Tuesday Night Takeover
Obeka, Splitter of Seconds
EDH June 2, 2026

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds Extra Upkeeps

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Commander Overview

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds is a very interesting commander from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. At the same time, her ability may seem underwhelming upon first read. When you realize how many strong cards care about upkeep triggers, you realize the true power of Obeka: the ability to take advantage of suspend cards like Ancestral Visions or monarch-focused cards like Court of Vantress, which can be crazy when you have multiple upkeeps. Obeka also has a great color pairing in Grixis, where we can play cards like Aqueous Form or Security Bypass, guaranteeing a hit and letting us get all our extra upkeeps. Obeka is a deck that is certainly slower-rolling than most, but if given time to set up, it can devastate our opponents and truly control the board. Obeka’s menace is wonderful against decks with low creature counts, since we can guarantee hits. Obeka is a fun card that interacts super well with a ton of great cards in the format and focuses on a phase of the game that typically isn’t highlighted. It not only provides the fun of Grixis but is quite different than most decks in the format.


Command Zone

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds

Legendary Creature — Ogre Warlock
$404.18

Creature 20

1 Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos $0.41
1 Baleful Strix $2.52
1 Blood Tyrant $0.33
1 Chronozoa $8.68
1 Creeping Bloodsucker $4.91
1 Dragonmaster Outcast $0.40
1 Indulgent Tormentor $0.57
1 Jhoira of the Ghitu $0.55
1 Keeper of Keys $3.76
1 Magmatic Force $0.45
1 Nightscape Familiar $0.38
1 Plargg and Nassari $0.36
1 Shaun, Father of Synths $0.32
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One $23.40
1 Silent Arbiter $13.38
1 Sin Prodder $0.39
1 Solemn Simulacrum $0.28
1 Star Whale $0.89
1 Thassa, God of the Sea $3.48
1 Twilight Prophet $3.20

Instant 11

1 Aetherize $0.35
1 An Offer You Can't Refuse $2.19
1 Chaos Warp $0.31
1 Counterspell $3.80
1 Pongify $1.91
1 Rapid Hybridization $0.59
1 Reverse the Polarity $0.43
1 Suspended Sentence $0.68
1 Swan Song $8.38
1 Terminate $0.34
1 Untimely Malfunction $7.38

Sorcery 8

1 Ancestral Vision $0.34
1 Artful Dodge $0.54
1 Blasphemous Act $0.89
1 Damnation $20.88
1 Enter the Enigma $0.28
1 Inevitable Betrayal $1.47
1 Profane Tutor $4.77
1 Toxic Deluge $4.96

Artifact 11

1 Arcane Signet $0.46
1 Blackblade Reforged $3.65
1 Brotherhood Regalia $7.70
1 Darksteel Reactor $0.33
1 Dragonfire Blade $1.22
1 Genji Glove $5.27
1 Ring of Evos Isle $0.47
1 Ring of Valkas $0.39
1 Ring of Xathrid $0.62
1 Sol Ring $1.15
1 Swiftfoot Boots $2.71

Enchantment 14

1 Aether Tunnel $0.93
1 Aqueous Form $0.39
1 As Foretold $1.50
1 Braid of Fire $24.78
1 Court of Ambition $6.08
1 Court of Embereth $5.66
1 Court of Ire $0.36
1 Court of Vantress $5.80
1 Extravagant Replication $0.34
1 Mechanized Production $3.22
1 Palace Siege $1.03
1 Propaganda $3.54
1 Security Bypass $0.29
1 Subversion $2.41

Land 35

1 Blood Crypt $10.46
1 Command Tower $0.36
1 Exotic Orchard $0.30
9 Island
1 Luxury Suite $28.63
1 Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress $18.89
1 Morphic Pool $30.95
7 Mountain $2.00
1 Polluted Delta $19.72
1 Reliquary Tower $3.01
1 Steam Vents $12.23
7 Swamp $2.00
1 Training Center $16.56
1 Watery Grave $12.02
1 Xander's Lounge $13.30

Tokens Used 6

Ape
Bird
Copy
Dragon
Frog Lizard
Treasure

EDH BRACKET

1
Exhibition
2
Core
3
Upgraded
4
Optimized
5
cEDH
Bracket 2 // Core

The average current preconstructed deck.

  • No Mass Land Denial
  • No Chaining Extra Turns
  • No 2-Card Infinite Combos
  • No Game Changers
  • Few Tutors

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck is very similar to a Voltron style: play out our support cards, including Ring of Valkas and Ring of Xathrid, and start swinging with Obeka. Since Obeka is not a huge Voltron commander and not a card with all the protections in the world, we often pick and choose our battles. We don’t need to use her every time, but if we can take advantage, especially in the earlier turns when the menace matters a lot, we will absolutely take it. The whole game plan is to get out cards that affect all of our upkeeps, like As Foretold or Braid of Fire, and use Obeka.

Synergy’s in the deck

The whole deck is synergized around Obeka and getting additional upkeeps. It’s the main reason we are running cards like Court of Ambition, Court of Embereth, and Court of Ire. Which all benefit heavily from us getting extra upkeeps. We can also use all of these cards to end games quickly. We also have strong synergies with some suspend cards like Ancestral Visions and Chronozoa. Chronozoa is a super-repeatable piece of value in this deck, allowing us to build an awesome army of attackers and blockers.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Just like for most decks, we spend the early-game establishing, we aren’t in a huge rush to get out Obeka, but we want to get out some helpful support pieces like Ring of Valkas or Creeping Bloodsucker, and then once we get Obeka out, we do our best to identify the weakest opponent, typically one that only has one creature so we can hit them and get two extra upkeeps. By the time we get out of Obeka, we should have at least some upkeep synergies, so hitting an opponent early is a great way to start the party.

Mid-Game: The mid-game is where we start getting a lot better. Obeka is usually bigger and better by this point, and we have more permanents we can get value from when we do trigger Obeka. It does become a bit harder to trigger Obeka as opponents’ boards get larger, but we are perfectly ok with taking the game long.

Late-Game: The late-game is when we either heavily rely on Obeka and the benefits of the extra upkeeps, or switch to a much more beatdown gameplan with cards like Blood Tyrant or Magmatic Force.

Not only are these great attackers for our deck, but we can easily abuse their upkeep triggers. While not strictly combat damage, we can do a ton of work with Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos, and we can be in a great position where we constantly buff them and then give them to our opponents to swing amongst themselves. No matter which direction we go, we do our best to stay as low-profile as possible in the late game. Letting our opponents hurt each other as we lie in the dark, waiting to snag a big win.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We are not a ramp-focused deck at all; the closest we have is Arcane Signet and Sol Ring.

We aren’t a deck that tries to ramp a lot, we are perfectly ok with playing our land drops every turn and just going slow. We would much rather spend our early turns setting up some of our later-game support cards like Ancestral Vision or As Foretold, so when we get to Obeka and can start getting additional upkeeps, we can easily get a ton of value.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We have some good pieces of cheap card draw like Baleful Strix, but mostly have card advantage in this deck, being able to utilize Obeka with suspend cards like Ancestral Visions can allow us to win the tempo game and ensure we always have a full hand. Inevitable Betrayal is another awesome piece of card advantage that lets us steal our opponents’ best creature very quickly, a good combination of card advantage for us and denial for them. While not super consistent, we do have a bunch of cards that give us the monarch, which not only fits our overall game plan perfectly but also gives us card draw at the end of our turn. It’s not amazing, but we will certainly take it. We aren’t a deck with a million cards in hand, and we can easily make do with what we have.

Removal

Being in Grixis allows us to play the best removal in the format, and we are very good at controlling our opponents’ board. Since we are a deck that is perfectly ok with going slow, we have cards like Damnation and Blasphemous Act as great ways to set our opponents back if we fall behind and start to get outpaced. We also have Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Chaos Warp as good forms of single-target removal to deal with opponents’ biggest threats, or, more often, their commanders. We are in Grixis, but aren’t super counter-focused, but do have some options like An Offer You Can't Refuse and Reverse the Polarity. We certainly aren’t a control deck, but we have ways to deal with our opponents’ biggest threats.

Protection

Our counterspells are the main form of protection in the deck, and for the most part, we use them to keep Obeka on the board. Cards like Dragonfire Blade can shut down a lot of decks, and the extra buff is really nice as well. I also get a lot of great use out of Ring of Evos Isle and Ring of Xathrid, which let us protect Obeka cheaply and easily. Since Obeka is the main driving force behind making our deck work, we do our absolute best to protect them as much as we can.

Utility / Support

Let’s highlight some of my favorite cards in the deck! Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos is a busted card that synergizes very well with our overall game plan. Nothing felt better in my testing games than playing Alexios, buffing them up with our extra upkeeps, passing them back to our opponents, and letting the chaos reign. Inevitable Betrayal is another card that gave us a ton of great value in this deck. While in most decks it’s just a slow card, in this deck, it comes off suspend really quickly and allows you to steal the best of the best your opponents have to offer. In my testing games, I stole a Blightsteel Colossus and a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, which easily swung the game in my favor and allowed me to win pretty handily. Obeka is almost always a huge target that our opponents want to kill, but luckily for us, we have ways to make them unblockable, so they don’t even have the option of dying through combat damage. Cards like Security Bypass, Aether Tunnel, and Aqueous Form are all cheap and easy ways to guarantee we get as many extra upkeeps as we can. These are all true bombs in the deck and can easily swing the momentum in our favor.

Mana Base

We have a very consistent Grixis mana base, full of triomes, shocks, fetches, and bond lands, which allow us to get our colors established quickly so we can get out Obeka as soon as we can. The only non-basic that is not for color fixing is Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress, which is a great way to give Obeka Pseudo-Unblockable if we don’t have any of the other unblockable options available to us. Minas Morgul has been great in every game I have had to use it in. After testing a bunch, I found that our manabase is consistent and we can easily get our colors established.

Win Conditions

We have many ways to close out games, whether it be combat or non-combat damage, or a combination of both; we can end games pretty easily. We are certainly not an aggressive deck and do take some time to get kills, but can also pull off kills quicker depending on the game. If we have something like Court of Ire and can take a bunch of extra upkeeps quickly and blast an opponent for seven, we can end their game quite quickly. On the creature side, cards like Chronozoa and Blood Tyrant can allow us to go wide and get big quickly and beat down our opponents with ease. We often use combinations of both combat and non-combat damage, but we have multiple ways to end games.

Strengths of the Deck

We are great against midrange creature-focused decks, as if they get too out of hand, we have multiple board wipe ways to deal with them.

Even though we are often lowkey throughout the game and not doing a ton of things, we can pull off sneaky wins easily, especially in the late-game, with some of our monarch-focused upkeep triggering cards.

Weaknesses of the Deck

We can take a ton of early-game damage from more aggressive decks. This can be rough when we get to the late-game and have lower health, which can enable opponents to one-shot us.

Without Obeka, our deck is a lot less explosive. They are a necessary card and one that gives the deck its punch.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Matchup Record: 3-1

Outside of a game where they were really aggressive, I didn’t have much trouble in this matchup. Stick to the typical game plan and outpace them as much as we can. It can be a little tough with all of the drain and gain, but if you and your opponents focus them and avoid cards like Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact, it’s pretty much all good.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos, Keeper of Keys and Aqueous Form.

Game 2: Vs Kirol, Attentive First-Year. Matchup Record: 2-3

A winnable but tough matchup for the deck; Token decks that go super wide tend to hit our commander hard, since the menace is quite a bit harder to remain relevant. We also don’t have enough creatures to deal with their huge go-wide token onslaught. If we are able to deal with our board, get a lot of value out of cards like Blasphemous Act or Damnation, and functionally reset the game, we often come out much better. Always watch for a big buff, their commander, and a huge attack.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Blasphemous Act, Toxic Deluge and Nightscape Familiar.

Game 3: Vs Oviya, Automech Artisan. Matchup Record: 3-2

A decent matchup for our deck. If we are able to keep Oviya off the field, they really won’t do much, and if we pressure them early with Obeka, we can easily pressure them way more than they can handle, and we will have no troubles.

Sadly if we let Oviya resolve and we don’t stop them they can drop some creatures that are terrible for us like Ulamog, The Ceaseless Hunger or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth which can be very hard for us to deal with. Still, if they do stumble getting to use cards like Inevitable Betrayal it can be a huge momentum swing for us.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Brotherhood Regalia, Blood Tyrant and Baleful Strix.

Conclusion

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds is a very fun commander and was an absolute blast to test and build. Interacting with upkeeps is a lot of fun and something that many decks don’t do. This deck has a lot of elements of Grixis decks, but is different enough that it feels unique and fresh every game. Utilizing extra upkeeps may seem underwhelming at first, but after doing it a bunch of times, you will realize the true power it provides. If you like Grixis but are tired of the same decks doing the same thing, I would absolutely recommend this. Thank you so much for reading to the end, and I hope you all enjoyed it.

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