Make toughness out as a weapon with our Commander Bestiary guide on Betor, Kin to All!
Tarkir: Dragonstorm seems to be a pretty fantastic set overall, which is great news for Magic fans of all kinds. It’s filled with incredible creatures and remarkable new spells for all of the classic Tarkir decks. Of course, we’re not here to talk about old Tarkir decks, but we’re here to talk about all the new ones, and this time we’re going to focus on Betor, Kin to All.
This iteration of Betor is the actual main set one, not the Abzan Armor Commander Precon one — but if you want an easy deck to slot it into — just swap the two Betor cards around. This is our Commander Bestiary entry though, so let’s talk about all the strengths and weaknesses of Betor and then build a deck around it.
Lore Intro
Betor, Kin to All
Tarkir: Dragonstorm, Mythic
Betor is one of the five spirit dragons summoned after the Phyrexian invasion, where these dragons helped to retaliate against the draconic lords of old and have now settled within various clans on Tarkir. Betor found a home in the Abzan clan alongside Felothar; and is working to create a thriving Abzan clan in a post-Omenpath world.
Strengths
Market Price: $17.61
Market Price: $17.31
Betor, Kin to All is a five-mana white, black, and green 5/7 with flying. It reads, “At the beginning of your end step, if creatures you control have a total toughness of 10 or greater, draw a card. Then if creatures you control have a total toughness of 20 or greater, untap each creature you control. Then if creatures you control have total toughness 40 or greater, each opponent loses half their life, rounded up.”
Basically, your only real aim is to get as much toughness onto the board as possible and then get to your end step with that all intact. We can, of course, try to bolster the effects of this ability, but our main effort will be high toughness above all else. Betor already having seven toughness makes it sturdy and helps us trigger Betor’s first ability, which is a solid starting point.
Weaknesses
Betor’s main weakness is that it doesn’t do much independently or when it enters the battlefield. Attacking with it doesn’t get you much, and you can’t skip to your end step without incurring potential interaction here and there. So, we’ll be looking for ways to stop other players from messing with our turns. A little bit of protection from removal will be ideal, so we’ll be leaning into some solid equipment options like Mithril Coat.
Recommended Archetypes
We’re going to be playing a toughness-matters deck. There’s no specific strategy outside of playing creatures with incredibly high toughness and then blocking attacks using those. There are plenty of cards in the Abzan colors (green, white, and black) that can help us out with this, and on top of that, we’ve got ways of making our creatures stronger with the use of +1/+1 counters as well. This won’t be a fast strategy, but we can turn it into a resilient one.
Key Cards
If you want to put together your very own Betor, Kin to All deck but don’t know where to start, we recommend using these cards:
- Jaws of Defeat
- Canopy Gargantuan
- Felothar the Steadfast
- Doran, the Siege Tower
- Crystal Barricade
- Tree of Perdition
- Bloodletter of Aclazotz
Strategy
So, we want to get as many creatures on board that come with a lot of toughness, and because of a few other cards in the deck, we want them to have low power as well. Jaws of Defeat is a four-mana enchantment and possibly our favorite new card in this kind of deck. The card has an effect where if a creature enters play, target opponent loses life equal to the difference between that creature’s power and its toughness. This works if you’ve got high-power creatures too, but for us, this will mean even something as unassuming as Wall of Blossoms will have an opponent taking four damage.
Felothar the Steadfast is a four-mana Abzan 0/5 that lets your creatures deal damage equal to their toughness, not their power. You can also pay three mana, tap it, and sacrifice a creature to draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature’s toughness, then discard cards equal to the creature’s power. It’s an excellent way to draw cards, and there are several ways to bring creatures back from the graveyard in Abzan.
Doran, the Siege Tower is a three-mana creature that lets your creatures deal damage equal to their toughness. The key thing here is that it’s also true for every creature on the battlefield (including your opponents), which means it can stop anyone playing high-power creatures from getting ahead. Canopy Gargantuan is a monster of a seven-mana 7/7 with flying and ward 2, and it lets you put counters on each creature you control equal to that creature’s toughness. This basically doubles the value of every creature you have in play.
Market Price: $29.61
Market Price: $21.69
Then we’ve got Crystal Barricade, a two-mana 0/4 that gives you hexproof, which is nice and stops all noncombat damage your creatures would be dealt. The Barricade is great against cards like Blasphemous Act but also prevents other effects thanks to you (the player) gaining hexproof. Then there’s Tree of Perdition, a four-mana 0/13 that lets you tap it to swap its toughness with an opponent’s life total — meaning it can easily end up with a toughness of 40 all on its own, but it’s also a fun way to reduce the life of a player playing a lifegain deck.
Our final card is Bloodletter of Aclazotz, a four-mana 2/4 with flying with an effect to force opponents to lose twice as much life if they lose life during your turn. Essentially, this turns Betor’s final ability into an instant kill for everyone else, and it even has a higher toughness than power, so it remains on theme.
Commander
Betor, Kin to All
Market Price:$444.12
Maindeck, 99 cards
Sortsort deckCommander (1)
- 1Betor, Kin to All
Creature (38)
- 1Canopy Gargantuan
- 1Felothar the Steadfast
- 1Doran, the Siege Tower
- 1Crystal Barricade
- 1Tree of Perdition
- 1Bloodletter of Aclazotz
- 1Arbor Adherent
- 1Rampart Architect
- 1Tree of Redemption
- 1Wall of Blossoms
- 1Baldin, Century Herdmaster
- 1Sylvan Caryatid
- 1Wall of Omens
- 1Fecund Greenshell
- 1Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper
- 1Overgrown Battlement
- 1Unhallowed Phalanx
- 1Indomitable Ancients
- 1Sapling of Colfenor
- 1Towering Titan
- 1Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
- 1Crashing Drawbridge
- 1Colfenor, the Last Yew
- 1Nyx-Fleece Ram
- 1Axebane Guardian
- 1Weathered Sentinels
- 1Faeburrow Elder
- 1Beast Whisperer
- 1Essence of Antiquity
- 1Dragonlord Dromoka
- 1MacCready, Lamplight Mayor
- 1Nethroi, Apex of Death
- 1Perimeter Captain
- 1Blight Pile
- 1Wall of Junk
- 1Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa
- 1Shalai, Voice of Plenty
- 1Arboreal Grazer
Sorcery (8)
- 1Rampant Growth
- 1Three Visits
- 1Kodama’s Reach
- 1Eerie Ultimatum
- 1Toxic Deluge
- 1Reunion of the House
- 1Expel the Interlopers
- 1Fell the Mighty
Instant (3)
- 1Heroic Intervention
- 1Teferi’s Protection
- 1Akroma’s Will
Artifact (7)
- 1Mithril Coat
- 1Swiftfoot Boots
- 1Sol Ring
- 1Arcane Signet
- 1Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield
- 1Colfenor’s Urn
- 1Chromatic Lantern
Enchantment (6)
- 1Jaws of Defeat
- 1Assault Formation
- 1Wound Reflection
- 1Behind the Scenes
- 1Brave the Sands
- 1Angelic Chorus
Land (37)
- 1Bojuka Bog
- 1Reliquary Tower
- 1Access Tunnel
- 1Rogue’s Passage
- 1Gavony Township
- 1Temple of the False God
- 1Command Tower
- 1Woodland Cemetery
- 1Temple Garden
- 1Indatha Triome
- 1Sandsteppe Citadel
- 1Overgrown Tomb
- 1Sunpetal Grove
- 1Isolated Chapel
- 1Godless Shrine
- 1Overgrown Farmland
- 1Bountiful Promenade
- 1Undergrowth Stadium
- 1Vault of Champions
- 1Windswept Heath
- 1Verdant Catacombs
- 1Marsh Flats
- 1Caves of Koilos
- 1Llanowar Wastes
- 1Brushland
- 1Myriad Landscape
- 1Evolving Wilds
- 1Terramorphic Expanse
- 3Swamp
- 3Plains
- 3Forest
You’re ready to have the toughest deck around now, but if you want something different, it’d be good if you could get inspiration, right? Well, we’ve got a whole host of Commander Bestiary options to choose from, so start there — or you can sign up for the Commander Bestiary newsletter to receive Magic content straight to your inbox!