I like Kefnet more than just about anyone, I think. I realize that if you’re trying to aggro with him, you’re better off having Sea Drake as your Commander and I’m willing to bet there hasn’t been a single angry tweet at Wizards lamenting the fact that Sea Drake isn’t Legendary because someone is desperate to build a Blue beatdown deck and can’t find a suitable commander. Merfolk are for beating down. Dumb, durdly fliers are supposed to have cool abilities. That said, I can’t help but remember the first “serious” deck I ever built, a deck crammed with Brainstorm, Counterspells (like, all of them. Remember Power Sink? How is that even remotely fair?) and four copies of Air Elemental and two copies of Mahamoti Djinn. I played four copies of Prodigal Sorcerer, also, because I was like 13 years old and tapping three Tims at once felt a lot like cheating. I’ve probably talked about that deck in this column before — it really stuck with me.

Kefnet seems like a card that does things I like doing in 75% decks, drawing cards and enbabling me to get more landfall triggers. Ideally I could put cards like Admonition Angel in a deck with Kefnet at the helm; but, since I can’t, I’m going to have to get a bit more creative. That said, last week in my set review I mentioned I wanted to be triggering Roil Elemental and that’s still 100% true. I don’t use that number lightly. There are other degenerate things we can be doing with a full grip and honestly, just having a Treasure Trove with wings for a commander is useful. It’s going to be super easy to deck ourselves so I am going to try not to be basic and run Laboratory Maniac. I also don’t want to go Voltron and try to hit them with five commander damage at a time so we’re going to need to find a way to win. Luckily, Roil Elemental gives me an idea — let’s steal all of their crads! Barring that, let’s try and kill them by being dirty.

We’re going to try and play creatures that benefit from either drawing cards, having a full grip or will help us do both of those things. We’re going to have to be careful about being made to discard to a normal hand size so being able to cheat lands into play seems useful as well as playing cards like Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel. We’re going to draw cards, trigger landfall, swipe their creatures and in general, rule the skies as best we can. What would such a deck look like?

Kefnet the MindTAKER! ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kefnet the Mindful

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Aeon Chronicler
• 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1 Callous Oppressor
• 1 Chasm Skulker
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 1 Dominating Licid
• 1 Guardian of Tazeem
• 1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
• 1 Jushi Apprentice
• 1 Kami of the Crescent Moon
• 1 Laboratory Maniac
• 1 Memnarch
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Psychosis Crawler
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Sower of Temptation
• 1 Stormtide Leviathan
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Patron of the Moon
• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1 Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1 Walking Atlas

• Instnats (7)
• 1 Aethersnatch
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Evacuation
• 1 Summary Dismissal

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Govern the Guildless
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Windfall

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Archmage Ascension
• 1 Dictate of Kruphix
• 1 Dismiss into Dream
• 1 Mystic Remora
• 1 Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Training Grounds
• 1 Words of Wind

• Artifacts (16)
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Chamber of Manipulation
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Library of Leng
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Sapphire Medallion
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Venser's Journal

• Lands (39)
• 29 Island
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Remote Isle
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Skyline Cascade
• 1 Soaring Seacliff
• 1 Terrain Generator

Buy This Deck

I decided at the last minute to try Laboratory Maniac. If you end up just trying to mill yourself out every game, you’re going to get bored. If Laboratory Maniac ends up a card that’s in the deck and which you can play to win instead of losing, you can give it a shot. I’m not the police, I’m just a guy who knows how boring my one Laboratory Maniac deck is. If this helps you win the odd unwinnable game, keep jamming it. If this becomes the sole focus of the deck, maybe consider cutting it.

You should be able to find other ways to win, though. We included a lot of ways to steal their creatures and you can jam more if you would like. This deck is more designed to take advantage of Kefnet’s ability but you can certainly cut some of the cutesier Kefent stuff like Retreat to Coralhelm (a card I LOVE, especially in a deck with cards like Arcanis) and jam Control Magic or Take Posession or something.

All in all I hope this is a bit of a departure from the typical Kefnet build. There is some overlap because you’d be dumb not to run something like Chasm Skulker, for example. However, I think there is a real 75% twist on the typical build and I wish Blue got more decent landfall stuff. I nearly included Tideforce Elemental just because he’s good with both Arcanis and Dismiss into Dream. However, this is no substitute for Admonition Angel or Avenger of Zendikar. Walking Atlas is no Azusa. Trying to do Green stuff in a Blue deck can be tough. Just hang in there and remember that card advantage wins games. Too bad Library of Alexandria is banned, right?

That does it for me this week. I hope you read my Hapatra article and bought the cards you needed and a few spare copies because those are all popping off right now. It pays to pay attention! Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back next week with some more 75% goodness. Thanks to everyone who commented last week. Comment this week, ship me a deck to look at, suggest a build, ask me about card choices — interact. You’re the best readership I could ask for. Until next week!