I'm on record saying my Boros blinks deck is my favorite. It's still true. Because it's true I think about the deck a lot and around the deck. The two colors work well together for making things leave, come back and pay off. But is there a purer way to achieve the same goal? Strip away the extraneous parts and streamline it? Of course there is, but I had to slog through a ton of legends to find who would do it. Rionya, Fire Dancer. Stick with me here. She makes tokens, which enter the battlefield, obviously. The pay off is there with some key enchantments and good creature choice. I'm shortening the kill chain so to speak. I move away from the blink effect to get a creature to enter the battlefield then get the payoff. She streamlines the deck in a second way, I cut out an entire color. Fixing is no longer a worry so I can play a little faster and even cut down on some lands. That's just the nature of cutting out a color, even with all those near perfect mana bases out there. There is a little setup required, and she needs to be on the battlefield to make it work, but those are easy hoops to jump through.
The second point first. What did I lose? White gave me some great removal, catch up ramp, and exiling effects. Board wipes like Descend Upon The Sinful and Winds Of Abandon will give way to Blasphemous Act. All the tokens I can flood the board with in a turn can make it cost just 1 Red. I'm losing the tokens at the end of turn anyway, so why not fuel the Blasphemous Act. Targeted removal also takes a hit. Invoke The Divine and Wear//Tear are no longer there to get rid of enchantments. I keep plenty of artifact removal in its place, but exiling effects like Chained To The Rocks which are great for dealing with opposing Commanders are a thing of the past. Boreas Charger, Oreskos Explorer, and the like can't get me lands anymore. Without ramp I have a clear incentive to play land destruction. Not this time though. I'll supplement with some cheap mana rocks to get me there. The great Liquimetal Torque is not only cheap ramp but can extend the range of my artifact removal. Slow but effective. I have no qualms sacrificing Goblin Replica tokens. Plundering Barbarian is great to copy letting me machine gun down troublesome enemy artifacts and then others entering the field provide me ramp. Release the Gremlins feeds the game plan too, creating some creature tokes to ETB after I wipe away pesky artifacts. Losing all that is depressing, but I have some clear alternatives to fill those roles. I think being aggressive, as in, destroying mana rocks early proves effective. I have to worry less if I slow my opponents if my opponents don't have the resources to pop off.
Back to the first point, shortening the kill chain. Gone are the days of specific blinking/exiling spells like Cloudshift and Ephemerate. I don't have to play a creature, and then shift it to get a repeat on its ETB or trigger some other damage dealer on the field. I can play any instant or sorcery and get an equivalent effect for free. For this to work I still need to play creatures with strong ETB effects and permanents that punish my opponents when I have something enter in the first place. I get to slot in Combustible Gearhulk which puts opponents on the spot to let me draw or take damage. Voldaren Epicure does a little damage but also leaves a blood token so I can pitch away a dead card later on. Stack that five times and I'll never have a dead hand. Storm Caller and Fanatic Of Mogis both deal damage when they hit the field. Couple these types of threats with payoffs like Warstorm Surge, Impact Tremors, and Purphoros, God Of The Forge to extend that damage. Making a ton of Thopter Engineers or Siege Gang Commanders nets me multiple triggers and leaves me extra token creatures at the end of turn. I stretch this creature pool with options like Wily Goblin, and Plundering Barbarian leave me treasure tokens to fuel casting spells on the next turn to repeat these shenanigans.
So what spells will I use to fuel Rionya? I started with spells I can cast more than once and those that draw me cards. I started by looking at rebound and flashback primarily. Faithless Salvaging lets me loot twice and Surreal Memoir recurs an instant to my hand. World At War gives me an extra combat step now and later. Those extra combats trigger my commander a second time in that turn. It's definitely worth the 5 mana. But cheaper spells will enable casting more than one in a turn. Bash To Bits is expensive but quality removal if I'm aggressively destroying mana rocks. Visions of Ruin puts the choice to my opponents and provides a treasure. Electric Revelation nets me a card each time while Shattered Perception wheels me. Past In Flames and Recoup extend flashback to more cards in my yard. Seize The Day does the extra combat shenanigan like World At War. Merchant Of The Veil lets me rummage before I cast the creature half. Smash is a fair rate since it replaces itself. Fist Of Flame is well played on a powerful creature just like Ancestral Anger. Cleansing Wildfire is good removal for utility lands out there just like Geomancer's Gambit. Introduction To Annihilation is decent removal for hard to interact with permanent types.
All of this has been rather streamlined and straightforward so far. An unpopular commander is not the same thing as Making EDH Weird Again. What can I do that's a little out there? More tokens. Of my Commander. Rionya won't make a copy of herself, so I need to make one another way. Helm Of The Host was the first thing to come to mind. Not only does it make a token of my commander, but it gets around the legend rule. Once I have one safe copy I am free to make more. I just have to make sure combat is profitable and Rionya survives. My next idea also revolves around a piece of equipment, Blade of Selves. I'm sure many people are shouting that the tokens will all die because of the legend rule. They would be right. Unless I throw out a Mirror Box beforehand. Or a Mirror Gallery. Now my extra legends stick around. I can already hear that same group of naysayers shouting that the myriad tokens will leave the battlefield at end of turn. My plan is thwarted again. Except if I have Sundial Of The Infinite. Now I can just end the turn with the exile trigger on the stack and keep my new Rionya Tokens to make even more copies of whatever next turn. This is very powerful but very fragile. I've lived the dream a few times and it is a blast around the table. Once people realize how many bad news tokens I'm going to make I tend to draw a lot of heat. Totally understandable. It is certainly worth it though. Have 2 or 3 copies of Rinonya then cast 2 or 3 cantrips to copy something like Goblin Chainwhirler or Dagger Caster. I'm mowing down the board and life totals no sweat.
With Mirror Gallery and Sundial of The Infinite in the deck I decided to add 2 other cards that play nice with this pairing. The first is Mirage Mirror. This will hopefully be the last Mirror card I write about in the list. Mirage Mirror can become a copy of a key creature, like Rionya. The effect doesn't last forever but I only need it to kick in before combat. It certainly has some other niche uses in any deck but that's not the type of weird I'm trying to foster here. The second card is Flameshadow Conjuring. This little enchantment just sits there and for the low price of 1 red mana will make a token of whatever other creature I just played. Even the most unassuming of creatures like Voldaren Epicure become a threat on entry with no real answer. Normally with Flameshadow Conjuring I attack with abandon because the tokens have haste and are removed at the end of the turn. But with Sundial out I can wait and accrue a critical mass of threats at my leisure. Also worth mentioning is Harmonic Prodigy. She nets me more tokens off Rionya and the prowess makes her a threat when I start slinging a bunch of instants and sorceries.
I've talked about how critical the commander is for this deck. So I have to protect her. White is the better color for protection compared to red. So losing it forced me to get creative. Red has cards like Wild Ricochet and Bolt Bend to overcome targeted removal. Better yet it punishes someone else for my troubles. I also included good equipment like Champion's Helm and Mask Of Avacyn to keep that targeted removal off me as a static ability. When in doubt I throw a Darksteel Plate on Rionya to keep her safe from everything. Sometimes things get a little more desperate, like when someone is trying to exile all creatures. That's what I save Tibalt's Trickery for. The last type of protection to talk about is a reasonable facsimile. To me, that means a backup commander in this case. Delina Wild Mage does a fine job recreating Rionya's ability. It's more limited because of the dice rolling. Ask and D&D player, a nat 20 is hard to come by. But 1 copy is still good especially if I back it up with the aforementioned artifacts. I save Delina for when Rionya has become cost prohibitive or for earlier in the game when I don't have a Mirror or Sundial in play. I think it hides the strategy a little better the first time an opponent sees the deck. No sense in giving everything away before a critical mass can happen. Plus she plays nice with Harmonic Prodigy too.
Rionya needs a different focus than Aurelia for maximum effect, a little more setup for maximum payoff. She needs me to cast instant and sorceries in my first main phase. I've heard people say commander players are the only group that tends to play their spells at the beginning of their turn. Everyone else waits until the second main. Rionya is the shining example of that. I need to keep the cards flowing. I mentioned earlier cantrips and flashback will play big here. I love Renegade Tactics here. The cantrip effect is nice but freeing the path from a key blocker can be backbreaking. Ancestral Anger may not pump the power much but the draw a card stapled onto it coupled with trample is key. Fist of Flame is similar but it front loads the card draw. Reckless Impulse gives me some added flexibility on what turn I blow up on. Light Up The Stage is a little trickier since I want the spectacle cost but need to do damage to save on mana. If need be just plan to use the extra cards on the next turn.
Seize The Day and World At War are key in giving extra combat step triggers to my commander all over again. I've used these and skipped the additional combat step before, just to soak up the extra triggers off of Rionya. A recent addition, Hexplate Wallbreaker is a welcome repeatable source of those extra combats. I always have creatures lying around to suit up. Speaking of repeatable combats and extra creatures lying around, Combat Celebrant. Timed right this can be game ending. Literally. Make a copy of Combat Celebrant, attack with 1 and exert it, go to the next combat, and make core celebrants, repeat. I get a ton of ETBs for my great enablers and a never ending amount of creatures to engage in a never ending amount of combats. I felt really smart when I realized this pairing worked this was. I was then taken down a peg when I found out it's a pretty well known interaction. Of note, no one has fogged me when using Combat Celebrant before. That would be pretty lousy.
Circling back to my thesis of making a deck more efficient by stripping out a color. I feel like I hit it. I'm making a lot of tokens and they feed a lot of ETBs. Some from the other role players and some from the creature itself.
Rionya, Fire Dancer
Mirror Box Dagger Caster Witty Roastmaster
Mirror Gallery Fanatic Of Mogis Purphoros, God Of The Forge
Sundial Of The Infinite Wily Goblin Impact Tremors
Mirage Mirror Voldaren Epicure Warstorm Surge
Blade Of Selves Thopter Engineer Terror Of The Peaks
Flameshadow Conjuring Siege-Gang Commander Light Up The Stage
Helm Of The Host Plundering Barbarian Reckless Impulse
Delina, Wild Mage Goblin Chainwhirler Spark Of Creativity
Combat Celebrant Combustible Gearhulk Wrenn's Resolve
Goblin Engineer Meteor Golem You Find Some Prisoners
Scrap Mastery Solemn Simulacrum Shatter
Wild Ricochet Circuit Mender BashTo Bits
Bolt Bend Filigree Familiar Release The Gremlins
Champion's Helm Harmonic Prodigy Renegade Tactics
Mask Of Avacyn Iron Myr Fist Of Flame
Tibalt's Trickery Liquimetal Torque Electric Revelation
Merchant Of The Veil Cursed Mirror Ancestral Anger
Hexplate Wallbreaker Moonsilver Key Past In Flames
World At War Smash Recoup
Seize The Day Scour From Existence Increasing Vengeance
Chaos Warp Introduction To Annihilation Wild Magic Surge
Cleansing Wildfire Geomancer's Gambit
Mountain X26 Inventor's Fair Desert Of The Fervent
Forgotten Cave Smoldering Crater Ash Barrens
Blasted Landscape Terramorphic Expanse Evolving Wilds
The deck is faster than I thought it would be and pretty consistent to throw around. I might try this type of optimization again. The problem is the deck feels too much the same as Boros Blinks at times. I think about upgrading it and changing the function every now and then to give it a more unique identity from Boros Blinks. Could I run Ashnod's Altar and sacrifice all those tokens for profit? Yes. I would need a good end of turn mana sink or some player removal spells like Devil's Play. I even considered adding in Altar of Dementia and Altar of The Brood and turning it into an aggressive mill deck. One person catches all my attackers and damage and another is the focus of the mill plan. I certainly don't want to repeat anything another deck is doing. I'll keep brainstorming and let you know what I do with it.
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