Eris, Roar of the StormEris, Roar of the Storm | Art by Aurore Folny

Hello! Welcome to 60 to 100, a series where I take beloved decks from 60-card formats and convert them to Commander.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've registered a non-blue deck for a tournament. My favorite ways to play Magic are primarily with decks I've covered in this series, like Izzet Delver, Grixis Control, or Psychatog. After a long period of Izzet () dominating Standard with an aggressive prowess deck, Lorwyn Eclipsed gave players like me a new, more tempo-oriented option: Izzet Spellementals. SunderflockSunderflock may very well be my favorite card released this year, and I'm getting tons of mileage out of it in this deck. In this article, I'll be taking Spellementals and rebuilding it as a very challenging to pilot Commander deck.

The Source Material

The goal of Izzet Spellementals is converting mana from the early turns into spells in the graveyard, ideally at a ratio of one mana per spell discarded or better. Once it hits five instants of sorceries in the graveyard, Eddymurk CrabEddymurk Crab and Hearth ElementalHearth Elemental become cheap threats that exert a ton of pressure on your opponent. With an Eddymurk Crab in play, Sunderflock's cost is reduced to just , and it is able to swoop down and devastate your opponent's board just as they're beginning to mount an offensive that could rival the deck's swarm of Elementals. Both Eddymurk Crab and Sunderflock's enters triggers are absurdly powerful for keeping up or pushing ahead in damage races against other creature decks, and they play really nicely with self-bounce cards, like Boomerang BasicsBoomerang Basics and Get OutGet Out as a result.

Choosing a Commander

My choice to lead this deck is Eris, Roar of the StormEris, Roar of the Storm. Before looking to build this deck, I only knew of Eris because it was banned as commander in Duel Commander not too long after release. If you asked me what creature types either Eris or the Dragon ElementalDragon Elemental tokens Eris creates are, I wouldn't have had a clue. When looking at Elementals to bolster my Sunderflock-related schemes, I re-read Eris and everything clicked into place. If the designers were trying to make a commander specifically aimed at comboing with Sunderflock, they couldn't have done a better job. A 10-mana Elemental that doesn't really cost 10 mana to cast and floods the board with more Elementals? Sign me up.

Obvious synergy notwithstanding, I'm really drawn to Eris because of the nuance in piloting a commander that provides conflicting incentives in-game the way Eris does. Obviously, a prerequisite to doing anything meaningful with Eris is creating a massive graveyard by casting a lot of spells. However, Eris also wants spells to be cast once it hits the board. That makes for games where I could easily spend a couple minutes in the tank thinking about the pros and cons of casting a PonderPonder on my first turn versus fetching for a surveil land, cycling a different spell, or something else entirely. Similarly, there will be a lot of mid-game turns where the same debate will happen over the prospect of casting a third spell in a turn to get some immediate benefit versus holding it to make more Dragon tokens later.

Key Cards for Spellementals

Just like in the Standard source material, the early turns are a game of tossing as many spells as possible into the graveyard. There are a myriad of ways to do that, from rummage effects, like Cathartic ReunionCathartic Reunion, to cycling cards, like Frostveil AmbushFrostveil Ambush, and pseudo-channel cards, like Magma OpusMagma Opus. The key challenge is that Eris cares about diversity of mana values rather than just sheer quantity, which forces a lot of cards I wouldn't otherwise play to bloat the deck. That's why you'll find traditionally unappealing spells, like Creative OutburstCreative Outburst and Visionary's DanceVisionary's Dance. There are also plenty of others with alternative casting costs or other mana value shenanigans, like CommandeerCommandeer, PyrokinesisPyrokinesis, Deep AnalysisDeep Analysis, and Fire // IceFire // Ice, that are both reasonable to play and help to fill out more cumbersome mana values at the top end.

Next up are some more boutique methods of filling the graveyard and maintaining high card velocity this deck gets access to. The most exclusive of the bunch is Imposing GrandeurImposing Grandeur, a wheel effect that gets better the more expensive your commander is. With Eris in the command zone, it's a five-mana wheel that draws 10 cards! Roiling DragonstormRoiling Dragonstorm is a mid-game draw engine that bounces back to hand each time a Dragon enters, which will trigger when Eris makes a token. Being able to pick the enchantment up to play again on a later turn is a great way to ensure the deck can cast two spells per turn, and you can sculpt the graveyard for the inevitable moment Eris is removed and needs an even more robust graveyard to be recast.

Ledger ShredderLedger Shredder may very well be the second strongest card in the deck, after SunderflockSunderflock. This Bird completely shatters the paradigm of aiming for one mana per spell sent to the graveyard by converting mana that other players spend into a looting effect. As such, it's the only card in the deck I'd choose to play on turn two over something like a Cathartic Reunion.

The biggest speed bump Eris can encounter is graveyard hate. A random Bojuka BogBojuka Bog on turn three or four could render the deck unplayable, and a late game piece of graveyard hate could lock me out of casting Eris ever again. To counteract that, there are several slots dedicated to interacting with graveyard hate. Spells that can counter abilities, like TrickbindTrickbind, DefabricateDefabricate, and Spider-SenseSpider-Sense protect against the most common ways opponents will attempt to exile the graveyard. Some pieces of targeted graveyard hate can even be redirected with Bolt BendBolt Bend, but it certainly isn't as reliable as the aforementioned three.

Including delve cards was very unintuitive to me. Exiling my own graveyard that I've spent so much time and mana sculpting sounds ludicrous, but after playing games with this commander, it really isn't. I frequently end up with duplicate mana values in my graveyard that I don't mind exiling, alongside the deck's many fetch lands. Furthermore, there just aren't other good spells at the mana values of Treasure CruiseTreasure Cruise, Dig Through TimeDig Through Time, or Temporal TrespassTemporal Trespass that I'd rather include.

Winning With Spellementals

With a wide board of Dragons with flying and prowess, it isn't going to be hard to close most games. One of the only common fail states I built around here is your opponents also having a wide board of creatures with either flying or reach. Asymmetrical board wipes, like SunderflockSunderflock and Perplexing TestPerplexing Test, are one-card solves for those board states that can also help to catch up in games where getting Eris out and amassing an army of Dragons took a little longer than expected.

Since it's my reason for building the deck in the first place, I've included GambleGamble and Flamekin HarbingerFlamekin Harbinger as tutors that will primarily be searching for Sunderflock.

A little further into "Magical Christmas Land" are spells that amplify the combat step. Full ThrottleFull Throttle is one of the most generically powerful variations on Relentless AssaultRelentless Assault ever printed, and it fills out the six-mana spells in the deck very well. Killing multiple players with Full Throttle doesn't even require that many creatures on board. Surge to VictorySurge to Victory is a little more niche, but it adds the potential to cast it exiling Full Throttle to take an arbitrarily large amount of additional combat steps.

Izzet Spellementals Commander Deck List

Conclusion

I'm placing this deck in Bracket 3 (Upgraded). There are three Game Changers, and the deck can play a ridiculously fast game when it needs to. Above all else, this deck is really resilient. Removal spells are typically pretty unimpressive against ErisEris due to her ability to evade command tax and the tokens Eris generates by virtue of those tokens being worth a lot less than the removal spell in your opponents' hands, and board wipes only slow the deck down a by a turn or two.

Eris might be one of the sweetest Izzet commanders that I overlooked for far too long. The idea originated from someone asking me how I'd build a SunderflockSunderflock deck in Commander, and I had been looking for excuses to sleeve up my Volcanic IslandVolcanic Island again after a long break from playing my signature Malcolm, the EyesMalcolm, the Eyes deck. I'm pretty happy with the result.

Is this how you'd build this deck? Did I forget any "obvious" inclusions? What 60-card deck should I tackle next? Let me know in the comments!