So I built this Melek storm combo deck on accident. It was pretty consistent but excruciating to play with or against because it'd take a 45 minute turn and at the end of it you'd win. After thinking about it for a while I determined that the best way to make Melek fun is to play him in a deck that already does what he's doing - copying huge spells for fun and profit.
Enter Riku of Two Reflections.
(Note: If you're interested in learning about how to build/play Riku, go read Sonik's fantastic Multiplayer Primer. This isn't a primer, just the build I'm having fun with at the moment.)
Play this deck if:
-You want to kill everyone at the table with one spell
-You don't care about attacking
-or blocking, really
-You remember casting Fireball in sixth grade and having to figure out how to spread the damage out, and the thought of casting huge Comet Storms makes you smile.
Don't play this deck if:
-You can't handle repetitive but simple math in your head. You do a lot of mana doubling in this deck.
-You can't shuffle. You'll do that a lot.
-You take a long time to figure out how to chain cards together. That'll make it take forever.
-You need to go to the red zone to win.
1) Mull aggressively. The only things you want in your opener are lands and things that put more lands into play. Your goal is to hit 7 mana ASAP, and you want to stress and over :symg:, which just isn't as important in this deck. (7 mana is important as it lets you drop many of your powerful creatures, and then copy them with Riku).
2) Ramp like crazy. In general, if you're presented with multiple options, say a) ramp, b) play removal, ramp is nearly always the correct choice.
3) Get Riku out there and maximize potential. Riku costs 2:symr::symu::symg:. To maximize potential for him in this deck means having :symr::symu: available, on top of the cost of any spell you want to play. If this is turn 4-6 you'll probably want to continue ramping as much as possible. Experienced players will try to keep Riku off the board at pretty much any cost, so you want to take advantage of him while you can.
4) Drop bombs. There's a couple ways to go about it but basically you want to chain together things in the ritual section (Turnabout, etc) with Forks in order to generate huge mana, then either a) cast Epic Experiment for 15, copy it, fork it, then copy the fork, or b) do the same thing with Genesis Wave, or c) cast a fireball for 20, copy it, fork it, copy the fork, kill two opponents.
5) If you still have opponents living at this point they are going to be coming after you like crazy. You need to ensure that everyone dies on your next turn. Best way to do that is to utilize recursion to get your rituals back, then fireball again.
Some superstars from this deck include:
Genesis Wave: We all know this as an all-star but how many decks use it as a ramp spell? Trigger this for 10 and copy it a few times, you'll get most of the land out of the deck as well as good odds on things like Mana Reflection.
Epic Experiment: Obviously this thing is best when you can chain together multiple copies of Time Stretch, but where's the fun in that? Just build huge mana and throw fireballs around! It's a good idea to keep back at least a couple :symr::symu: when you cast this as you'll have good odds of hitting something like Turnabout or Early Harvest if you're digging 50 cards in.
Red Suns' Zenith: It doesn't look like much, but the fact that this fireball shuffles itself back into your deck is huge. It means that early game you can feel free to use it for removal against opposing generals, confident that you'll be seeing it again. Hint: do this whenever necessary (meaning you don't have Chaos Warp in hand).
Praetor's Counsel: Ever resolved one of these and put 60 cards in hand? The followup step here is to cast Inner Fire and copy it. Then just kill everyone.
Melek, Izzet Paragon: This guy makes Magus of the Future look like a chump. You will get up to absolutely disgusting amounts of X-spell damage with him. Don't use him to copy Time Spiral if you want to stay friends with your opponents.
Realmwright: Shockingly useful little guy in a color-hungry deck like this. Your first pick should almost always be Islands (for High Tide), but if you copy him with Riku you can name Mountains as well and solve a lot of problems. Great turn 1 drop.
Past In Flames: This is another good Intuition target and will solve a lot of problems for the deck. One of the reasons you can generally feel pretty safe dropping Genesis Wave for 60 is that the odds are you'll put this in your graveyard, letting you flashback all your bombs.
Fork and friends: Holy smokes is it fun to run these. Favorite uses obviously include copying fireballs and genesis waves/epic experiments. Shockingly effective when you use them to copy Time Spiral but this'll get you hated out of casual games (this can be used as a form of ritual in a pinch). Also, if you're playing against blue control decks, remember to hold back your forks to protect against counterspells.
Overall this is one of the funniest and most fun EDH decks I've built. You'll do things like play 2-hour long game with 4 opponents and never cast any other creature aside from Riku, and come out on top. It's swingy as hell and your top decks will define the game for you.
Cards I thought about using:
-Chandra in various flavors: Overall she's just too expensive. The best option is the Firebrand at 3 and that just isn't worth it when you can run Fork instead. She'll never live through a turn in this deck, nobody'll ever let her.
-Reiterate: This goes infinite with Turnabout and that's not something I want for this deck.
-Radiate: I really like the idea of using this but have no idea how to survive it when I radiate a 50-point banefire.
-Time Warp and friends: I don't really like taking extra turns very much and I really hate playing against Riku decks that do it, so I specifically built this deck without those sorts of things.
-Counterspells: Riku doesn't do well with them. You really only need them to protect your own stuff and for the most part you have enough Forks combined with flashback effects to deal with it. When it comes to other people's stuff, just Bonfire them for 30.
-Lightning Greaves and friends: Honestly this stuff doesn't do you any good. You need to cut a useful card to fit it in there and once you start going everyone will be gunning for you anyway. You'll never need the haste so don't bother with it.
If anyone has any advice for cards to add or substitute, I'm always looking for that.
I've been racking my brain on how to properly build Melek recently, and I still can't come up with the best, most fun way yet. Adding green for ramp and Riku sounds really cool.
How does this fare against quick aggro? I have a notorious Rakdos, Lord of Riots hyper-aggro deck in my playgroup and I just hate losing to quick draws from him.
Also, just 33 lands? I'm never comfortable going down to 36. Is 33 really enough? You might also want to take a look at Nivix Guildmage, perhaps maybe Echo Mage? Has it needing to level up and need to tap to use its ability ever been an issue?
Echo Mage is so brutally powerful that it's worth it - you can copy it and get two of them, after all. Also, I frequently find myself without an X spell in hand to cast, those are the turns when you cast and copy echo mage, then level both up all the way. Doubles as a blocker, and even as a replacement for Riku if he gets tucked, too!
So far I haven't faced up against an aggro deck that was fast enough to kill me before I fireballed them to death. In my experience the combination of lots of burn, a touch of removal, and just not even caring about being attacked does the job. (Honestly what's Rakdos going to do? Play Sheoldred? Several turns later Ulamog becomes a big threat but at that point you're already killing him)
The other thing is I try to avoid building threatening board positions unless I'm going to use them that turn to great effect. Two realmwrights is ok, maybe even two bloom tenders, but if you drop those and two electromancers, two leveled up echo mages, and Melek/magus of the future? Everyone's going to try to kill you.
About the land: I almost always ramp all of the land out every game. Through a combination of copying the ramp spells themselves, to casting them multiple times (after a Time Spiral shuffle, flashbacked with Past in Flames, etc), to just playing Boundless Realms, this deck just vomits out land. That is, of course, one of the reasons I mention that in general the highest priority is to ramp as hard as you can.
What do you think about running more Mana Flare type effects then? I run all available ones in my build. I'm never sad to see them in testing, as this deck can abuse it better than others can.
Currently testing out Mana Flare as a replacement for Doubling Cube. The cube obviously has way more potential but it's a huge threat, whereas the flare is likely to stick around a few turns.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So I built this Melek storm combo deck on accident. It was pretty consistent but excruciating to play with or against because it'd take a 45 minute turn and at the end of it you'd win. After thinking about it for a while I determined that the best way to make Melek fun is to play him in a deck that already does what he's doing - copying huge spells for fun and profit.
Enter Riku of Two Reflections.
(Note: If you're interested in learning about how to build/play Riku, go read Sonik's fantastic Multiplayer Primer. This isn't a primer, just the build I'm having fun with at the moment.)
Play this deck if:
-You want to kill everyone at the table with one spell
-You don't care about attacking
-or blocking, really
-You remember casting Fireball in sixth grade and having to figure out how to spread the damage out, and the thought of casting huge Comet Storms makes you smile.
Don't play this deck if:
-You can't handle repetitive but simple math in your head. You do a lot of mana doubling in this deck.
-You can't shuffle. You'll do that a lot.
-You take a long time to figure out how to chain cards together. That'll make it take forever.
-You need to go to the red zone to win.
Here's the deck:
1 Riku of Two Reflections
Ramp:
1 Sol Ring
1 Farseek
1 Nature's Lore
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Mana Reflection
1 Bloom Tender
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Three Visits
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Exploration
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Boundless Realms
1 Amulet of Vigor
1 Burgeoning
1 Heartbeat of Spring
Rituals:
1 Turnabout
1 Doubling Cube
1 Inner Fire
1 Mana Geyser
1 High Tide
1 Early Harvest
Draw:
1 Urban Evolution
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Sylvan Library
1 Magus of the Future
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Frantic Search
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Hull Breach
1 Chaos Warp
1 Beast Within
1 Krosan Grip
1 Blasphemous Act
Copying:
1 Melek, Izzet Paragon
1 Echo Mage
1 Fork
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Reverberate
1 Twincast
Recursion:
1 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Past in Flames
1 Praetor's Counsel
1 Time Spiral
1 Regrowth
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Recoup
Tutoring:
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
Fireballs:
1 Molten Disaster
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Comet Storm
1 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Banefire
1 Devil's Play
Other Awesome Stuff:
1 Epic Experiment
1 Goblin Electromancer
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Galvanoth
1 Guttersnipe
1 Fire Servant
1 Genesis Wave
1 Leyline of Punishment
1 Realmwright
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Command Tower
1 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wooded Foothills
7 Mountain
7 Island
6 Forest
Here's the basic gameplan that I use:
1) Mull aggressively. The only things you want in your opener are lands and things that put more lands into play. Your goal is to hit 7 mana ASAP, and you want to stress and over :symg:, which just isn't as important in this deck. (7 mana is important as it lets you drop many of your powerful creatures, and then copy them with Riku).
2) Ramp like crazy. In general, if you're presented with multiple options, say a) ramp, b) play removal, ramp is nearly always the correct choice.
3) Get Riku out there and maximize potential. Riku costs 2:symr::symu::symg:. To maximize potential for him in this deck means having :symr::symu: available, on top of the cost of any spell you want to play. If this is turn 4-6 you'll probably want to continue ramping as much as possible. Experienced players will try to keep Riku off the board at pretty much any cost, so you want to take advantage of him while you can.
4) Drop bombs. There's a couple ways to go about it but basically you want to chain together things in the ritual section (Turnabout, etc) with Forks in order to generate huge mana, then either a) cast Epic Experiment for 15, copy it, fork it, then copy the fork, or b) do the same thing with Genesis Wave, or c) cast a fireball for 20, copy it, fork it, copy the fork, kill two opponents.
5) If you still have opponents living at this point they are going to be coming after you like crazy. You need to ensure that everyone dies on your next turn. Best way to do that is to utilize recursion to get your rituals back, then fireball again.
Some superstars from this deck include:
Genesis Wave: We all know this as an all-star but how many decks use it as a ramp spell? Trigger this for 10 and copy it a few times, you'll get most of the land out of the deck as well as good odds on things like Mana Reflection.
Epic Experiment: Obviously this thing is best when you can chain together multiple copies of Time Stretch, but where's the fun in that? Just build huge mana and throw fireballs around! It's a good idea to keep back at least a couple :symr::symu: when you cast this as you'll have good odds of hitting something like Turnabout or Early Harvest if you're digging 50 cards in.
Red Suns' Zenith: It doesn't look like much, but the fact that this fireball shuffles itself back into your deck is huge. It means that early game you can feel free to use it for removal against opposing generals, confident that you'll be seeing it again. Hint: do this whenever necessary (meaning you don't have Chaos Warp in hand).
Intuition: Dig for Fork, Twincast, and Increasing Vengeance, then use whichever one you get on the fireball you use to win. Alternatively, dig for Devil's Play, Comet Storm, and Banefire, for a nice lose-lose choice for the opponent.
Praetor's Counsel: Ever resolved one of these and put 60 cards in hand? The followup step here is to cast Inner Fire and copy it. Then just kill everyone.
Melek, Izzet Paragon: This guy makes Magus of the Future look like a chump. You will get up to absolutely disgusting amounts of X-spell damage with him. Don't use him to copy Time Spiral if you want to stay friends with your opponents.
Realmwright: Shockingly useful little guy in a color-hungry deck like this. Your first pick should almost always be Islands (for High Tide), but if you copy him with Riku you can name Mountains as well and solve a lot of problems. Great turn 1 drop.
Past In Flames: This is another good Intuition target and will solve a lot of problems for the deck. One of the reasons you can generally feel pretty safe dropping Genesis Wave for 60 is that the odds are you'll put this in your graveyard, letting you flashback all your bombs.
Fork and friends: Holy smokes is it fun to run these. Favorite uses obviously include copying fireballs and genesis waves/epic experiments. Shockingly effective when you use them to copy Time Spiral but this'll get you hated out of casual games (this can be used as a form of ritual in a pinch). Also, if you're playing against blue control decks, remember to hold back your forks to protect against counterspells.
Overall this is one of the funniest and most fun EDH decks I've built. You'll do things like play 2-hour long game with 4 opponents and never cast any other creature aside from Riku, and come out on top. It's swingy as hell and your top decks will define the game for you.
Cards I thought about using:
-Chandra in various flavors: Overall she's just too expensive. The best option is the Firebrand at 3 and that just isn't worth it when you can run Fork instead. She'll never live through a turn in this deck, nobody'll ever let her.
-Reiterate: This goes infinite with Turnabout and that's not something I want for this deck.
-Radiate: I really like the idea of using this but have no idea how to survive it when I radiate a 50-point banefire.
-Time Warp and friends: I don't really like taking extra turns very much and I really hate playing against Riku decks that do it, so I specifically built this deck without those sorts of things.
-Counterspells: Riku doesn't do well with them. You really only need them to protect your own stuff and for the most part you have enough Forks combined with flashback effects to deal with it. When it comes to other people's stuff, just Bonfire them for 30.
-Lightning Greaves and friends: Honestly this stuff doesn't do you any good. You need to cut a useful card to fit it in there and once you start going everyone will be gunning for you anyway. You'll never need the haste so don't bother with it.
If anyone has any advice for cards to add or substitute, I'm always looking for that.
I've been racking my brain on how to properly build Melek recently, and I still can't come up with the best, most fun way yet. Adding green for ramp and Riku sounds really cool.
How does this fare against quick aggro? I have a notorious Rakdos, Lord of Riots hyper-aggro deck in my playgroup and I just hate losing to quick draws from him.
Also, just 33 lands? I'm never comfortable going down to 36. Is 33 really enough? You might also want to take a look at Nivix Guildmage, perhaps maybe Echo Mage? Has it needing to level up and need to tap to use its ability ever been an issue?
So far I haven't faced up against an aggro deck that was fast enough to kill me before I fireballed them to death. In my experience the combination of lots of burn, a touch of removal, and just not even caring about being attacked does the job. (Honestly what's Rakdos going to do? Play Sheoldred? Several turns later Ulamog becomes a big threat but at that point you're already killing him)
The other thing is I try to avoid building threatening board positions unless I'm going to use them that turn to great effect. Two realmwrights is ok, maybe even two bloom tenders, but if you drop those and two electromancers, two leveled up echo mages, and Melek/magus of the future? Everyone's going to try to kill you.
About the land: I almost always ramp all of the land out every game. Through a combination of copying the ramp spells themselves, to casting them multiple times (after a Time Spiral shuffle, flashbacked with Past in Flames, etc), to just playing Boundless Realms, this deck just vomits out land. That is, of course, one of the reasons I mention that in general the highest priority is to ramp as hard as you can.