Mastur (EDH / Commander)

Overview

Consider the following table:

Yes, you read that right. In the absence of other effects, 3 turns of attacking with [[The Master, Multiplied]] will deal 52 damage to each opponent. All you have to do is play one creature and attack with it, and there's a good chance you just win the game handily. The messed up part is that on top of that, if a single myriad trigger resolves, you are virtually immune to targeted removal spells. Yes, you read that right again: each [[The Master, Multiplied]] will keep itself from being exiled to the delayed myriad trigger or sacrificed to the legend rule.

Gameplan

If all you need to do to win is play [[The Master, Multiplied]] and attack, then let's try to play [[The Master, Multiplied]] as soon as possible. There are a number of ways to do this:

• Lands that tap for more than 1 mana
• Artifacts that add mana
• Ritual spells
• [[Urza's Saga]] grabbing one of the aforementioned ramp cards

Ideally by the time you've played [[The Master, Multiplied]], you have a way to give it haste. If so, great; just start attacking. Snag that first myriad trigger and you're pretty much protected from removal. If you don't have haste, hopefully it's early enough that your opponents don't have their removal set up yet. Once you begin attacking, the game should be over in short order, assuming you can get through.

If for some reason you can't get past the blockers, there are a few cards like [[Bedlam]] and [[War Cadence]] that can force that damage through. Using tutors to find these is a great idea.

Finally, if [[The Master, Multiplied]] gets killed, you have plenty of ramp to replay it. If it's about to get killed or countered and you saved some mana, you can use a card like [[Pyroblast]] or [[Malakir Rebirth]] to save it.

Ramp Discussion

This deck is overloaded with ramp. That being said, notice that card disadvantage ramp cards like [[Chrome Mox]], [[Mox Diamond]], and [[Gemstone Caverns]] are not included. Those cards help you gain an initial immediate mana advantage while sustaining that advantage long term. This is not what this deck is interested in. What you want here is a quick burst of mana that lets you play [[The Master, Multiplied]] as early as possible. Imagine a card like [[Arcane Signet]]. This can be played naturally on turn 2, and it even provides 1 mana right away. On turn 3, you have access to 4 mana, and you maintain that extra mana per turn on all future turns. That's normally very strong because you can leverage that mana advantage to cast more spells and/or better spells earlier in the game. However, think about trying to cast a 6-mana commander. [[Arcane Signet]] plus normal lands lets you cast it as early as turn 5. So [[Arcane Signet]] (and [[Mind Stone]] and [[Fellwar Stone]] and every other "normal" mana rock) basically advances you by 1 turn (from turn 6 to turn 5).

Now consider a "worse" card like [[Heart of Ramos]]. This card comes down on turn 3, which is far worse than [[Arcane Signet]], and immediately has the same effect as [[Arcane Signet]]. However, on turn 4 you will have access to 6 mana by activating both of [[Heart of Ramos]]'s abilities. So while [[Arcane Signet]] can be played earlier and will generally be a better choice for most decks, [[Heart of Ramos]] can get you to 6 mana on turn 4 while [[Arcane Signet]] never can.

The same logic applies to most of the ramp cards in the deck. [[Bucknard's Everful Purse]], [[Lotus Blossom]], [[Noble's Purse]], [[Pentad Prism]], [[Basalt Monolith]], [[Coalition Relic]], [[Descent into Avernus]], [[Heart of Ramos]], [[Skull of Ramos]], [[Urza's Incubator]], and [[Worn Powerstone]] all have the ability to ramp you by 2 or more mana before turn 6, such that you can play [[The Master, Multiplied]] on turn 4 or earlier. Since there are so many of these cards (alongside rituals and traditional fast mana), you have a very high chance of being able to play [[The Master, Multiplied]] on turn 3, often with haste.

But wait, rituals? Aren't those just temporary versions of [[Arcane Signet]]? Yes they often are, but they also contribute to casting [[The Master, Multiplied]] faster because they don't need to be set up 1 turn in advance. If you have 5 mana available, then [[Arcane Signet]] doesn't let you cast a 6 mana spell. On the other hand, [[Pyretic Ritual]] does. There are many rituals in the deck, and some cards ([[Grim Monolith]] and [[Mana Vault]]) can act like rituals or mana storage, depending on the situation.

[[_____ Golbin]]

This deck has a sticker deck* because of [[_____ Goblin]]. With the optimal sticker deck, this card has a 30% chance of netting 1 mana, a 40% chance of netting 2 mana, and a 30% chance of netting 3 mana. If you have enough mana already, try to put the "Mind" name sticker on it before killing your opponents. Check out Frank Karsten's article for more discussion of [[_____ Goblin]] and a couple other fun ones.

*The sticker deck is listed in the maybeboard section because the deck is considered illegal when I put it in the sideboard section.

Other Notable Cards

• [[Serum Powder]]. This deck mulligans very aggressively because you only need a few cards to execute the game plan. It is very realistic to mulligan to 5 and still play [[The Master, Multiplied]] on turn 3 with haste.
• [[Beseech the Mirror]] is cool because it can sacrifice and extra [[The Master, Multiplied]] token to get [[Bedlam]] when your opponents have too many blockers.
• [[Hellkite Courser]] puts [[The Master, Multiplied]] back into the command zone, but not before creating 2 copies of it. [[Urza's Incubator]] can sometimes name Dragon for this card.
• Dumping your hand to [[Lion's Eye Diamond]] to play [[The Master, Multiplied]] on turn 2 is probably not that bad of an idea. After all, your hand was just a bunch of useless ramp anyway, right?
• [[The Black Gate]] can sometimes force through an attacker to kill an opponent who has particularly good defenses set up.
• Don't remove [[Strip Mine]] because [[Glacial Chasm]] exists.

Exclusions

• [[Determined Iteration]] and a lot of other cards that combo with [[The Master, Multiplied]] (more damage, extra combats, extra tokens, etc.) have been left out because they require [[The Master, Multiplied]] to be on the battlefield to work. Once you play [[The Master, Multiplied]], you're winning. You don't need to pile on extra damage to close out the game faster. See the table above.
• There are other ways to give creatures haste, but this deck ideally wants cheap options like [[Lightning Greaves]] or [[Mass Hysteria]] that you can sneak in on turn 1, 2, or 3 before casting [[The Master, Multiplied]] on turn 3 or 4.
• For any 5+ mana card, you have to ask the question: "is this equal to or better than just playing my commander?" Notice that the only card in the deck that costs 5+ mana is [[Hellkite Courser]], and that's because it's basically equal to playing [[The Master, Multiplied]], but with haste.
• Card draw. The point of this deck is to ramp and play [[The Master, Multiplied]]. What could you possibly be needing to draw into that you didn't already mulligan to find? If you get shut down for some reason or another, you just lose. You probably cast 3 rituals or sacrificed your [[Peat Bog]] or discarded your hand to [[Lion's Eye Diamond]] already, so you're basically screwed anyway and drawing more cards is not going to help you. Card draw spells will just reduce your chances of having a fast opening hand.
• [[Haunted Ridge]] should normally be here, but the fixing isn't as important here and coming into play tapped is too big of a downside.

Chopping Block

These are some cards I'm not excited about and possibly looking to upgrade.

• I don't like how [[Descent into Avernus]] ramps other players and doesn't really advance [[The Master, Multiplied]]'s clock because he massively outpaces the splash damage from [[Descent into Avernus]].
• [[Bloodsworn Steward]], [[Delina, Wild Mage]], [[Gimli's Reckless Might]], and [[Molten Echoes]] all cost 4 mana, so they are hard to sneak in during the early turns. I am looking to upgrade these when cheaper haste options become available.
• I wish there were more evasion options like [[Bedlam]] and [[War Cadence]], but I couldn't really find anything.
• More good tutors would be nice to have.