Mairsil, the Cagemaster

Commander / EDH* UBR (Grixis)

Brotherzora

Land (36)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Grixis Panorama
• 6x Island
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 2x Mountain
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x River of Tears
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Watery Grave

Artifact (13)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir

Creature (20)

• 1x AEtherling
• 1x Anger
• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Hateflayer
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Kamahl, Pit Fighter
• 1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
• 1x Nin, the Pain Artist
• 1x Oona, Queen of the Fae
• 1x Pili-Pala
• 1x Quicksilver Elemental
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spikeshot Elder
• 1x Torchling
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Ancestral Vision
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Contingency Plan
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Doomsday
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Painful Truths
• 1x Strategic Planning
• 1x Taigam's Scheming

Commander (1)

Instant (15)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fatal Push
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Memory Lapse
• 1x Negate
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Thought Scour
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Training Grounds

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You ever play a game of commander and realize that theres a combo you didnt know about in your deck? That's this deck.

From instant draw effects like Arcanis, Magus of the wheel, and the like, Mairsils ability to be a one man engine is insane. It's like if you gave Experiment Kraj better colours and then said "No no no no no, only one at a time". That one time a turn effect is kinda lame, so we're gonna cheat Mairsil Into play multiple times.

We run a nice Activated ability assortment that blinks Mairsil, resets his abilities(We'll get to that later.), or just flickers him til EoT, in the form of Aetherling, Quicksilver elemental, Conjurers closet, and Our boy Deadeye navigator. These cards are essentially, cause every time Mairsil yeets and comes back, we get to stack another ability into his creepy little cage dungeon thing. So blinking him multiple times is key. This also means that hes deterred from being targeted with removal, as it gives him another etb later in the game. Good luck, white players. Go ahead and path this man.

To correctly assemble our combos, we run a tight package of looting and tutor cards, namely Faithless looting, Vampiric Tutor, and the savior to all of our sins, the greatest tutor in this whole deck- Gamble. Who cares if it sends up in hand or grave, Mairsil hits it regardless. Unless he doesnt. I'm looking at you, Rest in peace and scavenging ooze.

"But Tony, how do you win the game?" I can almost hear you begging for an answer. Hold your tongues, my sweets, because I'm gonna lay it out for ya. With tutoring and lootering out of the way, we wanna cast Mairsil. So bust out your demonic tutor, kids, we're fetching Aetherling first. Getting a repeatable blink effect under Mairsil is pivotal, or he just sits on the field as a stupid 4/4 that draws you three cards or something. So after we successfully resolve Mairsil, we're gonna blink him. Flicker that man, we have to put a few more cards under him. Namely, a combo of either Arcanis, Gilded lotus, and deadeye on field with Anger in grave. Lotus, Quicksilver elemental, and oona underneath with Deadeye on Field, or just Tree of perdition and hateflayer. Let me explain.

Number 1- With previously listed cards, Mairsil can tap to add three blue, then 3 red, then three blue by flickering himself again and again with navigator. After you make all that mana for your proverbial pool, we're gonna use all that mana to draw cards, flicker mairsil, and find Kamahl or any other tap sink. Just bolt your opponent to death. It's fun and convoluted.

Number 2- With Oona and Lotus, and anger in grave/elixir and deadeye on field, we get to make infinite mana. What do we do with that mana? We oona for hundreds, of course. And Oona exiles the opposing eeck, so no tricky emrakul things. Pass the turn and let the opponent lose.

NOTE: This also works with Elemental instead of deadeye navigator, but requires an untap outlet. How, you might ask? Well, even though mairsil is restricted to activating one ability at a time, we can get around it by simply duplicating all the abilities he has. Quicksilver elemental's activated ability reads as such:

"U: Quicksilver elemental gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn."

So my Mairsil has a Horseshoe crab, Arcanis, Gilded lotus, Elemental, and oona under it. So Mairsil looks like this:

U: Untap Mairsil T: Draw three cards 2UU: Return mairsil to your hand T:Add 3 mana of any colour. U: Mairsil gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn. XB/U: Exile X cards from an opponents deck..

So if I use Draw three cards, we put a x by it, signaling we've used it:

[ ] U: Untap Mairsil [X] T: Draw three cards [ ] 2UU: Return mairsil to your hand [ ] T:Add 3 mana of any colour. [ ] U: Mairsil gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn. [ ] XB/U: Exile X cards from an opponents deck..

So eventually itll look like this:

[X] U: Untap Mairsil [X] T: Draw three cards [ ] 2UU: Return Mairsil to your hand [X] T:Add 3 mana of any colour. [ ] U: Mairsil gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn. [ ] XB/U: Exile X cards from an opponents deck..

This is where quicksilver comes in. By activating his ability, and targeting mairsil, we get this:

[ ] U: Untap Mairsil [X] T: Draw three cards [ ] 2UU: Return mairsil to your hand [ ] T:Add 3 mana of any colour. [X] U: Mairsil gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn. [ ] XB/U: Exile X cards from an opponents deck..

[ ] U: Untap Mairsil [ ] T: Draw three cards [ ] 2UU: Return mairsil to your hand [ ] T:Add 3 mana of any colour. [ ] U: Mairsil gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn. [ ] XB/U: Exile X cards from an opponents deck..

You've now netted a Blue mana. Repeat until death.

Number 3- Put them both under Mairsil.

Tap Mairsil.

Untap mairsil.

Congrats. You win.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Faerie Rogue 1/1 UB