Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Sophia, Dogged Detective

Sophia, Dogged Detective

Legendary Creature — Human Detective · {1}{G}{W}{U} · Green/Blue/White commander

When Sophia enters, create Tiny, a legendary 2/2 green Dog Detective creature token with trample. {1}, Sacrifice an artifact token: Put a +1/+1 counter on each Dog you control. Whenever a Dog you control deals combat damage to a player, create a Food token, then investigate.

Build a Sophia, Dogged Detective deck →

What Sophia, Dogged Detective 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 Sophia enters, create Tiny, a legendary 2/2 green Dog Detective creature token with trample.
• Activated ability{1}, Sacrifice an artifact token: Put a +1/+1 counter on each Dog you control.
• Triggered ability · deals_damageWhenever a Dog you control deals combat damage to a player, create a Food token, then investigate.

What a Sophia, Dogged Detective deck needs

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

• artifacts (its text counts them)
• cheap artifacts, Treasures and tokens to sacrifice (the commander's outlet eats artifacts, not creatures)
• artifact and Treasure payoffs (it makes Treasures, Clues or Food on repeat)
• blink and recursion aimed at the commander itself (its value is its own enter trigger)
• +1/+1 counter producers and payoffs (its text places or reads +1/+1 counters)
• dog creatures (its text counts them)
• many cheap evasive attackers and team evasion (every creature that connects triggers it)

The Sophia, Dogged Detective deck plan

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

• 10× A 0-1 mana creature that reliably attacks UNBLOCKED — the cost the commander's ability consumes, and the only way it gets onto the battlefield
• 6× Exile a permanent you control and return it — the button a value-ETB deck presses
• 26× A body of the exact type the commander's trigger requires — the wrong type is worthless here regardless of quality
• 22× A permanent of the exact NON-creature type the commander counts — artifacts for an artifact commander, enchantments for an enchantress
• 8× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
• 14× 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

Best cards for Sophia, Dogged Detective

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.

Combos with Sophia, Dogged Detective

Known combos from Commander Spellbook that Sophia, Dogged Detective is a piece of, and how many decks list them.

• Sophia, Dogged Detective + Lonis, Genetics Expert + Basking Broodscale + Maskwood Nexus17 decks
• Sophia, Dogged Detective + Lonis, Genetics Expert + Basking Broodscale + Leyline Of Transformation6 decks
• Sophia, Dogged Detective + Lonis, Genetics Expert + Cryptic Trilobite + Maskwood Nexus4 decks
• Sophia, Dogged Detective + Lonis, Genetics Expert + Basking Broodscale + Arcane Adaptation4 decks
• Sophia, Dogged Detective + Lonis, Genetics Expert + Cryptic Trilobite + Leyline Of Transformation2 decks
• Sophia, Dogged Detective + Lonis, Genetics Expert + Cryptic Trilobite + Xenograft1 decks

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