Legends Legends - Lady Orca
Lady Orca by Sandra Everingham
Welcome back to Legends Legends, our weekly tour through 1994's 55 original legendary creatures. Last week, we covered Angus Mackenzie, and now it's time to cover the Demon that kills him: Lady Orca. This expensive and fragile legend is one of the harder ones to choose as your commander in EDH. Let's take a look at an example Lady Orca Commander deck!
General Thoughts
Lady Orca is a seven-mana 7/4 vanilla creature. She has no abilities, she's expensive, she's fragile, and her creature type (Demon) isn't particularly relevant to her statline. So, what do we do with a seven-power creature that we don't want to play more than once? Scam her back and forth, of course.
This Lady Orca Commander deck's plan is very simple: rush out Orca, Fling her at our foes, then reanimate her with some of the classic Rakdos Scam cards that see a lot of play in Modern. This is an expensive synergy to pull off, so we'll use rituals and sacrificial mana dorks to stick Lady Orca to the field early enough to matter, then do our best to never pay full price for her again. While we work towards that end, we'll use some traditional group slug cards to punish our opponents and make us an unappealing target. Halfway to Voltron, halfway to group slug, this Lady Orca Commander deck is guaranteed to be one of the weirder ones at your pod!
Runnin' Out Orca
First and foremost, we need to acquire the 5{R}{B} we need to cast Lady Orca. We've got a pretty standard mana base and ramp package here. Given there aren't many great options for ramping in Rakdos, classics like Sol Ring, Rakdos Signet, Talisman of Indulgence, and Mind Stone make up our artifact ramp. Notably, we're including Dreamstone Hedron; even at six mana, we can still really use that extra three.
Rituals are one of the best ways to surprise opponents with an explosive turn. No doubt you've already heard of Dark Ritual, but Cabal Ritual, Seething Song, and Infernal Plunge also make appearances. Mana Geyser and Brass's Bounty act as our top-end rituals for when we really need to recast Lady Orca or when we're looking to dump a ton of mana into our Banefire. Finally, Crypt Ghast is just about the best way to double our black mana, minus a Caged Sun or Gauntlet of Power.
Scamming Orca
Once Lady Orca's been cast, we really can't afford to pay the nine mana she'd cost the next time she tries to return from the command zone. Instead, we're running quite a bit of protection and reanimation to keep us from dumping 9+ mana into a vanilla creature that dies immediately. For starters, we're running both Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots; access to one of these is so important to saving Lady Orca that it's worth it to have both, and we'll often be tutoring for one or the other as we prepare to cast Orca.
Malakir Rebirth and similar cards see a lot of play in the Modern Rakdos Scam deck, a deck built around evoking Grief for free and then reanimating it instantly with something like Undying Malice. This is a brutal combo on any creature with an enters-the-battlefield effect, but on Lady Orca it's just a fair way to save our commander.
Should Lady Orca fall in battle (perish the thought), all is not lost. We can recur her back to our hand or the field with a number of reanimation spells. Animate Dead is the best way to get her back, but Young Necromancer and Doomed Necromancer can be used in a pinch. Palace Siege gets the honor of sometimes being played in its Khans mode, but will more often than not be used as our regular recursion to Lady Orca once we begin flinging her.
Finally, I really don't think enough people are running Netherborn Altar. Maybe it's because newer commanders are generally cheaper or include their own built-in protection, but if you're running something like Lady Orca, you'll need some ways to skip the commander tax she'll inevitably catch.
Flinging Orca
Once Lady Orca's on the field, we want to throw her huge power around with impunity. We'll declare her as an attacker as much as possible at first, daring our opponents to destroy our big vanilla creature. What's the worst that could happen?
Well, the worst that can happen is we use Malakir Rebirth and then Fling Orca at that unlucky foe brave and foolish enough to stand in her way. Using one of the power-buffing protection spells, like Fake Your Own Death, results in a little extra damage, too, and Warstorm Surge will deal her power in damage to something again when she re-enters. On a truly successful turn, we can play Orca, give her haste with one of our pairs of boots or Footfall Crater, send her ramming into an opponent to bring their life down, Kazuul's Fury her into that same opponent, and wrap up with the additional life loss they'll take from our enchantments like Wound Reflection or Fiery Emancipation.
Finally, our best play patterns will see us flinging and scamming Lady Orca multiple times per turn with the use of our Past in Flames to pull another use out of our Kazuul's Fury.
Oh, and of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we are, in fact, running the newer Orca, Siege Demon as a little extra insurance that we'll have a big lady to Hail Mary at our opponents.
Laying Siege
Siege warfare revolves around two things: surrounding and waiting out your enemies and launching fireballs over their castle walls to wreak havoc. This Lady Orca deck splits the difference between the two strategies, lining up a punishing defense with enchantments like No Mercy, destroys major threats with Bedevil and Chaos Warp, and shuts down life gain decks with any number of our Strangleholds, Havoc Festivals, or Sulfuric Vortex.
The second half of siege warfare is the whole catapulting great hunks of stone at your opponents. In this deck, that's represented by our alternate win condition: fireballs, baby. Both Banefire and Burn from Within have a high ceiling for total damage output in this deck, and they make excellent late-game bombs when you just need to dump that mana into something else. They're also pretty good at creature removal, in a pinch. Exsanguinate takes the role of a black Fireball that hits all of our opponents at once, too. As a bonus, Chandra's Ignition is both a Fling and a board wipe!
Lady Orca Deck List
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Budget Options
This Lady Orca Commander deck rings up to about $240. That's not too bad for a Commander deck, but still probably more than you'd like to spend all at once. Let's take a look at some budget options.
Demonic Tutor is the most expensive card in this deck, and dropping it for a Diabolic Tutor or even an Increasing Ambition, since we're ramping so much, shouldn't affect the deck too much.
Besides that, there are a number of cards in the $10-20 range that can probably be replaced. Erebos, God of the Dead can be swapped out with his Whip of Erebos, and The Reaver Cleaver could be Rakdos Locket instead to save yourself a buck.
Wrap Up
This Lady Orca Commander deck runs a strategy I rarely see at the table; there just aren't that many seven-mana commanders out there that you want to commit to Flinging.
Without any mechanics built-in, Lady Orca decks can go in almost any direction. I've seen madness builds around her, and Demon kindred decks as well. Obviously, she's in the best colors to play group slug, but where's the fun in that?
What are your thoughts? Is there a reason to build Lady Orca as a Fling deck and not use Orca, Siege Demon? How would you build around Lady Orca? And what Legends Legend should we take on next? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
