Tampering with Evidence

Commander / EDH Connive Control Discard UB (Dimir)

Tinnuki

Land (37)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Gloomlake Verge
• 10x Island
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Spymaster's Vault
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Undercity Sewers
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Watery Grave

Loot (7)

• 1x Dihada's Ploy
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Tainted Indulgence
• 1x Thirst for Discovery
• 1x Thirst for Knowledge
• 1x Windfall
• 1x You Find the Villains' Lair

Value (5)

• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Halo Forager
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Rhystic StudyGC

Madness (2)

• 1x Necrogoyf
• 1x Shadowgrange Archfiend

Interaction (12)

• 1x Circular Logic
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift *f-etch*GC
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Infernal Grasp
• 1x Negate
• 1x Nimble Obstructionist
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Refute
• 1x You Find the Villains' Lair

Mana (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Lord of the Forsaken
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Thought Vessel

Graveyard Value (7)

• 1x Laboratory Drudge
• 1x Ominous Roost
• 1x Patrician Geist
• 1x River Kelpie
• 1x Sage of the Beyond
• 1x Secrets of the Dead
• 1x Tormod, the Desecrator

Beater (5)

• 1x Lord of the Forsaken
• 1x Necrogoyf
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Sage of the Beyond
• 1x Shadowgrange Archfiend

Connive (2)

• 1x Ledger Shredder
• 1x Spymaster's Vault

Commander (1)

Discard Benefits (11)

• 1x All-Seeing Arbiter
• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Curator of Mysteries
• 1x Drake Haven
• 1x Dying to Serve
• 1x Faith of the Devoted
• 1x Feast of Sanity
• 1x Lazotep Chancellor
• 1x Monument to Endurance
• 1x Wharf Infiltrator

Looter (8)

• 1x All-Seeing Arbiter
• 1x Kitsa, Otterball Elite
• 1x Likeness Looter
• 1x Magus of the Bazaar
• 1x Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
• 1x Obsessive Stitcher
• 1x Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator
• 1x Wharf Infiltrator

Discard (5)

• 1x Key to the City
• 1x Necrogoyf
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Psychic Frog
• 1x Skirge Familiar

Cycling (1)

• 1x Nimble Obstructionist

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Overview

Oskar is a deck that looks to find value by manipulating both casting times and discard effects. Looting, though not yet keyworded, is a useful ability that has been a part of the game since the early days, as can be seen in the classic Merfolk Looter. Many of our early drops utilize Looting-like effects to help filter our hand, and to enable Oskar's cast ability later. Though he technically only cares about discarding a card, as long as we discard something we planned to cast anyway, Oskar turns any kind of loot effect into plain card draw. Negating the "downside" to Looting is a subtle but powerful way to squeeze out some tangible value, especially with a deck with strong synergy behind it.

If you squint just a little, you can easily find some parallels between what Oskar aims to do and the Madness mechanic. It should be noted that Oskar, like Madness, ignores normal timing rules when it comes to casting spells. The opportunity to cast the discarded card happens during the resolution of his triggered ability. This is a neat little workaround to essentially give all of our spells Flash, and to dodge instant-speed graveyard interaction. I'm aiming to take advantage of this as much as I can and grind out some value over the course of the game.

Card Rundown

Loot

Oskar lets you cast any cards that you might discard, but in the typical game of Commander that doesn't happen nearly as often as we'd like. To get our engine started, we need to open that channel to get our cards from our hand into our graveyard (but not for long). We can do this via our Loot effects, some repeatable:
All-Seeing Arbiter
Kitsa, Otterball Elite
Likeness Looter
Magus of the Bazaar
Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
Obsessive Stitcher
Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator
Wharf Infiltrator

some not-so-repeatable:
Dihada's Ploy
Frantic Search
Tainted Indulgence
Thirst for Discovery
Thirst for Knowledge
Windfall
You Find the Villains' Lair

with Connive (which is basically just powercrept Loot if you don't think about it too hard):
Ledger Shredder
Spymaster's Vault

or by simply discarding them:
Key to the City
Necrogoyf
Nezahal, Primal Tide
Psychic Frog
Skirge Familiar

Benefits

Simply the process of discarding cards can net us benefits such as making tokens:
Drake Haven
Dying to Serve
Lazotep Chancellor
Wharf Infiltrator

debuffing our opponents' creatures:
All-Seeing Arbiter
Archfiend of Ifnir

draining some life:
Faith of the Devoted
Feast of Sanity

and everything that Bone Miser and Monument to Endurance do.

Graveyard

Since any discarded cards go to the graveyard before Oskar gives us the chance to cast them, we can use some graveyard-related value pieces, like making the spells cheaper:
Patrician Geist
Sage of the Beyond

netting some extra draw:
Laboratory Drudge
River Kelpie
Secrets of the Dead

or making some tokens:
Ominous Roost
Tormod, the Desecrator

Winning the Game

This deck plays very much like a value/control deck that hopes to use Discard-based synergy to grind out moderate amounts of value over the course of the game. In my experience, taking a slower approach and not dropping down an Archfiend of Ifnir too soon allows us to fly under the radar until we get the snowball rolling. Oskar by himself is not a tremendous threat and doesn't tend to draw too much interaction in the early-to-mid game. Hopefully, as we've been accumulating our value and resources, either a handful of drakes and/or zombies or one of our bigger threats should be able to close out the game.

Background

In an era where it seems like every Legendary / Commander has to enable a thing, do the thing, and then reward for the thing, Oskar stands out because by himself, he really doesn't do anything. Sure, he has a very specific thing he wants to do, but he still requires an appropriate amount of synergy support with his 99. I took this as a challenge to figure out how I can best build around him not as the deck's lynchpin, but as the engine.

Top Ranked	Achieved #24 position overall 7 months ago Achieved #21 position in Commander / EDH 7 months ago Achieved #3 position in Commander / EDH Control 7 months ago
Date added	10 months
Last updated	2 weeks
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.08
Tokens	Bird 1/1 U w/ High Flying, Drake 2/2 U, Eldrazi Horror 3/2 C, Foretell, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders	Tinnuki's EDH Decks, Liked ideas, commander