Positively Arming Lucy MacLean - Vault-Tec Approved Synergies

Straight from the sterile halls of Vault 33 and into the chaos of the Command Zone, Lucy MacLean brings a "fish out of water" energy to the table that belies her endless potential for EDH politics and shenanigans.

Do we think she's going to cause thousands of players to part with their hard earned bottle caps and price spike many cards? Probably not because her secret lair drops within days of Lorwyn releasing and she's kind of niche, but nonetheless, Garruk and I were super curious about what decks you build with her and what cards that have been laying around in your wasteland bulk for eons might now need a dusting off. We also fancied just building Lucy on a budget. After all, in the wasteland, one persons junk is another persons treasure.

So what does Lucy do?

Infinite Lucys: So a few smart folks on Reddit (who probably work for the Institute!) noticed that if your commander friends are feeling generous (or just want to maximise the value from their Wrath of God), then you can all have infinite copies of Lucy, with each new copy getting to do the ability. So how do you give your opponents their own copies of Lucy so that they can give you back a copy of Lucy, so that you can give them back a copy of Lucy so they can give you back a copy of Lucy.....?

Why, with Helm of the Host (setting you back a little over $10) of course!

Or (with a Mirror Box), you could equip Lucy with the sparkling new headware fresh from Lorwyn Mirrormind Crown, (affordable for anyone in the wasteland at $1) and make multitudes of her. Or, if you're planning to blink Lucy somehow (Lorwyn's new Personify seems a great way to do this), then Preston the Vanisher will make you illusion copies of Lucy.

I'd be dismissing our brand completely if I didn't briefly talk speculations so: with a few sales of Preston, there's a very steep price rise because there are only ~30 copies of him on TCGPlayer and he was only printed in Jumpstart.

Token Multipliers: Maybe your opponents aren't the generous sort that like commander tables filled with Lucy MacLeans? In which case, you probably want some bonus copies of every token you generate anyway: Exalted Sunborn, Academy Manufactor, Anointed Procession, Song of the Worldsoul, Mondrak Glory Dominus or Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation are going to let you make multitudes more tokens from Lucy (or even ).

From the finance side: With only 6 copies of Ojer left on TCGplayer, this feels like a now or never moment for that card, otherwise you might have to trawl a lot of Vaults before you find a new one. Looking at the prices of Mondrak, Procession and Ojer (and the similar functionality), it kind of feels like Exalted Sunborn (<$20) has some scope to 2x in the next 18 months, and more limited but Song of the Worldsoul is on the last few tens of copies.

Generous Acts: So you've got Lucy and your token multiplier online so now you can be as generous as you like with gifting everyone lots and lots of tokens, but you probably are looking to be quite tight with your bottlecaps if you've just spent a lot of them on Ojer.

Fortunately, there's some real junk that you're about to turn into gold with Lucy. Hunted Lammasu lets you gift your favourite opponent a 4/4 and gift yourself one right back (or maybe more if you've warped in an Exalted Sunborn or have a few Lucies on the board):

Or Akroan Horse is just a truly terrible rare (I remember feeling utter devastation every time I opened one in Theros), and yet here with Lucy, you suddenly generate a small army every turn.

Or slightly more premium ($1) Tempt with Bunnies is going to fill the board with these furry little critters:

Removal with a bonus upside: White also has tons of removal for which the downside is giving your opponent a token. BUT with Lucy, that downside is just more upside. There's so many options here: Crib Swap, Generous Gift, Stroke of Midnight, Get Lost, Bovine Intervention...

Maybe the best is Angelic Ascension (at a bargainous $0.1) which rather than giving your opponent (and you) an Ox, gives you a 2-mana instant speed Serra Angel:

Triggering Lucy every turn: How do you trigger Lucy every single turn? Combat Calligrapher, Master of Ceremonies, Genesis Chamber, or Keeper of the Accord all trigger during each opponents turn and all come in much much cheaper than Smothering Tithe. Ensuring that Lucy will be gifting tokens and cards every single turn. Master of Ceremonies is down to less than 20 copies with just the Streets commander printing but its perhaps not essential enough for any of the decks its in?

Maybe most thematically correct for regular triggers of Lucy:

Apocalyptic Futures: Similarly, for the thematics, the deck should almost certainly play Yes Man Personal Securitron and maybe also Gary Clone and Securitron Squadron?

Finance wise: Both the securitrons are down to a few 10s of copies and less than $1 still. Yes Man is down to less than 30 copies and still less than $1... It's quitely been goblled into several other decklists. All 3 are probably quite difficult to reprint so unless there are rafts of new Fallout TV show Secret Lairs, they'll probably only go up as supply diminishes. They're not really essential to any decks, but perhaps justify a $5 valuation.

The Brotherhood of Steel and the Grim Dark Future: And on the Brotherhood of Steel theme, how about: Space Marine Devastator (giving everyone at the table artifact/enchantment removal) or Ultramarines Honor Guard anthems. Less coated in power armour: Silverquill Lecturer lets you copy anything you cast.

Other fun shenanigans? Overencumbered, Divine Visitation, Wedding Ring or Dino DNA (although with ~10 copies left that has a premium already attached)?

I was initially sceptical that Lucy would have enough support cards for her generous acts, but it turns out she is much more S.P.E.C.I.A.L than we had initially thought - and it looks like there's oodles of fun shenanigans here.

For those of you here for the finance side: the data's not hugely compelling for much other than the Securitrons, Exalted Sunborn, or Ojer (for the US market - there are still a few on CardMarket for us Europeans) and maybe Nuka Cola vending machine (depending on how much the reprint in the new Secret Lairs provide extra supply). Maybe, maybe Master of Ceremonies - but is it really essential (and therefore a must-have) for anything it's in?

In rank order for finance:

1. Yes Man/Securitrons (very low risk)

2. Nuka Cola (even with the upcoming reprint its hard to reprint outside Secret Lairs and Hobbits love Nuka Cola)

3. Ojer (a single reprint could tank it, but its hard to reprint because its 2-sided)

4. Exalted Sunborn (maybe difficult to reprint because of warp but perhaps has a 2x ceiling - not enough reward?)

5. Master of Ceremonies (a reprint away from not being worth a lot, but perhaps mechanically hard to find a good commander precon home for that reprint?)

Bonus thoughts: Generally, I think it also just more pointers towards Lost Caverns of Ixalan Set Boxes with the rapidly diminishing supply of dino cards and the Ojers.

Most importantly: for the first time in Magic history, I can't wait to cast Akroan Horse.

Afterword: We've popped some affiliate links throughout the article. If you think what we're doing here or in our other articles is interesting, it massively helps us if you click on them or similarly, we have a Patreon, which you can find here and through that we're happy for you to have your input into what we should be exploring.

If you thought this was useful - sling us a message on BlueSky to say you liked it - that'll keep us turning the crank on our data science toolkit.

Thanks for checking out the article and for your support!

Jace & Garruk