In Magic, there are some Commanders who tell you how to build them and other Commanders you'll look at and say "This has to be doing something broken, but I don't know what."

Today, we're going to be looking at one of those Commanders: Impossible Man, from the Marvel: Super Heroes Jumpstart decks. Impossible Man does two things: he flies and, for , he does everything else.

Before we start, you may be wondering who the Impossible Man is, and how the flavor of him becoming any other permanent makes sense. His race, who are all extensions of himself, can transform into anything, and reality warps to accommodate.

Fortunately, the things he wants most are a successful run of Marvel comics and to watch television. Relatable.

He also once fed his entire planet to Galactus because there were too many of himself and he thought it'd be fun. Less relatable.

Finding a Theme

Because Impossible Man is so open ended, there is a lot of room to build around him, but he mostly enables combos. I was at a bit of a loss on how to build a thematic Bracket 2 or 3 deck around him, as many established strategies in Commander respect the singleton rules.

Impossible Man can retain his name while copying any permanent, so I started my search there.

The first place my mind went to was Relm's Sketching from Final Fantasy, a memorable recent card that copies permanents. Wizards has printed a lot of this effect in Blue recently. This wasn't novel enough for me.

I also considered Irma, Part-Time Mutant from Commander: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Irma similarly copies Creatures, although her ability triggers on Combat and she does not turn back into herself at the end of turn.

There are a couple of neat synergies in Irma decks I included in my Impossible Man deck. Cards like Giggling Skitterspike let Impossible Man grow and deal pretty good amounts of damage.

Enduring Curiosity works a bit better with Irma, but the ability to return a killed Impossible Man from the graveyard to play once is a great trick enabling us to maintain momentum after being disrupted.

Overall, Irma decks were too similar to other clone decks. If I built Impossible Man in this way, I wouldn't really be taking advantage of what makes him unique: the ability to copy noncreature permanents.

So, here's a look at my final answer.

Impossible Man Charge Counters | Commander | Michael Gallagher

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Body of Knowledge
• 1 Coretapper
• 1 Enduring Curiosity
• 1 Faerie Artisans
• 1 Faerie Mastermind
• 1 Giggling Skitterspike
• 1 High Fae Trickster
• 1 Hydro-Man, Fluid Felon
• 1 Hydroelectric Specimen
• 1 Irma, Part-Time Mutant
• 1 Loki, God of Mischief
• 1 Marvin, Murderous Mimic
• 1 Omen Hawker
• 1 Princess Yue
• 1 Renegade Silent
• 1 Rug of Smothering
• 1 Scrawling Crawler
• 1 Spellskite
• 1 The Mindskinner
• 1 The Unagi of Kyoshi Island
• 1 Willbreaker

• Instants (4)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Reality Shift
• 1 Slip Out the Back

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Eagle Vision
• 1 Fabricate
• 1 Spectral Deluge

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Forced Fruition
• 1 Impostor Syndrome
• 1 Leyline of Anticipation
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Proft's Eidetic Memory
• 1 Propaganda
• 1 Training Grounds

• Artifacts (28)
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Bender's Waterskin
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Darksteel Reactor
• 1 Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought
• 1 Empowered Autogenerator
• 1 Geometric Nexus
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Lux Cannon
• 1 Magistrate's Scepter
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Misleading Signpost
• 1 Moxite Refinery
• 1 Palantir of Orthanc
• 1 Pentad Prism
• 1 Sapphire Medallion
• 1 Sceptre of Eternal Glory
• 1 Sun Droplet
• 1 The Enigma Jewel
• 1 The Eternity Elevator
• 1 Titan Forge
• 1 U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class
• 1 Uthros Research Craft
• 1 Vexing Puzzlebox
• 1 Victory Chimes
• 1 Waterbending Scroll
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Weather Maker

• Lands (36)
• 17 Island
• 1 Agna Qel'a
• 1 Baxter Building
• 1 Dark Depths
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Deserted Temple
• 1 Lotus Field
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Sunken Citadel
• 1 Talon Gates of Madara
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 Urza's Cave
• 1 Uthros, Titanic Godcore
• 1 Valgavoth's Lair
• 1 War Room

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Building Up Value

As I was looking into ways to take advantage of Impossible Man's ability to become anything, Indestructible and Hexproof permanents became key parts in the deck, allowing me to, for just dodge any removal, including board wipes and spells that destroy 'all' permanents.

This helps us not lose, but I want to win. I narrowed my search to Indestructible permanents that could close out a game, and there was one that caught my eye: Darksteel Reactor. For , this Artifact lets you win the game if you can get 20 charge counters on it.

Charge counters are typically slow to build up, and Darksteel Reactor decks tend to abuse Proliferate and counters doubling effects to speed up the 20-turn clock.

What if those counters were already on the Reactor, though? Reactor triggers as soon as it has 20 counters on it, no slow wait for upkeep. It isn't difficult to put charge counters on other Artifacts. Spaceships and Planets from Edge of Eternities and the upcoming Star Trek set let you tap Creatures to put charge counters on them equal to the power of the tapped Creature.

For , I can turn Impossible Man into already good cards, like the Uthros Research Craft, Otawara, Soaring City, or the upcoming U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class, station him instead of the original permanent being copied, and build up a large number of charge counters.

Vexing Puzzlebox, from Commander Legends: Baldur's Gate gains charge counters equal to the value of any die you roll. You can turn Impossible Man into a copy, then tap him and the original to roll 2d20 for an average of 21 charge counters on both Artifacts.

With that many counters you can win in the next turn's upkeep by transforming into the Darksteel Reactor or wait until your next turn to add 20 mana by copying The Eternity Elevator or swinging for 20 Commander damage by copying Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought.

Taking Advantage of Poppupian Magic

While our primary win condition is the Darksteel Reactor, there are plenty of other ways of taking advantage of a surplus of charge counters on cards which should never, ever have a lot of charge counters.

For , the Artifact Magistrate's Scepter lets you take one extra turn.

That's cute, but if you skip the hoop and the 12 mana needed to put three charge counters on it, you'd be making a card that does a pretty good Time Walk impression. Once you've loaded up your Impossible Man with counters, it would not be difficult to take an extra turn every other turn.

There is no way to take infinite extra turns with just Impossible Man in this list (though the included Irma does make it possible), but adding any card that untaps an Artifact would let you do this.

There are several other cards that want you to slowly build up charge counters for a reward we can cheat with Impossible Man's tricks.

Lux Cannon and Titan Forge each also require three charge counters to either destroy any permanent or create a 9/9 token. Pentad Prism is a backup Eternity Elevator, allowing you to remove large numbers of counters for an equal amount of mana.

Backup plans are vital in Commander and this deck has plenty, partly because of how much time I spent trying to figure out exactly what this deck was supposed to do. Each of these plans represents a direction the deck could've gone if not charge counters.

In researching the reason for Impossible Man's large price spike in the weeks following the sets release, I ran into a short by Decked Out EDH with three great synergies also included in this list.

Of these, the best is Dark Depths, which enables the backup plan of creating an Indestructible 20/20 Flier when our Commander decides to try his hand at being a glacier.

I'm pretty sure that's how he works in the comics too. Land tutors Urza's Cave and Tolaria West are included to search out Dark Depths.

Milling your opponent is a generally pretty weak strategy in Commander, but there have historically been a few stand-out cards that can really shake up a game. The Mindskinner is a Legendary 10/1 that can't be blocked but turns all damage you would deal into mill that hits each opponent.

On its own, it represents a nine-turn clock, which is scary, but your opponents can fend it off fairly easily.

Doubling up on The Mindskinner means you have two unblockable 10/1s swinging, but unfortunately, you're only milling for twice as much, because each instance of damage can only be prevented once. This still speeds up your clock to a five-turn clock.

Another card that's pretty scary when doubled is the Enchantment Forced Fruition, which causes your opponent to draw seven cards each time they cast a spell. In a 100-card deck, seven cards isn't enough on its own to really put pressure on the opponent and drawing a whole new hand each turn is kind of great for everyone other than the player with Forced Fruition.

On the other hand (hands?) drawing 14 cards spoils you for choice, since you probably won't be able to cast nearly as many cards as you have to discard. It also puts you on a six-spell clock, after which you draw out completely.

Two other lines this deck can take that I'll talk about briefly are more controlling strategies. Willbreaker is a Creature that'll let you steal any Creatures you copy with Impossible Man for as long as you control Willbreaker.

This is really only a temporary measure as your opponents will all do everything they can to get Willbreaker off the field as quickly as possible, but it can swing games if things go right.

Rug of Smothering is a Stax Creature that drains both you and your opponents for more life with each spell you or they cast. Fortunately, Impossible Man often wants us to save our mana for his activated ability and copying your Rug of Smothering with him on the upkeep of a turn your opponent wants to combo can shut them down completely.

Finally, there's Fabricate. I rarely run tutors, even at Bracket 4, because I believe they are often antithetical to the singleton nature of the format. If I want to see the same lines play out every game, there are a half dozen 60 card formats for that. In this deck, Fabricate is almost never going to search out the same card two games in a row.

There are so many Artifact-based lines in this deck that Fabricate becomes a toolbox card, enabling us to find the final piece to whichever engine we are trying to set up.

Making it all Work

There are plenty of cards here to just sit around on the field and passively support our strategies. Training Grounds and Heartstone reduce the cost of the Impossible Man's activated ability, and Omen Hawker and The Enigma Jewel are each one-drop permanents we can tap to add two mana for outr activated abilities, making them Sol Ring adjacent.

Plenty of the ramp spells in this deck support our plan of building up charge counters.

Empowered Autogenerator taps to add a charge counter to itself and then add mana equal to its charge counters. This is good on its own, but once Impossible Man has at least three charge counters on him, we can go mana and counter positive by turning him into one. Aetheric Amplifier is a classic mana rock with upside; in this case, it lets us double the counters on one of our permanents.

Staying alive while we set up our game-winning Impossible Man requires some careful planning. Propaganda is a classic protection piece we can double up at Instant speed with our Commander to ruin our opponents carefully planned attacks. Leyline of Anticipation enables us to play a control game, keeping up mana for Impossible Man by allowing us to wait until the end step before our turn to cast our spells.

On that note, there are two mana rocks in the deck which untap themselves each turn, so we can use them on each players' turn, effectively reducing the cost of our Commander's ability. These are Victory Chimes and Bender's Waterskin.

Finally, there are a few unsung heroes in the deck you might not expect on first looks.

Sun Droplet is a bad card, slowly gaining us life in exchange for counters we put on it when taking damage. While I would never run this normally, it is a great way to put a lot of counters on Impossible Man if we get hit, and the passive life gain is not nothing.

Moxite Refinery is the last card I'll highlight; it offers another way for us to take advantage of a lot of charge counters.

If you happen to have 20 charge counters on the Impossible Man, but no Darksteel Reactor, for a mere four total mana, you can turn all of those counters into +1/+1s and swing for lethal Commander damage.

The Rub

When finding synergistic cards to finish the list, I ran into Mirage Mirror, a fringe Commander staple that does everything we want for this deck. It is basically a copy of our Commander. And it already existed. People have been talking about these strategies for seven years. There is truly nothing new under the sun...

While I was initially disheartened after discovering these pages in the days following my finishing the deck list, I rebounded when I realized I'd never seen a Darksteel Reactor deck that plays like this before. Without Mirage Mirror in the Command Zone the deck was not reliably possible.

With the printing of Impossible Man, maybe these charge counter synergies can finally make for a real, strong deck.

Conclusion

Like last year's summer set, Marvel: Super Heroes is absolutely packed with new Commanders. Impossible Man is one people are looking at for his strength in the 99 of other Commander decks, but his versatility and sustainability make him more than just a utility piece.

I built around charge counters since they are a classic deck archetype I have never played before, but I hope you find a different line to build around with this card. There is so much you can do with the Impossible Man, as long as you can keep him entertained enough for him to stick around.