Quicksilver, Brash BlurQuicksilver, Brash Blur | Art by Michael MacRae

The heroes have arrived. Some are faster than others, but no one is faster than Quicksilver, Brash BlurQuicksilver, Brash Blur, a speedster hero who now joins the ever-growing cast of characters on Magic: The Gathering cards.

What happens when we embrace the true essence of speed and build a deck around it? I'll show you. This is a deck tech for Quicksilver, and all anyone who plays against it will see is a single blur.

Quicksilver, Brash Blur

When deckbuilding, you might have to make concessions when building around certain cards. Sometimes you can't have everything work in your favor. This is the case with Quicksilver.

As amazing as it would be to start a game with Quicksilver on the battlefield, if we want him to be our commander, we have to sacrifice that part of the text box. Instead, our focus is on speed and efficiency. With a single red casting cost and built-in haste, this card comes down attacking early and often. Not to mention, the more it has to be recast, the cheaper its power-up ability gets.

With all the parts of the card that can work as our commander in focus, I figured we should lean in as much as possible. That means a lot of one-mana cards and a bunch of hasty creatures.

Not Sonic, But Still Fast

The deck might not have any Hedgehogs in the creature suite, but that doesn't mean they don't want to go fast. The expectation would be that a deck full of one-mana creatures would pack no punch, but you may be surprised.

Some out there will remember just how important a card Bomat CourierBomat Courier was during its time in Standard. While not as dominant in the Commander format, there's no denying that card advantage is always significant, and having it on a one-drop creature is incredible. Sure, getting rid of the cards in your hand might feel bad, but when those cards aren't helping you win the game, sacrifices must be made.

One-drops can't do everything, after all. Some effects would never be printed onto that cheap of a card. Ragavan, Nimble PilfererRagavan, Nimble Pilferer fixes those problems. Stealing cards from the top of your opponents' decks and creating a Treasure, allowing for more plays of your own cards or well-timed uses of cards from others. I don't need to convince you how good Ragavan is as a standalone card, but it's one of the most important creatures in this list.

Signal PestSignal Pest may look out of place in this list. Why would we ever want a one-drop creature with no power? To pump up our other creatures, obviously. Attacking early and often means that every time damage can be done, it needs to be maximized, so giving +1/+0 to our board will help pump up those damage numbers.

More Than Damage

When filling the deck with a single mana value, finding card advantage and additional effects is difficult. Thankfully, red creatures at our single point on the curve love to come with further upside. Sometimes that's card draw, sometimes it's creature creation, and other times it's a way to affect our opponents' boards.

Not only is Insolent NeonateInsolent Neonate a solid attacker thanks to having menace, but it's another way we can draw cards. Similar to Bomat, we have to give up the Neonate to do so, but it could get us what we need when we need it. If we never have to get rid of the Neonate, then the game is going in our favor, and we get to keep an evasive creature.

Rosnakht, Heir of RohgahhRosnakht, Heir of Rohgahh acts as the second Signal Pest in the deck. As with the Pest, giving bonus power to our team on attack is extremely valuable. Unlike the Pest, Rosnakht can also give us more bodies to be pumped up. Heroic on Rosnakht makes every spell cast onto them come with a bonus 0/1 Kobold. More 0/1s can cause more damage if they stick around, or more creatures to throw under the bus of our opponents.

Intimidator InitiateIntimidator Initiate allows us to use whatever mana we have lying around to do something other than cast one-mana spells. The deck doesn't need much mana to function, but we need to do something with the mana we have lying around. In comes the Intimidator. Every red spell we cast can turn into one fewer blocker on the board.

It can also be used politically since the trigger comes off anyone casting a red spell, so we can even get some favor by letting an opponent connect with an unblocked creature.

"One" Mana Spells

All one-mana spells are not created equal. Thankfully, that works in our deck's favor. The possibility that we run into a mana flood is somewhere above zero percent, and spells that "cost" one mana but come with additional casting costs or have an x in the casting cost can turn flood into our best friend.

Creatures have been the focal point of the deck so far, but that doesn't mean they should get all the love. Mishra's CommandMishra's Command is a fantastic modal spell in the deck. First and foremost, it serves as another source of card draw, but it comes with two forms of removal and the ability to pump and give haste.

In a pinch, it can even be cast without putting anything into the x part of the casting cost to give a creature haste.

Great Train HeistGreat Train Heist might be the best card for us to pump extra mana into. One of the only spells with a mana value of one that we can't use for only one mana. For a total of four mana, we get an untap and extra combat. Bring it up to six mana, and now we get +1/+0 and first strike. And for seven mana total, the player on the receiving end of our attack will give us a Treasure for every creature we hit with.

All of that for seven mana is a steal, but four mana is where this card shines and where we want to be casting it most times.

Shivan DevastatorShivan Devastator is one of the biggest creatures that this deck can bring to the table. It's also one of the only flyers that we have at our disposal. If we can only get four or five mana into this card, it's still worth it to bring combat from the air rather than being stuck on the ground. In the late game, it's possible that we can take a player out with this creature alone.

No Sol Ring, No Problem

Yes, you read that title right, this deck isn't playing Sol RingSol Ring. Many of the cards in this deck only cost a single mana, but that mana is a single . When it comes to making extra mana for some of the cards in the section above, there's a surprising amount of Treasure generation in this list.

In the end, I decided the deck would be more interesting and does not need to rely on Sol Ring. Instead, we have a much more interesting lineup of artifacts.

MeekstoneMeekstone is the MVC (most valuable card) of this deck by a mile. This could be the difference between winning and losing a game if we can get it to stick. The entire deck can just about dodge the downside of the Meekstone, and that isn't something the rest of the table can say.

Pip-Boy 3000Pip-Boy 3000 is an Equipment that players may not be used to seeing, since the card is from the Fallout batch. Providing the ever-sought-after card draw on attack is excellent, but pumping up a creature or untapping lands to be used for mid-combat spells makes this an underrated Equipment. All of this, and the creature doesn't even need to connect.

Dire FlailDire Flail would be fine if the front side were all it had to offer. For only a , getting a +2/+0 pump at equip is playable. Once we're able to craft it, it gets so much better. Now, a +3/+0 pump and the way to turn extra artifacts into blocker removal make it very easy to connect with a creature.

A Single Spicy Pepper

For having only cards that cost one mana, I figured this list wouldn't come with much spice. I was happily wrong.

OnslaughtOnslaught joins the short list of cards that are also the name of an entire set. It also finds itself on the "I didn't know this was a card" list. Since we run 31 creatures, triggering this card should be pretty straightforward. The fewer creatures the table has to block, the more damage we can get in.

SkredSkred might look a bit funny in this list, but there was no way I would leave out what could be the best single-target creature removal spell in some games. With 13 Snow-Covered MountainSnow-Covered Mountain and a Frostwalk BastionFrostwalk Bastion, we have the potential for a one-mana 15 damage spell. That might be unlikely, but we can dream.

Lastly, Quest for Pure FlameQuest for Pure Flame can come down often, and getting four counters on it could take as little as a single combat. While it will only double damage against a single player, doubling all the damage they take for a turn can be huge. Even with a small power board, turning seven or nine damage into 14 or 18 can flip a game on its head.

Wrap Up

This is the first time I've ever built a deck around a single mana value. It was a more enjoyable experience than I imagined. I'm not sure that, for the Commander format, the best choice was the one mana slot, but Quicksilver costs what it costs.

When it comes to Quicksilver, Brash BlurQuicksilver, Brash Blur, I'm disappointed that it won't be a better Commander. At the same time, maybe that's best for the game that there isn't a super oppressive one-mana creature. Time will tell how many players get to put this onto the battlefield before the first turn of the game even begins, and I would be lying if I told you that I didn't want to be one of those players.

What do you think of Quicksilver? What characters are you excited to see in the set? How fast is too fast? Let me know anywhere you can find me on the web @nicnax96.

Quicksilver, Brash Blur Commander Deck List