When building a deck, it is crucial to choose between a proactive or reactive game plan. The type of game plan often influences the choice of commander and vice versa. Proactive game plans involve spamming out tokens or chain rituals for massive damage X spells, while reactive game plans focus on high power decks. Spellslinger is a theme better fit for high power decks, such as Vadrik, Astral Archmage, and Mono Black Spellslinger Control.
To build a spellslinger deck, it is essential to narrow down what you want the deck to do. You can cast lots of spells or cast big ones, such as Spiritual Leader and Psychic Stimulus. Finishers for spellslinger decks include casting lots of spells and drawing lots of cards. Guttersnipe and drawing lots of cards are also useful strategies for creating a spellslinger deck.
Spellslinger decks can take various forms, but they all follow one core tenet: to gain advantage through the use of instants and/or sorceries. These decks enjoy cards that reduce the amount of mana required to cast their spells, allowing them to cast several instants and/or sorceries in a single turn.
In conclusion, choosing the right commander and strategy is crucial when building a spellslinger deck. By understanding the abilities and unique cards of spellslinger, players can create effective and powerful decks that utilize instants and/or sorceries to gain an advantage.
📹 Let’s Talk about the Spellslinger Archetype in Commander
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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.
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 🧙♂️
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
Budget player who normally smashes faces with creatures here, I really enjoyed this article 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.
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!
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 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.
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
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
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 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.
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 😆
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!
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.
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
Hi, love from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I was thinking about the new 5 colors niv mizzet, that gives Jumpstart to spells in graveyard. It would definitelly be no budget, but kinda peculiar, i don´t like to play planeswalkers, tutors, taxes, fetch lands and “sudden I win” cards on my commander decks. Maybe one you could build? I can´t sign patreon because I live in South America =( Thank you, You are helping me build my collection of commander decks, one of each color and color combination, i have 5 out of 32 decks so far and the 5 color Niv Mizzet Speelslinger would be my strongest one by concept, single colors are weaker, 5 colors strongest. Love your articles !
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 article that explains how that maths works so I can actually have a shot at playing that deck and understanding what’s going on 😅😅😅
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 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.
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.
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
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 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 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.
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. 😅
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!
I haven’t played against a lot of spellslinger decks, but those times I played were not the best experience tbh. It gets to a point where the spellslinger player just takes 40minutes copying and drawing and doing damage and the 3 others players stay like “ok bro, you have it, let’s go play another game”. I think I’ve played about 6 times or so, but all of them were boring and not fun at all .-.
My guy. This needs to be done with every popular archetype. Tokens, counters, reanimator, lifegain, equipment… Aristocrats next for sure. I am a mediocre builder on a good day so having a shell would be so helpful for me. I sometimes feel like using the edhrec recommendations makes the deck too bland and I feel compelled to just use the average deck list for a commander, but this gives you pieces to build off which is much nicer in my mind