[Primer] The Wizarding World of Inalla

Commander / EDH* Competitive Control Infinite Combo Reanimator UBR (Grixis) Wizards

Apotheosis616

Instant (29)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Burnt Offering
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Essence Flux
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Miscast
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Plunge into Darkness
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Shallow Grave
• 1x Snap
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Winds of Rebuke

Creature (11)

• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Opposition Agent
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Scholar of the Ages
• 1x Simian Spirit Guide
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Thassa's Oracle

Land (28)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Underworld Breach

Commander (1)

Artifact (15)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Exhume
• 1x Finale of Promise
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Unearth
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

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Maybeboard

Instant (1)

• 1x Cabal Ritual

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“I address you all tonight for who you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.”

― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Introduction

This is a primer for Inalla, Archmage Ritualist in 4 player Free-For-All competitive EDH. The deck performs well into a variety of different metas, being flexible enough to fight through Stax, race some of the fastest decks in the format, all the while sitting behind a nice control shell.

If you’re unfamiliar with multiplayer competitive EDH format/meta and want to learn more about it, check out the discord server at cEDH Discord - feel free to come by and ask questions or just hang out and chat about Magic.

Furthermore, if you enjoy this deck and love grixis colors, come join the grixis server at Grixis Discord, where we talk about everything competitive grixis.

Deck Archetype

Fast Combo: Fast combo is the ability of a deck to win early, through powerful, easy to set up combos by means of tutors and card advantage. Along the same lines, the deck is very resilient to most kinds of hate because it consists of a very tight combo protection suite.

Control: The deck is built in a way that makes it able to race fast decks, but when this is not the case, you are able to stop them through variations of controlling the board state. With a plethora of counterspells, bounce spells, and creature removal, we are able to make plays that put us ahead of other players while slowing down the decks that are faster than us.

Paring this more reactive play-style of control, with a more proactive style of fast-combo, can make the deck a little harder to pilot, but it enables a higher ceiling once mastered.

Should I Play Inalla?

Yes if:

• You like passing the turn and holding up interaction for other players
• You want to have decisions to make on opposing turns as well as your own
• You like having a high amount of decision points
• You like fast wins but are willing to concede the fast win to make a smarter play
• You like control
• You like reanimator
• You like having the exact same win conditions

No if:

• You want to mostly play on your turn
• You don’t like control
• You want a developed board state
• You want more lines to victory
• You want to play an "easy" deck

Deck Strengths

1. The strength of this deck lies with its one-card combo with Spellseeker. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist enables Spellseeker to get multiple copies for a single colorless mana.

2. The deck plays very well into a variety of metas, since it is very flexible. The flexibility of a deck is defined by the different ways it can reach its end goals. This deck can be put in a variety of difficult situations; whether by Stax, opposing board state presence, or any other reason, we can wiggle our way to victory through different compact methods.

3. The deck has considerably more counterspells and interaction than most combo decks, the reason for this is because A) I like running lots of interaction and B) the deck lets us run loads of flex slots. You have the ability to add a variety of specific interaction cards that target whatever you need to for your meta. So, for example, you need a specific kind of interaction like more creature removal, you can throw that in and replace it with something that you don’t really need, maybe artifact hate.

4. Strong into combo-centric decks. With the amount of countermagic and interaction this deck possesses, we are able to slow down/stop any decks that try to combo off before we do.

5. Strong into Stax decks. Stax decks rarely hurt us since all we are doing is sitting back and watching the game unfold while slowly building up a good hand that can win out of the blue.

6. Counter magic, hurts, but it isn’t the end of the world since we have the ability to use our win conditions from the graveyard.

7. Another huge strength of this deck is the commander and the eminence ability. We basically get to use our commander without ever paying to cast her. So this commander-centric deck does not have the weakness other commander-centric decks have, and that is the removal of said commander.

Deck Weaknesses

1. There are two substantial weaknesses to this deck. The first major weakness comes in the form of two types of Stax effects, the Rule of Laws and the Torpor Orbs. These are not the only two cards that shut down the deck, other cards such as Hushbringer, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Arcane Laboratory and other similar cards are just as bad. These need to be removed before we can attempt to win. The Spellseeker combo requires you to sling several spells together in order to win. It also requires you to be able to have ETB's.

2. The second major weakness of the deck is graveyard exiling effects such as Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace. These two cards can really limit the deck. This deck utilizes the graveyard to take advantage of specific cards, if you remove the ability to use the graveyard then you remove half the deck's strategy/synergy. However, the deck can still easily win around graveyard hate with the Thassa's Oracle combo.

3. The deck is also weak to effects like Aven Mindcensor. The deck has so many "search your library" cards that when this bird shows up it really slows our gameplan down.
   

How to Combo

Method 1: Spellseeker + Scholar of the Ages

This combo requires you to have Spellseeker in hand and it will cost and 7 life.

1. Cast Spellseeker placing the Inalla trigger on the bottom of the stack and the search ability on top. (Inalla trigger)
2. Resolve the search ability and grab Culling the Weak. (Inalla trigger)
3. In response to the inalla trigger, cast Culling the Weak targetting the original Spellseeker. You now have in your mana pool. (, Inalla trigger)
4. Now with one of your mana, Pay for the Inalla trigger creating a copy of Spellseeker and searching for Unearth. ()
5. Cast Unearth targetting Spellseeker. (,Spellseeker trigger, Inalla trigger)
6. Use a to pay for the inalla trigger. Resolve both of the Spellseeker searches grabbing Burnt Offering and Finale of Promise. ()
7. Using the one mana, cast Burnt Offering targetting the real Spellseeker. Add to your mana pool. ()
8. Cast Finale of Promise targetting Culling the Weak and Unearth. (On the stack bottom to top: Unearth and Culling the Weak)
9. Cast Culling the Weak targetting a copy of Spellseeker (there should be 2 token copies). Cast Unearth targetting the Spellseeker in your graveyard. (, Inalla trigger, Spellseeker trigger)
10. Resolve the Spellseeker trigger searching for Entomb. (, Inalla trigger)
11. Pay one mana and resolve the Inalla trigger. Search for Reanimate. (, Hand: Entomb and Reanimate)
12. Cast Entomb placing Scholar of the Ages in your graveyard. (, Hand: Reanimate)
13. Cast Reanimate targetting Scholar of the Ages. (, Inalla trigger, Scholar of the Ages trigger, -7 life)
14. Resolve the Scholar of the Ages trigger, returning Entomb and Burnt Offering to your hand. (, Inalla trigger, Hand: Entomb and Burnt Offering, -7 life)
15. In response to the Inalla trigger, Cast Burnt Offering on Scholar of the Ages. (, Inalla trigger, Hand: Entomb, -7 life)
16. In repsonse to the Inalla trigger, cast Entomb placing Shallow Grave in your graveyard. (, Inalla trigger, -7 life)
17. Now, pay one to resolve Inalla's trigger and return Burnt Offering and Shallow Grave to your hand. (, Hand: Burnt Offering and Shallow Grave, -7 life) 18: Cast Burnt Offering on the real Scholar of the Ages and then cast Shallow Grave targetting it and returning it to play. (Tons of mana, Scholar of the Ages trigger, Inalla trigger, -7 life)
18. Resolve the Scholar of the Ages trigger to return Burnt Offering and Shallow Grave to your hand.
19. Resolve and pay for the inalla trigger returning Entomb and anything else to your hand.
20. You can now repeatedly cast Burnt Offering on the real Scholar of the Ages and reanimate it with Shallow Grave to create infinite Scholar of the Agess. This will also allow you to Entomb all your instants and sorceries from your deck and put them into your hand with Scholar of the Ages's ETB.
21. Swing for lethal or proceed to the next combo.

Method 2: Thassa's Oracle + Tainted Pact

This combo is much easier and won't require the massive wall of text. :) The combo requires you to have Thassa's Oracle + Tainted Pact in hand. It costs . This cost can be reduced if you use Demonic Consultation instead. It will also increase by if you pay for the inalla trigger.

1. Cast Thassa's Oracle and hold priority on it's ETB trigger. (Thassa's Oracle trigger, Inalla trigger)
2. Respond to Thassa's Oracle's ETB by casting either Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact exiling your entire library and winning the game when Thassa's Oracle's ETB resolves.
3. The inalla trigger here is just for protection. If you have the extra mana or you are afraid they will Stifle your Thassa's Oracle, you can create a copy of Thassa's Oracle adding another layer of protection to this combo.

Winning Through Stax

It is to no surprise that Stax is a favorite among many. Stax is a deck archetype that focuses on playing cards that hurt/stop other decks. Some of the best Stax pieces in the format: Null Rod (shuts down artifact decks completely), Rest in Peace (one of the best Stax pieces in the current meta because it stops loads of decks from winning the game because of the strict graveyard hate), Trinisphere which is a massive pain for everyone playing the game, Rule of Law which stops storm decks and most combo decks, and the new Hushbringer and friends that stop ETBs.

Now, winning through any assortment of these stax pieces can be hard but it is possible.

• Null Rod: Stops us from winning early on, however, it can easily be bounced to hand at end step to let us win on our turn. Also, in a lot of cases, we can just ignore this and win like normally. This card does not stop our combo, it just slows it down.

• Rest in Peace / Tormod's Crypt / Card:Grafdigger's cage / Leyline of the Void: These completely stop some versions of the Spellseeker combo, if anything, they slow down the gameplan of the deck. With graveyard exiling effects, you have to use Spellseeker to search and grab a bounce spell (to remove the problematic Stax piece) and a restart card such as Essence Flux to restart the combo with Spellseeker. However, again, Thassa's Oracle can win through these cards no problem.

• Trinisphere: Slows down the game as soon as it enters the battlefield, but doesn’t stop us from winning. People have been slowly moving away from this card, so it may not be showing up much in your meta.

• Rule of Law and Arcane Laboratory: Powerful Stax pieces that stop most fast combo decks completely until removed, including ours.

Some of our best friends during these staxy games will be Necropotence, Rhystic Study, Steal Enchantment, and Dark Confidant. These are generally slower cards but in a Stax game they are very powerful. While playing vs Stax, it is important to remember that games are usually slowed down drastically (if played correctly). For this reason, it will be important to generate lots of value of our cards.

In conclusion, Stax can be our friend. It helps slow down the game and can completely ruin other people’s chances of winning. Since our deck has various slick paths to victory we are often able to win most Stax matchups.

Piloting

“No man, no power, can bind the action of wizardry or still the words of power. For they are the very words of Making, and one who could silence them could unmake the world.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

Deciding whether to go all out for a fast combo kill or to control the game until you have an easy line to victory can be very challenging. It is important when making these decisions to be flexible and to understand what other people are trying to do. When trying to make these decisions a few notable things are:

1. Understanding what decks are at the table,

2. Turn order,

3. What your hand gives you access to, and finally,

4. Everyone’s turn 1 plays.

The first and foremost observation you need to make at the table is what decks you are playing against. This does require some knowledge about the current meta and what decks do what.

For example, understanding when someone is playing:

• Kess, Dissident Mage they are most likely playing some sort of storm/consult line variation, with the latter being more prominent. The deck boasts extremely high card quality and will most likely have an answer for any threat your throw at them. Their win-condition, the same extremely tight combo of Thassa's Oracle and Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation. However, they also run Jace, Wielder of Mysteries as a back-up for Thassa's Oracle. Be mindful when they tutor, You don't need to counter the Thassa's Oracle, you need to counter either Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation. In other words, wait for them to cast Thassa's Oracle, then try and counter them when they go for the win with the etb on the stack.

• Thrasios, Triton Hero/Tymna the Weaver, fear the worst, Oracle hulk decks are arguably the deadliest deck in the meta and probably the most powerful variation of Thrasios, Triton Hero and Tymna the Weaver. This deck will sandbag their counterspells and wait for the perfect time to cast Flash with Protean Hulk in hand. This can be done at instant speed and will always be a threat. Pay attention to how they are holding up mana and either try to win before they assemble their combo, or you will need to keep up countermagic.

• Everyone's favorite frog, The Gitrog Monster, is another fast combo deck that is extremely resilient to hate and will need a careful watch to make sure they do not just win out of the blue. Counter those discard outlets and even the frog itself.

It is important to know how other decks work in order to play a controlling/adaptive strategy effectively. The more you know about a person's deck, the better you can evaluate problematic cards. With the above examples, it will be important to determine how fast your hand is and, is it possible for you to win through interaction? If you can win turn 2 with your hand, it may be worth taking the risk. But know, these decks pack a ton of interaction and will be contesting the first person who tries to go off. Sometimes, however, keeping a slower hand with some powerful engine or tutor will also be very effective.

When playing against decks such as:

• Yisan, the Wanderer Bard: a powerful midrange deck that is consistent and has the ability to slow down the other decks at the table

• Teferi, Temporal Archmage and The Chain Veil: A midrange deck that tries to slow down other decks so that it can combo off.

• Heliod, Sun-Crowned: A hate bears deck that is designed to prevent opponents win-cons from working. For example, Rest in Peace stops our ability to use the graveyard, Rule of Law prevents our deck from slinging spells together, and Hushbringer stops our Inalla trigger. In most situations, we can probably out race this deck unless they are fortunate enough to play the stax piece that prevents the combo we are currently going for. While we try to pivot to another strategy or try to remove the card, it may give them enough time to build up more stax creatures, further preventing us.

Against decks such as these, you can sometimes just speed right by them. Other times, they will throw down Stax which will slow everyone down and enable us to build up a nice hand full of interaction, which you can then use to bounce whatever problematic pieces the turn before you go for the win.

Surprisingly, this deck is very resilient to hate and Stax. In some cases, I would prefer this deck into staxy games. We have ample card draw, a plethora of redundant win pieces, and value engines which makes it easy to power through those long games. During this time it is important to sandbag counterspells and build up incremental advantage which will enable wins through various forms of hate.

When it comes to turn order, knowing how your position at the table will affect your plays against the other decks, is of some importance. If you are going last, you are the last person to receive priority before someone resolves the spell that wins them the game. You also get full knowledge of everyone else's turn one plays. This can then help you decide whether or not to keep up interaction when someone is looking scary or to make a different play. This also means people will have more mana and cards than you, you are literally behind a turn. So speeding to the win may not always be the best play.

Vice versa though, if you are going first and have a very fast hand, you will be a turn ahead of your opponents, maybe that is the advantage you need to win.

Unfortunately, this isn't really the place for me to go into the theory and true importance of turn order and how it can affect your game, so here is a link to a wonderful source of information about this topic Turn Order.

Lastly, be mindful of other players' turn 1 plays. This should help persuade you to do certain things, like holding up interaction, tutoring for that board-wipe/counterspell, or maybe even giving you the okay to tap out and advance your board-state.

Tips and Tricks

Removed old tips and will update soon

Card Choices

• Baral, Chief of Compliance: Fantastic card in this deck. Reduces the cost of all our instants and sorceries by 1 colorless. It gives us a powerful instant speed looting effect which can enable some super slick wins.

• Mana Vault: Helps ramp hard into Ad Nauseam. Also gives the added bonus of being able to help post Ad Nauseam, giving us valuable mana to help us win if we decide to main phase Ad Nauseam.

• Chain of Vapor: Besides being a great answer to many combo decks, being able to bounce any nonland permanent for just 1 mana is super good. Also, this can be used as an amazing ramp spell when you want to win. Targeting one of your own permanents (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault) and then sacking a land to continue the cycle is a balls deep way to go all out on a path to victory. You can use this same method to gain value from cards like Trinket Mage or Spellseeker. You can also bounce to hand a previously used value Dualcaster Mage so that you can now use it to win.

More to come!!

Notable Exclusions

This section explains some of the cards and criticisms I have towards cards I have specifically chosen not to include in this deck.

• What! No Timetwister!?! And you call this competitive?!?! I am personally not a fan of Timetwister in this deck because it shuffles all the cards from our graveyard back into the deck. Furthermore, I am already not a huge fan of filling my opponent's hands with cards, but it is acceptable when those cards can go to my graveyard and be useful. Timetwister does not have that upside and therefore is not as good.

• Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, another common card people like to play in a reanimator focused deck. This card is great, but it hurts really bad off an Ad Nauseam and Dark Confidant. Another reason is that I never really found a chance to utilize this card often. I would never tutor for it and sometimes I wouldn't even try to reanimate it. The reason being, if I only had one reanimate spell in my hand, I would rather save it for when I finally got Wanderwine Prophets. Another reason being, it is fairly easy for people to remove Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur on their turn and I would then be out of my reanimation spell. Basically, I felt as though Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur was a trap to some extent.

• Why is there no Bloodline Necromancer combo? I chose to not include Bloodline Necromancer because, even though the combo package is very small, I feel two win conditions are enough and I'm not a fan of Ashnod's Altar in Cedh. However, this combo is not awful and some people choose to run it alongside their other combos.

• What about the Fatestitcher combo? This combo, although it can be fast, includes a lot of dead cards. I prefer to play with as few dead cards as possible.

Meta Replacements

In a very creature heavy meta it will be important to add more creature removal such as Pongify, Fire Covenant, Rolling Earthquake and friends. You can then take out some artifact removal and some counterspells.

In a graveyard heavy meta one of my favorite hate cards is Extirpate because it is cheap and has split second. Otherwise, just add another reanimation card such as Necromancy or Animate Dead to steal away their value.

When facing against non-green decks, or other decks that don't use many creatures, you can replace some of the creature removal with more countermagic or artifact hate or whatever you need to specifically tech against your opponent's decks.

Budget Replacements

Sometimes it is honestly not worth it to spend all your money on magic cards, for those who can resist the urges, and are thus better for it, here is a list of cards I would recommend replacing to save some monies.

• Dark Confidant can easily be replaced by Night's Whisper

• Mana Crypt can be taken out for a Dimir Signet

• Mox Diamond can be taken out for an Izzet Signet

• Intuition Can be replaced by Fact or Fiction but does not fulfill the same function.

• Wheel of Fortune can be replaced by Jace's Archivist or Whispering Madness

• Force of Will can be replaced by Counterspell

• Imperial Seal can be replaced by a Gitaxian Probe

• Badlands can be replaced with Sulfurous Springs

• Cavern of Souls can be replaced with an Darkwater Catacombs

• Underground Sea can be replaced with Underground River

• Volcanic Island can be replaced with Shivan Reef

The land base is one of the most important parts to any deck if you don't have the right mana to cast spells you can't cast them. With that said, here is a list of some budget lands you can get to make your land base significantly better.

• Shadowblood Ridge
• Tainted Isle little riskier if you don't have a large number of swamps or islands
• Tainted Peak same as above
• Graven Cairns
• Dragonskull Summit Again needs there to be swamps and mountains
• Drowned Catacomb needs swamps and islands to be good
• Darkslick Shores
• Sulfur Falls
• Temple of Deceit Not great but budget-friendly
• Temple of Epiphany same as above
• Temple of Malice same as above
• Sunken Hollow Good if you run more basic lands than not
• Smoldering Marsh Same as above
• Choked Estuary
• Foreboding Ruins
• Spirebluff Canal

Outdated Combos: Wanderwine and Dualcaster

Method 1: Dualcaster Mage + Ghostly Flicker

Dualcaster Mage + Ghostly Flicker + Inalla, Archmage Ritualist (either in the command zone or on the battlefield) gives you infinite Dualcaster Mage's with haste. It is a Splinter Twin style combo.

1. Cast Ghostly Flicker, targeting any two legal permanents you control. For purposes of this combo, what you target with the first Ghostly Flicker won't actually matter.
2. Holding priority, respond to your Ghostly Flicker by casting Dualcaster Mage.
3. Dualcaster Mage ETBs and you get both his trigger and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist's. Put Dualcaster Mage's trigger on top of the stack and Target Ghostly Flicker with it. You won't actually need to do anything with this specific Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Trigger, but it's good to call it out since you can still use it if you get stopped mid-combo.
4. With Inalla, Archmage Ritualist's trigger still on the stack, your Dualcaster Mage trigger will resolve. Copy Ghostly Flicker and use the copy to target Dualcaster Mage and a land that ETBs untapped.
5. The land you targeted will enter untapped along with Dualcaster Mage. You get a Dualcaster Mage trigger and an Inalla trigger. Target Ghostly Flicker with your Dualcaster Mage trigger as before.
6. Use the land that just reentered the battlefield to pay to copy Dualcaster Mage with Inalla.
7. A token copy of Dualcaster Mage enters the battlefield with haste. Since it's a token, you only get one trigger: the Dualcaster Mage trigger. Target Ghostly Flicker with it.
8. Another copy of Ghostly Flicker is placed on the stack. Target your original Dualcaster Mage and the same land as before.
9. Your original Dualcaster Mage ETBs along with an untapped land, allowing you to continue paying the required by Inalla's trigger to repeat the process for an arbitrarily large number of hasty 2/2s. This combo requires access to and at least one land that ETBs untapped. Note that, with Inalla, Archmage Ritualist on the battlefield, this combo can be used to win at instant speed and outside the combat step, allowing you to circumvent Moat and similar effects. Her activated ability can turn your arbitrarily large army of Dualcaster Mage's into an arbitrarily large amount of life loss for each of your opponents.

Method 2: Wanderwine Prophets and Pseudo-infinite Turns

As long as Wanderwine Prophets has the ability to attack freely, you can take as many consecutive turns as you like, limited only by the remaining cards in your library. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist enables this by making a hasty copy of Wanderwine Prophets when it ETBs that can champion the original.

1. Wanderwine Prophets ETBs and you get a "Champion a Merfolk" trigger and an Inalla trigger.
2. Put Inalla, Archmage Ritualist's trigger on top of the stack and pay to make a copy of Wanderwine Prophets.
3. When the copy ETBs another "Champion a Merfolk" trigger occurs. Champion the original Wanderwine Prophets with the copy.
4. Since the copy has haste, swing with it and when it deals damage sacrifice it to take an extra turn.
5. When the copy dies the original returns and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist triggers again. Pay to make another copy.
6. On your end step the copy will go away and the original Wanderwine Prophets will return again. Pay yet again to make another copy. Since this copy entered the battlefield on your end step, it won't go away until the end step of your next turn.
7. On your extra turns, continue attacking with the copied Wanderwine Prophets and paying to make new copies when the original returns to the battlefield.

Doing this loop requires on the first turn without cost reducers and only on subsequent turns. However, we will almost never actually cast Wanderwine Prophets because it costs way to much. We will instead be focusing on reanimating it by means of several reanimation spells in the deck (Reanimate, Animate Dead, Shallow Grave). This way, the combo will cost or less, for reanimating Wanderwine Prophets, to make an initial copy, to make a copy when you sacrifice the copy to take an extra turn, and to make another copy on your end step.

This combo won't always be enough to kill the whole table, as some players will have blockers. But there are ample bounce spells (Cyclonic Rift, Chain of Vapor, Winds of Rebuke) and various forms of removal (Rolling Earthquake, Pyroclasm, and maybe Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast if the target is blue) to set up a successful attack against one player. Assuming the player you can successfully attack is at a healthy life total, you will draw multiple cards and develop your board state further to enable you to draw into either a way to attack the remaining players or the previous combo to kill them regardless of their blockers.

Outdated: Combo Lines

What happens if Dualcaster Mage is in my graveyard and I have Ghostly Flicker in my hand?

Great question, this leads into my next section, winning at instant speed with Dualcaster Mage in the graveyard.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, we lose Dualcaster Mage to the graveyard. This is not the end of the world, and sometimes, it can be the best possible scenario. Winning with Dualcaster Mage from the graveyard is as easy as having 1 of 3 different reanimate spells; Apprentice Necromancer, Necromancy, and Shallow Grave, which can all be used at instant speed. Instant speed is the keyword here, otherwise the combo does not work.

With one of the aforementioned reanimate spells in hand, you cast Ghostly Flicker targeting two eligible permanents, holding priority, you then cast the reanimate spell targeting Dualcaster Mage. The reanimate spell will resolve first putting Dualcaster Mage onto the battlefield. Once Dualcaster Mage enters the battlefield, hold priority and have it copy the Ghostly Flicker that is on the stack. This will then start the combo.

The beauty of this line is it costs less mana than just hard casting both Ghostly Flicker and Dualcaster Mage, and it does not require the sometimes hard to achieve .

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The very cheapest way to win with this deck is by having Baral, Chief of Compliance out on the battlefield with Ghostly Flicker and Shallow Grave in your hand with Dualcaster Mage in the graveyard. Baral, Chief of Compliance cheapens your instant and sorcery spells by , making Shallow Grave cost only one and Ghostly Flicker cost .

To start the combo, you cast Ghostly Flicker for , targeting any two eligible permanents, then holding priority, you cast Shallow Grave, for one , targeting Dualcaster Mage. It will then reanimate Dualcaster Mage and when Dualcaster Mage enters the battlefield it will copy the Ghostly Flicker on the stack and the combo has begun.

This line to victory, with the said setup, will only cost to win, and can be done at instant speed (this line becomes even faster with Dark Ritual). If you have Inalla, Archmage Ritualist on the battlefield, for whatever reason, you can win at instant speed.

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Carnival of Souls + Spell seeker is able to combo you into the Wanderwine Prophets loop.

To start, You need Carnival of Souls on the battlefield and Spellseeker in your hand.

1. Cast spellseeker, when it enters the battlefield stack Carnival of Souls trigger on top. This way you get the mana from Carnival of Souls and can use it to pay the inalla trigger.
2. The copy of Spellseeker will enter the battlefield and net you one Black mana for the price of one life.
3. With the search ability grab Culling the Weak and reanimate.
4. with the one black mana floating cast Culling the Weak targeting the Spellseeker. This will net you four black mana.
5. With one of the four black mana cast reanimate targeting Spellseeker. You lose three life for the reanimation, lose one more for the Carnival of Souls trigger, and gain one black mana.
6. With one black mana pay for the inalla trigger and create a copy of Spellseeker. Lose another life and gain another black mana. You now have 4 black mana floating
7. With the Spellseeker's search etb trigger, search for Entomb and Shallow Grave.
8. Cast entomb, using one of the black floating mana, bin Wanderwine Prophets.
9. cast Shallow Grave reanimating Wanderwine Prophets.
10. When Wanderwine Prophets enters the battlefield you will lose one life and gain one black mana. Use this mana to pay for the inalla trigger. Continue the Wanderwine Prophets loop taking exrta turns and looking for a bounce spell to remove the Carnival of Souls.
11. With the array of tutors and use of cards like JVP (cast him, take an extra turn and flip him, then use his ability to cast a card from the graveyard) we can search for a bounce spell in our library or play one from our graveyard.
12. Once removed, continue the loop as normal until everyone is dead.

Special Thanks

A Special Thanks to maynardferguson who's Primer on Primers and Yisan Primer helped me write out my own.

Also, Thanks to Hissp in our discord for discovering this awesome Spellseeker combo.

Be the Commanding Wizard you think you are!

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Top Ranked	Achieved #14 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Competitive 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Control 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Infinite Combo 4 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.78
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Treasure
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