The Commander
If an opponent would face a villainous choice, they face that choice an additional time. (They can make the same or different choices.)
While voting, you may vote an additional time.
Guide
Gameplan
The Valeyard turns symmetrical-feeling 'choose one' cards into one-sided punishment by doubling every villainous choice your opponents face and doubling your own votes. You assemble a Grixis pile of villainous-choice and voting cards, forcing opponents to lose life, sacrifice, discard, and let your spells resolve repeatedly while you outvote the whole table on council cards. Win by grinding the table down with repeated drains and value, then closing with the extra resources you've accrued.
Strengths
- Doubles the downside of every villainous-choice spell, so opponents bleed life, creatures, and cards twice over
- Effectively gets two votes on every council card, letting you single-handedly steer Coalition Victory-style outcomes
- Grixis colors give access to the deepest removal, card draw, and reanimation in the format
- Niche but powerful: most tables have no answer to the doubling effect once it's online
Weaknesses
- Both halves of the ability rely on a relatively shallow pool of villainous-choice and voting cards
- Does nothing on an empty board—if it's removed and you've drawn the wrong half of your deck, you stall
- Five mana and no evasion or protection makes it a vulnerable, removal-magnet commander
- Villainous choice lets opponents pick the least-bad option, so doubling still gives them agency
Key Cards
- Tinybones, the Pickpocket — Its villainous choice forces discard-or-life-loss twice, and it's a repeatable engine in the command-zone-adjacent slot.
- Breena, the Demagogue — A premier voting commander effect; doubling your vote swings council cards entirely in your favor.
- Capricious Efreet — Repeated random destruction becomes far more lethal when each villainous choice triggers an extra time.
- Tempt with Vengeance — Tempting offers and tempt cards let you vote twice for the payoff while opponents pile on resources.
- Coalition Victory — Council/vote synergies plus your extra vote can rig outcome-based cards in your direction.
- Grim Hireling — Treasure generation fuels the high curve of villainous-choice spells across three colors.
Upgrade Path
Lean hard into the densest villainous-choice and voting payoffs—Tinybones, Capricious Efreet, Breena, Expropriate, Council's Judgment—so the commander always has targets. Add fast mana (Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Jeweled Lotus) and protection like Lightning Greaves to keep The Valeyard online through removal. Round out with Grixis staples (Cyclonic Rift, Demonic Tutor, Dockside Extortionist) to tutor your engine pieces and convert doubled value into a closing turn.
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
- ▸Incremental life loss from doubled villainous-choice drains across all opponents
- ▸Rigging council/vote cards like Coalition Victory or Expropriate with your extra vote
- ▸Out-resourcing the table via doubled value triggers then closing with a finisher creature
- ▸Repeatable sacrifice/discard effects stripping opponents to nothing before a beatdown
Archetypes
- Group Slug / Punisher — Doubling villainous choices makes every 'choose a downside' card hit opponents twice as hard.
- Voting Council — Your doubled vote lets you dominate Will of the Council and council's-dilemma cards.
- Grixis Control — Backed by Grixis removal and card advantage, you grind the table while your choice-doublers tax them.
- Reanimator Value — Black and blue let you cheat out and recur high-impact creatures that present villainous choices.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BRU), by popularity.
