Have you ever had an idea become stuck in your head? It lingers there, unfettered, until it is bound on paper. Then, I have freed myself from the idea. It has been fully born, and I can move on with my life.

I was once so obsessed with a Magic idea that I wrote three articles about it in one day. Then, I was able to do other things in my life. Obsession or inspiration?

And thus, the obsession was complete. Purged of my desires by the medicine of finishing the decklist, I was able to move on. A couple of days later, I returned to actually document the article and deck, and then, it was done. I had scratched the metaphorical itch. The Patron of the Moon would soon rise.

But then, I pondered the decklist, and I began to notice a few things out of sync. I moved a card here and there to better reflect the power of the commander. I swapped Strata Scythe for Venser's Journal. Out went Prosperity and Skyscribing, and in went things like Flow of Ideas and Windfall: cheaper options that could leave me with mana to use the Patron post-draw.

The result is a deck that wants to draw a lot of cards and then use that to fuel the Patron of the Moon’s ability to put two lands right onto the battlefield. How can I best use that ability? What will the deck ultimately look like?

Let’s see!

The Moon — Patron of the Moon Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Aeon Chronicler
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Hedron Crab
• 1 Jace's Archivist
• 1 Oboro Envoy
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Soratami Mindsweeper
• 1 Soratami Mirror-Mage
• 1 Soratami Savant
• 1 Soratami Seer
• 1 Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1 Sturmgeist
• 1 Tideforce Elemental
• 1 Junktroller
• 1 Palladium Myr
• 1 Psychosis Crawler
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Walking Atlas
• 1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
• 1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
• 1 Lu Xun, Scholar General
• 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
• 1 Soramaro, First to Dream
• 1 Uyo, Silent Prophet

• Spells (34)
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1 Braingeyser
• 1 Dissipate
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Foil
• 1 Forbid
• 1 Force of Will
• 1 Reset
• 1 Rewind
• 1 Stroke of Genius
• 1 Thwart
• 1 Turnabout
• 1 Flow of Ideas
• 1 Mind Spring
• 1 Time Spiral
• 1 Windfall
• 1 Jace's Erasure
• 1 Mind Over Matter
• 1 Honden of Seeing Winds
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Grim Monolith
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Reito Lantern
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thran Foundry
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Venser's Journal

• Lands (41)
• 34 Island
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Moonring Island
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Riptide Laboratory
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 Academy Ruins

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Ah yes, let the card-drawing begin! We want to draw cards en masse, use that to drop a ton of lands, and then use those lands to fuel even more card-drawing, which, again, fuels more land-dropping and such. Then, things become sick, and we hope to win. Yay winning!

Note that when you have Patron of the Moon out, Fact or Fiction becomes a different card. Suppose we have a normal split with two lands, one strong card, and two average ones. A normal split might be the strong card with two lands and the two average spells on the other side. But if you do that with me, I’m sure the take the double-land section, so now you probably split the lands, and thus, I can take an extra land when I grab the two average cards. It makes it more likely for my opponent to mess up and make bad piles.

I also made sure to include card-draw elsewhere, in things like Sphinx of Uthuun, Consecrated Sphinx, and Honden of Seeing Winds.

Hedron Crab adds a bit of a mill strategy, in case it works, as does Jace's Erasure. It’s not the core strategy, but we can slide into it if needed, and you can finish with a Stroke or a Braingeyser to the head for game.

The only other landfall cards included are Tideforce Elemental and Seer's Sundial. The latter obviously works wonders here. Good stuff! Meanwhile, the Elemental can lock something down and then untap to do it again and again. It works quite well in the deck in a support role.

After that, I considered cards that put lands back into your hand for various effects. That brought me full circle, to consider the very creatures that venerate the Patron: the Moonfolk themselves. Take a look at a powerhouse like Meloku the Clouded Mirror. For 1 mana, I can gate a land to my hand to make a flying dork. Activate that twice, and then spend a third mana to put the lands back. The result is a horde of flying creatures without my tempo being disrupted at all.

Now, Meloku is obviously the best version of that combo, but it works with a lot of cards. Uyo, Silent Prophet is obviously another powerhouse with the Patron. Bounce two lands to Fork a spell. Then, drop those lands right back with the Patron. This deck has some nasty cards to Fork! Consider Oboro Envoy, which can shrink a creature’s power, thus giving you a strong defense. Have a lot of junk cluttering up your hand? Soratami Seer to the rescue! Soratami Savant threatens to counter, Soratami Mirror-Mage threatens to bounce stuff, and Soratami Mindsweeper adds to the milling backup plan.

Plus, you can actually use the offering ability of Patron of the Moon if you are really feeling up for it.

A few other creatures suggested themselves. In went Walking Atlas and Lu Xun, Scholar General. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner will protect the team, and Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is easy to flip (and it’s on-theme).

Next up was mana. The decision to add in cards like Caged Sun and Gauntlet of Power was obvious. They will amp the power of the deck considerably. I also added five mana rocks of various sizes. Armillary Sphere and Solemn Simulacrum leapt to the table.

Should I add an obvious combo that will really abuse the deck? Hmmm . . . Okay! Say “hello” to Mind Over Matter. I can discard a card to tap or untap a permanent. Why is that important? I can untap something like Basalt Monolith, Grim Monolith, and such. Imagine:

So let’s add Palladium Myr as a mana dork, just to give another Mind Over Matter target. It will also be a fun untap target for Tideforce Elemental.

I needed ways beside Time Spiral to fight against decking ourselves. So I added a trio of cards to help: Reito Lantern, Junktroller, and Thran Foundry. All three should help us reload by putting stuff back into the library.

A few cards were included to round things out, such as Vedalken Shackles, Lightning Greaves, and more. I liked countermagic, so in went a large suite, and I also put in the three major pitch counters: Force of Will, Thwart, and Foil, in case we’re tapped out from the card-draw. Forbid is obviously useful here, and Rewind costs no mana to use. After that, the rest are just normal counters.

This deck can become sick quickly. Now consider the deck with Turnabout and even Reset.

But you are the one reading this. Feel encouraged to change this shell however you want. Add in anything that fits. If it’s a quick combo or two, that’s fine. Maybe you want Strata Scythe back because you can equip it on the Patron and try to kill in one hit with commander damage. Perhaps you prefer some of the cards I considered, such as Extraplanar Lens, Horn of Deafening, Nevinyrral's Disk, and Oblivion Stone.

You have your own ideas, metagames, and deck stock. You might not own Force of Will. You might prefer Disrupting Shoal and Counterbalance. Maybe this deck goes too far, and you want to lay off cards like Erayo. Perhaps you just want to push the moon theme, considering Kami of the Crescent Moon, Moonsilver Spear, or Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. You’ll figure it out. Make it your own—and enjoy!

And let me know what you thought!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent