Keep Your Friends Close But Your Enemies Closer

Commander / EDH* Aikido Control UBR (Grixis)

precociousapprentice

Land (36)

• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blackcleave Cliffs
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Desolate Lighthouse
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 6x Island
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Spirebluff Canal
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave

Other (9)

• 1x Bitter Ordeal
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Extract
• 1x Grim Return
• 1x Mind Bomb
• 1x Rootwater Thief
• 1x Stifle
• 1x Stitch Together
• 1x Trickbind

Muscle (6)

• 1x Ashling, the Extinguisher
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Dack's Duplicate
• 1x Mindshrieker
• 1x Niblis of Frost
• 1x Thassa, God of the Sea

Cheat (27)

• 1x Burning Inquiry
• 1x Careful Study
• 1x Control of the Court
• 1x Dark Deal
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Forbidden Alchemy
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Goblin Lore
• 1x Golgari Thug
• 1x Ill-Gotten Gains
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mizzix's Mastery
• 1x Plea for Power
• 1x Pulse of the Grid
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Shred Memory
• 1x Steam Augury
• 1x Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
• 1x Tolarian Winds
• 1x Tormenting Voice
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Whispering Madness
• 1x Wild Guess
• 1x Windfall

Discard (9)

• 1x Blazing Specter
• 1x Blizzard Specter
• 1x Delirium Skeins
• 1x Dimir Cutpurse
• 1x Guul Draz Specter
• 1x Hymn to Tourach
• 1x Hypnotic Specter
• 1x Liliana's Reaver
• 1x Okiba-Gang Shinobi

Assassinate (7)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Earthquake
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Sleep
• 1x Snap
• 1x Terminate

Lie (2)

• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Thespian's Stage

Commander (1)

Steal (12)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Aura Thief
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Control Magic
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Disrupt Decorum
• 1x Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
• 1x Illusionist's Gambit
• 1x Memory Plunder
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Reins of Power

Profit (11)

• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Curse of Opulence
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Rattle Snake (8)

• 1x Aura Thief
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Dissipation Field
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Silas Renn, Seeker Adept
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Tidehollow Strix
• 1x Vampire Nighthawk

Manipulate (3)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Negate

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Maybeboard

Other (35)

• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Blood Tyrant
• 1x Cao Cao, Lord of Wei
• 1x Distress
• 1x Dominus of Fealty
• 1x Dream Salvage
• 1x Exhaustion
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Geth's Grimoire
• 1x Incendiary Command
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
• 1x Mana Vapors
• 1x Misstep
• 1x Myojin of Night's Reach
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Nekusar, the Mindrazer
• 1x Nightveil Specter
• 1x Noxious Vapors
• 1x Reduce / Rubble
• 1x Saheeli's Artistry
• 1x Sepulchral Primordial
• 1x Shadowmage Infiltrator
• 1x Silent-Blade Oni
• 1x Sygg, River Cutthroat
• 2x Thirst for Knowledge
• 2x Thoughtseize
• 1x Tolarian Winds
• 1x Treachery
• 1x Turn Aside
• 1x Vela the Night-Clad
• 1x Vial Smasher the Fierce
• 1x Word of Seizing

Muscle (8)

• 1x Charmbreaker Devils
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Grab the Reins
• 1x Hellkite Tyrant
• 1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Scythe Specter
• 1x Sire Of Insanity

Steal (5)

• 1x Grab the Reins
• 1x Ray of Command
• 1x Shaman's Trance
• 1x Steal Enchantment
• 1x Thada Adel, Acquisitor

Assassinate (2)

• 1x Crosis's Charm
• 1x Reality Shift

Rattle Snake (2)

• 1x Malakir Familiar
• 1x Pestilent Kathari

Profit (6)

• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Inspiring Statuary
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Paradox Engine
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Thought Vessel

Cheat (5)

• 1x Careful Consideration
• 1x Compulsive Research
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Remand
• 1x Trail of Evidence

Manipulate (3)

• 1x Dispel
• 1x Insidious Will
• 1x Remand

Discard (1)

• 1x Duress

Lie (1)

• 1x Copy Artifact

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Keep Your Friends Close But Your Enemies Closer is a casual multiplayer aikido control deck. This is my first draft, and it will be edited and adjusted with testing. It will take everything that I have learned from my Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control deck and apply it to Grixis and Kess. My goals are to show that Aikido is an archetype that can span multiple color combinations, and can be played with different cards that my original Mardu Marchesa Aikido Control deck.

Goals for the deck include:

• Explore Kess, dissident mage as a control commander.

• Expand the Aikido archetype to Grixis.

• Try to avoid as much crossover in the decklist between this and Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control as is reasonable, given the goals and design constraints of both decks.

• Tune for my meta, which discourages infinite combo, stax, MLD, and my local banned list (No Sol Ring, no Mana Vault, etc...).

• Expand my Aikido philosophical inspirations used in the writeup from martial arts philosophy to include Niccollo Machiavelli, another great political strategist.

A more complete writeup will come as my deck experimentation continues, please stay tuned. Comment, criticize, put it through it's paces, and upvote if you are inspired.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 68 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	128
Avg. CMC	2.76
Tokens	Gold, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Ones to Watch