draws a card the second time its ability resolves in a turn, and Sea Gate Loremaster taps to draw one card for each Ally you control. Longshot, Rebel Bowman makes every noncreature spell cost one less and deals 2 damage to each opponent per spell. Veyran, Voice of Duality is the seventh and the only one that is not an Ally, for reasons two sections down.

Monastery Mentor is the card that most looks like it belongs, since it also makes a token off every noncreature spell. Its tokens are Monks. A Monk gets no menace from Sokka, no rally ability fires when it enters, and Kazuul Warlord neither triggers on it nor puts a counter on it. White Lotus Tile counts only your largest group of creatures that share a type, so every Monk is a creature that adds nothing there. Young Pyromancer has the same problem with Elementals and fires on instants and sorceries only. Splitting your tokens between two types halves most of what this list does with them.

Each token misses its own spell and counts every one after it

Prowess and Sokka's trigger both fire the moment you cast the spell, and only creatures already on the battlefield at that moment get a prowess trigger. The token is not one of them. It arrives when Sokka's ability resolves, which is after the cast that made it, so the spell that created it is the one spell that turn it never gets +1/+1 from. Cast four noncreature spells in a main phase and the first token ends the phase a 4/4 while the last is still a 1/1.

Two things follow, and both decide when you cast what. A token made after attackers are declared stays home, however big it gets. And a token made before combat cannot attack at all without haste, because it has been under your control for less than a turn. That is why Fervor, Wartime Protestors and Lightning Greaves are here. Fervor covers every token at once, and Lightning Greaves gives one creature haste and costs nothing to move onto the newest arrival.

The cleanest turn therefore splits in two. The sorceries, artifacts and enchantments go first, each one making a token that haste lets attack. The instants wait.

Menace halves their blockers, and the instants after blocks are the damage

Menace means a creature can only be blocked by two or more creatures. An opponent with four untapped creatures can stop two of your attackers at most, and only by committing everything. Six menace tokens into that board puts at least four through.

Then the prowess on every token turns the counterspells and cantrips into pump spells. Once blockers are declared, each noncreature spell you cast gives every Ally +1/+1 until end of turn, attacking or not. With five Allies unblocked, a one mana Opt is five extra damage and a new 1/1 that stays home. Lightning Helix, Boros Charm and Jeskai Charm each do something on their own as well, and Jeskai Charm's third mode adds another +1/+1 and lifelink on top of the prowess it triggers. Shared Animosity counts the other attacking Allies for each one, so six attackers are each +5/+0 before a single spell is cast. Sokka's Charge gives every Ally double strike during your turn, which means every one of those numbers lands twice.

This is also why the counterspells cost one and two mana rather than more. Holding up Counterspell, Arcane Denial or Swan Song through your own combat is not a defensive tax here. If nobody casts anything worth countering, you fire a cantrip at the end of blocks instead, and the mana became damage after all.

Veyran counts thirty five spells twice and the other twenty three once

Veyran, Voice of Duality says that if casting an instant or sorcery causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, it triggers an additional time. Sokka is a permanent and so is every token. Under Veyran an instant makes two tokens and every Ally on the battlefield gets two prowess triggers, so each Opt after blocks is +2/+2 to the whole team. Longshot, Rebel Bowman deals 4 to each opponent, Whirlwind of Thought draws two cards and Jeskai Ascendancy pumps and loots twice.

It only reads instants and sorceries. The list holds twenty nine instants and six sorceries against twelve artifacts and eleven enchantments, so thirty five of its fifty eight spells are doubled and a Talisman still makes one token. The cards that trigger on a creature entering are not doubled by Veyran either, because the cast did not trigger them. Kazuul Warlord, Hero of Goma Fada and Kindred Discovery fire twice anyway, because two tokens arrive.

Anointed Procession stacks on all of it. It doubles every token you would create, so an artifact makes two Allies and an instant under Veyran makes four.

Hero of Goma Fada makes every instant in your hand a Flawless Maneuver

Rally means the ability triggers whenever Hero of Goma Fada or another Ally you control enters, and this one gives your creatures indestructible until end of turn. Sokka makes an Ally whenever you cast a noncreature spell, at instant speed as readily as at sorcery speed, so the answer to a sweeper that destroys is any instant at all.

Walk the stack. An opponent casts a sweeper that destroys every creature. In response you cast Opt. Sokka's trigger goes on the stack above it and resolves first, the token enters, the rally ability triggers and resolves, and every creature you control is indestructible before Opt has even resolved. The sweeper resolves last and kills nothing of yours. The new token is covered too, since it was already on the battlefield when the rally ability resolved. Flawless Maneuver and Boros Charm do the same job without Hero of Goma Fada, and Flawless Maneuver costs nothing while Sokka is out.

It has limits worth knowing before you lean on it. Indestructible stops destroy effects and lethal damage and nothing else, so exile, sacrifice, bounce and toughness reduction all get through. For those the list carries Teferi's Protection and Clever Concealment. Clever Concealment has convoke, and Sokka's tokens are white, so two of them can pay its two white pips. The token that casting it makes was not there when you chose targets, so that one stays behind.

Name Ally on both type cards, because the tokens have no other type

Two cards in the list ask you to choose a creature type as they enter, Kindred Discovery and Obelisk of Urd. Sokka's tokens are Ally and nothing else, so the choice is made for you. Human is the only alternative with any support, covering Sokka himself and four of the seven creatures, and it misses every token.

Kindred Discovery naming Ally draws a card whenever an Ally enters or attacks. The draw is not optional, but the deck controls the rate. Tokens arrive one at a time, each paid for with a spell from your hand, so the cards come in about as fast as you spend them. Six attackers draw six, and that is the turn that refills you.

Obelisk of Urd gives every Ally +2/+2 and costs six, with convoke. The tokens that arrived during combat could not attack anyway, so tap those for it in the second main phase. White Lotus Tile reads the board the same way from the mana side. It taps for as many mana of one color as your largest group of creatures sharing a type, which with six Allies out is six mana from a single artifact.

No board wipe, because Austere Command would split Sokka from his tokens

There is no sweeper in the list, which is fewer than a deck this size usually carries, and the reason is where its creatures sit. Austere Command, the flexible white answer, sorts creatures by mana value either side of three and four. Every token is mana value zero and Sokka is four, so each creature mode kills one half of the engine. The wraths that hit everything are worse, and a sweeper that spares tokens by destroying only nontoken creatures takes Sokka and all seven creatures with it.

Aetherize is the reset instead. It returns every attacking creature to its owner's hand, so cast during another player's attack it answers every creature they swung with and touches nothing of yours. The bracket 4 rung adds Cyclonic Rift for the version that clears their side of the table on your own turn.

Thirty four lands, because every mana rock is a token as well

Thirty four lands is below the usual count for a three color deck, and the curve is why it holds up. The average mana value is 2.6, with seventeen cards at one mana, seventeen at two and only six above four. Eight more cards make mana, and all eight are artifacts, which means each one is also a 1/1 menace Ally the turn you cast it. A turn two Talisman is ramp, a blocker and a prowess body at once.

Blue is the deepest color at 28 sources, then white at 25 and red at 24, and a single pip of any of them arrives by turn two at least 90% of the time. The doubles are the tight part. Counterspell and Kindred Discovery ask for two blue, and two blue by turn three comes in at 78.5%. Clever Concealment and United Front ask for two white, at 71.8%. Neither white card is a turn three play in practice. United Front is an X spell you want to cast late for a big X, and Clever Concealment can be convoked with white tokens.

Seventeen lands enter untapped and sixteen more do so on a condition, which at a four player table is usually met. Raugrin Triome is the only one that always enters tapped, and it cycles when you would rather have a card.

The core list

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The budget rung trades Sokka's Charge for Resolute Blademaster, and bracket 4 buys the early turns

Both rungs leave the engine alone. Sokka, the cheap spells that feed him, Veyran, Kazuul Warlord, Hero of Goma Fada, Kindred Discovery and Jeskai Ascendancy are in all three lists, so every version plays the same way: build a wide menace board, attack, and keep casting after blocks. The core list sits at bracket 3 because of three Game Changers, Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe and Teferi's Protection, and nothing else in it moves the floor.

The budget rung is fifteen swaps and takes the list from $567 to $161. The three Game Changers go first, which leaves no floor at all. Most of the rest of the saving is the mana base, where three fetchlands, two battlebond lands, Otawara and the Triome give way to slow lands, filter lands, Exotic Orchard and Mystic Monastery.

Two swaps change how it plays. Sokka's Charge becomes Resolute Blademaster. The Charge gives every Ally double strike throughout your turn for nothing, while the Blademaster gives all your creatures double strike only when an Ally enters, so it needs a spell cast after blockers to switch on. In this deck that is the plan anyway, so the loss is smaller than the price gap suggests. Anointed Procession becoming Heraldic Banner is the real cost: one token per spell instead of two, in exchange for +1/+0 on everything white and one more mana each turn. The cheap list still does the thing at the same speed. What it gives up is margin against a sweeper, since Teferi's Protection is gone and Unbreakable Formation and Make a Stand only answer destroy effects and damage.

The bracket 4 rung is ten swaps and comes to $1,213. Mana Vault, Chrome Mox and Ancient Tomb are most of that money and most of the point. Each one puts Sokka down a turn early, and the two artifacts make a token on the turn they are cast. Fierce Guardianship and Force of Will can both be cast without paying their mana cost, which in this deck is a counterspell that also makes a free 1/1. Mystical Tutor and Enlightened Tutor find the pieces, and Enlightened Tutor is the stronger of the two here, because Jeskai Ascendancy, Anointed Procession, Sokka's Charge, Kindred Discovery, Obelisk of Urd and White Lotus Tile are all artifacts or enchantments. Mondrak, Glory Dominus is the add that changes the board rather than the clock. It doubles tokens on top of Anointed Procession, so a Talisman makes four Allies and an instant under Veyran makes eight. Twelve Game Changers put the floor at 4.

Read the rungs as one deck at three prices. The kill is the same menace attack in each. The cheap list arrives with fewer tokens, and the expensive one arrives earlier with a counterspell it never has to pay for.

FAQ

Do Sokka, Tenacious Tactician's tokens get prowess from the spell that made them?

No. Prowess triggers when the spell is cast, and the token is created afterwards, when Sokka's ability resolves. It was not on the battlefield at the moment of casting, so it gets nothing from that spell. It does get +1/+1 from every noncreature spell you cast after it arrives, and it keeps menace and prowess for as long as Sokka stays on the battlefield.

Does Sokka, Tenacious Tactician trigger on artifacts and enchantments?

Yes. The trigger reads noncreature spell, so artifacts, enchantments, instants, sorceries and planeswalkers all count. Every Talisman and Arcane Signet in this list makes an Ally token when you cast it. Playing a land does not, because a land is never cast, and neither does a creature spell, which is why this deck runs only seven creatures.

Which Sokka is this deck for?

Sokka, Tenacious Tactician, the four mana rare from Avatar: The Last Airbender in blue, red and white. Six legendary creatures share the first name and each one wants a different deck. This is the Sokka that makes a 1/1 Ally from every noncreature spell and gives your other Allies menace and prowess.

How much does this Sokka, Tenacious Tactician deck cost?

Bought one card at a time at today's lowest paper prices, the core list is $567, the budget rung $161 and the bracket 4 rung $1,213. Most of the core list's money sits in a handful of cards: Rhystic Study, Anointed Procession, Smothering Tithe, the fetchlands and Teferi's Protection. The budget rung cuts all of those and keeps the whole token engine apart from Anointed Procession and Sokka's Charge.

What bracket is this Sokka, Tenacious Tactician deck?

Three Game Changers hold the core list at bracket 3 or above: Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe and Teferi's Protection. The budget rung removes all three and has no floor at all. The bracket 4 rung runs twelve Game Changers, adding fast mana, two free counterspells, two tutors, Jeska's Will and Cyclonic Rift. That 3 is a lower limit set by which cards are in the list, and it says nothing about how fast the deck kills.

Should a Sokka, Tenacious Tactician deck play Ally creatures?

Only the ones that pay off Allies arriving. An Ally creature spell makes no token, so a deck full of them leaves Sokka idle on most turns. This list runs six Ally creatures: Kazuul Warlord, Hero of Goma Fada, Wartime Protestors, South Pole Voyager, Sea Gate Loremaster and Longshot, Rebel Bowman. The Allies that win the game come from the fifty eight noncreature spells.

What does Veyran, Voice of Duality do with Sokka?

It doubles him on instants and sorceries. Veyran makes a triggered ability of your permanents trigger one more time when casting an instant or sorcery is what triggered it, so each instant makes two Ally tokens and gives every Ally two prowess triggers. Artifact and enchantment spells are not doubled. With Anointed Procession out as well, one instant makes four tokens.