Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Nine-Fingers Keene

Nine-Fingers Keene

Legendary Creature — Human Rogue · {1}{B}{G}{U} · Black/Green/Blue commander

Menace Ward—Pay 9 life. Whenever Nine-Fingers Keene deals combat damage to a player, look at the top nine cards of your library. You may put a Gate card from among them onto the battlefield. Then if you control nine or more Gates, put the rest into your hand. Otherwise, put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

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What Nine-Fingers Keene 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 · deals_damageWhenever Nine-Fingers Keene deals combat damage to a player, look at the top nine cards of your library. You may put a Gate card from among them onto the battlefield. Then if you control nine or more
• Keyword · menacemenace
• Keyword · wardward
• AbilityWard—Pay 9 life.

What a Nine-Fingers Keene deck needs

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

• Gates (each hit puts one onto the battlefield; nine Gates draws the rest)
• evasion and protection for the commander

The Nine-Fingers Keene deck plan

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

• 12× Make the commander connect — a body that never deals combat damage never triggers
• 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
• 6× Get ahead on mana
• 16× A permanent of the exact NON-creature type the commander counts — artifacts for an artifact commander, enchantments for an enchantress

Best cards for Nine-Fingers Keene

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