pie chart

Flash Master Raff

Commander / EDH*

almotions

Upvote 0
0

Utility (16)

Ramp (11)

Win Conditions (6)

Filter and Card Advantage (15)

Removal (11)

Commander (1)

Commander: Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage

Lands (33)

Counterspells (8)

Maybeboard

Other (50)

Introduction

This is a budget tempo combo deck. It is designed to beat Battle Cruiser and control based decks by playing at instant speed without compromising on your board development.

This deck is largely built around historic based spells as Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage gives these flash. It uses many utility and hate piece artifacts to disrupt your opponents and put them off balance so you can sneak in a combo during the mid game. Using a large number of cantrips and filter effects, the deck has high virtual card advantage to ensure that you draw the cards you need.

Card Choices

Used to either generate a mana advantage, letting you play a combo piece early or while holding up interaction. Also lets you control the board state without losing tempo. Artifact ramp is highly valued in this deck as it can be cast at instant speed when Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage is in play. The mana rocks have been ordered best to worst.

The following rocks do not help cast Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage turn 3 but are quite strong on their own and help produce the 3 or more mana needed to go infinite in the Iso-Rev combo. Typically these rocks require you to tap out for a turn but with Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage they can be flashed in on the end step prior to your turn.

  • Gilded Lotus - massive coloured ramp for 1 card. Also produces enough mana to produce infinite coloured mana with Iso-Rev combo without additional rocks
  • Thran Dynamo - massive colourless ramp for 1 card. Also produces enough mana to produce infinite colourless mana with Iso-Rev combo without additional rocks
  • Worn Powerstone - comes into play tapped but the 2 colourless helps go infinite with the Iso-Rev combo
  • Myriad Landscape - low requirements to play this land that can be later used to turn otherwise unused mana into ramp.
Use sparingly so that you can combo off with 1 or 2 counterspells to protect it.
  • Swan Song - probably the best budget counterspell as the 1 cost cmc lets you combo off with protection a turn earlier or with an extra counterspell back up. Also the 2/2 bird is often irrelevant.
  • Dispel - probably the best budget defensive counterspell (i.e. to protect your own stuff) as we will generally assemble the combo during the end step before our turn and on our turn.
  • Arcane Denial - unconditional counter spell that replaces itself and only has [u][c] casting cost. We are not interested in outgrinding the opponents so the opponent getting 2 cards out of it is ok. Also, can use on your own spell in a pinch to draw deeper.
  • Negate - slightly better than Counterspell due to being easier to cast which is relevant in a 2 colour deck with lots of colourless ramp.
  • Counterspell - unconditional counterspell
  • Muddle the Mixture - poor counterspell but can tutor for both pieces of Iso-Rev combo or Cyclonic Rift
  • Remand - excellent counterspell for fighting other blue mages that have lots of counterspells as you can remand your own spell to 2-for-1 the opponent. Also a very solid tempo play when someone taps out for a bomb.
  • Unwind - similar to negate but with zero tempo loss
Consists of permanent targeted removal, board wipes or bounce effects to out tempo opponents or allow you to counterspell the threat when it is recast.
  • Cyclonic Rift - Fantastic targeted removal or one-sided global bounce.
  • Swords to Plowshares - premium targeted removal that exiles with minimal downside.
  • Reality Shift - very strong removal that exiles. The down side does not matter very much unless in a very creature heavy meta (say 35 creature cards + per deck).
  • Chain of Vapor - the most efficient bounce spell.
  • Path to Exile - strong because of the exile effect, however poor when used against an opposing commander as helps pay for the commander tax. CURRENTLY TESTING
  • Into the Roil - quite a reasonable bounce spell. The cantrip effect should not be underestimated in helping us either dig for combo pieces or dig for protection for the combo pieces.
  • Blink of an Eye - see Into the Roil
  • Rout - instant speed board wipes are excellent in this style of deck
  • Scourglass - board wipe that doesnt hit many of our permanents and can be flashed in on end step so that we always have mana up. Although for this to be possible Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage would have to be out and die to the activation.
  • Evacuation - instant speed global bounce.
  • Ratchet Bomb - flexible answer, however it is slow to deal with permanents of 3 cmc or more. CURRENTLY TESTING
Low CMC filter cards allow us to find the pieces you need each game and play fewer lands, giving us virtual card advantage later in the game. Card advantage spells are used to gives us some staying power in longer games or help dig for the combo.

Filter

  • Preordain - excellent 1 cmc filtering.
  • Ponder - excellent 1 cmc filtering. Probably slightly worse than preordain since there are no fetch lands.
  • Opt - decent 1 cmc filtering that is instant speed
  • Sleight of Hand - decent 1 cmc filtering
  • Impulse - 2 cmc instant speed cantrip that lets us dig 4 cards deep
  • Frantic Search - 3 cmc filter that is card disadvantage but does not cost any tempo.

Card Advantage

  • Dig Through Time - this card can dig extremely deep and often costs [U][U] due to the high number of filtering and cantrip cards we play.
  • Fact or Fiction - either draws you a bomb or gives you card advantage. Also fills up graveyard.
  • Mystic Remora - very strong cheap card advantage. Generally I keep it around for 2 upkeeps.
  • Kefnet the Mindful - Cheap permanent that can also be flashed in. Also can block very well if you have 7 cards in hand and net you 1 mana on your turn if you are missing land drops.
  • Treasure Cruise - Often can be cast for [U] giving very good card advantage. I would cut this before Dig Through Time if you find the delve cost is unsustainable.
  • Windfall - great to cast after you've dumped a bunch of rocks onto the table. Also can be cast after someone has tutored to hand.
  • Thirst for Knowledge - generally at the point where card advantage is needed mana rocks are poor draws.
  • Blue Sun's Zenith - card advantage that also acts as the primary win condition.
  • Stroke of Genius - similar to Blue Sun's Zenith but is single use.

Consists of tutors, hate pieces, protection and recursion effects

Tutor cards to improve deck consistency:

Protection pieces to ensure combo resiliency:

  • Padeem, Consul of Innovation - used to protect your combo and can give some card advantage. CURRENTLY TESTING.
  • Taigam, Ojutai Master - helps you combo off and can provide card advantage if it sticks; however there is some tension between this effect and the flash nature of the deck.

Recursion pieces to ensure combo resiliency:

Hate pieces are used to slow down your opponents:

  • Aven Mindcensor - excellent against green ramp decks.
  • Relic of Progenitus - slows down graveyard decks. Note, can also use to stop an opponent from reanimating a creature from another graveyard using the tap ability. Can also cycle to dig deeper.
  • Hallowed Moonlight - similar to relic. Temporary measure that also cycles.
  • Silent Arbiter - slow down go-wide creature based decks.
Used to emerge victorious!
32 total lands. The low number is supported by the high number of cantrips and other filtering cards

This decklist is organized by default into my custom categories. Cards that have cross-category functionality will appear in multiple categories.

The sideboard is a working list of cards that are in the deck, but are being considered for elimination based on performance and developing theory.

The maybeboard is a working list of cards that are not in the deck, but are being considered for inclusion pending testing and developing theory.

Upgrades:

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment