Marneus (Talrand Secret Commander) (EDH / Commander)

While Marneus Calgar heads this deck, there is a second secret commander who is key to our strategy, Talrand, Sky Summoner.

Talrand, Sky Summoner’s effect effect synergizes nicely with Marneus Calgar, as created Drake tokens will draw us a card. Most of the deck is instants and sorceries so it is pivotal to get out Talrand to get value from casting them.

Early Game
The first goal of the game is to find and play Talrand, Sky Summoner. There are quite a few tutors that can accomplish this. Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Diabolic Intent can find any card. Step Through can find Talrand since he’s a Wizard. Scheming Symmetry can be used early, since it’s unlikely an opponent will get something to disrupt our early board. Mystical Tutor can find one of our other tutors.

We also need to ensure we have enough mana to get Talrand out and Marneus afterwards. This means we will need to hit 5 mana with at least 2 blue, 1 white and 1 black source.

Mid Game
Once we’ve established our board with Talrand and Marneus, we can play a control game. Every instant or sorcery now also makes a Drake token and draws us a card. There are some other value pieces that can be added in here as mana allows.

If Talrand is removed there is redundancy for the effect from Murmuring Mystic and Monastery Mentor and recursion in the form of Reanimate and Victimize.

We can slow play here, keeping up answers to threats and slowly amassing more flying tokens while keeping our hand full of answers.

Late Game
We win one of two ways. Either with gradual combat damage with our board of flying tokens, or with Approach of the Second Sun.

Approach is easier against combat decks where we will need to use our tokens as blockers and have a harder time pushing through damage, whereas combat is easier against decks that can threaten to fight us on the stack.