Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek | Art by Oriana Menendez 

Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it's going to tell one kind of story, only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game.

Last time, we built a deck helmed by Quintorius, History ChaserQuintorius, History Chaser from Secrets of Strixhaven Commander that was simply Spiritless. It was an interesting anti-typal deck that looked to repeatedly put cards like Squee, Goblin NabobSquee, Goblin Nabob and Unquenchable FuryUnquenchable Fury into our graveyard only to pull them back out again and trigger Quint and similar effects like On Wings of GoldOn Wings of Gold again and again.

This week we're taking a look the recently spoiled Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek (our third mono-green list on the series) from the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set to see what sort of shenanigans we can get up to with a mana dork as our commander.

How Does Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek Work?

Mona Lisa reads like a rather innocuous commander: She's a 1/3 with reach for that taps to make mana. You might think she was a legendary, but otherwise worse, version of Undercellar MyconidUndercellar Myconid if she didn't have the phrase "where X is Mona Lisa's power" at the end. And that's precisely where her power comes from.

By boosting Mona Lisa's power with something like Scale UpScale Up or Become ImmenseBecome Immense, she can suddenly tap for a lot more mana. Combine that with notorious combo piece Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle, and Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek is suddenly able to generate infinite colored mana. As long as her power is at least four, you'll net one mana each time you tap her. Umbral Mantle will even give her an additional two power every time you untap her too.

It's unsurprising to see only a few deck lists available on her EDHREC page. That's far too few to say there's an "established" build for her which we can put our own twist on, and comboing her with Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle seems pretty straightforward to me.

The real twist comes in what we're going to do with all that mana Mona Lisa generates: we're going to burn our opponents out in mono-green.

Doing the Twist

That's right, we're taking the classic Burn archetype, notoriously associated with red and hard to pull off in Commander, and porting it over to mono-green.

Throughout Magic's history, green has gotten a handful of odd "burn" spells that typically damage all creatures with flying and all players. HurricaneHurricane is the classic example, but there are quite a few similar effects, like Borrowing the East WindBorrowing the East Wind and Squall LineSquall Line, that we can add to our list.

Rounding our deck out with the newly-unbanned BiorhythmBiorhythm and infinite mana sinks like Finale of DevastationFinale of Devastation gives us quite a few ways to close out the game.

Of course, we'll need other ways to generate a bunch of mana besides Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle, so we've got a ton of mana dorks, like Nyxbloom AncientNyxbloom Ancient, Karametra's AcolyteKarametra's Acolyte, plus Gaea's CradleGaea's Cradle as one of our Game Changers. This deck is looking to combo early, so we're fine powering up into the Bracket 4 space to get the deck to execute its game plan reliably.

We can quickly churn through our deck with Beast WhispererBeast Whisperer, Glimpse of NatureGlimpse of Nature, and other green card draw to help us quickly find the pieces we need that also synergize with our creature-dense deck. A lot of our card draw also cares about the power and toughness of our creatures too.

Lastly, we'll run a density of untap effects like Quirion RangerQuirion Ranger and Formidable SpeakerFormidable Speaker that help us get more activations out of Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek or Circle of Dreams DruidCircle of Dreams Druid.

Overall, we ended up with a deck that starts out looking like an Elves deck only to finish the game like a Burn deck. Sounds like a blast!

Buffing Mona Lisa

Buffing our commander is going to be one of the best ways for us to make a ton of mana early on, which will allow us to accelerate our game plan and do some degenerate green things. The best ways to do this revolve around us casting Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek on turn one or two using our fast mana and ramp pieces, then buffing Mona Lisa with something like Scale UpScale Up or InvigorateInvigorate that can net us more mana than they cost.

Primal MightPrimal Might is potentially the most busted way for us to buff Mona Lisa's power, provided we have ways in play to untap her. Pouring a bunch of mana into Primal Might and then being able to untap Mona Lisa twice can easily net us dozens of mana that we can use to push for a win and potentially remove another threat in the process.

While it's certainly less explosive than some of the other pump spells we're running, Defiler of VigorDefiler of Vigor will add a +1/+1 counter to all of our creatures whenever we cast a green permanent spell. It also doubles as a cost reducer by shaving off the cost of our green permanent spells in exchange for two life. It's rather expensive, but an incredibly powerful effect if we can land Defiler early in the game.

Finale of DevastationFinale of Devastation also offers us a way to buff Mona Lisa and the rest of our team in addition to being a tutor. Most of the time, we won't want to cast Finale early in the game unless it's finding us another combo piece like Ashaya, Soul of the WildAshaya, Soul of the Wild or Quirion RangerQuirion Ranger.

Since Finale is both a tutor and a backup win condition, we'll want to save it for the right moment.

Making All the Mana

Once we've gotten Mona Lisa's power up, we'll want to untap her as many times as we can in a single turn to maximize the amount of mana she makes. Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle does it all for us since it both untaps her and buffs her at the same time, quickly turning into an infinite mana combo. We'll need to be careful about running this combo out too early though since Umbral Mantle has quite the reputation as a combo piece.

Seedborn MuseSeedborn Muse also makes the list and lets us activate Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek once on each player's turn. It's not the strongest untapper in the deck though since we'd rather activate her multiple times on our own turn to generate a lot of mana versus spreading it out over multiple turns.

Boon of BoseijuBoon of Boseiju and VitalizeVitalize can untap Mona Lisa for us at instant speed, and Boon of Boseiju also buffs her. These give us a great way to get an extra Mona Lisa activation in response to an opponent's removal spell too, preventing us from getting blown out on occasion.

Formidable SpeakerFormidable Speaker also helps us here, in addition to being a creature tutor. While it can't untap Mona Lisa the turn we cast Formidable Speaker, it's not the sort of creature that our opponents are going to want to spend removal on, so we can feel fairly certain we'll untap with the Speaker still around.

These untapping effects are great in isolation, but when we have more than one of them out we'll be able to generate a bananas amount of mana.

Let's Talk Combos

We have the ability to generate infinite mana as soon as turn one in this deck, but that's vary rarely going to be the route we want to go. Holding off on getting Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek and Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle until we have the highest life total or can knock out the strongest opponent is probably the best way for us to proceed with this combo.

If we can cast our commander, Umbral Mantle, and Concordant CrossroadsConcordant Crossroads in the same turn, we can even combo from seemingly nowhere provided we have enough mana to do so and activate Umbral Mantle the first time or buff Mona Lisa first. We'll need at least one payoff, like Squall LineSquall Line or Finale of DevastationFinale of Devastation, before we decide to go for a win this way though.

Another neat combo in the deck is Ashaya, Soul of the WildAshaya, Soul of the Wild plus one of two untappers: Argothian ElderArgothian Elder or Ley WeaverLey Weaver. Since Ashaya turns all of our creatures into lands, Argothian Elder and Ley Weaver can then untap themselves and any other mana-generating creature we want, like Mona Lisa, netting us infinite mana in the process.

We can do something very similar with Ashaya, Quirion RangerQuirion Ranger, and any creature that makes two or more mana. Since Ashaya makes Quirion Ranger a land, it can return itself to our hand to untap a mana dork that makes two or more mana. We can then play a fresh Ranger for only and repeat the process, netting extra mana every time.

There are a ton of ways to make a ton, but not infinite, mana in the deck too, so make sure to take the time to think through all your potential lines before going for the win.

Interacting as a Mono-Green Deck

Interaction is frequently the Achilles' heel of mono-green decks like this. Since we don't have access to blue, we're unable to counter opponents' win attempts or protect our own. We're also missing the Grand AbolisherGrand Abolisher effects white has access to, and while we could pack our deck with effects like Allosaurus ShepherdAllosaurus Shepherd or Chimil, the Inner SunChimil, the Inner Sun, finding room in a list like this is tough enough as is.

Veil of SummerVeil of Summer and Autumn's VeilAutumn's Veil are two powerful instants we have access to that function like a bad SilenceSilence that only stops blue and black spells. We're running them over something like Defense GridDefense Grid, but that could be wrong. Ultimately, only time and playtesting will tell which of these effects is best for Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek.

Archdruid's CharmArchdruid's Charm can be a tutor, a fight spell, or a NaturalizeNaturalize effect depending on what we need. The fact that it can put a Gaea's CradleGaea's Cradle onto the battlefield or tutor up a creature like Ashaya, Soul of the WildAshaya, Soul of the Wild gives us the sort of flexibility this deck needs. Since we're monocolored the three colored pips won't be much of an issue either.

Don't sleep on Apex AltisaurApex Altisaur either. The way enrage is worded, we can stop fighting after strategically picking off our opponents' best creatures. We can also save the largest threat for last, ensuring that the Altisaur takes out a bunch of lower value creatures and then a must-kill Edgar MarkovEdgar Markov or other powerful commander.

The interaction slots in this deck are a little pinched, but the flexibility of the pieces we are running gives us some extra reach and ways to protect our combo.

Winning the Game with Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek

Since we're aiming for Bracket 4 with this week's list, we're less reliant on combat damage than a typical Plot Twist deck. Instead, we have a variety of ways to "burn" our opponents out using the plethora of mana we can make as our primary win condition, with the ability to attack for lethal as a backup option.

Once we've generated infinite mana, or just a whole bunch of it, with Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek, we can pump it all into HurricaneHurricane, Borrowing the East WindBorrowing the East Wind, or Squall LineSquall Line to knock out our opponents. While they're more expensive to activate, SquallmongerSquallmonger and Whirling CatapultWhirling Catapult give us the ability to spread the damage out over multiple turns if we need to. Plus, we can activate them at instant speed too.

The recently unbanned BiorhythmBiorhythm was one of the first cards that made this week's list. Since we're playing so many creatures, we'll often end up with a higher life total than our opponents and can finish them off with a SquallmongerSquallmonger activation or combat damage afterwards. It's a great way to close out the game if we're able to generate enough mana to finish off an opponent with a HurricaneHurricane.

Last but not least is Finale of DevastationFinale of Devastation, which is a piece of tech we're borrowing from cEDH lists like Kinnan, Bonder ProdigyKinnan, Bonder Prodigy. When we have infinite mana, casting Finale grabs the best creature from our deck or graveyard, buffs our team, and gives them all haste. Notably it doesn't give our creatures trample, but we have a few ways to do that or go wide enough to get around our opponents' blockers.

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

And now for the best part of the week, where we look at weird cards that came up in various Scryfall searches while building this week's deck list:

The card I thought long and hard about adding to this week's list was Malachite TalismanMalachite Talisman. There's a strong chance that it's just a bad card (or rather, part of a cycle of bad cards), but it's a repeatable way that we can untap Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek for .

If she has 5+ power, say after casting a Scale UpScale Up, then we should be able to reliably untap her every time we cast a spell. Combine that with a Glimpse of NatureGlimpse of Nature or Soul of the HarvestSoul of the Harvest in play and we'll have a nice value engine going. If you're going to build your own Mona Lisa list, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Malachite Talisman if you end up playing it.

Great Oak GuardianGreat Oak Guardian is a fantastic combat trick that I run in my own Mono-Green Yeva list to great effect. Sometimes it's a way to buff our attackers and give them "vigilance," other times it's a way to surprise an opponent who went in for lethal damage. In this deck, it's also a way to buff our commander to make even more mana and untap our other mana dorks too, offering us a ton of flexibility in one card.

It didn't make the final deck list, but we've used Angel's TrumpetAngel's Trumpet before on Plot Twist (way back in Plot Twist #3 and more recently in #36) since it's a rather harmless effect if we're planning to tap our creatures anyways while also providing a way that can chip away at our opponents' life totals and encourage combat.

It's the sort of card that can do just enough damage to our opponents so we have the highest life total and can win with a HurricaneHurricane-style effect. If you're looking to power this deck down to Bracket 3, it's certainly a card to take a look at adding in.

Last but not least is Silverback ElderSilverback Elder. Given the density of mana dorks and ramp in our deck list, we can reasonably expect to cast this on turn three and potentially even trigger it too. It can help us ramp even further, act as interaction, and even gain us life. We'll use all three of its triggered abilities in this week's deck, and it's absolutely worth considering for your other mono-green lists too.

Mona Lisa, Science Geek Commander Deck List

Here's the full deck list for you to peruse:

Roll the Credits

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring Mona Lisa, Science GeekMona Lisa, Science Geek. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my deck lists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final list.

You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I've been actively updating a lot of my lists recently and playing as many games as I can get in with my Akiri / Keskit Artifact Tokens and Colorless Combo lists.

For you cEDH enjoyers out there, I also recently dove head-on into a turbo RogSi list that's teaching me the meaning of mulliganing aggressively.

Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.