Hello folks!

As someone who lived during the era of Quiet Roar, I understand flashback very well.

That was a time when Standard was dominated by a Simic deck that included these fun forces. Odyssey Block was the first to really focus on graveyard themes, and it added much to these themes!

A 2nd turn Quiet Speculation could grab three Roar of the Wurm to toss into your graveyard, and then on turns 4, 5, and 6, you could make 6/6 dorks. It would be hard to defeat these combos. Quiet Speculation was a one-card combo as you didn't need to draw anything to make this work. As long as you had the Roars in yours deck, it could be pretty consistent.

Careful Study really helped to push this deck to powerful levels, as a first turn could ensure you had a Quiet Speculation, and the card disadvantage of this effect was mitigated by the fact that the discarded cards could be cast from your graveyard, turning this into a strong effect on the first turn.

Now, there were a number of cards from this block that'd work perfectly with this shell, in addition to those three. Deep Analysis was great for card drawing fun times, and you'd often get two Roars and one Analysis from your library and then Deep on turn three. Meanwhile you could discard cards to Wild Mongrel in order to fill up your graveyard with flashback booty, while also pumping your reliable 2-drop. Meanwhile, Call of the Herd was a solid card as a 3/3 on third turn as well as later, and you would happily drop it between the Speculation and the 1st Roar.

Many of these cards also worked very well with Madness as well, and you'd see cards like Circular Logic or Basking Rootwalla arriving to your decklist, as well Wonder which could leap into your graveyard and send your team to the sky.

And flashback has been at many a place since then. Cards with flashback that may not have been dominant at the tournament table were very strong elsewhere, such as Grizzly Fate, which could singlehandedly make an army to kill folks, and then you could flash it back if it were answered. Netting up to four 2/2 for five mana on the front side and seven on the back is very strong. Beast Attack's instant ability to jump out and surprise block and kill an attacker that your foe might otherwise have ignored or the Timmy's favorite card of the era, by far, Crush of Wurms. Nine mana. 18 power of dorks.

And this is why I have to be a little honest with y'all. Why wasn't Green in one of the three colors for the new flashback build? A good 23 of the roughly 110 cards with flashback prior to Commander 2019 had it - which is around a fifth, which you'd expect. But the Green side has a lot of fun effects, like dork making, land fetching, fogging, and other fun but not powerful themes, and would enhance a given flashback slate of cards nicely. However, maybe due to the fact that Bant has a token-matters proliferate run, and thus they didn't want to have Green pushing the flashback theme too hard into token making. Ah well, I think that's only a limitation that matters for a short period of time, as most people aren't going to care three months after release if your flashback deck had Grizzly Fate at the same time as your populate deck had token making engines.

We've had flashback in many a color since it's printing, and many of these cards have been powerful in any number of formats. Many cards from various eras have made a major push for many formats. From Legacy and Vintage to Modern and Extended, and Standard and more, cards like Cabal Therapy and Dread Return have been strong additions to the Spike canon of power.

Now I do think that Red is probably the second most fun of the flashback colors. With cards like a small Relentless Assault variant, burn, and some cards that allow flashback use. (As Izzet was the color of flashback drafting in Innistrad Block and Simic was the first time, I would have considered swapping Green for White for Temur, btw).

You even have a better Careful Study in Faithless Looting that will work twice at filling up that sexy graveyard with more flashing back options. And in Commander it's not as dominant as in Modern, so it's fun and strong without being as nasty.

And now we are about to get one of the first major flashback themed decks, around the Jeskai non-creature and sorcery/instant matters themes in these colors already. And thus the flashback cards are the spice that makes these engines go. Elsha of the Infinite and Sevinne, the Chronoclasm are both interesting leaders for this sort of build, as they can do some interesting stuff for you. The first is a fun Djinn Monk who can let you cast the top card as long as it's not a critter or a land. Meanwhile Sevinne can fork a flashbacked spell from your graveyard for free. Both of these are useful in different ways, as I think Sevinne is better with a specific flashback (or other graveyard casting effects) and Elsha better with a more generic build.

However, take a step back and consider Kykar, Wind's Fury from Core Set 2020. Kykar is a very strong option to, as it's both a maker of flying dorks as well as a cheap flying threat and a sacrifice of Spirits for mana. A flashback deck like this that wants to cast and recast spells is going to lean into using mana, so don't sleep on Kykar's third ability. And unlike the token making of, say, Young Pyromancer, Saheeli, Sublime Artificer, or Monastery Mentor, they aren't grounded. Evasion matters a lot in Commander, and thus Kykar may wind up being the better leader after we play around with the build some and seek to include more cards.

Oh, and Thalia's Geistcaller would really sing with Kykar more than the other options too as they both make flying Spirits and have sacrifice options.

Let's take a look at the build-list of our good flashback deck, Mystic Intellect

Mystic Intellect | Commander | Wizards of the Coast

• Commander (1)
• 1 Sevinne, the Chronoclasm

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Backdraft Hellkite
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Clever Impersonator
• 1 Cliffside Rescuer
• 1 Crackling Drake
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Elsha of the Infinite
• 1 Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero
• 1 Guttersnipe
• 1 Pramikon, Sky Rampart
• 1 Pristine Angel
• 1 Pristine Skywise
• 1 River Kelpie
• 1 Scaretiller
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
• 1 Thalia's Geistcaller
• 1 Wall of Stolen Identity
• 1 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Ral Zarek

• Instants (15)
• 1 Chemister's Insight
• 1 Desperate Ravings
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Farm // Market
• 1 Fervent Denial
• 1 Increasing Vengeance
• 1 Leadership Vacuum
• 1 Magmaquake
• 1 Mandate of Peace
• 1 Oona's Grace
• 1 Prismatic Strands
• 1 Purify the Grave
• 1 Ray of Distortion
• 1 Refuse // Cooperate
• 1 Think Twice

• Sorceries (13)
• 1 Deep Analysis
• 1 Devil's Play
• 1 Divine Reckoning
• 1 Dusk // Dawn
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 1 Ignite the Future
• 1 Increasing Devotion
• 1 Mass Diminish
• 1 Mystic Retrieval
• 1 Rolling Temblor
• 1 Runic Repetition
• 1 Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1 Storm Herd

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Burning Vengeance
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Jace's Sanctum
• 1 Secrets of the Dead

• Artifacts (7)
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Azorius Locket
• 1 Bloodthirsty Blade
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Empowered Autogenerator
• 1 Izzet Locket
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (40)
• 4 Mountain
• 8 Island
• 9 Plains
• 1 Ash Barrens
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Highland Lake
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Mystic Monastery
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Stone Quarry
• 1 Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Cove
• 1 Wind-Scarred Crag

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And there we are! We are seeing the return of planeswalkers in this build - previously, they hadn't been reprinted in these decks in a while, so thanks! I think WOTC heard the feedback from last year's horrible choices for reprints of older cards. There wasn't much value there, but here you see cards like rare lands again and planeswalkers, so thanks!

Now there is something interesting going on here. Do you see it?

Count the number of sorceries and instants. Including new cards? 28. That's not bad. I suppose. But it's light.

Here, let me give you a counter example from a previous build. Let's take last year's Izzet artifacts deck. How many artifacts were in that deck? 42 plus many cards that weren't artifacts that would make some (like Maverick Thopterist or Thopter Spy Network). 28 feels a little light for a deck with its central theme.

What here though? Great question!

There are many cards here that are very strong! Sevinne's Reclamation is probably the strongest new flashback card in the set, and one of the best new additions in Commander 2019. It's a spell based Sun Titan, and you can get two of them when flashbacked for just five mana on the back end. It's cheap, and a very strong and flexible card as it'll recur anything from a land to an Armillary Sphere to a Burnished Hart, and that's nice. It's cheap, and it has power here!

Ignite the Future is fun! Unlike other sorceries that have a similar theme, note that you can cast these spells up through your next turn, so you can drop up to two lands, or use the mana next turn if you are mostly tapped out now. It's a fun option! And flashing it back will feel so nice. I talked earlier about the importance of mana in flashback builds, and this two-drop can make some Treasures to use for powerful effects, and that's cool!

Leadership Vacuum is fun and something new. Plus, it'll replace itself to keep your engine going strongly. Speaking of something new...hello Mandate of Peace! That's a fun little spell to keep you alive.

There are also some clever reprints. Obvious reprints like Runic Repetition or Burning Vengeance are here too, but River Kelpie isn't an obvious card as it doesn't mention flashback or something, and yet it has strong value here. Good job Wizards!

Now there are a few cards in here that strike me as a little off, inviting ways for you to push some new talent in. Why is Zetalpa, Primal Dawn taking up a critical creature slot? In the past we had some cards that may be more loosely connected to the theme, but at least you knew why they were here. Gerrard, Weatherlight Captain is here to help protect your team from something like mass removal. I get it. You'll pull him quickly, as there's aren't many artifacts or dorks for him to save, but I get it. But something like Zetalpa isn't cheap for Sun Titan or the Reclamation to bring back, has no mad synergy you want, or even something tangential like Pristine Angel and Pristine Skywise.

And we have a lot of options for cards!

In addition to the ones I discussed earlier, such as Quiet Speculation or the triggers we looked at, flashback cards you may want to toss in include Echo of Eons or Battle Screech. I was pretty surprised not to see Shattered Perception in this build over Desperate Ravings, as it works well at filling up your graveyard with goodies, and can be done twice. Think Twice ain't bad either, but's probably not where most Commander players are any more.

Cards like Young Pyromancer will be useful additions to the team! You got this!

What do you like? Which of these four decks are you most interested in playing? Any cards you want to add to this build?