Happy New Year!

When I sat down to figure out how I would ring in the new year in this weekly column, I took a quick look at the spoilers for Phyrexia: All Will Be One but nothing jumped out at me. I then checked in with my Thursday night Tabletop Simulator group to see if we were on for this week and decided to ask them for suggestions. One of our group's founding members, who had already promised he would be playing a "budget combo" deck this week, came back not 10 minutes later with his suggestion: Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa.

Knowing that combo would be on the table, and also knowing that at least one player would be on a budget build, I quickly gave a thumbs-up and took a look at what I'd be building around.

Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa is a 5 mana Human Artificer in Rakdos. He'll give my permanents "Ward - Sacrifice a permanent." That sounds great but in the age of Treasures, Food, Clues, Blood, and even more Treasure, it's not hard to find something to throw in the bin for the privilege of being able to target one of my permanents.

More interesting is Mishra's second ability: each artifact card in my graveyard will have unearth for a flat fee. That covers artifacts that are creatures and all those mana rocks and paperweights that artifact decks usually have lying around. Unearth will have these artifacts get exiled at the next end step or if they leave the battlefield. That's not a big deal but may help to shape what I can and cannot do with this intriguing commander.

Working With Unearth

You can only unearth as a sorcery. That's important to remember, because it relegates Unearth to the lower tiers of keywords. You can't unearth a Wurmcoil Engine back to the battlefield as a surprise blocker. You can't throw a Silent Arbiter back into play before an opponent goes to combat. You're stuck working on your turn, playing "fair" Magic. I'm reminded of the Outlast keyword, which would be quite good if you could do it at instant speed, but when you are restricted to only using an ability at sorcery speed, it's just not as good.

If I'm not going to be using Unearth for combat tricks, I should think about how I can use this keyword to its fullest potential. My first thought is that I would do well to really load this deck up with artifact creatures. It's worth noting that I can Unearth multiple artifact creatures on my turn, but I'll lose them after that turn, as they'll end up in exile. Loading a deck up with artifact creatures means a lot of things. It means I'll be a graveyard recursion deck. It also means that the deck could have enough creatures to warrant running cards like Living Death and Mortal Combat.

Mortal Combat might be a wincon, but I'm not expecting it to be anything I can rely upon. My ideal wincons have some degree of consistency and my experience with Mortal Combat is that it's a card I throw into decks on a lark, with no real expectation of it working to win me games. There is a card that I can rely upon to win games, and it even works with a well-known and oft-reviled artifact creature.

My original idea for this deck was be that I'd entomb a Blightsteel Colossus, use Mishra to unearth it and then hit it with a Chandra's Ignition to kill the table. This works, but not by unearthing Blightsteel.

When I wrote up the first draft of this column I managed to forget that Blightsteel can't stay in the graveyard. It gets shuffled back into my library and unearth is only at sorcery speed, so there's just no way to get it back with Mishra.

I still like the idea of aiming for a Chandra's Ignition wincon, but it may have to get a little more complicated.

All I need is that 10-power creature, an infect card and Chandra's Ignition. I could use Phyresis, Glistening Oil or Tainted Strike on a Metalwork Colossus, Ancient Stone Idol or Colossus of Akros. I could also use Hatred or Colossus Hammer on a Plague Myr or Ichorclaw Myr to get a 10-power creature with Infect so I can pop it with Chandra's Ignition to win the game.

Building around a singular wincon is the sort of thing I enjoy, but you should know that this approach has issues. You will be more vulnerable to other players in your meta focusing on what you are doing and building to stop you. Nevermore is a card. Counterspells and cheap removal can easily stop a sorcery speed wincon and Rakdos isn't exactly overflowing with ways to deal with enchantments and heavy control decks.

Since I'm building this list for one or two online games, I'm comfortable leaning into Chandra's Ignition. If I were building the deck for repeated play, I might lean more into looting effects, add in more varied wincons and try to set the deck up for a more diverse game experience. Playing online with virtual decks gives you a great deal of freedom to explore ideas and strategies. You can go all in, build a "glass cannon" or a joke deck without as much of a commitment. It's rare for me to build, sleeve up and play a deck in paper without playing at least a few games before I give up on it.

My main wincon might be to play or cheat into play a Blightsteel Colossus, or use Mishra to unearth an artifact creature, make sure it is big and has infect and then hit it with my Chandra's Ignition, but I want to look at other ways to squeeze value out of what my commander is giving me.

Unearth Artifact Synergy

I may be hoping to win the game off of a splashy sorcery and an infect creature that has power 10 or more, but there are loads of other artifacts that can work with Mishra. Any artifact that can draw me cards or tutor and sacrifices itself is a natural fit.

Wayfarer's Bauble can tutor up a land directly onto the battlefield, making it significantly better than Traveler's Amulet, Wanderer's Twig and the many other artifacts that just put a basic land into my hand. I'll be overpaying I have to unearth my Bauble, but it's still nice to have the option to get another land and set up for future turns. Expedition Map only puts a land into my hand, but it can get any land. That means I can reasonably expect to use it to get Cabal Coffers and then unearth it a turn later to get Urborg.

Burnished Hart and Solemn Simulacrum both put lands onto the battlefield. Given the high mana value of some of my creatures, I'm definitely going to want to get lands into play. Burnished Hart works especially well with Mishra, as I have to sacrifice it to tutor up my lands. "Sad Robot" is great too, but I'll need to find a way to put it in the bin to unearth it and get another land.

Hedron Archive, Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere can all draw me cards. These artifacts are good in this list, but I'll likely not want to do that unless I don't need the mana they can produce. Kuldotha Forgemaster is a tutor that can be re-used with Mishra's unearth ability. Since this deck is aiming to win with an artifact creature that has or is given infect, being able to tutor an artifact directly to the battlefield is very strong.

Wishclaw Talisman might not seem like a great choice. You never really want to give a tablemate the ability to tutor for a card, but if I'm able to sacrifice my Talisman I'll get another bite at the apple if I unearth it. That second Wishclaw Talisman will get me a card out of my library but will get exiled before anyone else is able to use it. It might be unlikely that I'll be able to pull that off, but Kuldotha Forgemaster does give me the ability to sacrifice my own artifacts, so it's possible.

Mishra's Ignition

My biggest concern about this list is that it has a lot of low mana artifact creatures with infect, but only two ways to pump them up to 10 power. If my Chandra's Ignition plan doesn't work out, I've got a much harder challenge to try to win with something else. I am running recursion for Sorcery spells in the form of Anarchist, Revolutionist, Ardent Elementalist and Charmbreaker Devils, but I'm fully aware that this is something of a "long shot" deck.

It should be fun, and if the game goes long enough I've got a chance at hitting my wincon, but between dealing with control and trying to beat other decks before they find their wincons, it feels like winning will be far from a sure thing. That's no accident. I got very lucky, winning with a Kwain, Itinerant Meddler deck the last time our group played, and the previous time we played I managed to win with a Craterhoof Behemoth when I was on mono-Green Titania, Voice of Gaea.

I still want to win, but I don't want to dominate, so when I'm on a roll I try to lighten up a bit. This week I'm hoping I'll be happy to play a deck that feels like it might be a bit easier to stop and harder to win with.

Mishra EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Anarchist
• 1 Ancient Stone Idol
• 1 Ardent Elementalist
• 1 Backdraft Hellkite
• 1 Blightsteel Colossus
• 1 Burning-Rune Demon
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Charmbreaker Devils
• 1 Colossus of Akros
• 1 Core Prowler
• 1 Corpse Connoisseur
• 1 Corpse Cur
• 1 Darksteel Colossus
• 1 Ghitu Chronicler
• 1 Goblin Engineer
• 1 Ichorclaw Myr
• 1 Iron Myr
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Leaden Myr
• 1 Metalwork Colossus
• 1 Pestilent Souleater
• 1 Phyrexian Digester
• 1 Phyrexian Juggernaut
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Plague Myr
• 1 Revolutionist
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Instants (4)
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Hatred
• 1 Sudden Spoiling
• 1 Tainted Strike

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Final Parting
• 1 Gamble
• 1 Mastermind's Acquisition
• 1 Scrap Mastery
• 1 Unmarked Grave
• 1 Volcanic Vision

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Glistening Oil
• 1 Phyresis

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Colossus Hammer
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Quicksilver Amulet
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Indulgence
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Wishclaw Talisman

• Lands (37)
• 13 Mountain
• 13 Swamp
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck Export text format

If you love the idea of a Chandra's Ignition infect wincon and want to tune this deck up in power, you'd want to do a few things. The tutor package is OK but could be much better, especially considering the fact that we're in Black. Demonic Tutor and Grim Tutor could replace Diabolic Tutor and Mastermind's Acquisition just for starters. I am running Exsanguinate but arguably should add in Torment of Hailfire since I have a reasonably good chance of landing Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

This deck could pivot to a Nim Deathmantle wincon, but I've included that in a few recent lists and I like to mix it up. I was briefly thinking about building this with a Necrotic Ooze combo plan, but "Nooze" isn't an artifact creature and the synergy just isn't there.

If you wanted to tune this down, you'd drop out your expensive lands and probably replace some of the smaller infect creatures and tutors for looting and wheel effects. I've never been a big fan of drawing and discarding and it's no accident that I didn't go that way with this list - but it does make sense for Mishra. You would aggressively go through your deck, keeping what you want and putting good unearth targets into the graveyard.

How It Played Out

I ended up getting two games in with this janky little deck.

In the first game our buddy with the "budget combo deck" won on turn 5 before anyone else was actually ready for their decks to do much of anything. He was on Saffi Eriksdotter combo and assured us that it hadn't won that fast in his playtesting. That didn't make it less annoying, but we've all played enough EDH and had enough bad beats to know that happens sometimes.

In the second game we essentially had three janky lower powered decks up against what felt like a very janky high-powered deck. The winning player was on MTG Muddstah's Mistform Ultimus list.

We don't require that everyone build new decks or even play their own lists, so we occasionally have games where one of us comes in, crushes the table with a deck and it wasn't even their own build. It can be a little frustrating when that happens, but again, we play enough games that we're used to it.

The thing about grabbing a decklist online is that you can end up playing a highly tuned deck that has been through countless revisions to get to the point where it plays really smoothly and just outclasses everyone else's decks.

In that second game I did have a chance to try to pop the table with a Phyrexian Digester equipped with a Colossus Hammer, but the Mistform player nixed that with Rapid Hybridization. He had been drawing a ridiculous number of cards so I knew he had answers for anything I was going to try to do. I never got a chance to seriously threaten the table again, though I did get Chandra's Ignition back into my hand.

The worst part of that second game, which we all missed once, and which was an unpleasant surprise for me once we realized the oversight - was that the mono-White player had enchantments on the field that gave all creatures protection from Black and Red. I couldn't have targeted my creature with Chandra's Ignition in the first place! I had one chance a few turns later to try to reset the board with Chandra's Ignition targeting Mishra after the mono-White player used a Teferi's Protection to phase out his permanents, but the Mistform player stopped that nonsense right quick.

Both games saw me with Blightsteel Colossus and Chandra's Ignition in hand, but without the mana to hardcast that big boy. I've added in a Quicksilver Amulet as a way to help get him out but a Sneak Attack or Purphoros, Bronze Blooded might make sense as well. In the second game I did get up to 11 mana at the end, but against a mono-Blue deck with ample counters and removal I wasn't able to actually stick my wincon.

The first game was a disappointment and the second game was a mess, but I still think this list could be fun to play in a slower meta. I had said that my goal wasn't to crush tables that night and I sure didn't do that. I also didn't expect a T5 combo or protection from both of my colors but EDH is nothing if not full of surprises!

Final Thoughts

I didn't end up including Mortal Combat in today's list. I expect to be using my Maralen of the Mornsong list this year to chase that particular dream. I'll definitely let you know if I manage to pull it off. I may also play around with that Necrotic Ooze combo this year but that will only happen if the right commander comes along.

I should share with you that I put serious thought into starting off this year by setting aside my sixteen favorite decks and then pulling apart every other deck I currently have sleeved up. I even thought briefly about pulling apart all of my decks and starting the year with a completely clean slate, but I really love a lot of them.

I'm sure I'd regret doing a complete reset of my deck collection. Currently if I want to build a new deck in paper, I just take apart a deck I haven't been playing or enjoying lately. With over two dozen decks sleeved up, there's usually one that I can bring myself to part with.

Have you ever reset your entire deck collection? Is it complete madness to even entertain such a thought? I do love fresh starts, but I also really love a bunch of my decks so I have a feeling I won't ever go that far. There would also be a lot of cards to un-sleeve!

That's all I've got for today. I hope your holidays and your New Year's Eve were fantastic! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week.