If you know what Turbofog is, you can jump down a paragraph. Turbofog is a style of deck which uses a bunch of effects so everyone draws lots of cards, then uses Fog effects to keep damage down. Ultimately, the deck does something to make sure the other player runs out of cards first (think Elixir of Immortality), and that’s the game.

In multi-player Commander, we have an advantage (each of our symmetrical card-draw effects works for everyone) and a disadvantage (each Fog works only for one combat step, and there are a bunch of them). We also have some specific problems — for example, the original Eldrazi titans shuffle themselves and the graveyard back into their owner’s libraries, and those cards show up in EDH decks all over the place.

There’s also the Angus Mackenzie of it all. Every discussion of Turbofog in Commander I read said there was no other way to do it. He has a built-in Fog and he’s in the right colors. Granted, he costs roughly a million dollars, but even if he didn’t, to all those who say it’s Angus or no one, I say thee nay! We can do whatever we want. It’s Commander. If we want to build a Turbofog deck in Selesnya (that’s), we can. Here we go.

Selvala, Explorer Returned ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Selvala, Explorer Returned

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Den Protector
• 1 Selfless Squire
• 1 Selvala's Enforcer
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Woodvine Elemental

• Instants] (32)
• 1 Angel's Grace
• 1 Angelsong
• 1 Arachnogenesis
• 1 Blunt the Assault
• 1 Clinging Mists
• 1 Comeuppance
• 1 Commencement of Festivities
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Dawn Charm
• 1 Deep Wood
• 1 Defend the Hearth
• 1 Druid's Deliverance
• 1 Encircling Fissure
• 1 Ethereal Haze
• 1 Fog
• 1 Hindervines
• 1 Holy Day
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Lull
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Moonmist
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Pollen Lullaby
• 1 Repel the Abominable
• 1 Respite
• 1 Revealing Wind
• 1 Riot Control
• 1 Safe Passage
• 1 Snag
• 1 Spore Cloud
• 1 Tangle
• 1 Winds of Qal Sisma

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Archangel's Light
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 1 Nature's Resurgence
• 1 Nature's Spiral
• 1 Recollect
• 1 Regrowth
• 1 Restock
• 1 Rousing of Souls
• 1 Rout
• 1 Seeds of Renewal
• 1 Selvala's Charge

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Rest in Peace
• 1 Rites of Flourishing

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Font of Mythos
• 1 Horn of Greed
• 1 Howling Mine
• 1 Isochron Scepter
• 1 Otherworld Atlas
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Temple Bell
• 1 Tormod's Crypt

• Lands (40)
• 11 Forest
• 6 Plains
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Blossoming Sands
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Elfhame Palace
• 1 Encroaching Wastes
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Graypelt Refuge
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Kabira Crossroads
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Radiant Fountain
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Saltcrusted Steppe
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil thicket

Buy This Deck

40 lands, nothing else. No rocks, no ramp. We’re just going to play a land, hopefully every turn, until the end of the game. We’ve got dual lands, lands that gain us life or scry, a land which lets us hunt for an artifact (Inventors' Fair), and a few lands which destroy other lands, because we really want to destroy opposing Reliquary Towers.

Then we’ve got to get everyone drawing cards. Our Commander helps with that, because every turn everyone draws off the Parley effect — and we get extra mana and life. We’ve also got Howling Mine and Font of Mythos, which get everyone drawing, and Temple Bell and Otherworld Atlas, which require a tap. We probably want to get two or three counters on the Atlas before we start drawing, though. Rites of Flourishing is another Howling Mine. Geier Reach Sanitarium lets us use extra mana if we’ve got it. Horn of Greed will get the ramp player out of the game faster than everyone else. Then we’ve got a few more Parley cards, including Woodvine Elemental each time it attacks, Rousing of Souls, and Selvala's Charge. We’ve got a bunch of ways to get cards back from the graveyard, too, because if someone destroys one of our ways to keep the cards flowing, getting it back is pretty key. Green helps us out there, with Regrowth, Restock, Recollect, Nature's Spiral, and former Standard superstar Den Protector, and White does its part with the fantastic Sun Titan.

Two cards shuffle our graveyard back. Because we’re going to draw almost our entire library before the game ends, we’ll draw one of them. Elixir of Immortality can come down as soon as we get it and we can activate it at just about any time. As long as we get 10 cards or so, we should be good. Archangel's Light, on the other hand, is a big spell we’ll cast only close to the end, but we’ll gain a bunch of life to push through to the end and get our whole graveyard back. That should be enough to make sure we don’t draw out first.

So we draw our hand and play out Selvala on turn three. That starts the card train going with Parley, and hopefully we can use some of the extra mana to play out some other form of card draw. Meanwhile, we probably take a few early hits and start some politicking. Once the first Fog happens, we can start talking about how we won’t Fog if they, y’know, don’t attack us. Measure the danger carefully; Fog when it’s a big crack, but don’t use one every time someone attacks into you. Constantly check your hand, count a few of the cards, and smile like you’ve got a grip full of Fogs just waiting to be deployed. Avoid playing lands until after every card has been drawn, because Reliquary Tower should come down as soon as possible. Don’t use an answer unless your opponent is going to win right then; just because something is threatening does not mean it needs to be dealt with. With any luck, your opponents will be milled out by turn 18 or so. This will be a good deck to teach patience.

But this is Convertible Commander. So what are we going to do? How about put in a batch of cards which turn our deck into an alternate win-con deck? Or maybe even an infinite combo?

• Darksteel Reactor
• Mindslaver
• Umbral Mantle
• Felidar Sovereign
• Stuffy Doll
• Viridian Joiner
• Guilty Conscience

The final one is complicated, but nifty and relies on our ability to draw our whole deck. We put Umbral Mantle on Viridian Joiner, and with 2 mana, we go infinite. (We tap him for a, because he’s a 1/2. We use our extra two, combined with the, to untap him, and now he’s a 3/4. We tap him again for, and use it to untap him again. Now he’s a 5/6, so when we tap him that time, we get , and now we have an extra two when we untap him. Infinite!) Infinite mana can be helpful to cast our Fogs, but we can also use that infinite mana to cast and sacrifice Mindslaver. Crack Buried Ruin to return Mindslaver and recast it, then sacrifice it again. Then cast Sun Titan (we’ll need an additional) to return Buried Ruin, crack it again to get Mindslaver once more, then take control of yet another turn. With three opponents, we get three hits, which means no one controls their own turn for one cycle. Attempt to orchestrate at least one death during that process, because the next time around, we can go infinite again but we can only crack Mindslaver twice (we return Buried Ruin with our Sun Titan attack, but that’s our last chance). If someone’s dead (Stuffy Doll and Guilty Conscience?), we control the rest of the game. That probably wins. Complicated, but elegant.

There are some cards worth considering with a bit more juice. Memory Jar and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea both get the Turbo train rolling a bit faster, and without Blue, every bit helps. Heartwood Storyteller, too, will draw extra cards, especially because we cast a lot of non-creature spells. Finally, Helix Pinnacle would be a fun addition to the Optionboard, especially since we have a way to go infinite.

So we’re a Turbofog deck, which everyone thinks won’t work, and even if they do, think can’t possibly work without Blue. Then we transform it into a deck winning with a strange artifact, because we gain a bunch of life, or we take over everyone’s turns. Either way, we’re confounding expectations, casting spells rarely seen, and putting a new spin on this game we all play.

What have you done differently than normal? Do you think Turbofog can work in Commander? What did I miss? Sound off!

Meanwhile, go win a game with Holy Day.

Total cost of deck: $99.50

Total cost of optionboard: $17.45

Total cost of both: $116.95