Mairsil >75%

Commander / EDH* Combo UBR (Grixis)

Neth

Land (37)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crosis's Catacombs
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Flamekin Village
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Grixis Panorama
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 1x Highland Lake
• 4x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Izzet Guildgate
• 1x Jwar Isle Refuge
• 5x Mountain
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Enchantment (3)

• 1x As Foretold
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Sunbird's Invocation

Creature (22)

• 1x AEtherling
• 1x Anger
• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Avatar of Woe
• 1x Cavern Harpy
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Heartless Hidetsugu
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Minion of Leshrac
• 1x Morphling
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Pestilent Souleater
• 1x Quicksilver Elemental
• 1x Shauku, Endbringer
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Spikeshot Elder
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Stuffy Doll
• 1x Torchling
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Viashino Heretic

Instant (13)

• 1x AEtherize
• 1x Clutch of the Undercity
• 1x Crosis's Charm
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Desertion
• 1x Essence Scatter
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Forbidden Alchemy
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Insidious Will
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Negate
• 1x Terminate

Commander (1)

Artifact (15)

• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Illusionist's Bracers
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Primal Amulet  ^Flip
• 1x Shield of Kaldra
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Chain Reaction
• 1x Chart a Course
• 1x Concentrate
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Syphon Mind

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Maybeboard

Creature (37)

• 1x Anthroplasm
• 1x Argent Sphinx
• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Bloodsworn Steward
• 1x Cinderhaze Wretch
• 1x Deadeye Tracker
• 1x Demonic Hordes
• 1x Disciple of the Ring
• 1x Dralnu, Lich Lord
• 1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
• 1x Dregscape Zombie
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Empress Galina
• 1x Fatestitcher
• 1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1x Hateflayer
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Knacksaw Clique
• 1x Leech Bonder
• 1x Memnarch
• 1x Mindclaw Shaman
• 1x Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 1x Mistfolk
• 1x Necrotic Ooze
• 1x Pack Rat
• 1x Patron of the Moon
• 1x Pili-Pala
• 1x Rainbow Efreet
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Sage of Hours
• 1x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
• 1x Skyship Stalker
• 1x Trophy Mage
• 1x Visara the Dreadful
• 1x Walking Ballista

Instant (20)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Coffin Purge
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Doom Blade
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Echoing Truth
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Foil
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Opt
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Steam Augury
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Thirst for Knowledge
• 1x Twincast
• 1x Wild Ricochet

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Black Market
• 1x Braid of Fire
• 1x Copy Enchantment
• 1x Counterbalance
• 1x Fervor
• 1x Monastery Siege
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Sneak Attack
• 1x Steal Enchantment
• 1x Training Grounds

Land (3)

• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Crypt of the Eternals
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord

Sorcery (16)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x By Force
• 1x Cathartic Reunion
• 1x Cruel Ultimatum
• 1x Deep Analysis
• 1x Disrupt Decorum
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Necromantic Selection
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Rags / Riches
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sift
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Vandalblast

Artifact (13)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Heartstone
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana Vess

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EDIT: i started leaving the attrition/control part of mairsil and pushing my deck more and more into a pure combo deck and moving value generators like minds dilation and sunbirds invocation into other decks. Below is an older write up which will be updated soon..

This is my current iteration of Mairsil the Pretender. It started out as a budget build (and still is for the most part). Cards i consider or i had in the deck and replaced are noted in my Maybeboard.

What Mairsil shines at it using activated abilities that have a drawback normally. Consider cards like Dralnu Lichlord, Nevinyrrals Disk, Shauku Endbringer, Minion of Leshrac

Core cards and Core Mechanics: Quicksilver Elemental. This card offers Mairsil to get around his restriction to use every ability only once for just a blue mana. Because you will get a new set of all his abilities which haven't been used this turn so you can use them again and one of them is Quicksilver Elemantals ability to get another set. (and another, and another... )

other than the Quicksilver i dont see any card beeing core because you get these following effects on a lot of cards.

Flicker effects (and return to hand effects): These are important for Mairsil to collect more abilities with his ETB. Cards here are Conjurer's Closet, Aetherling, Cavern Harpy, Ghostly Flicker and Deadeye Navigator. You really dont want Mairsil to return to the Command Zone of you can so returning him to your hand in response to any harm will be VERY useful. I recommend Cavern Harpy here because it doesnt require any cost other than 1 life.

Untapping: This effect is pretty neat because you do want to use efficient abilitys that dont need mana (like destroy a permanent for just tapping or getting into infinite with 3-mana manarocks and quicksilver elemental). Here cards like morphling, torchling are great. Cards that offer value for untapping are nice but i cut them after some tries (because without haste you cannot use them): Knacksaw Clique, Hateflayer.

Draw: Here i mostly recommend Arcanis the omnipotent. Use whatever you want but i had him already and he works great.

Protection: This is super important because the deck is doing nothing else but supporting your Commander. If he gets removed and uncastable from the command zone you wont be doing much. My protection package is: Hexproof (Boots, Greaves, Morphling, Torchling), Indestructible (Darksteel Plate, Shield of Kaldra, Soul of New Phyrexia, Hammer of Nazahn) and of course any kind of flicker and bounce that i mentioned above.

Haste enablers: you will look very silly if you try Mairsil without haste! trust me an anger isn't enough because bojuka bog is a thing... here i run at least 2 of the 3 haste lands (flamekin village, hall of the bandit lord, hanweir battlements), anger, lightning greaves and swiftfoot boots, thousand-year elixier. You could also cage a card that enabled haste like the 2 dragons i included in the maybeboard, but i do not recommend that because it will require one more bounce/flicker effect.

keeping the board clear: it is obviously a good thing so here i always cage Nevinyrral's Disk to blow up everything. You want to have indestructible for that to to enable a softlock on your enemys. Caging the Disk and Soul of New Phyrexia will often win you the game. Slow but steady.

Counterspells are obviously a thing. Run whatever you like. I run about 5 spells.

Finishers: This deck wont beat people with minion damage (it can tho). Instead you are going to cage your Combo pieces

Sage of Hours plus Anthroplam: Put 5 counters on Mairsil and get an extra turn. With infinite turns you should be figure out a way to win.

Tree of Perdition plus Spikeshot Elder/Hateflayer: The way this works is that you can set a players health to 4 (because Mairsil has 4) and than finish of with another 4 from an ability dealing damage (you can also just untap and hit with Mairsil or blow up an artifact with Viashino Heretic.

Gilded Lotus plus Quicksilver Elemental plus untap: you can get infinite mana and infinite abilities caged with this. How it works is tapping Mairsil for 3 mana of your choice, untapping him for 1 mana, copy the abilities with quicksilver for 1 mana and still have 1 mana open and another set of his abilities. Here you can place anything that wins: - Exsanguinate/Comet Storm/Torment of Hailfire for Infinite Mana. - Drawing your deck with Arcanis and win with Lab Maniac. - Removing every Minion/Artifact/Land of your Opponents with Shauku/Viashino Heretic/Minion of Leshrac - lock down the enemy with capsize and spell burst

infect combo with hidetsugu plus pestilent souleater: you lower yourself below 19 hp (phyrexian mana and lands help with that) to not die to yourself getting 10 poison counters and hope everybody else is at 20+ life and instantly win with infect.

Other Notes: you can also put into this deck combos with Triskelion and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or Isochron Scepter plus Dramatic Reversal.

With a Caged Pack Rat you can respond to a removal on mairsil and the new copy can operate like mairsil and get a new cage counter for your commander. While your real mairsil chills in the Zone or your hand

Your deck is open to everything from here. I like clearing the board a lot and drawing/tutoring for pieces. This deck is a little slow and has no real way of healing. I hope this is just because my mana base is about 50% tapped lands. Also flyers are still a problem for me (i have a lot of kalia-flyer decks in my meta)

If you want to push this into an even more competitive path look up the mirror-mad phantasm + laboratory maniac combo. I am choosing not to run it.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 26 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.75