Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Obeka, Splitter of Seconds!

Obeka is a four mana 2/5 with menace and whenever Obeka deals combat damage to a player you get that many additional upkeep steps after this phase.

Obeka dealing with the structure of a turn is not a new thing, the first Obeka being able to end a player’s turn, but this Obeka being able to deal with multiple upkeep is pretty fun and there are some fun ways we can use that to our advantage.

The goal for the deck is to find ways to get a ton of mileage out of having a ton of upkeeps, get Obeka big enough so we have more than the two upkeeps we would get if Obeka is at base power, and find a way to win via the value brought from having multiple upkeeps.

The first thing we need are ways to take advantage of the multiple upkeeps in the way it helps us establish our board or gains us some small advantages along the way.

Thrumming Hivepool was a surprise when it debuted in Edge of Eternities because it had been quite a while since we’ve seen Slivers in a Standard set, but this card is perfect for Obeka. While we won’t be getting a lot of use out of the affinity for Slivers part, giving Slivers we control double strike and haste is good, along with the fact that at the beginning of our upkeep we make two 1/1 Sliver tokens does help.

Generous Plunderer can also be a good choice because at the beginning of our upkeep we make a Treasure token and when we do an opponent also makes a Treasure token and when the Plunderer attacks, it deals damage to defending player equal to the number of artifacts they control. This helps us ramp a bit while also being able to play a bit on the politics aspect in giving us a bit of time to build a board.

To that end, Stormfist Crusader also works for us because at the beginning of our upkeep each player draws a card and loses 1 life, which is pretty good especially if we combine it with a Scrawling Crawler which also has each player draw a card at the beginning of our upkeep and whenever an opponent draws a card that player loses 1 life, for an additional bit of life loss.

Thopter Spy Network can make us a bunch of 1/1 Thopters with flying and draw cards when artifact creatures we control deal damage, Lotus Blossom can accumulate a bunch of petal counters for a huge burst of mana, and we can get to casting bigger spells for free if we get enough time counters on As Foretold quick enough.

The next thing we need are ways for Obeka to do a lot of damage in order to get more and more upkeeps.

Ring of Xathrid plays double duty here in that at the beginning of our upkeep we put a +1/+1 counter on the equipped creature if it’s black and for two mana we can regenerate the equipped creature, which is very helpful in making sure that Obeka stays alive for us to do what we need to do.

We can also use the other rings that were a part of this cycle with Ring of Valkas giving the equipped creature haste and puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature if it’s red and more substantially Ring of Evos Isle which gives a +1/+1 counter if the equipped creature is blue, but also for two mana gives the creature hexproof until end of turn.

While menace on Obeka does a lot for us, we can have ways to ensure we get combat damage through if an opponent has a very wide bord. Aqueous Form makes the enchanted creature unblockable and scry 1 when it attacks, Aether Tunnel gives the enchanted creature +1/+0 and unblockable, and Security Bypass makes it unblockable and if the enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player it connives.

There are also ways we can make sure that our opponents aren’t going to be gunning for us once we start accumulating upkeeps with something like Silent Arbiter, which makes it so only one creature can attack each combat and only one creature can block each combat, which let’s us get Obeka through without any major issues while limiting go wide players.

Suspended Sentence as a way to deal with bigger creatures because it destroys a creature an opponent controls and then that player loses 3 life and then we exile it with three time counters on it and since it has Suspend, which removes the time counters at the beginning of our upkeep, we can cast it over and over again to help clear out bigger and more problematic creatures.

The last thing we need is to make sure we outvalue our opponents when we have an absurd number of upkeeps.

Gate to the Aether is excellent because though it effects every player at the beginning of their upkeeps, we should get the most use out of it because at the beginning of each players upkeep that player reveals the top card of their library and if it’s an artifact, creature, enchantment, or land card that player many put it into play.

With this we can cheat in the bigger upkeep value engines like Blood Tyrant which has each player lose 1 life at the beginning of their upkeep and gets a +1/+1 counter for each life lost this way and if a player loses the game then it gets five +1/+1 counters.

Herald of Leshrac has a Cumulative Upkeep of gaining control of a land we don’t control, gets +1/+1 for each land we control but don’t own and when it leaves play we return the lands we took, but this is an instance where Cumulative Upkeep benefits us because we can steal more and more of our opponents lands to help us cast more things or prevent our opponents from casting anything.

Skyline Despot makes us the monarch and at the beginning of our upkeep if we are the monarch we make a 5/5 Dragon with flying, Court of Ambition has each opponent lose 3 life unless the discard a card or they lose 6 life unless they discard two cards if we are the monarch, and Mechanized Production to make a token copy of the enchanted artifact and if we control eight or more artifacts with the same name we win the game.

Palace Siege can also be a great way to win if we are working a bit more against slower decks because we choose either Khans or Dragons, and while getting a creature back from the graveyard into our hand at the beginning of our upkeeps with Khans is nice, with Dragons we have each opponent lose 2 life and we gain 2 life at the beginning of our upkeeps.

There is even a way for us to win via mill by using Court of Cunning, which makes us the monarch, and at the beginning of our upkeep any number of target players each mill two cards, unless we are the monarch then each of those players mills ten cards.

Obeka is a value Commander, and if left unchecked Obeka can accrue us with a ton of upkeep value that we need to be diligent in making sure that we don’t miss anything.

This can be an issue because it can stall the game if you aren’t quick with it or accidentally miss a trigger or double a trigger. This can also mean that you become everyone’s target for removal spells because of how strong Obeka is and how much value she gains.

Obeka can win games fairly consistently, and she also happens to be a fairly popular Commander because of how well she can interact with a massive number of upkeep based cards that make her very customizable, because there are so many value pieces that are really good, limited only by the fact we normally have one upkeep, which Obeka can make even better even just at the base 2 power she has.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual