Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Lazav, Familiar Stranger

Lazav, Familiar Stranger

Legendary Creature — Shapeshifter · {1}{U}{B} · Black/Blue commander

Whenever you commit a crime, put a +1/+1 counter on Lazav. Then you may exile a card from a graveyard. If a creature card was exiled this way, you may have Lazav become a copy of that card until end of turn. This ability triggers only once each turn. (Targeting opponents, anything they control, and/or cards in their graveyards is a crime.)

Build a Lazav, Familiar Stranger deck →

What Lazav, Familiar Stranger 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 · otherWhenever you commit a crime, put a +1/+1 counter on Lazav. Then you may exile a card from a graveyard. If a creature card was exiled this way, you may have Lazav become a copy of that card until end o

What a Lazav, Familiar Stranger deck needs

Plays as copy engine. What the commander asks of the other 99 — read from the card and checked by hand.

• targeted spells and abilities aimed at opponents (each crime is a trigger)
• strong creatures in any graveyard to become (self-mill fills yours)

The Lazav, Familiar Stranger deck plan

The roles the Forge fills for this commander, and how many cards of each.

• 6× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
• 12× Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource
• 11× Put +1/+1 counters on creatures you control, or multiply the ones already there
• 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
• 9× Find the exact card the plan needs
• 2× Answer a spell or ability before it resolves
• 1× Answer a whole board at once
• 7× Refill your hand
• 2× Keep a permanent you control alive through removal

Best cards for Lazav, Familiar Stranger

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.

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