Let me start out with an apology: I still haven’t managed to get in a game of Commander with a deck worth writing about. But given the fact that there weren’t any Grands Prix in the area last weekend (which is still in the future for me), next week looks more promising. Anyway, let’s get on to today’s topic.

As I hope is already abundantly clear to regular readers of this column, I’m always on the lookout for new and unexpected ways to play Magic. That has mostly just meant picking some odd card and building around it, but on occasion, I have the urge to go really crazy. This is one of those times; I want to play with a commander that nobody else uses. Sure, I could use Irini Sengir, but playing a commander that doesn’t really benefit the deck just isn’t satisfying. I need something with the potential to be powerful, but if a legend could do strong things, why would it go unplayed?

Perhaps because humans have survival instincts.

In a format in which your legendary creature sits in the command zone with nowhere to go but the stack, the whole, “When Phage the Untouchable enters the battlefield, if you didn't cast it from your hand, you lose the game,” bit might seem to be a death sentence for the card’s playability. Not so. How can we go about circumventing the line?

Counterarguments

The best way to keep Phage’s first ability from killing you is to make sure she never makes it to the battlefield. Hitting Phage with an Essence Scatter would certainly do the trick, but the Zombie Minion’s color identity rules that out pretty strictly. So, this is a dead end, right?

The old color pie was weird! Dash Hopes doesn’t do much, but the color also offers a couple of more repeatable options.

That’s all well and good, but without blue counters, we’re going to need to find something else to create enough redundancy.

Stifle Your Gasps

The other way to go about surviving the casting of our deadly commander is to just avoid losing to the triggered ability. Blue has the occasional Stifle, Trickbind, or Voidslime, but once again, the color of death’s options are a bit narrower. The only way for a mono-black deck to take the trigger off the stack is to get rid of the stack entirely:

But we need to be a little bit more open-minded when it comes to surviving. I mean, what if losing the game was simply an impossible action?

Or what if Phage didn’t feel so upset about being cast from a different zone?

I Could Teach You a Thing or Two

• Vampiric Tutor
• Demonic Tutor
• Beseech the Queen
• Increasing Ambition
• Demonic Collusion
• Diabolic Revelation
• Liliana Vess
• Rune-Scarred Demon

The infernal council holds no responsibility for any monetary ludicrisiosities associated with the aforementioned tutelage. Please direct all complaints to players of the Legacy and Vintage formats.

Killers in Training

By this point, stopping deadly triggers should be no trouble, so it’s high time we whipped out a couple of giant monsters that are nearly as deadly.

Black’s well renowned for having efficient creatures with big drawbacks that we might look to mitigate, but after a thorough search, the best we’re going to find is Demonlord of Ashmouth. Come on, you’re going to get outclassed by a 1-mana creature? I guess the Phyrexians are pretty good engineers . . .

A $50 Value; Yours for Only $9.99

Of course, Sundial of the Infinite doesn’t require us to go all-in to reap the benefits. Dawn of the Dead and Mimic Vat are both good cards on their own, but countering the creature’s exile trigger by ending your turn takes them to another level entirely. Then again, Sundial is just one card, so we don’t want to go too deep on things that we never want without it.

Sundial of the Infinite interactions are cool, but what about the counterspells? They don’t even get Phage onto the battlefield, so we’re going to need an additional piece. Time to call in the Gravediggers.

Tomb Raiding (Lara Croft Not Included)

• Oversold Cemetery
• Phyrexian Reclamation
• Sword of Light and Shadow
• Disturbed Burial

Oh, and Grim Discovery might come in handy given people’s propensity for destroying Cabal Coffers. It’s almost as if they thought 10 extra mana might be dangerous. Weird, right?

The Rest of the Game

Surprising people with Phage the Untouchable is awesome, but a deck built entirely around one gimmick is bound to grow old eventually. The secret to building this sort of thing is to find a normal game plan that takes advantage of the gimmicky tools so that you can move away from it entirely when you want to. Tutors are by their nature very adaptable, so we really just need a way to make good use of repeatable Disentombs. A bunch of good creatures will do the job, but those with great enters-the-battlefield triggers will do even better because you can get them killed and continuously generate more value.

• Shriekmaw
• Massacre Wurm
• Myr Battlesphere
• Grave Titan
• Duplicant

More excitingly, returning creature cards to hand lets us abuse a few triggers that R&D deemed too strong to be cheated out.

The fact that these cards are anti-synergistic with Torpor Orb is awkward, but I don’t think it’s adequate reason to exclude either from the deck.

Luckily, death triggers work almost as well, and in addition to the ubiquitous Wurmcoil Engine, the rules committee has recently seen fit to unleash an old favorite.

All of these big creatures can beat down just fine, and they let us play the incremental-advantage game that Commander often encourages.

Odds and Ends

There are a few other cards that seem may seem to be worthwhile, but I’ve excluded them, and those choices are in need of explanation. Moreover, there are a few other cards that do play exceptionally well and deserve mention.

A Chalice of the Void on 7 can counter Phage from the command zone . . . but it also stops you from casting her from hand. Whoops.

Though you’d never guess it based on the average number of turns that a game goes, Commander is actually a fairly tempo-based format. It’s easy enough to draw a lot of cards that you should rarely find yourself in top-deck mode, and even if you do, you have a commander to cast and ability lands to activate. Being behind by seven lands, on the other hand, will kill you dead as a doornail. So as much as I want to trigger a Lich's Mirror, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a deck without Channel.

This card seems sweet with Sundial of the Infinite, but it’s not. Unlike vanishing, fading knocks off the permanent when it tries to remove a counter and there isn’t one to remove, and skipping everything after your upkeep for a card that’s not even on par with Syphon Mind isn’t exactly value.

Now, this is more what I’m talking about. It ensures that nobody’s going to kill Phage for fear of death, and the ability to use Phyrexian Reclamation in response to the triggers allows you to break the symmetry nicely. On top of that, Endless Whispers lets you kill with a 1-mana instant by sacrificing Phage to High Market or Phyrexian Tower.

This card may not be mentioned very often, but it often works just as well as a Mimic Vat. Yes, your opponent chooses the creature, but with the exception of tokens, nobody plays bad creatures in Commander, and without a bunch of tokens, they may not even have multiple options for what to give you. On top of that, if neither of you is currently the threat, you might well convince your tablemate to hand you something juicy. And of course, Echo Chamber works just as well as Mimic Vat with Sundial of the Infinite.

A deck full of creatures may not seem like the best place for this card, but with a repeatable means of recursion having your Kokusho or Puppeteer Clique die immediately is probably preferable. Lethal Vapors can also be circumvented with Sundial of the Infinite, and none of your opponents are going to be anxious to pay the price for its removal.

Stay in Touch

With that, it’s time to wrap things up. Next week, the Azorius are instituting law and order, so now’s your chance to break the rules. Get out there and deathtouch some players!

"Can’t Touch This"

• Commander (0)

• Avoiding Death (6)
• 1 Withering Boon
• 1 Nether Void
• 1 Thrull Wizard
• 1 Torpor Orb
• 1 Sundial of the Infinite
• 1 Platinum Angel

• Tutors (9)
• 1 Vampiric Tutor
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Beseech the Queen
• 1 Increasing Ambition
• 1 Demonic Collusion
• 1 Diabolic Revelation
• 1 Liliana Vess
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Expedition Map

• Dialed Down (11)
• 1 Body Snatcher
• 1 Demonlord of Ashmouth
• 1 Eater of Days
• 1 Lethal Vapors
• 1 Leveler
• 1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
• 1 Puppeteer Clique
• 1 Dawn of the Dead
• 1 Echo Chamber
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Minion Reflector

• Recursion (5)
• 1 Grim Discovery
• 1 Oversold Cemetery
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Disturbed Burial

• Protection (3)
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Endless Whispers

• Card-Draw (5)
• 1 Necropotence
• 1 Staff of Nin
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Promise of Power
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron

• Beaters (15)
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1 Visara, the Dreadful
• 1 Avatar of Woe
• 1 Grim Poppet
• 1 Artisan of Kozilek
• 1 Harvester of Souls
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Grave Titan
• 1 Duplicant

• Sweepers (3)
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Reiver Demon
• 1 Dread Cacodemon

• Ramp (5)
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Gauntlet of Power

• Lands (37)
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Vesuva
• 1 Deserted Temple
• 1 Petrified Field
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Haunted Fengraf
• 1 High Market
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 25 Swamp

Buy This Deck