(Red Death, Shipwrecker | Art by Jeremy Paillotin)

Crab Copy, Crab Copy...

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 Split Decision is the only two-mana spell that can either counter or copy a spell, but not both?)

As a long-time fan, I was expecting a lot of things from Fallout, but I've gotta admit: A Group Hug crab was not one of them.

For those not familiar with the deep lore, Red Death is a tiny Mirelurk (a mutant crab race usually known for being quite large and armored) with glowing red eyes. Rather than wrecking ships directly, as its name implies, it instead gets its name from being out among the reefs of Red Death Island and drawing ships into their doom when they come to investigate what the red glow is. I'm not sure if that flavorfully translates all that well to goad, but I get the link they were trying to make, and more importantly--Love the card.

Why? Well, because as an avid Group Hug player, what I see is a commander that fills almost every role that a Group Hug deck wants, all for two mana. To explain, as there is a lot of confusion out there when it comes to Group Hug, what Group Hug decks are trying to do is flood a table with resources that their deck is more equipped to utilize than decks who weren't planning to have 13 cards in hand and 17 mana available on turn four. That's a tricky needle to thread, as it's all too easy to end up playing kingmaker by giving other decks cards or mana and then not having the answers to the problems they put forth. As such, at their core, all successful Group Hug decks are in actuality, control decks.

So, why does that make Red Death a good Group Hug commander? Because the number one priority of a Group Hug deck is to not die to the resources you're throwing at the table. Red Death's goad ability accomplishes a huge amount of that, all on its own. Taking the biggest threat at the table and pointing it elsewhere goes a long way toward others taking the brunt of the punishment, even if you're only tapping Red Death once. The other thing a Group Hug deck needs, however, is also supplied by the same ability: Mana. With that in mind, we're not going to be happy simply tapping Red Death once.

Top 10 Izzet Creature Untap Effects

1. Dramatic Reversal
2. Thousand-Year Elixir
3. Staff of Domination
4. Patriar's Seal
5. Retreat to Coralhelm
6. Freed from the Real
7. Umbral Mantle
8. Intruder Alarm
9. Thornbite Staff
10. Sphinx of the Second Sun

There are a half-dozen half-combos on this list that you can peruse at your leisure, but suffice it to say, we shouldn't have any trouble finding ways to repeatedly untap our Izzet commander. So if we've accomplished that, then we're now at a table where we've assumedly goaded all the big creature threats to swing at our opponents while drowning ourselves in red mana and keeping our opponent's grips full. The obvious question, then, is what do we do with all of this mana to keep all those pesky non-creature cards our opponents are drawing from killing us? And how are we going to win the game, anyhow?

Top 10 Red "Copy an Instant or Sorcery" Spells

How about we try to solve both issues at once? Copy spells are a nice, neat package that should let us borrow our opponent's threats, removal, and card draw, while also providing an exponential aspect that should make it child's play to close out a game. There's just one more wrinkle.

While I love the signature look of superiority that casting a well-timed Narset's Reversal or a Sublime Epiphany brings, we do want to be able to cast them. With the mana Red Death is going to be flooding us with being all red, that means we're going to have to say goodbye to some of the double blue options that are going to be difficult to cast once we've thrown down three untappers for the turn.

As such, we're going to focus on all-red copy spells. With that, the only other thing to mention is that we're trying to copy our opponent's spells that we've flooded them with, so obviously to do so we're going to need to be casting these spells at instant speed, and we're going to need the spells in question to not specify that we can only copy a spell we control. With that, however, we should be on our way!

Criteria: Instants that are at least partially red that can copy an instant or sorcery you don't control on the stack. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Radiate

(3,749 Inclusions, 0% of 1,766,999 Decks)

While there are obviously some scenarios that result in Radiate being quite powerful, I've never been that high on it myself. Having to wait with mana open for an instant or sorcery to come along is hard enough, but then having to be sure that it can target permanents or players is just a scenario that might not actually ever come. You can of course make the situation happen yourself, but then you need even more mana than the five Radiate costs, and for what? A six mana, two-card, partial board wipe with Lightning Bolt? Thanks, I'll pass.

9. Fork

(8,521 Inclusions, 0% of 1,766,999 Decks)

Once mentioned in the same breath as cards like Sol Ring and Force of Will, these days, Fork is just another in a long line of two-mana spell copiers. It changing the spell to red could possibly have an effect on gameplay by maybe making a spell uncounterable by something like Red Elemental Blast, or getting around protection from another color, but that's niche enough that it's unlikely. What is more likely? That if you're building a deck that wants red copy spells, that this will be your third or fourth option, for no reason other than its a bit pricey, what with being on the Reserve List and all.

8. Display of Power

(9,755 Inclusions, 1% of 921,774 Decks)

You know what is even better than one copy spell on the stack, though? Half a dozen copy spells on the stack! Make no mistake, there will be times in your deck trying to make copies of the copies that you'll be unhappy with Display of Power's inability to be copied, but if you can manage to fill a stack with nonsense, there's really not a more powerful copy spell in the game right now.

7. Fury Storm

(12,172 Inclusions, 1% of 1,766,999 Decks)

If you're not looking to do all that legwork, however, then there's always Fury Storm. While four mana starts to get prohibitively expensive, Fury Storm makes up for it by only really being good in the late game anyhow, preferably with a commander that the entire table has been keeping off the table all game. If you do have a commander that the table can't help but constantly get rid of--say, a Crab that keeps goading everyone's threats every turn--then there's very few spells that don't make a big splash if you copy them three or four times.

6. Chef's Kiss

(15,942 Inclusions, 1% of 1,766,999 Decks)

While three is a lot more than two, two is twice that of one, is it not? Chef's Kiss puts that math to the test, letting you pay three mana to not only copy a spell like you could with the lower costed Fork, but to also gain control of the original spell. The only catch is, you don't get to pick what the spells get redirected to, they are selected at random from the pool of possible targets that you don't control. Does that mean you're going to be redirecting that Swords to Plowshares to a random token and a Llanowar Elves a fair amount of the time? Yes, absolutely. Is that added value and nonsense worth the extra cost? I certainly think so.

5. Wyll's Reversal

(22,463 Inclusions, 1% of 1,766,999 Decks)

Which is precisely why folks seem to like Wyll's Reversal. Easier to cast than Chef's Kiss, and you can choose the targets of the spells, no matter if you end up with one or two. What's strange is, I'm not the biggest fan of this randomness, whereas I'm head over heels for Chef's Kiss randomness. That probably just comes down to personal preference, however, and the mere fact that Wyll's Reversal is easier to cast and will ultimately end up with the target you want probably should give it the edge if you're not addicted to chaos for the sake of chaos.

4. Wild Ricochet

(23,890 Inclusions, 1% of 1,766,999 Decks)

Say what you want about Chef's Kiss and Wyll's Reversal, though, at least they have some character. I never thought I'd see the day that a copy spell would make me yawn, but here we are.

3. Expansion // Explosion

(27,315 Inclusions, 3% of 818,941 Decks)

The list is the list, but if I'm being personally honest, Expansion // Explosion is my favorite Fork. The hybrid mana makes the double pips a ton easier (and technically qualifies it for this list), the four mana caveat doesn't end up being all that relevant all that often, and in the late game when 30 mana spells are flying around, you can just pop Explosion for 26 and take someone out of the game. What's not to like?

2. Reiterate

(29,541 Inclusions, 2% of 1,766,999 Decks)

If you are looking to skip all the copy math and just go infinite, however, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better way to do it than Reiterate. In fact, a ton of people could probably do it accidentally in decks they have right now, given how many two-card combos this thing has with random rituals.

1. Reverberate

(56,747 Inclusions, 3% of 1,766,999 Decks)

Now, technically, is Fork better than Reverberate? Probably, but the difference is so negligible that it's doubtful that anyone will notice. In short, if you don't want to pay reserve list prices, and you need to copy spells in cheap fashion, your best option is probably just Reverberate. Unless, of course, you haven't tied yourself to some weird Group Hug Crab that makes red mana, in which case, there's probably some blue options that warrant consideration.

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Honorable Mentions

Speaking of which, we should probably cover those blue options to make sure we haven't missed anything that's really worth doing, shouldn't we?

Top 10 Blue Copy Spell Spells

1. Narset's Reversal
2. Sublime Epiphany
3. See Double
4. Twincast
5. Insidious Will
6. Split Decision
7. Refuse // Cooperate
8. Psychic Rebuttal
9. ...

That's right, shockingly, there are actually more red copy spells than there are blue ones. Color pie-wise, if you think about it, it actually makes some sense. A blue mage would be much more likely to just counter a spell outright than engage in the nonsense that copying things can result in. That way lies madness and uncertainty. You know, red mage stuff.

With that said, it's not like red knocked blue out of the water, either. Radiate was exactly the tenth card that met our criteria, as Wizards has understandably not actually made that many of these copy effects that are known to cause confusion and chaos. Still, there are a ton of these copy effects on permanents as well, so we should at least mention the ones that we think will make the cut.

Dualcaster Mage is it's own combo central, but really the reason we're a fan here is that as I mentioned, there aren't actually that many red copy effects. When it comes to most copy effects on permanents, however, what we're looking for is a copy every time we cast something. Arcane Bombardment does that one better, doubling up on Thousand-Year Storm by making a copy of every spell that has been cast before it. While it still only happens once a turn, that adds up quickly when we're talking instants, and becomes almost automatically game-ending when you get a copy spell in the mix. If you'd rather have the nonsense without the game-ending goodness, however, then might I suggest Hive Mind? Sure, it might not actually be good, but we're playing Group Hug here!

Speaking of, let's take a look at that decklist, shall we?

The deck feels powerful in exactly the kind of nonsensical way you'd hope for. Having a goading Fire Diamond as a commander feels very strong, especially since you'll often have some kind of untapping shenanigans come down the turn after you play Red Death and immediately get to work. Even better, untappers that cost a mana get refunded with a red mana when you untap Red Death, making them both free and filtering for red. In short, if we were actually doing something good with all of this synergy, we'd be scary. As it is, however, the deck loves to simply sit back, goad the entire table, and keep mana open for when someone tries to do something about it. It won't be able to actually stop it, mind you. But it will make it not go entirely according to plan (or steal the opponent's plan outright), which will hopefully be good enough!

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Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

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What Do You Think?

I've called this deck Group Hug on several occasions now, but if I'm being honest, I'm not sure if it actually is. Red Death's card draw for opponents does read as Group Hug, but then it's stapled to a goad ability, which has never felt very Group Hug to me, despite being a form of aggressive pillow fort. So I guess what I'm asking is, can instigating a pillow fight among the local populace really count as Group Hug?

And finally, what is your favorite red copy spell? Your favorite thing you've gotten to copy with it? Does Red Death excite you, or is it just another "bad" card that you wish folks would stop bringing to the table to annoy you?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the red glowing table just on the other side of the reef.

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