You all know why we're here - The Commander's Quarters' contest, featuring Fblthp as the commander is currently underway! Create a focused deck with a $25 budget limit, not including Fblthp and basic lands! So, what did I do for my deck?
Fblthp, the Lost
is, at his core, a blue
Elvish Visionary
. Except, he's from the command zone! However, traditional infinite flicker strategies don't work here, since Fblthp shuffles himself away every time we target him a spell. We could use
Deadeye Navigator
, but that's pretty slow at 6 mana and also very inconsistent. So, what if we have infinite mana and had some way to repeatedly replay Fblthp from the command zone?
THE COMBO
- Chapter 1: The Scribes
-
Archaeomancer
,
Mnemonic Wall
, and
Salvager of Secrets
all do the same thing - they return an instant or sorcery card in our graveyard to our hand. These are already pretty strong with cantrips and board wipes, allowing us to clear the board every turn if we can get the mana to do so. However, we can do something even more powerful than that!
- Chapter 2: Back To Where You Are
-
Displace
,
Ghostly Flicker
, and
Illusionist's Stratagem
all have the same functionality with the cards from Chapter 1 - when you target one of those creatures and another target, like
Mulldrifter
, we can use the ETB of the second creature and return the flicker card with one of our "Scribes". Infinite ETBs! What's the strongest ETB we can get, I wonder?
- Chapter 3: Going Beyond
-
Peregrine Drake
as the second creature, combined with a "Scribe" and a flicker card, generates us infinite mana if we have 5 lands on the battlefield. Yes, we got there! Now, how do we win?
- Chapter 4: The Lost
- Now that we have infinite mana, let's cast Fblthp. Now, cast a flicker card, targeting a "Scribe" and Fblthp. Fblthp is forced to shuffle back into the deck...or is he? This is Commander! Since it's a zone change, we can elect to send him back to the command zone with some extra commander tax. But, since we have infinite mana, we can just recast him, and repeat the process! This is the main reason why we aren't running very mana X mana draw spells - if we have the infinite mana combo, we can draw our entire deck out with Fblthp.
- Epilogue: A New Beginning
- Funnily enough, we have another way to generate infinite mana. When we have 7 mana, we can cast Ghostly Flicker, targeting 2 lands. Then, holding priority, we can cast
Naru Meha, Master Wizard
, targeting Ghostly Flicker. Copy the flicker, targeting Naru Meha and a land and congratulations, we have infinite mana. If we have a "Scribe" or Mulldrifter or any other card on the battlefield that can manipulate or dig through our deck, we can use that as an outlet to this source of infinite mana.
THE WIN CON
- Chapter 1: A Rising Windmill
-
Altar of the Brood
,
Drowned Secrets
, and
Sage's Row Denizen
are the three main mill win cons. If we draw our entire deck, then we can just play one of them and win the game through infinite flickers. So, why didn't I choose a traditional Laboratory Maniac-esque deck? The problem is that having a focused deck around Lab-Man is really difficult and is too all in. With Altar and Sage's Row Denizen we can have a long term game plan in case something happens to our infinite mana combos. We have enough board control to slowly choke our opponents out!
- Chapter 2: A Port of Thieves
-
Rishadan Cutpurse
is the alternate win con in case we can't mill our opponents out (say they're running
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
). We can infinitely flicker Rishadan Cutpurse to force all of our opponents to sacrifice everything they have!
- Chapter 3: A Dead End
- Picture this: Peregrine Drake gets exiled, and our opponents named Ghostly Flicker with
Nevermore
. What do we do now? Other than milling our opponents slowly, we have to play a control-style end game and choke our opponents out of the game by attacking from 2 different sides.
Guile
works great with our 10 counterspells, and can slowly bring us back into the game by chipping at our opponent's life totals.
Sphinx of Magosi
is a huge flying beater that draws us cards. They don't link completely to the mill end game, but if our win cons are locked out of the game, the longer the game goes the less likely we are going to win.
- Epilogue: A Shining Jewel
-
Coveted Jewel
is mainly used as a mana rock, but it conveniently taps for 3 blue mana AND draws us 3 cards. You know what that means, right? It works as an alternate combo with Ghostly Flicker and a "Scribe"! It doesn't provide us infinite mana, but we can just draw all of our win cons and stop. Or, we can use it as infinite ETB triggers for Sage's Row Denizen, Altar of the Brood, or Drowned Secrets!
