How to build Vash, Freelance Archaeologist

Vash, Freelance Archaeologist draws once a turn off cards leaving your graveyard, and the turn does not have to be yours. Most of this list exists to pull something out of the yard while another player is taking their turn, three times every round.

Three of every four draws come on a turn you are not taking

Read the limit carefully, because it is generous. The ability triggers only once each turn, and it does not ask whose. Four players means four chances a round, and only one of them is yours.

Your own turn looks after itself. Eternal Witness, Timeless Witness, Daniels, Temporal Agent and Meren of Clan Nel Toth all pull a card out of the graveyard as part of being played, Woe Strider and Polukranos, Unchained escape from it, and Six lets you cast permanent cards out of it by discarding a land. Most of your turns empty a card from the yard without trying. The other three are the ones the deck is built for, and on those only an instant or an activated ability counts. Count those and you have the real number of cards Vash is worth.

A tap symbol covers one opponent's turn, and a mana cost covers all three

Nine permanents in the list can move a card out of your graveyard at instant speed, and the cost line splits them in two. Five are paid in mana. Scavenging Ooze exiles a card for , Keen-Eyed Curator and Withered Wretch for , Tortured Existence trades a creature card in your hand for one in the graveyard for , and Phyrexian Reclamation returns a creature card for and 2 life. None of them taps, so each one works on every turn somebody else takes, as long as the mana is there.

The other four tap. Cybernetic Specialist puts a card on the bottom of your library for , Molt Tender exiles one to make a mana of any colour, Armored Scrapgorger exiles one whenever it becomes tapped, and Deathrite Shaman exiles one for mana, life or a drain depending on the card type. A tapped permanent stays tapped until your own untap step, so each of these is one opponent's turn per round and no more. Three of them on the battlefield cover a whole round, and so does a board with three mana left over.

Two habits follow. Aim the exile effects at your own graveyard, because Ooze, Curator, Wretch, Scrapgorger and Deathrite all say a graveyard and only a card leaving yours draws anything. And do not tap Armored Scrapgorger for mana on your own turn. The exile triggers on any tap, so doing that spends it on the one turn that never needed help.

Each exit costs a card, and the surveil puts back one a round

Every draw the engine makes is paid for out of the graveyard. Ooze and the other exile effects remove the card, Cybernetic Specialist sends it to the bottom of the library, and Reclamation hands it back to you. Vash's own surveil adds a card at most once per round, and only on the rounds you are happy to lose the top of your library. Four exits a round against one card coming in empties the yard fast, so a good part of the list is there to refill it.

Underrealm Lich is the card that settles the arithmetic. With it out, every draw becomes a look at the top three cards with one kept and two put into the graveyard, and that includes every draw Vash gives you. Each exit then refills the yard with a card to spare. Nyx Weaver mills two every upkeep. Syr Konrad, the Grim mills one card from every player for , at instant speed and as many times as your mana allows. Stitcher's Supplier, Satyr Wayfinder, Grisly Salvage, Glowspore Shaman, Eccentric Farmer and Grapple with the Past all bin several cards as they resolve. Tortured Existence is the one exit that needs no fuel at all, because its cost puts a creature card into the graveyard as the effect takes one out.

Dredge is the quiet version. Golgari Grave-Troll and Life from the Loam can replace any draw, the one Vash hands you included, so a turn with nothing better to do can trade that card for six or three cards in the yard and the dredge card back in hand.

Two more cards read like library manipulation and play as recursion. The Unicomplex, when it enters untapped, can take a creature card out of your graveyard and set it on top of your library. That card has left the graveyard, so Vash triggers and you draw it, and the land has quietly returned a creature to your hand. Glowspore Shaman does the same with a land, milling three and then sending a land from the yard to the top, where the trigger collects it. Both only pay off if Vash has not already drawn that turn, so play them before anything else moves.

The second exit in a turn draws nothing, so these cards collect the rest

Once Vash has drawn, the rest of the turn's exits do nothing for her, and on a good turn there are several. The list has two answers. Fang, Fearless l'Cie draws off the same event on the same once a turn terms, at the price of a life each time, and Teval's Judgment gives a fresh choice every time cards leave: a draw, then a Treasure, then a 2/2 Zombie Druid, no mode twice in a turn. With all three out, the first exit of a turn is three cards and the next two are a Treasure and a body.

The rest of the payoffs have no limit. Tormod, the Desecrator makes a tapped 2/2 Zombie whenever cards leave. Desecrated Tomb makes a 1/1 flying Bat, Insidious Roots makes a Plant and grows every Plant you have, Undead Hand Ninja drains each opponent for 1, and Syr Konrad, the Grim deals 1 to each opponent, all four of them whenever creature cards leave. Amzu, Swarm's Hunger adds an Insect once a turn, with counters equal to the highest mana value that left. So when you are choosing what to exile, take a creature card where you can. There are thirty five creatures in the hundred, Vash included, which keeps that choice open on most turns. Insidious Roots also lets every creature token tap for a mana of any colour, which turns last round's Zombies and Bats into mana for this round's exits.

Reassembling Skeleton and Woe Strider are an exit on every turn for two mana

Woe Strider lets you sacrifice another creature for nothing and scry 1. Reassembling Skeleton comes back from the graveyard for . Put them together and on any turn you can sacrifice the Skeleton, return it, and have a card leave your graveyard for nothing but the mana. With the payoffs on the battlefield, that one return draws for Vash, makes a Zombie, a Bat and a Plant, drains each opponent for 1 off the Ninja, and pings each of them twice off Syr Konrad, once for the death and once for the card leaving. It is the cheapest repeatable line in the list and the one to set up first in a long game.

Living Death with Syr Konrad out counts every creature on both sides of the swap

Living Death exiles every creature card from every graveyard, makes each player sacrifice every creature, and then returns the exiled cards to the battlefield. Syr Konrad, the Grim reads two of those steps. Each creature card leaving your graveyard is a point of damage to each opponent, and so is each other creature that dies in the sacrifice, because his own death happens at the same moment and does not stop him seeing theirs. Twelve creature cards in your yard and ten other creatures on the table is twenty two damage to every opponent, off one sorcery.

The cost is real. Every opponent gets their own graveyard back as a battlefield, and Vash goes to the command zone with everything else, so count the other graveyards before you cast it. Bojuka Bog is the small version. It can target your own graveyard, and with Syr Konrad out every creature card it exiles is another point to each opponent.

Rest in Peace switches Vash off, and five cards here can remove it

Graveyard hate cuts both ways for this commander. An opponent's Bojuka Bog pointed at you takes the whole yard in one event, which is one draw, one Zombie, and a point of damage to each opponent per creature card if Syr Konrad is out. It is a cost, but it pays you something back. Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void are a different problem. They exile anything that would go to your graveyard, so nothing arrives there to leave, and even the upkeep surveil sends its card to exile. Rest in Peace clears every graveyard as it enters, and that is the last draw Vash gives you until it is gone.

The core list holds five that remove an enchantment: Assassin's Trophy, Beast Within, Feed the Swarm, Pernicious Deed and Boseiju, Who Endures. In a pod that plays that kind of hate, those are the cards to hold rather than spend on a creature.

Thirty two black sources and thirty green, and only the pairs fall short

Most of the list asks for a single pip of a colour, and those land comfortably: a black source by turn two about ninety six percent of the time, a green one about ninety five. The pairs are where it shows. Withered Wretch and Keen-Eyed Curator want and on turn two or three, Eternal Witness wants on three, and a pair of one colour by turn three comes in at a little over eighty five percent for black and about eighty two for green. Daniels, Temporal Agent looks like a third double on paper, but its hybrid cost takes either colour, so the mana never has to worry about it.

I would rather keep the lands untapped than add more of them. Only three of the thirty six always enter tapped, Underground Mortuary, Golgari Rot Farm and Bojuka Bog, and that matters more in this deck than in most. The engine runs on mana left open through turns you do not take, and a land that arrives tapped on yours is a mana you do not have on the next player's. Twenty of the lands are basics, because Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Farseek, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder and Wood Elves all want something to fetch.

The core list

The list a bracket 3 table should expect, each card costed at the cheapest copy of it you could buy. Hover a card name and the printing that price came from appears.

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The cheap rung keeps all nine exits, and the dear one untaps them

Neither ladder touches the engine. The budget rung sells the lands first: Boseiju, Who Endures, Verdant Catacombs, Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, Underground Mortuary, Overgrown Tomb and Darkbore Pathway are most of what it saves. Then Amzu, Swarm's Hunger, Teval's Judgment, Doom Whisperer, Toxic Deluge, Three Visits and Heroic Intervention go. All nine instant speed exits stay, and so do Fang, Fearless l'Cie, Tormod, the Desecrator, Insidious Roots, Syr Konrad, the Grim and Living Death, which is how the core list's at least $242 becomes at least $77 without changing what the deck does. Skeleton Crew and Defiled Crypt take over from Amzu and the Judgment, each making a body when cards leave, and Gurmag Angler delves, which makes it one more exit the turn it is cast.

What the rung pays is tempo. Seven of its lands always enter tapped instead of three, and every tapped land is mana missing from somebody else's turn. Crux of Fate is a worse sweeper than Toxic Deluge here too, because it takes your board along with everyone else's, where Deluge lets you pick a number your own creatures survive.

The bracket 4 rung buys back the turns the tap symbols lose. Seedborn Muse untaps everything you control during each other player's untap step, so Cybernetic Specialist, Molt Tender, Armored Scrapgorger and Deathrite Shaman stop being one turn a round and work on all three, along with the lands that pay for them. Agatha's Soul Cauldron is a fifth tap exit, and the creature cards it exiles lend their activated abilities to every creature you control with a +1/+1 counter. Exile Withered Wretch or Keen-Eyed Curator with it and every Plant from Insidious Roots can exile a card for . Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor find Living Death or the Muse, Worldly Tutor finds the Muse or any creature in the engine, and Birds of Paradise replaces Wood Elves. Four Game Changers put this rung at bracket 4 and at least $439, and the table it suits is one that expects tutors from everybody.

Three cards that look made for Vash and only work on your own turn

Ramunap Excavator and Crucible of Worlds turn your graveyard into a second hand for lands, and in a deck built on cards leaving the graveyard they read like staples. The catch is when. Lands only get played during your own turns, and those are the turns this list already has a dozen ways to fill. The Holodeck, from the same set as Vash, has the same problem at seven mana: it plays a permanent card from your graveyard once during each of your turns and never on anyone else's. None of the three adds a draw the deck was not already getting.

FAQ

Is Vash, Freelance Archaeologist legal in Commander yet?

She joins the format on 13 November 2026 with the rest of Star Trek, and card databases will turn her away until that morning because the set is unreleased rather than because of any ruling. Cybernetic Specialist, Relentless Drednok, Daniels, Temporal Agent and The Unicomplex become legal the same day, and every other card in all three lists was legal before the set existed.

Does Vash draw a card on my opponents' turns?

Yes. She triggers once in each turn, whoever is taking it, so at a four player table she can draw up to four extra cards a round. The catch is that you need a way to move a card out of your graveyard at instant speed, which is why this list runs Scavenging Ooze, Keen-Eyed Curator, Withered Wretch and six more permanents that can do it while someone else is the active player.

Does casting a card from my graveyard trigger Vash?

Yes. A card cast with escape or retrace moves from your graveyard to the stack as you cast it, so it has left the graveyard and Vash draws before the spell resolves. Woe Strider, Polukranos, Unchained and Cling to Dust all have escape, and Six gives the nonland permanent cards in your graveyard retrace during your turn.

Does Vash draw when an opponent exiles my graveyard?

Yes, once. Exiling a whole graveyard is a single event, so Bojuka Bog pointed at you gives Vash one draw and Tormod, the Desecrator one Zombie. Syr Konrad, the Grim counts card by card, so if he is out each creature card exiled deals 1 damage to every opponent, including the one who played the Bog.

What stops Vash from drawing?

Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void. They exile any card that would go to your graveyard, so nothing is ever there to leave, and even the upkeep surveil sends its card to exile. This list holds five answers to an enchantment like that: Assassin's Trophy, Beast Within, Feed the Swarm, Pernicious Deed and Boseiju, Who Endures.

Can I dredge instead of taking the card Vash draws?

Yes. Dredge replaces any draw, Vash's included, so you can mill six and return Golgari Grave-Troll, or mill three and return Life from the Loam, in place of the card. The dredge card leaving your graveyard does not draw you anything more that turn, because Vash has already triggered.

How much does it cost to build this Vash deck?

Built as listed, the core comes to at least $242 and the budget rung to at least $77, with all nine instant speed exits still in it. Both figures leave out Vash and four other Star Trek cards that have no price yet. Going up to bracket 4 costs at least $439, and three tutors are most of the difference.