This is the fourth Profile in the Pilot Archetype series, where I discuss four major archetypes I have identified, across two specific questions:

1. How aggressive is your threat assessment?

This question aims to understand not the quality of a player’s threat assessment, which is more closely tied to their experience with that skill, but rather how a player responds to threats. Are players proactive in their threat assessment, targeting certain decks, commanders, and playstyles, or are they reactive, targeting only problematic permanents, varying how quickly they respond?

2. How flexible are your card choices?

This question aims to understand whether you pick more synergistic or functional cards. This is not a question necessarily about the cards themselves, although that certainly plays a factor, but more about what the pilot prioritizes.

These two questions, together, provide a spectrum of information that can be understood as archetypes. The four major archetypes that I have mapped out are as follows:

• Assassin

• Opportunist

• Snowballer

• Field General

I believe they can be mapped out across quadrants, like so:

The Snowballer is a pilot with targeted threat assessment and makes card choices that cover a wide variety of functions.

When asked, “How aggressive is your threat assessment?”, the Snowballer will likely answer something like “I only target whatever is in my way.” The Snowballer wants to build value, build a board presence, and overwhelm their opponents. Their threat assessment is targeted in a way that allows them to break through hate bears, Stax effects, or tax effects that might slow them down. When asked “How flexible are your card choices?”, the Snowballer will demonstrate how their deck focuses on building a specific resource. The resource in question is usually creature tokens, some form of ramp, or some form of draw, or, in the stronger cases, multiple of these at once.

How does the Snowballer differ from the Assassin?

Snowballers and Assassins share active targeted threat assessment, so a table with both of these players might feel like it's overpoliced. Any power piece threatening to either player is quickly removed, especially if both players agree on what the threat is. But when an Assassin and Snowballer throw down against each other, their tactics differ. The Snowballer is looking to overwhelm where the Assassin is looking to be more precise and efficient, so even if they have fewer resources, the Assassin can take down Snowballers if they are able to properly time their plays BEFORE the Snowballer gets going.

How does the Snowballer differ from the Opportunist?

As I mentioned in the last post, Snowballers and Opportunists share the “robber” role of cops and robbers. They're lookin to get away with a crime, but where an Opportunity is looking for a moment to launch their attempt to win, the Snowballer is taking whatever they can get away with. This also means that you can leave an Opportunist alone, but doing that to a Snowballer can be a deadly mistake.

That wraps up my initial profile assessment for commander deck pilots. Today is my birthday, so next week I'll just be sending a card review on both Monday and Friday. After that, I'll be reviewing a few decks in my Meta that I think are really fun.

Bonus Card Review: Banner of Kinship

When I first saw this card in the wild, I was surprised that such a great card could be featured in Bloomburrow and not talked about more. Then I realized that despite the cute art, this card was a Foundations release!

Banner of Kinship might look similar to Coat of Arms, but is much better and a cheaper option for casuals. Banner of Kinship is not only asymmetrical, meaning players sharing your creature type don't get benefits, but is also a counter - powered artifact. This makes any typal synergy with Proliferate much more powerful, as you can play the Banner when you have less creatures of your preferred type and power it up over time.