In this experiment, we strike with a pair of disasters using shimmering heat and cackling.

Magic: The Gathering—Commander (2014 Edition) is coming, and with it come a bunch of new cards. Among them, there bounds to be some potential for combos. Indeed, the revealed Dualcaster Mage performs a very powerful effect in a form that’s easily abusable. Normally, Fork effects are on spells, and spells are hard to recur; meanwhile, because of how hard spells are to recur, copying a spell can be very strong. Dualcaster Mage copies a spell but does so in the form of a creature—and creatures are eminently easy to recur or otherwise repeat.

Now, it’s not quite as strong as copying a spell for only mana, such as with the ability offered by Nivix Guildmage, but it does create new opportunities, such as with Deadeye Navigator.

Today, we’ll copy spells that create creature token copies in order to copy more spells—and repeat.

Infinitycaster Mage ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Dualcaster Mage
• 4 Mist Raven
• 4 Mnemonic Wall
• 4 Nivix Guildmage

• Spells (21)
• 2 Dig Through Time
• 2 Turnabout
• 4 Cackling Counterpart
• 1 Howl of the Horde
• 4 Divination
• 4 Heat Shimmer
• 4 Izzet Signet

• Lands (23)
• 5 Mountain
• 6 Island
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls
• 4 Swiftwater Cliffs

Buy This Deck

That’s the deck I ended up with, though of course you can borrow concepts, rebuild completely, or just toss a few of these cards into your Riku of Two Reflections Commander deck.

The Dual Plan

Let’s start with an empty stack. We control Dualcaster Mage.

At this point, we have to hope there is a creature on the battlefield that’s not a Dualcaster Mage. Let the final Heat Shimmer copy target that creature, let the original Heat Shimmer resolve and the final Dualcaster Mage token’s trigger fizzle.

We now have an army of hasty 2/2s ready to kill our opponents.

If there had been no creature on the battlefield that wasn’t a Dualcaster Mage, we’d have been forced to copy a Dualcaster Mage with our Heat Shimmer. We’d then have been forced to copy a Heat Shimmer with the new Dualcaster Mage’s trigger, and so on. Unfortunately, unless someone were able to interrupt this loop, the game would end in a draw. So be careful when you try this at home (or in a tournament)!

We can also use Howl of the Horde in lieu of a second Cackling Counterpart or a second Dualcaster Mage. By casting Howl of the Horde first, when we cast Cackling Counterpart or Heat Shimmer, the Howl will copy that spell, and then our Dualcaster Mage tokens can create copies of that Clone spell. Unfortunately, the raid ability doesn’t do much for us here, so a Fork or Twincast would work just as well for the combo, but Howl of the Horde is new and interesting, and it can enable some powerful stuff with our other spells.

Finally, Nivix Guildmage’s second activated ability can function as that aforementioned Fork or Twincast.

Cackling Mnemonics

Since we’re already playing Cackling Counterparts, and since we may very well need defenses while we find our combo pieces, Mnemonic Wall seems perfect.

When we Cackling Counterpart our Mnemonic Wall, we can immediately return Cackling Counterpart to our hand and potentially even cast it again. Thus, we can make 0/4s as frequently as we can pay .

Into Nivix

While it’s not new, and while it has nothing to do with Dualcaster Mage, Nivix Guildmage can generate infinite mana with Turnabout. As long as we can pay the upfront and have at least five lands, we can cast Turnabout, copy it with the Guildmage’s ability, untap our lands, and repeat for as much mana as we want.

From there, we can use the mana to activate the Guildmage’s first ability to dig through our library for everything we need. And once we have the Heat Shimmer and Dualcaster Mage, we can win the game.

And More Spells

A few more cards round out the deck.

Izzet Signet – The Signets are very powerful, and these will help ensure we can cast Divinations and don’t miss land drops.

Mist Raven – With so many creature-copying spells, I wanted to make sure to have creatures with good enters-the-battlefield abilities. For defensive power, Unsummon is quite useful, and when we want to block opposing flyers or turn on raid for Howl of the Horde, the Raven’s flying will be relevant. This deck has an interesting conflict between wanting more spells for the Guildmage, Mnemonic Wall, and so on and between wanting creatures with spell-like abilities for Cackling Counterpart and Heat Shimmer.

Dig Through Time – This new Khans of Tarkir card is very powerful and is seeing a good bit of Constructed play. It’s also quite useful for finding combo pieces, and its cost-reduction mechanic means it will be easier to copy (as we can save mana casting it and spend that mana on the copy spell). Of course, it doesn’t synergize super-well with Mnemonic Wall’s superpower, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay here.

If you love creatures with flash, if you love copying spells, if you love attacking with infinite 2/2s, or if you love all three, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com