Let’s get back to the sins. Thanks for everyone who made suggestions! Last time, we looked at Thromok, the Insatiable and his gluttonous team, but let’s turn to the common outcome of gluttony: Sloth.

Many people suggested Norin the Wary for sloth, and I want to explain my reasoning against using him before moving on. Norin bails whenever anyone does anything – and that, to me, is cowardly, not lazy. He’s afraid, not unmotivated. (There’s also the deck-construction issue of red being the color of emotion and acting before thinking—not exactly conducive to a deck attempting to represent being lazy.) Please keep the suggestions coming!

And that brings us to today’s deck-building challenge. It’s hard to be slothful in Magic. By definition, we’re being active—even control decks with no win conditions (some of you may remember those wonderful U/B Standard decks from Innistrad block with Nephalia Drownyard) stay on their toes, countering key spells, killing other creatures, drawing cards, and occasionally blowing up the board. That all sounds like too much effort.

The nice thing is, even the laziest people do something—they turn on the TV or grab a game controller, they order pizza or use the microwave. So we don’t have to do nothing to represent laziness; we have to do as little as possible. In other words, we can cast spells, but we want to look for effects that, once cast, will do their things without our worrying about it anymore. For that, let’s try using this guy.

If you were hoping for Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, hang in there. We’ll talk about him. In the meantime, though, the Grand Arbiter does a lot of things for us, and all we have to do is have him around—he’s like the Roomba of Magic. We don’t have to vacuum with a Roomba, and we get cheaper spells with good ol‘ IV. He happens to make things more expensive for our opponents, but that’s just a nice side effect. Our stuff is cheaper, and all it takes is a one-time investment of casting him. Deal.

What that means from a mana perspective, though, is that we need to hit our land drops. We don’t need to keep mana up from turn to turn, but we have some expensive spells worth casting, so we have the normal forty lands plus a few mana rocks to make sure we fix our colors and have the mana we need on time. Forty-seven mana sources is a lot, but it’ll be worth it to just lay a land, play our thing, and sit back. Our fixing is a bit on the thin side—we’re running only the budget duals and such—because this deck used a lot of the budget just in the nonland cards and didn’t leave much behind for it. It will work, but if this deck is going to see play and be upgraded, better mana-fixing through lands would be the place to start.

We have to draw some cards to keep up, but who wants to put in all the work to cast Mulldrifter? The laziest draw spell of them all, Rhystic Study, becomes our guide, then. We want something we can play and then sit back and let it draw us cards. Well of Ideas gives our opponents extra cards, but we draw more, and that’s a reason to not kill us. Reparations makes sure opponents reward us if they target us, both keeping them off our backs and granting us the occasional extra card. Insight is color-specific, but green is commonly played, so it will probably draw us cards and won’t attract too much attention. Betrayal lets us reap the rewards of someone else’s whatever—a Daxos of Meletis opponent, for example, is likely to be attacking a lot. That’d be a great target, netting an extra card per turn cycle. Rayne, Academy Chancellor at least makes it less painful if someone destroys one of our enchantments. Mesa Enchantress loves all our enchantments, while Farsight Mask makes us mind being hit a bit less. Honden of Seeing Winds just sits there giving us an extra card. If we have Honden of Cleansing Fire, we’ll draw two—no extra effort required.

We have no threats. Threats are for the motivated. Even things that could be perceived as threats aren’t here. We’re just going to play our things and let them sit there—attacking takes too much work.

What we have is a whole bunch of cards that sit there and try to keep people from attacking us. Propaganda is the poster child for this—it makes it tough for an opponent to attack with more than a couple of creatures. (Its white sibling Ghostly Prison is too expensive, but it would be worth adding with a bit more scratch.) Sphere of Safety has a similar effect, as do Windborn Muse, Norn's Annex, and War Tax, which requires a mana investment (lame) but is worth it for the effect. Dissipation Field means opponents will have to rebuild their armies following attacks, Lightmine Field is brutal for anyone with a lot of creatures, and Crawlspace limits attacks completely. Solitary Confinement is great if we have a tutor in hand or another way to draw cards (Rhystic Study would be bonkers), and Island Sanctuary works nearly the same way. Teferi's Moat requires a color choice, but we can normally pick one that will affect more than one opponent. Blazing Archon stops creatures from attacking completely, while Isperia, Supreme Judge will net us a grip if someone does manage to hit us. Reverence keeps Elves and Goblins off our backs pretty well, too; combined with Meekstone, most things just can’t touch us.

Palliation Accord is a funny one—we have to keep track of all the triggers, but it can end up preventing a lot of damage if something goes terribly awry. Cloud Cover makes it much more difficult for opponents to kill our stuff since we can just grab it back in response. And Chancellor of the Annex adds to the tax our commander puts on our opponents, making it more likely they’ll just have to leave us alone.

Enduring Ideal deserves its own mention—epic spells are not normally great. However, there are so many good enchantments here, it can do some work for us—play it, and we build up quite the fort.

What’s that? How does it win, you ask? Good question.

What better way to represent sloth than to not even try to win? Tie the game, and everyone can stop having to do so much! (We have a couple of ways to search up the enchantment—they happen to work well if we end up needing something else, too—but one of the goals is to do as little as possible. So at least try. Or don’t try. You know what I mean.)

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Blazing Archon
• 1 Chancellor of the Annex
• 1 Drogskol Reaver
• 1 Fog Bank
• 1 Guard Gomazoa
• 1 Lost Auramancers
• 1 Mesa Enchantress
• 1 Mistmeadow Skulk
• 1 Plumeveil
• 1 Spiny Starfish
• 1 Wall of Denial
• 1 Wall of Frost
• 1 Wall of Kelp
• 1 Wall of Vapor
• 1 Windborn Muse
• 1 Darksteel Gargoyle
• 1 Darksteel Sentinel
• 1 Isperia, Supreme Judge
• 1 Rayne, Academy Chancellor

• Spells (40)
• 1 Enduring Ideal
• 1 Plea for Guidance
• 1 Betrayal
• 1 Cloud Cover
• 1 Defang
• 1 Dissipation Field
• 1 Divine Intervention
• 1 Flood
• 1 Guard Duty
• 1 Insight
• 1 Island Sanctuary
• 1 Lightmine Field
• 1 Palliation Accord
• 1 Propaganda
• 1 Reparations
• 1 Reverence
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Righteous Aura
• 1 Solitary Confinement
• 1 Sphere of Safety
• 1 Teferi's Moat
• 1 War Tax
• 1 Well of Ideas
• 1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
• 1 Honden of Seeing Winds
• 1 Azorius Cluestone
• 1 Azorius Keyrune
• 1 Crawlspace
• 1 Crystal Chimes
• 1 Farsight Mask
• 1 Fieldmist Borderpost
• 1 Marble Diamond
• 1 Meekstone
• 1 Norn's Annex
• 1 Ojutai Monument
• 1 Pristine Talisman
• 1 Scourglass
• 1 Sky Diamond
• 1 Sun Droplet
• 1 Witchbane Orb

• Lands (40)
• 14 Island
• 16 Plains
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Coastal Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Meandering River
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Radiant Fountain
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Cove

Buy This Deck

Let me tell you: Building this deck in-budget was hard work. Several fairly necessary pieces are expensive—when eight or nine cards all cost $4, that really eats in to a $75 budget. That said, if one wanted to pursue this theme but had more money to put into it (or a substantial existing collection, or the savvy to trade for some of the more expensive pieces), there are two other commanders worth considering, each adding a color: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic and Angus Mackenzie. The black from Oloro gives us some useful options, though most of them don’t really seem slothful. His life-gain, on the other hand, is excellent—this is a guy who benefits us just by being selected. Green from Angus offers Asceticism, which is wonderful and gives us access both to his Fog effect and a number of other Fog-like cards, including Fog itself. Alternatively, a fun(ny) deck could be this, remaining within budget (if you buy a used copy of Angus):

Angus Mackenzie ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (0)

• Lands (98)
• 32 Forest
• 33 Island
• 33 Plains

• Creatures (1)
• 1 Azor's Elocutors

Buy This Deck

On the other hand, if you want to try to make this deck work even better at not doing much at all, there are some cards that could help while remaining on theme—Forcefield, Ensnaring Bridge, and the aforementioned Moat and Ghostly Prison would all be great. Angelic Arbiter gets everyone to calm down some, and Silent Arbiter severely limits options for combat. Karmic Justice is more of a rattlesnake, but it will generally make people leave you alone. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage also would be a nice addition.

My editor wrote me the following note: “I want Clockspinning to be aggressive with Divine Intervention.” He’s right, of course. If you want to work for the tie, Clockspinning (and Chisei, Heart of Oceans) would both help that. However, aggression seems off-theme to me. Go for it if it’s your jam.

Did I miss anything? Other ways this could have gone? Any more suggestions for the remaining sins?

So sit back and live the dream of having as little to do as possible. And hope your friends find it funny when no one wins—hey, at least no one lost, right?

Total cost: $74.99

Take a look at the previous Seven Deadly Commander Articles:

1. Greed
2. Gluttony