IntroductionI've been playing EDH for about 4 years now, and over that time I've tried out a bunch of strategies- from
Feldon of the Third Path Reanimator, to
Toshiro Umezawa Conotrol, to
Rienne, Angel of Rebirth Multicolour Beats, to
Trostani Discordant Tokens and
Brago, King Eternal Blink. But no commander, and no deck, has ever captured my attention more completely than
Rielle, the Everwise. Rielle might not be the most underused general around- ranking #9 in the Most Common Izzet Generals on EDHREC- but in the year or so since her release (and since I started playing her) I've never seen another Rielle deck in the wild. The goal of this primer is to hopefully change that, and prove that Rielle isn't just my favourite commander ever printed; she's also one of the most understatedly powerful commanders in the game with a bit of support.
Why Play Rielle- You love to draw an absolutely ludicrous amount of cards in every game;
- You want to make use of a pretty unorthodox strategy;
- You want a deck that can win fast, but also hold it's own in grindier games;
- You want a deck that really focuses on it's commander;
- You want a deck that can be customised in order to play, and win, in totally different ways depending on your preference.
Why to Avoid Rielle- You like to play more creature-heavy strategies;
- You're playing in a meta with a whole bunch of
Hullbreacher (HB isn't a death sentence for the deck, but it's a serious problem that demands an answer before you can do anything too crazy);
- You don't like the way that Izzet decks generally play;
- You want a deck that doesn't really rely on it's commander's ability to win.
The Game PlanIn order to figure out how best to build around Rielle, we should probably start by looking at her card in more detail.
Rielle, the Everwise is a 0/3 Human Wizard for {1}{U}{R}, with two key abilities:
1. Rielle, the Everwise gets +1/+0 for each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard. This acts as a pretty big indicator that Rielle is going to be focusing more on spellslinging than permanents like creatures, artifacts and enchantments to win. We're probably going to want a critical mass of instants and sorceries in the deck to make the most of Rielle's face-beating capabilities.
2. Whenever you discard one or more cards for the first time each turn, draw that many cards. This right here is the biggie, and what sets Rielle apart from every other Izzet commander option out there. Wheel effects can be absolutely insane and easily let you end turns with double digits of cards in your hand, but that's just the tip of the
iceberg. If you really want to make the most of Rielle, you're going to want to heavily lean into this penchant for looting.
Based on all that information, it's pretty clear where we want to end up with a Rielle deck. Our primary goal will be to use looting and wheel effects to cycle through our deck at lightning speed, stock our graveyard with instants and sorceries, and ultimately try to assemble a game winning boardstate. That strategy is going to be the basis for the rest of this primer's discussion, but before we dive into the bowels of the deck, we should probably decide where exactly we want all of this looting to bring us.
Picking Your Poison and Ending the GameWe'll go into specific finishers that are good alongside Rielle later, but before I get onto the deck breakdown I feel like it's important to look at the two primary ways you can take a Rielle deck as far as your overall gameplan. The first (and the one we're going to be focusing on from here on out) is playing the deck like a midrange control shell, using counterspells, removal and the crazy amount of card advantage we accrue to keep ourselves on top and eventually win the game with lethal commander damage, a huge X spell or 40 zombies swinging in at once. However, it's also entirely possible to build Rielle like a combo deck. This gameplan focuses heaviliy on wheeling as quickly and as frequently as possible, with the goal of decking ourselves and winning the game with a
Laboratory Maniac/
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries/
Thassa's Oracle package. This isn't personally the type of Rielle I like to play, but I'll be throwing in some utility cards for this type of gameplan at the end of the primer in case you want to go all in on the Combo route!!
Deck BreakdownAs I said, moving forward we're going to be focusing on putting together a midrange control shell, but making use of some uniquely Rielle-suited tech along the way. As such, I'm probably not going to cover every single card we're using here, but I'll definitely be sure to bring attention to any unorthodox picks you might not immediately include at first glance!
Looting and WheelsThe bread and butter of any Rielle deck is your discard enablers. These can range from single use looting spells- such as
Faithless Looting,
Cathartic Reunion,
Prismari Command and
Careful Consideration - to consistent looting enablers- like
Dack Fayden,
Teferi, Master of Time and
Jaya Ballard - to full blown wheel and 'mass selective discard effects- such as
Wheel of Misfortune,
Jace's Archivist, and Channelled Force . However, there are a few really spicy cards here that Rielle makes use of better than pretty much any other commander!
-
Magus of the Bazaar: This is probably my favourite card in the entire deck. Usually not even good enough to be draft chaff, this
Time Spiral era take on
Bazaar of Baghdad is a budget friendly way to trigger Rielle on the fly. We want to have plenty of instant speed ways to discard to make the most out of Rielle's filtering capabilities, and Magus tapping to draw us FIVE CARDS at instant speed is nothing short of insane. Definitely give this guy a look!
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Turbulent Dreams: A card I'd never heard of until I started working on Rielle,
Turbulent Dreams does a pretty stellar
Cyclonic Rift impression in this deck, with the added benefit of filtering away any unwanted lands or flashback cards and drawing us a fresh grip. Another really great include that I'd highly recommend!
-
Breakthrough: This Legacy Dredge all-star has definitely seen better days, but it pulls it's weight in a big way in this deck! There's been a whole heap of games that I've gone t2 mana rock, t3 Rielle into
Breakthrough, and watched the whole tables have to pick their jaws up off the floor. I'm not a huge advocate for a bunch of card disadvantage in the deck in case you have Rielle removed in response, but play it sensibly and
Breakthrough can help you draw 10+ cards easily!
Protection and EvasionWith our deck relying so heavily on Rielle as both our enabler and our primary finisher, we need to do everything we can to keep her around and get through for massive damage. With this in mind, we normally want to play pretty conservatively if we can, waiting until we can cast Rielle and hold up/provide protection for her right away. We have a bunch of protection options in our colours, but my favourites have got to be
Clout of the Dominus, to give us an additional +2/+2, protection AND haste in the mid-late game;
Lazotep Plating, to protect not only Rielle but also our planeswalkers and some other potential finishers; and
Whispersilk Cloak, to help Rielle get through for damage with no difficulties!
Evasion-wise, we also have a couple of really sweet options.
Key to the City and
The Royal Scions both help us
squeeze through damage easily and can play double duty as looters in a pinch; while spells like
Distortion Strike and
Artful Dodge fuel our graveyard until we need them to do their job and swing in for the win! Finally,
Rogue's Passage is an easy thing to slot into the mana base to give us some end game reach.
InteractionThis is a midrange/control deck at heart, so our interaction package is key to our success. While UR has some really solid and ubiquitous removal and
counterspell options (
cough cough Cyclonic Rift cough cough), there are again some really sick Rielle-specific cards I'd definitely recommend you trying out!
-
Forbid:
Forbid is the most degenerate card we run in this deck. Once we have our engine going,
Forbid goes from an overcosted
Counterspell with a fairly steep buyback cost, to a counter every turn that doubles as a
Faithless Looting.
Forbid pretty easily lets you lock up games in the later stages, and I'd definitely recommend using it if at all possible!
-
Rites of Refusal: Another all-star in the deck,
Rites of Refusal is similar to
Turbulent Dreams in that it pulls double duty as an important piece of interaction and an insane card selection outlet once Rielle is on the field. This easily turns into {1}{U} to counter a spell and dig 5+ deeper, and it's another auto-include for me!
-
Immolating Gyre: One-sided boardwipes are always good, but this Jumpstart mythic fits the deck like a glove. It's easy for us to have 10+ instants and sorceries in our graveyard by turn 5/6, so more often than not this is a 6 mana plague wind- and who could say no to that?!
-
Firestorm: Another wrath option that works amazingly well with Rielle, scaling fantastically as the game goes on and doubling as a discard/filtering outlet. Highly recommend!
FinishersAnd now, the final piece of the puzzle: how do you want to finish the game?? Honestly, there's no wrong answer here. Rielle works great as a Commander Damage wincon by herself, but she's supported pretty amazingly by
Psychosis Crawler,
Ominous Seas or
Glint-Horn Buccaneer. Another personal favourite of mine is
Rise From the Tides - not as strong as the others, maybe, but there's just something really satisfying about making a gigantic board of creatures when you've spent the whole game with one or two onboard.
Also worth noting here is the alternative decking strat outlined above, which is really helped along by
Teferi's Ageless Insight, Alhammaret's Archive and
Consecrated Sphinx. Just choose whatever works for you and go with it! One of Rielle's biggest advantages is that she's pretty flexible in how the game is eventually won, and I'd encourage you to play around and see what really makes you smile!
Ramp and LandsThe rest of your deck will likely be made up of ramp and lands. There's no really specific Rielle cards in terms of ramp, although
Thought Vessel is extremely helpful as we reach double digits in our hand, and
Dreamscape Artist is a thoroughly underrated repeatable
Harrow in Blue that should be seeing way more play. Land-wise, cards like
Desolate Lighthouse and Geier-Reach Sanitarium are great utility lands to add in, but other than those and the abovementioned
Rogue's Passage, your mana base should look pretty standard!
The ResultHaving looked at how the deck should be built, it's time to see how everything comes together! Everybody, I'm thrilled to introduce my own personal Rielle deck!
https://deckstats.net/decks/13738/1929181-the-rielle-dealThe deck is middling in terms of budget, particularly as far as the mana base is concerned, so feel free to upgrade wherever you can. But overall, I've been really happy with how the deck has performed and apart from more untapped lands and a cyc
rift, I'm not sure there's too much I'd change. But again, this is just one way to build Rielle, and I'd highly recommend you mess around with her and see what suits you best!!
Starting HandOur best starting hands generally include 1-2 mana rocks to drop on turns 1 and 2, followed by 2-3 lands and a 1 mana discard outlet like
Faithless Looting. You always want to make sure you have at least one looting effect in your opener to avoid losing to just never drawing one, and ditto making sure you have enough mana (or you're confident that you WILL have enough mana) to cast Rielle sooner rather than later.
In-Game TipsGames with Rielle are rarely a race. Try to play conservatively until you've set up with Rielle, and always hold up some defensive capabilities if you can. I'd also prioritise ramping early on if possible, just so that you have enough mana to do all the things you want to do later in the game- turns can get pretty mana intensive, and you don't want to be coming up short.
Don't worry about discarding key cards early- things like boardwipes can generally be recurred with your wide variety of flashback enablers. Additionally, I'd avoid fully wheeling too frequently. My deck contains more selective discard for a reason; there's usually at least one good counter or discard spell you want to keep around, and having to discard it is kind of messy. Always try to get as much discarding done as possible in a turn cycle by saving your instant speed discard for your opponents turns. Ultimately, I'd wait to attack until such time as I was confident the board was in a stable enough space; don't be afraid to wait until you're two-shotting somebody, or even one-shotting. Otherwise, have fun!!!!
ConclusionSo there you have it! I really hope you've enjoyed going through this primer, it's my first so feel free to leave any feedback you want! Happy playing, and I hope to see more Rielles out there!!
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