How to build Blor the Impervious

Five mana buys a 3/3 with trample, hexproof and indestructible, and that is the whole card. Most voltron commanders spend a third of the deck insuring the creature, so the interesting question here is what the freed slots buy, and which answers are still live.

The removal that reads best against a five-mana 3/3 cannot touch him

Hexproof reads "can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control", and the cheapest, most-played answers in the format all say target, or enchant creature, which targets on the way down. Swords to Plowshares, Pacifism, Imprisoned in the Moon and Song of the Dryads are dead cards against this commander. Indestructible covers the other column, because destroy effects and lethal damage do nothing, so Blasphemous Act and the rest of the red sweepers leave him standing at full size.

That is the case for building this deck out of Auras rather than leaning on Equipment the way most voltron lists do. An Aura on a normal commander is a card you lose for free to a one-mana instant, which is exactly why the format's received wisdom prefers Equipment that outlives the creature. Here the creature outlives everything the Equipment was insuring against, and Auras are cheaper per point of power. Lion Umbra is for +3/+3 with vigilance and reach, and no Equipment in the format matches that rate.

The umbra armor on Lion Umbra and Bear Umbra is dead text on this commander, and both cards are in the list anyway. Read what the rest of each one says instead. That is the general shape of a good pick here: the protective half of a card is redundant, so it has to earn its slot on the other half.

Toughness is the only stat on him that does anything defensive

Indestructible does not save a creature whose toughness is 0. A creature at 0 toughness is put into the graveyard as a state-based action rather than destroyed, so Toxic Deluge for three, Black Sun's Zenith for X equals 3, and any other -X/-X effect all kill Blor exactly as dead as they kill a vanilla 3/3. That is not a footnote. It is the most common way this deck loses the creature it is built around.

So the usual voltron arithmetic inverts. A normal build prefers +X/+0 with evasion, because toughness buys nothing when the creature dies to a targeted exile anyway. Here toughness is armour against the one removal category that connects, which promotes every symmetrical buff over its cheaper one-sided cousin. Prodigious Growth at +7/+7 puts him out of range of a Deluge anybody is willing to pay the life for. Gigantiform sets base power and toughness to 8/8 for . Mantle of the Wolf is +4/+4, and Colossification is +20/+20.

Rancor and Forebear's Blade are both in the list and both add only power, which is a deliberate exception rather than an oversight. One costs and returns to your hand, and the other grants the vigilance the deck is short of. The same rule explains a card in the budget rung: Snakeskin Veil looks like a protection spell and is not one here, because Blor cannot use the hexproof half. The +1/+1 counter is what you are buying, it is permanent, and against a -1/-1 sweeper it is the only half that matters.

A sacrifice edict beats him and neither keyword does a thing about it

Fleshbag Marauder makes each player sacrifice a creature of their choice. If Blor is the only creature you control then Blor is the one you choose, and hexproof and indestructible both sit there doing nothing, because a sacrifice is neither targeting nor destruction. A three-mana creature is the honest answer to this commander, and any pod that has seen the deck once will find it.

Which is why 15 of the 99 cards are creatures in a deck that only needs one. They are a tax on that line rather than a go-wide plan. Dryad Arbor is a land that is also a body, so it costs no card at all. Sakura-Tribe Elder is a blocker you were happy to sacrifice anyway. Khalni Garden in the budget rung brings a Plant along with the land. Batterskull arrives with its own Germ. Mantle of the Wolf leaves two Wolves behind when the Aura reaches the graveyard, which is the rare case of losing a buff paying you for it. Hornet Queen is five flying deathtouch bodies off one card, and Scute Swarm turns every land drop into another one.

Two categories have no answer in these colours and are worth naming rather than hiding. A non-targeted exile sweeper, Farewell or Merciless Eviction, takes Blor and mono-green has nothing that stops it. An overloaded Cyclonic Rift returns him and every Aura to your hand, which costs tempo rather than cards, and the deck can rebuild from it. Neither is a reason not to build this. Both are a reason to close games out rather than sitting behind a 23/23 admiring it.

Shroud is the trap, and the two cards that carry it are voltron staples

Whispersilk Cloak and Aspect of Mongoose are in most voltron decks and both are actively wrong in this one. Shroud reads "can't be the target of spells or abilities" with no clause about who controls them, so it switches off your own half too. Equip targets. Casting an Aura targets. Put a shroud effect on Blor and every Aura left in your hand is stranded, and no second Equipment can ever be attached. Hexproof already does the only half you wanted and it does it for free.

Argothian Enchantress in the bracket 4 rung has shroud and that is fine, because she is never the creature you are building. She draws a card on every enchantment you cast, which in a list running ten Auras is a card most turns.

Vigilance is worth more here than on any other voltron commander

Vigilance is usually a small upgrade on an attacker. On an indestructible blocker it reads closer to a second card, because a creature that cannot be destroyed and cannot be traded with makes every opposing attack a bad one. The same 11/11 that threatens lethal on your turn is an unkillable wall on the other three, and that is how this deck affords to spend so few slots on defence.

Five sources in the core list grant it with no conditions. Haunted Cloak is the best of them at to cast and to equip, for vigilance, trample and haste together. Sword of Vengeance adds +2/+0 and first strike on top of the same three. Forebear's Blade is +3/+0 with trample, and Lion Umbra is the cheapest at . Batterskull brings +4/+4, lifelink and the Germ.

Sight of the Scalelords is the green enchantment that looks purpose-built for this job and it is not in the list. It grants +2/+2 and vigilance to creatures with toughness 4 or greater, and a bare Blor is a 3/3, so the card meant to make him vigilant does nothing until something else already has. Five unconditional sources beat one conditional one at the same cost.

Unnatural Growth is the card that pays the vigilance off twice. It doubles the power and toughness of your creatures at the beginning of each combat, and three of the four combats in a four-player turn cycle are not yours. A vigilant Blor blocks as double whatever he is.

Berserk's drawback is a line of text he ignores

Berserk gives a creature trample and +X/+0 where X is its power, then destroys that creature at the beginning of the next end step if it attacked. Indestructible blanks the second sentence outright. A one-mana instant doubles his power at no cost whatsoever, in a deck where the only thing between you and 21 commander damage is a power number.

The same logic sorts the rest of the doublers by price rather than by drawback. Choose Your Weapon doubles power and toughness for and has a second mode that shoots a flier for 5. Exponential Growth doubles power X times for , so eight mana turns 3 power into 24. Tifa's Limit Break covers the cheap end in the budget rung. None of them carry a clause this commander has to respect.

Twenty-one damage from a 3/3 is seven swings, and three cards make it one

Bare Blor deals 3 a turn, so the commander damage kill is seven attacks away. That is the baseline every buff in the list is measured against, and the one-swing lines are worth knowing before you draw them.

Blackblade Reforged gives +1/+1 for each land you control and equips to a legendary creature for . At eight lands that is an 11/11, and Fireshrieker's double strike turns 11 power into 22 damage in a single combat. Colossification is +20/+20 for a 23/23 that kills straight through a chump block, with one caveat worth reading twice: it taps the creature as it enters, and vigilance does not fix that, because vigilance stops attacking from tapping rather than untapping anything. Cast it and swing the turn after. Gigantiform plus Colossus Hammer is an 18/18, which is two swings, and Eldrazi Conscription is a 13/13 with annihilator 2.

Trample is printed on the commander, so a chump block subtracts the blocker's toughness and the rest arrives on the player as combat damage, which does count toward the 21. Ram Through is the exception to watch. It has Blor deal damage equal to his power to a creature and sends the excess at that creature's controller, which is excellent removal and is not combat damage, so none of it counts toward a commander damage kill. Rogue's Passage is the clean answer to a board full of blockers, at a turn.

Thirty-six lands, thirty-nine green sources, and the commander is not what strains them

Mono-green is the cheapest mana base in the format and this one is 25 basics out of 36 lands. Blor wants on turn five, which is not a requirement worth planning around. The pressure sits on the cards that want to arrive on turn three or four instead: Lion Umbra, Bear Umbra, Ohran Frostfang, Spike Weaver, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and Nature's Will. At 39 sources against a 36-source requirement that comes in at 93.4% for two pips by turn three, which is comfortable.

Six of the lands do something other than make mana. Rogue's Passage is the unblockable button. Bonders' Enclave draws a card for as soon as you control a creature with power 4 or greater, which after the commander lands is most turns. Mosswort Bridge wants total power 10 or greater to cash its hideaway card, a threshold most decks strain for and this one clears with a single Aura. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Castle Garenbrig are the sinks that cast a seven-mana Aura a turn early. Dryad Arbor is the sacrifice fodder from two sections ago.

The deck sets no bracket floor and still owes the table a conversation

The core list runs no Game Changers and no mass land denial, so it sets no bracket floor at all. That is worth reading carefully, because it is not a statement that the deck is weak. A floor is the lowest bracket a list can honestly claim, and having none only means nothing among the 99 forces the number upward. The list plays like a bracket 3 deck: a focused two-card kill, real card advantage, and a clock that closes around turn eight.

The gap between that answer and the way the deck feels to sit across from is genuine, and worth being straight about. Brackets measure power, and a 3/3 for five mana is not a powerful card. What it is instead is unanswerable by a large fraction of the interaction people bring to a bracket 3 table, and being unanswerable is a different axis that the bracket system does not score. Nobody will care that the deck has no Game Changers if their Swords to Plowshares, their Pacifism and their Blasphemous Act are all blank. Say what the commander does before the first game rather than after it, and expect the pod to come back with edicts and -X/-X sweepers, which is the correct response and makes for a better game than the alternative.

Four cards that read as automatic here and are not

Garruk's Uprising is the enchantment every green voltron list starts with and it is a poor fit. Half of it grants your creatures trample, which the commander already has printed on it, and the draw trigger fires when a creature with power 4 or greater enters, which in a list whose creatures are mostly mana dorks and small blockers is a trigger you see twice a game. The draw this deck wants is attached to damage instead. Sixth Sense for , Snake Umbra, Mask of Memory, Rogue's Gloves, Toski, Bearer of Secrets and Ohran Frostfang all pay out every time he connects.

Nevinyrral's Disk looks like a one-sided board wipe next to an indestructible commander and it is nothing of the kind. It destroys all artifacts, creatures and enchantments, and this deck's Auras and Equipment are artifacts and enchantments. You would keep the 3/3 and throw away everything that made it a threat.

Gaea's Cradle is the reflexive expensive mono-green land and it is the wrong money even in the bracket 4 rung. It taps for mana equal to your creature count, and a voltron deck runs a handful of creatures by design. The Great Henge costs less where X is the greatest power on your board, so it gets cheaper as the plan works, and it taps for plus two life while drawing a card on every nontoken creature that follows.

Loxodon Warhammer stays in the core list and comes out of the bracket 4 rung, which is the sort of swap worth explaining rather than burying. It is +3/+0 with trample and lifelink for a cast and a equip, and it is a genuinely good card. It loses its slot the moment Shadowspear and the two Swords arrive, because all three do the same job at a lower equip cost.

The core list

Ninety-nine cards behind Blor the Impervious, built at bracket 3. Hover any card name to see the card, and every price is the cheapest paper printing of it.

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The cards that do the killing are the cheap ones

Price and power come apart unusually cleanly on this commander, and it is the most useful thing to know before you build any version of him. The buffs that actually produce 21 commander damage are nearly all under two dollars. Colossification, Gigantiform, Prodigious Growth, Eldrazi Conscription, Colossus Hammer, Fireshrieker, Rancor and Haunted Cloak come to roughly five dollars together, and every one of them survives into the budget rung untouched. What the money in the core list buys is the engine around them: the draw, the untap effects, the tutor and the mana that casts a seven-mana Aura early.

So the budget rung takes the list from at least $282 down to at least $88, and it does it without touching the kill. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Castle Garenbrig become Myriad Landscape and Khalni Garden, which costs the deck its two mana sinks and gains a Plant token. Sylvan Library, Green Sun's Zenith, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, Ohran Frostfang and Nature's Will are the real loss, and they are all card advantage rather than damage. The rung answers with Trash the Town, Warriors' Lesson and Zephyr Boots, which attach the draw to the same attack instead of to a permanent, and the draw count actually goes up from 9 to 11. Berserk and Heroic Intervention leave for Tifa's Limit Break and Snakeskin Veil. Average mana value drops from 3.11 to 2.86, and six lands now enter tapped rather than four, which is the bill for the cheap mana base.

The bracket 4 rung is not a stronger version of the same deck so much as a faster and less interruptible one. Seedborn Muse is the single biggest addition, because untapping every permanent during each other player's untap step turns a vigilant indestructible blocker into one that also equips and casts Auras on three other turns. Ancient Tomb and The Great Henge cast the expensive half of the deck early, Survival of the Fittest and Worldly Tutor mean the relevant creature is never left to chance, and Crop Rotation finds Rogue's Passage on the turn the blockers appear. Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Fire and Ice and Shadowspear replace Loxodon Warhammer and Rogue's Gloves at a lower equip cost. Five Game Changers is what sets that rung's floor at 4, and that is not a number you bring to a bracket 3 table. It also costs at least $1,094 against the core list's $282, and most of that is those three artifacts and the tutor.

FAQ

How do you kill Blor the Impervious?

Four ways, and none of them is a removal spell that targets. A sacrifice edict such as Fleshbag Marauder makes the controller choose a creature, and if Blor is the only one they choose Blor. A -X/-X sweeper such as Toxic Deluge or Black Sun's Zenith puts his toughness to 0, and indestructible does not save a creature at 0 toughness. A non-targeted exile sweeper such as Farewell or Merciless Eviction removes him outright. An overloaded Cyclonic Rift returns him to hand along with everything attached to him. Anything that says target, including Swords to Plowshares and Pacifism, does nothing at all.

Is Blor the Impervious good?

He is a narrow card and close to the best possible version of that narrow thing. A 3/3 for five mana with no abilities that generate value is a weak rate, so he is poor in any deck that is not built to attack with him. As a voltron commander he is exceptional, because trample, hexproof and indestructible on one body is the complete insurance package that such decks normally have to buy with spell slots. The whole argument for building him is that those slots come back.

Does hexproof stop your own Auras and Equipment?

No. Hexproof reads "can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control", so your own Auras and equip abilities work normally. Shroud is the one to avoid, because it has no clause about who controls the spell and so blocks you as well. That makes Whispersilk Cloak and Aspect of Mongoose actively bad here despite being voltron staples, since either one strands the Auras in your hand and prevents any further Equipment being attached.

How do you give Blor the Impervious vigilance in mono-green?

Mostly through Equipment, which is colourless and so available to any deck. Haunted Cloak is the cheapest to use at to cast and to equip, and it grants vigilance, trample and haste at once. Sword of Vengeance adds +2/+0 and first strike, Forebear's Blade adds +3/+0 and trample, and Batterskull adds +4/+4 and lifelink. Green's own contribution is Lion Umbra at for +3/+3 with vigilance and reach. Sight of the Scalelords looks like the green answer and is not, because it only grants vigilance to creatures with toughness 4 or greater and Blor is a 3/3 until something else has already buffed him.

How fast does Blor the Impervious kill with commander damage?

Unbuffed he needs seven attacks, since 21 commander damage at 3 a turn is seven swings. In practice the list is built to make it one or two. Blackblade Reforged at eight lands makes him an 11/11, and Fireshrieker's double strike turns that into 22 damage in a single combat. Colossification is +20/+20 for a 23/23, although it taps him as it enters, so the swing comes the following turn. Gigantiform plus Colossus Hammer is an 18/18, which is two attacks.

How much does this Blor the Impervious deck cost?

The core list comes to at least $282 at preview-season prices, with 99 of the 100 cards carrying a number. The budget rung sits at $88 or more and the bracket 4 rung at $1,094 or more. Read all three as minimums, since an unreleased commander has no market price and so no total on this page can be complete. The useful detail is that the cards doing the actual damage are nearly all under two dollars, so the budget rung gives up card advantage and mana quality rather than any part of the kill.

Is Blor the Impervious legal in Commander?

He is not legal yet, which is a different thing from not being legal. The date to note is 9 November 2026, when Mystery Booster Commander Edition is released, and he can be played from then on. A card carries its own legality rather than its set's, so reprints riding along in the same box already read as legal while he does not. That is ordinary for anything that has not shipped.