Extract Brain

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Extract Brain

Sorcery

Target opponent chooses X cards from their hand. Look at those cards. You may cast a spell from among them without paying its mana cost.

multimedia on

2 years ago

Hey, well done for a first deck on such a low budget. I haven't seen this Commander before.

When you're just starting out building decks in Commander it can be helpful to have some basic deck structure guildlines to follow.

This is just a basic structure to get things started. It doesn't cover everything and your final deck may have different numbers for each part of the structure such as you might have more creatures. Some cards can cover more than one area such as Palace Jailer who is creature removal and can be repeatable draw which is really helpful.


Ramp is something all Commander decks need since you don't want to only rely on lands/land drops to make mana. You have Sol Ring which is really good, but that's where the ramp ends here. Only Sol is not enough ramp.

I always explain to new Commander deck builders that you need to be able to sacrifice (cut) some of the fun cards to add ramp to your deck. Since doing this will help gameplay so that you can more easily cast your Commander and the other big fun cards you want to play. In the case here my advice is consider cutting at least 9 cards to add more budget ramp?

Some cards to consider cutting to add more ramp are creatures who don't do enough for their mana cost: Gods' Hall Guardian, Living Tempest, Dread Rider, Shepherd of Heroes, Kor Celebrant, Ronom Unicorn, Brinebarrow Intruder


Like ramp all decks also need draw that comes from single draw effects and more importantly repeatable draw sources. Currently your deck has three good single draw effects Baleful Strix, Champion of Wits, Cloudblazer and one repeatable draw source Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. There's a reanimation theme here that can get you more draw from these creatures which is good, but consider more draw?

Jailer and Rose can be repeatable draw sources with the Monarch Emblem. When you have the monarch then you draw a card at your end step. Only one player in the game at one time can be the monarch and it can change players. As long as you are monarch you get the repeatable draw at your end step which is a big advantage.

For an opponent to become the monarch they have to do combat damage with a creature to you or play a card/effect that makes them the monarch. When this happens you loose the monarch and that opponent becomes the monarch. You can get back the monarch though by doing combat damage with a creature to the opponent who is the monarch or playing a card/effect that makes you the monarch.

Some cards to consider cutting to add more draw: Withercrown, Grave Endeavor, Arcane Endeavor, Smite the Monstrous, Extract Brain, Wand of Orcus


The area of your deck that you have a lot of is removal. I count 23 single effects of removal here. You can afford to cut some removal to improve other areas of your deck: Withercrown, Befuddle, Iron Verdict, Smite the Monstrous.

If you're interested I offer more advice in another comment. Including explaining how blink from single effects or repeatable such as Soulherder and Brago, King Eternal can be powerful here. Would you like me to continue with more advice?

Good luck with your deck.

DiabolicalGuy on Nihiloor, Mafia Kingpin

2 years ago

Nihiloor Vorthos Guide: Nihiloor is featured in the following cards Devour Intellect , Extract Brain , and Xanathar, Guild Kingpin . Happy Building!