[EDH /Commander] Need Advice-> Melek, Izzet Paragon (Red/Blue Sorcery/Instant)

[MitchyT]

Hi,

I’m a little newer to Mtg but trying to work on my deck building and creating good card combinations. I was wondering about a commander deck -> Red/Blue, mainly sorcery/instant using Melek, Izzet Paragon? The idea would be to go low cost and use Melek to help get cards out wether they be damaging red sorceries or use blues to draw/return permanents of opponents. Melek would double this making copies on cast correct? As well some creatures to boost effects of damage done for sorceries and instants or help draw and some which have effects like exile top card of your opponents deck and you can cast it this turn? They are just preliminary thoughts on the idea and I’d like to hear anything anyone has to say. Thank you

[Morganator 2.0]

Fun is a little subjective isn't it? Any deck can be fun depending on your perspective.

So, what do you consider to be fun?

[MitchyT]

Very true it is subjective I thought about how I worded that after posting. I guess I should’ve said something like “a deck that will be useable, not just a heap of cards with no ability to work together well, and isn’t broken (like some infinite decks) and is flexible to change so I’m not always running the same cards in order to still be effective”. I myself love blue for manipulation of mine and my opponents cards so far. I see so many blues and reds abilities that seem to fit so well I thought this might be something to try. Overall I thought red sorceries and instants for damage would be interesting. I have a hard time in straight forward combat so I thought maybe why not reduce my need to be in creature to creature combat and leave the field partly to just defensives while I cycle damage spells from my deck, to my hand and back from the grave to either? Does this seem manageable or too big or small a focus for a deck I guess is my main question. Sorry for the elongated explanation.

[Morganator 2.0]

Step one is figuring out which commander you want to play. Let me break this down.

You want a deck that:

• Has a focus.
• Can't be broken (whatever that means)
• Is able to freely swap cards

You would prefer:

• Red and blue control
• Burn spells (like Lightning Bolt)
• Not combat based
• Spell recursion (bringing instants/sorceries back from the graveyard)

So this is manageable, for the most part. Burn spells tend to not work well in commander, because you have 3 opponents with 40 life a piece. It's nigh impossible to do 120 points worth of burn damage, when most burn spells were designed for 20 life games.

If you're trying to win without combat damage, and you like the spellcasting aspect of red/blue, I would suggest Nekusar, the Mindrazer as a good first commander. The focus of Nekusar is to use all kinds of mass draw effects (like Dark Deal and Windfall) and then penalize your opponents for drawing those cards. Because you're drawing so many cards, it's easy to draw into your control spells (counterspells, removal). Access to black also gives you access to recursion, and some other weird cards for this strategy (namely Notion Thief and Waste Not).

Does this interest you?

[Izzet808]

The cards you're talking about, like Repulse and Electrolyze are good cards for casual commander.

Maybe use blue extra turn cards like Time Warp and cantrips that draw, like Opt. I understand that extra turns may not be "fun", so some other interesting spells are Twincast, Reverberate, Stitch in Time (coin flip extra turns), Sleep, Snap (that will let you untap four lands), Bribery, Acquire, and maybe Quasiduplicate. Just some ideas.

[MitchyT]

Yeah you make a good point that it’s not a good idea against too many opponents. Originally I had thought to use that but like you said penalizing people on draw or adding cards that can do damage by effects that active by drawing would be better. Like adding thermo-alchemist and others that can tap for direct damage then add effects like Tok Tok, Volcano Born to up all red damage outputs. Using cards like that with cards like nekusar and say Niv-Mizzet, the firemind would that start to be more effective? I do like your idea yeah. And yeah Izzet808 I have some like that I could use. I could care to get ahold of timewarp too. Thanks you two! (And by broken I wasn’t clear I meant like some people do infinite mana or tokens and just break the game with certain decks and I find that type of deck unappealing to my play style is all)

*Edit* - I got a card pack involving Niv-Mizzet today with almost this exact set up but for regular modern which is why I was wondering. A lot of the cards deal damage when an instant or sorcery are played while others make you draw a lot of cards or bring back cards.

[Morganator 2.0]

Like adding thermo-alchemist and others that can tap for direct damage then add effects like Tok Tok, Volcano Born to up all red damage outputs. Using cards like that with cards like nekusar and say Niv-Mizzet, the firemind would that start to be more effective?

Getting there. Thermo-Alchemist and Akki Lavarunner are still a little too weak for commander. Instead, try to capitalize on effects that work with Nekusar. Stuff like Fate Unraveler, Megrim, and Kederekt Parasite will deal a lot more damage than Thermo-Alchemist.

You're new to MTG, so figuring out what cards go well together will take time. Or we can short-cut the process. If Nekusar does interest you, check out this page; it's filled with card suggestions for Nekusar.
https://edhrec.com/commanders/nekusar-the-mindrazer

[MitchyT]

Ok thanks! Most of what I’ve got now I could only make like ⅓ a good deck to support Neckusar, but I’ll build what I’ve got now to begin testing and messing with it and I’ve been using a few sites like this to test hands and first few rounds of draws so hopefully I’ll get a feel for a set up involving him

[Judaspriester]

Keep cool and take your time.

Even if you know what you do, there are usually some iterations until the deck works well, because there is always a point you have forgotten, or that doesn't work exactly like expected.

Just try to build your deck and ask for advises then. You'll always find someone here, that takes a look at it.