MTG Commander Deck Of The Week: Myojin Of Cryptic Dreams???

In the earliest days of EDH, I remember running across Phage the Untouchable and initially thinking, “Wow, this is just unplayable in EDH. Casting it from the command zone means I’ll instantly lose.” I moved on, but Phage lingered in my mind for a while. Is it really unplayable? 

Around the same time, I wrote a Single Card Strategy article on Sundial of the Infinite and realized that the “you lose” ability of Phage is a trigger you can put on the stack and then end the turn, clear the stack, and survive with Phage on the battlefield. Digging a little deeper, I found Torpor Orb and Platinum Angel as other ways to loophole around the perilous downside of casting Phage from the command zone instead of your hand. Suddenly, it seemed like a fun challenge to build a Phage the Untouchable Commander deck.  You can read about it below:

Commander With Kid Gloves

I’ve tried to keep that open-mind attitude whenever I run across a new legendary creature that initially screams “unplayable” in the Commander format. A cycle of them appeared with the release of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and the accompanying Commander decks, a new batch of Myojin, the legendary spirits that enter the battlefield with an indestructible counter if you cast them from your hand, and you can cash in the indestructible counter for a big splashy effect. To balance that, the Myojin have huge mana values. If you want the big splashy indestructible effect, you can’t put one in the graveyard and reanimate it, you can’t use Sneak Attack or other effects to cheat it out, and you certainly can’t blink it to reuse the ability.

A Cryptic Dream

So naturally, at first glance they seem pretty unplayable as far as being your commander; you don’t want to pay all that mana to cast it, but since it’s coming from the command zone, you don’t get the indestructible counter, so why even bother?  But then I put on my open-mind attitude and thought, “Well, how could I get one of these to work as my commander?”  Eventually I landed on the blue one, Myojin of Cryptic Dreams, as the challenge I wanted to meet.

The indestructible counter ability is what clued me in. You can use it to make copies of a permanent spell you cast. And what does blue have plenty of permanent spells that do something similar?  Clone and all the Clone variants!  So what I could actually do is cast Myojin of Cryptic Dreams from the command zone, have it sit there as a sad little 3/3 with no indestructible counter, and then cast a Clone of it from my hand that will enter with an indestructible counter I could use to copy other permanent spells I cast.

Blue also has a lot of bounce effects that could bounce the Myojin to my hand so that I could actually cast it from my hand and get that indestructible counter.  That could be another element of the deck, and I was ready to cook!  Let’s dig in and see what I came up with for the deck.

Copying Myojin

One downside to planning on copying Myojin with a Clone effect is the fact that it’s legendary, so that will end up killing the original Myojin and putting it back into the command zone, where it will cost even more mana to cast again. Of course, we can likely do quite well with the one activation, but I do like to have a few options like Spark Double, which can copy the Myojin but not be a legendary copy.

Then there’s the awesome Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, which turns off the legend rule while it’s on the battlefield, letting you potentially make an army of Myojin copies – which will work great with my Bennie Smith Copy tokens inspired by Agent Smith from The Matrix movies.

The original Sakashima the Imposter keeps its name when it copies something, so that’s another way you can keep your Myojin on the battlefield. I’ve included a Mirror Box as another way to neutralize the legend rule.

Return Creatures to Hand

Here’s my suite of bounce spells to return Myojin to my hand to recast it properly and get that indestructible counter. It’s particularly fun to expand on the Sakashima’s Student Ninja theme and include a couple of other creatures with the ninjutsu ability, like Ninja of the Deep Hours. I was happy to slot in the new Dour Port-Mage, which will draw you a card for your self-bouncing troubles.

Proliferate

I’ve included some cards that proliferate to copy the indestructible counter so that I can use the Myojin or copy’s ability each turn. I like Thrummingbird the best, since it doesn’t cost extra mana.

Other Creatures to Copy

While I’m planning on copying my own Myojin and likely some of the best creatures my opponents are playing, I’ve included some of my own creatures that will be good targets for copying too. Making multiple copies of Sludge Monster and Frost Titan can get out of hand quickly, and I particularly love Tomb of Horrors Adventurer, since it has a copy ability built in as well as taking the initiative for a little dungeon-delving fun!

Trophy Mage is here primarily to search up Mirror Box, and Treasure Mage is here to search up Contagion Engine, but there are other good targets copies can search up too.

Assuming it can trample through, Geode Golem is an excellent way to get around the high mana value of your Myojin, and having a few extra copies to keep that option open is quite useful.

Card Draw/Selection

Keeping your hand full of options is good for any Commander deck, but this deck in particular wants to make its land drops every turn, so I’ve made some room for card draw to keep the foot on the gas. I really love Defiler of Dreams, which often doesn’t get played in most blue decks since it cares about blue permanents rather than blue instant or sorcery spells, but since our primary gameplan is casting Clone spells, Defiler is perfect both for shaving off a mana (for life) and drawing extra cards.

Removal

Blue isn’t the best for removal spells, but I’m playing some of its best options. Evacuation is a token army killer, and is another way to bounce Myojin back to my hand. Amphin Mutineer is a killer way of exiling a big threat, and once it’s down, you can copy it for more creature control. Of course, you can always just copy the best creatures on the battlefield rather than killing them off!

Interaction

I never go overboard with countermagic in Commander, but having a handful is a must for any blue deck, since you’ll want to stop a game-ending combo if you can, or save yourself from a huge burn spell or some other deadly end-game move. I’m also a fan of Spellskite, which can help keep your Myojin around while it’s in its non-indestructible state until you have a chance to copy it.

Mana Ramp

This deck is mana-hungry, starting with a very expensive commander, so I’ve jammed a ton of mana ramp into the deck, including classics like High Tide, Mana Drain… and Apprentice Wizard?  Yep, Apprentice Wizard. Why not?  Washing a blue mana into three colorless mana is great, and is anyone really going to waste a precious pinpoint removal spell on Apprentice Wizard?  I’ve even gone all the way up the mana curve to include Gilded Lotus and Caged Sun.

The Deck

Okay, here’s the full decklist in all its weird and wonderful glory!

Here are the deck stats from our friends at Archidekt:

One angle I haven’t explored too much: other permanents to copy that aren’t creatures, since Myojin’s ability isn’t limited to copying creatures. What sort of other permanent spells would be fun to copy?

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. 

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