Today's column is going to dive into a weird little Izzet commander from Murders at Karlov Manor. When I think of building an EDH deck in Red and Blue, I usually think of two basic archetypes: storm and artifacts. A Storm deck to me is a deck that tries to play a whole bunch of spells - usually instants and sorceries - on the same turn, sometimes culminating in a spell with the storm keyword, which will put a copy of the spell on the stack for each spell cast before it that turn. An artifacts deck has lots of low cost mana rocks and is often centered around drawing cards and/or doing damage based on playing artifact spells. My own Vadrik, Astral Archmage deck is a storm deck built to win through Dragonstorm, and my Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain deck is an artifacts deck built to draw into my wincon through playing cheap artifacts.

My commander today, Melek, Reforged Researcher, stubbornly resists being built in either of those directions, leaving me in something of a quandary. A quick look at this Weird Detective will show you why.

This legendary creature has a power and toughness equal to twice the number of instant and sorcery cards in my graveyard. That would place me in a space where I'd want to be wheeling, discarding, and playing lots of instants and sorceries if I wanted to build a deck around commander damage. It might even work, as I'd only need to get 11 instants and/or sorcery spells into the bin to present a lethal threat. I hesitate to build Melek as a voltron deck. I don't like knocking one person out early when games can sometimes stall and leave that person waiting for an hour or more. I also associate equipment and auras with voltron decks, and Melek doesn't care about either of those card types.

Melek, Reforged Researcher has a second ability. The first instant or sorcery spell I cast each turn will cost 3 less to cast. That is a hefty discount, but also pushes me away from a storm strategy, instead making me want to cast a spell each turn, rather than lots of spells in a single turn.

If I'm going to build Melek as a deck that wants to try to cast a single spell each turn - including my opponents' turns - that means I'll want to run a lot of instants.

If I want to maximize the value I squeeze out of Melek's cost reduction, that means I'll want to run a lot of instant and sorcery spells with two or three colorless mana in their casting cost.

All of this places me in a space where I'm building what feels like a real old fashioned Izzet deck. It's going to play a relatively fair game and will try to play defense well and scale to the level of the threats at the table.

Rope a Dope

The first thing to know is that this deck isn't digging for a combo win. It feels weird to build an Izzet deck without having that as our wincon, but today's list is aimed towards a more mid-powered game. I could have added Niv-Mizzet, Parun or any of his older versions along with the cards they combo with to kill the table. I don't mind combo in a mid-powered game, but generally look at 2-card combos as fitting better into high-powered play and cEDH.

What all of that means is that this deck may have to play a "rope-a-dope" strategy. That means I'll absorb early game aggro and will do my best to stay alive. My early game is going to be weak, as I'm running a lower number of cheap one to two mana spells. Low-powered decks often have weaker and longer early games, so at the right table this list will fit right in. My gamble is that once I get Melek out, I'll be able to get enough value out of his cost reduction to make up for the beating I may have taken in those earlier turns.

Commander is a multiplayer game, so there's every chance that my tablemates will beat each other up and ignore me, as I won't be much of a threat early on. Still, I want to do what I can to minimize that damage.

The easiest way to discourage attackers is to play Propaganda. That three-mana Blue enchantment will levy a tax of 2 mana on any creature before it can be declared as attacking me. It won't help with creatures that enter the battlefield attacking, but it helps. I'm also running Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, which will give me a 3/3 Red Ogre for each attacker if a 3-mana tax isn't paid. Kazuul costs enough that he'll only appear in the mid game, but he can still discourage anyone with a huge army from sending it my way.

I also want to be able to just remove attackers from combat. Beyond the staple one-mana kill spells Pongify and Rapid Hybridization, I'm running a few classic bounce spells in Aetherspouts, Aetherize and Cyclonic Rift. It's worth noting that Melek's cost reduction makes a spell like Chaos Warp effectively a 1-mana removal spell if my commander is on the field.

Another way to remove an attacker from combat is to put it under another player's control. A spell like Wrong Turn will do that quite nicely and its effect won't even wear off at end of turn. Wrong Turn will give target creature to an opponent, which might not be ideal, but can help me level the playing field and help out another player who is in a weak position. I'm also running a healthy number of instants and sorceries that can grant me control of target creature, even if just until end of turn.

I found myself leaning away from sorcery speed theft effects like Act of Treason. I want to be able to use these spells both offensively on my turn, and defensively. With phyrexian mana in its mana cost, Act of Aggression could cost me zero mana if I've got Melek on the field and I'm willing to pay four life. Ray of Command might not be free, but with a 3 mana cost reduction, it's a pretty good use of a single Blue mana.

For some strange reason I'm averse to using Insurrection, as it just doesn't feel very sporting. Stealing some, but not all, creatures feels much fairer to me. To that end, Mob Rule should let me grab enough creatures to put the hurt on somebody - especially if someone has gotten wildly out of control. Mob Rule is a sorcery, but Reins of Power is an instant and should do a good job of letting me grab someone's huge army either pulling those creatures out of combat or letting grab them on my turn and send them at some unsuspecting foe.

Birds of a Feather

Well, not birds, but Weirds, Dragons and Drakes... and not "of a feather" but more like "caring about how many instant and sorcery cards are in my graveyard". I may be stretching for my section title here, but a secondary focus of this deck is to play creatures that care about or somehow work with instants and sorceries I've managed to either cast, mill or discard.

These guys give me a very old-school EDH feel. Scaling up with the number of instants and sorcery spells in my graveyard might not seem like a big deal but if a game goes long enough there's every reason to think Enigma Drake or Spellheart Chimera could present a lethal threat to someone. The former just has flying, but the latter has "flample" (flying and trample). Crackling Drake also looks at instant and sorcery spells I own in exile, and will draw me a card when it enters the battlefield. These three all have a set toughness, but they are evasive and can present a real threat in the mid to late game if things are going well.

I decided to throw in the treasure-making Goldspan Dragon as a late addition, but most of my Dragons are focused around instant and sorcery spells.

Hypersonic Dragon will give my sorcery spells flash, so they can be cast at instant speed. I'm not sure I'm really running enough sorceries to warrant its inclusion, but it's a card I've always wanted to find a place for it so I gave it a chance. Spellbound Dragon will have me draw and discard when it attacks, and it will get +X/+0 until end of turn where X is the discarded card's converted mana cost. Card selection may not be as good as card draw, but this Dragon will help me dig to find what I need, and it can help fill up my graveyard.

Sprite dragon has flying and haste and will get a +1/+1 counter when I cast a noncreature spell. It may not directly enable my main strategy, but if I get it out early it could grow to a pretty good size if it sticks around long enough.

I'm also running a few cost reducers for instant and sorcery spells, and a few creatures that will bring an instant or sorcery back from the graveyard, but all in all my creature count is quite low. Whether I can make up for that failing with removal, theft spells, and an eagerness to not look like the "problem" at the table, has yet to be seen.

Mid-Power Melek

It might seem like a stretch to call this a mid-powered deck, but it is playing a very fair game and is built to be able to scale up to the threats it is faced with. If someone plays a Blightsteel Colossus, I steal it and then use Rogue's Passage to make it unblockble and a counterspell to protect it, I should be able to kill them. If someone makes several thousand Scute Swarm and I'm able to use Mob Rule to take control of them and kill the table, it's going to be hard to feel too guilty.

I expect there will be games where I am able to use my own creatures to threaten a win, but the goal of this deck isn't to crush tables. My goal is to play a relatively fair game, deal with what my tablemates give me, and hopefully find a path to victory. I don't expect to win that often with this deck, but that will make those wins all the more exciting. Maybe I'll be surprised by how well it does, but in general if I don't have a clear and concrete win condition (e.g. Niv Mizzet Combo), I find myself a little less optimistic about my chances.

Melek Mid-Power | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Melek, Reforged Researcher

• Creatures (14)
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Archmage Emeritus
• 1 Crackling Drake
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Enigma Drake
• 1 Goblin Electromancer
• 1 Goldspan Dragon
• 1 Haughty Djinn
• 1 Hypersonic Dragon
• 1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1 Mnemonic Wall
• 1 Spellbound Dragon
• 1 Spellheart Chimera
• 1 Sprite Dragon

• Instants (29)
• 1 AEtherize
• 1 Act of Aggression
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Domineering Will
• 1 Dragonshift
• 1 Elminster's Simulacrum
• 1 Fact or Fiction
• 1 Frantic Search
• 1 Grab the Reins
• 1 Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 1 Inspiration
• 1 Opportunity
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Precognitive Perception
• 1 Quick Study
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Ray of Command
• 1 Reins of Power
• 1 Rewind
• 1 Sublime Epiphany
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Temporary Insanity
• 1 Thrill of Possibility
• 1 Wrong Turn

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Cosmic Epiphany
• 1 Epic Experiment
• 1 Experimental Overload
• 1 Immolating Gyre
• 1 Jeska's Will
• 1 Mizzix's Mastery
• 1 Mob Rule
• 1 Past in Flames
• 1 Pirate's Prize
• 1 Reforge the Soul
• 1 Wheel of Fate
• 1 Windfall

• Enchantment (1)
• 1 Propaganda

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Creativity

• Lands (37)
• 13 Island
• 13 Mountain
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stormcarved Coast
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Training Center

Buy This Deck Export text

This deck probably could be made more budget-friendly by dropping out Dockside Extortionist, Cyclonic Rift, Jeska's Will, Goldspan Dragon, and a few other higher cost cards. You'll miss them when they're gone, but you'll still be able to compete and have fun in low and mid power games.

If you wanted to tune this list up, there are lots of ways to do that. Fast mana will go a long way towards getting Melek on the field earlier, so you might throw in Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and whatever Mox make the most sense to you. I'd add in a Volcanic Island and a Force of Will , in part to flaunt the fact that you can hardcast Force for 2 mana with the cost reduction you get from Melek.

Moving towards higher powered gameplay also means you would probably want to look at combo wincons. You're probably still not looking at a storm build but the card draw you can play with Melek's 3 mana instant and sorcery cost reduction is nothing to sneeze at. Playing a deck set up to play every extra turn spell you can find also makes a lot of sense in high-powered play, but that strategy isn't for me. I don't love sitting through someone else's extra turns so I don't really want to subject someone else to that gameplan.

Paths Not Traveled

The first strategy I thought of when I started seriously thinking about building Melek was to load up on those extra turn spells. Saving 3 mana on the first instant or sorcery spell I cast each turn is a huge savings, and I'm pretty sure I could cobble together an extra turns lock in this deck. I had a turns-and-combat-steps deck for many years in Narset, Enlightened Master, so I've scratched that itch already. The problem is just that it just isn't much fun for anyone else but the person taking the extra turns. If you haven't turned that trick yet, this might be a good commander to try, but it wasn't where I wanted to go today.

The second path I chose not to travel is to play every token generator I could get my hands on. I had a Purphoros, God of the Forge list years ago and it had a big focus on instant and sorcery token generators. The problem with those cards is often that they cost way too much. That is something Melek is happy to help with, but the other problem is that a lot of them are sorceries. This deck wants to run more instants than sorceries. I could always add in ways to let me play them at instant speed. It's a tempting build path, but I think the one I ended up with may be a lot more interesting, even if it's also less focused and possibly less effective.

Final Thoughts

One odd thing that happens when writing about commander is that sometimes I talk myself into a different build path midway through writing a column. Some of my "double feature" columns that sport two decklists are the result of that happening. The idea of building a token generator Melek, Reforged Researcher deck is very tempting and if I open a copy of Melek I may have to play around with that idea in paper. It wouldn't be much more powerful than this list, but it would have a much clearer plan for winning games.

While writing this column I couldn't help but think of Jason Alt, who for many, many years wrote commander content for this website. He championed a brewing philosophy called 75% deckbuilding that used a lot of spells that would scale to the power of the other decks at the table. In theory you would find a sweet spot between a mid-powered deck and a high-powered deck but you would also end up playing with enough of your tablemates' cards that your game would creep up or down in power to match what they had brought to the table.

This list might be the closest I've ever come to building a true 75% deck and for me that's no small accomplishment. You can, and should read his work here.

I wasn't able to get a game in with this list but please remember that these brews should be seen as starting points. You can and should tweak them to match your playstyle and your meta. If you're constantly seeing players dropping Bojuka Bog, you might want to run Stifle or just ways to give yourself hexproof so your graveyard is a little better protected. If you have lots of hexproof threats you could throw in Cultural Exchange or Arcane Lighthouse. If you have pet cards or a limited collection, you should modify this list to where it is your own, and then modify it as you play it when you see what work and what doesn't work in your games.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!