In this experiment, we raise our loyalty to Jace.

I haven’t done a Commander deck in a while. The reason is that combo-based Commander decks are pretty hard to accomplish. Usually, combo Commander decks are just normal midrange or control Commander decks that have instant-win combos and card-draw or tutors to find them.

That is not the type of combo deck I enjoy; in fact, I’d argue that’s not even a combo deck—it’s a deck with a combo in it. But in Commander, we can’t play four copies of Pyromancer Ascension or Tainted Remedy, and even if we did, our hundred-card-deck size would mean we’re still less likely to draw those cards. That means even dedicated combo decks in Commander will lean much more heavily toward being decks with combos in them.

Today’s list falls somewhere in that spectrum.

Vryn’s Prodigy

After deciding I wanted to do a Commander deck for this week, I took a look at a few of the more recently printed legendary creatures to choose a commander. The Magic Origins transforming Planeswalker characters were enticing, as they let us explore gameplay we haven’t been able to look into before.

A Voltron strategy with Kytheon, Hero of Akros could be interesting, but the concept of Voltron is in direct conflict with Kytheon’s transforming trigger, which requires at least two other creatures attacking. That’s not to say it couldn’t be done, but the initial synergies are stacked against us.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer and Liliana, Heretical Healer are probably closest to my preference, but neither immediately jumped out at me. Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh is certainly interesting—I’d love to set players permanently on fire. But although Chandra could incite my first mono-red Commander deck, I’d fear dying before the fires I set eventually took anyone out.

In the end, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy won out, mostly because he gave me an idea immediately: We’ll use Inexorable Tide to proliferate Jace’s loyalty and activate his ultimate! Casting a lot of spells will trigger both Inexorable Tide and the emblem, so it’s clear we’ll want a lot of cheap card-draw.

But building a Commander deck around a synergy between the commander and another card (Inexorable Tide) is precisely the problem I discussed above, so we’ll need to either ensure we can find the Tide or include parallel synergies that let our cards work with each other in different ways that aren’t our primary combo.

Inexorable Tide and Friends

There are only so many cards with proliferate, at least until the Phyrexians invades another plane or Koth of the Hammer and his allies retake Mirrodin.

Inexorable Tide — This is our primary plan, as it triggers every time we cast a spell, and we’re planning to cast a lot of spells.

Steady Progress and Tezzeret's Gambit — These two are card-draw spells that also proliferate, which puts them in two of our card categories.

Fuel for the Cause — This one is a bit awkward, as it requires a spell we really want to counter. (You can’t just go around countering things willy-nilly in multiplayer Commander, as you’ll waste your resources on only one opponent’s resources, putting just the two of you behind the other player or players.) Actually, though, Fuel for the Cause gives you an alternate mode in this deck: Counter anything anyone casts just to gain a surprise proliferation, possibly letting you ultimate a Planeswalker or two a turn cycle before anyone was expecting it.

Contagion Engine and Contagion Clasp — These are pricey, but they’re the repeat proliferators alongside Inexorable Tide. Contagion Engine also functions as removal, which isn’t easy to find in blue.

The Proliferatees

Our commander is Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, who transforms into Jace, Telepath Unbound, who is a Planeswalker. Our plan is to eventually activate his ultimate and then cast a bunch of spells in order to mill opponents out. Of course, this won’t always work, and that’s true for myriad reasons. Some of those reasons are that we just can’t proliferate enough or that our commander is removed multiple times and targeted every time he hits the board.

Let’s take a look at the other cards we can proliferate when our commander isn’t available.

Everflowing Chalice and Astral Cornucopia — These are perfectly reasonable, if unexciting, mana accelerants. Incidentally, with a couple proliferations or more, it’s not hard to turn them into Dreamstone Hedrons and Gilded Lotuses.

Academy Elite, Hangarback Walker, Sphinx of Magosi, and Chasm Skulker — These all come with +1/+1 counters that let us add a little threatening presence to the battlefield. The Elite and the Sphinx also can draw us some more cards in the meantime.

Gemstone Array — This appears to function as the Chalice or Cornucopia, but it’s actually much more of a combo piece. It doesn’t add mana consistently unless we’re spending counters. But with Inexorable Tide, every spell we cast turns into another counter, which means every spell virtually becomes 1 mana cheaper—which means 1-mana spells like Ponder and Preordain become free.

Lux Cannon — This requires several taps to become a threat, but when we start proliferating, we can greatly reduce the number of taps required. With this receiving focus from our proliferation, it will also receive a large amount of focus from our opponents.

Mind Unbound — This will draw us a lot of cards—possibly more than we want if it sits around too long.

Sun Droplet — The Droplet lets us eventually recoup any life we lose, but if we start proliferating the counters, we can gain back more than we lost, and with Alhammarret's Archive, that becomes doubly true.

More Planeswalkers! — Several more Planeswalkers are also great receivers of proliferation, especially the Jaces, which tend to have varying forms of mill abilities. Just short of a Jace theme deck, this list is missing Jace, the Mind Sculptor, so just toss your own copy of that in at your leisure.

Find the Tide

We’re trying to sidestep the need to necessarily find Inexorable Tide, but without Demonic Tutor access, here are a few ways to search it up anyway.

Archmage Ascension — With all our card-draw, we can hope this is the kind of deck that will be able to successfully trigger the Ascension a requisite number of times. From there, we’ll always have all of our deck available—so let’s just hope there’s something worth searching for.

Long-Term Plans — This one is actually kind of perfect for our curve. With a turn-two Jace, a turn-three Plans, and a turn-four draw spell, we can hit Inexorable Tide on turn five, probably having triggered Jace already, setting us up to cast a couple spells and ultimate Jace, Telepath Unbound.

Parallel Thoughts — This one is risky, as it puts a target on its own back as being a source of our extremely valuable cards. If it’s blown up, we’ll lose all those cards to exile. But we can use that to our advantage as well by just exiling seven lands we don’t want and then letting someone spend his or her resources for no reason.

All the Draw Spells — Oh, and here are the draw spells. We have more than twenty-five sources of acceleration through our deck, and many of the spells actually provide card advantage. These are important for proliferating with Inexorable Tide, but they also help us find the Tide in the first place.

Loyalty Unbound ? Commander | Andrew Wilson

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (7)
• 1 Academy Elite
• 1 Azure Mage
• 1 Chasm Skulker
• 1 Enclave Cryptologist
• 1 Sphinx of Magosi
• 1 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 1 Jace Beleren
• 1 Jace, Architect of Thought
• 1 Jace, Memory Adept
• 1 Jace, the Living Guildpact
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Spells (46)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Cerulean Wisps
• 1 Exclude
• 1 Fuel for the Cause
• 1 Hydrolash
• 1 Illusionist's Gambit
• 1 Into the Roil
• 1 Long-Term Plans
• 1 Obsessive Search
• 1 Oona's Grace
• 1 Predict
• 1 Repulse
• 1 Steady Progress
• 1 Think Twice
• 1 Visions of Beyond
• 1 Ancestral Vision
• 1 Gitaxian Probe
• 1 Library of Lat-Nam
• 1 Omen
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Preordain
• 1 Research the Deep
• 1 Serum Visions
• 1 Tezzeret's Gambit
• 1 Theft of Dreams
• 1 Archmage Ascension
• 1 Corrupted Conscience
• 1 Inexorable Tide
• 1 Mind Unbound
• 1 Omniscience
• 1 Parallel Thoughts
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Alhammarret's Archive
• 1 Astral Cornucopia
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Contagion Clasp
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Gemstone Array
• 1 Lux Cannon
• 1 Oblivion Stone
• 1 Sun Droplet
• 1 Venser's Journal

• Lands (40)
• 28 Island
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Remote Isle
• 1 Riptide Laboratory
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

If you like to proliferate, if you like the idea of a deck built around just drawing cards, or if you just really love Jace, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com