I've loved the Un-sets since I was a kid. Coming into the game in the middle of the Urza block, Unglued was a very new set. I'd pick up packs of the set here and there and buy singles of cards that seemed cool. For a time, I only played kitchen table Magic with my sibling and one or two friends. It'd be a couple years before I would reach the FNM level and start getting a little more competitive. In the meantime, I was jamming fun cards like Chicken a la King, Incoming!, and Timmy, Power Gamer and laughing all the way to the bank. It was a riot of a time, and always tons of fun with the variety it brought to the games.

Fast forward now to 2022 and Unfinity is here. The set has been filled with as much fun as it has controversy. Despite the issues some people seem to be having with it, I can't help but adore several of the in-jokes and light ribbing that come with these releases. Even with it being more top-down and focused on a theme, it still keeps a lot of that classic Un-set energy with cards like Icing Manipulator and Gray Merchant of Alphabet. This time, though, this was an Un-set that appealed to me in a much different sort of way.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a massive fan of Futurama. I've seen every episode of that show at least 100 times now, and that's not an exaggeration. The show provides me such a healthy dose of joy and fun that is almost like comfort food, in a way, to the point that I fall asleep with the show on nearly every night. As such, I couldn't help but feel like the setting for Unfinity - The Intergalactic Astrotorium of Fun - felt highly reminiscent of Luna Park, the amusement park found on the moon in Futurama. I felt this to the point that I even made a tweet about it a few days or so into the preview season and how it definitely gave me the impression that there was the possibility to make a Futurama deck somewhere with this set.

There is DEFINITELY potential for a Futurama theme deck somewhere now with Unfinity. pic.twitter.com/lpnaOZS3EQ

— Paige, The Untouchable ? Magic 30 (@TheMaverickGal) September 23, 2022

Boy how right I was! In fact, that very same day, a little card was previewed. That card was Captain Rex Nebula.

Captain Rex Nebula stood out immediately as an analogue to the likes of Futurama's Captain Zapp Brannigan. Zapp is well known for being a bumbling buffoon of a space captain, known for crashing ships, or making ridiculous decisions as a ranking officer of the DOOP federation. In fact, Captain Rex Nebula's main thing of crashing ships and killing those involved is deeply flavorful and on point for Zapp. There's the time where Zapp sent wave after wave of his own men to set off an army of rampaging Killbots' kill limits, or the time he nearly sent the Planet Express ship into the Neutral Homeworld ("Sir! It's a beige alert!"). In his own words, even, "You're a brave soldier, but when I'm in command every mission is a suicide mission!"

It all fits so perfectly, it's almost absurd. I had to make a deck around him. I felt obligated to do so. There's no way that Wizards can effectively print a Zapp Brannigan card in every way besides name, have it be Eternal legal, and have me not write about it. And so, that's precisely what I set out to do. Here's the deck:

Captain Rex Brannigan | Commander | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Captain Rex Nebula

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Aeronaut Admiral
• 1 Ao, the Dawn Sky
• 1 Astor, Bearer of Blades
• 1 Brazen Dwarf
• 1 Chaos Channeler
• 1 Complaints Clerk
• 1 Cyclops of Eternal Fury
• 1 Daring Archaeologist
• 1 Delina, Wild Mage
• 1 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
• 1 Drumbellower
• 1 Eldrazi Displacer
• 1 Gearshift Ace
• 1 Hotshot Mechanic
• 1 Kitsune Ace
• 1 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
• 1 Papercraft Decoy
• 1 Professional Face-Breaker
• 1 Serra Paragon
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Speedway Fanatic
• 1 Sram, Senior Edificer
• 1 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
• 1 Venerable Warsinger
• 1 Veteran Motorist
• 1 Wyll, Blade of Frontiers

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
• 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 1 Karn, Scion of Urza

• Instants (6)
• 1 Abrade
• 1 Argivian Find
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Wear // Tear

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Invoke Justice

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Barbarian Class
• 1 Born to Drive
• 1 Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1 Pia's Revolution
• 1 Priority Boarding
• 1 Siege Modification

• Artifacts (16)
• 1 Aerial Surveyor
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Boros Signet
• 1 Heart of Kiran
• 1 Imperial Recovery Unit
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mighty Servant of Leuk-O
• 1 Parhelion II
• 1 Reaver Titan
• 1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
• 1 Smuggler's Copter
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Conviction
• 1 The Deck of Many Things
• 1 Thunderhawk Gunship
• 1 Trading Post

• Lands (37)
• 6 Mountain
• 11 Plains
• 1 Alpine Meadow
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 1 Battlefield Forge
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Sacred Peaks
• 1 Secluded Steppe
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Sundown Pass

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Originally, I wanted to make this a Futurama theme deck based around the show's various characters. I really, really did. Unfortunately, though, the color pairings didn't enable quite the mix of character types I wanted. For example, I obviously wanted something to represent Kiff - Zapp's amphibious first mate - but there's not many frogs or lizards worth running in White, Red, or Colorless. I was able to utilize something at least in the form of Papercraft Decoy - a card that actually works nicely with this deck - but it still very much felt like a stretch. What's more, Captain Rex Nebula really feels like the kind of card that wants you to care about vehicles, dice rolling, and getting back the cards you lose due to his "crash landing" ability.

As a result of all this, this deck actually was built with a more standard build in mind as opposed to more of a theme deck. The first thing I focused on was vehicles. Vehicles are still a fairly new addition to the game and, as a result, there are still very few options available to utilize in a Commander setting, so the majority of good vehicles make the cut here. This includes cards like Smuggler's Copter, Aerial Surveryor, and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship. I even snuck in a couple of the Warhammer 40,000 cards because, even though I'm less enthused by mixing in these external IPs like this, there's so few good vehicles that it makes sense to add in cards like Thunderhawk Gunship and Reaver Titan to flesh out the options a little bit.

Playing these vehicles works in tandem with Captain Rex Nebula himself quite well, as your deck becomes more themed around them. Since your commander turns permanents into vehicles, you can use this to make bigger or smaller vehicles out of your existing ones. You'll also need cards that crew or impact your vehicles to get more use out of them. This is why the deck runs cards like Hotshot Mechanic, Gearshift Ace, Kitsune Ace, Speedway Fanatic, and Veteran Motorist. Running each of these not only makes crewing your vehicles that much easier, but it also buffs them as well. Depala, Pilot Exemplar and Astor, Bearer of Blades are the best examples of this, both pumping whatever vehicles you have on the board as well as finding you even more cards to utilize.

The next thing I looked into was effects that cared about dice rolling. After all, it's a minor thing that as you crew vehicles with Rex Nebula and crash them into your opponents' faces, you need to roll dice to see if you keep said vehicles or if it dies. I originally had far more of these effects than what ended up making the final cut. Vexing Puzzlebox, for example, works great when you've got a bunch of dice rolling effects. As you start to cut some, though, it becomes much less effective since it gets harder and harder to actually hit the tutor ability. There is still a decent amount that ended up making the cut, however.

Both Barbarian Class and Wyll, Blade of Frontiers work great as they provide you alternatives to not hit the sacrifice part of Rex Nebula's "crash landing" ability. They also provide you with buffs as well. Brazen Dwarf and Priority Boarding are two cards that also reward you for continuously rolling dice turn after turn. If you roll a 1 with a Complaints Clerk, you can get some tokens out of the deal as well. I didn't put together an attraction deck, but considering this is the only card that cares, I'll leave it up to you to make a deck to your liking. The remaining cards - Chaos Channeler, The Deck of Many Things, and Delina, Wild Mage - are less cards that help your die rolling and more cards that do die rolling on their own to give you additional benefits. As a result, while they don't necessarily improve Rex Nebula's play, they still work with the theme and provide plenty of value in their own ways.

With the remaining slots - outside of the usual mana rocks and removal spells - I sought for two main things: cards that could get things back from the graveyard and cards that made tokens. The cards to get things back from your graveyard here is to allow you to get stuff back that you've lost to Captain Rex Nebula's "crash landing" ability. Sun Titan and Serra Paragon make for some really potent plays, but so too do the likes of Daring Archaeologist, Trading Post, and Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle. On the token side, I largely used a bunch of the usual planeswalkers. Using them to make tokens allows you to fuel your vehicle nonsense, have good blockers, and the walkers themselves can even help crew the likes of Heart of Kiran.

As one final note, while I felt I generally couldn't stick with a general Futurama theme like I wanted, I did still include a few nods into the mix. Solemn Simulacrum and Karn, Scion of Urza are both great stand-ins for everyone's favorite robot Bender. While not a female one, having a cyclops in Cyclops of Eternal Fury (and one with a lot of purple in it, no less) is a nod to Leela as well. Some ships like Skysovereign, Consul Flagship and Parhelion II can even be solid ways to represent Zapp Brannigan's own ship: the Nimbus. So, while I couldn't make this an overtly Futurama-focused deck, I could still show it in my own subtle way.

If you find yourself bringing Captain Rex Nebula with you to your next Commander night, just make sure you bring your personal book of Zapp Brannigan quotes. Say as many as you can as fast as you can and don't stop for any reason! Be prepared to send wave after wave of your own creatures into your opponents' faces. If you can hit the bullseye, the dominoes will fall like a house of cards - checkmate for your enemies! And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?

...Kif, I'm asking you a question.

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

Twitch: twitch.tv/themaverickgirl

YouTube: TheMaverickGal