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Assassin’s Creed andMagic: The Gatheringteamed up for a Universes Beyond set that merges the two entities together, bringing all of Assassin’s Creed’s deep and convoluted storytelling to Magic’s Multiverse. With it comes a dash of history, stealthy freerunning assassins, and… ephemeral ancient gods of science? Looks like we may need to brush up on our Assassin’s Creed lore.
Among the supernatural entities in the Assassin’s Creed universe is The Capitoline Triad, whose Magic version cares as much about history as their original in-game adaptation. The Triad is a colorless commander with an emphasis on ‘historic’ permanents, which makes it the ideal commander for a big-mana artifact deck.
The Mightstone and Weakstone
Wastes (4)
The Commander
The Capitoline Triad is a colorless legendary God Artificer with a unique set of abilities. It reduces its own cost by one mana for each historic card in your graveyard,which includes all artifacts, legendary cards, and sagas. It also has the only instance of a non-planeswalker card creating an emblem, but it’s going to make you work for it.
Emblems don’t exist on the battlefield and can’t be removed from the game. If you pull off the Triad’s second ability, the emblem you create is there to stay.
Both abilities on the Triad encourage you tofill up your graveyard as much as possible. There are plants here like Mesmeric Orb, looting effects, and Surveil effects to turbo-charge your graveyard. A number of the lands in the manabase were selected specifically to add more legendary lands for the Triad’s cost reduction ability.
Assuming you don’t run intoimmediate graveyard hate, getting The Capitoline Triad into play shouldn’t be too hard. Once it’s in play, the difficult part isgetting 30 mana’s worth of historic cards into your graveyardfor the emblem. There are tons of top-heavy cards in the decklist that are almost entirely meant to be discarded or milled into the graveyard.
Since the Triad’s emblem offersa massive, permanent anthem effectto all your creatures, you canfocus on ramping with smallball early-game creatures, invest all your energy into making the emblem, then turn around and start smashing with those ramp creatures, which are now 9/9s or greater courtesy of the emblem.
There are a few quick notes about The Capitoline Triad: The emblem will affect your commander, making it a 9/9 instead of a 7/7.Commander tax can be reduced by the cost reduction ability, so recasting the Triad isn’t too difficult. And finally, the Triad is basically useless against persistent graveyard hate, so come prepared with interaction for graveyard hate pieces.
The Strategy
The early stages of your strategy should look familiar: Spend your early turns ramping as much as possible, making plays that maximize the amount of mana you have access to.Ramp from artifact creatures is your best bet, since that puts bodies on board for the eventual emblem you’re working up towards.
Step two of the deck coincides with the ramp plan.You need to be filling up your graveyard while ramping ahead, making creatures like Millikin perfect for the early turns of the game. Ideally you can accelerate your mana and start filling up your graveyard at the same time. An early Mesmeric Orb will go a long way toward ensuring you have the tools to make your commander tick.
It’s best to hold off on casting The Capitoline Triad for as long as possible. You’d prefer to activate it the same turn you cast it; that way, it’s not just sitting around making opponents nervous and drawing the attention of their removal. It’s a threat for sure, but you’d best verify it’s actuallythreateningonce you play it. That, and it’ll be cheaper to cast the later you wait.
Don’t waste time and resources trying to copy the Triad’s emblem-making ability. Extra emblems are redundant and won’t have any additional effect on your creatures.
This is a purely colorless deck, so it struggles in the interaction department. It hassome colorless stapleslike Warping Wail and board wipes like All Is Dust and Nevinyrral’s Disk to keep opponents off-kilter, butit’s much lighter on removal than the average Commander deck. That means you want to enact your gameplan fast and finish up quickly once everything’s set in motion.
Speaking of, your fancy emblem doesn’t do anything if you don’t have creatures on board. Hopefully you still have yourdorky mana-producing creatureslaying around, but you’ll want to sneak in cards like Mirrex and Glaring Fleshraker to spit out more bodies over time. This deck can go from having only five or six power in play to suddenly having between 45-50.
The last major facets of the deck are the looting effects. Cards like Currency Converter, Smuggler’s Copter, Metzalantli, the Great Door, and Geier Reach Sanitarium are all present to help you pitch expensive historic spells into the graveyard.A card like Draco isn’t meant to be cast here; it’s only on the list to give you an easy 16-mana target to dump in the graveyard.
Important Interactions
Most of the deck is pretty straightforward, with few complex interactions outside of what’s written on the cards. That said, there are some minor interactions to be aware of. Perhaps the most important is recognizing thatnot all colorless cards are historic. Historic refers to artifacts and legendary cards specifically, sonormal colorless creatures like Eldrazidon’t usually qualify.
There are a handful of cards in the deck that create ‘Karnstructs,’ or 0/0 Construct tokens that get +1/+1 equal to the number of artifacts you control. Their power modulates as the number of artifacts you control changes, butthey also work exceptionally well with the Triad’s emblem. The emblem will make them base 9/9s that still get the +1/+1 bonus equal to your artifact count.
Avoid sacrificing Eldrazi Spawn/Scion tokens in this deck. They may be small now, but that’s basically a 9/9 you’re sacrificing for some temporary mana!
This deck featuresseven Urza’s lands, as well as Expedition Map to help assemble them. Urza’s Cave can tag out for any land in your deck, making it easier than normal to assemble the three main Tron pieces.They’re basically a freeroll in the deck, since colorless decks have tons of room forextra utility lands.
You should also take note of cards that mention your commander’s color identity.The Capitoline Triad has zero colors in its color identity, which means War Room costs no life to activate, and Commander’s Plate gives protection from all colors. This is also the reason you don’t see Command Tower and Arcane Signet in the list; they literally can’t tap for mana.
Budget Considerations
This Capitoline Triad deck was built with budget considerations but still includes a fair number of inclusions and concessions to give players wiggle room in deck construction. The power level of the deck can be greatly increased with cards that are absent from the list, and the overall price can be tuned down by removing a few expensive cards.
Budget Increases
It’s pretty easy to optimize a colorless deck if you have no budget concerns. Mana Crypt and Ancient Tomb are the best fast-mana options you may add to a deck like this, thoughthey’ll single-handedly put you in a higher power level tierthan where this decklist aims at.
The One Ring is a Commander staple, and while it’s an incredibly powerful source of card advantage and protection,it’s also wildly expensivefor those who don’t already own one. The same is true ofthe Reserved Listcard Metalworker, which does wonders in artifact decks but also costs over $100 a copy.
Ugin’s Labyrinth and Darksteel Monolith are great colorless-matters cards that both run over $30. They’ll unlock some powerful synergies in the deck, but they’re not mandatory for those playing on a budget.Field of the Dead is also an excellent back-up winconthat tends to be fairly expensive. It was omitted for budgetary and power level concerns.
Budget Decreases
The decklist as presented was built with a medium-sized budget in mind, so it includes a few expensive cards without going overboard on them.Urza’s Saga is an easy cut, since it’s nearing $50. It’ll reduce the effectiveness of your Urza’s land package, but it’s also not an essential part of your deck’s plan.
Commander’s Plate is mostly present because of its cute interactionwith colorless commanders, but at $35 a copy,it’s easy to cut for a more generic piece of equipmentlike Lightning Greaves. Inventors' Fair and Fomori Vault are excellent utility lands for artifact decks, but these $10+ lands can be subbed out for whatever colorless lands you have on hand.
