Readers!

Last week I wrote an article I'm very proud of. I have been writing about 75% EDH deck-building since it was still called EDH, and every time I have a new realization about how I've always built and can articulate it in a way that might help someone else make a building decision, I'm incredibly gratified. It's not often that an idea comes to me fully formed and easy-to-digest and I should be happy, but I also worry I wasn't critical enough of the idea. While some people have written to me to tell me that they have their own thesis enchantments (sometimes pet cards, I'm perhaps the most guilty person in history of that), I really need to run some tests to see if there is anything to my "thesis enchantment" idea. It's time for a new kind of thesis - the "hypo" thesis if you will. Can we really learn everything we need to know about a deck by looking at one key enchantment? Can we use one card to build a whole deck around? Does every commander need or even have such a thesis enchantment? I think a fun way to test this would be to look at every commander in Midnight Hunt. If I can deduce a thesis Enchantment in the stock list, I'll tell you about it, and if I think of another Enchantment we could try to build around to take the deck in a new, exciting direction, I'll be sure to mention that, too. This is going to be fun, whether it works out or my idea crashes and burns. I'm glad to have you along for the ride and it's exciting to have an audience as I kick my baby bird out of the nest and hope it has the good sense to flap its wings before it craters into the forest floor. Let's look at some decks already, shall we?

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

Thesis Enchantment: Cathars' Crusade

Crusade is an excellent engine here as every attack phase gives you a ton of value. Three creatures at least come in and trigger Crusade, buffing your entire team by quite a bit, and you don't even have to attack with Adeline to get the trigger, meaning you could be sending out some of the tokens you get with Adeline and buffing the rest by 3 every turn even if all you do is declare an attacker. Crusade is the perfect enchantment for going both tall and wide.

Can we do better?: I like the idea of steering toward Divine Visitation. If making 3 soldiers is cool, surely making 3 Angels is better. Giving them evasion already greatly improves the odds they'll survive and starting bigger is great and doesn't preclude you also doing Crusade Shenanigans. Run Sigil of the Empty Throne, Court of Grace and Luminarch Ascension for the whole package.

Dennick, Pious Apprentice

Thesis Enchantment: Memory Erosion

Despite there being a possibility of some fun Investigation shenanigans with cards like Thorough Investigation and Search the Premises, the deck is heavily slanted toward mill cards to make sure Pious Apparition gets triggered on every one of their turns.

Can we do better?: I like to have Mechanized Production as a backup plan. Investigating a lot is fun, and if we are devoting ourselves to mill, we're not going to have many ways to win with combat. My solution is to run a few alternate win condition cards like Approach of the Second Sun. I think this kind of deck is fairly miserable, but winning with Mechanized Production is fun and easy for them to interact with.

Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Thesis Enchantment: Grave Pact

If you have to sac creatures, everyone has to sac creatures. We have quite a few variations of Grave Pact at our disposal, so play them all.

Can we do better?: March of the Machines. March of the Machines enables an infinite creature dying loop so you can kill the whole table with Blood Artist. If that bores you, I'm sorry, but this is a thing the deck does. There's always Mechanized Production again, and Revel and Riches joins it as a possibility. I play Eloise and I've gotten much more satisfaction out of Black Market than Grave Pact. I'm not saying cut Pact, but I am saying Pact upsets people way more than Black Market does, so let them kill each other's stuff and block like a dummy and you'll be swimming in clues in no time.

Florian, Voldaren Scion

Thesis Enchantment: Wound Reflection

If you get to play a free card because you damaged them, go on and damage them. If damage is good, two damage is two goods, that's math.

Can we do better?: Run Obosh as a companion! Obosh is a cool card and everything that is cool about him stems directly from the fact that he is another Furnace of Rath. Furnace of Rath is good; what if you always had access to it? Could you build a deck around a second commander that was basically an enchantment but better because it's an additional copy of that enchantment and also you can play it in a command zone of sorts? Obosh is an enchantment for thesis purposes and you should take advantage of having access to it.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector

Thesis Enchantment: Grave Pact

I feel like there are "staple" thesis enchantments that will come up over and over again. I have 6 Burgeoning decks, if that helps my argument.

Can we do better?:No Mercy! Gisa is basically a scaled-back Tergrid, albeit one that's way less powerful. Tergrid ruffled some feathers but had the goods to back it up because you kept all of their permanents forever. If we're keeping just creatures and just temporarily, you need to make yourself a less attractive target. Turtle a bit behind cards like No Mercy, Crawlspace and a personal pet card, Hissing Miasma. Make someone else the Archenemy and if you can't, make it so costly to attack you that being the Archenemy doesn't even matter.

Gorex, the Tombshell

Thesis Enchantment: Zombie Infestation

A good discard outlet may be the only thing you need with Gorex. You'll stash cards in exile where they have a hard time interacting with them and bring back the good stuff when you need it.

Can we do better?: I personally think Gorex is a little boring and I'd like to spice things up by building around Waste Not. You get an advantage out of discarding, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't share the pain equally. If you want to discard and they don't, congrats, you broke parity. Now hit them with Oppression, Bottomless Pit and sac those Zombie Infestation tokens to Mind Slash.

Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia

Thesis Enchantment: Grave Pact

If your zombies have a built-in expiration date, it makes sense for them to share the misery with the rest of the board.

Can we do better?: Certainly! As much as I think Jadar is poorly optimized for Commander, I think there is some potential. If we are incentivized to sac our creatures often and to use Grave Pact effects, instead of making the game take forever because no one can keep creatures around, make the game wrap up quickly by stealing their dead stuff. Grave Betrayal is an excellent card for turning a disadvantage like your free token having decayed into an advantage. I wish Jadar triggered on every end step, but maybe that might be too good.

Jerren, Corrupted Bishop

Thesis Enchantment: Bastion of Remembrance

You're going to trigger Bastion a lot, and it's a lot harder to get rid of than Zulaport Cutthroat, especially if you're running a lot of sweepers like you probably should.

Can we do better?: I look at Jeren as a perfect Font of Agonies deck. You're going to want to kill their creatures as much as possible since you have to keep your life total perilously low and then sac a bunch of creatures if you want to build a budget Griselbrand or whatever you're doing with Jerren. Attrition is a good card and you'll play it, but Font rewards you for losing life, something almost nothing else in the deck does as well as Font.

Katilda, Dawnhart Prime

Thesis Enchantment: Cryptolith Rite

I wrote about Katilda and what I liked about her is that she's a copy of Cryptolith Rite in the command zone. There are some restrictions, but it's a powerful card. It's so powerful I didn't run Rite in my decklist but named the article after it. You don't need to run your thesis Enchantment but, you know, there are very few cases where you don't want to.

Can we do better?: I was tempted to say Helix Pinnacle, and maybe that's the right answer, but I think we should be a Glare of Subdual deck. If we're going to make tokens, and plenty of cards make human tokens, we'd be stupid not to run Glare. When we know we have Glare as an out, we can win easily by going wide without having to go that tall since we can tap anything we can't swing through. If we're going to use our creatures as mana dorks, we should have something to do with them for when mana won't bail us out.

Kurbis, Harvest Celebrant

Thesis Enchantment: Branching Evolution

If all you have going is the mana to recast Kurbis and a Branching Evolution, you could make a pretty big... no evasion creature.

Can we do better?: If making Kurbis huge is the goal but we can't really figure out anything all that productive to do with a big creature, might I suggest Greater Good? In fact, all of our creatures will likely end up pretty big given the deck's infrastructure that wants to heap a lot of +1/+1 counters on them, so Greater Good will do a ton of work in this deck. Deck yourself, I bet it will be easy.

Kyler, Sigardian Emissary

Thesis Enchantment: Branching Evolution

I think Kyler is a bit boring but you can't deny that making a huge creature is fun.

Can we do better?: Kyler is VERY similar to Kurbis and the biggest difference is access to White. Can White help us do anything with Kyler we can't with Kurbis? I think I found one answer - Aura Shards. Shards rewards you for building your deck in a way that triggers Kyler the maximum amount and if you build around ETB triggers rather than caring how big Kyler is, you'll end up making a huge Kyler anyway, but you'll be able to smoke their thesis enchantments on sight.

Leinore, Autumn Sovereign

Thesis Enchantment: Branching Evolution

This all makes sense because all of the Selesnya commanders from the deck are in the same precon where +1/+1 commanders matter, so you'd like to see the same thesis if these commanders are being billed as interchangeable. However, Leinore hopefully has some unique characteristics that could let you build in another direction, right?

Can we do better?: Build around Felidar Retreat. If your goal is to go tall but also kind of wide, you should think about letting your landfall triggers keep creatures coming into play. Your deck gets shut down two ways - they keep Leinore dead and they keep you off of 3 creatures. Landfall solves both of those by giving you the mana to replay Leinore and the Zendikar's Roil tokens to make sure you draw cards, and if you would rather change a creature's power than make a new one, Felidar Retreat does that, too. Don't just add Retreat, build the deck around it.

Lier, Disciple of the Drowned

Thesis Enchantment: Secrets of the Dead

Lier's engine involves playing a lot of spells and the preferred method seems to be playing lots of cantrips. Since not all spells are cantrips, you may need some help keeping your hand full. A very powerful but very, VERY narrow card in Secrets of the Dead keeps your hand full in the one deck that can expect to cast enough spells from the 'yard to devote a whole maindeck slot to benefitting from it.

Can we do better?: Run Fraying Sanity. Casting a spell and then casting it again is cool, but having access to a lot of your deck all at once by milling a ton of cards and then casting them for their flashback cost is good, too. I might avoid becoming a Thassa's Oracle deck, but if Lier lets you treat your graveyard like it's a hand, why not play a three mana Thought Reflection?

Liesa, Forgotten Archangel

Thesis Enchantment: Grave Pact

Liesa is a very nasty pairing with Grave Pact since you get c creatures back and they can't. You'll run them out of cards if all you do is loop a Fleshbag Marauder with a Grave Pact out.

Can we do better?: Rampage of the Valkyries is an additional Grave Pact, provided you are built around Angels. This isn't a very radical shift in the way the deck plays but it's potentially a VERY radical shift in the way the deck is built. I like my Grave Pact decks to have Draugr Necromancer and Dauthi Voidwalker, cards that are a complete nonbo with Liesa. Instead of running their creatures like I love to, going Angel tribal means you have incentive to run angels with small, incremental effects and low mana costs, cards that are very good here and not great elsewhere.

Ludevic, Necrogenius

Thesis Enchantment: Animate Dead

If you mill a ton of creatures, one way to get them back is just Animate them. This also works on their creatures, meaning you'll be able to get access to the best dead creatures for cheap and you can decide whether to be a reanimator or a grave robber.

Can we do better?: Go big or go home. With the back side of Ludevic being a huge monster that can get very big, build Voltron to end games fast. Dimir doesn't get a ton of good Voltron Enchantments, but the two big ones it does have are Kaya's Ghostform and, a gem in this deck, Demonic Embrace. Embrace ensures you can get it back if Ludevic dies, or, more likely, you delve too greedily and too deep and throw a clutch card in the bin in 2 colors that aren't great at retrieving dead enchantment and artifacts from the 'yard. I love Demonic Embrace here and if I ever built this deck, which I would not, I'd like to see how Voltron went.

Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

Thesis Enchantment: This is an Enchantment deck

Can we do better?: I doubt it. Sorry to not give you much here, but this commander is very specialized.

Old Stickfingers

Thesis Enchantment: Animate Dead

Ole Stickyfingeys plays a lot closer to how Ludevic does than I would have assumed before, but looking at the contents of both stock lists, Stickybuns here likes to reanimate just as much as Pitbull featuring Ludevic does. But do they need to play the same way?

Can we do better?: MORTAL COMBAAAAAAAAAT (Mortal Combat)

If you are rewarded for having creatures in your graveyard, why not put a lot of creatures in your graveyard? Specifically, enough to win the game with Mortal Combat. Sure, you can have lots of fun with the Phyrexian Devourer combo in this deck, but there aren't too many decks that scream "Mortal Combat" like this deck does metaphorically or like whoever yells it in the beginning of the song from the movies.

Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer

Thesis Enchantment: Repercussion

It's super duper hard to improve on Repercussion as a build-around. I promised to try, so try I shall.

Can we do better?: Last week on my article, Simon asked in the comments if the thesis enchantment need always be an enchantment? Nope! I don't think that it needs to be. It's more often than not an Enchantment for me, but building Rem around Sunforger rather than an Enchantment could make the deck a ton of fun to play. Rem is especially scary wearing a Sunforger as it turns him into a 3 hit clock if you're tracking commander damage, and he could potentially 1-shot someone off of Psychotic Fury and some way to pump the power up to 11. Not bad!

Saryth, the Viper's Fang

Thesis Enchantment: Quest for Renewal

Being able to do untap shenanigans appears to be the aim of the stock build of Saryth, and while cards like Awakening have gotten use for a while, Quest for Renewal appears to have been dusted off just for this occasion.

Can we do better?: Why not build around Lurking Predators? Saryth very much threatens to pull combat tricks if attacked, tapping and untapping creatures to kill attackers and foil combat spells. Keeping your mana up for tricks means it's tough to develop the board, so why not let them develop your board for you?

Sigarda, Champion of Light

Thesis Enchantment: Cathars' Crusade

You'll want to go wide with this deck, and going wide means playing lots of creatures. If you play lots of creatures, Sigarda lets you draw more cards, some of which will be creatures, thus perpetuating the cycle. I would build it as a Cryptolith Rite deck, but that's not super different, honestly. Stock lists even run Rite already.

Can we do better?: Steering into being a combat-oriented deck that runs humans, which are undersized usually, means you'll need something to get them over the top if you're not a combo deck. Anthem effects are good, and doubling them seems double good, so why not run Unnatural Growth? A 2/2 human doesn't seem puny if it gets +1/+1 from your commander making it a 3/3 which then grows to a 6/6 when it's time for swinging. Cracking someone for 6 with Thalia or Drannith Magistrate feels good and slows them down to boot. It's a win-win!

Slogurk, the Overslime

Thesis Enchantment: Trade Routes

There is no better Enchantment for the deck than Trade Routes and there is no deck in which Trade Routes works better. It's a match made in wherever Angels are from. I didn't read the books or anything.

Can we do better?: I think Excavation is similarly good, doesn't get used anywhere else and has the added benefit of letting your opponents use it, which can sometimes hurt them. I am not saying add Mindslaver to the deck, but I am saying that Excavation can make people make mistakes, which is nice. If you build around Excavation rather than Trade Routes, you can focus on sacking lands from play rather than trying to dump them out of your hand. You'll do both, of course, but focusing on Excavation reminds you to play cards like Zuran Orb and Overlaid Terrain, both monster cards in the deck.

I have a lot of opinions about Slogurk, if you couldn't tell. My personal build runs snow-covered basics for Sunstone if that tells you anything. If anything, the thesis permanent of my build is Glacial Chasm.

Tovolar, Dire Overlord

Thesis Enchantment: Full Moon's Rise

This is a Werewolf deck. It's very popular because people have waited forever for a Werewolf commander, but the stock list is really samey and boring.

Can we do better?: Of course, there's like no way not to.

Aggravated Assault makes us an extra combat phases deck, which is very powerful. Spellbinder is $13 for a reason, after all.

Vadrik, Astral Archmage

Thesis Enchantment: Thousand-Year Storm

You can interchange a few cards here - the deck is kind of a Swarm Intelligence or Shark Typhoon deck, too.

Can we do better?: Clout of the Dominus is a good cheap way to give Vadrik shroud and also give him +2/+2 which will make your spells cheaper, but why stop there? Why not get a 12 cost reduction with Runechanter's Pike? Vadrik would be a great Voltron commander since you could cast extra combat phase spells for cheaper the bigger he is. You could go Wizard or Human tribal while you're at it, but I think if you start with Clout of the Dominus and think of a few other cards you'd like to suit Vadrik up with, you'll end up in a new, exciting direction.

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

Thesis Enchantment: Rooftop Storm

This is very much a Zombies deck most of the time it's built, and Rooftop Storm being in the precon reminded everyone that it's one of the most powerful things you could be doing.

Can we do better?: Vampiric Rites is the card I would build around. Since we're rewarded for sacking Zombies to Wilhelt, it makes sense to run cards that reward us for sacking creatures. At that point, you can run more ways to sac creatures since the deck has more payoffs. At a certain point in brewing, I realized I wanted to build an Aristocrats style deck. You can easily loop Zombies like Gravecrawler, and getting a token you can sac to Attrition or Phyrexian Altar every time you loop Gravecrawler or Bloodghast is the definition of advantage. Load up on sac outlets and Grave Pact effects and, what the hell, Syr Konrad, the Grim.

I don't know if 24 data points is enough to establish that I may be onto something or not, but I think I demonstrated both that the commanders from Midnight Hunt really lend themselves to a particular build and you can easily pick out an enchantment that typifies that build. Changing the central enchantment like I did here changes the build or the way it plays, and sometimes both. I hope thinking about a central enchantment (or some other permanent) helps you brainstorm cards you'd like to add to pair with that enchantment and the commander and I hope you go down a few rabbit holes that take you to builds that are outside your comfort zone a bit. I had a lot of fun doing this, and while I don't know if I'll do this again, I am going to be discussing "thesis" cards in my articles in the future. Thanks for reading and sharing this on social media and for commenting as well. Until next time!