One of the joys of Commander is the seemingly endless number of decks to build. Not only is there a plethora of themes to choose from, but each legend offers its own unique playstyle. This is certainly the case for Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient, which is a lot more than just a generic artifacts Commander.
MTG Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient
With Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient as your Commander of choice, it isn’t hard to generate a ton of extra value from your artifacts. After all, there’s a wide variety of artifacts with activated abilities that are worth copying. This includes using simple trinkets like Conjurer’s and Mishra’s Bauble or ramp engines like Burnished Hart and Wayfarer’s Bauble. Having access to extra mana then makes it easier to copy more expensive activated abilities, like Ring of Three Wishes or Wand of Wonder.
If you want even more shenanigans, including Liquimetal Coating or Mycosynth Lattice sets you up to copy activations of creatures or Planeswalkers. This can let you resurrect multiple artifacts with Goblin Engineer or Daretti, Scrap Savant‘s -2 ability, for instance. Where Kurkesh starts to become an even scarier engine, though, is when you start copying multiple artifact activations per turn cycle.
The easiest way to enable this is by utilizing untap effects like Clock of Omens and Voltaic Key. Naturally, this works wonders with cards like The One Ring and Lux Cannon that need to charge up. With Kurkesh’s ability to copy both the activations of the untap effects and the payoffs on top of that, though, things get out of hand quickly. Add Unwinding Clock to the mix, and you’ll have no problem drawing most of your deck or blowing up permanents left and right.
Infinite Mana, Card Draw, and Turns Combos
Besides serving as an elite value machine, Kurkesh also enables some strong infinite combos. The simplest of the bunch is to generate infinite mana by sticking Kurkesh, Voltaic Key, and Gilded Lotus. To get things started, tap Gilded Lotus and float three red mana. Then, use one of that mana to activate Voltaic Key, targeting Gilded Lotus. This will trigger Kurkesh, letting you use your second red mana to copy Voltaic Key’s ability. This time, however, use this activation to untap Voltaic Key itself. Now, you’re back to square one with a red mana floating, and you can repeat this process infinite times.
Notably, this combo works with any artifact that can tap for three red mana, like Coveted Jewel and Chromatic Orrery. In the case of Chromatic Orrery, you even get to sink all of that mana into its card-drawing ability, using Kurkesh and Voltaic Key to keep untapping it. This should make it trivial to find a win condition like Walking Ballista.
If you’ve got twelve mana to burn, Kurkesh can even go infinite with Magistrate’s Scepter. Alongside Voltaic Key, you can use and copy the Scepter’s counter-adding ability before using Voltic Key to untap it. By doubling this ability, you can untap Magistrate’s Scepter twice, allowing you to add another counter before the final untap ability resolves. This will then let you take an extra turn to restart the entire loop, setting up easy wins.
Severely Underrated
Despite there being plentiful ways to take advantage of Kurkesh’s trigger, this legend has remained under the radar. In fact, it only appears as the Commander in 501 decks according to EDHREC, and it’s only in the 99 of roughly 2,460 decks.
The good news is that this has helped Kurkesh maintain a cheap price tag despite never being reprinted. With a market value of $0.26 on TCGplayer, it’s easy to pick up a copy without going over your budget.
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