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Sometimes I like to build a good deck. When there's a cheap Commander who casts free spells, that seems like it has potential to be good. Can we just build a good deck, please?
A 2/1 flier with Flash for two mana is already decently good, but adding a loot on top with combat damage? That's really good. Tack on to that the fact we get to cast the spell we discard for free if we've connected four times and we have a pile worth building. Let's take a look at the deck, then we'll break it down.
Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper
- Commander (1)
- 1 Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
- Creatures (12)
- 1 Diluvian Primordial
- 1 Flux Channeler
- 1 Gitaxian Anatomist
- 1 Guildpact Informant
- 1 Lighthouse Chronologist
- 1 Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator
- 1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
- 1 Scourge of Fleets
- 1 Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus
- 1 Thrummingbird
- 1 Tribute Mage
- 1 Trophy Mage
- Planeswalkers (5)
- 1 Karn Liberated
- 1 Mordenkainen
- 1 Mu Yanling
- 1 Mu Yanling, Celestial Wind
- 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
- Instants (13)
- 1 An Offer You Can't Refuse
- 1 Brainstorm
- 1 Counterspell
- 1 Cyber Conversion
- 1 Experimental Augury
- 1 Fuel for the Cause
- 1 Pongify
- 1 Rapid Hybridization
- 1 Reality Shift
- 1 Reject Imperfection
- 1 Ripples of Potential
- 1 Serum Snare
- 1 Steady Progress
- Sorceries (8)
- 1 Aminatou's Augury
- 1 Clone Legion
- 1 Contentious Plan
- 1 Mnemonic Deluge
- 1 Spectral Deluge
- 1 Tezzeret's Gambit
- 1 Time Stretch
- 1 Vivisurgeon's Insight
- Enchantments (8)
- 1 Aqueous Form
- 1 Combat Research
- 1 Curiosity
- 1 Eldrazi Conscription
- 1 Inexorable Tide
- 1 Mesmerizing Dose
- 1 Ominous Seas
- 1 Reconnaissance Mission
I want to cast free spells with Malcolm, and I really don't care about anything else. I kind of want those free spells to be huge and warp the game, but honestly, I'm less concerned about that and more about maximizing how many free spells I get to cast. So, we need to do combat damage with Malcolm, then we need to get him to four counters, then we need to keep doing combat damage with Malcolm. Seems decently doable. We'll have to jump through some hoops, but I think we can get there.
Because Malcolm is so cheap and we're going to cast our big stuff for free, we can run our 40 Lands and call it. It's possible it should inch up to 42, but in play-testing I had no problems with the 40. Most of our Lands are Islands, because we want the color and we want them to come in untapped, but we have a few others which can help us out. Access Tunnel and its big sibling Rogue's Passage will both sneak Malcolm through if the air is full. Rivendell and Castle Vantress help with card selection should we have extra mana around, and War Room should probably be in every single-color deck out there. Mystic Sanctuary, Karn's Bastion, and Demolition Field offer a little extra utility.
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Malcolm will keep cards moving into our hand pretty regularly, but that doesn't mean we don't want more. One nice thing is there are a number of card draw spells with Proliferate, like Experimental Augury and Tezzeret's Gambit. We've also got a couple of more traditional ones like Brainstorm. Plus we are running a suite of Curiosity like cards, because we're going to be doing a good amount of combat damage. The Indomitable is a neat one; we actually can't ever cast it from our Graveyard because we can't meet the criteria, but it's worth it as an additional Reconnaissance Mission, plus who knows? Maybe we'll need the 6/6.
Winning is kind of an afterthought here. Malcolm can wind up being quite large and doing a good amount of damage. Things like Diluvian Primordial and Scourge of Fleets can be very effective when someone's board is tapped down or whatever. People often simply scoop to a Karn Liberated ultimate activation. Titan Forge spits out a lot of big guys with the right situation. You'll figure it out.
In addition to draw spells, there are also some cute removal and counter spells with Proliferate stapled to them. Mesmerizing Dose is a lockdown spell which adds counters. Fuel for the Cause straight up counters and Proliferates. And we have some others, like Cyber Conversion and Reality Shift; we're going to be relatively busy just doing our own thing, but occasionally we may need to deal with someone else's, so we've got some options.
The other thing we have is ways of doubling up on Malcolm's trigger. We have all four Equipment available to us to give Malcolm Double Strike, and Strionic Resonator makes an obvious appearance as an additional way to double. Because Double Strike is so useful, we're also running Tribute Mage and Trophy Mage, which can get Gavel of the Righteous and Fireshrieker, respectively. (There's other stuff they can both grab should they show up and we don't need Double Strike anymore.)
The fun part of this deck comes from the free spells we cast and the fact that we're Proliferating all over the place. How much fun is a free Clone Legion or Eldrazi Conscription? Nezahal, Primal Tide should make people nervous, and Mnemonic Deluge is a great deal of fun. (In play-testing I Mnemonic Deluged an Aminatou's Augury. That was awesome.) Plus we've got a suite of high-powered Planeswalkers (all of which then benefit from all the Proliferate) and Time Stretch, which will probably cause concessions from most of the table.
The interaction with Proliferate and the 'walkers is important, though. Karn and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon both have huge ultimate abilities which should end the game. In play-testing, I was ready to ultimate Karn on his second turn on the 'field. Mordenkainen is more about drawing cards, but the Dog tokens can create quite the army and you can probably figure out how to win with his ultimate, too. Mu Yanling, Celestial Wind is less about winning and more about clearing a path for Malcolm, because if you can bounce someone's fliers you can get through, and her +1 can actually keep you or someone else alive. But Mu Yanling's original version is one of the most interesting, because you can kind of go infinite with her ultimate. With enough Proliferate triggers (normally some combination of Flux Channeler, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, and Contagion Clasp or Contagion Engine) we can just keep building her up over 10 and using her ultimate, taking infinite turns.
However, the deck really isn't about trying to assemble an infinite combo or even taking extra turns. There are a couple of ways, but if it's not your jam, drop the extra turn stuff and run other big things - there are lots of great 'walkers out there to play, and some great big Krakens and stuff too. The thing with taking multiple extra turns fell into my lap in testing - I didn't see it when I was building the deck. There's no way to assemble it other than to draw it naturally, and it requires your tablemates don't have an answer for any one of the key parts of the combo!
We're combining power with synergy here: we get power by casting large spells for free, then we synergize with that power by using the thing that develops the power (more counters early) with our power (big 'walkers and such). It should play out well, smoothly, and be relevant at the table, but not be the same game every time you shuffle it up.
As I said, you can pull away from any extra turns and just run more sheer power. If you really wanted to scale it back, run some big creatures like Frost Titan and such. Or just lean into more Planeswalkers; there's a superfriends deck here for sure. If you wanted to power it up a touch, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur and Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant are both very strong and really oppressive; if that's the kind of table you play, you do you. You can also adjust it by adding things like Buried Ruin or Currency Converter to get things back from the 'yard, or run Trinket Mage to hunt for The Ozolith, which can make it much easier to recover from a Commander death.
How would you build Malcolm? I'd love to hear on social media!
Thanks for reading.
