Okay then; how about Mishra, Artificer Prodigy? Surely he’s useless. Well, unless you’re Jules Robins. Squadron Hawk or Skyshroud Sentinel? That’s easy. Just use Wheel of Sun and Moon and Aluren, and sac the Bird or Elf to Blasting Station before its enters-the-battlefield ability resolves to let it fetch itself from your Highlander library.

Well, there has to be some stuff you can’t do in Commander, right? What about Pyromancer Ascension?

The Impossible Quest

I don’t know what I’ll copy, but it won’t have to be much to make me happy. I just want to achieve the impossible.

Okay, let’s work through the process here. How will we put 2 quest counters on our Pyromancer Ascension? The obvious first step is to cast an instant or sorcery spell with a copy of the same spell in our graveyard. How about we cast Muscle Burst with a Diligent Farmhand in our graveyard? Well, no, that won’t work. Only Muscle Burst’s effect will count the Farmhand—not the Ascension’s effect.

Spellweaver Volute could work; we just need to enchant an instant in our graveyard, cast a sorcery, and get a counter! Enchant another instant, cast another sorcery, and we have 2 counters—ready to go! That could work, and Spellweaver Volute could be fun enough on its own. In fact, this may be the easiest way to go, especially in a deck full of instants and sorceries, ready to take advantage of an active Ascension.

Another way to do it would be to Praetor's Grasp an opponent for a copy of a card we’ve already cast. When we cast our opponent’s copy with our own in our graveyard, that’ll trigger Pyromancer Ascension. Do that twice—somehow—and we’re online!

Well, my route is a different one.

Instead of putting quest counters onto an Ascension, I decided to put quest counters onto a completely different permanent and then transform that permanent into a Pyromancer Ascension.

In order to do that, we’ll need another quest enchantment and a way to turn something with some quest counters into something else. Let’s start with Ior Ruin Expedition and Khalni Heart Expedition. Both of these cards generate a little bit of value on their own and are somewhat playable in their own right.

Next, let’s take a look at some cards that can change their forms frequently. Vesuvan Doppelganger, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and Cryptoplasm all have the amazing superpower to shift from one shape to the next turn after turn.

By turning a Shapeshifter into an Ior Ruin Expedition and playing a couple lands—or resolving an Explosive Vegetation—we have for ourselves a permanent that has 2 quest counters and will be able to become Pyromancer Ascension next upkeep, already active and ready to copy instants and sorceries.

Huh? Did I misread the Shapeshifters? They can only become creatures and not enchantments? Good point.

Opalescence is the piece that pulls the weirdness of the combo together. And as I have these cards in a five-color enchantment deck, it just makes sense. The common quests provide enough value on their own and fit the enchantment theme, the Shapeshifters are just cool cards that are fun to play with, and Opalescence is one of the deck’s win conditions. Pyromancer Ascension, on the other hand, is quite awful. But one day, I’ll do it. One day, I’ll copy an instant or sorcery spell, and it will be glorious.

In the most recent game I played with my five-color enchantment deck, I had just one too few lands in my library. I was so close to activating that Ascension, but my Explosive Vegetation could only find one land because there was only one basic left, which meant that my Cryptoplasm copying a Khalni Heart Expedition could only pick up 1 counter until my next main phase, but I would have needed it to transform into Pyromancer Ascension during my upkeep. It might have worked the next turn, but I won that turn, in large part because of another awesome combo that I finally got to work!

Many months ago, I semi-achieved this. I was at over 100 life from having Radiated an opponent’s Death Grasp pointed at my face. By gaining a bunch of life for each target (each creature and player), I had a pretty comfy life total. However, I threw it all away by casting my Form of the Dragon in hopes of turning into a Phyrexian dragon and breathing oil-infected fire at my opponent’s face.

It worked.

However, that was only 5 poison, and I died shortly thereafter.

But a couple weeks ago, I controlled both Form of the Dragon and Opalescence, and I then put Phyresis on it. And then I dealt 5 poisonfire to my opponent’s face. And then I attacked him for 8 poison with my 8/8 infect red enchantment creature—while I attacked my only other opponent with all of my other Opalescence-animated enchantment creatures to seal the deal. I’d like to think I was the Phyrexian dragon in that scene, but if you really break it down, I was the normal 5/5 dragon that Form of the Dragon always makes turns me into. However, the magical essence that was turning me into a dragon was meanwhile being transformed into an 8/8 Phyrexian, subtypeless monstrosity.

But I like to think of it the other way.

Closing

I hope this week’s article gives you a good idea of how I like to think about and play with my combos. They’re not always the traditional instant, infinite, I-win combos, although I’m not averse to those. But my main goal is to find new interactions, perhaps ones thought impossible by the masses, and figure out ways to achieve them.

I hope you’ll find new ways to enjoy Magic and new interactions that create new experiences and new stories. If there’s a card that’s “impossible to use in Commander”—or maybe even some other format—let me know, and I just might accept your challenge.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com

P.S. Here’s the deck. I’d play Progenitus if I had a copy, but really—unlike most of my Commander decks—the commander’s not what this deck is all about. So, I just played the only non-Karona, five-colored, legendary creature I had on hand.

"Five-Color Casual Combo Elementalless Enchantment Commander Deck"

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Academy Rector
• 1 Auramancer
• 1 Cryptoplasm
• 1 Havengul Lich
• 1 Mesa Enchantress
• 1 Monk Idealist
• 1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
• 1 Yavimaya Elder

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Chandra, the Firebrand
• 1 Liliana Vess

• Spells (49)
• 1 All Suns' Dawn
• 1 Chronomantic Escape
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Early Harvest
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Radiate
• 1 Reiterate
• 1 Spin into Myth
• 1 Starstorm
• 1 Stroke of Genius
• 1 Ancestral Vision
• 1 Beacon of Unrest
• 1 Beseech the Queen
• 1 Creeping Renaissance
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Deny Reality
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Far Wanderings
• 1 Hull Breach
• 1 Increasing Ambition
• 1 Open the Vaults
• 1 Praetor's Counsel
• 1 Wrath of God
• 1 Aura of Silence
• 1 Aurification
• 1 Awakening Zone
• 1 Enchantress's Presence
• 1 Form of the Dragon
• 1 Greed
• 1 Ior Ruin Expedition
• 1 Khalni Heart Expedition
• 1 Lethal Vapors
• 1 Leyline of Anticipation
• 1 Maelstrom Nexus
• 1 Omniscience
• 1 Opalescence
• 1 Parallel Thoughts
• 1 Phyresis
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Phyrexian Unlife
• 1 Pursuit of Knowledge
• 1 Pyromancer Ascension
• 1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
• 1 Honden of Infinite Rage
• 1 Honden of Life's Web
• 1 Honden of Night's Reach
• 1 Honden of Seeing Winds
• 1 Legacy Weapon

• Lands (40)
• 3 Forest
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Arcane Sanctum
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Celestial Colonnade
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Krosan Verge
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Savage Lands
• 1 Seaside Citadel
• 1 Shimmering Grotto
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Sulfurous Springs
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Vivid Crag
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 1 Vivid Grove
• 1 Vivid Meadow
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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