Solphim, Mayhem Dominus - burninate the countryside [brainstorming]

[DirkGently]

I've been doing some deep thinking about what I should do to diversify my commander builds, and one big thing is having more cards that contribute to my win condition rather than being answers for other peoples' win conditions. And what takes more cards to win with than burn in a format with 120 enemy life? Especially if you're planning to burn down every single life point, with no ways to enhance that damage beyond the commander.

There are a couple limitations to that plan. One is that there really aren't very many good player-targeting burn spells in the format. And a lot of the best burn spells to kill players are ones that also wipe creatures, i.e. Rolling Earthquake. And of course the commander is optionally indestructible, so global burn spells are very effective. But that means it's kind of another control deck after all. Every where I turn, it's control.

Baby steps, I suppose.

I've gone through my red cards and had a bit of a think. There are very few cards that ONLY damage players and are decent. Price of Progress is easily the most effective, although it's not very targeted (and it punishes me for running utility lands, boo). I should probably try to acquire some of the better player-targeting burn spells like Flames of the Blood Hand, which isn't currently in my collection.

Most damage spells target either creatures and/or players, so they're by nature flexible. To some extent I think this is maybe okay? I can try to sandbag the burn for a bit blow-out burnination at the end, unless forced to answer something. We'll see how it plays out, though. There are a lot of burn spells that damage all creatures and I imagine that could get pretty tedious.

And then there are cards like Starstorm that can't damage players at all. But they are very effective.

And then there's the question of whether I should commit to the instant/sorcery plan, or if it's better to use permanents to assist. Stuff like Rampaging Ferocidon, Descent into Avernus, Seismic Assault, etc. On one hand, going pure burn seems like it'd be the most difficult and require the most cards. But on the other hand, it means I'm playing my classic "my hand is the wincon" style where I'm never revealing my power level.

Particularly this becomes tricky with ramp, since I probably want ramp. So at least it seems like that will be one exception. With burn alone, a lot of my highest damage spells are X spells, so having big treasure mana could be a good way to go.

The deck I feel like I'd naturally gravitate towards is to play a bunch of planeswalkers and damage-based wipes that also hit players, but that probably ends up very similar to my other decks so probably I shouldn't?

Idk, tough calls. I might build it real quick (planning to play in about an hour) with the all-instants/sorceries build, and minimal wipes, just to see how it plays out.

[pokken]

Could you get critical mass of pinging enchantments? Maybe fill in the gaps with drakuseth and inferno titan type dudes. Burning earth. Etc. purph.

[Ruiner]

I've run a Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame deck for a while now (list in signature if interested) and have found the combo of Planeswalkers, and low cost damage each player burn spells to be fairly effective. I generally dont care that i get hit by a lot of my own burn spells, as there are obvious other cards that dont damage me so i can eventually (hopefully) have the most life. Price of Progress might hit me for 4 or 6, but it is probably far worse for others at the table. I'd definitely recommend a handful of Fork type effects as well.

I imagine this commander would probably run decently in a similar manner.

[DirkGently]

I built the all instant/sorcery/ramp version of the deck and it was reasonably fun to play. Can be difficult not to become archenemy because of the number of wipes and the high damage output. Definitely reminds me of how much I dislike sorcery speed removal. There's a limited about of viable instant-speed burn though.

Could you get critical mass of pinging enchantments? Maybe fill in the gaps with drakuseth and inferno titan type dudes. Burning earth. Etc. purph.

Purph kinda has his own synergies that otherwise don't overlap with Solphim. Other enchantments are definitely an option, though politically it seems fairly suicidal to say "I will guaranteed kill you in 3 turns and also have very few blockers". Plus I don't love symmetrical effects since it prevents you from forming alliances. Inferno titan and drakuseth work but idk they don't seem very efficient. Paying 6 to get 3 noncombat damage? Sure it's repeatable but he has to attack at least a couple times before I'm happy with it.

I've run a Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame deck for a while now (list in signature if interested) and have found the combo of Planeswalkers, and low cost damage each player burn spells to be fairly effective. I generally dont care that i get hit by a lot of my own burn spells, as there are obvious other cards that dont damage me so i can eventually (hopefully) have the most life. Price of Progress might hit me for 4 or 6, but it is probably far worse for others at the table. I'd definitely recommend a handful of Fork type effects as well.

I imagine this commander would probably run decently in a similar manner.

Yeah I'm definitely happy with symmetrical damage, although I do worry that using too many of those will drive the number of wipes excessively high.

[Ren]

I've also been playing around with this commander as a mono red burn deck, but my solution was Dragon's Approach. My deck is still a WIP but I think this is a fun way to build the commander.