Pffft, value. You don't need that. I agree that its not the strongest card, but having backup general functionality could be good. It would be a card that would need to be playtested.

Hello, I had a Narset, Enlightened Master creatureless deck but after seeing this, I converted it into a Talrand, Sky Summoner deck. I was hoping you could look at it and offer some advice? Thank you.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-05-15-yes-master/

How do you feel about Sphinx-Bone Wand? It can really smash face once you get it going. Also Elixir of Immortality both gains life and allows you to play your cards again.

RealShoppingCart:

• Sphinx-Bone Wand is an incredibly good card for lists like this; however, I'm choosing for this specific deck not to run any cards with a converted mana cost of higher than 5.
• Elixir's lifegain is mostly irrelevant, and the shuffle effect I think I'd rather get from spells like Learn from the Past.

Thanks for the suggestions!

So I built myself a Talrand deck (still undergoing changes and definitely more budget but still) and was hoping you could give me a couple of pointers as to how you play it. 1v1 I'm undefeated with it but not sure how to handle multiplayer (usually 4 player). Biggest question is what turn do you start leaving some of your mana open? Example, are you throwing down your Gauntlet turn 5 or are you waiting until turn 7 to have enough mana held back for a counter? What turn on average would you say Talrand gets played? Thanks for any help!

hosshughes:

• First off, note that, as Talrand decks can kind of go two ways (Counterspells Talrand and Cantrips Talrand), on top of the fact that my list is entirely creatureless, my advice will really only apply to very similar builds. I'ma try to be as general as possible, though.

• Also as a general rule, I feel like Talrand decks should definitely be more instants than sorceries. Barring casting your general, a choice artifact, or a power spell like Bribery, you should leave as much of your mana open each round as you can. Player plays something harmful to your gameplan? You've got the counter. No one does anything the whole round? You've got 2-3 more Drakes at the previous player's end step.

• I'm very counterspell-light, so when it comes to casting Talrand, it's often a "pray he sticks" kind of thing. That said, I don't cast him until I know I can make a Drake immediately after he resolves. This can, theoretically, be as early as turn 2 (a turn 1 Sol Ring and a Gitaxian Probe), but it's usually around turn 6 (so I can make 1 Drake at sorcery speed and leave up an instant-speed answer). That said, I don't like him coming down much later than turn 6, because the deck doesn't exactly have a backup plan.

• Gauntlet's another story. It comes down at one of two times: Either I have the army already and it's the way to get the last bit of damage I need, or I know that I'm immediately going to be able to chain several spells to get that army (Turnabout, Frantic Search, and High Tide all in hand, for instance). Regardless, you're gonna want at least 4 mana after Gauntlet hits the table, which usually means turn 7.

I hope this helps? If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me!

Definitely helps. I see you're only running 4 counters if I saw correctly, so I'm guessing you are basically only countering wipes and game ending combos. I am running more than 20 counters which was great in 1v1 because I could completely control the game but in a 4-way, I can't control it. I was hoping I could police any big drops and gain political favor that way but it worked the opposite way and everyone just got mad that I was countering their stuff and I became a target. I can see how fewer counters with a larger draw/bounce package would work better for multiplayer (maybe with a little pillowfort too?). Anyway, thanks for your time and great deck! +1

Also, speaking of free spells, I'd think you could get decent mileage out of Mental Misstep. You have one big ol' target of a general, and Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares are serious threats. Or just messing with acceleration like Sol Ring is good.

Talent of the Telepath seems like it would be very good in this deck.

I'm not sure what to take out for it but Arcane Melee seems like it would fit well

JimmySloan ew no. Arcane Melee should never be in anyone's mind now that Jace's Sanctum is a card.

canterlotguardian,If you think about it making it possible for your opponent to play spells easier makes sense with a deck based around counters and playing your instants and sorceries, I understand what you mean though.

But why? When Talrand's ability only triggers when you cast an instant or sorcery spell, why would you want to help your opponent out for literally no reason?

Don't hate on Arcane Melee, symmetrical effects can be very useful when your deck is tailored made to take advantage of them several times better than anyone else.

*tailor made

sonnet666 thank you, well put. It is like Coat of Arms, in my goblin deck it does buff my opponents but it is much more lucrative for me.

Personally, I think Coat of Arms is a more dangerous effect. I've never won a game because my opponent played Arcane Melee at the wrong time. But I have beaten tribal decks that played Coat of Arms because they weren't expecting me to drop a ton of tokens.

If you can drop more tokens than a krenko deck full of goblins you are my hero.

wisegreenbean: Mental Misstep, while having a laundry list of really good targets... is still too narrow. It also hella falls off in power in the late game.

Steaditup: I talk about Talent in my most recent update; I'm testing Day's Undoing first, and seeing where that goes.

@everyone else: I liked Arcane Melee until I really tried to streamline this deck's curve, at which point I cut it. It was too expensive of a permanent for me, on top of the fact that it gave my opponents a non-zero amount of value. I like the Sanctum a lot better.

@JimmySloan, I dropped more tokens than a Wort, the Raidmother deck that had Krenko out. Does that count?

@erabel, Yeah, I agree that Arcane Melee isn't the best fit for this deck. I just thought it was getting a little more hate than it deserved, and we got off topic from there.

/tangent

While it does diverge from the, "Party of One" theme, Chasm Skulker gets a lot of extra mileage out of your cantrips and leaves you with a good board state even after an opponent plays a wrath.

Penga: Sorry for taking... three days to get back to you, but yeah no. My description on the deck may be close to non-existent, but "creatureless" is definitely in that description. No dudes.

Magic: Origins came out with a few new instants and sorceries, thought you might want to see the list:

Anchor to the Aether, Bone to Ash, Calculated Dismissal, Clash of Wills, Day's Undoing, Disperse, Hydrolash, Jace's Sanctum (not an instant or sorcery, but useful for this deck), Psychic Rebuttal, Send to Sleep, Talent of the Telepath (BTW, you may get 2 or 3 Drakes off of this one), and Turn to Frog.

Trockenmatt: I already run Day's Undoing and Jace's Sanctum (which you could see if you actually read the list), I've actively considered Talent of the Telepath (which you could see if you read my update where I added the aforementioned two cards), and Bone to Ash, Disperse, and Turn to Frog are reprints, so if I had wanted to run them I would be already. As for the rest, in alphabetical order:

• Anchor to the Aether I won't run because I want my single-target removal to be instant-speed.
• Calculated Dismissal (and most Mana Leak variants) don't scale well in Commander, as people usually have ready access to too much mana to begin with.
• Clash of Wills is a strictly worse Syncopate. And I don't run Syncopate.
• Hydrolash is something I'd only run for the cantrip, and it's too expensive for a cantrip.
• Psychic Rebuttal is too narrow.
• Send to Sleep is not a good card outside of limited I don't think.

Trade Routes is a bit janky but I really like it in my edh. Although my deck runs more lands than this so that's probably the reason it is more helpful.