My first 15 commander decks were all different izzet decks.... I started playing February this year and have already built 26 fully playable decks I used to live the deck building process in yugioh but I quit years ago to focus on other things since the gane got to fast fir me and now that love is puller to edh deckbuilding
Even if it was true in origin it has come to mean something else than just Storm - a macro archetype for decks that not only cast a lot of non-creature spells but also build systemic advantage out of doing it. I find the name Spellslinger quite fitting and accurate.
One of my favorites has been monored Zada Hedron Grinder goblin spellslinging for card draw and creature buffs. No one expects a monored spell chain drawing 54 cards a single turn and hitting a +1/0 for every card drawn this turn.
I've started playing commander with two friends of mine for the last year. I built an Izzet deck that kinda resembles your last archetype; with Veyran as a commander, and a huge emphasis on triggered abilities (cards like Niv-Mizzet, Ral, Archmage Emeritus, Adeliz, Harmonic Prodigy, etc ... and a few pingers) My cantrips are either direct damage or draw, and are almost all instants that cost 1 to 3 mana to cast. It's probably not fully optimized, but I get that exact same feeling of being an evil wizard when I cast one cantrip and it triggers 10 abilities 🧙♂️
I really love wort the raid mother. Gruul spellslinger is such a fun challenge and she creates a hard clock. You also have to be really creative to get the most value out of her.
@@spinningtrain9091 Thanks! My goal is to get Veyran, Balmor, and Adeliz on board at the same time. My wife's goal is to never let any of those three resolve...
@@commanderbydaenendid you preorder Bria, Riptide Rogue ? Bria + Veyran is an absolutely disgusting combo ... with one cantrip, you get a 6/6 and a 5/5 that both can't be blocked 😮
My personal spellslinger deck as a Veyran build. I don't really like playing control but I love Veyran, so my deck actually revolves around being quite aggro : using creatures like Talrand and token generators, I deal lots of combat and non combat damage to my opponents while getting rid of one of Izzet's weaknesses : blockers
Excited for this video, the closest I've got to a spellslinger was Ovika. I really want to try a deck, but I'm not sure how I feel about casting a lot of small spells in a single turn.
although not a popular spell slinger deck, Yidris maelstorm wielder is awesome, 4 colors to build from and every spell after you conect with him its gonna be either more mana rocks or payoff stuff with storm and buyback (its insane the loops you can get into, love it or hate it). the key is to consistently put him on the field by turn 3. fill your deck with 2 mana ramp/rocks and its gonna be G-Yidris for your oponents.
Budget player who normally smashes faces with creatures here, I really enjoyed this video because I just ordered the cards for my version of a Vadrik storm list, based on Tomer's mtggoldfish article. Vadrik's scalable ability to reduce the cost of instants and sorceries allows him to run unplayable draft chaff and make it look absolutely busted. I've been goldfishing it on moxfield for a good while & have always stormed off on turn 5, assuming no removal for Vadrik. I have not played it in person yet, and I'm really nervous about basically doing a 15 minute monologue, but Vadrik's combos are so fast and the list has so many tutors that it should be ok.
One sub-archetype of spellslinger I wanted to highlight is what I've dubbed a "Killslinger" deck. Sort of a hybrid of spellslinger and control, where your commander or deck gives you some sort of benefit for specifically casting removal spells. Toshiro Umezawa is the face of this archetype, but the likes of Malik, Chevill, Taii Wakeen, and several others can give you some really nice value, and in the latter two cases can potentially even help you storm off if you get a good enough chain going. My favorite spellslinger commander, though, is Firja, Judge of Valor. BW has just enough things to do with instants and sorceries that you don't feel totally hopeless playing it like that, but you still have to get kinda creative to get the most out of your cards. Dumping Raven's Crime and Cling to Dust, then using White's land tutors to constantly have fuel for them is a really fun value engine to assemble, made all the better by Firja herself, or the handful of Young Pyromancers you have in these colors.
My favorite deck is a spellslinger deck! Mono-Red Rionya, the fire dancer. It’d a weird creature storm deck where you put out a creature that pings, and make copies of it with your commander = the number of instants and sorceries you cast. The play style is great! You set up for a big turn, and try to win off of one big flashy game ending turn! But you don’t need to storm as much as other decks, so it doesn’t bore the table too much if built right. It’s righteous!
My personal favorite idea for a win con, and I haven't even successfully assembled all the pieces in the deck I have for this yet (still need a Narset's Reversal), is: Storm-Kiln Artist and Thousand Year Storm on board, cast burn spell, then Narset's Reversal. Reversal copies to Thousand Year Storm. Copy targets original, which bounces and copies. New copy targets burn spell, which bounces and copies to shoot someone in the face. Doing this the first time generates 5 treasures off of Storm-Kiln Artist for 3 mana. You continue to net gain treasures every time, while also burning your opponents out. With even a single counterspell in your hand, this becomes uninteractable, too, since any time anyone tries to interact, you cast the counterspell and stop it.
I have been trying to build a blue/red/white spellslinger lifesteal deck with "Hinata, Dawn-Crowned." So far, I have cards like "Soulfire Grand Master," "Heartflame dualist," and "Radiant Scrollwielder" to make this deck work.
I have a storm, token, +1/+1 triggered by creature etb or ltb commanded by Kykar. It does monstrous things. I can voltron my commander, go wide, go big, go wide and big, use my storm spells to help finish a game. And I have one infinite combo I am bound to run across eventually with all the card draw. The downside is 20 minute turns managing all of it.
I love my Magnus the Red deck. It's basically an X spell deck but also tokens deck. Balancing token generation and x spells is hard, but thankfully the commander can help by going face. All I need is 1 connection to get something like a hordeling outburst or Ral's reinforcement online, then on untap play another X spell that makes tokens. What I find is that that deck wants more 3-5 CMC card draw effects so that you can draw into the token makers and also the ramp needed to get the commander out. Lorien Revealed is one such card that can do both depending on the mode.
So, I built a Veyran deck that was designed to copy as many instant and sorceries as I could (I called it "copy tribal", lmao) as well as a bunch of wizards with prowess/other spellslinger payoffs. It was my absolute pride and joy, right up until I actually took it to the table and realised that I had *no* idea how to keep track of the maths of everything triggering and doubling and copying, etc etc etc. I'm still on the lookout for a video that explains how that maths works so I can actually have a shot at playing that deck and understanding what's going on 😅😅😅
Highly recommend Dihada, Binder of Wills. Not really a traditional spellslinger deck, but you dig through so many cards looking for breach that the game plan is pretty similar to a storm deck.
My favourite is Prosper, Tome-Bound / Tor-Wauki the Younger in a rakdos style spellslinger that leans into the grinding ongoing accumulation of mana and resources to eventually either storm out with tendrils of agony, drop an exsanguinate, double a copy with professor onyx, or just end up dealing enough chip damage over time with all the guttersnipe style creatures in my deck
I’m trying to make a spell slinger ovika deck and I’ve heard that spell slinger isn’t fun to play against but this is my first time making a commander deck and I really like just the phyrexian goblins you can make with ovika
I love spellslinger and spellslinger adjacent decks in edh ^^ I'm currently brewing Imoti / Keruga big fatty spellslinger, which seems like it wouldn't work but if you cast a 9 mv spell with Imoti and manage to hit a 8 mv, for example, it has a chance to just keep snowballing down to 6. Also, if you keep cards that are below 6 cmc to ramp and spells like Unexpected Results that let you recast big things, you either effectively get ramp or discounts tacked on to both Imoti and every spell you cast with her, or you have a chance every cast to restart the cascade train all over again once you hit below 6 :3
I have two spell slinger decks that I'm really enjoying now that I've got them in a good place. Kalamx with a copy/counter focus with fling/chandra's ignition effect wincons, I didn't know how to tweak the precon Kalamx for a while but this fling strategy is working out pretty well. My other is a Myra the Magnificent attractions deck, loading it up with rummaging effects so I can dump my large cost spells into the graveyard to attach them to attractions and cast them for free ever turn, Ovika is one of the flashiest wincons since the mirrormaze attraction lets me turn all my goblin tokens into copies of Ovika so the token generation gets super out of control, usually a few thousand goblins in a single turn. The only problem with Myra is that the turns tend to take a very long time because of going through all the attraction and spell triggers.
My wife was playing a Liesa Lifegain/Angels deck when someone stormed off with Vadrik. He took a bunch of turns and tried to find an answer and wound up dying to Liesa, lol.
I usually use Kess, but any commander that has Red and Blue in the color identity will work. Kess makes it a bit easier, though. You need Thousand-Year Storm and Kess on board to start the combo. Remember, Thousand-Year Storm creates copies of Instants and Sorceries according to the number of previous instants and sorceries cast that turn. 1 - Cast any instant or sorcery (Ritual, Cantrip, whatever) 2 - Cast Demonic Tutor or any tutor that will put the cards into your hand. Find Insult/Injury with the first copy and Lightning Bolt with the second. 3 - Cast Insult. There are now 3 copies, meaning all damage has been doubled three times, or 2^3. 4 - Cast Insult again using Kess. There are now 4 more copies, so damage has been doubled 7 times, or 2^7 5 - Cast Lightning Bolt. There are now 5 copies, each one dealing 3*2^7, or 384 damage. If you don't have Kess as your commander, you will need to cast a couple of other spells in order to combo off with Insult, Lightning Bolt, and Thousand-Year Storm.
@@commanderbydaenen thank you for the very detailed response. I'll try to process this using every single braincell I have 😂 Btw I'm using an Izzet deck with either Stella, Veyran or Eris as commander (most of the time, Veyran) . I just upgraded the Quickdraw Precon a bit and I want to try to make it into a storm/token deck because everyone gets mad at me if I combo with Stella 😂
My favorite deck is my Anhelo spell slinger and it's 100% in that final category. I've been having trouble utilizing thousand-year storm as much as I want it in the deck, honestly. I already have arcane bombardment and even bolas citadel in the deck so it feels like I have too many high cmc cards, but man that's the dream. Thousand year storm, arcane bombardment, veyran, and citadel would just be the most wild turn
A burn spellslinger deck would sound hella fun in a Rakdos deck is Vial Smasher and that one goblin that doubles a spell via coin flip. I want to make a burn deck that uses low mana cost stuff but procs every turn with both and trying to double the spells all the time. But personally not sure how to do that
I've built Mizzix before in the past to great effect, and I actually found that Zaffai, Thunder Conductor is a blast to play. That said, my favorite actual spellslinger deck was a creatureless version of Keranos that used Reality Spasm-like effects in order to turn my enchantment commander into Thousand-Year Storm or Eye of the Storm. It probably should have been one or the other, but I adored both for how much of a nightmare they were for me to play and keep track of. They're like Timesifter in that way!
@@Boblol126 Ack, I always mix up Scramble with Spasm, Reality SCRAMBLE is what allows me to turn one enchantment into another. Reweave and Chaotic Transformation also serve the same functionality in the deck.
I get choice exhaustion with all the options for decimating opponents with spells, but have started a theme of taking control of other permanents and exiling spells to use, boosting the spells used that turn to activate trigger effects. With a lot of token generation to have protection in the meantime
One of my most powerful spellslinger deck was Tura Kenrüd Skyknight, using all kinds of instants and sorceries to create an army of soldiers and then just use those instants and sorceries to buff them and protect them
My favorite Spellslinger is Vadrik Astral Archmage but for storm specifically it's Veyran and I lovingly refer to my Veyran deck as my "Storm^3" deck because I've gotten both Veyran and Thousand Year Storm on the field, got to a storm count of 20, and then cast Grapeshot, so we have Grapeshot's Storm and Veyran makes TYS trigger twice causing 3 instances of Storm on the Grapeshot and me blowing up the table 😆
I'm currently playing Urabrask // The Great Work. I've been calling it a spellslinger, but I think it fits the Xerox philosophy, as well. It has 32 lands + 14 ramp (only 3 of which are rituals). It also has 43 "card draw", though I admit to playing a little loose with the definition. I'll count Fork, because a copy of Reckless Impulse is effectively as good as casting Reckless Impulse + Wrenn's Resolve (the differences between casting and copy triggers is mostly irrelevant in this deck). Similarly, Past in Flames may as well be a draw spell, because I'm going to get an awful lot of mileage out of it... Probably more than I would with a "true" draw spell. There aren't really any obvious "this is an important spell and it needs to be stopped" cards, which a big point in chaining off: I spend the mana, I cast the spell, I get the trigger, I gain the mana, I draw the card, repeat. I can't tell you how many times the table has said WTF was that?! after a game lol. $300 deck. No fetches, no cEDH rocks. Absolute edge of your seat barely controlled chaos and a blast to play
I’m planning out a Magnus the red deck. Just stick it full of cost X cards and other insanely expensive cards and of course token generators, then you just start busting out spells for cheap due to reduced mana costs, all you need is a draw X card and you basically replenish and repeat. Makes casting extra turn cards a cinch.
I got a Niv-Mizzet, Parun on a sample pack I got after buying some cards from a store, joined with some friends and made a deck on the spot, triple copied drawing cards with Howl of the Hord and killed someone with commander damage that I didn't even expect to do!
I personally have a pako haldan deck. Im trying to make it an impulse matters+sort of token genner, im just trying to fit more impulse draw and adventures in before I put in a payoff or two
My only “upgraded” deck is a Mizzix storm deck, it’s honestly a blast to play with due to the adrenaline rush of trying to alpha strike someone with a grapeshot
It's Ovika for me. You get to play the goblin buff cards without having to run most of the goblins, plus you get to run your normal ping burn cards and counter spells. Of course, your ramp needs to be on point because 7 mana is still a hefty investment.
Yes. For a lot of decks, where you're only planning on casting one spell per turn cycle, the medallions are basically "more expensive Diamonds." But any deck where you are planning on casting at least 2 spells per turn cycle, they're amazing. I hesitate to play them in 3 color decks, though.
@@commanderbydaenen tonight I wiped out 4 people at once with 12 9/9 wraiths after dropping a “Raise the palisade” on everyone. Thanks for your videos, they’ve really helped me build this lord of the nazgul deck.
I’ve tried a couple times to try to build spellslinger decks in commander, most recently I built anhello from New Capenna, I absolutely hated it, it won fairly often but winning with a big x spell or more often 3+ copies of a big x spell just didn’t do it for me at all
I stopped playing back in the day but have since come back and a family member had acquired a Mizzix in between the years. Once I saw her I knew she was the one. Big mana spells and X spells for the win
I had to tone mine down. I deliberately put in weaker cards so she doesn't explode all over the place. I'm running the original Will and Rowan, for example.
How many copy card effects (reiterate, narset's reversal etc) should you include in a spellslinger deck? More specifically, an Elsha of the infinite token makers deck. Please prove me wrong but I dont think I need many because Elsha doesnt care about when spells are copied since prowess doesnt trigger when copies are made because they arent cast! But please help me out? Thanks!
You don't NEED any for a deck like that. I would recommend running a couple, though. Narset's Reversal at the floor is a Cultivate in Blue. At the ceiling, I've seen it hit a X=22 Torment of Hailfire. I'm also a big fan of Expansion/Explosion, just in general.
You legend thank you for the reply! Not entirely sure what you mean by “at the floor it’s a cultivate in blue” part. Nor do I see the full potential of a narset’s reversal yet but thank you for the answer you gave!
@@jameshampton5774 Floor vs Ceiling is a way of saying "At it's worst vs at it's best." Narset's Reversal is an amazing card. it's not quite a counterspell, but it's close. It basically says "Oooh, I like that spell. I'm gonna take it. It's ok, you can play with it later, I'm just gonna borrow it right now." So, worst case scenario, you have a Cultivate in blue. But I've also seen the card win games.
I've been playing Saruman of the White Hand lately. Using a combination of Thousand-Year Storm and Chandra's Ignition for closers. I can't believe how easily you can set up for the win with Beseech the Mirror. It's nuts lol
i honestly like i kind of hybrid of the types of slinger decks here, a bit more casual with some huge spells is always fun, think omniscience and enter the infinite, throw in some mizzix mastery and mind's desire sort of spells always fun to be as izzet flavoured as possible and be a true mad wizard
Ive been slowly building myself a new monoblue deck and i keep going back and forth between Deekah and Lier. Im leaning towards Lier mostly because he himself has a cool unique ability, and Deekah is mostly just another token maker, tho she has some fun synergies. I like the idea of Lier with a bunch of token-makers like Deekah and running a bunch of cantrips and casting and flashbacking spells until i drown everyone in drakes and fractals
It's actually a budget list - www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5050216#paper I wanted to keep it cheap. But it's not hard to make expensive. The core doesn't really change, but you can add better lands and maybe some free counterspells or maybe the Medallions if you want to make it non-budget.
I’ve recently made a Wyll + Shameless Charlatan commander deck for spell slinger The aim is to have pingers and multipliers, you can use shameless charlatan to turn wyll into a pinger too causing commander dmg!
My favourite deck my Elsha deck. Most of the time I get to kill at least one opponent sneaking her with Distortion Strike and Duelist Heritage or Runechanter Spike. Then if I got a token generator I usually manage to survive enought to get a second player down with the rebound. I don't usually win but at least I always become a menace and kill somebody. Also, it's so fun to play. Elsha let's you play all your mana stones and cantrips directly so you feel like you always have more resources.
I have a Mizzix deck that is a spell slinger with no creatures! Yes, it’s a handicap, but Mizzix is a great and powerful wizard, she don’t need no help!
I like Cormela, Glamour Thief with a bunch of when dies return to battlefield instance and Vesuvan Duplimacy and a sack outlet. If i get all 3 out its basicaly insta win if i have a draw spell in my graveyard (i have Zada and copy creature spells in the deck aswell).
My favorite spellslinger commander is Hidetsugu and Kairi. I use clone spells like Quasiduplicate to Brainstorm and cast big spells for free and drain my opponents.
My four spellslingers are Blanka, Ferocious Friend, Feather the Redeemed, Kalamax the Stormsire, and Gyrson Starn, Kelermorph. But with Kalamax, it's also a token deck, and if I do the infinite copy loop, I either win with combat damage, or I Fling + Copy Kalamax. Blanka is just straightfoward bonk, Feather is a little combo-y and I've decked myself for the lulz because doing big dumb stuff > winnging. Gyrson is just pewpew. I call it PingPong, because XYZ card pings, and Gyrson pongs!
Heya! Rediscovered your channel and remembered to hit Subscribe this time. Have you tried out Stella Lee yet? Got two copies of the precon just to build two versions. She's so much fun!
Here's a budget-friendly version. I think I need to revisit this guy, though. He's a TON of fun. My goal in life is to get Balmor, Veyran, and Adeliz on board all at the same time - www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5050216#paper
My favorite spellslinger deck is by far Rionya, Fire Dancer. Cast a bunch of spells and then copy the biggest and best ETB creature you have for the most value. I have won multiple games by copying red dragon 15 times with her after an insane storm turn.
I use saruman the white hand as a finisheer, just get a huge army but never attack with it, i win by using stuff like chandras ignition or yeeting the army at whoever annoys me
Great video! Im looking to build my first Izzet deck with Neera, Wild Mage..but with chaos as first theme, I Don’t want to play with Eldrazi..and then some spell slinger theme as second theme. My question to you is if it’s possible to have two themes and still be consistent?
Vadrik on 4 power with searing touch+birgi/storm-kiln is a classic that my friends hate to see. Anything with breach and vadrik is really nasty as well.
My wife beat a buddy's Vadrik deck by doing nothing. She had Liesa, Shroud of Dusk on board and just sat back and watched as he took turn after turn trying to find an answer for Liesa. Eventually, he died.
I play a gandalf the grey deck but i found that the true commander is Krark the thumbless. I need to find a blue partner other than Sakashima. (He's not in my budget)
I've been looking at Eligeth, Crosroads Augur for a while. Not sure how much scry you're running. Of course, Esior, Wardwing Familiar would be good for stopping spot removal. I've been eying Saisani, Eye of the Storm partnering with Eligeth. Build a Mono Blue Flyers deck that draws ALL THE CARDS.
@@commanderbydaenenI was thinking about Elgith but there isn't nearly enough scry to justify such a high costing card. I didn't consider Esior but that's a good idea. There isn't much protection. I might just do that. Thanks!
I run Shu Yun as my spellslinger commander. My goal is to kill two players with a big Fireball and the third with a huge trampling double strike prowess creature, all in one explosive turn. The deck can also bring all three opponents to 0 through combat, especially with a Jeskai Ascendancy on board. I started it as a prison deck actually, but kept noticing the value of Shu Yun's triggered ability. It still runs some prison pieces but only the tax enchantments, so in case someone fogs, people still can't hit me when I'm tapped down. Now it's the deck that people groan at when they see it. 😅
My favorite board state is Whirlwind of Thought, Birgi, Jeskai Ascendancy, Monastery Mentor, and Ogre Battledriver. It's a lot to ask for but when it all comes together... 🤌
I run rakdos spellslinger with magar as the commander, reanimating Spells into tokens and sneaking damage through, goes infinate with Spells like Savage beating
Just getting into commander after quitting MTG for a decade. Atm im most excited for Anhelo. My goal is to abuse the effect of twinning by copying my favorite timmy spell, cruel ultimatum. My goal is to hit my opponents with as many CU as possible in a single turn by using multiple copy effects such as anhelo, Ral storm contuit, and reitterate with twinning staff up. Will it win with damage instantly, no. But a statement will have been made when the table is made is to eat 5+ ultimatums in 1 turn.
Experimenting with Aragorn the Uniter, and he can actually play very well into spell slinger. All the triggers can let you “go off” in multiple ways. Tokens, direct damage, combat tricks.
@@tanith117 I’m doing that too! Aragorn and his Charming Army. Added legendary human spin too. Kylar makes the board huge, katilda and lier get charms back from GY.
Izzet spellslinger was the first deck I've ever had so I just love the archetype. Blu and red synergize perfectly for spellslinger.
My first 15 commander decks were all different izzet decks.... I started playing February this year and have already built 26 fully playable decks I used to live the deck building process in yugioh but I quit years ago to focus on other things since the gane got to fast fir me and now that love is puller to edh deckbuilding
Hahah 26 izzit decks in 2 months??? Ur a maniac…. Maybe a laboratory maniac!
"izzet is my favorite guild" My man, you earned yourself a sub
Love izzet and simic, one for spells, the other for spells and monsters
Make that two
Being a brand new commander player, not having played since new phyrexia, spellslinger really tickles my fancy. Thanks for this!
I’ve never liked the term spellslinger. I think it was invented by a commander player at some point who thought “storm” made them look too scary
Spellslinger is what you call control decks with burb
Its more likely a dnd player called it that
Spell slinger sounds bad ass
Its older than commander lol
Even if it was true in origin it has come to mean something else than just Storm - a macro archetype for decks that not only cast a lot of non-creature spells but also build systemic advantage out of doing it. I find the name Spellslinger quite fitting and accurate.
One of my favorites has been monored Zada Hedron Grinder goblin spellslinging for card draw and creature buffs. No one expects a monored spell chain drawing 54 cards a single turn and hitting a +1/0 for every card drawn this turn.
If only Ink-treader was legendary. :[
I've started playing commander with two friends of mine for the last year.
I built an Izzet deck that kinda resembles your last archetype; with Veyran as a commander, and a huge emphasis on triggered abilities (cards like Niv-Mizzet, Ral, Archmage Emeritus, Adeliz, Harmonic Prodigy, etc ... and a few pingers)
My cantrips are either direct damage or draw, and are almost all instants that cost 1 to 3 mana to cast.
It's probably not fully optimized, but I get that exact same feeling of being an evil wizard when I cast one cantrip and it triggers 10 abilities 🧙♂️
I really love wort the raid mother. Gruul spellslinger is such a fun challenge and she creates a hard clock. You also have to be really creative to get the most value out of her.
Buddy of mine built Wort specifically to cast and copy Plow Under as many times as possible.
@@commanderbydaenen that's disgusting, I'm totally not adding that to my deck now
veyran is amazing because like storm kiln artist or talran or guttersnipe in the 99 are all doubled, run cantrips and get like ridiculous turns.
I built my Veyran deck to be "nice" but I still get hated out pretty quick. I should probably rebuild her to be "not nice."
@@commanderbydaenen same tbh. i would recommend harmonic prodigy as well, they're literally wizard-harmonicon.
love your content btw
@@spinningtrain9091 Thanks! My goal is to get Veyran, Balmor, and Adeliz on board at the same time. My wife's goal is to never let any of those three resolve...
@@commanderbydaenendid you preorder Bria, Riptide Rogue ?
Bria + Veyran is an absolutely disgusting combo ... with one cantrip, you get a 6/6 and a 5/5 that both can't be blocked 😮
Arcane Bombardment + Thousand Year Storm + any extra turn cards, my beloved
My personal spellslinger deck as a Veyran build. I don't really like playing control but I love Veyran, so my deck actually revolves around being quite aggro : using creatures like Talrand and token generators, I deal lots of combat and non combat damage to my opponents while getting rid of one of Izzet's weaknesses : blockers
fellow spellslinger!
This was fun to watch
Good. Looks like the ratios of Budget Commander (Tomer) are popular.
Nice video. Nice cards and directions to build around.
Vadrik is my favorite spellslinger commander. He synergizes perfectly with buyback spells which win on the spot with cards like Birgi
Excited for this video, the closest I've got to a spellslinger was Ovika.
I really want to try a deck, but I'm not sure how I feel about casting a lot of small spells in a single turn.
although not a popular spell slinger deck, Yidris maelstorm wielder is awesome, 4 colors to build from and every spell after you conect with him its gonna be either more mana rocks or payoff stuff with storm and buyback (its insane the loops you can get into, love it or hate it). the key is to consistently put him on the field by turn 3. fill your deck with 2 mana ramp/rocks and its gonna be G-Yidris for your oponents.
Budget player who normally smashes faces with creatures here, I really enjoyed this video because I just ordered the cards for my version of a Vadrik storm list, based on Tomer's mtggoldfish article. Vadrik's scalable ability to reduce the cost of instants and sorceries allows him to run unplayable draft chaff and make it look absolutely busted. I've been goldfishing it on moxfield for a good while & have always stormed off on turn 5, assuming no removal for Vadrik. I have not played it in person yet, and I'm really nervous about basically doing a 15 minute monologue, but Vadrik's combos are so fast and the list has so many tutors that it should be ok.
One sub-archetype of spellslinger I wanted to highlight is what I've dubbed a "Killslinger" deck. Sort of a hybrid of spellslinger and control, where your commander or deck gives you some sort of benefit for specifically casting removal spells. Toshiro Umezawa is the face of this archetype, but the likes of Malik, Chevill, Taii Wakeen, and several others can give you some really nice value, and in the latter two cases can potentially even help you storm off if you get a good enough chain going.
My favorite spellslinger commander, though, is Firja, Judge of Valor. BW has just enough things to do with instants and sorceries that you don't feel totally hopeless playing it like that, but you still have to get kinda creative to get the most out of your cards. Dumping Raven's Crime and Cling to Dust, then using White's land tutors to constantly have fuel for them is a really fun value engine to assemble, made all the better by Firja herself, or the handful of Young Pyromancers you have in these colors.
Been brewing a Firja deck off and on for years now. May have to revisit it.
My favorite deck is a spellslinger deck! Mono-Red Rionya, the fire dancer. It’d a weird creature storm deck where you put out a creature that pings, and make copies of it with your commander = the number of instants and sorceries you cast. The play style is great! You set up for a big turn, and try to win off of one big flashy game ending turn! But you don’t need to storm as much as other decks, so it doesn’t bore the table too much if built right. It’s righteous!
My personal favorite idea for a win con, and I haven't even successfully assembled all the pieces in the deck I have for this yet (still need a Narset's Reversal), is: Storm-Kiln Artist and Thousand Year Storm on board, cast burn spell, then Narset's Reversal. Reversal copies to Thousand Year Storm. Copy targets original, which bounces and copies. New copy targets burn spell, which bounces and copies to shoot someone in the face. Doing this the first time generates 5 treasures off of Storm-Kiln Artist for 3 mana. You continue to net gain treasures every time, while also burning your opponents out. With even a single counterspell in your hand, this becomes uninteractable, too, since any time anyone tries to interact, you cast the counterspell and stop it.
I have been trying to build a blue/red/white spellslinger lifesteal deck with "Hinata, Dawn-Crowned." So far, I have cards like "Soulfire Grand Master," "Heartflame dualist," and "Radiant Scrollwielder" to make this deck work.
i have a hinata, but its more like stax and big spells
I have a storm, token, +1/+1 triggered by creature etb or ltb commanded by Kykar. It does monstrous things. I can voltron my commander, go wide, go big, go wide and big, use my storm spells to help finish a game. And I have one infinite combo I am bound to run across eventually with all the card draw. The downside is 20 minute turns managing all of it.
Krark/Sakashima is my favorite spellslinger deck! I love having no idea if my cards will work or not (the record is 9 consecutive lost coin flips).
I love my Magnus the Red deck. It's basically an X spell deck but also tokens deck. Balancing token generation and x spells is hard, but thankfully the commander can help by going face. All I need is 1 connection to get something like a hordeling outburst or Ral's reinforcement online, then on untap play another X spell that makes tokens.
What I find is that that deck wants more 3-5 CMC card draw effects so that you can draw into the token makers and also the ramp needed to get the commander out. Lorien Revealed is one such card that can do both depending on the mode.
So, I built a Veyran deck that was designed to copy as many instant and sorceries as I could (I called it "copy tribal", lmao) as well as a bunch of wizards with prowess/other spellslinger payoffs. It was my absolute pride and joy, right up until I actually took it to the table and realised that I had *no* idea how to keep track of the maths of everything triggering and doubling and copying, etc etc etc. I'm still on the lookout for a video that explains how that maths works so I can actually have a shot at playing that deck and understanding what's going on 😅😅😅
I’m actually gonna be joining the spellslinger mentality with a couple wild deck ideas. One with Hinata, the other with Niv-Mizzet Supreme
Highly recommend Dihada, Binder of Wills. Not really a traditional spellslinger deck, but you dig through so many cards looking for breach that the game plan is pretty similar to a storm deck.
My favourite is Prosper, Tome-Bound / Tor-Wauki the Younger in a rakdos style spellslinger that leans into the grinding ongoing accumulation of mana and resources to eventually either storm out with tendrils of agony, drop an exsanguinate, double a copy with professor onyx, or just end up dealing enough chip damage over time with all the guttersnipe style creatures in my deck
I’m trying to make a spell slinger ovika deck and I’ve heard that spell slinger isn’t fun to play against but this is my first time making a commander deck and I really like just the phyrexian goblins you can make with ovika
I love spellslinger and spellslinger adjacent decks in edh ^^
I'm currently brewing Imoti / Keruga big fatty spellslinger, which seems like it wouldn't work but if you cast a 9 mv spell with Imoti and manage to hit a 8 mv, for example, it has a chance to just keep snowballing down to 6.
Also, if you keep cards that are below 6 cmc to ramp and spells like Unexpected Results that let you recast big things, you either effectively get ramp or discounts tacked on to both Imoti and every spell you cast with her, or you have a chance every cast to restart the cascade train all over again once you hit below 6 :3
This has revived my motivation to finish my Zevlor Splices Into the Arcane deck lmao
I have two spell slinger decks that I'm really enjoying now that I've got them in a good place. Kalamx with a copy/counter focus with fling/chandra's ignition effect wincons, I didn't know how to tweak the precon Kalamx for a while but this fling strategy is working out pretty well. My other is a Myra the Magnificent attractions deck, loading it up with rummaging effects so I can dump my large cost spells into the graveyard to attach them to attractions and cast them for free ever turn, Ovika is one of the flashiest wincons since the mirrormaze attraction lets me turn all my goblin tokens into copies of Ovika so the token generation gets super out of control, usually a few thousand goblins in a single turn. The only problem with Myra is that the turns tend to take a very long time because of going through all the attraction and spell triggers.
I'm a Vadrik kinda guy, easily my favourite deck. There is nothing more rewarding than the turn you storm off.
My wife was playing a Liesa Lifegain/Angels deck when someone stormed off with Vadrik. He took a bunch of turns and tried to find an answer and wound up dying to Liesa, lol.
Hi, can you or anyone please explain the lightning bolt combo and what commander to use there?
I usually use Kess, but any commander that has Red and Blue in the color identity will work. Kess makes it a bit easier, though. You need Thousand-Year Storm and Kess on board to start the combo. Remember, Thousand-Year Storm creates copies of Instants and Sorceries according to the number of previous instants and sorceries cast that turn.
1 - Cast any instant or sorcery (Ritual, Cantrip, whatever)
2 - Cast Demonic Tutor or any tutor that will put the cards into your hand. Find Insult/Injury with the first copy and Lightning Bolt with the second.
3 - Cast Insult. There are now 3 copies, meaning all damage has been doubled three times, or 2^3.
4 - Cast Insult again using Kess. There are now 4 more copies, so damage has been doubled 7 times, or 2^7
5 - Cast Lightning Bolt. There are now 5 copies, each one dealing 3*2^7, or 384 damage.
If you don't have Kess as your commander, you will need to cast a couple of other spells in order to combo off with Insult, Lightning Bolt, and Thousand-Year Storm.
@@commanderbydaenen thank you for the very detailed response. I'll try to process this using every single braincell I have 😂 Btw I'm using an Izzet deck with either Stella, Veyran or Eris as commander (most of the time, Veyran) . I just upgraded the Quickdraw Precon a bit and I want to try to make it into a storm/token deck because everyone gets mad at me if I combo with Stella 😂
My favorite deck is my Anhelo spell slinger and it's 100% in that final category.
I've been having trouble utilizing thousand-year storm as much as I want it in the deck, honestly. I already have arcane bombardment and even bolas citadel in the deck so it feels like I have too many high cmc cards, but man that's the dream.
Thousand year storm, arcane bombardment, veyran, and citadel would just be the most wild turn
A burn spellslinger deck would sound hella fun in a Rakdos deck is Vial Smasher and that one goblin that doubles a spell via coin flip. I want to make a burn deck that uses low mana cost stuff but procs every turn with both and trying to double the spells all the time. But personally not sure how to do that
I've built Mizzix before in the past to great effect, and I actually found that Zaffai, Thunder Conductor is a blast to play. That said, my favorite actual spellslinger deck was a creatureless version of Keranos that used Reality Spasm-like effects in order to turn my enchantment commander into Thousand-Year Storm or Eye of the Storm. It probably should have been one or the other, but I adored both for how much of a nightmare they were for me to play and keep track of. They're like Timesifter in that way!
How do you turn Keranos into TYS or ES with reality spasm?
@@Boblol126
Ack, I always mix up Scramble with Spasm, Reality SCRAMBLE is what allows me to turn one enchantment into another. Reweave and Chaotic Transformation also serve the same functionality in the deck.
@@march4232 haha all good, sounds fun! Always wanted a TYS-esque effect in the command zone
I get choice exhaustion with all the options for decimating opponents with spells, but have started a theme of taking control of other permanents and exiling spells to use, boosting the spells used that turn to activate trigger effects. With a lot of token generation to have protection in the meantime
One of my most powerful spellslinger deck was Tura Kenrüd Skyknight, using all kinds of instants and sorceries to create an army of soldiers and then just use those instants and sorceries to buff them and protect them
My favorite Spellslinger is Vadrik Astral Archmage but for storm specifically it's Veyran and I lovingly refer to my Veyran deck as my "Storm^3" deck because I've gotten both Veyran and Thousand Year Storm on the field, got to a storm count of 20, and then cast Grapeshot, so we have Grapeshot's Storm and Veyran makes TYS trigger twice causing 3 instances of Storm on the Grapeshot and me blowing up the table 😆
Granted that game was 1 in a million because I cast Stolen Goods and managed to steal an Omniscience 🤫😂
I'm currently playing Urabrask // The Great Work. I've been calling it a spellslinger, but I think it fits the Xerox philosophy, as well. It has 32 lands + 14 ramp (only 3 of which are rituals).
It also has 43 "card draw", though I admit to playing a little loose with the definition. I'll count Fork, because a copy of Reckless Impulse is effectively as good as casting Reckless Impulse + Wrenn's Resolve (the differences between casting and copy triggers is mostly irrelevant in this deck). Similarly, Past in Flames may as well be a draw spell, because I'm going to get an awful lot of mileage out of it... Probably more than I would with a "true" draw spell.
There aren't really any obvious "this is an important spell and it needs to be stopped" cards, which a big point in chaining off: I spend the mana, I cast the spell, I get the trigger, I gain the mana, I draw the card, repeat.
I can't tell you how many times the table has said WTF was that?! after a game lol.
$300 deck. No fetches, no cEDH rocks. Absolute edge of your seat barely controlled chaos and a blast to play
I would love to see your decklist it that's possible ! Seems marvellous
I’ve built my Urabrask deck as a dragons approach spell slinger
I’m planning out a Magnus the red deck. Just stick it full of cost X cards and other insanely expensive cards and of course token generators, then you just start busting out spells for cheap due to reduced mana costs, all you need is a draw X card and you basically replenish and repeat. Makes casting extra turn cards a cinch.
This video was just in time for my Adeliz Deck
I just built Balmor, he's very similar. Very fun so far!!
I'm looking at building a spellslinger deck, just not sure how and where to start. This is helpful, so thanks for a good video
Glad it was helpful!
@@commanderbydaenenI'm going to use Magnus the red as a commander I think
@@Toddfather788 Based
I got a Niv-Mizzet, Parun on a sample pack I got after buying some cards from a store, joined with some friends and made a deck on the spot, triple copied drawing cards with Howl of the Hord and killed someone with commander damage that I didn't even expect to do!
I personally have a pako haldan deck. Im trying to make it an impulse matters+sort of token genner, im just trying to fit more impulse draw and adventures in before I put in a payoff or two
My only “upgraded” deck is a Mizzix storm deck, it’s honestly a blast to play with due to the adrenaline rush of trying to alpha strike someone with a grapeshot
It's Ovika for me. You get to play the goblin buff cards without having to run most of the goblins, plus you get to run your normal ping burn cards and counter spells. Of course, your ramp needs to be on point because 7 mana is still a hefty investment.
Would you count the Medallions as mana rocks for a spell caster* deck?
Yes. For a lot of decks, where you're only planning on casting one spell per turn cycle, the medallions are basically "more expensive Diamonds." But any deck where you are planning on casting at least 2 spells per turn cycle, they're amazing. I hesitate to play them in 3 color decks, though.
@@commanderbydaenen tonight I wiped out 4 people at once with 12 9/9 wraiths after dropping a “Raise the palisade” on everyone. Thanks for your videos, they’ve really helped me build this lord of the nazgul deck.
I’ve tried a couple times to try to build spellslinger decks in commander, most recently I built anhello from New Capenna, I absolutely hated it, it won fairly often but winning with a big x spell or more often 3+ copies of a big x spell just didn’t do it for me at all
I had a Niv Mizzet deck as my first commander deck but he is very expensive. I swapped him with Veyran and it's a lot of fun!!
Galazeth Prismari is nice cause its just mana advantage and its funny to see a semivultron deck have you spamming spells
I stopped playing back in the day but have since come back and a family member had acquired a Mizzix in between the years. Once I saw her I knew she was the one.
Big mana spells and X spells for the win
My favorite strategy to win with. Lately, I've been riding a winning streak with my Veyran, Voice of Duality storm deck.
I had to tone mine down. I deliberately put in weaker cards so she doesn't explode all over the place. I'm running the original Will and Rowan, for example.
@@commanderbydaenen I see what you mean. She was so powerful that I had to switch her out with Stella Lee, Wild Card.
The first commander deck I ever built was Wort, The Raidmother. Easily my favorite spellslinger commander.
i have become a big fan of spellslinger ever since i got my heands on ghyrson!
How many copy card effects (reiterate, narset's reversal etc) should you include in a spellslinger deck? More specifically, an Elsha of the infinite token makers deck. Please prove me wrong but I dont think I need many because Elsha doesnt care about when spells are copied since prowess doesnt trigger when copies are made because they arent cast! But please help me out? Thanks!
You don't NEED any for a deck like that. I would recommend running a couple, though. Narset's Reversal at the floor is a Cultivate in Blue. At the ceiling, I've seen it hit a X=22 Torment of Hailfire. I'm also a big fan of Expansion/Explosion, just in general.
You legend thank you for the reply! Not entirely sure what you mean by “at the floor it’s a cultivate in blue” part. Nor do I see the full potential of a narset’s reversal yet but thank you for the answer you gave!
@@jameshampton5774 Floor vs Ceiling is a way of saying "At it's worst vs at it's best." Narset's Reversal is an amazing card. it's not quite a counterspell, but it's close. It basically says "Oooh, I like that spell. I'm gonna take it. It's ok, you can play with it later, I'm just gonna borrow it right now." So, worst case scenario, you have a Cultivate in blue. But I've also seen the card win games.
Bro that intro made me immediately want to sub and comment fr
Oh and like
Appreciate it, lol
I've been playing Saruman of the White Hand lately. Using a combination of Thousand-Year Storm and Chandra's Ignition for closers. I can't believe how easily you can set up for the win with Beseech the Mirror. It's nuts lol
i honestly like i kind of hybrid of the types of slinger decks here, a bit more casual with some huge spells is always fun, think omniscience and enter the infinite, throw in some mizzix mastery and mind's desire sort of spells always fun to be as izzet flavoured as possible and be a true mad wizard
Ive been slowly building myself a new monoblue deck and i keep going back and forth between Deekah and Lier. Im leaning towards Lier mostly because he himself has a cool unique ability, and Deekah is mostly just another token maker, tho she has some fun synergies. I like the idea of Lier with a bunch of token-makers like Deekah and running a bunch of cantrips and casting and flashbacking spells until i drown everyone in drakes and fractals
thinking about building balmor i’d love to see your list !
It's actually a budget list - www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5050216#paper
I wanted to keep it cheap. But it's not hard to make expensive. The core doesn't really change, but you can add better lands and maybe some free counterspells or maybe the Medallions if you want to make it non-budget.
I love melek izzet paragon, nice video
I’ve recently made a Wyll + Shameless Charlatan commander deck for spell slinger
The aim is to have pingers and multipliers, you can use shameless charlatan to turn wyll into a pinger too causing commander dmg!
My favourite deck my Elsha deck. Most of the time I get to kill at least one opponent sneaking her with Distortion Strike and Duelist Heritage or Runechanter Spike. Then if I got a token generator I usually manage to survive enought to get a second player down with the rebound. I don't usually win but at least I always become a menace and kill somebody. Also, it's so fun to play. Elsha let's you play all your mana stones and cantrips directly so you feel like you always have more resources.
My record for most copied Nyxbloom Ancients was 35, didn’t need my mana to tap for that much, but it was just something funny I wanted to do
I have a Mizzix deck that is a spell slinger with no creatures! Yes, it’s a handicap, but Mizzix is a great and powerful wizard, she don’t need no help!
I like Cormela, Glamour Thief with a bunch of when dies return to battlefield instance and Vesuvan Duplimacy and a sack outlet. If i get all 3 out its basicaly insta win if i have a draw spell in my graveyard (i have Zada and copy creature spells in the deck aswell).
My favorite spellslinger commander is Hidetsugu and Kairi. I use clone spells like Quasiduplicate to Brainstorm and cast big spells for free and drain my opponents.
Kykar, winds fury is my favorite. I call it Kykar Storm's Fury
I'm using mono blue Jin-Gitaxias//Great Synthesis spell splinger. I also have a monored Urabrask spellslinger which is dirty
My four spellslingers are Blanka, Ferocious Friend, Feather the Redeemed, Kalamax the Stormsire, and Gyrson Starn, Kelermorph. But with Kalamax, it's also a token deck, and if I do the infinite copy loop, I either win with combat damage, or I Fling + Copy Kalamax. Blanka is just straightfoward bonk, Feather is a little combo-y and I've decked myself for the lulz because doing big dumb stuff > winnging. Gyrson is just pewpew. I call it PingPong, because XYZ card pings, and Gyrson pongs!
My people my people, have you heard the good news of Niv-Mizzet, Supreme?
Heya! Rediscovered your channel and remembered to hit Subscribe this time. Have you tried out Stella Lee yet? Got two copies of the precon just to build two versions. She's so much fun!
Which spellslinger archetype would you say is most suited to a 50$ Budget Deck? :D Thanks for the great ideas!
Izzet. Lots of budget commander options in Izzet and a 2 mana base is cheaper than a 3.
My favorite would have to be Kalamax the Stormsire and just copying a bunch of combat tricks to get commander damage in
Can you share your Balmor EDH decklist?
Here's a budget-friendly version. I think I need to revisit this guy, though. He's a TON of fun. My goal in life is to get Balmor, Veyran, and Adeliz on board all at the same time - www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5050216#paper
Do you have your decks posted online? Specifically the Riku deck.
My favorite spellslinger deck is by far Rionya, Fire Dancer. Cast a bunch of spells and then copy the biggest and best ETB creature you have for the most value. I have won multiple games by copying red dragon 15 times with her after an insane storm turn.
personally a slept on commander for spell slinging is myra the magnificent.
I use saruman the white hand as a finisheer, just get a huge army but never attack with it, i win by using stuff like chandras ignition or yeeting the army at whoever annoys me
i run only spellslinger tbh, and my pride and joy is my galazeth deck.
I have destroyed a whole table with Veyran and it is a blast!!!
Krark and sakashima is very very fun.
Great video! Im looking to build my first Izzet deck with Neera, Wild Mage..but with chaos as first theme, I Don’t want to play with Eldrazi..and then some spell slinger theme as second theme. My question to you is if it’s possible to have two themes and still be consistent?
I adore Veyran! Always wanted to make Riku work, though, do you have a list?
I like playing Jhiora Of The Ghitu for time counter fun
Vadrik on 4 power with searing touch+birgi/storm-kiln is a classic that my friends hate to see. Anything with breach and vadrik is really nasty as well.
My wife beat a buddy's Vadrik deck by doing nothing. She had Liesa, Shroud of Dusk on board and just sat back and watched as he took turn after turn trying to find an answer for Liesa. Eventually, he died.
god, when i saw the latest urabrask, i knew this will be my first spellslinger. now i suffer to find good card draw in mono red....
can i get that riku decklist
It's a couple years old. I'll be doing a video on it in a few months - www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4516992#paper
best archetype ever
I’m building my first deck with lord of the nazgul, id be happy if you’d take a look
RUclips doesn't like links. Tag me on Twitter, that'd be the easiest way for me to see it.
@@commanderbydaenencan I send it as a message over RUclips?
I play a gandalf the grey deck but i found that the true commander is Krark the thumbless. I need to find a blue partner other than Sakashima. (He's not in my budget)
I've been looking at Eligeth, Crosroads Augur for a while. Not sure how much scry you're running. Of course, Esior, Wardwing Familiar would be good for stopping spot removal. I've been eying Saisani, Eye of the Storm partnering with Eligeth. Build a Mono Blue Flyers deck that draws ALL THE CARDS.
@@commanderbydaenenI was thinking about Elgith but there isn't nearly enough scry to justify such a high costing card. I didn't consider Esior but that's a good idea. There isn't much protection. I might just do that. Thanks!
I run Shu Yun as my spellslinger commander. My goal is to kill two players with a big Fireball and the third with a huge trampling double strike prowess creature, all in one explosive turn. The deck can also bring all three opponents to 0 through combat, especially with a Jeskai Ascendancy on board. I started it as a prison deck actually, but kept noticing the value of Shu Yun's triggered ability. It still runs some prison pieces but only the tax enchantments, so in case someone fogs, people still can't hit me when I'm tapped down. Now it's the deck that people groan at when they see it. 😅
My favorite board state is Whirlwind of Thought, Birgi, Jeskai Ascendancy, Monastery Mentor, and Ogre Battledriver. It's a lot to ask for but when it all comes together... 🤌
I run rakdos spellslinger with magar as the commander, reanimating Spells into tokens and sneaking damage through, goes infinate with Spells like Savage beating
Notably the spells Magar animates are not tokens
@@Boblol126 yep
Just getting into commander after quitting MTG for a decade.
Atm im most excited for Anhelo. My goal is to abuse the effect of twinning by copying my favorite timmy spell, cruel ultimatum. My goal is to hit my opponents with as many CU as possible in a single turn by using multiple copy effects such as anhelo, Ral storm contuit, and reitterate with twinning staff up.
Will it win with damage instantly, no. But a statement will have been made when the table is made is to eat 5+ ultimatums in 1 turn.
Mines is the OG goat Mizzix she’s just so goofy
Experimenting with Aragorn the Uniter, and he can actually play very well into spell slinger. All the triggers can let you “go off” in multiple ways. Tokens, direct damage, combat tricks.
Exactly what I was looking for. Feels sorta like Niv Mizzet with more colors :)
I just Built Him with Charms, He Does Crazy Commander Damage fast.
@@tanith117 I’m doing that too! Aragorn and his Charming Army. Added legendary human spin too. Kylar makes the board huge, katilda and lier get charms back from GY.
i really like Eye of the storm :)
Pingers! You forgot pingers. Commanders like niv-Mizzet parun, are amazing. Because it’s also card advantages
True! One of my goals is to cast Fractured Identity on a Furnace of Rath and win the game with Prodigal Sorcerers.