I like to look to new sets for inspiration, and that inspiration came from a somewhat unlikely source this week. Double Masters was just released, a set that gave us a ton of great Commander reprints, and made a lot of cards that were priced out of people's decks suddenly a bit more attainable. Filter lands, Mana Crypt, Cyclonic Rift, Exploration - the list goes on and on. With a bunch of commanders getting reprinted, it made sense to look at the list to see if there were any I missed, and wanted to take another crack at. At first, I somewhat regretted already having done Sen Triplets because they're one of the best scaling commanders of all time. Anything you hit your opponent with, they'll be able to handle because it's their own cards. What better way to make your deck appropriate for any table than playing with said table's own cards? Disappointed that I nailed Triplets the first time, I took one last look through the list.

When I saw it, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner. The perfect scaling commander was there all along! If we want to take our opponents' cards, why not let their decks perform the best they can? Why waste Sower of Temptation on Drumhunter when you know Godsire is coming? Why Treachery the Priest of Titania hastening the introduction of World Breaker? Why a third thing? The answer, basically, was "you sort of have to." You have to let players get set up and if their deck stumbles, your deck has a significant weakness in that you're not equipped to take advantage. Relying on them to provide you with beatsticks means that if there are a lot of disruptive events or people aren't drawing the resources they need, you're not going to get access to anything good. There is a solution to this problem, and it's actually a rather old one. If you want to take good stuff, let them play good stuff, and if you want to take good stuff sooner, let them play good stuff sooner. Help them play good stuff sooner.

Before her nihilistic goth phase, Braids was a powerful conjurer, making gigantic creatures appear seemingly from nowhere. The problem with Braids is that she cuts both ways - you can access big creatures and artifacts early, but so can your opponents. Braids players typically mitigated that by playing the biggest stuff possible, reasoning that their opponents weren't all that prepared for a deck that let them dump their hand and Braids rendered a lot of their ramp spells useless, meaning the deck with the most gas, you, got there. That's a fine way to play Magic: The Gathering and Blue Braids was one of my first attempts at an EDH deck before I got serious about the format. Now that I have my own deck-building ethos, I'm looking at Braids in a whole new light, and I have to say, this is the 75% commander I've been waiting for.

As a Mono-Blue deck, you have access to the best card draw, countermagic, bounce removal and, most importantly, theft effects. Braids lets us play expensive cards like Memnarch, Agent of Treachery, and Confiscate for free, leaving your mana to play countermagic, dig deeper into your deck for gas and bounce things you don't want to deal with (or Pongify them, even). Your opponents' only real recourse for a deck that plans to steal all of their best creatures is to either try to bait you with middling or inferior creatures or not take full advantage of Braids at all, using her trigger to play an extra land or set-up permanent. That is a win for you, though, because you got them to stop playing their own game. You will still have a few of your own finishers like Blightsteel Colossus, and if they're not going to put up a fight, that's a win for you. Braids profoundly disrupts their gameplan and while they'll initially see it as you helping them accelerate, they will quickly realize they're just giving you the perfect creatures to hurt them with.

We'll have a few extra deck slots to play with ourselves because we don't have to play quite as much ramp as a normal deck. Ramp spells will clutter our opponents' hands, further disrupting their gameplan. I plan to use the extra slots for including ways to keep Braids and our ill-gotten creatures protected, which means running more countermagic than normal. Countermagic is an important part of this strategy because we will have to bounce creatures we're not ready to deal with, keep opponents from playing board sweepers and, best of all, some of our contermagic doubles as additional theft effects. I have used Desertion to steal a Craterhoof and I have used it to counter a Merciless Eviction and both felt equally good. Cards like Spelljack, Commandeer, and Gather Specimens all deserve to be tested in a deck like this. Gather Specimens is especially nasty because you can take a creature they're putting into play with Braids' ability. You can keep mana up for expensive counters better in a deck like this where you're not using your mana on your own turn to develop your board.

Finally, unlike a lot of Braids decks that run Omniscience, I don't have to worry about finding a way to get rid of Braids to maintain my advantage. Omniscience makes me ridiculously powerful as it is (not sure why it's not called "Omnipotence" - they could have called Enter the Infinite "Omniscience" instead) and I want them putting out good cards for me to take. You don't have to worry about doing additional things to break parity with Braids out because depriving them of their biggest creature and adding it to your growing army already does that just fine.

What would a deck like this look like?

Braids of Steal | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Braids, Conjurer Adept

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Agent of Treachery
• 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1 Blightsteel Colossus
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 It That Betrays
• 1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
• 1 Kederekt Leviathan
• 1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1 Phyrexian Ingester
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Scourge of Fleets
• 1 Sower of Temptation
• 1 Sphinx of Magosi
• 1 Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1 Stormtide Leviathan
• 1 Tidespout Tyrant
• 1 Void Winnower

• Instants (12)
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Engulf the Shore
• 1 Fierce Guardianship
• 1 Gather Specimens
• 1 Reality Shift
• 1 Spelljack
• 1 Sublime Epiphany
• 1 Sudden Substitution

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Blatant Thievery
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Expropriate
• 1 Rite of Replication

• Enchantments (13)
• 1 Confiscate
• 1 Control Magic
• 1 Corrupted Conscience
• 1 In Bolas's Clutches
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Omniscience
• 1 Paradox Haze
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Spirit Away
• 1 Take Possession
• 1 Treachery
• 1 Vanishing
• 1 Volition Reins

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Helm of the Host
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Portal of Sanctuary
• 1 Sky Diamond
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Magic Mirror
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Vedalken Shackles

• Lands (37)
• 27 Island
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Mystic Sanctuary
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Strip Mine

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This looks like a lot of fun, honestly. I am going to build this next if only because I feel like I should close the loop that began with me wanting to dabble in the format years before I finally did but bailing on the deck half-finished because I wanted to focus on grinding PTQs.

One issue I sometimes have with decks like this is that it feels bad to throw a bunch of discarded Treachery effects in the bin after a Wrath. One card that mitigates that pain a bit is Portal of Sanctuary. It throws the creature back in its controller's hand, which is fine, and it also returns your Treachery to your hand. Portal is not a card I've run much before but I think it's perfect for a deck like this. You can also save your own creatures with it, but saving a Treachery feels just as good.

I feel like I need a few more card draw effects and I don't know if there's a way to figure out exactly how much it needs without just sleeving the deck up and playing some games. If you do find that you're dumping your hand a little too quickly, I might look at a few more mana rocks you can trade for cards later, or some X spells. Blue Sun's Zenith and Pull from Tomorrow are good contenders.

If you find you don't have enough creatures of your own, basically any Eldrazi works. You get more effects if you can cast them, but I don't think a 12/12 body with Annihilate is anything to sneeze at, so don't worry if you play them too early to get a cast trigger. Early is good, that's why we're a Braids deck.

Finally, I cut a lot of the Inundate type cards. I realize bouncing non-Blue creatures should leave you unscathed and a lot of Braids decks run cards like that, but the goal is to have their creatures so you're actually not as safe as I'd like. Instead, maybe cards like Capsize are the play.

What do you think? Are you excited to trick your opponents into lending you the perfect beat-stick? Are you too worried that 3 players can gum up the board with big beaters faster than you can keep up? Leave me something in the comments, and don't forget to wow your friends and associates by posting on social media. That does it for me - until next time!