Minecraft Commander Deck · 100 Proxy Cards · MTG EDH · Survival Mode

A fully custom Minecraft Magic proxy Commander deck, ready to play straight out of the envelope: 100 proxy cards with original artworks, built around spawning with nothing, ten minutes of daylight, and a hole in the ground that gets more valuable and more lethal with every metre. This is the first Simic (green-blue) set in the whole line, led by the partner commanders Steve, First Night and Alex, Who Reads the Recipe.

Why Simic, and why it took twenty-two sets to get here? Green is the world above — the trees you punch, the animals, the biome you woke up in, growth as the only thing you actually own on night one. Blue is the craft: the recipe, the enchanting table, the redstone, knowing that four planks make a table and that a table makes everything else. Together they are the entire game — the ground gives you material, knowledge turns it into a pickaxe. No white, because there is no society and no rule here, only what you built; no black, because nothing in this world is a bargain, everything is labour; no red, because nothing here is impulsive — even the creeper waits.

Targeted power level: Bracket 4 — two all-custom infinite combos, fast mana, a tutor package, and a ramp mechanic whose own scaling is the threat.

Deck Strategy

The whole deck is one sentence: the deeper you go, the better it pays and the worse it gets, and nobody is doing that to you but you.

Mining is the original mechanic, and it lives on a card. The Mineshaft is a legendary land that accumulates depth counters — "{2}, {T}: Put a depth counter on The Mineshaft", and "{T}, Remove three depth counters: Draw a card" — and roughly a third of the deck reads how deep it is. Steve puts a depth counter on it whenever a land you control becomes untapped and makes a Resource token every time counters go on; the Diamond Pickaxe adds two every time its bearer attacks; the Beacon pumps your team by +1/+1 for each three counters; the Ender Dragon gets +1/+1 per counter and drops five more when it dies. And then the depth turns on you: Survival Mode reads "If The Mineshaft has seven or more depth counters on it, at the beginning of your end step, create a 3/1 green Creeper creature token with 'When this creature dies, it deals 5 damage to each creature.'" The Creepers are yours, and they explode on your board. This is the only ramp mechanic in the line where the punishment is your own greed rather than an opponent.

Craft is the second mechanic: "Craft — Sacrifice two Resources: [make a thing]." Resource tokens are the deck's atoms, produced by nearly every green card and by Alex every time an artifact enters. Craft turns two of them into a +1/+1 counter on every creature you control (Steve), a card or two cards past seven depth (Alex), an Equipment token (The Enchanting Table), an artifact tutored straight onto the battlefield (The Crafting Table), haste for the team (The Beacon) or three cards (Smelt the Whole Stack). The loop is literal: dig to get Resources, spend Resources to dig better.

• Day and night — the third pillar and the deck's clock. The Cycle of Day and Night enters as day and flips at your end step; day gives your creatures +1/+0, night gives +0/+1 and vigilance. Zombie Horde grows and brings a friend at night, Phantom of the Sleepless is unblockable at night, and Respawn at the Bed forces the sun back up. The deck wants to be greedy in daylight and finished before dark, and it never quite is.
• The deep — the Ender Dragon, the Wither, the Warden, the Elder Guardian, Herobrine, the Ravager, the Evoker, the Enderman, the Creeper and the Ghast, against an overworld of the Iron Golem, the Librarian, the Wolf, the Allay, the Axolotl, the Bee, the Sniffer and a village that fights back.
• The tools — the Diamond Pickaxe, the Crafting Table, the Enchanting Table, the Redstone Clock, the Elytra, the Beacon, the Ender Chest, TNT, the Shield and the Water Bucket, alongside Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Arcane Signet.
• Removal and interaction — Force of Will, Cyclonic Rift, Pongify, Beast Within, Mystical Tutor and Worldly Tutor, backed by Sylvan Library, Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora.
• Two infinite combos, both entirely custom. The Redstone Clock + Steve: the Clock untaps a target land whenever a depth counter is put on The Mineshaft, and Steve puts a depth counter on The Mineshaft whenever a land you control becomes untapped — point the Clock at The Mineshaft itself and the loop is free and infinite: arbitrarily deep, arbitrarily many Resource tokens, and an arbitrary number of Creepers you then have to survive. Alex + The Enchanting Table: the Table sacrifices two Resources to create an Equipment token, and Alex creates a Resource whenever an artifact enters — each Equipment is an artifact entering, so the loop pays for itself: infinite Equipment, infinite artifact-enters triggers, and every card in the deck that reads them goes off forever.

Thirty-five lands, and they are the places rather than a mana base: The Mineshaft, the Stronghold Portal, the Nether Fortress, the Ancient City, the Village Well, the Ocean Monument, the Woodland Mansion, the Mushroom Island and the End Island, alongside Command Tower, Ancient Tomb, Breeding Pool, Tropical Island, Misty Rainforest and Simic Growth Chamber. Three tokens — Resource, Creeper and Vex — come in the box.

Average mana value 2.91, built to close around turn five.