Gran-GranGran-Gran | Art by Arou

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Aura of DominionAura of Dominion is the only blue Aura that can tap another one of your creatures to untap the enchanted creature?)

You ever wake up to find that, thanks to new spoilers, one of the best looters in the game is now your mee-maw?

At a single mana, Gran-GranGran-Gran is already the most efficient looter out there, making newer power-crept looters, like Kitsa, Otterball EliteKitsa, Otterball Elite and Likeness LooterLikeness Looter, look downright silly, to say nothing of the original Merfolk LooterMerfolk Looter. You do have to find a way for her to continually get through in your attack step, though, which is something. Or is it?

Of course, even if you manage to find a way to tap her, you still only get to use her loot trigger once a turn, right?

Well... Let's find out?

Top 10 Repeatable Mono-Blue Permanent Untappers

Criteria: Permanents within the blue color identity that can untap a creature more than once in a turn cycle without egregious outside assistance (get outta here, Retreat to CoralhelmRetreat to Coralhelm!). As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Mirran SpyMirran Spy

(10.2K Inclusions, 0.29% of 3.56M Decks)

Mirran SpyMirran Spy is near and dear to my heart, as it's one of the best odd cards in my newest Competitive EDH deck, featuring Lady Octopus, Inspired InventorLady Octopus, Inspired Inventor at the helm. The circumstances are a little different when it comes to Gran-GranGran-Gran, however, despite her being another single-blue-mana commander that punches way above her weight class. The reason? Gran-Gran isn't an artifacts commander. Sure, we'll definitely be throwing in a lot of artifacts, especially if you count the Vehicles and rocks we'll need to constantly be tapping her, but there's not going to be room to put in the artifact synergies that you'd need to translate a lot of artifacts into an "artifact deck". Why? Because we're already an untap shenanigans deck, and that's going to take up all of our space if we want to commit to looting our whole deck (which is absolutely the gameplan).

9. Tolarian KrakenTolarian Kraken

(10.3K Inclusions, 0.29% of 3.56M Decks)

Tolarian KrakenTolarian Kraken, on the other hand, fits our strategy completely. It triggers every time that Gran-Gran triggers, meaning there's a feedback loop here that we can easily make go infinite. How, you ask? By making Gran-Gran into a mana dork, of course!

These options are cards that we already wanted in the deck anyhow, as they tap Gran-GranGran-Gran, but that also go infinite and loot our entire deck with Tolarian KrakenTolarian Kraken.

I do want to add a caveat here before we go full Sheev, however: looting your entire deck is not the same thing as drawing your entire deck. If you have zero cards in hand, it doesn't do anything at all except fill your graveyard and kill you. If you have one card in hand, it's essentially a tutor, which can be good enough given that it also mills your entire library and we'll be playing Thassa's OracleThassa's Oracle, but it's still risky. No, what you really want is two or more cards in hand when you go off, so that you can both attempt to win the game and protect it by grabbing interaction as well.

8. Mind Over MatterMind Over Matter

(12.5K Inclusions, 0.35% of 3.56M Decks)

Less straightforward is Mind Over MatterMind Over Matter. While it's an insane card, it's also, shall we say, well costed? At six mana with four blue pips, it is one of the more difficult cards in the game to cast that then also asks us to discard even more cards as we are already struggling with the problem of not having enough with our constant looting. We're gonna pass.

7. Chakram RetrieverChakram Retriever

(18.4K Inclusions, 0.52% of 3.56M Decks)

Chakram RetrieverChakram Retriever's concerns are similar to Mind Over MatterMind Over Matter's. In order to cast spells, we need to have cards, and it's likely that we won't have enough for this to actually go the distance. There are a couple extra resources we have, like Containment ConstructContainment Construct, that make it a bit more feasible, but at five mana and a clunky feeling, I think we leave this one on the shelf.

6. Sword of the ParunsSword of the Paruns

(22.4K Inclusions, 0.31% of 7.22M Decks)

Making three mana every time we want to untap Gran-GranGran-Gran is a lot different proposition than making one for Tolarian KrakenTolarian Kraken. That's why all of Sword of the ParunsSword of the Paruns combos involve creatures that can tap for four or more mana, a prospect that is unlikely to ever occur with Gran-Gran. Next!

5. Merrow ReejereyMerrow Reejerey

(32.3K Inclusions, 0.91% of 3.56M Decks)

Well, Merfolk lord was not a direction I was expecting things to go today, and after a bit of research, it turns out that we aren't going to. We already play Thassa's OracleThassa's Oracle, but we aren't interested in casting it until we're ready to win the game, most of the Merfolk untappers are bad, and while there are some value and interaction pieces attached to various Merfolk, there aren't enough that we can build a deck around them.

4. Pemmin's AuraPemmin's Aura

(43.4K Inclusions, 1.22% of 3.56M Decks)

Oh hey, look, a cheaper version of Tolarian KrakenTolarian Kraken, with a lot more options stapled to it!

Kidding aside, this card and others like it we'll see further up the list were the first thing that came to everyone's mind when they saw Gran-Gran, other than possibly looking up the list of blue Lessons. Pemmin's AuraPemmin's Aura is a known broken card with a combo list three miles long, and our fair grandmother is just the latest card in a long list to do dumb things with it. With the slight caveats that we need to be worried about people removing Gran-Gran while Pemmin's is on the stack, and that Honor-Worn ShakuHonor-Worn Shaku doesn't work with this as we need blue mana, this is pretty much the height of broken. In other words, it's exactly what we're looking for.

3. Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle

(54.6K Inclusions, 0.76% of 7.22M Decks)

In similar fashion to Sword of the ParunsSword of the Paruns, Umbral MantleUmbral Mantle is really more for creatures that make a ton of mana, at least as far as the prospect of going infinite goes. It's a lot cheaper to both cast and equip than Swords is, but I still don't think paying three mana to loot is worth it in any universe, even the one where we're doing that repeatedly.

2. Intruder AlarmIntruder Alarm

(70.5K Inclusions, 1.98% of 3.56M Decks)

At first glance, this is the same thing we've already gone over with Chakram RetrieverChakram Retriever and Mind Over MatterMind Over Matter. We get to untap when we cast creatures, but we need cards to cast creatures, and we probably don't have them.

...If you've ever played at a table with an Intruder AlarmIntruder Alarm, however, you know that things aren't quite that straightforward. Alarm triggers when any creature enters the battlefield, meaning this is going to be happening all the time even if we aren't the ones doing it. In other words, we play this just as a value piece if nothing else.

But could it be more?

There are quite a few cards that make a creature based off of your card draws, and most of them are reasonably priced. While almost all of them trigger on the second card you draw each turn, that's going to translate to a lot of creatures and a lot of untaps. The one that could go all the way, however? Nadir KrakenNadir Kraken triggers every time we draw, we just need a mana to make it happen, making it and Intruder AlarmIntruder Alarm together into another copy of Tolarian KrakenTolarian Kraken.

1. Freed from the RealFreed from the Real

(72.9K Inclusions, 2.05% of 3.56M Decks)

While not as versatile as Pemmin's AuraPemmin's Aura, it is the same end result with Freed from the RealFreed from the Real: if we can find a way to tap Gran-Gran for a blue mana, then we can loot our entire deck. The main difference between the two is the lack of MorphlingMorphling abilities that come with Pemmin's AuraPemmin's Aura, and one less blue pip to cast Freed from the RealFreed from the Real. That easier casting cost is the reason that Freed is up here on top, but let's be honest: for our purposes, we were always playing both.

Honorable Mentions

Going through the dregs after the content of our list, the only other reasonable cards that come up are Crab UmbraCrab Umbra and Aura of DominionAura of Dominion.

Trading mana on the front end for mana on the back end, Crab Umbra comes out quite a bit worse for the exchange. While it is nice to be able to drop it early, three mana for every untap is just too much to do anything broken with... which was probably the intent, to be fair. Aura of DominionAura of Dominion, however, is just straight-up a fourth Freed from the RealFreed from the Real for us, so it gets windmill slammed into the deck.

Still, there's gotta be more non-combo, incidental value stuff, right?

First off, in the land slot, there are actually two really good untap effects. The first is the mainstay of every high-powered blue deck: Minamo, School at Water's EdgeMinamo, School at Water's Edge. While a bit expensive at basically two mana, it can untap Gran-Gran in a pinch, along with other impactful legendary permanents, like The One RingThe One Ring. The other is the much more notorious Maze of IthMaze of Ith, which doesn't tap for mana, but it can let you attack with Gran-Gran to then untap her. There are actually quite a few ways to make this into a infinite loop if we were in green, but we'll have to be happy with incidental value here (and we are).

Another option that didn't make our list because we specifically specified "multiple times in a turn" is Sting, the Glinting DaggerSting, the Glinting Dagger. Sting triggers on each player's combat, meaning that four times a turn cycle, you can untap Gran-Gran for both blocking or more tap-loot nonsense. It may not be slaughtering Orcs, but it will do just the same.

All right, nothing left but the decklist!

For those of you looking at this list and thinking cEDH, I get it, but put it out of your mind. Gran-GranGran-Gran being a one-mana commander and having several two-card combos that overlap and include good cards makes it close, but most of the combos involving Auras makes it all a bit untenable. Combine that with her not actually being card advantage, and the first time that Gran-Gran gets removed as you attempt to attach a Freed from the RealFreed from the Real to her, you can pretty much pack it up and call it quits. You're never coming back from that kind of tempo blow.

All that said, in bracket four, this deck is going to be an absolute monster. Gran-Gran comes down fast and starts looking through your deck, which can result in infinitely repetitive nonsense with a quick, given the amount of redundant pieces we have for our main combos. It's also a real blast to play, just constantly drawing cards, declaring them not good enough, and pitching them in the bin. Things do feel real bad when you can't find an actual card advantage engine, but alas, every deck has its bad days.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

Bracket four is in a lot of ways, the least popular way to play Commander, and I know that I personally have struggled finding both games for it and also spots in my bag. Even more disturbingly, I've found that when I do make the effort, a lot of folks don't agree with me on where bracket four is, and think I've either hit too low or too high.

And finally, what is your favorite untapper? Would it combo with Gran-GranGran-Gran, or just loot a few cards here and there?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the cozy table with the hot chocolate and Uggs.