Back when Deadpool, Trading Card was previewed as part of a Secret Lair product, there was a lot of clamoring that the card might actually make waves in cEDH. After all, getting to steal the textbox of an opposing Commander can be devastating. While the card has shown up in tournaments here and there, it doesn’t seem to be oppressive by any stretch.
Where the card is really starting to flex its muscles, though, is in an alternate competitive Commander format known as Duel Commander. Duel Commander (commonly known as French Commander) is also a Singleton format that utilizes the Command Zone but is designed for one-versus-one play. This only makes Deadpool’s textbox-stealing ability more devastating.
Just a few days ago, one player managed to win a 119-player Duel Commander tournament in France with Deadpool at the helm. This deck is less focused on over the top synergies that you might find in casual EDH and is aggressively slanted. Nonetheless, Deadpool proves to be an incredible disruptive element and strong finisher. Let’s take a closer look.
Deadpool, Trading Card in Duel Commander
In addition to being a one-versus-one format, Duel Commander also has each player starting at 20 life. This is a big contrast to traditional Commander and shapes the metagame in a drastically different manner. These rules, coupled with the current state of the Duel Commander metagame, make Deadpool shine bright.
First and foremost, the vast majority of the top decks in Duel Commander feature creatures with potent enters-the-battlefield abilities. This is a big deal given Deadpool’s first ability. Deadpool is worded in such a way that as you exchange textboxes with an opposing creature that has one of these triggered abilities, you get the effect yourself.
This makes it quite dangerous for your opponent to cast a Commander like Aragorn, King of Gondor (which happens to be the most popular Duel Commander legend by a wide margin) prior to you casting Deadpool. If you follow up with Deadpool, you become the Monarch. Assuming your opponent can’t take it back, you get to attack on the following turn and make it so your whole squad can’t be blocked.
Aragorn is hardly the only Commander deck reliant on these triggers to gain an advantage. Decks based around Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder, Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, and plenty of other legendary creatures have tons of textboxes worth stealing. The Monarch and the Initiative mechanics in particular are everywhere, and Deadpool does a perfect job fighting over them.
This way, even if your opponent has removal for Deadpool at the ready, you still pull ahead on the exchange. Furthermore, the opposing creature you exchanged textboxes with now sends damage at the opponent’s face every turn until they sacrifice it. The damage adds up in a 20-life format.
Putting on Pressure
Even though Deadpool works well in conjunction with cards that can make copies of it, like Delina, Wild Mage which saw a price spike as a result, you won’t find these types of cards here. Instead, the rest of the deck is filled with efficient threats and disruption. This deck is looking to win games by simply curving out with the best cards on rate Rakdos has to offer. Deadpool then serves as an interactive piece of top end.
Many of the creatures in the deck are extremely aggressive. Between Broadside Bombardiers, Pyrogoyf, Screaming Nemesis, and even Lightning Skelemental, it’s clear that the goal is to apply pressure.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some cards that make the cut based on raw power. For example, Opposition Agent and Chaos Defiler make an appearance despite not being the best at dealing damage quickly. There’s also lots of cheap interaction present in the form of discard spells and removal that help you keep the pressure on.
Regardless, this deck is not messing around in the early turns. The more damage you can deal with your filler cards, the more impactful Deadpool’s damage-dealing text becomes.
An Awkward Development
Dear #wotcstaff, please print a Universes Within version of Deadpool in a precon or something, so it can be on MTGO. #mtg pic.twitter.com/PijPhc62EM
— Robert Taylor🔥 (@fireshoes) April 30, 2025
Following Deadpool’s dominant showing in Duel Commander in paper, players were quick to notice a problem. Duel Commander is now a sanctioned format on Magic Online and has been garnering a lot of attention in recent months. Unfortunately, though, for players looking to give Deadpool a spin on the digital platform, you’re out of luck.
Deadpool has only ever been printed in a Universes Beyond Secret Lair and thus was not implemented on the client. Wizards of the Coast recently revealed their plans of creating a Universes Within version of each MTG X Spider-Man card releasing later in 2025 for digital platforms. However, this doesn’t remedy the lack of a Universes Within variant for Deadpool or any of the other Marvel Hero MTG cards.
This isn’t exactly a new problem for Magic Online, as players have had to wait a long time for other Universes Beyond cards to make their way to the client in the past. Cards from the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks, for instance, took nearly two years to reach Magic Online. Players are eager to give Deadpool a shot in Duel Commander, so hopefully a solution is reached at some point in the future.