Ancient Balls by Thick_L

Format: Commander

Commander: The Ancient One

Bracket: 4

DeckCheck Threat Index: 34

Deck overview

This Dimir deck is built around The Ancient One, utilizing its cheap casting cost and looting ability as a dedicated discard and self-mill engine. The primary strategy focuses on deploying the commander early, discarding high-mana bombs such as Portal to Phyrexia, Jin-Gitaxias // The Great Synthesis, or Sheoldred, Whispering One, and cheating them onto the battlefield with efficient reanimation spells like Reanimate and Animate Dead. Once established on Turn 4 to 5, these threats impose severe asymmetric attrition on opposing boards while generating overwhelming card and board advantage. The deck closes games around Turn 7 through evasive combat damage bolstered by Wonder, mass reanimation via Living Death, or continuous life drain from Syr Konrad, the Grim. Interaction is supported by efficient counterspells and creature removal, though the deck remains vulnerable to dedicated graveyard exile and aggressive early pressure.

Decklist (100 cards)

  • 1 Altar of Dementia
  • 1 Angel of Suffering
  • 1 Animate Dead
  • 1 Baleful Strix
  • 1 Bloodghast
  • 1 Bojuka Bog
  • 1 Bruvac the Grandiloquent
  • 1 Command Tower
  • 1 Consuming Aberration
  • 1 Counterspell
  • 1 Cut Your Losses
  • 1 Cyclonic Rift
  • 1 Diabolic Intent
  • 1 Doomed Necromancer
  • 1 Dread Return
  • 1 Drowned Catacomb
  • 1 Exhibition Tidecaller
  • 1 Fractured Sanity
  • 1 Frantic Search
  • 1 Fraying Sanity
  • 1 Gloomlake Verge
  • 1 Grave Researcher // Reanimate
  • 1 Grindstone
  • 1 Hedron Crab
  • 1 Hydroelectric Specimen // Hydroelectric Laboratory
  • 11 Island
  • 1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
  • 1 Jin-Gitaxias // The Great Synthesis
  • 1 Kiora, the Rising Tide
  • 1 Laboratory Maniac
  • 1 Likeness Looter
  • 1 Living Death
  • 1 Mana Drain
  • 1 Matzalantli, the Great Door // The Core
  • 1 Mortuary Mire
  • 1 Most Decrepit Old Bird // Speak Secrets
  • 1 Mystic Remora
  • 1 Polluted Delta
  • 1 Pongify
  • 1 Portal to Phyrexia
  • 1 Propaganda
  • 1 Rapid Hybridization
  • 1 Reality Shift
  • 1 Reanimate
  • 1 Reliquary Tower
  • 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
  • 1 Ruin Crab
  • 1 Sheoldred // The True Scriptures
  • 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
  • 1 Shipwreck Marsh
  • 1 Singularity Rupture
  • 1 Sire of Stagnation
  • 1 Songs of the Damned
  • 1 Stitch Together
  • 1 Strix Serenade
  • 1 Sunken Hollow
  • 12 Swamp
  • 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
  • 1 Tainted Isle
  • 1 Terisian Mindbreaker
  • 1 Thassa's Oracle
  • 1 The Ancient One
  • 1 The Cauldron of Eternity
  • 1 The Grim Captain's Locker
  • 1 The Master of Lake-town
  • 1 The Mindskinner
  • 1 The Soul Stone
  • 1 The Water Crystal
  • 1 Tortured Existence
  • 1 Training Grounds
  • 1 Traumatize
  • 1 Undercity Sewers
  • 1 Underground River
  • 1 Victimize
  • 1 Visions of Beyond
  • 1 Watery Grave
  • 1 Windfall
  • 1 Wonder
  • 1 Zellix, Sanity Flayer