pie chart

Wheel Around the Sun

Commander / EDH Mono-Red

Vallaris

Edit Live Edit
Edit
Upvote 0
0
Deckcycle Feature Queue
Feature Queue
Playtest v1
Similar Deck Space Card Recommendations

Creature (25)

Instant (16)

Land (30)

Artifact (5)

Enchantment (1)

Planeswalker (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Rionya, Fire Dancer

Sorcery (21)

Maybeboard

Creature (5)

Land (1)

Sorcery (3)

Enchantment (2)

Instant (2)

Artifact (1)

WHEEL AROUND THE SUN

One deck of every colour and colour pairing, for Mono Red, I've picked Rionya, Fire Dancer .

WIP

In the spirit of red, I gave myself a challenge when building this deck to only use cards that I already have in my collection and to have that done before the Commander arrived in the mail. Seeing as Rionya was coming from a seller only a state away, I'd estimated it would be here in about four days. She was here in two.

Sometimes I work on decks for years before they are "done" in the sense that they are playable and in a place where I'm satisfied with them, or it's taken that long to acquire the card intended for it. No deck is every truly done is it though? Anyway, this is the fastest I've ever built a deck, in one day. It's was fun finding a place for a whole bunch of cards that had been sitting around unused.

Since finishing it, a few cards have been replaced, but this deck is still around 90% cards I already had. A small handful of commons and uncommons came from my partner's collection plus Sunbird's Invocation which I am trying out here. Primal Amulet   as well as 2-3 cantrips neither of us had were bought for this deck, but that's it. There are of course some cards I'd eventually like to acquire to improve it, but that will come in due time.

If there is any one card you must include in a Rionya deck, it's not a creature, not an instant or sorcery, it's...

After casting a whole bunch of spells, you get a bunch of tokens that are a copy of a creature on the battlefield, but then they are exiled at the beginning of the next end step. Just tap the Sundial before the end step and voila! You keep all the tokens.

A few others...

  • Ashnod's Altar - if you're going to lose the tokens, may as well sacrifice them for I dunno, a really big Banefire ?

  • Primal Amulet   - One side reduces the casting cost of instants and sorceries by , then the land side will copy them. I was really trying to avoid buying any cards for this deck before playing it for the first time, but this was the one where I broke down. This deck just didn't feel right without this gem from Ixalan.

Before I go on with more about the deck, I'd like to address a few weaknesses.

I built this in a day with cards only from what I already had, save Rionya. Seeing as that's the case, I'm sure there are a slew of cards out there that would be many times better (like a lot more 1-2 mana cantrips). If/when they're acquired, they'll go in. For now though, I'm just working with what I've got.

That said, if you have any suggestions, let me know!

30 Lands total. 29 Mountains and a Dwarven Mine . I am picky about land art so check out the list if you want to see some gorgeous Mountains. Primal Amulet   can sometimes count as a 31st land on it's flip side.

I have no idea if this mana base is going to work yet. Considering that something like 43-44 cards cost 2 or less mana to cast, plus there are some ways to reduce the cost of spells as well, I think it should?

In any case, this deck does not want to be clogged up by lots of lands or mana rocks. That said, if I were to ever upgrade the lands in this deck...

To help thin out the lands from this deck, fetches would benefit of course. That said, this deck wants to move fast, imho it's better to include a Mountain than say Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse as the lands they grab come in tapped.

Should be included:

Any of the classic Fetches that involve red, Arid Mesa , Scalding Tarn , Bloodstained Mire , & Wooded Foothills . I have 2/4 of them, but I'd like to polish this deck before swapping cards back and forth between decks. That probably sounds odd, but it's just one of those things that helps me keep my cards organized/know where I can find them easily.

Prismatic Vista - grabs a basic, likewise, deck needs refining before I include it.

Fabled Passage - this one I'm unsure of and would have to test in this deck specifically. The land count is low, so there's a risk of it coming in tapped if you have less than four. Probably still worth it though.

Usually I am all about utility or special lands, but not here. This deck does not want ANY colourless or come in tapped sort of shit. That said, there are some potential exceptions.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - excels in a mono coloured decks. That said, I will have to see how many permanents on the field actually give it enough of the devotion it needs in order for it to be worth it.

Rogue's Passage - MAYBE. Out of all of the overly common and sometimes overused utility lands, this one is a favourite. It's hard to not include it. For now it is not included, but that may change if enough of the rest of the deck does.

Other lands I don't have but would include if I did

Shatterskull Smashing   - this would be awesome in this deck, unfortunately I don't have it

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - the only tap land I would ever consider including

Shinka, the Bloodsoaked - this deck isn't begging for it as there are not very many legendary creatures, but would include if I did.

Hammerheim - I mean I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this for this deck either, but if you have it, why not?

Lands I would NOT include

Any of the other MDFCs from Zendikar Rising that come in tapped. Two of them wouldn't be terrible, but they're not good enough to be worth it either.

Most of the spells in this deck are cheap, but some of the creatures might be harder to cast in a deck with only 30 lands.

Primal Amulet   - reduces the cost of instants and sorceries by 1. IMHO this is an absolute must-include for a Rionya deck.

Hazoret's Monument - reduces the cost of red creatures by 1 and gives a rummaging effect whenever one is cast

Ashnod's Altar - may as well sacrifice the token's Rionya makes for mana if you need it

Cloud Key - can reduce the cost of a spell of a chosen type by 1

Birgi, God of Storytelling   - more or less enables cheaper or essentially free spells

Don't have but would be excellent in this deck

Anything listed here is stuff I would absolutely add to this deck if I had it

Ruby Medallion - reduces cost of red spells by 1. This whole cycle of medallions is in dire need of reprints, got one for my partner a year or two ago for like $8, it's over $30 now, goddamn.

Would NOT include even if I had them

There are not very many artifacts that reduce the cost of spells out there. Completely ignoring the expense of them due to being Reserved List from Legends, Planar Gate and Mana Matrix are both 6 mana to cast and that is way too much for what this deck wants to do, even if the payoffs would be good in other decks.

Stone Calendar - this one is iffy, pushing it at 5 mana to cast, doesn't seem worth it for this deck. That said, I would be willing to test this one out once the deck is better refined.

Rionya, Fire Dancer + Port Razer - infinite combat stages. Even if you've only cast one spell that turn, you get another Port Razer. And another combat phase. The Port Razers that attacked before can't attack the same opponent, but the new one can. So you attack with the new one, and get yet another combat phase and another token. And it keeps going and going and going!

Birgi, God of Storytelling   + Grinning Ignus + Hazoret's Monument - infinite mana. Really, anything that reduces the casting cost of Grinning Ignus (mentioned several in the previous section whether or not they're in this deck) can achieve this.

Likewise...

Birgi, God of Storytelling   + Grinning Ignus + Cloud Key - infinite mana.

There are some Wheeling effects thrown in here to keep card flow going, plus they're fun.

Magus of the Wheel - my favourite of the wheels for this deck since he can be duplicated with haste, has a potential turbo mill wincon for the deck

Dragon Mage - risky in this deck, it's got the highest CMC in the deck, but there are ways for extra mana. Another way to potentially turbo mill in mono-red

Wheel of Fate - can be free cast again with Dreadhorde Arcanist among others

Reforge the Soul - another wheel effect, pretty much Wheel of Fortune if it's the first card drawn, there's a fair bit of scrying in this deck which helps

and while this one is NOT in my deck...

Wheel of Fortune - one of my partner's absolute favourite cards that goes into most of his decks, so in a way I can somewhat reliably count on the original Wheel being cast, copied, cast again, stormed off with, and so on. Not necessarily for my benefit, but a lot of my decks are built in mind with the likelihood that a Wheel is gonna happen.

Rionya wants a lot of instants and sorceries yet also wants a decent number of creatures. The Adventure mechanic from Eldraine combines these cards types to make the following particular valuable for this deck. Unfortunately there are only four of these in mono red, which renders Lucky Clover not worth adding to the deck.

Bonecrusher Giant - 2 damage to any target

Embereth Shieldbreaker - Can destroy artifacts. Usually not worth running such specific types of targeted removal in edh, but in this case, it fulfills two purposes.

Rimrock Knight - shitty instant, just see it as getting a bunch of Port Razers for 1 red mana lol

Merchant of the Vale - Rummage instant on a rummage stick. Now this one is Chef's Kiss

Rionya's ability does not enable Legendary Creatures to be kept sustained on the board. Perhaps in a different deck that could be useful where death triggers something else, but this deck doesn't have any of that.

That said, I have included a few because I felt their abilities outweighed the negative of not being able to copy them.

Birgi, God of Storytelling   - Birgi here who essentially enables free casting of many spells. Though it would be awesome having many of her, even one is huge for being able to chain cast a whole bunch of cheap spells.

Syr Carah, the Bold - keeps the cards flowing from the deck

Toralf, God of Fury   and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell - both included for the same reasons, they turn the little nicks from tiny amounts of damage into a straight up massacre with ease.

This section likely needs the most work. Ideally the creatures that Rionya can copy have some sort of decent ETB or other ability that gets silly when copied.

That said, the current inclusions that aren't Legendary or have Adventure:

Brash Taunter - will have to test this one more since his activated ability costs 3 mana, but he works as removal so I'm inclined to keep him. If you can get one of the infinite mana combos rolling, this turns into a lot of damage.

Dragon's Rage Channeler - pretty much in here for surveil, I don't think the delirium ability will happen all that often.

Dreadhorde Archanist - can cast spells from the graveyard after attacking, unfortunately this is not as relevant with Rionya as she cares more about having spells cast before attacking, but still a useful ability for recasting things to have in hand or exile for the next turn.

Fanatical Firebrand - cheap to cast, direct damage, great for duplicating especially if Toralf, God of Fury   or Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is out

Fervant Champion - cheap to cast, many of these will all be able to pump each other up

Glint-Horn Buccaneer - great with anything that wheels

Guttersnipe - makes a lot of smaller red spells better, excellent to have multiple out as well, especially if they can be kept from the Sundial

Magus of the Wheel - see Mono-Red Turbo Mill under Janky Shit section

Port Razer - enables infinite combat stages with Rionya

Runaway Steamkin - obviously

Seasoned Pyromancer - honestly I don't think he's the best fit in this deck and I might move him to my Chainer deck instead, just really wanted to add this one somewhere.

Seven Dwarves - Originally I had seven of these in here because it seemed like it would be funny, who knows, maybe I'll move them back in here because the idea of being able to consistently cast these and get lots of tokens of them is too funny. This card will never not be good with Rionya

Rionya, Fire Dancer + Runaway Steam-Kin + Sundial of the Infinite - this will be a real jank enabler so long as you can keep some steamkin tokens around

such as...

Squee, the Immortal + Birgi, God of Storytelling   + Ashnod's Altar + Runaway Steam-Kin = infinite mana A variant of this could also be achieved with multiple steamkins so long as you were able to keep some tokens and have enough mana to get the cycle rolling. Easier with Hazoret's Monument and/or Cloud Key . Just need to figure out what I need to take out to put Squee in here though...

Enchantments don't do anything to benefit Rionya's ability, but there's two that I couldn't help but include

Sunbird's Invocation - like Dragon Mage , this one is risky with a CMC of 6, but it has the benefit of being able to free cast something whenever something from the hand is cast, this counts towards Rionya's ability. If it doesn't work out, it will be removed, but I'm hoping it does because this card is a lot of fun and fits thematically.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Spoiler Timeline
Card Odds v1 Draw hand
Add to folder Copy
Download / Export / Embed Code

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Hi! Please consider becoming a supporter of TappedOut for $3/mo. Thanks!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

98% Casual

Competitive

Date added 2 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

5 - 0 Mythic Rares

22 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

27 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.59
Tokens Copy Clone, Devil 1/1 R, Dwarf 1/1 R, Elemental 1/1 R, Treasure
Votes
Ignored suggestions
Shared with
Views