Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

The command-zone recursion clause is the whole reason this commander plays differently from every other three-color legend. Most commanders pay an escalating tax every time they leave for the command zone; this one offers a flat option to drop in from the command zone for four mana, sidestepping that tax entirely and turning the recursion math from a punishment into a tempo lever. Once it dies or gets exiled, it returns on your schedule for the same price each time, so the usual war of attrition against a removal-heavy table never tilts in their favor. The Bant tap-or-untap trigger is quiet but structurally loud: tapping a permanent when one of your creatures lands a combat hit pins down a blocker before the next combat, while the untap mode is the engine that earned Derevi its reputation. Untapping a mana rock for repeated use floods you with mana, and untapping your own permanents while a symmetric stax piece like Winter Orb or Static Orb keeps the table locked turns parity into a one-sided grind. Note the timing: the trigger fires on combat damage, after blockers are already declared, so the tap-down sets up future turns rather than rewriting the current combat. Stack enough connecting attackers and the engine becomes a soft lock. The 2/3 flying body is almost incidental; the value is in a commander built to be evicted and re-summoned at will, treating the command zone as a recurring launch pad rather than a graveyard substitute.