Inalla, Archmage Ritualist

Legendary Creature — Human Wizard

Eminence — 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 {1}. 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.

Tap five untapped Wizards you control: Target player loses 7 life.

Tokens

• Copy Clone

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

Azoth2099 on Inalla - Wizard Tribal

2 months ago

Excellent Commander choice, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is my undisputed favorite Commander, and perhaps my most powerful decklist.

The main wincons I'm using in my list are lines through Spellseeker and/or Micromancer which ends up creating infinite Archaeomancer or Scholar of the Ages Tokens after like 15 or 20 steps with a series of Instants and Sorceries (I can teach you, if you feel like learning all of it). I'm also running Dualcaster Mage + Heat Shimmer & Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation.

Some trigger doublers like Naban, Dean of Iteration, Harmonic Prodigy, Panharmonicon & Virtue of Knowledge could go a long way, too. Not necessarily doublers, but Archmage of Echoes, Molten Echoes & Reflections of Littjara have a similar effect.

Venser, Shaper Savant is a must in budget Inalla. I'd also consider Patron Wizard, Sigil Tracer & Voidmage Prodigy if your intention is to run a crapload of Wizard creatures. In my experience, though, Inalla doesn't actually need that many Wizards, just the right ones.

Here's my own Inalla, Archmage Ritualist list if you wanna peep it: MICROSEEKER (INALLA)

Gleeock on Eminence: Do you like it …

8 months ago

TypicalTimmy. Except when you start applying that idea in-bulk, then you start talking about power creep in the format. Also, the classic issue of: best of ___. Best of vampires Edgar Markov. Best of wizards Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Best of knights? ___

Fortunately, they have done this on a tribal scale so far, maybe that is what the game designers intended to make sure eminence didn't trump all the other commander choices? Easy for me to talk, I don't really care for tribal play, I might be annoyed if I had a beloved tribal-type deck that just became obsolete.

nhhale on Eminence: Do you like it …

8 months ago

DrukenReaps that's actually the second time I've heard someone mention Edgar Markov and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist specifically. I have to agree that they are the most powerful of the 5 existing Eminence commanders. I also agree that the new one is powerful, potentially the best one yet.

I have my own Inalla deck. I actually leaned into her second ability that taps your wizards, and I have such a blast playing it that I kind of wish they hadn't given her Eminence. It's a super interesting ability that I haven't seen on any other commander, but it unfortunately gets completely overshadowed by her first ability (to be fair, I did lean quite a bit into that one as well).

DrukenReaps on Eminence: Do you like it …

8 months ago

I've played against all the eminence commanders and played with a few. I think both Inalla, Archmage Ritualist and Edgar Markov were a ...bit much.

The others being Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Arahbo, Roar of the World, and The Ur-Dragon always seemed strong but fine to me. Their real value not coming until they are in play.

The new one drawing and discarding seems like it has the potential to lean more towards the first group imo. Drawing on a commander always seems woefully undervalued by so many... Though it isn't just straight card advantage so maybe it'll be another strong but fine commander. People will actually want to play it in order to get real value out of it.

Overall I think any card with eminence is going to be playing with fire but not any more so than say storm or infect. It'd be easy to go overboard with the effect but there are many other effects that provide only mild value. Regardless folks will likely get targeted even if they played the absolute weakest eminence ability. I think the heat it can attract will balance it out at any table.

Epidilius on People's Thoughts on Mommy Norn?

11 months ago

A lot has been said already, but my two cents:

Will she absolutely destroy my casual Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Wizard ETB tribal deck? Yeah. I have ways to deal with it, but if the table wants to scoop I'd probably say "Let me see if my draw step can deal with it, if it can't I'll scoop with you".

Will she destroy my Yarok, the Desecrated ETB combo deck? Maybe. It has three main ETB combos that it turns off, but the deck is also full of removal for things like this.

Will she hurt my two other fav decks; a hardcore combo focused Teferi, Temporal Archmage and a super casual Daxos of Meletis? Not really. I have some ETBs that can win me the game or make big swings, but otherwise this kind of effect doesn't do anything.

---

I brought up scooping in response earlier, and would like to go further into detail about it. This kind of conversation would probably be brought up two or three turns after no one can do anything, and honestly none of us would get salty about it. It happens all the time. The Grixis discard gets their "No one has hands unless they deal with X on their upkeep" combo, we scoop. The Simic value engine start going, and the pilot casts Genesis Wave for 20, we scoop. The stax player starts pulling ahead too much, we scoop. The Gitrog player gets a T2 combo going, we congratulate them and scoop.

Conceding the game is part of the game, who cares. If someone is oppressing the table for more than a few turns, we'll just move on the next game. Yeah, we could spend the next hour trying to draw one specific card (or in the case my Inalla deck, hoping that another player deals with Norn), but honestly why would we? We can recognize the incredible board state that was achieved, and just start a fresh game.

Guerric on [Primer] Helming the Host of Heaven *Update*

1 year ago

kirbysan

Pyre of Heroes is a card I love that I've definitely considered putting in here, and which I may put in here still. It is at its best in toolbox tribal decks, and is arguably one of the all-stars of my Inalla, Archmage Ritualist deck, and should probably go into my elfball deck as well. It's main advantage here is that it allows us to tutor out whatever angel we want, though we do so at the cost of some mana and an angel which costs less. There are instances where this can be great, such as to get Linvala, Keeper of Silence out when we want her, or to help to form Brisela. It could also help us replace angels targeted with single target removal- if we have mana open we can just sac the targeted angel and bring something else out in its place for short mana. It would also give us tutoring that we don't have a lot of in white. It wouldn't be broken in this deck the way it is in tribal decks with more toolbox effects, but it might not draw as much hate either. If I do put it in, Together Forever is the sort of card I might put it in in place of. While it isn't as good in a board wipe, it is arguably better in many situations with targeted removal as we can just replace the lost piece with a costlier spell.

I think Pyre of Heroes could be good regardless of whether we have the combo, but Breathkeeper Seraph is a card I am a bit more dicey on. While on its own it definitely protects itself and one other creature from destruction (but not exile, bouncing, etc) it costs 6 mana, and I am pretty picky with cards in that range. In the combo it's amazing and works as a draw piece, but outside of the combo I'm not too jazzed about it, though I am open to it and certainly don't think it's useless. Unexpected synergies like these can make the deck stronger if they don't weaken our primary gameplan too much.

The Ozolith is a card that's been suggested and considered from the beginning along with a host of other counter-moving shenanigans cards. While I think it's the most worthy inclusion of such cards, I've still never been personally too jazzed about it. We aren't really focused on counters shenanigans in this deck as we leave those to Ghave, Guru of Spores and Heliod/Ballista decks, and devoting more than one card to this subtheme would water down our gold-fishing. This card on its own could protect our counters as you say, but I'm just not sure it would work so well as to be worth it. This might just me my playgroup, but artifact hate of all kinds (destruction, bouncing, etc) is plentiful and this is exactly the sword of card they would blow up as a matter of principle, especially if they just board wiped and wanted to make sure I couldn't just put those counters on the first creature that I play afterwards. If I thought it would work out I would be more open to it, but I see it doing nothing more often than not in my group. Nonetheless, I wouldn't see any harm in trying it out. Every play group is different and sometimes things could be possible like knocking someone out with commander damage by putting them on Giada. I don't see this being likely in my groups, but I could be wrong!

GorramScoundrel on

1 year ago

I like your cards, but I’m not a fan of your commander in this considering you only have 3 wizards in the 99. I think Sedris, the Traitor King would be a slightly better fit, you might not rely on his unearth ability at all but at least it helps all your creatures, whereas Inalla, Archmage Ritualist only helps the three.

Guerric on [Primer] Helming the Host of Heaven *Update*

1 year ago

Gameplay Report 1

We're going to call this game a win, though I didn't see the illegal play at the time that made me think that I "lost" it! I was playing against a nasty Queza, Augur of Agonies combo deck, a Veyran, Voice of Duality deck and a Lathril, Blade of the Elves deck. I took a lot of hate and lost a lot of pieces that I fielded, but I was careful not to dump my hand too quickly, and kept my resources strong by attacking every turn with goood old Segovian Angel equipped with Sword of Hearth and Home and Rogue's Gloves, making sure I had no shortage of ramp and cards. Eventually my opponents were exhausted and I dumped a large quantity of angels on the battlefield in a single turn, including Linvala, Keeper of Silence. I had lethal against my remaining opponents, but I thought the Queza player had been able to pull out a game winning combo. This would have required him to cycle Sanctum Plowbeast however, and Linvala should have shut that off since plowbeast is a creature. As such, we'll call this one a win! I think this game illustrates once again the power of Linvala, but also is a reminder that you don't want to commit too many resources before you're ready, and that when getting a lot of hate you can just build up resources for the right time and overwhelm them. Getting this pacing right is how once moves from being a noob at this deck to a pro.

Gameplay Report 2

For the first time this summer I got to play against this deck, as a friend I met a teacher's conference piloted it 1v1 against my own best deck, which is my Inalla, Archmage Ritualist combo deck. Needless to say, I learned from this game that this deck is easily piloted well by someone that isn't me but is a good player, and once again that is a monster deck in 1v1. Despite having lots of premium control pieces in my toolbelt including Cyclonic Rift (which I tutored and played), counterspells, removal pieces, and lots of game-winning, synergistic combos, I just wasn't able to keep up with Giada. Linvala, Keeper of Silence made my life miserable until I erased it with a Toxic Deluge, though the life loss hurt. She still came back quickly even from that and finished me off. It was good to see my deck piloted expertly by someone else, and perform well against my most competitive deck.

Gameplay Report 3

This game was short and a bit of a sequel to the previous game. I once again was piloting my Inalla deck against a friend who was playing Giada, though this time it was a four player game. The Giada deck worked well, and was the major target at the game table. Unfortunately for them this meant they ignored me, and I combo'ed off out of nowhere well before they were expecting it. As such, it was a loss for Giada, but the deck worked the way it was supposed to even in another player's hand, even if the threat assessment of all three of my opponents did not work as well.

Gameplay Report 4

This was the truly epic win that I've been waiting for since I built this deck, and my favorite game with it to date. Not only did I finish the game with 150 life (thanks to Bishop of Wings, Soul's Attendant, and especially Righteous Valkyrie), but I formed Brisela, Voice of Nightmares  ^{Meld  Meld} not once, but twice, and brought Emeria, The Sky Ruin fully online. My opponents were playing my own decks, which are good, including my super fast Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow deck, but not even Yuriko could keep up with my lifegain, which left my opponents in quite the dilemma as they tried to figure out which threats to do with. Brisela fell he first time to a Dokuchi Silencer, but I was able to kill the Yuriko player before he could repeat the act, and I brought Bruna back with Emeria and Gisela back with Karmic Guide, and there was nothing my remaining opponent could do to stop me. I think this game was an illustration of just how good this deck can be when performing at its ceiling.