Intro
A control/combo deck that heavily incorporates spell copying in order to stack some serious pain on enemies and their creatures.
Some of the key spells and/or permanents in this deck have a fairly high mana cost (in addition to being multicolored)(e.g. Cloven Casting), so it tends to be a mid-late game deck. Early-game, it plays like a control deck, countering nasty spells, unsummoning big threats, Lightning Bolt-ing small/medium threats, and putting up defensive-minded and/or cheap creatures to stem all-out attacks. Then, when some spell copying is at its disposal, it transitions into comboing for massive damage and game-threatening effects.
As noted, this deck is designed and balanced generally around casual play. While a lucky deck order might see you dropping 15+ damage combos by turns 4-6, it's not built with competitive modern metagame in mind and would need significant tweaks to be reliably competitive itself. But that's where the beauty is! That means it's a great and fun deck (well, for you) to play casually with mates, and the relatively low deck cost lends itself well to being easily picked up. There are also many potential replacements that can be brought in to save money or that are more common, such as Shock instead of the Lightning Bolt (just for one obvious example).
Notable cards/combos
Cards
Melek, Izzet Paragon, Cloven Casting, and Primal Wellspring are your bread-and-butter mid-late game permanents. Melek allows for immediate spell copying at no mana cost, as does the Wellspring, and Cloven Casting offers cheap copying for nearly all (important) spells in this deck. Considering most of the spells you will be playing at that point in the game have tremendous damage potential, this will result in a quick end to most games once a couple (or, with luck on your side, all) of these cards are in play. Increasing Vengeance is also a key card in the vein of these other copiers, however it can only be used once and at the greatest cost/copy ratio. But in some cases, the number of copies is simply so important that nearly any cost is worth it.
Invoke the Firemind is an expensive but versatile card, allowing you to drop massive damage in the late game or draw a number of cards to get to the handful of other key cards. However, it could certainly be replaced by Blaze from the Maybeboard if you are not concerned with the ability to draw cards, or the duplication that Cloven Casting can provide for Invoke.
Turn / Burn can be a versatile low-cost split card, or it can be a potent, relatively high-cost fused card. Casting both halves at once will allow you to remove almost any creature with any P/T and even indestructible as long as they do not have hexproof, shroud, or protection from blue (or some permanent toughness buff). The blue half can also be useful on its own to save mana. The red half is overpriced, but could be used in a pinch on its own.
Goblin Electromancer serves as a very cheap and respectable chump creature in its own right, but the cost reduction on instants and sorceries makes this a card far more useful than its rarity would suggest. In particular, it makes it significantly easier to cast multiple spells in one turn or to save mana for a counter/burn on an opponent's turn.
Before transforming, Primal Amulet
can also provide the reduced spell cost that Goblin Electromancer has access to, although you will probably want to transform it as soon as possible for the sake of spell duplication.
Combos
Gelectrode
+
Turn
- if you don't have the mana for the full fused Turn / Burn but you do have a Gelectrode on the field, this combo can essentially delete any creature (that can be targeted by Turn) from existence that doesn't have permanent ambient buffs to its toughness.
Cerebral Vortex + Melek, Izzet Paragon + Cloven Casting + Primal Wellspring + Increasing Vengeance - while Cerebral Vortex appears to be a simple "double-edged sword" type of card, it becomes extraordinarily potent in this deck. The focus on spell copying in this deck allows you to quickly ramp up the damage of a single cast of Vortex to dizzying numbers. If you happen to have the tremendous fortune of having Melek, Izzet Paragon, Primal Wellspring, and Cloven Casting on the field, Increasing Vengeance in your hand, AND this card on top of your deck, you can easily end almost any game in one turn for just 6 mana (). Let's examine this theoretical case:
- On your opponent's turn (1 card drawn), cast Vortex from your deck (using Melek) for its base cost of (possibly reduced, but let's just ignore that for now), causing your opponent to draw 2 more cards and take 3 damage.
- Use the Wellspring to pay this mana cost to get a free copy, for 2 more cards and 5 more damage (8 total)
- Spend the from Cloven Casting to get another copy - 2 more cards, 7 more damage (15 total).
- Copy again for free from Melek's ability - another 2 more cards and 9 more damage (24 total).
- If they still wouldn't be dead, copy for with Vengeance, for a final 2 more cards and 11 more damage (35 total).
35 damage for 6 mana! Let's also not forget that you can have 2 copies of each Cloven Casting and Primal Wellspring on the field (in theory), and also 2 copies of Increasing Vengeance. If you were you use every spell copy in this deck to get 3 more copies even beyond what is listed above, the maximum total damage (assuming opponent's turn where they drew 1 card prior) from a single cast of Cerebral Vortex would be 80 (oh, and for only ~9 CMC). And even if you don't have every copy option available, just two will allow you three casts and 15 damage total, which will generally be a near-certainty by the later stages of a game. Heck, even if you can only copy it once you can get 8 damage for anywhere from 3 to 5 mana, which is respectable though not great - especially since it gives your opponent 4 extra cards if they don't die.
One thing to keep in mind with this combo - in theory, an opponent could possibly draw some important Instant card at some point as each of these spell instances will resolve one at a time. So if, for example, you are playing against a Red deck with lots of direct damage (say, Lightning Bolt) and you have low health (say, 3) be careful with how you use this combo. Or, maybe the opponent has something like Summary Dismissal to "counter all spells." It may be prudent to keep a Negate or Ionize and the mana to cast it when executing this combo. There is, of course, also the option of running this combo on your own turn or generally when your opponent is largely tapped out. This will limit the chances of them getting something they can use (though if you start on your turn, keep in mind the damage will be a bit lower).
