Now normally, this is where I would cut my article, but you all have been very patient with me so I’m going to give you all yet another deck. The very first card spoiled for the new Planechase II was a powerful creature by the name of Maelstrom Wanderer. At eight mana, he is very expensive which is why many when they first saw him pushed him immediately into the realm of Commander. However, I believe he could make one heck of a casual finisher with his double cascade and group haste ability. Let’s see if we can abuse his power a bit?
Before we get anywhere with Maelstrom Wanderer we are going to need a proper mana base and lots of lands, so if we essentially build a ramp deck we should be fine. Four Birds of Paradise to start out should be good, but one card we for sure want in this deck is Explore. Explore is kind of like a mini-cascade. Explore’s power to let us play another land helps us to accelerate nicely. However, the big bonus is when we also draw a card of it. Being able to not only advance our mana, but dig a little bit into our library is really good in this deck. With Explore and maybe a copy or three of Cultivate, we should be more than fine in the ramp department.
So, what about creatures and spells? Well, continuing with the cascade theme, we will still want to call on Etherium-Horned Sorcerer. In a ramp deck, Etherium-Horn Sorcerer will have ample opportunity to be bounced and cast again and again. If we are sticking to Maelstrom Wanderer’s three colors, then one card we have to include is Bloodbraid Elf. At four total mana, this girl is a quick beat down of three power with the ability to cascade into anything three or lower. Think of what that means for us now. Either she will hit a mana ramping creature, or she could hit Explore to draw us a card, or even a Cultivate to give us even more land. Bloodbraid Elf might not be the killer card of the deck, but she will certainly help out. Another fun card given to us by Planechase II is Shardless Agent. For three mana we get a cascading bear that will most likely hit nothing but ramp spells.
With all the Ramp and set up, we now need something to do with all that mana. Because Maelstrom Wanderer’s ability really works best with creatures, let us stick with creatures and see what fatties we can slip into the deck. And for sake of… I don’t know maybe feel or fashion, why don’t we go with one fatty for each of our three colors? Now before we do anything, I’m sure you are all shouting, “Titans!” but no. I have nothing against the cards themselves, I would just like to extend a hand to other big creatures that maybe do not see as much play due to their heavy cost. For example Flameblast Dragon is a 5/5 flyer for six mana that never saw play due to Titans. It’s a real shame too because Flameblast has a pretty fun ability to fire down a creature or player whenever it attacks and with the amount of mana we hope to produce in this deck, he will certainly be hitting for pretty hard. Another fun creature we could play in this deck is Sphinx of Uthuun. At seven mana, our odds of actually hitting him off of Maelstrom Wanderer are kind of slim. If the first card we flip after Wanderer is a six mana creature, we won’t be able to hit Sphinx. At the same time, dropping a 5/6 flyer and being able to Fact or Fiction for free is just something you don’t want to pass up. Finally, our Green finisher… well it’s not mono Green, Blitz Hellion. At five mana, this guy can even be hit by Etherium-Horn Sorcerer which makes him a truly awesome card to include to the point where we might want to seriously include a second Hellion to increase our chances. Imagine your opponent’s face when you cast Etherium-Horned Sorcerer. They’ll say something like, “Oh gawh, another cascade… blah, blah, blah.” Suddenly, you flip a Blitz Hellion and attack for seven. Their inattentive face will turn white in surprise, it will be so much fun.
Finally, with all these ideal draws and hopeful plays, it would definitely be best if we play some deck manipulation. A full playset of Ponder is a must because we are able to look at three cards or even shuffle if we get nothing but land and a Bird of Paradise, nothing we really want to cascade into. If we can, we could also try to put in some Sage Owls. This 1/1 flyer doesn’t look like much, but being able to look at the top four cards of our library and replace them in any order is just beautiful in this deck. Imagine playing this the turn before Wanderer, look at the top four cards and finding Forest, Blitz Hellion, Explore, Sphinx of Uthuun? You can rearrange that into Forest, Uthuun, Blitz, and Explore and change what would have been disappointing into amazing.
With all this talk and way too many cards, this deck is going to be hard to build and hard to cut cards. However, here is the preliminary decklist for Wandering Cascade:
Creatures:
2x Maelstrom Wanderer
1x Flameblast Dragon
1x Sphinx of Uthuun
3x Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
2x Blitz Hellion
4x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Shardless Agent
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Sage Owl
Spells:
4x Ponder
4x Explore
3x Cultivate
Land:
6x Forest
5x Mountains
6x Island
2x Hinterland Harbor
3x Rootbound Crag
2x Alchemist Refuge
This deck list is still in need of tweaking, but with the decent amount of ramp we should be rather fine on the whole matter of mana enough so that we could potential take opening hands that might not be ideal. As for the inclusion of Alchemist Refuge, it just seems like the best include in this deck. If we activate it on our opponent’s turn we can potentially play anything from a simple Sage Owl to set up for Wanderer, or we can drop a Bloodbraid for more hopeful mana, or (if we are just mana swamped) play an Etherium-Horn Sorcerer on our opponent’s turn just to bounce it on our turn and play it again. As I said, this deck is still in need of tweaking, but I believe it is the foundation to a truly fun casual deck.
Well, that is a very long article. Thank you readers for your continued interest in magic and I hope you will continue to read my articles for however long I write them. Now if you excuse me, I have to find the equipment equivalent of a feather duster. Hope you all have a good summer and see you all next week. Just remember, no matter what you’re doing, “Etherium is limited. Innovation is not.” This is Corlando signing out.