Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Urza, Lord High Artificer!

Urza is a four mana 1/4 with whenever he enters you make a 0/0 Construct artifact creature token with “This creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.” you can also tap an untapped artifact to add blue mana and for five mana you can shuffle your library then exile the top card and you may play that card without paying its mana cost.

Urza is a neat way to get a bit of extra mana in blue by using your artifacts as resources and thankfully blue has a decent number of artifact strategies. If we are able to get a good number of cheap artifacts into play then we can use them as mana rocks to be able to cast some big spells.

Since he is four mana, he’ll be harder to cast so he is ideal for a casual game of Commander that’ll let you play with the artifact cards laying in your bulk pile.

So the game plan is to get a decent number of cheap artifacts in order to make sure our Construct is huge while also being able to get a decent amount of mana to cast some big spells, maybe using the five mana ability if we have the opportunity to do so.

The first thing we need to do is get a number of cheap artifacts onto the battlefield, and ideally they should have a utility use to help us be more effective.

Voltaic Key is pretty good for being a one mana artifact that allows us to spend a mana to untap another artifact. This means if we have a Codex Shredder out then we can untap it for one mana so we can mill an opponent an additional card.

This also means we can use it to untap any of the zero mana artifacts that have a minor use because with Urza out those zero mana artifacts with downside like Lion’s Eye Diamond to become a more reliable mana rock.

While we can use Chrome Mox or Mox Diamond, I am a little more reticent to use them because we need to exile a nonartifact, nonland card for Chrome Mox to add just one mana or we need to discard a land for Mox Diamond. The Mox Diamond basically becomes a land drop, which becomes pointless if we have a Vexing Bauble in play, at least that prevents players from casting free spells and can draw us a card while being able to tap for mana with Urza.

Additionally we can use Mycosynth Lattice for a late game addition to turn everything into artifacts, meaning that we can tap anything and everything for mana to cast a Tidespout Tyrant to start bouncing things into our opponents hand.

We can also use Karn, the Great Creator as a way to make sure that any artifacts that we have in exile can come back into play, while also making artifacts our opponents become harder to use.

The next thing we need to do is make sure that we can make sure we can keep our opponents honest, especially since we are only in one color.

Rhystic Study is a great card in this regard because if our opponents want to cast a bunch of spells they have to pay an additional mana to make sure that keep us from drawing cards. It is an enchantment so it doesn’t have much synergy with our deck, but I think it’s worth considering.

We also need access to a couple of counter spells, with one of the better options being Mana Drain because we can use it to get a bit of extra mana on our turn. The downside is that we may not be able to use it for something, but at worst we can use it to refund the mana we are putting into our Mana Vault to make sure it doesn’t deal a damage to us.

At worst we can use the excess mana to cast The One Ring in order to give us a turn cycle of protection, and even though we’re going to lose life, we can use it’s ability to draw us a couple of cards.

While they become less synergistic if we have a Vexing Bauble, we do have access to Force of Will, which does deal a damage to us and brings us down a card to counter a spell, but it can be used in a pinch if we don’t have our artifacts untapped to pay for it. Similarly there is Fierce Guardianship which we can cast for free if Urza is out, but it costs three mana so we can counter a noncreature spell early if we don’t have the mana for Urza yet.

Now we need to find a way to win, and thankfully there are plenty of helpful guides out there regarding some format called cEDH that give some nifty ways to win.

Some suggest pairing Timetwister with something like Isochron Scepter as a way to refuel your hand. It does make Timetwister cheaper by one mana to use, giving you the chance to use that extra mana for your Voltaic Key to untap the Isochron Scepter again so you can pay two more mana to switch your hand if you didn’t like the new one you drew.

Another way I saw people using Isochron Specter is for a card like Dramatic Reversal to untap all our nonland permanents, meaning we can untap all our artifacts to have some extra mana to cast something big. People recommend Hullbreaker Horror as something to cast, which is helpful because if we cast another cheap spell like a Lotus Petal or Sensei’s Diving Top we can bounce our opponents creatures.

If we attach something like Windfall to Isochron Scepter then we can have everyone draw a bunch of extra cards, which can be dangerous but we can potentially mill our opponents out if we happen to find ways to untap our artifacts like an Unwinding Clock to untap our artifacts at the beginning of our opponent’s turns.

We can also pull of a sneaky win if we have a draw spell like Sea Gate Restoration to mill ourselves until we nearly hit zero cards in our library to cast Thassa’s Oracle, which is almost impossible to get in Commander unless you have a way to get rid of your library consistently. No one would expect that’s what your doing, and its also cheap to play at only two mana.

Urza is a straightforward Commander that has a bit of flexibility in how he can be played. He does limit you to artifacts, but getting a bit of extra mana in blue is always helpful, especially since we can use cheap artifacts to become mana rocks. It’s a shame that Paradox Engine is banned, we would have been able to get a Storm win in the deck.

Shame.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

April Fools,

From, J.M. Casual