Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Honest Rutstein
Honest Rutstein
Legendary Creature — Human Warlock · {1}{B}{G} · Black/Green commander
When Honest Rutstein enters, return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
Creature spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
Build a Honest Rutstein deck →
What Honest Rutstein actually does
Read off the card by the same engine the Forge and Analyzer use — this is the mechanical classification, not a summary.
- Triggered ability · etbWhen Honest Rutstein enters, return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
- Static ability · cost_reductionCreature spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.
What a Honest Rutstein deck needs
Plays as graveyard. What the commander asks of the other 99 — read from the card and checked by hand.
- blink and recursion aimed at the commander itself (its value is its own enter trigger)
- cheap, dense creature spells (it makes them cheaper)
- self-mill, discard and recursion (the graveyard is a resource its text reads)
The Honest Rutstein deck plan
The roles the Forge fills for this commander, and how many cards of each.
- 20× A permanent that does something every turn it is on the battlefield — the deck's body, for a commander whose text asks for nothing specific
- 6× Exile a permanent you control and return it — the button a value-ETB deck presses
- 8× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
- 7× Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource
- 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
- 9× Find the exact card the plan needs
- 1× Answer a whole board at once
- 7× Refill your hand
- 2× Keep a permanent you control alive through removal
Best cards for Honest Rutstein
Ranked by an engine that reads what each card does — its real cost, its delay and how reliably it works — rather than counting how often other people play it.
A permanent that does something every turn it is on the battlefield — the deck's body, for a commander whose text asks for nothing specific
- Crashing Drawbridge2 mana
- Ozolith, the Shattered Spire2 mana
- Bontu's Monument3 mana
- Enduring Vitality3 mana
- Kami of Whispered Hopes3 mana
- Oketra's Monument3 mana
- Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose3 mana
- Assault Formation2 mana
Exile a permanent you control and return it — the button a value-ETB deck presses
- Conjurer's Closet5 mana
- Voyager Staff1 mana
- Golden Argosy4 mana
- Diabolic Servitude4 mana
- Meandering Towershell5 mana
- Eldrazi Confluence4 mana
- Ashnod's Intervention1 mana
A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
- Orcish Bowmasters2 mana
- Eternal Witness3 mana
- Accursed Marauder2 mana
- Solemn Simulacrum4 mana
- Arboreal Grazer1 mana
- Cauldron Familiar1 mana
- Fleshbag Marauder3 mana
- Plaguecrafter3 mana
Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource
- Takenuma, Abandoned Mire0 mana
- Stitcher's Supplier1 mana
- Aftermath Analyst2 mana
- Ripples of Undeath2 mana
- Smuggler's Surprise1 mana
- Six3 mana
- Argoth, Sanctum of Nature0 mana
- Eden, Seat of the Sanctum0 mana
Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
- Assassin's Trophy2 mana
- Defile1 mana
- Tragic Slip1 mana
- Infernal Grasp2 mana
- Fatal Push1 mana
- Beast Within3 mana
- Bitter Triumph2 mana
- Nature's Claim1 mana
Find the exact card the plan needs
- Entomb1 mana
- Demonic Tutor2 mana
- Diabolic Intent2 mana
- Vampiric Tutor1 mana
- Green Sun's Zenith1 mana
- Imperial Seal1 mana
- Demonic Consultation1 mana
- Nature's Rhythm2 mana
Answer a whole board at once
- Toxic Deluge3 mana
- Damnation4 mana
- Bontu's Last Reckoning3 mana
- Sickening Dreams2 mana
- Crypt Rats3 mana
- Extinction Event4 mana
- Vicious Rivalry4 mana
- Endemic Plague4 mana
Refill your hand
- Skullclamp1 mana
- Sylvan Library2 mana
- Black Market Connections3 mana
- Braids, Arisen Nightmare3 mana
- Garruk's Uprising3 mana
- Morbid Opportunist3 mana
- Phyrexian Arena3 mana
- Beast Whisperer4 mana
Keep a permanent you control alive through removal
- Guardian Augmenter3 mana
- Saryth, the Viper's Fang4 mana
- Lightning Greaves2 mana
- Swiftfoot Boots2 mana
- Asceticism5 mana
- Eldrazi Monument5 mana
- Commander's Plate1 mana
- Mithril Coat3 mana
Combos with Honest Rutstein
Known combos from Commander Spellbook that Honest Rutstein is a piece of, and how many decks list them.
- Honest Rutstein + Scrap Trawler + Myr Retriever + Ashnod's Altar102 decks
- Honest Rutstein + Scrap Trawler + Myr Retriever + Krark-Clan Ironworks61 decks
- Honest Rutstein + Oathsworn Vampire + Phyrexian Altar28 decks
- Honest Rutstein + Evolution Witness + Myr Scrapling24 decks
- Honest Rutstein + Morophon, The Boundless + Moritte Of The Frost17 decks
- Honest Rutstein + The Sibsig Ceremony + Myr Retriever + Scrap Trawler12 decks