THE HALF SHE CAN SEE

The most useful way to sort ninety-nine cards here is not by colour or by curve — it is by whether your commander can go and get them. Twenty-six of these she never will.

The ladder — colours on cheap bodies

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

The engine and the clock. She is 2/2 plus one for each colour among your OTHER legendary permanents, and {W}{U}{B}{R}{G} finds any legendary permanent with mana value strictly less than her power - 3 targets at power 2, 10 at 3, 23 at 4, 28 at 5, 33 at 6. No tap symbol and no once-per-turn clause: the only limit on activations is producing five distinct pips again.

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

Blink + ETBBounce + ETB

Three colours on one mana-value-3 card - she alone takes Sisay from 2/2 to 5/5 and the pool from 3 cards to 28 - plus tap or untap a permanent every time a creature of yours connects. She is also the verified half of the deck's kill. Her command-zone ability is inert here; she starts in the library.

Katilda, Dawnhart Prime

Aura + ProtectionCounters + Tokens

Two colours for two mana, plus a mana ability for every Human you control - including Sisay, who is a Human Soldier and whose activation has no tap symbol, so she can tap for {W} and still fire.

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Two colours for two mana, and every time you tap a nonland permanent for mana he adds one more of a type that permanent just produced - a free extra pip off Bloom Tender, Faeburrow Elder, Jegantha or a Treasure, every single tap.

Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff

Attack Trigger + TokensCounters + Tokens

Two colours for two mana and a Treasure off every player's second spell each turn - instant-speed fixing the activation can actually spend, and one of only two black sources at mana value 3 or less.

Saffi Eriksdotter

Two colours for two mana plus a sacrifice that returns a creature put into your graveyard this turn. Whether that can rescue Sisay herself turns on declining the command-zone replacement - flagged for a stack scenario.

Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful

Counters + Tokens

One of the three cards a power-2 Sisay can find, and the one that actually steps the ladder - a white body that grows with every legendary permanent that follows it.

Bristly Bill, Spine Sower

Counters + Tokens

A two-mana green rung that also grows the team on every land drop. Cheap colour-diverse bodies are how you climb from power 2 to power 4 without showing the table anything worth killing.

Mox Amber

Ramp + Cost Reduction

The deck's only mana-value-0 rung and the cheapest fetch available - but it is colourless, so it adds no colour to Sisay's power, and its mana depends on legendary creatures and planeswalkers you already control.

Mikaeus, the Lunarch

Counters + Tokens

One of only three legendary permanents under mana value 2, so one of the three cards a cold-start Sisay can find. He is {X}{W} and a fetched card is not cast; whether he arrives as a 0/0 is flagged for a stack scenario, so do not build a turn on him.

Rona, Herald of Invasion // Rona, Tolarian Obliterator

Draw + DiscardFlying + Damage Trigger

A two-mana blue rung that untaps whenever you cast a legendary spell and loots while it waits, with a late transform if the game stalls out.

Reki, the History of Kamigawa

Counterspell + DrawDraw + Discard

A green rung that draws a card for each legendary spell you cast. Note 'cast': the permanents Sisay puts onto the battlefield do not trigger him, so Reki rewards the cards in your hand, not the ones on the ladder.

Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Aura + ProtectionCounters + Tokens

A white rung that is indestructible and awkward to answer, converting your lifegain into +1/+1 counters and handing out lifelink on demand.

Kodama of the West Tree

Flying + Damage TriggerRamp + Cost Reduction

A green rung that turns any modified creature connecting into a basic land from your library - the deck's only repeatable land ramp - and hands trample to the counters this deck keeps accumulating.

Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage

Flying + Damage Trigger

Two colours at mana value 4 and flash on every historic spell, so you can develop the ladder on an end step while representing interaction all the way around the table.

Surrak Dragonclaw

Tokens + AnthemTrample + Damage Trigger

Three colours on one card at mana value 5, a 6/6 with flash, and creature spells you control cannot be countered - relevant to the legends you cast from hand, since the ones Sisay puts onto the battlefield were never counterable to begin with.

The pip battery — the only six cards that can pay her

Bloom Tender

Ramp + Cost Reduction

The best card in the pip battery: it taps for one mana of each colour among permanents you control, scaling on exactly the resource the ladder scales on. It is not legendary, so she can never find it - this card being absent is the deck's fuel problem in one line.

Faeburrow Elder

Ramp + Cost Reduction

The battery's other half - it grows with each colour among your permanents and taps for one of each of those colours. Also not legendary, which means the deck's engine needs it and cannot go looking for it.

Jegantha, the Wellspring

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One tap for {W}{U}{B}{R}{G} - the entire activation from one permanent. Mana value 5 means power 6 and four colours before Sisay can find it, and the companion clause is inert in this list, since Flowering of the White Tree carries two of the same symbol.

Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge

Ramp + Cost ReductionTokens + Anthem

The front face gives every other legendary creature you control '{T}: Add one mana of any color' - the fetched board becomes the mana base. Note the front face is mono-green, so it adds exactly one colour to Sisay's power despite the five-colour back.

Relic of Legends

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Taps any untapped legendary creature you control for a colour of your choice - the cheapest way to convert a fetched board into activation mana. Not legendary, so she cannot find it, and whether a legend that arrived this turn can be tapped for it is an open question flagged for a stack scenario.

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

Counterspell + DrawDraw + Discard

A green rung at mana value 3 whose {G} and a tap become X mana in any combination of colours, X being your largest creature's power - with a five-power body on board that is the full {W}{U}{B}{R}{G} in one activation.

The tax shell — this deck's removal suite

Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar

Draw + DiscardFlying + Damage Trigger

Two colours at mana value 3 and the tax that matters most here: opponents cannot cast spells during your turn, which turns every future activation into a window they are not allowed to answer.

Teferi, Time Raveler

Counterspell + DrawDraw + Discard

Two colours at mana value 3 and a static that reduces the whole table to sorcery speed: no instant-speed removal in response to an activation, no counterspell on your turn.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar

A white rung that makes every creature and nonbasic land your opponents play enter tapped - a tax on three seats at once, which is how this deck does removal.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Lifegain + Death Trigger

Two colours at mana value 3 and a standing drain on every noncreature spell in the pod. The black half is structurally scarce: only five of the deck's 33 other legendary permanents supply black at all.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Draw + DiscardLifegain + Death Trigger

A black rung at mana value 4 that taxes the whole table's card draw and refills your life total. Black is the deck's scarcest ladder colour, supplied by only five of the 33 other legendary permanents.

Esper Sentinel

Counterspell + DrawDraw + Discard

A one-mana tax on the table's first noncreature spell each turn: they pay, or you draw. Non-legendary, so it comes off the top of your deck rather than out of the middle.

Insurance and answers she can fetch

Shalai, Voice of Plenty

Aura + ProtectionCounters + Tokens

Hexproof for you and every other creature you control: the permanent that answers 'kill her on sight' and 'shrink her power in response' at the same time. She does not protect herself, so fetch her before you need her.

Flowering of the White Tree

Tokens + Anthem

Ward {1} on every legendary creature is the cheapest standing tax on removal aimed at Sisay, and the +2/+1 raises her power - and her power is exactly what the fetch gate reads.

Plaza of Heroes

Aura + ProtectionRamp + Cost Reduction

Three modes matter: colourless, a legendary-spell-only colour, and the important one, any colour among legendary permanents you control - unrestricted mana the activation can spend. The exile mode gives a legendary creature hexproof and indestructible, so this is commander insurance that lives in your mana base.

Dihada, Binder of Wills

Attack Trigger + TokensCounters + Tokens

Three colours and a planeswalker on one card. The +2 is genuine commander insurance - vigilance, lifelink and indestructible on Sisay until your next turn - and the -3 digs specifically for legendary cards.

Loran of the Third Path

Blink + ETBBounce + ETB

The only artifact or enchantment answer in the deck stapled to a legendary body, which makes it the only one Sisay can go and get. This is the card you fetch at the stax seat.

The kill, and the cards that untap it

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom

Attack Trigger + TokensCounters + Tokens

The finisher, and the only source of red at mana value 3 or less - so the colour that completes your ladder and the card that makes you the archenemy are often the same card. Her untap-attackers ability costs exactly what Sisay's does, so the pip battery double-duties.

Samut, Voice of Dissent

Tokens + Anthem

Flash, double strike, and the line that matters: other creatures you control have haste, which is the deck's blanket answer to every 'it only just arrived' problem a fetched creature has.

Emiel the Blessed

Blink + ETBCounters + Tokens

A {3} blink outlet: re-buy Loran's artifact kill, Derevi's tap-or-untap, or Shalai's arrival. The value use is real; the Emiel blink loops the combo data flags for this deck are unverified and should not be treated as a plan.

Ioreth of the Healing House

Untaps two other legendary creatures for a single tap: the battery's refuel button, and a blue rung at mana value 3.

Jodah, the Unifier

Tokens + Anthem

The ceiling target at mana value 5: power 6, four distinct colours. He repays it with an anthem on your legendary creatures and a free legendary spell whenever you cast one from hand - note 'cast', which the permanents Sisay puts onto the battlefield are not.

Kenrith, the Returned King

Counters + TokensMill + Graveyard

A five-mana sink with an ability in every colour, including graveyard recursion for the whole table's benefit and yours. Mono-white on the ladder and mana value 5, so power 6 before she can fetch him.

The four Game Changers — and she can see none of them

Drannith Magistrate

A Game Changer and one of the four cards that fix this deck's bracket floor at 4. Opponents casting only from hand blanks command zones, graveyards and exile-cast combo pieces at once. Non-legendary - drawn only.

Fierce Guardianship

Free while you control a commander, which here is nearly always. A Game Changer and part of the bracket floor; non-legendary, so it is drawn insurance rather than a fetchable plan.

Rhystic Study

Counterspell + DrawDraw + Discard

A Game Changer and one of the four cards fixing the bracket floor at 4. Also non-legendary: the deck's best draw engine is one Sisay can never look for.

Seedborn Muse

A Game Changer, and in a deck whose engine is an activated ability, close to the best card in it: untapping all your permanents during each opponent's untap step means one activation per player per turn cycle. Non-legendary, so she must be drawn.

Interaction — drawn, never fetched

Path to Exile

Removal + Death Trigger

The deck's one unconditional answer to a creature. Against a combo seat, the last profitable moment to spend it is when the piece hits the battlefield, not later.

Toxic Deluge

The sweeper whose timing you choose, priced in life so it scales to any board. You rebuild cheapest afterwards, provided you kept a colour-diverse legend in hand rather than committing it.

Swan Song

Flying + Damage Trigger

One mana to stop an enchantment, instant or sorcery. The 2/2 flier you hand back is rarely the problem at a table where the problem was the spell.

An Offer You Can't Refuse

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One mana for the noncreature spell that would end the game, at the cost of two Treasures handed back. Non-legendary like every counterspell here, so it is drawn, never fetched - spend it on a win attempt, not a value engine.

Dispel

One mana to answer the removal spell or counterspell aimed at your activation window. The narrowest card in the deck and often the most relevant; hold it rather than plan around it.

Negate

Two mana for the noncreature spell you cannot let resolve. Non-legendary; drawn, not fetched.

Arcane Denial

Counterspell + DrawDraw + Discard

Two mana to counter anything, paying its controller two cards for the privilege. The cheapest catch-all in a six-counterspell suite that Sisay is structurally blind to.

Flawless Maneuver

Aura + Protection

Costs nothing with a commander out, and it protects the whole board - which is what matters, since the wrath that kills your creatures also collapses the ladder from power 5 back to power 2.

Heroic Intervention

Aura + Protection

Hexproof and indestructible for every permanent you control - the one card that answers both disasters at once, the removal spell aimed at Sisay and the sweeper that resets the ladder.

Silence

One white mana buys the turn outright. This is a pivot-turn card - hold it for the activation you intend to win with, not the one that merely looks impressive.

Boros Charm

Aura + Protection

You are here for the middle mode: permanents you control gain indestructible, which saves the ladder as well as the board. Four damage to a face is the mode you take when someone is already dead.

Grand Abolisher

During your turn nobody may cast a spell or activate an artifact, creature or enchantment ability, which makes your activation turn untouchable. Non-legendary: Sisay cannot find her own best protection.

Dauthi Voidwalker

Shadow makes it effectively unblockable in most pods, it exiles everything your opponents would put in a graveyard, and it can sacrifice to cast one of those cards for free. Non-legendary - a drawn clock, not a fetched one.

Acceleration — and what it cannot buy

Sol Ring

Ramp + Cost Reduction

The fastest route to a turn-two Sisay and completely useless for paying her: {C}{C} covers none of a five-pip cost with zero generic. It accelerates the commander, not the engine.

Arcane Signet

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One of the few rocks that can actually pay her: any colour in your commander's identity is all five, unrestricted, so it both ramps toward Sisay and covers a pip of her activation.

Fellwar Stone

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Coloured mana off your opponents' lands: unreliable in principle, unrestricted in practice, which is more than Sol Ring can claim about paying a five-pip cost.

Birds of Paradise

Flying + Damage TriggerRamp + Cost Reduction

A one-mana body that taps for any colour with no restriction attached - the cleanest single pip in the deck, and one of the cards that turns a turn-two Sisay into a turn-three activation.

Delighted Halfling

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Ramps Sisay out early and makes her uncounterable on the way down, then cannot pay a single pip of her activation: that mana is restricted to legendary spells, and an activated ability is not a spell. Know which half of the card you are holding.

Secluded Courtyard

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Name Human. Its coloured mana may be spent to activate an ability of a creature source of the chosen type, and Sisay is a Human Soldier - so unlike Unclaimed Territory, this land genuinely pays for her activation.

Unclaimed Territory

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Name Human to deploy your legends; the coloured mana is restricted to creature spells only, so it can never pay one pip of Sisay's ability. One of three accelerants in this deck that are dead to its own commander.

Depth

Arid Mesa

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Sacred Foundry, Stomping Ground or a basic Mountain or Plains. One life for exactly the pip you are missing is the right price in a deck whose signature cost has no generic component.

Bountiful Promenade

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped green and white in any real pod - two or more opponents means no tempo cost and no life paid.

Breeding Pool

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Pay the two life. Five distinct pips with no generic filler means a land entering tapped on the turn you wanted to activate costs far more than two life.

City of Brass

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Any colour for one damage. In the verified combat loop it never needs to be tapped at all - activating a mana ability is never mandatory - so treat that damage as a choice you are making, not a cost you are owed.

Command Tower

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Any colour in your commander's identity, unrestricted, which for Sisay means any of the five pips. One of the two lands the verified Najeela loop leans on.

Exotic Orchard

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Any colour a land an opponent controls could produce - in a four-player pod usually most of them, but read the table before you count it as your fifth pip.

Flooded Strand

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Hallowed Fountain, Breeding Pool or a basic Plains or Island - the fetch you crack when the fourth pip is blue.

Forbidden Orchard

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Any colour, at the price of handing an opponent a 1/1 Spirit each time you tap it. Sequence it on turns where a surprise blocker cannot cost you a race.

Forest

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One green pip for the deck's second-densest colour, and the fetch target when Bloom Tender or Selvala is the card you actually need to cast.

Godless Shrine

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped white and black on demand - and black is the scarcest colour on this ladder, supplied by only five of your legendary permanents.

Hallowed Fountain

Ramp + Cost Reduction

White and blue on demand: the fixing behind Teferi, Raff and the entire counterspell shell.

Island

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One blue pip, uncastable-proof. Blue appears on only eight of your other legendary permanents, so the basic Island is a real fetch target rather than a formality.

Luxury Suite

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped black and red with two or more opponents: free access to the deck's two scarcest ladder colours.

Mana Confluence

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Any colour for one life; City of Brass's untapped twin. Same note: the loop's floor is zero life, and this is one of the two lands you skip to get there.

Marsh Flats

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Godless Shrine, Watery Grave or a basic Plains or Swamp, which makes it the cheapest access to the deck's scarcest colour.

Misty Rainforest

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Breeding Pool, Hallowed Fountain or a basic Forest or Island; green and blue on one life.

Mountain

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One red pip. Six legendary permanents supply red and one of them is Najeela, so a basic Mountain is sometimes how you complete a five-colour payment without showing your hand.

Overgrown Tomb

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Black and green - the colour the ladder is thinnest in paired with the one it is richest in.

Plains

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One white pip that no Blood Moon, Wasteland or Thalia tax can complicate. White is the deck's most abundant colour, so this is the basic you fetch last.

Polluted Delta

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Watery Grave, Godless Shrine or a basic Island or Swamp - the two thinnest colours on the ladder in one card.

Rejuvenating Springs

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped green and blue in a multiplayer pod, with no life paid for the privilege.

Sacred Foundry

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Red and white. Red appears on only six of your 33 other legendary permanents, so this is frequently the land that supplies the {R} pip.

Scalding Tarn

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Steam Vents, Breeding Pool or a basic Island or Mountain; blue and red for one life.

Sea of Clouds

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped white and blue with two or more opponents - a free dual for the Teferi and Raff half of the deck.

Spectator Seating

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped red and white in a pod, and one more red source that does not require you to reveal Najeela.

Spire Garden

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped red and green with two or more opponents; the painless version of Stomping Ground.

Steam Vents

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Blue and red, the two colours a board-based five-pip payment most often lacks.

Stomping Ground

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Red and green: the Jegantha, Samut and Surrak end of the curve, and a red source that is not Najeela.

Swamp

Ramp + Cost Reduction

One black pip and the scarcest colour in the deck - five of 33 legendary permanents supply black, so this basic gets fetched more often than its count suggests.

Temple Garden

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Green and white, the deck's densest pair - Katilda, Kutzil, Saffi, Derevi, Emiel and Shalai all draw on it.

Undergrowth Stadium

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped black and green in a pod - the scarce colour paired with the abundant one, for free.

Vault of Champions

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Untapped white and black with two or more opponents, feeding Lotho, Kambal and Sheoldred.

Verdant Catacombs

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Overgrown Tomb, Watery Grave or a basic Forest or Swamp - the black pip most often comes from here.

Watery Grave

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Blue and black, the two thinnest colours among your legendary permanents. Worth the two life every time.

Windswept Heath

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Temple Garden, Sacred Foundry or a basic Forest or Plains, the deck's densest colour pair.

Wooded Foothills

Ramp + Cost Reduction

Finds Stomping Ground, Sacred Foundry or a basic Mountain or Forest; the red pip without the Najeela tell.