(Act on Impulse | Art by Brad Rigney)

Get Those Goggles On!

Hello, and 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 talking about a card that has become one of the core components of red's color identity, Act on Impulse. This is the first instance in red (the original was in blue!) of a spell that exiled cards from the top of your library and let you play them, for a limited time only. In both Commander and sixty-card formats, red had struggled to generate card advantage, and the color was often forced to play one-note aggressive decks that tried to win the game before being overwhelmed by value they could never match. "Impulse draw," as it came to be known, seemed to be a functional and thematically resonant solution to this problem. Standard welcomed Chandra, Torch of Defiance, and Commander welcomed Commune with Lava and Outpost Siege. The printing of Reckless Impulse and Wrenn's Resolve have pushed Act on Impulse to new heights, and they now form the center of a Storm deck in Modern alongside Ruby Medallion. How far red has come! It used to rely on blue for card draw, and now it can stand on its own.

This take on "drawing" cards comes with a ton of implications that I feel are under-explored. Cards like Wrenn's Resolve will be old news to Prosper, Tome-Bound and Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald players, but I contend that there's more juice to squeeze out of these effects. Of course, the limited time given to cast the cards incentivizes building a deck of cheap cards that can all be cast in one turn. But relying on the top of the library also opens up tons of interactions with top-of-the-deck manipulation such as Sensei's Divining Top, a card I don't often see in red decks. Exiling cards can pull double-duty, letting you cast the gas and get rid of the cards you don't want forever. Impulse draw also interacts well with Wheel of Fortune effects, as the exiled cards act as a virtual second hand that you won't have to discard to draw a new seven. With all of these potentials, I think it's high time to build a Commander version of the Modern Ruby Storm deck that uses cards like Reckless Impulse to chain a ton of spells together.

There are twenty one-time effects in red that exile cards from the top of library and allow you to cast them for a turn or two. Here they are:

That's a lot of redundancy! It seems that a lot of recent preconstructed Commander decks have included a new spin on the old recipe, from Embrace the Unknown with Retrace to Ecstatic Beauty with Suspend. The most played of these cards, in a whopping 357,386 decks, is Jeska's Will. It can give both cards and the mana to cast them, making it a spell that scales with the power level of the deck it's in, from casual to cEDH. The next most played card, in 59,842 decks, is Light Up the Stage. In terms of efficiency, the Spectacle cost offers the best deal out there, and this card powered red aggressive decks in its Standard environment before hopping over to Commander. The least played card, besides the newest ones, is Spark of Creativity, in only 5673 decks. One mana for one card isn't terrible, and the potential to maybe kill a creature instead is nice, but it's not consistent either as a removal spell or a cantrip. I have played Spark of Creativity to great effect in Zada, Hedron Grinder as a way to impulse draw for each creature I control, but Zada will play all sorts of terrible cards.

A Perfect Commander

Usually, since these decks are built starting with the package of similar cards that I want to build around, it takes a little time to find a commander. But this leader elected himself. Melek, Izzet Paragon interacts beautifully with impulse draw, both because he lets us cast spells from the top of our deck and because every card we exile will reveal fresh cards for him to cast. He works well with the topdeck manipulation that we'll want to be running anyway, and his ability to copy spells should hopefully alleviate some of the bottlenecks on cards and mana that Storm decks often face. I'll talk about some of the more specific interactions he allows for later on.

It's Stormin' Time

The main goal of this deck will be the same as that of the Modern Ruby Storm deck: to use these spells to find more spells that dig through our deck, as well as spells that generate mana to keep the chain going, until we can play a payoff that can win the game on the spot. To achieve this, we'll need to add in more cards that give us card advantage, rituals that can give us net positive mana, and cards like Goblin Electromancer that reduce the cost of our spells. This formula has powered Storm decks in Modern since the format's creation, and has landed both Seething Song and Rite of Flame on the format's banned list. It'll work just fine for us.

In terms of rituals, we get to pick from the best of the best and also the jankiest of the janky. Seething Song is as broken as always, and Jeska's Will is everything we could dream of. But Mana Geyser also pulls through as the best way we have of starting our turn, often adding fifteen or twenty mana in one go. Our cost-reducers include the classics, like Goblin Electromancer and Baral, Chief of Compliance, and add in new powerhouses such as Case of the Ransacked Lab and Ral, Monsoon Mage. And there are a ton of in-between types of effects that give us "rebates" on the mana we spend on instants and sorceries, like Runaway Steam-Kin and Birgi, God of Storytelling. Storm-Kiln Artist especially stands out among these cards as a way to fix our mana and let us cast blue spells later in a big turn.

One interaction that comes up surprisingly often with Melek, Izzet Paragon is between impulse draw and instants, especially rituals. When we cast a card like Reckless Impulse from the top of our library, Melek, Izzet Paragon will copy it, but we will get to see the top card of our library in between the two copies resolving. If it's an instant, we can cast it before it gets exiled, effectively digging another card deeper and getting another copied spell. Many of our instants are cards like Desperate Ritual or Big Score, which become more than twice as powerful when copied, because the second copy doesn't come with any costs. One Desperate Ritual is effectively +1 mana, but a copied one becomes +4 mana. And a single Big Score is card-neutral and net -2 mana, but a copied one is +3 cards and pays for itself!

In terms of additional card advantage, we get to dabble in blue for only the most powerful draw spells of all time. Treasure Cruise fits the bill of course, but so do Ponder and Brainstorm, which interact beautifully with our commander and with our exile effects that care about the top of our deck. Windfall and Wheel of Fortune take advantage of the fact that most of our "draw" doesn't actually put cards into our hand, so we can discard a few measly cards to them while keeping our stack of twelve playable exiled cards intact. Mind's Desire fits perfectly with this deck's theme, acting as both a broken Storm spell and another exile effect, even if we can't manipulate the top of our deck to help it. And I've been itching to play Lock and Load from the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Commander decks since I first saw it. It's card draw with Storm! How is no one else freaking out about this?

Hidden Gems

There are a couple of cards that really take on a life of their own in this deck. First off, Thought Lash alongside Melek, Izzet Paragon virtually guarantees that we can keep casting spells off the top of our deck. Its activated ability can exile cards from our deck at will, letting us get rid of anything we cannot cast and letting us play and copy every mana-generating spell left in our deck. As long as we don't exile all of our game-enders along the way, winning should be trivial from there.

I feel funny calling Dragon's Rage Channeler a hidden gem, but in this deck it really pops off. The repeated Surveil triggers can control the top of our deck almost as well as Thought Lash can, and the flying body can still do some damage in our format.

And finally, Mystical Tutor and Long-Term Plans work even better in this deck than in the wild. With Melek, Izzet Paragon out, Mystical Tutor (and its lesser cousin, Personal Tutor) can put an instant or sorcery into an even better place than our hand, since it will be copied when cast. And alongside our package of cards that exile the top several cards of our deck, Long-Term Plans often lets us cast the card we search for that same turn.

Winning the Game

Funnily enough, it's harder for Storm decks in Commander to actually win using cards with Storm. It's almost impossible for Grapeshot to deal 120 damage, and Brain Freeze is almost as tall an order. Tendrils of Agony doesn't fit into our colors, and Ignite Memories takes forever to resolve and might not work. But as always, Aetherflux Reservoir comes to the rescue, as does new piece Unstable Amulet. The Amulet will damage each opponent every time we cast a spell from exile or from the top of our library (or even with Past in Flames), and that adds up quickly. Finally, given that we're seeing a large part of our deck on our big turns, a two-card infinite combo becomes a real possibility. Dualcaster Mage plus either Twinflame or Molten Duplication lets us repeatedly copy the mage and the spell until we have enough hasty power to swing for the win.

The Decklist

This deck is an exercise in keeping track of resources. We'll have to track storm count, mana, and cards in our hand, library, and exile that we can cast. It's a multitasker's dream, and showcases the power of red's impulse draw well. Despite being a combo deck with many redundant pieces that wants to see almost its entire deck every game, the deck plays out quite differently with different opening hands. Starting things off with a Ral, Monsoon Mage gives us the mini-game of trying to flip him into a planeswalker, whereas starting with a Dragon's Rage Channeler or Storm-Kiln Artist gives us an early-game aggressive plan that distracts the table for a couple turns.

Until Next Time

Moving on from red's take on cheap card advantage, let's take a look at black's version. Since the old days of Altar's Reap, we've received a slew of more powerful ways to turn creatures into cards at a low cost. Deadly Dispute has been fueling Pauper decks for years now, and Fanatical Offering and Eviscerator's Insight have joined it. How many cards can we draw if each one costs us a creature? Find out next time on Singleton Shmingleton!

Read More:

Financial Divergence - Prosper, Tome-Bound

How They Brew It - Try This At Home

ral monsoon mage

Singleton Shmingleton - Act On Impulse

The Over/Under - Predicting the Popularity of Modern Horizons 3 Commanders