Melek Spellslinger Storm

Commander / EDH Combo Storm UR (Izzet)

Reverie42

Instant (23)

• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Fall of the Titans
• 1x Firemind's Foresight
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Insidious Will
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Quicken
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Steam Augury
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Turnabout
• 1x Wild Ricochet

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Arcane Melee
• 1x Eye of the Storm
• 1x Jace's Sanctum
• 1x Metallurgic Summonings

Sorcery (19)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Bonfire of the Damned
• 1x Empty the Warrens
• 1x Epic Experiment
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Mind's Desire
• 1x Mizzix's Mastery
• 1x Mystic Retrieval
• 1x Past in Flames
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Rise from the Tides
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Spelltwine
• 1x Temporal Fissure
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Volcanic Vision

Artifact (9)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1x Seal of the Guildpact
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphinx-Bone Wand
• 1x Thought Vessel

Commander (1)

Land (36)

• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 16x Island
• 1x Izzet Guildgate
• 12x Mountain
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Creature (8)

• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Curious Homunculus  ^Flip
• 1x Docent of Perfection  ^Flip
• 1x Goblin Electromancer
• 1x Guttersnipe
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Mizzix of the Izmagnus
• 1x Talrand, Sky Summoner

---

Maybeboard

Instant (4)

• 1x Impulse
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Reiterate

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Pull from the Deep

Creature (1)

• 1x Young Pyromancer

Artifact (1)

• 1x Sensei's Divining Top

---

When I originally started upgrading Commander precons, I ended up rebuilding the U/R deck as a chaos deck, but that left a gap in the stable of a more pure spell-based deck, which I wanted to have. This was an attempt to do a budget-friendly upgrade into storm.

Typically, upgrades to this precon stick with Mizzix and use Reiterate/Ritual to go off. While I don't have a problem with that, I have plenty of decks that go infinite, and I really wanted this deck to lean towards more complex lines. Using Melek instead of Mizzix also steers the build towards reducing the deck's reliance on the commander. Since Melek is a value engine rather than a combo piece, it's easier to go off with him than without, but he's not required.

There are three basic game plans in the deck:

• Go wide with Docent of Perfection, Metallurgic Summonings or Talrand, Sky Summoner
• Burn out opponents with Aetherflux Reservoir, Guttersnipe or Sphinx-Bone Wand
• Accumulate a ton of mana and burn out or deck opponents with giant X spells

Token Producers

Docent of Perfection, Metallurgic Summonings and Talrand, Sky Summoner all produce a token for each spell cast. Since they have no connection to storm count, it's generally good to play these early. It's best to have Counterspell backup since these creatures are incredibly vulnerable to board wipes. There are no haste enablers or extra turn effects, so if you plan to win with a token swing, you need to protect your board for a turn.

Burn Effects

There are three main burn payoffs in the deck, all of which interact very differently with the storm plan:

• Guttersnipe can only damage players, but damages all players. While its relatively low damage means it requires a lot of spells to kill, getting everyone low and burning out the most threatening player in another way can still give you the room you need to finish everyone else off. As a fairly cheap creature, it's best to play this during the turn you intend to go off if you have sufficient mana since it is a high-priority removal target.
• Sphinx-Bone Wand needs a lot of counters to start having an impact. This means you ideally want to play it the turn before you combo off to get as many triggers as possible. As an artifact it is less vulnerable than Guttersnipe, but you will frequently have to take a turn off and go shield-down to get it on the table. That said, this is the best defensive option, and the opportunity cost of using a trigger to shoot down problem creatures is pretty low.

• Aetherflux Reservoir is the most flexible option in terms of when you play it. Since it is directly tied to your storm count, you won't necessarily lose all that much by playing it mid-combo if you're going to have a huge storm turn. It's a great hit off of Mind's Desire. In contrast to Guttersnipe, Reservoir is borderline broken in 2-player but requires a lot more setup to kill the table in multiplayer.

X-Cost Spells

Assuming you are successful in finding and recasting Turnabout / High Tide multiple times in a storm turn, you can end up with mana to sink. There are two classes of spells to do with it:

Card draw with Blue Sun's Zenith, Stroke of Genius. Both of these can be pointed at another player to mill them out at very high mana values, or you can use them to draw more spells. You can also get pseudo-card draw with Epic Experiment.

Direct damage with Bonfire of the Damned and Fall of the Titans. Fall can kill multiple players. Bonfire has a nice synergy with Metallurgic Summonings where you get a token of size RXX when you miracle it even though you only have to pay RX.

Storm Payoffs

There are cards with Storm in the deck:

Mind's Desire let's you cast a bunch of spells for free. While this usually won't win on its own, a large Mind's Desire will frequently find you a win con. Hitting one of the other storm spells or a way to cast Mind's Desire again is ideal. If you hit Sphinx-Bone Wand, Aetherflux Reservoir or Eye of the Storm, make sure to cast those immediately before anything else.

Empty the Warrens will flood the board with dozens of goblin tokens. You still need to get to attack with them, so having counter backup is important. But without a board wipe, they'll usually win in a couple of turns. Fissure to bounce all the lands is a great backup if you can manange to find them both.

Temporal Fissure can bounce opponents' big threats and a large number of lands. Use this to protect your tokens or buy a couple turns to finish everyone off.

Accumulating Mana / Storm Count

The biggest challenge in storm is having a good idea of how much mana you'll be able to generate and how much storm count you'll be able to produce from a given position. In order to get the largest number of storm triggers off of the fewest resources, there are three main sets of enablers in the deck:

Mana Production: High Tide, Seething Song and Turnabout all give you effectively free extra mana and additional storm count. High Tide is best early in a combo, the others can be used at any time. The single best position to be in is where you have the ability to cast Turnabout multiple times in the same turn (either via things like Melek, Reverberate or Mystic Retrieval. Encoding any untapper/ritual on to Eye of the Storm will produce enormous amounts of mana.

Spell Discounts: A lot of cards in the deck reduce spell cost. An ideal discount to have when storming off is 2, as it removes the colorless component from most spells, but it's possible to go off with less given enough other enablers, mana rocks, or the like.

Multicast Effects: Most spells (including storm spells) give only one cast trigger when played. However, Epic Experiment, Spelltwine, Mind's Desire, overloaded Mizzix's Mastery and Eye of the Storm all give you multiple cast triggers for one spell, quickly driving up the storm count with fewer cards and less mana required. If you can chain these together, you can frequently play out your entire deck.

Melek Synergies

Ideally, you want to cast lots of spells from your library when Melek is on the table. There are several cards in the deck that will help you get valuable cards on the top of your library.

Brainstorm will let you put up to two important cards from your hand on your library.

Ponder and Jace's Sanctum give you some ability to manipulate the top of your library

Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds will let you shuffle away things that you can't cast to try to find things you can

Mind's Desire shuffles between each copy resolving, so you can cast instants off of the top as each copy resolves

If you want to spend a little extra, Sensei's Divining Top can be very powerful in Melek. I would recommend also running some number of fetches if you run top.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 12 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.53
Tokens	Construct */* C, Copy Clone, Drake 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Experience Token, Goblin 1/1 R, Human Wizard 1/1 U, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	EDH