Commander: Orvar, the All-Form

orvar

Orvar, the All-Form is such a cool Commander that it's surprising it took us this long to write an article about it!

Orvar, the All-Form

Before choosing a bunch of awesome permanents to copy, we first wanted to see what our support would look like. It turns out that there are plenty of great cheap spells that target a variety of permanent types. Some of these can target any permanent, but most of them target creatures, artifacts, and lands, so we will be focusing only on these three card types.

1 Mind Games
1 Thermal Flux
1 Dream's Grip
1 Ghostly Flicker
1 Hidden Strings
1 Twiddle
1 Clockspinning
1 Trait Doctoring
1 Whim of Volrath
1 Gigadrowse
1 Glamerdye
1 Enervate
1 Twitch
1 Reality Spasm
1 Moonlace
1 Mind Bend
1 Hydroblast
1 Crystal Spray
1 Jolt
1 Infused Arrows
1 Repeal
1 Prismatic Lace

Then there are several more excellent spells that target only creatures. Most of these are cantrips or can get repeated uses, which will provide amazing value once Orvar is in play. The cheap protection and blink effects also make it much easier for us to untap with Orvar and start doing our thing, while also being great with our enters the battlefield creatures.

1 Cerulean Wisps
1 Shadow Rift
1 Leap
1 Essence Flux
1 Twisted Image
1 Dive Down
1 Fleeting Distraction
1 Teferi's Time Twist
1 Mizzium Skin
1 Chilling Trap
1 Displacement Wave
1 Stream of Unconsciousness
1 Defy Gravity
1 Illusionist's Strategem
1 Energy Tap
1 Slip Through Space
1 Cloak of Feathers
1 Artful Dodge
1 Banishing Knack
1 Retraction Helix

There are also some additional ways to target our lands that can get extra value:

Okay, so we've found a ton of ways to target our own stuff on the cheap and gain an advantage. Well, what do we actually want to copy? That's the easy part! There are obviously a ton of great creatures with enters the battlefield effects, but we've identified some of our favorites to copy with Orvar here:

1 Archaeomancer
1 Peregrine Drake
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Agent of Treachery
1 Spark Double
1 Master of Waves
1 Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
1 Spellseeker
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Augur of Bolas
1 Duplicant
1 Draining Whelk
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Precursor Golem
1 Salvager of Secrets
1 Voracious Greatshark
1 Sakashima the Impostor
1 Willbreaker
1 Thing in the Ice/Awoken Horror
1 Shipwreck Dowser

There are several more creatures that we are strongly considering and might end up making the cut. Part of trimming this to size will just come down to personal preference and style.

1 Archmage Emeritus
1 Mulldrifter
1 Amphin Mutineer
1 Meteor Golem
1 Scholar of the Ages
1 Scourge of Fleets
1 Diluvian Primordial
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Cloudkin Seer
1 Naru Meha, Master Wizard
1 Deadeye Navigator

Of course, we need to include some sweet artifacts that we can copy as well. Here's our list of favorites – notable shoutouts to Panharmonicon and Powerstone Shard for being awesome. It might be worth including Trophy Mage and a few more 3-cost artifacts to fill out that package.

1 Panharmonicon
1 Sol Ring
1 Arcane Signet
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Sky Diamond
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Caged Sun
1 Powerstone Shard
1 Star Compass
1 Coldsteel Heart

One of the beautiful things about playing mono colored Commander decks is that you can just run a ton of basic lands (and then of course take advantage of cards like Caged Sun and Extraplanar Lens). But there are some utility lands that are just too good with Orvar not to mention here.

1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Cloudpost
1 Swarmyard
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Glimmerpost
1 Strip Mine
1 Myriad Landscape

If you're interested in getting started playing Orvar in EDH and want to get in at a low cost, check out this custom budget Orvar EDH deck that we built and have available for sale:custom Orvar EDH deck

That's all for this deck! Creating the card list for this deck has been one of our most fun brewing experiences in quite some time, so we are really looking forward to tuning this down to the perfect 100 cards! Then we just need to figure out a cool way to represent all of our Orvar tokens…

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Michael Schuller