Doubling Down on Politics – Isshin, Two Heavens as One Commander Guide

There’s tons of new Legendary creatures that are coming out in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. One of the coolest ones though, is actually one of the most simple. Today, we’ll be looking at one of the most open ended Commanders from the set, and how we can use him to “double down” on Politics at the table.

Isshin, Two Heavens as One

Our Commander is Isshin, Two Heavens as One Isshin, Two Heavens as One If a creature attacking causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time. . Isshin doubles up any triggered abilities that trigger from a creature attacking. What’s interesting is that this is a symmetrical effect, meaning any of our opponent’s attack triggers will also trigger an additional time. We’re going to leverage this fact to play politics at the table.

Let’s get into some of the themes and key cards for this deck, and at the end I’ll post the list of cards that I’ve landed on for my first version of the deck.

The Usual Suspects

While we will be leveraging politics in our game plan, we ARE an attacking style of deck. There’s a good number of creatures in this deck, and most of them have some great attack triggers that we can double up on.

Nothing too crazy here. The creatures that we run all have some kind of really good benefit for attacking, and they go all the way up the chain. There’s a variety of different effects here, but most of them involve pushing some damage, creating tokens, or gaining some form of card advantage.

There’s a few cards here that didn’t make the cut mostly due to cost reasons, but we’ll show them here for potential upgrades to this category.

In this slot, Archon of Cruelty Archon of Cruelty Flying
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, target opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker of their choice, discards a card, and loses 3 life. You draw a card and gain 3 life. is a stellar addition to the deck, having a very strong ETB and attack trigger set, but it costs 8 mana, which is a bit much for this version. Not to mention this card is around $15. Combat Celebrant Combat Celebrant If this creature hasn't been exerted this turn, you may exert it as it attacks. When you do, untap all other creatures you control and after this phase, there is an additional combat phase. (An exerted creature won't untap during your next untap step.) is a card that you think would be great, but you only get 1 set of untaps for the first combat. Since we aren’t playing Helm of the Host Helm of the Host At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a token that's a copy of equipped creature, except the token isn't legendary. That token gains haste.
Equip {5} (another great card that got cut for budget reasons), we can’t combo with this as effectively.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger When you cast this spell, exile two target permanents.
Indestructible
Whenever Ulamog attacks, defending player exiles the top twenty cards of their library. and the other Eldrazi titans of old Zendikar would be great in this deck, despite their high casting cost. These effects often times can just end games outright, but considering that these cards are $50+, it wasn’t something I was willing to spend on, but definitely warrant a spot in the deck.

The Politics

While having a bunch of attacking creatures is great, and probably a fine way to play the deck, this strategy alone leaves a bit on the table. Let’s look at the cards that we’re essentially looking to play politics with.

In this deck, we’re looking to leverage curses, and pseudo-curses to play politics at the table. Our regular Curses give us the ability to incentivize our opponents attacking each other rather than us. Obviously Curse of Opulence Curse of Opulence Enchant player
Whenever enchanted player is attacked, create a Gold token. Each opponent attacking that player does the same. (A Gold token is an artifact with "Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") would be great here, but it’s $16, and for now it’ll go on the upgrade list.

Our pseudo-curses are enchantments that achieve the same goal, as we’ll gain some benefit from being attacked. Doubling up on all of these triggers really adds up over time, and can put our opponents in a really precarious position. Now this is all fine and good, but there is one missing mechanic that really ties this whole thing together.

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Goading is Goated

Goad is probably one of the most underappreciated mechanics in the game, and fits our goals perfectly. Until your next turn, a goaded creature must attack if able, and cannot attack you. This fits quite nicely into our curse plans in fact, so we have a few goad effects in the deck to get things going.

First up, we have Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant Whenever you attack a player, tap target creature that player controls and goad it. (Until your next turn, that creature attacks each combat if able and attacks a player other than you if able.)
Whenever an opponent attacks another one of your opponents, you and the attacking player each draw a card and lose 1 life. . First off, Kara has an attack trigger that we can control, and then the second ability gets triggered from our opponent’s goaded creature. Vengeful Ancestor Vengeful Ancestor Flying
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, goad target creature. (Until your next turn, that creature attacks each combat if able and attacks a player other than you if able.)
Whenever a goaded creature attacks, it deals 1 damage to its controller. has a goad trigger for ETB and attack, which is great. It also has a second trigger for goaded creatures, which is perfect as well.

Lastly, we have Disrupt Decorum Disrupt Decorum Goad all creatures you don't control. (Until your next turn, those creatures attack each combat if able and attack a player other than you if able.) , which just goads everything our opponent’s control. From the cards we’ve seen before, this is an insane card for our deck, giving us multiple curse triggers, doubled up by our commander.

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Protection

With all of these great cards, we need a way to keep our stuff around. There’s a good number of cards used to protect our stuff.

Here we have a small sampling of our protective cards. First up we have Reconnaissance Reconnaissance {0}: Remove target attacking creature you control from combat and untap it. (If you activate during end of combat, the creature will untap after it deals combat damage.) , which is arguably one of the most busted cards in this deck. With this card, we can send the team into combat, get our flurry of attack triggers, and if there’s an unprofitable block about to take place, we can just remove the creature from combat. Gustcloak Savior Gustcloak Savior Flying
Whenever a creature you control becomes blocked, you may untap that creature and remove it from combat. fulfils a similar role, just on a creature.

Next, we have a couple of ways to give our creatures indestructible. Unbreakable Formation Unbreakable Formation Creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn.
Addendum — If you cast this spell during your main phase, put a +1/+1 counter on each of those creatures and they gain vigilance until end of turn. is an instant, so it can save us from board wipes, but also can be a nice buff to our powerful team on our turn. Additionally Frontline Medic Frontline Medic Battalion — Whenever this creature and at least two other creatures attack, creatures you control gain indestructible until end of turn.
Sacrifice this creature: Counter target spell with {X} in its mana cost unless its controller pays {3}. gives our team indestructible if we attack with the whole team, but also has an upside of countering an X spell.

The last card in this sample is Akroma’s Will Akroma’s Will Choose one. If you control a commander as you cast this spell, you may choose both instead.
• Creatures you control gain flying, vigilance, and double strike until end of turn.
• Creatures you control gain lifelink, indestructible, and protection from each color until end of turn. . This card doubles as a protection and a game ender. Ideally we’re casting this when we control our commander to buff up our team and protect them. But proactively, this card can get us back into a game or outright end one.

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The List

Here’s the list that I ultimately landed on for the first version of the deck that I’ve ordered. I’m incredibly excited to play this deck. This list doesn’t include lands but your standard dual lands set up will do for the most part. I have 40 lands in this deck, mostly because the mana base is a bit budget. This list, plus a few duals lands comes in under $200, so there’s still room to grow, but a strong showing in the deck can be had on a budget.