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Captain Howler, Sea Scourge is one of the legendary creatures available inMagic: The Gathering’sAetherdrift set. It is the cornerstone of the Izzet (blue/red) archetype of Aetherdrift, making use of purposefully discarding cards for value.
A Captain Howler, Sea Scourge commander deck is a more unique take on an Izzet deck, focusing on discarding and drawing cards as opposed to casting a ton of spells like Izzet Commander decks generally do. If you’re a fan of Sharks, Pirates, or just love discarding your cards, then look no further, because Captain Howler, Sea Scourge is the perfect commander for you.
Magus of the Bazaar
Magus of the Wheel
Mary Read and Anne Bonny
Overlord of the Floodpits
Path of the Pyromancer
Key to the City
Desert of the Fervent
Desert of the Mindful
x7 Island
x7 Mountain
Stormcarved Coast
Sulfur Falls
The decklistcontains 31 creatures, ten sorceries, 13 instants, ten artifacts, one enchantment,and34 lands. All of the creatures help to discard and draw cards, or benefit from doing one of the two.
Key Cards
Captain Howler, Sea Scourge
The commander of the deck,Captain Howler, Sea Scourgeis your main source of power. It has great protection with its ward, and a great statline to boot tomake it a great attacker and blocker. The mana cost is rather cheap, letting you get it onto the battlefield and take advantage of its effect very quickly.
You want to spread out Captain Howler’s effect to multiple creatures in case an opponent has a removal spell if you are planning to use multiple discard effects in one turn.
Thebest targets for Captain Howler’s effect are creatures that can’t be blocked. If you’ve discarded a lot of cards, you can pump a creature up to massive stats. As such, creatures that can get in for guaranteed damage are the best options over something that can be chump blocked.
Monument To Endurance
With how much you’ll be discarding,Monument to Enduranceis the perfect support card for your deck. Since you generally discard multiple times a turn youwill draw a card, create a Treasure token, and burn your opponents for three lifevery consistently.
The burn is the least impactful, so that should always be saved for last. Drawing a card is better late-game, while making a Treasure is better early-game. Prioritize what’s best for your given gamestate when triggering Monument to Endurance.
While Monument to Endurance’s effects can only be done once each turn, thereare a lot of ways to discard during your opponents' turns. This allows you to keep getting value off of it before your turn comes back around.
The Locust God
The Locust Godis a great commander in its own right, and in Captain Howler, it’s a great way to get a bigger battlefield presence. Alot of the cards in the deck discard and draw a card, and each card draw willgive you a 1/1 token with flying. Thesegive youmore evasive creatures to attack with,as flying is harder for many decks to block.
The Locust God can be used to draw and discard with its own activated effect. Another benefit of Locust God isyou can keep bringing it back to your hand whenever it dies. Short of getting exiled, if The Locust God ever gets removed, it’ll never leave the game.
Blighted Agent
There are a lot of options to pump with Captain Howler’s ability, butBlighted Agentis the best option by far. The primary reason is thatit is anunblockable creature with infect. This can take someone out of the game with just one attack, as you only need it to have ten power to one-shot someone.
Creatures with infect do not deal combat damage, but instead give the attacked opponent poison counters equal to its power. If a player has ten poison counters they automatically lose the game once the tenth poison counter is put on them.
Even if you don’t defeat someone with one attack,you can keep pressuring them by attacking with Blighted Agent normally. This makes it easier to close out games later when you have more discard outlets to pump Blighted Agent to enough power to win through infect.
How To Play The Deck
ACaptain Howler, Sea Scourge Commander deck isall about discarding cardsand pumping up your creatures with power. You want to apply this to cards likeBlighted Agent, Triton Shorestalker, Slither Blade,andInvisible Stalkeras they all cannot be blocked.
You have plenty of ways to discard cards. The best are wheels that discard entire hands such asWindfall, Reforge the Soul,andTolarian Winds. Since these cards are a one-time use, cards that you can keep discarding with are great likeMary Read and Anne Bonny, Merfolk Looter, andMagus of the Bazaar.
There’s a sub-theme with creating creature tokens to make your battlefield larger and give you more blockers and attackers to work with.The Locust God, Drake Haven,andHomunculus Hordeall generate extra creature tokens by drawing cards, something the deck does a ton of. These tokens arebest used as chump blockers so you have expendable defenses.
Izzet struggles very hard with natural ramp, so you want to make sure you cast your mana rocks as quickly as possible so you always have mana available for your spells.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. Captain Howler’s stat boost can become massive to certain creatures to deal large chunks of damage. Depending on the creature getting boosted, you canwin the game in just one combat. Chaining discard effects are particularly great for this, especially against an opponent with low defenses.
Thebiggest downside of the deck is the heavy reliance on your commander. Captain Howler, Sea Scourge’s effect is what pushes you to your win condition quickly, since it’s very explosive once it gets going. However, because of that, it becomes a prime target for removal. Itsward helps keep it somewhat protected, as it makes all removal spells targeting it cost two extra mana, Luckily, Captain Howler is fairly cheap to cast, making it easier to recast it.
