As is the case in every MTG format, pulling off the best combos in Commander requires some fairly expensive cards. For those on a budget, it can be hard to compete in the upper brackets for this reason. Fortunately, there are cheaper alternatives out there, if you’re willing to delve deep into the dusty MTG archives. Divining Witch is one such card, enabling some of the quickest kills in MTG Commander for a fraction of the cost of its more popular cousins.
Divining Witch MTG
If the ability on Divining Witch looks familiar, that’s because it’s identical to classic MTG combo enabler Demonic Consultation. Both cards offer an easy way to exile your entire deck, which can then allow for a combo win with Thassa’s Oracle or Laboratory Maniac. In a pinch, you can also use either card as a general tutor, though this is risky due to both exiling the top six cards of your deck.
While their abilities are the same, Divining Witch is much, much cheaper than Demonic Consultation. Near-mint copies of Witch can be had for just $0.78 on TCGplayer right now. Consultation, by contrast, will run you around $9.00 in the same condition. That’s a whopping 91% discount, which is fantastic for the Commander player on a budget.
These savings do come at a cost, however, as Divining Witch needs a bit of support to function as well as Demonic Consultation does. As a fragile creature, there’s a real risk of it being removed before you can use its ability and combo off. To address this, running some Haste granters, like Anger or Lightning Greaves, is key.
While these concessions will take up some deck slots, Divining Witch does have advantages over Demonic Consultation, too. For starters, being a creature makes it much easier to tutor for, opening up options like Formidable Speaker and Birthing Pod. Since Witch doesn’t need to sacrifice itself, its ability is also repeatable in the same turn even with an untapper like Thousand-Year Elixir. This allows for more consistent wins, since you can grab Thassa’s Oracle and exile your deck, not either/or.
Divining Witch can actually surpass the other options in some areas, too. Since it’s a creature, it can slot nicely into a wide range of popular MTG Commander decks. In Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Muldrotha, the Gravetide, for example, it’s a combo piece you can easily get back if you mill over it.
The Road Less Traveled
Despite these advantages, Divining Witch is actually very underplayed in MTG Commander. According to EDHREC data, only around 2,780 decks run the card in total. That’s an incredibly low figure, especially considering how little redundancy there is for this effect. Demonic Consultation aside, there’s only really Tainted Pact and Plunge into Darkness in the same sphere. In decks that rely on this combo as their main win condition, adding an extra enabler is a big deal.
Being a creature also makes Witch harder to interact with at the cEDH level, since most counterspells there are geared towards noncreature spells, such as Force of Negation. The effect coming on an ability here also lets you win through Rule of Law effects in a pinch, which is important considering the huge presence of Stax in the format.
Overall, while Divining Witch has clear downsides compared to the usual suspects in its area, it also has edge cases where it shines even brighter. Whether you’re running a tight budget deck, or just want more copies of Demonic Consultation in your deck, it’s a no-brainer pick up at its current price tag.
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