<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant" href="#" target="_blank">Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | art by Yumeko)</h6>
<p>Hello, and welcome back to <em>The Monolith</em>, the series in which I, your intrepid host, try to get the world of Commander players to build more mono-colored decks.</p>
<p>With the dust of <em>Tarkir: Dragonstorm </em>beginning to settle, we can start to look ahead at upcoming sets and theory craft around all the previews we've been shown way, way, way too early. Of all the commanders revealed so far from <em><a href="https://edhrec.com/sets/fin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Final Fantasy</a></em>, there are only two cards that are actual, factual mono. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zell Dincht" href="#" target="_blank">Zell Dincht</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> seems like an interesting <em>Landfall</em>-based, mono-red commander, which we might tackle in a later article. Seems like there's some combo potential there for sure.</p>
<p>But for this edition of <em>The Monolith </em>we're going to build around something a bit more... mean. It's <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant" href="#" target="_blank">Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant"></div></div>
<h2>Gifts Unwanted</h2>
<p>For the stunningly cheap cost of a single <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-w" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, we get a 1/2 Moogle with lifelink, and it's Stiltzkin's activated ability that we'll be building around in this deck. For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-2" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>, <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-tap" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> we can have one of our opponents assume control of another target permanent we control. Once they get it, we get to draw a card. Kind of like us receiving payment; we are a merchant, after all.</p>
<p>But for this little market stall we'll be running, we're not exactly aiming to come off as a reputable seller. In fact, we'll be sending our opponents some defective wares on purpose.</p>
<h2>Damaged Goods</h2>
<p>That's right! Today we're building a <a href="https://edhrec.com/tags/donate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donate deck</a> all about giving our opponents cards that you wouldn't want under your control. This is traditionally a deck you'd see with some <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> in it to get access to all the nasty "deal with the devil" type effects of that color that we could force into the hands of other players.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Harmless Offering"></div></div>
<p>There's definitely other color combos that can make it work, and Jeskai(<span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-w" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-u" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>) commander <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zedruu the Greathearted" href="#" target="_blank">Zedruu the Greathearted</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is one of the more popular in this archetype, but in mono-white, we're going to need to rifle through the basement of <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> to find some decent targets for our ability, and that, of course, is half the fun of these articles!</p>
<h3>The Archetypal Gift</h3>
<p>There's already quite a few cards that exist in <em>Magic's </em>long history that play by "gifting" things to your opponent's control. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Akroan Horse" href="#" target="_blank">Akroan Horse</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, for example, is a classic card from the original <em>Theros</em> block that might seem terrible to the untrained eye.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Akroan Horse"></div></div>
<p>"A creature I have to give to my opponent? What's the point of that?" The point of course is that the card is a trap that slowly fills your own board with 1/1 tokens as your enemy only gets a measly 0/4 defender.</p>
<p>But there's plenty more where that came from. There's some really fun cursed object style cards that we can very much put into today's deck that fit the theme perfectly.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jinxed Idol"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jinxed Choker"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jinxed Ring"></div></div>
<p>The jinxed cards will be thrown around the table like a hot potato whenever one of our opponents wants to avoid the effect. Normally we'd be a very valid target to take the things back. But with our commander we can just have them leave our control before the trigger goes off, making us a waste of an activation for our competitors.</p>
<p>A handful of artifacts like this in the deck will allow us to sit back and watch the chaos unfold as our opponents argue among themselves over who should take control of the nasty thing next.</p>
<h2>Like a Hole in the Head</h2>
<p>But the true horrors of cards we can force onto our opponents' boards come in the form of things they can't just give away whenever they like. These things will be a constant headache for them. And hopefully, they'll be enough of a drawback that we can potentially win the game whilst our opponents suffer.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Archfiend of the Dross"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Evil Eye of Urborg"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ebon Drake"></div></div>
<p>The reason we normally want to be running black in a deck like this is we get access to cards that are intended to give you a statistical advantage in the short term with under-costed stats and abilities, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archfiend of the Dross" href="#" target="_blank">Archfiend of the Dross</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. But after a while, they become more of a problem than a boon.</p>
<p>We don't have a huge amount of obvious cards to draw from that fill this archetype in mono-white. And even in general, you need to look at some cards that literally no one plays to find a good selection of cards that fill this niche. Because the cost they come with usually makes them pretty unplayable in standard decks.</p>
<h3>A Great Example of a Bad Card</h3>
<p>An absolute must-include in this deck will be something we can steal from the aforementioned Zedruu lists. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nine Lives" href="#" target="_blank">Nine Lives</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is an enchantment that can prevent up to nine instances of damage for its controller. When the ninth source of damage is stopped, and Nine Lives receives its ninth counter, you exile it.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nine Lives"></div></div>
<p>When Nine Lives leaves the battlefield, its controller loses the game. This honestly isn't a great card on its own, maybe made a little better by a deck that can easily remove counters from its permanents. But now we can gain almost its full benefit and then just as we're about to take a ninth chunk of damage, send it over to an opponent of our choice to lose the game instead!</p>
<p>Not to mention that the card itself has hexproof, so removing it will be very difficult for our opponents, and if they attempt to board wipe all enchantments, you can hoist it onto someone else in response and have them suffer the consequences. If you're feeling petty, probably the board wiper.</p>
<h2>What the Hell Am I Supposed to Do With This?</h2>
<p>Don't worry, the cards we can gift will get far weirder and far more niche. Most white cards don't give you downsides apart from on themselves, so we'll need to be creative.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Enduring Renewal"></div></div>
<p>For example, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Enduring Renewal" href="#" target="_blank">Enduring Renewal</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is what I would call "a pretty bad way to recur your creatures." For <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-2" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-w" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-w" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> we get the stunning ability of putting any creatures we control that die back into our hand, which ain't bad at all.</p>
<p>The cost, however, is that we not only have to play with our entire hand revealed, we also get a very wacky draw effect. Now, whenever we would draw a card, we instead have to reveal the top card of our library. If it's a creature card, we have to put it into the bin instead.</p>
<p>Wow, that's bad. Unless someone has built a very specific deck to utilize this strange effect, this is going to be a huge pain for our opponents. Although it would go pretty hard in our <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck we built in a <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/mono-white-aristocrats-with-anafenza-unyielding-lineage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previous article</a>.</p>
<h3>How About Some Fetching Headwear?</h3>
<p>Our opponents' heads are looking a little cold; perhaps we could help them out with a lovely new hat. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mindstorm Crown" href="#" target="_blank">Mindstorm Crown</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will do some annoying chip damage over the course of the game - best placed on a player that's taken a lot of damage early on. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Crown of Doom" href="#" target="_blank">Crown of Doom</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> however will act like an <em>Innistrad </em>style curse that our opponents will be throwing around like our aforementioned jinxed collection.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Grafted Skullcap"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mindstorm Crown"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Crown of Doom"></div></div>
<p>The absolute worst of the bunch has to be <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grafted Skullcap" href="#" target="_blank">Grafted Skullcap</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, though. You can hear the finger of the monkey's paw curling as a player said, "I need some more card draw." Here you go, now you draw two every turn! And you also discard your entire hand on your end step...</p>
<h3>Who Needs Creatures Anyway?</h3>
<p>It was bad enough that we made one of our opponents never draw creature cards again. At least they get to replay the ones they lose. This next target is going to be even more screwed over, though.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Steel Golem"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Grid Monitor"></div></div>
<p>Courtesy of some very ugly artifact creatures, these lovely items will stop your players from being able to cast creature spells indefinitely! What the hell! I'm sure there's plenty of decks out there that wouldn't be too bothered by this, but you'd be hard pressed to find a deck that doesn't want to play a single creature in a turn - including their commander, by the way.</p>
<h3>Artifacts Are Overrated</h3>
<p>Is someone playing a lot of artifact cards? What if they had to sacrifice one every single turn? <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Rust Elemental" href="#" target="_blank">Rust Elemental</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will see to that.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rust Elemental"></div></div>
<p>Even better though is when we pop one of these guys onto the board of a player who isn't playing any artifacts. Enjoy losing a tenth of your life every turn, and now you don't even get to attack with the creature we gave you...</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lich&#039;s Tomb"></div></div>
<p>If your opponent is upset about having to take that much damage, you could always offer them an alternative with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lich&#039;s Tomb" href="#" target="_blank">Lich&#039;s Tomb</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. What a wonderful gift! Now you won't lose the game if you have zero or less life - except you'll be sacrificing a permanent for every single point of damage you would take from now on. And that's permanent by the way, not <em>nonland</em> permanent.</p>
<p>Be sure to gift this just as an opponent is about to eat a big chunk of damage. We don't want them to sacrifice the Tomb right away after a measly one or two damage.</p>
<h3>A Secret Burn Deck?</h3>
<p>White isn't exactly know for being able to play direct damage against players. I'm sure there's strange old cards out there that I'm not aware of that'll do it, but this special gift allows us to do something similar.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bronze Bombshell"></div></div>
<p>Who designed this card? This is so bizarre. They're making these in <em>Ravnica</em>? Man, old <em>Magic</em> is weird.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mishra&#039;s War Machine"></div></div>
<p>Speaking of old <em>Magic, </em>if we want our opponents to take some damage, why not gift them this terrible old contraption?</p>
<h2>Does This Business Have Legs?</h2>
<p>This was truly one of the strangest decks I've theory-crafted here on <em>The Monolith. </em>Usually when you build these odd contraptions, out of color identity and pushing the boundaries, you at least find a few cards that seem like slam dunks. And whilst there's certainly a couple of options for <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant" href="#" target="_blank">Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, he does seem like he's going to stay a pretty niche commander.</p>
<p>If you were building this cursed collection of curiosities, what strange old cards would you be running? I'd love to know down in the comments below! But whilst you're working on those, I'll see you on the next edition of <em>The Monolith</em>, your home for strange and wonderful mono-colored decks!</p>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="JP0YYgCeJp"><p><a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/mono-white-aristocrats-with-anafenza-unyielding-lineage/">Mono-White Aristocrats with Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage</a></p></blockquote>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden;" title="&#8220;Mono-White Aristocrats with Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage&#8221; &#8212; EDHREC" src="https://edhrec.com/articles/mono-white-aristocrats-with-anafenza-unyielding-lineage/embed/#?secret=QTDZUvaZvD#?secret=JP0YYgCeJp" data-secret="JP0YYgCeJp" width="500" height="282" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></p>
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="q9sUF64CSk"><p><a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/mechanical-memories-a-history-of-gifting/">Mechanical Memories - A History of Gifting</a></p></blockquote>
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Stiltzkin, Moogle Merchant Deck Building Spotlight

<h6 style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://scryfall.com/card/sld/1755/saw-in-half">Saw in Half</a> |Art by <a href="https://www.artstation.com/maniaks">Slawomir Maniak</a></h6>
<h6 style="text-align: right;"></h6>
<h1>A Deadly Distraction</h1>
<p>I'm sure the hypes and vibes are everywhere right now. <em>Tarkir: Dragonstorm</em> just released a few days ago, and everyone's having a blast! In fairness, I am, too. As a precon connoisseur, <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/temur-roar-precon-guide-tarkir-dragonstorm">I cannot get over how well built those precons are</a>. Why, I got the set of them with no higher than five upgrades each sleeved up and ready.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, tragedy had to strike and I fell ill, but I'm coming out of it as I'm writing this article. That being said, I'm looking forward to getting some games in with them and enjoying them before that massive meteorite known as <em>Final Fantasy</em> hits shelves. I'm trying really hard to distract myself from it.</p>
<p>Oh, but what's this? Another distraction? That's right.</p>
<h1>April Pools! ...Or is it?</h1>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Deadpool, Trading Card"></div></div>
<p>Well, well. I guess Tarkir was not the only talk of the town after all. We had our sixth <em>Marvel</em>-themed <em>Secret Lair Drop</em> in Deadpool, the big bad merc who just loves to break the fourth wall. Does he? Let's find out together.</p>
<p>Deadpool was originally an antagonist of the X-Force and the New Mutants but has evolved over time into an anti-hero character, where he enjoys an incredible amount of popularity, even in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe, for those who don't know).</p>
<p>In addition, he comes with a regeneration factor alongside a mastery for close combat (including swords and martial arts). Deadpool also boasts superhuman strength, speed, stamina, and reflexes among other things. But, let's face it, his greatest superpower is breaking the fourth wall, but I'm getting ahead of myself.</p>
<p>His card could very well be the most complicated card I've had to work with for an article. For starters, his textbox-swapping ability is seen on only one other card, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Exchange of Words" href="#" target="_blank">Exchange of Words</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, which is surprisingly legal. Consequently, he's going to be a rules nightmare for the uninitiated.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the other abilities rarely matter to you; that's for your opponents to worry about instead. Unless, somehow, Deadpool failed to switch textboxes. All this raises the question: how do we get him to work?</p>
<h1>Draw Me Like One of Your Scam Artists</h1>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Flamerush Rider"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Master, Multiplied"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Saw in Half"></div></div>
<p>Firstly, it's worth noting that Deadpool won't work once you switch the textboxes. Think of him as a clone effect with an extra twist. When I started to make a list, my first attempt was to build it like one of those infamous Scam decks from 60-card formats, but the <em>UB</em> card pool was not in my favor. Then, it hit me eventually: what if I copied Deadpool?</p>
<p>The selection there isn't much, but it'll get us going. Effects like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Twinflame" href="#" target="_blank">Twinflame</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (reskinned as Friends to the End; 82978 decks) and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Flamerush Rider" href="#" target="_blank">Flamerush Rider</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (26,976 decks) create temporary copies of Deadpool, so you'll get more chances to steal some textboxes.</p>
<p>The tokens made will be legendary, so they will be sacrificed as part of state-based effects. However, that's not before the text swap happens, so you're essentially "eliminating" a threat in an unorthodox way.</p>
<p>You can also <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Saw in Half" href="#" target="_blank">Saw in Half</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (91,161 decks) your own Deadpool, so you can text-swap two creatures for the price of three mana.</p>
<p>That said, the best card in the deck is easily <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Master, Multiplied" href="#" target="_blank">The Master, Multiplied</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (21,148 decks). The card spiked in price for a reason, after all. The "legend rule" no longer applies to the Deadpool tokens you create, so they're around forever, and they'll have myriad, ensuring you create even more tokens and become a real headache to your opponents.</p>
<p>Consequently, you likely will have swapped the textboxes to get that effect, so you'd have to get rid of the Deadpooled Master somehow.</p>
<p>Even if you don't have him, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blade of Selves" href="#" target="_blank">Blade of Selves</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (84,636 decks) does a good impression, for a whopping nine mana. If you can pay that much and protect both Deadpool and the Equipment, you're off to the races.</p>
<h1>A Thrilling Encore</h1>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Harmless Offering"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Too Greedily, Too Deep"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Incarnation Technique"></div></div>
<p>With a small card selection for making copies of Deadpool, I had to turn to some grave means: we're going to reanimate Deadpool over and over again.</p>
<p>Most importantly, if Deadpool were to kick the bucket, send him to the graveyard (don't worry if someone <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bojuka Bog" href="#" target="_blank">Bojuka Bog</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>s you; you're still able to send him back into the command zone to cast again), then use a reanimation spell to get him back.</p>
<p>You can also do this to any creature you Deadpooled, because it'll have its original textbox back. Failing that, you can always use <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Harmless Offering" href="#" target="_blank">Harmless Offering</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (12,387 decks) to send it to an opponent.</p>
<p>Moreover, we've got a good selection of reanimation spells, from <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Living Death" href="#" target="_blank">Living Death</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (155,419 decks) to the lowly <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Reanimate" href="#" target="_blank">Reanimate</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (484,613 decks).</p>
<p>Secondly, we've also got access to some reanimation spells unique to <em>UB</em>. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Too Greedily, Too Deep" href="#" target="_blank">Too Greedily, Too Deep</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (15,420 decks) wipes the board while bringing something back, clearing the way for an attack. If you can connect with Deadpool, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Restart Sequence" href="#" target="_blank">Restart Sequence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (17,997 decks) can be cast for half off its original cost.</p>
<p>Otherwise, four mana isn't too shabby. Some others from the original IP include <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Incarnation Technique" href="#" target="_blank">Incarnation Technique</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> [reskinned as Escape Containment (31,814 decks)], which fills our graveyard and reanimates a creature, and, if you take advantage of the demonstrate ability, we can do it again.</p>
<p>In addition, don't worry if your opponents don't have anything worth text-swapping because we can do it to our own creatures, too. That said, Deadpool should be the number one reanimation target. If there's nothing worth copying, feel free to bring out some other beater and hammer your opponents that way.</p>
<p>Lastly, Don't be afraid to use cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Buried Alive" href="#" target="_blank">Buried Alive</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (reskinned as Bring Out Your Dead!; 167,946 decks) to ditch some big monsters into your 'yard.</p>
<p>You'd be able to reanimate them on a later turn or, if you're lucky, the same turn! If it's not in your graveyard when you cast it, find that <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anger" href="#" target="_blank">Anger</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (167,616 decks) and get it in there, so your creatures don't become sitting ducks, waiting a full turn to attack.</p>
<h1>Deadpool's Cinema</h1>
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="Going Universes Beyond-&#039;Pooling Around" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]
*1 Deadpool, Trading Card
[/Commander]
[Sorceries]
*1 Beacon of Unrest
*1 Blasphemous Act
*1 Buried Alive
*1 Cathartic Reunion
*1 Dread Return
*1 Faithless Looting
*1 Feed the Swarm
*1 Harmless Offering
*1 Incarnation Technique
*1 Lidless Gaze
*1 Living Death
*1 Reanimate
*1 Restart Sequence
*1 Too Greedily, Too Deep
*1 Toxic Deluge
*1 Twinflame
*1 Vandalblast
*1 Wake the Dragon
[/Sorceries]
[Enchantments]
*1 Black Market Connections
*1 Phyrexian Reclamation
*1 The Ruinous Powers
[/Enchantments]
[Creatures]
*1 Anger
*1 Bloodthirster
*1 Cavern-Hoard Dragon
*1 Chaos Defiler
*1 Crimson Caravaneer
*1 Etali, Primal Storm
*1 Flamerush Rider
*1 Gimli of the Glittering Caves
*1 Grave Titan
*1 Humble Defector
*1 Inferno Titan
*1 Kardur, Doomscourge
*1 Scourge of the Throne
*1 Shard of the Void Dragon
*1 Solemn Simulacrum
*1 The Balrog of Moria
*1 The Master, Multiplied
[/Creatures]
[Lands]
*1 Billiard Room
*1 Bojuka Bog
*1 Canyon Slough
*1 Command Beacon
*1 Command Tower
*1 Dragonskull Summit
*1 Evolving Wilds
*1 Foreboding Ruins
*1 Haunted Ridge
*1 Lavaclaw Reaches
*9 Mountain
*1 Myriad Landscape
*1 Path of Ancestry
*1 Shadowblood Ridge
*1 Smoldering Marsh
*1 Sulfurous Springs
*9 Swamp
*1 Tainted Peak
*1 Temple of Malice
*1 Terramorphic Expanse
*1 War Room
[/Lands]
[Artifacts]
*1 Arcane Signet
*1 Blade of Selves
*1 Cloudstone Curio
*1 Confession Dial
*1 Cursed Mirror
*1 Endless Atlas
*1 Everflowing Chalice
*1 Gilded Lotus
*1 Mind Stone
*1 Resurrection Orb
*1 Sol Ring
*1 Sword of the Animist
*1 Talisman of Indulgence
*1 Wayfarer&#039;s Bauble
[/Artifacts]
[Instants]
*1 Bituminous Blast
*1 Chaos Warp
*1 Crypt Incursion
*1 Deadly Dispute
*1 Deadly Rollick
*1 Dismember
*1 Go for the Throat
*1 Saw in Half
*1 Terminate
*1 Unexpected Windfall
[/Instants]"></span></div>
<h1>Deadpool? More like Deadcool, Am I Right?</h1>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bloodthirster"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Grave Titan"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Balrog of Moria"></div></div>
<p>This decklist tells us one thing: a reanimator deck is absolutely possible within the <em>UB</em> card pool thanks to the <em>Hosts of Mordor</em> precon that came with <em>The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth </em>release.</p>
<p>Consequently, it also gave us some of the beefiest reanimator targets. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cavern-Hoard Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">Cavern-Hoard Dragon</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (67,106 decks) can potentially get us a lot of Treasures. Meanwhile, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Scourge of the Throne" href="#" target="_blank">Scourge of the Throne</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bloodthirster" href="#" target="_blank">Bloodthirster</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (65,971 and 44,009 decks respectively) can also give us extra combat phases, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Inferno Titan" href="#" target="_blank">Inferno Titan</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (41,661 decks) and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Titan" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Titan</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (reskinned as West Tek Tyrant; 68,587 decks) do something when they come in or attack, so they're valuable to have.</p>
<p>Further, it's perhaps best to treat Deadpool as yet another reanimation target, like I mentioned in the previous section. Chances are, you'll end up with a weaker version of your own creature if you Deadpool it, since he'll retain his stat line.</p>
<p>However, there are a few exceptions to this. Copying <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Crimson Caravaneer" href="#" target="_blank">Crimson Caravaneer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (5,825 decks) would enable Deadpool to gain double strike and trample, plus give us Junk tokens to impulse draw when we need it.</p>
<p>The only other exception in the deck list is <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gimli of the Glittering Caves" href="#" target="_blank">Gimli of the Glittering Caves</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (27,572 decks), who also gives him double strike, but also the ability to make Treasure tokens when he hits.</p>
<p>That said, we can always return him to our hand if we need to. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Phyrexian Reclamation" href="#" target="_blank">Phyrexian Reclamation</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (reskinned as Sorry Jack...Chucky's Back; 96,674 decks) can fish it out of our 'yard.</p>
<p>This is especially useful if someone decides to exile your graveyard. Another way is <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cloudstone Curio" href="#" target="_blank">Cloudstone Curio</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (reskinned as Elessar, the Eflstone; 52,062 decks), which will send Deadpool back to our hand if another creature of ours comes in.</p>
<p>Its application here is more limited, since you ideally don't want to be bouncing your big stuff to your hand. Then again, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Balrog of Moria" href="#" target="_blank">The Balrog of Moria</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Solemn Simulacrum" href="#" target="_blank">Solemn Simulacrum</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (23,846 and 784,945 decks, respectively) are your other best targets for the Curio.</p>
<h1>A Merc's Job Done</h1>
<p>I quite enjoyed the semi-unique spin on Deadpool. Where with in-universe cards, you're making copies of him like he's a rabbit, we're out here reanimating him and other beefy creatures to get the job done. Hopefully one day, a full-on copy/scam build a truly possible with Deadpool, but only time will tell if that can be done.</p>
<p>With Marvel being a long-term crossover, we can expect more content centered on it. However, I'm going to cover as many of the Marvel legends from the first wave as I can. Maybe I can get them out before <em>Final Fantasy </em>hits shelves, but I doubt that. I do have others I want to cover before then, too, especially one that's on my shortlist.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, next time won't be Marvel... but it can be? I could make it a double decklist article, like I did with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Eivor, Battle-Ready" href="#" target="_blank">Eivor, Battle-Ready</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kassandra, Eagle Bearer" href="#" target="_blank">Kassandra, Eagle Bearer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> the other week.</p>
<p>Let me know in the comments if you want me to do that next week If not, it won't be until around June that I get to it next. In any case, tune in next time when we get up to some wizardry shenanigans. Lastly, bonus internet points to any of you reading this article while eating a chimichanga.</p>


Beyond the Multiverse-Deadpool, Trading Card

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Cabal Minion" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Cabal Minion</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art By: <a href="https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CEric+Peterson%E2%80%9D&amp;unique=art">Eric Peterson</a>)</h6>
<p>If there's one thing a commander player loves, it's new cards. There is, however, possibly one thing that they love even more than that<em>: unbanned</em> cards. With the latest update to the format, <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/commander-bracket-system-updates-and-unbans-april-2025">five cards were freed</a> from the prison known as the Commander Banned List.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Gifts Ungiven"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sway of the Stars"></div></div>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Coalition Victory"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Panoptic Mirror"></div></div>
<p>Four of these cards are very cool in their own right, and I won't lie to you and say I am not excited about the possibilities of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Panoptic Mirror" href="#" target="_blank">Panoptic Mirror</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gifts Ungiven" href="#" target="_blank">Gifts Ungiven</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. I'm even happy to lose the game for the first time to <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Coalition Victory" href="#" target="_blank">Coalition Victory</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. There is one card, and one card alone, that we will discuss today, and that is the big baddie with the <strong>braids</strong>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Braids, Cabal Minion"></div></div>
<h2>Typical Mono-Black Nonsense</h2>
<p>Braids is a reasonably simple card, especially by 2025 design standards. It's a stax piece in the command zone that is meant to punish your opponents for playing permanents.</p>
<p>Unless your entire deck is enchantments, planeswalkers, or battles, you are going to be losing a permanent to Braids every upkeep.</p>
<p>The most common idea is to turbo out Braids as soon as possible with cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dark Ritual" href="#" target="_blank">Dark Ritual</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and fast mana, such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and then lock your opponents out from playing the game until they concede.</p>
<p>BUT THAT'S BORING! All screaming aside, if this is what you want to do, go ahead. I'm not here to stop you. Play the game however you want, as long as everyone is having fun.</p>
<p>What I want to do is the cruelest trick of them all: make the table agree that Braids is...helping? Well, maybe not helping, but not hurting until it's too late.</p>
<h2>It's Braids, But <em>Backwards</em></h2>
<p>What's one of the most essential things needed in any Braids deck, regardless of the strategy? <strong>Trash</strong>. Things to throw away to her effect so that you're not caught in a loop of recasting your commander every two turns and doing nothing else until you lose the game.</p>
<p>So, what type of things make the best trash-producers? Tokens and cards that put other trinkets onto the board.</p>
<h3>Trinkets For Us, Trinkets For The Table</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bitterblossom"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dreadhorde Invasion"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Greedy Freebooter"></div></div>
<p>While the deck might be backwards, we do need some cards that can allow us to put on the facade that we are a regular Braids deck.</p>
<p>We also have cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia" href="#" target="_blank">Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Liliana, Heretical Healer" href="#" target="_blank">Liliana, Heretical Healer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> that have situational ways of providing us with a token.</p>
<p>Some cards in the deck even give all players tokens or at least an option to get tokens.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tombstone Stairwell"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Plague of Vermin"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Infernal Genesis"></div></div>
<h3>Horrors, Horses, and Trolls Oh My!</h3>
<p>The real driving force of the deck is, however, is what we have that gives our opponents the direct counter to what's expected of the deck. Some of these cards you might be familiar with:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tribute to Horobi"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Clackbridge Troll"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Hunted Bonebrute"></div></div>
<p>What do you mean you've never seen these cards? But you know these next few, I bet.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Slaughter Specialist"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Hunted Horror"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Akroan Horse"></div></div>
<p>Odds are, most of these cards have never crossed your sightline and have almost certainly never been put into a sleeve and jammed into a deck box.</p>
<p>These are the keys to the deck. These are the puzzle pieces that will make our opponents forget we're playing Braids.</p>
<p>Why would you want to attack the Braids player when I can blink my <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hunted Horror" href="#" target="_blank">Hunted Horror</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Conjurer&#039;s Closet" href="#" target="_blank">Conjurer&#039;s Closet</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and give you more Centaurs? These are the thoughts I'm trying to plant in the table's mind.</p>
<h3>Profit?</h3>
<p>So, after we successfully flood the board of our opponents with Myr, Centaur, Goats, and Soldiers, what do we do? We spring the trap.</p>
<p>This is the point in the game that we show our opponents how mean we can truly be. We show them that they never should have underestimated Braids.</p>
<p>First, it'll be something small, like another version of Braids. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Arisen Nightmare" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Arisen Nightmare</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will have opponents throwing away the tokens to prevent us from drawing cards, sure, but this is exactly what we want.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Braids, Arisen Nightmare"></div></div>
<p>Second, we add <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Evin, Waterdeep Opportunist" href="#" target="_blank">Evin, Waterdeep Opportunist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to the table to start gaining small amounts of mana.</p>
<p>Third, if our opponents haven't caught on by this point, start to tip your hand with something like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sangromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Sangromancer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>; it's amazing how fast three life adds up.</p>
<p>Finally, we hit them with a card that will feel like getting slammed with a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Colossus Hammer" href="#" target="_blank">Colossus Hammer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Massacre Girl"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Massacre Wurm"></div></div>
<p>Cards with the word "massacre" in the title and a decimating opponent's board full of creatures have always been a match made in heaven.</p>
<p>Another classic for black-centric decks is <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Toxic Deluge" href="#" target="_blank">Toxic Deluge</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. In this deck, it's especially easy to profit from paying as little as one life to wipe a board away.</p>
<p>While the Girl and the Deluge are skilled at killing boards, they struggle to turn that into a personal advantage. That is where some old classics and new players come in.</p>
<h3>Classics</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Blood Artist"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Falkenrath Noble"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Syr Konrad, the Grim"></div></div>
<p>Staples in back decks often focus on an Aristocrat-ic vibe, these are how we best turn the cards given to our opponents into their downfall.</p>
<p>The Artist and the Noble do double duty by keeping our life total nice and high because no matter what we do in this deck, we should expect a healthy dose of retaliation.</p>
<p>Luckily for us, the designers have decided over the years that more cards of this nature were needed.</p>
<h3>New Players</h3>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Blood Seeker"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Archfiend of the Dross"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Vein Ripper"></div></div>
<p>Creatures have seen a significant increase in the arbitrage of gaining value by eliminating an opponent's board. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archfiend of the Dross" href="#" target="_blank">Archfiend of the Dross</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Vein Ripper" href="#" target="_blank">Vein Ripper</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> even became powerhouses in multiple 60-card formats.</p>
<p>But one card stands above the rest when it comes to the new players, and it might even rival some of the old classics. I am, of course, talking about:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Meathook Massacre"></div></div>
<p>This card is so powerful that it had to be banned in Standard. Now, without having a board of our own, this card won't be enough to win us the game, so we need to use some cards that are more typical of mono-black strategies that your opponents are used to seeing.</p>
<h3>Familiar Faces</h3>
<p>Call it a backup plan or call it filling out the curve, either way, the deck needs to be 100 cards, so these are making it into the list. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gray Merchant of Asphodel" href="#" target="_blank">Gray Merchant of Asphodel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is possibly the most classic card in a mono-black deck if there ever was one.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Gray Merchant of Asphodel"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bastion of Remembrance"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Zulaport Cutthroat"></div></div>
<p>At this point, it might as well be the first card added to any of those decks, even before the likes of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Swamp" href="#" target="_blank">Swamp</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bastion of Remembrance" href="#" target="_blank">Bastion of Remembrance</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zulaport Cutthroat" href="#" target="_blank">Zulaport Cutthroat</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> make sure that if an opponent decides they no longer want us to have a board, it's going to cost them dearly.</p>
<h3>Nice to Have</h3>
<p>A deck like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Cabal Minion" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Cabal Minion</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> lends itself to being able to run cards not often seen anywhere else, and when you see those cards at the table, you can't help but to audibly exclaim, "Nice".</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Prized Statue"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ichor Wellspring"></div></div>
<p>Artifacts aren't safe from the wrath of Braids, and for us, that can be to our advantage. More specifically, card advantage and mana advantage.</p>
<p>Lands also allow us to do silly things. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Drownyard Temple" href="#" target="_blank">Drownyard Temple</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> can help us in a pinch when the board has gone bad, and the best thing for us to do is throw away a land. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gods&#039; Eye, Gate to the Reikai" href="#" target="_blank">Gods&#039; Eye, Gate to the Reikai</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> might only see play in a Braids deck, and it happens to be perfect.</p>
<h3>Hidden Commander</h3>
<p>One final card that deserves special attention for the deck:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Trespasser&#039;s Curse"></div></div>
<p>For this deck, I wish there were four or five different versions of this card. Sadly, we only have one. The card can be tutored up with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bitterheart Witch" href="#" target="_blank">Bitterheart Witch</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and the sacrifice effect on Braids feeds into finding this card nicely.</p>
<p>I didn't want any of the other mono-black Curses in the deck, so the Witch did not make the cut. Sometimes, the thrill of drawing this card at the right time will be the reason to come back to the table and shuffle up for another game. Or we just cast our <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Demonic Tutor" href="#" target="_blank">Demonic Tutor</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and grab it when the time is right.</p>
<h2>Wrap Up</h2>
<p>Is this the best version of a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Cabal Minion" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Cabal Minion</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck to ever hit the table? No, it certainly is not. Is the ideal strategy still going to be turboing out Braids with fast mana, slamming down a token producer for yourself, and loading up on other cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Smokestack" href="#" target="_blank">Smokestack</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>?</p>
<p>Most likely yes. That deck, however, builds itself, and if I am going to bring you a <em>Tech the Deck</em> article, I want to do my best to think outside the box to the degree in which I can without going completely insane. You know. Like Braids.</p>
<p>Braids as a commander is not my cup of tea. I would sit down at a table and, depending on the day, agree to play against your deck no questions asked. I even claimed that this card should be unbanned when discussing bringing back the <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/myth-realized-should-we-bring-back-banned-only-as-commander-3">Banned as Commander</a> rule in January of this year.</p>
<p>Whatever the case, I hope you find this Braids deck interesting at the very least. Someday, if you ever set up a Braids lock across the table from me as you recur your <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Strip Mine" href="#" target="_blank">Strip Mine</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Crucible of Worlds" href="#" target="_blank">Crucible of Worlds</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, I will shake your hand and shuffle up for another game, hopefully against a non-Braids deck. Unless it's <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Braids, Conjurer Adept" href="#" target="_blank">Braids, Conjurer Adept</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, because nothing can go wrong if she's your Commander.</p>
<h2>Decklist</h2>
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="ƨbiɒяꓭ Backwards" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]
*1 Braids, Cabal Minion
[/Commander]
[Creatures]
*1 Akroan Horse
*1 Archfiend of the Dross
*1 Ayara, First of Locthwain
*1 Blood Artist
*1 Blood Seeker
*1 Bloodghast
*1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare
*1 Clackbridge Troll
*1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
*1 Evin, Waterdeep Opportunist
*1 Falkenrath Noble
*1 Gravecrawler
*1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
*1 Greedy Freebooter
*1 Hunted Bonebrute
*1 Hunted Horror
*1 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia
*1 Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer
*1 Massacre Girl
*1 Massacre Wurm
*1 Morbid Opportunist
*1 Reassembling Skeleton
*1 Sangromancer
*1 Slaughter Specialist
*1 Solemn Simulacrum
*1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
*1 Vein Ripper
*1 Zulaport Cutthroat
[/Creatures]
[Instants]
*1 Darkness
*1 Deadly Dispute
*1 Fake Your Own Death
*1 Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire
*1 Snuff Out
*1 Withering Torment
[/Instants]
[Sorceries]
*1 Awaken the Erstwhile
*1 Decree of Pain
*1 Demonic Tutor
*1 Living Death
*1 Night&#039;s Whisper
*1 Plague of Vermin
*1 Reanimate
*1 Sign in Blood
*1 Toxic Deluge
[/Sorceries]
[Artifacts]
*1 Arcane Signet
*1 Conjurer&#039;s Closet
*1 Crucible of Worlds
*1 Genesis Chamber
*1 Ichor Wellspring
*1 Jet Medallion
*1 Lightning Greaves
*1 Panharmonicon
*1 Prized Statue
*1 Sol Ring
[/Artifacts]
[Enchantments]
*1 Bastion of Remembrance
*1 Bitterblossom
*1 Black Market
*1 Dreadhorde Invasion
*1 Infernal Genesis
*1 Phyrexian Reclamation
*1 Quest for the Gravelord
*1 The Meathook Massacre
*1 Tombstone Stairwell
*1 Trespasser&#039;s Curse
*1 Tribute to Horobi // Echo of Death&#039;s Wail
[/Enchantments]
[Lands]
*1 Barad-dûr
*1 Bloodstained Mire
*1 Bojuka Bog
*1 Cabal Coffers
*1 Cabal Stronghold
*1 Command Tower
*1 Drownyard Temple
*1 Fabled Passage
*1 Field of Ruin
*1 Forbidden Orchard
*1 Fountainport
*1 Gods&#039; Eye, Gate to the Reikai
*1 Marsh Flats
*1 Mortuary Mire
*1 Myriad Landscape
*1 Phyrexian Tower
*1 Polluted Delta
*1 Prismatic Vista
*1 Springjack Pasture
*12 Swamp
*1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
*1 Urza&#039;s Cave
*1 Verdant Catacombs
*1 Witch&#039;s Cottage
[/Lands]"></span></div>


Tech The Deck - Braids, Cabal Minion

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Martial Coup|40k|189" href="#" target="_blank">Martial Coup</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art By <a href="https://www.artstation.com/diegogisbert">Diego Gisbert Llorens</a>)</h6>
<h1>Winner Winner, Chicken Pinger</h1>
<p>Hello, and welcome to <i>Archetypes of Imagination</i>, the series in which <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/author/cooper-gottfried">Cooper Gottfried</a> builds decks based on popular Commander archetypes. I'm jumping in to help Cooper out with this edition as we talk about one of my favorite ways to win games and annoy your opponents: pingers!</p>
<p>Today I'll be using<a href="https://tagger.scryfall.com/?utm_source=edhrec" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Scryfall's tagging system</a> and<a href="https://edhrec.com/tags?utm_source=edhrec" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> EDHREC's Tag pages</a> to build a deck around the theme of <a href="https://tagger.scryfall.com/tags/card/pinger">Pingers</a>. These are permanents that routinely deal small amounts of chip damage to our opponents either as activated or triggered abilities.</p>
<p>Sometimes they come stapled onto a creature like the classic, color-pie-breaking, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Prodigal Sorcerer" href="#" target="_blank">Prodigal Sorcerer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Often they're in the form of triggered abilities on enchantments like the wonderful <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Impact Tremors" href="#" target="_blank">Impact Tremors</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Goblin Sharpshooter"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Manabarbs"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Guttersnipe"></div></div>
<p>Most players will have one or two pingers in a deck, offering small amounts of chip damage to slowly turn the game in their favor, but oftentimes these Pingers will be one of many rewards for doing what their deck does. Playing lots of lands, drawing lots of cards, or (most commonly) playing noncreature spells:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Spitfire Lagac"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Psychosis Crawler"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Firebrand Archer"></div></div>
<h2>A Deck By Pingers, For Pingers</h2>
<p>Today we want to make a deck that doesn't just benefit from playing pingers, but is built around them specifically, and for that end, we're enlisting a friend from <em>Universes Beyond</em> to help us.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph" href="#" target="_blank">Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is an Izzet (<span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-ur" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>) Tyranid Human that cares about sources we control doing exactly one damage to any target. Whenever one of our cards does one damage, Ghyrson will jump in to help out and deal two damage himself to the same target.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph"></div></div>
<p>Ghryson is incredibly powerful as a commander for a few reasons. First of all, he doesn't care how you do your single bits of damage. You could play a burn spell, hit someone with a 1/1 token, or of course have one of our myriad pinger effects trigger. Every time he'll add two more damage on top.</p>
<p>Secondly, Ghryson isn't just adding two damage on top of what's already there, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Torbran, Thane of Red Fell" href="#" target="_blank">Torbran, Thane of Red Fell</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> might. He's actually doing that two damage himself. That means we can load him up with Auras and Equipment that benefit us whenever an attached creature does damage.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="End the Festivities"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tectonic Hazard"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Blazing Volley"></div></div>
<p>And lastly, Ghyrson is a "whenever" trigger. No, "only once per turn" or "one or more". He's going to trigger on every single instance of one damage we create. That means cards that deal mass amounts of one damage like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="End the Festivities" href="#" target="_blank">End the Festivities</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will generate an absolutely huge amount of triggers.</p>
<h2>Which Ping is Right?</h2>
<p>There's a few different ways in which we can trigger our pinger effects. We could just have a board full of creatures with activated abilities, forming a gun wall against our opponents. That would be pretty on theme for a <em>Warhammer 40K</em> commander.</p>
<p>We could also focus on slinging spells for our triggers. Use effects like that of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Firebrand Archer" href="#" target="_blank">Firebrand Archer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and try to storm off on our turns with a load of cantrips, dealing a tonne of damage to our enemies.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Krenko, Mob Boss"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Howlsquad Heavy"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Pashalik Mons"></div></div>
<p>To get as much benefit as possible from our commander's ability however, I think we're better off leaning in another direction. For this build we're going to try and flood the board with tokens, largely Goblins. With a wide board we have three different ways in which our board can dish out single points of damage:</p>
<h3>Impact Tremors Effects</h3>
<p>Most often we'll be hitting our opponents with a lot of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Impact Tremors" href="#" target="_blank">Impact Tremors</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>-style effects. That is, whenever a creature enters under our control we'll deal one (three!) damage to each of our opponents. There's a few different cards available in red that give us this effect, including Tremors itself.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Witty Roastmaster"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Molten Gatekeeper"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Agate Instigator"></div></div>
<p>Once you get a few of these on board, even just a couple of creatures entering can cause some serious problems for your opponents. With three on the board, we're dealing three damage to our opponents every time we have a creature enter. With Ghyrson on board as well, that damage triples. Nine damage per Goblin we make? Absolutely rotten stuff.</p>
<p>The absolute queen of this effect, and one that'll provide us both with the tokens we need to make and the tremors effect that we want to trigger, is <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="General Kreat, the Boltbringer" href="#" target="_blank">General Kreat, the Boltbringer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>Not only does she have the Tremors-style effect stapled onto her, but she's also going to make us a new Goblin token every time we attack with at least one of our pre-existing Goblins.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="General Kreat, the Boltbringer"></div></div>
<h3>Attack Triggers</h3>
<p>There's not quite as many of these cards in our deck, but a few things exist in red that reward us for attacking with low power creatures. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Raid Bombardment" href="#" target="_blank">Raid Bombardment</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> for example triggers whenever we attack with a creature with power two or less.</p>
<p>We can't always swing out with our board, especially when we need to hold up blockers, but cards like this effectively give us a second hit of Impact Tremors whenever we attack. Albeit, only targeting the player we're attacking.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Raid Bombardment"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cavalcade of Calamity"></div></div>
<h3>Combat Damage</h3>
<p>Finally, for each of our 1/1 tokens that hit something we get one final bit of single point damage for Ghyrson to add two on top of. Nothing flashy here, basically everything that hits for one, now hits for three! On top of any other fun bonuses we can get from Ghyrson's Equipment and Auras. Speaking of, let's talk about that.</p>
<h2>Kitting Out Ghyrson</h2>
<p>There's a load of different goodies we can fill our deck with to get added benefit from Ghyrson's repeated triggers. With enough tokens on board and pinger effects in play, these should trigger quite a lot to boot. First of all, we should make sure we have a bit of card draw online. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Curiosity" href="#" target="_blank">Curiosity</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a perfect fit to pop onto our commander.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Curiosity"></div></div>
<p>Now, whenever we deal a single point of damage from any source, Ghyrson will add some more on top and also draw us a card. Importantly, this is also a <em>may </em>trigger. That'll save us from accidentally decking ourselves whenever a million of our triggers hit the stack.</p>
<p>Next up, let's make Ghyrson even more lethal. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gorgon&#039;s Head" href="#" target="_blank">Gorgon&#039;s Head</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will case any creatures he hits to drop like flies, even if the initial three damage wasn't enough to take them down, by adding deathtouch to the damage he deals. We can also gain life from every instance of his ability with something like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Shadowspear" href="#" target="_blank">Shadowspear</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, or combine those two effects with the nasty <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Basilisk Collar" href="#" target="_blank">Basilisk Collar</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Gorgon&#039;s Head"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Shadowspear"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Basilisk Collar"></div></div>
<p>With deathtouch online, we can perform a one-mana board wipe with our commander by casting an <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="End the Festivities" href="#" target="_blank">End the Festivities</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>-style spell. Ghyrson sees all the single points of damage and follows them up with two points of deathtouch damage, killing pretty much everything in sight whilst your board stays untouched.</p>
<h3>Kill/Steal</h3>
<p>Wiping our opponents' boards is of course hilarious, but we can be even funnier with Ghyrson's ability. Using this bizarre old card that I'm sure will be very familiar to those with a paticular fondness for pinging:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Charisma"></div></div>
<p>That's right, for <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-u" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-u" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-u" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> and the cast of a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tectonic Hazard" href="#" target="_blank">Tectonic Hazard</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, we can deal three damage to every creature our opponents control and then take control of every creature that survives. After that they'll be wishing you board-wiped.</p>
<p>If each other players' board is big enough, this can quite easily win a game, but don't worry, we've got even more options to mess with our opponents. For even cheaper, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sigil of Sleep" href="#" target="_blank">Sigil of Sleep</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will activate whenever we trigger our Tremors effects and then add insult to the injury by bouncing creatures back their owners' hands.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sigil of Sleep"></div></div>
<h3>Ending the Game</h3>
<p>There's always a few games where one person in your pod gains such a ridiculous amount of life that it's effectively impossible to take them out of the running. This isn't necessarily a deck that wants your games to go long, and lifegain can really slow it down. We definitely won't be swinging in for commander damage any time soon, so we'll need some kind of backup plan.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Grafted Exoskeleton"></div></div>
<p>Introducing <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grafted Exoskeleton" href="#" target="_blank">Grafted Exoskeleton</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, a card that will likely make you the biggest threat on the board as soon as you declare its cast, but also one that will likely win you the game very quickly if your opponents don't have a response. Giving Ghyrson infect will effectively make five triggers of Impact Tremors game over as he deals his damage in the form of poison counters. Ten of those and it's game over for the bearer. No matter how high their life total!</p>
<h2>Build it Yourself</h2>
<p>This deck is sure to gain some ire from those who play against it. Whilst it does rely a lot on the commander being out, the core shell of Tremors effects and Goblin spamming should be plenty strong on its own. If you want to give it a go, you can find a rough decklist I've put together below. Feel free to change it to suit your play style and power level!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__deck mtgh"><span class="edhrecp__deck-s" name="Pingers - Archetypes of Imagination" site="edhrec" archidekt_link="" cards="[Commander]
*1 Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph
[/Commander]
[Creature]
*1 Agate Instigator
*1 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
*1 Devilish Valet
*1 Enduring Curiosity
*1 General Kreat, the Boltbringer
*1 Goblin Chainwhirler
*1 Grinning Ignus
*1 Howlsquad Heavy
*1 Krenko, Mob Boss
*1 Legion Loyalist
*1 Lobber Crew
*1 Loyal Apprentice
*1 Molten Gatekeeper
*1 Niv-Mizzet, Visionary
*1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
*1 Norin the Wary
*1 Pain Distributor
*1 Pashalik Mons
*1 Razorkin Needlehead
*1 Scalding Viper // Steam Clean
*1 Searslicer Goblin
*1 Siege-Gang Lieutenant
*1 Spitfire Lagac
*1 The Locust God
*1 Witty Roastmaster
*1 Roaming Throne
[/Creature]
[Enchantment]
*1 Cavalcade of Calamity
*1 Charisma
*1 Circle of Flame
*1 Curiosity
*1 Impact Tremors
*1 Kindred Discovery
*1 Makeshift Munitions
*1 Quicksilver Dagger
*1 Raid Bombardment
*1 Repercussion
*1 Sigil of Sleep
[/Enchantment]
[Sorcery]
*1 Blasphemous Act
*1 Blazing Volley
*1 Chain Reaction
*1 End the Festivities
*1 Tectonic Hazard
[/Sorcery]
[Instant]
*1 Aetherize
*1 Chaos Warp
*1 Electrickery
*1 Untimely Malfunction
[/Instant]
[Artifact]
*1 Arcane Signet
*1 Basilisk Collar
*1 Commander&#039;s Sphere
*1 Fellwar Stone
*1 Fire Diamond
*1 Gorgon&#039;s Head
*1 Grafted Exoskeleton
*1 Izzet Signet
*1 Lightning Greaves
*1 Liquimetal Torque
*1 Mind Stone
*1 Shadowspear
*1 Skullclamp
*1 Sky Diamond
*1 Sol Ring
*1 Thought Vessel
[/Artifact]
[Land]
*1 Arena of Glory
*1 Cascade Bluffs
*1 Command Tower
*1 Desert
*1 Eroded Canyon
*1 Exotic Orchard
*10 Island
*9 Mountain
*1 Muraganda Raceway
*1 Path of Ancestry
*1 Riverpyre Verge
*1 Rogue&#039;s Passage
*1 Scalding Tarn
*1 Shivan Reef
*1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
*1 Spirebluff Canal
*1 Steam Vents
*1 Stormcarved Coast
*1 Sulfur Falls
*1 Training Center
[/Land]"></span></div>



Archetypes of Imagination - Making a Pinger Deck

<h6 style="text-align: right;"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | art by <a href="https://www.matthew-stewart.com/">Matt Stewart </a></h6>
<h1>Enduring Stupidity</h1>
<p>The week before last on <em>The Monolith </em>we talked about <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/building-hybrid-commanders-as-if-they-were-monocolored">building hybrid mana commanders as though they were just one color</a> which lead to some pretty fun out of pie actions as we made a mono green Aristocrats deck with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis" href="#" target="_blank">Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>I've always loved building Commander decks that try to perform the typical archetypes of one color, without that color present. And a non-black Aristocrats deck provides a lot of fun challenge as so many of the best payoffs for sacrificing your own creatures of course exist in black.</p>
<p>Now this week I had designs to do something very different, we were going to take a look at one of the new monocolored legends from <em>Tarkir: Dragonstorm. </em>And that's when I saw <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage"></div></div>
<p>"Wow" I said, "That seems like a great legend to lead a mono white Aristocrats deck!". But surely that's already pretty played out, and we just made one in mono-green anyway.</p>
<p>As white is the go to color pairing for black when building an Aristocrats deck, I could only assume it would be one of the more popular choices for sacking your own creatures off outside of black.</p>
<p>But no, there's even less mono-white Aristocrats decks registered here on EDHREC.com than there are mono green ones! Turns out I was playing it safe.</p>
<p>So let's break that color pie once again and build around what looks to be a very fun new commander from the brand new set.</p>
<h2>The Spirit of the Deck</h2>
<p>First of all, let's take a look at <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage" href="#" target="_blank">Anafenza</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> herself. I'll even embed the card a second time for easy reading, because I'm nice like that. Tell you what, we'll use the alternate art.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage|TDM|327"></div></div>
<p>Our new commander is a three mana, white, Spirit Soldier with Flash and First Strike. She's a 2/2. Or at least she is when she enters the battlefield, because the most important thing about Anafenza is her third line of rules text.</p>
<p>It reads, "Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, Anafenza endures 2". Endure X is a brand new triggered keyword which allows you to either place X counters on the creature who triggered it, or to create an X/X Spirit creature token.</p>
<p>Anafenza is going to act as our main payoff for sacking our own creatures. She can reward us in one of two ways, by flooding the board with 2/2 tokens or buffing herself up to try and swing in for lethal commander damage.</p>
<h2>The Secret to Mono White Aristocrats</h2>
<p>One of the trickiest things about building an Aristocrats deck is selecting your sacrifice outlets. It's also a good reason that a lot of Aristocrat decks need black in the color identity to function.</p>
<p>Black does have the best pay offs for letting one of your own creatures die, sure. But they also have a glut of good sac outlets they can field as well. Often they'll be filled with creatures that not only allow you to sacrifice your stuff, but also give you a payoff in return. All stapled onto the same card.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Phyrexian Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ashnod&#039;s Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Altar of Dementia"></div></div>
<p>Now any color has access to the big three above, all powerful options that pretty much any self sacrifice deck that can afford them will probably run. And we're likely to put them into our list as well!</p>
<p>But the special secret sauce that white brings to the table that I think seems under discussed when building these decks, is that mono white creatures can often sacrifice themselves.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selfless Savior"></div></div>
<p>Introducing <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selfless Savior" href="#" target="_blank">Selfless Savior</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, the reason for shed tears of players everywhere and the archetype for the sort of creatures we'll be running in this deck.</p>
<p>At instant speed, without any extra costs, cards like this can sacrifice themselves to protect your important board pieces.</p>
<p>They're not just for protection, either! There's also plenty of variants that can be used offensively, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bounty Agent" href="#" target="_blank">Bounty Agent</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> which can take out an enemy commander or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Remorseful Cleric" href="#" target="_blank">Remorseful Cleric</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> that can hate on graveyard strategies.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bounty Agent"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Felidar Cub"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Remorseful Cleric"></div></div>
<p>By running a big batch of these creatures in our deck we can ensure that there's always a way for us to sacrifice for value whenever we need. And pretty much always at instant speed with no additional costs.</p>
<p>With a payoff sitting in our command zone, we can start buffing her up or pumping out tokens immediately on turn three.</p>
<h2>To Endure or to Endure, That is the Question</h2>
<p>What's interesting about Anafenza as a commander is that her ability is modal, meaning we have three options to take when building her. We can make a load of tokens. We can make Anafenza very big. Or we can have a little of column A and a little of column B.</p>
<p>If you're building this deck yourself, you'll need to decide on what your wincon is. It could be a pretty standard go wide deck, turning your saviors into Spirits and overrunning your opponents.</p>
<p>Or it could play a little bit more like a Voltron deck. One giant commander swinging into your opponents surrounded by bodyguards.</p>
<p>There's definitely a deck in here that can do both, and one of the nice things about our commander's modal ability is that it should be pretty easy to switch lanes immediately depending on the cards that come out of the deck or the ways in which our opponents are defending against us.</p>
<p>But let's look at each of these builds individually, starting off with the more simple strategy of going wide.</p>
<h2>Spirited Slugging</h2>
<p>In all likelihood you know how to go wide by now. Especially in mono white. We've got a lot of creatures that are going to destroy themselves for our cause and return from the grave to fight for us as Spirit tokens.</p>
<p>But swapping a 1/1 for a 2/2 isn't exactly game breaking. We'll likely want to provide some support for our commander's ability through token doubling using cards like Annointed Procession and Mondrak.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Anointed Procession"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mondrak, Glory Dominus"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation"></div></div>
<p>There's plenty of cards that will reward you for making tokens in white. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bennie Bracks, Zoologist" href="#" target="_blank">Bennie Bracks, Zoologist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a pretty popular commander for token focused decks, and because of your cards' ability to sacrifice themselves at instant speed you could very easily be drawing a card on every players' end step with a big enough board.</p>
<p>You could also play classics like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mentor of the Meek" href="#" target="_blank">Mentor of the Meek</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> or the more recent <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Enduring Innocence" href="#" target="_blank">Enduring Innocence</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> which has the benefit of also providing a risk free sacrifice fodder. A truly sacrificial lamb.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bennie Bracks, Zoologist"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mentor of the Meek"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Enduring Innocence"></div></div>
<p>If we are going wide then we're going to need some board wide buffs to push us over the finish line before enduring a game ending board wipe. <em>Wilds of Eldraine </em>provided us with one of the best mono-white token deck finishers ever printed not too long ago in <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Moonshaker Cavalry" href="#" target="_blank">Moonshaker Cavalry</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. You'll give all your creatures flying and buff them equal to your board size with some of the prettiest art in the set.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Moonshaker Cavalry"></div></div>
<h3>A Sneaky Infinite Combo</h3>
<p>Another option for buffing up your board for the final swing is to play the old classic, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cathars&#039; Crusade" href="#" target="_blank">Cathars&#039; Crusade</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. It's far more annoying than cards like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Banner of Kinship" href="#" target="_blank">Banner of Kinship</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> as you have to manually track loads of differently sized piles of +1/+1 counters which can be a real headache in token spamming decks.</p>
<p>However, with the ability to immediately put a +1/+1 counter on any of our creatures that enter the battlefield will unlock a spicy little combo with one of the easiest keywords to break in the game's history, Persist.</p>
<p>There's only two creatures I could find in mono-white that Persist. If you're not familiar with the keyword, it basically reanimates a creature that dies. They come back with a -1/-1 counter on them, and it only triggers if they don't already have one of those counters. In theory this means it should only trigger once.</p>
<p>But when a creature has both a -1/-1 counter and a +1/+1 counter on them, they cancel each other out. Which means our creature can Persist all over again.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kithkin Spellduster"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cathars&#039; Crusade"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ashnod&#039;s Altar"></div></div>
<p>With one of our two Persist creatures out, Cathars' Crusade, and a free sacrifice outlet like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ashnod&#039;s Altar" href="#" target="_blank">Ashnod&#039;s Altar</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, this creature can be infinitely sacrificed. Every time we do so we'll get another trigger from our commander and if we choose to make a Spirit our board will grow bigger and bigger from all the counters Cathar's Crusade gives us.</p>
<p>We can even do this on our opponent's end step so that on our turn we can swing out with an infinitely wide, infinitely large board. Nasty!</p>
<h3>Protect Your Protectors</h3>
<p>If we're going wide then we definitely need to factor in some protection for our board. We're already running creatures that want to sacrifice themselves, and there's a few in white that will not only protect one target, but can make your entire board indestructible. Make sure to include these if this is your chosen strategy!</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Boromir, Warden of the Tower"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selfless Spirit"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lena, Selfless Champion"></div></div>
<p>Outside of that, most cards in your deck will be able to provide single target protection for your key board pieces. Especially your commander, which we'll talk about next.</p>
<h2>Spirited Slaying</h2>
<p>Now making tokens is all well and good. You'll probably want to make at least a few of them regardless of how you build this deck. That way you've got chump blockers and can easily trigger white card draw. But there's an alternative way of building Anafenza that I think is far cooler, and much funnier.</p>
<p>And that's as a Voltron deck. As we know, we can make Anafenza pretty large, pretty easily in this deck. She starts off as a 2/2 but every time one of our creatures dies, she gets two +1/+1 counters.</p>
<p>So in theory, if ten of our creatures die before Anafenza does, she can deal lethal commander damage. The only problem is, she doesn't have any evasion attached to her other than first strike.</p>
<p>Which does make it harder to block and kill her, but won't guarantee we can make it through another player's blockers to deal our lethal damage. Except, that's not true is it? Quite a few of our creatures, when sacrificed, give a target creature protection. Which can make her... unblockable.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cliffside Rescuer"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Benevolent Bodyguard"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Alseid of Life&#039;s Bounty"></div></div>
<p>Imagine someone is swinging at you with a potentially lethal commander. They just cracked a Cliffside Rescuer and now they have protection from everything you control.</p>
<p>On top of that, if you'd like to respond to the trigger, they have about five different other protectors on board that can also foil your kill spells or provide further protection. What exactly do you do about that?</p>
<p>Well, that's our plan! By assembling enough of these Selfless Savior style effects we can not only make a commander that's near impossible to deal with, but also one that gets bigger every time we activate one of our countermeasures.</p>
<h3>Rinse and Repeat</h3>
<p>The main problem with this tactic is that it can end up being a bit of a one trick pony. If you swing into an opponent with your unblockable commander and sack all your bodyguards to get them up to 22 power, killing your target... now what?</p>
<p>You've run out of protection and your opponents can just murder your commander, setting us back to step one of the plan.</p>
<p>For that reason we need some to make sure we can cycle our protectors to ensure that we don't leave ourselves high and dry. Not to mention that it would be great to use that Rescuer more than once to ensure we can't be blocked when we next attack.</p>
<p>We should also look for extra value from our sacrifices in true Aristocrats style so that we can set up another turn with a similar board state.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Luminous Broodmoth"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Martyr&#039;s Bond"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Field of Souls"></div></div>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Luminous Broodmoth" href="#" target="_blank">Luminous Broodmoth</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is one of my favorite mono white cards, and I've attached a lot of fond memories to it. It also serves as a perfect card to recycle our bodyguards, giving us an extra activation with them.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Martyr&#039;s Bond" href="#" target="_blank">Martyr&#039;s Bond</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will force our opponents to sacrifice their own creatures when we do the same, making it easier for us to swing in without using up our protection. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of Souls" href="#" target="_blank">Field of Souls</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> on the other hand will ensure we have something to block with after we've effectively just board wiped ourselves.</p>
<h2>Can Our Opponents Endure?</h2>
<p>It's certainly a deck that requires a lot of moving parts to play well. Which is probably why I love the idea so much. It's playing white out of its color pie, whilst also playing an archetype in a way it's not normally approached.</p>
<p>What do you reckon, could it actually win games? Will our wall of dogs be enough to protect us and see us to victory? Or will the only thing we'll actually endure be an early death and a night of spectating?</p>
<p>Let me know what you think in the comments and tell me if I'm missing any vital pieces that you think could get this strategy over the line. And most importantly, get out there and build some monocolored decks for your next commander night. Until then though, have fun enduring and I'll see you next week.</p>


Mono-White Aristocrats with Anafenza, Unyielding Lineage

Brew For Your Buck - Felisa Budget Deck Tech

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Urza&#039;s Fun House" href="#" target="_blank">Urza&#039;s Fun House</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | by <a href="https://www.artstation.com/burmak">Dmitry Burmak</a>)</h6>
<h1>Here For a Good Time, Not a Sensical One</h1>
<p>Greetings all you builders of strange and interesting decks, I come bearing gifts on this week's edition of <em>The Monolith</em> - the series in which I convince you to build more monocolored decks.</p>
<p>This week, I'm providing a new challenge for those of us who like to do things a little differently. For the deck builders that crave confusion from their opponents and savor the moments of baffled players staring at your board state with questions of, "what does this deck even do?".</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/the-monolith-where-did-all-the-monocolored-edh-decks-go">first article</a> I ever posted here on EDHREC, I lamented the modern design principle of hiding hybrid mana symbols in monocolored commanders to turn their identity from one to two or more colors.</p>
<p>Some commanders though are born with their hybrid mana symbols baked into their casting cost. This makes them a lot easier to cast from the command zone with less color fixing required to meet their costs.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jinnie Fay, Jetmir&#039;s Second"></div></div>
<h2>You're Doing WHAT in Mono-Green?</h2>
<p>I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. No props to you honestly, the clue's in the title of the article. The question I'm here to answer is, what's stopping us from playing these commanders as though they were monocolored?</p>
<p>Why, nothing! Will it make the decks any better? No, almost certainly not. But we're not here to make the decks as powerful as physically possible. We're here to do something interesting and unexpected.</p>
<p>And nothing could be quite as unexpected as the decks that come about when you build this way. There's not a huge amount of commanders that fit the bill for this treatment.</p>
<p>The ones that do however, usually provide a strangely unique benefit to mono deck builders. As the card in your command zone is technically sitting outside of its usual color pie, all of a sudden mono decks get better access to some peculiar archetypes.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Strange Inversion"></div></div>
<p>In this week's edition of <em>The Monolith</em> we're going to build a hybrid mana commander whilst only using one of its colors. And to make it extra strange, I'm specifically choosing to use the color that least fits the archetype of the deck we'll be building. An archetype and deck combo that only has around <a href="https://edhrec.com/tags/aristocrats/mono-green">115 decks</a> registered on EDHREC.</p>
<p>A special shout out to one of my favorite Commander tech channels on YouTube for bringing this idea to my attention, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@edhdeckbuilding">EDH Deckbuilding</a>. Demo has one of the most impressive abilities to just pull random old cards out of the aether that I've ever seen and uses that power for extreme good. i.e. building a million Commander decks in the most unique way possible.</p>
<h2>Mono-Green Aristocrats</h2>
<p>Their enemy positions on the color pie might convince you otherwise, but did you know that black and green aren't all that dissimilar from one another?</p>
<p>Both care about the graveyard, both are equally capable of returning cards from said graveyard and also making copious amounts of mana.</p>
<p>When you combine both colors into Golgari(<span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-bg" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>) there's a heck of a lot of self-mill, reanimating, life gain themes.</p>
<p>Notice however, that those themes are pretty heavy on the black part of the color pie. You can do pretty much any of those in mono-black, but in mono-green there isn't quite as much support.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis"></div></div>
<p>So let's take a look at the legend that struck fear into the hearts of Modern players everywhere, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis" href="#" target="_blank">Hogaak</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>Now the 'Gaak is a strange card, it basically can ONLY be cast by either convoking or delving (either tapping a creature you control or exile a card from your graveyard will pay for one of its seven mana). Most importantly however, it can also be cast from your graveyard.</p>
<p>Any commander that can basically reanimate itself can serve as a perfect figurehead for an Aristocrats deck. A deck that wants to continuously sacrifice their own creatures to trigger common black 'whenever a creature dies' effects like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blood Artist" href="#" target="_blank">Blood Artist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> or <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Morbid Opportunist" href="#" target="_blank">Morbid Opportunist</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. But it turns out, green has access to a fair few good versions of these effects as well.</p>
<h2>For the Greater Good</h2>
<p>That's right, green mages love to sacrifice their own creatures just as much as the next guy. They just like to put a nice spin on it like calling it, "for the greater good" or chalking the death up to evolution or natural selection. But the effect is the same, I kill something I control and get something in return:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Greater Good"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Death&#039;s Presence"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Skullspore Nexus"></div></div>
<p>And those are not unattractive outcomes for your self sacrifice! Especially when you're sacrificing the big boy himself. How does drawing eight cards and discarding three, then putting eight +1/+1 counters on another creature you control sound?</p>
<p>Seems like a pretty good trade off to me. Alternatively, just use The Skullspore Nexus to double Gaak's power then create a 16/16 fungus token and shove 16 more +1/+1 counters on it from your Death's Presence. Good lord, that's a big mushroom.</p>
<p>Remember as well that most of the best sacrifice outlets in the game are colorless artifacts anyways:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ashnod&#039;s Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Phyrexian Altar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Altar of Dementia"></div></div>
<p>If you find a way to cast creature spells at instant speed by putting out a card like Vivienne or Yeva then you can even reanimate Hogaak with your Death's Presence effect on stack and target him with his own +1/+1 counters.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Vivien, Champion of the Wilds"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Yeva, Nature&#039;s Herald"></div></div>
<h2>Casting Hogaak</h2>
<p>Speaking of casting your commander with Flash. You'll likely want to be able to cast Hogaak on other people's turns. Because you can't easily use regular reanimation effects that are normally reserved for black decks, the 'Gaak will serve as your only repeatable sacrifice target.</p>
<p>For that reason, we want to be able to cast him over and over again and with his mana cost only available to cast via delving and convoke, there's only so many times we'll be able to do that in a single turn.</p>
<p>But don't worry, we're playing Commander! There's a whole three other players whose turn cycles we can interrupt and perform annoying sequences on. With our flash enabling effects on board we can recast our commander on every other players turn and repeat our engine of sacrifice effects.</p>
<p>This way we can maximize the efficiency of our board and also remain reactive to other players turn by doing things like flashing in Hogaak as a surprise blocker.</p>
<h3>Mill or Tap?</h3>
<p>Now this is all a great plan but we don't exactly have access to unlimited mana. Being able to delve for Gaak's mana cost is nice but we will run out of cards in our graveyard eventually. That's why we want to use the powers of convoke to reliably cast Hogaak on every turn.</p>
<p>And whilst green isn't the go to color for sacrifice outlets, it's incredibly good at convoking with easy access to token generation and, most importantly for this build, the ability to untap its creatures on every player's turn.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Seedborn Muse"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Awakening"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Patron of the Orochi"></div></div>
<p>By having seven creatures on board, predominantly ones with aristocrat style effects on them, we can effectively cast Hogaak every single turn for free and then sac him again for a huge amount of value. Getting a free effect on every one of your turns is pretty great.</p>
<p>Getting it four times per turn cycle is incredible. And because we'll be convoking each time we cast Hogaak, we won't actually be spending any mana, allowing us to hold up our lands for protections spells and interaction.</p>
<p>One hurdle we will need to jump however is getting around Gaak's high cost on early turns of the game. For that reason you'll likely want to have some token generators in the deck or at least a little self mill to eat up some of the early cost.</p>
<p>Waiting until you've cast seven different creature spells and hoping they don't die until the seventh hits the board is asking for a bad time.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Awaken the Woods"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Esika&#039;s Chariot"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Horn of Gondor"></div></div>
<p>Having some creatures in your deck that also come with a token themselves is a good way to get bodies on board too. The same is true for any repeatable activated or triggered abilities that generate those tokens.</p>
<p>These cards will help us to generate bodies for convoking but also provide us with alternative sacrifice fodder for our triggered death effects, which is especially useful when we start running into anti-'Gaak graveyard hate.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Arasta of the Endless Web"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Avenger of Zendikar"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Brightcap Badger"></div></div>
<h2>Free Real Estate</h2>
<p>One of the truly funniest things we could do in a build like this is employ yet another banned Modern card to get up to some very specific shenanigans. It's probably one of the coolest sacrifice outlets in the game and it can do some absolutely heinous things. You know it, you love it. It's the <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Birthing Pod" href="#" target="_blank">Birthing Pod</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Birthing Pod"></div></div>
<p>With Gaak's big cost of seven mana which we'll largely be spending absolutely nothing to cast, we can tutor some insanely gross creatures directly onto the battlefield by putting Gaak into the pod. The only catch is they have to cost exactly eight mana to meet the pod's effects.</p>
<p>Do you know how many horrendous things in <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> cost exactly eight mana? Did you know that <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Craterhoof Behemoth" href="#" target="_blank">Craterhoof Behemoth</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> costs exactly eight mana?</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Craterhoof Behemoth"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Breaker of Creation"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant"></div></div>
<p>Using this effect we can even tutor out our <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Patron of the Orochi" href="#" target="_blank">Patron of the Orochi</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to untap our green creatures on every subsequent turn cycle as mentioned above, ensuring our plan hits the ground the running once we untap on our next turn.</p>
<p>And there's plenty more horrid eight mana creatures you can pop in this deck if you have the budget or inclination:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Platinum Emperion"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cityscape Leveler"></div></div>
<h2>Go Forth and Reanimate in Green</h2>
<p>In truth there's a lot of funny ways you can build this deck, and I think it provides a very fun deck building challenge for those of us who love a restriction. I'm sure there's plenty other hybrid commanders that could do the same.</p>
<p>Let me know in the comments if you're tempted to build this monstrosity. And let me know what cards you would add or alternate commanders you want to build out of color identity.</p>
<p>For now though, thanks for reading and I'll see you on the next edition of <em>The Monolith</em>. The home of the weird and wonderful in just one color. Keep sleeving those basic lands and I'll see you next week!</p>


Building Hybrid Commanders as if They Were Monocolored

Brew For Your Buck - Captain Howler Budget Deck Tech

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thought Reflection" href="#" target="_blank">Thought Reflection</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://www.chrisseamanart.com/">Chris Seaman</a>)</h6>
<h1>Start Your Card Draw Engines!</h1>
<p>Welcome back to <em>The Monolith, </em>the series in which I try to convince the world to put down their multicolored obsessions and pick just a single color to build around for their next deck.</p>
<p>What better way to do that than to entice you with FOMO as we check out one of the freshly spoiled commanders, Vnwxt, from <em>Magic</em>'s next Standard legal set, <em>Aetherdrift</em>.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Vnwxt, Verbose Host"></div></div>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Vnwxt, Verbose Host" href="#" target="_blank">Vnwxt</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is brand new legendary hitting sleeves in <em>Magic's </em>latest set that'll cost you <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-1" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span><span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-u" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> for a 0/4 Homunculus. From the get-go, Vnwxt provides the benefit of removing your maximum hand size for as long as it's on the battlefield.</p>
<p>But on top of that, this slick cyclopean boasts one of the brand new mechanics in the <em>Aetherdrift</em> repertoire. <em>Start Your Engines!</em> is a, for my part rather corny, new ability popping up on <em>Aetherdrift</em> cards that gives you another new thing to track in Commander games: your speed.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards reverse"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Max Speed"></div></div>
<p>Speed starts at one whenever you play your first <em>Start Your Engines! </em>card and will increase only once on each of your turns whenever an opponent loses one or more life.</p>
<p>Doesn't matter how, you could hit them with a creature, you could burn them with a spell, they could tap one of their <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Caves of Koilos" href="#" target="_blank">pain lands</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> for colored mana. As long as it happens on your turn.</p>
<p>Once you hit a speed of four, you've reached 'max speed' which will usually unlock a further ability on those cards. In the case of our spotlight commander today, we'll unlock the ability, 'whenever you would draw a card, draw two cards instead'. Wait... is this a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thought Reflection" href="#" target="_blank">Thought Reflection</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> in the command zone??</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Thought Reflection"></div></div>
<h2>What If Vnwxt Drew Our Entire Deck?</h2>
<p>Vnwxt seems like the perfect leader for a deck that plays into one of my favorite mono-blue deck archetypes, "What if I drew my entire deck?".</p>
<p>There is simply nothing funnier to me in a game of Commander than when you put your hand face down in a pile next to your deck and it's genuinely difficult for someone to tell which is which.</p>
<p>In mono-blue decks it's easy to lean into Control archetypes full of counter spells, bounces and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Baral, Chief of Compliance" href="#" target="_blank">cards that make your opponents groan</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>To mix things up, I recommend taking a page out of mono-green's strategy book and turning this big eyed pipsqueak and his gang of bookworms into a good old fashioned beat down deck.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mordenkainen"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Hand of Vecna"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Body of Knowledge"></div></div>
<p>Our main objective for each game is to slap down a creature or equipment whose power reflects the overwhelming amount of cards in our hand and then swinging in for big damage. We'll be able to take advantage of blue's natural evasion to get around blockers and maybe even take out our opponents in a single blow. All the while, we'll have half our deck at our disposal to answer our opponent's attempts to halt us.</p>
<h2>Revving Up</h2>
<p>But first, we need to get our hand full and the easiest way to kick that off is using our commander's max speed ability.</p>
<p>As I referenced earlier, <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thought Reflection" href="#" target="_blank">Thought Reflection</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a very powerful card that allows you to double all your card draw. The downside of the card is that it costs a whopping seven mana for an enchantment that effectively does nothing when you play it.</p>
<p>By stapling that effect onto a two mana commander, we can do some serious shenanigans. But we have to jump through this 'max speed' hoop first. Luckily, we can get to our second gear right away on turn two by utilising some cheap flying creatures from our blue card pool.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Spectral Sailor" href="#" target="_blank">Spectral Sailor</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is a perfect example of a flying creature that we can flash in our opponent's end step and then force a loss of life after playing Vnwxt on turn two. But there's plenty of other options to perform a little chip damage.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Mausoleum Wanderer"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Merfolk Windrobber"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sunscorched Desert"></div></div>
<p>Once we've hit max speed, that's it. It's effectively an emblem that can't be taken away from us, like the <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="City&#039;s Blessing" href="#" target="_blank">City&#039;s Blessing</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. So don't worry about Vnwxt getting targeted, bringing him out for a second time will still see your double card draw active. Not to mention he's so lovely and cheap, too!</p>
<h2>Filling Your Hand, and Keeping it Full</h2>
<p>There is one thing you should be wary of when building this deck, and that's being too reliant on your commander's clause to break your maximum hand size.</p>
<p>Having an opponent destroy Vnwxt right as you transition to your end step could see you discarding an upsetting amount of cards. For that reason we should try and keep a good selection of cards in the deck that give us an alternative way to expand our hand size.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Decanter of Endless Water"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Reliquary Tower"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Thought Vessel"></div></div>
<p>Our deck will need a big hand size to perform properly so anything that helps us keep it big without Vnwxt's help will give us security and stop any nasty surprises.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Reliquary Tower" href="#" target="_blank">Reliquary Tower</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> provides a perfect way to do this as our mono-blue identity means we won't be struggling for color in our mana and it's safe from any board wipes that target creatures and artifacts.</p>
<p>Most importantly though, we need to draw a ton of cards to get this deck moving. Vnwxt's card draw doubling effect is super powerful when it's online but we can go even further by adding more replacement effects on top.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Teferi&#039;s Ageless Insight"></div></div>
<p>We already spoke about <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thought Reflection" href="#" target="_blank">Thought Reflection</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and if you can afford to get one out then it combining with Vnwxt to turn every card you draw into four cards will absolutely do some work. You can get the same effect for a little cheaper by asking our good friend Teferi instead though. It just won't trigger on your draw step.</p>
<p>Much like with hand size breakers, it's good to have a few of these in the deck to either buff your commander's effect, or replace it when he's not around.</p>
<h2>The Backup Plan</h2>
<p>It's pretty obvious how to win with a deck like this. Once you've got a couple of huge creatures at your disposal, artificially inflated by your giant hand size, all you need to do is connect with an opponent to finish them off.</p>
<p>Pick on the player with no flyers to block yours, or make your commander unblockable with an <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Escape Tunnel" href="#" target="_blank">Escape Tunnel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> then equip the <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hand of Vecna" href="#" target="_blank">Hand of Vecna</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> and deal some lethal commander damage.</p>
<p>But if dealing damage the normal way is proving too tricky, for whatever reason, we might need a few backup options to close out our games.</p>
<h3>Flood the Board</h3>
<p>If tall doesn't work out for you, we can always go wide instead. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Chasm Skulker" href="#" target="_blank">Chasm Skulker</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will meet us in the middle by getting bigger every time we draw, but also exploding into a pile of potentially-unblockable squids if it ever gets destroyed.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nadir Kraken" href="#" target="_blank">Nadir Kraken</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> will give the same effect as the card draw occurs instead, but for a cost. And if you don't mind spreading your card draw across your opponent's turns you can utilize my favorite new stupid card from <em>Foundations:</em></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Homunculus Horde"></div></div>
<h3>Ping 'Em Down</h3>
<p>Who says mono-red has to have all the direct damage fun? Whilst you can expect it to act as a lightning rod for every removal spell in the 99 of your opponents' decks, Psychosis Crawler will massively punish their life totals for as long as it stays on the board.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Psychosis Crawler"></div></div>
<h3>Empty The Tank</h3>
<p>If those pesky opponents continue to refuse you wins by damage alone then it's time to start bringing out some alternative win conditions instead. When you draw as many cards as we're planning to in this build, two very niche cards (and one very overused one) become seriously dangerous wincons for you.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jace, Wielder of Mysteries"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Laboratory Maniac"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Thassa&#039;s Oracle"></div></div>
<p>It'd be foolish not have at least one of these options available to you in your 99, and you can probably get away with just one or two as you'll likely get your entire deck in hand anyway.</p>
<p>Just be warned that <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Thassa&#039;s Oracle" href="#" target="_blank">Thoracle</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is widely considered to be a very boring way to end a game of Commander, by myself included. Especially if your opponents are used to CEDH.</p>
<p>It just doesn't feel quite as earned when you already have a big mono blue board providing plenty of Devotion!</p>
<p>Whilst we're chatting about intentionally emptying our own library, it's worth pointing out that it's a very easy way to get milled to death. I'd recommend having a safety piece out to protect you in case your wincon gets cleared before the final card is drawn.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Campfire"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Elixir of Immortality"></div></div>
<h2>Some Useful Tools</h2>
<p>So we have a strategy, and a few ways to still win the game if it doesn't go well. But there's still plenty of tricks we can hold up our sleeves to smooth the game in our favor.</p>
<p>If you're struggling to find key pieces to push you over the finish line, there's no better color to card select with than blue. Descendant of Soramaro allows you to rearrange the top X cards of your library where X is your hand size.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Descendant of Soramaro"></div></div>
<p>When your hand starts to get as big as (or bigger!) than your library, this effectively turns into an infinitely repeatable, instant speed, two mana tutor. Great to find a <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Counterspell" href="#" target="_blank">Counterspell</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> or Jace that's hiding at the bottom of your deck.</p>
<p>If you've had to abandon your combat damage strategy for whatever reason, maybe your opponent has a board as big as yours or they're able to prevent incoming damage, you can neutralize everyone else's creatures with this weird old tech.</p>
<p>This is definitely a nonbo in most situations though. Careful it doesn't eat up room in your hand. Use <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Oboro Envoy" href="#" target="_blank">Oboro Envoy</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> instead for a more targeted version.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Meishin, the Mind Cage"></div></div>
<p>If there's one constant in Commander<em>, </em>it's games that take way too long. How many matches have you been in that have outstayed their welcome? You can make your deck more survivable by adding a little life gain to your upkeep with Ivory Tower.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ivory Tower"></div></div>
<h2>Go Forth and Draw!</h2>
<p>What do you think, is having a hand so big you can barely hold it worth the effort? If nothing else it's a hell of a good time. I'm seriously tempted to swap this guy in as the new commander of my current mono-blue deck with the same strategy. Currently fronted by big Jin:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Jin-Gitaxias"></div></div>
<p>Let me know in the comments how you'd build around Vnwxt's crazy card draw. And most importantly, keep building those mono decks, and we'll see you next week for more of <em>The Monolith.</em></p>


deck tech