Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant | Art by Nereida

Welcome to the Spiderverse! I'm a big Spider-Man fan, so this set is bound to excite me, and one card from the very first batch of previews at Comic-Con caught my attention. That card is Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant.

As most players do, I love drawing cards, and Lyla offers an excuse to build an entire deck around doing just that. It's like eating dessert for dinner! She also enables a mono-blue aggressive deck, something that will always take a table by surprise.

What Does Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant Do?

In a world of text boxes as long as novellas, Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant is refreshingly simple. She puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature whenever we draw a card - and that's all she does. This is the kind of design that has drawn me towards uncommon legends lately: they're efficient and get my imagination working without making me spend five minutes explaining to my opponents what they do.

As a four mana 2/2, Lyla isn't aggressively statted to start out, which pushes us to include better targets for those counters, either evasive creatures or creatures that benefit from having counters on them.

Most of what excites me about Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant is that she gives a powerful direction to mono-blue +1/+1 counters. Blue is the least popular for mono-colored counters on EDHREC, but there are such cool designs in the color, from the blue half of the Simic combine to spicy artifacts to one-off powerhouses that are balanced only by being in a less prominent color for their effects.

Lyla shares a lot of synergies with commanders like Danny PinkDanny Pink and Toothy, Imaginary FriendToothy, Imaginary Friend (both of whom fit great into a Lyla deck as well), and even can draw inspiration from modular decks like Zabaz, the GlimmerwaspZabaz, the Glimmerwasp or Marchesa, the Black RoseMarchesa, the Black Rose for those colorless gems.

Key Cards for Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant

There are several cards in blue that complement Lyla's ability by growing themselves with every card we draw. OneirophageOneirophage and Clinquant SkymageClinquant Skymage are the basic version, letting us double up on our triggers and make some incredibly beefy bodies with evasion.

Nadir KrakenNadir Kraken costs mana to grow, but it also offers the upside of creating TentacleTentacle tokens to go gum up the board or go wide. And nothing beats Chasm SkulkerChasm Skulker and Toothy, Imaginary FriendToothy, Imaginary Friend on rate. They grow just as big as our other threats, but they're a pain in the neck to deal with because killing them gives us tons of value.

We can also run some other cards that can convert +1/+1 counters into cards to keep our engines running. Marketback WalkerMarketback Walker can come down as early as turn two, and can accumulate counters until someone has to deal with it, when it will refund us a huge number of cards.

Ingenious ProdigyIngenious Prodigy can give us an extra card every turn as long as we keep it stocked up with counters. Mindless AutomatonMindless Automaton is a huge force-multiplier in this deck, letting us turn every two draws into three by funneling the counters onto it.

And this isn't the first monocolored deck I've built that runs Etched OracleEtched Oracle. It may start out looking goofy as a 1/1, but its activated ability is ridiculous if we can repeat it.

Blue also has some incredibly powerful designs that fit into any counters deck. Sage of HoursSage of Hours can get out of control very easily, and in this deck it can lead to strings of extra turns that will usually win us the game. The question isn't whether it's good in this deck, but whether that's a play pattern we want.

Simic ManipulatorSimic Manipulator also goes crazy with alternative ways to give it counters, letting us steal a sizeable creature every single turn. Pollywog ProdigyPollywog Prodigy is a great card even if it only ever gets to two or three power, and in this deck it can grow until we're drawing a card for every noncreature spell our opponents play.

If we're going to build our deck around drawing cards, then we need to draw cards. BrainstormBrainstorm and Careful StudyCareful Study each give us multiple triggers for just one mana, and we can include a nice cantrip package to smooth things out with PonderPonder and friends.

Proft's Eidetic MemoryProft's Eidetic Memory can give us even more counters while cantripping itself, and Tolarian WindsTolarian Winds can give us tons of triggers. Finally, Mystic RemoraMystic Remora and Rhystic StudyRhystic Study are classics for a reason, and pull double duty in this deck.

To tie our card draw and our aggressive creatures together, we can also run three cards that cantrip while giving evasion. Shadow RiftShadow Rift, Slip Through SpaceSlip Through Space, and Enter the EnigmaEnter the Enigma are some of my favorite cards to include in combat-based blue decks, as they can have really high upside while also never being bad. No one expects combat tricks in Commander, and that's what makes them great.

Winning the Game With Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant

Our primary game plan is to play like a tempo deck in constructed formats. We need some sort of aggressive clock to put pressure on the table, and then we want to stop them from going bigger than our board. We've got a very low curve full of evasive creatures, and we're running a few cheap CounterspellCounterspells to stay ahead once we establish our strategy.

Any creature can kill an opponent if we put twenty counters on it, but some are better than others. Invisible StalkerInvisible Stalker is a nightmare for our opponents, as it can't be stopped with removal and ignores blockers entirely. Shoreline LooterShoreline Looter and Looter il-KorLooter il-Kor are also great targets for counters as they can sneak through blockers.

Beyond the tempo plan, this deck does get to run some game-ending combos. Benthic BiomancerBenthic Biomancer goes infinite with Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant, letting us loot through our deck and grow the Biomancer as much as we want. All it takes is us drawing a card or adding a counter to start the loop, and Benthic BiomancerBenthic Biomancer even gives us the means to place that counter with its adapt ability.

Once we draw our whole deck (and discard most of it), we can play Agatha's Soul CauldronAgatha's Soul Cauldron and give Benthic BiomancerBenthic Biomancer the activated abilities of either Crystalline CrawlerCrystalline Crawler to make tons of mana or Walking BallistaWalking Ballista to deal tons of damage, which will surely put us in an unlosable situation.

This combo is unique in our deck, but there's another card that approximates it. Danny PinkDanny Pink lets us draw a card whenever the first counter is placed on any of our creatures every turn, which goes crazy with Lyla. We can draw an additional card for each of our creatures, every turn, while also buffing our board. This synergy isn't infinite, but it reminds me of Nadu, Winged WisdomNadu, Winged Wisdom, and that card is rightly banned.

We're running one other infinite loop, which is actually just a combination of three cards which are all great in the deck. Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant goes infinite with a Walking BallistaWalking Ballista enchanted with CuriosityCuriosity. Every card makes a counter, every counter makes a damage, and every damage draws a card.

This combo should take out at least two opponents before we run out of cards to draw, and then we can play Proft's Eidetic MemoryProft's Eidetic Memory to put an extra pile of counters on Walking BallistaWalking Ballista to finish off the table. We'll have to hold priority with every ping once we run out cards in our deck so that we win before CuriosityCuriosity decks us for having gotten too much value.

Lyla, Holographic Assistant Commander Deck List

This deck is a treat to play. It's an aggressive blue deck that can keep up with the table into the late game, it can draw tons of cards and showcase a bunch of weirdo creatures to great effect, and it can combo kill out of nowhere. Lyla, Holographic AssistantLyla, Holographic Assistant herself is very powerful in this shell, but the deck functions without her: drawing cards and playing efficient creatures is just fine on its own without an added layer of synergy.

Like many synergy decks, there are several combinations of cards that make this deck pop off. Luckily for us, we can see enough cards through our card draw that these mini combos will come up more often than not, and every game will be different. Maybe last time it was Mindless AutomatonMindless Automaton plus Agatha's Soul CauldronAgatha's Soul Cauldron, and next time it will be Flux ChannelerFlux Channeler plus Nardole, Resourceful CyborgNardole, Resourceful Cyborg.

The joy of synergy decks is discovering the layers of play that only reveal themselves by drawing different cards every game.

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