Admit it. Just like me, you have a box squirreled away somewhere. In the box are all of those foils you cracked but have never found a home for in a deck. Yet for some reason, you hold onto these cards. These copies of Riot Piker, Angel's Mercy, and Viashino Skeleton aren’t exactly moving with alacrity into decks, now are they?

I have this box of nonrare foils that I keep. Every time I crack that booster pack or draft that jank card in Limited, I toss it into the box. I haven’t even looked at it in forever. What’s even in there?

Now, those of you who have read my articles know that I love a challenge. I love to tie hands behind my back and build decks with fewer options. Like Mark Rosewater says, limitations breed creativity. The fewer options I have when building a deck, the better the deck becomes. If you were to tell me right now to build a sixty-card deck around anything that I want, I have no idea what I’d build. All of Magic’s history is open and ready for me. Too many options to have an obvious answer.

So limiting my options helps me to be creative. Plus, the Johnny in me enjoys the creativity of building under a challenge. That’s the best way to build decks! I love to push myself. I mean, look at just some of my published projects down through the years:

• Build a deck around a randomly-chosen bad rare.
• Build a Commander deck around a randomly-selected legendary creature.
• Build numerous decks around numerous alternate formats with reduced card stock (such as Pauper).
• Build a budget deck that really reduces the budget to make things difficult.
• Build a Commander deck around cards I don’t normally use.
• Trade into a Commander deck from just a Deck Builder’s Toolkit.
• Build Commander variants such as Identity Crisis, Alphabet EDH, and Commander ’95.
• Build 100 Combo Decks in real life in just ten weeks.
• And let’s not forget a certain deck that has more than 2,750 cards and is all Highlander.

Yep, I just love reducing my options and playing around with fun projects! It’s a crucial part of my identity as a Magic player and a writer. Deck-building challenges really inspire me.

So today, when I pulled out my box of nonrare foils that I never play, it should surprise exactly no one that I immediately thought, “That’d be a cool project for a Commander deck!”

And thus, my Janky Foil Commander project was born.

Here’s the plan:

1. Look at my foil legendary creatures and select a janky foil commander to lead the team!
2. Using only cards from my nonrare foil box—and some basic lands—build a Commander deck in real life around said Commander.

And that’s it! (And I hope that, if you have a similarly janky box, you will be inspired by this!)

Wait . . . What is that?

That’s not a nonrare foil! That’s a rare . . . wow, I’d forgotten I’d cracked that card back when the set first came out. It was a rare so bad that I must’ve jokingly tossed it into this box. Well, look’s who’s laughing now, Mr. Smartypants! Say “hello” to a foil Splinter Twin. Yup, that’s actually worth something. So I guess sometimes you can sow a crappy card and harvest something truly valuable. (I still don’t think that’ll happen to this promo Golem's Heart though—I’m not sure why they even made it a promo. Did they run out of Chimney Imp and Path of Sorrow?).

Anyways, let’s head back to the project, where I see that my black cards are slightly better, so I am initially leaning that way. Unfortunately, my white is not hot. However, I notice a subtheme in my random allotment of foil white cards. And that same theme can be found in my blue stuff, too—so, for synergetic reasons, let’s build my fully-pimped-out Commander deck around Lavinia of the Tenth.

Are you ready? Hold onto your butts!

"Lavinia’s Lovable Losers"

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (39)
• 1 Ardent Recruit
• 1 Auriok Edgewright
• 1 Dawnray Archer
• 1 Defiant Vanguard
• 1 Evangel of Heliod
• 1 Flickerwisp
• 1 Frontline Sage
• 1 Ghalma's Warden
• 1 Gomazoa
• 1 Guardian of the Gateless
• 1 Jhessian Balmgiver
• 1 Kami of Ancient Law
• 1 Knight of Cliffhaven
• 1 Mist Raven
• 1 Myrsmith
• 1 Mystic Zealot
• 1 Phantom Warrior
• 1 Riftwing Cloudskate
• 1 Rimewind Taskmage
• 1 Seraph of Dawn
• 1 Surrakar Banisher
• 1 Wall of Denial
• 1 Whipcorder
• 1 Chrome Steed
• 1 Esper Cormorants
• 1 Esperzoa
• 1 Faerie Mechanist
• 1 Filigree Sages
• 1 Glassdust Hulk
• 1 Golem Artisan
• 1 Guardians of Meletis
• 1 Lumengrid Gargoyle
• 1 Sanctum Gargoyle
• 1 Sanctum Plowbeast
• 1 Silver Myr
• 1 Steelclad Serpent
• 1 Ticking Gnomes
• 1 Walking Atlas
• 1 Squall Drifter

• Spells (23)
• 1 Cancel
• 1 Chastise
• 1 Circular Logic
• 1 Complicate
• 1 Dominate
• 1 Gleam of Resistance
• 1 Judge Unworthy
• 1 Mana Leak
• 1 Miscalculation
• 1 Offering to Asha
• 1 Pitfall Trap
• 1 Put Away
• 1 Radiant's Judgment
• 1 Reviving Vapors
• 1 Smite
• 1 Traumatic Visions
• 1 Amass the Components
• 1 Arrest
• 1 Claustrophobia
• 1 Glint Hawk Idol
• 1 Ichor Wellspring
• 1 Prophetic Prism
• 1 Scrabbling Claws

• Lands (37)
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Soaring Seacliff
• 1 Stalking Stones
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 16 Snow-Covered Island
• 16 Snow-Covered Plains

Buy This Deck

That’s right; welcome to the World’s Best Metalcraft Deck! (Otherwise known as “some jank with artifacts.”) Can you imagine unveiling this fully-pimped-out deck at the next Magic night? Brag about how every card other than the basics are fully foiled and ready to go, and then you unleash favorites such as Mystic Zealot and Esper Cormorants? You could even say stuff like, “Hey, everybody says you should play your foils in Commander!” If no one knows you there, that’d be priceless!

Anyway, the artifact theme is obvious. I have Sanctum Gargoyle, a Modern Masters version of Faerie Machinist, four metalcraft creatures, and more fun. Some cards work surprisingly well together. For example, artifacts that linger in play like Ichor Wellspring and Prophetic Prism will help the metalcraft.

So, basically, the deck has three things: a lot of creatures plus some countermagic and removal. Unfortunately, I didn’t have foil versions of artifact- or enchantment-removal spells. If I could have selected my colors, I probably would have gone for green, where I have cards like Naturalize, mana-searching, and big creatures like Carnage Wurm.

But still, I do have some creature removal here and there. Plus, I have a ton of creatures. In a deck in which my creatures are likely to be outclassed by my opponents’, having more must be the key to truly winning, right? Right? Anyone?

I often spend time in my Commander articles talking about what I included and why, but there’s little need here. I included it because I had to. Here are the cards that were next in line: Hillcomber Giant, Tower Drake, Pili-Pala, Sphere of the Suns, Thassa's Bounty, Balduvian Frostwaker, and yes, even that Golem's Heart. It’s not as though any of those cards was good enough to obviously knock down walls. I just don’t have a lot of depth for a project like this. Sure, if I look, I’ll unearth the occasional Kinsbaile Balloonist or Artful Dodge, but those cards aren’t making the cut in a deck like this. At least this is a deck. It has what passes for synergy.

While this deck has a lot of heart, it doesn’t have a lot of power. And that’s all right. It’s the epitome of a fun deck. And let me tell you: Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes, you just want to play with Phantom Warrior and Smite. Sometimes, having fun is about just that—and forget the rest!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

P.S. If you were saddened by me pulling that foil Ticking Gnomes from Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy, well, it’s already back into a deck!