I settled on Gisa and Geralf. Roughly 30 seconds into brewing the deck, I became obsessed with recurring Phyrexian Infiltrator to wipe them out and running a bunch of sac outlets. Since Inflitrator isn’t a zombie (pity), I was brewing complicated, multi-card combos to exchange zombies which I could recur for the dead Infiltrator, somehow. It was getting messy. I had to take a step back and ask myself what I actually wanted to be doing. I think what I want to be doing is brewing another deck where we swipe a ton of their stuff and use it to beat them with.

The way I figure it, stealing a creature is a two-point swing in your favor in the zero-sum game that is “having stuff on the board”, and I like them odds. Depriving them of a creature by playing a Terror or giving yourself a creature by playing a, you know, creature, can get the job done more slowly, but why be conventional? This is Commander. We like to do things that resemble cheating. We cheat by ramping insanely fast, taking every turn with Prophet of Kruphix, or by still having Prophet of Kruphix in our decks. Getting way ahead on board by depriving them of a threat and having a new threat all at once is what we’re about. So while I like Gisa and Geralf and while I’m sure this card means we’ll see a Christine Sprankle/Alan Marling cosplay duo at a future GP, I’m looking a little deeper. That means skipping G&G for the time being and looking a little harder at Phyrexian Infiltrator and the decks that like to play it.

EDHREC.com recommends a lot of cards in conjunction with Inflitrator, and one in particular leapt out at me. That card is, of course, Wrexial, the Risen Deep. Wrexial is a very 75% commander because you get to play their spells. Playing their spells is very useful because they are their spells. I have been over this a lot but I really don’t mind going over it again because it’s one of the most important tenets of 75% deck-building. Not only is playing their stuff preferable from a Sun Tzu perspective, playing their spells is the best way to make sure our deck scales to their power level. If their best creature is Thragtusk, then beating them down with Thragtusk ensures their deck can handle the power level of Thragtusk. Similarly, if their best creature is Consecrated Sphinx, their deck should be able to handle something at that power level. Scaling to their power level ensures the matchup will feel competitive for all parties. You’re still trying to win, but you’re trying to do it in a manner where they feel like they have a shot.

Wrexial plays their spells out of the graveyard which means there is a decent chance they cast the spells already, unless you’re milling them. I don’t know that we necessarily don’t want to mill them, it sometimes deprives them of good stuff but can easily cut them to good stuff by moving chaff out of the way. I don’t aim to kill them by milling them out, so I prefer to focus on making sure Wrexial connects and so do a load of their creatures. I think we can make a big pile of creatures we want to hit them with ,like Thada Adel, Acquisitor and the new Wharf Infiltrator, run some equipment and removal and swipe all of their stuff with the rest of our 99. This is going to be fun and it all came from trying to brew with Gisa and Geralf and remembering I played a deck with Phyrexian Infiltrator back in 2000. What would the deck end up looking like?

Get Wrexed ? EDH | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Wrexial, the Risen Deep

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Chancellor of the Spires
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Clone
• 1 Consuming Aberration
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Dimir Doppelganger
• 1 Dominating Licid
• 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
• 1 Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1 Fathom Feeder
• 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1 Identity Thief
• 1 Jace's Mindseeker
• 1 Mindleech Mass
• 1 Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
• 1 Nemesis of Reason
• 1 Nightveil Specter
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Sepulchral Primordial
• 1 Shadowmage Infiltrator
• 1 Sire of Stagnation
• 1 Stormtide Leviathan
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Wharf Infiltrator

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
• 1 Liliana Vess

• Spells (35)
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Memory Plunder
• 1 Silumgar's Command
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Extract from Darkness
• 1 Mind Grind
• 1 Praetor's Grasp
• 1 Psychic Intrusion
• 1 Dread Summons
• 1 Spelltwine
• 1 Startled Awake
• 1 Knowledge Exploitation
• 1 Animate Dead
• 1 Chamber of Manipulation
• 1 Confiscate
• 1 Control Magic
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Hedonist's Trove
• 1 Memory Erosion
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Monastery Siege
• 1 Painful Quandary
• 1 Palace Siege
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Sphinx's Tutelage
• 1 Steal Artifact
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of Body and Mind
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Trepanation Blade
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (38)
• 13 Island
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Choked Estuary
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 1 Dismal Backwater
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1 Jwar Isle Refuge
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nephalia Drownyard
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Submerged Boneyard
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck

You caught me. This really is a 100 card excuse to play Mind's Dilation. Guilty. As soon as I saw that card spoiled, I got very excited. It’s a Lurking Predators for everything! You get a ton of free spells and what’s more, they’re their spells, which makes them extra tasty. Lurking Predators is cool, but who wants their own creatures? (Literally everybody, but give me a break, I’m illustrating a point) Getting their spells is the perfect way to scale your deck’s power level to their power level.

There is a ton of scaling here. I noticed a lot of Wrexial decks are a bizarre sort of pseudo sea monster tribal with Thing in the Ice and Whelming Wave, etc. No time for that noise, I have cards like Identity Thief and Thada Adel to jam. Besides, sea monsters are fine but I don’t want any sort of tribal allegiance holding me up and I don’t think cutting way back on creatures and artifacts to make sure I flip Thing in the Ice is worth it. I want to run as many creatures, spells and artifacts that both steal their spells and creatures as I can. Even as it is, there are obvious ones like Spelljack that I couldn’t make room for.

Chamber of Manipulation is an old favorite of mine. I like its reusable nature and the fact that it flies a bit under the radar. Similarly, Vedalken Shackles and Dominating Licid frequently make the cut in decks like this. Reusable creature theft is at a premium and I wanted to make sure I jammed some old favorites. Steal Artifact and Confiscate are obvious choices. Plus, Eternal Masters has finally made Control Magic affordable, so I opted to run that over Treachery, though there’s obviously a case for running both.

Old cards are great, but there are plenty of good new cards, also. Besides the ones I mentioned, I am very excited to be trying out Geier Reach Sanitarium. Looting is good, and benefiting them seems a little iffy but when you realize you’re basically milling them a card; and, while them drawing good stuff helps them, them discarding helps you. I am interested to see if this is better as a group hug card or if the pseudo mill is potent enough to leave in a deck like this.

Connecting with Wrexial, Wharf Infiltrator, Thada Adel, etc is important, so I tried to include some cards like Whispersilk Cloak and Rogue's Passage to make it happen. Most of the equipment is to help us connect or benefit from connecting or both. We’re not trying to kill them with milling, but it is possible and would be funny, but would take a lot longer than straight damage. Ideally, using their blockers to batter them ends the game quickly but this is a mid-game strategy as our theft stuff is expensive and takes a minute to get set up. Once it gets going, though, watch out.

There are, as always, cards I wish I’d had room to jam. What would you take out to make room for Rise of the Dark Realms? What would you take out to include something you like? What needs to be in here? Are you as excited as I am at the prospect of dilating your mind? Leave it in the comments section. As always, thank you for reading and we’ll see you next week!