(Alania, Divergent Storm | Art by Joshua Raphael)

(Double) The Unexpected Variable

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 Valley Floodcaller is the only Otter you can cast at flash speed that will make your Otters bigger?)

Oh yay, another boring Izzet Spellslinger commander.

Wait a minute, though... Couldn't we do all this nonsense during someone else's turn? Like, maybe during their combat step?

Top 10 Izzet Combat Tricks

Alania cares about Otters. And make no mistake, there are some cool Otters you can copy.

Top 10 Izzet Otters

1. Frolicking Familiar
2. Bria, Riptide Rogue
3. Coruscation Mage
4. Stormcatch Mentor
5. Valley Floodcaller
6. Kitsa, Otterball Elite
7. Stormsplitter
8. Alania, Divergent Storm
9. Kindlespark Duo
10. Thundertrap Trainer

There is no question, however, that Otters have a type, and that that type is Prowess. In other words, what Alania brings to the table is essentially, a win condition. You cast a lot of spells, you copy a lot of spells, and the Otters swing in for a bunch of damage. If you were looking to accelerate that win condition, however, then why not make the spells you cast also allied with that goal?

A combat trick is, for all intents and purposes, a spell that you cast to make a "decided" combat go in an undecided direction. While they're not seen all that often in Commander, combat tricks are the lifeblood of Limited play. Green players have been casting Giant Growth variants to mess with combat math since the inception of the game, and there are similar effects in every color.

Simply copying a Brute Force during an opponent's combat doesn't seem like quite enough, however. Don't get me wrong, if things line up well, you could be dealing someone an extra six damage, or removing a couple of creatures from the Archenemy's board. If we could do that, plus another effect, however, then we'd really be looking at something that was worth giving an opponent a card over.

Criteria: Red or blue instants that can give creatures you don't control more power, and also have another simultaneous effect. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

Why creature's you don't control? Because we want to be copying spells during every player's turn, meaning our own creatures aren't always going to be the intended targets of our combat nonsense. So, ready to take a look at what havoc we can cause? Let's get to it!

10. Balduvian Rage

(7,866 Inclusions, 0% of 2,129,974 Decks)

When coming up with this list, I was half tempted to put in a restriction to only consider more expensive spells that would have a greater impact when copied. Ultimately, however, we need both for Alania to work: Cheap instants that will trigger Prowess and the like while molding combat to our benefit, and huge windmill slam instants that can win us the game.

At first, I thought that Balduvian Rage could be both. But for one word, it probably could be. Unfortunately, Balduvian Rage says "attacking creature" on it. That little caveat right there? It completely ruins this card for a Prowess deck. Sure, you can do it all at instant speed, with all of the instant rituals available, but what's much more likely that when you're having that turn where you go huge and try to win the game? That you have a combination of instants and sorceries put together, with mana that won't translate over to your combat step. This one is so close, and yet, so far.

9. Monstrous Rage

(8,701 Inclusions, 1% of 1,362,250 Decks)

Culminating in +3/+1 and trample in the moment, Monstrous Rage's real charm is that the Monster Role sticks around, making the creatures it targets a bit bigger and tramplier for the rest of their time on the battlefield. With Prowess Otters, the trample specifically is a bit of a game changer, allowing our huge river mammals to ignore the tiny little token blockers on the shore as they drain some life totals.

8. Run Amok

(8,802 Inclusions, 0% of 2,129,974 Decks)

All of which makes Run Amok feel a little underwhelming. The extra toughness over Monstrous Rage is nice, but probably isn't worth the extra mana in most cases. This is one that, for me, doesn't quite make the cut in a world where our other two-mana spells are going to be drawing us cards or making us Treasure.

7. Samut's Sprint

(9,422 Inclusions, 0% of 2,129,974 Decks)

You know what's a dead card on a big Storm turn? A Prowess Otter. You know what's not? A Prowess Otter on a big Storm turn, with haste. Samut's Sprint can make that happen, along with fixing your draws along the way, and that's nothing to sneer at with some chip damage attached.

6. You Come to a River

(10,373 Inclusions, 0% of 2,148,508 Decks)

There are quite a few modal spells in the same vein as You Come to a River that didn't meet our criteria because of their lack of an extra benefit besides a power and toughness boost. No such issue with You Come to a River, however. +1/+0 and unblockable is more than serviceable at two mana, even if it's also available elsewhere at one. The ability to instead return two permanents with Alania isn't to be underestimated, however. Such is the power of modal spells.

5. Blazing Crescendo

(16,641 Inclusions, 1% of 1,830,219 Decks)

+3/+1 is respectable, but the real prize with Blazing Crescendo is the impulse draw tacked onto it. Exiling a card you can play until the end of your next turn is as close as it gets to card draw, and doing this twice will most likely result in some serious damage to an opponent or their board state, along with those two cards.

4. Sudden Breakthrough

(17,781 Inclusions, 1% of 2,129,974 Decks)

With that said, I don't think it gets any better than Sudden Breakthrough. +2/+0 and first strike is just a recipe for one-sided trades, and copying it for two Treasure tokens to make the whole thing "free" just feels too good not to do. Even better, however? It doesn't get any better than Sudden Breakthrough, but it does get as good in the form of what would have been our number eleven card, Ancestors' Aid.

3. Titan's Strength

(18,307 Inclusions, 1% of 2,129,974 Decks)

Probably the card that most folks familiar with Zada were thinking of when I started down this semi-similar rabbit hole, Titan's Strength is, in a word, efficient. +3/+1 for one mana isn't Giant Growth or Brute Force, but it will do just as well offensively, and tack Scry 1 onto the end. In multiples, that means looking at the top two for your next draw, and probably killing a creature or two. On an unblocked Prowess Otter, you're talking an extra seven damage for one mana in addition to the look at the top two. Beats the heck out of Lava Axe!

2. Shore Up

(23,548 Inclusions, 1% of 2,118,778 Decks)

Hexproof is obviously the main goal of Shore Up, but there's a lot of other added benefit here that goes ignored outside of Stella Lee decks. With our primary focus being combat tricks, however, I do want to note that there is a +1/+1 here in addition to an unexpected untap. That means you're freeing up a Prowess Otter to swing in on your turn, only to have it unexpectedly be able to block and be two bigger when someone decides to punish you for it. Pretty darn good, if you ask me.

With that said, even with the free card draw we'll be handing out, Alania is likely to get targeted as people slowly realize just how much damage they're taking via all this spell copying, so having the hexproof in your back pocket isn't a bad deal, either.

1. Fists of Flame

(36,710 Inclusions, 2% of 2,129,974 Decks)

Doing the math on Fists of Flame in multiples gets complicated fast, but don't worry: It's worth it. For a single copy on your turn, you're usually looking at +2/+0, as it counts the card you draw for the turn. When you start copying it, however, things get much better. You draw your card off of the copy that resolves first, giving the creature +2/+0, then draw another card and hand out another +3/+0 off of the second copy. Where this thing really shines, though? On that big turn where you haven't drawn one card before you cast it, you've drawn seven.

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Honorable Mentions

There is a subset of cards that we deftly sidestepped with this week's criteria, but I do want to circle back on them real quick.

The various red damage doublers are always high on the list when it comes to decks trying to do this kind of thing, and for good reason. I do have a caveat that the most popular of the lot, Temur Battle Rage, might not be your primary choice for Alania, as if you only have one creature, double strike doesn't stack. With that said, Unleash Fury does, although it doesn't have the trample rider that makes Temur Battle Rage so good. With all that said, in all likelihood you're playing all three of these spells, as the first two fit the strategy of being able to blow out opponents via other players attacking them, and the last is everything this deck wants in this world. Twinferno does have a "creature you control" rider, which is unfortunate, but more importantly is a modal spell that allows you to choose to copy your next spell instead of handing out double strike. We didn't talk about the "copy of the copy" shenanigans that any Alania will heavily feature, but suffice it to say that copying copy spells is very good, and something we'll be looking out for.

In fact, let's take another slight detour and just look at all the best "copy the next instant or sorcery" spells out there, as they have significantly less hoops to jump through than things like Fork do in regard to Alania.

Top 10 "Copy the Next Instant or Sorcery" Spells

1. Twinferno
2. Galvanic Iteration
3. Storm King's Thunder
4. Bonus Round
5. Repeated Reverberation
6. Teach by Example
7. Dual Strike
8. Complete the Circuit
9. Doublecast
10. Howl of the Horde

I think the primary challenge of Alania decks is going to be finding the right balance of copy spells, but the core of what you end up with should probably be taken from this list. Twinferno still takes the cake, as was expected. As for a number two? Bonus Round has serious upside and will probably be one of the main "you win the game" cards of this deck, alongside the so-far unmentioned Surge to Victory. The interesting one for those of you building Alania in a different fashion than combat tricks, though? Howl of the Horde will allow for you to do some insane things after swinging in with a random Otter copy, and has a reducible cost. Honestly, it's one of my favorite copy spells, so don't overlook it in your brew it actually works in!

As for my list? I'm pretty happy with it!

For having our goal be to win via combat, rather than Storm, this actually plays a ton like a Storm deck. Don't get me wrong, you'll absolutely get to do some fun shenanigans casting combat tricks on other people's creatures to your benefit, but when you manage to land Alania and untap? You do some nonsense things being able to copy an instant, a sorcery, and an Otter. Jeska's Will here is particularly backbreaking, usually resulting in double-digit mana and six new cards. That's just how you win games in Izzet, is what that is.

With that said, people will kill Alania at first opportunity, so I wouldn't go running her out without mana available. Get some use out of her, at the very least. If you can protect her, so much the better. If not, at least draw some cards and remove some things while you've got your free copies!

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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?

Spellslinger decks are some of the most contentious in Commander, due to their tendency to do a lot of things, a lot of the time without actually winning the game. With that in mind, it seems to me that Prowess should be more liked as a win-con in Izzet than it currently is?

[Comment]Editors, I'd like a poll here with the following options:[/Comment]

What are your thoughts on Prowess and Aggro in general as a Spellslinger win-con?

• Damage is damage, just please end the game or your turn already!
• It's too inconsistent/fragile. What happens when your 30/30 meets Doom Blade, or a Plant token?
• Meh, it's fine, I guess?

And finally, what are your favorite combat tricks? Do you use them in Commander?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table I installed a secret self-flipping switch on.