Donate is one of the most obscure strategies in all of Magic. At its heart, the idea of winning by giving away your permanents is counter-intuitive. When you pack your deck with cards with downsides, however, you can find some very unconventional routes to victory. Good Commanders for this archetype have been few and far between over the years, unfortunately, which has led to it slumbering in the lower tiers for the most part. With the advent of Avatar’s Iroh, Tea Master, however, this offbeat MTG strategy has a fantastic new legend to lead the charge.
Iroh, Tea Master MTG
As Donate legends go, Iroh, Tea Master is probably the best we’ve ever seen. The current go-to guys for the strategy are Zedruu the Greathearted and Blim, Comedic Genius, but Iroh has a ton of advantages over these established options.
First and foremost, Iroh is just a lot faster than its competitors. It comes down on turn three, and can start donating permanents the very same turn. Since you don’t have to tap or pay any mana for this effect with Iroh, it’s easy to pair it with a good donate target the turn you play it.
Iroh also helps address the problem Donate decks have with maintaining board presence. Giving away your permanents usually results in you having a weaker position than the rest of the pod, but Iroh’s scaling Ally tokens fill that void. You can even lean into this aspect of the card if you want, filling up on fodder token generators to keep building your token army each turn.
As good as Iroh is, it does have a downside in its color identity. Without black, you lose access to many of Blim’s best donate targets, like Demonic Pact and Abyssal Persecutor. You also miss out on some of the great blue tools Zedruu gets to enjoy, like Coveted Falcon and Thought Eater.
That said, Boros still has plenty to offer for Donate decks. Both Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant and Zidane, Tantalus Thief are great recent additions to the archetype that Iroh can run. Many of the really good cards for the deck are colorless, too, such as the backbreaking Steel Golem. Because of this, Iroh’s excellent abilities more than make up for the color trade-off.
Cunning, Caring Combos
Iroh, Tea Master is absolutely fine to play at the head of a general, value-driven Donate deck. Where it really excels compared to its peers, however, is in the combo department. Thanks to its speed, there are several devastating lines it enables.
For example, you can set up the Price of Glory/Sacred Ground combo as early as turn four. Drop Sacred Ground on turn two, Iroh on three, then Price of Glory on four, and you can win the game as soon as play passes to your opponent. You can do this by donating Price of Glory with Iroh, which will let you tap your fourth land on opponents’ turns to destroy it and immediately bring it back. You can then repeat this infinite times for infinite mana, before closing out with Comet Storm or another instant-speed outlet.
Iroh also supports more conventional Donate wins, too. Give away Nine Lives on turn four, for instance, and you can easily knock a player out by destroying it via Shadowspear on turn five. You can do something similar by donating Form of the Dragon to a player, dropping their life to five at the end of the turn so they’re an easy target for burn spells. This isn’t a particularly fast combo in most cases, but red’s ritual effects can easily get you there ahead of schedule.
However you use it, Iroh, Tea Master is a top-tier pickup for Donate decks. It may not make the archetype viable in bracket four, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
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