The Commander
Ultima Founding — 
, Tap two untapped artifacts you control: Create a 2/2 white Astartes Warrior creature token with vigilance.
Master of Machines — , Tap X untapped creatures you control: Look at the top X cards of your library. You may reveal an artifact card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Guide
Gameplan
Belisarius Cawl turns a wide artifact board into both an army and an engine: tap pairs of artifacts to spit out 2/2 vigilant Astartes Warriors, then tap that growing creature horde to dig deep for the best artifacts in your deck. You snowball a token army while assembling powerful artifact payoffs, then close with go-wide attacks or an artifact-fueled combo.
Strengths
- Generates a steady token army without spending cards, building an evasion/anthem-ready board
- Built-in card advantage that finds your best artifacts (and combo pieces) every turn
- Loves any artifact token doubler or anthem effect for explosive scaling
- Vigilance Astartes can attack and still untap to fuel the dig ability
Weaknesses
- Both abilities are slow, tap-dependent, and vulnerable to a single Cawl removal spell
- Heavy reliance on artifacts makes it soft to board wipes and artifact hate (Vandalblast, Bane of Progress)
- Wants to tap out for value, leaving you open with low interaction
- UW lacks reach/ramp depth, so explosive turns require careful setup
Key Cards
- Anointed Procession — Doubles the Astartes tokens (and any other tokens) Cawl makes, turning a trickle into a flood.
- Intruder Alarm — Untaps all creatures whenever a creature enters, so each Astartes token immediately re-untaps your board for infinite loops with mana artifacts.
- Skullclamp — Cheaply tapped artifact and a relentless card-draw engine when sacrificing 2/2 tokens that die to it.
- Sword of the Animus / Treasure makers — Cheap artifacts and Treasures give you fodder to fuel Cawl's two-artifact tap cost reliably.
- Cyberdrive Awakener — Animates your artifacts so they can tap as the 'creatures' for the dig ability and swing as a haste army.
- Urza, Lord High Artificer — Turns every artifact into a mana source and provides another artifact-fueled tap engine alongside Cawl.
Upgrade Path
Lean harder into untap and token-doubling synergies—add Intruder Alarm, Anointed Procession, and mana-positive rocks like Sol Ring and Basalt Monolith to enable loops. Improve consistency with tutors (Whir of Invention, Fabricate, Enlightened Tutor) and protect Cawl with Swiftfoot Boots and counterspells. Finish with a dedicated outlet like Walking Ballista or Altar of the Brood so your infinite token engine actually closes the game.
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
- ▸Overwhelming combat damage from a wide, anthem-pumped Astartes Warrior army
- ▸Infinite token/untap loops (Intruder Alarm + mana rocks) feeding a damage or mill outlet
- ▸Assembling an artifact-based combo finder via the Master of Machines dig ability
- ▸Convoke/affinity-fueled bombs cast off a flood of tapped tokens
Archetypes
- Artifacts — Cawl rewards a dense artifact base both as tap fodder and as the payoff his dig ability finds.
- Tokens — His first ability churns out vigilant 2/2s that scale absurdly with anthems and token doublers.
- Combo — Untap effects like Intruder Alarm plus mana artifacts can loop token creation and card selection.
- Go-Wide Aggro — A growing Astartes army with vigilance supports anthem-backed alpha strikes.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (UW), by popularity.
