Krark, the Investment Banker [Primer]

Commander / EDH Partner Primer Spellslinger UR (Izzet)

VorelNailo

Instant (21)

• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Brightstone Ritual
• 1x Cackling Counterpart
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Desperate Ritual
• 1x Expansion / Explosion
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Fury Storm
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Pyretic Ritual
• 1x Repeated Reverberation
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Silundi Vision  ^Flip
• 1x Snap
• 1x Thrill of Possibility
• 1x Turnabout
• 1x Twiddle

Land (34)

• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 16x Island
• 11x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Riverglide Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Training Center

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Ral, Storm Conduit

Sorcery (17)

• 1x Banefire
• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Bonus Round
• 1x Drawn from Dreams
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Fiery Gambit
• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Inner Fire
• 1x Karn's Temporal Sundering
• 1x Mind Spring
• 1x Mizzix's Mastery
• 1x Past in Flames
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Quasiduplicate
• 1x Rite of Flame
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Stolen Identity

Artifact (12)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Krark's Thumb
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lithoform Engine
• 1x Mask of Avacyn
• 1x Neurok Stealthsuit
• 1x Primal Amulet  ^Flip
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Twinning Staff
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Commanders (2)

Creature (7)

• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Goblin Electromancer
• 1x Mizzix of the Izmagnus
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Thassa's Oracle
• 1x Tidal Barracuda
• 1x Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Arcane Melee
• 1x Double Vision
• 1x Jace's Sanctum
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x The Mirari Conjecture
• 1x Thousand-Year Storm

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Welcome to the one and only original Krark, the Thumbless+Sakashima of a Thousand Faces Spellslinger Chaos Primer

Introduction

Krark is a well-known figure in the high-stakes gambling dens of Mirrodin. But after losing both of his thumbs in a wager (although he got his lucky thumb back in another wager), he decided to leave Mirrodin behind and look for safer ways to make money.

This quest eventually led him to the world of the stock market, and ever since he has been raking in money hand over thumbless hand. To learn the tricks of the trade he has acquired through his career, read his New York Times best-seller To New York With No Thumbs, a sequel to the Mirrodin Times best-seller The Book of Krark, which chronicles his journey into the depths of Mirrodin.

How the deck works

Krark, the Thumbless is a pretty complicated card. Most people (myself included) looked at him and though "so you have a 50% chance of your spell essentially fizzling". But his ability to bounce your spells back to your hand is actually what makes this deck work. If you have mode 3 of The Mirari Conjecture, or another global copy effect active, casting a Pyretic Ritual gives you from the copy, and then has a 50% chance to get bounced to your hand to LET YOU DO THAT AGAIN. You will get a net of + (however many times he bounces the spell). That's pretty crazy. And if you didn't think that was chaotic enough, this is where Sakashima of a Thousand Faces comes in.

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces is Mirror Gallery on a Clone. Two heavily-played cards with incredible synergy, in the command zone. When you cast Sakashima in this deck, 99.99999999% of the time you will be making a copy of Krark. That means that whenever you cast a spell, you flip two coins, copy for each time you win the flip, and bounce it back to your hand if you lose a flip. That means that good ol' Pyretic Ritual now has

• A 25% chance to get bounced back to your hand twice.
• A 50% chance to get you AND get bounced back to your hand, letting you do it again.
• A 25% chance to get you .

Pretty crazy, right?

And that's not all.

With multiple copies of Krark, our spells are now both more consistent AND more explosive. With just 3 Krarks, our Pyretic Ritual now has:

• A 12.5% chance to get . Yes, that's a net of 7 mana.

• A 37.5% chance to get AND HAVE IT BOUNCED TO YOUR HAND

• A 37.5% chance to get AND HAVE IT BOUNCED TO YOUR HAND

• A 12.5% chance to have it bounce to your hand without doing anything.

That means that we have a 87.5% chance of gaining mana on our first cast, and a 75% chance to get to play it again. That's pretty good odds. With more copies of Krark, the odds get even better.

With 4 copies of Krark, Pyretic Ritual has:

• A 6.25% chance to get you .

• A 25% chance to get you and get bounced to your hand.

• A 37.5% chance to get you and get bounced to your hand.

• A 25% chance to get you and get bounced to your hand.

• A 6.25% chance to get bounced to your hand without doing anything.

At this point, Krark has learned his lesson. All that "double or nothing" nonsense is in the past. He now spreads his assets over a diverse portfolio, which mitigates his losses and guarantees results. The more small transactions (coin flips), the more return overall.

These synergies between Krark, clones, and rituals form the basis of the deck. There are lots of rituals, lots of ways to turn that mana into cards, and a few ways to win (elaborated below).

This deck DOES NOT generate infinite mana. There are no infinite combos here. At some point you will win all of the flips and the spell will go to your graveyard. This is meant to be a casual semi-janky fun deck (fun for you, less so for the opponents who have to sit through your 10,000 coin flips).

Strategy

Early Game (Turns 1-3)

This is where our deck shines. We don't have much ramp in the form of land ramp or mana rocks, but that doesn't matter too much due to the number of rituals we are packing. You want to get a form of protection for Krark (Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Mask of Avacyn, Whispersilk Cloak, Neurok Stealthsuit) out to prevent Krark for being removed; he is essential to our strategy.

Next, play Krark. Once Krark is in play, make sure to suit him up with his protective gear; especially if your playgroup has played against this deck before, he will be a removal magnet.

Finally, with Krark in play, trot out Sakashima as a copy of him. This sets you up for the ritual looping explained earlier. Any clone spells are helpful at this point; always copy Sakashima as a copy of Krark to keep the Mirror Gallery effect in play.

Mid-Game (Turns 4-7)

Now it's time to go off. We should have found a ritual by now (there are 8 in the deck, counting High Tide and Turnabout, both of which provide the same effect), which means that we can start to generate a ridiculous amount of mana, as explained earlier.

With this ridiculous amount of mana we can draw our deck with Blue Sun's Zenith- type cards (making sure to not sink to much mana and either have them bounced or draw yourself out). Once in this position, we have access to all of our shenanigans.

First, play something that will copy ALL of you spells that turn (Bonus Round, Thousand-Year Storm). This means that now none of our spells can get bounced back to our hand and fizzle; we will always get at least one copy. Then, copy Sakashima as many times as we can (my record is somewhere around 7 billion Sakashima clones). This means that our spells have exponentially more copies. Now it's time to end the game. Banefire for X=5 doesn't seem that scary, but when it's copied 3.5 billion times, it adds up.

Late Game (Turns 8+)

Ideally, you shouldn't be here (you've either popped off and won, or flopped and been eliminated early), but if you are, there's still a few plays you can make.

This deck has a very low mana curve, but there are a few high-cost/big-impact cards that can end a game single-handedly.

• Thousand-Year Storm. As it copies cards as they are cast, regardless, of Krark interference, this can spiral out of control, and is one of the times when losing the coin flip is really a win. Any ritual with this and some luck can very quickly net you massive amounts of mana.

• Karn's Temporal Sundering. Taking extra turns may be a bit of a cliche in commander, but that's no reason to not play this card. This can both decimate opponents' board states and give you the turns to capitalize on the lack of obstacles.

• Blatant Thievery. Everyone's had that moment of "I NEED that card!". Well, now you can take it. With some copy effects and a little luck (this is still a chaos deck), this can take over a game - literally.

• Mizzix's Mastery. Every time I have seen this resolves while overloaded, the game is over that turn. This only gets better the later in the game you play it, the fuller the graveyard is.

Other than these bombs, everything talked about earlier still works in the late game. Opponents may offer more resistance (in the form of counterspells or protection) or have stronger shields, but it is still possible to pick up a win out of nowhere (with, of course, a little luck).

Top Ranked	Achieved #41 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #35 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #6 position in Commander / EDH Primer 3 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.09
Tokens	Copy Clone, Experience Token
Folders	Coins, Saved, New Deck Ideas, EDH ideas