This is a planeswalker deck that focuses on using
Brago, King Eternal
's flicker ability to reuse their abilities multiple times in a turn and controlling the board with efficient enter the battlefield creatures. The deck protects itself with a suite of counterspells, spot removal and board wipes and fuels the engine with permanents that gives card advantage. It's not a deck for those who wants fast games, as the deck is very slow to finish opponents. This deck is not reliant on Brago, however it becomes much slower if he's not able to connect to an opponent. Due to the nature of planeswalkers this deck is extremely resillient as long as you can keep a few blockers to protect them. Some also look very unthreatening until you start really abusing them, so opponents may leave them alone in favour of other threats.
The friends
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
- Creates a defensive force and turns your commander into a respectable clock against life gain decks. Ultimate doesn't garuntee victory, but it makes the deck much, much harder to stop. Ultimate is rarely used, however, it's usually best to just make soldiers.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
- Creates an army, kills anything that can single handly kill Brago and buffs the team if you get to ultimate her. Usually you only use the ultimate when you're going for the kill, as it doesn't synergize too well with the -3.
Elspeth Tirel
- Creates an army and gains you life. Serves as a boardwipe in a pinch. Not much else to say.
Jace, Architect of Thought
- Protects your planeswalkers and draws you cards. Using his +1 twice in a turn will often disuade your opponents from sending their creatures into the red zone in the early game and late game he plays your opponent's best spells.
Jace Beleren
- Card draw. Pure and simple. There are a few ways to use this guy. Most common is as repeatable
Divination
. Next is to be a little more political and make yourself seem less threatening by also gifting your opponents with cards. This can also be done to help the table deal with a player who's ahead and hated by essencially drawing 3 (if a 4-player game) cards against that player's 1. Never plus him if you're in the lead and never use his ultimate.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- Mostly used to
Brainstorm
, but he can also assist in keeping one or more players down if they're a threat to you. If we have the infinite walker usage combo available he serves as a solid win condition. Can also bounce opposing commanders in a pinch.
Narset Transcendent
- Primarily card draw, if a bit unreliable (36 targets to hit), as we don't have too many instants and sorceries we want to rebound. Ultimate is a game winner, as the most efficient ways to stop this deck is through noncreature spells. It's rare for opponents to have enough things that can attack the walkers to take them out in one go, thus dealing with them often falls down to board wipes, burn and spot removal, most of which are noncreature spells.
Tezzeret the Seeker
- Without a doubt the strongest planeswalker in this deck. If he's allowed to fetch one of the big mana rocks (
Basalt Monolith
or
Sol Ring
) and gets a +1 after being reset by Brago he has the potential to super charge every other planeswalker on the next turn by searching for
The Chain Veil
. He is a priority to kill if he's on 5 loyalty and the pilot has a mana rock that produces more than 1 mana. Basalt Monolith + Tezzeret the Seeker + The Chain Veil
enables the pilot to ultimate every other planeswalker in the deck multiple times in a turn, provided he or she has enough mana to fuel the chain veil. Apart from serving is a win condition he also's also a toolbox to get whatever utility artifacts are needed: mana rocks, card draw, land fetch or protection.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
- Another all-star that provides a large advantage by being able to untap permanents. He also serves as card draw with his +1 ability, and his ultimate can quickly end games when coupled with the other planeswalkers. Together with
Tezzeret the Seeker
and
The Chain Veil
he will end the game on the spot unless someone can stop you, as you'll draw your entire deck, have infinite mana and ultimate every walker in the deck.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
- Kills things, board wipes and gives you more things to play with. What's not to like? Also burns down opponents with the veil combo.
Venser, the Sojourner
- A very often overlooked ability is this guy's -1 ability. In this deck this serves as insurance when we want to connect with Brago. After this he can in essence untap any permanent we control or reset another walker if we want to use a minus ability again in second main phase. His ultimate is situational in this deck, used only in very rare circumstances.
Flickering beasties
Angel of Finality
/
Stonecloaker
- Stops any graveyard based strategies, be it from our own graveyard or an opponent's graveyard.
Stonecloaker
also has the added benefit of being able to save another creature, should it be necessary. After that we can just bounce him back to our hand with Brago's ability.
Archaeomancer
/
Mnemonic Wall
- While we don't play too many instants or sorceries, being able to reuse the ones we have is very useful.
Augury Owl
- Gives us some much needed deck manipulation. Also helps setup our two manifest enchantments. It's also not a threat so it's often left alone.
Chancellor of the Spires
- In a regular game of commander you can often find juicy spells in your opponents' graveyards. Ramp, card draw, spot removal, just about everything you'll need. And they let you do it again and again with very respectable bodies. Also because the Chancellor doesn't exile what you cast: if an opponent plays
Ghostly Flicker
, you can play it targeting the Chancellor and whatever else you like to go infinte with whatever effect you like (mana and ETB triggers), so watch out for that.
Duplicant
/
Luminate Primordial
- Gets rid of almost any and all problematic creatures on the board.
Filigree Angel
- With the amount of artifacts this deck runs you'll often get between 9 and 24 life whenever this angel comes into play. Sure it's extremely expensive for it's body, but you're not getting the trigger just once.
Geist-Honored Monk
- Primarily serves as a defensive creature, spawning chump blockers to defend our planeswalkers. She can however become a very sizable beat stick aswell, as the deck quickly can spawn a lot of tokens to pump her strength.
Jace's Mindseeker
- Serves as an eventual win condition and it lets you steal spells from your opponents. Got a green player sitting next to you with a lot of ramp spells? Why not take it? You probably need it more than he or she does.
Karmic Guide
/
Reveillark
- Reanimates our creatures. Sure we don't have an infinite combo between the two with a sacrifice outlet, but as we're not running a graveyard based strategy I didn't want to spend a card slot on an interraction that'd rarely be put into use. They're valuable enough with just Brago's trigger. Karmic Guide's echo can be a little bit annoying, but paying for it to keep our creatures in play is usually worth the upkeep cost.
Lavinia of the Tenth
- This lady shuts down the utility creatures, several commanders, many planeswalkers and disrupts most opposing mana rocks.
Mulldrifter
/
Sphinx of Uthuun
-
Divination
and
Fact or Fiction
with bodies to flicker? Seems like a deal to me!
Myr Battlesphere
- One of the other win conditions in the deck. It creates a lot of bodies and it his very hard. It will quickly end games if it's left unchecked.
Resolute Archangel
- Sometimes it's just very nice to reset your life total. Once people figure out you need to die, this one will make their task a lot harder, as they will need to take you down before you get to untap again, or you'll be back at full health.
Restoration Angel
- Protection for your creatures and you get to use your most needed ETB trigger twice when Brago connects.
Solemn Simulacrum
- This guy creates an overwhelming advantage if you get to flicker him a few times. Turn 2-4 Brago into this guy on the next turn will quicly propel you into a game winning board state. Getting a card when he finally gets killed is also a huge bonus. He's another target for
Tezzeret the Seeker
at 5 loyalty if you don't have any other planeswalkers.
Stonehorn Dignitary
- Aggro deck giving you problems? Not anymore! Unless they got a
Relentless Assault
-effect.
Sunblast Angel
- Board wiping the aggressive decks every turn seems like a good idea. Just remember to flicker your own attackers so they don't get caught in the blast.
Venser, Shaper Savant
/
Voidmage Husher
- Creatures that lets you stay in control of the game. Venser can be bounced to himself when Brago hits so you can use him again later! Venser also serves as emergency protection for your permanents. The voidmage also has a lot of applications with the amount of powerful activated abilities that exists in the format. He also prevents other plays from
Word of Seizing
-ing your planeswalkers to take your ult away. Sure you need to rebuild the loyalites but at least they don't get the effect from it.
Non-creature non-planeswalker utility permanents
Act of Authority
- Kills pesky artifacts and enchantments your opponents control. Just remember not to use the upkeep trigger.
Altar of the Brood
- This little gem can quickly take over the game. Flicker all your things and every opponent mills away a lot of cards. Of course you need to be careful of graveyard based strategies, but that can be take care of by your graveyard hate. It's also fetchable with
Tezzeret the Seeker
and it combos with
Strionic Resonator
.
Cloudform
/
Lightform
- These two enchantments gives the deck an enormous amount of card advantage as long as you can trigger Brago. You target both the manifest and the enchantment to get the manifested permanent into play face up and a new manifest to do so again on the next turn. Couple this with
Augury Owl
and get your most needed permanents into play for free! And if you manifest a non-permanent spell you can just leave it as a 2/2.
Crystal Shard
- Lets us reuse our ETB triggers if we don't have access to flickering. Also serves as protection for our valuable creatures. Works very well with
Venser, Shaper Savant
and
Voidmage Husher
to help controlling what your opponents can do.
Detention Sphere
- Oblivion Ring version 2.0. Wrecks token strategies and takes care of any problematic permanent, even if only temporarily. Works very well in making other commanders more expensive.
Exclusion Ritual
-
Detention Sphere
's bigger brother. While this doesn't hose token strategies, it permanently exiles any problematic non-land permanent. Note that the imprint clause does not work on commanders, but it still removes them from the board.
Mycosynth Wellspring
- Gets you the basic lands you need when you need them.
Prophetic Prism
- Why not
Ichor Wellspring
? The added utility of mana filtering is surprisingly relevant. I've often been in the situation where I've been able to cast the needed spells in a turn because of the filtering. Sure it's not 2 cards just for being on the board, but the filtering can at times be invaluable. It's also not as assuming as the
Ichor Wellspring
, so it's less likely to get targeted for removal. This little gem stays in play until someone wipes artifacts.
Spine of Ish Sah
- Like
Exclusion Ritual
this artifact removes problematic permanents. It also has the added benefit of being much harder to remove with it's return to the hand trigger when destroyed.
Strionic Resonator
- This is exclusively a combo piece. It goes infinite with mana rocks to generate 2 mana. It works like this: trigger Brago's ability, copy Brago's ability and resolve the copy targeting the permanents you want to use, the mana rocks and the resonator. Reapeat as many times as you like by keeping the initial trigger on the stack to copy. I keep a card in the "sideboard" to replace this card when playing in a lower powerlevel game, as it's possible to go infinite on turn 3 with this with an optimal hand. It's not a piece I actively search for, but I use it to end the game if I get the opporunity.
The Chain Veil
- One of the most useful artifacts in this deck. On it's own it lets you use your friends twice in a turn. Together with Brago it's increased to four times in a turn. Together with
Tezzeret the Seeker
and/or
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
the number increases a lot. Also remember it also works with new planeswalkers you put into play during your turn, so you don't have to reactivate it to use their abilities multiple times during a turn.
Unquestioned Authority
- Unblockable and a card? Sign me up!
Obscure/unusual cards to consider and why
Parallax Tide
- This card has some very nice utility applications attached to it. For one it can untap your lands on your turn. Because it's fading, not vanishing, it will stay on the battlefield even with 0 counters until your upkeep. You can also use this to temporarily remove utility lands your opponents have, such as
Maze of Ith
,
Kor Haven
and
Mystifying Maze
which can stop your attack,
Kessig Wolf Run
if you fear an attack, someone's
Reliquary Tower
to make their hand size fair again. The possibilities are numberous. It also turns any manlands you have into
Fog
(I need more of those myself). It can rescue your lands from land destruction. Just make sure not to have it lower than 1 counter at the end of your turn, if you want to keep it on your next upkeep. And lastly, if you're particularily cruel, it can be used together with the
Strionic Resonator
to permanently exile lands your opponents control. Just like with
Oblivion Ring
you can put the exile trigger on the stack and in response to the trigger remove the enchantment to permanently exile the targets. This is done by practically using the same sequence as the infinite flicker combo with the resonator, just that in between the resonator activations you also put the exile lands activation on the stack and in response to the last one there, activate the resonator targeting Brago's ability. And changing the order of this sequence generates infinite mana for you, or someone else, so it can also be used to go infinite with the resonator's activations.
Pithing Needle
/
Phyrexian Revoker
- These two ares are, from what I gather, very uncommon to see in commander games. Their applications are generally narrow and you can often blank if you try to preemptively name cards. Brago does not have this problem. You can always reset the named card to handle troublesome cards.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
giving you trouble? We're playing commander! Pay that command tax like the rest of us!
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
drawing too many cards? Start attacking if you want cards! Planeswalkers giving you a headache? Not anymore! Utility lands messing up the board? Lands we don't like are supposed to tap for mana or do nothing at all!
MUNCHKIN!!!!!!!
While the deck is somewhat competative, I have by design not included certain cards. If you want to turn the deck into an oppressive combo deck there are a few cards to consider. Many of these cards would replace some of the planeswalkers in the deck. These are the cards when you're in a super competative environment where the goal is to win at any costs.
Deadeye Navigator
- This is THE card to turn this deck into an oppresive monster. He protects himself and every other creature on your board. He can completely shut down everyone elses' gameplans together with the other creatures in the deck to lock them out of their spells, combats and creatures. With the current base of creatures the only thing he does not do is deal with non-creature permanents with CMC over 5 and lands, but this can be solved by the
Chancellor of the Spires
and your opponent's graveyards.
Palinchron
/
Peregrine Drake
- These creatures are not oppressive in this deck by themselves. In fact they're quite very underwhelming, even together with Brago's trigger; there are better cards, with more utility, to untap your lands with Brago's trigger (see
Parallax Tide
. Together with the Navigator, as mentioned earlier, it's a very different tune. You now have infinite mana to do whatever you please.
Enlightened Tutor
/
Mystical Tutor
- These cards would be auto includes if you want to focus more on winning with combo. They would get crucial pieces like the
Strionic Resonator
,
Altar of the Brood
,
Time Warp
and it's sisters and so on.
Call the Gatewatch
- Serves as another
Tezzeret the Seeker
. When on the combo plan, he's the planeswalker to search for.
Time Warp
- And it's sisters together with the
Archaeomancer
or
Mnemonic Wall
gives infinite turns.
Blue Sun's Zenith
/
Stroke of Genius
- Blue's x-burn spells when you have infinite mana.
Mangara's Tome
- Repeatable tutor and deck thinner. Get more combo pieces. Just make sure to protect it.
Stasis
/
Winter Orb
- Why do you care about the untap step? You untap during the deal combat damage step!
