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The Merc with a Mouth has a habit of breaking the fourth wall, and has somehow escaped from his own comic universe to invade the multiverse ofMagic: The Gathering. Now it’s time for him to break into the fourth seat in your Commander pod.
Deadpool brings his trademark humor (and one silver-bordered reprint) to the table, along with a unique mechanic that trades his text box with other creatures. In most decks, that would allow you to steal a useful effect or a stax piece, but with the right cards you may make everything Deadpool.
Terror of the Peaks
Helm of the Host
Sword of Hearth and Home
Mountain x10
Swamp x7
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
The Commander
Deadpool’s debut as a trading card in Magic: The Gathering is unironically named “Deadpool, Trading Card”. He’s a5/3 Mutant Mercenary Heroin the same red and black as his iconic costume, with a mana cost of one red, one black, and two generic mana.
Deadpool’s text box has a big downside:you lose three life during your upkeep as long as you control Deadpool. He does have a way to sacrifice himself to stop that effect, but it requires you to pay three mana and give every other player a free card.
The upside is that… well… You canmake Deadpool someone else’s problem. When he comes into play, you can cut off his text box and swap it with another creature’s text box, giving an opponent all of Deadpool’s problematic abilities in exchange for effectively stealing their best creature.
Do not actually cut off Deadpool, Trading Card’s text box. In fact, never do anything you’ve ever seen Deadpool do.
It’s important to note thatDeadpool, Trading Card’s first ability is a replacement ability, not a triggered ability. There are a couple of distinctions, but the one you’ll need to remember most often is that if you choose a creature with an enter effect to trade text boxes with,Deadpool will trigger that enter effectas he comes into play.
So, for example, if you cast Deadpool, Trading Card and trade text boxes with and opponent’s Solemn Simulacrum,when Deadpool enters you’ll get to fetch a basic land, and draw a card when he dies. Meanwhile, Solemn Simulacrum’s controller will lose three life every turn until they sacrifice it to give you an extra card.
Building The Deck
Deadpool, Trading Card isa powerful way to steal combat enablers, draw engines, ramp, and combo piecesfrom your opponents while chaining them with a dead card that sucks their life away every turn. But it’s only a single card, so reusing it means losing any valuable effect it’s already gained.
To get around that limit, we’re going to borrow fromDeadpool & Wolverineandmake an army of disposable Deadpool variants. The deck is filled with ways to copy and clone creatures, so that you can steal all of your opponents' desirable effects and leave them with a pile of leaches to drain their life faster than they can sacrifice them.
Since Deadpool, Trading Card is legendary,you also need a way to turn off the ‘legendary rule’or make nonlegendary versions. The decklist contains several ways to make copies of your legendary creatures hang around when they should disappear.
It’s important when building a Commander decknot to get too wrapped up in having your commander in playall the time. Your opponents may counter, destroy, or steal him, and if your entire deck revolves around him, you’ll be dead in the pool.
Since you’re trying to make a lot of copies of Deadpool, Trading Card, the list includesseveral creatures with myriadwhich can benefit from being copied themselves. These are primarily backups, but can help give you some extra board presence, too.
Ramp
This deck doesn’t contain a hefty ramp package outside the standard set of mana rocks, but it doesn’t need it: the deck runs a lot of low-cost spells with effects that work especially well with Deadpool, Trading Card, sothe standard mana rock package(Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and one more two-mana artifact)should be enough.
For a more Marvel feel,look for the Arc Reactor Sol Ringand theEarth’s Mightiest EmblemArcane Signet. The 30th Anniversary Promo Arcane Signet is another good choice on a budget, since it looks a lot like the Infinity Gauntlet.
The other ramp options included in this deck have additional utility.Cursed Mirror, for example,can come into play as a copy of Deadpool, Trading Card, and trade text boxes with another creature. At the end of the turn it will go back to being an artifact, but will keep the text box permanently.
There are a myriad of cards with myriad and other single-turn copy effects, so Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod’s Altar are here toturn the tokens you need to sacrifice anyway into mana.
Using either of these altars and one of the myriad cards, you’re able to create creature tokens to attack, then, instead of sacrificing them at the end of the turn, you cansacrifice them for mana to play additional spellsor activate Aggravated Assault to repeat the process.
Draw
This deck doesn’t have a ton of card draw options, but it always has Deadpool, Trading Card available. Each time Deadpool, Trading Card comes into play, you can pass its text box off to an opponent, andthey’ll need to choose to either lose life or give you some free cardsto draw.
If you use Deadpool tosteal the text box of an opponent’s draw engine, you’ll get even more cards out of the deal!
Since Deadpool is a professional face-breaker, Professional Face-Breaker is included. It provides a little ramp in the form of Treasure tokens, and allows you tosacrifice those Treasures to exile the top card from your library and play itthat turn.
Morbid Opportunist is wildly good with Deadpool, Trading Card.You’ll be encouraging your opponents to sacrifice their creatures(with Deadpool’s text box), and also have outlets to sacrifice your own tokens, earning you regular card draw.
Finally, Scrawling Crawler is a bit of a “group slug” card. During your upkeep, it gives you and each opponent one card. But it alsocauses your opponents to lose life whenever they draw cards. Remember, Deadpool also causes your opponents to draw cards when someone sacrifices it, so this is almost pure benefit for you.
In a pinch,Solemn Simulacrum is both ramp and draw. Equipping one with Blade of Selves or using another repeatable copy effect will allow you to make copies that fetch you basic lands, then sacrifice them to your altars for more mana and card draw.
Deadpool, Trading Card works extraordinarily well if you can blink him or make copies. Since there are few ways to remove and return creatures to play in Rakdos (red/black),we’re focusing on making copies.
If you give Deadpool Blade of Selves, when you attack with him you’ll gettwo token copies that can steal text boxes from your opponents’ creatures. The legendary copies die immediately, but you’ll still have nullified two, hopefully, important creatures and chained an opponent with Deadpool’s life-loss ability.
Helm of the Host is a little slower, because it only makes one copy per combat, but it doesn’t require Deadpool to attack. More importantly,the copy is nonlegendary, so it can stick around, andyou can attach your Blade of Selves to that one, later!
Token copies of creatures come into play with their text as printed, so you’ll get a fresh Deadpool rather than one with the text box the original stole.
Included in the same Secret Lair as Deadpool, Trading Card, was a welcome reprint of Saw in Half. This instantdestroys a creature and makes two half-sized copies, allowing you to dodge other removal effects and get more Deadpool.
Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink is practically made for Deadpool, Trading Card. For two mana, you can tap it tomake a copy of another creature. Two mana is dirt-cheap to hobble one of your opponents' best creatures each turn.
It also scales later in the game: Once you have nine mana available, you can use Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink’s second activated ability tomake five copies of Deadpool or another important creature.
Redoubled Stormsinger can be an incredible card if you pay attention to sequencing. Itcopies all of your tokens that came into play before it attacks, so you can use effects like Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink to make several tokens, and then double them.
Clone Degeneration Prevention
Remember that Spider-Man story arc from the 90s? The one nobody wants to talk about? Well, just like the Spider-clones in that storyline,most of the cloned Deadpools in this deck degenerate, going into exile at the end of the turn they came into play.
The Master, Multiplied can fix that, though! Not only does it turn off the “legend rule” for your tokens, it alsostops most of the abilities that force you to sacrifice your tokens. That means creatures with Myriad or from other copy effects can just keep multiplying!
Mirror Box doesn’t stop you from sacrificing or exiling your tokens, but it doesturn off the “legend rule”, and it pumps the original creaturebased on how many copies you have in play with the same name.
Deck Tech
There are several other fun tricks you may pull off with this deck. For example, what if your opponent doesn’t have a creature to trade text boxes with? If you include Forbidden Orchard, you cansaddle your opponents with 1/1 Spiritsand use Deadpool to make them suck life away.
This is also a fine place for Worldgorger Dragon.Worldgorger Dragon exiles all of your other permanents when it comes into play, and returns them to play when it leaves. Using an enchantment like Animate Dead on it in your graveyard allows you to create an infinite loop.
The great thing is, all of your permanents come into play untapped, so you can tap all of your lands to make unlimited mana between exiles. That also means you can give your opponents unlimited Spirits, andgive them all Deadpool’s text box to kill them on their next upkeep.
For a more aggressive play, Aggravated Assault allows you tountap all your creatures and take an extra combat step for five mana. Creatures with myriad make tokens with myriad, so if you have either altar in play, this can quickly turn into an infinite token/combat/mana scenario.
