After an inordinately long wait, Magic: The Gathering players finally got a proper look at the Everyone’s Invited Secret Lair Commander deck earlier this week. With so much time for hype to build, some disappointment was inevitable. Thanks to the jacked-up $200 price tag, however, the response to this deck has been pretty negative across the board. Out of the box, the deck isn’t much to write home about. With our guide to the best Everyone’s Invited upgrades, however, it can be a great time for all.
We’ve chosen five cards that take this deck’s overlapping typal synergies to new heights. To set expectations out of the gate: this is still a five-color Changeling list at heart, which means it won’t be winning past Bracket 2 in most cases. That said, there’s still plenty of room for improvement and, more importantly, wacky goodness. If you’re planning to pick up the deck on May 12th, you may want to consider picking these cards up too.
5 | Conspiracy
- Mana Value: 3BB
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Enchantment
- Card Text: As this enchantment enters, choose a creature type.
Creatures you control are the chosen type. The same is true for creature spells you control and creature cards you own that aren’t on the battlefield.
Sub in for: Moritte of the Frost, Rukarumel, Biologist.
One of the big ideas Everyone’s Invited brings to the table is that of using specific typal support cards alongside Changeling creatures to great effect. When your creatures have every creature type, it turns out they can tap into a wide range of powerful synergies. Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Cloudshredder Sliver are two great examples.
Not every creature in the deck has Changeling, however, which leaves some holes in your game plan. To plug these holes, cards that grant all of your creatures extra types are a must-have. The base list runs a few of these already, including Arcane Adaptation and Maskwood Nexus. It does leave out Conspiracy, however, another very viable version of the same effect.
Five mana is a bit steep, but the flexibility here is well worth it. You can pick a type that you already have a support piece for, Risen Reef, for example, and let all of your non-Changelings work with it via Conspiracy. It’s not adding anything new to the deck, but it does help a lot with consistency, which is often a problem with preconstructed decks.
4 | Reaper King
- Mana Value: 2/W 2/U 2/B 2/R 2/G
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Artifact Creature – Scarecrow
- Stats: 6/6
- Card Text: (2/W can be paid with any two mana or with W. This card’s mana value is 10.)
Other Scarecrow creatures you control get +1/+1.
Whenever another Scarecrow you control enters, destroy target permanent.
Sub in for: Rin and Seri, Inseparable, Avenger of Zendikar.
Speaking of specific typal support cards, another of our best upgrades for Everyone’s Invited is Reaper King. This card is the epitome of strong-but-specific. It only works with Scarecrows, an incredibly niche and weak type, but the effect it offers is mind-blowingly good if you can use it regularly. In a deck where most of our creatures are Scarecrows incidentally, it’s a win-win.
Not only is this a lord effect for all your Changelings (and possibly just all of your creatures with a Conspiracy out), but it also gives you access to a repeatable Vindicate effect. Commander players are notorious for not playing enough removal, and never being able to answer cards like Rhystic Study et al. Reaper King is a solution to pretty much any on-board problem, even pesky utility lands like Field of the Dead.
On top of that, the card’s other major drawback, the five-color cost, is irrelevant in Everyone’s Invited. This is a five-color deck, with plenty of fixing available to cast all of its rainbow-hued legends. This deck isn’t just an ideal home for Reaper King: it’s also one of the few places where you can even run it at all. Passing up a chance to play with a card this specific and cool is something you just shouldn’t do.
3 | Knight Exemplar
- Mana Value: 1WW
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Creature – Human Knight
- Stats: 2/2
- Card Text: First Strike.
Other Knight creatures you control get +1/+1 and have Indestructible.
Sub in for: Kinsbaile Cavalier, Bloodline Pretender.
Long-time Commander players have probably heard of a little card called Avacyn, Angel of Hope. With its blanket Indestructible effect, it’s cemented its place as one of the best reanimator targets in the format, in white or otherwise. Now imagine you could get very nearly the same effect, but at a huge five mana discount? That’s what Knight Exemplar offers in this deck.
While Exemplar is in play, all of your other Knight creatures, i.e., pretty much all of your other creatures, get Indestructible. This lets you tank board wipes like there’s no tomorrow, barring annoyances like Farewell or Toxic Deluge. It also lets your creatures hit harder, thanks to the built-in anthem effect. That’s something not even original Avacyn offered.
Of course, Exemplar itself is very vulnerable to removal, but for three mana, you can’t ask for much more. As long as it sticks around, you’ll have full control over combat, and you’ll be able to pressure opponents effectively with all of the cheap Changelings in the deck. It’s not as flashy as Reaper King, but Exemplar is arguably a much better typal payoff to add to the list.
2 | Three Tree City
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Land
- Card Text: As Three Tree City enters, choose a creature type.
Tap: Add C.
2, Tap: Choose a color. Add an amount of mana of that color equal to the number of creatures you control of the chosen type.
Sub in for: Any enters-tapped land in the deck.
One of the most common criticisms of Everyone’s Invited so far has been its lackluster manabase, especially for $200. There are plenty of great lands you can grab to shore up this weakness, but Three Tree City is arguably the best of the lot.
Carrying on the proud tradition established by Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Three Tree City lets you generate a ton of mana under the right conditions. In this deck, those conditions are pretty much just “you control a few creatures.” With so much typal overlap, you can pick whatever you want for City and still go mana-positive very easily indeed. With how mana and color-hungry this deck is, it’s a great option to have.
Three Tree City is an expensive upgrade, to be sure, but it’s also one with strong potential for long-term value. Pretty much every typal deck in Commander wants the card, so even if you move on from Everyone’s Invited you’ll find a home for it somewhere. As far as upgrades for Everyone’s Invited go, this is one of the best there is.
1 | Roaming Throne
- Mana Value: 4
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Artifact Creature – Golem
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: Ward 2.
As this creature enters, choose a creature type.
This creature is the chosen type in addition to its other types.
If a triggered ability of another creature you control of the chosen type triggers, it triggers an additional time.
Sub in for: Chameleon Colossus, Sophia, Dogged Detective.
Carrying on down the typal staples track, we come to Roaming Throne. While criminally underrated at first, this card has since proven to be one of the best typal support pieces in Commander. It’s even quite good just as a generic value piece, with some players running it in non-typal decks purely to magnify their Commander’s ability. It’s a very powerful cad, in other words, and it can do a ton for Everyone’s Invited.
Just a quick look through the deck’s creature suite reveals a ton of powerful use cases. This can double the counters on Taurean Mauler, the Saprolings from Tendershoot Dryad, the recursion from Kirri: the list goes on and on. With how easy it is to have all your creatures share the same type (especially if you pick up Conspiracy), you can often double all of these with just one Roaming Throne pick. The fact that Throne itself shares the type you choose is key. That ability is an as, not a when, so it’ll trigger any enters effects based on that type when it comes down.
On top of all that, a 4/4 for four with Ward 2 is just a very solid rate. In a deck where you’re often stretched for colors, it’s nice to have an easy threat on tap for turn four. It’s not super-surprising, given how heavily it leans into typal synergies, but Roaming Throne is one of the best possible upgrades for your Everyone’s Invited deck.