Well... in away you guys are right on that. Hes a human the steals others powers. He is in the same line as Dark Imposter in the game. Dark Imposter is the vampire.
Mairsil Rules (courtesy of cyberium_neo) The exiled cards remain exiled with cage counters when Mairsil leaves the battlefield. If Mairsil returns to the battlefield, it will see all of those exiled cards with cage counters on them. If another player gains control of Mairsil, it will have the abilities of only cards that player owns in exile with cage counters on them. Activated abilities contain a colon. They're generally written "[Cost]: [Effect]." Some keyword abilities (such as equip) are activated abilities and will have colons in their reminder text. Mairsil won't gain triggered abilities (which start with "when," "whenever," or "at"). If an activated ability of a card in exile with a cage counter on it references the card it's printed on by name, treat Mairsil's instance of that ability as though it referenced Mairsil by name instead. For instance, if Mairsil exiles Magus of the Mind, the cost to activate the ability includes sacrificing Mairsil, not sacrificing Magus of the Mind. If one of Mairsil's abilities is countered, most likely because its target became illegal before it resolved, it can't be activated again in the same turn. If multiple cards exiled with cage counters on them have the same ability, Mairsil will have multiple instances of that ability. Each may be activated once each turn. If you have a creature enter the battlefield as a copy of Mairsil, its first ability triggers. You won't be able to activate any abilities before the "legend rule" applies, but the triggered ability will still let you exile another card with a cage counter regardless of which Mairsil you keep. If Mairsil gains an activated ability that's normally linked to a non-activated ability of the card it came from, the ability Mairsil has isn't linked to any ability. For example, if Mairsil exiles Prototype Portal, the activated ability creates no tokens at all; it doesn't create Prototype Portal tokens. If Mairsil gains an activated ability that's normally linked to another activated ability of the card it came from, those two abilities Mairsil gains are linked for as long as Mairsil remains on the battlefield. For example, if Mairsil exiles Izzet Chemister, cards exiled with the first ability Mairsil gained from Izzet Chemister can be cast if you activate the second ability it gained that way. Izzet Chemister itself can't be cast this way, and if Mairsil leaves the battlefield before activating that second ability, the cards exiled with that first ability are lost forever. If Mairsil has a crew ability, creatures can crew Mairsil. It'll become an artifact creature, but its power and toughness remain unchanged. If Mairsil has an equip ability, activating it won't cause anything to happen. Mairsil doesn't become attached to a creature. They may remain friends. (NO WAY!)
For anyone interested, the Metathran come from the Magic storyline from way back. They were created by the planeswalker Urza to be supersoldiers to fight the Phyrexians. They also showed up on a variety of cards from the Urza block through Invasion block. On the video subject, very cool to see some Mairsil work going on. I actually just found a copy of Ovinomancer in my LGS's bulk box the other day and grabbed one looking to make use of such a funny card. Totally agree with others saying Illusionist's Bracers should be in the deck if possible. Doubling activated abilities is so good on Mairsil. Also, it is worth looking at the odd creatures from Shadowmoor and Eventide with the {Q}/(Untap Symbol). There are only a handful in Grixis and only 2 artifacts (one of which is the $5-6 Umbral Mantle), but they allow yet more untapping shenanigans to use more abilities. Could be very worthwhile.
Aha! I love when people with more vorthos knowledge fill us in! Thanks! As for the untaps, that's a great idea! I neglected to search for them when I scoured activated abilities. Someone else mentioned Hateflayer, and since we're pumping Mairsil's power, it seems like a no-brainer!
Commanders Brew A Umbral Mantle or Sword of Paruns could help with untap effects and possibly some ways to generate infinite mana or some other crazy shananigans
+david saraj Yes! We like shenanigans! Auras might be a bit fragile, since I expect to bounce Mairsil a lot. But under the right conditions, this could be a nice closer!
Just to mention a few other good cards: - Chainer, Dementia Master (You gain the reanimator abilty but you lose the 'exile all nightmares' downside) - Tree of Perdition if your playgroup can take it (Setting a players lifetotal to 4 is brutal) - Morphling and Torchling are like Aetherling and provide you with a great tool set (and more instances of the +1/-1 ability) - Cavern Harpy is maybe the best bounce effect for Mairsil - Pack Rats is also a way to get the abilities on Mairsil (discard the card you want for him as the payment, the clone dies due to the legendary rule but you still get the ETB effect) and lastly Training Grounds and Illusionist's Bracers also seem like a must have for this kind of deck.
Mirror-Mad Phantasm. Mill almost all your decks, resummon Mairsil, choose the strongest card you dumped with Mirror-Mad Phantasm, repeat and use any graveyard shuffle back to library card. Like Time reversal.
Did some research. Mirror-Mad Phantasm really doesn't work with it. The ruling about Mirror-Mad Phantasm reads, that you NEED to find a mirror-mad Phantasm or you mill yourself. It can't be a card you can make a copy from phantasm. :/ We had a huge discussion about it in PlayEDH discord and figured, that its not synergistic.
Yeah! I've been doing a bit of reading up on that, and it's true if you use it on another creature already on the battlefield, but if Mairsil has it in the cage, and uses it on himself, that's when it gets confusing. Last I read there's no ruling on that yet, but hopefully before the deck is released!
Commanders Brew my hope is that it resets his abilities as "new abilities" to be use. But that would also be insane. Also, if you have them both out would the quicksilver get all Mairsil's abilities under the cage? That would also be super useful.
So officially they have said that quicksilver will allow you to "reuse" all the abilities again but you have to keep paying for quicksilver to activate them additional times after that. That being said there is still a huge debate as to wether you should have to keep reusing quicksilver elemental's ability
One card, that jumped to my mind in addition to the other stuff was the Helvault. To have targeted exile on mairsil might be a pretty nice thing. 7 + tap might be a little pricey but hey
Thanks! He's an exciting Commander to brew around. I don't think we've ever really done something like this before. It's cards like this that make me wish there was a way to change your Commander's colours. It's a shame that there's no possibility to play with this part of the game in G or W.
What do you think about Eater of the Dead for Marsil? You have to read the oracle text. It would be a repeatable graveyard hate and untap at the same time. Maybe a little pricey (The Dark).
I like it! For a budget brew, perhaps, but I like to think our lists are starting points. People can add what they want, and I think this is probably worth it! Just don't hit your own graveyard!
Yeah, you can do lots of neat stuff with him, just not infinite loops. I suspect this'll come up with stuff like regeneration. There may be a time you'll want/need to activate it twice in a turn. This is why I kind of like a self-bounce option also.
I can't seem to find your email. I would suggest adding it to the about page on your website and facebook page. Unless I'm just blind, which is possible!
correct me if i'm wrong but wouldn't Mairsil gain the ability "U: untap horseshoe crab" meaning he could untap horseshoe crab but not himself the same being true for aetherling, torchling, and any card that references itself in its activated ability
Do cards that refer to themself by name still work if you use them with Mairsil? Like Aetherling says that Aetherling becomes unblockable, but Mairsil isn't Aetherling.
It's a bit counter-intuitive, but the game sees those phrases as "Whenever "I" attack..." So if anything else steals that ability, it's always going to be self-referential. You could effectively replace all instances of the card name with "this" and it makes more sense here, but might confuse new players? Not sure why they don't, actually. Isn't that more clear?
Yeah, we just thought about what would happen if you put equipment in the cage. Maybe that got a little confusing, but the ending of the story is: Don't do it. It doesn't do anything in the cage. Just equip it.
Commanders Brew ah okay. I asked because this deck is going to be the first deck I actually instantly buy when I see the list from you guys. I love it a lot. In the six months I've been listening, it's most definitely my favorite, so thank you guys! Any other non-budget upgrade ideas?
+Nitecrawlr16 That's great! What an honour! As for more non-budget stuff, there's nothing suuuper expensive, fortunately, but also consider Pack Rat, and although it doesn't work the way you want it to, Jace Vryn's Prodigy is a convenient way to get Mairsil out of danger with a loot. It won't come back from exile though, unfortunately. I bet there's better stuff out there though. One fun option I always like is Keening Stone. Pricey, but a win condition.
Yeah, Mairsil really shines with the 'lings! I'm trying to make a joke about that, but the only word I can think of that works is "Younglings" from that awful Star Wars movie. I'd rather not think too deep on that line.
Finally!! A home for Ovinomancer! I love the flavor of that guy but he's always been so jank. He's currently in the "dumb stuff I like" deck...might move him.
I'm sure people just want the legendary Mishra to be a thing. It's also nice when we get better versions of bad Commanders. I'd love some kind of upgrade to Melek.
Look, did we think for some reason Mairsil was a vampire? MAYBE.
Well... in away you guys are right on that.
Hes a human the steals others powers. He is in the same line as Dark Imposter in the game. Dark Imposter is the vampire.
Commanders Brew lol I did too and had to re check the decklists
+MassDiscored 727 You're too kind!
+Jose Escoto I know, right? That's a wizard that takes fashion tips from vampires FOR SURE!
When you did the interview, Mairsil had several vampires caged, obviously.
So he _(she?)_ may as well be a vampire.
Mairsil Rules (courtesy of cyberium_neo)
The exiled cards remain exiled with cage counters when Mairsil leaves the battlefield. If Mairsil returns to the battlefield, it will see all of those exiled cards with cage counters on them.
If another player gains control of Mairsil, it will have the abilities of only cards that player owns in exile with cage counters on them.
Activated abilities contain a colon. They're generally written "[Cost]: [Effect]." Some keyword abilities (such as equip) are activated abilities and will have colons in their reminder text. Mairsil won't gain triggered abilities (which start with "when," "whenever," or "at").
If an activated ability of a card in exile with a cage counter on it references the card it's printed on by name, treat Mairsil's instance of that ability as though it referenced Mairsil by name instead. For instance, if Mairsil exiles Magus of the Mind, the cost to activate the ability includes sacrificing Mairsil, not sacrificing Magus of the Mind.
If one of Mairsil's abilities is countered, most likely because its target became illegal before it resolved, it can't be activated again in the same turn.
If multiple cards exiled with cage counters on them have the same ability, Mairsil will have multiple instances of that ability. Each may be activated once each turn.
If you have a creature enter the battlefield as a copy of Mairsil, its first ability triggers. You won't be able to activate any abilities before the "legend rule" applies, but the triggered ability will still let you exile another card with a cage counter regardless of which Mairsil you keep.
If Mairsil gains an activated ability that's normally linked to a non-activated ability of the card it came from, the ability Mairsil has isn't linked to any ability. For example, if Mairsil exiles Prototype Portal, the activated ability creates no tokens at all; it doesn't create Prototype Portal tokens.
If Mairsil gains an activated ability that's normally linked to another activated ability of the card it came from, those two abilities Mairsil gains are linked for as long as Mairsil remains on the battlefield. For example, if Mairsil exiles Izzet Chemister, cards exiled with the first ability Mairsil gained from Izzet Chemister can be cast if you activate the second ability it gained that way. Izzet Chemister itself can't be cast this way, and if Mairsil leaves the battlefield before activating that second ability, the cards exiled with that first ability are lost forever.
If Mairsil has a crew ability, creatures can crew Mairsil. It'll become an artifact creature, but its power and toughness remain unchanged.
If Mairsil has an equip ability, activating it won't cause anything to happen. Mairsil doesn't become attached to a creature. They may remain friends. (NO WAY!)
Congrats on the channel pump from Wizards "Daily Magic" column!
For anyone interested, the Metathran come from the Magic storyline from way back. They were created by the planeswalker Urza to be supersoldiers to fight the Phyrexians. They also showed up on a variety of cards from the Urza block through Invasion block.
On the video subject, very cool to see some Mairsil work going on. I actually just found a copy of Ovinomancer in my LGS's bulk box the other day and grabbed one looking to make use of such a funny card. Totally agree with others saying Illusionist's Bracers should be in the deck if possible. Doubling activated abilities is so good on Mairsil. Also, it is worth looking at the odd creatures from Shadowmoor and Eventide with the {Q}/(Untap Symbol). There are only a handful in Grixis and only 2 artifacts (one of which is the $5-6 Umbral Mantle), but they allow yet more untapping shenanigans to use more abilities. Could be very worthwhile.
Aha! I love when people with more vorthos knowledge fill us in! Thanks!
As for the untaps, that's a great idea! I neglected to search for them when I scoured activated abilities. Someone else mentioned Hateflayer, and since we're pumping Mairsil's power, it seems like a no-brainer!
Commanders Brew
A Umbral Mantle or Sword of Paruns could help with untap effects and possibly some ways to generate infinite mana or some other crazy shananigans
+david saraj Yes! We like shenanigans! Auras might be a bit fragile, since I expect to bounce Mairsil a lot. But under the right conditions, this could be a nice closer!
Just to mention a few other good cards:
- Chainer, Dementia Master (You gain the reanimator abilty but you lose the 'exile all nightmares' downside)
- Tree of Perdition if your playgroup can take it (Setting a players lifetotal to 4 is brutal)
- Morphling and Torchling are like Aetherling and provide you with a great tool set (and more instances of the +1/-1 ability)
- Cavern Harpy is maybe the best bounce effect for Mairsil
- Pack Rats is also a way to get the abilities on Mairsil (discard the
card you want for him as the payment, the clone dies due to the
legendary rule but you still get the ETB effect)
and lastly Training Grounds and Illusionist's Bracers also seem like a must have for this kind of deck.
Oh yeah, all of those are great. I hadn't thought of Pack Rat! Neat! If we weren't on a budget, we'd add all of those!
Oh my god, I couldnt stop laughing during the interview. Mistaking mairsil for a vampire made it so much better
I'm glad! We aren't planning on goofing up like that too much in the future, so I hope that's not the main source of humour!
Mirror-Mad Phantasm. Mill almost all your decks, resummon Mairsil, choose the strongest card you dumped with Mirror-Mad Phantasm, repeat and use any graveyard shuffle back to library card. Like Time reversal.
I like your style! Yes!
Did some research. Mirror-Mad Phantasm really doesn't work with it.
The ruling about Mirror-Mad Phantasm reads, that you NEED to find a mirror-mad Phantasm or you mill yourself. It can't be a card you can make a copy from phantasm. :/ We had a huge discussion about it in PlayEDH discord and figured, that its not synergistic.
Quicksilver Elemental is a shoe-in for this deck. It allows you to reuse Mairsil's abilities again and again( as long as you have the Mana)
Yeah! I've been doing a bit of reading up on that, and it's true if you use it on another creature already on the battlefield, but if Mairsil has it in the cage, and uses it on himself, that's when it gets confusing. Last I read there's no ruling on that yet, but hopefully before the deck is released!
Commanders Brew my hope is that it resets his abilities as "new abilities" to be use. But that would also be insane. Also, if you have them both out would the quicksilver get all Mairsil's abilities under the cage? That would also be super useful.
So officially they have said that quicksilver will allow you to "reuse" all the abilities again but you have to keep paying for quicksilver to activate them additional times after that. That being said there is still a huge debate as to wether you should have to keep reusing quicksilver elemental's ability
+Matt Lazzara Aha! At what point does the confusion make it not worth running?
Commanders Brew for a masochist like me, never! I want to break magic as much as possible.
One card, that jumped to my mind in addition to the other stuff was the Helvault. To have targeted exile on mairsil might be a pretty nice thing. 7 + tap might be a little pricey but hey
Oliver Speck Shauku, endbringer. Great mairsil target
+Brandon Matheson Yes. That is very good.
I did so research and for infinite turns you can do Anthroplasm + Sage of Hours or Ventifact Bottle + Magistrate's Scepter
I knew it!! Of course there are some shenanigans out there. Nice one! I personally prefer not to brew up that way, but I understand the appeal!
I'm so excited for mairsil! Awesome episode guys!
Thanks! He's an exciting Commander to brew around. I don't think we've ever really done something like this before. It's cards like this that make me wish there was a way to change your Commander's colours. It's a shame that there's no possibility to play with this part of the game in G or W.
What do you think about Eater of the Dead for Marsil? You have to read the oracle text. It would be a repeatable graveyard hate and untap at the same time. Maybe a little pricey (The Dark).
I like it! For a budget brew, perhaps, but I like to think our lists are starting points. People can add what they want, and I think this is probably worth it! Just don't hit your own graveyard!
Yeah I hoped you would do Marsil.
Wicked! Here's hoping your next favs are covered!
Sorry guys, the trick with Aetherling and Nev's Disk doesn't work due to her once per turn restriction
RJ Conley "...You may activate EACH of those abilities only once each turn."
Yeah, you can do lots of neat stuff with him, just not infinite loops. I suspect this'll come up with stuff like regeneration. There may be a time you'll want/need to activate it twice in a turn. This is why I kind of like a self-bounce option also.
I don't know if you could use ovinomancer because you can't pay the cost of the ability if its exiled.
looked it up, disregard this post :)
+Darrell Spencer ;)
Think you can do a budget Marri weatherlight duelist in the near future. I would love to see how you would do that kind of deck
Our version of the cat tribal deck is coming soon. You'll see which legendary we brewed around!
Also, I want to make a Mairsal EDH with cards that have activated abilities with 'Any player may activate this ability.' as a group hug deck.
+DJDelt4 That's a great idea! Keep us posted with how that goes!
So far found a few cards for it. Excavation, Sailmonger, Scandalmonger, and Warmonger. Might add in cards that tap to give everyone draws.
I made a monored cube that was super fun for a while.
Cool! I'd love to chat with you about it! If you're open to it, send us an email and I'll pick your brain a bit!
I can't seem to find your email. I would suggest adding it to the about page on your website and facebook page. Unless I'm just blind, which is possible!
+Cormac Connolly Oh wow! You're right! It's commandersbrew at gmail dot com.
Only just watching this, however is skithiryx just a better masticore in this deck?
correct me if i'm wrong but wouldn't Mairsil gain the ability "U: untap horseshoe crab" meaning he could untap horseshoe crab but not himself the same being true for aetherling, torchling, and any card that references itself in its activated ability
Eric Heidgerd rules text states to refer to all abilities with the card name in the ability as though they referred to Mairsil.
+Nitecrawlr16 Yep, from a game sense, it functions as a "me" statement, so if anyone, like Mairsil, copies the ability, it still says "me".
Well, actually "this permanent", not "me", but, yah. ;)
Any idea when you'll be posting a decklist? This deck I've been working on for a while. Feel like you left out a couple great ones.
Oh no!! I'll get on it in a couple hours!!
Commanders Brew thanks, I appreciate it! Makes it easier to enjoy the episode. Taking notes is for kids. :)
Do cards that refer to themself by name still work if you use them with Mairsil? Like Aetherling says that Aetherling becomes unblockable, but Mairsil isn't Aetherling.
It's a bit counter-intuitive, but the game sees those phrases as "Whenever "I" attack..." So if anything else steals that ability, it's always going to be self-referential. You could effectively replace all instances of the card name with "this" and it makes more sense here, but might confuse new players? Not sure why they don't, actually. Isn't that more clear?
My question is that they reference an equipment giving mairsil vigilance and a boost but that's not an activated ability. So how does that work?
Nitecrawlr16 I think they're talking about actually playing and equipping the equipment
Yeah, we just thought about what would happen if you put equipment in the cage. Maybe that got a little confusing, but the ending of the story is: Don't do it. It doesn't do anything in the cage. Just equip it.
Commanders Brew ah okay. I asked because this deck is going to be the first deck I actually instantly buy when I see the list from you guys. I love it a lot. In the six months I've been listening, it's most definitely my favorite, so thank you guys! Any other non-budget upgrade ideas?
+Nitecrawlr16 That's great! What an honour! As for more non-budget stuff, there's nothing suuuper expensive, fortunately, but also consider Pack Rat, and although it doesn't work the way you want it to, Jace Vryn's Prodigy is a convenient way to get Mairsil out of danger with a loot. It won't come back from exile though, unfortunately. I bet there's better stuff out there though. One fun option I always like is Keening Stone. Pricey, but a win condition.
I soooo wanna try Mairsil with Aetherling, morphling and torchling
Yeah, Mairsil really shines with the 'lings! I'm trying to make a joke about that, but the only word I can think of that works is "Younglings" from that awful Star Wars movie. I'd rather not think too deep on that line.
if mairsil has equip, he can not be attached to a permanent. he and the permanent may remain friends.
As a may ability, it's your responsibility to remember the trigger.
Finally!! A home for Ovinomancer! I love the flavor of that guy but he's always been so jank. He's currently in the "dumb stuff I like" deck...might move him.
Oh yeah, this is the perfect deck for that wildly-moustachioed sheep freak!
I really hope that Mairsil being printed will finally convince people to stop trying to make Mishra work. He never has worked and never will.
I'm sure people just want the legendary Mishra to be a thing. It's also nice when we get better versions of bad Commanders. I'd love some kind of upgrade to Melek.
Solution? Aftershock
Is this in reference to the Mono R cube? Good find! Yes!