The Commander
Whenever Arbaaz Mir or another nontoken historic permanent you control enters, Arbaaz Mir deals 1 damage to each opponent and you gain 1 life. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.)
Guide
Gameplan
Arbaaz Mir turns your battlefield into a slow-burn engine: every nontoken historic permanent (artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas) you play pings each opponent for 1 and gains you 1 life. You flood the board with cheap artifacts and legendary permanents, then accelerate the damage with bounce/flicker loops and extra-trigger doublers to chip all three opponents to zero. Early turns develop mana rocks and Arbaaz; mid-game you chain historic ETBs into lethal pings.
Strengths
- Damage hits every opponent simultaneously, making it efficient in multiplayer math
- Cheap two-mana commander that comes online immediately and is easy to recast
- Lifegain buffer keeps you safe while you grind incrementally
- Synergizes with the huge pool of artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas — easy to fill a deck
- Reusable ETB triggers via blink and bounce create explosive turns
Weaknesses
- Damage is slow and incremental without payoff doublers, so it can be outpaced by faster combo decks
- Heavily reliant on the commander staying in play — board wipes and removal stall the whole plan
- No native card advantage engine in the command zone
- Token strategies don't trigger it, narrowing some Boros support cards
- Vulnerable to lifegain/damage-prevention hate (e.g., effects that stop noncombat damage)
Key Cards
- Norin the Wary — Flickers itself constantly, triggering Arbaaz repeatedly for free pings each turn.
- Conjurer's Closet — Reusable end-step blink retriggers a historic ETB every turn to ping the table.
- Panharmonicon — Doubles each historic permanent's enter triggers, effectively doubling Arbaaz's damage output.
- Mangara, the Diplomat — A legendary that punishes opponents while you keep dumping historic permanents.
- AETHERFLUX RESERVOIR — Lifegain from Arbaaz fuels a 50-life shot to kill a player or clear blockers.
- Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle — Recurs cheap legendary/artifact creatures to loop ETB triggers for repeated pings.
Upgrade Path
Add trigger doublers (Panharmonicon, Elesh Norn, Mondrak) and free recursion/blink loops (Teshar plus a zero-cost artifact, Restoration Angel, Conjurer's Closet) to turn incremental pings into combo-style finishes. Tighten the curve with cheap mana rocks and one-mana legendaries to maximize triggers per turn, and include protection like Heroic Intervention or Teferi's Protection to keep the engine intact through wipes. Top-end payoffs like Aetherflux Reservoir and Bolas's Citadel convert your lifegain into immediate wins.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Grinding all opponents to zero with repeated historic ETB pings, accelerated by Panharmonicon-style doublers
- ▸Looping a blink or recursion engine (Conjurer's Closet, Teshar) for unbounded triggers
- ▸Aetherflux Reservoir burst using accumulated lifegain
- ▸Backing up the ping engine with an aggressive Boros creature beatdown plan
Archetypes
- Artifacts — Cheap nontoken artifacts are the easiest way to chain historic ETB triggers each turn.
- Blink — Flicker effects re-trigger Arbaaz off the same historic permanents repeatedly.
- Superfriends/Legendaries — A density of legendary permanents and planeswalkers keeps the damage trigger firing.
- Aristocrats-adjacent Burn — Incremental life drain and lifegain payoffs convert triggers into a slow-kill plan.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (RW), by popularity.
