Skip to content
Commander Nexus
  1. Commander Nexus
  2. Commanders
  3. Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake

Command zone

Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake

Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake

Legendary Creature — Skeleton Horror

Uchbenbak wants a deck that fills its discard pile and plays cards back out of it. It also suits a deck that brings big creatures back from the discard pile.

  • Mana cost3 genericblueblack
  • Blue, Black ()
  • Power / toughness6 / 4
  • RarityUncommon

Vigilance, menace

Descend 8 — 4 genericblueblack: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. Activate only if there are eight or more permanent cards in your graveyard and only as a sorcery. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.)

Build a deck with Uchbenbak Find it in the app

Cards That Fit Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake

Picked for what they do in Uchbenbak's deck. When two cards do the same job, the one with the lower comes first. All of them fit Uchbenbak's color identity.Mana ValueThe total amount of mana a card costs, all added up. A card costing two generic and one green has a mana value of three. Wizards renamed this from "converted mana cost" in 2021, so older cards and articles may still use the old name.Sol RingOpen the full glossary

plan6

The 6 Cards

plan6

The 6 Cards

Rulings for Uchbenbak, the Great Mistake

explain how Uchbenbak works in tricky situations. They come from Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic.RulingThe official answer to how a card works in a tricky situation. Most rulings are written by Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic, and a few are notes from Scryfall, the card database Magic players use. A ruling explains a card. It does not change what the card says.Open the full glossary

Wizards of the Coast 10 Nov 2023

Cards with the ability word "descend N" have abilities that care if you have at least N permanent cards in your graveyard.

Wizards of the Coast 10 Nov 2023

Finality counters aren't keyword counters, and a finality counter doesn't give any abilities to the permanent it's on. If that permanent loses its abilities and then would go to a graveyard, it will still be exiled instead.

Wizards of the Coast 10 Nov 2023

Finality counters don't stop permanents from going to zones other than the graveyard from the battlefield. For example, if a permanent with a finality counter on it would be put into its owner's hand from the battlefield, it does so normally.

Wizards of the Coast 10 Nov 2023

Finality counters work on any permanent, not only creatures. If a permanent with a finality counter on it would be put into a graveyard from the battlefield, exile it instead.

Wizards of the Coast 10 Nov 2023

Multiple finality counters on a single permanent are redundant.

Wizards of the Coast 10 Nov 2023

Some descend triggered abilities include intervening "if" clauses (i.e. "if you have [four or eight] permanent cards in your graveyard" in the middle of the ability). Each of these abilities checks your graveyard at the moment it would trigger to see if it does. If you don't have the required number of permanent cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability doesn't trigger at all. If it does trigger, it will check again as it tries to resolve. If you don't have the required number of permanent cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability won't resolve and none of its effects will happen.

6 rulings, all written by Wizards of the Coast. Read the originals on Gatherer ↗

Similar Commanders

Commanders that share the most with Uchbenbak, and what they share.

Color identityEvery color of mana symbol on a card, in its cost and in its rules text. Your commander's color identity sets the limit for your whole deck: every other card has to fit inside it. A deck led by a green and white commander cannot play a card with any blue in its color identity.Open the full glossaryUBPlayers write colors as letters: U for blue, B for black. Blue is U because B was already taken by black.Graveyard/Self-MillGraveyard decks fill their own graveyard on purpose, then play cards from it as if it were a second hand. Moving cards from the top of your own deck straight into the graveyard is called self-mill.Open the Graveyard/Self-Mill pageReanimationReturns a creature card from a graveyard straight to the battlefield, skipping its mana cost. That is why decks built around it put their biggest creatures into the graveyard on purpose. Named for Reanimate. Animate DeadOpen the Reanimation pageRecursionBrings cards back from the graveyard: to your hand, to the battlefield, or letting them be cast again from where they lie. Eternal Witness, Reanimate, VictimizeOpen the Recursion pageGraveyard PayoffRewards you for having cards in your graveyard, or uses them straight from there. Your graveyard is normally where cards go once they are finished with; these turn it into a second hand, and the fuller it is the better they get. Golgari Grave-Troll, SplinterfrightOpen the Graveyard Payoff pageEvasionAn ability that makes a creature hard to block, so its attacks reach the player. Flying, menace, landwalk and plain 'can't be blocked' are the common kinds.Open the Evasion pageMana SinkGives you somewhere useful to spend spare mana, usually through an ability you can activate again and again. Rogue's Passage, Mind StoneOpen the Mana Sink pageCounter ManipulationAdds, moves or multiplies counters already on permanents. It works on any kind (+1/+1, loyalty, charge), so the same card can serve very different decks. Karn's Bastion, Doubling SeasonOpen the Counter Manipulation pageReanimatorReanimator decks put big creatures into their own graveyard early, then bring them back onto the battlefield without paying their cost. It gets a huge creature into play far sooner than you could afford to cast it.Open the Reanimator page