Readers!

I like my Inniaz deck quite a bit. It's probably clear to everyone by now that my preference is for the game to be complicated by everyone having to use tokens to represent a card that's not in their deck. I like to steal their cards, cast their spells, put their whole graveyard onto the battlefield on my side and I like to take a Sol Ring with Thieving Skydiver. I barely care what else is in play, I will straight up leave a Skullclamp alone and take a Sol Ring instead. I don't want to Evoke a Mulldrifter, I want to attack for 2. Why do I bring this up? Because while I don't always grab the best artifact available with Thieving Skydiver, I always attack for 2. It's not just Skydiver - Inniaz has Daxos of Meletis, Thada Adel, Acquisitor and Sower of Temptation. Inniaz didn't teach me to steal their stuff, I already knew that. Inniaz taught me to attack people with my creatures. Why did I need to be taught that? Who knows? The important thing is that people in Commander games don't really attack each other enough, and a clogged ground on the board is one reason for that. I wouldn't have played Thada, Sower, Skydiver or Daxos if they didn't steal their cards, but I won't pretend that I don't appreciate creatures with evasion when the journey to 120 total damage spread out among 3 other players needing to be dealt begins with a single attack declaration. Plus, if you steal someone's thing, you can attack someone else so they feel less targeted. This doesn't work, but you can say it's why you're doing it, it's not against the law to say that.

Having to learn to attack with an Azorius deck, the 10th most aggressive guild, was an interesting side effect of playing good creatures with evasion but also good ETB abilities. Why do I bring this up? Because I am about to make a stupid Blink deck when I don't even really need to and probably shouldn't. I'll elaborate.

Mob boss Carmine Falconi over here rocks some very good stats - a solid body, 2 keyword abilities and a bunch of not keyword abilities. The main thrust here is that you will always have access to an additional card in your hand provided you can remove some counters from some permanents. To do this, we're going to put counters on permanents. That being the case, wouldn't we want to... not blink our stuff? Like, I realize it sounds like I'm arguing with myself here, but I have a plan, I promise. Ordinarily, yes, it's a bit of a nonbo to blink your stuff with counters on it, but blink is very useful for cards like Falco that put a counter on something when they enter the battlefield, but it's also useful for the cards I really want to play because this deck has Blue in it and that means I can blink my creatures like Sower of Temptation and bounce my creatures like Thieving Skydiver. Not only that, creatures coming into play with Master Biomancer running around is good for everyone. Plus, we can run the stupid Ezuri/Sage of Hours combo and Simic Ascendency in the same deck and I'm going to stop before I try to find room for Biovisionary, Helix Pinnacle, and Mechanized Production. It sounds like we're building 2/3 of about 3 different decks and we won't have enough space for any of it. We'll pick what matters most by leaning into synergy.

Let's be clear, there is no real reason that we have to trifle with blinking and bouncing other than that I want to and that Falco is really easy to build the stock version of. You're a Pir and Toothy deck with access to White and most people have figured that out.

Blink me, Amadeus! | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Falco Spara, Pactweaver

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Agent of Treachery
• 1 Champion of Lambholt
• 1 Chulane, Teller of Tales
• 1 Conclave Mentor
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Emiel the Blessed
• 1 Evolution Sage
• 1 Fathom Mage
• 1 Good-Fortune Unicorn
• 1 Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Leinore, Autumn Sovereign
• 1 Lion Sash
• 1 Master Biomancer
• 1 Master Thief
• 1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
• 1 Progenitor Mimic
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Renata, Called to the Hunt
• 1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 1 Sage of Hours
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Slippery Bogbonder
• 1 Soulherder
• 1 Sower of Temptation
• 1 Stonehorn Dignitary
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1 Thieving Skydiver
• 1 Thrummingbird

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Basri Ket
• 1 Venser, the Sojourner

• Instants (10)
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Eerie Interlude
• 1 Ephemerate
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Ghostway
• 1 Inspiring Call
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Suspend
• 1 Unbreakable Formation

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Contentious Plan
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Preordain
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Search for Tomorrow

• Enchantments (9)
• 1 Citadel Siege
• 1 Equilibrium
• 1 Felidar Retreat
• 1 Inexorable Tide
• 1 Primal Vigor
• 1 Simic Ascendancy
• 1 Teleportation Circle
• 1 Together Forever
• 1 Wizard Class

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Selesnya Signet
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 The Ozolith

• Lands (35)
• 5 Island
• 6 Forest
• 6 Plains
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 1 Mystic Sanctuary
• 1 Nesting Grounds
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Seaside Citadel
• 1 Spara's Headquarters
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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This deck is the perfect deck for Emiel the Blessed, even better than an Emiel deck. It adds counters and it blinks? The deck started to deviate from the stock list the more cards I added, but I feel like everything I added had synergy with the ethos of the core stock list as well as the bonkers pile I was trying to build on the chassis of said stock list. You end up cutting the very good but specialized cards like Fathom Skulker but you get flexible cards like Good-Fortune Unicorn which is good in both.

This build loads up on stuff I like; creatures that steal stuff on ETB and gets rid of stuff I don't like; really clunky cards like Nadir Kraken. I'll keep my Vorel cards in my Vorel deck and just play the hits here. The additional blink and bounce makes it very appealing to play cards like Reclamation Sage. Sure, you have fewer counters running around than a stock Falco list (I have a particular dearth of counters other than +1/+1 counters despite scouring lists of Ikoria cards for the best counters creatures) but you make up for it in being able to recur a creature that has an ETB.

If you like this particular approach but wish you had about 20 creatures not listed here to choose from where you blink them to reset their initial counters rather than blinking them to get the ETB effect, look in particular at Experiment Kraj decks. There were far too many great creatures inspired by that type of deck to include here and I didn't want to add just a few. You don't have to go full Helium Squirter, but adding Plaxcaster Frogling or Spike Weaver wouldn't entirely suck in my view. If you wanted to completely change the creature suite, the additional blink and bounce would help you reset the initial counters on cards like Novijen Sages and Glen Elendra Archmage.

What do we think? Should I not have bothered upsetting the balance of the stock list? Is this right up your bane alley? A third thing? Leave it for me in the comments section below even if your name isn't Kevin and remember to share this on social media. Until next time!