Mairsil, the Uber Villain

Commander / EDH* Casual Combo Competitive Control Infinite Combo Multiplayer

MDoomsday

Land (34)

• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 3x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x River of Tears
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Spirebluff Canal
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (21)

• 1x AEtherling
• 1x Anger
• 1x Anthroplasm
• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Cavern Harpy
• 1x Crimson Mage
• 1x Dralnu, Lich Lord
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Hateflayer
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Lightning Mauler
• 1x Morphling
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Oona, Queen of the Fae
• 1x Sage of Hours
• 1x Shauku, Endbringer
• 1x Torchling
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Viashino Heretic

Artifact (15)

• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Urza's Blueprints

Commander (1)

Instant (16)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Desperate Ravings
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Forbidden Alchemy
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical Teachings
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Thought Scour
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Careful Study
• 1x Cathartic Reunion
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Doomsday
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

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Introduction to Mairsil

Mairsil is by far one of my favorite commanders ever printed, as there are many different ways to build the deck that can include aggressive voltron, casual goodstuff, zombie/wizard tribal, grouphug/thug, land destruction, infinite combo, hard control, etc. It can be as mean as you want it, and you will find that Mairsil lends itself to playing some very underplayed yet very powerful cards, and can be perfect for players who are tired of seeing and playing with the typical overused cards.

Let’s Not Pretend...

Mairsil himself is a pretty broken card.

As a note, Mairsil as a commander is not necessarily a very “competitive” commander. My friends and I (including some very seasoned competitive edh players and judges) have had a hard time placing where he fits on a competitive scale, and we have currently determined he might be just shy of competitive viable. That being said, deck construction for Mairsil is highly variable and it might be that the optimal build has yet to be discovered. So as with almost every magic card, it may just be a matter of time before someone finds a way to break him. Until then, this deck is on the high power end of casual, but the low power end of competitive, and I have won and lost in both categories.

About the Deck

This deck is somewhere between hard control and infinite combo, and is designed for multiplayer games (this deck is not legal for Duel Commander, but the pieces that aren’t legal are fairly unipmortant so that can be changed easily if you want). I do run the card Nevinyrral's Disk, which might draw some ire from your playgroup. You have been warned.

The primary win condition for the deck is infinite combos, as these are quite resilient once you cage the pieces with Mairsil. I could see it possible though to win through commander damage with the right hand, but I personally try my best as a subgame to win without ever attacking with Mairsil. Just a silly personal thing, but you might find yourself doing it too.

On that note this list is also identical to my one (including prints and foils) so the list will likely change both cosmetically and in content over time.

Doomsday Laboratory Maniac

Exile the following onto Mairsil:

-Memory Jar (Optional)

So if you have ever assembled a Doomsday pile, you can probably see exactly how this goes. But if you have never assembled a doomsday pile, the way you stack it is so that you can get Laboratory Maniac out and then draw out your deck into a win. So, the typical way to do this is to stack a draw spell on top, then laboratory maniac followed by another card draw spell and/or a fetchland. Whatever you have in hand will help the success of your stack a lot if it draws you into cards, but tutors are much MUCH less good once you have your pile. I prefer a lot of times to have Cavern of Souls either in hand or on the battlefield when I doomsday so that I can be sure that laboratory maniac resolves, because as you can guess you WILL die if he does not resolve. Caging Memory Jar onto Mairsil is just a way to be sure that once you resolve laboratory maniac you can be sure you draw the rest of your deck, but it is definately not necessary

Infinite Turns

Exile the following onto Mairsil:

-Sage of Hours

-Anthroplasm

It is an infinite turns combo, and most opponents will just scoop to it once you have it running. But in case they make you play it out, it costs 5 mana and tapping mairsil (with the two cards caged) to take an extra turn. If you can get both exiled onto mairsil then all you need to do is take turns until you draw into a way to blink mairsil to cage AEtherling, or cast Oona, Queen of the Fae. Then, once you can get 10 mana into the anthroplasm ability (to take 2 turns in a row) you can attack every other turn with mairsil (aetherling gives unblockable for 1 mana), or Oona them out. Slowly kills them and once you assemble the lock it can be quite hard to interrupt.

Life reduction

Exile the following onto Mairsil:

-Tree of Perdition

Tree has text that reads that you trade its toughness for an opponent’s life total. When exiled onto mairsil, activating the ability will put them to 4 life normally. Then you can attack them with mairsil (AEtherling can give unblockable, also, you can give mairsil +1/-1 until his toughness becomes exactly =1, then use the tree ability)

Things to remember:

1. Mairsil can only use each ability he steals one time each turn UNLESS he leaves the battlefield
2. The rest of the deck is essentially a control deck. You really want to resolve Mairsil and then protect any other non-Mairsil pieces
3. Every activation of Quicksilver Elemental (if caged with him) resets Mairsil's "once per turn clause" (since it gains a new instance of the copy ability)
4. If you are casting Buried Alive you should probably consider one of the cards being Anger, just to make the combo easier (or just to secure future turns). Without external help Mairsil does not have haste so you want to try to either first cage abilities not requiring you to tap him or give him haste prior
5. AEtherling is easily one of the best cards in the deck when paired with a card draw ability
6. Your life total will go down very quickly with this deck, and you can’t really get life back so be careful. I’ve won the game with only 1-2 life left many times
7. Do not cast Mairsil unless you have a good cage target or a way to blink him
8. Cavern of Souls should always be on either ‘human’ or ‘wizard’. Yes there are times when this is not the case but they are extraordinarily rare

That is about it! I hope you enjoy it, and of course, have fun!!!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.85
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Faerie Rogue 1/1 UB
Folders	Wizards Reference, Commander, mairsil ideas, Cool Decks