Rambo Commander Deck · 100 Proxy Cards · MTG EDH · First Blood

A fully custom Rambo Magic proxy Commander deck, ready to play straight out of the envelope: 100 proxy cards with original artworks, built around one man, a treeline, and a county that will not let it go. This is a mono-green deck led by John Rambo, First Blood.

Why mono-green? Green is the woods, the weather and the animal that knows the ground better than you do. It is also, structurally, the colour of going wide — and this deck refuses to. Mono-green is the second colour identity this multiverse had never used, and this is the only deck in it that punishes you for having creatures: the big payoffs all read "as long as you control exactly one creature". There is no red in it despite the explosions, because Rambo is never the aggressor in the first film — he is the terrain reacting.

Targeted power level: Bracket 4 — eleven Traps, twenty cards that check whether you are alone, a three-piece Equipment package with its own tutor, and two named combos that end the game from a board of exactly one creature.

Deck Strategy

The whole deck is one sentence: keep your board down to one creature, and let the ground do the rest.

One man army is the original mechanic, and it is written on the cards exactly like this: "One man army — This ability works only while you control exactly one creature." Twelve cards carry the ability word and eight more check the same clause in their rules text. The commander gets +4/+4 and trample, vigilance and hexproof while he is alone. The Bowie Knife hands him first strike and deathtouch. Survival Instinct returns him to your hand instead of letting him die, once each turn. Nothing Is Over gives +5/+5, trample and indestructible. Play a second creature and every one of those lines switches off mid-combat, which is why the tokens in this set are deliberately not creatures — the Traps are enchantments precisely so they never break your own engine.

Traps are the second mechanic and the reason the deck survives the six turns it needs. They are one- and two-mana enchantments that do nothing at all until an opponent attacks you: "Whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks you, you may sacrifice this. If you do…" Punji Stick Pit deals 4 damage and drains 2 life. Bear Trap On the Trail taps the attacker, removes it from combat and keeps it tapped through its next untap step. The Gorge returns every attacking creature to its owner's hand. The Mineshaft Collapse exiles each attacker with power 3 or less. A Trap on the battlefield is public information — the table can see it — and the real effect is that they go and attack somebody else instead.

• The commander — John Rambo, First Blood is a {3}{G}{G} 4/4 who becomes an 8/8 with trample, vigilance and hexproof while alone, cannot be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less, and creates a Trap token whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks you. He is not a beater for six turns and then he very suddenly is.
• The arsenal — the Bowie Knife (+2/+2, first strike and deathtouch while alone, equip {1}), the Compound Bow (+2/+0 and reach, 3 damage on attack, redirected to the player's face while alone) and the M60 (+4/+0, trample, 2 damage to every creature the defender controls). The Gun Shop tutors any of them for {2} and taps for green.
• The cast — Colonel Sam Trautman, Sheriff Will Teasle, Deputy Art Galt, Deputy Mitch Rogers, Deputy Orval Kellerman, Marshal Murdock, Co Bao, Lieutenant Colonel Podovsky, Sergeant Yushin, Colonel Zaysen, School Boy, Michael Burnett, Mousa, Gabriela Beltran and Hugo Martinez. Almost all of them are legendary, and almost all of them are somebody you sacrifice or let die so that you are alone again.
• The interaction — Expendable kills anything that entered this turn, The Helicopter Kill destroys a flier and draws two while you are alone, He Was the Best is a fight with indestructible attached, The National Guard Arrives destroys every creature you don't control with power 3 or less and pays you a Trap for each one, and Don't Push It counters any spell aimed at you or your creature.
• Two combos, both custom. John Rambo + Deadfall Trap: every time an opponent attacks you the commander makes a Trap, and Deadfall makes each attacking creature fight target creature you control — point that at a lone, hexproof, 8/8 commander with one indestructible effect on him (They Drew First Blood, Nothing Is Over, or sacrificing Mousa) and the entire attacking force fights something that cannot die and hits back at full size, combat after combat. The Bowie Knife + Survival Instinct: the knife gives first strike and deathtouch, Survival Instinct returns him to your hand instead of the graveyard once each turn, so blocking him profitably means killing him twice in a single combat — which nothing in the format does cheaply.

Thirty-five lands, and they are the places rather than a mana base: the Ravine Above the Gorge, Hope Main Street, the Abandoned Mineshaft, the Sheriff's Department, the Old Growth Forest, the Cave Behind the Waterfall, the Logging Road, the POW Camp, the Ranch in Arizona, the Burmese River, the Border Crossing, the Deer Trail, the Rain On the Ridge, the National Guard Staging Post, the Bridge Out of Town, the Wet Hillside, the Treeline, the Diner Car Park, the Supply Cache and the Ground He Chose, plus fifteen Forests. Four tokens — Trap, Dog, Deputy and Boar — come in the box.

Average mana value 2.98, built to hold for six turns and then stop holding.