Thanks to the rise of Commander, many of Magic’s most obscure cards are being rediscovered. When players can no longer play duplicates of their favorite cards, we’re all forced to get a bit crafty, digging up all kinds of forgotten gems. Despite this digging, some MTG cards, like Symbiotic Deployment, have miraculously managed to evade detection and remain criminally underplayed.
MTG Symbiotic Deployment
At first glance, it’s easy to see why Symbiotic Deployment has been lost to the annals of history. The downside of skipping your drawstep is huge, as you’re forced to lean into and build around this card. Thankfully, the potential upside of this is well worth the cost, as with some setup, you can draw dozens of cards per turn cycle.
Any go-wide deck, or deck that produces lots of tokens, can easily take advantage of Symbiotic Deployment. Commanders like Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Beledros Witherboom, or even the recent Abby, Merciless Soldier, can all create instant board states, allowing Symbiotic Deployment to refill your hand. Otherwise, some Commanders like Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse can continually create tokens thanks to the card draw that Symbiotic Deployment provides.
Alternatively, decks that can get rid of Symbiotic Deployment to avoid its downside can use this card to great effect. Appa, Steadfast Guardian is a perfect example of this idea in a 99, thanks to both creating tokens and being able to Airbend Symbiotic Deployment away.
Regardless of which way you build around Symbiotic Deployment, it’s not hard to get value out of it. So long as you’ve got some spare mana and untapped creatures before your turn starts, you can get a couple of draws. Doing this, Symbiotic Deployment can very quickly break even, even if you’re not trying to exploit the potential synergy.
Untap Shenanigans
While Symbiotic Deployment is usable within a surprising array of Commander decks already, there are a couple of archetypes it really excels in. Commanders who want to be tapped, like Kona, Rescue Beastie, Kalamax, the Stormsire, and Dionus, Elvish Archdruid can all use Symbiotic Deployment to great effect. The same is true of Emmara, Soul of the Accord, who can easily snowball out of control by using this enchantment.
Alongside benefiting Commanders that want to be tapped, Symbiotic Deployment naturally works well with untap-focused Commanders. Ohabi Caleria, for instance, easily allows you to draw multiple cards per turn cycle. The same can be achieved with Seedborn Muse and Patron of the Orochi in the 99 to make this synergy more consistent.
If this still isn’t enough, there is some infinite combo potential with Symbiotic Deployment, but it involves going into blue. Using the enchantment with a mana dork like Llanowar Elves, Intruder Alarm, and Lorwyn Eclipsed’s Pestered Wellguard, will create infinite tokens and infinite draws.
So long as your Elves don’t have summoning sickness, you can tap your two creatures to draw a card with Symbiotic Deployment. This will cause Pestered Wellguard to create a token, allowing Intruder Alarm to untap all of your creatures. From there, just use your Elves for mana, and your Wellguard and its tokens to activate Symbiotic Deployment over and over.
Absurdly Underplayed
Given Symbiotic Deployment’s incredible potential, this card is extremely underplayed. With only 875 decks playing this card according to EDHREC, even Commanders that can break Symbiotic Deployment barely use it.
This suggests that many MTG players simply don’t know about this lost enchantment, which isn’t too surprising considering its history. Symbiotic Deployment only has one printing as a rare in Apocalypse, a set released 24 years ago. Thanks in part to no one being aware of it, Symbiotic Deployment is only worth about $0.40 in near mint condition.
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