Transformers Commander Deck · 100 Proxy Cards · MTG EDH · Autobots vs Decepticons

A fully custom Transformers Magic proxy Commander deck, ready to play straight out of the envelope: 100 proxy cards with original artworks, built around a four-million-year war between two factions of machines, fought on a planet neither of them is from, over a power source that predates both. This is a white-blue-red (Jeskai) deck led by Optimus Prime, Autobot Leader.

Why Jeskai? White is the Autobots as an idea — a chain of command, a code, a leader who keeps saying that freedom is the right of all sentient beings and keeps meaning it. Blue is Cybertronian engineering: Soundwave, Teletraan I, Perceptor, Wheeljack blowing up his own laboratory on schedule. Red is the war itself, the energon, Megatron, and the fact that this conflict has outlasted the planet it started on. There is no black, because nothing here is done in secret for personal gain — even Starscream announces his coups.

Targeted power level: Bracket 4 — thirty creatures with a second body, an artifact that turns a mana rock into a 4/4, and a commander who upgrades every conversion on the board.

Deck Strategy

Conversion is the original mechanic, and it is printed on thirty creatures: conversion {N} — {N}: Until end of turn, this creature becomes an artifact Vehicle with its alternate stats, gains haste and trample, and can't block. Every robot in the set has a robot mode and a vehicle mode, and the vehicle mode is always bigger, always faster and always unable to defend. Optimus Prime himself converts for {2} into a 7/5, Grimlock into a 9/6, Megatron into an 8/4 and Devastator into a 12/8. Converting is not a bonus, it is a posture: you are choosing between a body that can hold a line and a body that can only advance, and you re-choose it every combat. Optimus gives other creatures you control conversion {2}, so nothing on your board is stuck in one shape, and whenever a creature you control converts it gets +1/+1 and trample until end of turn. When he dies he leaves a matrix counter on another creature, which then has conversion {0} for the rest of the game.

The AllSpark is the second mechanic. For {2} and a tap it turns any artifact into a 4/4 artifact creature with haste until end of turn — yours or theirs, a Vehicle, an Equipment, a mana rock — and for {5}, a tap and a sacrifice it leaves three 4/4 Robot tokens behind. In a deck where half the board already flips between artifact and creature, it is the card that makes the distinction stop existing: a Vehicle animated this way attacks without ever being crewed, and because Optimus hands every creature you control conversion {2}, whatever you just woke up can immediately convert for +1/+1 and trample. Vector Sigma does the same job for {3}{U} and builds a 4/4 Robot at every end step in which something converted.

• Both factions are in the deck on purpose — Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Shockwave, Galvatron and Unicron are yours to field, and several of them charge you for it: Megatron deals 2 damage to you at your end step if he did not attack, Galvatron pings you for 1 every upkeep, and Starscream gets +1/+1 for each Robot creature card in your graveyard and two +1/+1 counters plus a card every time your own commander dies.
• The insignias — The Autobot Insignia gives Robots +1/+1, a life on every conversion and indestructible on demand for {3}{W}; The Decepticon Insignia makes every conversion deal 1 damage to each opponent and unblocks a Robot for {2}{R}. Both are in the box, and you play both.
• The war engine — The Matrix of Leadership gives its bearer +2/+2, conversion {0} and a card on every conversion, then re-attaches itself when the bearer dies. Teletraan I untaps whenever a creature converts. The Energon Cube makes colourless mana that only pays for conversions and artifact abilities.
• Interaction is Jeskai and it is all pointed at bodies — Fusion Cannon deals 5 and exiles, Ambush On the Freeway deals 3 and cantrips off an artifact creature, The Ark Crashes wipes everything without conversion for 4 and reanimates an artifact creature, One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall is a fight spell that grants indestructible if your creature converted this turn, and Overrule the Commander is the soft counter.
• Two combos. The AllSpark + Vehicles: animate a Vehicle at instant speed and it attacks without ever being crewed, so the crew costs of the whole deck become optional — and with Optimus out, everything you animate this way has conversion {2} and picks up +1/+1 and trample the moment it uses it. Till All Are One does it in bulk: +2/+2, trample and indestructible, then convert any number of them for free. Soundwave + Ravage and Laserbeak: Soundwave returns a Robot creature card of mana value 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield whenever a creature you control converts, and both cassettes convert for {0} — so each conversion is a free reanimation and a free trigger, and the loop only costs you the attack step you were going to spend anyway.

Thirty-five lands, and they are the battlefields rather than a mana base: Iacon, Kaon, the Ark under the volcano, the Nemesis on the seabed, the energon fields, the space bridge terminal, the freeway interchange, the rust sea, Vector Sigma's chamber, the Hoover Dam facility, Autobot City, the gladiator pits, Shockwave's laboratory, the Well of AllSparks and Tyger Pax. Four tokens — Robot, Robot Insect, Human and Treasure — come in the box. Average mana value 3.38, and the deck is built to spend it twice: once on the body, once on the shape.