<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcee, Sharpshooter" href="#" target="_blank">Arcee, Sharpshooter</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.artstation.com/voltastudio">Volta Creation</a>)</h6>
<h1>Technically Playable - <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcee, Sharpshooter" href="#" target="_blank">Arcee, Sharpshooter</a></h1>
Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is technically playable" (the best kind of playable). The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card, then I'll write about how we can build around it!
This week's random commander is <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Arcee, Sharpshooter"></div></div>
Arcee (I assume pronounced Ar-See, like RC, the shortened version of Remote-Controlled) is split between wanting to cast spells on the Vehicle side and wanting to stack up as many counters as possible on the Robot side. In this article, I'm going to look at cards that work with each side so you can make a deck to really get the most out of whichever version of Arcee you like best.
<h2>Loading up Counters on Arcee</h2>
We'll look at the front side first. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcee, Sharpshooter" href="#" target="_blank">Arcee, Sharpshooter</a> cares about +1/+1 counters, the more the merrier. This gives us a great way to use an underrated mechanic: modular. Wizards of the Coast has tried to make modular work in Commander before, most notably <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp" href="#" target="_blank">Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp</a>, but even that card is only at the helm of 0.036% of decks. I feel like Arcee is a great way to utilise modular as best as possible.
Of the 22 modular cards legal in a Boros deck, the only ones we probably shouldn't use would be <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcbound Wanderer" href="#" target="_blank">Arcbound Wanderer</a>, a six-mana 2/2, simply not worth the cost, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Power Depot" href="#" target="_blank">Power Depot</a>, since we're not in the market of losing lands for a single counter. Other than that, the other 22 cards all fit in. The biggest downside of Arcee being red and white is the lack of cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Hardened Scales" href="#" target="_blank">Hardened Scales</a> since that's the best way to properly abuse modular, but we have alternatives. The only real replacement is <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lae&#039;zel, Vlaakith&#039;s Champion" href="#" target="_blank">Lae&#039;zel, Vlaakith&#039;s Champion</a> (a character whom I kill every single playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3).
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lae&#039;zel, Vlaakith&#039;s Champion"></div></div>
The most important modular cards to run are definitely <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp" href="#" target="_blank">Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp</a>, for additional counters from your modular creatures and the ability to get rid of them at instant speed, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcbound Shikari" href="#" target="_blank">Arcbound Shikari</a>, to spread more counters across your board, and, of course, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcbound Ravager" href="#" target="_blank">Arcbound Ravager</a>, probably the strongest of the modular cards and another way to sacrifice your creatures to get your counters onto Arcee at will.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Steel Overseer" href="#" target="_blank">Steel Overseer</a> is one of the best cards in this deck for sure: since all of the modular cards are artifacts, this is effectively a lord that lets us make the most out of our counter synergies. Similarly, the outlast cards from Khans of Tarkir, like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Abzan Battle Priest" href="#" target="_blank">Abzan Battle Priest</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Abzan Falconer" href="#" target="_blank">Abzan Falconer</a>, also work as pseudo-lords, providing really powerful keywords to (pretty much) our entire deck.
Since we have a high density of creatures, we can also use cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cathars&#039; Crusade" href="#" target="_blank">Cathars&#039; Crusade</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Uncivil Unrest" href="#" target="_blank">Uncivil Unrest</a> to make the deck get really out of hand, causing each creature to flood our board with counters alongside haste and double damage. The best part of Uncivil Unrest is that it doesn't specify "combat" damage, allowing you to remove all of your counters from Arcee to shoot your own <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Brash Taunter" href="#" target="_blank">Brash Taunter</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Stuffy Doll" href="#" target="_blank">Stuffy Doll</a> to turn Arcee from creature removal into player removal.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Arcbound Shikari"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Uncivil Unrest"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Brash Taunter"></div></div>
<h2>Get in, We’re Going Shopping (For Spells)</h2>
The reverse side of Arcee works like a very watered-down version of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Feather, the Redeemed" href="#" target="_blank">Feather, the Redeemed</a>. This kind of sucks since it means we're just playing a worse version of a different commander, but equally means we can simply jam both copies of Feather (the original and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Feather, Radiant Arbiter" href="#" target="_blank">Feather, Radiant Arbiter</a>) as well as the other "Feather at home", <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mavinda, Students&#039; Advocate" href="#" target="_blank">Mavinda, Students&#039; Advocate</a>.
But just having these by themselves doesn't do anything; we need some good spells to pump up Arcee as much as possible. I've become more of a fan of proliferate since building my silly <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus" href="#" target="_blank">Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Moira Brown, Guide Author" href="#" target="_blank">Moira Brown, Guide Author</a> decks, and Arcee is ripe for proliferating too. I'd absolutely slam <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Unbounded Potential" href="#" target="_blank">Unbounded Potential</a> in for some bonus counters and proliferation, while <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Angelfire Ignition" href="#" target="_blank">Angelfire Ignition</a> is a brilliant way of getting Arcee through for those turns when you really need to deal some combat damage. As well as these, we can also use some cheap spells, too, like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gird for Battle" href="#" target="_blank">Gird for Battle</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Restoration Magic" href="#" target="_blank">Restoration Magic</a>, to get even more triggers from Arcee's ability.
We can also make use of one of the most nostalgic mechanics for me: Heroic. I started properly playing Magic when the original Theros came out, so having a Commander deck that can make sure of cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Phalanx Leader" href="#" target="_blank">Phalanx Leader</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Anax and Cymede" href="#" target="_blank">Anax and Cymede</a>, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Akroan Crusader" href="#" target="_blank">Akroan Crusader</a> makes me beyond happy. Of course, we have newer Heroic cards, like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cleon, Merry Champion" href="#" target="_blank">Cleon, Merry Champion</a>, as well as not really "Heroic" cards, like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Tenth District Legionnaire" href="#" target="_blank">Tenth District Legionnaire</a> and the Standard-dominating <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Heartfire Hero" href="#" target="_blank">Heartfire Hero</a>.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Unbounded Potential"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Phalanx Leader"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Heartfire Hero"></div></div>
This version of Arcee looks really aggressive, but the biggest issue there is having to deal 40 damage three times; for this, we need resources. Using <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Zada, Hedron Grinder" href="#" target="_blank">Zada, Hedron Grinder</a> with cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Defiant Strike" href="#" target="_blank">Defiant Strike</a> keeps our hand full to keep making Arcee bigger, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Storm-Kiln Artist" href="#" target="_blank">Storm-Kiln Artist</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Birgi, God of Storytelling" href="#" target="_blank">Birgi, God of Storytelling</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Urabrask" href="#" target="_blank">Urabrask</a> give us the mana we need to keep casting spells and to keep up with the green decks.
We can also use our spells to leverage cards that help us end the game. The most obvious of these are cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Young Pyromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Young Pyromancer</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Monastery Mentor" href="#" target="_blank">Monastery Mentor</a>, but these still need to win through combat damage. Luckily, there are plenty of cards that help us get around that.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Caldera Pyremaw" href="#" target="_blank">Caldera Pyremaw</a> works amazingly well with Arcee since it cares about spells and counters, which means you can spam all of your spells to make it huge, then use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Ozolith" href="#" target="_blank">The Ozolith</a> in case it dies to move those counters over to Arcee afterwards. We can also make the previously mentioned <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Heartfire Hero" href="#" target="_blank">Heartfire Hero</a> huge and let it die to do a great impression of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Chandra&#039;s Ignition" href="#" target="_blank">Chandra&#039;s Ignition</a> (this also works with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Ozolith" href="#" target="_blank">The Ozolith</a>).
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Zada, Hedron Grinder"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Caldera Pyremaw"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Ozolith"></div></div>
A lot of these <a href="https://edhrec.com/sets/bot">Transformers</a> cards are very niche, with only a handful of them getting more than 1000 decks in total, with of course <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Slicer, Hired Muscle" href="#" target="_blank">Slicer, Hired Muscle</a> being the most popular. This makes it difficult to find a wide range of cards to put into the deck (no one wants to read an article of just 50 combat tricks), so trying to brew for Arcee was a lot of fun and has made me look at the Transformers cards in a new light, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Flamewar, Brash Veteran" href="#" target="_blank">Flamewar, Brash Veteran</a> I'm coming for you next.
As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcee, Sharpshooter" href="#" target="_blank">Arcee, Sharpshooter</a> as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with Arcee as the commander tick. Let me know in the comments below if you play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcee, Sharpshooter" href="#" target="_blank">Arcee, Sharpshooter</a>, if you want to build a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcee, Sharpshooter" href="#" target="_blank">Arcee, Sharpshooter</a> deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!
&nbsp;

Technically Playable - Arcee, Sharpshooter

Technically Playable - Aminatou, the Fateshifter

Technically Playable - The Dalek Emperor

Technically Playable - Wyleth, Soul of Steel

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.cavotta.com/">Matt Cavotta</a>)</h6>
<h1>Technically Playable - Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</h1>
Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is Technically playable" (the best kind of playable).
The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card and then write about how we can build around it!
This week's random commander is: <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer"></div></div>
It's no secret that I'm a massive fan of reanimation, and recently I've begun dipping my toes more and more into theft effects. That way, the power level of my deck is often on a similar (or sometimes lower) power level to the rest of the table therefore, theoretically, ensuring I am never playing a deck that is completely mismatched with the others.
With that in mind, let's jump into talking about <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a>, a commander that works on both of those facets.
<h2>Reanimating Your Opponents' Creatures</h2>
The way that makes the most sense to play this deck (at least in my mind) is the same way people used to play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet" href="#" target="_blank">Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet</a> in Standard.
By landing Lim-Dûl or Kalitas with the mana to remove creatures you give yourself the ability to not only keep yourself alive and your opponent's boards less dangerous but also give yourself the ability to build your own board over time.
Of course, Lim-Dûl is a little harder since you need the mana for the removal and Lim-Dûl's ability but you can get around that with some cheap removal like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Defile" href="#" target="_blank">Defile</a> or even free removal spells like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Snuff Out" href="#" target="_blank">Snuff Out</a>.
The other way of getting around the high cost of Lim-Dûl is to run redundancy, the main version of this is <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Betrayal" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Betrayal</a> as this gives you effectively a second version of your commander that doesn't require you to pay an additional two mana every time a creature dies.
This works particularly well with some of the more powerful boardwipes like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Decree of Pain" href="#" target="_blank">Decree of Pain</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blood Money" href="#" target="_blank">Blood Money</a> that give you a benefit as well as wiping the board meaning you will not only have a one-sided boardwipe thanks to Grave Betrayal[/el] but you will get a ton of resources from the spell itself as well.
Obviously, the boardwipes and removal that have a low cost or an extra benefit are ideal in this deck due to Lim-Dûl's extremely high cost but realistically any removal works well in this deck.
Boardwipes in particular are great because of the way that death triggers work. Even if Lim-Dûl is in play if he dies to the boardwipe at the same time as other creatures he still "sees" them die. This means you will get a trigger for each creature and it will allow you to pick and choose how to use your mana based on which creatures you want to save.
The ideal situation here is playing Lim-Dûl and then using a board wipe the next turn because if you have something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Damnation" href="#" target="_blank">Damnation</a>, you will almost definitely have enough mana to return two creatures. But you can also use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cabal Coffers" href="#" target="_blank">Cabal Coffers</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth" href="#" target="_blank">Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth</a> together to have tons of mana to be able to play Lim-Dûl and hold up mana to reanimate creatures.
Of course, this also makes Lim-Dûl great against opposing board wipes as well as long as you have some mana lying around to use.
But we don't have to rely on Lim-Dûl and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Betrayal" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Betrayal</a> to take our opponent's creatures, we have plenty of ways to rip them straight out of our opponent's decks.
If you read my last article about <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Captain N&#039;ghathrod" href="#" target="_blank">Captain N&#039;ghathrod</a> you'll know I've been really hot on <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Brainstealer Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">Brainstealer Dragon</a>. It is a very expensive creature to play but I think it has a really high ceiling in terms of power level, if you can keep it alive for a turn cycle it can really quickly take over a game.
We also have access to some older ways to steal cards from decks. While we don't have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bribery" href="#" target="_blank">Bribery</a> we do have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Praetor&#039;s Grasp" href="#" target="_blank">Praetor&#039;s Grasp</a>. This card is particularly flexible because it can act as a silver bullet to remove a combo piece, find an answer to the current board, or even just grab someone else's <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a> to help pay for Lim-Dûl's commander tax.
Lastly is mono-black <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Etali, Primal Conqueror" href="#" target="_blank">Etali, Primal Conqueror</a> (yes I'm still dying on this hill), <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Breach the Multiverse" href="#" target="_blank">Breach the Multiverse</a>. One of the best ways to take cards from our opponent's decks as it allows us to hit each player, including ourselves while also fuelling graveyards which we could use as a resource since we're playing black.
What is funny is playing <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Breach the Multiverse" href="#" target="_blank">Breach the Multiverse</a> and then casting an opponent's Etali, or even an opponent's Breach to start a hilarious chain.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Snuff Out"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Grave Betrayal"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Damnation"></div></div>
<h2>Reanimating Your Own Creatures ("Keep your hands off my graveyard!" -My opponents probably)</h2>
Lim-Dûl is great at using other people's decks against them, but we might want to have our own threats in case our seven-mana value commander doesn't last very long (spoiler: that will be often).
But we can still keep the deck on theme and go with a powerful reanimation package. These tend to be made up of two parts:
The first is getting stuff into your graveyard.
The second is making sure those cards are threatening enough to either act as a lightning rod for removal to keep something else alive or are threatening enough to simply end the game.
For filling our graveyard there are as many options as there are decks that want the effect. In black we have arguably the best options out there. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Buried Alive" href="#" target="_blank">Buried Alive</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> are probably the two best cards you can play.
Both allow you to search for the exact cards you want in your graveyard and being a low mana value means you can start to set up in the earlier turns of the game, with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> even allowing some really powerful plays as early as turn two.
The other benefit of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> is that it allows you to search for any card, not just creatures.
This means you can even search for something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dakmor Salvage" href="#" target="_blank">Dakmor Salvage</a> or a flashback card like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dread Return" href="#" target="_blank">Dread Return</a>. But these two aren't the only ways to fill our graveyard.
I'm personally a huge fan of dredge and being able to <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Buried Alive" href="#" target="_blank">Buried Alive</a> for <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Golgari Thug" href="#" target="_blank">Golgari Thug</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Stinkweed Imp" href="#" target="_blank">Stinkweed Imp</a> lets you turbo-fill your graveyard with tons of threats that you can then bring back en-masse with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Living Death" href="#" target="_blank">Living Death</a> or even do it at instant speed with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Twilight&#039;s Call" href="#" target="_blank">Twilight&#039;s Call</a>.
When it comes to the actual reanimation, again black gives us the best options in the game. I've already mentioned <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dread Return" href="#" target="_blank">Dread Return</a> which is amazing because you can <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> it, but even if you draw it, being able to use this spell twice can swing some games in your favor very quickly.
We can also use the reanimation auras. The best of these are <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Animate Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Animate Dead</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Necromancy" href="#" target="_blank">Necromancy</a>, since they are cheap, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Necromancy" href="#" target="_blank">Necromancy</a>, has the ability to be cast at instant speed which definitely makes up for the cost of having to get rid of the creature at the end of the turn since you can just reanimate something with a powerful effect when it enters.
If don't want to risk running into enchantment removal you can also use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Reanimate" href="#" target="_blank">Reanimate</a>, probably the best reanimation spell in the game (I mean, the archetype is named after it) and if you're looking to return non-legendaries you can use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Persist" href="#" target="_blank">Persist</a> which also has an incredibly low mana value.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Buried Alive"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Reanimate"></div></div>
Now onto the fun part, the reanimation targets.
Personally, I've always been a fan of being able to reanimate huge legendary creatures like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sheoldred, Whispering One" href="#" target="_blank">Sheoldred, Whispering One</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Vilis, Broker of Blood" href="#" target="_blank">Vilis, Broker of Blood</a>, and of course <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Griselbrand" href="#" target="_blank">Griselbrand</a> (but obviously this one is banned sadly...).
Duskmourne also gives us <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Valgavoth, Terror Eater" href="#" target="_blank">Valgavoth, Terror Eater</a>, a huge nine mana 9/9 that gives you another Lim-Dûl that allows you to pay life instead of mana to bring back dead creatures.
But recently we've seen more and more non-legendaries making <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Persist" href="#" target="_blank">Persist</a> particularly good. If you look to the past of course you have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Titan" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Titan</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sepulchral Primordial" href="#" target="_blank">Sepulchral Primordial</a>, old-timey beaters that really start to show my age.
But in recent years you've had cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bloodletter of Aclazotz" href="#" target="_blank">Bloodletter of Aclazotz</a>[ and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archon of Cruelty" href="#" target="_blank">Archon of Cruelty</a> who really put the threats we used to worry about to shame.
My favorite thing about adding a reanimation package to your deck is that you can completely tailor it to the power level of your playgroup, are they running high-powered decks?
Play something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sheoldred, Whispering One" href="#" target="_blank">Sheoldred, Whispering One</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archon of Cruelty" href="#" target="_blank">Archon of Cruelty</a>. Is your playgroup lower-powered? Maybe go with a Zombie theme and run stuff like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Undead Warchief" href="#" target="_blank">Undead Warchief</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Headless Rider" href="#" target="_blank">Headless Rider</a>.
Being able to be so flexible means you could even run a sideboard of reanimation targets, shuffle them, and add a randomized selection to your deck every game.
The goal is just to make sure everyone has a good time!
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sheoldred, Whispering One"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Archon of Cruelty"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Valgavoth, Terror Eater"></div></div>
As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a> as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with Lim-Dûl as the commander tick.
Let me know in the comments below if you play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a>, if you want to build a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a> deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!
<hr />
<h4>Read more:</h4>
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<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.adamrex.com/">Adam Rex</a>)</h6>
<h1>Technically Playable - Celestial Kirin</h1>
Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is Technically playable" (the best kind of playable). The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card and then write about how we can build around it!
This week's random commander is: <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Celestial Kirin"></div></div>
Based on the number of times I've seen this card pop up while randomly hitting the random button on EDHREC (for non-article-related reasons), and based on the number I pulled from Mystery Boosters, I think this article was inevitable. And honestly, I think building this deck in paper will eventually happen too because there is some very cool tech that has been released for this commander in the last few years.
<h2>That's the Spirit(s)!</h2>
Celestial Kirin is part of a mono-colored cycle from the original Kamigawa block that all trigger and have an effect when you cast a Spirit or an Arcane spell. Luckily for us, there have been a lot of good Spirits printed across the last few years. But there is a caveat to this. Because <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> cares about the mana cost of the cards that you play, it's important to make sure that you are loading your deck with cards that hit the most prominent mana values in the format. For this, we can use EDHREC's <a href="https://edhrec.com/top">Top Cards</a> section on the site to see which mana values are the most common.
In the top two rows of EDHREC's top cards (14 cards) there are only three permanents, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcane Signet" href="#" target="_blank">Arcane Signet</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dimir Signet" href="#" target="_blank">Dimir Signet</a>. When you expand this to the top four rows (24 cards) you get into a lot more permanents, twelve in total (including the three mentioned previously). Of these twelve permanents, nine of them have a mana value two, two have a mana value one and one of a mana value of three. Based on this, it's clear that mana values of one, two and three are key, and we should have a critical mass of spells with the rest of the cards being spread more evenly across the other values. The mana value we want to avoid the most however should be four as that would result in destroying <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>.
Probably the best two mana Spirit is <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selfless Spirit" href="#" target="_blank">Selfless Spirit</a> not only is it a flier that hits the two mana value that we're after, but it also allows us to sacrifice it when casting another spell to protect our own board - I'll go into more detail about this in a later section. Regarding the other mana values, there are a ton of great options like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nikko-Onna" href="#" target="_blank">Nikko-Onna</a> which not only wipes the board of mana value three permanents, but also removes another enchantment, all packaged with the ability to return itself to your hand.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selfless Spirit"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nikko-Onna"></div></div>
You also have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kami of False Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Kami of False Hope</a> a white <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Spore Frog" href="#" target="_blank">Spore Frog</a> that will remove any one mana value cards from the board and protect you from combat damage for a turn. Probably the best two cards for to ensure you hit every mana value are <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ugin&#039;s Conjurant" href="#" target="_blank">Ugin&#039;s Conjurant</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate" href="#" target="_blank">Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate</a>. These cards have and as their mana costs respectively, giving you flexibility to hit any mana value that has problematic permanents in play.
As well as the cards themselves, there are also some ways to support the Spirit theme and to make sure you have access to any mana value you need. Of course you have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Herald&#039;s Horn" href="#" target="_blank">Herald&#039;s Horn</a> and your typical typal support, but for Spirits and Arcane spells in particular you have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Long-Forgotten Gohei" href="#" target="_blank">Long-Forgotten Gohei</a> which supports both elements of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>'s focus. However, the most important card to support <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> is the often overlooked <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Citanul Flute" href="#" target="_blank">Citanul Flute</a>. The reason why most decks don't want this artifact is because it has quite a prohibitive cost ( mana followed by mana just to put a creature into your hand is a lot) but <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>'s ability benefits from having access to specific mana costs at specific times. Being able to pick and choose what you have access to is incredibly useful for our deck.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ugin&#039;s Conjurant"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Citanul Flute"></div></div>
<h2>Celestial Kirin? More like Celestial Winning!</h2>
Horrific pun aside, you do need a win condition in a Commander deck, and that can be tough when your deck is focused around blowing up the entire world every single turn. The way around this is to find win conditions that are either a high mana cost that you likely won't cast very often, a win condition that benefits from removing your own creatures or something very niche like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Barren Glory" href="#" target="_blank">Barren Glory</a>. For <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Barren Glory" href="#" target="_blank">Barren Glory</a>, I won't go into more detail because I won't be able to do it justice like <a href="https://commandersherald.com/going-brokkos-celestial-kirin-barren-glory-sweep-tribal/?utm_source=edhrec&amp;utm_medium=article_preview">this Commander's Herald article did back in 2021</a>.
Moving on though, the main win condition for this deck is probably through amassing a huge army of tokens and attacking. This is because you're unlikely to play and zero mana value Spirits or Arcane spells so they are safe from your own board wipes and the cards you want to play to make tokens are mana values that you don't want to play very often. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens" href="#" target="_blank">Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens</a> is a great example of this as it creates a 3/3 every single time you play a Spirit and dodges most of your Spirit's mana values at a whopping seven mana value itself. The weakness of this is obvious however, as it has no built-in protection so playing it on turn seven and nothing else.
Alternatively, you can also use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of Souls" href="#" target="_blank">Field of Souls</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Court of Grace" href="#" target="_blank">Court of Grace</a> or even <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of the Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Field of the Dead</a> (depending on your mana base) to create an army of tokens. These are great options because they have a mana value of four, this is important as you'll likely avoid playing too many four cost cards since they will also destroy your commander. Furthermore, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of the Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Field of the Dead</a> is just incredibly broken since it dodges everything outside of land destruction, and we all know what Commander players thing about that.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Barren Glory"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Field of Souls"></div></div>
<h2>Keeping Your Spirits Alive</h2>
While there are a ton of good ways to win while destroying your own permanents, one of the best ways to win through board wipes is to keep your stuff alive through them. There are some obvious options like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Teferi&#039;s Protection" href="#" target="_blank">Teferi&#039;s Protection</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Flawless Maneuver" href="#" target="_blank">Flawless Maneuver</a> but here at Technically Playable we like to look at some more niche cards.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Emeria Shepherd" href="#" target="_blank">Emeria Shepherd</a> is one of the most underrated white cards from what I've seen, but it has incredible value potential. Using cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Wayfarer&#039;s Bauble" href="#" target="_blank">Wayfarer&#039;s Bauble</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Evolving Wilds" href="#" target="_blank">Evolving Wilds</a> you can turbo out a ton of lands allowing you to even overtake some of a green deck's ramp. This is also important when trying to reanimate creatures that have been destroyed by <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>. If you combine the Shepherd with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Roaming Throne" href="#" target="_blank">Roaming Throne</a> you can even use the plains from <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Evolving Wilds" href="#" target="_blank">Evolving Wilds</a> to bring back a creature and the Wilds repeatedly to imitate <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Living Death" href="#" target="_blank">Living Death</a>.
You can also back up your Spirit package with indestructible creatures. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Myojin of Cleansing Fire" href="#" target="_blank">Myojin of Cleansing Fire</a> fits this deck really well as it is both indestructible and can be used as a board wipe when you need it. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Avacyn, Angel of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Avacyn, Angel of Hope</a> is also an excellent option and while she is expensive to cast returning her with something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Emeria Shepherd" href="#" target="_blank">Emeria Shepherd</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Late to Dinner" href="#" target="_blank">Late to Dinner</a> can help to get her out much earlier to protect your other creatures. One of my favorite combinations is Avacyn and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cloudsteel Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Cloudsteel Kirin</a> to effectively have an indestructible <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Platinum Angel" href="#" target="_blank">Platinum Angel</a>.
Finally you have a couple of even more niche options. Since it's a Spirits deck, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kindred Boon" href="#" target="_blank">Kindred Boon</a> is an amazing option as you can choose "Spirit" and make any of them indestructible for the low cost of two mana. This also combos with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Myojin of Cleansing Fire" href="#" target="_blank">Myojin of Cleansing Fire</a> to give you a repeatable board wipe. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gideon Blackblade" href="#" target="_blank">Gideon Blackblade</a> is another, cheaper option allows you to choose your most important creature and keep it alive for one turn.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Emeria Shepherd"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Myojin of Cleansing Fire"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kindred Boon"></div></div>
As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> as the commander tick. Let me know in the comments below if you play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>, if you want to build a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!
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