Table of Contents
dft-213-mendicant-core-guidelight is one of the most interesting commander build-arounds to come from the latest expansion Aetherdrift. It wants lots of artifacts and makes lots of artifacts itself, too. We’ve put together a quick guide below to help you build a strong commander deck with this new legendary robot leader.
This guide aims to discuss how to make the best of this commander’s particular abilities and showcasing a decklist to help you get started with your own build.
About Mendicant Core, Guidelight
As a commander, dft-213-mendicant-core-guidelight is a strong choice for a deck filled with artifacts. In addition to the best colorless toys, it also provides access to blue and white goodies, enabling some sweet combos.
Of course, its ability to clone any artifact you play for just 1 mana is the one we’re looking to abuse. However, you need max speed to enable it, making deckbuilding trickier but gameplay more rewarding.
There are several ways to make a deck around this commander, making it a fun one to build around. You can go wide with buffed thopter tokens, dupe giant colossi, or even go full combo (more on this below).
It being a 2-cost does make up for the fact that it's a 3-toughness creature without protective abilities, though there are plenty of ways to keep it safe in Azorius.
Overall, Mendicant Core lands on the sweet spot of having a nice payoff locked behind a tricky but reasonable condition. It’s cheap to cast (and re-cast) while promising a huge board once it gets to pop off.
The Good
- Very cheap to recast
- Goes tall as your board gets wide
- Gives access to blue and white artifacts and spells
- Can double up your best artifacts cheaply
The Bad
- Very squishy
- Needs max speed for full potential
- Needs early evasive attackers to get max speed fast
Overall Strategy
Artifacts. That’s the strat.
Seriously, you just want a ton of good artifacts, cards that care about artifacts, ways to make them cheaper, bigger, and more numerous. The simplest approach would be building an army of artifact creatures powered by supporting artifacts to make them unstoppable.
Now since Mendicant Core requires max speed, getting through with early attackers is ideal. The faster you can unlock its cloning ability, the sooner you can have more fun with doubling your best permanents. Having cheap evasive creatures can accomplish this, though it might not be as necessary in multiplayer where you have a wider choice of which player to attack.
Once unlocked, the best targets to double up are expensive threats with powerful effects, since you get two for the measly price of +1. It makes cards like pbro-233s-cityscape-leveler, who-176-cybermen-squadron, or dft-219-riptide-gearhulk feel like a bargain if you consider you’re getting two of them.
Alternatively, you can just build a massive board of artifacts, gear Guidelight up with stuff like dst-160-whispersilk-cloak, and swing with massive power.
A good commander deck should also be able to do well without the commander in play, but artifact-focused decks make this easy. With Azorius colors, you get card draw, tutoring, and ways to bring back your artifacts from the scrapheap.
Best Cards
Here are some cards that are highly recommended if you’re building a Mendicant Core commander deck:
There are more cards that are no-brainers in heavy artifact decks such as kld-215-foundry-inspector, mh2-259-urzas-saga, 5dn-137-mycosynth-golem, etc., but the above get special mention for working really well with the commander’s abilities and colors.
Suggested Deck
The Mendicant Core commander deck below only includes artifact creatures, both to maximize its copy ability and to stick with the theme of Guidelight leading its robot buddies home. After crushing everyone in the race, that is.
Notable Cards and Combos
We go over some of the card choices in the suggested deck below:
The most pressing issue with Mendicant Core is dealing damage to an opponent after you've played the commander. Cheap evasive artifact creatures can attack unprepared opponents, though you don't want too many since they suck late. Other sources of life loss like som-184-necrogen-censer will also work.
A few ways to protect the squishy Guidelight can ensure you get to take advantage of its cloning power. These can do double duty in letting you hit an opponent for a speed uptick, too.
Repurposing Bay means that having good targets at each cost is optimal when building the deck. Being able to re-utilize artifacts with good enter abilities like mrd-245-solemn-simulacrum is fantastic.
When you have an army ready, these can deliver the killing blow. Myriad is a very fun way to win a multiplayer game. Fun for you at least.
Having ways to rebuild after sweepers makes this commander resilient and can easily put you way ahead again.
Other Cards to Consider
As we all know, the most difficult part of building a commander deck is keeping the card total to 100. Consider these other options that were not included in the suggested deck.
The spinning top can let you draw your entire deck with an attached Reality Chip, m20-233-mystic-forge or acr-15-crystal-skull-isu-spyglass plus any artifact cost reducer. With artifact tutors this won't be difficult to pull off, so make sure the people you're playing with are okay with it.
Another instant wincon you can go for is Mechanized Production with lots of thopters. pdft-68s-thopter-fabricator, scd-59-sharding-sphinx, and drc-82-sai-master-thopterist can all make multiple tokens.
Getting to untap during other players' turns is great for defense. It's even better if you have flash enabled like through mbs-129-shimmer-myr or you have good tap abilities in play like 2xm-58-master-transmuter.
If you feel more mass removal is necessary, these selective solutions are recommended.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully this helps you in building your dft-213-mendicant-core-guidelight commander deck. Feel free to share your own build and spicy card choices below!
