Readers!

The era of Walking Dead style commanders that don't have an equivalent in the game is over and we're getting all of the Stranger Things commanders as real Magic cards with Magic card names and everything in New Capenna packs. Don't ask me which packs; despite it sort of being my job to know, I sure don't. The important thing isn't that no one knows what's in draft boosters because we haven't drafted since 2019. I would argue that we should shift our focus to a card that is very powerful, very cool and very, very 75%. I give you the weird upside down monster that kidnapped a girl who had glasses and dressed kind of frumpy so no one looked for her when she disappeared. I refer, of course, to this thing.

Arvinox, the Mind Flail, the Shadow, as it likes to be called, does NOT have friends forever. Arvinox has no friends, it only has Barb to keep it company. Arvinox doesn't need a ragtag team of scamps to overcome the odds and save the day because Arvinox makes its own team, with members of their team. I'll explain.

Arvinox does a very webcam-unfriendly thing and exiles cards face-down from their libraries. I want to preface... the entire rest of this article, I guess, by saying that I stopped playing my Gonti deck because it's not great on webcam. I wrote about cards you shouldn't play on webcam in this article. That said, I'm going to make the stupid Arvinox deck because it's cool and because I want to. I want to live the dream of hitting their mana rocks and using them to cast their spells, something I seem to have an easier time in my decks with Gonti and Valki than I do my decks with Master Thief and Thieving Skydiver. We'll play our own mana rocks, as well, lots of them, because Arvinox is very expensive and will likely eat some removal if we're not careful. What makes my Arvinox list different, however, is that I am going absolutely all-in on playing all the cards you hear about literally just in my articles like Helm of Possession and Ritual of the Machine. We're even going to jam a stupid Herald of Leshrac in here because this is the deck to do it. You know what else costs a million mana besides Arvinox and Herald? That's right, Geth, Lord of the Vault. And any person who would pay six mana for Geth, Lord of the Vault would surely pay seven mana for Thieving Amalgam, yes? This is how we build the deck, with mana rocks and big, dumb, uncastable dorks that will gum your hand up and make you curse the day you sleeved up a mono-colored deck. Not to worry - apparently other people play Instants and Sorceries in their decks so they can draw cards and not have to worry about the heart of the cards. I know I said I'd write more about how I'm playing more Instants and Sorceries this year and it may look like I'm losing steam, but do you really need to hear me talk about how I'm going to play Sign in Blood in this deck or do you just want to see the list already? Thought so. Let's look at what I came up with.

No one on the show even asked about Barb | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Arvinox, the Mind Flail

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Author of Shadows
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1 Draugr Necromancer
• 1 Dread Presence
• 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1 Gisa, Glorious Resurrector
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Herald of Leshrac
• 1 Junktroller
• 1 Lorcan, Warlock Collector
• 1 Magus of the Coffers
• 1 Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Opposition Agent
• 1 Reito Sentinel
• 1 Sepulchral Primordial
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Thieving Amalgam

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1 Liliana Vess
• 1 Liliana, Waker of the Dead
• 1 Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

• Instants (6)
• 1 Cabal Ritual
• 1 Deadly Rollick
• 1 Defile
• 1 Infernal Grasp
• 1 Soul Shatter
• 1 Stinging Study

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Dredge the Mire
• 1 Feed the Swarm
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Praetor's Grasp
• 1 Read the Bones
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1 Ritual of the Machine
• 1 Sign in Blood
• 1 Torment of Hailfire

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Animate Dead
• 1 Cunning Rhetoric
• 1 Dead Man's Chest
• 1 Grave Betrayal
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Revel in Riches
• 1 The Eldest Reborn

• Artifacts (17)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Bolas's Citadel
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Reito Lantern
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Vessel of Endless Rest

• Lands (36)
• 30 Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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This deck is really just Magic catching up to what I've been doing for a while. This may be the best deck I've seen to run all of my favorites like Gisa, Thieving Amalgam, Draugr Necromancer and Dauthi Voidwalker. Stealing their stuff RULES and with Reito Lantern and Reito Sentinel (not to mention our old friend Junktroller) putting their graveyard into Mind Flayer's grasp, even the dead get no rest when you play this deck.

I added a lot more Planeswalkers than I normally do. A lot of the Liliana walkers printed have an ability that lets you scoop creatures out of the bin and own them, which is what we're very much about. While we do get to access the bottom of their deck, let's not forget it's way easier to steal creatures out of the bin, which is why we play a lot of spells that do that. Planeswalkers, though, are closer to Enchantments than Sorceries and even though I said I would play more Instants and Sorceries (and stop having them be the first thing I cut) I NEVER play Planeswalkers. I play them so little I don't even talk about how little I play them. If I'm making an effort to play more non-permanent spells, I should REALLY make an effort to play more 'Walkers, especially when they're perfect for the deck. One of those Lilis even generates a ton of Black mana. What could be better?

One thing I will say is that the first two cards I usually cut from a decklist, Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, are staying in. I cut an ENCHANTMENT to include LIGHTNING GREAVES and I swear I don't even know who I am anymore. Your commander is a trillion mana and it's nasty, you need to protect it. Make it hard to kill and grow your army. Devoting deck slots to keeping your commander alive means you run fewer cool cards, but if you can easily take their cool cards, then you could realistically run an Arvinox deck that's all card draw, mana and protection. Maybe Crawlspace and No Mercy in there, maybe Contagion Engine to go with your Planeswalkers. If you protect Arvinox well enough, it won't matter what you draw because you get three new cards a turn and that's way faster than drawing them. A Commander that is a mini Bojuka-drawg (because you draw a card. I don't need you to tell me this one was a stretch, I need you to tweet a link to this article so your friends read it) is worth protecting, and since it can build all on its own, you're going to feel stupid if you draw some cute pet card and your commander can't leave the command zone because it would cost 31 mana.

What do we think? Is this the most 75% deck of all time? Is this boring, or too slow and clunky? Will your playgroup scoop to a bunch of awkward webcam cards and the concept of losing to Reito Lantern? Leave it for me in the comments section. That does it for me, readers. Until next time!