Modeling Deck Outcomes with The Indomitable in MTG

Modeling Deck Outcomes with The Indomitable in MTG

In TCG ·

The Indomitable card art from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander

Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

Modeling Deck Outcomes: A Quantitative Look at The Indomitable

Blue has always loved the long game, and The Indomitable hands you a powerful, probabilistic lever to pull: draw power every time your creatures land a hit on a player. This legendary artifact—an oddball in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander—arrives as a 6/6 vehicle for {2}{U}{U} with trample, crew 3, and a highly twistable graveyard-recast clause. It’s not just a big body; it’s a miniature card-advantage engine that scales with your board and your opponents’ choices. If you enjoy crunching the numbers as much as you enjoy casting spells, this card rewards your curiosity with real, measurable deck outcomes. 🧙‍♂️🔥💎

To model deck outcomes with The Indomitable, start with a simple premise: for each creature you control, if its combat damage to a player counts as a draw trigger, you accumulate card advantage. The creature’s power, your board state, and the distribution of damage across players all matter. In a four-player game, imagine you swing with several creatures, some with trample, some with evasion, and your damaged-on-player damage pings across the table. Every time any creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you draw one card. That means the practical value of The Indomitable grows with both your creature count and how aggressively you push damage to players. 🧩🎲

Simple scenarios to anchor intuition

  • Single-Player-Targeted Burst: You attack with five creatures, all unblocked against one opponent. If all five deal damage to that player, you draw five cards in that combat step. That moment of clarity is where the math meets momentum—the turn feels like it accelerates as your hand refills with answers. ⚔️
  • Multi-Player Spread: In a four-player game, you swing with six creatures, and damage is distributed among two or more players. Each creature that lands damage to any player contributes a draw. Even if one player blocks, the others may still take damage, yielding several draws across the same combat. The more players you reach, the greater the potential card draw ceiling each combat can offer. 🧠
  • Blockers and Opponent Lightning: If a few of your creatures are blocked and the rest swing through, you still trigger draws for the damage that actually hits players. The Indomitable rewards crowding the board with resilient attackers and blue’s permission-based control.

These basic cases illustrate a core principle: The Indomitable converts combat damage into card advantage in a very direct way, but the ceiling is a function of your board presence and the combat math you’re willing to chase. When you model outcomes turn by turn, you’ll often compute expected draws as the sum over attacking creatures of the probability that creature’s damage actually reaches a player, multiplied by the number of players involved. In practice, you’ll see bursts of value when you’ve built a deck that encourages multiple attackers and leverages trample to push damage through a protective line. 🧙‍♂️🎨

Deck-building patterns that maximize the math

To turn The Indomitable into a reliable engine, you’ll want to pair it with two core themes: powerful, blue-centric card advantage and a push toward Pirates and/or Vehicles that you can tap to trigger your own graveyard recursion. The Indomitable’s errand-boy-into-an-answer loop—“draws now, perhaps recast later”—is especially potent when you can simultaneously build pressure and sustain the engine. A few structural ideas:

  • Creature density with trample-friendly power: Since damage to players triggers the draw, a board full of creatures with enough power to threaten players consistently pays dividends. Cards that grant trample or boost power help ensure your attacks punch through defenses and maximize draws. 🔥
  • Tap-synergy with Pirates and Vehicles: The graveyard recast clause shines when you can reliably meet “three or more tapped Pirates and/or Vehicles.” Include sources of Pirate and Vehicle permanents that you can tap on your opponent’s turns or during your own to set up the threshold for recasting The Indomitable later in the game. 🎲
  • Graveyard recursion and value engines: Blue’s familiar toolkit—reanimation, value-drawing, and looting—pairs nicely with The Indomitable’s gravity toward continual card flow. Building a loop where you recast The Indomitable from your graveyard while still deploying new threats helps you press through incremental card advantage. 💎
  • Protection and tempo play: Given theGuardians of Ixalan vibes, include counter-magic and bounce effects to protect your commander on the way to the punchline: a long-term buildup that spits out cards as you swing for game plans. 🧙‍♂️

From a meta perspective, The Indomitable isn’t just a raw beater; it’s a probabilistic editor for your game plan. It asks: how often can I ensure a meaningful chunk of damage goes to players across turns, and how often can I leverage graveyard recasts to keep tempo? In practice, you’ll see spikes in card draw when you sequence attacks with incremental pressure, and you’ll notice dips when blockers stall your lines. The balance you strike—board presence vs. protection vs. recursion—will determine how consistently you model your deck’s outcomes across sessions. 🎲⚔️

Flavor, design, and collector moments

On a flavor level, The Indomitable embodies Ixalan’s theme of untamed exploration and the artifacts-as-vehicles motif that bridges equipment and ancient engineering. Its art by Samuel Perin and its status as a rare in a legendary-vehicle design tell a story about power that doesn’t purely rely on raw stats. The ability to cast it from the graveyard as long as you control three or more tapped Pirates and/or Vehicles is a clever nod to resilient, synergy-driven decks that enjoy resilience and salvageable value. Collectors and players who enjoy the tactile feel of upgrade paths will recognize the joy of building around this card’s unique recursion trigger. 🎨🧩

Whether you’re crunching probabilities at the kitchen table or drafting a data-driven strategy for your next Commander night, The Indomitable invites you to think about how many draws you can squeeze out of a single combat. It’s not just a big beater; it’s a doorway to consistent value, a test of timing, and a playful reminder that blue isn’t just about permission—it’s about turning damage into decision points you can measure and optimize. 🧙‍♂️💎

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The Indomitable

The Indomitable

{2}{U}{U}
Legendary Artifact — Vehicle

Trample

Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.

Crew 3

You may cast this card from your graveyard as long as you control three or more tapped Pirates and/or Vehicles.

ID: e6456329-b521-474b-bfb5-bfcd7e52b5f8

Oracle ID: 276dc5c8-c8cf-4b9c-ad75-31876e6e040a

Multiverse IDs: 640035

TCGPlayer ID: 526205

Cardmarket ID: 743452

Colors: U

Color Identity: U

Keywords: Crew, Trample

Rarity: Rare

Released: 2023-11-17

Artist: Samuel Perin

Frame: 2015

Border: black

EDHRec Rank: 2046

Set: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander (lcc)

Collector #: 75

Legalities

  • Standard — not_legal
  • Future — not_legal
  • Historic — not_legal
  • Timeless — not_legal
  • Gladiator — not_legal
  • Pioneer — not_legal
  • Modern — not_legal
  • Legacy — legal
  • Pauper — not_legal
  • Vintage — legal
  • Penny — not_legal
  • Commander — legal
  • Oathbreaker — legal
  • Standardbrawl — not_legal
  • Brawl — not_legal
  • Alchemy — not_legal
  • Paupercommander — not_legal
  • Duel — legal
  • Oldschool — not_legal
  • Premodern — not_legal
  • Predh — not_legal

Prices

  • USD: 0.82
  • EUR: 2.36
  • TIX: 0.62
Last updated: 2025-11-16