Matoya, Archon ElderMatoya, Archon Elder | Art by Luisa J. Preissler

Final Fantasy officially releases tomorrow and brings with it so many new commanders to build around! While there's plenty of heavy hitters drawing everyone's attention, I would like to build around Matoya, Archon ElderMatoya, Archon Elder today for Bracket 2. What MatoyaMatoya lacks in raw power as a mono-blue commander is compensated by her consistent card advantage. This deck tech will explore how to build around her scry/surveil synergies to create a value-packed deck that sees everything coming before it happens.

Whether you prefer top-deck manipulation, amassing swathes of tokens, or drowning your opponents in waves of card advantage, MatoyaMatoya can do it all. Let's see what makes her so potent and how to sculpt a MatoyaMatoya Bracket 2 Commander deck to best exploit her unique ability.

How Does This Matoya, Archon Elder Deck Play?

MatoyaMatoya costs and has just one, simple static ability: "Whenever you scry or surveil, draw a card. (Draw after you scry or surveil.)" That's it. There's no need to worry about tapping her or activating only once a turn. Once she's out, MatoyaMatoya draws you a sweet, sweet card for every instance of scry or surveil your heart desires. This opens the door to some powerful engines, especially since cards that scry or surveil can do so with minimal effort from a player. Effectively, if you try to manipulate the top of your deck in one way or another, you'll be drawing plenty of cards.

The closest comparison to MatoyaMatoya would be Eligeth, Crossroads AugurEligeth, Crossroads Augur, which has the static effect "If you would scry a number of cards, draw that many cards instead." While similar, EligethEligeth costs and only deals with scrying, additionally replacing your scrying with drawing cards. MatoyaMatoya not only requires half as much mana to cast and deals with both scrying and surveilling, but she allows you to keep your scry and surveil effects while drawing you cards as well. EligethEligeth does have the Partner keyword which allows for a more versatile deckbuilding experience through another, non-blue partner commander, but MatoyaMatoya is leaps and bounds superior to EligethEligeth when viewed as the single commander for a mono-blue deck.

In terms of strategy, MatoyaMatoya leans towards control and card advantage. It's a mono-blue deck after all, so the deck primarily deals with threats on the stack. This control is supported by a dense package of scry/surveil enablers and cheap interaction. Rather than aggro-ing fast or stalling until we draw our "win the game" card, the deck wants to out-draw, out-tempo, and ultimately out-maneuver our opponents. MatoyaMatoya rewards patience and enjoys snowballing incremental value into insurmountable advantage.

Key Cards for Matoya, Archon Elder

As you may have guessed, we'll be running plenty of scry and surveil effects. The more, the merrier! Our most reliable sources will be found on enchantments that trigger at least once a turn. While this particular decklist just so happens to run 16-17 creatures, enchantments, and instants each, our enchantments will be our primary scry and surveil engines.

We don't want our enchantments to just scry. It's 2025, after all; our decks should reflect Magic's current power level. Marit Lage's SlumberMarit Lage's Slumber is most notable among these three as this means all 29 Islands we're running will be snow lands. Effectively, this let's us create a landfall trigger to scry 1, then draw once a turn, eventually snowballing (pun intended) into the indomitable Marit LageMarit Lage. We'll also run Retreat to CoralhelmRetreat to Coralhelm to either double our landfall scry capabilities or engage in tap-down shenanigans. Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre StraitAesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait players wish they could have such sweet land plays!

MatoyaMatoya will consistently draw us multiple cards over every turn, so we should use these cards to the best of our ability. Our best non-scry/surveil enchantments will threaten a board presence to turn our card advantage into a game advantage. MatoyaMatoya rewards a patient planner; we're not trying to draw as many cards as possible all at once to create a threatening board that doesn't have haste, then hopes to survive a full round of turns before ending someone's game. A few scries here and a couple of draws there are what will eventually grant us victory.

Our creatures come in a variety of "Whenever you cast a non-creature spell..." or "Whenever you draw your second card each turn..." effects. In short, we want these guys to generate our board for us. The more scrying/surveilling we do, the more creatures we want as a result. This is compounded when our creatures are evasive and therefore threaten our opponents more easily. All of this is primarily achieved on our upkeeps without any additional effort. It's free value!

As awesome as drawing a bunch of cards and getting bonuses for it is, people will of course want to stop us. Fortunately for us, a lot of our answers will continue to enable our antics incidentally. Our counterspells, as well as our bounce spells, should include scrying or surveilling naturally. We'll run some originals, like PongifyPongify/Rapid HybridizationRapid Hybridization, CounterspellCounterspell, AetherizeAetherize, and PropagandaPropaganda, but the majority of our interaction ought to include some form of scrying or surveilling. Otherwise, what's the point of brewing with MatoyaMatoya?

Now, this particular piece of interaction is touchy. As we're manipulating the top of our deck pretty frequently, CounterbalanceCounterbalance becomes a reliable means of protecting our boards from any scary threats. We can manipulate the top of our library to act as a one-sided Chalice of the VoidChalice of the Void whenever and however we deem necessary. However, this is a bit stax-inducing and can ruffle some feathers, especially at Bracket 2 in a deck that wholly seeks to exploit CounterbalanceCounterbalance. Talk with your opponents to ensure that an effect like this is not too suppressive or unfun.

Our snow lands are very fun alongside our landfall enchantments, but what if our lands could scry/surveil on their own? Since we're in mono-blue, we don't have to worry too much about running colorless, non-basic lands. Our 29 snow islands ought to be plenty of basics, especially with how many cards we intend on drawing, so we should build our lands around maximizing our scrying and surveilling abilities.

Some interesting cards in particular can trigger MatoyaMatoya multiple times at once, compounding the value we want to draw (pun intended, again) from our deck. Being able to pay to scry 1, then scry 2, then scry 3, then draw a card three times with Cryptic AnnelidCryptic Annelid is a very satisfying use of mana. If this isn't enough, MatoyaMatoya being a Warlock allows Mentor's GuidanceMentor's Guidance to be copied and allow us to pay to scry 1, draw, draw, scry 1, draw, and draw again. There can never be too much draw for us. Never!

Seriously. Draw as Much as Possible

We're mono-blue, of course we have to try and win some other way outside of bringing life totals to zero. We're in Bracket 2, meaning no fancy Thassa's OracleThassa's Oracle (plus, that's boring). We will instead run the original Lab ManLab Man alongside Lab Man JaceLab Man Jace. Personally, I've never played a TriskaidekaphileTriskaidekaphile at all, but with so much card draw it seems to be very comfortable here.

As if drawing our decks weren't enough, we're also turning our card draw into mill! This isn't as effective as a mill-themed deck having the ability to mill tens and tens of cards from everyone all at once, but that's too fast for this deck anyways. Again, slow and steady. Just as we intend to peck away at life totals from consistent draws, we'll additionally peck away at our opponents' libraries one draw at a time.

Lastly, we'll also run a Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler as an extra means of converting card draw into game presence.

Final Thoughts on Matoya

Matoya may not be flashy, but she's efficient, flexible, and consistent. I built this deck with the intention of touching upon the mythical spirit of a Commander precon, meaning that while MatoyaMatoya is built to win one way or another, the deck is comfortable with players deconstructing aspects they don't like and throwing in their own upgrades. There's many ways someone can build MatoyaMatoya, and I hope that this deck tech inspires you to scry or surveil as Richard Garfield intended... or would have intended if he authored scrying and surveilling. Happy drawing!

Matoya, Archon Elder Commander Deck List