- Commander Nexus
- Archetypes
- Cheat into Play
Cheat into Play
decks put huge creatures and other expensive cards onto the battlefield without paying their mana costs. A card says "put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield", and an eight-mana dragon is attacking on turn three. Sneak Attack, Kaalia of the Vast, Natural Order
- KindArchetype
- Cards322
An archetype is a whole game plan: the way a deck tries to win.
How it plays
You fill your deck with the biggest creatures you can find and a handful of cards that skip their mana costs: a like Kaalia of the Vast that drops one from your hand when she attacks, an enchantment like Sneak Attack, or a like Natural Order that searches your and puts the creature straight onto the battlefield. The rest of the deck draws cards and finds the pieces, so the big creature and the way to cheat it arrive together.
How it wins
With something enormous far earlier than anyone can answer it. A creature that costs eight or nine mana is on the table on turn three or four, and most of the ones worth cheating win on their own in two attacks or end the game the moment they enter.
What beats it
on the cheat spell itself, and cheap or for the creature once it lands. Decks that make players a creature do not care how big it is. Cards that stop players from searching their shut off half the ways in.
If this is your first deck
A second deck. The fun is obvious, but the deck is a puzzle of finding the right two cards at the right time, and a hand full of eight-mana creatures with no way to cheat them does nothing. Learn the game with creatures you can first.
Commanders to Start With
The most played commanders where Cheat into Play is one of their two main plans, in order from EDHREC, a site that counts the Commander decks players post online.
Open the full glossarySorceryA one-use spell you can cast only on your own turn, in a main phase, when nothing else is waiting to resolve. After it resolves it goes to the graveyard.
Open the full glossaryLibraryYour deck once the game has started: the face-down pile you draw from. A card that says "search your library" lets you look through it for a card.Open the full glossaryCounterspellA spell whose job is to counter another spell: it stops that spell while it is still on the stack, so it does nothing and goes to the graveyard. The name comes from the card Counterspell, the classic example.
Open the full glossaryRemovalSpells or abilities that destroy, exile, or bounce your opponents' cards.Open the full glossaryExileRemoves a card from the game entirely rather than putting it in the graveyard. Exiled cards are much harder to get back, which is why exile is the strongest answer to recursion.Open the full glossarySacrificeTo put one of your own permanents into your graveyard because a card tells you to or lets you. You can only sacrifice things you control, and it does not count as destroying them, so effects that stop a card from being destroyed do not stop it.
Open the full glossaryCastTo cast a spell is to put it on the stack and pay its cost, usually from your hand. Playing a land is not casting, and a copy of a spell is not cast either.Open the full glossary