Readers!

Typically, the format of these articles is a bit different. I read every article I wrote in 2022 and post a brief summary of the ones I think are the most readable. However, I am not sure those have a ton of value to anyone but me. Instead, today I'd like to talk about the one deckbuilding concept I leaned into a lot this year, the support it's gotten lately, what older cards are better now, and how you can turn any deck into a deck capable of doing the same sort of unfair shenanigans with a few modifications. My 2022 blowout article is all about cloning your commander!

Early in the year, I said in 2022 I was going to focus on using more Instants and Sorceries in my building, something I wanted to stick to. I thought I was going to. The thing is, Instants and Sorceries are the one place I start to cut "boring" cards from because I would rather run a pet card than a Swords to Plowshares. I cut removal all the time because I want to make more room for pet cards and my personal EDH philosophy is that I want to just do a thing and stopping other people from doing their thing is great if you want to win, but I want to do a thing.

The thing is, I don't feel like I need to tell people who like to cast Swords to Plowshares to remember to run Swords to Plowshares. If you think my lists don't have enough of the cards you like to run, take my pet stuff out and put those cards in. I would hope that telling you to use my decks as a starting point only but to customize it for your own personal taste goes without saying, and I still make an effort to talk about how to change the list up at the end of each article. If all of that wasn't enough of a tip-off, I'll say it here explicitly - play the cards you want to play in EDH decks. I'm here to give suggestions and show you how I build to maximize how much fun I have, even at the expense of how much I win. If a Force of Negation and a Pact of Negation are all that is stopping a list I made from winning at your table, add them without hesitation.

Now that telling you that you can build any way you want is out of the way, it's time to tell you how to build specifically.

Why Are We Doing This Thing?

I didn't realize I had to sell you on copying your commander a ton, but basically, if a commander has a really good ETB ability (Gyruda, Ertai, half of the current Omnaths) has an activated or triggered ability that gets good in multiples (Kiemi, who is made by Tatsunari, some of the other Omnaths, basically any commander) or attacks good (all the rest of them, there are like 3 commanders not worth copying. Torbran, Green Omnath and like, Kenrith). I'm being a little hyperbolic right now, but barely. If a creature is worth making your commander, a lot of the time, it's worth doubling, or tripling, or quadrupling what they do.

When Are We Doing This?

Whenever? That's a weird question.

To Whom Are We Doing This?

OK, I see what you're doing. Please don't finish this bit, just ask the real question.

Fine. How Are We Doing It?

That's the real question. Currently, copying a Legendary creature without something to remove the Legend Rule (Mirror Box and Mirror Gallery are going to do a lot of work in a lot of decks) will create a token that has ETB effects but which will trigger the legend rule and require you to sac one of the copies. If you strip Legendary status from the creature before or as you copy it, though, you can proliferate away and really have some fun. I meant the definition of proliferate, not the keyword ability proliferate. I hate that I've been writing for long enough that I can't use a word like proliferate without someone sending me a twitter DM "Uhhhh don't you mean POPULATE" and like, congrats, you win, guy. Google the word "proliferate." In the mean time, let's proliferate and then Populate (that time I meant the keyword ability) and win some games.

This card in particular makes a lot of your other clone effects amazing immediately because it strips Legendary status making the new copy cloneable immediately, which is very cool. This gives you clones with the same name as your commander, which has let me 1-hit KO someone with my original Ivy and Mirror Box giving her +1/+1 for each card named Ivy. If you're in Blue, this is a great place to start. Spark Double is another good one. Blue has plenty of ways to clone creatures, but you need to make a non-Legendary copy first unless you just want to use the ETB ability.

Another way to make a cloneable legendary creature is to change its name by putting a creature with Mutate on top of it to change its name. Suddenly Atraxa has turned into a creature called Sea-Dasher Octopus which isn't Legendary but has the ability to Proliferate every turn. If you're into that, you'll be into having a bunch of Sea-Dasher Octopus and Proliferating (the keyword ability this time) a lot. A deck like that would already run Doubling Season, which blends nicely with my next point.

I don't need to spend a ton of ink here talking about how Blue can make clones, but sometimes you'll want to be in other colors, and sometimes you won't want to be in Blue at all. If you tell someone who has played Magic more than a few months "theorycraft a Miirym clones deck" they would do a reasonable job, but if I said "theorycraft Chatterfang clones" they might get stumped a bit. The thing is, we all make copies all the time - if you've ever activated a Mimic Vat while you have Parallel Lives, you know you don't need Blue to do some shenanigans. If you can't increase the number of copies you make at a time, increase the effect with something like Panharmonicon so even a "fair" way to make token copies of your commander or other Legendary creature can do a lot of damage. Make use of Red's infrastructure for making temporary tokens like Molten Echoes or Flameshadow Conjuring. White decks can contribute cards like Anointed Procession and maybe even Divine Visitation if you'd rather go wide than copy your commander a bunch at that point in the game. Every color has ways to make token copies, even Black, every color can use Artifacts and creatures with Mutate and even if you're just making one copy of your commander, in a deck like Slimefoot, the Stowaway or Winota, Joiner of Forces can quickly stampede out of control.

I had a lot of fun in 2022 brewing decks where I copy the commander a lot. One deck where I think it would be particularly fun is my 4-color Omnath deck. I usually win by triggering his ability to deal 4 to each opponent - being able to do that a bunch, or gain like 12 life at a time, would get out of control fast! Here is how I'd likely run the deck that I have listed here with a Clone package.

Omnath EDH | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Omnath, Locus of Creation

• Creatures (35)
• 1 Agent of Treachery
• 1 Altered Ego
• 1 Ancient Greenwarden
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Chulane, Teller of Tales
• 1 Coiling Oracle
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Displacer Kitten
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Esix, Fractal Bloom
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Glasspool Mimic
• 1 Knight of the Reliquary
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
• 1 Murasa Rootgrazer
• 1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Parcelbeast
• 1 Pouncing Shoreshark
• 1 Progenitor Mimic
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Risen Reef
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Sakashima Of A Thousand Faces
• 1 Sakashima The Impostor
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1 Skyshroud Ranger
• 1 Spark Double
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Temur Sabertooth
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Wayward Swordtooth

• Spells (8)
• 1 Double Major
• 1 Narset's Reversal
• 1 Broken Bond
• 1 Explore
• 1 Irenicus's Vile Duplication
• 1 Quasiduplicate
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Splendid Reclamation

• Enchantments (10)
• 1 Burgeoning
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Equilibrium
• 1 Exploration
• 1 Followed Footsteps
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Primal Vigor
• 1 Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Trade Routes

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Cloudstone Curio
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Horn of Greed
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Mirror Box
• 1 Mirror Gallery
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (37)
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 9 Forest
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Ghost Town
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Ketria Triome
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Prismatic Vista
• 1 Raugrin Triome
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Wooded Foothills

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There were some delightful surprises throwing this together! First of all, Parcelbeast is absolutely perfect here, giving us more landfall and something to do with our commander who doesn't usually attack or block. Doubling Season is great with cards we already ran before like Elemental Mastery and Avenger of Zendikar. The new cards synergize with how the deck was before, and I think I would be happy to build this irl. A thought experiment has given way to a new deckbuilding project for 2023 - how about that? Thanks for reading this year, readers. It's been an honor and a privilege to write here for what will be my 10th year in March. I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing. Until next year!