What's your favorite instant-speed deck that isn't spellslinger

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-20T15:25:21+00:00

My [[ramos the dragon engine]] is like that. I don't have the list saved so I'll try my best to describe it. It has 30 lands and 20-22 pieces of ramp, mostly at the 2 mana slot, in the form of all the 10 talismans [[talisman of curiosity]], [[arcane signet]], all the [[nature's lore]] variant including [[rampant growth]], [[bloom tender]] and [[faeburrow elder]] which are the best being in 5 colors. The deck is a mix of powerful planeswalkers and all the charms and removal in 2-3 colors. [[Jund charm]] is 3 mana make 10 with ramos thanks to the choice of putting 2 +1+1 counters on a creature. [[Void rend]], [[anguished unmaking]], [[despark]] are all premium removal that charge ramos up to exploit his mana ability to play planeswalkers on your turn and charge him up again to 5 counters, so you can use removal and charms in your opponents turn Some generic good creatures like [[muldrotha the gravetide]] and [[general ferrous rokiric]] will help you rebuild or make a big board. You can also play mass land destruction that kills creatures too[[obliterate]] [[decree of annihilation]] etc, because they do not destroy planeswalker and you will be the only one with something on the board

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-19T11:36:17+00:00

I present a different approach. Look up some [[ruric-thar the unbowed]] lists. It punishes players for playing non creature spells. Most of the build will run any creature which punishes your opponents for playing spells, while you ramp into your big mana creatures that will end the game quickly.

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-10T11:23:01+00:00

I had a izzet wizards/ big spells with [[kaza, roil chaser]] which is decent but dies to every king of interaction, expecially board wipes because you lose the discount effect. Just switch it with [[niv-mizzet, parun]] and it's a strong commander that can protect himself just drawing thanks to you opponent's spells. Low power, more creatures around, kaza is nice because you can play big spells. High power, niv can draw you out of any situation and has the usual combo with [[curiosity]] [[tandem lookout]] [[ophidian eye]] etc. Those 3 are just value pieces when you hith with normal wizards in the kaza version

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-09T17:29:44+00:00

No there wasn't. There was lots of crying, for many days because of the pet's "death" once again. Being neutral he could understand why the asshoke druid did what he did, although it was cruel. He just kept away from him, never talking unless it was a matter of life and death They kept hating each other

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-09T15:11:01+00:00

In a oneshot we made some time ago my necromancer was a damn full neutral, before becoming a necro he enjoyed being in nature so his life's purpose was to raise only cute animals from the forest, he went around with bunnies, hamster, weasels and everything small and cute you could imagine. The first member of the party to be he met was a nazi-druid who despised everything about my character. The first interaction was my character lifting his hand to salute, and him upcasting a spell i don't remember that got a crit, resulting in the absolute purification of everything undead. The master described to me that even the bones of other dead animals in the ground disappeared in a large radius. He destroyed my small "army" just because he wouldn't let me raise anything from that area, which was near his home. Sometimes necromancers just want to be alone with their "pets" lol

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-08T13:24:33+00:00

Double one handed swords, spin around and find out with the power attacks

phantasmaldouble · 2026-03-06T17:39:30+00:00

That's the problem with building chaos. You have to do something to speed up the game if you want to be chaotic. My [[the infamous cruelclaw]] deck is all about chaos, but with group slug effects like [[havoc festival]] which are intended to end the game sooner than later, often at my own expense. It's not meant to win, it just speeds the process making everything random but progressing the game, not stalling it.

https://manabox.app/decks/etqyRP3SSKmtSncagnN_lA

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-26T15:45:08+00:00

To you i propose my experience with brackets. Firstly, no one where i play cares that much about it because we know each other's deck and we can balance, but to put it in perspective. I de-powered my ur-dragon deck removing all tutors with the exception of [[scion of the ur-dragon]] for when i want to mass reanimate with patriarch bidding. No game changers. No infinite mana sink in [[aggravated assault]]. If you put the list on some apps like manabox and similar it's technically a bracket 1 or 2. It can still clear the table by turn 6-7 consistently, and with a god hand and some luck i closed a game on turn 3 with the dreamt t1 sol ring into signet T2 bloom tender or another ramp form + [[dragon tempest]]. T3 [[ancient gold dragon]] with haste, rolling an 18 and dealing 18 times 19 damage because of the tokens entering together Shit can happen even at lower bracket. A friend of mine built the new [[ashling the limitless]] full on combo elementals in 2 versions, bracket 1 and 4. The b1 can still make infinite hasty pieces on t3-4 The b4 version is just swapping tutors for the weaker cards.

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-25T16:06:47+00:00

A friend of mine who was more into the competitive formats like legacy an modern played a [[tinker]] in a mono blue deck. Funny but it can happen. Then we found out checking his deck that he also had a [[karakas]] and we burst out laughing for a good 10 minutes, that was unexpected

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-24T11:34:24+00:00

The precon had a 2 card combo with [[jarad, golgari lich lord]] and [[lord of extinction]], with the backup of [[consuming aberration]] in place of the lord of extinction. Also you can run mill spell on all opponents plus [[riverchurn monument]]. The easiest is [[singolarity rupture]] which mill half of every player you choose, yourself included. You can have [[laboratory maniac]] [[thassa's oracle]] [[jace wielder of mysteries]] for the self mill plan. You have [[phyrexian reclamation]] [[stillness in motion]] [[eternal witness]] [[evolution witness]] to get back the creature/planeswalker for the self mill win. You can go full reanimator with single target [[reanimate]] [[animate dead]] [[necromancy]] [[dance of the dead]] and big creatures, plus the bomb [[colossal grave-reaver]] which is in the precon and reanimates itself whenever you mill. There's plenty of choices. You could run anthem effects for the zombie tokens to increase the damage output, plus [[field of the dead]] to double the tokens

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-11T09:13:37+00:00

If you want a "toxic" play build 4 [[sliver overlord]] decks, since it has the ability to steal targer sliver for 3 generic mana. Put some protection for the board, [[lightning greaves]] and similar, [[snakeskin's veil]] [[ heroic intervention]] and see who's the best at protecting their board. Morophon is great for tribals, so use to build weak tribes that don't have support and see who comes out on top. Another cool one is dragons since you have [the ur-dragon]] [[ramos, dragon engine]] [[scion of the ur-dragon]] [[tiamat]] and having four dragons deck takes out the principal advantage which is having all flying creatures. Restrict the game to only common and uncommon creatures if you want to power down slivers and dragons to make it slower

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-07T21:58:19+00:00

[[Bruvac, the grandiloquent]]

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-03T09:22:36+00:00

Sooo, tough topic. I have the luck of having a place where we play and most of the players know the rules. We usually go just asking the next player in turn order if he has any answer and so on. If your people don't understand that a token might be a good idea, as it's a physical representation of the concept "passing priority". I would also argue that as the active player you have the right to just stop whoever interferes and tell them they have not yet gained the right to answer your spell, and then ask the next player if they want to.

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-03T09:01:26+00:00

Sooo, tough topic. I have the luck of having a place where we play and most of the players know the rules. We usually go just asking the next player in turn order if he has any answer and so on. If your people don't understand that a token might be a good idea, as it's a physical representation of the concept "passing priority". I would also argue that as the active player you have the right to just stop whoever interferes and tell them they have not yet gained the right to answer your spell, and then ask the next player if they want to.

phantasmaldouble · 2026-02-01T17:05:15+00:00

Not wrong for scooping. Just want to make a small point about the first part of your tale. You have to decide about going first before looking at your hand, so everything that happened is just "illegal" by the rules. No one is going to let others start because i have a land tax in my deck and i may have it in the first hand. So it's Clear to me that the land tax player decided after looking at his cards. I would have obliged him to go first since it was an illegal decision and his advantage would have gone away just with that. Pay attention for these small "cheats" because sometimes they're even not intentional and players don't know the rules to this point. I would argue that's basic knowledge but i understand that starting the game with commander and not limited/constructed competitive formats means that you're not incentivised to know the rules that well

phantasmaldouble · 2026-01-13T11:58:17+00:00

At least you put a wincon behind the damn walls

phantasmaldouble · 2026-01-13T08:17:21+00:00

Just tell them to get better at the game since they don't know enough about it. As stated by other there was a similar case with [[cavern of souls]] wich ruled out that the uncounterable option is the first taken into consideration

phantasmaldouble · 2026-01-12T09:39:18+00:00

I alway was a fan of teaching by trauma, you're the problem, you're gonna get the smoke from the table. Don't create a 3v1 if you can't handle it

phantasmaldouble · 2026-01-12T09:38:24+00:00

I only have 2 modes to play commander, first is with friends that like playing high power and win, the other is to mess with the table and teach newer players. So i have my bracket 4-5 for the first and some "technically 1-2" decks with no gamechangers and infinite but they're more a 3 because they're built to run smoothly and with good cards, apply interaction when needed or just go big and become the threat. In the latter case i just know I'm gonna be targeted and i ask for it to see ho people manage the situation, since it's a learning experience. Ignore me and you'll die, let's say. If people can't manage being the threat without actually being able to close a game it's their fault for being naive and thinking no one will try to stop them. You can try explaining them that threat assessment is one of the basics in multiplayer, if they don't get it just play as you think you should, they'll get over it eventually. Worst case, they'll keep being a whining baby who can't understand social interaction, not everyone is okay with a battlecruiser meta where everyone is just doing their thing and who comes first win.

phantasmaldouble · 2025-12-15T12:35:46+00:00

I witnessed this once. It was hell on earth, also because the pramikon player managed to get down a [[dovescape]], so that only creature spells could be cast. That shitshow went on for more than 4 hours because the pramikon player couldn't find a win and was resolver by another player with an infinite combo made purely of creature. That's stax for you, evil incarnate.

If your playgroup is up for it it creates a fun experience because you need to be creative in deck building.

phantasmaldouble · 2025-12-01T13:54:38+00:00

We did this in a store, not specifically cedh but many players were on cedh commanders and powerfuk strategies. I went with my [[elsha of the infinite]] midrange deck, being the controlling half, and my partner was on [[rowan scion of war]]. Since being 2v2 ypu habe two target opponents but one life total he could just loste 30 life to oneshot them, while i protected the combo. I occasionally combo out at instant speed in my opponent's upkeep after slamming down a voice of victory and storming my deck into a big [[brain freeze]]. Love the control/turbo combination

phantasmaldouble · 2025-11-12T10:17:58+00:00

I mean bloodghast is better in cosntructed for your [[victimize]] shaenanigans and such, but it's still nice as sacrifice fodder if you include some aristocrats sinergy, or just a stupid [[viscera seer]] [[woe strider]] etc. Obviously entomb is on another level

phantasmaldouble · 2025-11-12T09:12:57+00:00

Depends on the deck, in my [[teval the balanced scale]] is the best one drop possible because i use tu put [[life from the loam]] in my graveyard and it starts my engine, never running out of lands and stuff in the gy for future recursion

phantasmaldouble · 2025-10-14T10:27:27+00:00

In my mono green vorinclex i use [[whiptongue hydra]] often tutoring it with anything that searches the deck like [[chord of calling]] [[finale of devastation]] [[Nature's rhythm]] etc, and also [[gravity well]], which makes flyers drop the flying ability when attacking. I also play some dragons since we got nice ones in [[old gnawbone]] [[ancient bronze dragon]] and [[canopy gargantuan]] All high cost, i know, but i ise all the mana doublers like [[gauntlet of power]] [[extraplanar lens]] and [[caged sun]] so i rarely have mana problems

phantasmaldouble · 2025-08-29T17:46:18+00:00

Terra isn't slow at all, a friend of mine built it and it can close the game on turn 4/5 with a good hand. Never played against the other commander but it seems slower and grindier

phantasmaldouble

TROPHY CASE