Grimm's Fairy Tales — The Rule of Three

Commanded by the partners Jacob Grimm, the Collector and Wilhelm Grimm, the Teller, this Golgari (black/green) 100-Card Commander Deck plays the 1812 Kinder- und Hausmärchen before anybody softened it. Children are sent into the wood because there is not enough bread, a wolf is filled with river stones, a miller promises away his firstborn. Nobody is rescued by being good. They are rescued by counting, and every tale ends with a lesson. No dwarfs, no mirror, no apple: this is the rest of the book.

• Rule of Three: the third time each turn a given event happens — a card drawn, a creature dying, a spell cast, a creature attacking you — it happens differently. The first two times, nothing changes. The fourth is no better than the first, and every tally resets at end of turn. Nothing is stored or spent; the tale simply happens for the third time. The Three Spinners and Third Time's the Charm bend the count, and they are why the deck has combos at all.
• Moral: an effect printed in plain view that applies only if a creature died this turn — a tale that ends well teaches nothing. Wilhelm gives a Moral to every instant and sorcery you own, so the deck wants a body on the floor before it casts, and The Baking Oven is a free sacrifice outlet on a land.
• The tales: Hansel and Gretel with the Witch of the Bread House, Little Red Cap and the Wolf of the Wood, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, the Frog King, the four Bremen animals, the Valiant Little Tailor and the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Why Golgari

Black is the price, always named in advance and always collected: hunger, a bargain with a stranger, a godfather who is Death and perfectly fair about it. Green is the wood and the livestock where every one of these tales takes place. Twenty-nine cards carry a Rule of Three, each counting a different event, seventeen more read it, and twelve carry a Moral.

A complete 100-card Commander deck plus 5 tokens, tuned for Bracket 4, available as a digital print-yourself edition or a printed physical deck, and offered in 10 languages.