Tam, the Possibility EDH Deck Guide: Bracket 2, 3 and 4 Builds

Tam, the Possibility is a three-mana Gorgon with a five-colour identity and one idea: planeswalkers cost less to cast, and for and a tap, Tam proliferates X times, where X is the number of planeswalker types among the planeswalkers you control. We built three superfriends lists on that text, to the Bracket 2, 3 and 4 rules, and they share about seventy cards. What separates them is the mana base, the number of Teferis, and how many cards from the Game Changers list you're willing to shuffle up.

If you want the whole field of new legends before you commit to one, start with the best new commanders in Reality Fracture. This guide assumes you've picked the Gorgon. One card from these lists has a guide of its own: Jace, Multiverse Architect is in all three builds, and our three-build Jace guide covers the polymorph deck he leads from the command zone.

Superfriends is a deck built around planeswalkers instead of creatures, and Tam's two abilities are the two halves of the plan. The discount gets walkers down a turn early. The activation makes them bigger than they should be, because proliferate (add one more of each kind of counter a permanent already has) runs once per planeswalker type, not once per planeswalker. Three Chandras count once; Ajani, Chandra, Jace, Teferi and Vraska count five times, and every build spreads its walkers across more than a dozen types for exactly that reason.

The multipliers are the same in all three. Doubling Season doubles each counter a proliferate puts on your permanents, so a five-type board gains ten loyalty per walker from one Tam activation, and it doubles the loyalty a walker enters with, which is how Ugin, the Spirit Dragon lands at 14 and ultimates (fires its biggest loyalty ability) on the spot. Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion adds one more counter to every instance, Oath of Teferi lets each walker activate twice a turn, and Ichormoon Gauntlet gives every walker a 0 that proliferates and a −12 that takes an extra turn. Ripples of Potential is the best defensive card in the shell: it proliferates, then phases out your walkers in response to the board wipe.

The activation needs all five colours every time, which is why these lists run Bloom Tender, Chromatic Lantern, Birds of Paradise and Wrenn and Realmbreaker rather than another walker. Bloom Tender is the quiet star: with Tam plus a white, a black and a red walker on the battlefield, it taps for on its own.

At a four-player table, Tam is the target, not the walkers. A 2/4 that promises ten loyalty to five planeswalkers every turn eats removal the turn after it first untaps, and Spark Double in the Bracket 2 and 3 lists exists for that: it copies Tam without the legend rule, so you get two activations a turn and a second body for the second removal spell. Combat is the other three-opponent problem, and the shell answers it with bodies and taxes rather than counterspells: Elspeth, Sun's Champion's Soldiers, Ajani Unrelenting's Cadets, The Theorist, Jace Beleren's Illusions, and Jace, Multiverse Architect's toll on anyone who wants to swing at a Jace.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage and The Chain Veil are in every one of these decks. Commander Spellbook lists the pair as a two-card combo for infinite mana, cards and loyalty activations, but the listed line has Teferi in the command zone. In a Tam deck, the pair on its own is a finite number of untaps: each of Teferi's −1 activations costs him a loyalty, and the Veil's next activation costs . What makes it infinite is a third card, and every one of these lists has one.

Carth the Lion is in all three builds, and Carth makes every loyalty ability you activate cost one more loyalty in the walker's favour, so Teferi's −1 becomes a 0. Now the loop is free: activate the Veil for , Teferi untaps the Veil, Sol Ring and two lands, activate the Veil again, repeat. Each Veil activation lets every planeswalker you control use one more loyalty ability this turn, so unlimited Veil activations means unlimited activations for every walker on your side, and under Carth every +1 is a +2. Every ultimate is live: Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God's −8 makes each opponent without a legendary creature or planeswalker lose the game, and Way of the Pyromancer gives every walker a +1 that adds if you want infinite mana on the way. Three cards, so it sits outside the two-card rule, but it ends the game the turn it comes together.

The Bracket 2 list has a second route. Way of the Paradox gains you a life whenever you activate a loyalty ability, and Way of the Mentor puts a loyalty counter on each planeswalker you control whenever you gain life, so the same Teferi loop is loyalty-neutral without Carth, and every other walker climbs while it runs.

Say this before the game. The Bracket 2 rules bar two-card infinite combos and the Bracket 3 rules allow them, and whether a Teferi-plus-Veil flag belongs on a deck that isn't led by Teferi is a fair question for your pod, so paste the list into the combo finder and let the table see what it says. If the answer is no, the fix is one card: cut Teferi, Temporal Archmage, keep the Veil for its honest job of one extra activation per walker per turn, and nothing else in the list moves.

The Bracket 2 list is the set on display: 27 new Reality Fracture cards counting the commander, plus Jace, Multiverse Architect from the Commander deck and the set's printing of Chandra, Torch of Defiance. It runs 22 planeswalkers over 36 lands with zero cards from the Game Changers list (the official roster of cards that push a deck up a bracket), zero counterspells and no fetch lands, and it's the only one of the three with a win condition that isn't a loyalty ultimate.

That win condition is Jace, Reality Sculptor, whose 0 exiles all but the bottom card of each opponent's library once you have 25 or more loyalty counters across the Jaces you control. Empower Jace puts loyalty counters on a Jace planeswalker token, creating one if you have none, and the list is built to feed it: Jace's Machinations empowers for 8 at instant speed, Overwrite the Multiverse exiles every creature and empowers for the number it removed, and all five Way enchantments empower on entering, Way of the Mind Sculptor for 5. Doubling Season doubles every one of those numbers. Your other Jaces count too: with Doubling Season out, Reality Sculptor, The Theorist and Multiverse Architect enter with 24 loyalty between them, and Tam's next activation is the rest. Our Reality Fracture mechanics explainer has the full rules for the token.

The pod-level catch is that the 0 doesn't win on the spot. It leaves each opponent one card, so they draw it, then lose on the draw step after that, and you've just told three players exactly how long the clock is. Tomik, Orzhov Lawmage (no more than one creature can attack each of your walkers per combat) and Sanctum Lurker (your walkers survive at 0 loyalty, and each gains a +2 that pings every opponent) are the two turns of survival the plan needs.

The mana base is the honest cost of the showcase. Nine of the 36 lands are the set's Commons and Annex duals, which enter tapped unless you control a planeswalker: tapped on turns one through three, untapped for the rest of the game. Fewer than half the lands make blue, the deck's heaviest colour, so Bloom Tender, Chromatic Lantern, Fellwar Stone and Oath of Nissa (planeswalker spells castable with mana of any colour) carry the early turns. Geist of Saint Thalia makes noncreature spells cost less, and with Tam that's a four-mana walker for two.

Twenty-one swaps separate the Bracket 3 list from Bracket 2, and most of them are lands. Eight fetch lands (lands you sacrifice to find a dual), three triomes, City of Brass and Plaza of Heroes replace the nine Commons and Annex duals, The World Tree and two Islands, which takes the deck to roughly twenty sources of every colour and nothing that enters tapped because you don't have a walker yet. Plaza of Heroes taps for any colour among your legendary permanents, and in a deck where the commander and 22 walkers are legendary, it's a rainbow land that pays for Tam's activation.

The Jace mill package leaves, Reality Sculptor, Machinations, Way of the Mentor and Way of the Mind Sculptor together, along with Kasmina, Enigma Sage, Saheeli, Sublime Artificer, Narset of the Ancient Way, Geist and Tomik. In their place: a Teferi suite and a doubler. Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus makes you proliferate twice instead of once, which turns Tam's five-type activation into ten proliferates, or twenty loyalty per walker under Doubling Season. Teferi, Time Raveler holds the table to sorcery speed, so nobody answers a Veil loop or a Tam activation with an instant. Teferi, Master of Time activates on any player's turn and takes two extra turns at −10, which a Carth loop can repeat; the Bracket 3 rules frown on looped extra turns, and in practice the loop has won before you'd take one, so say so at the table. The Eternal Wanderer limits each combat to one attacker against you and your walkers, Tomik's job scaled up to the whole board.

The support sharpens too. Oath of Ajani is a second planeswalker discount, so with Tam out a walker costs less. Delighted Halfling makes any legendary spell it pays for uncounterable, and every walker is legendary. Counterspell is the first counter in the deck. The one Game Changer is Narset, Parter of Veils, who holds three opponents to one draw a turn while The Theorist draws you a card on each of their draw steps. That leaves two of Bracket 3's three Game Changer slots open, and if you want to spend them, Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe from the Bracket 4 list are the two that change the least about how the deck plays.

The Bracket 4 list is thirteen swaps from Bracket 3 and carries nine Game Changers: Narset stays, and Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe, Fierce Guardianship, Teferi's Protection and Cyclonic Rift come in, three times the Bracket 3 allowance on the card list alone. Mox Amber, Mana Confluence, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider and two more fetch lands fill the other slots. Out go Counterspell, Brokers Ascendancy, Mutational Advantage, Spark Double, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, Overwrite the Multiverse, The Eternal Wanderer, Way of the Necromancer, two triomes and three basics, for 35 lands, 20 walkers and the lowest curve of the three.

The tutors change what the combo is. Enlightened Tutor finds Doubling Season, The Chain Veil, Oath of Teferi or Ichormoon Gauntlet, and Demonic or Vampiric finds Carth or Teferi, so the three-card loop stops being a coincidence and becomes a plan with a turn number on it. Vorinclex doubles every counter you place and halves the ones your opponents place, and next to Doubling Season a walker enters with four times its printed loyalty: Ugin at 28, Elspeth at 16. Mox Amber taps for any colour among your legendary creatures and planeswalkers, which in this deck means a free rock from the moment Tam lands.

The free spells are what the shell was missing. Fierce Guardianship counters a noncreature spell for nothing while Tam is on the battlefield, which protects the activation and the loop alike. Teferi's Protection phases out your whole board, walkers included, through the one board wipe that would otherwise undo the game. Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe are taxes three opponents pay for you, and Cyclonic Rift at the end of the last opponent's turn is still the cleanest way to send a Soldier army into an empty board.

This is a high-power table deck, not a cEDH list. One free counter, no fast mana beyond Sol Ring and the Mox, and a win that is still a planeswalker ultimate or a Veil loop that needs Tam on the battlefield, which three cEDH players won't allow.

Bracket 2 if your table runs upgraded precons and you want to show them the set. The Jace mill plan is slow, telegraphed and nothing like what the other three decks are doing, which is the fun of it; have the Teferi conversation first. Bracket 3 if your pod already plays fetch lands and a Game Changer or two, because Tekuthal and the Time Raveler are the two cards that make this deck feel like it's accelerating. Bracket 4 if the pod plays Rhystic Study and free counters, because this version does too, and the tutors mean the loop arrives on your schedule rather than the deck's.

Whichever you pick, the thing to know about superfriends at a four-player table is that the walkers are usually fine and the Gorgon usually isn't. Twenty planeswalkers is a lot of attack targets, but between the Soldiers, the Cadets, the Illusions and Jace's toll, combat is the least of it. Removal on Tam is the whole game, and at three mana plus tax, recasting is cheap enough that you should plan on doing it twice.

Build your own version and run the list through our deck audit before you pick a table, because a superfriends list jumps a bracket the moment the Game Changers go in. Then record the games: a deck whose best turn is a ten-loyalty proliferate has a win rate that depends on whether Tam survives, and counting the games is the only way to learn how often that happens. Every card in the set is on the Reality Fracture set page, the main-set cards we rate for the 99 are in our best Reality Fracture cards for your 99, and if deck guides built from audited lists are your kind of reading, our Beorn the Fierce guide takes one Bracket 2 list to the table and prices the upgrade.