Infinite Guideline Station Commander Deck Guide

Infinite Guideline Station | Illustration by Piotr Dura

Edge of Eternities is finally upon us, and it brings all this marvelous science fiction stuff to MTG. Which in turn makes us feel bold, and courageous… but at the same time tiny, compared to the sheer size of battlecruisers and planets.

To go to infinity and beyond, I’m building a deck around Infinite Guideline Station that tries to go infinite (at least on multicolored permanents and artifact tokens). It’s not a very optimized build, and it won’t make any waves in cEDH territory. But there’s something satisfying about stationing those battlecruisers and manning a 7/15 flying commander that requires all 5 colors of MTG with its army of Robots by its side.

Stay with me, get your golden cards and your golden tokens, and let’s man the station.

The Deck

Mendicant Core, Guidelight | Illustration by Zezhou Chen

In broad strokes, this is a bracket 2 deck themed around multicolored permanents. You don’t play Game Changers, and although a few cards here and there are expensive, the deck itself is very budget.

The Commander: Infinite Guideline Station

Infinite Guideline Station is a spacecraft with a powerful ETB effect and a strong attack trigger. When your commander enters, for each multicolored permanent you control, you’re make a tapped 2/2 Robot artifact creature token. You’ll want plenty of multicolored permanents on the battlefield, and once you fully station your commander, you’ll draw cards based on the number of multicolored permanents you control. Infinite Guideline Station can provide bodies and cards.

Since many of these cards are also artifacts, this deck has two main themes: multicolored cards and artifacts matter, with multicolored artifact cards to link both themes. Some cards have power that scales based on the number of artifacts you control, and that’s used to bash your opponents and efficiently station your spacecraft.

Creatures

Besides the spacecraft, most of the creature cards in this deck are multicolored whenever possible, and also artifacts. Here I want to highlight nonartifact, nonspacecraft creatures.

Annie Flash, the Veteran is excellent in this deck. A good chunk of your permanents have mana value 3 or less and can be brought back once it arrives, and when Annie taps to station, you also get extra cards.

Seedship Broodtender can sacrifice itself to reanimate a strong creature or spacecraft, for example. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain draws you many cards, considering the number of artifact spells you have.

Kona, Rescue Beastie, despite being monocolored, has a significant chance to trigger in this deck considering the many ways you can tap it.

Artifacts Matter

More than 50% of this deck is artifacts. And many of these, including your commander, make more artifacts. (Moar artifacts!) These cards take advantage of those numbers.

Urza, Chief Artificer has affinity for artifact creatures, and it makes Construct tokens. Constructs are excellent in this deck, as they’re an easy source of high-powered creatures to station your spacecraft.

Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge offers your spells affinity and interacts very favorably with artifacts. You have artifact recursion, mana advantages, and even a big drain effect.

Kappa Cannoneer and Cyberdrive Awakener are cards that naturally benefit from the artifacts you play.

The Cyber-Controller makes a bunch of artifact creatures and gives them a significant boost.

Multicolored Permanents

More than 30 of your permanents are multicolored, and most of these are also artifacts or care about artifacts in some way. Bridging the themes of this deck requires multicolored artifacts that are worth playing.

Baleful Strix is good at any point of the game, and it offers you a multicolored artifact that trades and cantrips. It’s an excellent target for recursion, too.

Leyline of the Guildpact isn’t an artifact, but it solves your mana problems and boosts the multicolored theme.

Rendmaw, Creaking Nest makes more creatures, and you can take advantage of the downside (your goaded tokens) by stationing your spacecraft. A good part of this deck triggers Rendmaw.

Master's Guide-Mural is two multicolored artifacts in one card; after you craft it into Master's Manufactory, you can make more multicolored artifacts. Another powerful source of 4/4 multicolored Golems is General Ferrous Rokiric, which is at home in a multicolored matters deck.

Pyrewood Gearhulk boosts your guys when it enters, besides being a massive 7/7. It can be a powerful finisher if your commander makes enough 2/2 tokens.

Tokens Matter

This commander makes artifact tokens, and as do other cards. Combine Chrysalis gives your tokens flying or upgrades a 2/2 into a 4/4. Cyberdrive Awakener turns them into huge threats, while Arabella, Abandoned Doll can be a finisher if you have enough tokens.

High Power and Tapping Matters

You need creatures to crew your Infinite Guideline Station, and you want 12 power for that. But you also have plenty of other cards to station, including the planet lands and other spacecraft

Kilo, Apogee Mind adds three charge counters to a station permanent and also proliferates, which goes very well in a deck with station cards and +1/+1 counter effects.

Liberty Prime, Recharged doesn’t even need to attack, because you can take advantage of an 8-powered creature for 5 mana. You also have Yargle and Multani, and it’s hard to argue against an 18-powered multicolored creature.

Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero gives you a card whenever it stations a permanent.

Radha, Coalition Warlord buffs another creature when it’s tapped based on domain, up to +5/+5, so you can set a nice combo and turn a 2/2 token into a 7/7.

Alibou, Ancient Witness‘s attack trigger lets you take advantage of tapping all your artifact creatures to station your spacecraft.

Wildfire Awakener is very thematic in this deck, since it creates many tokens that deal damage whenever they become tapped.

Spacecraft

Besides your commander, this deck features a good number of spacecraft. There aren’t that many, so you’ll play all the good ones. I think of spacecraft as a good enters effect that you can later station to get a good creature.

Larval Scoutlander does a good Harrow impression, while The Seriema is a tutor, and Lumen-Class Frigate is a creature lord.

Interaction and Sweepers

This deck features almost no interaction besides the enters effects from your permanents, and it’s the weakest part overall. You have some removal in Dispatch, Assimilation Aegis, or Chaos Defiler.

Extinguisher Battleship doubles as spot removal and a board wipe. Ripples of Potential also doubles on the protection effect and proliferate action.

The Mana Base

Five-color mana bases are always weird, especially when you don’t want them to cost 90% of the deck. I’ve included most of the Triomes, artifact dual lands, the artifact lands from Mirrodin, and staples like Command Tower and Arcane Signet. Pillar of the Paruns is at its best here, since most of the cards either cost colorless or multicolored.

Cards like Leyline of the Guildpact and Faeburrow Elder help with fixing, too. This deck is pretty much a Jeskai () deck with green and black, so I’m polarizing the mana base towards blue, white, and then green (since the fixing relies more on green anyways).

The Strategy

In a 5-color deck that’s not aggressive, the name of the game is to stay alive and defend. Play some ramp cards and mana rocks, fix your mana. Casting your commander takes time, and this isn’t an EDH deck that needs the commander in play right away. It’s quite the opposite: You want a solid foundation of multicolored cards before you cast your commander.

A card like Prosperous Partnership is ideal to cast the turn before to add three multicolored permanents. You want at least 2-4 tokens to be made each time you cast your commander. Amulet of Vigor works wonders in this deck, so your commander makes untapped 2/2 tokens, and most of your lands won’t enter tapped. Urza's Saga is perfect to fetch it or Sol Ring, or to make Constructs. In a deck filled with enter triggers, Panharmonicon does some heavy lifting.

In the early to mid game, you want to capitalize on artifacts and on the cards that care about them. A card like General Ferrous Rokiric that produces 4/4s is very good, and once your deck starts to play good “two-for-one” cards, you should stabilize. You can draw cards when your commander attacks, and, if it gets sniped, you can cast it again and make more tokens.

If you have plenty of artifacts on the battlefield, be it lands, 2/2 tokens that your commander created, or your trusty artifact creatures, you can end games with a +2 activation from Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, a massive Kappa Cannoneer, or a strong attack with Cyberdrive Awakener. Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought can be a good finisher given enough time.

Combos and Interactions

This deck is more value-oriented, and it shouldn’t have that many combos. The weirdest interactions come from stationing your spacecrafts. Kilo, Apogee Mind proliferates whenever it’s tapped, so you can proliferate when it attacks, when you station with it, or when you tap it to pay an additional cost. Also, remember that tokens created at the end step can’t be used to station spacecraft because you can only station at sorcery speed.

Another cool interaction is between Loading Zone and station abilities: A 3/3 creature stations 6 charge counters on a single activation!

Rule 0 Violations Check

It’s a fair deck through and through. But sometimes you’ll have 10+ artifacts in play, or 15+ tokens, and win the game based on a trigger from said numbers, so that’s the only caveat.

Budget Options

This deck is already a great budget EDH deck with many niche and bulk rare cards as they make sense synergistically.

The biggest offenders here in terms of money are eternal staples, like Urza's Saga and Amulet of Vigor, and the trilands. Starting Town is already in the $30-40 range as well. The good part of this is that lands only let your deck be more optimized, so you can make cuts based on the cards at your disposal.

It’s possible to add more artifact lands like Power Depot, Darksteel Citadel, or maybe the uncommon taplands. Urza's Saga, however, is harder to replace in terms of quality, considering that it’s a unique card.

Other Builds

Infinite Guideline Station lends itself to a few possible builds. Multicolor permanents are the most prominent characteristic of this commander, and you can have a blink engine where your multicolored cards enter and do something. Then you cast your commander and blink it to immediately get a lot of value. Cards like Simulacrum Synthesizer or Urza, Lord High Artificer are more on the expensive side, but they make big Construct tokens to station your commander reliably.

Another possible route is to go heavy on the artifact tokens with cards like Anointed Procession to double all the token-making. This helps with affinity cards, too.

Commanding Conclusion

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain | Illustration by Brad Rigney

And that’s about it for Infinite Guideline Station and this crazy, off-the-track build, folks. It’s nice that we get a clear direction to build around a commander, but at the same time, you’re limited by it, or there’s another legend that does it better. I wanted to slot in more spacecraft, but it’s not a card type that gets better in multiples anyway, and it’s already hard to station one, let alone three or four.

What do you guys think about this decklist? What would you change? Let me know in the comments below, or in our Draftsim Discord.

As always, thanks for reading!