Following in the footsteps of the Ghostbusters and Chucky Secret Lairs from last year, Jaws got its own Magic: The Gathering drop announced last Friday. Cue a plethora of ‘jumped the shark’ jibes from the community. All joking aside, this is a pretty interesting MTG Lair, largely due to the mechanically-unique Jaws, Relentless Predator card it contains.
While the Mono-Red color identity here is surprising, Jaws is a very interesting new legend for Commander. Not only is it a huge beater, but it also offers a solid platform for pursuing multiple viable archetypes. It’s still weird to see another classic film icon immortalized in cardboard, but when the flavor and power are this high, it’s much easier to swallow.
Jaws, Relentless Predator MTG
- Mana Value: 3RR
- Type: Legendary Creature – Shark
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Text: Trample, Haste.
- Whenever Jaws deals combat damage to a player, create that many Blood tokens.
Whenever a noncreature artifact is sacrificed or destroyed, Jaws deals 1 damage to each opponent.- Stats: 5/5
There’s a lot to unpack with Jaws, Relentless Predator, and it’s made all the more difficult by its highly unconventional layout for an MTG card. The film poster-style emphasis on keywords is a nice touch, mind you.
First, and perhaps most importantly, Jaws creates Blood tokens equal to the damage it deals when hitting an opponent. Wizards missed a great opportunity to keyword ‘Bloodlink’ here, but I digress. Given the card’s solid 5/5 stats and Trample, it’s easy to imagine getting three to five Blood tokens from this each turn. This makes Jaws the best Blood generator we have currently in terms of raw numbers, with only Olivia’s Attendants and Ivora, Insatiable Heir really coming close. This ability is great on its own, but it works even better when you pump Jaws’s stats via other effects.
The other half of Jaws is its highly aggressive burn ability. Whenever any noncreature artifact is sacrificed or destroyed, it hits each of your opponents for one. This is way more open than most similar effects we’ve seen in the past. Usually, they only care about your own artifacts, like Reckless Fireweaver, or they only care about sacrifice, like Mayhem Devil. Heck, Jaws doesn’t even ask that the artifacts are nontoken, which opens up a huge range of extra options. Naturally, the Blood tokens from the first ability play nicely here, but so do Food, Treasures, and Clues. Since Jaws itself is the source of the damage, you can also get a lot of value out Equipment like Basilisk Collar.
Taken as a package, Jaws is surprisingly versatile. You don’t expect subtlety and options from a Mono-Red Commander, but that’s exactly what you get here.
Blood In The Water
One of the best ways to build Jaws, Relentless Predator as an MTG Commander will be to lean into the Blood theme. You won’t get this much Blood generation anywhere else, never mind in the command zone. For that reason, there’s no better time to see what this humble token type has to offer.
There aren’t actually a huge number of cards that specifically care about Blood, but Arterial Alchemy is a clear standout for Jaws. It makes three Blood itself on entry, and allows you to equip your Blood tokens to buff up Jaws’s power. This, in turn, lets you make more Blood per swing, which lets you push Jaws even further power-wise, eventually leading to a commander damage win.
This stellar mini-strategy aside, building around Blood is mostly about building around discard. Having constant access to cheap rummage effects lets you get a ton of value out of cards like Monument to Endurance and Surly Badgersaur. You can even run fellow Shark Marauding Mako as an early threat.
Even in Mono-Red, there are plenty of ways to build out this strategy with Jaws. You can burn opponents out with Glint-Horn Buccaneer, generate card advantage with Containment Construct, or dump big artifacts like Portal to Phyrexia that you can Goblin Welder back later. If you’re feeling particularly spicy, you can also set up some Underworld Breach lines.
Jaws as a Blood/Discard Commander makes a ton of sense. It’s also the kind of strategy that isn’t super-reliant on its Commander generally, which is a nice plus. Even if your opponents manage to catch Jaws, you’ll likely have enough Blood from the first swing to keep you going for a turn or two.
All-Out Artifact Aggression
If you want to lean more into Jaws’s second ability, there are plenty of options in that sphere, too. Cards that reward you for generating artifacts are nothing new in Magic. As a result, there’s no shortage of ways to turn all that Blood into wins.
For starters, you’ll want more ways to generate artifacts. Jaws itself is great, and you can even push it a bit further by using cards like Aggravated Assault for extra swings. To make the most out of this strategy, however, you’ll need to dive into Treasure. Red has a ton of great ways to create Treasure, from Descent into Avernus (also included in the Jaws Secret Lair) to Spiteful Banditry. Running a Treasure package will help you ramp into explosive plays (or just recast Jaws), while also burning your opponents to boot.
Next, you’ll need some payoffs: creatures like Reckless Fireweaver, Ingenious Artillerist, etc. Ghirapur Aether Grid is also a great option if you want something more resilient but less explosive. These will provide extra damage when your artifacts enter, which Jaws will double up when they leave. Since these cards all deal with increments of one damage, you can even throw in Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might to really speed up the clock on your opponents.
This setup alone will win you games, but you’ll also want some extra synergy pieces as well. Ways to sacrifice artifacts for value are a must, and thankfully, there are a lot of them in Mono-Red. Hedron Detonator offers both damage and ‘card draw,’ while Krark-Clan Ironworks offers a huge mana advantage. You can even run Kuldotha Forgemaster, and tutor out big artifacts as a backup plan.
These are just two ways to build Jaws, but there are likely many more out there for those willing to go fishing. As mechanically-unique Secret Lair cards go, it’s one of the most interesting we’ve seen.
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