[Re:Commanders] Ryusei, the Deific Blast

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Yatsufusa
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Post by Yatsufusa » 2 years ago

"The rules are simple - if you live, you win. If you die, you lose. If you don't fight, you cannot win."

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Introduction


Welcome to Ryusei, the Deific Blast. This a deck "built around the Commander". Or to put it more accurately, it's more of a Big Burn deck that's built around a "not-so-good" Commander for personal reasons.

If you have the luxury of listening to music whilst reading this thread, enjoy the appointed official song for Ryusei, the Deific Blast: Tasukete.


Disclaimers

Same across all threads, skip ahead if you've read it elsewhere before
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Ryusei, the Deific Blast is part of Re:Commanders, a suite of eight decks I've established since 2015 with the intent to "retire" from the game/format, with its stability permitting me to bling my own decks out as my own vanity project. I've written out these guides roughly with the primer style guide, but they are not meant to be primers. In fact, my updates will be sporadic as in recent years I've had less and less time to play the game due to commitments.

Generally, Re:Commander decks / guides follow these rules:

High-Powered Cards – When I started Re:Commanders in 2015 I was already sitting on 11 years' of collection, including 4 years within the format that already assembled a structural skeleton for most of my decks. My decklists often contain a lot of high-powered, cEDH-worthy cards that can be easily deemed unaffordable to the random viewer seeing the guide at any given time, but I do not feel the need to feature budget options as those change with the times, as my focus on presenting the guide is to establish an understanding of what role does a card play in the deck, and the discerning player with the understanding should be able to find their own substitutes for that role within their own budget/collection/time. I merely used my own high-powered examples because I have it, nothing more. The game is just way too big (and getting bigger faster every year now) for me to cite random alternatives nowadays, especially with prices also randomizing on their own scales.

Personal Quirks - I have some small aesthetic quirks, the most common easy example being I don't play off-color fetchlands and I don't play ABUR duals because they can't be foiled. A lot of these small factors go a ways to lower the power level of my decks in small doses. I also try to diversify card options across decks, so while there are staples I play across all decks (mostly colorless artifacts and lands), I try to keep a variety of colored cards (and for those I don't I even try to get different art/frames to compensate) across my decks. If some colored staple feels missing, that's likely because it's housed in another deck in the suite I felt was just better for it (or I just lack it in my collection, I don't have everything, after all).

Personal Definition of "75%" – My personal definition on a "75%" deck is essentially a singular deck is flexible enough to perform on both casual and competitive tables. They aren't completely "just built to win" like cEDH decks, they're first built thematically, and then built with two distinct functions – first, a way to win within context of the theme, then secondly all decks usually have an infinite outlet (or at least a substantially huge wincon) or combo or some sort because I believe that a deck should always have a way to close the game when the primary plan/theme fails. Even a bland infinite combo used as a last resort is a better game-closer than you durdling an entire game playing Kingmaker/trying to lose last.

I don't shy away from tutors. This combined with the combo aspect does really ramp it up to feel close to cEDH levels (and almost certainly pubstomping in the wrong cases), but ultimately I built the deck for me, myself as the pilot. The Commander RC has a policy of "build casually, play competitively", but due to my wide-range meta (that can contain anywhere from new players to cEDH players depending on time), I adopted a custom formula – "Build enough to face competitive opponents but without abandoning the theme, then play accordingly to the table in question".

I'm aware some people feel like it's an insult to not "play at maximum" at a table, but I just don't see that way, I have a thematic way to (attempt to) win that's not too far above the casual table and my combos are now my last resort game-closers, something I actively want to avoid having seen purely-casual tables lack it and end up playing a game of too-much-politics-and-kingmaking-trying-to-lose-last compared to actual Magic played when thematic plans fall apart.

Deck History


For a full-blown history of the establishment of Re:Commanders as a whole, as well as anything the deck might have within its context, please refer to the central hub of the Re:Commanders here.
Deck History
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The idea for playing around Ryusei came at the tail end of the planning of Re:Commanders – Basically when I was sandwiched between choosing Jeskai-Rakdos-Mono-W or Mardu-Azorius-Mono-R. One day, I randomly thought "what if I built a deck around my first Legendary Creature card when I started playing Magic?" in an attempt to decide. But I started playing Magic simply by walking into a Champions of Kamigawa prerelease event and couldn't remember the sealed pool accurately and definitely not the order I opened my packs in. But there was a Prerelease foil card that was a Legendary Creature, so I decided to accept that it represented that position since it represented the event (back then Prereleases were like mini Grand Prix events and the promos weren't given out like until halfway through the event by the organizers, not packed into nice boxes like nowadays.)

And that's how I ended up with a deck led by Ryusei, the Falling Star (I kept the original Prerelease card over the decade to that point and of course till today), I daresay it was the decisive factor that effectively fully closed the Re:Commanders color structure problem after Grimgrin narrowed it down.

As I had to build the deck around a card I didn't before, it has no true direct history, but I guess it can be a spiritual successor of sorts to a terrible Kresh deck I had for the shortest time that included every punisher card I had back then in an attempt to win through "punish damage", but backfired so often that it didn't last. This deck doesn't punish enough to be a true spiritual successor of any sort, but I suppose being Big Burn that deals damage it spiritually carries part of that.

Commander Analysis


I just explained why I specifically had to build a deck around such a mediocre Commander (well it was even worse before the "dies triggers" rules got changed). This deck is built around the Commander because I want it to be Commander, so I can only acknowledge its mediocrity and just analyze the card.


The Last Surviving Dragon Spirit of Kamigawa

5R 5/5 Flying

In today's landscape, that's not terribly attractive, especially without any other obvious upside abilities Even the evasion in the form of flying feels more like a consolation, considering its ability is a death trigger. But I guess when you can't utilize its ability, it ultimately is still a (slightly overpriced) evasive beater for Commander damage. Not terrible like some of the really old-school Legends, but even at its best it feels terribly mediocre in today's pretty amped-up landscape.


When Ryusei dies, it deals 5 damage to each creature without flying.

The main feature of the Commander, but a death trigger on a 6-mana Commander isn't exactly stellar, even if the rules for death triggers on Commanders have recently been changed to be more flexible.

This was the point I decided the deck had to be "Big Burn", we're likely only going to trigger this once (or twice) and we had to make it count (or even lethal).

Also, we have to take note it hits all creatures without flying, so some opponents could evade it while we have to pay attention to our own board of creatures, especially when we have to go down the "Big Burn" route. I know from experience how easily double-sided burn can backfire and this Commander presents a problem from a deck I had ages past (and why I consider this a spiritual successor very loosely).


Alternate Commanders
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Alternate Commanders... or not
I'm not even bothering suggesting alternate Commanders, because the deck has to accommodate a specific Commander like that. The closest I would say if you want the "generally good" R burn deck, Purphoros, God of the Forge is likely a direction you want to head instead, but I'm not offering any direct comparisons.

Instead, I'm going to talk about Ryusei's best friend, a singular card that helps Ryusei establish its win-condition and is so unique that it's basically Commander #2.


When you bury me in the flames

Yes, it's the only card of its kind. There's no other card that replicates it even in creature, artifact or emblem form. The closest cards that can act as a "substitute" is Brash Taunter and/or Stuffy Doll, but they are severely less effective (and backfire when played together with Repercussion).

Alone this card reads: When Ryusei dies, it deals 5 damage to each player for each creature without flying they control. But here's the catch, with a damage-doubler like Furnace of Rath, it "quadruples" the damage (that matters) instead, because it checks damage dealt (by Ryusei, which is doubled before checking) before triggering its own damage (which is subject to doubling). A single creature dealt 10 damage (5 doubled) deals 20 damage to its controller, not 10. Big damage indeed.

Then Fiery Emancipation exists. Tripling on two fronts means one creature is sufficient to deal more-than-starting-life damage. But even without the doubling or tripling, just Repercussion alone with Ryusei and careful board management means Ryusei dying presents a very large damage problem, especially to creature (token) –based decks.

This makes Repercussion the crux to this Ryusei deck. I'd even go the mile to say that while it's definitely possible to run a Ryusei deck without it (like just a casual dragon deck), any Ryusei deck without it cannot claim to be built around the Commander's ability (and is mostly just using Ryusei as an ornamental Commander to the deck).
There's no wrong way to build a deck, yes, but this card is so instrumental to boosting a mediocre Commander's ability I daresay its presence or absence alone does determine a "tier" difference for this Commander (and it's not even competitive, it's more like with it, it's still a mediocre deck that could potentially blast some competitive decks but without it, just tilts towards mediocre-even-in-casual).

Even with it, it's still just mediocre-with-potential that I have had to put two alternative combos with their own Legendary pieces that could act as alternative (or even, better) Commanders, so that the deck as a whole could elevate itself to the more competitive landscape of my meta. Lucky for me, both combos fit the deck thematically and flavorfully, but they'll get their own sections under strategy, for ultimately this deck was built around my first Legendary Creature card first and foremost.

Theme Analysis

Is Ryusei, the Deific Blast a deck for you?
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With the knowledge of what Ryusei is capable of, now we explore what my build for the deck features in its themes to support the Commander (and vice versa). If the following themes (combined preferably) appeal to you, then this deck might be for you!

Big Burn – The main theme of the deck. The only stat you care about is your opponents' life is at zero.

High Risk – Despite the format's high life totals, folks still don't like taking damage and that's what this deck does in large doses, making yourself quite the visible target with less protection since your damage doesn't come from a strong, controlled boardstate. On top of that the deck is relatively double-edged compared to the typical deck (despite my actions to minimize it), so the deck is volatile and you really need to be on the edge on protecting yourself from literally everything. Some folks love that.

Mediocre Commander – I wouldn't call Ryusei terrible, especially after the rules changes to death triggers for Commanders took place, but even at best I daresay it approaches slightly under the average line considering the numerous amounts of good Commanders out there. At least there's a "niche" way of building around Ryusei that I'm doing here, and some folks do enjoy these kind of niche decks/gameplay moreso than just jumping on a vanilla "bad/mediocre" Commander.

Strong backups - As it's likely for the ambitious main gameplan to fail, I've had relatively non-related backups in the form of Heartless Hidetsugu, Godo, Bandit Warlord and their respective combos as ways to close the game. In theory you could just appoint them as Commander and come out with a "stronger" deck, but Ryusei in the 99 severely decreases its value (to the point I might recommend taking its components out for a better R deck of the other Commander), so this is mentioned here in-sync with the desire to play with a mediocre Commander/gameplan that's likely to fail.


However, no deck can cover everything the game can offer and Ryusei does lack in multiple departments. Also, no deck comes completely without weaknesses. If missing any of these themes or having to deal with any of these weaknesses if a big red flag for you, this deck might not be for you.

Artifacts – Yes, there's a good number of artifacts and their synergies in the deck, but I've mostly propped the entire thing up as a support system for R to be able to ramp, draw and recur more efficiently as the methods provided by actual R cards are lacking. They form a backbone of support to get the machine moving, but in no way is the deck actually an artifact deck.

Creature-Board-Control – We only run 13 creatures and they're positioned around making sure the Commander's plan doesn't backfire on your face. You either have to equip them with protection or be willing to dispose of them before triggering the Commander, so this deck doesn't just let you sit on long with even the beefier creatures, or at least not if you're trying to pull of the main gameplan (and even if you're not doing it there's not enough creatures to really outsit typical battlecruiser decks).

High Risk – Exact same description as it was, except changing the end to "some people just dislike that."

Decklist


Now you've had a solid idea of whether you would enjoy the Commander/deck, I present you the decklist of Ryusei, the Deific Blast.

Ryusei, the Deific Blast
Approximate Total Cost:

Card Choices


My deckbuilding process goes in this sequence: Ramp → Draw → Removal → PRO (Protection, Recursion, Others) → Manafixing Lands. There are some specific processes that are done within/in-between, but I'll get into detail when as I move through this guide.

Ramp
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Magic games are fun because you can cast things, and the ability to be able to cast more things as the game progresses is vital. It's tremendously less fun to watch someone cast a huge spell a couple of turns earlier or cast 2 more spells than you did in your turn in the same cycle, or you to exhaust all your mana getting something out while everyone else could afford to leave mana open so they could interact with the game and turn it in their favor. Ramp is the backbone that solves all that, the cornerstone of decks everywhere.

In general, I recommend at least 15 ramp sources, around 10 of which are fast, early-game options and the remainder could be slower or conditional ramp sources that hopefully synergize with the themes of the deck.

The Big Three
I don't even think I need to introduce/explain these three cards. As much as I love my diversity, I had to admit these three cards are also dubbed the "ubiquitous three" for me and exist in every one of my decks (and yes, you will see this exact section in every thread). They obviously account for 3 of the fast ramp options of every deck hence.

I usually don't mention prices, but Mana Crypt is a standout I have to state due to my personal declaration of ubiquity here. As long as your meta isn't as high-powered as mine, you don't need Mana Crypt, you can replace it with a (basic) land. In fact, the overall land count in my decks could be said to be 1 below-average solely because Mana Crypt is powerful enough to justify it and you should put a land in-lieu of Crypt to get healthier numbers for a deck without one.

Fast Ramp
Fast ramp is defined by the ability to drop on turn 2 or earlier and have an immediate effect on casting spells.


Mid/Slow Ramp
Mid/Slow Ramp refers to a specific group that essentially come online by turn 3 or later in a vacuum.


As Ryusei is 6 Mana, the higher-costed mana rocks aren't as bad as you aren't likely to be casting the Commander turn 3 (or 4 even). As the deck focuses on big burn with the use of X-spells, the focus is on mana sources that can generate larger amounts of mana like Worn Powerstone and Glittering Stockpile).

Myriad Landscape is slow, but does help ramp out 2 mountains, in the same vein as Wayfarer's Bauble for a R deck. Treasure Vault counts for an artifact and while slow/bulky, opens up a way to create Treasure tokens.

Ramp Auxiliaries
These cards are classified as such because ramping/providing mana and/or reducing costs isn't their primary/only objective, but they are more likely than not to act in favor of mana production as a byproduct in the process of performing their functions, or at least can function as an alternate mana source at the cost of their other/intended function. As ramp is considered paramount, their flexibility elevates them to this high position as opposed to just being classified as "Utility".

Card Draw
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Ramp may be the cornerstone of a deck, but there's no point in having mana if there's nothing to cast. Card draw is the axle-grease that keeps the deck capable of building upon itself in a game.

Like with ramp, I recommend at least 15 sources of card draw. It may sound excessive, but I personally classify a huge range of card effects under its umbrella, including cantrips, discard-draw effects and wheel effects. To me, the filtering provided by such effects to get to the correct cards you want to be casting at any given time qualifies them under the primary objective of drawing.

That being said, card advantage is an important factor, especially in a multiplayer game and as such between all sources of draws I recommend at the very least about 8 (preferably 10) of your draws are capable of generating card advantage, be it directly (one-shot draw multiples, or strong straightforward draw engines) or indirectly (can be cast multiple times by itself, or generates synergy with the deck's theme to do so like an on-theme conditional engine).
As most cards primarily placed for their drawing abilities are pretty straightforward, I will not be explaining each of the common sections and the choices that fall under them.

Single-Use

Repeatable Draw

As R doesn't really carry a lot of true drawing, I prioritized my planeswalkers to the ones that help smooth out the hand and consider that to be their primary purpose rather than all the other utilities that they could possibly also help out in, as they're not really integral to the deck's strategy.

Tutors
Not quite card advantage, but I like to categorize tutors under the branch of card draw as it surrenders advantage for precision. Due to said precision I will explain my choices briefly.


R doesn't have a lot of tutors (and the ones we have here carry their own risks). Discarding at random is a huge risk, but otherwise there isn't a lot of ways to search out Repercussion at a low cost. For people who don't mind very-slow options, Ring of Three Wishes could be the safe tutor to run.
Removal
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EDH games are not played in vacuum – as much as you're ramping, drawing cards and presenting threats, so are your opponents. Someone has to be faster than someone else in most games and it's unlikely you're always the fastest on board. The ability to dispose of threats that would otherwise end the game (or you from the game) should never be underestimated.

At the same time, there's only so much space you can afford for removal, especially having spent space for ramp and card draw and needing some for other utilities. I cannot you teach you the specifics as it differs game-to-game, but threat assessment is key skill in any EDH game, as it can easily seem that there are more threats than you have answers for, as there are three opponents. You need to identify which threats are the most dangerous to you, preferably as early as possible, but only dispose of them in a timely fashion, not necessarily as early as possible. If a threat has a chance to pose a bigger threat to another opponent, then it may be beneficial to either let it weaken said opponent first or let them notice the threat (even if it's blatant verbal politics) and spend their removal to get rid of a problem for you.

Removal is divided into two main catergories, Spot Removal, which are cards that remove usually one, but can be up to a few targets (and usually do use a targeting mechanic). The other is board-wipes, which refer to cards capable of removing an entire subset of cards (or almost) from every player (or opponent, but those usually cost more) in the game.

Counterspells for most part are almost always considered single-target removals, as the bulk of them are usually used to negate a singular threat before it manifests. There's some debate because there's an array of cards that exile entire graveyards, but I personally classify all grave hate to be single-target removal on the concept that most decks that don't rely on the graveyard as theme still do have some limited recursion options, and the reason one utilizes an entire graveyard exile is simply because the cards that perform them tend to be more cost-effective, and the real objective is usually a specific card. Sure, sometimes you hit a graveyard-reliant opponent and it feels like a boardwipe, but I don't feel that means I have to classify all cards that entire exile graveyards as wipes because they're opponent-dependent.

I recommend at least a minimum of 8 spot removals, with a reinforcement of 10-minimum if you're unsure about your threat assessment skills. Unless you have really good synergy with your removal options, generically around a cap of 12 spot removals should be ceiling, otherwise it'll pressure too little space for your utilities. Cover all your bases, make sure you have at least a way to get rid of graveyards and lands, as removals for those two are often overlooked while threats they present are no less dangerous than your usual culprits.

With board wipes my minimum recommendation is at least 3 and preferably 2 of those are capable of removing creatures, the most common permanent threat-type by nature of damage, but there should also be at least one option capable of handling artifacts and enchantments. Generally speaking mass land removal is socially frowned upon (especially if you're just going for walk-in games), so pay extra attention back to your spot removal to handle the notorious few problem-lands in the game.

Like with draw, the removal effects themselves are straightforward, with my emphasis already done on ensuring you have the diversity to deal with threats of varying natures being the actual important factor. Hence, I'm not explaining my specific choices in each deck and substitutes for this section are arguably the easiest to look for with any collection.

Graveyard Removal

Targeted Removal



Board Wipes
Protection & Recusion
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With three pillars of any EDH deck settled, we move on to slightly less important parts (no part can be considered unimportant because an EDH deck is supposed to be a machine with all its part working in sync ideally). Protection & Recursion can be said to be two sides of a same coin, under a function of keeping other parts of deck intact so those could perform their duties. Basically the opposite of removal, the attempt to keep your threats intact (or returning/reusing them after they got disposed).

Protection is pro-active and prevents a card of yours from either be removed, or at least it helps by hindering your opponents from doing so (so effects that grant shroud or hexproof qualify). This prevents the card from leaving the battlefield or get countered, so it's less vulnerable to grave hate options, but in exchange, protection requires timing and mana left open and can be tricky to maneuver, even more so than threat assessment. Some counterspells can function as protection, but for simplicity's sake I just classified them under removal due to my processing order, but take note if you already run counterspells they might be pulling double-duty as Protection.

Recursion, as I said, is the opposite of the same coin. It doesn't prevent the destruction, but bringing something back from the graveyard to the hand, deck or battlefield means there's no real timing restriction outside your own personal urgency. Likewise, it's vulnerable to gravehate, which is arguably the #1 factor that would provide a sense of timing urgency.

While they're distinct enough that I have to provide paragraphs establishing their roles, Protection and Recursion could be said to be one tier below the three pillars of deckbuilding (ramp, card draw & removal), as it's theoretically possible for a deck to just ignore it altogether and operate on "If it's gone, it's gone" principle) and still reasonably perform well if it's other components are settled well. This cannot be said for the three pillars (which would visibly affect performance significantly more if they were missing).

That being said, it definitely never hurts to have some countermeasures of your own against removals, especially if your deck's themes and/or combos are heavily reliant on one card with poor redundancies/substitutes. There's no real "guide number", but I'd recommend around 5 in total, divided any way you want between the two sub-types. Most preferably your choices have synergy with your Commander of deck theme, even if it means going all-in with one and ignoring another.

Protection

A double-edged deck like this would pay a tad more attention to protection and we're provided some different ways. Basilisk Collar provides lifegain. Glacial Chasm and Platinum Angel tend to fall under the category of "use if the finishing double-edged burn will knock out every player so that it becomes a win". They're a bit narrow, but the deck's main gameplan was narrow to begin with.

Recursion
Others
Actually more accurately referred to as Utility (but PRO sounded much better than PRU), this is the "last" section you fill in. But wait, isn't mana-fixing lands after this? Yes, which is why you need to do one thing before you starting filling this "last" section, which is to clarify your numbers.
Walls of Text, but Critical to Deckbuilding
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At this point you need to tabulate the total number of cards already in your deck. Then you need to determine the number of lands you need in your deck. It may feel like a contradiction to think how many lands you need before you got all your non-lands in to determine your mana curve/intensity, but blindly going in more-often results in people loving to stuff it to the gills only to find out they only have space left for 20 lands (which is a big NO-NO), which is why this guide even focuses on establishing numbers for all your three pillars and PR before moving to this Utility section, which is probably the most "fun" part of deckbuilding.

If you completely have no idea of what your mana curve/intensity would look like, the general recommendation for total land count is to be at 38 lands. If it's not your first time building a deck and you could sort of mentally preview your curve to be much lower than the average, there's an argument for cutting down up to 2 lands, and if you're running Mana Crypt like me, you could safely reduce the count by 1. That makes the absolute minimum land count 35 and even then you really must anticipate/know your mana curve accurately.

On the opposite path, if you know you're putting too much weight, you might want to up to count by a couple at most, and even then 40 lands does put you at a risk of land-bloating that I would whether recommend you keep a tight rein on both the 38 land count and the "calorie intake" of your card choices instead. The only exception is if your deck is a lands-matter deck, and assuming it's a main theme of the deck, the numbers are skewed to around 40-minimum-to-45-maximum with no real average. There are some other decks out there that really delve deep into the theme with 50+ lands that do work, but I don't specialize in that and will not elaborate further (and 99-land decks are their own thing).

Let's say you took the 38-land assumption (no Crypt) and booted up on the minimum/average recommended suggestions I made (15 ramp, 15 draw, 13 removal and 5 PRs). That brings the total to 86 cards. Not counting the Commander (and I'm assuming no Partners), that leaves a whooping total of 13 spaces left for your utility, "fun" stuff. Sounds incredibly small, sad and not enough space for all the awesome ideas you had for your deck but now can't fit in.

It'll be tempting to start trimming cards from the prior sections, but please do not, for that is the most common temptation newer/casual players fall for, only to find out their deck doesn't churn along because the pillars that keep the deck (including the "fun" parts) running just aren't up to the task.

But, now is the time to restore a bit of hope. It's time to check back on the cards already in the deck and see how many lands are already residing there. Did you use Ancient Tomb as ramp? Did you let War Room smooth out your draws? Did you file Buried Ruin under recursion because you didn't want to waste a spell slot to get back one important but not numerous artifact in the deck? Everyone land you already used counts under the land total, which means you free one more space for your utility fun.

But what happens if you found out you didn't have that many lands that helped you free up space? Then I'd recommend you start looking up for those lands to take over some of your nonland choices in these categories to create that space. The secret to a well-oiled EDH deck that has space for its luxury plays is the one that finds the most land openings to fill in the pillars of its own oiling, not just cutting the pillars off for luxuries that no pillars are around left to support.

When it's done you should have around 15 to 20 open spaces for your utilities/fun (I actually have less because I usually go a couple above the recommended minimum for my pillars). It can still feel "little", especially for newer players, but at this point I just have to say that's the sacrifice it takes to be able to get what you consider fun up-and-running in a 99-card deck format with so much variance, it certainly isn't just 60+ cards of fun and lands. That's why like how you find lands in your pillar card-choices to make space, it's in your best interests to find nonland cards in those sections as well that synergize better with your themes, so that your pillars are also fun to play with as well.
Another small beacon of light to look forward to, there are lands that are utility and/or fun, and like with all lands before them, they fall under the land total quota, so they don't eat up your remaining spaces. That Treetop Village that isn't really protection but just small utility? Doesn't eat up your remaining establish space.

One very important thing to note when distinguishing if a land actually falls under the land total. I do not consider lands that are incapable of producing mana by themselves in a vacuum to one, if they're in for a non mana-fixing reason (which is why I count those last) and can't produce mana on their own, they're functionally like 0-mana "non-land" cards in a way. Maze of Ith strikes as the most common example (and no, even if you run Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in the deck it doesn't just reverse this classification in the deckbuilding process, which usually favor in-a-vacuum status.
With the importance of juggling numbers in this section finally out of the way, let's briefly go through my miscellaneous card choices.
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Finishers/Core

As I said, Re:Commanders decks are almost always built with combo-ways to close the games in case the primary win condition style is rendered unachievable, hence the pieces for these combos are usually my first priority in filling out my utility spaces. As I have a section dedicated to explaining the combos, I'll leave this part as short as possible. Blood Moon in a R deck has proven to be potentially a game-ender in late-game when it punishes greedy manabases and opposing decks lack the ability to answer to the deck escalating in those turns.

Utility

Great Furnace and Nimblewright Schematic provide artifact fodders while The Mycosynth Gardens can transform into an artifact. Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter and Vedalken Orrery are artifact flash-enablers for an otherwise clunky deck.
Color-Fixing Lands
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At this point you should be done with all your nonland cards, and with some lands slots already taken up, you should roughly have about 30 land slots left in a multicolored deck, or substantially less (around 25) for a monocolored deck.

This is a mono-colored deck, so there isn't a need for color-fixing. Due to aesthetics I don't run off-color fetches, which means I don't run any in my mono-color decks, but you can include up to 4 (Bloodstained Mire, Wooded Foothills, Scalding Tarn and Arid Mesa) if you want to, for technical optimal deck thinning purposes.

Piloting the Deck

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I'm not going in-depth into this section (partially because I haven't had many actual games myself), but if you've established an understanding of how each card in the deck works, I don't think I need to overtly dictate specifically how any of my decks should play out in a game. Bluntly speaking, you need to ramp and set up draws as early as possible, and your starting hand should revolve around that set-up. General threat assessment usually means don't waste your removal on early "threats" that aren't lethal or overtly crippling (unless someone's super-aggro), you'll need to juggle around the mid-game and if you've resourcefully saved them could afford to be a little trigger happy nearer to the end-game.

Mulligan & Early Game (T1-T4)

Ramp and draw is the priority of the deck in early-game. Establishing the ability to produce a lot of mana by mid-game is preferable as many of the deck's later plays are mana-hungry. Don't be afraid of discarding the big plays of the deck if that must be done in order to build that base of mana production, there are multiple big plays the deck can do and they can be recurred later on, which much better than not having enough mana to play multiple big pieces later on and effectively choking in mid/late-game by playing one piece at a time and giving others a chance to disassemble it easily.
Unless you're exclusively targeted by an aggro deck to the point of death/losing, taking some early aggro/damage isn't too crucial even for a double-edge strategy like ours, it just means we need to prioritize our protection/lifegain earlier in the mid-game phase. That being said, throwing some removal out early game to mitigate losses could still be the right play depending on situations.

Mid-Game (T5-7/8)

Hopefully by now you've gotten some sources of "big mana" online (or reduced the costs of multiple cards in a similar vein). Chances are you still can't pull of the big game-ending plays here yet (perhaps the faster combos, but that leaves it open to being countered), so mid-game is usually dedicated to attrition whilst assembling the protection/enablers for your big-plays down the route.

Multiple players should be rising threats by now (in the same vein aggro was in the early-game), so play both your removal pieces and politics (they're all threats to each other as well) carefully. You could utilize your protection/enablers against your opponents as well, just try to make sure they're still around when you get to your big plays.

As the big plays are mana intensive, do continue to ramp up mana production (at the very least don't miss out land drops) even if it doesn't need to be as quick as it was in the early game while also making sure they're protected so they're around for the big plays, of course.

Late-Game (T8+)

By now, the war of attrition should have dragged out and options from all players should have lessened, if not exhausted. It's time for the big plays – if the opponents have enough creations, bust out the Commander with Repercussion and damage enhancers and burn the world down, or if the Commander is compromised, any massive burn spells could stand-in.

Hidetsugu and Godo provide their own combos with also big-burn or infinite combat-steps, so in the case some part of usual big-burn assembly doesn't go through, utilize those to close the game out.

Remember, ultimately in a typical 4-player game where there can only be 1 winner, the odds are stacked against each player individually and the war of attrition is just a matter of who's the lucky one who managed to get his beatdown/combo down at the right moment when the other three exhausted all their immediate resources.

Combo Strategies


Ryusei Combos
Any combo revolving around Ryusei don't go infinite, so the core idea is to make the trigger deal as much damage as possible, preferably lethal.
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The typical explosive combo, as long as each opponent has one creature without flying, Ryusei will deal 15 damage to that creature, then Repercussion will deal 45 damage to each opponent. The obvious weakness of the combo is if your opponents have sacrifice outlets they could utilize they could dodge the damage completely, so timing the combo/removing those outlets must be taken into account.

Also, this is double-edged, so make sure you don't have any creatures without flying, otherwise that's 45 damage to yourself from Repercussion. You could sacrifice creatures to Makeshift Munitions in response, or equip them with either Sword to prevent the damage to the creature (hence not triggering Repercussion) or you could just Glacial Chasm your way out.

Gratuitous Violence only doubles damage from Ryusei and not Repercussion, so it only deals 10 damage to each creature and player (per creature), requiring each opponent to have 4 eligible creatures to deal 40 damage. While Furnace of Rath and Dictate of the Twin Gods are not in the current decklist, if you do run them, they would deal 20 damage to a player per creature, requiring 2 eligible creatures for 40 damage.

Of course, there's a solid chance opponents are already down to 30 or 20 life by the time you're pulling this off, so the numbers of just assuming from the starting life of 40, it could be easier (or harder if someone runs a lot of lifegain) depending on the individual game in question.



Repercussion is a unique effect no other card has replicated, but sometimes you just lose it permanently, so this brash goblin acts as the closest replacement. Ryusei dies, deals damage to the Taunter, which then deals damage to an opponent of choice. As it checks damage dealt to itself before dealing a separate damage count by itself, it also applies damage enhancers a second time (and because it is a creature, it actually works better with Gratuitous Violence).

An obvious advantage is that using Brash Taunter means you don't need to care about the number of creatures your opponents control, but it can only hit one opponent per trigger, which means you need multiple triggers from Ryusei. Given Ryusei's cost, repeatedly casting the Commander isn't exactly economical, so chances is you're going to need Helm of the Host to copy out multiple Ryusei… or you know, you could also copy Brash Taunter for multiple triggers off a single Ryusei trigger…
Backup Combos
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The straightforward infinite attack combo – a Godo equipped with Helm creates a copy at the start of combat (the original need not even attack), the token attacks, triggering another combat phase after this one, where Helm would generate another Godo token which would attack for the first time that turn, creating another combat step again and the cycle continues.

The obvious weakness of the combo is each Godo only untaps itself once, so with solely the two combo pieces you'll only have 2 3/3s attacking each turn (the one which untapped the previous turn and the new token) and the combo is essentially hardwalled by any indestructible blocker (regular blockers should just go down eventually with sheer damage).

As this deck only utilizes this combo as a side-combo, it doesn't really supply all the tools to overcome all of its weaknesses, so the timing usage of this combo is also pretty vital. Luckily the two pieces have their regular use as standalone or part of another combo, so the combo itself is just an extra-bonus alternative.
Helm of the Host also works well with Ryusei, allowing the creation of non-legendaries, enabling easy damage-wipes (and/or Repercussion) wins without having to sacrifice the actual Commander.


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An obvious combo, Hidetsugu deals half the remaining life totals to each player, and tripling that means it's lethal to everyone. As the damage dealt is rounded down, if using doubling instead of tripling, it will fall 1 life short against players with odd life totals. That can be used to your advantage if you only doubled damage when all your opponents are at even life totals while you are at odd, but chances are an opponent has a way to protect themselves or push you to the flames by altering life totals by a point, so some form of protection is needed.

Granting Hidetsugu lifelink via Basilisk Collar would help, as state-based effects of checking life totals only happen after the whole effect resolves, meaning you basically gain as much life as Hidetsugu dealt to all players (including the damage to your own life total), so basically you're at positive life by the time state-based effects are checked.

Alternatively, Glacial Chasm to prevent damage or Platinum Angel (or Platinum Emperion for those who run it) can also protect you. All protection methods inherently carry the risk of backfiring if they're removed in response to the combo activation, but you could stack multiple of them before combo-ing for extra insurance (as long as one form of protection sticks you've basically won).

Closing


This brings us to the end of this guide for Ryusei, the Deific Blast. As I stated from the start, this deck had to be built around the (mediocre-at-best) Commander because I picked it due to personal reasons.

While there's no wrong way to build a deck around the Commander due to the nature of the format, I personally do believe that big-burn is the optimal way to build around Ryusei to showcase its abilities (even if they're mediocre).

If someone really likes Ryusei and thinks dragon tribal is the way to go, it's their prerogative (although I'd personally don't see what Ryusei offers to a tribal build outside of its typing and ability-wipe being naturally more favorable because most dragons fly, but even then requiring your Commander to die for just a mediocre wipe even if favorable without enhancing it doesn't feel like it an effective use).

Flavor

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Well, this is no primer, so instead of giving credits, I'm just going to the customized flavortown for the deck. (Actually the real reason is I sort of just absorbed random tidbits over the decades and can't remember all the specific sources I got, some I simply kept/forgot in my brain until years later, only randomly recalling the tidbit when I come up or have to refine my ideas/decks).

The deck is flavored after Kamigawa, pretty obviously from my usage of multiple Kamigawa Legendaries. For practical reasons I didn't force the entire deck to be that close to flavor, but at the very least I had all the mountains be Kamigawa foil ones. As mentioned in the deck's history, I started playing MTG by walking into a Champions prerelease and the plane has a special plane in my heart (even if I recognize its shortcomings as a block).

The Commander's epithet is taken from a video game boss: Vortice, the Deific Blast from Xenoblade Chronicles X. Nothing really special (the boss is the closest thing to a dragon that game has, but that's not the reason), I just really liked how the epithet sounded and fit a Dragon Commander.

The deck's thematic quote was taken from Attack from Titan, a phrase said by the main character (Eren Yeager) early on the series, repeated occasionally through the series and was also used near the end (which I was pretty pleased with, I used it as the quote since the deck was established in 2015, when the series was nowhere near the end). I swapped the win/live & lose/die placement because it sounded much more accurate in the context of a double-edged burn deck over an actual fight for survival, but it could be interpreted either way if you delve deep enough in-flavor.

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"Tasukete" serves as the deck's theme song, alongside the 7 other songs (Each Re:Commander deck is assigned 8 songs, one as its own theme song and one that it shares with each of the other 7 decks of the suite). Links to each song are below, and disclaimer that it's safer to assume every link is NSFW than vice-versa so make sure you're in your safest environment before pressing any links.

(Theme Song) Tasukete
(Song with Najeela) Courtesy Call (Nightcore)
(Song with Freyalise) Boiling Blood
(Song with Yorion) Among the Clouds
(Song with Extus) Armed and Ready
(Song with Karador) Dark Silver Wings
(Song with Animar) Art of Blade
(Song with Grimgrin) End Like This
If you enjoyed this [Re:Commanders] thread and would like to see another one, feel free to visit either the main [Re:Commanders] hub or any of the other [Re:Commanders] threads linked below

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Last edited by Yatsufusa 5 months ago, edited 36 times in total.

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RowanKeltizar
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 2 years ago

Ryusei, the Falling Star has been a star in my Kaalia deck for a while now and I like to see that you are making a deck around him.

I wanted to point out that we actually have some redundancy to Repercussion in Toralf, God of Fury // Toralf's Hammer.

I probably have other things to comment on, but I'll be back later!
WRBKaalia, Zenith Seeker - Certified Air Raid Material
WBElenda, the Dusk Rose - Drain and Gain
WRAurelia, the Warleader - Tokens/Equipment
URNiv-Mizzet, Parun - Controlled Burn primer
BRGHenzie, "Toolbox" Torre - Creature Feature
BRGSoul of Windgrace - Lands Matter
RGWGishath, Sun's Avatar - I'M YOUR DADDY
GWUBAtraxa, Praetors' Voice - Artifact Stax Beatdown
Budget Starter Decks
UBSygg, River Cutthroat
WU Shorikai, Genesis Engine
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Yatsufusa
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Post by Yatsufusa » 2 years ago

RowanKeltizar wrote:
2 years ago
Ryusei, the Falling Star has been a star in my Kaalia deck for a while now and I like to see that you are making a deck around him.

I wanted to point out that we actually have some redundancy to Repercussion in Toralf, God of Fury // Toralf's Hammer.

I probably have other things to comment on, but I'll be back later!
Thanks, good to see that Ryusei is an appreciated card in other decks (I also vaguely remember seeing him dragon lists over the years, especially mono-R ones and can tell the work done there). Building around him without just going dragon tribal / flying is quite the different ballpark though.

Funny enough I have a Toralf I bought accidentally because I missed out "noncombat" and thought he was good for Animar at first. Might give it a try (not soon though I haven't played for over a year for obvious reasons and don't forsee games in the near future either, plus all eight decks will be scrambling for time when I finally do get games in). I could see him doing heavy work given the many (mass) burn spells we have, although I wouldn't directly tout him as an alternative to Repercussion or even Brash Taunter because alone he doesn't survive a Ryusei trigger (whereas Taunter would). It wouldn't be too hard to protect him with a Sword (given I already run them), but that extra step sort of stops me from just out right advertising him as "the alternative" for now.

Either way, thanks for the suggestion (that I would have missed out myself, nowadays I only take notice of a tiny amount of cards on release and usually only get even less due to a combination of factors like lack of actual play, release fatigue and my decks are relatively stacked that missing out on the new shiny thing doesn't really hurt). Hopefully I'll be able to get some games in the next year, although it'll take several of those before I can get data confident to log anything in, so that's an even longer wait for the thread. But feel free to comment more, I can just stack suggestions and test them at the same time when I do get the chance to.
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