One of the biggest tropes in our game is that Simic is Magic: the Gathering on easy mode, with more cards that care about ramping and drawing cards than any other color combination in the game. That Simic Lands and card draw is a bit of a running joke doesn't make playing Green and Blue any less fun in Commander, but it's important not to fool ourselves. You can call Simic by the name it's known by in Secrets of Strixhaven, Quandrix, but it's still going to have a leg up on most other color pairings.

Today's subject has a new twist on the old Simic train to value town and I thought it would be fun to explore whether this is more than just another Simic goodstuff Commander.

Tam, Observant Sequencer is a 4/3 Gorgon Wizard that costs and has a Preparation ability. When she becomes Prepared, I'll exile a copy of the spell shown in the right side of the card's text box. I can cast that copy from exile as long as Tam is Prepared and under my control. Casting a Prepared spell will unprepare Tam.

Many cards with Preparation abilities become Prepared when they enter the battlefield, but Tam's ability is tied to a Landfall trigger. The Preparation spell Tam, Observant Sequencer is able to cast is Deep Sight, a Sorcery that will have me draw a card and gain one life for .

Tam feels a bit like a watered down Tatyova, Benthic Druid. I've got a few extra hoops to jump through in order to get my card draw, but that just means I'll need to work a little harder to get where I want to go.

Destination: Value Town

My goal is to get the most value out of what Tam brings to the game, so I've got a little work to do. Tam isn't giving me extra Land drops and she isn't tutoring up Lands, so I'll need to do that on my own. Each Land drop is going to open up the ability to pay to draw a card and gain a life. To make that easier, I can throw a few cards into the mix.

When I play a Land it generally enters play and I can use it immediately, but spells like Rampant Growth, Cultivate, and Kodama's Reach will put a Land into play tapped. If I've got Spelunking or Amulet of Vigor in play, that Land will untap, making it easier to immediately pay to cast Deep Sight. There's no requirement that I cast Deep Sight that turn but additional Lands won't give me additional copies of that spell so if possible, I'll want to cast it before my next land enters play.

Creatures like Lotus Cobra and Tireless Provisioner will help to turn landfall into mana. The former will let me generate one mana of any color, and the latter will have me create a Treasure token. With the right combination I could see myself playing a Land and casting Deep Sight without having to tap any additional Lands or mana sources.

I'm playing a handful of spells and Creatures that can tutor up Lands, but a big part of this deck's game plan will be playing cards that let me play additional Lands each turn. If Deep Sight puts a Land in my hand and I've already played my Land for turn, I'm out of luck. With Creatures like Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, or the Enchantment Exploration in play, I can play additional Lands. Drawing into another Land might not always be ideal, but in Simic more Lands often translate into more card draw, and more card draw helps to dig for other things.

It Takes Two, Baby

When I wrote that Simic is Magic on easy mode, I wasn't kidding. The amount of mana you can produce and the number of cards you can draw in the mid and late game is often going to be better than anyone else at the table. You also have a lot of interesting bombs available to you for the late game, and you can build in a lot of different directions.

I'm usually not aiming to brew up the most powerful deck possible, though I do lean on a lot of format staples. I generally aim for a deck that can hang in Brackets 2 or 3, and that doesn't tutor too much or use Game Changers.

For today's build I decided to pick at least one theme that I thought would be fun and a good fit for this Commander. I went looking for cards that give me extra value for playing spells with two different colors. I'll be trying to play Deep Sight a bunch of times, and it's both Green and Blue. Why not turn that into a subtheme?

Tablet of the Guilds is an Artifact that will have me choose two colors when it enters play. Whenever I cast a spell, if it's at least one of the chosen colors I'll gain one life for each of the chosen colors it is. This might not be the kind of heavy hitter that I'll be winning games with, but it's a nice match for a Commander that should reliably be casting a lot of two colored spells. If things go well, that could just be Deep Sight again and again, but that could still gain me a decent amount of life over the course of a game.

Tome of the Guildpact is more straightforward. It costs a whopping five mana, but it will tap for any color and will have me draw a card whenever I cast a multicolored spell. Turning my two mana "draw one card, gain one life" Deep Sight into "draw two cards, gain one life" is pretty good. It's worth noting that playing these types of cards does lower my deck's power level. In high Bracket 3 and Bracket 4 I'm probably not going to play many five-drop mana rocks. The games are too often fast and I'm not going to get enough value out of it.

My favorite card for Tam, Observant Sequencer, might be Fable of Wolf and Owl. This five-mana Enchantment does absolutely nothing until I start casting spells, but if it sticks around it's a veritable Army in a Can.

Whenever I play a Green spell, I'll put a 2/2 Green Wolf Creature token into play. Whenever I play a Blue spell, I'll put a 1/1 Blue Bird Creature token with Flying into play. Just playing cards out of my hand could build me a nice little army, but if I'm able to cast Deep Sight a bunch of times, it's really going to put in some work.

My theme of playing cards that benefit from playing two-color spells ended up disappointingly short on cards. I had expected to find a few hidden gems beyond Fable of Wolf and Owl, which I've been aware of since I ran it in Ezuri, Claw of Progress a decade ago.

Most cards that care about the number of colors in spells you cast will perform best in four and five color decks, but disappoint when slotted into a two-colored deck. I'll still be happy to see these cards, but this barely qualifies as a subtheme.

Winning In Simic

I like to have a major theme when building a deck, but I've often built decks that have a bunch of smaller subthemes that end up playing fairly well.

Landfall card draw might be the most obvious thing you can build around when putting together a Simic deck and there's no good reason not to do it. Both Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait are very capable Commanders in their own right, and in Tam they will be excellent support cards to help us with card draw. Tatyova's landfall trigger is the functional equivalent of Tam's Deep Sight Preparation spell. Aesi gives me an additional Land drop and will have me draw a card when a Land I control enters play.

I love to pour big mana into big Creatures, and there are few better options in Simic than Hydroid Krasis. This Jellyfish Hydra Beast costs and has both Flying and Trample. When I cast it, I'll gain half X life and draw half X cards, rounded down each time. It enters with X +1/+1 counters, making it a card that can scale up nicely to the amount of mana I'm able to produce.

Playing a ridiculous number of Lands naturally pushes me to look at Creatures with Landfall triggers. I ended up passing on Scute Swarm, but chose to include Avenger of Zendikar and its best buddy, Craterhoof Behemoth.

I stopped short of putting in Tooth and Nail, as I tend to avoid tutors, but this deck should be able to generate enough mana to play these types of cards. There's nothing wrong with Scute Swarm or with Tooth and Nail, but I've only got so many slots for big threats and I just chose to go with other cards.

There are lots of subthemes I could lean heavily into. I could build around +1/+1 counters, Creatures like Hydras that scale around how much mana I can produce, or even ways to turn my Lands into Creatures. Simic is a wonderful color pairing for building lots of interesting decks. I like Dragons, so the last little theme I decided to throw into this deck was Dragons.

I could have played a lot more Dragons than I'm running, but these three are a pretty good start.

Canopy Gargantuan will have each of my Creatures get +1/+1 counters equal to its toughness on my upkeep. It costs a hefty seven mana, but this deck should be able to get up to that in most games. The fact that it's a 7/7 for seven mana with Flying and Ward 2 is icing on the cake. It can present a real combat threat and turn my other Creatures into real threats over a few turns.

A pair of Ancient Dragons join the fray in Ancient Bronze Dragon and Ancient Copper Dragon. They will both have me roll a d20 when they deal combat damage to a player. The former will have me put X +1/+1 counters on each of up to two target Creatures where X is the result of my die roll. The latter will have me draw cards equal to the result of my die roll, and will give me no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.

I've had plenty of decks over the years that have a weakness to flyers, so when I was looking for a few higher mana Creatures to round out this list, Dragons were an easy answer. I am running Mulldrifter and Faerie Mastermind, and I could be running Birds of Paradise and a few other flyers. My main goal is just to have a few Creatures that can serve as Flying blockers. There's no reason to lean even more into Dragons unless I really wanted to make that a main theme.

Observing Sequences

I'll be honest and say that I don't get some of the titles they've been giving Legendary creatures in recent years. I'm going to assume that Tam is indeed an Observant Sequencer, but I haven't read the lore for Tam, so it's hard to think this is anything but the result of throwing words against the wall like spaghetti to see what sticks. I'm still happier to have Tam in the format than over two dozen new Turtles from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set, but it's a weird card name.

My favorite thing about this Commander is that you really can build in a lot of different directions. Tam's Creature type line might lead you to build around Wizards, but you aren't going to be building around Gorgons. There's no overt synergy with any of the more common deck archetypes you find when building in this color pairing.

With no hook in the type line and no obvious build path in the text box, you're free to really do what you like. Simic good-stuff is where I found myself at the end, but I enjoyed sprinkling in a few odds and ends like those Dragons and Fable of Wolf and Owl. There will almost always be a more powerful Commander in Green and Blue for any theme you end up picking, but that's OK. Building for Brackets 2 and 3 can be easier when you pick a commander like Tam.

Tam, Observant Sequencer | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Tam, Observant Sequencer

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1 Ancient Bronze Dragon
• 1 Ancient Silver Dragon
• 1 Archmage Emeritus
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Canopy Gargantuan
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Faerie Mastermind
• 1 Fathom Mage
• 1 Hydroid Krasis
• 1 Loot, Exuberant Explorer
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Murkfiend Liege
• 1 Neverwinter Dryad
• 1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Steelbane Hydra
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Temur Sabertooth
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Wayward Swordtooth
• 1 Wood Elves

• Planeswalker (1)
• 1 Nissa, Vital Force

• Instants (13)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Eureka Moment
• 1 Growth Spiral
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Swan Song

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Biomantic Mastery
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Golden Ratio
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Mind into Matter
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Shared Roots
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Urban Evolution

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Exploration
• 1 Fable of Wolf and Owl
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Spelunking

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Tablet of the Guilds
• 1 Tome of the Guildpact

• Lands (37)
• 13 Forest
• 13 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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To power this list down you might want to look at building around a Creature type. Gorgons is an obvious non-starter. Of the 25 other Gorgons in Magic, 24 of them have Black in their color identity. Simic Wizards could end up punching harder than this deck, and Dragons always seem to hit harder than you'd expect.

Landfall as a theme is always strong in Simic, but Tam really doesn't give you much to work with. The same applies to other common Simic themes like +1/+1 counters, which might work really well but again don't benefit in any way from having Tam as your Commander.

Pushing up into Bracket 3 is easy enough to do just by adding Game Changers, but what you really want is a deck that can actually play well in Bracket 3. I think that's possible with Tam, Observant Sequencer, but you'll run into the same questions you get when pushing a deck into Bracket 4. Why not just run a better Commander? Tatyova, Aesi, and plenty of other Legendary Creatures in Blue and Green can lead a Bracket 3 Commander deck and give you more interesting abilities to build around.

Final Thoughts

I wasn't able to get this list into a game, so I don't know for sure how well it plays. I had been thinking of piloting it with a rule that I'd try to see how many times I could cast Deep Sight in a single game. I'm not sure that's a good plan, but I was definitely entertaining the idea.

If you're looking for powerful Simic Commanders, Tam, Observant Sequencer probably isn't going to be your first choice. There are just too many other, more interesting choices available. That said, if you're looking for a Bracket 2 Commander that you can load up with Simic good-stuff, this might be a decent option. You could even build a "hidden Commander" deck where your real game plan isn't telegraphed by the care you have in the Command Zone.

There are other reasons to build around Tam. I could see altering a copy of Tam with a picture of River Tam from Firefly and having that be my Commander. You might also be familiar with Tam Lin from Scottish folklore, and might want a Tam deck for that reason. I don't think River Tam or Tam Lin have much to do with Gorgon Wizards, but when you're altering cards sometimes you just pick something and go with it.

If nothing else, there is a certain joy that comes with playing some oddball deck with a neat alter in the Command Zone. Folks want to look at it, and they are generally more curious about seeing what your deck is going to do in a game.

As I finish this column up, we are awash in Marvel Super Heroes previews. I'll likely keep anything I acquire from Marvel Super Heroes in a pool of cards with my Spider Man cards and will be building decks without mixing in any Legends from other Magic sets.

I've previously stated I'm not the biggest fan of the Fortnite-ification of Magic, and in lower powered play there's I see no reason to mix Super Heroes and Wizards if you don't want to.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!