Commander Showcase 3: Obeka, Brute Chronologist
Written by Adam the Gathering - Nov 16 2022
Welcome back to Commander Showcase! It’s Obeka’s time in the spotlight, an ogre wizard who makes use of brute force to break the flow of time. As soon as she’s “bored with now”, she’ll uppercut you into next week! Easily built on a budget, this deck looks to manipulate the end step to maximum effect.
A card that was fairly overlooked upon its Commander Legends release, Obeka is an elegant Grixis commander with one simple tap ability. On the surface, ending the turn might not seem like anything that useful. However, the ability to cut off effects triggered by the end step can make cheap spells like Alchemist’s Gambit and Identity Thief absolutely devastating. Pair it with cards like Flameshadow Conjuring and you're paying a measly one extra mana to copy your best creatures AND keeping them around.
With Obeka’s release in Commander Legends, also came one of the most powerful abilities to pair with her ending the turn ability. Encore allows you to exile the creature from your graveyard and make a token copy of it for each opponent you have. The idea is that they enter with haste, you swing them at your opponents and they leave at the end of turn. But that’s not quite aggressive enough for Obeka, she wants her friends to hang around for the party and will tap on your end step to keep all those tokens for plenty of turns to come.
With the ever increasing list of cards that carry those key end of turn phrases and a three colour commander, we have access to a plethora of powerful cards to pair with Obeka. Cards like Gruesome Encore can grab your opponent's biggest and scariest creature from the graveyard and keep it around to impose some extra pressure. If one copy of a creature isn’t enough, then cards like Mimic Vat and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker will allow you to make a token every single turn!
One of Obeka’s key weaknesses is the turn that you play her. Having to wait for a whole turn cycle before you can activate her ability can feel like a lifetime. This makes cards that give haste like Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots vital in the deck. Of course a game plan that’s this reliant on your commander is going to draw some heated emotions from the folks around the table, so the extremely valuable protection that these artifacts supply can be make or break.
Glorious End is an absolute wildcard in this build. Ending the turn on an instant can be a big save in a tricky spot and Obeka’s ability saves you from losing the game. But you know what’s a lot more fun? Making your opponent play Glorious End. With no way to escape the end step effect. Combine it with Sudden Substitution and Obeka’s rage and impatience is shown in full glorious effect.
In conclusion, Obeka manipulates game rules in an incredibly simple, yet creative way. From the very first game, I knew this deck would become a firm favourite and have struggled to find many playstyles as fun as Obeka. If you want to check out the full deck list then follow the link below. See you next time!
