Readers!

If you know one thing about how I prefer to build decks, you know I like... wait, actually I like landfall more. OK, if you know TWO things about... no, I like stealing their cards and using them against them. Three things, if you know THREE things about how I like to play Commander, you know I like landfall, stealing their cards, and enchantments. I like Enchantments an awful lot. They're like Instants you pay for one time and then they keep doing their thing every turn. That's insanely powerful. They made a series of Sorceries that did that and they were deemed so powerful that you weren't allowed to play any other spells the rest of the game. Remember that cycle from Saviors of Kamigawa? My favorite was this one.

A Sorcery so powerful it has the exact same ability as an Enchantment and therefore was so broken at seven mana that you had to stop doing other things.

It was fun in Standard to go get Meishin, the Mind Cage and Form of the Dragon and sit behind a Dovescape, blasting everyone to smithereens. Those were good, good times, weren't they? What's that? I'm the only boomer old enough to remember Kamigawa Standard? I don't even think it was called Standard, I think it was literally still called Type 2 back then. You can be forgiven for not remembering the Epic Sorcery cycle or the decks it spawned (I also played a dredge deck that used Sins of the Past to cast Eternal Dominion from your 'yard - good times). It was pretty epic doing all of my favorite things every turn, and that's why I still love Enchantments to this day. How broken is it to pay mana once for something that happens more than once? You thought Enchantments that did the same thing all the time were epic, what about Enchantments based on epics?

Sure, it feels bad to pay seven mana for an Enchantment that goes away after 3 turns, but when you get this much juice from a card, it's worth the squeeze. There are myriad ways to get back a spent Saga, from Replenish to Hall of Heliod's Generosity, but the real money maker is in not having to dispense with your Sagas at all. What if you could control which effect you got each turn and keep the good times rolling? Well, the Read Ahead ability on new Sagas allows you to do just that - go to any chapter to start with, but you can't go back for chapters you missed or do the same chapter twice in a row. However, this is Magic and the design space is ripe and fun, so they saw fit to use counters to mark the "chapter" you're on and counters are manipulable. Taking counters off of a permanent isn't exactly trivial, there are only a few cards that do it. What if I told you that I found a commander that would let you not only control exactly which effect you got with each Saga but also let you turn Kiora Bests the Sea God into a 7/7 and punch people in the neck with it? Would you be more or less interested in Enchantments? Don't answer that, you're reading this and I can't hear you, you would look ridiculous. Read on and I promise to stop asking so many rhetorical questions. Or will I? Haha, don't answer that, it was rhetorical. Or was it?

Here's our commander for this week and I have to admit, I really didn't like it at first. Using his ability as a sort of counterspell to shut off targeted removal was appealing, but combat is sort of a goofy way to win a game of Magic: The Gathering. Boards get gummed up fast requiring something big to get you over the top, a combo, a Cyclonic Rift, an Insurrection, the opponent scooping because Esper decks play one card that gives them a marginal advantage and 40 board wipes and life is too short to play against an Oloro deck for a month. A game of Commander shouldn't last longer than a game of Axis and Allies. You're playing against a person with infinite money to spend on life pads and one copy of Thassa's Oracle somewhere in the deck. This, however, is not THAT kind of Esper deck, something that admittedly people say even when it's absolutely exactly that kind of Esper deck.

Ferropede might not look like much, but it's actually a finely-tuned counter murdering machine, taking a counter off of a Saga so you can trigger the same chapter over and over. It's a blunt-force way to remove counters, but there are more ways, luckily almost all in Blue, Black or Colorless. Playing them all will allow you to control your Sagas, and Zur will allow you to keep them alive and make them combat monsters. In fact, there is literally no reason not to run every single eligible Saga and call it a deck. That's exactly what I want to do with Zur, and I'm excited to show you what it would look like.

Don't Let Your Schemes Be Dreams | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Zur, Eternal Schemer

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Archon of Sun's Grace
• 1 Athreos, Shroud-Veiled
• 1 Chisei, Heart of Oceans
• 1 Doomwake Giant
• 1 Fain, the Broker
• 1 Ferropede
• 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1 Hex Parasite
• 1 Mesa Enchantress
• 1 Moon-Blessed Cleric
• 1 Soulherder
• 1 Spirited Companion
• 1 Starnheim Courser
• 1 Tameshi, Reality Architect
• 1 Thrull Parasite
• 1 Vampire Hexmage

• Instants (4)
• 1 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Eerie Interlude
• 1 Hindering Light
• 1 Thirst for Meaning

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Brilliant Restoration
• 1 Dance of the Manse
• 1 Extinguish All Hope
• 1 Replenish
• 1 Resurgent Belief
• 1 Search for Glory

• Enchantments (25)
• 1 All That Glitters
• 1 Befriending the Moths // Imperial Moth
• 1 Behold the Unspeakable // Vision of the Unspeakable
• 1 Elspeth Conquers Death
• 1 Elspeth's Nightmare
• 1 Enchanted Evening
• 1 Firja's Retribution
• 1 Historian's Boon
• 1 Inventive Iteration // Living Breakthrough
• 1 Kiora Bests the Sea God
• 1 Life of Toshiro Umezawa // Memory of Toshiro
• 1 Michiko's Reign of Truth // Portrait of Michiko
• 1 Phyrexian Scriptures
• 1 Propaganda
• 1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
• 1 Sphere of Safety
• 1 The Birth of Meletis
• 1 The Cruelty of Gix
• 1 The Eldest Reborn
• 1 The Fall of Lord Konda // Fragment of Konda
• 1 The Long Reach of Night // Animus of Night's Reach
• 1 The Modern Age // Vector Glider
• 1 The Phasing of Zhalfir
• 1 The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration
• 1 Tribute to Horobi // Echo of Death's Wail

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Crystal Chimes
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Orzhov Signet
• 1 Power Conduit
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (38)
• 4 Swamp
• 5 Island
• 8 Plains
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Arcane Sanctum
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Darkwater Catacombs
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1 Obscura Storefront
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Watery Grave

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This deck looks like a ton of fun. Rescuing discarded Sagas from the yard, animating, utility creatures - this deck has it all. Best of all, no one is going to give me a hard time for loading up the Enchantments section at the expense of Instants and Sorceries, something I only pretend to feel bad about always doing. This is a very, very 75% deck and it's got my fingerprints all over it and if you don't think this will be an absolute blast to play, you're wrong and if you don't think this will be an absolute blast to play against, I hope you're wrong about that, too.

What do we think? Not enough Sagas? Needs more dog (Spirited Companion)? Let me know in the comments section or in a Twitter DM or go to every LGS in Michigan until you find the one I'm at and let me know. Thanks for reading, and as always, thanks for sharing this on social media. Until next time!