Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be taking a look at Dr. Eggman!

Dr. Eggman is a five mana 3/6 with flying and at the beginning of your end step you draw a card and then each opponent faces a villainous choice – either that player discards a card or you may put a Construct, Robot, or Vehicle card from your hand onto the battlefield.

Game Plan

While a lot of my knowledge about the Sonic franchise errs on random tidbits I hear in videos and the copious amount of memes that exist, I will say that Dr. Eggman is an interesting design.

He acts as a way to cheat in your things or force your opponents to discard cards, and with Universes Beyond having a lot of Robots and there being already a lot of good Vehicles and Constructs we can make use of in Magic, we have a good number of options to choose from.

We can also lean in a bit into the discard angle by either forcing our opponents to discard more cards or to have ways to make use of their discarded cards.

Support

The first thing to look at are some cards that help in a utility aspect, like Fugitive Droid, who for one mana can counter target spell that targets an artifact or creature we control, Guidelight Optimizer as a way to make a blue mana to cast artifacts or to activate an ability, and Tiller Engine which has it so that when a land we control enters tapped we can either untap it or tap a nonland permanent an opponent controls.

Once we step up in mana values of Construct, Robots, and Vehicles we have some interesting decision points that we can make. For example, we can use Silent Arbiter as a way to control combat in that we make it so only one creature can attack or block at a time.

There is also something like Chaos Defiler, which when it enters or dies, for each opponent we choose a nonland permanent that player controls and then destroy one of them at random. Oildeep Gearhulk can also be potentially potent because when it enters we look at an opponent’s hand and have them discard a card we choose and then they can draw a card.

Big Mother Mouser can be very useful as a way to generate some tokens because it enters with two +1/+1 counters and we double the the number of counters they have when they attack. When they die, we create a number of 1/1 Robot artifact creature tokens equal to the number of +1/+1 counters they had.

We can then use Ultron, Machine Overlord to give other Robots and Constructs we control +2/+2, Ultron, Artificial Malevolence to create a token copy of artifacts we control except they are 2/2 Robots if they weren’t creatures, or Ultron the Annihilator to make a 2/2 Robot Villain when they enter or attack and has each opponent lose a life whenever another artifact we control goes to the graveyard from the battlefield or is put to the graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield.

Playing into the discard aspect we do have access to Geth’s Grimoire which has it so that whenever an opponent discards a card we may draw a card, Ripclaw Wrangler to have each opponent discard a card when it enters, and Portal to Phyrexia to have each opponent sacrifice three creatures and we can reanimate a creature from a graveyard at the beginning of our upkeep as a payoff.

Setbacks

Something to be aware of with this deck is to make sure that there is a solid spread of mana values among the cards you have because while it would be nice to get all of your big mana Constructs, Robots, and Vehicles in play, sometimes you’re going to be playing a deck that doesn’t mind discarding cards.

Playing against a graveyard deck would be not your ideal match up because you would be feeding that player, and there generally is at least one or two forms of recursion in a lot of decks so even discarding a card can be an upside overall.

The thing about decks that gives the opponents a choice is that oftentimes your opponents will go for the least bad option, rather than you getting the better option. You can play into that by focusing on the discard aspect, but then you lose out on the occasion when you are given the option to put something cool into play.

Deckbuilding is hard enough as it is, so making sure that you can account for both options is going to be the struggle.

What else is a struggle is that if you do consistently cheat out your Constructs, Robots, and Vehicles then some cards will not help facilitate your strategy as much as you would like. A lot of more modern cards that rely on artifacts being cast, not entering the battlefield.

Board wipes can also be a concern, primarily because it is a lot cheaper to cast an artifact board wipe than it does a lot of creature board wipes. Even artifact spot removal is much more easily available and is often attached to creatures as an additional abiity.

We do have ways to counteract this, namely getting something like Krang, Utrom Warlord which gives other artifact creatures we control flying, trample, indestructible, and haste so we can save most of our things if we manage to get them in play.

Dr. Eggman also happens to be a five mana Commander in three colors with no form of inherent protection. Needless to say some of your cards will need to protect him, and since we are in blue we do have access to counter spells, but again this is where deck building becomes important.

Bracket Rating: High 2, Mid 3

I had a hard time trying to find a good spot for Dr. Eggman and I really think that you can get a good ways in making him a powerful deck, but the fact that your opponents need to make a choice does make it much more difficult.

You can definitely do some deal making to make sure that you can get your big artifacts into play, but that doesn’t tend to work as often in higher brackets.

One thing about lower brackets is that more often then not they will want you to do the cool thing, so long as it isn’t some oppressive two card combo. There are potentials for these kinds of combos that Dr. Eggman can facilitate, but they aren’t really the goal for the deck.

Ideally you want to cheat out your big artifacts to get some sort of value play to win the game while also making it so your opponents can hold you off for a bit if they don’t mind discarding cards.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual