Having a planeswalker for your commander is a risky business. Planeswalkers aren’t as good in EDH as they can be in 60-card Constructed, given that they have to survive three combat steps each turn instead of one, but Elminster does offer a pretty huge immediate payoff if you can set things up right. Randdxx has built a deck that tries to take advantage of both Elminster’s scry-based cost reduction ability, and his ability to put a huge amount of tokens into play based on what’s on top of your deck.
How? This list is filled with high-mana value spells, which either enjoy a discount from Elminster or conversely can be exiled to make a ton of 1/1 flyers. Either way, we’re going big with Elminster – let’s dive in and take a look at how this deck seeks to function!
Elminster Scry Tribal by Randdxx
Creature (11)
Sorcery (26)
Instant (12)
Enchantment (11)
Land (31)
There is a sizeable scrying suite in this deck. Almost all the support cards scry in some way or another, enabling Elminster to discount spell after spell. You can even chain them into each other – cast a Preordain, for instance, and receive a two-mana discount on Foresee. Foresee then offers you four mana off your Commence the Endgame – for just five mana, you’ve scried through six cards, drawn five and created a big amass token. Not bad!
There’s passive scrying, too, with cards like Sigiled Starfish, Thassa, God of the Sea, and Netherese Puzzle-Ward all offering ways to scry that don’t cost any mana. These are very important when it comes to resolving and making the most of an Elminster, as we’ll come to – but they’re also important in scrying away the huge, uncastably expensive cards in the deck until you’re at a point where you can cast them.
And there are plenty of these massive cards – all the way up to the 12-mana Enter the Infinite, you’ve got cards like Time Stretch, Storm Herd, Mnemonic Deluge and, of course, Expropriate. Why such a heavy top-end? Well, all these cards can receive steep discounts with all the scrying you’ll do, but they’re also there to be exiled to Elminster’s -3 ability.
After scrying something like an Enter the Infinite on top of your library, you can cast Elminster and then immediately flood the board with 1/1 flyers. That’s pretty good, for just five mana, and it doesn’t stop there. There are some very silly cards in this deck that will only make your position even better: Cultural Exchange lets you swap your board for someone else’s, while Devout Invocation gives you an army of 4/4s in addition to your 1/1s. And – don’t forget – all these cards receive the good old Elminster scry-based discount!
This deck looks like a huge amount of fun to play, and is certainly going to be extremely consistent, if nothing else, thanks to all the scrying you’re doing. The only issue I see with it is a near-total lack of interaction – I suppose clogging up the board with 1/1s will do a lot to keep you afloat, but it would be nice to see some sweeper and counterspells there amongst all the scrying cards. After all, you can always scry them away if you don’t want them!
