Commander Deck Tech: Norman Osborn (Green Goblin)

One of the most iconic Spider-Man villains is precisely his father's best friend, the billionaire Norman Osborn.

Marvel's Spider-Man, one of the most recent Universes Beyond sets, brought this incredibly iconic comic book character to MTG. He is a legendary Grixis creature as well as a double-faced card.

In this article, we'll show you two lists with him. The first and main one was built entirely around Norman Osborn, and the second was built around Green Goblin, his villainous half.

Let's dive right in!

We can cast double-faced cards in any way we'd like, as long as we pay their price. For instance, in this set we must always pay a price to transform one side of each double-faced card into its other side.

Overall, the legendary double-faced Spider-Man creatures are all popular characters from the comics and their "secret identity". We can then turn them into a hero or a villain, depending on their story.

Norman Osborn is exactly like that.

Norman Osborn is a legendary 1/1 creature that costs 2 mana and can't be blocked. If you thought, "A commander that can't be blocked is cool, but he's still a 1/1...", don't click off just yet. Norman also has a valuable ability when he deals combat damage to a player: he connives.

Connive lets us draw a card and then discard a card. If we don't discard a land, the permanent (Norman in this case) gets a +1/+1 counter.

If you'd like to know more about this mechanic and the other mechanics in this set, check out this article, which explains everything in Marvel's Spider-Man.

We can also just pay four mana to turn Norman into Green Goblin.

As a villain, Norman is the Green Goblin. He also has flying and menace and allows us to cast any discarded cards from our graveyard. His first ability discounts the cost of any spells we cast from the graveyard by 2 mana. The second one gives all the cards in our graveyard mayhem.

Mayhem is quite similar to madness. This ability states that we can cast a card with mayhem from our graveyard if we also discarded it that turn. All we need to do is pay its mayhem cost.

Our main list centers around Norman Osborn, but that doesn't mean we can't turn him into Green Goblin. Luckily for us, Norman Osborn and Green Goblin interact really well with each other.

Here it is:

This deck centers around our commander's ability, that is, that he can't be blocked by any creature. We also added a lot of card draw as well as buffs so that he can kill any opponent with just a few strikes.

Let's start with our buffs, as they'll make our scientist a lot more powerful.

Buffs

Agent of the Shadow Thieves buffs Norman and also gives him deathtouch and indestructible until the end of the turn. Deathtouch might not make that much of a difference, but indestructible is quite useful.

Unstable Experiment is a card draw instant that interacts with connive. Mask of the Schemer and Security Bypass, an equipment and an aura, respectively, interact with connive as well.

Straight from Final Fantasy, we have Conformer Shuriken, which will buff Norman and let him tap enemy creatures. Make sure to take advantage of this to tap useful creatures.

Finally, we have Agatha's Soul Cauldron, which will allow us to take advantage of all the graveyards in play, either ours or the opponents's, to buff Norman's power and abilities.

It's interesting that Norman has double strike, as this way he'll be able to deal damage to opponents twice in each combat. So, he'll connive more times each turn.

Creating Value from Discarding Cards

As one of the most important strategies in this deck is connive and we'll discard many cards, we added spells that create value from this ability.

Chameleon, Master of Disguise is a villain and already has mayhem, so we can cast him as soon as we discard him, even if our commander isn't Green Goblin yet.

Anger and Wonder are perfect discard fodder because their effects are only active when they're in the graveyard. We can also use each of Monument to Endurance's abilities once per turn and, as such, draw, burn opponents, or even create treasures.

Bone Miser, Surly Badgersaur, Archfiend of Ifnir, and Cryptcaller Chariot also create a lot of value as we use Norman's effects.

Reanimating

As Norman can't be blocked, the best way to stop him from dealing deadly 21 combat damage is by removing him. Furthermore, our beloved hero will also discard creatures with connive.

Answers

Our opponents will definitely focus on Norman, so we need to protect him. This list includes cards like Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, but, as we can play blue counters, we simply had to add a few cards to stop enemy actions:

Besides these, we also added removals like:

Keep in mind mayhem respects each card's particular casting speed. If we discard one of these instants while Green Goblin is in play, we can cast it from our graveyard straight away.

Our alternative list focuses on Green Goblin and his ability, which lets us cast discard spells from our graveyard for less.

But, because this villain can't discard all our cards into our graveyard all by himself, this list plays card draw that also discards a lot of cards, like Wheel of Fate, Wheel of Misfortune, Reforge the Soul, Change of Fortune, Will of the Jeskai, Windfall, Whispering Madness, Tolarian Winds, and Winds of Change.

We've also added a few cards whose abilities trigger when we cast cards from the graveyard, such as Burning Vengeance, Secrets of the Dead, Shadow of the Goblin, and Teval's Judgment.

A commander who can't be blocked is always extremely strong, but also having access to blue support to counter any removal that crosses our path is undeniably incredible. We can just clear the way so that our opponent can deal damage directly and beat each opponent. This deck isn't exactly a Voltron strategy, but it plays like one. It's not a Reanimate strategy either, but it is similar.

Each card we picked will support our commander, either as Norman Osborne or Green Goblin. Our two lists might center around different parts of him, but both interact really well with each other.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!