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How to build Hugh, First of Many

Hugh lets you copy each artifact spell you cast once for every three extra mana you pay, and one of those three has to be blue. This list is built around that bill: artifacts whose copies are worth more than they cost, and a board that helps pay for the next one.

Art by Carlos Dattoli

The copies resolve first, and none of them was cast

You pay replicate at the same moment as the mana cost, while the spell is being cast. Once it is on the stack, replicate triggers and puts one copy on top of it for each payment, so the copies resolve before the card you actually cast. By the time that card arrives its copies are already on the battlefield as tokens. Each copy keeps every choice made for the original, including the number chosen for X, and that matters a great deal for three cards further down.

The copies are created, not cast. Anything that counts spells cast sees one spell, and that is the reason Crystalline Entity is in the list. Its wipe only happens if you cast it, so Crystalline Entity bought with two copies resolves as two 7/7 flyers that do nothing on arrival, then the original, which destroys every creature that is not an artifact. Hugh, all three Entities and every artifact creature you control come through it. Organic Extinction is the same wipe as a sorcery, and improvise lets the artifacts on your side pay most of its ten mana.

Everything that triggers when a permanent enters sees every copy, which is why the removal, the ramp and most of the card draw in this list are printed on artifacts. Legendary cards are the one thing to avoid. A copy of a legendary artifact is legendary too and has the same name, so the legend rule leaves you with one of them, and that is why no artifact in the 99 is legendary.

Every copy needs one blue, and the board can pay for it

Each copy costs , so the limit on a big turn is usually blue mana rather than mana in general. The list runs 31 blue sources against 25 white and 24 black, and six cards go further by turning the permanents you already control into payment.

Urza, Lord High Artificer lets you tap any untapped artifact you control for , and that includes an artifact creature that arrived this turn. With Urza out, every copy is a blue mana for the next copy the moment it lands. Chief Engineer gives your artifact spells convoke, and convoke works on the total cost, replicate payments included. Each creature you tap pays one generic mana, and a blue creature can pay a instead. Hugh counts as blue for this, and so does every copy of a blue artifact creature such as Thought Monitor. Convoke can also tap a creature you have only just gained, so the tokens from earlier in the turn are fair game.

Kappa Cannoneer and Thought Monitor do the same thing on their own cost. Improvise lets each artifact you tap pay one generic mana of the Cannoneer's total, and affinity takes one off Thought Monitor's for every artifact you control. Both apply to the replicate payments as well as the printed cost. With eight artifacts out, Thought Monitor and two copies cost together and draw six cards. Borg Cube carries affinity for artifact creatures, so the more Borg and Myr tokens you have, the less the Cube and its copies cost together, and each copy exiles a creature as it enters.

Ambulatory Reactor is the slower version. It gives every artifact creature you control a tap ability for that can only be spent on artifact spells or artifact abilities, and replicate is part of casting the spell, so that mana pays for copies. A tap ability on a creature has to wait out summoning sickness, though, so the copies you make this turn only start paying on your next one.

Gilded Lotus and Command Chair pay for their own copies

A mana rock that enters untapped hands back mana on the turn it arrives, and so do its copies. Gilded Lotus costs five and taps for three of one colour. Cast it with two copies and you pay eleven, then have three Lotuses that make nine straight away, all of it blue if you like. That turn costs two mana in all and leaves you three rocks that can each fund a copy on their own. Thran Dynamo works the same way with colourless mana, which covers the of every copy and never the .

Command Chair is the better one once Hugh is down. Its second ability taps for mana equal to the greatest mana value among commanders you control, and Hugh's is four, so each Chair makes four of one colour. It enters tapped, which means its copies pay off from the following turn, and the four only counts while Hugh is on the battlefield. If he is answered, every Chair falls back to its first ability and makes three. Three Chairs cost twelve together and make twelve every turn after that.

Foundry Inspector is the artifact you want three of

Foundry Inspector and Etherium Sculptor each make artifact spells cost less. A reduction comes off the total cost, replicate included, but each reducer applies once per spell however many copies you buy, and none of them can touch the blue. So the way to get more out of them is to copy the reducers. Foundry Inspector cast with two copies leaves three Inspectors on the table, and with those three out, Wurmcoil Engine and two copies cost instead of . Add Etherium Sculptor and it is , eight mana for three Wurmcoil Engines.

Mana Drain belongs here too. The colourless mana it gives back arrives at the start of your next main phase, which is exactly when artifact spells get cast, and colourless is all the generic half of a copy needs.

The reducers also cut Hugh's own recast. He is an artifact spell when you cast him from the command zone, so they come off his commander tax as well. With three Inspectors out, a second cast of Hugh costs where it would otherwise cost . Jhoira's Familiar does the same job on the budget rung, and it is an artifact creature too, so its copies stack in the same way.

Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker and Astral Cornucopia keep their X

A copy keeps the X chosen for the original, while each copy still costs only . That makes these three the best places in the list to sink a large turn. Walking Ballista with X of 3 costs six, two copies add six more, and twelve mana becomes three Ballistas with three counters each, nine damage to aim wherever you like. Hangarback Walker does the same with Thopters, one for each counter whenever a copy dies. A Thopter is an artifact creature as well, so each one convokes, improvises and taps for Urza like any other token. Astral Cornucopia with X of 3 costs nine, and each copy is a rock that taps for three, costs three and enters untapped, so it pays for itself the turn it arrives.

Trinket Mage finds all three, because a card with X in its cost counts that X as zero everywhere but the stack, so each of them has a mana value of 0 in your library. It can also fetch Sol Ring or Skullclamp.

Walking Ballista is also the way a long game ends. With a couple of Lotuses and Chairs out, fifteen mana is X of 3 with three copies: four Ballistas, twelve damage spread around the table, and each one can still grow for afterwards.

A copied clone picks its own target

Phyrexian Metamorph and Sculpting Steel enter as a copy of something already on the battlefield, and each replicated copy makes that choice by itself as it resolves. Sculpting Steel cast with two copies is three artifacts of your choosing, two more Gilded Lotuses and a Command Chair if those are what you have. Metamorph also copies creatures, so it can be three more Wurmcoil Engines or Myr Battlespheres. Replicator does a slower version every turn. For and a tap it makes a tapped copy of a token you control, and every copy Hugh has made is a token.

Mirrorworks is the one copier that does not stack with him. It triggers only on an artifact that is not a token, so it adds one copy of the card you cast for a generic , needs no blue, and ignores everything Hugh made.

Each copy of Meteor Golem destroys something else

Meteor Golem, Duplicant, Noxious Gearhulk, Interstellar Effigy and Malfunctioning Holodeck each answer something as they enter, and each copy picks its own target. Meteor Golem with two copies costs thirteen and destroys three nonland permanents. Malfunctioning Holodeck is the cheap one at . Each copy exiles a nonland permanent until that copy leaves the battlefield, and each has ward , so an opponent who wants a card back has to remove that particular copy and pay two more mana to aim anything at it.

Torrential Gearhulk has flash, so it and its copies arrive at instant speed, and each one casts a different instant from your graveyard for free. Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell and Mana Drain are the ones worth bringing back. Portal to Phyrexia tops the curve at nine. Cast with one copy, it makes each opponent sacrifice six creatures, and each Portal returns a creature from any graveyard at the start of every one of your upkeeps.

The card draw is printed on artifacts for the same reason

Thought Monitor draws two for itself and two for each copy. Tea, Earl Grey, Hot draws one for itself and one for each copy, at two mana plus three per copy. Reconnaissance Partition enters with two charge counters that each become a basic land or a card. Solemn Simulacrum fetches a land as each copy enters and draws a card as each one dies, and a token still dies, so the copies draw too. Mind's Eye is the one for other players' turns. Each one lets you pay one mana for a card whenever an opponent draws, so Mind's Eye bought with two copies turns every card an opponent draws into as many as three for you, if the mana is there.

Skullclamp is how the small tokens become cards. Every Myr from Myr Battlesphere and every Thopter from Hangarback Walker dies to it and draws two, and Battlesphere bought with one copy is eight Myr.

Padeem covers Hugh, because Hugh is an artifact

The whole plan needs Hugh on the battlefield at the moment you cast, so protecting him is protecting the engine. Padeem, Consul of Innovation gives every artifact you control hexproof, and that covers Hugh along with every copy he has made. It also draws a card each upkeep when you control the artifact with the highest mana value, which with Portal to Phyrexia or Crystalline Entity on the table is rarely in doubt. Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves give him haste on the turn he lands, and Flawless Maneuver costs nothing while you control a commander and makes your creatures indestructible until the end of the turn.

Hugh does not copy himself. His ability only works while he is on the battlefield, and while you cast him he is still on the stack, so the first copies of the game come from the artifact you cast after him. That is the reason the cheap rocks come before him in a normal opening rather than after.

Recursion covers the rest. Overflow Submatrix lets you cast one artifact creature from your graveyard on each of your turns, and because that is a cast, Hugh's replicate applies to it again. The card cast that way gets a finality counter, so it is exiled the next time it would die. Academy Ruins puts an artifact from your graveyard back on top of your library, and Inventors' Fair finds any artifact once you control three.

Thirty one blue sources, and the double blue is still short on turn three

The land count is 34, under the usual range, because thirteen mana rocks sit on top of it and every one of them can be copied. Seven of the twelve basics are Islands. The two tight spots are double pips. Counterspell and Mana Drain want two blue by turn three, which would take 36 sources to be sure of, so with 31 they get there 83.9 per cent of the time. Urza and Torrential Gearhulk ask for the same two blue later, when it is easier to find. Noxious Gearhulk wants a second black by turn six and gets it 84.5 per cent of the time. All of those are cards you can hold for a turn. The blue for each copy is not, which is why the mana base leans so hard towards it.

The core list

Point at any card name and the card appears. Each price is for whichever paper printing of that card costs least today, and the card that appears is that same printing. Hugh is one of the legends in the We Are the Borg Commander deck, and 28 of these 99 come in that box as well: sixteen of the lands, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, the three Talismans, Astral Cornucopia, Ambulatory Reactor, Reconnaissance Partition, Anguished Unmaking, Thirst for Knowledge, Skullclamp and Swiftfoot Boots.

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The budget rung loses Urza, and the bracket 4 rung buys rocks that refund their copies

Both rungs leave the copy plan alone. What moves is how much blue the board can make for you, and how quickly the first big turn arrives.

Going cheaper is fifteen swaps, and it brings the core list down from at least $608 to at least $187. Both Game Changers go. Rhystic Study becomes Ichor Wellspring, which draws a card as it enters and another as it leaves and does both again for each copy, and Smothering Tithe becomes Azorius Signet. Urza, Lord High Artificer becomes Dimir Signet, and that is the real loss on this rung, because Urza was the card that turned every copy into the blue for the next one. Chief Engineer, Kappa Cannoneer, Thought Monitor and Ambulatory Reactor all stay, so the board still covers part of each bill.

Mana Drain and Swan Song become Arcane Denial and Dovin's Veto. Portal to Phyrexia becomes Spine of Ish Sah, whose copies each destroy any permanent you point them at, and Ashnod's Altar becomes Jhoira's Familiar, one more cost reducer worth copying. The other eight swaps are lands. Five of the new ones always enter tapped and the other three fetch a basic that enters tapped, so this rung is slower to set up without being any worse at the thing Hugh does. With no Game Changers left, nothing in it holds the deck above bracket 2.

Going up is ten swaps, to at least $1,098. Ancient Tomb, Mana Vault and Basalt Monolith come in for a Plains, Mind Stone and Hedron Archive, and the two rocks do something extra under Hugh. Each taps for three as soon as it lands, so a copy of either one gives its three mana straight back, colourless rather than blue, and then stays as a rock you pay to untap. Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Enlightened Tutor replace Tezzeret's Gambit, Thirst for Knowledge and Generous Gift, and Enlightened Tutor finds any artifact, which here means most of the deck. Cyclonic Rift replaces Interstellar Effigy, Teferi's Protection replaces Swiftfoot Boots, Fierce Guardianship replaces Swan Song and is free while Hugh is out, and Mystic Remora replaces Master of Etherium.

The One Ring is the add most people would expect, and it stays out because it is legendary. Every copy Hugh made of it would fall to the legend rule the moment it arrived, so it is the one strong artifact that gains nothing from him. That rung carries ten Game Changers, so 4 is where it starts. What the money buys is the first big turn a round earlier, not a different deck.

Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe hold the floor at 3

No other card in the core list appears on the Game Changers list, so with two of them its floor is bracket 3, one below that bracket's limit of three. The list has no extra turns and no mass land denial, and its two tutors, Trinket Mage and Fabricate, can only find artifacts. Its big turns come from paying for copies one spell at a time, and every copy still costs mana.

Read the 3 as the lowest this deck can claim rather than a measurement of it. A commander that turns every artifact into a mana sink is the kind of card that list gets revised to include. If Hugh is added, the core list holds three Game Changers and stays bracket 3 at the limit, and the budget rung, with Hugh as its only one, can no longer be called bracket 2.

FAQ

When is Hugh, First of Many legal in Commander?

Star Trek Commander comes out on 13 November 2026, and he enters the format that day together with the ten other new cards in this list. A deck checker run before then will refuse those eleven and accept the remaining eighty nine, only because the eleven are not out yet. Nothing about the list changes on release day except that answer.

How much does this Hugh, First of Many deck cost?

At least $608 for the core list, at least $187 for the budget rung and at least $1,098 for the bracket 4 rung, with prices as of 27 October 2026. Seven of the new cards, Hugh among them, have no price at all yet, so each figure is a minimum. Four more carry preorder prices, and singles from a new set tend to get cheaper once people open boxes.

Do the copies Hugh makes count as casting a spell?

No. Replicate makes the copies with a trigger when you cast the original, so the copies were never cast. Anything that counts spells cast sees only the original, which is why Crystalline Entity destroys creatures once however many copies you pay for. Anything that triggers when a permanent enters sees every copy, and that is the effect this list is built on.

Can Hugh copy a legendary artifact?

He can, and it gets you very little. A copy of a legendary artifact is legendary and has the same name, so the legend rule makes you keep one and put the rest in the graveyard as soon as they arrive. The only thing that survives is an enter trigger, which has already happened by then. That is why no artifact in the 99 is legendary, and why The One Ring is not on the bracket 4 rung.

Do cost reducers make Hugh's replicate cheaper?

Yes, but only once per spell. Foundry Inspector takes one generic mana off the total cost of an artifact spell, and that total includes every replicate payment, but it applies once however many copies you buy and it can never pay for the blue mana each copy needs. Copying the reducers themselves is how this list gets more out of them. Affinity, improvise and convoke grow with the board instead, because they count what you control.

Can you build Hugh from the We Are the Borg precon?

Hugh comes in that deck, and so do 28 of the 99 cards here, sixteen of them lands. The face of the box is The Borg Queen, so the box is built around her rather than him. Starting from it saves you those 28 cards, and the rest of this list is what turns it into a Hugh deck.

What bracket is a Hugh, First of Many deck?

This core list is bracket 3 at the least. Its two Game Changers are Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe, and the bracket 4 rung adds eight more. Wizards has tagged nothing from the new set as a Game Changer so far, and the list only changes when Wizards updates the brackets. If Hugh were added, the core list would hold three, which is still bracket 3, and the budget rung would have to be called bracket 3 as well.