Blinking Artifacts in Commander With Don & Leo, Problem Solvers

Don & Leo, Problem Solvers | Art by Néstor Ossandón Leal

The unexpected wave of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles spoilers that dropped after the little mishap with some Lorwyn Eclipsed prerelease kits has hit, and there are a lot of legends to look at! As usual, there are a handful of cool blue cards that have caught my eye, and I'll be taking my shot at one of them here. In this deck tech, I'm going to tackle Don & Leo, Problem Solvers and hopefully build a really sweet blink deck!

What Does Don & Leo, Problem Solvers Do?

Don and Leo, Problem Solvers is a five-mana 4/6 Azorius () commander with vigilance. The real money is in this commander's only ability: at the begging of its controller's end step, Don & Leo exile and return up to one artifact and up to one creature. This Turtle duo is basically two Conjurer's Closets!

This commander very closely resembles one of my all-time favorites, Yorion, Sky Nomad. Blinking two permanents instead of potentially my entire board is a little weaker, but Don & Leo make up for it by not requiring any maintenance to keep the engine running turn to turn. Where a Yorion deck is compelled to play blink spells, like Ephemerate, Cloudshift, or Felidar Guardian, to keep the blink train moving, Don & Leo simply work every turn without having to provide any additional input.

Key Cards for Don & Leo, Problem Solvers

The Artifacts

Cryogen Relic is far and away the best artifact in this deck. It comes down, draws a card, gets blinked and draws one more on the way out, and then it draws one more when it comes back. Casting this artifact with Don & Leo, Problem Solvers in play is essentially an Ancestral Recall. The other artifacts I've included follow a similar pattern: cheap and easy to generate a ton of extra cards off of over the course of a long game.

The Creatures

The most powerful enters triggers in this deck have been reserved for the creatures. At the lower end of the mana curve, cheap creatures with enters triggers that draw a card or find a land are perfectly fine. At the higher end, this deck's most explosive plays are waiting for the turn where I hit five, six, or seven mana. Agent of Treachery is among the most oppressive, coming down and stealing the most powerful permanent on the board. Then, it'll get blinked, hopefully multiple times, before the end of the turn.

Anticausal Vestige is a sweet warp creature that, in the later stages of the game, can cheat in a couple high-cost permanents. Notably, both Anticausal Vestige and Quantum Riddler can be blinked to avoid being exiled by warp at end of turn. Simply stack the beginning of end step triggers such that Don & Leo, Problem Solvers' triggered ability resolves first.

Riptide Gearhulk is the most potent piece of removal in the deck. It comes down, tucks three nonland permanents into their owners' decks. When being blinked repeatedly, this Construct can generate insurmountable card advantage very quickly. While not fantastic against opposing creatures with their own powerful enters triggers, stacking all of the opponents' best cards onto the top of their library will very quickly render their decks inert as it gets more and more difficult for them to draw answers to the game state through being forced to redraw cards they've already played.

Amplification

I like to think of Don & Leo, Problem Solvers as a value piñata that I get to beat removal and card draw out of. Amplifiers are cards like Y'shtola Rhul: they take whatever "the thing" a deck is doing and helps the deck do it even harder. In this case, Y'shtola provides an extra blink and an extra end step to get even more value from every turn.

Preston, the Vanisher makes copies of creatures as they get blinked. This is nearly functionally identical to a Panharmonicon, but Preston comes with a little removal engine built in. Plus, all those tokens make for great blockers!

How Does This Don & Leo, Problem Solvers Deck Win the Game?

When looking to win through combat, Moonshaker Cavalry serves as a white Craterhoof Behemoth. It isn't mana-efficient, and it isn't my preferred method to end a game, but Moonshaker Cavalry's presence in the deck offers a source of inevitability, something that's very important in these slow value-based decks.

Altar of the Brood

With the number of flicker effects in this deck, Altar of the Brood is an additional source of inevitability. This is a win condition that I initially underestimated, as the mill can really add up in long games where Eerie Interlude and Archaeomancer loops get involved.

Making a bunch of Constructs with Simulacrum Synthesizer and Urza, Lord High Artificer is my favorite, and possibly the fastest, route to victory I've included. The Construct tokens grow really quickly, and Simulacrum Synthesizer is incredibly resilient against board wipes, making this a great way to apply a lot of pressure really quickly without fizzling out in the face of removal.

Don & Leo, Problem Solvers Commander Deck List

Conclusion

This deck was a fantastic excuse to delve back into the Azorius blink decks I spent a lot of time refining when I first got into Commander. I terrorized people with Yorion, Sky Nomad in every format from Commander to Standard and Brawl. If the rules allowed, I'd go up to 120 cards in this Don & Leo, Problem Solvers build to put Yorion in the companion zone! Alas, the rules of Commander are unfavorable for my beloved sky noodle. It's really saddening, especially now that Yorion has also been banned from Modern as well, that there are increasingly few good places for everyone's favorite Bird Serpent.

This deck is intended for the lower end of Bracket 3 (Upgraded). While it meets all the eligibility requirements for Bracket 2 (Core), I'd be very hesitant to take a deck that can create oppressive removal engines. It'd be nearly impossible to dial back the most compelling aspects of the deck in a way that would make it Bracket-2-friendly.

Don & Leo are the second commander from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I've covered so far, with the first one being all the way back in October 2025! I'm looking forward to reading about what I missed in the comments, and I'm hoping we can all get back to reveling in the warm feelings that Lorwyn Eclipsed brought about for a while before Turtles season in is full swing!