How to build Tsagan, Raider Warlord

Tsagan counts how many of your creatures have first strike, then gives that number to every creature you control as raw power. Almost every card behind him is chosen to make the count bigger than one, and the best one for that job costs fifty cents.

The count is of creatures you control, not creatures you attacked with

Read the trigger once more. It is +1/+0 for each creature you control with first strike or double strike, and there is no mention of attacking anywhere in that clause. A first striker you held back as a blocker is counted all the same, and the pump it helped produce lands on that blocker too. The usual tension between attacking wide and keeping a defence does not exist here. Everything you own counts, whether or not you sent it.

That is why two pairs of cards which look redundant are all four in the list. Berserkers' Onslaught and Blade Historian give double strike to attacking creatures you control, so anything held at home is invisible to them. Archetype of Courage and Knighthood say creatures you control with no condition attached, so a defensive board still feeds the number. The attacking pair hits harder for four and five mana. The unconditional pair costs two and three, which is the difference between a card that is on the battlefield when the commander arrives and a card that is not.

Archetype of Courage carries a second line that is worth more here than it usually is. Creatures your opponents control lose first strike and cannot gain it. Your creatures take most of their power from a temporary pump while keeping a toughness of one or two, so a blocker with first strike is the single cheapest way for the table to kill them for free. That line takes it off the table.

Max speed is a second copy of an effect the deck already owns

Start your engines! puts you at speed 1 and moves you up one step on each of your turns where an opponent loses life, stopping at 4. At max speed Tsagan gains deathtouch and every other creature you control gains first strike, so the count becomes your whole board for nothing.

The trap is treating that as the plan. Speed 4 takes three of your turns after the first engine lands, and the deck cannot sit idle waiting for it. Knighthood at and Archetype of Courage at do the same job on turn two or turn three, and Berserkers' Onslaught at is a fifty cent card that gives every attacker double strike.

What max speed genuinely adds is two combinations that exist at no other speed. Kwende, Pride of Femeref reads that creatures you control with first strike have double strike. Tsagan at max speed is handing first strike to the entire board, so Kwende upgrades all of it, and two cards worth under two dollars between them have doubled the damage of every creature you own. Odric, Lunarch Marshal reaches the same place down another road, copying any keyword one of your creatures has onto all of them at the beginning of each combat. Tsagan always has double strike, so Odric always spreads it. At max speed Tsagan also has deathtouch, and Odric spreads that as well, which leaves a row of 1/1 tokens carrying deathtouch and double strike that nobody at the table can profitably block.

Far Fortune, End Boss is the other card here that earns its slot on the max speed line. His own trigger deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever you attack, which moves the clock whether or not anything gets through, and at max speed every source you control deals one extra damage. On a wide attack that last line is one more damage per creature, every combat.

The clock starts on a land, and that is worth two turns

Speed belongs to the player rather than to the card, so any permanent with Start your engines! sets it running. Three lands do exactly that. Amonkhet Raceway, Avishkar Raceway and Muraganda Raceway each tap for , each carry a max speed ability of their own, and all three can be your turn one land drop for no card and no mana.

The gap that opens is large. Lead on a Raceway and you are at speed 1 immediately, so with an opponent losing life on each of your turns from turn two, speed 4 arrives on turn four. Wait for the commander instead and the counter does not start until turn three, he cannot attack the turn he lands, and max speed is turn five at the absolute best and turn six if nothing else is making anyone lose life that turn.

Which is why ten cards in this list make an opponent lose life without asking a creature to connect. Impact Tremors, Warleader's Call and Purphoros, God of the Forge fire on any creature entering, and with this many token makers that is most turns. Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Cruel Celebrant and Bastion of Remembrance fire on any creature of yours dying. Judith, the Scourge Diva and Goblin Bombardment convert a dying creature into damage pointed wherever you like. Far Fortune, End Boss only asks you to declare an attack. A turn where every attacker gets blocked and nothing trades is still a turn the clock moves.

Three lands that tap for colorless, and what the mana check says about them

Those Raceways are not free. They are three colorless lands in a three color deck, and the thirty six lands here produce twenty one black sources, twenty four red and twenty six white. Measured against the usual target for casting a double pip on turn three, all three colors come up short.

What makes that survivable is that the list was assembled so almost nothing asks for a double pip. Exactly two cards want two black, Bedevil and Phyrexian Arena, and neither is a card you were casting on turn three anyway. Five want two red and eight want two white, and white carrying the most of them is why white has the most sources. Single pips are what the early turns really need, and every color clears that bar comfortably.

The rest of the mana base is shaped by the same pressure. Twenty six of the thirty six lands enter untapped with no condition at all and only two enter tapped no matter what, because a deck at an average mana value of 2.62 with a three mana commander cannot spend turn one or turn two doing nothing. That average is also why the land count sits at thirty six rather than thirty eight.

Put the commander's trigger on the stack first

Mardu Ascendancy creates a 1/1 Goblin tapped and attacking whenever a nontoken creature you control attacks. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar creates a 1/1 Human tapped and attacking for each opponent whenever you attack, which is three of them in a four player pod. Both trigger at the same moment Tsagan's does.

They all go on the stack together and you choose the order, so this is a real decision rather than a formality. Put Tsagan's trigger on the stack first, which means it resolves last. The tokens are then already on the battlefield when the count is taken, so they raise the number and they receive the pump. Get the order the wrong way round and they arrive after the pump has resolved, as 1/1s, in front of blockers.

For a token to raise the count it needs first strike or double strike the instant it appears, and Berserkers' Onslaught is the cleanest answer because it is a static ability reading attacking creatures you control. A token created attacking has double strike the moment it exists. Rise of the Hobgoblins is the other one, since grants first strike to every red and white creature you control and can be activated after the tokens have landed.

Windcrag Siege is the card that makes the whole sequence ridiculous, and it costs under three dollars. Choose Mardu and any triggered ability of a permanent you control that was caused by a creature attacking triggers one additional time. Tsagan attacking is what causes Tsagan's own ability to trigger, so the anthem happens twice. Mardu Ascendancy pays out twice per attacker. Adeline pays out twice.

Worth doing the arithmetic once. Tsagan and four 1/1 tokens attack with Berserkers' Onslaught on the battlefield. All five are attacking creatures, so all five have double strike and the count is five. Every creature gets +5/+0. The tokens are 6/1 double strikers dealing twelve each and Tsagan is a 6/4 double striker dealing twelve, which is sixty damage off a board that reads as five power.

Low power is a defensive statistic in this deck

Base power here is tiny. Tsagan is a 1/4, the tokens are 1/1, and the anthem is an until end of turn effect that only happens when he attacks. On everybody else's turn this is one of the least frightening boards at the table.

Two of the sweepers are picked to exploit exactly that. Slaughter the Strong has each player keep creatures with total power 4 or less and sacrifice the rest, which reads as symmetrical and is nothing of the kind: a row of 1/1 tokens loses almost nothing while a table of four and five mana commanders loses everything. Fell the Mighty destroys all creatures with power greater than the target's, so aiming it at one of your own tokens kills every creature on the table with power 2 or more and leaves your side untouched.

First strike is doing defensive work too. A token pumped to 6/1 dies to anything it blocks, unless it strikes first, in which case it kills a 5/5 and takes nothing back. The keyword that makes the count go up is the same one that stops the attack being a one turn trade.

All of which is why the list carries no symmetric wrath whatsoever. A deck committing this many bodies to the battlefield does not want one, and its answer to a board it cannot beat is one of the two sorceries above, or the eight pieces of spot removal.

Two cards that look right for this commander and are not

Path of Ancestry goes into almost every three color list and should stay out of this one. Its scry only happens when the mana is spent on a creature spell sharing a creature type with your commander, and Tsagan is a Dinosaur Berserker. Not one of the twenty three creatures here is either of those, so the scry can never fire at all, and what is left is a Nomad Outpost with extra text.

Siege Striker is a two mana double striker, which sounds automatic in a deck that counts double strikers. Its own attack trigger asks you to tap any number of untapped creatures you control in order to pump it, and untapped creatures you control are precisely the ones you were about to attack with. The card works against the only thing this deck is trying to do.

The core list

Hover any name below to see the card. Every price is the lowest a paper copy of that card sells for, across all of its printings.

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The cheap rung keeps every card that turns the count on

The budget list runs at a floor of $86.40 against $228.71, and almost all of the difference is price rather than function. Bitterblossom, Purphoros, God of the Forge and Chivalric Alliance come out, along with three shocklands and a Triome. Not one of the six cards that switches first strike or double strike on for the team is touched, because that is the deck. Two of the replacements are arguably upgrades on what they replace: Ankle Shanker hands every attacking creature first strike and deathtouch, and Stensia Masquerade gives attacking creatures first strike for about thirty cents. Witty Roastmaster is Purphoros at half the damage and a twentieth of the price, and it still moves the clock.

The upper rung changes one thing, which is that the deck can find the card it needs. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor turn six copies of an effect into eight. Smothering Tithe and Jeska's Will pay for a commander and a granter in the same turn. Karlach, Fury of Avernus is the add that changes the attack itself, untapping all attacking creatures, giving them first strike and handing you a second combat phase, which is a second anthem trigger on a board that never tapped. Six of the ten additions are Game Changers, which is what moves the bracket floor from nothing at all up to 4, and the price moves with it to $721.32.

FAQ

When can I play Tsagan, Raider Warlord in Commander?

From 9 November 2026, the day Mystery Booster Commander Edition is released. A deck checker run before then refuses the card, and that is the calendar rather than a ban. Every other card in this build is already legal today.

What does Tsagan’s attack trigger actually count?

Every creature you control that has first strike or double strike, whether or not it is attacking. The bonus is +1/+0 for each one and it goes to all of your creatures, so a first striker you kept back as a blocker still adds to the number and still gets bigger.

What does a Tsagan deck cost to build?

The core list is at least $228.71 taking the cheapest paper printing of every card, with only the commander unpriced. The budget rung is $86.40 and the upper rung is $721.32. All three numbers move once the set is actually out.

How fast can this deck reach max speed?

Turn four at the earliest. Speed starts at 1 the moment your first Start your engines! permanent lands and rises one step on each of your turns where an opponent loses life, so a turn one Raceway plus life loss on turns two, three and four gets there. Waiting for the commander instead pushes it to turn five or six.

Do you need max speed for the deck to work?

No, and building as though you do is the mistake. Knighthood, Archetype of Courage and Berserkers’ Onslaught give the whole team first strike or double strike for two to five mana, which switches the count on turns before the speed counter gets there. Max speed is redundancy that also unlocks Kwende, Pride of Femeref and the deathtouch half of Odric, Lunarch Marshal.