Sanar, Unfinished GeniusSanar, Unfinished Genius | Art by Justin Gerard

In the week leading up to Secrets of Strixhaven prerelease, I got to participate in the Magic: The Gathering Arena early access event and play with the new cards a little before most other players, and after getting to play real games with the cards in the set, there's one creature that outperformed my expectations: Sanar, Unfinished GeniusSanar, Unfinished Genius. The first time I had an opponent cast Sanar against me, the game felt nearly unwinnable, and it got the cogs in my brain turning. In this deck tech, I'm going to build around Sanar, Unfinished Genius as a commander.

What Does Sanar, Unfinished Genius Do?

Sanar, Unfinished GeniusSanar, Unfinished Genius is a two-mana Izzet () commander with two abilities. First, it enters prepared and can cast Wild Idea, a sorcery that searches for any instant or sorcery for five mana. Second, it taps to create a TreasureTreasure if you've cast an instant or sorcery this turn. Combined, Sanar is a repeatable source of ramp with a tutor attached! This is a gold mine for a Spellslinger strategy.

My goal for this deck is to abuse untap effects, like Intruder AlarmIntruder Alarm, to make a lot of Treasures and produce explosive storm turns, using token-generators and pump effects to convert those storm turns into convincing wins.

Key Cards for Sanar, Unfinished Genius

Intruder AlarmIntruder Alarm, paired with token-generators, like Young PyromancerYoung Pyromancer and Third Path IconoclastThird Path Iconoclast, is the primary route to making heaps of mana. Unfortunately, Intruder Alarm isn't the easiest card to tutor for in Izzet, aside from GambleGamble and Drift of PhantasmsDrift of Phantasms.

Chakram RetrieverChakram Retriever is a solid backup plan for the Intruder Alarm game play pattern that is actually more self-sufficient, but at the steep cost of five mana. This Elemental Hound can be fetched with Imperial RecruiterImperial Recruiter, which can also find just about every other engine piece in the deck. It fits into the deck very nicely, and drawing untap effects in multiples is seldom a bad thing.

Over the last few years, a plethora of blue combat tricks that untap a creature and give it hexproof have been printed. Shore UpShore Up, Magic DamperMagic Damper, and Octopus FormOctopus Form help to protect Sanar, Unfinished GeniusSanar, Unfinished Genius while also acting as pseudo-ramp spells. All three of them are also phenomenal options to re-cast with Will of the JeskaiWill of the Jeskai or loop with Underworld BreachUnderworld Breach! An important trick to know about these untap spells is that it is possible to hold priority with them on the stack and tap Sanar, Unfinished Genius if the untap spell is the first instant or sorcery cast that turn.

Like with any good Spellslinger deck, there are a plethora of permanents that convert the input of casting instants and sorceries into generating some kind of resource. Young PyromancerYoung Pyromancer, Third Path IconoclastThird Path Iconoclast, Poppet StitcherPoppet Stitcher, Talrand, Sky SummonerTalrand, Sky Summoner, and Saheeli, Sublime ArtificerSaheeli, Sublime Artificer convert spells into creatures.

Archmage EmeritusArchmage Emeritus and Archmage of RunesArchmage of Runes convert instants and sorceries into card draw. This is not a common effect in Magic's card pool, and even less so in these colors (what I wouldn't give to put a Whirlwind of ThoughtWhirlwind of Thought in this deck!). Most of the decks that I include this pair in wind up with a Step ThroughStep Through or a Vedalken AethermageVedalken Aethermage to find them more consistently, but here I'm just counting on the power of the deck's suite of card selection and cantrips to get the job done.

A Spellslinger deck is nothing without powerful instants and sorceries to cast! The nature of this deck rewards quantity over quality of spell once the engines are firing. There are 24 instants and sorceries at three or less mana that just draw cards, usually with some kind of card selection baked in, like PonderPonder or Stock UpStock Up.

The best card draw spells are the ones that let me touch the highest amount of cardboard for the smallest amount of mana. In that regard, Expressive IterationExpressive Iteration and Flow StateFlow State are unmatched. Both spells look at three cards and keep the best two. There's a reason Expressive Iteration was banned in Pioneer and Legacy: that amount of selection is just insanely powerful. This form of card selection scales really nicely in formats where there is a drastic gap between a deck's best and worst cards, like Commander or Vintage. ImpulseImpulse is one of this deck's best spells for the same reason.

Traumatic CritiqueTraumatic Critique is an insanely flexible card draw spell, and one that I didn't fully understand the power of at first. The floor for this card is casting it at = 0 and just using it as a draw two, discard one. The ceiling is nuking a threatening creature out of orbit and still getting some card draw as additional upside. That kind of flexibility on an above-rate card draw spell is pretty rare, and as a result I'm thrilled to get to cast it in this deck.

How Does This Sanar, Unfinished Genius Deck Win the Game?

When this deck's engines are running, it'll be putting a lot of small tokens on the board. The easiest way to convert them into a win is to take a big storm turn and finish it off with a Haze of RageHaze of Rage. Haze of Rage pretty easily makes infinite mana with a Storm-Kiln ArtistStorm-Kiln Artist, which adds to its potency as a win condition, as well.

Tears of RageTears of Rage is my favorite finisher in the deck, even if it is the less powerful of the two. Casting it and making a swarm of tokens massive to end a game all in one shot is incredibly satisfying, and at just four mana it's a steal! I'd argue that this Spellslinger deck is better at ending games with Tears of Rage than many Elves decks are at winning with Craterhoof BehemothCraterhoof Behemoth.

More often than not, it won't be possible to string together an ideal final turn with only the cards in my hand. Underworld BreachUnderworld Breach and Will of the JeskaiWill of the Jeskai fix that by providing access to the graveyard. I love that this deck is one of the few "fair" use cases for Underworld Breach. It's just here to recast a handful of spells for value to keep a storm turn going rather than combo-ing off with Brain FreezeBrain Freeze and Lion's Eye DiamondLion's Eye Diamond or Lotus PetalLotus Petal to outright win the game.

Sanar, Unfinished Genius Commander Deck List

Conclusion

I'd place my build of Sanar, Unfinished GeniusSanar, Unfinished Genius in Bracket 3 (Upgraded). The Haze of RageHaze of Rage plus Storm-Kiln ArtistStorm-Kiln Artist combo doesn't strike me as worthy of promotion to Bracket 4 on its own, as it is pretty mana-intensive to start the loop and this deck will struggle to convert the combo into a win unless it has already achieved a solid board presence.

I had a lot of fun building this deck, and I got very lucky with it. This was one of the few times where my first draft of a new commander wound up being pretty much perfect. I changed fewer than 12 cards from my original draft to the final product and the deck performed admirably in every test run I gave it! I was totally blown away by the deck's raw power and I'm really excited to get more games under my belt with it once I've amassed all the new Secrets of Strixhaven cards I need to build it.