Once you’ve played your first few hundred games of Commander, it’s not uncommon for MTG players to look for something a bit off the wall. Any Commander can run your opponent’s life total down to zero, but for players looking for something fresh, alternate wins can deliver a different experience.
That said, not all alternate win conditions are made equally. Extremely powerful alternate win conditions are not only expected but also boring for many tables. Fortunately, lots of bizarre and powerful win conditions have long been forgotten by the Commander format at large. Atemsis, All-Seeing, for example, can win a game of Commander by just revealing your hand.
MTG Atemsis, All-Seeing
Atemsis, All-Seeing will generally play a very different role than a majority of other Commanders. While Commanders are commonly a value engine that you build your deck around, Atemsis instead offers a rather mediocre card that can cause opponents to lose the game instantly.
This means that you’ll generally only be trying to play your Commander once you’ve either assembled the win condition or can protect it. Because of this, Commander mainstays like Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves end up being some of the most important cards in your deck. Not only do they protect Atemsis from removal, but they also let you kill an opponent immediately.
While attacking with Atemsis immediately gives your opponents a lot less time to react, connecting with the Commander can be surprisingly difficult. Artful Dodge and Aqueous Form can both allow Atemsis to get multiple unblockable attacks through, and are part of some instant win combos.
Interestingly, however, Atemsis doesn’t actually need to attack to kill your opponents. Since Atemsis just needs to deal damage to an opponent, cards like Sorcerer’s Wand and Viridian Longbow will turn your Commander into a lethal pinger. Partner this with Basilisk’s Collar, and Atemsis can pick off creatures to buy you time to set up your combo. Between Haste enablers, pinger effects, and Deathtouch equipment, there are so many relevant artifacts that Trinket Mage and Fabricate can help you find missing pieces.
With your win condition effectively set up, most of your deck will need to focus on assembling a hand with six different mana costs. Cost-reductive spells, like Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and The Magic Mirror can help here, providing rare mana costs while finding more cards. Filling out the rest of your deck with cantrips like Brainstorm and draw replacement effects like Alhammarret’s Archive will help you find your missing tools while keeping your hand size healthy. Just make sure to add cards like Reliquary Tower so you don’t lose your assembly of mana costs for having too big a hand.
Taking Out the Whole Table
While Atemsis, the All-Seeing can easily set up a turn where one opponent loses, it’s also capable of setting up an instant win with the right cards. The most interesting among these is a three-card combo between Atemsis, Livewire Lash and Artful Dodge, assuming Atemsis doesn’t have summoning sickness. Once Livewire Lash is equipped to Atemsis, just target your Commander twice with Artful Dodge. Livewire Lash will target two of your opponents for damage, allowing Atemsis to kill them. The third will fall to your unblockable attack.
The best part of this win combo is that these two extra cards are something Atemsis, All-Seeing would want to play anyway. Artful Dodge is one of the stronger ways to present lethal attacks thanks to Flashback. Livewire Lash, meanwhile, also triggers on opponents’ spells, essentially functioning as Hexproof if you kill the player who cast the removal spell before it resolves.
While this combo can kill the table in one hit, there’s also an MTG card that can assemble Atemsis’s win condition on its own. Enter the Infinite will draw your entire deck, easily assembling the six-mana cost requirement. This also opens up other win combos using cards like Twenty-Toed Toad that play double duty in Atemsis decks by keeping your hand size large.
Atemsis can also use Blade of Selves to cause an instant win, but you need to pair the card with a Legend Rule ignorer like Mirror Box, Mirror Gallery, and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. Alternatively, setting up Ioreth of the Healing House and Fatestitcher can result in infinite untaps, allowing Atemsis to kill the table with a pinger equipment attached.
Surprising the Table
Thanks to the support pieces that Atemsis, All-Seeing can use, players can create a really interesting and explosive Commander deck with this Sphinx. Making things better, Atemsis isn’t the most popular Commander, either. With just 1,219 decks according to EDHREC, many opponents are unlikely to realize just how deadly Atemsis is until it’s too late.
Like most underplayed Commanders like this, Atemsis, All-Seeing is also rather affordable. Alongside being a $0.50 card itself, many of the combo pieces needed to make this Commander work are also rather affordable. Throw in a mono-colored manabase, and Atemsis, All-Seeing offers a very cheap and refreshing Commander experience.
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