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Edric, Spying, Flying Mentor

Commander / EDH* Bracket 1 Flying GU (Simic) Tokens

Flodder

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Ramp (13)

Enabler (6)

Card draw (4)

Big bois (3)

Modular (2)

Theft (2)

Double trouble (1)

Lifegain (1)

Card selection (8)

Land base (25)

Pillow fort (5)

Anthem (3)

Counterspell (2)

Ping (2)

Cheat into play (1)

Finisher (1)

Recursion (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Edric, Spymaster of Trest

Removal (8)

Token army (5)

Booster (2)

Goad (2)

Protection (2)

Maybeboard

Token army (7)

Card draw (1)

Big bois (4)

Modular (2)

Protection (1)

Finisher (3)

Removal (2)

A budget deck built to introduce new players to the world of Magic.

Shout-out to Josh “Murph” Murphy (from the "Command Zone" podcast) for coming up with the idea to build a beginners deck in episode 701.

And another shout-out to the beautiful board game “Wingspan”, which heavily inspired me to build this deck — thanks to its clever resource management, its mix of competition and cooperation, and of course, its flying creatures :)

The many fliers and Edric as a card-draw engine encourage new players to be proactive and play offensively right from the start. I think that’s what many new players struggle with most, so I designed the deck to make them feel confident in that approach. The main strategy is simply to build a wide board state and win through semi-unblockable combat damage.

There are some control and pillow-fort type spells included, mainly to make the player feel safe rather than being provocative or hostile toward opponents. This complements Edric himself, who often incentivizes opponents to leave the new player alone.

Since new players tend to focus on their own board, I kept the amount of removal and counterspells relatively low. Instead, the deck offers fun and alternative ways to deal with problems — through goad, theft, or even a straight-up Platinum Angel. In other words, cards that make the new player go, “Wait, I can do this?! That's possible?! Cool!”

Because Edric provides steady card advantage, I included only a few additional draw spells. However, there’s a good amount of card selection to ensure quality draws. Many cards in hand require substantial mana and the mana curve is rather high, so the deck runs a high amount of ramp.

Overall, the deck is intentionally diverse to introduce the player to a variety of mechanics, keywords, and play styles. For example, the ramp category includes basic land ramp, non-basic land ramp, extra land drops, mana rocks, mana dorks, and cost reducers.

The deck is inconsistent by design. It contains seemingly random or non-synergistic elements (like discard, sacrifice, recursion, lifelink, pinging, etc.) to broaden the new player’s perspective. It’s meant as an introduction to more sophisticated strategies rather than just “random flying bullshit go.”

In the same spirit, I’ve deliberately excluded certain mechanics that might be too confusing or unintuitive for beginners — such as morph, MDFCs, venturing into the dungeon, paying life, excessive tutoring, and heavy shuffling.

I am considering removing all modular spells because they might feel overwhelming and lead to decision paralysis. On the other hand, they are always useful and make you feel like you have an answer to everything.

I’m open to all suggestions and feedback — any input is welcome! I just want to get more new players hooked :)

Cheers,

F

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Revision 4 See all

(7 months ago)

-1 Bloodthirsty Blade main
+1 Canoptek Scarab Swarm maybe
-1 Growth Spiral main
+1 Malcator's Watcher main
+1 Power Matrix main
+1 The Warring Triad main