I’ve spent most of my Commander career refining an approach to deck-building that boils down to one thing: do-nothing graveyard shenanigans. That said, my favorite kind of graveyard fun tends to involve one card in particular: Second Sunrise. Ever since the original deck tech back at Worlds in 2006, I’ve been fascinated by the cool things that Second Sunrise can do, and I have tried all kinds of crazy things.

I bored people to death with a variation on this deck at summer camp that year. Later, I would try to make the deck work with Zuberas in, which would be the start of a whole new obsession. Eventually, I tried to port the deck to Legacy. We were playing casually enough that no one really tried to hate on my crazy graveyard combos. Eventually, I left the game for a while, and after coming back, I didn’t remember the joy that was Second Sunrise. Then, Magic 2013 came along, and it brought Faith's Reward with it.

Zubera Combo ? Extended | Carlos Gutierrez

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Eternal Witness
• 2 Silent-Chant Zubera
• 3 Ember-Fist Zubera
• 4 Ashen-Skin Zubera
• 4 Dripping-Tongue Zubera
• 4 Floating-Dream Zubera

• Spells (21)
• 4 Second Sunrise
• 2 Diabolic Intent
• 2 Patriarch's Bidding
• 4 Serum Visions
• 1 Spawning Pit
• 4 Aether Vial
• 4 Phyrexian Altar

• Lands (20)
• 1 Island
• 1 Plains
• 2 Forest
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Tarnished Citadel
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 2 Mirrodin's Core
• 3 Yavimaya Coast
• 4 City of Brass
• 4 Tendo Ice Bridge

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Second Sunrise Combo ? Legacy | Carlos Gutierrez

• Spells (31)
• 3 Second Sunrise
• 3 Faith's Reward
• 2 Cunning Wish
• 1 Lotus Bloom
• 2 Lion's Eye Diamond
• 2 Lotus Petal
• 4 Chromatic Sphere
• 4 Chromatic Star
• 4 Conjurer's Bauble
• 1 Pyrite Spellbomb
• 2 Reshape
• 3 Brainstorm

• Lands (19)
• 4 Cephalid Coliseum
• 4 Archaeological Dig
• 1 Crystal Vein
• 4 Ghost Quarter
• 4 Island
• 2 Plains

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That card changes a lot of things. It meant that I was able to try comboing of with Puresteel Paladin in Standard and was the reason that Second Sunrise had to be banned in Modern. It’s also the thing that got me interested in trying non-traditional ramp decks using fetch lands and Second Sunrise in Commander. Ever since I built that crazy Puresteel Paladin deck, though, I’ve been obsessed with finding another deck in another format that recreates the feeling of chaining together cheap Equipment that cantrip over and over again. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really able to figure anything out, so I moved on to other things.

Fortunately, Stephen Datka didn’t give up, and he came up with this super-sweet Modern combo deck featuring Retract as the engine and Monastery Mentor as the backup to Puresteel Paladin.

Puresteel Combo ? Modern | Stephen Datka

• Creatures (7)
• 3 Monastery Mentor
• 4 Puresteel Paladin

• Spells (38)
• 4 Accorder's Shield
• 4 Bone Saw
• 4 Kite Shield
• 4 Paradise Mantle
• 1 Sigil of Distinction
• 4 Spidersilk Net
• 1 Echoing Truth
• 4 Muddle the Mixture
• 3 Noxious Revival
• 4 Retract
• 4 Mox Opal
• 1 Grapeshot

• Lands (15)
• 1 Island
• 2 Plains
• 3 Flooded Strand
• 2 Glimmervoid
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 3 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Mystic Gate
• 1 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Angel's Grace
• 3 Batwing Brume
• 3 Gut Shot
• 3 Silence
• 3 Cavern of Souls

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Unfortunately for me, this deck doesn’t port over to Commander especially well for a few reasons. First and foremost, you only have one copy of Puresteel Paladin. On top of that, you have way fewer free Equipment and only one copy of Retract. Sure, there are cards like Vedalken Archmage and Riddlesmith, but those cards can only do so much work to keep the cards flowing until you find Puresteel Paladin. I spent a long time trying to brainstorm how I could be a W/U combo–control deck if I were going to waste a bunch of slots on Kite Shields and the like, and nothing ever seemed to come together. After all, even if you add a Second Sunrise engine as a backup to Retract, W/U just isn’t really a graveyard color.

The good news is that it is the color of blinking permanents, and that’s just as good. It turns out that using Brago, King Eternal as my commander and a little creative deck-building allows you to make this deck a reality, inconsistent as it may be.

The power of Brago is that he gives you a way to tear through your deck without finding Puresteel Paladin. Brago can Flicker Prophetic Prisms and Tsabo's Web every turn, netting free cards and helping you sculpt turns in which you can start doing more degenerate things. And the best part is that Brago can flicker all your free Equipment so you can double up on draws when you do eventually find Puresteel Paladin. So what does this monstrosity look like? Here’s where I’m starting with this wonky combotastic brew:

Puresteel Brago ? Commander | Carlos Gutierrez

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Drift of Phantasms
• 1 Mentor of the Meek
• 1 Monastery Mentor
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Puresteel Paladin
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Trinket Mage
• 1 Vedalken Archmage
• 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Tezzeret the Seeker
• 1 Venser, the Sojourner

• Spells (45)
• 1 Chain of Vapor
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Faith's Reward
• 1 Hurkyl's Recall
• 1 Muddle the Mixture
• 1 Retract
• 1 Second Sunrise
• 1 Thirst for Knowledge
• 1 Open the Vaults
• 1 Preordain
• 1 Roar of Reclamation
• 1 Sudden Disappearance
• 1 Thoughtcast
• 1 Transmute Artifact
• 1 Spreading Seas
• 1 Treachery
• 1 Accorder's Shield
• 1 Alchemist's Vial
• 1 Bone Saw
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Eye of Ramos
• 1 Fireshrieker
• 1 Flayer Husk
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Grappling Hook
• 1 Ichor Wellspring
• 1 Kite Shield
• 1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mortarpod
• 1 Paradise Mantle
• 1 Piston Sledge
• 1 Prophetic Prism
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sigil of Distinction
• 1 Skinwing
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spidersilk Net
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Tooth of Ramos
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Tsabo's Web

• Lands (36)
• 7 Island
• 7 Plains
• 1 Celestial Colonnade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Flood Plain
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Mystic Gate
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Skycloud Expanse
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Ancient Den
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Seat of the Synod

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The game plan is to lead off with cantripping baubles like Prophetic Prism and to use Brago to pull ahead on cards and dig toward some sort of more powerful engine. Obviously, Puresteel Paladin is the ideal card to find, and you’d love to be able to Clone him a few times. Realistically, though, Riddlesmith and Vedalken Archmage will do just fine to help you keep tearing through your deck. The cutest piece of this deck is the inclusion of Mentor of the Meek as a way to draw cards off living weapon Equipment and your other creatures.

At that point, you can start casting your free Equipment and then cast Retract or Hurkyl's Recall to play them all again. Sneaking in a hit with Brago will let you flicker all of your Equipment to draw even more cards, and once you find a sacrifice outlet, you can start going even deeper. Finding Piston Sledge or Krark-Clan Ironworks allows you to start sacrificing all your artifacts, Faith's Reward everything back, and dig into another Roar of Reclamation or some such to keep the chain going. My favorite card during these combo chains is Chain of Vapor since it allows you to rebuy all of your free artifacts and sacrifice your lands to rebuy later.

Eventually, you’ll draw through the rest of your deck and win with Laboratory Maniac. You could play effects like Chromatic Star and Conjurer's Bauble to give you ways to try to win again in response to removal spells if that’s something you’re concerned about. Alternatively, you can use Mistveil Plains to recycle either Laboratory Maniac or powerful spells to jam turn after turn once your library is empty.

It’s possible that this deck wants to play cards like Rebuild to increase the redundancy of cards that let you replay your board or a Read the Runes to help sculpt your critical turn as well as sacrifice key permanents while mid-combo.

In this case, I learned about how broken you can go when Brago is able to hit more than once in a turn. This deck is busy trying to combo off in wonky ways, but I can only imagine what a focused build of Brago could do with multiple hits, especially if you throw a Strionic Resonator into the mix. It seems it’d be pretty easy to build a W/U tempo deck full of Riftwing Cloudskate, cantripping permanents, and other nonsense that lets you generate an overwhelming advantage with multiple Brago hits. Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper's Gift make it easy to find the double strike enablers—or you could go a little deeper with something like Heliod's Pilgrim and Battle Mastery. Pilgrim would even let you tutor up insane Auras to flicker in and out of play, such as Treachery.

I also learned that it’s shockingly easy to win with Laboratory Maniac if you’ve built your deck around drawing a ton of cards. It’s also a ton of fun to literally value opponents to death. This isn’t the most efficient way of doing that since it’s a volatile and inconsistent engine, but a better way has to exist, and I have to imagine that it’d be a blast to build and play. After playing a couple of games with this, I can’t wait to take the Maniac back to the lab and come up with more ways to draw your deck one and two cards at a time.

Whispers of the Muse

• Animist's Awakening is a super ritual in Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant builds if you can attain spell mastery. It’s even easy to imagine finding a Haunted Fengraf or Eye of Ugin to cast a creature off it the same turn!
• Oloro, Ageless Ascetic seems well-positioned to value people to death. Is there a way to build Oloro to win with Laboratory Maniac?