I haven't bought any cards in quite some time, and while originally I wanted to build her to be political/janky, I quickly found many sweet synergies with Obeka for cheap that were also cool and fun any dare I say good cards in their own right.
While Obeka can do many things, the primary thing this deck does is abuse "at the beginning of the next end step" triggers. Ending the turn with Obeka avoids these because the end step itself is skipped - all that happens is the clean up step and then its the next player's turn. This is beneficial for a wide range of magic cards, and here we abuse reanimation, hasty suicide clones, and temporary removal/long bounce effects the most.
What Obeka does NOT do however is avoid "until end of turn" effects, which are most common on red steal cards, like Molten Primordial, Act of Treason, etc.
The distinction is clear once you know the wording. The only problem is that many older cards were printed with "at end of turn" but have been updated in their oracle text (the text as shown on Gatherer) to "at the beginning of the next end step." I am uncertain if this was a game wide change, as in if "at end of turn" became "ATBOTNES" for all cards, or if its card specific. I have gotten by fine looking up individual cards on Gatherer so far, and don't worry, every card in this list that may say "at end of turn" (like Ideas Unbound) has been updated through oracle to "ATBOTNES," or else I wouldn't be running it!
Lastly on terminology, it may also be important to note that Obeka does not dodge "at the beginning of the end step," (note the lack of "next" or "your") or at least, not for very long. For example, if we cast Archwing Dragon and then use Obeka, it will not return to our hand at our end step (because it doesn't exist) but it will return at the end of the next player's end step, since the card does not care who's end step it is. For this reason, there is little benefit to be gained from such effects, so we run none.
Gameplay
As far as piloting goes, its pretty simple. For the most part, play your turn like normal, and when you're done, tap Obeka and off you go! Technically you could do it as late as the beginning of the end step, in response to those nasty little triggers we want to avoid, as Obeka exiles the stack as well. Only reason to do this really is if you wanted to take advantage of a beneficial "beginning of end step" trigger, such as Conjurer's Closet. Since all of the triggers appear at the same time, you can order them to be the ones you want first, let those pass, then pop Obeka to avoid the rest. But we aren't running any such cards ourselves.
Why then have I thought such interaction through, you might ask? For Havoc Festival of course! A very cheeky group slug card I have always wanted to play. In this case we need to skip much more of our turn to get out of the trigger's effect, but given how hard it hits everyone else, I'm keeping it in for now. My original trigger-skipping idea for this deck was upkeep based because of this very card, but I couldn't find many other high impact cards like it, and skipping most of your turn is bad for obvious reasons.
There are a few tricks available to push our cards even further, such as with King Macar. I have always liked the idea of this card, but getting him to work without some setup (evasion or tap effects) has its problems. Fortunately, Obeka fixes all that, granted we are willing to skip the damage phase (along with the rest of our turn after it). Simply declare attackers and then use Obeka in response to any blocks (or removal spells!). Macar gets tapped but doesn't die in the process no matter what the boardstate, allowing a clean untap on our following turn. This is a handy trick generally, especially against any flash blockers we may encounter. Just be sure you don't need your postcombat main phase if you do so!
Obeka is also amazing for protecting us from our opponents spells during our turn. If someone casts a removal spell on her, or anything we don't like for that matter, as long as she is untapped, we can make it null and void (along with the rest of our turn). Now we'll usually be tapping her every turn on our own accord, at which point everyone is free to respond and we can do nothing about it. But even if its not full-proof, the protection she offers passively alongside the ability to push many cards beyond their printed intentions is just icing on the cake.
Not only that, even if we have nothing to do with Obeka on our own turn, leaving her untapped continues these passive benefits and more, assuming a willing opponent! The ability to save someone else from a bad attack, to disrupt another's instant speed shenanigans, these are the political powers I had in mind when I first saw her, and am excited to try out!
The thing I like the most about Obeka as a commander is that she makes most cards in the deck better but is not a requirement for them to function. Amphin Mutineer is still a great card without Obeka, and its even better with her. This means, I think, we can get away with not running any explicit protection spells for her, unlike in my Marisi deck, where they are a must, as the deck is nothing without him. I look forward to seeing if this pans out!
Snow lands aren't just for fun, they're for Blizzard Strix. I altered some basics to make my own, something I wouldn't do unless it was necessary!
Seems one thing I overlooked are cards with Myriad, an Encore esque effect that would be very powerful with Obeka, especially because the surviving tokens would also have myriad, so things would get out of hand pretty quick. Added a Maybeboard with stuff I found on EDHREC / pricier stuff I would like to have for the deck.
I didn't see this before but the bounce lands are actually sweet with Obeka, as she can void the bounce effect for little cost if you play it at the end of your turn.
EDIT: Actually it turns out Myriad doesn’t work the way you want it to with Obeka. Because it just says “at end of combat” they would simply get exiled during the next player’s turn. There seems to be some confusion with this but this thread makes sense to me, as does the wording generally after giving it some thought. Saves me from having to buy them! https://tappedout.net/mtg-questions/blade-of-selves-sundial-of-the-infinite/
Seems I’ve made more than one error with all this! Guess I was bound to given the unique effect and tight wording. Once the cards come in I’m going to cut Hell's Thunder (bc it doesnt work), Phyrexian Delver (plenty of recursion already), Ravenous Cupacabra, and Shriekmaw (no Obeka synergy), replacing them with the cards in the maybeboard (Dimir Aqueduct I’ll take out Molten Slagheap for - seems more important to have as many color producing sources as possible rather than little benefits like that). I’ve learned lots with this deckbuild (including a painful lesson on cardkingdom’s shipping prices!) and can’t wait to build another!
Finally got to play it for the first time last night. Its got a bit of a learning curve! But that isn't really surprising. The synergies work well and are pretty strong but also very 1-to-1, which makes sense for grixis, but does make it feel weak compared to the Simic pile next to me. I think I built the deck too much with Araumi in mind; he's great when you have him but when you don't a lot of the graveyard stuff falls a little flat. I definitely over-built synergy but thats how we roll. Its a fun deck and I will definitely tweak it as I go. I plan on buying whats in the maybeboard during my next purchase and cutting some of the fluff - there's more than I realized (looking at you, Heartstone!)
Cut Heartstone, Pilferer, and hells thunder for new cards coming in
To add from new sets:
Alchemist’s Gambit
Manaform Hellkite
(Foils are proxies :3)
