Commander Deck Tech: Eruth, Tormented Prophet
Well it's time for another new Magic set and a new theme for a Commander deck. Innistrad Crimson Vow has plenty of Spirits, Zombies, and Vampires. I wanted to do something different since the precon Commander decks are Vampires and Spirits. I was going to go with Zombies, but I saw this interesting card that was just screaming Storm combo.
Eruth is a cheap Commander with 3 converted mana cost for a 2/4 that gives you the ability to exile the top two cards from your library every time you would draw a card. Keep in mind you have to play those cards during the same turn. This can lead to some wonky turns on your turn as well on an opponent's turn.
The deck can win through a number of different ways and most of them just want you to cast spells to draw more cards while gaining synergies from enchantments or abilities on your creatures. The enchantments that can win you the game are: Metallurgic Summonings, Shark Typhoon, and Thousand-Year Storm. The first two help make hoards of creatures whereas the 3rd just lets you copy all your spells to multiply your storm count. I also threw in Aetherflux Reservoir which in its own right will probably win many games. You just jam spells to gain a bunch of life then do 50 damage to someone.
We have many creatures that just do damage to all your opponents when you cast spells or noncreature spells. These are nice as it hits all opponents at the same time and not just 1. I think many games can be won by just jamming out these 2 and 3 drop small casting cost non-threatening creatures. Then you can play 20 spells in one turn to melt all your opponents by pinging them to death. These creatures are: Electrostatic Field, Firebrand Archer, Kessig Flamebreather, Thermo-Alchemist, Guttersnipe, and Niv-Mizzet, Parun.
There are also about another 10 or so creatures which give bonuses or make a creature each time you cast a spell or noncreature spell. It would also be easy to overrun an opponent this way by just drawing several cards in a turn and creating a bunch of token creatures. We are even able to take advantage of a Legendary Creature from a few articles back. Lier, Disciple of the Drowned can help double up our storm by letting us Flashback all our draw spells and other spells to hopefully pull out a win. Keep in mind it also makes spells uncounterable!
What storm deck is not complete without several storm cards?
In this deck I included: Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens, Flusterstorm, and Mind's Desire.
You can definitely get a win with these storm cards, but with Eruth's ability the chance of winning increases due to the higher number of cards you are able to see. The coolest thing I found when building this deck is that If you have Eruth, Tormented Prophet and Harmonic Prodigy in play crazy things will happen. Each time you draw a card you will exile 2 cards, and then Harmonic Prodigy will double the triggered ability letting you exile another 2 cards. Being able to exile the top four cards of your library and being able to play them for each card you draw seems pretty nuts to me!
The deck isn't foolproof and has yet to be sleeved up as we await the arrival of Innistrad Crimson Vow. Some weaknesses the deck has are wrath effects and spot removal, but the deck does also run several counterspells. Choose your timing wisely on when you play Eruth or start an attempt at comboing off. The deck may need to have a protection spell of some type to protect your Commander or other combo piece. I debated for quite some time on whether or not to add a hexproof spell, but decided against it until I got some playtesting in.
It is also possible the deck may need some tweaking by taking out some of the card draw and adding more potential combo pieces to the deck. I really wanted to play with a copy of Isochron Scepter, but I had just made a deck that utilized that as well as a ton of infinite combo cards. If you want to check that article out click here.
Let me know what you think! If you have any suggestions or cards that I may have missed to be included in this type of storm deck please let me know!
Thanks for reading and enjoy your Innistrad Crimson Vow prerelease events!
Until Next Time,
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