Readers!

With a brand new set now finally revealed, it's always exciting to me to see which commanders writers will tackle first. The set is a blank canvas, stretching out as far as the eye can see in every direction, the way a bad metaphor does. With so many possibilities, I got to pick for my first Strixhaven article the commander I'm most excited by. It turns out the commander I like most is actually two commanders. I'd explain but that's not really that mysterious is it? Like, if it were and you didn't already know who I'm writing about, you might be like "Damn, the commander is actually two commanders? Who wrote this paragraph, Aaron Sorkin? Is this executive producer on this piece Dick Wolf? Did Vince Gilligan hire you to write this piece?" but you're not. You're familiar with Double-faced cards by now, I hope. If you're not and you're here because you googled "What is Magic: The Gathering?" and the first thing that popped up was my article, welcome. Magic is a children's card game played by adults and a few years ago they decided that the front of a card wasn't enough room to display the information they wanted to convey. There, you're basically all caught up.

These two cards both bring a lot to the table in terms of how they'll make decks work. Nassari is a powerful, capricious Efreet with the ability to grow itself by casting your opponents' spells right out from under them and Uvilda adds Blue to the color identity. Those are both incredibly powerful abilities, and housing them all in one card wasn't even possible until the advent of dual-faced cards. If this isn't your first ever article about Magic (how good is Coolstuff at SEO if it is?) then you may be aware that I have a bit of an affinity for commanders that allow you to play other players' cards. It's a way that I make sure everyone can deal with what's going on and also deprive them of resources in a way that is doubly to my advantage. While playing a card off the top of their deck rather than taking something from the board doesn't quite swing things in my favor the way a card like Helm of Possession or Treachery might, I am still taking away their outs and adding to my board. Taking cards that become known to the table from the top of the deck works on webcam and not taking cards from their hands doesn't deprive them of a card they were counting on. On the scale of annoyance where 1 is Control Magic and 10 is Tergrid, Nassari is a 2 or 3 at most, and that's going to make this deck a lot of fun for us without it being at the expense of the table's fun. Besides, haven't you always wanted to have Mind's Dilation as your commander? I know I have! The best part is, Uvilda lets you play the real Mind's Dilation, too.

A stock list of this is very Red-focused because Red gives you the rituals to generate enough mana to play all of those free spells. If you can swing the mana, you're able to essentially draw 3 cards a turn, which means leaning into the Red half of this card makes a lot of sense. It's not necessarily rituals that I want, though. While it's fun to get that mana, why not use artifacts instead of one-shot spells? Red and Blue do a great job of finding, playing, protecting and finding synergies for artifacts and with the added bonus of having a commander that's a fantastic mana sink, you can take a pretty stock list for other artifact builds and make it work for Nassari with some fairly minor tweaks. I think it would look pretty good, personally.

Nassari's Arti Parti | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Uvilda, Dean of Perfection

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Artificer's Assistant
• 1 Birgi, God of Storytelling
• 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Goblin Engineer
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Herald of Kozilek
• 1 Iron Myr
• 1 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
• 1 Jhoira's Familiar
• 1 Metalwork Colossus
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Ornithopter
• 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
• 1 Psychosis Crawler
• 1 Reckless Fireweaver
• 1 Riddlesmith
• 1 Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1 Scrap Trawler
• 1 Shimmer Myr
• 1 Silver Myr
• 1 Trinket Mage

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
• 1 Ugin, the Ineffable

• Instants (8)
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Dramatic Reversal
• 1 Hurkyl's Recall
• 1 Paradoxical Outcome
• 1 Rebuild
• 1 Retract
• 1 Whir of Invention

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Displacement Wave
• 1 Fabricate
• 1 Grapeshot
• 1 Temporal Fissure

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Storm the Vault
• 1 Teferi's Ageless Insight

• Artifacts (28)
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Darksteel Forge
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Helm of Awakening
• 1 Isochron Scepter
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Jeweled Lotus
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mox Amber
• 1 Mystic Forge
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Semblance Anvil
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Talisman of Creativity
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Thran Dynamo

• Lands (31)
• 15 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Riverglide Pathway
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Training Center

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This is a bit of an artifact-fall build but you should get to a ton of mana rocks very quickly which will allow you to play out just about anything. You can tweak this a lot more - I started with a build I knew was stable and juiced the number of mana rocks to ensure the resulting deck was going to work. We won't have the stability of always having access to Jhoira that makes cards like Rebuild and Paradoxical Outcome truly good, and I think maybe you start cutting there, but we'll have the ability to make a lot of mana rocks and that means all you need to do is get a few Nassari triggers to get the party started.

This is not quite what you might have had in mind when you clicked on the 75% guy's article, but I think this will play very nicely. Always having the mana to cast all of their spells means you are working with more cards than they are which helps you break parity, and the excess mana means you can reliably recast Nassari a few times. I went very heavy with Blue in this build, but a Red-heavy build would work, too.

As you all know, Threaten effects are a ton of fun, especially if you fling the creature back at them rather than return it in the previous condition. Using Bazaar Trader and targeting yourself to permanently gain control of a creature you're borrowing works as well, and leaning a bit more into the stealing stuff theme allows you to control the board a bit more than a deck that solely focuses on the top of their library. Let's steal stuff on both axes and have some fun, what do you say?

Stealing Stuff with Red | Commander | Jaosn Alt

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Amphin Mutineer
• 1 Azure Fleet Admiral
• 1 Bazaar Trader
• 1 Captain Lannery Storm
• 1 Captivating Crew
• 1 Coercive Recruiter
• 1 Corsair Captain
• 1 Crimson Fleet Commodore
• 1 Daring Saboteur
• 1 Departed Deckhand
• 1 Dire Fleet Daredevil
• 1 Emberwilde Captain
• 1 Fathom Fleet Swordjack
• 1 Ghost of Ramirez DePietro
• 1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
• 1 Impulsive Pilferer
• 1 Keeper of Keys
• 1 Kitesail Skirmisher
• 1 Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator
• 1 Merchant Raiders
• 1 Port Razer
• 1 Protean Raider
• 1 Siren Stormtamer
• 1 Slippery Scoundrel
• 1 Spectral Sailor
• 1 Storm Fleet Sprinter
• 1 Storm Fleet Swashbuckler
• 1 Thieving Skydiver
• 1 Timestream Navigator
• 1 Zara, Renegade Recruiter

• Instants (3)
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Siren's Ruse

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Brass's Bounty
• 1 Disrupt Decorum
• 1 Expropriate
• 1 Insurrection

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Chamber of Manipulation
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Curse of Opulence
• 1 Furnace Celebration
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Reconnaissance Mission
• 1 Shivan Harvest
• 1 Storm the Vault

• Artifacts (16)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Helm of the Host
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Key to the City
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Quietus Spike
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Creativity
• 1 Treasure Map
• 1 Vanquisher's Banner
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (35)
• 11 Island
• 13 Mountain
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Throne of the High City

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How perfect! At first, I didn't want to lean into the Pirate theme too hard, but I started with 0 cards and Captivating Crew and worked my way up. What I realized was that the Treasure tokens you'll make from doing Pirate stuff are perfect for helping you cast their spells. You have just enough swashbuckling in the deck to keep the board clear and you can steal enough of their creatures to supplement what you'll take off the top that you can keep them on their back foot the whole time.

Not having any pirate synergy with the commander is absolutely fine. You're going to do enough, either reducing the cost of expensive spells like Expropriate and Insurrection with Uvilda or playing a lot of their cards with Nessari that you won't miss the incidental benefit from Vargus or Zara. Brass's Bounty is the real money card here, the middling interaction with the commander, while missed, isn't necessary. We also have a Monarch subtheme here, which will encourage players to attack each other. I think making the games a bit faster by encouraging and rewarding aggression sometimes needs to happen, and if punching someone other than you can draw someone a card or two, they might do it and save you some damage you may need late in the game.

When you look at Uvilda and Nessari, artifacts and pirates aren't the first two things that come to mind, but these existing structures actually play to these commanders' strengths so well you may wonder why you didn't try it yourself.

That does it for me, readers. I can't wait to sleeve up this pile and start hosing opponents with their own cards, the same way I have been since 2014. Thanks for reading - until next time!