(Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy | Art by Cristi Balanescu)

Gale-Force Winds

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Personal Tutor is the only one-mana sorcery that will search for a sorcery?)

Unlike the video game that has come out since, the set for Baldur's Gate went largely ignored in the Magic community. So, before we move on to Murders at Karlov Manor, let's take a second to look at an amazingly good commander from Baldur's Gate that... no one seems to know about.

Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy should be every cEDH player's dream. He's a cheap commander that comes down and can provide loads of card advantage, along with helping you storm off. The issue? Backgrounds kinda suck.

Out of the thirty different available Backgrounds, these two were the only ones I could find that might have a use-case in a high-powered game, outside of just providing an extra color. Still, both red and black are very good colors in cEDH, so let's see what they give us to work with. No matter what, we're going to be playing as much of a Spellslinging deck as this format allows, so let's focus on the instants that will make up the backbone of interaction and ramp that make any cEDH deck tick.

Top 10 Black cEDH Instants (per cEDH Analytics)

1. Vampiric Tutor
2. Tainted Pact
3. Dark Ritual
4. Demonic Consultation
5. Ad Nauseam
6. Cabal Ritual
7. Culling the Weak
8. Deadly Rollick
9. Entomb
10. Dismember

Unsurprisingly, there's a lot to work with here. Black is the color for Tutors, and there's a fair amount of Rituals as well. What really gets my cogs moving, however, is Entomb. For some reason, my brain had always read Entomb as putting a creature into the graveyard, but it doesn't discriminate. In other words, we can also put an instant or sorcery into our graveyard that we can then cast with Gale's ability. That's an area worth paying attention to, outside of the normal Dimir things we'll have going like "counter your thing, counter your thing, untap, Thassa's Oracle, Demonic Consultation with the trigger on the stack?"

Still, probably still worth taking a look at the red stuff, right?

Top 10 Red cEDH Instants (per cEDH Analytics)

1. Deflecting Swat
2. Red Elemental Blast
3. Final Fortune
4. Pyroblast
5. Lightning Bolt
6. Abrade
7. Tibalt's Trickery
8. Desperate Ritual
9. Pyretic Ritual
10. Delayed Blast Fireball

Black may be for Tutors, but red is for Rituals, which is nothing to scoff at when you can cast them twice back-to-back with Gale. Another thing that's interesting is that Red Elemental Blast and its cousin Pyroblast often get ignored in cEDH decks playing blue, as they're considered subpar Counterspells. With Gale, however, their ability to remove blue permanents when there aren't spells on the stack is going to be absolutely crushing as we remove various fish and taxes for free, more or less. What we're looking at in red, then, is an immense amount of speed and value, with probably the better disruption package of the two decks.

But, we already knew all this. cEDH is built on instant speed, and it's a known quantity. You could essentially build a Dimir or Izzet deck with your eyes closed, except the obvious question would be "why not combine them into Grixis to have it all?"

So why not take a look at what's going to be different about a cEDH Gale deck, rather than rehashing what's the same?

Top 10 Red and Black cEDH Sorceries

I'm still not sure which way I'm leaning, between Izzet and Dimir. With the added ramp of red, there are serious Storm possibilities, but how is that going to match up with the consistency of black? The difference, I think, is going to be in the sorceries. If we want to reuse all of those yummy instants that will be the meat of the deck, it's going to mean playing an almost equal complement of sorceries, something that is more or less unheard of in cEDH. Still, it's not like it's a completely ignored card type. What's good out there?

Criteria: Black and red sorceries. Breaking tradition, results are ordered by the "occurrences" score on the Metagame Cards section of cEDH Analytics, instead of by EDHREC score.

10. Peer into the Abyss OR Infernal Plunge

(Peer: 277 Occurrences, Plunge: 155)

Peer into the Abyss is a powerful spell, with the general resolution of it generally meaning either an opponent is dead (lookin' at you, Sheoldred), or you're going to outright win the game as you draw enough cards to play down fast mana and a win condition. Alternatively, Infernal Plunge doesn't cost seven mana, but helps you get to the point that you could have access to that amount.

If I'm being honest, however, for this deck, I'm not super enthused about either. With the emphasis we're going to have on spells, it's extremely likely that we won't have enough creatures available to reliably cast Infernal Plunge. As for Peer into the Abyss, drawing half of your deck to win the game only works if you have access to enough fast mana to play out your win conditions from there, and in Dimir it feels like there's just not enough fast mana to reliably do so. Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather play the long game with Necropotence and try to control my way to victory over time.

9. Grim Tutor OR Warrior's Oath

(Grim: 294 Occurrences, Oath: 206)

Even in my attempts to play Keruga in cEDH, I've never been much of a fan of Grim Tutor. Three mana is just a lot, especially with two black pips, so if I have any cheaper options for Tutors (which you just do in black), I usually go that route. As for Warrior's Oath, I'm a huge fan of all of the Last Chances, just... not for Gale. With the "you lose the game" rider, you only get one shot at an extra turn no matter how many times you cast it.

What Warrior's Oath does get me excited about, however, is repeatedly taking extra turns in blue.

While Time Warp feels a little risky in a format where Deflecting Swat gets thrown around on the regular, luckily there are two other five-mana Time Walks that don't target in Temporal Manipulation and Capture of Jingzhou. Even better, with Gale we can cast each copy twice, giving us a situation where if we can cast the first extra turn spell, we're likely to have enough resources to find the second one and take four turns before the rest of the table gets to go again. Even if we don't find a win-con in that time period (which seems unlikely), then we'll almost certainly have accrued more than enough resources to out-control the table.

8. Yawgmoth's Will OR Last Chance

(Yawgmoth's Will: 370 Occurrences, Chance: 238)

We've more or less covered Last Chance, which also has the "you lose the game" rider that keeps us from taking multiple extra turns. The same is true for Yawgmoth's Will, but for different reasons: Will exiles itself as part of its own effect ("If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead"). The difference? Yawgmoth's Will probably just wins you the game in a deck that is going to be this dedicated to filling the graveyard.

The real choice, then? With either version absolutely playing Brain Freeze, is it better to be playing Yawgmoth's Will with all the Tutors to win the game once you've resolved it, or to be in Izzet for Underworld Breach?

7. Beseech the Mirror OR Wheel of Misfortune

(Beseech: 370 Occurrences, Misfortune: 271)

The main question as to whether or not we're going to love Beseech the Mirror is whether or not we're going to be able to play enough artifacts, enchantments, or tokens to use its Bargain ability. As previously covered with Grim Tutor, we have more than enough cheap options for Tutors in black, so if we can't routinely meet our Kicker cost to immediately cast the spell, then we're better off not playing Beseech at all.

As for Wheel of Misfortune, this once again brings us to the question of whether it's better to be playing the more resilient win-con of Underworld Breach or the Tutors that allow us to go find answers in real time (or simply win on the spot with a Thoracle-Consult). I'm not sure we know the answer quite yet, but I'd bet the question is going to come up again.

6. Reanimate OR Twinflame

(Reanimate: 655 Occurrences, Twinflame: 327)

Or maybe we've solved it? Twinflame is just not a win-con we're interested in at all with Gale, but Reanimate is extremely interesting.

As previously stated, we're guaranteed to be playing Entomb, as it will get relevant spells in the graveyard for us to recast with Gale, which means a small Reanimator package is no sweat at all. What really has me excited about Reanimate, however? Gale's ability to play it at instant speed.

To say nothing of who useful it is to be able to win the game at instant speed with a timely Thassa's Oracle out of the graveyard, Reanimate at instant speed can also provide Hullbreaker Horror shenanigans that no one is expecting, or have you draw half of your deck in response to a Wheel with Consecrated Sphinx. Put simply, surprise Reanimator is a game-changer.

5. Praetor's Grasp OR Shatterskull Smashing

(Grasp: 702 Occurrences, Smashing: 350)

Some might be dismissing Shatterskull Smashing out of hand here, but remember that Gale is a spell-focused commander. That means that if we have enough lands, Shatterskull Smashing could absolutely be a way to recast a crucial instant out of our graveyard. Combine that with Tutors like Mystical Tutor or Personal Tutor that couldn't go find a land usually, but can go find a sorcery, and it's plain to see that Shatterskull Smashing will have a land slot here, no problem.

So why isn't that a point for the Izzet deck? Well, because Agadeem's Awakening exists, too, and is a means to get our win-con out of the graveyard if it gets stuck there. Combine that with Praetor's Grasp probably being able to pull an Underworld Breach out of the average table (both for us to use with our Brain Freeze and also to keep the player we target with it away from their win-con), and it's looking more and more like Dimir is the way to go here.

4. Toxic Deluge OR Jeska's Will

(Deluge: 830 Occurrences, Jeska's Will: 871)

Ah, there's the fight from Izzet! Jeska's Will is a silly card that probably should've never been printed, and even though spells cast from it won't be able to use our commander's "from your hand" ability, it's still a ritual and card draw together. That kind of efficiency is hard to beat.

With that said, Toxic Deluge is no slouch, either, and with us having a Reanimator package in the Dimir deck, it will often wipe away a whole table's worth of problem creatures, leaving behind a Consecrated Sphinx to keep on drawing cards and swinging in for damage. While this particular battle goes to Jeska's Will, let's not forget how strong black has been throughout this list.

3. Diabolic Intent OR Wheel of Fortune

(Intent: 1,398 Occurrences, Wheel: 1,207)

Here, however, we definitely have another win for the Izzet deck. Don't get me wrong, Diabolic Intent is a fine Tutor, but as we already stated when talking about Infernal Plunge, as a spells deck we're going to be a little light on creatures. And I can tell you from experience, there is no worse feeling than having a Tutor in your hand that could fix all your problems, with no way to cast it.

You know what's a good feeling, though? Having a full grip. That's exactly what Wheel of Fortune does, and with us playing the role of control deck, it's likely that we'll have enough answers in those seven cards after casting it that we'll be able to keep the table from automatically winning with their new grips. With that said, playing a Wheel is always a risk, so use it with caution. There's a reason it's here at the top of the list, but being "pretty sure" you can stop a table from winning outright with their 21 new cards is not the same thing as being all the way sure.

2. Imperial Seal OR Rite of Flame

(Seal: 2,023 Occurrences, Rite: 1,272)

After taking a few hits, the Dimir deck finishes out strong with a one-mana Tutor that can go get any card in your deck. That goes up against Rite of Flame, a ritual that is great at what it does, but is hard not to compare to the original, which also just so happens to be in black. By the way, did you know that's one of the things you can Tutor for or replay from your graveyard with Imperial Seal? The value!

1. Demonic Tutor OR Gamble

(Demonic Tutor: 2,460 Occurrences, Gamble: 1,868)

Even non-cEDH players probably could have named these two as the best sorceries in their respective colors, and more or less for the same reason: They go and get your best card, no questions asked. Well, Demonic Tutor does, anyway. Still, with our ability to play spells out of the graveyard with Gale, it's hard to call Gamble's discard a drawback. Still, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seen an Underworld Breach get randomly selected out of a full hand on more than one occasion, and with no real way to get it back in Izzet, that's a tough pill to swallow.

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Honorable Mentions

I think it's pretty clear, then: Dimir is the way to go. What we don't know is whether or not Gale actually lives up to a cEDH billing. That's a tough hill to climb, but I still don't see it as a reason not to try. Let's take a look at the decklist.

Having built a ton of these wanna-be cEDH brews now, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this is the most difficult one to pilot that I've ever encountered. There are so many things you need to have knowledge of in the deck, so many decision points, and so many ways to forget one small thing that can be the difference between victory and ending up with two lands and no options in hand. What I can say, however, is that the "Control" portion of this deck name is not a misnomer. I've had far more success in the games where I've Tutored up Mana Drain on turn one than I have in games where I've tried to go for a combo win early. The deck wants to get a source of card draw down, and pick its targets carefully to maintain supremacy over the table, until it is absolutely sure that it can get multiple extra turns or an easy Thoracle win.

With that said, I did wonder if we couldn't storm this thing out a little bit less complexly, and it turns out, you can!

I didn't playtest this version as much as the Dimir Reanimator brew, but I can tell you that it is much more straightforward. What it isn't is nearly as adaptable. Where the black version feels like you can always find an answer to any situation if you can just figure out the puzzle of how to get there, the red version feels faster, but much more interruptible. It also seems to spin its wheels into a loss more often, where the black deck can always draw enough cards to eventually get there.

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What Do You Think?

I've said before that control feels a bit like the forgotten archetype of Commander, and working on these decks I felt that more than ever. There's no question that it's a difficult hill to climb, getting enough card draw and mana to keep up with the threats of three players, but that doesn't mean it's insurmountable.

Or does it?

And finally, what is your favorite high-powered sorcery? Have you brewed Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy? If so, which Background and color did you choose, and what power level did you build it for?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table in the graveyard. It's a little macabre out here, but nobody bugs us.

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