Down under by T_automaton

Format: Commander

Commander: The Ancient One

Bracket: 3

Deck overview

This Dimir deck is built around The Ancient One, an 8/8 that unlocks once eight or more permanent cards are in the graveyard. The main plan is incremental: fill the graveyard with permanents, use the commander's looting ability to set up Descend 8, then start attacking with an 8/8 while incidental mill and graveyard-value cards accumulate. The commander's activated ability is the heart of the deck, drawing and discarding while also milling any target for the discarded card's mana value - useful for self-mill setup and for pressuring opponents' libraries. Secondary plans include Traumatize plus Psychic Spiral as a one-shot mill kill, Startled Awake as a recurring mill threat, and Tergrid, God of Fright/Grave Betrayal to convert discard and death triggers into overwhelming board advantage. The deck is a fair, controlling, commander-centric mill/beatdown hybrid rather than a fast combo deck.

Decklist (100 cards)

  • 1 Aqueous Form
  • 1 Arcane Signet
  • 1 Archon of Cruelty
  • 1 Bad Moon
  • 1 Blistergrub
  • 1 Blood Reckoning
  • 1 Bojuka Bog
  • 1 Chitin Gravestalker
  • 1 Corrosive Mentor
  • 1 Countermand
  • 1 Countervailing Winds
  • 1 Creepy Doll
  • 1 Darkwater Catacombs
  • 1 Deathgreeter
  • 1 Demon's Horn
  • 1 Devouring Swarm
  • 1 Diabolic Tutor
  • 1 Disentomb
  • 1 Dispel
  • 1 Dissipate
  • 1 Drowned Catacomb
  • 1 Enter the Enigma
  • 1 Evolving Wilds
  • 1 Exotic Orchard
  • 1 Exquisite Blood
  • 1 Feast on the Fallen
  • 1 Flensermite
  • 1 Fungal Fortitude
  • 1 Grave Betrayal
  • 14 Island
  • 1 Justice, Vance Astrovik
  • 1 Lazav, Familiar Stranger
  • 1 Macabre Reconstruction
  • 1 Macabre Waltz
  • 1 Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
  • 1 Megrim
  • 1 Melancholic Poet
  • 1 Miscalculation
  • 1 Morbid Plunder
  • 1 Mortuary Mire
  • 1 Mortus Strider
  • 1 Necrotic Ooze
  • 1 No One Left Behind
  • 1 Out of Air
  • 1 Psychic Spiral
  • 1 Ragged Veins
  • 1 Rapid Hybridization
  • 1 Reef Worm
  • 1 Reliquary Tower
  • 1 Restless Reef
  • 1 Runaway Boulder
  • 1 Sangromancer
  • 1 Shipwreck Marsh
  • 1 Sol Ring
  • 1 Solemn Simulacrum
  • 1 Spell Rupture
  • 1 Starbreach Whale
  • 1 Startled Awake // Persistent Nightmare
  • 1 Submerged Boneyard
  • 1 Sunken Hollow
  • 14 Swamp
  • 1 Swarm Culler
  • 1 Sword of Body and Mind
  • 1 Syncopate
  • 1 Tarrian's Soulcleaver
  • 1 Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern
  • 1 The Ancient One
  • 1 Thought Vessel
  • 1 Traumatize
  • 1 Underworld Dreams
  • 1 Unhallowed Pact
  • 1 Vadmir, New Blood
  • 1 Veteran Ice Climber
  • 1 Wail of the Forgotten