The Commander
Survival — At the beginning of your second main phase, if Rip is tapped, reveal the top X cards of your library, where X is its power. Put any number of creature and/or Vehicle cards with different powers from among them into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Guide
Gameplan
Attack or tap Rip, then in your second main phase reveal cards equal to its power and rake in a hand of fat creatures and Vehicles with different power values. You snowball into a wide, beefy board that overruns the table while refilling your hand every single turn. The deck is a midrange GW value engine that wins through sheer card advantage and creature quality.
Strengths
- Repeatable, color-cheap card advantage that scales as you pump Rip's power
- Effectively no card filtering downside since rejects bottom your library
- Plays great with anthems, +1/+1 counters, and big-mana creatures
- GW gives premium ramp, recursion, and resilient threats
Weaknesses
- Engine stalls completely if Rip is removed and not recast quickly
- Requires Rip to connect or otherwise tap each turn—needs evasion/protection
- Pulling many same-power cards limits hauls; deck wants varied power values
- No native card draw or interaction in colors; can get raced by faster combo
Key Cards
- Rip, Spawn Hunter — The whole engine—every point of power adds another card revealed and another body to grab.
- Skullclamp — Turns small creatures pulled by Rip into a second draw engine for absurd advantage.
- Shalai and Hallar — Counter synergy can swing Rip's power while protecting your board and growing threats.
- Cryptolith Rite — Mana from your wide board lets you actually cast the giant hand Rip generates each turn.
- Branching Evolution — Doubles counters to pump Rip's power, dramatically increasing cards revealed.
- Rogue's Passage — Guarantees Rip connects to stay tapped and trigger Survival reliably.
Upgrade Path
Prioritize cheap, repeatable power pumps and counter doublers (Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution) plus protection like Heroic Intervention and Swiftfoot Boots to keep Rip online. Add mana acceleration (Cryptolith Rite, Smothering Tithe-style fixing, mana dorks) so you can cast the giant hands you generate, and tune your curve to maximize distinct power values. Cap it with finishers like Craterhoof Behemoth and Akroma's Will to convert your massive board into a single-turn kill.
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
- ▸Overrun with an ever-growing army of high-power creatures via Craterhoof Behemoth or Overwhelming Stampede
- ▸Grind the table out of resources with relentless Survival card advantage
- ▸Combat damage from oversized Rip plus evasion enablers
Archetypes
- Counters Midrange — Pumping Rip's power with +1/+1 counters directly increases how many cards Survival reveals.
- Big Creatures — A spread of varied-power fatties maximizes how many cards you keep each trigger.
- Go-Wide Tokens — Tokens feed sacrifice/anthem synergies and ramp via mana dorks to deploy Rip's hauls.
- Voltron-ish Value — Suiting up Rip both protects it and boosts power to dig deeper every turn.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (GW), by popularity.
