Toralf, God of Fury - Crack the Sky (v1.2)

Commander / EDH* Mono-Red

KBK7101

Lands (37)

• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Castle Embereth
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Memorial to War
• 14x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
• 10x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 1x The Autonomous Furnace
• 1x Throne of the High City
• 1x Tyrite Sanctum
• 1x War Room

Single Target Damage (13)

• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Abrade
• 1x Electrodominance
• 1x Fire Prophecy
• 1x Mizzium Mortars
• 1x Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip
• 1x Calibrated Blast
• 1x Meteor Swarm
• 1x Nahiri's Warcrafting
• 1x Soul Sear
• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Inferno Titan
• 1x Tyrant's Familiar

Instant/Sorcery Synergy (6)

• 1x Electrostatic Field
• 1x Firebrand Archer
• 1x Kessig Flamebreather
• 1x Young Pyromancer
• 1x Guttersnipe
• 1x Imodane, the Pyrohammer

Give Creatures (2)

• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Hunted Dragon

Artifact Removal (1)

• 1x Abrade

Copy (1)

• 1x Pyromancer's Goggles

Damage Synergy (1)

• 1x Arcbond

Card Advantage (14)

• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x War Room
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Bitter Reunion
• 1x Commune with Lava
• 1x Fire Prophecy
• 1x Thrill of Possibility
• 1x Tome of Legends
• 1x Wrenn's Resolve
• 1x Furious Rise
• 1x Into the Fire
• 1x Nahiri's Warcrafting
• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Runehorn Hellkite

Ramp (13)

• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Runaway Steam-Kin
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Heraldic Banner
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Irencrag Feat
• 1x Nyx Lotus
• 1x Storm-Kiln Artist
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Pyromancer's Goggles

Board Wide Damage (8)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Mizzium Mortars
• 1x Into the Fire
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Immolating Gyre
• 1x Star of Extinction
• 1x Volcanic Vision

Redirect Damage (2)

• 1x Blazing Sunsteel
• 1x Repercussion

Recovery (1)

• 1x Volcanic Vision

Commanders (2)

 ^Flip

 ^Flip

Damage Multiplier (9)

• 1x Mechanized Warfare
• 1x Furnace of Rath
• 1x Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1x Dictate of the Twin Gods
• 1x Fire Servant
• 1x Gratuitous Violence
• 1x Fiery Emancipation
• 1x Insult / Injury
• 1x City on Fire

Haste (4)

• 1x Bitter Reunion
• 1x Generator Servant
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Bloodsworn Steward

Protection (3)

• 1x Tyrite Sanctum
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Deflecting Swat

Tokens (1)

• 1x Young Pyromancer

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Maybeboard

2023 (9)

• 1x Frantic Firebolt
• 1x Invasion of Regatha  ^Flip
• 1x Koth, Fire of Resistance
• 1x Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• 1x Urabrask  ^Flip
• 1x Path of the Pyromancer
• 1x Throne of Eldraine
• 1x Virtue of Courage
• 1x Chandra, Hope's Beacon

Tokens AKA Targets (4)

• 1x Genesis Chamber
• 1x Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor
• 1x Akroan Horse
• 1x Mogg Infestation

Lands (3)

• 1x Den of the Bugbear
• 1x Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Damage Multiplier (1)

• 1x Angrath's Marauders

NEO/NEC (1)

• 1x Invoke Calamity

Recent Reprint (1)

• 1x Balefire Dragon

MID/VOW (6)

• 1x Flame Channeler  ^Flip
• 1x Smoldering Egg  ^Flip
• 1x Chandra, Dressed to Kill
• 1x Geistflame Reservoir
• 1x Ill-Tempered Loner  ^Flip
• 1x Seize the Storm

Equipment (5)

• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Gorgon's Head
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Gorgon Flail
• 1x Sword of the Animist

DMU/DMC (3)

• 1x Electrostatic Infantry
• 1x Twinferno
• 1x The Elder Dragon War

Card Advantage (2)

• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Magus of the Wheel

Potential game-ender (1)

• 1x Impact Resonance

Previous cuts I might add back in (6)

• 1x Banefire
• 1x Chain Reaction
• 1x Storm's Wrath
• 1x Double Vision
• 1x Apex of Power
• 1x Volcanic Salvo

Protection (4)

• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

BRO/BRC (3)

• 1x Mishra's Command
• 1x Brotherhood's End
• 1x Giant Cindermaw

Ramp (3)

• 1x Jeska's Will
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Thran Dynamo

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Updated - 9/28/23

Besieged by countless foes

His eyes they are aglow

Longing for the fight

He stands upon a mound

Doesn't aim the throw

Just lets the hammer fly

Thor!

Let your hammer fly

Let the lightning crack the blackened skies!

• Amon Amarth - Crack the Sky, Berserker (2019)

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{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}{R}

Hello and welcome to my deck featuring Kaldheim's god of thunder, Toralf, God of Fury  ! With the one-year anniversary of Kaldheim's release coming up soon (and also possibly because I've been playing a lot of Assassin's Creed Vahalla recently, which also led to me binging on one of my favorite bands, Amon Amarth), I wanted to celebrate one of my favorite planes and favorite sets by making a few commander decks based on some of the more noteworthy adaptations of Norse myth. The first of these is Toralf, God of Fury  . Obviously based on Thor, the Norse god of thunder, Toralf (and his back side, Toralf's Hammer, which we will be mostly ignoring) is a legendary creature that deals "excess" noncombat damage to any target. This may seem kind of tame at first, but if we pair this with something like Dictate of the Twin Gods or Fiery Emancipation, something as simple as Lightning Bolt can quite literally turn into a board wipe. So, that's what this deck is about... classic BURN. While this isn't too popular in commander, I think the potential is there to make for some really crazy sequences. Plus... it's Thor! He's cool!

Before we get into the deck itself, a little bit about me (feel free to skip this part if you want, I really don't mind!). I've been playing Magic since early 2019 and have been playing mostly Commander/EDH since around the release of Throne of Eldraine. My usual playgroup consists of my two brothers with the rare fourth player being my brother-in-law. My "meta" consists of all the decks that I have listed on here. When I first started playing Magic, the idea of going to a FNM/some sort of LGS event seemed crazy to me and I was content to just play at home. Once I started playing EDH, though, the urge to play and meet new people started to grow. I was about to dive into my LGS scene right around the time the covid-19 pandemic started. Because of that, I still haven't played with anyone outside of my own house, so please keep that in mind when commenting. I'm an avid deck-builder and I build decks around themes, lore and/or characters rather than broken/infinite combos. I have a LOT of decks but I've only posted a few of them on here publicly but am in the middle of restructuring my deck folders and making more of them public. Most of the decks I build are based around commanders that aren't as common or popular as, say Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Kenrith, the Returned King. While the term "budget" has a wide meaning, my decks do have one, so please do not recommend insanely overpriced cards such as Mana Crypt or Wheel of Fortune. They're much too expensive for me to justify putting in this deck, no matter how good they'd be. With all that said, let's get into the deck!!

***Note : All cards choices came from research using Scryfall, EDHREC and here on TappedOut.

TORALF IS LISTED TWICE AS THE COMMANDER BECAUSE I SWITCH BETWEEN BOTH VERSIONS BETWEEN GAMES. CUSTOM CATEGORIES FEATURES CARDS IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS. THEY ARE NOT DUPLICATES. DECK CONTAINS 100 CARDS.

LORE

Toralf is one of the skoti gods on the plane of Kaldheim. Son to Alrund, God of the Cosmos   and Cosima, God of the Voyage  , his renown for his fearlessness in completing seemingly impossible tasks is known throughout the ten realms.

Some of the saga-worthy feats he has accomplished include plucking a single hair off the head of the largest frost giant in Surtland, carving his mark onto the shell of the Chasm Beast at the bottom of the deepest trench in Karfell's icy ocean and causing two realms to collide just from smashing his Tyrite hammer against the Skyfang Forge. While his father thinks that he's wasting his potential, which he believes could be used to help the cause of the skoti, Toralf would much rather chase feats of glory than use his thunderous might to wage war. This has caused a bit of a rift in their relationship and the two do not see eye to eye very often.

Put simply, he goes where he wants, does what he wants and doesn't care what others think. He is the epitome of {R} mana.

COMMANDER

Toralf, God of Fury   is a MDFC God from Kaldheim. Unfortunately, the back side of his card, Toralf's Hammer   has little application here, as cool as it may be. Because of this, we're going to treat this deck as though you're only ever going to cast the front side. He has trample and an ability that reads "Whenever a creature or planeswalker an opponent controls is dealt excess noncombat damage, Toralf deals damage equal to the excess to any target other than that permanent." What this basically means is that if you hit Llanowar Elves with Lightning Bolt, the excess two damage can be redirected to something else. This leads us to want to play cards like Meteor Swarm and Tyrant's Familiar where we can deal a hefty amount of damage to a (preferably small) target and than use the excess damage to get rid of something else as well. We're in mono-red, though, which means we have access to... DAMAGE DOUBLERS.

Cards like Furnace of Rath, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Fiery Emancipation are absolute must-haves when building this deck. The way Toralf interacts with these cards opens up so much potential. Say we have Dictate of the Twin Gods in play alongside Toralf and one of our opponents is playing a token deck, let's say Lathril, Blade of the Elves for flavor.

• You cast a Lightning Bolt on one of her... let's say four elf tokens.
• Dicate of the Twin Gods sees you deal damage and doubles that damage from 3 to 6.
• Toralf sees the excess damage of 5 and you redirect to to a second elf token.
• This now hits the second elf token for 10 thanks to Dictate.
• Toralf sees the excess damage of 9 and redirects it to the third elf, which now gets hit for 18.
• Toralf hits the fourth one with the 17 excess damage which then results in you hitting Lathril's owner for a whopping 34 damage.

FROM ONE LIGHTNING BOLT.

Because of the way Toralf interacts with these kinds of effects, dealing more and more damage the more targets there are, this deck is packed with as many damage modifying effects as possible.

The major drawback to this deck is that it doesn't work too well against decks that are mainly creatureless. Something to keep in mind.

PLANESWALKERS

Chandra, Torch of Defiance is an all-star here, as she is in almost any mono-red deck. Ramp? Check. Card advantage? Check. Removal? Check. Ultimate that syncs up really well with Toralf? Check!

CREATURES

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Fire Servant are the creature-based ways the deck has to multiply damage. Some of these effects a limited, like Fire Servant but this deck needs these multiplier effects to really get going. If you find yourself with multiple of them in hand, try to only have one out on the board at a time so when it's inevitably removed, you can just replace it with a new one.

Neheb, the Eternal is an amazing source of ramp, provided we can hit our opponents... which shouldn't be too hard considered all the burn spells we have. Can get REALLY stupid with Repercussion. Runaway Steam-Kin is a mono-red ramp machine. Can be a bit slow, but it shouldn't draw too much attention to itself. Burnished Hart is another nice source of ramp.

Generator Servant also provides us with ramp, but only for casting Toralf. It does give him haste, though. Bloodsworn Steward is also here for his haste effect.

Firebrand Archer, Guttersnipe, Young Pyromancer, Kessig Flamebreather, Electrostatic Field and Storm-Kiln Artist are all indispensable as we are basically as spellslinging burn deck. The tiny amounts of damage that the Archer, Flamebreather, Field and Guttersnipe can do really add up over time and become legitimate threats once something like Furnace of Rath hits the field. Storm-Kiln is a great ramp card for us and Pyromancer provides us with lots of blockers. The deck's newest inclusion is the surefire all-star Imodane, the Pyrohammer. I'm sure I don't need to explain this one.

Hunted Dragon gives our opponents some creatures for us to kill. More of this effect may be added later.

Runehorn Hellkite is a flavor inclusion, what with the runes and all. It does help with card draw, but Magus of the Wheel may end up being better here. Possible cut later on.

Inferno Titan is another flavorful inclusion that actually works really well here. It deals damage upon ETB and whenever it attacks. Paired with Toralf, he can be a removal/damage machine. Plus, it has that sweet Kaldheim showcase frame!

Tyrant's Familiar is another way of dealing massive damage to one creature, which pairs really well with Toralf.

ENCHANTMENTS

The main chunk of our enchantments are going to be damage multipliers, to the surprise of no one. Fiery Emancipation TRIPLES damage. As does the new City on Fire, which can be convoked to lessen it's cost if necessary. Mechanized Warfare is a new addition from The Brother's War that may only add 1 damage to our total, but the 1 damage will still start the ball rolling with the damage from Toralf. It also only costs THREE mana. Much cheaper than the rest of our doublers. Gratuitous Violence doubles it, but only for our creatures. This is fine because Toralf is the one dealing the excess damage, so it still works really well. Furnace of Rath and Dictate of the Twin Gods are generic damage doublers that work for all damage, even damage to you! Again, if you find yourself with multiple of these effects in hand, I'd recommend only having one in play at a time so you can replace them when they get removed.

Furious Rise is a nice, steady source of card advantage. Bitter Reunion also helps with card advantage while also being a haste enabler.

Repercussion can end games but can also make them really confusing with Toralf. It essentially doubles Toralf's ability and redirects it at players. It can be a bit hard to keep track of damage if it's on the board alongside Toralf and a damage doubler. Bring a calculator if you need to!

INSTANTS/SORCERIES

All the typical red card draw cards are here. Faithless Looting, Thrill of Possibility alongside Wrenn's Resolve and Commune with Lava. We need card advantage as much as possible and I'd like to add more of it somehow. Into the Fire also doubles as a mini-board wipe if necessary!

Deflecting Swat stands as this deck's only proxy. It's a great card. Being able to protect Toralf from removal for free is insane, but it's price tag is a hefty one. I currently own two copies and did not want to buy another one. If I took this deck to a LGS, I'd swap it out for the one of the actual copies I have.

Seething Song and Mana Geyser are efficient sources of red ramp. Irencrag Feat is a great source of ramp but limits you to one more spell the turn you cast it. Useful for when you need to throw out something like Immolating Gyre or Volcanic Vision but not for much else. It's on the chopping block.

Insult / Injury is yet another damage multiplier. We literally ALWAYS want one of these, which is why there are so many.

Shatterskull Smashing  , Calibrated Blast, Meteor Swarm, Electrodominance, Abrade, Nahiri's Warcrafting, Soul Sear, Fire Prophecy, and Lightning Bolt are our (mostly) single target removal spells. Some do little damage, some do big damage, some have other effects tacked on.

Star of Extinction, Immolating Gyre, Comet Storm, Blasphemous Act, Volcanic Vision, Chandra's Ignition and Mizzium Mortars are our heavy hitters. Any of these cards in combination with Toralf, a damage multiplier and/or Repercussion spells the end for our opponents. Might have too many of these effects at the moment, though.

Arcbond can be devastating with one of the big damage spells like Meteor Swarm.

ARTIFACTS

Blazing Sunsteel is anice piece of equipment that makes Toralf a terrifying defender. Opponents with think twice before attacking you when they're going to be on the receiving end of that same amount of damage.... or more with Furnace of Rath etc.

Lightning Greaves for protection and haste.

Tome of Legends is steady card draw.

Pyromancer's Goggles, Nyx Lotus, Heraldic Banner and Sol Ring are all for ramp. The Goggles copy the instant/sorcery it's mana is used to cast and the Lotus may seem slow, but we have a decent amount of red permanents, so it seems fine for now. Might swap it out later, though.

LANDS

Because I'm a heavy Vorthos player, all the basicMountains in this deck are from Kaldheim. Same with our Snow-Covered Mountains. I'd love to use the Brutal Secret Lair Mountains, but those are far too expensive for me to buy a bunch of. I may end up proxying them to use as the basics for this deck.

Other lands are chosen because they provide us with nice utility effects. Special mentions to card draw superstar Bonders' Enclave,Tyrite Sanctum for being able to make Toralf indestructible and Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep for it's first strike ability! Forbidden Orchard is a great land in this deck because our damage spells need* targets and if our opponents don't have a target... give them one!

KEY CARDS

This type of deck could go a handful of ways, but I think the core of them should contain any number of the previously mentioned damage multipliers. Some protection for Toralf, such as Lightning Greaves should also be high on the list of priorities.

GAMES PLAYED**

None so far, just a fair bit of goldfishing/solitaire! (and a healthy amount of play on Arena using similar build)

Will be updated once it sees play! (Preferably against some token decks)

SUPPLIES

Proxies - Deflecting Swat

Sleeves - Dragon Shield Matte (Red)

Deck Box - Ultimate Guard Boulder 100 (Ruby)

Playmat - Original Magic Art: The Prismatic Bridge (Kickstarter Edition)

That's everything I've got for now. This is a first draft for this deck and I'd really like some feedback on the ratio of cards I have. I'm thinking I have a few too many damage dealing cards and not enough interaction with other stuff, card draw, protection, artifact removal, recovery etc. Please let me know of any other recommendations you may have, too!

Top Ranked	Achieved #12 position overall 2 years ago Achieved #8 position in Commander / EDH 2 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Mono-Red 2 years ago
Date added	2 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	101
Avg. CMC	3.48
Tokens	Elemental 1/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Knight 2/2 W w/ First Strike, Spirit 1/1 C, Monarch Emblem, Treasure
Folders	All Decks, The Ten Realms of Kaldheim, decks I like hehe, Cool decks, Fun/Casual, EDH, Cool Decks, EDH, Read Later, The List