Commander blueprint · The Hobbit

How to build Bard, King of Dale

Bard turns every card you draw into two, except the first card of your draw step, and every token you create into two tokens. This list is built from the cards that use both lines at once: Clues that become cards, and draws that become tokens.

Art by Xabi Gaztelua

The first card of your draw step is the only one Bard leaves single

The exception in Bard's draw line is narrower than it reads. It skips the first card you draw in each of your own draw steps and nothing else. The second card of that draw step is doubled, so is every card you draw in your upkeep or a main phase, and on another player's turn there is no exception at all: every card you draw there is two.

That rewrites the cheap spells. Brainstorm draws six and puts two back. Deduce is two cards and two Clues for two mana. Shark Typhoon cycled for X draws two and makes two X/X flying Sharks. And it rewrites Howling Mine. Its extra card comes in your draw step but after the first one, so you take three cards in your draw step while each opponent takes two. Kami of the Crescent Moon does the same again, and with both out the count is five against three.

Howling Mine is what makes Faerie Mastermind and The Council of Four fire every turn

A symmetrical draw engine is normally a gift to the table. Three cards in this list turn the gift around. Faerie Mastermind draws you a card whenever an opponent draws their second card in a turn. The Council of Four draws you one whenever any player draws their second card during their own turn. Smothering Tithe asks an opponent for two mana every time they draw, and makes you a Treasure when they decline, which under Bard is two Treasures.

On their own those wait for somebody to cast a cantrip. With Howling Mine out, every opponent draws a second card in every draw step, so both creatures trigger on every opponent's turn, and every card they give you is two. Put Bard, Howling Mine, Faerie Mastermind and The Council of Four on the battlefield at a four player table and a full round is seventeen cards for you: five on your own turn and four on each of the other three. Each opponent draws two.

Almost none of those draws are optional, so the library is a clock you can lose to

Seventeen a round is also how this deck loses. Howling Mine, Kami of the Crescent Moon, Faerie Mastermind and The Council of Four all say you draw, not that you may, and Bard's replacement is not a choice either. A library holds 92 cards once the opening hand is drawn, and at seventeen a round that package alone empties it in under six rounds, before a single Clue is cracked.

Five cards keep that under control. Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora both say may, so they are the draws you turn down once the library gets thin. Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel mean a hand of fifteen is not a discard at the end of your turn. And Jace, Wielder of Mysteries makes the empty library the win. While he is on the battlefield, a draw from an empty library wins the game instead of losing it, and his plus ability mills two and draws (two cards here), so once Jace is out you can run the library down on purpose. There is no Windfall or other wheel in the core list for the same reason. A wheel under Bard draws you twice what it gives each opponent, and the bracket 4 rung is where that becomes the plan.

One investigate is two Clues, and each Clue cracks for two cards

A Clue is an artifact token you sacrifice for two mana to draw a card, and Bard touches it twice. The investigate makes two of them, and each one draws two when you crack it. Thraben Inspector is a one mana creature that leaves four cards behind it. Hard Evidence is one blue mana for two 0/3 Crabs and two Clues. Ezrim, Agency Chief investigates twice as it enters, which is four Clues and eight cards. Trail of Evidence investigates whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, and 18 cards in the list can be cast as one. Search the Premises investigates whenever a creature attacks you, so every creature an opponent sends your way hands you two Clues.

Two mana per Clue is slow, and two cards bring it down. Forensic Gadgeteer makes your artifacts' abilities cost one less, so every Clue cracks for one mana, and it investigates whenever you cast an artifact spell. Academy Manufactor turns any Clue, Food or Treasure you would create into one of each, and Bard doubles all three, so a single investigate becomes two Clues, two Food and two Treasures. The Treasures pay for cracking the Clues.

Every card drawn is its own trigger, and Bard draws them in pairs

A card that says whenever you draw a card triggers once per card, not once per instruction, so under Bard every draw is two triggers. Nadir Kraken lets you pay one mana per trigger for a +1/+1 counter and a Tentacle, and the Tentacle is a token, so each card drawn with mana open can be two 1/1s and a counter. Ominous Seas takes a counter per card and makes an 8/8 Kraken for eight of them. Four draws outside your draw step get there, and the Kraken comes as a pair. Chasm Skulker grows by a counter per card and leaves that many Squids behind when it dies, twice over. Psychosis Crawler makes each opponent lose a life for every card you draw, which against the seventeen card round above is seventeen life from each of them without an attack.

Alandra, Sky Dreamer wants the second card of a turn, and Bard reaches it with any single draw outside your draw step. That is two 2/2 flying Drakes on every turn you draw past the first card of your draw step, including each opponent's turn on which Faerie Mastermind or The Council of Four hands you a card.

Skullclamp is why there is no anthem in this list

Skullclamp gives the equipped creature +1/-1 and draws two cards when it dies. On a 1/1 token that is death on equip for one mana, and under Bard the two cards are four. Battle Screech makes four 1/1 Birds and flashes back for four more by tapping three white creatures, which the first four can do straight away, so one card is eight flying 1/1s, and each of them is a single mana away from four cards.

That only works while the tokens have one toughness, and it decides what the pump looks like. A permanent +1/+1 on every token, from Intangible Virtue or Cathars' Crusade, would leave a clamped token alive at 3/1 and switch off the cheapest draw in the deck. So the power boosts here last one turn. Moonshaker Cavalry gives every creature you control flying and +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of creatures you control, and Akroma's Will gives the team flying, double strike, lifelink and indestructible for a turn while Bard is out. Both are cast on the turn you mean to win, and if the swing does not end it the board goes back to being card fuel.

Mentor of the Meek and Welcoming Vampire pay on the way in instead. Mentor of the Meek draws a card for one mana whenever a creature with power 2 or less enters, and every token arrives with a twin, so a spell that would make one token is two triggers, each worth two cards. Welcoming Vampire draws for free once a turn. Idol of Oblivion taps to draw on any turn you created a token, which is two cards, and later sacrifices for a 10/10 Eldrazi that also arrives as two. Fountainport, a land, sacrifices any token for two cards at two mana.

Teferi's Ageless Insight prints Bard's draw line a second time, and the two multiply

Teferi's Ageless Insight carries Bard's first ability word for word on a four mana enchantment, and replacement effects on the same draw stack. With both out, every card you draw apart from the first one in your draw step becomes four. A clamped token is eight cards, and a single Clue under Forensic Gadgeteer is four cards for one mana. It is the most dangerous card in the list for the reason in the library section, so it comes down when Jace, Wielder of Mysteries is in hand or when the turn ends the game.

The token side stacks the same way. Anointed Procession and Exalted Sunborn each double tokens again, so with either one beside Bard, Elspeth, Sun's Champion makes twelve Soldiers a turn. Exalted Sunborn has warp too: for two mana it stays for one turn of quadrupled tokens, then goes to exile until you cast it again at its full cost. Spark Double copying Bard is the only card that doubles both halves at once, because the copy is not legendary and both of them stay.

26 blue sources and 28 white, and Ezrim asks for two of each

Bard costs six and needs one of each colour, so his own cost is the easy part. The 36 lands are nine Plains, nine Islands and 18 others, and with the mana rocks and Treasure makers counted alongside them the deck has 26 blue sources and 28 white. One pip of either arrives by turn two more than 92% of the time. Two of one colour by turn three is where it tightens: 74.2% for blue and 78.5% for white. Ezrim, Agency Chief asks for two of each. Nadir Kraken, Alandra, Sky Dreamer and Teferi's Ageless Insight want two blue, while Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Battle Screech and Hero of Bladehold want two white. The deck wins late, so a double pip that misses turn three costs a turn of tempo rather than the game.

Eight mana rocks sit beside the lands, from Sol Ring to Commander's Sphere, and Archaeomancer's Map finds two Plains. 24 lands enter untapped and 10 more do on a condition that is usually met or paid for with life. Irrigated Farmland and Restless Anchorage are the only two that always come in tapped, and both earn it: the Farmland cycles for two cards, and the Anchorage makes two Map tokens every time it attacks.

Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe pay out twice here, which is why they are worth the floor

Three Game Changers set the core list at bracket 3, Smothering Tithe, Teferi's Protection and Rhystic Study, and three is the most bracket 3 allows. Two of them are here because Bard doubles what they pay. An untaxed spell under Rhystic Study is two cards, and an unpaid draw under Smothering Tithe is two Treasures. Teferi's Protection is the card that keeps Bard and his board through a sweeper. Nothing in the list destroys lands or takes an extra turn. The thing worth saying out loud before the game starts is the Howling Mine package, because it hands the table cards while it hands you more of them.

The core list

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The budget rung keeps every Clue, and bracket 4 runs the library dry on purpose

Nine swaps take the core list from $466.82 down to $178.65, and the three Game Changers leave first, so nothing in the budget list rules out bracket 2. Mystic Remora leaves alongside Rhystic Study. Anointed Procession, Exalted Sunborn and Spark Double go as well, and Sea of Clouds and Otawara, Soaring City become two lands that cycle. Cycling is a draw, so each of those cycles for two cards.

The overlap stays whole. Every Clue maker, Skullclamp, Mentor of the Meek, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Howling Mine, Faerie Mastermind and The Council of Four are in all three lists, so the cheap deck still turns cards into tokens and back. Dictate of Kruphix comes in for Rhystic Study as a third symmetrical draw, and it has flash, so it can land at the end of an opponent's turn. Monologue Tax and Mangara, the Diplomat both pay when an opponent casts a second spell in a turn, two Treasures from one and two cards from the other. The cheaper list pays for its price in the second multiplier: Elspeth, Sun's Champion makes six Soldiers a turn there instead of twelve, and nothing copies Bard to double both halves again.

Ten swaps take it the other way, to bracket 4 at $912.37, and the first two to go are Howling Mine and Kami of the Crescent Moon. Against tuned decks an extra card a turn for every opponent is a gift you cannot tax fast enough, so The One Ring and Esper Sentinel take their slots as draw that feeds only you. Force of Will, Fierce Guardianship and Cyclonic Rift come in for Arcane Denial, Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict, and Mana Vault brings Bard down a turn earlier. Then the rung stops treating an empty library as a danger. Windfall under Bard draws you twice what it gives each opponent, Teferi's Ageless Insight doubles that again, and Thassa's Oracle wins when its enter ability resolves, as long as your devotion to blue is at least the number of cards left in your library. Mystical Tutor finds Windfall, and Enlightened Tutor finds Teferi's Ageless Insight, Skullclamp or The One Ring.

So the three lists play one engine at three speeds. The budget deck makes its cards and tokens one doubling at a time and wins in the air. The core list stacks a second doubler on each half. The bracket 4 deck draws its whole library on purpose, with Jace or Thassa's Oracle there to turn the empty library into the win.

FAQ

Does Bard, King of Dale double the card you draw for the turn?

No. Bard skips the first card you draw in each of your draw steps, and only that card. Any other card you draw in the same draw step is two, including the extra from Howling Mine, and so is every card you draw in a main phase or on another player's turn.

Does Bard, King of Dale stack with Teferi's Ageless Insight and Anointed Procession?

Yes, both multiply. With Teferi's Ageless Insight out, each card you draw outside the first card of your draw step becomes four. With Anointed Procession out, each token you create becomes four. You pick the order the replacement effects apply in, and the count comes out the same either way.

Does Bard, King of Dale double Treasure, Clue and Food tokens?

Yes. Bard doubles every token created under your control, creature or not. A Clue made under Bard is two Clues, and each draws two cards when cracked. With Academy Manufactor out as well, a single Treasure, Clue or Food becomes two of each kind.

What bracket is this Bard, King of Dale deck?

Bracket 3, from three Game Changers: Smothering Tithe, Teferi's Protection and Rhystic Study. Dropping those three on the budget rung leaves nothing that blocks bracket 2. The bracket 4 rung runs eleven Game Changers, adding Mana Vault, The One Ring, Cyclonic Rift, Thassa's Oracle, two tutors and two counterspells that can cost nothing.

Can Bard, King of Dale make you lose by drawing from an empty library?

Yes, and faster than most commanders. Most of the draws in this list are mandatory, and with Howling Mine, Faerie Mastermind and The Council of Four out you draw seventeen cards a round at a four player table. Turn down Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora when the library runs low, and keep Jace, Wielder of Mysteries in reach: with him on the battlefield, drawing from an empty library wins the game.

Which Bard is this deck built around?

Bard, King of Dale, the six mana mythic from The Hobbit that doubles your draws and your tokens. Two other Bard legends are also white and blue, so the colours do not tell them apart: Bard the Bowman, a three mana Archer that puts a counter on a creature when you draw your second card each turn, and Bard, Heir of Girion, a four mana Archer that pumps your other creatures and draws a card whenever you attack. This page builds the King of Dale.

How much does this Bard, King of Dale deck cost?

Adding up the cheapest paper printing of all 100 cards, the core list is $466.82, the budget rung $178.65 and the bracket 4 rung $912.37. Four cards are $210 of the core list: Rhystic Study, Anointed Procession, Smothering Tithe and Teferi's Protection. The budget rung cuts all four and keeps every Clue maker, so it still does what the expensive list does for less than two fifths of the price.