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Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

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Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

At a glance

  • Commander: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
  • Colors: Bant
  • Archetype: Bant tap-down stax control
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician — Legendary Creature — Bird Wizard

Flying When Derevi enters and whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may tap or untap target permanent. : Put Derevi onto the battlefield from the command zone.

The scout’s paraphrase matched the printed card — confirmed against oracle text. The two load-bearing facts: (1) the tap/untap fires on ETB and on every combat-damage hit by any creature you control (not just Derevi), and (2) you can re-deploy her from the command zone for 4 mana without paying commander tax (the tax only applies if she’d be cast — putting her in from the CZ via her own ability dodges it). That second clause is the engine of inevitability: she never stays dead.

Gameplan

Soft-lock Bant control. Stick cheap repeatable tappers and evasive bodies, let combat damage trigger Derevi each turn, and use the tap to (a) keep an opponent’s key blocker / mana rock / would-be attacker tapped down, or (b) untap your own mana dork for a mana surge. With even one connecting attacker per turn you get a free tap every combat — a rolling Winter-Orb-lite on whichever permanent matters most. Counters and bounce protect the board; flyers and a token engine close.

Win condition: grind out the table under the tap-lock with evasive flyers + Murmuring Mystic’s Bird tokens, recurring Derevi from the command zone whenever they answer her. It’s an inevitability deck, not a draw-go-wrath deck (Bant has no true board wipe at common).

Key synergy lines

  • Derevi + any cheap tapper (Gideon’s Lawkeeper, Goldmeadow Harrier, Law-Rune Enforcer): her combat tap stacks with their activated tap, so you lock down two of an opponent’s permanents per turn cycle. Tap their untapped attacker pre-combat, tap their next threat on damage.
  • Derevi + mana dork: on your combat hit, untap Llanowar Elves / Birds-equivalent for extra mana the same turn — flash in a counter or bounce on the crack-back.
  • Ephemerate / Momentary Blink / Cloudshift-style flicker + ETB creatures: re-trigger Man-o’-War / Sea Gate Oracle / Mulldrifter / Sidisi’s Faithful for repeatable bounce + card draw. Blink also dodges removal.
  • Blinding Beam: entwined it’s “tap two creatures AND a player doesn’t untap” — a one-card pseudo-Falter that opens a lethal alpha or stops a counter-swing, and the don’t-untap mode chains with Derevi’s tap for a real lock.
  • Re-deploy Derevi from CZ every time they kill her; with her ETB tap that’s a removal spell stapled to a 3/4 flyer for 4 mana, no tax.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands: 37 — high end for three colors; see manabase note.
  • Ramp / fixing accelerant: 11 — Sol Ring, Arcane/Azorius/Simic/Selesnya Signets, Commander’s Sphere, Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, Fyndhorn Elves, Rampant Growth, Farseek, plus Cultivate/Kodama’s Reach/Sakura-Tribe Elder/Borderland Ranger/Coiling Oracle/Prophetic Prism/Guild Globe as overlapping fixing+ramp (most of these double as color fixing — the whole point in a three-color shell).
  • Card advantage: 11 — Faerie Seer, Augury Owl, Preordain, Opt, Divination, Sea Gate Oracle, Cloudkin Seer, Mulldrifter, Lat-Nam’s Legacy, Frantic Search, Thraben Inspector (Coiling Oracle / Mulldrifter / Sea Gate Oracle also feed the flicker package).
  • Spot interaction: ~11 — bounce (Man-o’-War, Aether Adept, Bigfin Bouncer, Waterfront Bouncer, Sidisi’s Faithful), counters (Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Dream Fracture, Spell Pierce, Condescend), exile/flying removal (Last Breath, Skywhaler’s Shot, Plummet), and pacify auras (Pacifism, Narcolepsy, Kasmina’s Transmutation).
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe: 1 — Blinding Beam (mass-tap + don’t-untap Falter). Bant has no true wrath at common, so inevitability is carried by the tap-down lock + repeatable tappers instead. Tappers doing double duty as soft removal: Gideon’s Lawkeeper, Goldmeadow Harrier, Law-Rune Enforcer, Fan Bearer, Gavony Trapper, Dromoka Dunecaster, Elite Arrester, Akroan Jailer, plus ETB tappers Harrier Strix and Network Disruptor.
  • Payoffs / evasion: the rest — Murmuring Mystic (token wincon), Welkin Tern, Mistral Charger, Phantom Monster flyers chipping in to fire Derevi each turn.

Manabase / fixing note

37 lands: 3 Forest / 4 Island / 3 Plains basics, three guildgates (one per pair), six untapped-conditional or basic-typed duals across all three pairs, three Thriving lands + Command Tower / Path of Ancestry / Crystal Grotto / Conduit Pylons / Painted Bluffs / Crumbling Vestige for any-color fixing. Counting lands + rocks + green ramp there are well over 18 colored-fixing sources, so all three colors come online reliably; the many tap-lands are a minor speed tax that a control deck happily eats.

Pilot notes

  • Lead on a dork or signet; you want Derevi down turn 3-4 and a tapper online to start the lock.
  • Use Derevi’s ETB tap proactively — tap the scariest untapped permanent on the table, not just attackers.
  • Hold a bounce/flicker for your own ETB creature if they try to remove it in response; otherwise bounce their best blocker before your alpha.
  • Don’t over-commit into open blue mana; this deck wins late, so trade resources and let recursion grind.
  • Re-cast Derevi from the CZ liberally — 4 mana for a flyer + tap is always fine, and the tax doesn’t apply.

Weaknesses

  • No true board wipe. A wide go-wide aggro deck that out-races your tappers can punch through; lean hard on bounce + Blinding Beam to buy turns.
  • Removal is soft — bounce and pacify rather than exile/destroy, so indestructible / recursive threats are annoying and resilient enchantments-on-creatures can be Naturalized off.
  • Disrupting your attackers (deathtouch blockers, fogs) chokes the Derevi tap engine.
  • Mana-dork reliance means a creature-side sweeper hurts both your ramp and your lock at once.

Decklist

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

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