Tellah, Great SageTellah, Great Sage | Art by Yumi Yaoshida

Hello friends! Your friendly neighborhood Jesguy here, back with another Commander deck tech, this time with one of the most flavorful legends in the upcoming Final Fantasy set, Tellah, Great SageTellah, Great Sage!

If you've read my other deck techs, I'll sound like a broken record, but I don't know much about Final Fantasy, but even I can figure out the story on this card. TellahTellah gathers heroes, gives them knowledge, and then sacrifices himself for the greater good. Excellent storytelling here!

I'm getting ahead of myself though. I talked about the flavor of the card, but not what he does. So before I get any farther, let's see how his card reads!

What Does Tellah, Great Sage do?

Tellah, Great SageTellah, Great Sage has three possible effects when you cast a noncreature spell, and they're quite good. Making a 1/1 is great, drawing two cards is awesome, and hitting each opponent for massive amounts of damage is a surefire way to end a game! But these abilities come with a cost: his is five whole mana! This can be a prohibitive mana cost for a Young PyromancerYoung Pyromancer variant, even with the added abilities.

It's for this reason that I decided instead of doing anything wacky or wild with him, that I would make this deck a Bracket 2 list. I think he shines at lower power tables where he has enough time to be cast and deploy his game plan of gathering heroes, drawing cards, and ending the game.

To help jumpstart this deck, I consulted the average list of another Izzet commander that likes big spells: Zaffai, Thunder ConductorZaffai, Thunder Conductor:

ZaffaiZaffai is very similar to TellahTellah, caring about instants and sorceries at MV 1, 5, and 10 as opposed to noncreature spells at 1, 4, and 8. While ZaffaiZaffai is cheaper, I do think TellahTellah comes ahead in terms of power and value.

Regardless, this list was an excellent way to start this adventure, so let's get into some of the cuts before jumping into all the cards I added in.

A Trashcan Ending

While TellahTellah wants big, noncreature spells, I felt like there were a bit too many in ZaffaiZaffai's list.

First on the chopping block:

• Swarm IntelligenceSwarm Intelligence
• Apex of PowerApex of Power
• Volcanic VisionVolcanic Vision
• Mind's DesireMind's Desire

Swarm IntelligenceSwarm Intelligence on average is just worse than Double VisionDouble Vision. While the latter won't copy every spell, I've found that it does just as much work since it comes down two turns earlier. Apex of PowerApex of Power is big and splashy, but I just don't like it in this deck. We don't need card advantage like this, and sometimes, only being able to choose one color of mana can screw you over. Volcanic VisionVolcanic Vision seems great, but I've never seen it work as well as it should. It's just too high variance for my taste. Finally, speaking of high variance, we have [/el]Mind's Desire[/el]. Yes, this has the potential to trigger our commander two or more times, but I, once again, have just always been unimpressed by this spell whenever I've seen it cast.

Next up were creatures. TellahTellah cares about noncreature spells, so we want the density of those to be higher than our creature spells. What creatures we do have in the deck should be low number and synergize well with our commander.

Diluvian PrimordialDiluvian Primordial was the first cut in this regard. Yes, it can potentially get your three triggers on TellahTellah in a single turn, but I've also seen this card whiff plenty of times, getting you low value for such a high cost. Etali, Primal StormEtali, Primal Storm and Rionya, Fire DancerRionya, Fire Dancer are also a bit too expensive for what they provide. While EtaliEtali is a fantastic card, I just don't think this is the deck for it. It can net you free spells, but we're looking for consistency here, not to spin the wheel and see what we get. RionyaRionya on the other hand is best in decks that will be casting multiple spells in a turn and have big, value-based creatures in them. We plan on maybe casting one or two spells a turn, and our creatures are more synergy-based than pure value-based. She felt like an easy cut.

Finally are cards that are a bit too weak.

Aether GaleAether Gale, while reading powerfully, needs six targets to work. I hate that requirement, and would rather just run better removal. Inspiring RefrainInspiring Refrain and Rousing RefrainRousing Refrain seem perfect here, but I'm just low on suspend spells in general. Opponents can see them coming, and they just take so long to get going. These ones are also prohibitively costed. ReinterpretReinterpret is a cool CounterspellCounterspell and can potentially trigger TellahTellah twice, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hate the variance here. I'd rather play a two-mana CounterspellCounterspell than a four-mana one that can maybe get me some extra value.

"X"cellent Spells

The first place I decided to look for additions was EDHREC's X Spell Theme. While I had cut a couple of these kinds of spells, they, at first, seemed perfect for this deck. But the only one that caught my eye was Crackle with PowerCrackle with Power. With enough mana, you could easily kill the entire table with CrackleCrackle and TellahTellah out. This seemed like an absolute homerun to include here. At x=2 or 3, you'll trigger all of TellahTellah's abilities and deal massive amounts of damage to the board, which is exactly what we're looking for.

Some other spells from this category are some of my favorite ever: MDFCs.

Sea Gate RestorationSea Gate Restoration, Silundi VisionSilundi Vision, and Valakut AwakeningValakut Awakening are all perfect for this deck. RestorationRestoration is a land early game, or will completely refill your hand when you need it late game. VisionVision and AwakeningAwakening, while not triggering TellahTellah's second effect, are excellent ways to smooth out the deck, giving you plenty of card selection and velocity - perfect for decks with a handful of high MV cards.

The final cards I got from this category were pretty innocuous for a theme that's supposed to be big, splashy, and bombastic.

Riptide LaboratoryRiptide Laboratory is another land I added to the deck to help bring the land count up to 37. Not only will this number of lands help us ensure we're hitting our land drops on time, but it's also an excellent way to save TellahTellah from removal by bouncing him back to your hand. Decanter of Endless WaterDecanter of Endless Water replaces Elementalist's PaletteElementalist's Palette, as it will end up doing more good for us than PalettePalette ever will, considering how few actual X spells we have in the deck currently.

The final add here was Deekah, Fractal TheoristDeekah, Fractal Theorist. DeekahDeekah is great in this deck; we have some splashy spells, and each time we cast one, we're going to get a massive Fractal due to it. This got me thinking: maybe I should be leaning into the token aspect a bit more? Well, we have a Token Theme on the site, so why not check there?

A Token for Your Thoughts

Right off the bat, I wanted some more token makers. These little fellas can help gum up the board, give you chump blockers, and help close out the game in a variety of ways.

First up was Young PyromancerYoung Pyromancer and friends:

• Third Path IconoclastThird Path Iconoclast
• Saheeli, Sublime ArtificerSaheeli, Sublime Artificer
• Murmuring MysticMurmuring Mystic
• Shark TyphoonShark Typhoon

All these cards are fantastic ways of getting a board presence with little effort. While we aren't casting a ton of spells per turn, if we have TellahTellah and one of these out, we can easily get two to four tokens a turn, which is excellent for gumming up the board. In particular, Shark TyphoonShark Typhoon is perfect here, as you can cycle it when you need to, or once you land it, it can scale with the size of the spells you cast, much like the already-included Metallurgic SummoningsMetallurgic Summonings.

Going along with all of these little 1/1s is the perfect way to use them: SkullclampSkullclamp. Look, I know our commander already draws us cards, but you can never have too much card advantage. There's no reason not to have a way to turn our little Heroes and friends into value.

A class of cards I did not include (mainly due to space) were pinging effects when creatures entered.

• Impact TremorsImpact Tremors
• Purphoros, God of the ForgePurphoros, God of the Forge
• Witty RoastmasterWitty Roastmaster
• Molten GatekeeperMolten Gatekeeper
• Agate InstigatorAgate Instigator

All these cards would be perfect were you to focus on a slightly lower to the ground token-focused build, but I opted to forgo that for some spicy tech I'll talk about later. I just wanted to be sure to mention these as they can be potentially potent includes.

The last two cards weren't necessarily token-related cards, but they were found here in the theme, so I wanted to be sure to shout them out.

Midnight ClockMidnight Clock is a popular mana rock that can draw us a handful of cards after a few turns. This is here as an early-to-midgame bump in mana, with the addition of card draw later on. It's basically everything we want.

Lastly, City on FireCity on Fire is a powerhouse. It can be convoked out with all of our tokens, it's an eight MV spell to trigger TellahTellah, it turns all of our tokens into (basically) 3/1s, and if it's out before TellahTellah, it will triple all of his damage as well. It just seemed like an absolute slam dunk!

That got me thinking though. While it's nice to use EDHREC for some ideas, we might want to do a bit of digging elsewhere and see what cards we can find that have a higher MV, but have ways to reduce their costs...

Spells on Layaway

So like any good Magic player, when I'm not using EDHREC, I'm using Scryfall!

I plugged in a couple search queries: "delve," "convoke," "cost less to cast," "rather than pay this spell's mana cost," things like that to see what I could find. While these won’t trigger TellahTellah if you cast them for free, I like the flexibility of having spells that will trigger our commander if we pay full cost, or have the out of playing them for free or cheap.

What I came up with were 18 cards that had MV four or more that fit what TellahTellah wants to be doing. While in the end, I only chose four, I wanted to be sure to shout out all the others that didn't make the cut:

While fun and powerful, I just couldn't fit all of these into the deck. The competition was fierce, and I am very happy with the four I ended up choosing to include into the deck.

The first two up are ways to protect TellahTellah the turn he comes down. Both FoilFoil and MisdirectionMisdirection will trigger Tellah's first two abilities if you full-on cast them, but if not, you’ve made sure your commander has stuck around. Excellent!

Next is another potentially free spell: PyrokinesisPyrokinesis. This is excellent for picking off smaller dorks, or just firing off at a creature with four toughness. It's perfect for this style of deck, where interaction is wanted, but you don't want to necessarily play things as small as Lightning BoltLightning Bolt.

Finally, This Town Ain't Big EnoughThis Town Ain't Big Enough is another way to have a discounted five-MV spell. While it can be a double bounce for your opponents' creatures should you want to pay the full five as well as trigger TellahTellah twice, if you want to simply bounce him and an opponent’s creature back to their respective owner’s hands to dodge removal, this is awesome. Great for netting you cards, board presence, and tempo!

Tella, Great Sage Commander Deck List

And there we have it: a really fun take on one of the most flavorful cards in the set!

This deck was a real blast to put together, no pun intended. Spells decks are some of my favorite to build, especially when they involve tokens, drawing cards, and blowing Wizards up. In particular, the digging deep for cards with alternate casting costs on Scryfall was incredibly fun to do. Piecing together the best spells for the job felt like a puzzle and was really rewarding once I figured out which ones I wanted.

What about you though? Would you have added different "free" spells? Were there any obvious ones I missed? What did you think of the deck as a whole? Make sure to let me know down in the comments below!

You can reach me on Twitter and Bluesky (@thejesguy), where you can always hit me up for Magic- or Jeskai-related shenanigans 24/7. Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Please don’t hesitate to leave them below or get in touch!

Stay safe, wash your hands, and keep fighting the good fight. Stay safe in these wild times. I support you. No justice, no peace.