Unlike most Un-sets, which are beloved by the community, Unfinity saw widespread condemnation from the moment it was announced. For the first time ever, this set had cards that were actually playable in eternal formats. To facilitate this, Wizards made the entire set black-bordered, which many players felt was sacrilege.
Unsurprisingly, being hated this much has led many MTG players to forget about Unfinity and the cards it contained. This is especially true for the eternal legal legends that the MTG set created, like Captain Rex Nebula. While he is definitely a bit of a meme, this card is actually well worth building around.
MTG Captain Rex Nebula
From a flavor perspective, Captain Rex Nebula is absolutely hilarious. This pilot can turn anything into a vehicle, crew it himself, and then immediately crash it. With his shit-eating grin and dramatic visual flair, the comparisons to Zapp Brannigan are obvious.
As for the card itself, Captain Rex Nebula admittedly seems pretty weak on the surface. At baseline, tapping itself to animate a nonland permanent isn’t amazing, and Mr Nebula makes it inherently risky too. So long as whatever you animate costs less than six, there’s a 16.67% that you’ll have to sacrifice it.
Thankfully, there are some cards that can help prevent this issue. For starters, Barbarian Class can help protect your smaller animation targets while enabling additional dice rolling synergy. Alternatively, running high-cost creatures ensures there’s no chance of sacrificing them, turning them into compelling threats.
Notably, since Captain Rex Nebula changes the stats of whatever it animates, it works wonders with Affinity creatures. Potentially free cards like Spire Golem and Mycosynth Golem can become incredible threats, provided you can crew them. Thankfully, using Strionic Resonator and Lithform Engine will let you copy Captain Rex’s trigger, while adding to the Affinity count.
Beyond boosting stats, which makes RMS Titanic and Threefold Thunderhulk especially deadly, Captain Rex Nebula can also exploit sacrifice synergies. While it’s unlikely you’ll want to go full Aristocrats, cards like Pia’s Revolution and Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer are a godsend. With all of this added together, Captain Rex Nebula is admittedly a bit of a weird deck, but it’s definitely one that works.
Dice and Damage
Beyond just offering a comical hodgepodge of surprisingly compelling strategies, Captain Rex Nebula also has some serious combo potential. Sadly, the best of these combos, which utilizes Devoted Druid, is off color, but there are compelling three-card options. Alongside Aetherflux Reservoir and Basilisk Collar, for instance, you can have infinite die rolls and damage.
So long as you have 51 or more life to start with, you can animate Aetherfux Reservoir with Rex, then give it lifelink with Basilisk Collar. Once assembled, using Aetherfux Reservoir’s activated ability will gain you life, letting you use it over and over again.
For some added redundancy, a similar infinite-damage loop is possible by animating and giving All Will Be One lifelink. Alongside Archangel of Thune, these cards will create an endless damage loop, ensuring your victory.
Should this somehow not be enough infinite damage for your liking, it’s also possible to use Brazen Dwarf for the same result. With Assault Suit in tow to prevent sacrificing, and Leonin Shikari allowing equipping, Rex lets you infinite Crash Land. Since this bewtowed ability only cares about dealing damage, Brazen Dwarf’s trigger of dice rolling works with it, allowing you to keep going infinitely.
Crashing Into Our Hearts
Admittedly, while Captain Rex Nebula definitely has potential, there’s no denying this MTG card is weird. With this in mind, it’s not really too surprising that Captain Rex Nebula is wildly underplayed in Commander. According to EDHREC, this card helms just 1,241 decks and appears in the 99 of around 1,400.
The good news about these low play rates is that Captain Rex Nebula is sure to be a surprise that leaves your opponent guessing. On top of this, Rex is a very cheap card, with copies available for just $0.19 on TCGplayer. Thanks to this, it really doesn’t cost much to give him a whirl, which is sure to be a good time.
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