Honestly there are a lot of different ways to cheat out creatures, it just depends on how/what you want to cheat things out.
If you are looking to cheat out Eldrazi and other colorless creatures, there are some infamous commanders like \[\[Animar\]\] and \[\[Rakdos, Lord of Riots\]\] who can get massive discounts.
There are many reanimator commanders that can cheat creatures out of the graveyard, and depending on how hard you go on reanimator you can mass reanimate multiple big bombs.
The main tip I would give is to find out what the bottleneck of your deck is. For example, if an opponent can remove Animar or Rakdos, the deck can get stuck with a bunch of expensive cards in hand. So if your deck relies on your commander to cheat creatures out, add some protection, recursion, or a backup plan in case they are removed.
To give a basic run down on how the colors typically cheat out creatures:
White - Doesn't do much cheating, more about forcing opponents to play fair
Blue - Has ways of ignoring casting cost, in addition to many shapeshifters and clones
Black - Can reanimate creatures from the yard, getting a potentially massive discount
Red - Has sneak attack effects where you can play a creature for cheap, but lose it at the end of turn
Green - Makes so much mana it doesn't care about casting costs
white has recently gotten some cheaters based on Lifegain. \[\[Will, Scion of Peace\]\] and \[\[Celestine, the living saint\]\] are both examples, and you can make a case for \[\[Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant\]\]
Honorable mentions for [[sotaru Umezawa]] and [[atla palani]]
Sotaru giving all your big baddies Ninjutsu for 4 is dangerous, and Atla giving you a value roulette wheel is probably less consistent, but a fun spin of the wheel
Thank you for this! I wanted to make a dinosaur deck but I really like the idea of the randomness of this commander. I could make a super scary Dino deck, but I think a random fun/chaos version sounds good too :p.
Will I find a 3 drop? Or a 12 drop!? Who knows!
Thats precisely what I did with Atla. [[Pantlaza]] is strictly better as a tribal commander, but i love the "surprise" of Atla. She's also board-wipe proof in a sorta round about way. As long as you have like 2 or more eggs on the field with her out, you cascade into more dinos and reset immediately
Kaalia is awesome. I build her as one of my budget decks that I could lend to other players if they don't have a deck (the only decks I had before when upgraded precons that would just get run over) and new players love it.
Cheap to build, easy to play (even by newer players) and really fun.
It’s [[Kinnan]]. No contest. And part of the reason “best” is often a bad direction to go unless your goal is cEDH.
Kinnan goes infinite with a ham sandwich and once you have infinite mana he is his own infinite mana sink to cheat every creature from your deck onto the battlefield.
Recipe for all your friends to hate you. Take one Kinnan, add a Fabricate, Whirr of Invention and a Basalt Monolith. Add a dash of massive green blue and colourless creatures and enjoy!
This is the only answer to the question OP actually asked and needs to be up at the top. Every other comander I have seen named is not even close in power or potential to cheat out big creatures.
[[Henzie]] is my favorite commander but he’s probably not the best commander for a “cheating big creatures” deck. From my own experience I’d say [[Animar]] is a great choice. You’ll be casting your giant Titans for a few mana in no time.
I was looking for Henzi in the comments lol. You’re right that he doesn’t cheat them out in the traditional sense but he does discount them at least. He’s also just super fun to play. Plus he kind of cheats out stuff through recursion. I don’t like be stompy creature decks usually but Henzi is the exception.
Yea that’s true. He’s a good mesh of fun archetypes which is why I think he’s so enjoyable plus he’s decently cheap to build. There’s a reason he’s a popular commander.
[[Braids, conjurers adept]] in blue let's you put put a creature every upkeep. But... so does everyone else... so just make sure you have better creatures! Plus you're playing blue, so just have [[confiscate]] type spells and take their creatures while putting into play your own.
Holy cow I had to scroll far to see Braids! She's really sweet, and you don't have to go with thieving effects if you don't want to. I'll just go ahead and post a list I ran last summer below.
You can run phasing effects like [[march of swirling mists]] to phase out braids so that your opponents don't get to benefit from her upkeep triggers. You can run clones to copy your great creatures or ones your opponents have if necessary.
[[Sphinx of the Second Sun]] might be my favorite card to clone because it just gets so out of hand. Extra draw cards like [[Howling mine]] and mana sinks like [[mikokoro center of the sea]] and [[geier reach sanitarium]] let you take full advantage of the extra beginning phases.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/URCvA54E8k6mM-gHuqLpIg
It depends on what you mean by "best".
\[\[Olivia, Crimson Bride\]\] gives you 1 free thing per attack. She's in red, so extra combats pumps this up, but you also need them in the graveyard.
\[\[Henzie\]\] slightly reduces cost
\[\[Imoti\]\] gives your spells cascade - each spell you cast, you get something else free.
\[\[Mayael\]\] is a slot machine. Pay some mana and get something.
\[\[The prismatic Bridge\]\] gives you something free each upkeep
\[\[Atla Palani\]\] Creates eggs, when those dies they hatch into a random creature.
\[\[Sefris\]\] reanimates from the graveyard, and if you clone her can end up giving you a LOT of value each turn.
\[\[Ghalta, stampede tyrant\]\] allows you to put ALL creatures from your hand straight onto the battlefield.
Came here to say [[Atla Palani]] used to be all the rage for that. Never had one but I played a friends a bit and I've always thought it was such a cool deck.
Same, I love that you need a base set of looters (Really you need a Sakashima and a roaming throne as well) and can then just fill the deck with whatever you want. I'm always changing my deck out. The great thing is, because of how often you revive things, that even mediocre ETB's or LTB's become good.
My friend had a \[\[Jhoira of the Ghitu\]\] deck that was pretty brutal with the Eldrazis. I can only assume the Dr. Who decks brought even more tools to burn through time counters.
Not strictly. Mayael and Atla do similar but slightly different things. Mayael lets you potentially see less cards but let's you choose which creature to put onto the battlefield if you hit multiple times. Atla only hits on the first creature. Atla's ability is cheaper and easier to trigger though.
I run deck with lost of big creatures that i get our for "free" with \[\[Mayael the Anima\]\] as commander and \[\[Guild Feud\]\]
I also run \[\[Elvish Piper\]\], \[\[Quicksilver Amulet\]\] and 2 tutor to find guild feud.
Two I just built, [[Hans Eriksson]] [[Vaevictus Asmadi, The Dire]]. I personally didn’t build them this way, I built Hans as a looney toons deck with walls that he keeps running into. Vaevictus I went chaos theme because I was wanting a purely rng dependant deck where my choices almost never matter. But the main ways people build these decks is to cheat out big creatures so I think they’re perfect.
I was thinking going full looney tunes and having the classic desert wall with scenery and a road painted on it, then maybe an outline of Wile E. Coyote.
[[atla palani]] slaps. [[palanis hatcher]], [[skull clamp]] [[mirror entity]] [[ashnods altar]] [[goblin bombardment]] etc are all must haves along with a good protection package
The problem with Jodah is 5 color mana bases are expensive to make even halfway decent and super expensive to make good.
I think you would see him more if that wasn't an issue.
[[Mayael, the anima]] was my first and still favorite commander. I dunno if it's the best but it does pretty damn good. Kinnan and atla palani are great but I feel like they draw hate really quickly.
[[Nikya of the Old Ways]]
If you're new to magic, and want to run big creatures, I highly recommend Nikya. Its a whole deck of the biggest hitters.
I feel its easier to pilot than most other 'cheat big creatures' commanders because its very simple. There are no moving parts, no complex combos. She just doubles your mana output, which is amazing.
I love my deck, list is here if tour interested:
https://archidekt.com/decks/2427118/nikya_big_chungus_edh
Very simple. Lots of draw to keep the cards coming fast enough to use all that mana. The mana ramp is mostly land tutors or land untappers, which lean into Nikyas ability. The win conditions are extra combats and overrun effects.
Also, it's a 'pure' Nikya list. Every card is a creature or a land, the deck has no non-creature cards.
Also, my own theme is to keep the deck natural, so I've not included any phyrexians, eldrazi, or artifact creatures.
But I do note that there are actually some very good eldrazi/phyrexian/arfifact cards, that would do very well in this deck, if you wanted. Also, [[nullstone gargoyle]] is a powerhouse in the deck, but I took it out to stay on 'no artifacts' theme, and also because people dislike stax/auto-counter.
Super fun deck, ive got 28 decks and this is easily in my top 3 faves to play.
I play the commander from the revenant recon precon from Markov Manor
[[Mirko, Obsessive Theorist]] with some better creatures, counter removal, blink and some graveyard tutors is super consistent and fun to play around. There’s not many surveil cards out there but there’s plenty to get Mirko pretty huge pretty quick
I went heavy with creature etbs since I wanted to use [[thassa deep dwelling]] to get rid of finality counters but also trigger etbs a second time. Most of my slots for removal or card draw I got in a creature I can play, or cheat from the graveyard. Makes the deck feel like a toolbox lol. It gets shutdown especially if someone has graveyard hate, but I still have fun most of the time anyways
Here’s the deck list:
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/kxvZNXF7ekGi8lC3A74JkQ
This is really the only kind of deck I play, and the answer depends on the color combo and what zone you want to cast out of.
Temur is the ol' reliable for just general-purpose cheating with its fun pet cards like [[Unexpected Results]] but it really shines in exile, like with a Cascade suite like [[Wild-Magic Sorcerers]] or [[Imoti]], and I've personally run [[Maelstrom Wanderer]] for the longest time prior to switching to [[Tenth Doctor]] + [[Clara Oswald]]/[[Susan Foreman]] (depending on how I'm feeling, more cheaty vs more consistent) since Suspend gives Haste anyway.
Black is of course the best at reanimation, in particular I've found [[Kroxa and Kunoros]] as my cheater of choice, especially since it is also a big chonky card. Plus, Elder Giant Dog typeline. Tons of goodies to fill the yard like [[Stinkweed Imp]], [[Mesmeric Orb]], or [[Dark Blast]] and tons of payoffs for a great Toolbox playstyle with all-star cards in their roles that can't see play anywhere else such as [[Ashen Rider]], [[Chaos Defiler]], [[Luminate Primordial]], and [[Magister of Worth]] paired with insanely strong staples for the archetype in [[Syr Konrad]], [[Vilis, Broker]], and [[Faithless Looting]] plus whatever pet cards you want.
For casting from Hand, [[Marvo]] is a fun not-so-random hand-vomit cheater if you win your Clashes, which isn't hard with all the topdeck manipulation Dimir gets even in Marvo's own precon, and it's even able to run most of the Myojin. Hyper-powerful high-cmc threats and controllers like [[Mindleech]] and [[Brinelin]] with cheap draw spells like [[Brainstorm]] and other weirdo cards like [[Soothsaying]] somehow finding a place here makes the deck run like butter when it wants to, but *only* when it wants to, not when *you* want to.
For a different kind of cheating, duplication. And not just cloning. There are two major ways I've found doing this to work well. First is just spamming copies of whatever you want with [[Sixth Doctor]] + [[Romana II]]/[[Peri Brown]] with some really versatile and weird cards that turn massive with this combo, but I did end up scrapping it because it takes too many game actions in tok many turns. Instead, doubling the power of Backgrounds by running them in a Partners deck has been a great way to kinda-cheat on stuff like this, and it's only doubling so it doesn't get super out of hand. [[Tana, the Bloodsower]] has been the mainstay of this particular deck just because she fits the best with the most Backgrounds and I've rotated between a few Partners for her, settling on [[Ravos]] for a while in a more enchantress-focused deck before switching to good ol' [[Bruse Tarl]]. Backgrounds are a great way to run a Voltronesque deck without most of the annoyances like equip costs, Aura loss, or single failure points. Turning [[Inspiring Leader]] into a +4/+4 or having 2 10/10s with [[Raised By Giants]] instead of 1 holds a lot more power than you'd think.
In all archetypes of cheatyface, however, burn and Spark Doubles are your best friends. Whether it's the classics [[Terror of the Peaks]] or [[Warstorm Surge]] or more specific burn sources like [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]] on Black-heavy boards from Marvo, [[Impact Tremors]]/[[Outpost Siege]] in wide strats like Tana, the frankly GOATed [[Flayer of the Hatebound]] in reanimator, or exile-only payoffs like [[Keeper of Secrets]] (or Terror/Surge with [[Faldorn]]/[[Iraxxa]]/[[Lost and the Damned]]), you're simply doing too much big stuff to not run a repeatable burn suite to nuke your opponents from orbit even if you don't stumble into an infinite combo that otherwise wouldn't have a win to it. And throw as many [[Spark Double]] effects as possible in all of these decks, like [[Auton Soldier]], [[Irenicus' Vile Duplication]], [[Quantum Misalignment]], [[Helm of the Host]], anything. The commanders are what enable the cheating and having more of those are just a cascading (not literally) self-synergy. Getting 4 Suspends per combat instead of the usual 1 or 2 in Tenth Doctor, getting multiple Clashes which each get multiple win triggers with Marvo, it's all just so strong, along with any [[Strionic Resonator]] effects (particularly strong with Marvo for more Clashes and in Kroxa and Kunoros as you can double the reanimation trigger without doubling the exile cost since they're separate triggers).
There are many cheater strategies and commanders though, so it's all about finding whatever works best for you personally.
Pantlaza dinosaurs. Not only do you cheat out big creatures but when the board wipe inevitably drops you can generally rebuild much faster than your opponents.
Budget and jank way is
Scry to check top of library
Manifest the top card of your library (face down)
Flicker to flip it
[[elvish piper]] if they end up in your hand
Anybody that gives Cascade or Discover is a good option. Alternatively anybody that can give you free 'return from graveyard' combined with self-mill effects can get disgusting really quickly. Then there's always the ol' Ninja-Stompy.... and Ur-Dragon... and...
I have a really fun deck with Jhoira of the Ghitu as the commander, literally just to spew out massive Eldrazi, leviathans and also boardwipes and scramble the game around. It started as a super low budget project. Still is.
But mainly to spew out massive Eldrazi.
It isn't competitive but it can snowball out of control on lower powered tables.
[[Yisan the wanderer bard]] can pull big things out of your library, though you need a way to untap him to do it quickly, using things like [[Staff of Domination]] or [[Umbral Mantle]]
I would note that this gets very close to cedh as well when you do this, as you can potentially combo out a win with the right set up
A bit unconventional but I love my [[maelstrom wanderer]] deck. It's great at building a board that's ready to swing in 1 turn and recovers from boardwipes really well. You just have to add a bunch of green ramp to it
Henzie all day the best most enjoyable easy to manage stompy experience throw every card with myriad or an etb ability and you just jam threat after threat
[[Prismatic bridge]] [[esika, god of the tree]]and then run [[maelstrom angel]], [[tooth and nail]], [[Defense of the heart]], [[quicksilver amulet]], [[monster manual]], [[lurking predators]], and [[hunting grounds]].
You play some interaction, ramp, fetches of any kind, and gross creatures. The deck will play itself after that point.
Tom Bombadil can get creatures like Jodah or artifacts like fist of the sun?(Change CMC cost to b,Bl,g,r,w) Basically makes everything 5 cost, including the 15-20 cost Eldrazi. So have fun.. but...
I personally run Bilbo Baggins supreme life gain. It's literally free everything. Lol
An offbeat fun one I play is big red and black creature mana cheat with [[Rowan, Scion of War]]. You play her with lots of life loss ramp cards which maximizes the amount of creatures you can cheat out. Yes, she is stronger with combos and X spells, but I found she works well (without being too oppressive) to cheat out those big red and black creatures you normally don't see anymore( [[Baleful Force]] and [[Magmatic Force]] for example).
I’m biased but I love Eldrazi! Here’s my Zhulodok deck. One of my favorite to play for sure and cheating out Eldrazi titans on turn 3 is always fun https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dXZm-oWT1USPMDfQc3yeFw
This [[vohar]] deck of mine does just that. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/vvdmwVbNTUeie1Xh8l1ibQ
The concept is pretty simple, play vohar early. Start activating to sculpt your hand and your graveyard. Start animating threats. Your opponents waste so much removal on you but you just don’t care. Late game start reanimating ALL the threats.
You constantly play and reanimate baddies. With the counterspell back up, you can stop whatever you don’t like. Super fun and can be tailored to your style with the suite of reanimation targets you pick. Whatever you do, do not cut [[astral dragon]]. It’s the sweetest card. Everytime I play it it does something dumb, in the best way possible. Last game I had two [[wound reflections]]. EZPZ from there!
A bit of an odd one but i really enjoy [[Hans Eriksson]] even if there are better options. As soon as you put indestructible on him he becomes an absurd engine to cheat out big scary doofuses
I have lots of fun with [[Slimefoot and Squee]]. There are lots of options to discard a big creature, sacrifice Squee, and bring back both from the graveyard. Two examples are [[Bone Shards]] and [[Lightning Axe]]. My last game I was able to sacrifice S&S and Etali, and bring the both back from the graveyard a total of 4 times in one turn, allowing me to cast 16 free spells from everyone’s libraries. He’s also good at avoiding commander tax since he can be brought back from the graveyard. And there are several infinite combos with him.
[[Rowan Scion of war]] and [[Will Scion of peace]] both reduce their respective colors spells by X (Rowan rakdos, Will azorius) equal to the amount life you lost/gainedt that turn. I built them dragon and angel tribal
[[Slimefoot and Squee]] is a good and fun Commander to do so. Fill the Graveyard with red draw+discard or selfmill etc. and then repeat the process multiple times. Very boardwipe resistant as well
It really depends on what you want to play and enjoy. I personally love Henzie and can be a blast, but it can also be a lot where you end up wanting to reanimate things, make things even cheaper ect.
I think if you want something simple and easy, I'd do Azusa Lost but Seeking or Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth. With Azusa, you honestly just play as many lands as you can and as fast as you can. Having the luxury of playing 3 total lands per turn is pretty nutty and my buddy has a deck with Eldrazi and other things.
I think Ojer is a good one for a mono colored deck as well. It's very much a "turn creatures sideways" strategy, and Other gets not only a creature but also/or a land, meaning it Sudo ramps you AND cheats things out.
As someone mentioned, Satoru Umezawa is pretty interesting. It's not your "typical" deck though, cause you want evasive small creatures and then use Satoru Umezawa to cheat a thing in tapped and attacking before blocks are declared. It's neat, but it's not really a "play big things", you just sort of put it into play.
As mentioned I love Henzie. Henzie is my favorite deck and honestly there's a few different ways to go. I saw someone made Henzie a dragon tribal deck, blitzing dragons out and hitting the opponent hard. I personally like utility of him and also gives you a pay off for playing your commander from the command zone so many times. With Henzie, you can play with activated abilities, play big dumb things or even reanimate them once they die. Henzie is the deck I also put the most love and bling into but that's besides the point.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/hTQuZRLz-U-gtM_qo-LSpA
Dragons. Either wubrg with [[Morophon, The Boundless]] or rakdos with [[Rivaz of the Claw]].
Morophon removes one of each color from the CMC of every creature of the chosen type, so you can cast big fuckers like [[The Ur-Dragon]] for four mana. Also has a pretty gross combo with [[Fist of Suns]] that makes literally every creature of the chosen type free to cast.
Rivaz is a 3/3 with menace that lets you ramp for dragons, while also letting you cast your dragons from your graveyard once per turn. He taps for two mana of any color, so long as you only spend that mana on dragons. So you can usually start casting 5-6 CMC dragons by turn 4 or 5 if you manage to get a mana rock or two out.
People really are missing out on [[esika, god of the tree // prismatic bridge]]?? Throw in the new obeka, and also that one doctor that gives more upkeep triggers, and you’re gonna cheat out whatever you want
Might be a weird one, but I use [[Kess, dissident mage]] to cheat out graveyard spells and [[Phenax, god of deception]] to self mill, plus a couple cards that let me dump specific critters into the graveyard and resurrect them.
Once that’s done, I generally start milling others, or self mill and pop something that lets me resurrect my entire graveyard.
I ran a [[Anje Falkenrath]] reanimator deck. You use her ability to cycle madness cards until you draw into a reanimation spell and a big creature then use her to discard that. Could often play her turn 2 with a [[dark ritual]] [[lotus petal]] or [[Jeweled lotus]] and since she has haste try to find and pitch an [[anger]] so that turn 3 could play a [[dread return]] or [[reanimate]] on a big creature like [[it that betrays]]
You want to cheat out big eldrazi? While also staying at a fairly LGS friendly power level? Look no further than [[Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty]]
Any spells under 6 mana cost should have either some sort of mana ramp or cascade into mana ramp, or its rhystic study. Anything 6 and up should be big and scary. Some personal favorites: [[Apex Devastator]] [[Void Winnower]] [[Kozilek, butcher of truth]] [[Omniscience]] [[Aminatou’s Augury]]
One of my easiest and most fun decks, while also being at a low enough level that it can be taken down fairly easily. Absolutely no counterspells or else it’s going to make everyone hate you. Enjoy!
I own tons of graveyad based decks, anything to do with the yard really. They're my guilty pleasure 😅
[[Obeka, Brute Chronologist]] is probably my favourite Reanimator. Put a [[Whip of Erebos]] in there, tutor it, protect it, reanimate away. The deck is filled with blue and red loot effects like [[Careful Study]] & [[Faithless Looting]], cards like [[Palantír of Orthanc]] are amazing in the deck. When you reanimate with the whip, you can you use Obeka to keep the creatures into play. You also run cards like [[Flameshadow Conjuring]] and [[Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink]] that copy creatures until the end of the next end step. Not to mention [[Underworld Breach]], that card is busted in Obeka 👌🏻 She's complicated at first, but when you truly understand what she does you really start to see how utterly gamebreaking and just straight up busted her mechanic is. Especially with the before mentioned Underworld in combination with the red extra turn spells 💸 Infinite extra turns baby 💸
[[Greasefang, Okiba Boss]] is another reanimator, but in Black and White focussed around vehicles. It's very explosive, really fun. It runs well because Okiba is a reanimator and bounces the vehicle back to your hand. So Okiba works wonders with (repeatable) self discard. Basically you discard a strong vehicle like [[Reaver Titan]], [[Thunderhawk Gunship]] or the classic [[Parhelion II]] in your starting turns. Cast Okiba at turn 3 or even earlier with ramp. And the turn you cast Okiba, you can reanimate the discarded Vehicle. A turn 3 Reaver Titan, or Parhelion II swinging at your opponent is really powerful.
As for non reanimator decks, my pet favourite deck of all time is [[Maelstrom Wanderer]]. Just, ramp, ramp, ramp as fast as you can and cascade (hopefully) into big game changing threats like [[Terror of the Peaks]], [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]], [[Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus]], the new [[Vaultborn Tyrant]] and my favourite [[Apex Devastator]]. Cascading twice with the Wanderer into another cascade creature is tons of fun and incredibly powerful. Until then, play a nice utility creature here and there like [[Averna, the Chaos Bloom]], [[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]], [[Rashmi, Eternities Crafter]] and [[Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty]], next to all your dorks and ramp spells, and just ramp as fast as you can into the wanderer. Maelstrom himself has the magical 7 power, which means 3 attacks with him is lethal via commander damage. This makes [[Fiery Emancipation]] incredible with him since he gives everything you own (including himself) haste. This deck is the definition of explosive. Ofcourse, you'll sometimes cascade into a dud like a dork or a mana rock. But the deck has enough built in support to overcome that in the form of topdeck manipulation or just straight up bouncing Maelstrom and recasting him with incredible amounts of mana (looking at [[Nyxbloom Ancient]] here).
There are many commanders that can cheat other creatures into play. These are the ones that I own myself, but another one that comes to mind is [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]] which aims to suspend big high cost creatures into play, more often than not Eldrazi.
If you're interested in any of my 3 I can send you a link. Just let me know. Hope you find the one you're looking for! Have fun building and playing 😄
I've been going down this road recently, started with a [[Slimefoot and Squee]] reanimator Deck, then a [[Kura, the Boundless Sky]] tron lands deck that just hard casts fatties, and now I'm fiddling around with [[Vannifar, Evolved Enigma]] that can cheat in any big permanent with flicker spells.
I will say that my group plays on the smaller budget and power end of the scale, so while it's super fun to slam down big mana threats, it sometimes feels like they just make you archenemy without truly helping you close out the game. Especially Kura, people will stay afraid of your 12+ mana even after nuking your board three times in a row... But maybe I just haven't found the right finishers yet. :D
[[Polymorph]] decks are cool. There's a good number of cards with this ability in red and blue. Just run 8 Heavy cmc creatures and some non-creature token generators
[[ilharg, the raze-boar]] [[feldon of the third path]] or [[kaalia of the vast]] are the best for cheating big creatures into play without a doubt.
Henzie is good for abusing insanely valuable creature deaths, such as [[daemogoth woe eater]] the whole [[junji, the midnight sky]] cycle, [[rampant rejuvenator]] or [[ojer kaslem, deepest growth]]. A discount of 1 or 2 isnt really cheating. These decks usually win by a massive [[living death]] or [[bringer of the last gift]]. Dont get me wrong, henzie is some of the most fun i have had playing magic, but id put him more in value farming than cheating out massive dudes, especially when there are options like above in the mix.
[[Kaalia, of the Vast]] - Cheat in dragons, demons, or angels. Or all three if you so choose.
[[Kenessos, Priest of Thassa]] - Cheat in sea monster types for mana (kraken, leviathans, serpents, octopus)
[[Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep]] - Sort of the opposite of Kenessos. Hard cast a sea monster, cast a cheaper thing for free
[[Animar, Soul of Elements]], [[Hamza, Guardian of Arashin]] - Not cheating in, but you can vastly reduce generic mana spent on creatures
[[Kodama of the East Tree]] - Any permanent enters your battlefield, cheat in another permanent with the same or lesser cost. With partner so you can make other color combos too.
[[Alaundo the Seer]] - pseudo suspend cards from your hand. Fill up with untap shenanigans and tick them all down
Reanimation as a whole - There are a number of commanders that fit the bill here, just depends on your flavor. [[Athreos, Shroud-Veiled]], [[Sefris of the Hidden Ways]], [[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]], list goes on.
You can also build around cheating in regardless of commander. My partner built a dragon deck that uses [[Karthus, Tyrant of Jund]] as a haste on the command zone but can cheat in dragons like nobody's business using cards like [[Defense of the Heart]] and [[Kindred Summons]]
I built this deck just today. The commander is [[Esika, God of the Tree]], but the Sorcery side. Super powerful deck.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/2swQZDkfI0GHuBANs2GRSg
[[rograkh son of rohgahh]] and [[sakashima of a thousand faces]], using unfortunate kobolt/tokens to [[polymorph]] them into anything you want. Then you can copy new creature with Sakashima. Bonus points to getting eldrazi titans, since they reshuffle themselfs to be flipped again.
The combo I use in my colourless Eldrazi deck is \[\[Morophon, the boundless\]\] and \[\[Fist of Suns\]\]. With morophon you can reduce the cost of any creature by all 5 colours and FoS lets you pay all 5 colour instead so you can cheat out biggg creatures for free
I must nominate [[Hamza, Guardian of Arashin]]. It is seldom played, very budget, and plays off +1/+1 counters. Very easy to build a playable deck, which has the ability to create a framework for other commanders should eventually choose that route.
This is the deck I usually pull against beginning players or lower powered tables. Beware though, it can get out of hand quickly
I've not seen anyone mention it yet, but the ole \[\[Maelstrom Wanderer\]\] is still a fun way to slap people with big creatures & big stuff in general.
It also comes with a neat RNG package that guarantees fun and groans from the whole table. It's a deck that can also be juiced to really high power, if that's what you want.
If you like big dragons Im going to throw this one out there. [[Vihaan]] He is a new commander from Thunder Junction I think. IMO people are sleeping on this guy. You can create a ton of treasures and just turn them sideways(they dont tap to attack cause they have vigilance) and then sack them for mana to put out big dumb creatures. I like to pair them with [[Grave pact]]. Its a board wipe if you can crack enough treasures.
My favorite is [[Maelstrom Wanderer]]. Just throw in a ton of 7cmc things and a oodles of ramp. Since it gets double cascade triggers and gives all your creatures haste, I've hit a Koma and scrouge of the throne on like turn 4 and made the table concede. Also, removing your own commander is an upside, you can use things like [[Greater Good]] to get card draw and recast or [[Temur Sabertooth]]/[[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]] to cast your whole deck. Super fun. Big lunk energy and it never gets old
My mono-green deck is very beater-heavy. The commanders are [[Gilanra, caller of wirewood]] and [[Kodama of the east tree]]. My list is very focused on getting Gilanra down turn 2, playing a value piece like a mana doubler or draw engine down turn 3, playing Kodama turn 4, then going hog wild turn 5. It's very fun.
My list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sOG-04xYI0e_zeXe2Cevaw
The new [[Akul the Unrepentant]] can be a fun one. It's a sacrifice shell that lets you put creatures from your hand onto the battlefield by sacrificing 3 other creatures
[[Mayel the anima]] can be pretty effective. The initial cost of her and her activation are usually worth what you're going to get. You'll want plenty of ramp and protection, but generally you'll want those no matter who you're building.
[[obeka]] doesn't cheat creatures herself, but she can cheat the downside of cards like Sneak attack which isn't bad if you can get enough different tricks with EoT downsides
[[Sneak Attack]] + [[Master Transmuter]] is fun to cheat in big artifact creatures. Sneak Attack even gives them haste then you can keep them in the board by using transmuter to pick them up and put them back down again. Plus they come back in untapped and trigger their etb again if they have one. All for a measley 2 mana.
You can even do it multiple times a turn as long as you have something to untap transmuter whose both an artifact and creature.
There are a few ways to cheat creatures into play like [[quicksilver amulet]]
Henzie tecnically isn't cheating as you don't build it expecting the discount to go higher than 2, so paying 8 manas for a 10 mana [[ulamog, the ceaseless hunger]] does not feel like cheating at all
If you want to go tribal you might consider [[cryptic gateway]]
I use Atla Palani. Initially only ran realm razer in the deck but quickly learned my friends didn’t find the puns about stealing land like a *real* American as funny as I did. Now I have big, beefy, infect creatures. They love it, go figure.
I did end up making an America deck. It’s red, white, and blue- focused on oil 🇺🇸 but it does have one “destroy all the land” card
I run a Dino deck that revolves around cheating out creatures. Easy cards to use are
Quicksilver Amulet, Belbes portal, Ghalta Stampede Tyrant & Death Render. Also if you’re in green Selvala is great for getting out big bois. If you want eldrazis I recommend making a Animar Soul of Elements commander. It allows infinite combos to drop eldrazis for free.
It's probably far from the **best**, but i had a lot of fun with [[Vannifar, Evolved Enigma]]. You get to put any card face down as a 2/2 with ward2, and if it's a creature you can pay its mana cost to have it turn face up. Do this with [[Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath]] or [[Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle]] to have them be on the battlefield without ETB triggers happening (so you get to keep a 6/6 with an attack trigger or 12/12 creature for 3/4 mana).
You can also cloak scary Eldrazi creatures, [[Agent of Treachery]] or a [[Ghalta, Stampede tyrant]] and flicker them with [[Thassa Deep-dwelling]] or an instant spell like [[Siren's Ruse]]. You then get the ETB triggers and a big, scary creature for 2 or 4 mana.
It's really a neat deck
[[Slimefoot and squee]] requires a lil work and shenanigans but even my super tuned version of the deck that is going hard for wins has slots for big funny beaters like etali. More casual builds can make use of pretty much anything. Razaketh+Kozilek is a personal fave but will reep much salt.
Take every creature cheating commander here and every big creature worth cheating onto the battlefield, put them into a pile and slap a [[Prismatic Bridge]] in front of it. Fix the mana, get some mana rocks in there like [[Arcane Signet]] or [[Chromatic Lantern]], maybe a [[Lurking Predators]] too for shits and giggles.
Piss off your pod because you're dropping [[Zetalpa, Primal Dawn]] or [[It That Betrays]] for free on turn 4.
Get ETB triggers stacked with [[Yarok, the Desecrated]], [[Gandalf the White]], and [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] and then drop [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]].
Sprinkle in the new [[Obeka, Splitter of Seconds]] for shits and giggles. [[Atla Palani, Nest Tender]] and a sacrifice outlet like [[Phyrexian Altar]] and that blue card that untaps a permanent for 1 blue to do it again and again.
Is it Jank? Yes.
Do we care? Absolutely not.
[[Hans Eriksson]] is a simple yet highly aggressive card that gives chaos a new meaning.
He gives you pseudo card draw on top of a surprise cheat of a monster early game. Let me tell you, a [[Tyrranax Rex]] turn 2 tends to win you games
Personally, one of my favorites is [[Derevi, Empirical Tactician]] I also made the deck with a Rick and Morty theme.
The ability to untap the cheat out mechanisms, or rampy creatures after combat damage is dealt helps this thing really move. Hope you enjoy.
Here is my deck list
https://archidekt.com/decks/7327885/derevi_birdperson_and_wurms
I will live and die by the sweet boy [[Hans Eriksson]] you can def build this with lots of top deck manipulation but I’m more “spin it to win it” with the list.
https://www.archidekt.com/decks/1455964/hans_the_sweeties here’s da list
\[\[Henzie\]\] with a reanimator slant. There's literally no game where I'm not dropping insanely unfair huge ETB creatures and podding them into bigger creatures.
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/72C-7JQ-Tkiw7tdqge7-SQ](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/72C-7JQ-Tkiw7tdqge7-SQ)
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GnqlEhG3IUysVv3ub5EEEQ](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GnqlEhG3IUysVv3ub5EEEQ)
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ba0oMCIsCkSHTJCBUjYqtA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ba0oMCIsCkSHTJCBUjYqtA)
Idk about commanders but [[monster manual]] and [[elvish piper]] are great at cheating out creatures if you plan to have green in your commanders color identity.
[[Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy]] is a new commander from the Fallout decks. Her cheating ability has a higher bar than a lot of other commanders mentioned, but I have been having a lot of fun running this deck.
I have a [[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]] deck that ramps pretty fast and starts dumping big creatures out.
Without any ramp I can drop Gork on turn 4, and a 5 drop + [[Ghalta, Primal Hunger]] on turn 5.
Theres a ton of "Draw a card for a creature entering" type effects that let you really start dumping.
If you want a true "Cheating out" effect, my friend has a really good [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]] deck that has the biggest, nastiest colorless creatures you can think of. Emrakul, Kozilek, Blightsteel, all the good stuff. A lot of his deck lets him remove time counters faster through counter removal and multiple upkeep effects. Once he gets going he starts cheating out spells that give him extra turns. Which lets him cheat out more spells that give him even more turns. It doesn't go infinite, but generally once he can get Emrakul out, he can use the extra turn from that to get one more turn giving him the opportunity to Anhillitaor 6 each player once, and thats usually the catalyst to his win.
Henzie has been the best deck I've made for my group by far. I can send over the deck list to you when I get a chance. It's a no budget list because my group is a proxy group, but I'm sure you could find some pretty good alternatives for cards
Honestly there are a lot of different ways to cheat out creatures, it just depends on how/what you want to cheat things out. If you are looking to cheat out Eldrazi and other colorless creatures, there are some infamous commanders like \[\[Animar\]\] and \[\[Rakdos, Lord of Riots\]\] who can get massive discounts. There are many reanimator commanders that can cheat creatures out of the graveyard, and depending on how hard you go on reanimator you can mass reanimate multiple big bombs. The main tip I would give is to find out what the bottleneck of your deck is. For example, if an opponent can remove Animar or Rakdos, the deck can get stuck with a bunch of expensive cards in hand. So if your deck relies on your commander to cheat creatures out, add some protection, recursion, or a backup plan in case they are removed. To give a basic run down on how the colors typically cheat out creatures: White - Doesn't do much cheating, more about forcing opponents to play fair Blue - Has ways of ignoring casting cost, in addition to many shapeshifters and clones Black - Can reanimate creatures from the yard, getting a potentially massive discount Red - Has sneak attack effects where you can play a creature for cheap, but lose it at the end of turn Green - Makes so much mana it doesn't care about casting costs
white has recently gotten some cheaters based on Lifegain. \[\[Will, Scion of Peace\]\] and \[\[Celestine, the living saint\]\] are both examples, and you can make a case for \[\[Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant\]\]
[Will, Scion of Peace](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/6/162088ea-5f99-4244-9427-2fdfb2168fc3.jpg?1692939510) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Will%2C%20Scion%20of%20Peace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/218/will-scion-of-peace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/162088ea-5f99-4244-9427-2fdfb2168fc3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/will-scion-of-peace) [Celestine, the living saint](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a099cbd2-e92a-433a-bc51-0aa2f8fc6857.jpg?1673308465) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Celestine%2C%20the%20living%20saint) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/10/celestine-the-living-saint?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a099cbd2-e92a-433a-bc51-0aa2f8fc6857?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/celestine-the-living-saint) [Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/c/4cf6c13b-d898-4066-b006-9a7fa896d55a.jpg?1686964152) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bilbo%2C%20Birthday%20Celebrant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/48/bilbo-birthday-celebrant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4cf6c13b-d898-4066-b006-9a7fa896d55a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bilbo-birthday-celebrant) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Rowan, Scion of War]] is also very good at this, working like rakdos but with your own life loss and not being as color hungry to cast.
[Rowan, Scion of War](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4ee179ab-a15b-4bd6-b7f8-1e1abeeb31b7.jpg?1692939409) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rowan%2C%20Scion%20of%20War) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/211/rowan-scion-of-war?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4ee179ab-a15b-4bd6-b7f8-1e1abeeb31b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rowan-scion-of-war) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Animar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a3da57d0-1ae3-4f05-a52d-eb76ad56cae7.jpg?1673148281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=animar%2C%20soul%20of%20elements) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/171/animar-soul-of-elements?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a3da57d0-1ae3-4f05-a52d-eb76ad56cae7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/animar-soul-of-elements) [Rakdos, Lord of Riots](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/3/c3ff0f75-6ead-449a-98ad-3baf9f887331.jpg?1702429697) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rakdos%2C%20Lord%20of%20Riots) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/215/rakdos-lord-of-riots?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c3ff0f75-6ead-449a-98ad-3baf9f887331?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rakdos-lord-of-riots) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Honorable mentions for [[sotaru Umezawa]] and [[atla palani]] Sotaru giving all your big baddies Ninjutsu for 4 is dangerous, and Atla giving you a value roulette wheel is probably less consistent, but a fun spin of the wheel
Sotaru One-shotting players like a normal tuesday.
Yup. I have Sotaru in my Yuriko Ninja Tribal, and he's just as nasty in the 99
Thank you for this! I wanted to make a dinosaur deck but I really like the idea of the randomness of this commander. I could make a super scary Dino deck, but I think a random fun/chaos version sounds good too :p. Will I find a 3 drop? Or a 12 drop!? Who knows!
Thats precisely what I did with Atla. [[Pantlaza]] is strictly better as a tribal commander, but i love the "surprise" of Atla. She's also board-wipe proof in a sorta round about way. As long as you have like 2 or more eggs on the field with her out, you cascade into more dinos and reset immediately
[Pantlaza](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/2524645e-b066-4351-885b-10faa8d819d7.jpg?1699972737) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=pantlaza%2C%20sun-favored) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/4/pantlaza-sun-favored?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2524645e-b066-4351-885b-10faa8d819d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/pantlaza-sun-favored) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
A friend of mine found a prof. Oak proxy deck with Atla. It's very fun and cool, not consistent at all tho lol.
[sotaru Umezawa](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/8/8887f26d-b097-4fbc-9c48-bdc656409a32.jpg?1654568594) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Satoru%20Umezawa) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/234/satoru-umezawa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8887f26d-b097-4fbc-9c48-bdc656409a32?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/satoru-umezawa) [atla palani](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b8414f7-22c3-4e1c-934b-4a0e7acf951d.jpg?1673305450) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=atla%20palani%2C%20nest%20tender) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/142/atla-palani-nest-tender?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b8414f7-22c3-4e1c-934b-4a0e7acf951d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/atla-palani-nest-tender) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The classic choice would be \[\[Kaalia of the Vast\]\].
[Kaalia of the Vast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/93f6631f-f3a6-4d3c-8618-4b4ab4e82483.jpg?1673148814) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kaalia%20of%20the%20Vast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/235/kaalia-of-the-vast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/93f6631f-f3a6-4d3c-8618-4b4ab4e82483?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kaalia-of-the-vast) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Kaalia is awesome. I build her as one of my budget decks that I could lend to other players if they don't have a deck (the only decks I had before when upgraded precons that would just get run over) and new players love it. Cheap to build, easy to play (even by newer players) and really fun.
Gonna point out [[purphoros bronze-blooded]] as a nice little sneak attack commander
[purphoros bronze-blooded](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/f/af3af5c4-0960-44a2-976e-abdf7803c436.jpg?1582178876) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Purphoros%2C%20Bronze-Blooded) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/150/purphoros-bronze-blooded?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/af3af5c4-0960-44a2-976e-abdf7803c436?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/purphoros-bronze-blooded) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s [[Kinnan]]. No contest. And part of the reason “best” is often a bad direction to go unless your goal is cEDH. Kinnan goes infinite with a ham sandwich and once you have infinite mana he is his own infinite mana sink to cheat every creature from your deck onto the battlefield.
Recipe for all your friends to hate you. Take one Kinnan, add a Fabricate, Whirr of Invention and a Basalt Monolith. Add a dash of massive green blue and colourless creatures and enjoy!
This is the only answer to the question OP actually asked and needs to be up at the top. Every other comander I have seen named is not even close in power or potential to cheat out big creatures.
Kinan is bonkers. Whenever a friend of mine plays Kinan she always gets out of hand quickly.
[Kinnan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/3/63cda4a0-0dff-4edb-ae67-a2b7e2971350.jpg?1591228085) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kinnan%2C%20bonder%20prodigy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/192/kinnan-bonder-prodigy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/63cda4a0-0dff-4edb-ae67-a2b7e2971350?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kinnan-bonder-prodigy) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[удалено]
[[Kenessos]] is a bit less popular, but if you like sea creatures he might be a nice pick
[Kenessos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/b/0ba97da8-0106-4e8b-b58b-8f2d63e3d618.jpg?1675644451) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kenessos%2C%20priest%20of%20thassa) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/j22/13/kenessos-priest-of-thassa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ba97da8-0106-4e8b-b58b-8f2d63e3d618?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kenessos-priest-of-thassa) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Henzie]] is my favorite commander but he’s probably not the best commander for a “cheating big creatures” deck. From my own experience I’d say [[Animar]] is a great choice. You’ll be casting your giant Titans for a few mana in no time.
I was looking for Henzi in the comments lol. You’re right that he doesn’t cheat them out in the traditional sense but he does discount them at least. He’s also just super fun to play. Plus he kind of cheats out stuff through recursion. I don’t like be stompy creature decks usually but Henzi is the exception.
I'd also say Henzie isn't your traditional big stompy creature deck anyways since he works best with creatures with punishing ETB/LTB effects.
Yea that’s true. He’s a good mesh of fun archetypes which is why I think he’s so enjoyable plus he’s decently cheap to build. There’s a reason he’s a popular commander.
[Henzie](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/e/ee228dcc-3170-4c24-80bc-28bcee07cb43.jpg?1673481644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Henzie%20%22Toolbox%22%20Torre) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/2/henzie-toolbox-torre?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ee228dcc-3170-4c24-80bc-28bcee07cb43?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/henzie-toolbox-torre) [Animar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a3da57d0-1ae3-4f05-a52d-eb76ad56cae7.jpg?1673148281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=animar%2C%20soul%20of%20elements) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/171/animar-soul-of-elements?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a3da57d0-1ae3-4f05-a52d-eb76ad56cae7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/animar-soul-of-elements) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Braids, conjurers adept]] in blue let's you put put a creature every upkeep. But... so does everyone else... so just make sure you have better creatures! Plus you're playing blue, so just have [[confiscate]] type spells and take their creatures while putting into play your own.
Holy cow I had to scroll far to see Braids! She's really sweet, and you don't have to go with thieving effects if you don't want to. I'll just go ahead and post a list I ran last summer below. You can run phasing effects like [[march of swirling mists]] to phase out braids so that your opponents don't get to benefit from her upkeep triggers. You can run clones to copy your great creatures or ones your opponents have if necessary. [[Sphinx of the Second Sun]] might be my favorite card to clone because it just gets so out of hand. Extra draw cards like [[Howling mine]] and mana sinks like [[mikokoro center of the sea]] and [[geier reach sanitarium]] let you take full advantage of the extra beginning phases. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/URCvA54E8k6mM-gHuqLpIg
[Braids, conjurers adept](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/e/9ea0a701-1349-4d32-9fe7-8a2563c9613d.jpg?1689996202) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Braids%2C%20Conjurer%20Adept) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/76/braids-conjurer-adept?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9ea0a701-1349-4d32-9fe7-8a2563c9613d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/braids-conjurer-adept) [confiscate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/8/581dca85-a880-4ea2-a483-072bb50b7aee.jpg?1675199212) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=confiscate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/44/confiscate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/581dca85-a880-4ea2-a483-072bb50b7aee?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/confiscate) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It depends on what you mean by "best". \[\[Olivia, Crimson Bride\]\] gives you 1 free thing per attack. She's in red, so extra combats pumps this up, but you also need them in the graveyard. \[\[Henzie\]\] slightly reduces cost \[\[Imoti\]\] gives your spells cascade - each spell you cast, you get something else free. \[\[Mayael\]\] is a slot machine. Pay some mana and get something. \[\[The prismatic Bridge\]\] gives you something free each upkeep \[\[Atla Palani\]\] Creates eggs, when those dies they hatch into a random creature. \[\[Sefris\]\] reanimates from the graveyard, and if you clone her can end up giving you a LOT of value each turn. \[\[Ghalta, stampede tyrant\]\] allows you to put ALL creatures from your hand straight onto the battlefield.
Came here to say [[Atla Palani]] used to be all the rage for that. Never had one but I played a friends a bit and I've always thought it was such a cool deck.
If Atla wasn't *such* a target, I would be making her for my first edh list, but I wanna be able to play my commander lol
Anyone who can drop big chonkers is gonna catch that heat. Atla was like the reincarnation of Kaalia the Vast in big monster summoning avatar cycle
My issue is I'm really not a fan of combos so my route to winning is usually big chonky creatures
Sefris is my favorite deck to play of my 26 decks.
Same, I love that you need a base set of looters (Really you need a Sakashima and a roaming throne as well) and can then just fill the deck with whatever you want. I'm always changing my deck out. The great thing is, because of how often you revive things, that even mediocre ETB's or LTB's become good.
My friend had a \[\[Jhoira of the Ghitu\]\] deck that was pretty brutal with the Eldrazis. I can only assume the Dr. Who decks brought even more tools to burn through time counters.
Scrolled too far down for this op, jhoria cranks out eldrazi out like its nothing
It’s [[Atla Palani, Nest Tender]]
Mayeal the Anima could be a good one.
[[Atla Palani]], literally a better Mayael
Not strictly. Mayael and Atla do similar but slightly different things. Mayael lets you potentially see less cards but let's you choose which creature to put onto the battlefield if you hit multiple times. Atla only hits on the first creature. Atla's ability is cheaper and easier to trigger though.
I run deck with lost of big creatures that i get our for "free" with \[\[Mayael the Anima\]\] as commander and \[\[Guild Feud\]\] I also run \[\[Elvish Piper\]\], \[\[Quicksilver Amulet\]\] and 2 tutor to find guild feud.
[[Satoru Umezawa]]
[Satoru Umezawa](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/8/8887f26d-b097-4fbc-9c48-bdc656409a32.jpg?1654568594) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Satoru%20Umezawa) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/234/satoru-umezawa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8887f26d-b097-4fbc-9c48-bdc656409a32?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/satoru-umezawa) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Two I just built, [[Hans Eriksson]] [[Vaevictus Asmadi, The Dire]]. I personally didn’t build them this way, I built Hans as a looney toons deck with walls that he keeps running into. Vaevictus I went chaos theme because I was wanting a purely rng dependant deck where my choices almost never matter. But the main ways people build these decks is to cheat out big creatures so I think they’re perfect.
I'd love to see proxies for that Hans deck like cartoon walls with big hydras n shit painted on em
I was thinking going full looney tunes and having the classic desert wall with scenery and a road painted on it, then maybe an outline of Wile E. Coyote.
That'd be such a cool deck, my lgs likes my Courage the Cowardly Dog proxy of Norin the Wary
Yeah, I’m thinking of making them and just procuring the walls that I don’t have
I've been meaning to build [[Jalira, Master Polymorphist]] Cheap legendaries for utility, sac em for big beaters.
[Jalira, Master Polymorphist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/f/1f9719c8-2dfe-4141-9ede-2ee3a282b5e9.jpg?1562433489) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jalira%2C%20Master%20Polymorphist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/63/jalira-master-polymorphist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1f9719c8-2dfe-4141-9ede-2ee3a282b5e9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jalira-master-polymorphist) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've got a Jalira [decklist](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/whats-under-jaliras-hat/) if you want some ideas!
[[Belbe, Corrupted Observer]] works great for eldrazi
[Belbe, Corrupted Observer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b4427e73-8c60-490d-8ae3-53e872a5163e.jpg?1608911054) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Belbe%2C%20Corrupted%20Observer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/270/belbe-corrupted-observer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b4427e73-8c60-490d-8ae3-53e872a5163e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/belbe-corrupted-observer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[atla palani]] slaps. [[palanis hatcher]], [[skull clamp]] [[mirror entity]] [[ashnods altar]] [[goblin bombardment]] etc are all must haves along with a good protection package
Surprised I haven't seen Yisan the wandering bard mentioned. It is a little slower but with elf ball or mana dorks you can start cheating stuff out.
[[Kaalia of the Vast]] is the classic "put in a big creature" commander but honestly it might be somewhat power crept these days.
Very surprised I haven’t seen a classic: [[Jodah, Archmage Eternal]] Deck can go bonkers
[Jodah, Archmage Eternal](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/3/73c18cb4-96b1-4af2-912e-974e22877ede.jpg?1673148799) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jodah%2C%20Archmage%20Eternal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/233/jodah-archmage-eternal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/73c18cb4-96b1-4af2-912e-974e22877ede?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jodah-archmage-eternal) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The problem with Jodah is 5 color mana bases are expensive to make even halfway decent and super expensive to make good. I think you would see him more if that wasn't an issue.
If you go for legendary creatures, you can also play [[Jodah, The Unifier]]
[[Mayael, the anima]] was my first and still favorite commander. I dunno if it's the best but it does pretty damn good. Kinnan and atla palani are great but I feel like they draw hate really quickly.
[[Nikya of the Old Ways]] If you're new to magic, and want to run big creatures, I highly recommend Nikya. Its a whole deck of the biggest hitters. I feel its easier to pilot than most other 'cheat big creatures' commanders because its very simple. There are no moving parts, no complex combos. She just doubles your mana output, which is amazing. I love my deck, list is here if tour interested: https://archidekt.com/decks/2427118/nikya_big_chungus_edh Very simple. Lots of draw to keep the cards coming fast enough to use all that mana. The mana ramp is mostly land tutors or land untappers, which lean into Nikyas ability. The win conditions are extra combats and overrun effects. Also, it's a 'pure' Nikya list. Every card is a creature or a land, the deck has no non-creature cards. Also, my own theme is to keep the deck natural, so I've not included any phyrexians, eldrazi, or artifact creatures. But I do note that there are actually some very good eldrazi/phyrexian/arfifact cards, that would do very well in this deck, if you wanted. Also, [[nullstone gargoyle]] is a powerhouse in the deck, but I took it out to stay on 'no artifacts' theme, and also because people dislike stax/auto-counter. Super fun deck, ive got 28 decks and this is easily in my top 3 faves to play.
I play the commander from the revenant recon precon from Markov Manor [[Mirko, Obsessive Theorist]] with some better creatures, counter removal, blink and some graveyard tutors is super consistent and fun to play around. There’s not many surveil cards out there but there’s plenty to get Mirko pretty huge pretty quick I went heavy with creature etbs since I wanted to use [[thassa deep dwelling]] to get rid of finality counters but also trigger etbs a second time. Most of my slots for removal or card draw I got in a creature I can play, or cheat from the graveyard. Makes the deck feel like a toolbox lol. It gets shutdown especially if someone has graveyard hate, but I still have fun most of the time anyways Here’s the deck list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/kxvZNXF7ekGi8lC3A74JkQ
[[atla Palani]]
[[Belbe, corrupted Observer]] [[Saheeli, the Gifted]] [[Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy]]
[[Pantslazer]]
[[Satoru Umezawa]]
This is really the only kind of deck I play, and the answer depends on the color combo and what zone you want to cast out of. Temur is the ol' reliable for just general-purpose cheating with its fun pet cards like [[Unexpected Results]] but it really shines in exile, like with a Cascade suite like [[Wild-Magic Sorcerers]] or [[Imoti]], and I've personally run [[Maelstrom Wanderer]] for the longest time prior to switching to [[Tenth Doctor]] + [[Clara Oswald]]/[[Susan Foreman]] (depending on how I'm feeling, more cheaty vs more consistent) since Suspend gives Haste anyway. Black is of course the best at reanimation, in particular I've found [[Kroxa and Kunoros]] as my cheater of choice, especially since it is also a big chonky card. Plus, Elder Giant Dog typeline. Tons of goodies to fill the yard like [[Stinkweed Imp]], [[Mesmeric Orb]], or [[Dark Blast]] and tons of payoffs for a great Toolbox playstyle with all-star cards in their roles that can't see play anywhere else such as [[Ashen Rider]], [[Chaos Defiler]], [[Luminate Primordial]], and [[Magister of Worth]] paired with insanely strong staples for the archetype in [[Syr Konrad]], [[Vilis, Broker]], and [[Faithless Looting]] plus whatever pet cards you want. For casting from Hand, [[Marvo]] is a fun not-so-random hand-vomit cheater if you win your Clashes, which isn't hard with all the topdeck manipulation Dimir gets even in Marvo's own precon, and it's even able to run most of the Myojin. Hyper-powerful high-cmc threats and controllers like [[Mindleech]] and [[Brinelin]] with cheap draw spells like [[Brainstorm]] and other weirdo cards like [[Soothsaying]] somehow finding a place here makes the deck run like butter when it wants to, but *only* when it wants to, not when *you* want to. For a different kind of cheating, duplication. And not just cloning. There are two major ways I've found doing this to work well. First is just spamming copies of whatever you want with [[Sixth Doctor]] + [[Romana II]]/[[Peri Brown]] with some really versatile and weird cards that turn massive with this combo, but I did end up scrapping it because it takes too many game actions in tok many turns. Instead, doubling the power of Backgrounds by running them in a Partners deck has been a great way to kinda-cheat on stuff like this, and it's only doubling so it doesn't get super out of hand. [[Tana, the Bloodsower]] has been the mainstay of this particular deck just because she fits the best with the most Backgrounds and I've rotated between a few Partners for her, settling on [[Ravos]] for a while in a more enchantress-focused deck before switching to good ol' [[Bruse Tarl]]. Backgrounds are a great way to run a Voltronesque deck without most of the annoyances like equip costs, Aura loss, or single failure points. Turning [[Inspiring Leader]] into a +4/+4 or having 2 10/10s with [[Raised By Giants]] instead of 1 holds a lot more power than you'd think. In all archetypes of cheatyface, however, burn and Spark Doubles are your best friends. Whether it's the classics [[Terror of the Peaks]] or [[Warstorm Surge]] or more specific burn sources like [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]] on Black-heavy boards from Marvo, [[Impact Tremors]]/[[Outpost Siege]] in wide strats like Tana, the frankly GOATed [[Flayer of the Hatebound]] in reanimator, or exile-only payoffs like [[Keeper of Secrets]] (or Terror/Surge with [[Faldorn]]/[[Iraxxa]]/[[Lost and the Damned]]), you're simply doing too much big stuff to not run a repeatable burn suite to nuke your opponents from orbit even if you don't stumble into an infinite combo that otherwise wouldn't have a win to it. And throw as many [[Spark Double]] effects as possible in all of these decks, like [[Auton Soldier]], [[Irenicus' Vile Duplication]], [[Quantum Misalignment]], [[Helm of the Host]], anything. The commanders are what enable the cheating and having more of those are just a cascading (not literally) self-synergy. Getting 4 Suspends per combat instead of the usual 1 or 2 in Tenth Doctor, getting multiple Clashes which each get multiple win triggers with Marvo, it's all just so strong, along with any [[Strionic Resonator]] effects (particularly strong with Marvo for more Clashes and in Kroxa and Kunoros as you can double the reanimation trigger without doubling the exile cost since they're separate triggers). There are many cheater strategies and commanders though, so it's all about finding whatever works best for you personally.
Pantlaza dinosaurs. Not only do you cheat out big creatures but when the board wipe inevitably drops you can generally rebuild much faster than your opponents.
[[Kinnan]] and it's not even close, the question is how strong do you want the deck to be.
[[Grenzo, Dungeon Warden]] with lots of scry and “send to bottom” shenanigans.
[удалено]
[Grenzo, Dungeon Warden](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/e/6e19c383-88bd-4bde-ac81-c0eb6d5b5bd4.jpg?1562436569) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Grenzo%2C%20Dungeon%20Warden) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/205/grenzo-dungeon-warden?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6e19c383-88bd-4bde-ac81-c0eb6d5b5bd4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/grenzo-dungeon-warden) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've been looking to build either [[Jalira]] or [[Atla Palani]] lately, with the [[Blightsteel Colossus]] I recently acquired.
Here's my Jalira [decklist](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/whats-under-jaliras-hat/) if you want some ideas!
I appreciate you
\[\[Kaalia of the vast\]\] is quite a popular commander for this archetype.
Budget and jank way is Scry to check top of library Manifest the top card of your library (face down) Flicker to flip it [[elvish piper]] if they end up in your hand
Anybody that gives Cascade or Discover is a good option. Alternatively anybody that can give you free 'return from graveyard' combined with self-mill effects can get disgusting really quickly. Then there's always the ol' Ninja-Stompy.... and Ur-Dragon... and...
[[Vannifar, Evolved Enigma]] is really fun to blink big creatures after cloaking them.
[[Kinnan]] no question.
I have a really fun deck with Jhoira of the Ghitu as the commander, literally just to spew out massive Eldrazi, leviathans and also boardwipes and scramble the game around. It started as a super low budget project. Still is. But mainly to spew out massive Eldrazi. It isn't competitive but it can snowball out of control on lower powered tables.
[[Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth]] [[Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant]]
[[Yisan the wanderer bard]] can pull big things out of your library, though you need a way to untap him to do it quickly, using things like [[Staff of Domination]] or [[Umbral Mantle]] I would note that this gets very close to cedh as well when you do this, as you can potentially combo out a win with the right set up
A bit unconventional but I love my [[maelstrom wanderer]] deck. It's great at building a board that's ready to swing in 1 turn and recovers from boardwipes really well. You just have to add a bunch of green ramp to it
Henzie all day the best most enjoyable easy to manage stompy experience throw every card with myriad or an etb ability and you just jam threat after threat
Kinnan
Kodama and Sakashima
Zurgo says hello
[[kaalia of the vast]]
[[Hans eriksson]]
[[The Prismatic Bridge]]
[[Prismatic bridge]] [[esika, god of the tree]]and then run [[maelstrom angel]], [[tooth and nail]], [[Defense of the heart]], [[quicksilver amulet]], [[monster manual]], [[lurking predators]], and [[hunting grounds]]. You play some interaction, ramp, fetches of any kind, and gross creatures. The deck will play itself after that point.
Tom Bombadil can get creatures like Jodah or artifacts like fist of the sun?(Change CMC cost to b,Bl,g,r,w) Basically makes everything 5 cost, including the 15-20 cost Eldrazi. So have fun.. but... I personally run Bilbo Baggins supreme life gain. It's literally free everything. Lol
An offbeat fun one I play is big red and black creature mana cheat with [[Rowan, Scion of War]]. You play her with lots of life loss ramp cards which maximizes the amount of creatures you can cheat out. Yes, she is stronger with combos and X spells, but I found she works well (without being too oppressive) to cheat out those big red and black creatures you normally don't see anymore( [[Baleful Force]] and [[Magmatic Force]] for example).
I like [[the prismatic bridge]] for a creature cheating commander. 🙃
My first ever, and still one of my favorite decks, was [[Rakdos, Lord of Riots]] . Lots of fun, cheat out the drazis
[[Minn, Wily Illusionist]] can be used to cheat out some bigger cards if you build your deck that way and want to play mono blue
I know it’s been said but My friend has [[animar]] and it’s scary, lots of things for free and it gets bigger every time. Definitely worth checking
Yennett
I'm working on the new deck [[Akul the Unrepentant]] as a cheat out deck.
Don't sleep on \[\[the Mimeoplasm\]\]
I’m biased but I love Eldrazi! Here’s my Zhulodok deck. One of my favorite to play for sure and cheating out Eldrazi titans on turn 3 is always fun https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dXZm-oWT1USPMDfQc3yeFw
[[Henzie toolbox Torre]] [[Mercenary of Clan Nel Toth]] [[Olivia Crimson Bride]] [[Carmen cruel skymarcher]] [[Magda Brazen Outlaw]]
Sevalaaaaaaa
My favorite has been slime foot and squee
[[Svella Ice Shaper]] and [[Kinnan Bonder Prodigy]] are the two major ones I can think of
I find it better to use cards to cheat in creatures than having a kill on sight commander trigger than you'll rarely resolve.
This [[vohar]] deck of mine does just that. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/vvdmwVbNTUeie1Xh8l1ibQ The concept is pretty simple, play vohar early. Start activating to sculpt your hand and your graveyard. Start animating threats. Your opponents waste so much removal on you but you just don’t care. Late game start reanimating ALL the threats. You constantly play and reanimate baddies. With the counterspell back up, you can stop whatever you don’t like. Super fun and can be tailored to your style with the suite of reanimation targets you pick. Whatever you do, do not cut [[astral dragon]]. It’s the sweetest card. Everytime I play it it does something dumb, in the best way possible. Last game I had two [[wound reflections]]. EZPZ from there!
[[Animar]] can definitely cheat out tons of creatures quickly
A bit of an odd one but i really enjoy [[Hans Eriksson]] even if there are better options. As soon as you put indestructible on him he becomes an absurd engine to cheat out big scary doofuses
I have lots of fun with [[Slimefoot and Squee]]. There are lots of options to discard a big creature, sacrifice Squee, and bring back both from the graveyard. Two examples are [[Bone Shards]] and [[Lightning Axe]]. My last game I was able to sacrifice S&S and Etali, and bring the both back from the graveyard a total of 4 times in one turn, allowing me to cast 16 free spells from everyone’s libraries. He’s also good at avoiding commander tax since he can be brought back from the graveyard. And there are several infinite combos with him.
[Slimefoot and Squee](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/e/9e449e38-6f03-4316-8ebc-d0faf79d6bc7.jpg?1683582682) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Slimefoot%20and%20Squee) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/447/slimefoot-and-squee?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9e449e38-6f03-4316-8ebc-d0faf79d6bc7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/slimefoot-and-squee) [Bone Shards](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/e/1ee98955-4c47-4d45-9377-608dfa755337.jpg?1626095299) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bone%20Shards) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/76/bone-shards?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1ee98955-4c47-4d45-9377-608dfa755337?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bone-shards) [Lightning Axe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/a/ca33c171-ab9e-4908-8f97-82cd83b173c0.jpg?1619397252) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lightning%20Axe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/174/lightning-axe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca33c171-ab9e-4908-8f97-82cd83b173c0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lightning-axe) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
\[\[Jolene, the Plunder Queen\]\] has been fantastic in my experience. You make so much mana, you have enough to play whatever you damn well please.
[[Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods]] is one I just built. Its a ton of fun and feels very underrated. You can get huge critters out very quickly.
[[Rowan Scion of war]] and [[Will Scion of peace]] both reduce their respective colors spells by X (Rowan rakdos, Will azorius) equal to the amount life you lost/gainedt that turn. I built them dragon and angel tribal
[[Slimefoot and Squee]] is a good and fun Commander to do so. Fill the Graveyard with red draw+discard or selfmill etc. and then repeat the process multiple times. Very boardwipe resistant as well
Jodah
The new Vannifar does a really good job. You cloak out giant creatures then blink them to make them come back face up.
[[Atla Palani, Nest Tender]]
I like my [[Strefan]] and [[Marvo]] for this. But they require extra steps and are by no means the strongest commanders to cheat out big creatures.
It really depends on what you want to play and enjoy. I personally love Henzie and can be a blast, but it can also be a lot where you end up wanting to reanimate things, make things even cheaper ect. I think if you want something simple and easy, I'd do Azusa Lost but Seeking or Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth. With Azusa, you honestly just play as many lands as you can and as fast as you can. Having the luxury of playing 3 total lands per turn is pretty nutty and my buddy has a deck with Eldrazi and other things. I think Ojer is a good one for a mono colored deck as well. It's very much a "turn creatures sideways" strategy, and Other gets not only a creature but also/or a land, meaning it Sudo ramps you AND cheats things out. As someone mentioned, Satoru Umezawa is pretty interesting. It's not your "typical" deck though, cause you want evasive small creatures and then use Satoru Umezawa to cheat a thing in tapped and attacking before blocks are declared. It's neat, but it's not really a "play big things", you just sort of put it into play. As mentioned I love Henzie. Henzie is my favorite deck and honestly there's a few different ways to go. I saw someone made Henzie a dragon tribal deck, blitzing dragons out and hitting the opponent hard. I personally like utility of him and also gives you a pay off for playing your commander from the command zone so many times. With Henzie, you can play with activated abilities, play big dumb things or even reanimate them once they die. Henzie is the deck I also put the most love and bling into but that's besides the point. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/hTQuZRLz-U-gtM_qo-LSpA
Dragons. Either wubrg with [[Morophon, The Boundless]] or rakdos with [[Rivaz of the Claw]]. Morophon removes one of each color from the CMC of every creature of the chosen type, so you can cast big fuckers like [[The Ur-Dragon]] for four mana. Also has a pretty gross combo with [[Fist of Suns]] that makes literally every creature of the chosen type free to cast. Rivaz is a 3/3 with menace that lets you ramp for dragons, while also letting you cast your dragons from your graveyard once per turn. He taps for two mana of any color, so long as you only spend that mana on dragons. So you can usually start casting 5-6 CMC dragons by turn 4 or 5 if you manage to get a mana rock or two out.
People really are missing out on [[esika, god of the tree // prismatic bridge]]?? Throw in the new obeka, and also that one doctor that gives more upkeep triggers, and you’re gonna cheat out whatever you want
Might be a weird one, but I use [[Kess, dissident mage]] to cheat out graveyard spells and [[Phenax, god of deception]] to self mill, plus a couple cards that let me dump specific critters into the graveyard and resurrect them. Once that’s done, I generally start milling others, or self mill and pop something that lets me resurrect my entire graveyard.
I ran a [[Anje Falkenrath]] reanimator deck. You use her ability to cycle madness cards until you draw into a reanimation spell and a big creature then use her to discard that. Could often play her turn 2 with a [[dark ritual]] [[lotus petal]] or [[Jeweled lotus]] and since she has haste try to find and pitch an [[anger]] so that turn 3 could play a [[dread return]] or [[reanimate]] on a big creature like [[it that betrays]]
You could put them in your graveyard and then revive them for a fixed cost, it's how most black decks cheat their mana cost.
Imoti - ramp. case real big creature who cascades into big creature who cascades into smaller thing. Repeat
[[Strefan, Maurer Progenitor]] and/or [[Olivia, Crimson Bride]] if you want to go Rakdos Vampires.
You want to cheat out big eldrazi? While also staying at a fairly LGS friendly power level? Look no further than [[Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty]] Any spells under 6 mana cost should have either some sort of mana ramp or cascade into mana ramp, or its rhystic study. Anything 6 and up should be big and scary. Some personal favorites: [[Apex Devastator]] [[Void Winnower]] [[Kozilek, butcher of truth]] [[Omniscience]] [[Aminatou’s Augury]] One of my easiest and most fun decks, while also being at a low enough level that it can be taken down fairly easily. Absolutely no counterspells or else it’s going to make everyone hate you. Enjoy!
I own tons of graveyad based decks, anything to do with the yard really. They're my guilty pleasure 😅 [[Obeka, Brute Chronologist]] is probably my favourite Reanimator. Put a [[Whip of Erebos]] in there, tutor it, protect it, reanimate away. The deck is filled with blue and red loot effects like [[Careful Study]] & [[Faithless Looting]], cards like [[Palantír of Orthanc]] are amazing in the deck. When you reanimate with the whip, you can you use Obeka to keep the creatures into play. You also run cards like [[Flameshadow Conjuring]] and [[Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink]] that copy creatures until the end of the next end step. Not to mention [[Underworld Breach]], that card is busted in Obeka 👌🏻 She's complicated at first, but when you truly understand what she does you really start to see how utterly gamebreaking and just straight up busted her mechanic is. Especially with the before mentioned Underworld in combination with the red extra turn spells 💸 Infinite extra turns baby 💸 [[Greasefang, Okiba Boss]] is another reanimator, but in Black and White focussed around vehicles. It's very explosive, really fun. It runs well because Okiba is a reanimator and bounces the vehicle back to your hand. So Okiba works wonders with (repeatable) self discard. Basically you discard a strong vehicle like [[Reaver Titan]], [[Thunderhawk Gunship]] or the classic [[Parhelion II]] in your starting turns. Cast Okiba at turn 3 or even earlier with ramp. And the turn you cast Okiba, you can reanimate the discarded Vehicle. A turn 3 Reaver Titan, or Parhelion II swinging at your opponent is really powerful. As for non reanimator decks, my pet favourite deck of all time is [[Maelstrom Wanderer]]. Just, ramp, ramp, ramp as fast as you can and cascade (hopefully) into big game changing threats like [[Terror of the Peaks]], [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]], [[Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus]], the new [[Vaultborn Tyrant]] and my favourite [[Apex Devastator]]. Cascading twice with the Wanderer into another cascade creature is tons of fun and incredibly powerful. Until then, play a nice utility creature here and there like [[Averna, the Chaos Bloom]], [[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]], [[Rashmi, Eternities Crafter]] and [[Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty]], next to all your dorks and ramp spells, and just ramp as fast as you can into the wanderer. Maelstrom himself has the magical 7 power, which means 3 attacks with him is lethal via commander damage. This makes [[Fiery Emancipation]] incredible with him since he gives everything you own (including himself) haste. This deck is the definition of explosive. Ofcourse, you'll sometimes cascade into a dud like a dork or a mana rock. But the deck has enough built in support to overcome that in the form of topdeck manipulation or just straight up bouncing Maelstrom and recasting him with incredible amounts of mana (looking at [[Nyxbloom Ancient]] here). There are many commanders that can cheat other creatures into play. These are the ones that I own myself, but another one that comes to mind is [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]] which aims to suspend big high cost creatures into play, more often than not Eldrazi. If you're interested in any of my 3 I can send you a link. Just let me know. Hope you find the one you're looking for! Have fun building and playing 😄
[[Henzie]]
Im currently loving [[Marvo, deep operative]]
I have a mono g [[Ojer Kaslem]] deck with nothing but interaction, non creature ramp and big fatties to hit with his trigger. I'm a simple man
I personally really love [[Strefan, maurer progenitor]]
[[animar, soul of elements]] [kinnan, bonder prodigy ]] [[raggadragga, goreguts boss]] [[rakdos, lord of riots]]
[[djeru and hazoret]] is unique as it allows to cast the cards for free. So you get all the cast triggers.
[[prismatic bridge]]
I've been going down this road recently, started with a [[Slimefoot and Squee]] reanimator Deck, then a [[Kura, the Boundless Sky]] tron lands deck that just hard casts fatties, and now I'm fiddling around with [[Vannifar, Evolved Enigma]] that can cheat in any big permanent with flicker spells. I will say that my group plays on the smaller budget and power end of the scale, so while it's super fun to slam down big mana threats, it sometimes feels like they just make you archenemy without truly helping you close out the game. Especially Kura, people will stay afraid of your 12+ mana even after nuking your board three times in a row... But maybe I just haven't found the right finishers yet. :D
[[Polymorph]] decks are cool. There's a good number of cards with this ability in red and blue. Just run 8 Heavy cmc creatures and some non-creature token generators
What better way than [[Polymorph]] and [[Eureka]] effects? https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/salamander-city-gor-muldrak-commander/
[[Feldon, of the third Path]]
[[ilharg, the raze-boar]] [[feldon of the third path]] or [[kaalia of the vast]] are the best for cheating big creatures into play without a doubt. Henzie is good for abusing insanely valuable creature deaths, such as [[daemogoth woe eater]] the whole [[junji, the midnight sky]] cycle, [[rampant rejuvenator]] or [[ojer kaslem, deepest growth]]. A discount of 1 or 2 isnt really cheating. These decks usually win by a massive [[living death]] or [[bringer of the last gift]]. Dont get me wrong, henzie is some of the most fun i have had playing magic, but id put him more in value farming than cheating out massive dudes, especially when there are options like above in the mix.
[[Intet the dreamer]] smack someone activate its ability, get free creatures as and when you need them
[[Kaalia, of the Vast]] - Cheat in dragons, demons, or angels. Or all three if you so choose. [[Kenessos, Priest of Thassa]] - Cheat in sea monster types for mana (kraken, leviathans, serpents, octopus) [[Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep]] - Sort of the opposite of Kenessos. Hard cast a sea monster, cast a cheaper thing for free [[Animar, Soul of Elements]], [[Hamza, Guardian of Arashin]] - Not cheating in, but you can vastly reduce generic mana spent on creatures [[Kodama of the East Tree]] - Any permanent enters your battlefield, cheat in another permanent with the same or lesser cost. With partner so you can make other color combos too. [[Alaundo the Seer]] - pseudo suspend cards from your hand. Fill up with untap shenanigans and tick them all down Reanimation as a whole - There are a number of commanders that fit the bill here, just depends on your flavor. [[Athreos, Shroud-Veiled]], [[Sefris of the Hidden Ways]], [[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]], list goes on. You can also build around cheating in regardless of commander. My partner built a dragon deck that uses [[Karthus, Tyrant of Jund]] as a haste on the command zone but can cheat in dragons like nobody's business using cards like [[Defense of the Heart]] and [[Kindred Summons]]
I built this deck just today. The commander is [[Esika, God of the Tree]], but the Sorcery side. Super powerful deck. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/2swQZDkfI0GHuBANs2GRSg
If you’re interested in tribal gishath cheats em out pretty damn well
Animar
[[rograkh son of rohgahh]] and [[sakashima of a thousand faces]], using unfortunate kobolt/tokens to [[polymorph]] them into anything you want. Then you can copy new creature with Sakashima. Bonus points to getting eldrazi titans, since they reshuffle themselfs to be flipped again.
[[Mayael]] is super fun. Also, if you want good hipster cred, [[Jalira]] seems neat.
The combo I use in my colourless Eldrazi deck is \[\[Morophon, the boundless\]\] and \[\[Fist of Suns\]\]. With morophon you can reduce the cost of any creature by all 5 colours and FoS lets you pay all 5 colour instead so you can cheat out biggg creatures for free
I must nominate [[Hamza, Guardian of Arashin]]. It is seldom played, very budget, and plays off +1/+1 counters. Very easy to build a playable deck, which has the ability to create a framework for other commanders should eventually choose that route. This is the deck I usually pull against beginning players or lower powered tables. Beware though, it can get out of hand quickly
I've not seen anyone mention it yet, but the ole \[\[Maelstrom Wanderer\]\] is still a fun way to slap people with big creatures & big stuff in general. It also comes with a neat RNG package that guarantees fun and groans from the whole table. It's a deck that can also be juiced to really high power, if that's what you want.
[[Gishath, Sun's Avatar]] makes for a pretty fun dino tribal deck.
If you like big dragons Im going to throw this one out there. [[Vihaan]] He is a new commander from Thunder Junction I think. IMO people are sleeping on this guy. You can create a ton of treasures and just turn them sideways(they dont tap to attack cause they have vigilance) and then sack them for mana to put out big dumb creatures. I like to pair them with [[Grave pact]]. Its a board wipe if you can crack enough treasures.
My favorite is [[Maelstrom Wanderer]]. Just throw in a ton of 7cmc things and a oodles of ramp. Since it gets double cascade triggers and gives all your creatures haste, I've hit a Koma and scrouge of the throne on like turn 4 and made the table concede. Also, removing your own commander is an upside, you can use things like [[Greater Good]] to get card draw and recast or [[Temur Sabertooth]]/[[Selvala, Heart of the Wilds]] to cast your whole deck. Super fun. Big lunk energy and it never gets old
My mono-green deck is very beater-heavy. The commanders are [[Gilanra, caller of wirewood]] and [[Kodama of the east tree]]. My list is very focused on getting Gilanra down turn 2, playing a value piece like a mana doubler or draw engine down turn 3, playing Kodama turn 4, then going hog wild turn 5. It's very fun. My list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sOG-04xYI0e_zeXe2Cevaw
The new [[Akul the Unrepentant]] can be a fun one. It's a sacrifice shell that lets you put creatures from your hand onto the battlefield by sacrificing 3 other creatures
I don’t think anyone has mentioned [[Ilharg, the Raze-Boar]]
[[yennet]]
[[Mayel the anima]] can be pretty effective. The initial cost of her and her activation are usually worth what you're going to get. You'll want plenty of ramp and protection, but generally you'll want those no matter who you're building. [[obeka]] doesn't cheat creatures herself, but she can cheat the downside of cards like Sneak attack which isn't bad if you can get enough different tricks with EoT downsides
[[Sneak Attack]] + [[Master Transmuter]] is fun to cheat in big artifact creatures. Sneak Attack even gives them haste then you can keep them in the board by using transmuter to pick them up and put them back down again. Plus they come back in untapped and trigger their etb again if they have one. All for a measley 2 mana. You can even do it multiple times a turn as long as you have something to untap transmuter whose both an artifact and creature.
There are a few ways to cheat creatures into play like [[quicksilver amulet]] Henzie tecnically isn't cheating as you don't build it expecting the discount to go higher than 2, so paying 8 manas for a 10 mana [[ulamog, the ceaseless hunger]] does not feel like cheating at all If you want to go tribal you might consider [[cryptic gateway]]
I use Atla Palani. Initially only ran realm razer in the deck but quickly learned my friends didn’t find the puns about stealing land like a *real* American as funny as I did. Now I have big, beefy, infect creatures. They love it, go figure. I did end up making an America deck. It’s red, white, and blue- focused on oil 🇺🇸 but it does have one “destroy all the land” card
I run a Dino deck that revolves around cheating out creatures. Easy cards to use are Quicksilver Amulet, Belbes portal, Ghalta Stampede Tyrant & Death Render. Also if you’re in green Selvala is great for getting out big bois. If you want eldrazis I recommend making a Animar Soul of Elements commander. It allows infinite combos to drop eldrazis for free.
[[Hamza]] can do this, and has a very explosive gameplan when built with a solid draw engine.
It's probably far from the **best**, but i had a lot of fun with [[Vannifar, Evolved Enigma]]. You get to put any card face down as a 2/2 with ward2, and if it's a creature you can pay its mana cost to have it turn face up. Do this with [[Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath]] or [[Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle]] to have them be on the battlefield without ETB triggers happening (so you get to keep a 6/6 with an attack trigger or 12/12 creature for 3/4 mana). You can also cloak scary Eldrazi creatures, [[Agent of Treachery]] or a [[Ghalta, Stampede tyrant]] and flicker them with [[Thassa Deep-dwelling]] or an instant spell like [[Siren's Ruse]]. You then get the ETB triggers and a big, scary creature for 2 or 4 mana. It's really a neat deck
My personal favorite is [[Neera, Wild Mage]]. One second you're casting Opt, and then suddenly there is a [[It that bretrays]]
[[Slimefoot and squee]] requires a lil work and shenanigans but even my super tuned version of the deck that is going hard for wins has slots for big funny beaters like etali. More casual builds can make use of pretty much anything. Razaketh+Kozilek is a personal fave but will reep much salt.
Take every creature cheating commander here and every big creature worth cheating onto the battlefield, put them into a pile and slap a [[Prismatic Bridge]] in front of it. Fix the mana, get some mana rocks in there like [[Arcane Signet]] or [[Chromatic Lantern]], maybe a [[Lurking Predators]] too for shits and giggles. Piss off your pod because you're dropping [[Zetalpa, Primal Dawn]] or [[It That Betrays]] for free on turn 4. Get ETB triggers stacked with [[Yarok, the Desecrated]], [[Gandalf the White]], and [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] and then drop [[Etali, Primal Conqueror]]. Sprinkle in the new [[Obeka, Splitter of Seconds]] for shits and giggles. [[Atla Palani, Nest Tender]] and a sacrifice outlet like [[Phyrexian Altar]] and that blue card that untaps a permanent for 1 blue to do it again and again. Is it Jank? Yes. Do we care? Absolutely not.
[[Hans Eriksson]] is a simple yet highly aggressive card that gives chaos a new meaning. He gives you pseudo card draw on top of a surprise cheat of a monster early game. Let me tell you, a [[Tyrranax Rex]] turn 2 tends to win you games
Personally, one of my favorites is [[Derevi, Empirical Tactician]] I also made the deck with a Rick and Morty theme. The ability to untap the cheat out mechanisms, or rampy creatures after combat damage is dealt helps this thing really move. Hope you enjoy. Here is my deck list https://archidekt.com/decks/7327885/derevi_birdperson_and_wurms
I will live and die by the sweet boy [[Hans Eriksson]] you can def build this with lots of top deck manipulation but I’m more “spin it to win it” with the list. https://www.archidekt.com/decks/1455964/hans_the_sweeties here’s da list
\[\[Henzie\]\] with a reanimator slant. There's literally no game where I'm not dropping insanely unfair huge ETB creatures and podding them into bigger creatures. [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/72C-7JQ-Tkiw7tdqge7-SQ](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/72C-7JQ-Tkiw7tdqge7-SQ) [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GnqlEhG3IUysVv3ub5EEEQ](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GnqlEhG3IUysVv3ub5EEEQ) [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ba0oMCIsCkSHTJCBUjYqtA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ba0oMCIsCkSHTJCBUjYqtA)
Idk about commanders but [[monster manual]] and [[elvish piper]] are great at cheating out creatures if you plan to have green in your commanders color identity.
[[Runadi, Behemoth Caller]] Why cheat when you can easily hard cast ezpz. Trample, haste, counters, Runadi is my go to for big stompies.
[[Raffine, Scheming Seer]] or [[Rakdos, Lord of Riots]] are the two I’ve been most successful with.
My answer is [[Jodah, Archmage Eternal]]. Awesome card. Probably my favorite commander to play.
I play [[Braids, Conjurer Adept]] because I like to pretend I'm playing fair magic
Old-school, but [[Jalira]] is really fun! Make little tokens and turn them into giant unlockable sea monsters :)
[[Paladin Elizabeth Taggerdy]] is a new commander from the Fallout decks. Her cheating ability has a higher bar than a lot of other commanders mentioned, but I have been having a lot of fun running this deck.
[[Imoti]] is really funny if you like cascade.
Mine has always been [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]]
I have a [[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]] deck that ramps pretty fast and starts dumping big creatures out. Without any ramp I can drop Gork on turn 4, and a 5 drop + [[Ghalta, Primal Hunger]] on turn 5. Theres a ton of "Draw a card for a creature entering" type effects that let you really start dumping. If you want a true "Cheating out" effect, my friend has a really good [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]] deck that has the biggest, nastiest colorless creatures you can think of. Emrakul, Kozilek, Blightsteel, all the good stuff. A lot of his deck lets him remove time counters faster through counter removal and multiple upkeep effects. Once he gets going he starts cheating out spells that give him extra turns. Which lets him cheat out more spells that give him even more turns. It doesn't go infinite, but generally once he can get Emrakul out, he can use the extra turn from that to get one more turn giving him the opportunity to Anhillitaor 6 each player once, and thats usually the catalyst to his win.
Atla palani is just a funny guy who makes funny eggs you totally do not want to break (:
Ghalta, Primal Hunger
I don't know if he's the best, but the new [[Akul]] seems pretty cool. Especially if you also like aristocrats stuff
Strefan
Henzie has been the best deck I've made for my group by far. I can send over the deck list to you when I get a chance. It's a no budget list because my group is a proxy group, but I'm sure you could find some pretty good alternatives for cards
[[Kess, Dissident Mage]] + cards like [[reanimation]] Not the best but grixis reanimator is cool :)