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Russian Roulette Vial Smasher

Commander / EDH*

Ski_the_Woods

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Lands (38)

Counter Magic (4)

Ramp (15)

Psych! that's the Wrong CMC (12)

Enablers (5)

Tutors (5)

Protection (3)

Commanders (2)

Commander: foil Thrasios, Triton Hero
Commander: foil Vial Smasher the Fierce

Good Stuff (7)

Engines (5)

Board Wipes (4)

This is a casual/competitive list for my favorite commander deck, Vial Smasher and Thrasios. Despite the high price tag, it keeps itself at a medium power level by excluding the 0 mana artifact ramp package and having little turn one ramp. Turn two and three is when this deck really starts going. There are a few things I want to go over before we look at the list which will help to explain some of my choices in building this deck.

  1. I hate extra turn effects.
                I hate playing against them and similarly I hate mindslaver effects. We all know how boring it can be when you have to wait for your next turn in commander and prolonging that effect just ruins the game for this reason. I acknowledge that they are extremely good with vial smasher but I took the approach of using other people's turn to do damage instead of just giving myself extra ones.

  2. I'm a control player.
               There is no denying this and this deck really shows it. I have a lot of counter spells in here because that is my preferred method of interaction. My modern deck is Jeskai control, I had UB control and Jeskai control in standard. This deck is no different.

  3. I don't like combos.
               I use to run infinite mana combos but I did not like how that with Thrasios as a commander, that means instant wins. It felt unfair so I took them out. However, I had to have at least one combo in here because my main win condition is Vial Smasher burn damage. I wanted it to be a combo that was funny so I went with the 12 mana combo known as Biovisionary and Rite of Replication . This comes in handy against those pesky infinite life players. I might be swapping this out for an infect plan b in the future but we'll see what happens. Even when I do put infinite mana combos in my decks, I make them hard to pull off. So instead of Palinchron and High Tide , I have Deadeye Navigator and Great Whale . Although I have now come to realize that combos end games quickly and now I do think every deck should have one. If every game is a grind fest, then it quickly becomes mentally straining.

- The main theme of this deck is pretty simple. It's all about casting high CMC spells without actually having to pay for them. This includes delve cards ( Treasure Cruise , Dig Through Time ), alternate costs cards ( Gush , Submerge , Force of Will , etc...), and reduced costs cards ( Blasphemous Act , Curtains' Call ). - The sub-theme of this deck is control. With vial smasher out on the field, your counter spells turn into burn spells. Thrasios also plays the role as the mana sink if your opponents don't do anything that's worthy of your counter spells. Playing this line reminds me heavily of the Kaladesh standard Jeskai control deck I played where you would hold up Void Shatter for your opponent, then just cast Glimmer of Genius if they didn't do anything. Thrasios is there to make sure all of your mana doesn't go to waste.
- I have all of the classics in here:
      - Counterspell
      - Arcane Denial
      - Swan Song
      - Pact of Negation
      - Force of Will
- The rest of the counter magic I have changes very frequently and it depends on what meta I find myself in. For example, since I was running into a lot of triggered abilities in my playgroup, I put Disallow and Summary Dismissal in here. Also running into decks that need their commander to function, Desertion gives you a longer and sometimes nearly permanent answer. Mystic Confluence and Cryptic Command seem cool but I have to do some more testing with them. Muddle the Mixture is rarely used as a counterspell since it's transmutes for a CMC of 2 which is what most the cards in the deck are. And if Muddle can't find what you are looking for, you can always jut get Demonic Tutor and go from there.
- We have a lot of ramp in here because we need a lot of mana to cast our big spells and in turn, do big damage with Vial Smasher. We also mostly go towards land ramp because over the course of the game, all of our green spells thin our deck so we can draw more gas. Also, lands tend to be on the more sacred side of EDH and are less likely to be attacked.

Creatures

      - Birds of Paradise : 4 color deck needs ways to generate all different colors of mana
      - Deathrite Shaman : Versatility is good and this guy has it all
      - Sakura-Tribe Elder : Can be a nice chump blocker before getting us a land
      - Seedborn Muse : Should be an auto include with any deck that has mana sinks. The value engine this creates with Thrasios is incredible

Artifacts

I took most of my artifact ramp out because my meta sees a lot of hate for artifact mana such as Bane of Progress . I still keep the really powerful ones in here though:
      - Sol Ring : Standard addition
      - Fellwar Stone : Normally taps for any color
      - Talisman of Dominance : The only talisman that taps for colors we care about (blue)
      - Chromatic Lantern : We are a land based ramp deck so this is nice

Sorceries

      - Rampant Growth : Not the best but I have a foil from 7th edition that I like using
      - Farseek : Gets your nice duals out
      - Cultivate : Helps you not miss land drops
      - Kodama's Reach : Helps you not miss land drops, but with more arcane
      - Explosive Vegetation : Two basics for 4 mana is pretty good
      - Skyshourd Claim: Two duals that come in untapped for 4 mana is insane. One of my favorite plays is to cast this finding Tropical Island and Breeding Pool untapped then cast Thrasios

This is one of my favorite parts of the deck. I love the card and decided to devote a whole part of it to my deck. The idea was that I could have a whole bunch of effects available to me for a single green mana. The following cards get rotated in and out of my deck depending on what my meta is:
      - Crop Rotation : Our enabler
      - Bojuka Bog : Instant speed exile a graveyard that people don't seem coming
      - Glacial Chasm : Amazing getting this right after someone swings at you for lethal. It's a really cool "gotcha" effect because it's instant speed.
      - Ancient Tomb : Ramps a mana when its tutored for and also just an EDH staple
      - Halimar Depths : Unfortunately as my land base becomes more and more expensive, this card has been cut as it coming into play tapped is too much of a downside.
      - Tolaria West : Not actually tutored for of course but here to get Pact of Negation but it can be a sorcery speed Crop Rotation in desperate times. I have actually gotten a basic swamp with this because a blood moon was out.
      - Maze of Ith : Unless the meta is voltron heavy, I feel like this card is simply not good enough. I'm a little biased however as my meta barley wins through combat damage.
My land base is originally based off the 4-Color Mana Base Guide (found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DSddyFCqPk ) by Josh Lee Kwai but has since been highly upgraded as I slowly acquire the more expensive lands.
Ahh yes, the fun part of the deck. This part unfortunately has become more efficient cards rather that fun cards as my meta grows increasingly more competitive. But there are still some fun cards in here, mainly Mind's Dilation .
      - Terastodon : This guy is amazing. It clears three problematic nonland permanents for you and you still have a giant 9/9 afterwards. Normally he stay untapped and acts as a blocker as I do not like attacking with my creatures (I'm a control player, what can I say) but he is nice when we are trying to close out the last few points of damage on an opponent.
      - Kaervek the Merciless : A vial smasher that you can aim at not just players but also creatures, AND it goes off twice as often. He is just too good to not include in the deck. However because of his power, he normally does not survive the turn cycle as he is a must-answer threat for you opponents. Have counter magic up when you cast him so he doesn't just eat a Path to Exile when he comes down. That way you will get a whole lot more than just one damage from him. I normally get him out when I want to end the game quickly without a combo.
      - Great Whale : A free seven damage with Vial Smasher the Fierce and combos with Deadeye Navigator for infinite mana.
      - Peregrine Drake : I don't really like running this guy as he feels cheap to combo off with. But it still fits the theme of the deck with free spells.
      - Mind's Dilation : Is by far the most fun card in the deck if it sticks. It adds a nice amount of randomness and gives you free spells for Vial Smasher the Fierce .
      - Volcanic Vision : One-sided board wipe that gets back a spell. The best one is normally Dig Through Time . I highly recommend this card as it has over-performed every time I used it.
      - Cyclonic Rift : One-sided reset, a classic in commander.
      - Stroke of Genius : More cards is always good. It is also our win condition when we combo off. X spells with infinite mana and Vial Smasher snipe people off the table. You also recur this with Eternal Witness and Snapcaster Mage to mill everyone else.
      - Chord of Calling : Fetches out our creature win cons. For the most part, they all have some kind of etb so that's nice. Because I built my creatures around this, this card is one of the best in the deck.
      - Seedborn Muse : This card with Thrasios out just absolutley buries opponents in card advantage if it sicks. I will often make this card my main game plan as the amount of mana it gives us is nuts. So much so that I will be adding Green Sun's Zenith so I will have four copies of this card in my deck. (Chord of Calling, Green Sun's Zenith, Demonic Tutor, Seedborn herself)
- Early Game: All we want to do in the early game is ramp. This deck simply does not function without a lot of mana. While it is cool to curve out commanders turns 2 and 3, it is honestly one of the worst plays we can make in the early game. Getting Vial Smasher down early is good though as it takes awhile to do 40 points of burn. But Thrasios should really only be played when you have six mana so you can at least get one activation out of him before he gets board wiped. I will normally aggressively mulligan my hands until I can get 2 or more ramps spells. Even if all we have in our hand is ramp, I will still keep as Thrasios is our mana sink that will fill our hand with gas.
- Mid Game: This will be your classic land-go phase of the game. Keep everyone else from winning as you slowly build up your card advantage with Thrasios and slowly kill everyone with Vial Smasher. This is also an extremely political part of the game. Bargain with people to not die by countering/removing other people's win cons.
- End Game: This is normally a combo to instantly win or burning everyone out with Kaerevak. But at this point, you should have Seedborn Muse out or something like Mind's Dilation to bury everyone in card advantage.

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