MTG Salvation

Mairsil is certainly the most interesting of the new commanders, and maybe even (cross fingers!) not horribly broken in some unforeseen way. This deck is mostly just a first iteration, with the goal to simply get as many sweet abilities onto Mairsil as possible. Hopefully that will result in winning the game...somehow.



Looking at my collection, there's definitely other angles that could be really effective here - stax in particular could be really powerful, and I'm not unaware of the fairly gross combo between nev's disk and aetherling, so running a bunch of tutors to set that up (hey, I've already got quite a few) is definitely a game plan. This version looks like it's angling towards reanimating/stealing a bunch of stuff for the win, off cards like scarab god and havengul lich and the like. I'm definitely curious to try her out.

Aye, my next target for a Grixis. He can be an "artifact" general Izzet ask for if they make the deck without black. :3

I'd Intuition for Shorecrasher Elemental, Blighted Bat, and Gilded Lotus, cage Shorecrasher first for protection and cheap blink, then cage Bat next then Lotus, that's an easy infinite mana right there and only need 5 mana to start, thx to Shorecrasher's blink lasts only for that moment (compare to Aetherling's till end of turn). Having Lightning Greaves in play already makes it even easier.

Kindred Discovery trigger upon entering battlefield and with the combo above you can draw your whole library and do whatever you wish with the now final boss Mairsil.

Quote from cyberium_neo »

Aye, my next target for a Grixis. He can be an "artifact" general Izzet ask for if they make the deck without black. :3

I'd Intuition for Shorecrasher Elemental, Blighted Bat, and Gilded Lotus, cage Shorecrasher first for protection and cheap blink, then cage Bat next then Lotus, that's an easy infinite mana right there and only need 5 mana to start, thx to Shorecrasher's blink lasts only for that moment (compare to Aetherling's till end of turn). Having Lightning Greaves in play already makes it even easier.

Kindred Discovery trigger upon entering battlefield and with the combo above you can draw your whole library and do whatever you wish with the now final boss Mairsil.

Am I missing something with that combo? Shorecrasher elemental returns the creature to play face down, which I think is allowed as long as it's not a token. So I think Mairsil will etb face down and be unable to flip face up?

I really hope so, at least. Although the deck is already pretty nasty even without that element. aetherling+nev's disk combo is already quite gross.

Love the name of the first category, 10/10 is true . As tap heavy as this deck plans to be I'm curious why Morphling or maybe Pili-Pala aren't here? Also in my first two games I found that Mairsil is extremely mana hungry and I don't know if Uyo would be good for the long game (I'll admit that her ability could be sweet at times though). Also while it may cost an arm and a leg mana-wise Soul of New Phyrexia was awesome with Nev disk caged (and for you boompile as well). The emphasis on rocks (which can be caged) over lands is actually a pretty smart way to go here and I might look into a similar ratio. Great deck!

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from cyberium_neo »

Aye, my next target for a Grixis. He can be an "artifact" general Izzet ask for if they make the deck without black. :3

I'd Intuition for Shorecrasher Elemental, Blighted Bat, and Gilded Lotus, cage Shorecrasher first for protection and cheap blink, then cage Bat next then Lotus, that's an easy infinite mana right there and only need 5 mana to start, thx to Shorecrasher's blink lasts only for that moment (compare to Aetherling's till end of turn). Having Lightning Greaves in play already makes it even easier.

Kindred Discovery trigger upon entering battlefield and with the combo above you can draw your whole library and do whatever you wish with the now final boss Mairsil.

Am I missing something with that combo? Shorecrasher elemental returns the creature to play face down, which I think is allowed as long as it's not a token. So I think Mairsil will etb face down and be unable to flip face up?

I really hope so, at least. Although the deck is already pretty nasty even without that element. aetherling+nev's disk combo is already quite gross.

You are correct, I'm the one missed out on the face down part. Here I hoped for something evil.

Got to try out the deck a bit, went 1:1. First game I was about to go with a havengul lich route, then topdecked into tree of perdition (along with a gambled aetherling) to kill everyone (eventually, played it a little slow to avoid too much hate). Second game I demo'ed intuition to set up boompile + aetherling + blighted bat for boardwipes, going with boompile over disk figuring it might be seen as less of a threat with the RNG element...but one guy dropped an ormendahl I couldn't answer immediately and another guy have it double strike so I nearly died off that. staff of dom gave me an answer to ormendahl but not before I went down to 1, and then died to cracking doom. Boo.

Anyway the deck is cool but it might take some work to figure out how it's supposed to play. Going for a fast combo ff intuition or buried alive gives it the ability to win pretty quickly, but also might make you too big of a target. Alternately, going for more of a control style might work, although finding a happy medium between "has a commander that can do stuff to help control the board" and "has a commander that's unkillable, kills everything, and then kills everyone"
is sort of a trick.

Quote from esoteric117 »

Love the name of the first category, 10/10 is true . As tap heavy as this deck plans to be I'm curious why Morphling or maybe Pili-Pala aren't here? Also in my first two games I found that Mairsil is extremely mana hungry and I don't know if Uyo would be good for the long game (I'll admit that her ability could be sweet at times though). Also while it may cost an arm and a leg mana-wise Soul of New Phyrexia was awesome with Nev disk caged (and for you boompile as well). The emphasis on rocks (which can be caged) over lands is actually a pretty smart way to go here and I might look into a similar ratio. Great deck!

Good point, I should put Morphling in the deck. Morphling is in my "niche" collection so I didn't end up looking through all of them. Probably not pili-pala, there's other more flexible untappers I think (i.e. staff of domination).

Cool list you have there, Mairsil didn't interest me that much, but now I am considering building her.
Quick search showed me Torchling and Cinderhaze Wretch. Both good untappers with more abilities. Cinderhaze Wretch could replace Greel?

If Intuition and Buried Alive are turning pushing the deck in the direction of combo you can always include less tutors and more looting. In the past I've used looting and cantrips to reduce the power of certain decks.

I think you can include Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. Obviously you dont want to exile cards without cage counters, but almost all of your deck besides ramp and lands will end up in the yard. Theyre some pet cards of mine.

A few cards you might like:

Disciple of the Ring – Has an additional cost, but seems like the counterspell mode would be a nice deterrent to slow the game down.
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief – Mana intensive, but can kill without untapping, and one of the few things that pump Mairsil significantly through one activation.
Nezumi Graverobber – Seems like it does the job of both Havengul Lich/Chainer, Dementia Master and Withered Wretch in one card. Shutting off graveyard shenanigans seems strong and easily do’able.
Hateflayer – I’d still keep Spikeshot Elder since you can activate it multiple times an orbit, but this one has a nice perk of
Horde-Smelter Dragon – Kill some artifacts while you pump.
Memnarch – Or better yet, steal you some artifacts.
Steel Hellkite – Great ability for these colors to deal with enchantments, not to mention tokens.
Training Grounds – Really strong for generals that have an activated ability, very much worth it here.
Crypt Rats – Thanks to the wording of the ability, works well while Pestilence Demon and Thrashing Wumpus do not.
Trading Post – Looks like a nice ability to create tokens when you face a Grave Pact effect, and not bad to be able to recur artifacts and gain life while you are doing that.
Ghoulcaller Gist – This ability has always been strong for me.
Nixiz Guildmage – Copy some spells.

While you'll be caging stuff where/when you can, with dumping it into the graveyard and the instances in which critters just die, what about including Necrotic Ooze?

To highlight the important part his ability,

Mairsil, the Pretender has all activated abilities of all cards you own in exile with cage counters on them. You may activate each of those abilities only once each turn.

Perhaps can try using cards that flicker or clone Mairsil? Since his ability to cage cards is on ETB only, having access to cards such as Phantasmal Image and Ghostly Flicker can greatly hasten the speed Mairsil gets the exiled caged creatures/artifacts.

A shout out to Sakashima the Impostor and Mirror Gallery too. Since Sakashima gains Mairsil's ability, the clone legend also gets all activated abilities too. Mirror Gallery just gives more "Mairsils" to use every turn.

Cinderhaze Wretch + Grim Poppet is a good activated pair which can get pretty nasty fast too.

graveyard abilities do not work (afaik).

I think my impression of Mairsil so far is that I don't think I like him. The fact that you're revealing the cards you cage before you activate him really cuts down on his ability to be surprising, and everyone tends to get (rightfully) scared of him. Basically the opposite of what I like to do in commander. Add on top of that the potential for infinites and I'm really not excited to play him I don't think.

Quote from dachivale »

Understandable that you don't like him, I do think to easily he is broken... the once per turn clause still does nothing to keep him from going infinite, just need the right cards and strategy to pull it off... I do think some fun things can be done and a bit of a toolbox idea would be fun... but generally people wil tend to think you wil go infinite and rightfully so I think... there are quite a few possibilities for going infinite I have seen and found already...

I might go with Inalla still for the commander for the deck, due to the broken-ness of the way Mairsil can be played... And just go with more fun with wizards kinda build... though Inalla is also quite easily break-able I noticed...

Inalla is probably worse.

The problem with almost any ability you tack onto him will be repeatable, and repeatable effects tend to draw hate. Have a deck with 40+ boardwipes? That's annoying, but not must-answer. Have child of alara + corpse dance + sac outlet? Now suddenly you're must-answer because it's guaranteed repeatable. Even though those 2 things are almost identical in practice.

Mairsil is the same deal. If you go even for something relatively tame, like shauku, endbringer you're guaranteed to be a major problem on everyone's radar. There's probably some level of value you can get without raising everyone's hackles, but because she never loses those abilities everyone is always going to consider her a very big threat in case she does end up getting some nasty ability.

I don't like playing commanders that generate more hate than they're worth. In order to actually have a chance at winning, I have to play the game to just beat the whole table, and that's not the kind of game I want to play. If I win, everyone else feels like my deck is just OP. If I lose, I lose quickly and have to sit out forever. Either way, not great. I could try weakening the synergies in the deck, but at the end of the day I'd much rather play someone who looks innocuous and make them powerful, than play someone who looks powerful and make them innocuous.

Quicksilver Elemental seems like a must have for a Mairsil deck.

For those who aren't away, by activating the elemental's ability (when Mairsil has it) you get new instances of every ability on Mairsil. This let's you get past the 'only use this once per turn' restriction.

For example, let's say I have Quicksilver Elemental, Arcanis the Omnipotent, and Pili-Pala all exiled with Mairsil.

Mairsil currently has the following abilities:
U: Gain all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn
: Draw three cards
2, : Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool
2UU: Return Mairsil to your hand.

We're going to assume we have infinite mana. First, I tap Mairsil to draw 3 cards. Then I untap him to add U to my mana pool. When I use the Quicksilver Elemental's ability, Mairsil will end up having the following abilities:
U: Gain all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn *USED*
U: Gain all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn *NOT USED*
: Draw three cards *USED*
: Draw three cards *NOT USED*
2, : Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool *USED*
2, : Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool *NOT USED*
2UU: Return Mairsil to your hand. *NOT USED*
2UU: Return Mairsil to your hand. *NOT USED*

Because the ability adds the abilities to Mairsil, they are new abilities for him, which bypasses the 'only once per turn' clause on him.

So yeah, grab your Quicksilver Elementals folks

Have you considered Tawnos's Coffin? It allows you to blink Mairsil for 2 mana reseting his abilities. If you have an untap ability caged by him then its even better, plus he won't lose any counters or aura's you may have placed on him.

Quote from Caelesetos »

Have you considered Tawnos's Coffin? It allows you to blink Mairsil for 2 mana reseting his abilities. If you have an untap ability caged by him then its even better, plus he won't lose any counters or aura's you may have placed on him.

That is a non-bo. Tawnos' Coffin with Marisil will just permanently exile Mairsil. He never gets returned as he gets exiled while the ability is in the middle of resolving.

Lots of good ideas here, but sadly Nezumi does not work, older rulings have only the top side are counted outside of the battlefield.

Spellskite followed by Mistfolk will counter a lot.