How it has actually done
Not a rating — results from Commander games recorded at a table. See commander stats worth tracking and what mmr means in magic, which rates the deck rather than its pilot.
Combos in this deck
1 combo · 1 infinite — looked up in Commander Spellbook, which only knows the ones somebody has written up, so this deck can hold more than these and never fewer.
INFINITE Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank
Bracket 4 — Optimized
A floor, not a verdict — read off the cards in the list, so a deck can play higher than this and never lower. Read how the commander bracket system works, and bring it to your Rule 0 conversation.
Game Changers in this list
Running 1 stax piece — what stax means.
- 2 Game Changers — any at all puts a deck at Bracket 3 or above
- a two-card infinite combo (Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank) — more than Bracket 3 allows
What it's built out of
Measured against the Balanced Midrange blueprint. Counts overlap and sum past 100 — a card counts toward every job it does, which is how deck builders count; see the 100-card commander deck template.
Slot by slot — 5 slots are outside their band, 4 inside
| Slot | In the deck | Target | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lands | 28 | 37 | 9 short |
| Ramp | 7 | 10 | 3 short |
| Card advantage | 14 | 10 | 4 over |
| Spot removal | 7 | 8 | On target |
| Board wipes | 9 | 3 | 6 over |
| Creatures | 33 | 28 | On target |
| Recursion | 8 | 3 | 5 over |
| Protection | 4 | 3 | On target |
| Tutors | 1 | 2 | On target |
| Artifacts | 12 | — | No target |
| Enchantments | 10 | — | No target |
| Instants | 16 | — | No target |
| Sorceries | 7 | — | No target |
| Planeswalkers | 2 | — | No target |
| Counterspells | 2 | — | No target |
| Graveyard hate | 1 | — | No target |
| Token makers | 8 | — | No target |
| Sacrifice outlets | 2 | — | No target |
| Stax pieces | 1 | — | No target |
Mana curve
Average mana value 3.03 across 72 nonland cards, against a target of 3.54. More on what makes a good curve and on building the mana base.
- 0-1 9
- 2 20
- 3 20
- 4 13
- 5 8
- 6 0
- 7+ 2
The written read
An AI review of this specific list, generated by its owner. Bracket 4 — Optimized.
The deck wins by relentless discard and sacrifice pressure to generate card-advantage and board swings: Tinybones turns opponent discards into playable exiled permanents you can cast, discard engines and Megrim/Monument to Endurance punish discards for damage or value, and Tergrid and mass-reanimation (Rise of the Dark Realms, Geth effects, Necropotence fueling grave access) convert opponents' lost permanents into your board; alternatively, once Bloodchief Ascension is active, Mindcrank creates an infinite mill/life-loss loop to finish opponents.
Typically closes around turn 7 in a four-player game. Most wins come when the deck assembles heavy discard pressure plus either Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank or Tergrid-enabled reanimation; adding fast-mana acceleration or cheap tutors to assemble those pieces would move the win earlier.
Its three strongest interactions
- Tinybones, Bauble Burglar + multiple discard enablers (Burglar Rat / Hecteyes / Fell Specter / Rotting Rats): opponents forced to discard put permanent cards into exile with stash counters via Tinybones, and you can then cast those exiled permanents on your turn to steal value and close the board advantage loop.
- Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank: once Ascension has three counters, Mindcrank looping on life-loss and milling (and with ways to repeatedly cause life loss) produces an effectively infinite mill/life-loss loop that wins by decking or killing opponents.
- Tergrid, God of Fright + Rankle, Master of Pranks (or other sacrifice/discard enablers like Plaguecrafter / Painful Quandary): opponents discarding or sacrificing permanents lets Tergrid put those permanent cards onto the battlefield under your control, turning their discard/sacrifice steps into free reanimation and a rapid board swing.
Cards that would extend them
- Liliana's Caress: extends the Tinybones + discard-enablers synergy by turning each opponent discard into direct life loss and increasing the damage/value you extract when Tinybones lets you play or exploit those discarded cards.
- Altar of Dementia: extends the Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank synergy by providing a sacrifice-to-mill outlet that converts creatures (including your own fodder) into targeted milling that Mindcrank amplifies, making the loop easier to assemble and trigger repeatedly.
- Dictate of Erebos: extends the Tergrid + Rankle/sacrifice synergy by turning creature deaths into repeated forced sacrifices from all opponents (and preventing opponents from regaining creatures), creating many more opportunities for Tergrid to reanimate opponent permanents for you.
The decklist
100 cards, grouped by the main job each one does. Every name links to its own page — win rate, the commanders it's most played under, and the colors it turns up in.
Building it in paper? TCGplayer's Mass Entry takes all 101 cards at once at the cheapest available printing of each. The bench isn't included.
Buy this deck on TCGplayerCreature 14
Land 28
Card Advantage 10
Board Wipe 9
Enchantment 7
Ramp 7
Spot Removal 5
Recursion 5
Protection 3
Artifact 3
Counterspell 2
Sorcery 2
Graveyard Hate 1
Instant 1
Tutor 1
Stax 1
Tokens 1
Take this list with you
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Or open it in TurnZero
Import this list into your own account and it starts tracking — games, win rate, MMR and the same bracket read you're looking at now.
See the plain text list
Commander 1 Tinybones, Trinket Thief Deck 1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal 1 Archenemy's Charm 1 Archon of Cruelty 1 Asylum Visitor 1 Blasphemous Edict 1 Bloodchief Ascension 1 Bottomless Pit 1 Burglar Rat 1 Burnished Hart 1 Cabal Coffers 1 Cabal Stronghold 1 Crypt of Agadeem 1 Cunning Lethemancer 1 Dark Confidant 1 Dark Ritual 1 Darkness 1 Dash Hopes 1 Dauthi Voidwalker 1 Deadly Dispute 1 Deadly Rollick 1 Defile 1 Doomsday Confluence 1 Dread Presence 1 Ensnaring Bridge 1 Fake Your Own Death 1 Fell Specter 1 Flare of Malice 1 Force of Despair 1 Geth's Grimoire 1 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 1 Hecteyes 1 Howltooth Hollow 1 Hypnotic Specter 1 Imp's Mischief 1 Insatiable Avarice 1 Jet Medallion 1 Junji, the Midnight Sky 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Liliana, Heretical Healer 1 Liliana, Waker of the Dead 1 Megrim 1 Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress 1 Mindcrank 1 Mindslicer 1 Monument to Endurance 1 Necrogen Mists 1 Necrogoyf 1 Necropotence 1 Noetic Scales 1 Oppression 1 Painful Quandary 1 Phyrexian Reclamation 1 Plaguecrafter 1 Rankle, Master of Pranks 1 Read the Bones 1 Refurbished Familiar 1 Rise of the Dark Realms 1 Rotting Rats 1 Sangromancer 1 Sheoldred 1 Sheoldred's Edict 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Soul Shatter 1 Stronghold Rats 1 Sudden Spoiling 1 Susur Secundi, Void Altar 18 Swamp 1 Syphon Mind 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim 1 Tergrid, God of Fright 1 The Black Gate 1 The Raven Man 1 Tinybones, Bauble Burglar 1 Tinybones, the Pickpocket 1 Tourach, Dread Cantor 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 1 Vicious Rumors 1 Virus Beetle 1 Waste Not 1 Witch's Cottage 1 Withering Boon 1 Withering Torment
Tracked in TurnZero HQ, where decks are public by default and their owners can make them private at any time. Stats come from Commander games recorded at a table, and a win rate is withheld below 5 completed games where the sample is too small to mean anything. Track your own decks.