Mairsil Awakens His Sharingan

Commander / EDH Artifact Casual Combo UBR (Grixis)

Zyterix

Creature (31)

• 1x AEtherling
• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Cavern Harpy
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Deadeye Plunderers
• 1x Hateflayer
• 1x Horror of the Dim
• 1x Horseshoe Crab
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Magus of the Bazaar
• 1x Minion of Leshrac
• 1x Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 1x Mistfolk
• 1x Morphling
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Pack Rat
• 1x Pestilent Souleater
• 1x Pili-Pala
• 1x Quicksilver Elemental
• 1x Shifty Doppelganger
• 1x Shriekdiver
• 1x Soliton
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Spikeshot Elder
• 1x Spikeshot Goblin
• 1x Syndicate Trafficker
• 1x Torchling
• 1x Tree of Perdition

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Pemmin's Aura

Land (35)

• 1x Bloodfell Caves
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crosis's Catacombs
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Desolate Lighthouse
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Flamekin Village
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 10x Island
• 3x Mountain
• 1x River of Tears
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Sanctum of Eternity
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Unknown Shores
• 1x Vault of Whispers

Instant (5)

• 1x Channeled Force
• 1x Dark Bargain
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Grixis Charm
• 1x Supplant Form

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Final Parting

Commander (1)

Artifact (23)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Bonehoard
• 1x Boots of Speed
• 1x Charmed Pendant
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Haunted Cloak
• 1x Heartstone
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Magewright's Stone
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Portal of Sanctuary
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Trading Post
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Voyager Staff

---

"It rubs the Liquimetal Coating on its skin or else it gets the Hateflayer again." - Mairsil, probably

Comin' at ya with another janky deck, this time being helmed by Mairsil, the Pretender. This one is all about dropping your commander and exiling, or "caging", various creatures and artifacts to create hella value. This deck is heavily, HEAVILY reliant on its commander to win, and without it ends up not really doing much. But oh boy, when Mairsil gets to stay in play, you can expect it to do some work.

Below are the main categories of cards in this deck, outlining the ways in which this deck succeeds.

Must-Include Cards

These cards are some of the most important and essential ones for the deck. Without them, the deck is simply much less effective.

Quicksilver Elemental: Quite simply one of the best cards in the deck to cage along with the "-ling" cards. Able to gain activated abilities of a target creature for 1 mana, simply having Mairsil copy the Quicksilver Elemental and targeting himself with his shiny new ability allows him to duplicate whatever abilities he currently has available. Essentially, with this you can partially get around Mairsil's "once-per-turn" restriction, provided you have the mana to keep activating the ability.

AEtherling, Morphling, Torchling: Easily the most f l e x i b l e creatures in the deck by far, the "-ling"s provide unmatched utility when exiled by Mairsil. All three of them have a way to protect Mairsil from being hit by spells, whether it be flickering him, giving him shroud, or Swerve-ing a spell away. The flickering provided by Aetherling is particularly important as it makes Mairsil re-enter the battlefield, which lets you put another card into "the cage". The deck was to include newcomer Endling, but was cut, as its abilities are far less important to the general strategy of the deck. Feel free to include it if you build this deck however, it's a fun and interesting inclusion.

Shifty Doppelganger: An underrated but very powerful card to exile with Mairsil. With its ability, you get to cheat a creature from your hand onto the battlefield, flicker Mairsil, and at the end of the turn you sacrifice what you cheated out, and can exile it with Mairsil as he re-enters the battlefield. #Value.

Re-Entering / Avoiding Commander Tax

As we aren't green and lack substantial ramp, we want to avoid paying extra to re-play our commander as much as we can. These effects either flicker Mairsil or bounce him to our hand.

Cavern Harpy: Costing no mana and usable at instant speed for the cost of just 1 life, exiling this with Mairsil lets you protect it from removal at very little cost.

Deadeye Navigator: Pairing DEN with Mairsil is extremely powerful. As long as you have mana available, you can keep flickering Mairsil, and unlike with AEtherling's ability, Mairsil will re-enter immediately, letting you exile another card. Word of advice, however - don't exile this card with Mairsil.

Conjurer's Closet: Flickers Mairsil at the end of your turn. Fairly self-explanatory but doesn't protect him; this card is here to give Mairsil additional enters-the-battlefield triggers.

Arcanis the Omnipotent: Along with giving Mairsil the ability to draw three cards just by tapping, Arcanis also grants Mairsil a bounce ability that doesn't require tapping.

Command Beacon: In the case of our commander being destroyed, we can avoid the tax further by using this card to put it straight back into our hand at the cost of sacrificing the Beacon. In a deck so focused on its commander like this one, this card is very valuable.

Sanctum of Eternity: See Command Beacon.

Voyager Staff: Flickers Mairsil at instant speed for {2}. Can also be exiled with Mairsil.

Protecting Mairsil

Considering that Mairsil will often be our only creature, we need ways to help it survive.

Horror of the Dim: Able to give Mairsil hexproof for {U}, the Horror's ability is a cheap and efficient way to protect Mairsil at instant speed.

Mistfolk: Played in very little decks, Mistfolk actually becomes quite useful when exiled with Mairsil. Opponent plays Swords to Plowshares? Just counter it. The only cards that get rid of Mairsil this can't counter are sacrifice effects and board-clear effects; it protects against all targeted removal otherwise.

Nightscape Familiar: While this can be played on its own to reduce the costs of some of our cards, its use also extends as an exile target for Mairsil to give it a relatively cheap regenerate ability.

Soul of New Phyrexia: Powerful exiled or otherwise, Soul of New Phyrexia grants indestructibility to all of your permanents for {5}.

Syndicate Trafficker: With around 30 total potential targets in the deck for this card's ability, it makes an excellent Mairsil target to grant him indestructible.

Pemmin's Aura: Able to grant shroud to Mairsil as well as give him evasion and untap him, this aura (and the only enchantment in the deck) gives very valuable abilities to Mairsil. Experienced playgroups will see this card immediately as a target as well, which can take eyes off Mairsil.

Swiftfoot Boots: It's Swiftfoot Boots. No explanation needed.

Untap Effects and Haste Enablers

Less exciting are the untap effects and haste enablers, which cheaply and efficiently untap Mairsil. Most of them are pretty similar and need little explanation. These are Horseshoe Crab, Morphling, Soliton, Torchling, Pemmin's Aura, Flamekin Village, Boots of Speed and Magewright's Stone. Some of our more interesting cards include:

Hateflayer: Along similar lines to Spikeshot Goblin and Spikeshot Elder, when exiled with Mairsil, Hateflayer's ability can damage players directly. The difference between those two and Hateflayer however, is that Hateflayer untaps Mairsil. This can create some strong combo situations.

Pili-Pala: Like many of our mana-generating artifacts, Pili-Pala would already work great with Mairsil, but comes with the added benefit of untapping when it generates mana!

Thousand-Year Elixir: Not only does this untap Mairsil, but also essentially provides him haste for all intents and purposes. Very powerful card, and like many of our best artifacts can be tutored by cards like Trophy Mage.

Basalt Monolith: Taps for mana and untaps Mairsil. Pretty damn good and works fantastic when exiled with our commander.

Lulzy Win-Cons

These are the main ways we can knock opponents out of the game.

Tree of Perdition: Switching an opponents life total with Mairsil's is just hilarious, because unlike the Tree's 13 toughness, Mairsil has just 4. What gets even funnier is combining this with any of our "damage equal to power" creatures like Hateflayer to just nuke someone out of the game.

Pestilent Souleater: Originally, the deck was to include Phyresis and Corrupted Conscience. But who needs enchantments?...besides Pemmin's Aura we need dat. Throwing this card into exile with Mairsil allows him to gain infect at any time for a very cheap cost, and when combined with AEtherling or Hateflayer's effects, can quickly take opponents out of the game with poison counters.

Spikeshot Goblin/Spikeshot Elder/Hateflayer: When combined with ways to generate infinite mana combos (quick example: Gilded Lotus + Quicksilver Elemental + Pili-Pala), these become powerful cards to exile with Mairsil and can not only kill players with enough damage, but also serve as great creature removal too.

Along with our primary win-cons and utility cards for Mairsil, we have a few other nice inclusions as well. There are quite a few fairly cheap and easy to obtain tutor cards in this deck, such as Diabolic Tutor, Corpse Connoisseur, and Final Parting to help us find the right cards we want to exile with Mairsil. A nifty little combo we have is using Mairsil to exile both Nevinyrral's Disk and a source of indestructibility such as Syndicate Trafficker, Nightscape Familiar and especially Soul of New Phyrexia to wipe the whole board except for Mairsil. We can fill our graveyard with cards like Magus of the Bazaar, Channeled Force, Pack Rat and Charmed Pendant, the last of which can also help us get mana and mill on demand when exiled with Mairsil.

That's essentially all of what this deck does. Kudos if you bothered to read all of this, and please upvote if you enjoyed this deck.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 30 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 26 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.54
Tokens	Copy Clone, Goat 0/1 W, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Treasure