Shifty Hands
- bonzaientertainmen
- Feb 17
- 9 min read
If you play the game long enough you’ll start to see your deckbuilding and game play evolve. Synergies start to reveal themselves in deckbuilding, you know when to wait to interact with opponents to gain advantage. In building decks for my Make EDH Weird Again series I really was cognizant of downsides in a strategy or card pool. You often come to expect suboptimal cards, tradeoffs in power/cost, and having to accept greater risk. You can build and accept all of that and play through it. I find it very rewarding to insulate myself from those downsides and maximize my advantage. That was a lesson I learned with my Flubs the Fool deck. I added Madness cards to gain advantage from having to discard. I also insulated myself from having no cards in hand to play by exiling cards on an Adventure and saving the creature side to play later and avoid the cost of discarding.
That’s what drew me to this week’s Commander: Arjun, the Shifting Flame. This Izzet colored Sphinx really keeps you from planning for the future by having you put your hand on the bottom of your library every time you cast a spell and drawing back that many cards. If Impulse draw was a creature, it would be Arjun. I hear you shouting, "That's wheeling, not Impulse." Sure, but stick with me for a moment.
In the spirit of Make EDH weird again, I wanted to upend the usual expectation around Arjun. How do I enable my deck to plan long term when I have to change out my hand with every spell I cast? My first clue came from the notion that Arjun is the poster boy of Impulse draw. The two mechanics are different but bear with me here. Impulse effects cause me to exile a card, without having drawn it, and cast it from exile. Those spells come with an expiration date. That effect usually only lasts until the end of the turn, but modern design tends to give you until the end of your next turn until that card is exiled for good.
I could do better. Why limit myself? I’m doing long term planning here. If only there were cards that could stay exiled and allow me to cast them on any turn in the future. If there was, I could Plot against my opponents into the late game. I could Foretell the future and see what cards will win me the game turns from now. Wouldn’t that be great?
All kidding aside, those mechanics were my jumping off point. At this point in my deck building career, I like to think I can navigate downsides of a strategy and even turn them into strengths. I’m building my deck to mitigate Arjun’s effect, you aren’t (more on that later). Let’s look at Foretell first, since it’s the older of the two mechanics. For 2 mana I can exile one of these cards face down and cast it on a later turn for its Foretell cost. Sometimes, you wind up saving on mana this way, like with Spectral Deluge. Sometimes, you pay a little more to cast a card this way, like with Saw It Coming. More often than not, you break even, like with Behold the Multiverse. Luckily, Cosmos Charger is here to reduce that cost a little and make it even easier on your mana base. Bohn, Beguiling Balladeer expands my card pool by giving all of my cards in hand Fortell. This blows my options for long term planning wide open. One last note on Foretell, if you haven’t tried Delayed Blast Fireball yet, what are you waiting for? It’s a very versatile board wipe that can win you the game, and a favorite at any DnD table.
Plot may seem similar, but it plays out very differently. The glaring difference is that you Plot face up. Yes, I get to make long term plans with this mechanic, just like Foretell, but, my plans aren’t secret this way. Opponents start to get ideas about my gameplan, and they’re never good ideas. Take Pyretic Charge for example. It makes me discard my hand and draw 4. Not crazy, and a good way to restock my hand when I dwindle down on cards. It also pumps my creatures relative to the number of cards I discard this way. I had a game where someone misread it and thought the cards that Arjun puts on the bottom of the deck count as discarded and would turn my mediocre board into a game ending position. There was no talking him down from thinking that was THE threat. SO, be forewarned if you start including Plot cards.
So, what are my Plot standouts? Honestly, there are less than Foretell. Slickshot Lockpicker is key for me. Flashback is another way I could avoid Arjun’s downside. I didn’t explore that in this version of the deck, but it has potential for the future. Plotting the Lockpicker is great since I can sink all my mana into whatever I want to Flashback since I pay the Plot cost up front. Brimstone Roundup is very strong. I’m casting multiple spells on more than just my own turn, so it’s not uncommon to get 2 Mercenaries on a turn cycle. They’re surprisingly good at helping me close out the game. Fblthp, Lost on the Range is the best though. This little guy lets me Plot cards from the top of my Library. I get great info about whether I should let Arjun cycle my hand because I know what’s on top of my Library. If it’s a land, that’s a great way to move past that blockage. He’s really doing double duty. He’s my best Plot card, and he doesn’t even have Plot.
After that last paragraph, you’re probably wondering how those Mercenaries let me close out the game. Well, Arjun, the Shifting Flame is a 5/5 Flyer. He can really bring a lot of damage down on an opponent. Even just one of those Mercenaries can turn him from a 5 combat clock into a 4 turn threat. That might not seem like a lot, but that’s a very big difference, especially after I get to 6 mana to cast him the first time. That’s small potatoes compared to what else I have in store for you. Proft’s Eidetic Memory turns my commander into a game ender. Arjun makes me draw a silly number of cards, which now translate into +1/+1 counters on my evasive Commander. That commander damage clock gets brought way down from 5 turns. This is one of the ways I turn the liability of cycling my hand into a game ending threat like I alluded to earlier.
I’ll get back to the other ways to flip liabilities on their head, but I want to explore more of the combat step and where that took me. We all know commander damage can be fickle. You only get so many combat steps in a game. Well, I want more, and you can give me more. Assault Suit is risky, but it gets me those extra combats. Commander damage cares about each specific Commander, so even if you attack with Arjun for me, that 7 damage counts towards the total. I say 7 because the Equipment gives +2/+2, turning Arjun into a 3 turn threat, just like an Elder Dragon. I get to pick if I hand my commander off to an opponent, so if they’re going to be reckless with it, I can opt not to hand it over. This may seem lackluster, but it blew the deck wide open.
When an opponent controls Arjun, the Shifting Flame, that player is held to the same condition of having to cycle his hand for every spell he casts. My deck was designed to mitigate the effect from Arjun, yours was not. The first person who inherits Arjun always forgets this until he casts his first spell and I tell him what he just caused. At that point, I’m off the hook and can cast whatever spells I need to keep Arjun Safe without fear of discarding the rest of my hand. My ability to plan for the future just increased. Talk about mitigation. Once I got that interaction sorted out, I went looking to expand it. There are a lot of switcheroo or Harmless Offering effects in these colors, but I don’t want an opponent to keep Arjun indefinitely. Homeward Path would help here, but more of these effects would really cut into the other things the deck is doing. I did have room for Reins of Power and Domineering Will. Reins of Power makes me give everything over, so it’s best played against someone going wide. Domineering Will is trickier since I need to play it against someone with a source of Haste for full effect. There are plenty of people who still put Anger in the graveyard or even play Crashing Drawbridge. Even if I use these spells to disrupt an opponent and not force an attack, I win. Storm and spell slinger decks aren’t immune to this effect. Just because they like to have more cards in hand, disrupting an important turn can be the key to my victory, long term.
This surprise factor is cool, but I want to talk about some other, more practical cards to keep Arjun winning. My favorite happens to be Psychosis Crawler. It’s so effective at softening life totals and can even win the game in a big turn. Be forewarned, someone will eventually think Psychosis Crawler dies when you wheel because you have no cards in hand for a moment. The first time I got hit with that, I really paused and thought I made a deck building mistake. I even put my Crawler into the graveyard. That was the wrong thing to do. State based effects don’t check until after the effect resolves, so in this case the wheel effect fully resolves and then Psychosis Crawler checks the cards in my hand to assess its power and toughness. So Psychosis Crawler never sees the split send I have no cards in my hand.
Another great win condition is The Locust God. He makes hasty 1/1 fliers with each card I draw. He fills up the board rather quickly, and I never have to worry about timing my spells just right to have attackers ready. There is one trick about him though. Once he dies and is returned to my hand, I have to be ready to recast him. If I play anything else first, he will be tucked away on the bottom of my library, and it will be a long time until I see him again. The last two I want to highlight are Sphinx’s Tutelage and Psychic Corrosion. These are simple, static effects that just mill opponents out as I die. Is mill a real strategy of the deck? No, but it has eliminated opponents before. More often than not, it makes players feel desperate and start to make mistakes as card after card makes its way to their graveyards.
Here’s the deck as it stands.
Alrund's Epiphany | ||
Cunning Coyote | ||
Demonic Ruckus | ||
Highway Robbery | ||
Depart the Realm | Jace Reawakened | Izzet Signet |
Doomskar Titan | Izzet Cluestone | |
Dual Strike | Lock and Load | Izzet Keyrune |
Mystic Reflection | Longhorn Sharpshooter | Mindstone |
Quakebringer | Outlaw Stitcher | Thought Vessel |
Ravenform | Command Tower | |
Sage of the Beyond | You Find the Villian's Lair | |
Deep Analysis | ||
Step Between Worlds | Pongify | |
Tales of the Ancestors | Rabid Hybridization | |
Wizard Class | Blasphemous Act | |
Chasm Skulker | Storm-Kiln Artist | Abrade |
Treasure Trove | By Force | |
Oneirophage | Enduring Curiosity | Chaos Warp |
Alandra Sky Dreamer | Omen of the Seas | Vandal Blast |
Archmage Ascension | ||
Blast Zone | Scavenger Grounds | |
Reliquary Tower | Ghost Quarter | Demolition Field |
Lonely Sandbar | Demolition Field | Volatile Fault |
Forgotten Cave | Desert of the Mindful | Desert of the Fervent |
Island x12 | Mountain x12 | |
The deck is very dynamic and can win the game in multiple ways. Constantly seeing cards means I always feel like I have options and can be an active participant in the game. Being able to stock cards away and strategize for a big turn later in the game brings new life into Arjun and keeps the deck fun even when I’m uninterested in playing a Chaos deck.
I’m going to skip over a lot of the ramp, card draw, and removal that I haven’t already covered. How often can you hear people talk about how good Blasphemous Act and Chaos Warp are in Izzet decks? I will say that Terrain Generator is a great way to ramp since I’ll have lands fleetingly in my hand. Similarly, Ruby Medallion and Sapphire Medallion are my best ramp options since I’m rarely at a loss of cards to play in any given turn and these supercharge my ability to cast multiple spells in a turn cycle.
What do you think? Cold your deck stand strong if you inherited a copy of Arjun and had to discard your entire hand with every spell you cast? Most of my opponents have not been able to.
Thanks for reading and all the support to date. I have affiliate links with Mana Pool and TCG Player to help fund these off the wall strategies. It's what makes all this possible,
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