Welcome back to Around the Wheel, where we pay no attention to what's going on in the wider releases of Magic and instead build a deck using a Commander next in the color wheel! I heard a big set is coming out right now... like, a really big set. Is that true?

Oh well, who cares? There aren't any Grixis () Legendary creatures in it, so we're going to have to look outside this oversized new set for our leader. So, three-color Magic Gods, what have you got for us?

Not a ton, unfortunately. Marchesa, the Black Rose is awesome, but we've already done her, the last time we came upon Grixis in our journey around. Kess, Dissident Mage is similarly cool, but Draw-Go gets boring after a while. But one more stood out. One, it seems, who could be used to do some silly things, even as he cages his supporters. I'm looking at you, Mairsil, the Pretender.

We have here a four-mana 4/4 who exiles our own creatures and artifacts from our hand or graveyard. He only does it when he enters the battlefield, but that's okay. Once he does, he has their activated abilities, whatever they are, and whenever he is on the 'field. As a quick reminder, an activated ability is any ability with a colon (":") in the instruction. Often it's an amount of mana (: Firebreathing Firebreather gets +1/+0 until end of turn), sometimes it includes a tap ({Tap}: Stingy Needlebreath gets Deathtouch until end of turn), but other times it'll be something else (Discard a card from your hand: Jerkface McJerkinstein deals one damage to target creature). Either way, it's a colon we're looking for; if there's a colon, we can use the ability.

We can work with this:

While it's worth going through My Deck Tickled a Sliver for this deck, sometimes it's valuable to take a step back and look at the larger deck-building process. We want to know what we're trying to do. In the case of this deck, there would be a strong argument to build a Grixis Goodstuff deck with an activated ability subtheme. Counters, kill spells, reanimation, fast creatures, it could be a great deck. If that's what you want to do, get down with your bad self. However, it's Mairsil's ability which interested me, so I want to build around it. In fact, I want to go hard on it, so I plan on putting several cards in the deck I never intend to cast. We can ignore their mana costs almost entirely because we're going to exile them and use them for their abilities.

Once we've decided to build a deck that's all-in on the commander (almost "Voltron," even though in this case we're not suiting him up with enchantments and/or equipment), we should have some idea what we intend to do. The most common answer is "win," which is fine, but we need to know how. Damage? Commander damage? Combo? Mill? Sometimes the answer is different. We could want to pull off a certain combination that does something silly. We could want to help the rest of the table have a great game. Whatever. But know what the deck should do, and build to that.

In this case, we're going to win with the Commander. The first thought is to make him huge with a bunch of activated abilities, but there aren't actually that many options for that in this color trio. So we're going to look for combos we can pull off, which means we have to devote some amount of space to combo pieces.

Okay, now that we know that, let's go through the deck.

40 lands. Almost always, everyone. You're probably used to hearing it by now, but always start with 40 lands. In this case, we have mostly dual lands of various stripes, plus a tri-land and a few utility lands. Command Beacon can be useful if Mairsil manages to die enough times it's a hassle. Arcane Lighthouse, Homeward Path, Rogue's Passage; these are all solid lands, and in this case about as much colorless as this mana base can take. Note we are running the three artifact lands in our colors; normally this is actually bad play, because they can be destroyed with artifact hate, but in this case it could be useful because we can exile them with Mairsil and actually tap him for mana!

We've got some artifact ramp; it's possible we could get Mairsil out a turn early, but more likely we're just going to be happy to have extra mana to do more activations in a single turn. Note only some of the rocks are ramp; others are combo pieces and shouldn't be cast! Specifically, we can cast Arcane Signet, Chromatic Lantern, Fellwar Stone, and Sol Ring. Discard or hold Firemind Vessel, Gilded Lotus, or Basalt Monolith. (Sol Ring can be a combo piece later, actually, but if it's in your opening hand, cast the darn thing.)

We've got a fair bit of draw, but in this particular case loot and rummage effects are actually better, because we can use much of our 'yard as an extension of our hand for Mairsil. Phyrexian Arena is here (run Rhystic Study if you don't mind annoying everyone), but otherwise it's things like Frantic Search and Cathartic Reunion. The nice thing is we have enough power in the deck we don't have to overload with these; normally two or three over the course of a few turns will find what you need.

We have some kill spells, some board wipes, and some bounce spells. We really would prefer not to have to wipe the board, but sometimes it's necessary. We do have Life's Finale; if we're going to do it, we may as well put three more creatures in our graveyard for Mairsil to cage. Decree of Pain is just cool. But Aetherize and Illusionist's Gambit are both neat, forcing an opponent to rebuild and keeping us alive at the same time. Note we have a few creatures that tap to kill something. Avatar of Woe is kind of a classic, but Shauku, Endbringer, who's normally too difficult to justify playing on account of Bolting us every turn and hardly ever being able to attack is now awesome, because we just get the kill and counter abilities! There's also, weirdly, Ovinomancer, which I'd never heard of till building this deck. Slap its ability on Mairsil, and it both kills something for us and returns Mairsil to our hand, in case we don't want him to die.

There are a number of ways to prevent Mairsil's death. We can bounce him, flicker him, or give him Shroud or Hexproof. It's worth working toward some way of protecting him early in the game, just to keep him around and entering the battlefield a lot.

We have a few ways to actually win the game.

The first is with Commander damage from an overly-large Mairsil. The second is stealing everyone's stuff with Geth, Lord of the Vault's ability or Memnarch's two abilities. The third is to figure out a way to fire off infinite damage. The final is to mill everyone else out. I can't promise I've got every way to win the game here, but we'll go through some of them.

In many cases, we ultimately want to make infinite mana. Once we have that, we can often just pick our method of winning based on what else has shown up in the game. We create infinite mana by having Mairsil tap for some amount of mana more than one, then untap for some amount less than that (or, in the case of Pili-Pala, tap and untap for the same amount but generate an additional mana as a side effect). Remember those three mana artifacts I mentioned up there? Those three (plus Sol Ring, of course) are our keys. If we have Firemind Vessel in exile with a Cage counter on it, Mairsil taps for 2 mana of different colors. Let's say we've got Pili-Pala in a cage as well. Now we can tap Mairsil with the Vessel's ability, make 2 mana, then untap Mairsil with Pili-Pala's ability using that two mana and generate another mana of any color. Do that as many times as needed to generate several million mana. Then use Geth's ability (also on Mairsil, probably) to reanimate everything from everyone's 'yards. With Gilded Lotus or Basalt Monolith, it goes twice as fast because there will be an additional mana left over from the tap/untap process. Alternately, if we have Torchling, Morphling, or Soliton, we can pay or to untap Mairsil, so with the Lotus or Vessel we can have unlimited mana that way as well. It's worth noting, however, with the Vessel we have to create two different colors. So if we have Morphling, we must generate and whatever else, but we have to use the to untap Mairsil so we can generate infinite not-.

Some of our untappers are game-winners on their own. Farmstead Gleaner is great here. We tap Mairsil for two mana, then untap him and put a +1/+1 counter on him. We can do that as many times as we want, then attack with him. If we're tapping for three mana, we make an extra mana while we're at it, and if we have something that taps to kill creatures, we can use all that mana to kill all the other creatures on the board so we don't have any blockers. Or just use Rogue's Passage. Skyship Stalker works great for making a big Mairsil as well.

Knacksaw Clique can mill everyone out if we can tap for two. And Hateflayer just kills everyone with damage if we can tap for three. Pili-Pala can help here if we haven't found Gilded Lotus yet; if we're tapping for two or colorless, Pili-Pala can make it all so Hateflayer can then be activated as many times as needed.

We have one tutor, Final Parting, because it can find us an artifact and a creature and put them right where we need them. It'll take a couple turns, but it'll win the game. We've also got a few ways to put creatures in the 'yard, but that's more for toolbox purposes. And we have a number of ways to flicker Mairsil in and out: Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, Deadeye Navigator, Conjurer's Closet. Getting one of those is very helpful in getting the deck going.

It's a bit strange, building a deck where many of the cards are never intended to be cast, but there you have it.

Mairsil, the Pretender | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mairsil, the Pretender

• Creatures (23)
• 1 Aetherling
• 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1 Avatar of Woe
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Farmstead Gleaner
• 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1 Gravebreaker Lamia
• 1 Hateflayer
• 1 Havengul Lich
• 1 Jodah's Avenger
• 1 Knacksaw Clique
• 1 Memnarch
• 1 Mercurial Chemister
• 1 Morphling
• 1 Murderous Rider
• 1 Ovinomancer
• 1 Pili-Pala
• 1 Shauku, Endbringer
• 1 Shifty Doppelganger
• 1 Skyship Stalker
• 1 Soliton
• 1 Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1 Torchling

• Instants (11)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Deadly Rollick
• 1 Essence Flux
• 1 Frantic Search
• 1 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Illusionist's Gambit
• 1 Reality Shift
• 1 Sudden Spoiling
• 1 Thirst for Meaning
• 1 Vraska's Contempt

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Careful Study
• 1 Cathartic Reunion
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Final Parting
• 1 Life's Finale
• 1 Tormenting Voice
• 1 Vandalblast

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Training Grounds

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Basalt Monolith
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Firemind Vessel
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Pendant of Prosperity
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Shadowspear

• Lands (40)
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Bad River
• 1 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Choked Estuary
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Desolate Lighthouse
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Rocky Tar Pit
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sanctum of Eternity
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Vault of Whispers

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If I wanted to build this to be much more competitive, I would use tutors. I'd cut all the non-combo activated abilities and put in counters and tutors, and I'd push as hard as possible to combo off early. Alternately, cutting Final Parting will take the deck from "here's how I win" to "oops, I win!" territory, which would be a bit more sporting. I also confess I tend to avoid using Haste-enablers when building a deck like this. Being able to cast Mairsil, equip a Lightning Greaves, and immediately win seems... rude. However, they would make the deck faster.

For a minute I considered Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Wizard Tribal, but Mairsil stuck out by a mile in the end.

How would you build Mairsil? Are there other combos you'd put in? Would you run him with tutors? Let me know!

Thanks for reading. Stay safe.