The Road to the Pyramids by Edward Lear (1873).

Ratchet Bomb by Dan Scott.

This week, I've got my first column about a legendary creature from The Brothers' War. If last week's "throw a bunch of zombies/vampires into a pile and add Jodah, the Unifier" felt a little underwhelming, this week should more than make up for it. Today's commander is an interesting card with some surprising ways to do some pretty crazy things. Before I build her up too much, let's take a look at the Human Artificer who will take center stage in today's column.

Ashnod the Uncaring is a 1 power, 4 toughness Human Artificer with deathtouch and a neat party trick. Whenever I activate an ability of an artifact or creature that isn't a mana ability, if one or more permanents were sacrificed to activate it, I may copy that ability. I may choose new targets for the copy. I think her "rider" - that long list of qualifiers and conditions for her to come out and do her party trick - needs a closer look.

She cares about activated abilities, not triggered abilities, so when I build this deck I'll be looking for abilities with a cost, followed by a colon, followed by a result.

She only cares about artifacts and creatures, so any ability tacked onto a planeswalker, land or enchantment won't play into Ashnod's game plan. I can still play those but I won't get to use Ashnod to copy the ability.

She won't help with mana abilities, so if an ability gains me 2 life and draws me a card, if it ALSO gains me two Black mana it won't qualify. Mana abilities specifically mean abilities that add mana to my mana pool, so land tutors are fine. Land is not mana - it just (usually) makes mana.

But wait... there's one last qualifier.

I will only get to copy this activated ability if one or more permanents were sacrificed as part of the cost.

If there's one thing I love more than anything else when building an EDH deck, it's a puzzle I need to solve, and Ashnod is nothing if not a puzzle.

Before I dive into building Ashnod, I should mention that I think she should be an auto-include in Breya, Etherium Shaper. I've only ever played against Breya, so I might be wrong, but it feels like every Breya player out there is going to want to throw Ashnod into the 99.

Can I find enough cards that work with Ashnod's long list of requirements to build a decent deck? Are there any fun combos I can find that will work with her long and intricate rider? Will she require that all of the brown M&Ms get removed from the bowl of candy she has us put next to her in the command zone? Let's find out.

Low Hanging Fruit

Before we dive into any of the interesting cards and synergies, it's worth noting that there are a lot of easy cards to add to this deck. These may not win the game, but if you're able to get these cards out and then use them when Ashnod is on the field, you'll find yourself squeezing a little extra value out of cards that are normally seen as being OK or good in EDH, but not great.

Mind Stone was the first card that came to mind when looking at Ashnod the Uncaring, but it struck me that this deck is also a great place to run Commander's Sphere. Both mana rocks tap for mana, but also have the ability to be sacrificed in order to draw a card. This isn't a novel concept and I decided to go all in on this type of mana rock even though they usually cost three mana. This first draft has all three Cluestones for Dimir (), Izzet () and Rakdos () color pairings. I normally try to stick to 2 mana value mana rocks but the prospect of being able to start cracking these for card draw in the mid or late game was too good to pass up. An early draft of this list also had three Lockets, but I dropped those in favor of more payoffs for when the deck is able to combo off.

Another cycle I couldn't resist including in this deck is the Spellbomb cycle. Aether Spellbomb, Necrogen Spellbomb, and Pyrite Spellbomb all found their way into this list. Each of them provides the ability to sacrifice itself to draw a card but also has a second ability. Aether Spellbomb lets you pay a Blue mana and sacrifice it to bounce a creature. Necrogen Spellbomb will let you pay a Black mana and sacrifice it to force target player to discard a card. Pyrite Spellbomb lets you pay a Red mana and sacrifice it to deal 2 damage to any target. None of these are overwhelming but I'm hoping that if the ability gets doubled and they also have the ability to draw me cards, that makes them playable in this list. I've also got Nihil Spellbomb in the mix. It can tap and sacrifice to exile target player's graveyard, but its card draw ability is a triggered ability, not an activated ability, so it can't be copied with Ashnod.

The last easy include I've got in this list is Dreamscape Artist. For three mana, one of which must be Blue, this Human Spellshaper can tap, have me discard a card and sacrifice a land and then I can tutor up two basic lands and put them into play. All of these cards are included for Ashnod's ability to double that activation so I'd pay three mana, tap, discard a card, sacrifice a land and put FOUR basic lands into play untapped. I'm also running Wayfarer's Bauble and Navigation Orb, both of which can be sacrificed to tutor up lands. The former puts a land into play tapped and the latter gets me up to two basic lands or Gate cards and puts one into my hand and the other into play tapped.

If you're looking at Clan Crafter and thinking that it's not going to do me much good, I understand completely. Clan Crafter is an enchantment, but it works with Ashnod because it gives Commander creatures I own a new ability to pay two mana and sacrifice an artifact to put a +1/+1 counter on her and draw a card. While that's not amazing, getting two +1/+1 counters and drawing 2 cards is pretty good value.

You might think that I'm putting way too much focus on drawing cards, but I haven't even started talking about Clue tokens. I am running Drownyard Explorers, Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth, Ethereal Investigator, Floodhound, Foul Play, Hard Evidence, Press for Answers, Jace's Scrutiny, Secrets of the Key, AND Tamiyo's Journal. Clue tokens are great for Ashnod. Not only can they draw me a card, or two cards if Ashnod is on the field - they can also help me pump up a creature with Cranial Plating and I can sacrifice three of them with Tamiyo's Journal to tutor a card (or two) to my hand.

The last of the three cards shown above is Kuldotha Forgemaster. This Construct Artifact Creature can tap and sacrifice three artifacts to tutor an artifact card directly into play. With a Nim Deathmantle combo build, this trigger could get me Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle, and that's not a bad plan at all. I'm going after some other combos in today's deck but I could see an Ashnod the Uncaring combo deck built around her Altar and Nim Deathmantle being a lot of fun and full of flavor.

I'm also running Razaketh, the Foulblooded. This eight-mana Demon will let me pay 2 life and sacrifice a creature to tutor a card to my hand. All of this double-tutoring makes me wonder why I don't just run lazy two card combos to close out the game. You could grab Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood and call it a game, but that's not my style. I'd rather try to find something weird and unexpected to use as my closer. For some players it makes more sense to just play optimal win conditions and if that's your game then by all means load up this deck with those tried-and-true wincons. If all goes well, you'll be able to tutor both halves of the combo to your hand and then win on your next turn.

Next Level Synergy

If drawing cards and tutoring isn't that exciting, but you don't want to just take the easy road of two card combos, here are some cards that provide some more interesting options for Ashnod the Uncaring.

Ghoulcaller Gisa could use some ways to untap, but even without those extra shenanigans she will let you pay a Black mana, tap and sacrifice another creature to make X 2/2 Black Zombie creature tokens, where X is the sacrificed creature's power. If you've got a lot of artifacts or Clue tokens and you've got Cranial Plating attached to the creature you sacrificed, you might be putting a lot of zombies into play. Over a few turns you should be able to really present a threat.

If you don't mind playing oppressive cards, Toxrill, the Corrosive is another great fit for Ashnod the Uncaring. This 7 mana Slug Horror will make you public enemy number one, putting slime counters on each of your opponents' creatures on each end step and giving those creatures -1/-1 for each slime counter on them. This is a miserable card to play against, especially if you're on a deck with lots of small creatures, but the Ashnod synergy comes into play around... you guessed it... card draw! When an opponent's creature with a slime counter on it dies, I get a 1/1 Black Slug creature token. I can pay , sacrifice a slug and draw a card. With Ashnod on the field I'll draw two!

Is it a bit much to play such a miserable anti-creature stax piece just to claim that I included it because of its Ashnod card draw synergy?

Maybe, but that's not the worst stuff in today's list.

Mindslaver is an artifact that can let me pay four mana and tap and sacrifice it to take control of target player's during their next turn. With Ashnod out, that activation will get copied and I'll take TWO target players' next turns. I could target the same player twice, but those copied triggers will be redundant. That might be helpful if I think my opponent will try to counter the Mindslaver activation, but in general I'll want to choose different players.

This deck is running Expedition Map so that I can tutor up a land (even a nonbasic one) to my hand. If I search up Academy Ruins I can use that land to put target artifact card from my graveyard to the top of my library. That means that if my tablemates let me get away with this kind of nonsense and I have the mana to play for it, I can create a "Mindslaver Lock" where I'm controlling one (or two) tablemates' turns for the rest of the game.

Grixis Combo

You can combo in Commander in every color combination in Magic. Where there's a will, a creative mind, and access to all of the cards in the history of Magic: the Gathering, there is a way to set up a crazy wincon that catapults you to victory. I haven't built a lot of Grixis () decks but when I started digging into cards that synergize with Ashnod the Uncaring I found some pretty fun stuff.

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born is a 5-power, 5-toughness Zombie Warrior. He enters the battlefield tapped and doesn't untap during my untap step. It also has a very helpful activated ability. I can sacrifice another creature and both untap Grimgrin and put a +1/+1 counter on it. That might not sound that exciting, but if I cast Elemental Mastery on Grimgrin, things get really interesting. Elemental Mastery is an Enchantment Aura that gives the enchanted creature the ability to tap and create X 1/1 red Elemental creature tokens with haste where X is this creature's power. I'll have to exile them at the beginning of the next end step, but if all goes well the game will be over before then.

Assuming I've found a way to untap Grimgrin, I'll be able to tap him to make 6 Elementals with haste. I can sacrifice one of them to untap Grimgrin and then I can tap him to make 7 Elementals as he'll have gotten a +1/+1 counter. This combination will let me make an arbitrarily large Grimgrin and an arbitrarily large army of Elementals. They all have haste and I should be able to swing for the win.

A single Fog, a Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, or even Caltrops will throw a spanner in the works, so I'm also running a few enter-the-battlefield damage outlets. Impact Tremors will kill the table outright without even needing to go to combat: It's always good to have a backup plan.

One of the things I like the most about this list is that it gives me a way to have fun with Liquimetal Coating and Liquimetal Torque. These latter can tap to make target nonland permanent an artifact in addition to its other types. The former can turn any permanent into an artifact. I'm also running Myr Landshaper, which will let me turn a land into an artifact land. Turning Bloodstained Mire, Polluted Delta, Scalding Tarn, Warped Landscape, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, or Grixis Panorama into an artifact land so that I can tutor up two lands instead of just one is exactly the kind of fun I want to have with this deck.

Both Liquimetal Torque and Liquimetal Coating can also turn an Enchantment into an Artifact. The four-mana Enchantment Tooth and Claw will let me sacrifice two creatures to create a 3/1 Red Beast creature token named Carnivore onto the battlefield. With Ashnod on the field and Tooth and Claw turned into an artifact, this turns into a one card loop, where I can sacrifice two creatures to make two creatures. That doesn't do much, but if I add Purphoros, God of the Forge or the aforementioned Impact Tremors into the mix I can just kill the table.

At this point I'm assuming you're OK with killing the table in ways outside of just going to combat. You're still reading and I walked you through how this deck can abuse Mindslaver so these kinds of shenanigans must sound like fun. Unfortunately, they're not all that complicated. They're a step above Sanguine Bond / Exquisite Blood, but you're not exactly having to do math to figure out if it works.

Let's Do Math!

What? You don't like math? What if I told you that this next combo might involve some extra calculations but will kill the table and will be convoluted enough to be kind of fun.

Both Thopter Squadron and Pentavus are quirky little artifact creatures that let you remove +1/+1 counters from them to create artifact creature tokens. You can also sacrifice those creature tokens to put +1/+1 counters back onto the original creature. Each of these steps requires the payment of one mana of any color.

On their own, even with Ashnod the Uncaring on the battlefield, they don't do that much. Removing a +1/+1 counter will create one Thopter or one "Pentavite". Sacrificing the creature will add two +1/+1 counters to the original creature. Without a token doubler, this won't give you a larger token army, but you can load up your Thopter Squadron or Pentavus with a few additional +1/+1 counters.

When you add an enchantment like Mana Echoes into the mix, you are now looking at something much more powerful.

When your first Thopter creature token enters the battlefield, it will generate two colorless mana because Thopter Squadron is also a Thopter. If you make a second one, it will see three Thopters and you'll gain three mana. At this point you can pay two mana to sacrifice a Thopter to put two +1/+1 counters on Thopter Squadron and then remove a +1/+1 counter to replace the Thopter you just sacrificed. You'll be able to generate an arbitrary amount of colorless mana and an arbitrarily large Thopter Squadron.

Pentavus works in much the same way, with the minor difference that Pentavus is a construct and does not share a creature type with its progeny, which have a creature type of Pentavite. All that means is that your first Pentavite will gain you 1 mana, but you should still be able to combo off once you're gaining more mana than you are paying to create and sacrifice these odd little creature tokens.

A huge flying Thopter Squadron or Pentavus means death for anyone who can't block or remove it, but if you throw in an Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge you'll be able to just kill the table with ETB damage from making all of those creature tokens.

While I claimed we'd be doing math in this section, I may have overstated the complexity of this interaction. I did do the math on paper to make sure that both of these creatures worked with Mana Echoes to do what I thought they would do, but it isn't really that complicated. It's a bit more involved than my Tooth and Claw loop, but only a bit.

Ashnod Couldn't Care Less

This draft feels very much like a combo deck. It's got a clear focus on drawing cards and has some interesting and even convoluted payoffs. I think it will be fun to play, but it might not be well suited for a playgroup where your tablemates are expecting games to end as a result of smashing your creatures together like a bunch of Neanderthals. Don't get me wrong - aggro strategies and combat-focused decks are fun, but I'll always be partial to weird combos and killing the table all at once so nobody has to sit and wait for the game to end.

Ashnod the Uncaring | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ashnod the Uncaring

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Blood Artist
• 1 Dreamscape Artist
• 1 Drownyard Explorers
• 1 Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth
• 1 Enthusiastic Mechanaut
• 1 Eradicator Valkyrie
• 1 Ethereal Investigator
• 1 Floodhound
• 1 Toxrill, the Corrosive
• 1 Treasure Mage
• 1 Tribute Mage
• 1 Zulaport Cutthroat
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Myr Landshaper
• 1 Pentavus
• 1 Thopter Squadron
• 1 Ghoulcaller Gisa
• 1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1 Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

• Instants (6)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Jace's Scrutiny
• 1 Secrets of the Key
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Vampiric Tutor

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Foul Play
• 1 Hard Evidence
• 1 Press for Answers

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Bastion of Remembrance
• 1 Clan Crafter
• 1 Elemental Mastery
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Industrial Advancement
• 1 Mana Echoes
• 1 Tooth and Claw

• Artifacts (20)
• 1 Aether Spellbomb
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Cranial Plating
• 1 Dimir Cluestone
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Hammer of Purphoros
• 1 Izzet Cluestone
• 1 Jester's Cap
• 1 Liquimetal Coating
• 1 Liquimetal Torque
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mindslaver
• 1 Navigation Orb
• 1 Necrogen Spellbomb
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Pyrite Spellbomb
• 1 Rakdos Cluestone
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Tamiyo's Journal
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble

• Lands (38)
• 7 Island
• 7 Mountain
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Grixis Panorama
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Training Center
• 1 Warped Landscape

Buy This Deck Export text format

My desire to squeeze as much synergy into this deck as possible led me to run more 3-drop mana rocks than I have put into a deck in a long time. That points this deck toward a slower game plan and pulls it down a bit in power. I think it might still be a high-powered deck, but if you wanted to try to edge up into fringe cEDH or even cEDH you'd have to do a major overhaul. I expect you'd want to keep your combos in place or replace them with more efficient ones. You'd also drop out the slower mana rocks and load up on interaction. I expect you would try to hit a double-tutor thanks to Ashnod's cool ability and then try to win the game on the spot, but what do I know? Feel free to google cEDH Ashnod the Uncaring or just check out the cEDH Decklist Database and you'll get an idea of her cEDH potential.

If you wanted to tune this list down, you could make an argument that all that card draw is worth keeping, but the combos and tutors might need to be dropped out. You could still load up on more interaction, but you could also lean into a tribal strategy or even build a more lore-oriented deck with cards inspired by stories about this venerated character.

Early Results

I was able to get a game in with this deck on Tabletop Simulator and came away with some mixed results. I mulliganed away my Mindslaver twice because I just didn't want to go after a Mindslaver lock in my first game with this particular group. It's not that they can't take it - I just don't really want to encourage that meta to start to devolve toward stuff like Mindslaver locks.

I had a few struggles with keeping Ashnod's many restrictions straight. I did an early tutor for Liquimetal Torque but forgot that I couldn't use it on my Terramorphic Expanse and felt pretty silly. It's harder to keep new cards straight in your head in a virtual environment, at least for me. When I can hold the card in my hand and more easily glance at it and give it a read during the game I have an easier time. This is definitely a deck where you'd want to drill all those qualifiers into your head. At a few points I was even forgetting that she copies creature abilities AND artifact abilities. Your games will go smoother if you review the cards and work on getting all of your interactions down in your mind so you aren't struggling like I did.

The actual game was unmemorable, but I think I can chalk that up to variance and the fact that one of our tablemates had a new deck that turned out to be pretty overwhelming. I did find myself close to being able to play Tooth and Claw and start an ETB loop, but I didn't have any payoffs in hand or on the field.

The list in this column initially had Dimir Locket, Izzet Locket, and Rakdos Locket but I was wary of those cards' more restrictive costs to draw cards. I dropped them out in favor of Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Bastion of Remembrance. The deck's first game left me feeling like I wasn't seeing enough creatures and those sacrifice payoffs are every bit as good as cards like Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge for getting the job done.

Final Thoughts

Ashnod the Uncaring provides a fresh new angle on doubling something in the game that is restrictive enough to have made this deck a lot of fun to throw together. I don't really see her becoming the next big chase card or a high-powered meta-buster, but I think she'll be fun to play and might even give new life to all of those old Cluestones and Lockets that so often get left out of today's EDH decks.

I don't often spend time talking about other content creators, but I would like to take a moment to "pour one out" for the Commandercast podcast. On July 24th, 2011 the first episode of the longest-running EDH podcast in the world went up, and this past Halloween - October 31, 2022, current hosts Mark Mahler and Adam Traas uploaded episode 500 and called it a day. The podcast had a number of different iterations, with different hosts and different styles, but it was always a great listen for casual EDH players.

Commandercast was part of why I dove so deep into this amazing format, so I'd like to take a moment to thank Mark, Adam, Calvin, Rachel, Andy and everyone else who was involved in making Commandercast happen. It was a great ride and your weekly take on punk rock, video games, comics and occasionally EDH will be sorely missed!

I kid about the podcast "occasionally" being about EDH, but I would like to take a moment to tell anyone still reading that if you have an idea for a blog, a podcast, a video channel or anything else, you should work toward making it happen! Once upon a time Mark was just a fan of the podcast and he and his partner in crime, Adam just wrapped up a pretty amazing run of podcast episodes. Once upon a time I was just a new EDH player and I'm now writing every week for an amazing online Magic website and retailer and have been running EDH leagues since 2016. You too can make your crazy dream or novel idea come to life - it may take time and work but you can do it!

That's all I've got for today. Thanks, Mark, Adam and Calvin for all you did to put Commandercast into our ears. Thank YOU for reading, and I'll see you all next week with a look at another card from The Brothers War - Tawnos, the Toymaker.