Reyhan, Last of the Abzan & Thrasios, Triton Hero

Overview

This is a clones-and-counters engine with combo finishes. Reyhan is the safety net that makes every death profitable; Thrasios is the payoff that makes every point of mana a card. The 99 between them is one connected machine: counter creatures that tap for mana, doublers that inflate every counter placed, a 16-card clone suite that copies whatever the game's best creature happens to be, and an interaction package (Fierce Guardianship, Force of Negation, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Deadly Rollick, Assassin's Trophy, Tear Asunder, Cyclonic Rift) that protects the turn where it all cashes out.

There is no single marquee combo — the deck runs sixteen, and they share pieces so heavily that the right one is whichever the game hands you (see Combos for the six families). The identity is the clone engine: copy your own engine pieces for redundancy, copy an opponent's threat for parity, and treat the legend rule as a sacrifice outlet with extra steps.

Black is the smallest color but carries the whole recursion spine (Buried Alive, Animate Dead, Living Death, Kokusho, Gray Merchant) — it's the color to prioritize off fetches when you're on that plan.

Mulligan Guide

The keep question is "can you power out the Reyhan counter engine early?" Thrasios is the late-game sink — you never keep a hand for him; the mana you build for the engine finds him when it overflows.

Keep a hand with:

1. 2–4 lands plus an early mana creature or rock (Birds of Paradise, Gyre Sage, Kami of Whispered Hopes, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Badgermole Cub) — the counter creatures are the ramp, so this criterion does double duty;
2. One counter payoff to point the engine at — a doubler (Branching Evolution, Pir, Doubling Season), a draw trigger (Fathom Mage, Terrasymbiosis), or The Ozolith;
3. Ideally one piece of cheap interaction for someone else's fast start.

Snap-keep: dork + Gyre Sage/Kami + a doubler or Staff/Umbral piece — that's the exemplar combo assembling itself, with Reyhan on curve insuring it.

Mulligan all-payoff hands with no mana under them, hands whose only action starts at 4+ mana, and clone-heavy hands with nothing worth copying before turn 5.

Game Plan

• Turns 1–3: mana that scales. Dork/rock into Gyre Sage or Kami of Whispered Hopes. Reyhan usually lands first — three counters on arrival, evolve fodder for Gyre Sage, and from then on every death on your side pays forward. Badgermole Cub quietly upgrades every creature you tap for mana and its earthbend land is Springheart Nantuko's favorite bestow target.
• Turns 3–5: engine online. A doubler (Branching Evolution, Doubling Season, Pir), a draw engine (Fathom Mage, Terrasymbiosis, Toothy, The Great Henge once anything is big, The One Ring), and Thrasios once you can hold 4 mana. Cast clones at whatever is currently best — your own Kami/Fathom Mage for redundancy, or the scariest thing across the table.
• Mid game: bank and trade. The Ozolith means board wipes hurt you least at the table — counters come back at your next combat. Hold Greater Good / Ashnod's Altar / Birthing Pod mana when removal is likely: sacrificing in response converts exile ("Reyhan never triggers on exile") into cards, mana, or a tutored body — and the death does trigger Reyhan.
• Closing: whichever finish arrived first — infinite mana into Thrasios/Ballista, a Naru Meha loop with Blood Artist down, the Heroic Feast draw engine, or a kicked Rite of Replication on Gray Merchant. Villainous Wealth is the honest-mana version of the same turn: X=10+ off Gaea's Cradle/Kami is usually a win off an opponent's deck. Demonic and Vampiric Tutor find the missing half; Gifts Ungiven piles are built so the two cards binned are live (Animate Dead / Body Double / Living Death / Bala Ged Recovery all use the graveyard as a hand).

How Reyhan & Thrasios actually work

• Reyhan triggers on dies or put into the command zone — nothing else. Exile, bounce, and shuffle effects never trigger it. (The Ozolith is the complement: it triggers on any leave.) The trigger counts the counters the creature had before whatever killed it — a creature shrunk to death by -1/-1 counters still transfers its full +1/+1 count.
• The transfer targets any creature — an opponent's in a pinch (political, or to juice a Saw in Half you're about to cast). It's a "may," and it's one target per death: with multiple deaths, each trigger picks its own target.
• Reyhan itself never dies for nothing. Sending it to the command zone is a "put into the command zone" event, so its own trigger fires and its counters (minimum the 3 it entered with) land wherever you want.
• The legend rule kills — and that's a feature. Duplicates of a legend go to the graveyard as a state-based action: those are deaths, so Reyhan transfers, Blood Artist drains, The Ozolith banks. Cloning your own legends is never card disadvantage here.
• Sakashima of a Thousand Faces switches the legend rule off for you entirely — copies of your legends coexist (two Sheoldreds, two Great Henges via Phyrexian Metamorph, five Gray Merchants). The flip side: when Sakashima leaves, the rule reapplies immediately and every duplicate dies at once. With Reyhan out that's a controlled detonation of counter transfers and Blood Artist triggers — sometimes you want to sacrifice Sakashima to Greater Good with a full board of duplicates.
• Thrasios is the deck's floor. : scry, then a land onto the battlefield or a draw — repeatable, instant-speed, uncounterable card advantage that survives board wipes. He is why "make mana" is never a wasted turn and why infinite colorless mana is lethal here: he puts every land in the library onto the battlefield and draws everything else.
• The partners split cleanly: Reyhan is the engine's insurance, Thrasios is the payoff. You will usually cast Reyhan early and Thrasios whenever the mana is spare — neither needs protecting the way a voltron commander does, because the deck's value lives in the board and the bank, not in either body.

Key Loops & Interactions

• Stack your replacement effects in the right order — adders before multipliers. You choose the order Kami of Whispered Hopes (+1), Pir (+1), Branching Evolution (×2), and Doubling Season (×2) apply. One counter with all four out: (1+1+1)×2×2 = 12 applied adders-first, versus 1×2×2+1+1 = 6 the other way. This math is the difference between a good turn and a lethal one.
• Fathom Mage draws per counter, not per event — "whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on this creature." The doublers multiply her draws directly. With Sheoldred out, every draw is 2 life; with Heroic Feast out, that life is more counters (see Combos, family E).
• Terrasymbiosis fires once per turn — feed it your biggest batch. Sequence the doubled Reyhan transfer or Ozolith drop before dribbling single counters, and remember it works on opponents' turns too (a Reyhan transfer off a chump block is a fresh turn's trigger).
• The Ozolith bank cycle: every leave deposits, and at your combat you aim the whole pile at one target — Walking Ballista is the classic (counters become damage immediately), a fresh evolve creature second. The counters that come off a wiped board are usually bigger than the board was.
• Saw in Half is removal and a combo piece pointed at yourself. On your own Gray Merchant it's two ETB drains; on Kokusho it's the death trigger plus two more bodies (they're 2s and 3s, but the triggers are full-size); on any counter-laden creature, Reyhan and The Ozolith cash the counters first. On an opponent's commander it's just clean removal — the tokens die to the legend rule only if they keep both.
• Living Death is a build-around, not a reset button. Buried Alive (Kokusho + Gray Merchant + a third: Blood Artist or Naru Meha) into Living Death is a one-card win setup; your own sac outlets empty your board in response so you lose nothing and the counters bank to The Ozolith on the way through.
• Icetill Explorer glues the land engine together: extra land drop, lands playable from the graveyard (so its own mill, Greater Good discards, and Gifts piles never cost you land drops), and every land is a landfall trigger for Springheart Nantuko.
• Mystic Reflection is a scalpel that cuts both ways: point it at your best nonlegendary creature and your next clone-spell or token batch enters as copies of it (a kicked Rite of Replication becomes five of anything) — or point it at an opponent's mana dork as their commander is about to enter.
• Birthing Pod climbs the engine: 1-drops into Gyre Sage/Badgermole Cub, 2s into Kami/Fathom Mage territory, 3s into Toothy/Sakashima/Master Biomancer, 4s into Sheoldred — and the sacrifice half is a Reyhan trigger every activation.
• Training Regimen is why the giant board actually kills: trample for everything with a counter, plus a free counter each combat (an evolve or Fathom Mage trigger on a schedule).
• The clone suite is graded — pick the right tool. Altered Ego can't be countered and enters with X extra counters (a Reyhan/doubler payload disguised as a clone — X counters become 2X–4X under the doublers). Clever Impersonator copies any nonland permanent: your Doubling Season, an opponent's Rhystic-style enchantment, The One Ring. Phyrexian Metamorph gets artifacts too and costs 3 plus 2 life. Body Double clones from any graveyard — it's reanimation that dodges graveyard-shuffle responses.
• Protect the engine piece, not the player. Origin of Metalbending's second mode (+1/+1 counter and indestructible — the counter feeds Fathom Mage/Terrasymbiosis on the way) and Collective Resistance's hexproof+indestructible mode are held for the creature your loop runs through. Boseiju's channel costs less per legendary creature you control — with a commander out it's a one-mana instant-speed Naturalize that can't be countered.
• Phantasmal Image dies to your own targeting — a Staff of Domination untap, a Heroic Feast counter, an Umbral Mantle equip, or Reyhan's transfer all sacrifice it. It's the one clone that can't sit inside your loops; treat it as a fifth copy of the best ETB, not an engine piece.
• Toothy and The One Ring put a clock on your own loops. A huge Toothy leaving draws that many cards, and the draw engines can empty your library — the "may" draws (Fathom Mage, Terrasymbiosis) are how you stop short. Count before you cash out.
• Master Biomancer pre-loads every clone: each creature enters with counters equal to his power — which his own counters increase — so clones and tokens arrive already inside your counter engine (and every Rite/Cackling token is Fathom Mage draws on arrival).

Combos

Sixteen Commander Spellbook lines live in this 99. They collapse into six families that share cores — learn the family, and the individual combos are just which pieces you drew. Per the pilot's doctrine there is no forced primary: take the line the game presents. Family A is worked in full as the exemplar because it's the cheapest and the most redundant (four of the sixteen are this exact shape).

All sixteen, on one map. The shared pieces are drawn once — a card with two or more arrows leaving it is advancing multiple families at the same time, which is why the deck combos so consistently off whatever it draws. Each family is one color, unbroken from its first piece to TABLE DEAD (A green, B blue, C purple, D amber, E pink, F red) — where families share a payoff, one arrow of each color runs in parallel, so follow your color through any shared piece and it takes you all the way to the kill. Dashed arrows are not loops: they mark the one-shot payoffs (Gray Merchant, the 2,048 tokens) and the outside piece the fringe Ballista line still needs:

Family A — Infinite mana → Thrasios ends the game (the exemplar)

Combos (4): Staff of Domination + Kami of Whispered Hopes · Staff of Domination + Gyre Sage · Umbral Mantle + Kami of Whispered Hopes · Umbral Mantle + Gyre Sage

One untapper plus one counter-grown mana creature. Worked line with Staff of Domination + Gyre Sage (5+ counters on Sage — evolve gets there on its own; any doubler gets there instantly):

1. Tap Gyre Sage: add per counter (5+).
2. Pay , tap Staff of Domination: untap Gyre Sage.
3. Pay : untap Staff.
4. Repeat — each cycle nets (counters − 4) mana. Badgermole Cub adds every time you tap a creature for mana, dropping every threshold in this family by one.
5. Sink it: Thrasios puts every land onto the battlefield and draws the deck; Walking Ballista (: add a counter; remove it: ping) machine-guns the table; Staff's own : draw is a third outlet; Villainous Wealth for X = absurd is the style option.

The Umbral Mantle versions untap by paying and grow the creature +2/+2 each cycle, so they start profitable at lower power and go infinite as the creature inflates. Kami's versions add any color. Sequencing note: with Ballista as the sink, generic mana is enough — any of the four assemblies kills the same turn if Ballista is down or you have spare to cast it.

Family B — Naru Meha copy loops (infinite ETB + death → Blood Artist drains)

Combos (6): Naru Meha + Rite of Replication · + Cackling Counterpart · + Saw in Half · + Three Steps Ahead (copy mode) · + Replication Technique · Ashnod's Altar + Naru Meha + Living Death

The mechanism, once: cast a spell that copies a creature you control → holding priority, flash in Naru Meha → her ETB copies the spell, copy targets Naru → the copy resolves into a Naru token → legend rule bins one Naru (a death: Blood Artist, Reyhan, Ozolith all see it) → the new Naru's ETB copies the original spell, which is still on the stack and never resolves. Loop for infinite enters and deaths; Blood Artist turns it into a kill, and Gray Merchant in the loop (Living Death version) skips the Blood Artist requirement. The Living Death variant sacs Naru to Ashnod's Altar mid-loop for infinite colorless and mass-reanimates everything each pass — pre-load your graveyard with Buried Alive.

Three table notes: with Sakashima out the Narus don't die — they accumulate, each giving your other Wizards +1/+1 — you trade the death triggers for a board; the copies are copies, not casts, so cast-triggers (yours and opponents') stay silent; and because the original spell sits on the stack for the whole loop, a single counterspell on it (or removal on Naru with her trigger pending) ends everything — hold Fierce Guardianship for the loop turn.

Family C — The sacrifice loop (Reyhan does the recursion)

Combo (1): Evolution Witness + Ashnod's Altar + Reyhan

Cast a cheap creature that enters with a +1/+1 counter (Walking Ballista for X=1 is the deck's natural fit) → sac to Ashnod's Altar for → Reyhan moves its counter onto Evolution Witness → Witness's trigger returns the creature to hand → recast with the Altar mana. Net-neutral mana with Ballista; infinite deaths, casts, and ETBs — Blood Artist drains, and every doubler makes the Witness (and anything else Reyhan targets) arbitrarily large along the way.

Family D — Doubling Season blowouts

Combos (2): Springheart Nantuko + Doubling Season · Replication Technique + Doubling Season

Springheart + Doubling Season is a true engine: bestow Springheart on a land animated by earthbend (Badgermole Cub or its own trigger), and each land drop pays to copy that land — doubled, the two land tokens are two more landfall triggers, and tapping them funds the next pair. Infinite landfall, lands, and Insects; even off-combo, Springheart on a real creature turns every fetch and Icetill rebuy into a clone of your best body.

Replication Technique + Doubling Season: demonstrate copies the spell targeting Doubling Season itself → 2, then 8 token Seasons → your next token-maker mints 2,048. The demonstrate cost is real: copying it hands an opponent their own copy of the spell — pick the opponent whose board offers the least.

Family E — Heroic Feast lifegain engine

Combos (2): Fathom Mage + Sheoldred, the Apocalypse + Heroic Feast · Walking Ballista + Heroic Feast (fringe — needs borrowed lifelink)

Gain any life → Heroic Feast puts a counter on up to that many creatures — include Fathom Mage → she draws → Sheoldred gains you 2 → repeat. Draws are "may," so you stop before decking, with the whole deck in hand and a mountain of life. Aim the spare Feast counters at Walking Ballista every iteration — that's how this loop actually kills at the table.

The fringe case, listed last on purpose: Walking Ballista + Heroic Feast loops on its own if Ballista has lifelink — ping for 1, gain 1, Feast puts the counter right back — infinite damage with no other pieces. Nothing in this 99 grants lifelink, but the clone suite can borrow it: Clever Impersonator copies any nonland permanent and Phyrexian Metamorph any artifact or creature, so an opponent's lifelink-granting permanent (an anthem, an equipment you can copy and attach, a granter with an activated ability) turns this on. File it under "know it exists when the table provides the missing piece."

Family F — The Gray Merchant one-shot

Combo (1): Gray Merchant of Asphodel + kicked Rite of Replication

: five Gray Merchant tokens, and every copy's counts toward every trigger's devotion — six Merchants is 12+ devotion, five triggers, roughly 60 life drained from each opponent and gained by you. It works on an opponent's Gray Merchant too. Body Double and Animate Dead recur your own Gary for the budget rerun, and it's the deck's best Living Death payload short of Kokusho.