A deck idea I have been thinking about for a while but never made was a buffing Riku of Two Reflections deck, but I don’t know where to go with practical, value buff instants and sorceries.So…how do we use spells to “buff” Riku of Two Reflections to lethal proportions? And, more generally, what are the best “pump” effects in red, blue, and green?
Before we jump into the pump effects, it’s probably wise for anyone wanting to build a Riku of Two Reflections to also look at ways to keep Riku alive. Dig Through Time #1 has a lot of options listed, although if you’re looking to pump up the 2/2 Human Wizard you will probably want to shy away from the cards that give shroud (like Lightning Greaves and Clout of the Dominus) and instead use the cards that provide hexproof (like Swiftfoot Boots and Elgaud Shieldmate). Also, with the addition of green, you gain access to defensive cards like Canopy Cover, Alpha Authority, Simic Charm, or even Ranger’s Guile.
Category 1: Doubling
Perhaps the most impressive thing you can do with Riku is simply to follow the plan he already brings to the table: doubling things. If you use his ability to copy a spell that is already doubling Riku’s power, you end up with quadrupled power—and it doesn’t take much help for quadrupled anything to be lethal.
Berserk, Fatal Frenzy, Rush of Blood, Overblaze, Overwhelming Stampede, and Soul’s Might. These spells are some of the purest examples of this category’s idea: just about any pump spell at all, when combined with a copied version of these, can turn into a lethal amount of commander damage. Berserk is the best of the bunch because it’s the cheapest and can be used on opponents’ creatures—which, if used on a scary creature attacking somebody else, can kill the creature and sometimes kill the defending player as well. Fatal Frenzy is just a worse version of Berserk, while Rush of Blood doesn’t kill the creature it targets but also doesn’t provide trample. Overblaze looks slightly more complicated, but really it’s just the same effect: if Riku copies Overblaze, he will end up dealing quadruple the damage. Overwhelming Stampede is usually used in decks that play a lot of token creatures, but even with, say, a 5/5 Riku, casting two copies of the Stampede will lead to 20 trampling commander damage. The same principle applies to Soul’s Might, but it exchanges trample for the ability to translate temporary pump spells into huge amounts of permanent +1/+1 counters.
Temur Battle Rage, Psychotic Fury, Wrecking Ogre, and Savage Beating. Of course, there is also the creature keyword that has “double” right in the name. All of these cards qualify as good ways to grant your commander double strike at instant speed, which can kill people in a hurry, even though there is no good reason to use Riku’s spell-copying ability in tandem with any of them. Temur Battle Rage is best in combination with other pump spells—which is the plan here—because of the trample it grants to its target. Psychotic Fury is fantastic because it replaces itself when cast: you could even copy it with Riku to draw an extra card, if you have nothing better to do with the mana. Wrecking Ogre is an uncounterable pump spell and source of double strike, or a fairly strong creature to copy with Riku, depending on what you need at the time. And finally, Savage Beating is one of the most accurately named cards in the game. Just cast by itself (with entwine), it can quadruple the damage dealt by your attacking creatures—which is good, since copying it with Riku does almost nothing: double strike doesn't stack with itself, and Riku won't be able to attack in anything but one additional combat step, since he won't be untapped after attacking again.
Assault Strobe, Armed / Dangerous, Runes of the Deus, Berserkers’ Onslaught, and Rage Reflection. While cards like Psychotic Fury and Savage Beating can grant you double strike as a surprise—once blockers have already been declared—these ones instead operate at sorcery speed. We don’t need to spend much time talking about them, but it’s important to realize that it’s good to have redundant copies of these effects in your deck. In this category, it’s probably more important to choose the permanent effects, even though they are more expensive, to make up for their lack of surprise.
Gratuitous Violence, Curse of Bloodletting, and Bitter Feud. We have one final category of doublers to discuss, and (fortunately enough) this category “stacks” with both double strike and the Berserk effects discussed previously. Gratuitous Violence is an underplayed card in Commander, considering how versatile and powerful it tends to be, and I highly recommend it for any aggressive decks, even ones not focused on Riku-based doubling. Curse of Bloodletting is obviously much more narrow, but it can still be useful if you don’t have much board presence: just target the person who is running away with the game and let the other players beat him or her down! Bitter Feud can give you similarly political options, since you can just set up two other players to hurt each other a lot, or you can use it as part of an alpha strike to kill someone: just choose yourself and the person you want to attack, then hope that you can kill that player before he or she gets to hurt you too much!
Also, of course, there are several other damage-doubling red enchantments, but they’re generally not good enough to get pictured along with the three seen above. If you really want to go all-in on this effect, you should consider Dictate of the Twin Gods, Furnace of Rath, and Quest for Pure Flame.
Category 2: Instant-Speed Pump Spells
With all the doubling we have discussed above, it’s worthwhile to discuss ways to increase Riku’s effective power. After all, quadrupling the damage of a 2/2 creature is very different from quadrupling the damage of, say, a 6/6. The ones I’m highlighting here are merely the most powerful or efficient—there are, obviously, a huge number of pump spells throughout Magic’s history, and I can’t cover all the sub-optimal ones here.
Invigorate, Colossal Might, Vines of Vastwood, Might of the Nephilim, Become Immense, and Might of Oaks. All of these pump spells are doing a lot of work beyond the baseline of Giant Growth. Invigorate is basically always free to cast (and therefore easy to copy with Riku) because you can always give the three life to an ally…or give it to a person you are planning on killing with Riku commander damage, since that bypasses life totals anyway! Colossal Might is incredibly valuable because it provides trample, while Vines of Vastwood can save Riku from targeted removal while giving him +4/+4. Might of the Nephilim is just a good old-fashioned +6/+6 for two mana, Become Immense can do the same job for as little as one mana, and Might of Oaks is simply the biggest such pump spell ever printed. Note that one card you might imagine would be great, Stonewood Invocation, can definitely be useful but doesn’t work as well with Riku as you might first think. Its split second ability isn’t an issue: you can still copy it with Riku’s ability anyway. The shroud that it grants is a problem, though, since the copy will stop the original spell from resolving. It’s a powerful spell, but there’s no reason to copy it if you’re trying to go all-in on one creature.
Hunger of the Howlpack, Infuse with the Elements, Dromoka’s Gift, Epic Proportions, and Strength of the Tajuru. These instant-speed cards provide permanent benefits, so although they don’t provide as much raw “burst” damage as the temporary pump spells, they can lead to Riku having enough gas in the tank to kill different players on subsequent turns. The morbid version of Hunger of the Howlpack is not very hard to trigger in Commander, and it’s very powerful when copied, although those six +1/+1 counters are more likely to be applied on someone else’s turn. The trample that Infuse with the Elements provides can be absolutely critical, and it will always give you three or six counters. Dromoka’s Gift will only really work if you have an un-buffed Riku on the field, but it’s just a lot of instant-speed power. Epic Proportions can’t be copied by Riku’s ability, but it’s a surprisingly powerful card nonetheless. Strength of the Tajuru can be ridiculously powerful, and its scalability is a very big factor when you are trying to juggle the casting costs of a lot of different spells.
Category 3: Sorcery-Speed Buffs
I am going to ignore, here, all of the various pieces of equipment that can permanently pump Riku. There are just too many of them, and using more than a few of them can turn an innovative “Lethal Riku” deck into a relatively boring “Voltron” deck. Especially because the vast majority of equipment tends to be colorless, it’s hard to be original when you’re loading up on the most effective swords and other implements of war. If you want a rundown of all the best equipment for Commander, that would be a separate Dig Through Time article—and you should request it in the comments below this article!I am also going to ignore most of the temporary sorcery-speed pump spells, like Revenge of the Hunted and Enlarge, because if you are going to have to cast things at sorcery speed, you should probably be getting a permanent benefit from your efforts. One possible exception to that rule is the card Hunter’s Prowess, since casting a copied version of it will give +6/+6 and let you draw two cards for each point of damage that gets through to a player!
Increasing Savagery. This one gets to stand on its own, since it is so very good at its job. A turn-five Riku followed by a turn-six copied Increasing Savagery means that you can be swinging with a 12/12 Riku immediately. If you use the flashback version later on and copy it, you are getting TWENTY +1/+1 counters from just the flashback version by itself, ignoring the first casting!
Blessings of Nature, Give / Take, and Verdant Confluence. These are the less-impressive but still high-impact versions of Increasing Savagery. Blessings of Nature is really straightforward, but both Give / Take and Verdant Confluence give you the option of getting some significant flexibility and card advantage as part of your game-plan as well.
Bear Umbra. All of the cards we have looked at so far in this article can be combined into some truly powerful shenanigans, but they all cost a lot of mana to use optimally. Bear Umbra not only pumps Riku and protects him with totem armor—it also lets you untap all of your lands as soon as you swing, ready to cast and copy some powerful instants. Please play this card.
Rancor, Favor of the Overbeing, Boar Umbra, Gaea’s Embrace, Drake Umbra, Gigantiform, Wurmweaver Coil, Mythic Proportions, and Eldrazi Conscription. If Bear Umbra is the headliner enchantment, these are solid supporting acts. None of these enchantments, obviously enough, can be copied by Riku’s ability, but they are powerful enough that it is worthwhile to consider them anyway, especially for non-Riku decks in these colors. We don’t need to discuss them individually: I will simply note that most of them provide a good ability—trample, flying, or resilience in the form of regeneration / totem armor—in addition to a significant bonus in raw power and toughness. It’s possible that Shape of the Wiitigo should replace Wurmweaver Coil in the above list, since it is roughly comparable in power level and they are both somewhat resistant to enchantment removal.
Distortion Strike, Veil of Secrecy, Taigam’s Strike, Tricks of the Trade, and Riding the Dilu Horse. These cards are significantly better than merely giving your commander trample: if you have a 20/20 Riku, you would really prefer for other players’ Saprolings to stay away from the chump-blocking zone entirely. The first four cards here are relatively straightforward, but Riding the Dilu Horse needs a bit of explanation, since it’s a weird, absurdly expensive card from an obscure set. It is a sorcery that gives its target +2/+2 and horsemanship permanently. It’s probably not worth the money, honestly, but if you have one—PLEASE make a Riku deck that takes maximum advantage of it! As an additional note to round out this section: blue has a lot of ways to make creatures unblockable, so feel free to run cards like Shadow Rift, Artful Dodge, Aqueous Form, or Thassa if you want to make sure that Riku can get through blockers.
Category 4: Creatures that Buff Your Commander
We have been focusing single-mindedly on Riku’s ability to copy instants and sorceries, with a brief detour through several powerful enchantments. His other ability, which makes token copies of creatures, can be used to much the same ends. We won’t cover this category in anything like exhaustive depth, but there are a few creatures that are MUCH better (and make Riku much better) if you have two of them.
Nantuko Mentor and Pathbreaker Ibex. The doubling creatures! Nantuko Mentor is fairly fragile and clunky, but having two of them means you can quadruple the power of whatever creature you want once a turn. Forget about that, though. The REAL business is Pathbreaker Ibex. Having two of these in play is patently ridiculous.
Boartusk Liege, Murkfiend Liege, Mindwrack Liege, Thunderfoot Baloth, and Vigor. These creatures all get very powerful when you have multiples of them. Casting and copying a Boartusk Liege gives you two 5/6 trample creatures and gives your commander a constant +4/+4. The same is true for the other two Lieges and Thunderfoot Baloth: the more you have, the more powerful they all are. Vigor doesn’t make your creatures any bigger immediately, but using Riku’s ability to make a copy of it means that the two Vigors can protect each other while making it a very bad idea to block (or attack into) any of your creatures.
Precursor Golem. Since we are running a lot of ways to pump creatures, why not lean hard on that plan? The Golem, along with the other creatures mentioned above, means that it becomes incredibly tempting to run cards like Rite of Replication, Cackling Counterpart, Stolen Identity, and so on… can you imagine casting a Precursor Golem, copying it with Riku, and then running out a copied Rite of Replication into a copied flashback Increasing Savagery? How much power is that? It’s, um…
…well, it’s a lot of power on the battlefield.
* * *
Thanks for going through this collection of cards with me! If you can copy spells, it turns out that even a five-mana 2/2 can turn into a player-killer surprisingly effectively. If you want to build a Human Wizard beatdown deck, I hope you can take the options presented above and make it happen!Now, please head to the comments and give me some requests for future Dig Through Time articles! We all know how hard and how satisfying deckbuilding in the Commander format can be, and there are often cards out there, lost in the mists of time, that are exactly what you’re looking for to make your deck run like clockwork.
No comments:
Post a Comment