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When I started to build today's deck I had an idea that it would be a mix of charms, which are multicolored modal spells, and modal double-faced cards (MDFCs). When I got to the end of the brewing process, I had something a bit different than I expected, but no less interesting. Today's Riku of Many Paths deck was always going to be called Riku's Charm School, but it could easily have been called Riku's Obedience School because when I play this list I'm going to be issuing a lot of commands. Let's take a look at our commander.
This is the second time this Human Wizard has appeared as a legendary creature on a Magic card, with his first appearance in Commander 2011 being Riku of Two Reflections. Riku of Many Paths has an affordable casting cost of 
, a 3/3 body, and an affection for modal spells. Whenever you cast a modal spell he'll give you a number of additional effects equal to the number of modes you chose for that spell. The extra modes Riku provides are impulse draw, a +1/+1 counter and trample until end of turn, and a 1/1 blue Bird creature token with flying.
Impulse draw simply means you exile the top card of your library and in this case you have until the end of your next turn to play it. The word play indicates that you'll be able to play lands, but if the ability had used the word "cast", lands would simply stay in exile. You can play both lands and spells, but you can only cast spells. The +1/+1 counter and bird token abilities don't need much in the way of explanation, but it is worth noting that you can't choose the same ability twice for the same modal spell.
Riku of Many Paths is one of those commanders that requires us to bone up on our rules knowledge. That's a good thing, but it also means that you're probably going to run across a lot of Riku players who are inadvertently cheating by trying to use the wrong types of cards and spells to trigger his ability.
Rules matter, and in a game as complicated as EDH, rules matter a lot and can get very, very confusing.
If it looks like a Fish
Sometimes, even if something looks like a fish and acts like a fish, it isn't a fish - at least not as far as Riku of Many Paths is concerned. If I've lost you, I'm not talking about fish. I'm talking about modal spells and what will actually trigger Riku.
Let's take a look at what should be a simple case - MDFCs.
A modal double-faced card is a card that has two faces that represent different ways that the card can be played. Some MDFCs have spells on both sides, such as the ever popular Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands, and its rarely-played backside, Explore the Vastlands. You can play it as a creature. You can play it as a Sorcery. Anywhere but on the battlefield the MDFC is defined by its front side, so you wouldn't be able to return it from your graveyard to your hand with an Archaeomancer. If you want to play with these complicated cards you should read up on the rules, but as far as Riku is concerned, this MDFC is not a modal spell.
What? But it has "modal" right in that description? What's going on here?
Riku doesn't care about cards, and the C in MDFC is for the word "card".
Riku of Many Paths cares about spells, and that makes all the difference.
We can rule out MDFCs unless the side of the MDFC you are casting is a modal spell. That means double-faced lands, Kaldheim gods, Strixhaven Deans and a bunch of other cards won't help us trigger Riku.
A look at the comprehensive rules tell us that a modal spell or ability begins with "Choose (some number) -" followed by multiple bulleted possible effect choices or modes. Most modal spells have you choose one, but some will have you choose one or more, choose two, and so on. You might even see a card that reads "choose one that hasn't been chosen".
That means we're looking for bulleted lists, so let's look at some cards and see if we can figure out which will trigger Riku.
Which one of these will trigger Riku?
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Captive Audience is a neat little enchantment with a bulleted list. At the beginning of your upkeep you'll choose one that hasn't been chosen. Sometimes it's not the gift that counts but the thought behind it. This is a permanent with a modal ability that triggers on your upkeep.
Ebony Charm is an old instant from Mirage that has you choose what effect it will have, but a quick glance will show you that there are no bullets present, and the comprehensive rules do tell us that it must have a bulleted list of modes.
My last choice is Hullbreaker Horror, a powerful Kraken Horror that looks like it would turn all of our spells into modal spells. That sounds perfect for Riku.
If you guessed that the only modal spell in this little sampling that can trigger Riku is Ebony Charm, you are correct.
Captive Audience, as stated above, has a modal triggered ability, but it is not a modal spell. Hullbreaker Horror also has a triggered ability, but it is not adding modes to the spell that is triggering it. The modal ability is on the creature. For a permanent spell to trigger Riku, it would need to have you choose modes upon casting the spell, not a modal ability tied to a trigger that belongs to the permanent on the battlefield.
The reason Ebony Charm satisfies Riku's requirements comes down to the fact that we always need to look at the oracle text, not the text on the card itself, when trying to understand what it does. The Oracle is a database of every printed Magic card and the oracle text is the text you should use when you play them. In most cases the text on a card and the oracle text match, but some cards - especially older cards - have had their oracle text updated by Wizards of the Coast. One look at Ebony Charm's oracle text will show that those magic bullet symbols are in place and the spell will absolutely trigger Riku.
You can't simply do a Gatherer or Scryfall search for cards in Temur () that have a bullet in their rules text, as you need to understand the difference between a modal spell and a modal ability on a permanent.
Once you've got those concepts down you should be all set to start brewing.
Pro Choice
If there's one thing I know, Riku of Many Paths is pro-choice. He wants you to choose as often as possible, and in as many ways as possible. When I started planning this deck I imagined a big pile of charms, but I ended up with a larger pile of commands and even a few confluences.
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Charms are instants that will give you the option of choosing one mode. Commands can be instants or sorceries, and give you the option of choosing two modes. Confluences are the most expensive, and give you the option of choosing three modes, with the additional flexibility that you can choose the same mode more than once.
Choosing three modes on a modal spell will trigger Riku that many times, and choosing the same mode is still "choosing a mode," so you could choose the same confluence mode three times and trigger all three of Riku's modes. Sadly, you can't choose Riku's modes more than once for the same spell, but that's still a lot of extra value for a five or 6 mana Confluence.
You might not realize it, but there are kinds of other modal spells. Many of them will require you to look at the oracle text if you want to find those precious bullet points, but the Entwine, Escalate and Spree keywords are all associated with modal spells.
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Spells with Entwine have two modes, and if the additional entwine cost is paid, you get to choose both modes. The two most well-known Entwine cards are probably Tooth and Nail and Savage Beating, both of which are in today's deck along with the classic Tooth and Nail targets - Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth. Goblin War Party, Journey of Discovery, Reap and Sow, Temporal Cascade, Flourishing Strike, Grab the Reins, and even the lowly Dream's Grip made the cut in today's list. Having the ability to cast a spell for less mana in the early game or more mana (and value) in the late game gives a nice level of flexibility to these cards.
While they are worth a mention, I did not include any cards with escalate in my final draft. Escalate lets you pay extra mana for each mode you want to choose beyond the first, but there were only three cards in Riku's colors. Borrowed Hostility, Collective Defiance and Savage Alliance. I could see a case for any of them to be included in Riku. They just didn't make the cut in my list.
What did make the cut were a bunch of spells with the new keyword "spree".
A card with spree allows you to choose one or more additional costs. If you cast the spree card without paying any additional cost, it does nothing. It doesn't even trigger Riku. Jailbreak Scheme costs an initial Blue mana. If you add three more mana it can put a +1/+1 counter on target creature and make it unblockable until end of turn. If you add two more mana, target artifact or creature's owner puts it on the top or bottom of their library. If you pay for both it will cost you six total mana and you'll trigger Riku twice.
I ended up running six cards with spree: Explosive Derailment, Metamorphic Blast, Trash the Town, Dance of the Tumbleweeds, Jailbreak Scheme and Shifting Grift. There are twelve spree cards in Riku's colors, and if you're opening a box and have all of them, I don't see any good reason to not try them all out. Chances are good that you'll have easier access to these than some of those old Entwine cards.
Value and Versatility
The deck I wound up with has two basic plans. The first is to do my best to flood the board with 1/1 birds and other token creatures and then draw into a way to make them a threat. That might come in the form of a +3/+3 bump from Return of the Wildspeaker, a +5/+5 boost from Beastmaster Ascension, or even an alpha strike thanks to an entwined Tooth and Nail to go get Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth. Just Craterhoof might be enough to get this deck a win, but don't be fooled - this isn't a high powered or reliably explosive deck.
It takes time to build up an army of birds with Riku, and this deck will definitely be slow to bounce back from a wrath. What Riku of Many Paths lacks in power, he makes up for in versatility. Any deck that runs this many modal spells is usually going to have something to do. Most modal spells have some form of removal, card draw, card selection, or token generation attached to them, and you'll find that you often have something you do in any given situation.
The problem is that the answers you get from running a wide range of janky modal spells is probably not going to be as well costed or powerful as just running EDH staples. You'll notice when you get to my list that I'm not running Rhystic Study, Heroic Intervention, or a bunch of other cards that many Commander players simply can't live without. The cost of those omissions is simple - this is a lower powered deck, perfect for low to mid powered tables but definitely not strong enough to play high powered games.
I am reminded of the old Ramos, Dragon Engine decks that were built around playing as many charms as possible. Those decks were fun, and gave you the same kind of versatile answers and entertaining game that Riku will give you, but it was usually going to give you a fair game. Ramos is in five colors, and has more potential to be built in a degenerate manner, but I think the comparison is a good one. Playing charms, commands, confluences and other modal spells gives you a fairly unique experience where you're always going to have something you can do, but there's a good chance it won't be game-breaking.
Riku of Many Modes
From what I can see, Riku of Many Paths has a relatively low ceiling because he wants you to play with a narrow range of spells and the payoff you get isn't spectacular. My list today was something of an experiment in what a deck would look like and how it would play if you just jammed in way too many modal spells. I got a chance to play it a few times and it was fun, but I also got a reminder that it's far from a high-powered commander.
Riku's Charm School | Commander | Stephen Johnson
- Commander (1)
- 1 Riku of Many Paths">Riku of Many Paths
- Creatures (12)
- 1 Adrix and Nev, Twincasters
- 1 Archaeomancer
- 1 Archmage Emeritus
- 1 Avenger of Zendikar
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
- 1 Mulldrifter
- 1 Murmuring Mystic
- 1 Poison Dart Frog
- 1 Rattleclaw Mystic
- 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 1 Young Pyromancer
- Instants (25)
- 1 Abrade
- 1 Aetherspouts
- 1 Archmage's Charm
- 1 Atarka's Command
- 1 Cryptic Command
- 1 Dream's Grip
- 1 Explosive Derailment
- 1 Flourishing Strike
- 1 Grab the Reins
- 1 Gruul Charm
- 1 Izzet Charm
- 1 Metamorphic Blast
- 1 Mystic Confluence
- 1 Perplexing Test
- 1 Prismari Command
- 1 Quandrix Command
- 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
- 1 Return to Nature
- 1 Savage Beating
- 1 See Double
- 1 Simic Charm
- 1 Sublime Epiphany
- 1 Temur Charm
- 1 Trash the Town
- 1 Verdant Command
- Sorceries (21)
- 1 Cosmium Confluence
- 1 Dance of the Tumbleweeds
- 1 Farseek
- 1 Fiery Confluence
- 1 Goblin War Party
- 1 Incendiary Command
- 1 Jailbreak Scheme
- 1 Jeska's Will
- 1 Journey of Discovery
- 1 Mishra's Command
- 1 Multiple Choice
- 1 Primal Command
- 1 Rampant Growth
- 1 Reap and Sow
- 1 Saheeli's Artistry
- 1 Sakashima's Will
- 1 Shifting Grift
- 1 Temporal Cascade
- 1 Titania's Command
- 1 Tooth and Nail">Tooth and Nail
- 1 Verdant Confluence
- Enchantments (2)
- 1 Beastmaster Ascension
- 1 Parallel Lives
- Artifact (2)
- 1 Arcane Signet
- 1 Sol Ring
- Lands (37)
- 10 Forest
- 10 Island
- 10 Mountain
- 1 Command Tower
- 1 Exotic Orchard
- 1 Frontier Bivouac
- 1 Gruul Turf
- 1 Izzet Boilerworks
- 1 Ketria Triome
- 1 Simic Growth Chamber
This deck's initial mana base was the result of my early drafts having MDFC cards with lands on the back. If you wanted to run MDFCs, bounce lands give you access to the spells that you stuck on the bottom of your lands by letting you put them back in your hand. I could see a version of this deck running MDFCs but you'd need to be very clear that they don't trigger Riku, and it might be safer just to leave them out. If you want to run MDFCs you should also consider running Amulet of Vigor, as many of those lands enter the battlefield tapped.
Final Thoughts
If you're looking for a fun, versatile commander that will give you lots of choices, but might not have a very high ceiling in terms of its power level, Riku of Many Paths might be just for you. I like that you can build Riku in a bunch of different ways. You could use his ability to put +1/+1 counters on himself to go after a low level voltron strategy, and his impulse draw is useful. I leaned into making 1/1 blue Bird tokens, but I don't see anything Riku does as being even vaguely game-breaking.
I'm going to keep digging into Outlaws of Thunder Junction for a few more weeks to explore more of the new commanders we've got on our hands with this exciting new set. Next week I'll be tackling Magda, the Hoardmaster. I've never been one to overload my decks with interaction but I think I've found a way to brew Magda that isn't oppressive to play against.
That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!
