Mr. House, President and CEO Commander Deck Guide

Mr. House, President and CEO | Illustrated by Joseph Meehan

The House always wins, right? Weeeelllll….

Mr. House, President and CEO doesn’t really get to stack the odds or load the dice or crank down the slots in Commander. They do give us a nice edge on d20 dice, but that’s about it. Still, that’s not going to stop us from playing a sweet Mardu () dice-rolling deck with the CEO as our leader.

For Mr. House: “Success depends on forethought, dispassionate calculation of probabilities, accounting for every stray variable.” For dice-rolling cards in MTG, we’re stacking RNG on top of the 99-card singleton deck RNG. But there are enough synergy cards to make a pretty fun deck. Will it win? As Han Solo says in another franchise: “Never tell me the odds!”

The Deck

Ancient Copper Dragon | Illustration by Antonio Jose Manzanedo

The Commander: Mr. House, President and CEO

Mr. House, President and CEO is a cyborg ruler in Fallout: New Vegas. As cyborg ruler of our deck, it wants you to roll dice. They can also tap for 4 mana to roll dice which do… nothing! So they’re just looking for triggers. And we have a bunch.

The joke here is that Mr. House stacks the odds on d20s from Dungeons and Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and Dungeons and Dragons: The Battle for Baldur’s Gate, since they reward you for anything over a three, which is much easier on those polyhedrons. So it’s good to keep your commander on the battlefield. But it doesn’t do much on its own, so I imagine dropping it kind of late when you know you’ll have a trigger or two ready to go. Let’s take a look at those triggers.

Creatures & A Planeswalker

There aren’t a lot of creatures that roll dice on ETB, but we do have a few like Complaints Clerk that open an Attraction, which leads to a die roll. We have some that trigger on attack like Lightfoot Rogue, better creatures that trigger when dealing damage to a player, like Ancient Brass Dragon, a variety with activated abilities, like Monoxa, Midway Manager, and even one that activates when it’s in your graveyard, Arden Angel. Cards that trigger off die rolls are the best, like Mr. House and Wyll, Blade of Frontiers. Then there’s Comet, Stellar Pup, who rolls a die and has some decent abilities.

We have little room for creatures with no dice, but Grim Hireling and Mahadi, Emporium Master are there for Treasures, which also synergize with Mr. House.

Finally, we have an unexpected wincon in Brazen Dwarf. It can actually burn opponents down in this deck. Pretty darn slowly, but this card is better than you might remember from drafting with it. We’re really looking to ramp to our big dragons and go to town.

Attractions

Yep. Un-set stuff is happening here. There’s two creatures that open Attractions, ”Lifetime” Pass Holder and Discourtesy Clerk, plus a variety of spells like Step Right Up. I couldn’t stomach bad 4-drops that opened Attractions, but perhaps I’m too conservative there, as an Attraction really does nice work with a die roll a turn. Unfortunately for our House deck, you still only get one die for all the open Attractions, but there are some nice synergies with the 10-card Attractions deck if you get it humming, which will likely only be for some games:

• Centrifuge
• Clown Extruder
• Drop Tower
• Hall of Mirrors
• Haunted House
• Pick-a-Beeble
• Roller Coaster
• Storybook Ride
• Swinging Ship
• Tunnel of Love

Note that there are various lighted die options on individual Attraction cards, so when you’re bulding your deck, find an array of numbers to hopefully guarantee some action if you start getting Attractions down.

Spells

We’ve got some removal, but a lot of it is janky removal that rolls dice, like Attempted Murder and Six-Sided Die. Aside from a handful of finance cards like Big Score, the rest are a random assortment of effects, some very powerful like Lae'zel's Acrobatics, and some a bit weary, like Clowning Around, all of which are unified by the dice-rolling. Almost every card in the deck has some form of it. Might as well go for it!

A guilty pleasure include is the ridiculous spell Hit the Mother Lode, which feels relevant but very much synergizes with Mr. House and might get us a dragon.

Artifacts & Enchantments

Aside from our copious ramp, most of these cards except for the irresistible Fable of the Mirror-Breaker provide a steady stream of dice-rolling. Life Insurance is the exception that leans into Treasures. You could also play Smothering Tithe here, but this deck isn’t strong enough to become archenemy, so be wary of that.

A Word About Planechase…

There are various ways to use Planechase cards in Commander, depending on your table’s interest, but this is a good deck to have on hand if such shenanigans commence. Some of the cards in your deck, like Barbarian Class, Brazen Dwarf, Priority Boarding, and Vexing Puzzlebox trigger off the planar die rolls in useful ways.

The Mana Base

We have more than the average number of mana rocks in this deck. We have a few expensive spells and creatures, and being able to get those down is really key. And we’ve got a more expensive mana base than everyone might like, just because we’re in a 3-color deck. Note that Ebony Fly and Underdark Rift synergize with our dice plan.

The Strategy

Start rolling dice for value. As the table yawns at cards like Scooch and Hoarding Ogre, get down your artifact and enchantment base to really, um, start rolling, and hope to overwhelm them with value.

That’s the deck. There are maybe better ways to play Mr. House, President and CEO, but I don't think there’s a better way to play die rolling, given that this is the only 3-color commander that specifically cares about dice. And like with an Anje Falkenrath madness deck or a Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer morph deck, sometimes you just want to do the thing.

Combos and Interactions

Nothing weird or unexpected. But once you start finding ways to roll three or four dice a turn, all your cards begin to play well together and you can really start to make a lot of stuff, especially bunches of robots to swing at people with.

Budget Options

The dice cards themselves aren’t expensive, as they’re generally underpowered. But cards like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker can go as needed to reduce cost. You could also budgetize the lands, as always.

Other Builds

I’ve seen two other common ways to do this online. Neither is my favorite thing.

The first is to cull the weakest die spells, like Critical Hit, in order to add Treasure synergies with cards like Reckless Fireweaver and Marionette Master. Treasures can really make Mr. House roll lots of dice. The trouble is that the payoffs for that arem’t really strong enough without a more coherent go-wide style, which the Treasure cards don’t generally support.

The second is to cull all but the most powerful dice rolling cards, like Delina, Wild Mage and the dragons and make the rest of the deck a Mardu Treasures pile. How is that better than Magda, Brazen Outlaw in red or Prosper, Tome-Bound in Rakdos , much less other 3-color piles like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King?

It’s probably not. There’s a reason there are few white-focused Treasures decks. But going that direction gives you access to more consistent Treasure sources in Smothering Tithe, Monologue Tax, Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff, and Life Insurance, so could that get you to a Revel in Riches style wincon faster? I think that’s possible, but I’d still wonder if Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter is just better, then.

All that said, both of those options remove the fun from the Mr. House, President and CEO gambler’s dream. If you were excited for die rolling in the Dungeons and Dragons sets but kept it quiet first because of all the eye-rolling in the MTG community and second because they weren’t quite good enough individually or as a whole, Mr. House gives you a decent reason to sleeve those cards up!

Commanding Conclusion

Big Score | Illustration by Gaboleps

This deck is a gamble, but that’s why you’re here! A deck of cards, a bag of dice. All the fun of Vegas without the chance of going broke (Magic players go broke before the game, at least according to the memes?).

I think this deck can have its day, though, and I’ll definitely try to make that happen! Honestly, I think we need a few more cards in the Mr. House space that can spawn die rolls, then decks like these would really work in Commander. Sure, there’s always things like Lithoform Engine for the triggers, but a cheaper card like Lucky Clover that copies die rolls and more cards that trigger off the rolls themselves and we’re in business. I know that many Magic players hate die-rolling, but once we’re in Universes Beyond territory, I think it’s all fair design space!

How about you? Are you a die roll hater or lover? And either way, what do you think of Mr. House? Let us know in the comments or on Discord.

Be careful out there friends! Don’t hit on 16 in Blackjack and don’t mull to five in Commander!