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Squall, SeeD Mercenary is one of the many legendary creatures you can use as your commander inMagic: The Gathering,released in the game’s crossover set with Final Fantasy. Squall is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy VIII, acting as the party leader and known for saying “whatever” and being a bit of a loner.
Based on Squall’s introverted personality and tendency to act alone, Squall’s Magic card reflects that by wanting to attack alone. A Squall commander deck acts as a mixture of Voltron (putting all focus on one creature), as well as a control deck utilizing Squall’s effect.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den
Key to the City
Sword of the Animist
x8 Plains
x8 Swamp
Vault of the Archangel
Witch’s Clinic
The decklistcontains 33 creatures, one sorcery, five instants, 18 artifacts, eight enchantments,and34 lands. Squall is your primary attacker, while the creatures either control the battlefield or give Squall extra stat boosts.
Key Cards
Squall, SeeD Mercenary
The commander of the deck, Squall, SeeD Mercenary is the most important card in the deck. Itgivesany creature double strikewhen it attacks alone,something you’ll always want to be doing with Squall. This is important aseach strike will trigger Squall’s other effectfor two triggers instead of one.
If Squall manages to connect (something easily done by making it unblockable with Equipment), youget to bring a permanent back from the graveyard to the battlefield. This allows you tokeep reusing permanents that sacrifice themselves for value, which is the core of the deck.
Squall’s effect to give double strike can apply to any creature, but Squall can only reanimate from the graveyard if Squall is the one that deals combat damage.
Idolized
Youwant to stick Idolized on Squall as quickly as possible, as it’ll provide Squall with a big stat boost whenever it attacks alone. At bare minimum, Idolized will give a +2/+2 stat boost on the creature it’s attached to, which only grows the longer the game goes on for.
Normally, a downside to Auras in Voltron decks is that if the creature gets removed, the Aura doesn’t stick around. However, with Squall,you may recover Idolized from the graveyardand put it back on Squall once you start attacking with it again.
Lurrus Of The Dream-Den
Lurrus of the Dream-Denacts as the secondary commander of the deck,offering a similar effect to Squall but without the need to attack. Lurruslets you cast any permanent spell that costs two or less mana from the graveyard.
The card cast from Lurrus isn’t exiled, so as long as it doesn’t get removed from the graveyard through other means, you can always recast any spell you play with Lurrus on your next turn.
Lurrus is very useful forrecycling your best utility cards, especially ones that allow you to tutor for other cards directly from your library. Youcan only use Lurrus' effect once per turn, but you can stack this on Squall’s effect to re-use the same card multiple times in one turn cycle.
Sublime Archangel
Exaltedis the most important keyword in the deck. It gives a creature that attacks alone +1/+1 forevery instance of exalted on the battlefield. For example, if four permanents have exalted, the creature that attacks alone will get +4/+4 to its stats.
Sublime Archangel is thebest card to grant exalted,as it gives it to every creature. Notably,if a creature has multiple instances of exalted, all of them will trigger as if they were separate cards.Sublime Archangel quickly turnsyour lone attacker into a massive threat, and one that can sometimes take someone out with just one attack.
How To Play The Deck
A Squall, SeeD Mercenary Commander deck isbased around attacking with only Squall, triggering your exalted abilities and connecting for damage to recycle your best permanents from the graveyard for constant use. This allows you to sacrifice your creatures without fear as Squall can easily bring them back.
Theprimary way to control the battlefield is with creatures that force every player to sacrifice a creature when they enter. Cards such as Accursed Marauder, Fleshbag Marauder, and Merciless Executioner all accomplish this, and have a mana value of three or less, allowing Squall to bring them back and force another mass sacrifice every time it connects for damage.
When these creatures that force sacrifice enter, it’s best to sacrifice them as once the effect resolves they tend to not do anything on the battlefield, and are better in the graveyard for Squall to reanimate.
The removal in the deck is a bit untraditional, focusingon permanents that can remove problematic permanents rather than instants or sorceries. Thanks to Squall’s recursion, Seal of Doom and Grim Bauble become much stronger.These provide more targeted removalwhile your forced sacrifice creatures can help clear out the weaker creatures.
Youwant to put Equipment onto Squall that makes it unblockablesuch as Brotherhood Regalia and Psychic Paper. This makes it easier to connect for damage and not need to worry about potentially losing Squall in combat.
To take someone out of the game through commander damage, a commander has to deal 21 or more combat damage to them. This is easily done with Squall thanks to giving itself double strike along with all the exalted triggers.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. Although you’re only attacking with one creature, Squall is a very threatening one with its Rough Divide ability. Youoften won’t take life totals to zero, but instead take them out through commander damage.
Thebiggest weakness of the deck is its over-reliance on Squall.Unfortunately, if Squall ever gets removed, your deck becomes much weaker. There isn’t a way around thisdue to the way Voltron decksneed to be built. Luckily, there’s a good handful of Equipment that provides protection to Squall to make it harder to remove.If you don’t have access to Squall, you’ll have to use your suite of control cards to slow your opponents downuntil you can cast Squall.
