Before the series went off the rails, I was a huge fan of HBO’s show Game of Thrones, so when I saw the preview of Me, the Immortal from the new Doctor Who Commander set, I immediately thought, “Say, that looks like Arya Stark!” Turns out the character of Me was indeed played by the same actress, Maisie Williams, and first showed up on Doctor Who with the Twelfth Doctor in the episode “The Girl Who Died“.
Mechanically, Me resembles Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, which first showed up in Commander 2011. I had a Skullbriar deck for a while back then, but ended up taking it apart after a while because the deck was pretty linear and straightforward, and forced opponents to constantly point removal at Skullbriar to keep it in check. But I did really like that its “counters remain on ~this~ as it moves to any zone other than a player’s hand or library” ability was so weird.
Counter Magic
Me, the Immortal comes at a time when we have keyword counter technology, thanks to its widespread introduction in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths. Currently, we have the following keyword counters:
- Deathtouch
- Double strike
- First strike
- Flying
- Hexproof
- Indestructible
- Lifelink
- Menace
- Reach
- Trample
- Vigilance
Upcoming Magic releases add a few more, with Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress from the Tales of Middle-earth Commander Holiday Release boxes bringing us shadow counters, and Indominus Rex, Alpha from the Jurassic World Collection bringing potential haste counters. Me, the Immortal can generate first strike, vigilance, and menace counters in addition to +1/+1 counters, so it’ll be a fun quest to see just how many different ability counters you can load up on Me. What other types of counters would you like to put on Me? Shield counters spring to mind!
What’s nice about Me’s counter ability is that you don’t have to deal combat damage to get counters—all you’ve got to do is go to combat on your turn with Me on the battlefield, and you get to choose one of four counters to put on Me. You don’t even need to attack! I imagine that, on the turn you cast Me, you’ll just add a +1/+1 counter to grow the creature size to a 4/4, but once you can attack with Me, the keyword counters become relevant.
Tax Dodging
The last ability of Me is secretly amazing, letting you sidestep commander tax most of the time for the cost of discarding two cards and casting Me from the graveyard. This gives an entirely different angle you can build into your deck where you can sacrifice a creature for some benefit and simply recast Me from the graveyard, assuming you have cards you can discard. And since you’re playing Temur colors, there should be no problem filling up your hand with extra cards that you can pitch to Me’s ability.
Let’s dive in!
Counters Matter
There’s no shortage of cards that care about +1/+1 counters, but for this section, I’ll point out those that work best in this deck, plus cards that care about counters in general.
The Ozolith (sorely in need of another reprint) works great here, since each time Me leaves the battlefield, you get to put counters on The Ozolith equal to those on Me. The Ozolith’s first ability doesn’t move counters off the creature that has left the battlefield. Rather, you put the same number of each kind of counter the creature had onto The Ozolith. Cards that care about modified creatures work great with Me, with Kodama of the West Tree giving Me trample and helping you land ramp when she does combat damage, and Akki Battle Squad giving you another attack step, which will also activate Me’s beginning of combat trigger for more counters.
Aven Courier is a deep cut from New Capenna Commander that helps spread the counter love Me accumulates. Uncivil Unrest is another deep cut, this time from March of the Machine Commander, giving your nontoken creatures riot and doubling the damage of any creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it. I’ve cast Hierophant Bio-Titan in another deck that had a lot of +1/+1 counters going on, and the creature is a beating stick. A 12/12 with vigilance, reach, and ward 2? Boom! If you’ve got five +1/+1 counters to spare, it only costs two green mana.
Danny Pink from Doctor Who Commander has an awesome ability that says creatures you control have “Whenever one or more counters are put on this creature for the first time each turn, draw a card.” It’s a great way to draw cards while doing what you want to be doing in this deck.
Add +1/+1 Counters
+1/+1 counters will be the bread and butter of this deck, boosting Me’s size over the course of the game, so cards like Hardened Scales and Forgotten Ancient will do a lot of work. Bard Class is nifty too. Once you’ve reached Level 2, Me becomes much cheaper to cast, either from the command zone or the graveyard.
I like the backup abilities of Conclave Sledge-Captain and Doomskar Warrior, which can lend Me trample until the end of the turn, plus some nice combat damage triggers. And then there’s Voldaren Thrillseeker, which takes advantage of Me being able to cast from the graveyard; if it’s big enough, you can take on Thrillseeker’s sacrifice ability to deal damage to any target, and then recast Me from the graveyard.
More Types of Counters
Outside of +1/+1 counters, let’s see what other counters we can add onto Me outside of the three that she can give herself. Giving Me trample will be a big help later in the game, so cards like Titanoth Rex are awesome. Agent’s Toolkit provides a +1/+1 counter, a flying counter, a deathtouch counter, and a shield counter that you can move whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, and when Me dies and comes back, you can add another counter.
Scavenged Brawler is a great card here. You can discard it to Me’s ability to cast her from the graveyard, and then spend five mana to exile it from the graveyard to add four +1/+1 counters, a trample counter, a flying counter, a vigilance counter, and a lifelink counter on Me, which will go a long way towards making Me a game-ending threat.
Crystalline Giant only puts counters on itself, but you can play ways to move counters, like Slippery Bogbonder, and move them over to Me later in the game.
Move Counters
Here are some other ways to move counters around, with Goldberry, River-Daughter being just about perfect for this, especially since you get to draw a card along the way. Bioshift can only move +1/+1 counters around, while Power Conduit can only cash in a counter to add a +1/+1 counter.
Proliferate
Having a few cards that proliferate might be helpful, especially for increasing +1/+1 counters. Proliferate will add ability counters too, and while that won’t normally make a difference, you could use those extra counters for other effects, such as activating Tekuthal’s ability to add an indestructible counter on itself. That indestructible counter can potentially be moved over to Me.
Extra Combat
Since Temur has red, we’ve got a good number of extra combat effects available, and each combat step will give Me an extra counter trigger. Last Night Together from Doctor Who Commander is nice because it adds two +1/+1 counters in addition to giving your two creatures vigilance, indestructible, and haste until the end of the turn.
Of note: Aggravated Assault has long been an expensive card that’s been in desperate need of a reprint, and thanks to Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales, we’ve gotten the reprint and it’s much, much more affordable these days. Snag a copy now if you need one!
Extra Triggers
Outside of extra combat steps, we can put in some other ways to get extra triggers, like Clara Oswald and Adric, Mathematical Genius.
Cast from Graveyard
I really like Greater Good here when Me has grown big enough to net a good number of extra cards. Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus can serve as a sacrifice outlet, it’ll put an indestructible counter out there to potentially move around, and, since it doubles the power of your creatures, it’ll make Greater Good that much better.
We can also sacrifice Me to Birthing Pod or Prime Speaker Vannifar to tutor up a creature from your deck and put it onto the battlefield.
Surly Badgersaur is always a card you love to find a home for, and with Me needing you to discard cards to cast her again, you can get some nice triggers from this cute little Badger Dinosaur.
Graveyard Synergies
Looking for some cards I wouldn’t mind having in the graveyard led me to graveyard-loving Incarnations Anger, Wonder, and Brawn. Ramunap Excavator lets you discard lands to cast Me and then play the lands from your graveyard. Containment Construct lets you exile and cast this turn any card you discard, while Currency Converter will let you exchange cards you discard for additional resources.
Draw Cards
To really lean into Me’s ability to be cast from your graveyard, you’ll want to have plenty of ways to draw extra cards, and I’ve got a fair number of the better ones here. Jace’s Archivist is a deeper cut, but since you’re the one discarding cards, I imagine it should be easy enough to draw extra cards with each activation. And Rielle, the Everwise will let you draw two cards when you discard those two cards to cast Me, provided that’s the first time you’ve discarded one or more cards this turn.
Creature Type Matters
Me is a Human Rogue, so there are a few cards that care about that sort of thing. Cloak and Dagger will automatically equip to a Rogue creature, but getting shroud might interfere with other cards that you’ll want to target Me with. Notorious Throng doesn’t appear very often, but if you can deal combat damage to a player with Me, that unlocks the prowl ability to get an extra turn in addition to the 1/1 Faerie Rogue tokens.
Since Me is a Human, you can use Kogla’s ability to gain indestructible, but if Me has some counters on her you don’t want to lose, you can instead move Me to the command zone to keep the counters. And if you’re running enough Humans in your deck, you might consider running Laid to Rest to draw extra cards.
What cards do you think will be awesome with Me, the Immortal that I overlooked? What other legendary creatures from Doctor Who Commander are you excited to build Commander decks around?
Talk to Me
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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