Commander Deck Tech: Donatello, Gadget Master

If you believe being creative is a great strength, then you'll love Donatello, Gadget Master, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle who always has a trick up his sleeve for the matter at hand.

In this article, we'll show you two lists with this commander: the first one centers around artifacts and ETB effects. The second one is less casual and centers around explosive combos.

As usual, let's start with our commander.

Donatello loves technology and never misses the opportunity to use it in exciting and often reckless ways. He is a mad scientist full of extravagant plans.

In this Monoblue artifact list, Donatello creates copies of your artifacts whenever he deals combat damage to a player. Furthermore, you can cast him through Sneak by returning one of your attackers to your hand as long as it wasn't blocked.

This list needs relevant artifacts that are useful in many situations. It looks like this:

Keep in mind that Donatello, Gadget Master needs to deal combat damage to copy artifacts, so let's start with evasion.

Evasion

Out of all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Donatello is the luckiest. There are many blue cards that make him unblockable or at least make it very hard for the opponents to block him.

Shimmering Wings is one of these cards, as it gives Donnie flying.

Equipment cards like Silver Shroud Costume and Whispersilk Cloak are also great ways to give Donatello evasion. They also protect him. Obviously, we had to add Aqueous Form, which will give him evasion and let you scry 1 when he attacks.

Kappa Cannoneer is a distant cousin that doesn't help Donatello much in terms of dealing damage to opponents. However, in this list, it grows passively, becomes unblockable, and has Ward 4.

We also added creatures that can't be blocked so that you can put Donnie in play through Sneak stress-free.

Returning Cards to the Hand

We'll also take advantage of some fun blue cards that return permanents and spells to the hand, that is, bounce cards.

Aetherize always makes opponents frustrated because it forces their attackers to return to their hand. Don would certainly use it or create something just like it to make opponents fly away in battle.

Paradoxical Outcome protects your permanents and also draws cards.

Artifacts to Copy

Let's briefly go over some of the fun artifacts in this deck you can copy with your commander. We'll leave aside mana rocks and cards that discount the cost of other cards (though they're great targets to copy) so that we can go over other options.

Solemn Simulacrum is a classic. When it enters play, it lets you get a basic land and put it in play tapped. When it dies, it draws a card.

Another creature that does something when it dies is Myr Retriever, which puts a target artifact from the graveyard straight in your hand.

As for Cyberdrive Awakener, it is a finisher. It makes your artifact creatures fly and also turns non-creature artifacts into 4/4 creatures until the end of the turn.

If it doesn't end the game on the same turn it came into play, a copy of it on the next turn should do it.

Portal to Phyrexia is one of the best artifacts for this deck. When it comes into play, each opponent has to sacrifice three creatures. Afterward, at the beginning of your upkeep, it lets you reanimate a creature from any graveyard. It becomes a Phyrexian in addition to all its other types.

Powerful, don't you think? Imagine copying it and reanimating it several times or simply clearing the enemy board with it.

Creating Tokens

Besides Donatello, this deck has other ways to create tokens and fill your board with more artifacts.

Whenever you create a token, Donatello, the Brains will give you a Mutagen token that you can use to buff a creature or just enable Whirler Rogue's evasion.

Another creature that gives you more tokens is Stridehangar Automaton, a lord that creates an extra 1/1 Thopter whenever you create an artifact token. Speaking of Thopters, Sai, Master Thopterist, Thopter Spy Network, and Leonardo da Vinci are also great in this list.

Card Draw

Blue card draw is incredibly fun.

This list needs cards that do more than one thing at a time, though. So, we added Does Machines and Krang, Master Mind. Does Machines's levels 2 and 3 are very useful, and Krang's card draw ETB is a great ability to copy. It is also from the TMNT set.

Some old friends also made their way into this list, like Idol of Oblivion, One with the Machine, Thoughtcast, and Bident of Thassa.

Padeem, Consul of Innovation is a lot of fun. It gives all your artifacts hexproof, whether they're creatures, tokens, or otherwise. It also draws an extra card for you at the beginning of your upkeep if you control the artifact with the highest CMC.

We mentioned this alternative list centers around combos, didn't we?

It's time to go over it, and, before we do, we have a question to ask. How many combos do you see in it?

Tip: it's close to 43.

Here's the answer: according to Commander Spellbook's "Find my Combos" tool, this list includes 39 combos (yes, we said 43 to throw you off the scent.)

If you enjoy creative game styles, Donatello, Gadget Master is a lot of fun. This commander is great in toolbox decks, that is, decks that play cards for every situation and create dynamic, unexpected game states.

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

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!