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Saruman of Many Colors

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Saruman of Many Colors

At a glance

  • Commander: Saruman of Many Colors
  • Colors: Esper
  • Archetype: Esper mill control
  • Power tier: high

Cards

Commander

Saruman of Many Colors — Legendary Creature — Avatar Wizard

Ward—Discard an enchantment, instant, or sorcery card. Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, each opponent mills two cards. When one or more cards are milled this way, exile target enchantment, instant, or sorcery card with equal or lesser mana value than that spell from an opponent’s graveyard. Copy the exiled card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost.

Oracle discrepancy note: the scout’s writeup claimed Saruman “draws you a card whenever cards leave your library or graveyard.” That is wrong — the printed card never draws you cards and never cares about your library/graveyard. His real engine is (1) a second-spell-per-turn trigger that mills each opponent two cards, and (2) a graveyard-theft rider that lets you exile + copy + free-cast an instant/sorcery/enchantment from an opponent’s yard with MV ≤ your triggering spell. commander_oracle_ok = true. The deck is built around the real card, not the paraphrase.

Gameplan

Esper mill-control with inevitability via decking. The deck is a dense shell of one-mana cantrips and cheap interaction, which means hitting Saruman’s “second spell each turn” trigger is trivial — almost every turn you cast a cheap cantrip plus a real spell and each opponent loses two cards off the top for free, on top of the dedicated mill payloads. The graveyard-theft rider turns every trigger into card advantage: you exile a spell out of an opponent’s yard and cast a copy for nothing. Removal and counters keep you alive; the targeted-mill package (Tome Scour, Mind Sculpt, Stream of Thought, Dreadwaters, Persistent Petitioners) does the actual killing by grinding libraries to zero.

Key synergy lines

  • Cheap spell + cheap spell = Saruman value. Lead a cantrip (Opt, Consider, Thought Scour) then a mill spell — the second cast mills all opponents two and steals/copies a spell from a yard. With a graveyard full of milled instants/sorceries (which you’re filling yourself via mill), the copy rider is reliably live.
  • Persistent Petitioners is the repeatable mill engine: , mill, and it self-references (tap four Advisors to mill twelve) — even one copy is a recurring clock that survives wraths-as-edicts since opponents rarely have answers at common.
  • Recursion grind: Archaeomancer / Mnemonic Wall / Scribe of the Mindful / Flood of Recollection rebuy your best mill spell (Stream of Thought, Compelling Argument) or a counter, giving the control shell long-game inevitability.
  • Dreadwaters / Stream of Thought scale into the late game; Stream also recurs your graveyard so you never deck yourself first.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 37 (20 nonbasic fixers + 8 Island / 5 Swamp / 4 Plains)
  • Ramp / fixing rocks — 10: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Azorius/Dimir/Orzhov Signets, Obelisk of Esper, Commander’s Sphere, Prophetic Prism, Mind Stone, Star Compass (most also fix all three colors)
  • Card advantage — 12: Thought Scour, Mental Note, Consider, Opt, Ray of Erasure, Think Twice, Frantic Inventory, Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, Divination, Notion Rain, Pilfered Plans (many double as second-spell fuel / mill)
  • Spot removal & interaction — 17: Deal Gone Bad, Diabolic Edict, Geth’s Verdict, Cruel Edict, Fleshbag Marauder, Murder, Bake into a Pie, Feed the Serpent, Journey to Nowhere, Crib Swap, Eaten Alive, Counterspell, Mana Leak, Memory Lapse, Psychic Strike, Didn’t Say Please, Sinister Sabotage
  • Pseudo-wipes — 2: Drown in Sorrow (-2/-2 + scry), Mephitic Vapors (-1/-1 + surveil 2)
  • Mill payoffs / engine — ~13: Tome Scour, Mind Sculpt, Compelling Argument, Dampen Thought, Stream of Thought, Memory Sluice, Dreadwaters, Persistent Petitioners, Cathartic Adept, Merfolk Mesmerist, Mindwrack Harpy, plus Thought Scour/Pilfered Plans/etc. that mill while drawing
  • Recursion — 5: Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Scribe of the Mindful, Flood of Recollection, Eerie Soultender
  • Cheap mill bodies / chaff blockers — Augur of Bolas, Corpse Churn, Crow of Dark Tidings, Mire Triton, Wailing Ghoul (early blockers that mill/dig and feed recursion)

Manabase / fixing note

37 lands + 10 rocks = ~21 effective fixing sources; Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, Cryptic Spires, Star Compass, Obelisk of Esper, Commander’s Sphere, Prophetic Prism and the three signets all produce or fetch the right pairs, with three guildgates and three taplands plus four fetch/sac lands (Esper Panorama, Contaminated Landscape, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Ash Barrens) to smooth WUB.

Pilot notes

  • Sequence to guarantee the second-spell trigger: hold a one-mana cantrip to fire after your first “real” spell each turn so the mill+copy resolves with the bigger graveyard to steal from.
  • You are the mill deck — Stream of Thought shuffling your yard back, plus recursion, means you almost never deck yourself first. Watch Augur/cantrip draws late if your own library gets thin.
  • Keep one counter up against combo tables; this is a control deck, not a goldfish.
  • Edicts (Diabolic, Geth’s, Cruel, Fleshbag) answer hexproof/big single threats the targeted removal can’t.

Weaknesses

  • Graveyard hate (Bojuka Bog effects, rest-in-peace styles) both blanks Saruman’s copy rider and can mitigate mill — though pure decking still kills.
  • No true Wrath at common in WUB: the two pseudo-wipes only clear small creatures, so a resolved fat threat must be edicted/exiled one-for-one.
  • Faster aggro can race the slow mill clock; the deck leans on cheap interaction and early blockers to buy the turns it needs.
  • Mill in multiplayer is slow against three libraries — prioritize the repeatable engines (Petitioners, Dreadwaters, Stream of Thought) over one-shot mill.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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