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Marina Vendrell is one of the many legendary creatures you can use as a commander inMagic: The Gathering’sCommander format. It joins the very exclusive club as a five-color commander, something not many creatures have access to. In Duskmourn, the Room mechanic was introduced, which are enchantments that have two different effects that can be active.
Marina Vendrell is the most obvious choice for a Room commander, since it allows you to play all of the strongest Room cards, and cheat around their unlock cost as well. The only downside is the inconsistency that can come with five color decks, but other cards can pick up that slack.
x2 Forest
x2 Plains
The World Tree
Yavimaya Coast
The decklist consists ofone planeswalker, 17 creatures, nine sorceries, four instants, six artifacts, 28 enchantments,and34 lands. Since Rooms are an enchantment, most of the decklists are either Rooms or cards that support enchantments.
Key Cards
Marina Vendrell
Marina Vendrellis the commander of the deck, and that is what makes it such a powerhouse. Theenter-the-battlefield trigger helps you dig through your libraryfor enchantment cards, are itsstaticlets you lock and unlock Rooms.
While locking Rooms seems strange at first, some Rooms only trigger when they are unlocked, Marina allows you to re-use those effects.
Once you have access to all five colors, Marina Vendrell is very easy to cast. Since it can hit the battlefield so early in a game, you can startunlocking rooms quickly, which normally requires a high mana investment to open with Marina.
Bello, Bard Of The Brambles
One downside of the deck is youdo not have many powerful creatures to work with. However, this can be counteracted withBello, Bard of the Brambles. Bellow turns all of your artifacts and enchantments into 4/4 creatures that draw you cards, turning all of your Rooms into threatening attackers.
The mana value of a Room on the battlefield is determined by which Rooms are unlocked.
If both sides are unlocked, the mana value is considered to be the combined total of both sides. Otherwise, only the unlocked Room contributes to the mana value.
Since theanimated permanents are indestructible,you don’t have to worry about thembeing destroyed in combat. At worst, they may be hit with exile-based removal spells, but there’s only a limited number of those available.
Central Elevator // Promising Stairs
You can play every Room card in a Marina deck, butCentral Elevator // Promising Stairsisthe best one for a Room deck.Central Elevator is a tutor for any Room you don’t control, andPromising Stairsis awin condition for having multiple unlocked Rooms.
Central Elevator onlytriggers when it’s unlocked, so it’s one of the Rooms that Marina will want to lock with its effect instead of unlocking. As for Promising Stairs, you want itunlocked as soon as possibleso you can control your top deck and win the game once you have eight different Rooms unlocked.
Ondu Spiritdancer
Ondu Spiritdanceris a way todouble up on all your enchantmentsby making token copies of them. Whilethis effect only triggers once a turn, often, you are only playing one enchantment each turn rather than multiple.
Rooms copied by Ondu Spiritdancer will enter as token copies with both sides of the Rooms locked. In order to unlock the Room, you will need to pay the mana cost for one of the doors or use Marina’s ability.
Sinceno Rooms are legendary, there are no downsides to making copies of them. You will have access to two copies of the same Room to lock and unlock as you please to help push your advantage even further.
How To Play The Deck
A Marina Vendrell commander deck is all aboutgetting Rooms onto the battlefield and opening the doors as quickly as possible.
Many Room permanents have effects that can either slow your opponents down or push your advantage forward. Thanks to Marina being able to lock doors again, it lets youre-use effects that interrupt your opponents' plays.
The creature suite mostly consists of cards that draw you cards when enchantments enter the battlefield or are cast, such asSythis, Harvest’s Hand, Satyr Enchanter,andMesa Enchantress. Others help to discount enchantments such asJukai NaturalistandInquisitive Glimmer, the latter of which also discounts unlocking doors on Rooms.
Aweaknessof the deck is thelow amount of blockersit has. This is counteracted with stax pieces that make it much harder for your opponents to swing their creatures your way.Ghostly Prison, Propaganda,andSphere of Safetyall force your opponent to pay mana for every creature attacking you.
There is aton of draw power in the deck, letting you easily get to your win conditions and answers simply by casting spells (primarily enchantments). You will rarely find yourself struggling to draw answers to your opponents simply because of the sheer volume of card draw the deck offers.
Since Marina is a five-color deck, you want to make sure you can easily gain access to all five colors.Chromatic Lantern, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove,andThe World Treegive your lands the ability to tap for any color, andBirds of Paradiseis a mana dork (creatures that can tap for mana) for any color you may need at any given time.
The primary win condition is towin through combat, card advantage, or with the alternate win condition on Promising Stairs. While the base creatures aren’t anything special,Archon of Sun’s Grace, Sigil of the Empty Throne,andBello, Bard of the Brambles,all help to generate more attackers for you to swing out to your opponents.
Promising Stairsis the most consistent win condition. Itwins you the gamewhen you haveeight or more different names of unlocked Rooms.
