Recently, I’ve been rocking his W/U Flash deck. This deck got much stronger with Eldritch Moon; it’s mostly flash fliers, a number of which are spirits. It got Mausoleum Wanderer and, far more importantly, Spell Queller, which make the U/W spirits deck a lot stronger but also a lot more expensive. I’d rather save my pennies for Commander staples, but the deck was a ton of fun to play. It got me thinking. What happens if we apply the idea of playing almost entirely on our opponents’ turns to EDH?

So let’s step away from our exploration of the preconstructed decks for a moment and play around a little with an idea. Let’s make a deck with very, very few cards to play during our own turn and see if we can make it work. Back in the day, we used to call this “draw-go,” since you’d draw your card and say “go,” passing the turn immediately. There’s an argument for Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, but White brings too much to the table for this deck, and fortunately, we have a God on our side.

She’s in the right colors, she’s tough to kill, she’s her own win condition, and she really cares when we play creatures on other people’s turns. Perfect.

The first thing worth noticing is the complete lack of ramp or rocks. We play a land and we pass; we’re not in a terrible hurry to get to big mana, since we don’t really need it anyway. We’ve got a good mix of dual lands, plus a Rogue's Passage, which is more important here than usual, a Reliquary Tower, and a Blighted Cataract, which can give us some extra cards later on. Play a land and pass the turn (except on turn four. Play Ephara on that turn).

Our win condition is going to be Ephara, and we’re going to give her unblockable to make sure she can get through. At 6/5, she kills in four hits, but if we bump that up by one, we can get there in three. It’s going to depend on what we see, but most of the time turning her on won’t take too long, and we’ll just start whacking opponents. If everyone else beats up each other a bit before we start swinging, we might not need to hit four times because we may just kill with regular damage. We’re also thick with fliers, so it’s possible we could just alpha strike into a kill. The key to winning with a reactive deck, though, is to keep an open mind, open eyes, and a good sense of the entire board state. Sometimes the answer is right there and just not what you expect.

The only remaining cards are a couple of random fun things with flash, like Ophidian Eye, Eel Umbra, and Dictate of Heliod. Conspiracy 2 (Electric Boogaloo) has brought us Stunt Double, a clone with flash, and that seems like fun. We have a few cards which actually don’t have flash, too. Marshal's Anthem is worth sitting on until some value can be gotten. Hallowed Moonlight will shut down some explosive tokens player or someone who thinks they’re being cute with Rise of the Dark Realms. Faith's Reward can be hilarious after a board wipe. The rest of them give some kind of unblockability. Rogue's Passage is here for that purpose; Steel of the Godhead is probably the best one of the bunch, but Spirit en-Dal is a fun way to get there as well. For and a flash (get it?), our commander can have Shadow, which makes her effectively unblockable. Aqueous Form and Flitterstep Eidolon round out our ways to get her through, although the auras will fall off Ephara if she loses devotion.

Ephara, God of the Polis ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ephara, God of the Polis

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Angel of Salvation
• 1 Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1 Celestial Crusader
• 1 Deputy of Acquittals
• 1 Dimensional Infiltrator
• 1 Draining Whelk
• 1 Drogskol Shieldmate
• 1 Dust Elemental
• 1 Flitterstep Eidolon
• 1 Glamer Spinners
• 1 Hixus, Prison Warden
• 1 Hollowhenge Spirit
• 1 Illusory Ambusher
• 1 Inspired Sprite
• 1 Masako the Humorless
• 1 Mizzium Meddler
• 1 Pestermite
• 1 Plumeveil
• 1 Quickling
• 1 Restoration Angel
• 1 Reveillark
• 1 Silumgar Sorcerer
• 1 Spellstutter Sprite
• 1 Spirit en-Dal
• 1 Stonecloaker
• 1 Stunt Double
• 1 Thistledown Liege
• 1 Thunderclap Wyvern
• 1 Village Bell-Ringer
• 1 Voidmage Husher

• Spells (29)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Azorius Charm
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Dissolve
• 1 Evacuation
• 1 Faith's Reward
• 1 Familiar's Ruse
• 1 Forbid
• 1 Hallowed Moonlight
• 1 Hindering Light
• 1 Keep Watch
• 1 Ojutai's Command
• 1 Rally the Ancestors
• 1 Render Silent
• 1 Scatter to the Winds
• 1 Sphinx's Revelation
• 1 Visions of Beyond
• 1 Void Shatter
• 1 Engulf the Shore
• 1 Aqueous Form
• 1 Dictate of Heliod
• 1 Eel Umbra
• 1 Marshal's Anthem
• 1 Mystic Restraints
• 1 Ophidian Eye
• 1 Stasis Snare
• 1 Steel of the Godhead
• 1 Temporal Isolation

• Lands (40)
• 12 Plains
• 13 Island
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Blighted Cataract
• 1 Coastal Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Meandering River
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Cove

Buy This Deck

This kind of deck plays out a little funny: we’re an aggro-control Voltron deck. We’re not a consistent control build, because we don’t have nearly enough control elements to expect to keep the entire board locked down for an entire game. But we’re not an aggro build, because we’re not making nearly enough little dudes to win really fast. We’ve got some light control elements with counterspells and creatures to flash in and block to stay alive, and fairly quickly we turn on our win-con, which is really difficult to deal with and kills pretty fast. Most of our creatures have some sort of enters-the-battlefield ability, so we want to watch those and make sure that we’re making good choices. We can block with Draining Whelk, for example, then flash in Quickling returning the Whelk. We prevent the damage and have another shot to counter a spell with the Whelk. Glamer Spinners is hilarious when Bruna has come out to play. Thunderclap Wyvern and Celestial Crusader can change combat math at an unexpected time. Even Hollowhenge Spirit can be a surprise, and if it keeps bouncing back for reuse, it can really mess with someone.

This is an unusual style for an EDH deck, and can put surprising pressure on a group to move through the game and take some risks. Just smile slightly each time you draw, play your land, and go, and everyone will assume you’re sitting on the counterspell. I’m also a big fan of saying “I’ll allow it” each time I don’t counter a spell, even if I’m not actually holding the counter. And hey, no one can complain you’re taking too long on your turns!

Total cost: $98.67