Vadrik, Muscle Wizard

Commander / EDH UR (Izzet)

Leif-The-Lucky

Instant (27)

• 1x Aethersnatch
• 1x Big Score
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Commune with Lava
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Enrage
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Firemind's Foresight
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Invigorated Rampage
• 1x Lunar Frenzy
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Reality Spasm
• 1x Reiterate
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Spell Burst
• 1x Storm King's Thunder
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Sublime Epiphany
• 1x Twinferno
• 1x Unleash Fury
• 1x Unwind

Creature (7)

• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flip
• 1x Harmonic Prodigy
• 1x Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat
• 1x Melek, Izzet Paragon
• 1x Runaway Steam-Kin
• 1x Storm-Kiln Artist

Land (30)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Frostboil Snarl
• 1x Hall of Oracles
• 6x Island
• 1x Lavaglide Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stormcarved Coast
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Training Center

Artifact (16)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Elementalist's Palette
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Hand of Vecna
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Runechanter's Pike
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x The Celestus
• 1x The Ozolith

Commander (1)

Sorcery (17)

• 1x Apex of Power
• 1x Brass's Bounty
• 1x Chandra's Ignition
• 1x Crackle with Power
• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Haze of Rage
• 1x Ignite the Future
• 1x Inner Fire
• 1x Jeska's Will
• 1x Mishra's Command
• 1x Mystic Retrieval
• 1x Past in Flames
• 1x Pirate's Pillage
• 1x Seize the Spoils
• 1x Solve the Equation
• 1x Tezzeret's Gambit

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study

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Plain and simple, a spell flinging izzet deck. That punches the Gruul deck in the face? Let me explain...

TLDR, this deck aims to kill people with Crackle with Power, Comet Storm and Chandra's Ignition by making Vadrik big and abusing x cost spells. We're going to cast Vadrik early, make him big, or make a lot of red mana from cheap spells, and kill everyone. Or punch them really hard if they stop me. I might add more wincons in the future.

If you really want the full story!

This is quite simply my take on Vadric. It is, down to the core, a spell flinging deck. But we get the added benefit of being an izzet deck that.... Benefits from.... Having a 20/20 commander....? "It was only one spell, how did it end up like this?! It was only one spell... It was only one spell...

OK fine I'll stop making up my own lyrics for Mr. Brightside by The Killers and, like any bad comedian, explain my joke to you. Oh you're here for the deck? I'm surprised.... Ahem excuse me, what I meant was, Vadrik has an interesting line of text that I misread the first time I saw it, like any innocent Mizzix player who thinks the card is "fair" or "balanced." Whatever that means. I think they left that at the door when they thought up Commander as a format.

Vadrik states that instant and sorcery spells cost 1 less mana to cast, where x is Vadrik's power. I hope you read that right, the first time I read it I thought it was for each +1/+1 counter on Vadrik. Neigh, read again innocent listener, spells you cast cost X less to cast where X is Vadrik's Power!!!

For those that don't know, reduction in mana cost for spells you cast also applies to alternate costs, additional costs, and importantly for us, x cost spells. How does this work? If Vadrik's power is 2, and we have 2 red mana and a Comet Storm, during the casting of the spell we can declare X to be 2 even though we don't have the mana to cast it, because you can declare the cost of X when you cast, and then pay that cost as a part of casting. Therefore, if we have 2 red mana and Vadrik has 2 power, we can cast Comet Storm for 2 damage. If Vadrik has 40 power, we can cast Comet Storm for 40 damage. And, since it pays for additional costs, we can also choose to pay the kicker, and deal 39 damage to 2 targets instead. Or 38 damage to 3 targets. And so on.

What does this mean? This means that, not only do spells like The Ozolith help your commander with his staying power, but spells like Hand of Vecna, or Runechanter's Pike also does. The biggest flaw of Vadrik, Astral Archmage suffers from is that once he's removed, well... It might take you a while to build back up. So we need insurance to try and bounce back, to keep our mana cost reductions. Cards like Mizzix of the Izmagnus merely get to keep theirs once they're removed. Vadrik doesn't. But Vadrik can... Buff... Himself? Wait, I started down this train of thought to worry about staying power, how did I stumble my way into my win con?

Here's the great part about all that nonesense up above. To anyone that doesn't already know, all I've done in the paragraph above is give a commander that is 1 CMC cheaper than Mizzix the same staying power, albeit slightly worse/better given the scenario, with the added benefit of also making our commander BIGGER. But this is where Vadrik gets much more intense than Mizzix, very quickly. See, spells like Berserk are cheap and are, in a deck like this, equivalent to striking gold with Brass's Bounty. If Vadrik's power on board is 6, and we cast a Berserk targeting him, with x set to 6, we have just increased Vadrik's power by 6 for the turn, and decreased the cost of our spells by an additional 6 for the turn. For one red mana.

Ok so we know that the goal of the deck is to get Vadrik big now, he's a big thicc wizard, and he gets what he wants. And what Mr. Muscle Wizard wants is to rage, and Mr. Muscle Wizard wants to cast Fist.

So lets get into a brief explanation of the actual workings of the deck.

Ramp, Pre-Workout and Protein

Mr. Muscle Wizard is already pretty ripped, and doesn't need much assistance with a lift. Meaning he's cheap, and doesn't cost much to get out. So anything we play here is with the explicit interest of having additional mana symbols to cast all the things we want to cast. This deck doesn't need colorless mana, although it doesn't hate it and may run good colorless artifacts, we're playing with a deck that reduces colorless costs for all the spells we care about. What we need, is mana symbols.

Our early game plan is to get mana symbols like Izzet Signet, cast Vadrik, and make him bigger. I don't intend to explain the rest of our normal artifact ramp. It is here for the explicit purpose of having more mana symbols. Obviously within these three steps we want to keep mana open at all times for a few counterspells here an there, that goes without saying. With all that in mind, we're going to focus on the cards that help us with mana symbols in this section, and we won't be discussing artifact ramp. Except...

Ramp

Aside from the ramp that we want for the deck to go vroom vroom, we want spells that will inject Protein straight into our Muscle Wizard's veins. We want artifact ramp that will give us the mana we want, and make Vadrik bigger. Sadly, there are only two artifacts that will help us here. The Celestus is here for one reason and one reason only, it provides mana (sure this is OK), and it lets us dump our excess mana on our opponent's end step to get more power on Vadrik.

Ok good, onto the next one. Elementalist's Palette This one is for the long con. Let's hope we don't get there, but if you get this card out early, it will probably be the reason you win on turn 10. Vadrik or no Vadrik, with enough Protein, anyone can be swole enough to end a game.

So that's really all the artifact ramp that we have to help Vadrik get big... So I guess we should move on to the weightlifting section.

Preworkout and Protein

Big Score, Brass's Bounty, Inner Fire, Seize the Spoils, Pirate's Pillage, Frantic Search, Tezzeret's Gambit and Reality Spasm Oh boi. Here we are. Cards listed here are going to generate you mana, and some of them also draw you cards. These are your bread and butter, this is your Gym Bag and there's only two things inside: Protein, and Pre-Workout. We would use a shaker cup and water, but only normies and nobodies water down their supplements, and we're here because we're built different.

Tezzeret's Gambit isn't going to help us set up our mana fixings, however it is going to draw us a card for potentially 0 mana, and pump Vadrik for 1 additional +1/+1 counter.

These are easily what's going to help you close out the game, and your enemies will be eager to counter them. We're namely talking about the big ones here like Brass's Bounty, but with the right setup, even Seize the Spoils can get you the mana you need to close out the game. This is spell ramp, and this is not to help get Vadrik out. You're probably already there. This is to draw you cards, and get you mana. More importantly, these fix your mana by turning the 1R you used to cast them into treasures.

The following cards serve the same purpose, but they don't fix your mana. They just give you more mana, right now, for whatever shenanigans you decide to pull. Jeska's Will, Seething Song

And finally here's some good creatures to serve the same purpose. Birgi, God of Storytelling  , Runaway Steam-Kin and Storm-Kiln Artist. Birgi just gives you one red mana when you cast a spell. Many of our spells are only going to potentially cost us 1 red mana, so, yeah this is perfect. Storm-Kiln Artist is going to give us a treasure any time we cast an instant or sorcery. And finally Runaway Steam-Kin is going to give us 3 red mana whenever we cast 3 red spells, or if we can proliferate him to 3 +1/+1 counters with Flux Channeler, Tezzeret's Gambit or when we move counters off of The Ozolith.

All of these spells exist solely to cast the cards listed later on, down below.

First Step, More Muscles. Then, Steroids. Third Step, Profit.

Time to make use of all that muscle. Now that we have some good natty gains, it's time to maximize our progress with the proper equipment. Here, we're going to talk about equipment we can use to give our commander power on equip, and therefore, staying power. It hurts when our +1/+1 counters are removed when Vadrik goes away, but we might not care. After all, power is power, protein is protein.

More Muscle

Blackblade Reforged and Hand of Vecna really stand out here, especially because the equip cost is manageable. But also because they are easy power, and more importantly, they don't go away. You also need to keep in mind that it is of utmost importance to keep your gains, and stretch in your downtime. You can manage this with The Ozolith to ensure that when Vadrik gets blasted by some coward mages too afraid to use their fists, he comes back raring for more.

OK now that we've gotten all that snowflake natty stuff out of the way, it's time to pump some steroids. Be sure to strap a bag of someone else's urine to your inner thigh to be tournament legal. Here, we're going to explore some of the cheesier ways we can make Vadrik VERY big VERY fast. If we were in a Fast and Furious movie, Vin Diesel would be wondering how a muscle head is sprinting past his car at 120MPH around a curve.

Steroids

We'll start off with the more mild power ramp, namely, our creature base.

You need a spotter? Enter Flux Channeler. Nothing much needs to be said here. If you cast this, your opponents will get rid of it if they have the means. This is worse than cards listed below in some ways, Vadrik likely won't get as big. But the buff is significant, and permanent. I.e., it lasts more than a turn. Also pairs well with Elementalist's Palette. Another creature that spots pretty well: Harmonic Prodigy. Nothing much to say here. Just good value for 2 mana. Harmonic Prodigy is a more modest card, you really have to bank off of changing day to night and night to day with this card. Pairs well with The Celestus.

If your enemies aren't dead yet from your fist, they probably will be soon even if they can stop the 70 damage from a Comet Storm with a well placed counterspell, they still have to deal with your 'roid furry. Enrage, Invigorated Rampage, Lunar Frenzy and Unleash Fury are some great instant speed brands of steroids. Twinferno will also let us copy the next instant or sorcery spell we cast this turn. These cards are going to give you the room to EASILY cast some heavy big hitter spells, and if these go off, well, it's probably game over.

And if it isn't? Well, Mr. Muscle Wizard's spell may have fizzled but you can sure as heck still swing for 30 damage at whoever stopped you. Besides that, we can make our other creature's big too with, perhaps the Golden Pig of the deck, Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat. This spell is ridiculous, and it is every one of those spells above wrapped into one, at instant speed. Or sorcery, if that's all you have to cast. This spell is going to pump Vadrik, or any other creature you want to connect, whenever you cast a spell, for X where X is that spells converted mana cost.

If you have none of these, do not fret there is more to come. Mishra's Command will help save the day,albeit at sorcery speed. Now here's the glory of this section, any one of these spells by themselves are probably enough to make Vadrik big enough to quickly close out the game. But if you have even one more of these, you quickly become unstoppable. 6 power becomes 12, becomes 24. Enter Chandra's Ignition and even if everyone isn't dead, all the creatures that couldn't stand your protein are. So who cares?

Now at this point I'm trying to find room in the deck for some ways to make sure our commander connects. Perhaps Rogue's Passage and some others. After all, punching people is a legitimate last resort strategy in this deck. But now that we've discussed how we can get our commander big, let's talk about some strategies to utilize that massive mana cost reduction instead of punching people.

Here's where Muscle Wizard finally casts some spells. It's time to utilize all the work we've put in to be the next Zeus in the Greek God Pantheon, with rockin abs even lightning couldn't damage, and really abuse that mana cost reduction. But don't worry, we can still cast Fist, I promise!

Profit

It's time to cash in all this free power. This is the part of the deck where we're actually going to utilize all this mana cost reduction. It starts with draw spells, then we'll get into some cheesy top-deck shenanigans like Melek, Izzet Paragon and Jeska's Will. That's right, this card is simultaneously going to give us mana AND help in the profit department. It's pretty cracked. But without further ado, let's move on.

First, some creatures that will really help you utilize all the spells your casting, and help utilize your mana cost reduction.

Archmage Emeritus: Yeah this is going to draw you a lot of cards. Melek, Izzet Paragon might one up this accomplishment though, but just... Letting the top card of your library always be in your hand. Oh, and you copy it. Good value.

Cards already mentioned like Big Score, Frantic Search, Mishra's Command, Pirate's Pillage, Seize the Spoils and Tezzeret's Gambit will help you draw cards while also having the added benefit of fixing mana, killing creatures, or making Vadrik bigger. Well let's add to this list. Cheesy cards that will draw us lots of cards will be listed here.

Commune with Lava and Ignite the Future are golden standard among this list, better even than Jeska's will in some ways, namely because they let you cast spells exiled from the top of your library with these spells until YOUR NEXT ENDSTEP. That's right, these don't even feel bad to play on your turn because whatever you flip off the top can be cast at any time so long as you follow timing restrictions, until the end of your next turn.

Jeska's Will and Apex of Power are just as good, simply worse in other ways. We only get to cast these spells until the end of the current turn, and they are sorcery speed spells. However, Jeska's will will give us mana back and exile 3. Apex of Power will exile 7 and give us 10 MANA BACK IN ANY ONE COLOR! Considering we're likely casting this for potentially as little as 3 red mana, this is a bargain you can't refuse.

Ok, enough with that. On to the card draw, and some tutors. Firemind's Foresight is an excellent tutor in this deck and will undoubtedly let you get whatever three spells will ensure the game is yours. Mystical Tutor and Solve the Equation gets a mention too, obviously. Frantic Search with Reiterate can draw you your entire deck and net a lot of mana.

Pull from Tomorrow, Stroke of Genius and Finale of Revelation are your big draw spells. If these resolve, it is highly possible you could win the game. Especially if Vadrik is bigger than 5 power. Also, Finale of Revelation easily nets you back all the mana you spent on it, or more if you get the cost of X above 9.

OK, lets move on. At this point, Vadrik is a 40/5 power toughness creature, and you've drawn half your library. If you haven't already killed everyone, well, where do we go from here? Time to talk about wincons.

What Happens When you Make Muscle Wizard Cast Fist?

Time to get to the part of the deck that hurts.

Viewer: Wait, we haven't already hurt people?

Listen, we're still an Izzet deck, and there are feelings out there to wound darn it!

Let's talk about some of our closing spells, or spells that are absurdly good, but absurdly expensive... Until we make them much less so. This is the abrasive part of the deck. This is where we cast fist.

Spell:Fist - To Be Really Mean to your Friends.

Just like any proper Dragon Ball Z Character, Muscle Wizard doesn't want to show you their final form until the very end. So let's start off with the only slightly terrible spells.

Aethersnatch has got to be the first mention here. This is a bad spell. But this is what I love about izzet, it takes a bunch of random crappy cards that aren't worth much, and make them ridiculously strong in some random izzet deck. This is a counterspell. But worse. For 2 blue mana, at the cheapest, we're going to take control of someone's big spell. Stopping us with Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger? Well now I'm stopping you. Thanks for the mana!

Ok, moving on. Cyclonic Rift is an easy one here. One blue mana, everyone at the table is having a bad time.

Curse of the Swine this can make enemies board states more ferocious if you're against token decks I guess but... I mean... Listen every time I play this, nine times out of ten I'm getting rid of 6+ problem creatures.

I'm not going to talk about most counterspells here, but yeah card:Spellburst is going to win you the game if you can keep someone from countering it. Which they will want to do. Since we can pay additional and alternative costs with our manacost reduction, with enough power we can both reduce the cost of X and reduce the buyback cost to 0. Congratulations, you have a one cost counterspell for buyback.

Sublime Epiphany I'm a big fan of this. Another one of those cards that would never make it in a tuned/casual competitive deck. But when you can cast it for 2 blue, counter a spell, counter an activated or triggered ability, bounce any one single nonland permanent, create a copy of a creature you control AND draw a card.... Man.... The only complaint I can find is only if I could do it for one mana. It's not great early game though. So it could bite you.

Ok, Ok, time for the big guns.

Fist²

This fist is squared, because Muscle Wizard smart. Very smart.

Viewer: But you're not punching people, aren't you casting instances and sorc-

Mr.Muscle Wizard: Fist.

Viewer: But that's clearly a Comet Storm, this is a-

Mr.Muscle Wizard: Makes an intimidation roll. I SAID FIST²

Viewer, speaking through a now busted and bruised face: Ye-Yessir those comets- I mean meteor sized fists are very persuasive.

Listen I didn't really need a separate spoiler for these cards, there's not much to this section. But, this is the bread and butter. Gotta have a Fist² section.

Storm King's Thunder another game closer. If this resolves, it doesn't matter if the next spell you cast is a Big Score, you are going to make some waves. If I've ever cast this spell, shortly after I've won. But lets get into the win cons finally.

The WIn Cons are plain as day. Comet Storm, Chandra's Ignition and Crackle with Power . If these spells resolve, it is over. Once or twice Usually this will win you a game. But even if it doesn't win you the game, you're in a good position. Your opponents are likely low on health, they likely have a few less creatures, and you still have everything. So let's talk about how to maximize these spells.

Crackle with Power will quickly and easily wipe a table. Without any copy spells to abuse the spell even more, you do need 26 mana to deal 40 damage to everyone at the table. Or, 24 total mana cost reduction and 2 red mana.

Comet Storm is a worse offender at 44 mana.

That being said, without even using infinite combos which I will divulge shortly, you can easily get to these numbers if this is your desired path to victory. We already know about every other card in the deck we can use to bolster Vadrik and generate mana. Lets talk about the last few heavy hitters.

Increasing Vengeance and Storm King's Thunder, these two alone will very easily get there. And our mana cost reduction can heavily abuse these spells. Although, 4 red mana and 3 red mana respectively is a lot, so let's make sure we have some rituals in our hand, or an Apex of Power.

Finally we have the infinite combos. Reiterate will basically go infinite with any ritual card in the deck that can net more than 2 red mana. However it will require at most 4 power from Vadrik to do so. I'll explain to those who aren't familiar with the combo.

As mentioned earlier, mana cost reduction effects will also affect additional costs, and X cost spells. Therefore, if you have 4 power on Vadrik and a ritual spell, lets say your opponent has 3 cards in their hand and you're casting a Jeska's Will, you can cast Reiterate on that spell for buyback. Before the original Jeska's Will resolves, recast Reiterate targeting the same spell. Each time you do this, you net one mana. You do need to be weary, this is also an infite storm count for anyone that has the means to abuse it. And we're not that person.

Some cards that notably can be used with Reiterate for this combo: Reality Spasm This one can also be used to tap down all of your opponents lands at their upkeep step, if you need to stop them from winning. Big Score This doesn't get you infinite mana, but it does draw you your entire deck. Frantic Search and Finale of Revelation Again, not really infinite but it's a lot of mana and draws you however many cards you feel like drawing. Seething Song and Brass's Bounty this is infinite red mana, and infinite mana of any color respectively. Both of these rely on how many cards your opponents have, and how many lands you have respectively. Jeska's Will Funny enough you can just keep exiling cards from the top of your libary even if there aren't any to exile. But if someone makes you draw while there are none to draw, you're done for. But you probably have your entire deck in exile, that you can cast so... Yeah good luck, have fun. Comet Storm, Chandra's Ignition and Crackle with Power again, not infinite. But if you can copy these enough, even when they're cast low initial damage, you can kill everyone or clear the board. Or both.

Oh and for extra cheese, Past in Flames will also let you cast all cards from your graveyard for flashback for their CMC, which is.... Reduced by Vadrik's power...

Hope you enjoy the deck! If it does well, in the future I might add a section for alternative cards, as this deck is clearly built to specifically my meta. I.e. you might have noticed there's no artifact removal.... OR a lot of removal... In general. And there's also not that many win cons. It works in my deck. For background, I've been piloting a Mizzix of the Izmagnus since 2016 and I have loved the deck, but it's now too squishy (Commander is too easy to remove, it takes too long to get running, and 4 mana in Izzet feels like a lot when your commander is prime suspect number 1 for being deleted off the board.) So I moved on to Vadrik, who even though is more squishy in some ways, is easier to pilot in my meta because he is faster.

So I've got a lot of ideas and opinions around Izzet cards and combos. I've built this one this way because it's fun in my Meta and for no other reason, but I think in a different meta this deck could be... very interesting. So I'm definitely interested in creating a section for that later.

Thanks for checking out my deck! Cheers!

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.86
Tokens	Boar 2/2 G, Copy Clone, Treasure