Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Kess, Dissident Mage

Kess, Dissident Mage

Kess, Dissident Mage

Legendary Creature — Human Wizard · {1}{U}{B}{R} · Black/Red/Blue commander

Flying Once during each of your turns, you may cast an instant or sorcery spell from your graveyard. If a spell cast this way would be put into your graveyard, exile it instead.
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What Kess, Dissident Mage actually does

Read off the card by the same engine the Forge and Analyzer use — this is the mechanical classification, not a summary.

What a Kess, Dissident Mage deck wants

The plan the Forge derives for this commander: the roles it fills and how many of each.

Best cards for Kess, Dissident Mage

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.

Instants and sorceries — for a magecraft/prowess commander the spell COUNT is the engine

  1. Pact of Negation0 mana
  2. An Offer You Can't Refuse1 mana
  3. Brainstorm1 mana
  4. Dark Ritual1 mana
  5. Faithless Looting1 mana
  6. Gamble1 mana
  7. Lightning Bolt1 mana
  8. Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire1 mana

Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource

  1. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire0 mana
  2. Stitcher's Supplier1 mana
  3. Altar of Dementia2 mana
  4. Brain Freeze2 mana
  5. Mindcrank2 mana
  6. Ripples of Undeath2 mana
  7. Tibalt's Trickery2 mana
  8. Codex Shredder1 mana

Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it

  1. Reality Shift2 mana
  2. Wild Magic Surge2 mana
  3. Pongify1 mana
  4. Rapid Hybridization1 mana
  5. Resculpt2 mana
  6. Defile1 mana
  7. Tragic Slip1 mana
  8. Suspend1 mana

Answer a whole board at once

  1. Do or Die2 mana
  2. Force of Despair3 mana
  3. Blasphemous Act9 mana
  4. Displacement Wave2 mana
  5. Accursed Marauder2 mana
  6. Bontu's Last Reckoning3 mana
  7. Innocent Blood1 mana
  8. Breaking Point3 mana

Answer a spell or ability before it resolves

  1. Pact of Negation0 mana
  2. Counterspell2 mana
  3. Three Steps Ahead1 mana
  4. Long River's Pull2 mana
  5. Force of Will5 mana
  6. Abjure1 mana
  7. Archmage's Charm3 mana
  8. Cancel3 mana

Find the exact card the plan needs

  1. Entomb1 mana
  2. Demonic Tutor2 mana
  3. Diabolic Intent2 mana
  4. Vampiric Tutor1 mana
  5. Lively Dirge2 mana
  6. Imperial Seal1 mana
  7. Insatiable Avarice1 mana
  8. Diabolic Intent2 mana

Refill your hand

  1. Mystic Remora1 mana
  2. Skullclamp1 mana
  3. Orcish Bowmasters2 mana
  4. Curiosity1 mana
  5. Wizard Class1 mana
  6. Black Market Connections3 mana
  7. Braids, Arisen Nightmare3 mana
  8. Morbid Opportunist3 mana

Keep a permanent you control alive through removal

  1. Hexing Squelcher2 mana
  2. Gleaming Overseer3 mana
  3. Cryptothrall4 mana
  4. Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus4 mana
  5. Lost in the Maze2 mana
  6. Lightning Greaves2 mana
  7. Swiftfoot Boots2 mana
  8. Eldrazi Monument5 mana

Get ahead on mana

  1. Chrome Mox0 mana
  2. Everflowing Chalice0 mana
  3. Mox Amber0 mana
  4. Mox Diamond0 mana
  5. Mox Opal0 mana
  6. Mana Vault1 mana
  7. Sol Ring1 mana
  8. Wayfarer's Bauble1 mana

Build this deck in the Arcane Forge →

Arcane Foundry is free to join and every tool is included: the Arcane Forge deck builder, the ARCANE Analyzer that scores a deck by simulating games rather than counting staples, a card scanner, a collection vault, and live webcam Commander tables. Read the guide · Browse all commanders · Pricing