Firebrand Archer | Art by John Stanko

Slingin' Spells and Pingin' as Well!

Welcome back to Singleton Shmingleton, where I bend the singleton rules of Commander by building decks with as many functional reprints of a certain card as possible.

This week we're building around an innocuous creature that gives us a clear goal: cast as many noncreature spells as possible. Firebrand Archer is about as low-to-the-ground as you can get. It's a small, cheap creature, and the payoff for casting a spell is a sing damage.

But this small effect can inspire grander ambitions than any card boasting raw power or huge size. Everyone's first thought when seeing Firebrand Archer, or Thermo-Alchemist, or Kessig Flamebreather, takes this tiny damage output as a challenge: "how can I defeat my opponents using only this trigger?"

This ambition doesn't come randomly. No one is salivating at the thought of popping off with Forgeborn Oreads (or if you are, let me know! I want that card to work so bad), because enchantments are so hard to produce en masse.

The truth of the matter is that instants and sorceries themselves are the tempting factor here, and Firebrand Archer offers just the hint of a reason to play as many as possible.

This card and its alternates have a small amount of constructed experience, showing up for a few years in Pauper burn decks, but in Limited they are perennial role-players. Thermo-Alchemist almost single-handedly ran the "spells-matter" theme in Eldritch Moon, and Rockslide Sorcerer was an incredible build-around in Zendikar Rising.

Getting tricky and clever feels even more dastardly in Limited, where the game is "supposed" to be more board-based and combat-centric than most Constructed formats.

There are twenty-three cards that deal damage to opponents every time you cast an instant or sorcery spell. Here they are:

The most played of these cards, in 146,351 decks, is Guttersnipe. It's the original, and it's still a heckuva card, dealing twice as much damage as most of its followers. This card's popularity and power shows clearly the potential of combining two or three of these creatures and chaining spells.

The next most played card, in 89,608 decks, is Niv-Mizzet, Parun. This card is incredible, combining the overwhelming value of Archmage Emeritus with the combo potential of Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. It feels out of place on this list of draft commons, but it technically does what I'm looking for because it does everything.

The least played of these cards, in only 1,737 decks, is Rockslide Sorcerer. I like this card a lot; even though it's expensive, it can pick of smaller creatures as well as dealing face damage, and it fits perfectly into any Wizards deck.

More Ping for Your Sling

Seeing Guttersnipe on this list made me realize that the best way to turn Firebrand Archer into an engine is to multiply its output. Turning one damage into two means we will need to cast only half as many spells to win the game, and some of our spells can do even more than double.

Almost all of our Firebrand Archers are red, which means that Torbran, Thane of Red Fell turns every point of damage into three. Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might makes every trigger hit for four.

And Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph triples our damage, and adding it as our commander only excludes Tor Wauki the Younger from our list of pingers. Having this effect in the command zone makes our plan so much more deadly and consistent, and, honestly, I've wanted to play with this card since it was released with Warhammer.

Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph also synergizes wonderfully with a ton of cheap instants and sorceries that fit into a deck looking to chain a ton of them in a row. Electrolyze can split up its damage into two instances of one, turning into a double Lightning Bolt that also draws a card.

Gut Shot is a free three damage, which can really take opponents by surprise. And Needle Drop, the perfect follow-up card in this deck, can always be castable as long as we've cast anything beforehand with a Firebrand Archer out.

Even Spikefield Hazard which I normally think is too narrow, becomes a great option as a Lightning Bolt/land split card. It's always nice to find a commander that can bolster both the setup and payoff of a deck's plan, and Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph certainly is that for this deck.

Earn Things with Your Pings

There are a scattering of cards that reward us handsomely for dealing damage to our opponents, without specifying what kind of damage we dealt.

Modern Auras like Curious Obsession sensibly require that the enchanted creature puts in the work of entering combat to deal its damage, but the original Curiosity doesn't care whether we just triggered our Erebor Flamesmith or Coruscation Mage.

Ophidian Eye and Tandem Lookout share the same formatting, and are just as abusable in this deck. We'll want most of our instants and sorceries to draw cards anyways, so these effects will almost ensure we never run out of gas by drawing a second card per spell we cast.

And we do happen to have an infinite combo in here as well. Niv-Mizzet, Parun deals a damage whenever we draw a card, and our Curiositys can draw whenever he deals damage, so we can slice down opponents and draw as much as we want. I think this is the perfect place for infinite combos in non-high-powered Commander: we've just added cards that work well with our strategy, and these two effects complement each other so well that they're unstoppable.

A final card I want to mention is Sigil of Sleep. While it doesn't accelerate our own strategy like Curiosity does, it slows down our opponents like crazy, and can stop them from developing a board presence that might threaten our small-creature-centered strategy.

What Spells to Sling?

If we want to chain together as many spells as possible, we'll need to find ones that draw cards. Thankfully, we're in blue and red, the very best colors for that kind of effect. I used the EDHREC Cantrips theme page to find cheap spells that replace the card you use to play them.

Blue brings the classics of card selection, the Brainstorms and Ponders and Preordains that define higher powered sixty card formats. And the list of one-mana spells that promise a card and a little selection continues past these absolute all-stars. Consider, Opt, Sleight of Hand, and Serum Visions bulk out our selection spells.

Red offers cantrips that effect our creatures: Warlord's Fury, Expedite, and Crash Through. Most of our Firebrand Archers are red, so we have some incentive to skew our spells to the red side of things for the sake of our mana base, especially since we want to be using every mana every turn.

Past these necessary but unexciting little spells, we can play some of the most broken spells of all time. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time let us pull ahead at ridiculously low cost in a deck that fills its graveyard with instants and sorceries.

Frantic Search is digging that pays for itself, Faithless Looting and Expressive Iteration have gotten themselves banned in a high-powered format apiece, and Invert Polarity is one of the most powerful Counterspells printed in years.

We can even take advantage of some Storm cards, with Galvanic Relay and Lock and Load giving us massive stacks of cards just for playing our cards the way we want to.

The Decklist

Instant and sorcery decks have remained popular in Commander because they work, and because they feel great to play. Every card you draw might lead to more cards, and you can see a surprising amount of your deck every game. This deck appeals to me in particular because I just love decks with lots of triggered abilities that keep me engaged in the motion of the game.

Firebrand Archer and friends make you keep your brain locked in, and also make sure that everyone is paying attention during your turn (because part of building a cool deck is your opponents seeing it in action). Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph makes sure that no opponent makes it past your turn with a healthy life total, and can even enable the deck to take down the table from full health in one turn.

With how many cards this deck draws, Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a dangerous combo piece, and knowing that the combo is in the deck creates some hope even in the direst of straits.

Until Next Time

This card is an icon of tempo strategies, setting back an opponent's board while advancing your own. It gives you value, but puts you on a clock: win the game before your opponent can re-deploy the creature you bounced. But how does this play pattern work in Commander, against three opponents and in games that can last for hours? Find out next time on Singleton Shmingleton!

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