Longshot, Rebel BowmanLongshot, Rebel Bowman | Art by Morry

If you're looking for classic mono-red deck in cEDH, Birgi, God of StorytellingBirgi, God of Storytelling is pretty much your only option. Sure, there's Magda, Brazen OutlawMagda, Brazen Outlaw - and that deck wins tournaments all the time - but Magda is basically just its commander, not the burn spells, impulse draw, and aggressive tactics that red is known for elsewhere.

Enter: Longshot, Rebel BowmanLongshot, Rebel Bowman, subject of today's cEDH deck tech and the reddest commander this format has seen in a while.

What Does Longshot, Rebel BowmanLongshot, Rebel Bowman Do?

For , Longshot here is a 3/3 legendary Human Rebel Ally with reach that makes all of our noncreature spells cost less to cast. Additionally, whenever we cast a noncreature spell, Longshot deals two damage to each opponent.

First off, let's talk mana value. Four mana is a lot in cEDH, especially for a commander outside of green or black (two colors which traditionally beat the rest of the pack when it comes to mass-mana generation), but red is a close enough third place contender that Longshot has a decent chance of coming down much earlier than turn three.

Thanks to three of that mana being a generic component, however, Longshot can reap the maximum benefit off of the likes of Grim MonolithGrim Monolith, Mana VaultMana Vault, and Sol RingSol Ring; all this to say, don't let the mana cost get you too down.

On to the effects of the card. Right away, Longshot points us to a classic Spellslinger build, full of rituals, card draw, and cheap spells that, while insignificant on their own, add up to lethal amounts of value in the long run.

A blanket cost reduction across all noncreature spells by is a huge leg up in this regard, opening up access to cascading value chains build by now-free artifacts and even cheaper cantrips. Plus, rather than just generating a high storm count, Longshot's damage trigger means that each noncreature spell we cast after resolving him brings us another step closer to victory - regardless of however many spells we end up casting that turn.

Key Cards for Longshot, Rebel BowmanLongshot, Rebel Bowman

Outside of the usual skeleton of a cEDH deck - interaction, early acceleration, card advantage engines - what set's Longshot apart is its high density of replaceable effects. Like Urza, Lord High ArtificerUrza, Lord High Artificer and Jhoira, Weatherlight CaptainJhoira, Weatherlight Captain, the point of this deck is to slam Longshot as quickly as possible, then start churning through the rest of your deck as quickly as possible.

What cards you actually use to do that don't really matter, as long as they're efficient and can fit into one of three key categories.

Baubles and Cantrips

Starting us off are the cards that - one at a time - rip through our deck. On the artifact side we have baubles: low-cost artifacts that can be sacrificed to draw a card. The best of these are essentially free, thanks to Longshot's discount.

Chromatic StarChromatic Star, for example, costs to cast and to activate, but it returns that investment in-part by giving us a card and a mana when we sacrifice it, making it a total mana sink of just . Longshot brings this down to zero, while also adding that all-important damage trigger.

Looking to the instants and sorceries in this section, these cards all cost some amount of mana despite Longshot's discount, but their flexibility makes them potent nonetheless.

For some, that's as simple as the upside of being an instant. For others, it's the option of changing out a couple of cards at once, a la Cathartic ReunionCathartic Reunion. All in all, these average out to essentially paying to deal two damage to everyone and to cycle a card.

Wheels

Speaking of changing out cards, our next batch of spells is this deck's version of a reset button - providing an out when we've run out of spells to churn through but still have just enough mana to keep on going, if only we had the cards.

I cannot state this enough, the discount is huge here. Casting a Wheel of FortuneWheel of Fortune for is a whole lot easier than , and that wheel is routinely going to be followed up by a bevy of -cost artifacts shortly thereafter.

Cast your rituals and rocks, cast a wheel, then rinse and repeat. Even if you aren't trying to win that turn, wheels easily represent 10+ damage when you cast them. Now that's a way to make an Ad NauseamAd Nauseam player's day worse.

Mana Engines

Last but not least, what would a cEDH deck be these days without its value engines? We may be playing red, but we aren't playing turbo, and that patience affords us the opportunity to set up some powerful payoffs for the late game.

As I mentioned back in our section on baubles and cantrips, this deck is singularly focused on efficiency. From that, we're able to chain card after card together in order to accrue incremental damage.

These three cards - Electro, Birgi, and Urabrask - all make that easier thanks to their additional mana support. As far as card draw (or, more realistically, card replacement) is concerned, we've got that covered with the rest of our deck. These three, however, make sure that the roster of one-drop instants and sorceries which can't be discounted any further still wind up being mana neutral.

How Does Longshot, Rebel BowmanLongshot, Rebel Bowman Win?

Outside of naturally stumbling into a win by casting twenty-or-so noncreature spells, Longshot is a deck with three main combo packages, each of which relies on at least some cards that are decent enough that we would be playing them regardless of their combo potential.

Underworld BreachUnderworld Breach Combos

Starting us off is the go-to for any red deck: Underworld BreachUnderworld Breach. What makes this combo unique in Longshot, however, is just how flexible it's become, as the entire package now just costs as low as one mana (provided we have our commander out).

Cast Underworld Breach for and Grinding Station for , plus any artifact that has a mana cost of or less. Use Grinding Station to mill three cards from your own library (by tapping it and sacrificing the free artifact you just cast), then recast that artifact from your graveyard, using the cards you milled as escape fodder. The artifact being cast will trigger Longshot, dealing two damage to each opponent, while the artifact entering will trigger Grinding Station, untapping it.

Rinse, repeat, and voila! You've reached your twenty-spell threshold with Longshot.

Sensei's Divining TopSensei's Divining Top Combos

This next combo package relies on us controlling our commander in order for it to work, but we're already in the habit of that with this deck so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

By combining our now-free Sensei's Divining TopSensei's Divining Top with an effect that lets us cast spells from the top of our deck, we have a combo that allows us to both draw our entire library while also dealing a near-infinite amount of damage (limited only by the number of cards in our library).

Simply activate Sensei's Diving Top's second ability, tapping it to draw a card and put it back on top of our library, Then, with Longshot and either of our two top-deck engines in play (Experimental FrenzyExperimental Frenzy and Mystic ForgeMystic Forge), recast Sensei's Divining Top for free, dealing two damage to everyone else at the table.

Dualcaster MageDualcaster Mage Combos

Last but not least, the go-to for mono-red, commander-agnostic combos: Dualcaster MageDualcaster Mage. Just cast either Molten DuplicationMolten Duplication or TwinflameTwinflame, hold priority, then cast Dualcaster Mage. Dualcaster will enter and we'll get to copy an instant or sorcery spell (which will be the Molten Duplication/Twinflame we just cast), and we'll have that copy be redirected to target our newly-resolved Dualcaster Mage. When it does, we'll get another Dualcaster Mage, creating another copy of that original sorcery.

This goes on and on until we have an arbitrarily large number of mages, all with haste!

Longshot, Rebel Bowman cEDH Deck List

Wrap Up

Will Longshot be dominating cEDH tables alongside Magda? I doubt it. But is it an exciting bauble-based counterpart to Urza, Lord High ArtificerUrza, Lord High Artificer that feels oh-so-very red in a way that cEDH has been missing? Absolutely.

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