Commander Magic Deck Of The Week: Senator Peacock, All Clues, All The Time

Of the legendary creatures among the evidence cards from Ravnica: Clue Edition, Senator Peacock stands out to me as an excellent build-around commander.

Peacock’s text box suggests two deckbuilding avenues: first, artifacts that you’d want to sacrifice for a benefit (other than the Clue draw a card ability), and second, you want creatures that give you a benefit by being unblockable (other than just smashing life totals). I love the balance here, since sacrificing artifacts for profit could easily suggest a deck that sits back and durdles, hiding behind a large handful of cards, but then, making a creature unblockable suggests a more aggressive stance with creatures that want to get in there with combat damage. Note that if you sacrifice a Clue during another player’s turn, you can make an opponent’s creature unblockable, so it’s cool you can play politics with the ability.

I went ahead and pulled together a Senator Peacock deck this week and wanted to share it with you!  Let’s investigate the decklist.

Clues/Investigate

Even though Peacock makes every artifact a Clue, I still wanted to have a good number of ways to generate Clues, Clue cards, and cards that cared about Clues. Five Hundred Year Diary is just bonkers with Senator Peacock, basically giving you a Tolarian Academy that can be untapped by artifacts that untap artifacts. Tamiyo’s Journal lets you sacrifice three Clues for just a tap activation to tutor up a card from your library to your hand, and Peacock will let you make three creatures unblockable. Tangletrove Kelp is a fantastic curve-topper that can make all your Clues (or all your artifacts if Peacock is around) into 6/6 Plant creatures at the beginning of each combat, letting you smash in and potentially end the game.

Artifacts to Sacrifice

Artifacts that do something cool when they die end up being pretty cool as Clues, so I was thrilled to add Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring. And if no one is interested in attacking into my Solemn Simulacrum, I can just sacrifice it as a Clue and draw two cards!  Of course the late-game bomb is Spine of Ish Sah, which enters the battlefield and destroys a permanent. Then you can sacrifice it as a Clue, and it’ll come back to your hand to do it all over again.

I put Dire Mimic here since it’s fun that it can become a 5/5 creature to beat down, but if Senator Peacock is on the battlefield, you can sacrifice it as a Treasure to add a mana, and you get to make a creature unblockable with Peacock’s triggered ability.

Artifacts Synergies

Clues happen to be artifacts, so I’m running a bunch of cards that care about artifacts, many of which are also artifacts themselves!  Manifold Key is here to untap Sol Ring for extra mana, or Five Hundred Year Diary for a ton of extra mana, and in a pinch it can make something unblockable if you don’t want to sacrifice a Clue. Scrap Trawler does wild recursion stuff when all artifacts can be self-sacrificing Clues.

Even without being juiced by one of your opponents controlling a planeswalker, Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender loves having Clue artifacts around getting put into the graveyard, growing Syr Ginger and letting you scry 1 each time. Darksteel Juggernaut and Nettlecyst provide excellent candidates for Peacock’s unblockable ability, smashing in for a lot of damage.

Rise and Shine (with overload) and Cyberdrive Awakener join Tangletrove Kelp as end-game plays to take down an opponent or three.

Unblockable Combat Damage

When I was sifting through my blue cards looking for creatures I’d like to make unblockable, I came across Somnophore, a terribly underpowered card that I thought would be sweet in this deck. Somnophore gives “super stun” to a creature the defending player controls each time it slides by blockers. Even though Nautiloid Ship has flying, occasionally there isn’t a clear attack lane, so making it unblockable can make a big difference, and once it deals combat damage, you get to cast a creature card you exiled with Nautiloid Ship. For a mono-color deck, being able to put off-color creatures onto the battlefield under your control can help ensure some wiggle room around protection from blue.

I’ve got Inkmoth Nexus in the deck as a way to end a game that might not otherwise be winnable. Boost it with Nettlecyst, make it unblockable, and you might be able to beat the player who’s gained a zillion life.

Card Draw

Clue cracking will help draw cards, but I also wanted some other ways to keep the cards flowing that didn’t rely on Clues. Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar plays well with the unblockable trigger from Peacock, and it also lets you attack into an unfavorable blocking situation where you can bring back the creatures that would otherwise die and recast them. Shimmer Dragon and Thought Monitor are awesome with a heavy artifact deck.

I love Coveted Jewel in Commander, but life is tough if it keeps getting moved around among your opponents. Peacock’s unblockable ability helps to steal it back, but you can also just sacrifice it as a Clue if you don’t want an opponent to steal it.

Psychosis Crawler isn’t card draw, but it cares about our extra card draw, slowly draining life from our opponents along the way!

Removal

Mono-blue is a little light on removal options, but Reality Shift and Ravenform are pretty good and Aetherspouts can stave off an alpha strike pointed in your direction. Duplicant gives us a really nice exile effect in artifact form, and if we’ve got Spine of Ish Sah and Scrap Trawler triggers along with Duplicant, that should turn the tide pretty quickly.

Interaction

With enough lands on the battlefield, Senator Peacock can equip with Blackblade Reforged and attack unblocked to kill with commander damage. I also think it’ll be fun to make Peacock an indestructible God with Tyrite Sanctum!

I still don’t see enough people playing Barrow-Blade, but it’s awesome and an artifact, and so I’ve found a spot for it here.

Mana Ramp

I’m running a lot of mana ramp because Senator Peacock is a bit on the expensive side and provides a ton of mana sinks if we need it. Urza, Lord High Artificer provides a big mana bump in an artifact-heavy deck as well as a value mana sink engine himself. Inspiring Statuary is awesome here since Clues (or artifacts pretending to be Clues with Peacock) can be sacrificed to draw a card even if they’re tapped to help cast nonartifact spells with improvise.

The Deck

Okay, here’s the full decklist!

Here are the deck stats from our friends at Archidekt:

So, what other must-have cards might I have missed including here?  Which of the legendary creatures from Ravnica: Clue Edition are you building new Commander decks around?

Talk to Me

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter!  I run polls and start conversations about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun!  You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.

I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl, and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can.  If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel.  You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews.  

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.