Since around the release of War of the Spark in April 2019, Magic players around the world have noticed a clear push from the Wizards team towards Commander-ergonomic design. The reason seems fairly obvious, but given the roughly 2.5 to 3-year design cycle, that places us at the tail end of 2016 for this principle to have seeped in. We’re nearly a decade out from that approximate start date, the year this greater focus was beginning to be given to Commander as a format within set design, and it’s had its ups and downs. Of course there’s your Hogaaks & Nadus, each the result of a shift away from testing for Premier formats, but what interests me most are the stragglers who buck that shift in ethos—those Legendary Creatures not built for the Command Zone.
I’ve covered a few of those options, such as Tersa & Loran in my 60-to-99 Series, but today I’m approaching the options even less purpose-built to lead a deck: The ones that would prefer to start in your hand. This is part of a new shortform series for Goonhammer where I’m covering rapid-fire concepts for Commanders I couldn’t cover in a full Commander Focus, so if you like what you see, certainly let us know! Without further ado, let’s talk about getting the most from Mayhem in Commander.
New-Age Phage
The allure of making something function when it has no right to do so has existed for decades in Magic, since at least Legions‘ Phage the Untouchable. There’s no real way to even cast that Commander without instantly dying, unless you somehow extract it from the Command Zone, and while Mayhem is far less punishing, many of the cards that make Phage work see use here as well. Instead of instantly losing by casting Phage from the Command Zone, with Mayhem, you lose mana advantage by overpaying for lackluster Creatures. Of the newly printed Mayhem Commanders, I would say Carnage, Crimson Chaos, Chameleon, Master of Disguise, and Scarlet Spider, Kaine are each compelling options, so let’s start by covering some design philosophy, before getting a bit more specific. Apologies to the fans of Ultimate Green Goblin and Swarm, Being of Bees… though the latter will come up again, later.
Commander Cover Charge
First things first, we’ll need to extract these cards from the Command Zone, if we aim to make use of their Mayhem cost. This means that, in an odd sense, we pay our ‘Commander Tax’ upfront with their base mana value, before ideally dodging it for the rest of the game. There are of course options like Netherborn Altar to place the card in our hand, but because it costs us a card and we have better ways in Black of potentially recurring our Commander, it’s up to personal taste. To that end, we’ll plan to pack the deck with ways to return our Commander from the Battlefield or Graveyard to the hand; by overloading on cards which only really get value if we’re returning something worthwhile that we’ve already seen, rather than seeing new cards (drawing them), we can make the most of how accessible these Mayhem Commanders are once they’ve escaped the Command Zone. In addition, cards like Blood Clock or Cloudstone Curio can let us reset these pieces to be discarded once more, with bouncing from the field being far more available to Blue than Black.
Any time our Commanders are put in a position where we might need to pay Commander Tax, such as a Path to Exile, our aim is to subvert that through sacrificing or bouncing the card first, before then finding some other way to get it back into rotation. If we also find ways to use their required discard condition to pay for costs, all this work becomes card-positive, as casting these from the yard is like drawing a card, as it doesn’t use actual resources from hand.
Carnage
First up is Carnage, who I’d say is most likely the popular option of this selection; after all, if you’re getting a schlocky Sony Pictures flick where you’re the main villain, that has to count for something. Carnage works best with Creatures that have Enters abilities that recur cards, such as Cadaver Imp or Pit Keeper. Coupled with free or mana-positive sacrifice outlets, your classic being Phyrexian Altar, alongside any form of discard and you’ve got a storm brewing. One outstanding card for Carnage I’ve not seen talked about is Activated Sleeper—if you get your timing correct, this can do some nasty work, especially alongside the aforementioned recursion Enters package. Carnage is the Mayhem piece with the least offensive hardcast requirement, as you’re at least getting a solid Enters effect, but you’d still much prefer to be casting him for 2 mana, especially with a card like Flamekin Herald that rewards repeated casts (and also meets the requirements to be recurred with Carnage himself).
That last example brings up a key point with each of these options, that you’re giving yourself a hugely accessible card which can be cast from outside of your hand. Mayhem itself casts from the yard, but it’s grandfather Madness casts from exile; this reinforces a theme of cards which benefit from what I’ll refer to as ‘Paradox’ casts, after the ability word introduced in Doctor Who. You can flex Impending Flux into a wipe or a kill, and Memory Worm is an engine which allows you to churn through your discard-happy pieces. Don’t forget Poxwalkers or Unstable Amulet, however, as cards without the dedicated ability word which still have just the same degree of synergy. Poxwalkers itself even makes your kills easier, with a spare body with which you can go mana positive.
Chameleon
Chameleon is, at a glance, discount Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. For four mana and no Partner, you receive the same ability to copy even a Legendary Creature, with the caveat that future copies still die to the Legend rule. This isn’t a glowing endorsement, but unlike Sakashima, Chameleon is far more purpose-built for value loops. If you can, in Monoblue mind you, bounce and then discard this Commander, you can then get the same clone option for a mere 3 mana. Cards like Cowardice & Equilibrium keep the bouncy house inflated, and Mind Over Matter can untap a source of mana to pay for the Chameleon. In this sense, you’re playing a flicker deck with far more cast triggers, which benefits cards like Kozilek’s Unsealing on top of whatever other Enters effects are duplicated. All that said, Blue as a color has difficulty tutoring the Enchantments which make a strategy like this have upside versus Sakashima, and Sakashima enables you to grab any other two colors you’d like; for that reason, Chameleon is likely the worst of the interesting options, though I think he’s a fun puzzle to solve!
Scarlet Spider
At a glance, this seems a far less interesting option than Carnage, but the difference between mana values is profound. Not unlike Web-Slinging, an eerily similar mechanic I covered in my Arachne Commander Focus, the ability to pay 1 mana for a card you always have access to is incredibly strong; paying 0-1 mana for a Commander is what keeps a card like Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh in contention for cEDH. And, much like Arachne, Scarlet Spider has a partner in crime with a similarly low-cost Mayhem, Swarm. It’s important to stress that while these don’t just immediately generate infinite storm count like the two 1-mana Web-Slingers and a convoke enabler, Rakdos as a color pairing presents ample opportunities to pop off just the same. A card like Blazing Rootwalla can go mana positive when discarded while you have generation tools online, cards like Relic of Legends or Phyrexian Altar. By far my favorite thing you can do with Kaine, however, traces back to something I mentioned with Carnage: Flamekin Herald.
By including only a few key 1-mana cards in the deck, like Flamekin Herald, uncastable spells like Wheel of Fate, even Tortured Existence, you can kind of construct your own Scramble-Cascade pile where all the targets are mana value 1 or less. This idea even works beyond just giving Kaine the ability, as you could find redundancy with Bloodbraid Marauder or via Sloppity Bilepiper. If you’d want to see this weird Red-Black psuedo-scramble pile fully covered in a Commander Focus, let me know!
Method to the Madness
As you’ve likely noticed, with all three of these examples quite a lot of what we’re doing with them hinges on their characteristics, such as mana value, Mayhem cost, etc, as opposed to their abilities. This can be a weird thing to train your eyes to notice during card evaluation, as the actual text on Kaine is remarkably unexciting. Still, once you’ve acclimated to recognizing powerful design scaffolding, even if it lacks obvious synergy, a whole range of new options become available to you as a deck builder.
I would be remiss not to cap this article off without at least mentioning Emrakul, the World Anew, the only legal Commander with Madness; like Mayhem, this is a card you need to likely pay for in-full once, before cycling it for a greatly reduced cost, but because that upfront charge is a whopping 12 mana I feel it’s not worthwhile. Still, it’s designs like MH3 Emrakul and our Mayhem darlings covered today that I maintain excitement for, given how they allow pilots to push against the boundaries of designs built for 60 card Magic. There are still players out there who get their kicks from figuring out asinine workarounds to make these cards clearly not designed for Commander function at all in the format, and I’m lucky to count myself among them.
With that being said, what mechanic or Commander should I cover next on The Puzzlebox? This is a series built on essentially rapid prototyping underutilized mechanics for Commander, and while I have a few ideas kicking around, I’d love to hear options from my readers!
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