Orysa, Tide ChoreographerOrysa, Tide Choreographer | Art by Anna Pavleeva

Nearly two decades ago, the first Lorwyn set introduced MulldrifterMulldrifter, one of the most iconic blue creature printed to date. Now, in 2026, a newly printed legend from Secrets of Strixhaven has come to ask a question: "What if Mulldrifter could be my commander?" In this deck tech, I'm going to answer that question with Orysa, Tide ChoreographerOrysa, Tide Choreographer.

What Does Orysa, Tide Choreographer Do?

Orysa, Tide ChoreographerOrysa, Tide Choreographer is a 2/2 Merfolk Bard creature for , reduced by if creatures you control have a total toughness of 10 or greater. When Orsya enters, you draw two cards. Just like MulldrifterMulldrifter!

When given a commander with a powerful enters trigger, one of the clearest routes a deck can take is blinking it over and over again. Stapling a DivinationDivination to Ghostly FlickerGhostly Flicker or Essence FluxEssence Flux is certain to be incredibly powerful, not to mention a certain Cat BeastCat Beast that's been the talk of the town since Secrets of Strixhaven entered the scene. The deck-building opportunities lie in how a deck lead by Orysa will choose to take advantage of all that card draw and what other enters triggers the deck will seek to reuse.

Key Cards for Orysa, Tide Choreographer

High Tide Storm

My grand scheme for Orysa, Tide ChoreographerOrysa, Tide Choreographer is to be a High TideHigh Tide deck. High TideHigh Tide is an incredibly powerful storm-enabler that makes all IslandIslands tap for an additional until end of turn. When paired with repeatable untap effects, High Tide enables ludicrous storm turns. Perhaps most importantly, High Tides stacks, meaning recurring it and casting multiple in a turn makes Islands tap for another for each one cast.

Blink

Blink spells are the backbone of this Orysa deck. Blinking value-generating permanents and recurring blink spells to do it all over again is the play pattern that makes everything work. Loops with ArchaeomancerArchaeomancer-like creatures and multi-target blink spells, like Ghostly FlickerGhostly Flicker, provide everything from card draw to interaction to the win conditions.

Blink Targets

While I'd love to get away with only using blink spells as additional DivinationDivinations with Orysa, this deck needs a little more juice to pose a real threat to the table. Tutors like SpellseekerSpellseeker and MicromancerMicromancer are excellent in the early game to find critical pieces like High TideHigh Tide. Later in the game, Transit MageTransit Mage provides access to the artifacts I'll be using to close out games, like Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler or The Water CrystalThe Water Crystal.

While I've also included other two other pieces of creature based recursion in ArchaeomancerArchaeomancer and ScrivenerScrivener, Scholar of the AgesScholar of the Ages is the crème de la crème. For the fairly high cost of seven mana, Scholar of the Ages can bring back two instants and/or sorceries. Using one instance of blink to recur two spells simplifies the deck's end game storm turns by a lot, allowing a Ghostly Flicker to recur itself, another spell, and blink another creature, all for just three mana. Playing with Scholar of the Ages in this deck has sold me on including the card in my other blink-based decks, like Yorion, Sky NomadYorion, Sky Nomad and Kefka, Court MageKefka, Court Mage.

It's imperative that this deck has a way to convert blink spells into additional mana, which is where Cloud of FaeriesCloud of Faeries and Peregrine DrakePeregrine Drake come in. Thanks to High Tide, both of these untap creatures will almost always be generating a lot more mana than they cost to cast. Either of these two in play, when joined with a Ghostly Flicker and a High Tide, can string together a win with relative ease.

Interacting For Free

To a devoted blue mage like myself, the most compelling part of a deck that draws so many cards is that the downside of card disadvantage from free counter magic like FoilFoil is rendered moot. I've chosen to lean into that really hard, including free counters like Disrupting ShoalDisrupting Shoal, CommandeerCommandeer, and MisdirectionMisdirection to help fend off opposing interaction as the sheer value generated by blinking the deck's creatures takes over the game.

How Does This Orysa, Tide Choreographer Deck Win the Game?

Like most other High TideHigh Tide storm decks, this build of Orysa, Tide ChoreographerOrysa, Tide Choreographer is incredibly light on win conditions. A meager four slots in the 99 have been dedicated to cards that can convert the infinite or near-infinite mana, card draw, or storm count this deck seeks to produce into a win.

Mill

One of the most straightforward ways to end a game after generating infinite storm count and drawing most of the deck in a long High Tide turn is mill. Brain FreezeBrain Freeze can either convert a huge storm count into milling out all three opponents or milling my own deck to set up a Laboratory ManiacLaboratory Maniac win.

The Water Crystal is perfect as it serves as both ramp and a win condition in games where the final storm turn has resulted in an 80-card hand. This can even be done slowly over multiple turns in grindy games, especially with cards that remove maximum hand size, like Sea Gate RestorationSea Gate Restoration.

Burn

Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler is a solid win condition because it's never really bad to slam on the table. Once in play, it's fairly trivial to draw 40 cards either during the big storm turn or over a few normal setup turns of blinking Orysa. At its worst, Pychosis Crawler is very good at drawing out the table's removal due to how scary it looks!

Orysa, Tide Choreographer Commander Deck List

Conclusion

My aim for this deck was to create a High Tide storm deck that didn't feel too out of place in Bracket 3 (Upgraded). I think I succeeded! While nothing will ever completely remove the strain on the social contract that storm and other alternate win conditions can cause, this build of Orysa, Tide Choreographer succeeds where many other variants of this archetype may fail. This deck's progress towards winning the game is usually very visible, often requiring creatures to be committed to the board in the lead up to the big win attempt and needing to hit at least five or six land drops to enable High Tide. The creatures in particular are fairly vulnerable to opposing removal spells, meaning most decks in Bracket 3 will have a few ways to interact with the deck's plan.