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As a part ofMagic: The Gathering’sUniverses Beyond product line, the Sonic the Hedgehog series comes to Magic with seven new-to-Magic cards via Secret Lair (with six of those being creatures). One of those creatures is Sonic’s main sidekick Miles “Tails” Prower, who’s been by Sonic’s side since the second-ever Sonic game.
In Magic, Tails fittingly supports the Vehicle card type thanks to his background as a mechanic. Azorius (white/blue) is one of the best color combinations for Vehicles, allowing a Tails Commander deck to play all the best Vehicle support cards while supporting the card type strongly itself.
Dance of the Manse
Armed and Armored
x4 Island
x4 Plains
Seat of the Synod
Spire of Industry
The Mycosynth Gardens
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 23 creatures, four sorceries, three instants, 30 artifacts, four enchantments,and34 lands. Of the artifacts,22 of those are Vehicles, which make up about a quarter of the deck, with the creatures supporting the Vehicle card type.
Key Cards
Miles “Tails” Prower
Miles “Tails” Prower is away to both draw cards and make your Vehicles more evasive in combat. A lot of Vehicles in the deck already have flying, so you’ll be drawing cards more often than putting flying counters on them.
Tails has Flash, which allows you to cast it anytime you can cast an instant. Even though it is in the command zone, these rules still apply, so you can cast Tails before your turn starts, so it’s on the battlefield when you start playing Vehicles.
Since Tails itself has flying, this makes it solid in combat, just not defensively because of its lower toughness. Tails is a card that willbeused for crewing more often than attacking with, since three power can crewmost Vehicles in the deck.
Prodigy’s Prototype
One potential downside to a Vehicle deck is having all Vehicles with no creatures to crew them. This is where Prodigy’s Prototype comes in,as itcreates Pilot tokensthat can be used for eithercrewing or as chump blockers.
Prodigy’s Prototype does require a Vehicle to attack to trigger, but notably,it does not require itself to attack—just any Vehicle. It doesn’t need to be crewed for its effect,either.
It’s often better not to crew Prodigy’s Prototype at all, so it stays harder to remove.
Drumbellower
To crew a Vehicle, you’ll need to tap a creature(s), and if they don’t have vigilance, the Vehicle will stay tapped too, leaving you potentially defenseless. Drumbellower helps fix this downside byuntapping all your creatures during every other player’s end steps.
You can still crew a tapped Vehicle by paying its usual crew cost. You can crew a tapped Vehicle before Drumbellow’s effect resolves, untapping both the creature that crewed it and the Vehicle itself.
Although you won’t untap during your end step, Drumbellower’s effect helps toturn your Vehicles into more efficient creatures, as you may attack with them and get them untapped, allowing you to block with them later.
Mendicant Core, Guidelight
Mendicant Core, Guidelight has the potential to have a high power stat with the number of artifacts you’ll have on the battlefield, allowing it to beone of the best creatures to use for crewing your Vehicles.
To reach max speed, you’ll need to deal damage to an opponent on three different turns, since speed can only increase once per turn.
The main attraction of Medicant Core is its max speed effect. It allows you topay an extra mana to copy any artifact spell you cast. All Vehicles are artifacts, and so long as they aren’t legendary, you can double up on all your best Vehicles.
How To Play The Deck
General Game Plan
A Miles “Tails” Prower Commander deckputs a ton of Vehicles onto the battlefield while constantly drawing cards. Tails will more often than not draw a card since most Vehicles in the deck have flying, allowing you to draw into more Vehicles.
Cards like Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel, whichgive you no hand size limit, are very usefulto keep all the cards you draw.
Crewing Vehicles will leave you with a lot of tapped creatures, so permanents that untap your permanents are especially useful. Unstoppable Plan and Drumbellower are some of the easiest ways to untap your Vehicles and creatures.
The deck containsmultiple ways to create tokens,which give you both bodies to pay for crew abilities, or they can be used for blocking your opponents' creatures. Parhelion II, Rolling Hamsphere, and Prodigy’s Prototype are the best options, with Thopter Spy Network and Mirrodin Besiegedhaving more passive ways to get tokens.
All Vehicles are artifacts, and plenty of cards give artifacts passive abilities. Indomitable Archangel gives them shroud,meaning they can’t be targeted by anything, making it significantly harder to remove them sinceVehicles dodge board wipes as they aren’t creatures on your opponents' turns. Padeem, Consul of Innovation gives them hexproof as another layer of protection.
Win Conditions And Flaws
Theprimary win conditionof the deck iswinning through combat. Vehicles often have high stats, and since Tails guarantees they’ll have flying, it makes them evasive as well, since many opponents won’t have ways to block fliers.
While you attack with your Vehicles, you’ll be building up tokens to ensure that your battlefield isn’t left wide open. You want tobe aggressive when you have token generators, as you can use Vehicles to deal damage and hold tokens up for blockers.
Thebiggest downsideof the deck is that itrelies heavily on Vehicles. Vehicles do require you to use your creatures by tapping them, which can lead to your opponents being able to freely attack you without fear.
While some Vehicles create tokens to help counteract this, if you don’t have these on the battlefield, choosing between attacking or leaving up blockers can be a struggle. In general,if your opponents have threatening battlefields, it’s better to leave Vehicles uncrewedto ensure you can use them as blockers.
