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Mairsil, The Pretender

Commander / EDH Combo Control Primer UBR (Grixis)

Dreeks1991

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Commander: foil Mairsil, the Pretender

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The goal of this primer is to explain the general idea of this Mairsil, the Pretender build, how to play it, and to explain the card selections/omissions, as well as any other miscellaneous information or advice.

This is my take on Mairsil, the Pretender. Over the years, it has evolved with my playgroup. It went from jank, to midrange, to combo, to the control shell that it is today. The more my group grew to hate him, the harder they targeted him, and the nastier he became. Don't worry though, it's all in good fun and he's still a blast to play! This current iteration aims to lock down the board as quickly as possible with Nevinyrral's Disk and a haste enabler, and then find Tree of Perdition to close out the game.

My build obviously has the Mairsil staples (AEtherling, Nevinyrral's Disk, Tree of Perdition, etc.) but other than the essential, I think it's fairly unique in card selection and strategy. That is partially due to the meta of my regular playgroup. Good threat assessment, interaction, ramp, and wincons abound. We all play for fun, but everyone is always trying to win. The group is very removal heavy, and Mairsil is like a magnet for it. Long story short, most other builds probably don't need quite as much counter magic and protection as mine does.

This deck relies heavily on AEtherling being caged early. Aetherling is your engine and also some of your best protection. It's gonna be a slow, uphill battle without him in the cage. That means your first order of business is to find and cage that sucker, which is why like 10% of the deck is tutors.

Your second goal is to control the board while you dig for your finishers (whatever those may be). Nevinyrral's Disk is my go-to, followed by Boompile, Galecaster Colossus, and then any of the many board wipes I run. Keeping the board clear is essential because Mairsil is so easily overrun by even just a few creatures, and has limited ways to deal with even just one or two planeswalkers due to the "one per turn" clause stapled on him.

Typical gameplay involves caging AEtherling and then blinking Mairsil throughout each turn cycle to cage up as many abilities as you can. There are a ton of tutors in this deck, so once you find AEtherling you have plenty of ways to get win cons and interaction into your hand or graveyard. The deck basically stalls the game out for your opponents while you blink, draw, and tutor your way to victory. In fairness, this is a very same-y, linear deck. Your gameplay experience will be similar from game to game, so if that's not your jam I definitely wouldn't build him this way. I enjoy it because I am archenemy from the moment I reveal my commander and I love fighting through the onslaught.

Ramping and tutoring. Once the deck is online, you're gonna need a TON of blue mana at your disposal if you want to keep Mary on the board. Don't keep a greedy hand because missing land drops and mana rocks will really hurt you down the road when you can't pay for AEtherling activations and counter spells. Speaking of my favorite Shapeshifter, find that guy ASAP. Unless you have a way for Mairsil to repeatedly ETB and cage new abilities there is really no point in casting him. Because of this, your early game is going to look the same pretty much every game. While the rest of the game can go in any direction, your early game needs to revolve around finding AEtherling (or Cavern Harpy or Darting Merfolk in a pinch) and getting it caged.

This deck is extremely mana hungry. Most of the activated abilities require colored mana, and that color is usually blue. You're going to need a lot of it to survive each turn cycle with a target on your back, activating blink and bounce effects and casting counter spells left and right. I run about six mana rocks that don't necessarily need caged right away. Go ahead and cast them to get some use out of them before you inevitably blow them up with Nevinyrral's Disk, then cage them up for repeated use later on or to get an infinite combo rolling.

After you've got your mana and AEtherling in your hand or graveyard, cast Mairsil and cage him up. 4+ years of playing this deck has taught me that casting Mairsil earlier gives him a better chance of surviving and winning. Once you make it through the initial turn cycle after casting him, you should usually have enough mana to get you through the following turn cycles since there aren't many other cards that get cast other than counters and tutors. I used to hold back until I had a counter spell in hand before casting him but that also gives your opponents more chances to draw into their own interaction. He's gonna be a strong target for hate after your group plays against him a few times. They basically get one shot to counter him or it's unlikely he will leave the field involuntarily.

Spend the next turn cycle or two caging your protection, interaction, and hopefully combo pieces as well. A haste-enabler is also extremely desirable so that Mairsil can threaten his abilities as soon as he hits the board. Every time you blink him he gets summoning sickness, which can be a huge setback.

Here's where things get dicey. You likely have a huge target on your back if your early game went well. Your opponents are now aware of how difficult Mairsil is to remove and how impossible he is to interact with (which your playgroup will complain about incessantly lol), and what win cons you're trying to assemble. The whole game plan is telegraphed due to the nature of the commander's ability. There are no secrets in exile.

Since his combo pieces aren't cast but acquired through an triggered ability, it's easy for Mairsil to keep his win cons safe in exile. However, this also means that Mairsil has to be in play to win. Your opponents will likely start working together and directing their resources to shutting you down, which really only requires keeping him off the board. Now you have to weigh setting up your win against preventing the table from killing you or locking you out. I run a lot of counter magic and protection to stop that from happening. AEtherling, Cavern Harpy, Darting Merfolk, Command Beacon, Morphling, and Torchling all help to keep Mairsil out of the Command Zone to avoid building up Commander Tax and to hopefully keep the board locked down with a caged ability or two. With your commander protected, you can work on putting together win cons.

Caging up deterrents can also help shift the crosshairs from you. Players are usually gonna leave you alone if you have a Nevinyrral's Disk Disk or Boompile caged and ready to pop in response to their shenanigans. Though, caging those cards can be more of a liability than a deterrent if you can't activate them at instant speed. If I don't plan on, or can't, activate them until my turn I usually don't cage them until the end of the turn before mine. If you cage them early but can't use them all you're doing is asking for trouble. Also, don't underestimate the power of Galecaster Colossus. That dude's ability doesn't care about summoning sickness so you can bounce a permanent each turn, even if you had to blink Mairsil the turn before.

Once you have your protection and deterrents caged, you can really start to focus on assembling your win conditions while you continue to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy your opponents' game plans and board states.

If you've survived to the late game, you should be in a good position to close the whole thing out. You've likely been repeatedly boardwiping the field and countering spells before they can become problems, so there shouldn't be much left standing in your way. My current win condition is a caged Tree of Perdition and Spikeshot Elder, or just attacking because everyone should be wide open (or you're unblockable because of AEtherling's second ability). I go over other common Mairsil win conditions later in the primer in case this one doesn't float your boat.

And that's it! Congratulations, you've just won a game of commander or you were knocked out so early that you had time to catch up on that Netflix series you've been neglecting.

Not Applicable.

Just kidding! Sort of. This deck doesn't work without Mairsil on the field. He's got the mother of all Voltron weaknesses. If your opponents' removal game is on fire then you might just be out of luck. A lot of players (at least on Reddit) would say that that makes this deck unplayable but I just view it as a challenge to overcome. Sure, its frustrating and disappointing as hell when you get locked out of a game or don't manage to accomplish much before it ends but that can happen with literally any commander. And to be fair, this deck can lock a table down pretty soundly with an early game Nevinyrral's Disk in the cage.

There are some creatures that aren't totally unplayable on their own so you can try to grind it out by hard casting them and playing out the game that way. Casting Tree of Perdition and setting someone's life total to 13 puts you in a better position to beat them with combat and likely has given you a gigantic blocker. A win isn't likely without Mairsil online but it's not completely hopeless.

Don't keep that risky hand, I promise you it's not gonna work out . Without a way to blink/bounce him and cage up new abilities, you're left with a very non-threatening commander and really no backup strategy. You won't draw into that missing color or a way to find a blink/bounce engine before you're too far behind your opponents. It took me a long time to accept this but when I did, my play experience improved drastically! You need those repeated ETB triggers. Otherwise, you just durdle until someone else wins.

Nothing short of three lands is acceptable, and a tutor or some draw is desirable. Slam down those lands, draw those cards, and tutor that AEtherling.

It's tough to mulligan down to six, five, or even four, but you have to remember that there's really only one card that gets this deck on its feet and that is AEtherling. You can't do much with a full grip of cards but no engine so mana and a tutor are more important that anything else. Hopefully your opponents are dropping enough bombs to buy you some time to assemble this monster. Even though they know Mairsil can pop off with just the right card and they really want to knock you out quickly, it's hard for them to justify spending those resources on poor old Mairsil when Sally is over there ramping six times a turn and Johnny has out his Rhystic Study and Blind Obedience, ya know?

There's a surprising number of game ending combos that Mary can pull off, and I'll go into detail how they work. I don't run all of these anymore but it helps to know your options. Pick whichever ones sound like the most fun to you!

AEtherling: You cage him up and then activate his blink ability before moving to end step. If you do it at the end step, Mairsil won't return to the field until the next end step (a tough lesson to learn). Each time Mairsil reenters the battlefield you'll get to cage up another artifact or creature from your hand or graveyard. It's also useful for blocking bigger creatures and dodging removal. Block then blink before damage, blink in response to being targeted. If you're down to 1v1 and it looks like commander damage might win you the game, use the "-lings" +1/-1 abilities to pump up Mairsil (only once per turn, per -ling) and then make him unblockable with this guy to get you to 21 faster.

Quicksilver Elemental: This card is the key to going infinite with Mairsil. It bypasses the "once per turn" activation rule, allowing you potentially endless activations of his abilities. When you cage a card with Mairsil, all instances of the card referencing itself by name (such as Quicksilver Elemental) are then read as referencing Mairsil by name instead. So if you target Mairsil with Quicksilver Elemental's ability, he will gain another instance of all of the activated abilities he has caged. Each Quicksilver Elemental activation compounds on the last, increasing the activations exponentially.

Tree of Perdition/Spikeshot Elder: When you cage a card with Mairsil, all instances of the card referencing itself by name (such as Tree of Perdition) are then read as referencing Mairsil by name instead. So when you tap Mairsil to activate the Tree's ability, it will actually turn your opponent's life total to whatever Mairsil's toughness is, which is typically 4. Then you activate Spikeshot Elder to deal lethal damage. However, doing this also changes Mairsil's toughness to whatever that opponent's life total was, so this combo won't work again until you blink Mairsil to reset his toughness to 4. Tree of Perdition is still extremely useful without Spikeshot Elder. You can use it as a political tool to help someone else take out a problematic player, or you can activate it, then untap Mairsil (we've got lots of options to make that happen), activate Aetherling's second ability, and swing for lethal. Hateflayer is a perfectly good substitute for Spikeshot Elder.

Knacksaw Clique/Prismatic Geoscope (or Gilded Lotus or Coveted Jewel): This combo requires Prismatic Geoscope to be able to tap for 3 mana and to also have Quicksilver Elemental caged to get the infinite activations. Tap for UUU, untap with Knacksaw Clique for UU, activate Quicksilver Elemental for U, repeat. Mill all of your opponents out in one go.

Oona, Queen of the Fae/Infinite Mana: This combo requires Quicksilver Elemental, a 3-mana rock, and a one-mana untapper (Morphling; Torchling if Prismatic Geoscope can tap for all three colors since he requires red to untap and Quicksilver and Oona require blue). Tap for UUU (or UUR), untap for U (or R), activate Quicksilver Elemental for U, net one blue mana, repeat for infinite mana. Then activate Oona and target your opponents. You'll have unlimited activations of her ability as well as any others you have caged due to going infinite with mana. You don't necessarily need to have Oona caged for this to work because she's not involved in the mana generation. You can play her after you've done the rest if the opportunity to do so presents itself.

Anthroplasm/Sage of Hours: Probably the simplest and most powerful combo this commander can pull off. Both creatures need to be caged for this one to work. Pay 5 and tap Mairsil to put five +1/+1 counters on him with Anthroplasm's ability. Then, activate Sage of Hours's ability to take an extra turn by removing five +1/+1 counters from Mairsil. Rinse and repeat until you find a wincon or your opponents scoop to an infinite turns loop.

Mirror-Mad Phantasm/Thassa's Oracle: This combo requires Mirror-Mad Phantasm to be caged and Thassa's Oracle in hand to be cast. Activate Mirror-Mad Phantasm's ability which will now read: "1U: Mairsil, the Pretender's owner shuffles it into his or her library. Etc..." BUT, you still search your library for "a card named Mirror-Mad Phantasm" because that part of the ability is not referencing the caged Mirror-Mad specifically. It is only looking for "a card" named Mirror-Mad Phantasm. Since there won't be one, you mill your entire library. Then cast Thoracle for the win.

**Side note, you must shuffle Mairsil into your library for this to work. You can't just activate Mirror-Mad Phantasm's ability and then send Mairsil to the command zone. The "reveal until you find a Mirror-Mad" has an "if" clause in front of it which only resolves if the card is shuffled in. If, for instance, someone removes Mairsil in response to the activation, nothing happens.

Nevinyrral's Disk or Boompile/blink: Activate and then blink in response. Hard for your opponent's to win when they've got nothing on the board.

Ancient Tomb: You get it.

Command Beacon: Commander Tax adds up quick and Mairsil is a real big target for removal. This can save you quite a bit of mana if your commander has been eating a lot of removal during a game.

Minamo, School at Water's Edge: Comes in untapped and taps for blue (the most important color) and can untap Mairsil, allowing him to use a second tap ability in a single turn.

Xander's Lounge: Fetchable land with all three of our basic land types stapled on it. Can also be grabbed by cycling Lorien Revealed

Shocks and Fetches: Run 'em if you've got 'em.

The rest are just basics and "duals" for grixis.

Sol Ring: Yes.

Arcane Signet: Pretty much a given at this point in Commander, and I am not above running staples.

Commander's Sphere: Just recently replaced Chromatic Lantern with this one. I tend to blow the board up a ton and Commander's Sphere can at least get me a draw before it goes to the yard. As an added bonus, if you cage up Commander's Sphere, you can always sac Mairsil in response to a kill spell that you can't otherwise evade and get a draw from it.

Darksteel Ingot: An indestructible mana rock to survive multiple Nevinyrral's Disk and Boompile activations.

Prismatic Geoscope (and/or Gilded Lotus or Coveted Jewel) are usually caged up rather than cast, but you obviously can cast them as well. Any of these can be used with Knacksaw Clique and Quicksilver Elemental for the infinite mill combo.

Relic of Legends: Solid as just a typical mana rock on the field but caged it guarantees you a blue mana as long as Mairsil is untapped, regardless of summoning sickness.

Fellwar Stone: An efficient 2 CMC mana rock with relevant flavor text to boot!

Boompile: A board wipe that can hit Planeswalkers too. This card may be a little meta-dependent, it was a later addition for me after Planeswalkers started showing up in my usual playgroup en masse. Due to the way Boompile is worded, you have to blink Mairsil in response to the activation. No actions may be taken between the flip and the destroy effect, so you can’t wait and see the outcome of the flip before deciding to blink Mairsil. Same goes for your opponents too, though.

Nevinyrral's Disk: One of the best cards in the deck. A repeatable board wipe that costs one mana to activate and is really hard to counter. The only thing it doesn't hit is Planeswalkers but that's what Boompile is for.

The One Ring: Just an insanely good card in this deck. The indestructible is nice because it can survive my own board wipes, it's ETB effect has been relevant on more than one occasion, and even caged this thing does the business.

Candlekeep Sage: Should theoretically draw you two cards per AEtherling blink. Not a bad deal for 3 mana.

Extraordinary Journey: Could come in handy as removal but I mostly cast it for X=0. It's like half a Candlekeep Sage when used with AEtherling and can sometimes get you some cards from your opponents, which is neat.

Rhystic Study: Gotta draw cards to win games.

Arcane Denial: Counter magic is important in any deck that runs blue. This deck uses counter magic mostly as protection for the commander but also for occasionally interrupting someone else's game plan.

Big Score: There are a lot of cards that can be grabbed out of the graveyard in this deck so the discard cost is negligible. Getting two treasures in addition to two cards is a pretty sweet deal. Bonus points if the card you discard is Anger.

Bolt Bend: My usual playgroups are super heavy on targeted removal and this deck is their boogeyman. It should never cost more than one red since it's in the deck to protect the 4/4 commander. Solid deal IMO.

Confound: Should usually draw you a card since it will likely be used to save Mairsil from a removal spell.

Counterspell: The OG.

Cyclonic Rift: Play it if you got it.

Deflecting Swat: A free redirect is sick. Not only can you save Mairsil, you can hurt the guy who tried to hurt you.

Disallow: My favorite counter spell of all time. I love the flexibility.

Entomb: A great tutor, but only for cards you can cage (or Anger).

Essence Flux: I realized that most of my counter magic was being used to protect Mairsil from targeted removal. This does essentially the same thing but with the added benefit of triggering his ETB effect as well as evading the removal spell.

Evacuation: I used to rely solely on Nevinyrral's Disk and Boompile as my board wipes but sometimes I ended up needing a wipe that didn't rely on caged cards. Plus, Mairsil is typically my only creature on the field so if someone is swinging out at me I need some way to stop the assault.

Fierce Guardianship: Speaks for itself.

Filter Out: A fantastic board wipe that basically resets your opponents' early game artifact ramp and any noncreature engines they may be trying to get online.

Flame of Anor: A super versatile spell that will always be relevant. Draw, artifact destruction, and/or creature removal. Mairsil himself is a wizard so you will usually get to choose two modes.

Force of Negation: Free counter magic is free counter magic.

Force of Will: See Force of Negation.

Imp's Mischief: Sometimes spells can't be countered, sometimes you're out of blue mana, sometimes you need someone else to do your dirty work.

Intuition: Arguably the best tutor in the deck. Pick three cards you can cage and it won't matter which goes to your hand and which hit the graveyard. Being able to do it on the end step before your turn gives you some protection from, say, a well timed Bojuka Bog after you spent your last turn on a Buried Alive. Feels bad, man.

Mana Drain: A strictly better Counterspell.

Mystical Tutor: Tutor for a different tutor sometimes, tutor for a sweeper sometimes. Who's to say? Pro tip: Using this to put a Devastation Tide on top of your library is chef's kiss.

Negate: A little more narrow than some of our other counter magic but it still puts in work.

Siren's Ruse: Same idea as Essence Flux. Dodge removal, get an ETB trigger, profit.

Stubborn Denial: Usually gonna be a one-mana Negate.

Swan Song: Can't argue with a one-mana counter spell that hits most board wipes and targeted removal.

Tale's End: Hits commanders and stops a lot of planeswalker nonsense. Honestly, the number of different scenarios this can be a real "gotcha!" card is staggering.

Vampiric Tutor: The best instant speed tutor in the game.

Wyll's Reversal: A pretty solid redirect IMO. I like it because it doesn't eat up blue mana, spells that are coming my way are usually removal so it's always fun to "no u" an opponent, and the potential to also get to copy the spell is pretty tight.

Half of these are tutors and the other half are board wipes lol.

Being so light on permanents means wiping the board will rarely set us back even remotely as far as they will our opponents.

The Elderspell is probably meta-dependent. I run it in all of my black decks because planeswalkers have a strong presence in my regular group.

Vandalblast is never a bad idea.

Lorien Revealed is a new addition that I've been loving. I would say 90% of the time I'm cycling it for Xander's Lounge but the draw has also come in clutch numerous times.

AEtherling: What more can I say about this guy? You need him to play the game. He is the most efficient way to cage abilities and is some of the best protection you could ask for. Always cage him first.

Anger: Get this guy into your graveyard ASAP. Haste makes a world of difference in this deck. It's the difference between activating Nevinyrral's Disk every turn or hoping no one rebuilds much before it gets back around to you.

Arcanis the Omnipotent: Very efficient card draw on this guy. His bounce effect could come in handy I guess, though I can't remember a time I've had that much extra blue lying open.

Cavern Harpy: A decent backup plan to AEtherling's blink ability in case someone responds to the blink with a kill spell. Activate this in response and Mairsil is back in your hand rather than the Command Zone. It's not terrible on its own either, especially 1v1.

Darting Merfolk: A backup to the backup lol.

Dockside Extortionist: A super mana-intensive deck needs a super mana-producing source. My group plays pretty high powered and fast so he scales nicely with all of their cheap, early artifact ramp.

Galecaster Colossus: One of the most effective forms of removal in the deck and you can activate it even with summoning sickness.

Morphling: Probably your second-best protection in the deck. Shroud is perfectly fine in this deck since you're never actually "targeting" Mairsil with his abilities. Stops your opponents from doing it though. A one-mana untap ability is extremely useful. Flying is also helpful if you need to block.

Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded: An indestructible haste-enabler. He'll never be a creature but that's not why I've included him in my deck. A resilient haste-enabler is super valuable. I also stumbled across a neat little interaction with him as a pseudo- Sneak Attack if you find yourself with Mairsil back in your hand. As long as you can blink or send Mairsil back to your hand before the end step, you can get him back on the field for cheap (and without using any of your blue sources!) and it's pretty tough to counter. He combos especially well with Cavern Harpy and Darting Merfolk if you find yourself without AEtherling in the cage as well.

Spellseeker: Tutor for a tutor, plus a body on the field since we really do struggle to block.

Spikeshot Elder: Mostly used as a combo piece with Tree of Perdition to one-shot an opponent but he can also be used to deal with those pesky planeswalkers or problematic creatures.

Thassa, Deep-Dwelling: An indestructible Conjurer's Closet that costs less. A free flicker at the end of your turn that'll get you an ETB trigger and save you one blue mana for an Aetherling activation later on.

Torchling: Mostly used for his untap ability but his third ability is also solid protection from targeted removal.

Tree of Perdition: A very strong, very simple win condition. It's nice to have Spikeshot Elder or Hateflayer caged as well but it's just as effective with an unblockable attack using AEtherling's second ability.

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Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

49 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.84
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Treasure
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