I'm continuing my work to hit all the color combinations. Today I look at Red and Blue. I'm not alone here in thinking of Izzet as a spell slinger strategy. There are tons of hign impact and game ending instants and sorceries in the guild, along with ways to access more cards and generate mana. Prismari is all about...music? Storms...just like Izzet? (Whatever, just listen to Ride the Lightning while you read this to make Strixhaven fans happy.) Red and blue are also heavily represented when it comes to artifacts. Sacrificing and recurring artifacts for value is a popular line of play there.
Before I go any further I want to say this deck was really made possible thanks to Lion's Eye- MTG Scanner. The app was great at keeping me apprised of what was already in my collection and what cards I needed to acquire. With the amount of decks I build it can be tricky to keep tabs on what cards I own or have lying around in a binder or shoe box somewhere. The app really saved me money by keeping me from buying duplicates of any cards I wanted in the deck. If you have an iOS device you should download it here.
In true fashion, to Make EDH Weird Again, I decided to stay away from those strategies. No storm, no combo, no artifact loops, none of that. There are tons of other strategies out there, there was bound to be something with spark for me. I went looking at the top commanders. To my surprise pingers were the number one thanks to Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph. I could have done 1/1 token swarm to be different, but I feel with 13K+ decks that's a well worn idea. Plus it doesn't have an in universe version, so I was going to stay away from it. After that there was a lot in the way of spell slinger stuff. Some want to cap my rewards at 2 per turn, meh. Coin flipping was represented more than once. I had overlooked the archetype, but I hate coin flipping decks. That's an exaggeration, I hate coin flipping decks that play Krark's Thumb. If you're looking for variance and chance with coin flipping, why mitigate that by redoing flips you don't like? Just don't flip coins at that point. Coins were a no go for me.
I wasn't inspired until I saw Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist. It does the music thing I made fun of before, It provides some versatility with foretell, and Goad can keep opposing creatures in check. I even like the movie. Too bad the real life price tag was too high.
I started my search all over again. I kept looking, and after a lot of the same I settled on something that was very Red/Blue but kind of off. Sitting under 1K decks is Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders. He does something different than most Izzet commanders. He rewards my creatures, that happen to be equipped, with two relevant key words. He also ramps out artifacts or supercharges their abilities by generating mana. This had some potential. I already lamented what the color combination did with artifacts. I wanted to take on the challenge of doing it a little different.
The benefit to equipped creatures is too good to pass over entirely. The fact that Dalakos' ability helps to cast those spells or pay some equip costs just reinforces my choice. I'm generally limiting myself to 3 categories: protection, double strike, and ramp. Protection meaning indestructible. These go on Dalakos early in the game and can get passed to a key attacker later on. I'm rocking the classic Darksteel Plate and the threatening Hammer of Nazahn. For Double Strike I included Brass Knuckles which doubles itself. For ramp I included cards like Goldvein Pick, Beamtown Beatstick. All these choices reward a successful combat step with treasure. All this feels a little too familiar with Dalakos. He is the equipment guy after all. (Equipment fish?)
I needed a little more meat on the bone. I had done enough combat strategies in short succession that I wanted to do things a bit differently. I did a quick search on the Lion's Eye App using Scryfall search sytax and it showed Hellkite Tyrant in my collection. I had scanned it in with the Lion's Eye App at some point. This dragon does a lot. Yeah, it's a beater in it's own right, but it also steals artifacts from opponents if it connects. When I hit someone with this dragon for the first time, they immediately sacrifice all their treasure tokens and use the mana to pay to sacrifice any other artifact tokens they just so happen to have. Better yet, the Tyrant has more upside with all those artifacts. If I happen to have 20 when I start my turn I just win the game. Alternate wincons have mixed reviews in this format, but they're not all bad. So the dragon stays. All that only piqued my interest.
What other instant win cons did I have at my disposal? I did a little dive and came across one that fit perfectly with Dalakos. Darksteel Reactor can be scary for opponents. At 4 mana I can play this very early and put the table on a clock while people are still setting up. The fact that it's indestructible goes a long way. Not many have exile based removal for artifacts and forced sacrifice tends not to be viable since I have so many other artifacts I could sacrifice instead. No opponent has ever thought 20 counters is daunting because they always expect some proliferate shenanigans. Luckily Blue has some spells with proliferate stapled on. Things that a deck needs to function well that just so happen to grow my counters. Spells like Tezzeret's Gambit and Steady Progress summarize this perfectly. I don't have a ton of other counters going on in the deck, so overpaying is not where the deck wants to be.
That's not all though. There was another perfect fit in this category, Mechanized Production. This is a wild one. It gives me a copy of an enchanted artifact and if I happen to control 8 of them, I win the game. There's the slow way to play this,where I pick something unique, a real one of a kind artifact and wait 8 turns to win. At least its a faster clock than Darksteel Reactor, if not a little more fragile. Whenever I'm ready to steal a win I'll enchant some kind of token that I already have a ton of. Think Clue or Treasure tokens. Any time I've done that, I've gotten a lot of heat from the table, which is expected. A couple key counter spells or ways to protect my board state are necessary. But the best way I've played Mechanized Production is conjunction with Bloodforged Battle-Axe. The best of both worlds in one.
Winning the game is great, but sometimes I have to settle for less. I could knock one player out at a time. I'm not talking about commander damage here. Can I do that in the deck? Yes. There are more exciting ways to make player removal a vector for the deck. I included Strixhaven Stadium and Mirrordin Besieged for fun here. The stadium has a couple things going for it, the first being it's a mana rock. Just using it's ability grants me a point counter. The more times I do damage to opponents the more counters I get. My double strike equipment means I double up on point counters. This is also a card that benefits from those Proliferate effects I talked about earlier. Every time I've played Strixhaven Stadium the game becomes more interactive. People start attacking (me) to remove point counters or even removing opposing attackers with the hopes I attack and knock out an aggressive player instead. Mirrodin Besieged is a little different. First off, I always choose Phyrexian. I don't care about the Myr tokens. I just need 15 artifacts in the graveyard and I can start removing opponents. There are plenty of graveyard hate effects I tend to soak up thanks to this card. That's fine. I'm still getting the loot effect which is arguably more effective. Regardless, don't be afraid to play these effects. Some players don't want to be the one to knock out a single opponent and just have them sitting around watching the game. That's disingenuous. A turn cycle goes a lot quicker with 3 players than with 4. It's ok to try and win the game. It's ok to remove a player. There are more opportunities to play for everyone.
Dalakos has been great for enabling combat but I've undersold his ramp potential. Tap to make 2 mana, even with a stipulation, is powerful. Can I abuse it though? Of course. All I need is to untap my commander for less than 2 mana to make is profitable. Blue is famous for untap effects and I've compiled some of the best like Twiddle, Cerulean Wisps, and Shore Up. The dream here has been to play Rod of Absorption first, then some of these cheap spells. I just have to tap Dalakos each time I cast one of these untap effects. Once I have a couple untap spells exiled away, I get to sacrifice the Rod and can recast all of them just as cheap as ever. This continues to generate more mana.
With all this actual and potential untapping, what am I going to do with it? Cast a game winning play of course. Hangarback Walker rocks XX to enter with lots of +1/+1 counters on it. Once it dies I double up on that value with an army of 1/1 thopters equal to that number of counters. I also included Stonecoil Serpent in the deck. This snake already has some great keywords coupled with a huge number of counters on it. I'm always sure to have Dalakos around and equip the snake so it can attack right away. The combo of flying, protection, and trample means I'm not likely to encounter a creature that can stop my damage from getting through. It's not just the casting cost that Dalakos powers through but abilities as well. Steel Hellkite was the first creature that came to mind for me when I first started drafting the deck. It's a favorite of mine especially in decks like this. It's evasive, can deal lots of damage, and is fair removal.
I want to connect a couple of points to highlight a great interaction. I've talked about untap spells in the deck, Dalakos' ability to generate 2 mana, a couple proliferate effects, and win the game effects. They all come together in service of The Millennium Calendar. The name of the game here is to untap as many permanents on that first turn. Most times it takes me 7 taps to have this thing pop off. It's very doable in 2 or 3 turns. People are indifferent to losing 1 life. They're angry to get hit for 20 or 50. They find it very funny to lose 1000 and the game. I can see someone surviving this, but it hasn't happened to me yet.
There are a lot of great pieces to this deck. So what does it look like?
Steel Hellkite Encroaching Mycosynth Hellkite Tyrant
Chimeric Mass Mycosynth Lattice Mirodin Besieged
Stonecoil Serpent Etherium Sculptor Darksteel Forge
Hangarback Walker Foundry Inspector Forsaken Monument
Forensic Gadgeteer Jhoira's Familiar Inspiring Statuary
Contagion Engine Shimmer Myr Lux Cannon
Thrumming Bird Astral Cornucopia Darksteel Reactor
Steady Progress Cursed Mirror Dragonspark Reactor
Tezerett's Gambit The Mana Rig Mechanized Production
Contentious Plan The Millennium Calendar Retreat to Coralhelm
Experimental Augury Storm Kiln Artist Vizier of Tumbling Sands
Artificer Class Bloodforged Battle-Axe Staff of Domination
High Tide Goldvein Pick Twiddle
Mana Geyser Beamtown Beatstick Dream's Grip
Solemn Simulacrum Brass Knuckles Cerulean Wisps
Chakram Retriever Darksteel Plate Hidden Strings
Aphetto Alchemist Hexplate Wallbreaker Shore Up
Intruder Alarm Hammer of Nazahn Dramatic Reversal
Karn's Sylex Umbral Mantle Red Sun's Twilight
Blue Sun's Zenith Strixhaven Stadium Rod of Absorption
Vandalblast Earthquake Counterspell
Blasphemous Act
Treasure Vault Karn's Bastion Temple of Epiphany
Silverbluff Bridge Training Center Izzet Battlewors
Frostboil Snarl Mountain x14 Island x14
This deck has been a lot of fun to play. I always feel like I can win. Even after a board wipe or something catastrophic happens. I'm always close to an effect that will steal the game. People really underestimate these effects until it's too late. That's fun to witness. It's like a truck coming at them and it doesn't register until it's too late. It's the opposite of playing against a combo deck for a lot of opponents. When someone deploys a game winning combo out of nowhere some opponents feel cheated, that everything that happened in the game didn't matter because it just ended abruptly. All that setup was for naught. My alternate wincons on the other hand are telegraphed and opponents have at least one turn to fix the situation. With that many options and advanced warning opponents are more forgiving when losing this way than the abrupt combo finish.
I'm thinking about adding in Viral Drake to the deck. It looks like it will play great with my other proliferate effects. The infect would fit with my alternate wincon/player removal plan. People get a little weird about infect and I don't expect anyone will believe the “it's my only card with infect” defense. Don't worry, it's not that kind of deck-Yeah right!
Before you go, make sure to download Lion's Eye. Use my exclusive code BONZAIENT to get 2 free weeks of the premium version and let me know what you found in your collection. Take a look at some of these sceen shots. It's super intuitive and connects to some of your favorite content sites.
It's super easy to scan cards. It automatically matches the tokens you need to the card. Oh, and there are cool sections like Inspire Me. What a great way to find some Hidden Gems.
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