Rikala, Homarid KingRikala, Homarid King | Art by Christopher Burdett

From the looks of the new cards revealed, Mystery Booster Commander Edition is shaping up to be a celebration of the lesser-explored regions of the game's past. Like in the Modern Horizons sets, designers can throw back to worlds and stories from decades ago, but in this wacky convention-only set aimed at a casual format, the new cards are pointedly more goofy than powerful.

Rikala, Homarid KingRikala, Homarid King appears on first glance to be in keeping with that trend. He combines two cards from Fallen Empires, one of the least powerful sets in the game's history, melding Tidal InfluenceTidal Influence and High TideHigh Tide to create a thematic commander for all the Homarid fans out there. But one of the cards to which he pays homage is much more powerful than the other.

Players who haven't followed Pauper or haven't been playing for twenty years may not remember, but High TideHigh Tide is infamous for enabling Storm decks across multiple formats that can win the game out of nowhere. Having access to a version of this effect, even a severely nerfed version, is dangerous in the most exciting way.

This deck will try to end the game in a single turn using the absurd amount of mana we can generate with a combination of Rikala and High TideHigh Tide, alongside some of the strongest blue card draw spells of all time. The green half of Rikala enables the deck to accelerate into its big turn even sooner than normal, as green is the best color at getting a critical mass of lands onto the battlefield as quickly as possible.

Key Cards for Rikala, Homarid KingRikala, Homarid King

High TideHigh Tide is so crucial to this deck that we're willing to play an installment-plan version in the command zone. Any way to put the original version in our hand is worth it, and we can play enough redundancy to get it almost every game. Merchant ScrollMerchant Scroll, Dizzy SpellDizzy Spell, SpellseekerSpellseeker, and Solve the EquationSolve the Equation put High Tide directly into our hand with no questions asked. Mystical TutorMystical Tutor solidly defines this deck as a Bracket 3, which fits with its intentions of winning explosively rather than incrementally. Alongside our dozens of card selection spells, this tutor package means that we'll never have trouble finding our key piece.

If you've seen High TideHigh Tide decks in other formats, you'll know that it's usually not the first High Tide that breaks the game, but more likely the second or third. That's a tricky fact for a singleton format, but we've got ways around it. Blue already has ways to recur instants from the graveyard like Flood of RecollectionFlood of Recollection, and one of the advantages of running green is that we also have access to RegrowthRegrowth and Auroral ProcessionAuroral Procession.

With all of this layered redundancy, Rikala really takes the place of plan B or C, but it's still worth putting in some effort to make sure he can function. We don't want to wait the full three turns for him to supercharge our Islands, both because we want to end the game before then and because everyone will be able to see it coming. But if we can wait for him to get one counter, we can proliferate him into the mana engine stage. Contentious PlanContentious Plan and Experimental AuguryExperimental Augury are great, since this deck wants as many cantrips as possible, and even Steady ProgressSteady Progress is good enough on those merits. Any two of those will turn Rikala on from just one counter, or if we stick Flux ChannelerFlux Channeler it will be elementary to cast two more noncreature spells, bringing us to the critical level.

The real meat and potatoes of this deck are the cards that generate mana once our Islands tap for double (or more!) mana. Urza's block gave us a handful of cards that untap a number of lands equal to what "should" have tapped to play them, which are never fair and are downright broken here. Cloud of FaeriesCloud of Faeries, SnapSnap, Peregrine DrakePeregrine Drake, and Frantic SearchFrantic Search can easily net us mana, and Time SpiralTime Spiral can also draw a fresh seven cards to keep storming off. TurnaboutTurnabout is a staple in exactly this archetype to give us the full reset. Green gives us access to cards like Magus of the CandelabraMagus of the Candelabra and Rude AwakeningRude Awakening to keep the train rolling.

Taking a note from Pauper versions of High TideHigh Tide, we're also running an arcane package in order to take advantage of Psychic PuppetryPsychic Puppetry to get a mana rebate on some of our card draw spells. Ideas UnboundIdeas Unbound is good enough on its own strengths in a deck looking to win the turn we cast it, and Reach Through MistsReach Through Mists and Peer Through DepthsPeer Through Depths are respectable as well. Toils of Night and DayToils of Night and Day nets us mana by itself when our Islands add double blue. The only truly mediocre card we have to play to enable the synergy is Murmurs from BeyondMurmurs from Beyond, and even it draws us further into our deck once we get the chain going.

To generate enough mana for our storm turn, we'll almost always need at least five or six Islands on the battlefield, but because we're playing green we can reach that threshold sooner and even play cards that help during our storm sequence. Nature's LoreNature's Lore, Three VisitsThree Visits, and Growth SpiralGrowth Spiral all put a land into play untapped for only two mana, making them easy to fit into a curve, but they're also mana-neutral if the land they find taps for two mana. They charge up any TurnaboutTurnabouts or Rude AwakeningRude Awakenings to come, and they can even net mana if we've got two copies of High TideHigh Tide active. Crop RotationCrop Rotation and HarrowHarrow even go mana-positive with a single High Tide. To enable Nature's LoreNature's Lore and friends, while making sure every land we play is also an Island, we'll need to play every land we can that's both a Forest and an Island.

This deck won't struggle to generate mana once we're storming off, and we need to make sure we won't run out of cards either. Every size of card draw spell has a home here, from PonderPonder and Flow StateFlow State all the way up to Dig Through TimeDig Through Time. Seeing more cards will mean being able to make more mana to cast even more card draw. I really like Planar GenesisPlanar Genesis and Lórien RevealedLórien Revealed, since they can help us set up our mana for a cheap cost or can dig for action when we're going off. WindfallWindfall and Time SpiralTime Spiral are some of the best ways to turn mana and cantrips into real card advantage, and we have even a few more tricks up our sleeves to close the game out.

Winning the Game with Rikala, Homarid KingRikala, Homarid King

With an active High TideHigh Tide, our deck becomes a mixture of spells that make mana and spells that use that mana to dig deeper into our deck. In an ideal world, this combination would be self-sustaining, but that isn't a realistic goal. Luckily, we have our tutor package, and once we find a Solve the EquationSolve the Equation or SpellseekerSpellseeker, we can find exactly what we need to get past whatever resource is our bottleneck.

If we anticipate that we'll need mana, then TurnaboutTurnabout is one of our go-to ways to make the math a little less tight. Reality SpasmReality Spasm isn't quite as efficient, but we can find it off of SpellseekerSpellseeker. If we run out of cards to keep going, then we can tutor up either Lock and LoadLock and Load or Finale of RevelationFinale of Revelation to draw enough of our deck that we can't fizzle. Finale of RevelationFinale of Revelation is one of our most definitive closers, since it untaps enough lands to let us cast the cards we drew, and we can even search it up with SpellseekerSpellseeker.

We also get to play an infinite combo that dates back to original High TideHigh Tide lists. PalinchronPalinchron costs seven and untaps up to seven lands, but it can also return to our hand for four more mana. As long as we can use it to untap lands that produce more than the eleven mana it costs to play and bounce, we can generate infinite mana. In this deck, all that takes is six lands and one active High Tide effect, and we can make infinite mana and infinite storm. From there, the actual win condition we choose is almost immaterial, so we're keeping it simple by playing Brain FreezeBrain Freeze. On the off-chance that someone is playing some effect like Worldspine WurmWorldspine Wurm or Gaea's BlessingGaea's Blessing that negates Brain Freeze, we can finish them off with a BraingeyserBraingeyser that serves as a perfectly fine card draw even when it's not winning the game.

The Deck List

I love a good Storm deck, and this one feels classic. Every turn in the early game is a calculation of when we might be able to commit to trying to end the game, and when we do go for it we have to solve an ever-changing puzzle of sequencing to get the most mana and cards. As with any nondeterministic combo, it takes a while for us to be able to fully breathe easy, and there's a chance that we miss on drawing enough mana or enough action to keep going. But that's what makes it thrilling when we can find the line that gets us past the squeeze point.

Adding green to High TideHigh Tide has been done before, but it truly does speed up the clock. In goldfishing, I found that I could fairly consistently go off on turn five or six, and the early ramp was a huge part of that. It's just so much easier to generate mana with High TideHigh Tide when we have seven lands than it is with five. Rikala, Homarid KingRikala, Homarid King was a nice roleplayer in the deck, serving as a backup way to generate mana or as an additional copy to get our Islands to add triple mana, and I found myself wanting to cast him in about half of the games. So many of the new commanders from Mystery Booster Commander Edition are homages to Magic's past, and this deck evokes one of the earliest Storm decks of the game.