GrixisLegendary Creature — Human WizardMairsil, the Pretender
Mana value4Rank#18,087
The Commander
When Mairsil enters, you may exile an artifact or creature card from your hand or graveyard and put a cage counter on it.
Mairsil has all activated abilities of all cards you own in exile with cage counters on them. You may activate each of those abilities only once each turn.
Guide
Gameplan
Cage powerful activated abilities from artifacts and creatures, then turn Mairsil into a Swiss Army knife that copies all of them, activating each once per turn. You set up a value engine of tutors and cage fodder, then chain abilities to grind advantage or assemble an infinite loop that ends the game on the spot.
Strengths
- Extremely flexible — Mairsil can have removal, ramp, card draw, and a combo finisher all on one body
- Built-in combo redundancy: many infinite loops exist with cheap cageable creatures
- Grixis colors give the best tutors, interaction, and recursion in the game
- Resilient engine since abilities live in exile, not on the battlefield where they're easy to wipe
Weaknesses
- Heavily commander-dependent; if Mairsil is removed or taxed repeatedly the deck stalls
- Caging happens on ETB, so you must keep recasting him to load new abilities
- Slow to set up and can be disrupted by graveyard hate or exile of caged cards
- Vulnerable to counterspells and stax that lock down activated abilities or tutors
Key Cards
- Mirror-Mad Phantasm — Its ability mills your library to find another copy, the classic 'mill yourself out' setup that pairs with self-mill payoffs.
- Lion's Eye Diamond — Caged, it produces three mana each turn at instant speed, fueling combos and explosive turns.
- Magus of the Coffers — Provides huge black mana to power Mairsil's other activated abilities repeatedly.
- Buried Alive — Stocks your graveyard with the exact creatures you want to cage off Mairsil's ETB.
- Necromancy — Reanimates Mairsil or fodder and lets you re-trigger his enter ability to cage more cards.
- Basalt Monolith — A caged untapping mana rock that enables infinite colorless mana with the right partner ability.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana (Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond) and premium tutors (Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Gamble) to find combo pieces faster. Tighten the cage targets toward a compact two-card infinite (e.g., Basalt Monolith + a copy ability, or Lion's Eye Diamond loops) and back it with counterspells like Pact of Negation and Force of Will to protect the turn you go off. Cut clunky high-cost value pieces for cheap protective interaction and ways to recast Mairsil resiliently.
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
- ▸Infinite mana into a caged sink like Walking Ballista or Rocket Launcher for unbounded damage
- ▸Mill yourself with Mirror-Mad Phantasm into a Laboratory Maniac / Thassa's Oracle finish
- ▸Looping caged abilities for infinite draw, damage, or board control until opponents concede
- ▸Beating down with a buffed Mairsil carrying evasion abilities like Pestermite or shadow creatures
Archetypes
- Combo — Mairsil assembles infinite mana, mill, or damage loops by caging synergistic activated abilities like Lion's Eye Diamond and Mirror-Mad Phantasm.
- Toolbox Value — He copies tutored utility abilities, giving the deck answers and engines on a single recurring body.
- Reanimator — Cheap reanimation re-casts Mairsil and loads premium creatures into exile cages.
- Control — Grixis interaction plus caged removal and card-draw abilities let you grind opponents out.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BRU), by popularity.
