Hello friends! I hope that you are having just the best day in your life today! And I hope that tomorrow is even better! Welcome to the full spoiler season for Modern Horizons 2. Looks like a fun set, right?
Today I want to build around a new legendary Efreet from the set. Which one?
Yusri, Fortune's Flame! Let's unpack what Yusri is doing... three mana for a 2/3 flyer is better than Wind Drake. It's cheap and can come down early and often even with a few Commander Mana Taxes. When Yusri attacks you choose a number between one and five and then you flip that many coins and call them. For each flip you won? Draw a card! For each flip you lost? Take 2 damage! Did you win five flips? Rare but if you did you can cast your spells for free this turn. Nasty!
What am I expecting to do with this build?
- Coin Flips - I want to add in a bunch of cards in red that have coin flips. A bunch! Most of these will be in Red as that is the color of chaos and coin flips are chaotic.
- Coin Flip Matters - There are a few cards out there that care about flipping coins. There are not many, but they are out there! Enjoy the coin flip matters of your color.
- Alternate Win Con - There is an alternate win con that appeared to my mind as I read Yusri for the first time that I want to add into my deck so that I can win the game more easily.
- Unblockable - Since Yusri wants to swing to get those triggers, we'll need to make sure that he doesn't die in battle and the best way to do that is to include some unblockable abilities.
- Combat Triggers - Since we are adding in unblockable for Yusri, we might as well add in cards that have triggers that fire when they attack or deal combat damage. Red is the home of the former and blue the home of the latter.
- Support - We'll need support like counters, removal, ramping, and such.
Welcome to the deck!
The first question any coin flip deck needs to decide is if it'll be legal or not. Goblin Bookie calls your name. There is nothing that Goblin Bookie does that wouldn't be allowed in a black-bordered set if rolling dice were allowed in the game, and they could be in the future. Tapping and using some mana to reflip a coin is a great way to ward off problems at the beach and get a second chance at that key card. Are you going to toss in the Bookie? Yes, I am!
Once that question is answered, here is your next one. Are you running Mana Screw? Goblin Bookie could be black bordered, but Mana Screw is clearly a silver bordered card from its name to its flavor text to the ability. It's clearly a different sort of card to consider. Since the Bookie headed in, I will toss in the chaotic Mana Screw as well!
Here is the win-con I mentioned above and it's getting reprinted in Modern Horizons 2 as a rare. As you win coin flips, you toss luck counters on this bad boy. Then once you have enough counters (just 10 wins) you win the game the following upkeep, which is fair and gives everyone a full round to answer it. Might I suggest using some coin flips at the end of a turn when you are close to prevent sorcery speed answers?
Another great way to build around a coin flip matters build in Izzet are the Eye of Chaos and the Eye of Wisdom from Battlebond. They are great as leaders and there are 923 decks registered over at EDHREC.com with this partner tag team. They are also coin flips matters value as your net a better Okaun or a card drawn from Zndrsplt. They are both strong options as they flip cards and reward you for the wins.
Krark has two legendary cards that we have to play in this build, right? The appearance of the partner legendary version of Krark will flip a coin each time that you cast an instant or a sorcery, and in this case you want to win for the copies! A copied ability will work nicely with Strixhaven's magecraft. If you lose you keep the spell and can try again, which is also good for magecraft and triggers like Guttersnipe. In a dedicated Krark deck, you might prefer to lose. Anyways, you also have his Thumb which was one of the first cards that appeared to my mind when reading Yusri's chaotic ability. Flip five coins and you'll be much more likely to win those flips and winning that many in a row is hard but more doable for the free spell effect.
I am running just a single planeswalker in my build, and it's Ral Zarek. Ral is good with his +1 to tap something annoying and untap a key dork or land or mana rock for that mana. He's also fine as a -2 Lightning Bolt. But he is here for the ultimate, which is rare for my inclusions in a deck. But here? If you get flip and hit just two heads that's a studly amount of extra turns from a walker of the planes. I love it with Krark's Thumb and you'll trigger coin flip cards like the partner duo we featured earlier.
Forget budgets let's run Mijae and Ydwen! We have an Efreet Commander so we might as well keep things among genie kind! The former card will flip cards as you swing with it's nice 6/3 for 3 mana body. You want to swing a lot! Another card for the unblockable nation. When the latter card wants to block you flip a coin, so you want to encourage people to swing your way. Note that the Mijae one will block fine and Ydwen one can attack all day long and both are sizeable for the cheap but hard cost.
And check the bad boy Minotaur from Coldsnap! Looks like fun, right? You want to keep it around as long as possible as you'll get tons of coin flips. As you win flips you deal damage to folks or their stuff, and as you lose them your foe will send damage to a dork or player. You'll really want to pair this with Krark's Thumb.
Have you seen this Frenetic two-some? The Efreet has a new Oracle text. It's "0: Flip a coin. If you win the flip, Frenetic Efreet phases out. If you lose the flip, sacrifice Frenetic Efreet." That's better because it doesn't have to be in play, unlike the Sliver which is a fixed version. Control Chance Encounter? Stack something like 30 coin flips to be safe. Now flip until you finish them, and it'll be phased or sacrificed whichever happened first and you are going to win on your next upkeep. The Sliver can only do it once a turn.
Check out these artifacts! The Strongbox turns a win coin flip into three cards and will sacrifice away. It's great for card flow as it's three cards for one and six mana (ish). Love it here!
Check out Crooked Scales. You'll tap it and four generic mana and then flip. Did you win the flip? Yes? Great! Then you destroy their dork! Nope? Then do you have a Bookie? You can tap a mana and it to reflip. Did you toss two coins with the Thumb? You don't have them or you still lost? Spend three more generic mana and flip again. Did you win this time? Destroy said target. Otherwise, you lost your worst creature instead of destroying their best. It's great here!
Check out Creepy Doll! It's pretty commonly played in other decks but has enhanced value here! (Much like Mana Crypt). It's a nice 1/1 indestructible and when it deals damage to a dork there is a 50/50 chance of said dork dying. It's a great blocker and you'll want to steer folks your way. If you swing, they won't block you and you'll only deal a single damage so that's a non-starter as a threat. There are 1,215 registered over at EDHREC.com.
Let's turn to some more on-theme enchantments.
In a 20-life format, Goblin Bomb is a backup win con as you can deal 20 damage to someone's face, although it does require you to win five coin flips in a row or have counter manipulation. In a 40-life multiplayer format, 20 damage is often enough to kill one player, but not always, and just one foe. However, with the support of cards like the Bookie and his Thumb winning five in a row at any point in time is much more likely. Enjoy it!
Meanwhile, check out Mirror Match. As non-tokens arrive to the battlefield under our control we can flip until we lose and we make bonuses dorks that have haste and die at the end of the turn. With typical flip manipulation we can reliably do that a few times and dig deep into token making! We have a number of ETB cards like Solemn Simulacrum and Flametongue Kavu that you'll want to copy for their triggers, and we have cards like Thieving Magpie that you'll want to swing with haste for cards. It's good in multiple ways here.
An entire expansion set was named after the first of this pair. You flip coins at the beginning of each upkeep until you lose and sacrifice it. You don't want to lose as whenever anyone casts anything they flip a coin and if they lose that spell will be countered. What winds up happening is that no one casts anything and it's like a Standstill, no one wants to crack it. Exception? Rare cards like Urza's Rage that cannot be countered. Cast it after you've gotten an advantage with the Thumb or a board position and then hope you don't lose the Chaos coin flip. Impulsive Maneuvers are seen as one of the craziest rare enchantments in the color. As creatures swing you flip and you deal double damage with a win and no damage with a loss. Note that this works every creature that attacks, yours and your foes. You flip for every creature that attacks. It's very easy to stack up 10 wins with this and a Chance Encounter.
Have you seen Access Tunnel? Check it out here! It will jump in alongside cards like Rogue's Passage and Whispersilk Cloak to give a valuable source of unblockability. Yusri is small enough that you can make your Efreet Leader unblockable and then swing away and net his trigger without fear of being blocked and killed and losing that reliable trigger. It also works on my array of cards like Jhessian Thief that draw you cards when they punch for combat damage to a player. Enjoy it!
Raid feels like a useful addition to the deck, but only three were added as most were Limited to enters-the-battlefield triggers that only fired if you attacked. The Looter is great as long as you swung with Yusri or their friends, then you'll draw and discard at the end of your turn. Pretty nice card flow when combined with card drawing triggers like Lu Xun, Scholar General has. The Barrage is a decent Lightning Bolt for three mana that you could recur if you swung this turn and then keep on keeping on. You can deal damage to a single target and finish it off a dork with X/4, or 5 or 6 toughness if you have enough mana available. Note that it doesn't trigger once, so as long as you have the mana you can recur it over and over again.
Let's look at three more fun cards!
This Game is a real joy to play. Flip a coin! Did you win? Target opponent loses a life and you gain it. If you won, then you flip again and double the stakes! Two life? Four life? It's not long before you kill someone. A loaded Game of Chaos with Krark's Thumb is great!
Have you seen Reinterpret in Commander 2021? I hope so! I added in a few counters to give you answers to things. This one is a four-mana counter that can give you a nasty free spell. Note that most of your cards are on the cheaper side of life so that you can drop most of your cards from your hand for a mid-range card cost you counter. I also tossed in card advantage counters like Desertion, Draining Whelk, and Dismiss to keep up the card flow.
Check out how the Scoundrel tag teams with Yusri. As you win coin flips, you'll ramp two Treasures. As we've seen we have a lot of coin flips! An Impulsive Maneuvers can get you 7-8 Treasures per turn in multiplayer. A Frenetic Efreet can get you a ton of them. You can also spend a mana and sacrifice a permanent, like a Treasure, and then flip another coin. All the coins will be flipped today!
And there we are! Now let's look at my deck!
Evening the Odds with Yusri | Commander | Abe Sargent
- Commander (1)
- 1 Yusri, Fortune's Flame
- Creatures (36)
- 1 Avalanche Riders
- 1 Burnished Hart
- 1 Cephalid Constable
- 1 Chaotic Goo
- 1 Crazed Firecat
- 1 Creepy Doll
- 1 Duplicant
- 1 Draining Whelk
- 1 Flametongue Kavu
- 1 Frenetic Efreet
- 1 Frenetic Sliver
- 1 Goblin Bangchuckers
- 1 Goblin Bookie
- 1 Goblin Kaboomist
- 1 Goblin Psychopath
- 1 Goblin Archeologist
- 1 Jhessian Thief
- 1 Krark, the Thumbless
- 1 Looter il-Kor
- 1 Lu Xun, Scholar General
- 1 Okaun, Eye of Chaos
- 1 Marauding Looter
- 1 Marchesa's Infiltrator
- 1 Mijae Djinn
- 1 Mogg Assassin
- 1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
- 1 Pilgrim's Eye
- 1 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Scoria Wurm
- 1 Skittish Valesk
- 1 Thieving Magpie
- 1 Tavern Scoundrel
- 1 Viashino Sandswimmer
- 1 Wild Wurm
- 1 Ydwen Efreet
- 1 Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom
- Planeswalkers (1)
- 1 Ral Zarek
- Instants (7)
- 1 Admiral's Order
- 1 Aleatory
- 1 Chaotic Strike
- 1 Counterspell
- 1 Desertion
- 1 Dismiss
- 1 Reinterpret
- Sorceries (6)
- 1 Fiery Gambit
- 1 Game of Chaos
- 1 Last Thoughts
- 1 Molten Birth
- 1 Repeating Barrage
- 1 Stitch in Time
- Enchantments (6)
- 1 Chance Encounter
- 1 Goblin Bomb
- 1 Impulsive Maneuvers
- 1 Mirror March
- 1 Planar Chaos
- 1 Reconnaissance Mission
And there you are! I hope that you enjoyed my first Modern Horizons 2 deck for your consideration! Leave your comments below, as I read and try to respond to them all and have an awesome day!