Bounce spells like Into the Flood Maw and Boomerang Basics have been absolutely taking over constructed MTG. Having the ability to answer anything your opponents throw at you for one mana is an incredible amount of flexibility, getting you out of all kinds of situations.
While these one-shot cards perform much better in 60-card Magic, there’s an existing card that can translate this idea quite well for Commander. Equilibrium can, essentially, add a bounce effect to every creature you play for a small cost.
MTG Equilibrium
Getting value out of Equilibrium is absurdly easy. So long as you’re consistently casting creature spells and have spare mana, Equilibrium turns every single creature you cast into a tempo advantage. Building your board state and hampering your opponent’s at the same time is one of the most powerful things you can do in Magic, but you need to make sure that you can pull ahead while bouncing an opponent’s cards.
One way to fix this is by just turning Equilibrium into true removal. Warped Devotion does exactly this, forcing players to discard cards whenever something is returned to their hand. Since both of these cards are three-mana enchantments, you can even tutor them into play with Zur, the Enchanter, making the plan more consistent. Alternatively, Horobi, Death’s Wail can turn any Equilibrium target into a kill spell.
If you’re feeling really spiteful, you can play Equilibrium with Sen Triplets to fix this issue, but your opponents won’t be happy about it. Equilibrium can bounce an opponent’s creature back to their hand, which you can then cast from their hand with Sen Triplets.
If you aren’t interested in turning Equilibrium into a kill spell, you can also return your own creatures to your hand with Equilibrium to create value. Any blue ETB deck like Yarok, the Desecrated, Arcades the Strategist or Volo, Guide to Monsters can use Equilibrium to recur their creatures and bury their opponents in triggered abilities. Adventure decks can similarly take advantage of this, bouncing creatures back to hand to recast their respective Adventure spells. This idea gives the card a niche, but important role with some color-restricted Commanders who can use Equilibrium for both offense and defense, like The Blue Spirit and Barrin, Tolarian Archmage.
Going the Distance
Frankly, there’s only a thin hair keeping Equilibrium from absolutely breaking MTG Commander. The one-mana requirement to use Equilibrium technically prevents you from bouncing zero-mana creatures to create infinite combos. As you might imagine, however, that restriction is easy to break.
Chulaine, Teller of Tales is one of the most powerful ways to use Equilibrium. Providing card draw and land drops each time a creature enters, all it takes is Equilibrium, a haste enabler like Lightning Greaves, and a legion of mana dorks to make Equilibrium into a draw machine. Your extra land drops can pay for Equilibrium’s cost, and your mana dorks can tap to cast themselves. From here, turning this into an infinite combo with a creature like Badgermole Cub or Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is trivial.
There are also a series of infinite combos you can pull off with Urza, Lord High Artificer. The simplest of these involves two zero-mana artifact creatures like Memnite and Ornithopter. Urza can tap these artifacts to pay for the Equilibrium cost, which can be used to bounce one another back to your hand in a loop. This creates infinite cast, enters and leaves the battlefield triggers, unlocking all kinds of ways to win the game. Many different cards commonly played with Urza, like Sai, Master Thopterist, can generate infinite mana and infinite tokens this way.
Absurdly Cheap
While all of these applications are incredibly powerful, you don’t need to go nearly that far to make Equilibrium work for you. So long as bouncing your opponent’s creatures gives you enough time to develop your board and draw cards, this can be well worth the inclusion. Despite that, the card only sees play in about 0.21% of decks according to EDHREC, suggesting that Equilibrium isn’t seeing as much play as it could.
Despite all these crazy combo applications, Equilibrium isn’t all that expensive, either. Thanks to a Mystery Booster 2 reprint, you can grab a Future Sight bordered variant of the enchantment for less than a dollar! Unlocking a multi-purpose infinite combo piece feels like a steal for this price, giving you every chance to try and play this card in your Commander deck.