I don’t usually take reader requests.

This is a difficult stance to take since the real reason comes down to how much time there is in any given week. We can easily respond to any given decklist we’re shown, and as Cassidy started exploring last week, this can potentially involve some real life deckbuilding and playtesting as well, though I suspect he has more time (and a deeper card pool) than I have lately. It’s a deep hole once we start digging into taking personal requests.

It takes people a fair amount of time to put together a deck, write it all out, and email it in to us asking for help. We reward that time commitment with a $20 coupon, which one lucky recipient receives but most of the people who email us do not, both to incentivize people to keep sending us deck submission emails (we need them to live!) and to pay back a little for all the time expended by participants who submit decks for us to rebuild.

Anyone can shoot off a few lines like "this sounds awesome, build me a deck around this!" and spend all of a minute to do so. Unlike the time commitment that goes into the deck submissions we receive, this is almost like cheating, and on the other side of things it comes with a considerably higher time commitment on our part to respond. We have to build the deck from the skeleton up; we have no bare bones element of the deck handed to us that the rest will hang upon.

But we do like reader feedback, and one of Cassidy’s recent articles struck a nerve with a reader whose "this sounds awesome, build me a deck around this!" request sparked more than a few thoughts flaring off in my noggin in turn and thus led to today’s article, which was selected to be in keeping with our recent trend for filling out some of the "classic" commanders we’ve never covered before.

Dear Azami,

Not really a deck submission here y’all, but just a thought on a recent column. The writer mentioned Mishra while talking about grandeur. I am a big EDH guy myself and not only read Dear Azami but anything that Bennie and Sheldon write as well. On another website, a guy by the name of Jules Robins showed how Mishra and Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] will net you a two for one on artifacts. I think this is worth looking into. I have a deck I use which is similar to his. I know you all are all about tweaking other people’s decks, but it is a good idea worth looking at. Also, he had his own take on grandeur that is worth a look.

Thanks for all that you all do, and maybe one day you all will cover my favorite legend: Kami of the Crescent Moon. I like it when you all write about some of the lesser-known legends. I play strictly on Magic Online, so I would never need anything if my decks were lucky enough to be accepted; I would just read about how you would tweak it.

I really love all the EDH columns that you all at SSG write!

Thanks,

Blake

Challenge accepted.

Breaking Down Mishra

This is a kooky Commander for a singleton format, as the most suggestive way to break the ability is via having multiple copies and just turning Mishra into a value machine. In actuality, however, you can still get that value engine online in Commander so long as you have a specific card in play; Possiblity Storm lets you play as Mishra intended with bonus free artifacts every time you do something, with the caveat being that instead of getting a second copy of the first thing you liked you simply get to keep the thing you cast and get a free something for your trouble.

Without the enchantment, you’re basically left trying to figure out how to counter your own spell while it is on the stack for fun and profit and come up gasping for air when you start seeing just how very deep you have to get. With it, however, you’re able to play a fun (chaotic!) game of Commander that leaves your opponent scratching their head at what they’re supposed to do and spewing value as the wrong spell gets played at the wrong time as you soak up additional value just by casting your spells normally.

Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] brings with it certain requirements. You have to be able to find it consistently for it to be worth anything, which means we can’t take the trendy "no tutors" approach that has been popping up lately in places because a considerable chunk of the game plan is based around Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] being in play. Wanting to have access to tutors but not wanting to lose out too much to Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] causing the wrong thing to happen when you play your own spells means you have to pick some way to bias your plays.

The tutors we’re playing are all sorceries, but we want the other sorceries we are playing to have something generally in common so that when we cast one for its effect we get something at least similar to the effect desired for strategic purposes. Sometimes we’ll get a tutor instead and perhaps go digging back in again as we seek the effect we need, but if you need a board wipe, you don’t want to get that Icefall you decided to run as a utility artifact or land control spell and die to a horde of Plant tokens.

So we’re going to have to be disciplined: no card type left alone and clustering similar types of cards together so that when you cast the thing you have you get something at least akin to what you were expecting. Mishra will take care of the artifacts, but that means we have to avoid creatures that are bad off of Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]—sorry Willbender—and cards that can flat-out miss if played at the wrong time (I’m looking at you, countermagic). We will sow the seeds of chaos and take advantage of the synergistic interaction provided by our otherwise-terrible commander because as Littlefinger said chaos is a ladder.

Restriction breeds creativity, and we begin with the lands. There are a couple of artifacts I want to play that impact our decisions here and in fact a land I want to play that impacts my decisions back in return. I originally wanted to play with Mindslaver because it’s big and fun and splashy, but I also wanted to play with Academy Ruins because this is a strongly artifact-based deck and Ruins is going to be awesome here. However, those two cards are not something I can ever conscience putting in the same deck together.

There are benefits to showing that you aren’t trying to abuse people, and thus you can either play an Academy Ruins and promise you don’t have a Mindslaver in your deck or play a Mindslaver and promise you don’t have Academy Ruins. There were enough other good things going on that I picked the land rather than the spell, and the "Mindslaver is good and makes games more chaotic but in your favor!" argument is already well-covered by the board state we intend to build already accounting for a sufficiently chaotic game.

Just For The Colors:

Underground Sea, Badlands, Volcanic Island; Watery Grave, Blood Crypt, Steam Vents; Dimir Aqueduct, Rakdos Carnarium, Izzet Boilerworks

Colored mana on the easy, made all the easier by the next set of cycles:

Bloodstained Mire; Scalding Tarn, Misty Rainforest, Arid Mesa, Verdant Catacombs, Marsh Flats

We are biasing on the side of wanting lands with basic land types rather than otherwise, so while we aren’t following through on my usual preferred trick of trying to maximize these lands to be used every turn with Crucible of Worlds or some other effect, these all help fix our colors while counting as basic land types for the cards that care about those.

Shadowblood Ridge; Graven Cairns; Dragonskull Summit; Lavaclaw Reaches

The basic land type that matters is "counts as an Island," so we’re going to want to maximize blue sources from our basic Islands but are otherwise entirely able to fix our colored mana evenly between black and red and thus reach for the other dual lands that count as both as they will be quite effective next to basic Islands. Lavaclaw Reaches even gives us something to do in the late game with a board full of mana and no action, as if it were some sort of Grixis variant of Kessig Wolf Run.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth – Not quite a mana fixer but not quite a basic either, Urborg is here to smooth over colored access even though we’re strongly committed to having basic Islands in significant quantity. We’re forgoing the usual combo of Cabal Coffers in this deck because we have less we really need to spend it on and far fewer actual Swamps as well since we’re biasing so far in favor of Island instead.

Utility Matters

Thawing Glaciers – If Islands matter, having a card that can get multiple Islands turn after turn will surely matter too. It is also color fixing and just an awesome way to streamline your draw with a free land every other turn, which lets us get up to the higher reaches of mana without having to invest in any spells to really help us get there.

Academy Ruins – We’re going to have 30+ artifacts in this deck, so this is going to be an excellent source of recursion when the card we want to draw most happens to be sitting in our graveyard. We’re going to play a wide variety of artifact effects too, so this helps us get back anything that has been lost or used up already as we won’t otherwise be able to replicate their unique effects.

Phyrexia’s Core – Sacrificing an artifact for fun or profit will come up at least a little as a sub-theme, so we include this land (in my usual "I love Winding Canyons!" slot) for the utility it provides in being able to get rid of an artifact we want dead on the cheap.

Bojuka Bog – Easy access to uncounterable graveyard hate. We’re going to be generally pretty light on that effect, so we want them to be as powerful as possible so we can continue ignoring opponents’ attempts at recursion because we’ve already cut them off at the knees.

Tolaria West – We have enough good utility lands that searching up the right one is important, and at the very worst this can fetch up a bounceland to get an extra dash of card advantage while we’re at it by getting more mana on the cheap. Usually this comes with some sort of zero-mana spell you can make use of, but the traditional Slaughter Pact or Ancestral Vision or whatnot are restricted by the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] we’re going to embrace.

Back to Basics

8x Island, 2x Mountain, 2x Swamp

This gives us a nice total of 37 lands, which is clearly sufficient after you factor in the bits of card drawing we get to play to keep the card flow up and the additional mana effects to be found in the artifact section. I want to talk about the artifacts last actually, but we’ll skip a wee bit ahead to add the artifact-based mana sources I want to use here since they’re so topical:

Izzet Cluestone, Rakdos Cluestone, Dimir Cluestone – We do want a bit of access to acceleration as well as a bit of color-= fixing since I want to add more basic lands and not play a few of the still readily accessible dual lands in order to keep a high Island count for Vedalken Shackles later. While these won’t be the "very exciting" bonus free spells to storm into when our chaos combo is online, they’ll never be actively bad since they at least trade in for a fresh card, and I’ve found I’m starting to grow fond of Cluestones in the format. What can I say, I really like Mind Stone, so anything that replicates the parts I like about it are all right in my book.

Sol Ring – Obvious card is obvious and also awesome.

Expedition Map – This is a vital addition that goes well with our Trinket Mage that will inevitably make it into the critter section, letting us fix our mana without needing to add any artifact lands for Trinket Mage to dig up. Those would be especially bad as they’d count as artifacts to storm into and just make for headscratching, as Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] says to cast the new spell and you can’t cast those, meaning you get robbed of getting anything, which is even worse than flipping a Cluestone. This also gets some of the spiffy lands you have to work with like Academy Ruins or Bojuka Bog, letting this sit in as the Nihil Spellbomb I initially wanted then realized I’d probably hate flipping over instead of a meatier spell instead.

Moving on now to the spell side of things, we begin with the much-foretold Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]. If we want to use this effectively rather than chaotically, we have to accept certain deckbuilding restrictions: we can’t have single copies of individual card types, unless of course we’re talking enchantment and the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] is the only one we play, as it clearly won’t be in play when we cast it (and thus won’t get robbed).

We have to play at least two copies of specific card types or those spells will simply counter themselves with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] in play, and if we want to avoid cards "countering themselves" by playing a spell that does one sort of thing and flipping into a spell that doesn’t do anything or can’t even be cast at the time, we should aim to group our card effects similarly within card types. Splitting them up will just lead to frustration and inefficiency, and those are what we’re trying to gift our opponents with, not suffer under ourselves.

That said, I’m going to avoid the enchantment card type other than Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] and avoid the tribal card type entirely as those would just be complicated versions of instants and sorceries. The possibility of cross-chatter would be neat—cast a Nameless Inversion, get All Is Dust—but All Is Dust is really the only Tribal card I want to consider anyway, and that has the upside of being awesome with our heavy-artifact base but awful to flip over if Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] is in play since then Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] will no longer be in play. We aren’t going to have the ability to get Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] back if it dies using just our cards (though we have plenty of cards that let us use the opponents’ cards, so it’s not impossible), so we strongly want to avoid things that kill Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] non-negotiably some percentage of the time just for casting a specific class of spell.

We’re also going to eschew countermagic even as we add extra Islands to our blue deck for Vedalken Shackles because we want to avoid dead flips off of Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] and the deck has some basic needs for removal and card drawing that are more relevant than dedicating an entire card type as segregated for the purpose of countermagic alone. Sorceries naturally suggest themselves as fine ways to play board wipe effects and keep the battlefield under control, while card drawing is going to be our instant slots as we can access a few of the best ones there and get some bonus amusement factor out of flashback spells at the same time.

Artifacts don’t need to be segregated to bias towards specific effects, as the cute trick we’re exploiting is Mishra’s ability to find your artifact again through the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]. Whenever you cast an artifact with Mishra and Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] in play, you have two triggers to put on the stack: Mishra’s "find me another!" trigger and Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm’s[/author] "find me something that looks like this instead!" trigger. Putting Mishra on the stack then the Storm’s trigger, you hunt for a close cousin of your initial spell then shuffle all of the exiled cards back into your library, the initial copy included, and when Mishra’s ability resolves you’ll have your initial artifact put right into play.

And we don’t even have to worry about Mishra dying and then getting shuffled into your library off of Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] thanks to the "when you play a spell from your hand" clause on Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]—Commanders are exempt, so just killing Mishra once won’t break up your good clean fun. But since your artifact spells come with value added rather than random replacement, we don’t need to try and group them boringly into one broad flavor of the week.

And as far as creatures are concerned, artifact creatures will come with a free something, either an artifact or a creature based on what you flip over first while likewise being immune to the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]. Nonartifact creatures are going to have to meet the requirement of "be generally awesome," but that also means no dead triggers as we can’t always time our Draining Whelk coming into play and don’t want to cast some awesome Primordial and only get some lousy do-nothing 1/1 flier.

Card type #1 that we’re going to define is planeswalkers. I know we want Liliana Vess as a potential tutor that will help find Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author], and she happens to be absolutely awesome with a Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] in play as she can set up what the spell you cascade into is, letting you dodge the chaos element in order to get paid off with exactly what you want right now. We can’t play just one planeswalker, though, so we need a second planeswalker worth having in these colors. I settled on Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker because mise well, amirite?

Card type #2 that we’re going to define is sorceries. We’re going to want these to be our mass removal effects, but we need an appropriate number of tutors as well to find Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] so we are going to accept potential "dead spins" on getting our mass removal on right now because flipping over tutor effects won’t automatically break the chain. If you cast Damnation because you need Damnation, flip over Diabolic Tutor, and don’t have too much mana, you can actually Diabolic for Demonic Tutor and take a rebuy on your mass removal spin for only two mana and with a greatly increased chance of hitting removal this time: two tutors are out, and your deck is actually one Damnation more full of sweepers at this point.

Tutors

Demonic Tutor, Beseech the Queen, Diabolic Tutor, Increasing Ambition

Sweepers

Damnation, Life’s Finale, Blasphemous Act, Plague Wind, Decree of Pain, Overwhelming Forces, Insurrection

Now, Insurrection isn’t exactly a sweeper, but if you’re looking to clean up a rough board, gaining control of all of it and making mischief for a turn is at least as good as a real sweeper would be—you can kill the player who controls the most problematic portion of it, making it all disappear, or gain control of a few interesting oddball cards that let you get rid of the problems by sacrificing them. Sacrifice outlets are not uncommon in this format, and if you need to deal with Player B’s board, Player A will probably be just fine not sacrificing their outlet in response to an Insurrection if you sugarcoat it just right. "I promise not to kill you with Player A’s creatures" is a good first start, and "…and I’ll let you keep your stuff" is usually a fine incentive to add as well if you can weather one half of the board but not the other.

A few of these count as card drawing spells as well, which is just a bonus stapled onto the sweeper effect we really want in the first place. Overwhelming Forces is a little bit fancy, but hey, I have one as a memento of my trip to Japan to see my girlfriend last year, so I might as well use it.

Biasing the instants to be card drawing spells exclusively, I picked only five of them, wanting to get the most card drawing bang for my buck. One of them has extra bonus accidental synergy with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author], as you’ll see in just a moment…

Thirst for Knowledge – We’re an artifact-based deck, and this is pretty clearly a strong draw spell in this shell as we’re packing over thirty artifacts. We don’t have artifact lands to discard to this, but there’s plenty of things we won’t miss (long) if we discard them.

Fact or Fiction – Hashtag EOTFOFULOSE.

Opportunity – Unfortunately, we’re barred from playing X spell card drawing since X would equal zero when revealed off of Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]. As much as I might want to reach for the power set of Stroke of Genius, Blue Sun’s Zenith, and Skeletal Scrying, we’re stuck with non-variable card draw spells, and Opportunity’s draw four is as big as it gets without resorting to X.

Thoughtflare – You don’t get a huge shot of raw card advantage for this one, but it does put a lot of cards in your hand then let you figure out which ones you’re keeping, so you’ll still get a huge shot of card quality advantage even if this only puts you up a net of plus one card of actual card advantage.

Brainstorm – Adorable with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author], as it lets you set up your next play to get exactly what you want even through the Storm. Also, Brainstorm is absurdly awesome, especially when you have fetchlands. I regret at least a wee little bit that I can’t fit a bit more small card selection spells in the deck, as I also really like Ponder and Preordain in Commander, but when you need to hit a sweeper and hit Ponder instead, you’ve spent an awful lot of mana doing not very much and probably wind up dead. Dead is a high price to pay for your small card selection spells, but at least we get to play the very best one still.

I Need Somebody…Somebody To Kill You With

Love is overrated anyway, at least with cardboard in your hands. My girlfriend recently bought me the Game of Thrones card game boxed set, and let’s just say that was a tense few hours of grumpy dissatisfaction that went exactly the opposite of how she had expected it to.

I tend to like a fair bit of creatures in my Commander decks since they can often fill the utility roles you are asking of other card types but get to beat down as well while you’re at it. 30 or more is pretty typical of my builds just so I always have something that plays on the board and can either attack or block, but in this deck we’re going to favor artifacts and thus I was only really able to slot in just shy of twenty. We bias in the favor of artifact creatures because those will still come into play through Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] and can bring a friend to the party, which will help make up for the fact that we’re running a little light—ours will simply have to work harder.

Men of Steel

Solemn Simulacrum – Obviously awesome efficiency card is obviously awesome and obviously efficient.

Phyrexian Metamorph – Clones are generally good in the format, and this one can just randomly show up for free over the course of a game when we’re running on all cylinders. We are going to have enough good artifacts that this will always be good even on an board empty of creatures of consequence, and since our creatures are going to be pretty high-powered as well, this is going to have lots of good options even before looking over at the other side of the table. That side is important too—we’re not playing any ways to get back Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] if it dies, so opposing cards like Eternal Witness are going to be very important to copy or borrow the use of somehow to reassemble the neat-o combo.

Wurmcoil Engine – Just a durable efficiency monster, and a useful one because we really don’t have much in the way of life gain available to us so we’re going to lean on its broad shoulders (and tendency to leave behind a friend when it dies).

Duplicant – We lack pinpoint removal out of our spells, but having a bit of it on our creatures will still be worth playing. While there will be times that you Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] into this instead of a creature you really wanted instead, those times will probably be infrequent.

Steel Hellkite – This is actually a really solid board control card as well as being beneficially the right card type for still getting what you want through the goofy combo. I already know just how good the card is and still find myself continually impressed by it, as the ability to take out multiple threats turn after turn is too good to ignore.

Memnarch – Now, now, this is not a no-fun Memnarch deck. Memnarch is here with no crazy support or combo to support him based solely on the merits that artifact creatures are especially good (and may tend to appear for free pretty often) when our commander plus enchantment combo is in place. Memnarch is here to bat clean-up and contain problematic board situations to make up for the fact that we’re largely stuck playing sorcery-speed Magic when it comes to interacting with the board. We don’t even have a Maze in our manabase because we’re likely to be using all of our mana proactively on our own turn, so we need a few cards to be able to do something when it’s not our turn and Memnarch gets preferential treatment when the board is "locked up" with our combo.

Bosh, Iron Golem – Another utility animal, this one instead being fully capable of hurling Spine of Ish Sah at people’s heads over and over again for Vindicates plus major damage whacks. This is my first time putting Bosh to work in a deck of my own, which is kind of sad considering I have been playing a mono-red artifact-based Godo deck on and off for about three years now. But artifact creatures get special treatment when the board is set up the way I want it to be, and he interacts in fun ways with a few cards I like to play, so he’s getting his first chance in my hands this time.

With seven artifact creatures in the deck and only nineteen slots, that means we have twelve slots to pass out amongst all of history’s Grixis-colored creatures. We’re trying to achieve something very specific, though, so they tend to suggest themselves based solely on what we’re trying to accomplish.

Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

Nezumi Graverobber – Graverobber hits a sweet spot of dual utility in this deck; we need additional ways to contain an opponent’s graveyard, and we also want access to the contents of that graveyard in case something goes wrong. Nezumi Graverobber thus can contain recursion and offer it to you, making it a very special tool for a two-drop.

Trinket Mage – We aren’t going to have that many targets, but we don’t need to know much more beyond Expedition Map, Sol Ring, and Sensei’s Divining Top to expect good things of this little Mage. While it may be disappointing to flip into when we cast something huge instead, assuming things are working as they ought to that’ll still end up with a Sensei’s Divining Top in play to mitigate future disappointment, so we’ll get over it.

Treasure Mage – While I’m sad I had to cut Mindslaver and thus a fair bit of utility for this particular Mage, we’re still going to be able to find Spine of Ish Sah and your choice of the fine artifact animals listed above. Getting "just" a Wurmcoil Engine is still pretty strong, and that this helps find the missing piece of the Bosh, Iron Golem + Spine of Ish Sah combo means we’ll get to see that particular cute trick more often than you’d think.

Olivia Voldaren – I don’t get to play Olivia enough, and this means we have not one but two solid creatures that play effective board control by stealing problem creatures in her and Memnarch. While taking your opponent’s stuff away from them as a board control plan may only be a minor subtheme, it’s one we’re going to lean on pretty hard as our other alternative in all cases will be to blow up the world.

Vesuvan Shapeshifter – While I really don’t like the idea of morphs in a deck that will fish them out and cast them face-up off of Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author], a Clone that can shift to different forms is still going to be generally a worthwhile replacement for whatever animal you were casting.

Kagemaro, First to Suffer – I like sweeper effects, and Kagemaro is a pretty darn effective Wrath effect. While I like Kagemaro + Grim Harvest more than basically anything else you can do in the entire format, we can’t fit that particular instant into this build, and even if we could the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] would make sure that it would never stick. We’ll see a few artifacts this works beneficially with added to the build when we round it out and finish it off, and at the very worst this will play a useful role in keeping the small problems off the field.

Godo, Bandit Warlord – Equipment is a key card type for keeping Mishra in play and unharmed, and giving Godo a minor equipment package to hunt up seemed to mean that in the course of normal operations we’d have a considerably higher chance of hitting one of those Equipment off either an artifact or a creature to keep the party going. Godo has the dangerous ability to beat down for a lot if you let him, but we’re not really building that role for him here. There’s nothing impossibly big like Bonehoard to put on him; "just" control cards and Skullclamp will have to do.

Oona, Queen of the Fae – Speaking of cards that are good with Skullclamp. Oona is here as a high-quality value addition that can stabilize a board that’s gotten out of control and also gives us an effective means to deal with tough pillow-fort situations. We aren’t really going to have the ability to pump Mishra up into a lethal commander attack—all of the Equipment in the deck combine to give him a mere +3/+1 and no evasion or trample at all, so while he can theoretically attack in three swings for lethal damage there is a wide gap between theoretical ability and actual capability. When we run into a mess we can’t get out of easily, Oona will take their library out of the game and that will be that.

Geth, Lord of the Vault – Another decking option, though this one does not actually deck anyone around an Eldrazi without a whole lot of mana. What he lacks in "ability to deck the opponent around commonly-played cards" he makes up for by seizing permanents from your opponents’ graveyard and putting them to work for you, letting you potentially touch your own graveyard with their tools instead of just touching their graveyard. Geth is an army in a box, one threat that builds into an entire board presence just by adding mana and time, and he’s one of the best threats around—clearly one of the chosen few for the slots we have to dedicate to killing the opponent.

Sepulchral, Molten, and Diluvian Primordial – The last three are basically just very efficient value creatures; each will have an oversized impact on the board the turn they come into play and can drastically switch around the balance of powers. It’s worth noting that Diluvian Primordial casts spells from the graveyard, not the hand, and thus gets around Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]—it’s the same workaround that explained to me that playing Desperate Ravings, Think Twice, and Forbidden Alchemy in hopes of flashing them back and getting another chance at Fact or Fiction simply didn’t work. Since we’re creature light, the fact that you get to have three Primordials that are awesome and can completely restructure the game makes any Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] for a creature an awesome game of chance and murder.

Mishra’s Utility Belt

At last we get to the artifact section, where Mishra should truly hum—not only do we get to keep the thing we cast (unlike our opponents) when Mishra + Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] is in play, but we also get a free bonus toy for each spell we get, as if everything had cascade and only found something awesome. We’ve laid out 37 lands, nineteen creatures, and nineteen miscellaneous spells, leaving us twenty-four slots for artifacts. Five we’ve already declared as part of the mana base, and another four are going to be equipment that help keep Mishra in play or possibly does awesome things—no one looks down their nose at a free Skullclamp for long.

That leaves us fifteen slots for other things, and we’re going to try to fill out the deck’s card drawing, mass removal effects, and still have room left over for more awesome besides. We want swingy things that impact the board and make the game more interesting and anything that works well with the cards we’ve already played (or better yet with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] online) is going to be even more interesting and fun.

Sensei’s Divining Top – Not every choice can be an interesting one. This works very well with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author], however, so we can’t complain too loudly about how uninteresting this is to include. If you know you’re casting Insurrection but everyone else thinks you’re just going to find a sweeper, you are going to have a lot more fun than they think you’re about to have.

Skullclamp – We have Godo and Trinket Mage, and we like to draw cards. ‘Nuff said.

Darksteel Plate, Swiftfoot Boots, Nim Deathmantle – We want to keep our commander in play once Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] is online, and these all offer their own flavors of protection. Swiftfoot Boots keeps him from being targeted, while Darksteel Plate keeps him from dying to board wipes (even if that still leaves Mishra vulnerable to spells like Path to Exile). Nim Deathmantle lets you bring a dying Mishra back immediately for four mana and can also be used just as readily on other creatures besides your Commander to good effect. It’s a solid board control card alongside Primordials and such rather than a narrow protective card that "only" really keeps Mishra in play.

Scroll Rack – If Sensei’s Divining Top is good for ordering your plays through a Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author], Scroll Rack has to be insane. We’re looking for ways to still play the things we want to play through our goofy card that makes everyone else’s plans go to hell, and Scroll Rack lets you choose your bonus gift from Mishra or simply set up the play you need to make rather than spinning the Wheel of Fish. It’s also good for helping find the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] (and/or tutor effect) and just a solid play in a deck with a lot of shuffle effects, which we’ve carefully built in to sufficient quantity to make me happy.

Mimic Vat – We’re going to be artifact based and light on threats, which makes having something solid to grind an advantage with very important. Mimic Vat is already awesome before we do anything to it, but in this deck it’s awesome and on-theme thanks to Mishra’s tendency to cheat things through a chaotic storm.

Vedalken Shackles – Not a card I’ve seen very often in Commander, but again it’s an artifact, so we’re strongly on-theme with it. Since we’re eschewing instant speed creature removal and countermagic, having things that play on the table and can be used defensively at instant speed is very important. The few times I have seen a Shackles in Commander, it comfortably took a central role in making sure that its controller never got hit too hard, as the best monster on any side of the table can spring to your defense and the best attacker can be taken out of commission all with minimal fuss.

Staff of Domination – I don’t know what to think of this card yet because it’s so newly off the banned list. But it’s a card drawing artifact that is also able to play defense by tapping attackers and scales nicely to however much mana you have and can provide several different resources that might be useful. I’m going to keep trying it out with fond memories of the first time I wanted to play it before I knew it was on the banned list, and while I don’t think this deck is the perfect fit, I still think it’d play a useful role. Resource exchange opportunities are always welcome here.

Helvault – If this were only able to recur our own creatures to dodge removal or double up comes-into-play effects, I doubt I’d be playing it, as you’ll note Cold Storage is not exactly on anyone’s to-play list. (My apologies for the one person Rule 34 says must exist to be offended by taking a bash on their favorite card.) I like things that banish enemy creatures when you’re playing removal light, having recently jammed both Predator, Flagship and Crooked Scales into a somewhat similar build a few editions ago, and in this case I’m paying a premium price to take down enemy creatures and have the ability to use my own sacrifice outlets to get them myself. I was looking at cards like Grimoire of the Dead and Altar of Shadows and then realized I could get both if I try.

Oblivion Stone, Nevinyrral’s Disk – Nothing really special here, just more potential sweepers for keeping the board in check.

Null Brooch – Counterspells would potentially gum the works with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] going and counterspell-based creatures likewise could turn up at the wrong time, but non-spell-based counterspell measures would probably be quite functional. While I did think about dusting Kai off and giving Voidmage Prodigy a home in my Mimic Vat to make up for the fact that I didn’t think Venser, Shaper Savant would be quite good enough to play as "my only counter," Null Brooch gives the ability to say no so long as you are willing to pay the cost. While I am a strong advocate for keeping cards in hand so you don’t get murdered, this deck could run into the problem of getting murdered because none of its cards actually say no, and this will help remedy that somewhat.

Trading Post – Another personal favorite card I’ve been trying to find a home for lately, Trading Post has been almost-in several recent decks no matter how badly it seemed to fit mostly because it’s awesome and I want it to get put to work more. In this deck, it lets you buy back spent artifacts, creatures or otherwise and also can play as a card drawing engine or sacrifice outlet as need be. This gains life, chump-blocks, draws cards, and recurs artifacts—it’s literally everything you could realistically want to do all wrapped into one card.

Noetic Scales – This one got picked because of the trick with Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author]—cards that go back to your hand usually come down again as the same card, but not in the game we’re aiming to play. This can help keep the board from getting too big on us by putting a hard brake on people playing things out quickly, and it preferentially bounces the biggest threats first to be put back in the "what creature do I actually get" lottery of Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author].

While it’s true that bouncing creatures can be profitable and your opponent gets the first chance at that, we’ve built a semi-lock where yes they get a creature to potentially get a enters-the-battlefield trigger off of but no they don’t really get to know what that creature is beforehand. If we’re just working from par, this deck has some pretty good triggers to reuse too, so this can be potentially useful even without the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] in play just by getting more Primordials going.

Mirrorworks, Minion Reflector – If one of whatever we wanted was good enough to have, two has to be better. These both help get more stuff on the board and build up a bigger position faster off of fewer cards, and both these resource multipliers will go crazy in the go-crazy game but also be quite helpful if we have to play a normal game of Commander instead.

Conjurer’s Closet – Like Noetic Scales, this one is here to double up on enters-the-battlefield triggers; unlike Noetic Scales it doesn’t share, and you don’t have to stuff it in the Possibility Storm[/author]“][author name="Possibility Storm"]Possibility Storm[/author] and see what comes out. It just lets you blink your clone critter, Solemn Simulacrum, Duplicant or Primordial again and again, and unlike the Scales it has an immediate effect that same turn since you get the first blink activation as soon as you go to your end step. We’re a little creature light to really ensure we always have something to use profitably with it, but we make up in quality what we lack in sheer quantity.

Spine of Ish Sah – Because throwing this at people’s faces with Bosh is the best feeling in the world, or so I have been told by quite credible authorities on the subject of Commander. We’ve got enough artifact sacrifice outlets to reuse this reliably and a need for pinpoint removal that we’re otherwise going to find lacking since we’re mostly using sweepers rather than targeted kill effects. But just as importantly as "we need this ability," which is the sober no-fun-having way to look at this card, buying back a Vindicate every turn (or multiple times a turn!) is about the most fun thing to do ever, so let’s embrace that this is something we’re actually particularly good at and roll people with Spine of Ish Sah.

Putting it all together, we get the following decklist:

Mishra, Artificer Prodigy

Sean McKeown

Test deck on 06-23-2013

Commander

Creatures (20)

Planeswalkers (2)

Lands (37)

Hopefully, this was an interesting challenge that lives up to the asked-for level of chaotic goodness of the original suggestion. While we won’t be taking deck fragment requests often—we really do much prefer our submittors to at least put together a skeleton decklist for consideration when they write to us—we’ve spent the past few months ticking off the list of things we "never do" and doing many of them, as Commander is a format that is all about challenging conventions and boundaries, including the ones we set for ourselves. We’re willing to play outside of what would normally be taken as well-defined space, like sharing this column between two writers and with occasional guest appearance. The most fun part of setting conventions is when you turn around and break them, after all…

— Sean McKeown

Want to submit a deck for consideration to Dear Azami? We’re always accepting deck submissions to consider for use in a future article, like Mike’s Crosis the Purger deck or George’s Lavinia of the Tenth deck. Only one deck submission will be chosen per article, but being selected for the next edition of Dear Azami includes not just deck advice but also a $20 coupon to StarCityGames.com!

Email us a deck submission using this link here!

Like what you’ve seen? Feel free to explore more of “Dear Azami” here! Feel free to follow Sean on Facebook…sometimes there are extra surprises and bonus content to be found over on his Facebook Fan Page, as well as previews of the next week’s column at the end of the week! Follow Cassidy on his Facebook page here or check out his Commander blog!

Dear Azami: The Impossible Is Possible Tonight