Inalla - The Value Wizards
The theme:
Inalla by herself is a decent creature - 5CMC for a 4/5 body is not so bad, especially when you need a blocker. However, her main power comes from her Eminence ability: "Whenever another nontoken Wizard enters the battlefield under your control, if Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is in the command zone or on the battlefield, you may pay . If you do, create a token that's a copy of that Wizard. The token gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step."
What does it mean? It means that, for every non-token Wizard comes into play, we can pay extra for an haste token. The token can immediately attack, although it will be exiled at the end of turn. This ability is very versatile, you can literally play without casting your commander, and still enjoy her added benefit.
This ability forms the core idea of the deck: duplicate as many tokens as we can to abuse the ETB effects, use tokens to deal extra damages, or sacrifice the tokens to further exploit the extra permanent of the board. Any Wizard with the ETB effect naturally will combo with Inalla herself.
About the deck:
This deck is meant to be played in the casual multiplayer environment, so I generally avoid infinite combos and/or cards that are perceived as imba by my playgroup. Most of the infinite combo pieces are put in the Maybe board for your own consideration.
The deck is also built to be as versatile as possible, meaning it can possibly answer most of the threats, if you are lucky to draw the answer. Therefore, the key theme of this deck is to out-draw the opponent for more answer.
Lastly, it is built with the cards that I actually owned, therefore its power level is really limited by my wallet.
The game plan:
Early game
Your main job for early game is to disrupt the opponents, preventing them setting up dominant board position with cheap removal and bounds, such as Go for the Throat and Counterspell. Ramp up with mana rocks Dimir Signet, Izzet Signet in order to have extra mana for the token tax. Get some extra card draws from card:Merchant of Secret and Sea Gate Oracle to stay ahead in the card advantage.
Ideally you should not miss a land drop for the first 5 turns, with an extra mana rock setup on the board. Generally by the fifth turn, you should have around 6~8 mana with a hand full of fun interactions from extra draw power.
Mid game
Mid game is where the deck starts to explode. Generally, depend on the cards you have, you can either:
Keep ramping and avoid missing land drops. Generally you can reach up to 10~12 mana by the eighth turn.
Late game
By this time you should have generous amount of mana and a powerful draw engine to replenish your hand. Continue to slowly wear down your opponent and protect your board position until they run out of resources and give up.
Card packages:
Card draw options:
- 2CMC: Perilous Research draw 2 cards, required sac a permanent, likely be your Wizard tokens
- 3CMC: Sage of Fables to draw a card at instant speed. Remember the Wizard token also has an +1/+1 counter, so do consider spending before your end of turn.
- 4CMC: card: Merchant of Secret, Sea Gate Oracle to draw 2 cards.
- 5CMC: Disciple of Bolas to immediately draw 4 cards (and gain 4 life), Azami, Lady of Scrolls to draw 1 card per 1 Wizard per turn, or
Kindred Discovery
to effectively draw 3+ cards per 1 Wizard creature entering the battlefield: 2 from Wizard's ETB, 1 from token attacking, Mercurial Chemister to draw 2 cards per turn, Mystic Confluence to draw 3 cards instant speed
Early game protections:
- Counterspells: Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Disallow
- Creature Removals: Go for the Throat, Terminate, Reality Shift, Crosis's Charm, Vona's Hunger, Chaos Warp
- Permanent Removals: Chaos Warp
- Spot Bounds: card: Blink of the Eye, Cyclonic Rift, Crosis's Charm
- Artifact Hate: Vandalblast, Crosis's Charm
Reusable bounds:
Graveyard plays:
Board wipe:
- Profaner of the Dead exploit the token to bound all opponent creatures with toughness less than 3.
- Cyclonic Rift overload to return all of the opponent non-land permanents.
- Nevinyrral's Disk to wipe creatures, artifacts and enchantments.
- Decree of Pain generally to cycle for -2/-2 on all creatures (cannot be countered). Can hard-cast late game if the situation is really dire.
Sac outlets:
- Viscera Seer sac any token for scry 1.
- High Market utility land
- Goblin Bombardment use token to deal one extra target.
Remember that the opponent cannot prevent us sacrificing the creature, since sacrificing is stated as the cost.
Spell Copy:
- Sigil Tracer , Tap 2 untapped Wizards you control: copy any instant or sorcery spell. Note: You can copy opponent's spell.
- Dualcaster Mage: Flash in with to copy any instant or sorcery spell twice. Note: You can copy opponent's spell as well.
Tutor package:
Mana ramp:
Mana discount:
Combos:
Note: Disciple of Bolas's ETB effect does not required to select the target creature. Therefore it can be placed on the stack without targeting anything. If you want to have Disciple of Bolas sacrificing himself, do the following:
- cast Disciple of Bolas
- place Disciple of Bolas's ETB on the stack
- place card: Inalla, Archemage Ritualist trigger effect on the stack - pays
- Inalla's effect resolves - another Disciple of Bolas comes into play - put its ETB effect on stack
- the token's ETB resolves - sacrificing the original Bolas to draw 2 cards and gain 2 life
- the original's ETB resolves - sacrifing the token Bolas for the same effect
Remember that you can always sacrificing another creature to draw more cards. If such creatures are available, try keep the original Bolas for a chance to return him back to hand and cast again.
Note: Since Venser, Shaper Savant is legendary, you cannot have both Vensers in play. In order to still leave the token Venser behind, you would need to:
- flash Venser, Shaper Savant
- place Inalla, Archmage Ritualist triggered effect on the stack - pays
- place Venser, Shaper Savant ETB effect on the stack - target the original Venser
- The ETB effect resolves - the original Venser goes back to hand
- Inalla's effect resolves - a token Venser enters the battlefield
- use the token Venser's ETB effect to bound whatever target you would want to bound
Note: Since AEther Adept is a MUST effect, be careful whether you want to create a token when Naban, Dean of Iteration is on the battlefield - you may need to return your own creatures back instead.
Note: The Lich effect only trigger when the it dies - not exiled. Without a sac outlet, the token Lich will get removed without any benefit.
-
Bloodline Necromancer
+
Goblin Bombardment
+
Inalla, Archmage Ritualist
: with a Wizard in your graveyard, you can creature as many tokens as your mana allow with this combo. For example, assume we have Anathemancer in the graveyard. We can do the follow:
- Cast Bloodline Necromancer, the creature enters the battlefield
- Place Inalla, Archmage Ritualist for Bloodline Necromancer, pays
- Place Bloodline Necromancer's ETB trigger on the stack, target Anathemancer in the graveyard
- Bloodline Necromancer's ETB trigger resolves, Anathemancer goes back to the battlefield - places Anathemancer's ETB on the stack.
- Place Inalla, Archmage Ritualist for Anathemancer, pays
- Inalla, Archmage Ritualist's effect resolves for a token Anathemancer
- Let's both Anathemancer's effects resolve for double damage.
- Immediately use goblin bombardment to sacrifice both Anathemancer and Bloodline Necromancer (the original creature)
- Inalla, Archmage Ritualist's effect on the original Bloodline Necromancer resolves, creating a Bloodline Necromancer token
- Use the token Bloodline Necromancer's ETB effect to target the original Bloodline Necromancer (Make sure you sac'ed the original beforehand to be able to target it)
- The whole loop repeats as long as you have mana for it
In summary, on top of the to cast Bloodline Necromancer, for every extra, you can:
- trigger Anathemancer's ETB twice
- have a hasty token of Anathemancer for attack
- have a hasty token of Bloodline Necromancer with lifelink
- deal 4 damages with Goblin Bombardment (2 for sacrificing the original creature during the loop, 2 for sacrificing the tokens after attacking)
You can replace Goblin Bombardment with Viscera Seer for a less powerful combo (without 4 damage potential)
You can choose a less powerful loop with extra per loop, this is likely to use with Venser, Shaper Savant. What you will get:
- trigger Venser, Shaper Savant's ETB once
- have a hasty token of Bloodline Necromancer with lifelink
- deal 2 damages with Goblin Bombardment (2 for sacrificing the original creature during the loop)
