Richard Garfield, Ph.D.

Legendary Creature — Human Designer

You may play cards as though they were other Magic cards of your choice with the same mana cost. You can't choose the same card twice. (Mana cost includes colour.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Unformat	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (21)

Niko9 on Name a Legendary Creature Concept …

2 years ago

Ashdust He was a legendary creature in unstable I, I think. Richard Garfield, Ph.D. and I just thought it would be funny to have a planeswalker who left the unsets and found themselves in a normal set. And, no biggie if it is too odd a one.

DuTogira on Richard Garfield Ph.D

3 years ago

I'm gonna do my best to help here, but I want to start with a warning:
Any game with a Richard Garfield, Ph.D. deck is going to feel much like that first game. The best case for you, the player, is that you successfully continue to 'conjure' cards all game long until you win, which leaves opponents feeling like they're playing an unfair game (which, if you play right, they are). Worst case is twofold: You lose and feel like you made a mistake and 'conjured' the wrong card(s), or garfield gets removed so thoroughly and consistently that you end up piloting a trash heap. Average case is that you 'conjure' some suboptimal cards, but garfield is forgiving enough that you have a decent, albeit completely mentally exhausting game. Be careful trying to pilot a deck like this: it's inherently draining and unfun, both to play and play against.

Now for making things easier:
Make a bunch of proxies. Use the "base card" that you're going to 'conjure' into others, but replace the art with proxy bubbles like what is seen here:

Put say your top 10 "likely to be conjured" cards in place of where the art would be using that proxy template.
Get a bunch of large penny sleeves so you can put them over each proxy and bubble in which card is being played as you play it OR keep proxies of those 10 in some token-area so you can produce the "real" card being represented. Proxies will be more work to manage, but not using them means you'll have to keep hyper-encyclopedic knowledge of every card that COULD be in your deck. This will at least reduce the time you have to spend thinking about what to 'conjure' when garfield is in play.

Good luck with this. I honestly expect every aspect of this deck to be a literal hell.

kpres on Richard Garfield Ph.D

3 years ago

Hi Friends,

I built an EDH deck a couple of years ago with Richard Garfield, Ph.D. as the commander. My deckbuilding challenge was to use the worst blue cards and artifacts -- cards as irrelevant as Balduvian Shaman and Delif's Cone. The idea is that when he is not in play, the deck is completely useless, but as soon as you get him onto the battlefield, suddenly your Dark Sphere becomes Pact of Negation and your Air Elemental becomes Dream Halls.

In theory, the deck was absolutely nuts, but I ended up playing it once, getting frustrated, and taking it apart. The reason was that I wasted too much time during the game on looking up cards in Gatherer and writing things down on sticky notes. It was terrible! No fun for anyone.

Just recently, I had an idea that I could prepare for any game by printing proxies on cards I planned to play. I could have little slips of paper that go in front of the card so that everyone knows my Ornithopter has become a Black Lotus.

Has anyone else built a deck with Richard Garfield and has some thoughts to share? I'm looking forward to putting it back together and getting a proxy-board together.

Thank you,

kpres

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By the way, I recently learned how to search Gatherer for specific mana costs. This is highly relevant for deck building with this commander. In the "Mana Cost" field, you can type m/3uu/ to search for ; e.g. https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&mana=+=[m/3uu/]

SquirrelPenguin on Card creation challenge

4 years ago

Flickering Insight

Sorcery

Exile target nontoken permanent, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.

Whenever an opponent casts a green spell this turn, you draw a card.

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Ninja'd, i need to do above.

Plynar, Bridge Reborn

Legendary Artifact--Gate

, : Search your opponent's library for a permanent card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.

So I made another Planar Bridge for when Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas rebuilds it.

---

Now this is for the wildcard that I got ninja'd on.

I mashed up Flicker and Insight. for the wildcard. For the next challenge, try to make a card based off of a Wizards employee (Richard Garfield, Ph.D. is an example)

megamataman on More Rule Changes Than Yu-Gi-Oh

4 years ago

I'm seriously suprised you didn't include Richard Garfield, Ph.D. in this, or did you forget about it?

triproberts12 on Newbie needs help getting into …

5 years ago

Yay. Everyone loves some Commander. It's pretty much Magic as Richard Garfield, Ph.D. intended. If you want to see what your options are, I recommend checking out EDHREC. If you click on the Commanders tab at the top, you can see what your options are in each color identity, and if you click on the themes (tribal, +1/+1 counters, graveyard, etc.) tab, you can see if any of those styles of decks speak to you, and the site will show you what decks across the internet from sources such as TappedOut run in those decks. The other thing you can do is, if you have pet cards you would like to build around, you can enter those cards in the search bar, and it will tell you how many decks that card is played in, and what the most common cards are to see it run alongside.

I know you said you don't care much beyond liking UG, but, to get you started on ideas, if you like UG Merfolk, I recommend Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca if you want to go hard tribal or Tatyova, Benthic Druid if you want to draw cards and ramp. I built her as Druid tribal, and the deck is a blast. If you really don't care about creature type, but putting out an army, drawing cards, and taking extra turns is appealing to you, Edric, Spymaster of Trest is powerful and fun. If it's the counters aspect of Merfolk you enjoy, Experiment Kraj is a fun one, and if it's playing at instant speed that appeals to you, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter is the pick.

If you want to branch into a third color, you can have your Merfolk (Lorwyn goodies that come in UB or WU such as Sygg, River Cutthroat included) and your counter theme with Thrasios, Triton Hero + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan / Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker , or you can go enchantress with Tuvasa the Sunlit .

Before you get started, here's a useful video by The Professor on basic deck construction, and here's another Tolarian Community College video on choosing a Commander.

Check out the full list of options on EDHREC, especially in the themes section, and good luck!

triproberts12 on Temple of the False God …

5 years ago

Not until every false temple is burned to the ground. Richard Garfield, Ph.D. sent me. I'm on a mission from God.

ennuii on Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List]

6 years ago

Odysseus_97 bucket_boy101I know he's a promo, but he doesn't appear even on the insanity list and or the banned list.

He is also "technically legal" at the moment. I mean Frankie Peanuts and Richard Garfield, Ph.D. are on there. He should at least me linked on the list. He is king afterall.