

Commander Johnny-Boosh Vol IV: December means Flicker

Greetings and Excelsior loyal and new readers! Welcome to Commander Johnny-Boosh, Numero Quatro! Today's article focuses on an up and coming Legend from the Commander 2013 set. Commander 2013 has already hit store shelves in the world of Paper Magic, but I have to salivate in anticipation of its release online until December 20th: just in time to grab a copy of Evasive Maneuvers from the MTGO client's store and promptly have to celebrate the winter holidays and yearn for Magic Online from afar, comforted solely by lactose-free yet Kraken rum spiked eggnog.

Commander 2013 has 51 new cards, but I am the most pumped about:

Here is a brief tutorial on flicker. Flickering, also known as Blinking in some Magic circles, is when you Exile a creature or permanent from the game and then return it to the field under it's owner's control-- either instantaneously, or at the end of the turn. Here are some Magic cards to further expound by example:

Sometimes, Flickering can be kind of sneaky, and may be deceptively disguised on a card-- but these cards are still quintessentially Flicker effect cards. Here's some examples:

Close Cousins of Flicker:

First off, Flickering's primary purpose is to exploit triggers. It's secondary purpose might be to save a creature for a Lightning Bolt or something, but let's all tell it straight and say we all love seeing a Myr Battlesphere and a Conjurer's Closet on our side of the battlefield. I really feel that there are not nearly enough Flicker choices for a deck based around such exploitation-- and when that's the case, we ring the supper bell and call the relatives.

Note: I don't have all these cards in the deck below; these are just examples.

Now then.

Why am I so pumped about Roon? Because he is the Commander that's been built as if WOTC knows what I've been longing for. See, I am a huge, huge, huge, huge (did I mention huge?) fan of Flickering. How big a fan of Flickering am I? Behold this article of yore, extolling Flicker effects' virtues. It is one of my favorite bits of synergy. I love to exploit "Enters the Battlefield" or "leaves the battlefield" triggers, and to get the full array of Flicker-effects, one must employ both White (Momentary Blink/Cloudshift) and Blue (Ghostly Flicker/Turn to Mist). Yet, some of the most fun I've had with Flickering, is flickering Green stuff (Eternal Witness/Avenger of Zendikar/etc). Until Roon, there was no viable WGU legend out there that's suited for taking the helm of a Flicker-deck in Commander, and so I only incorporated a smattering of Flicker effects, here and there, in Commander decks. But in December? In December I know exactly what I'm going to build.

Let's take a moment, collectively, to pour one out for Primeval Titan, currently banned in Commander. For a deck that utilizes tons of Magic's tricks to exploit Enters the Battlefield triggers, and has green, it is a poetic shame that we can't use the Magic creature with the greatest EtB trigger.

Here's my other regrets:



Rasputin Dreamweaver



Dream weaver I've just closed my eyes again

Climbed aboard the dream weaver train

Driver take away my worries of today

And leave tomorrow behind



Ooh dream weaver

I believe you can get me through the night

Ooh dream weaver

I believe we can reach the morning light Also : Some sort of Web designer / HTML / Adobe joke









Flickering & Cousins of Flickering

Creatures:

Roon of the Hidden Realm - repeated flicker.

Mistmeadow Witch - Even more repeatable flicker fun.

Galepowder Mage - Attacking = flicker.

Glimmerpoint Stag - You can flicker this flicker vessel for added flickering.

Flickerwisp - See the above tongue-tying.

Restoration Angel - Again.

Deadeye Navigator - Repeatable flicker for one creature. Yearns to be paired with Peregrine Drake for an abusive combo that will make a lot of folks concede.

Man-o'-War - Bouncing is what Tiggers do best. Waitaminute!, this ain't no tigger. Well apparently bouncing is what jellyfish do best. Bounce is flicker's cousin, but this creature can be flickered itself to repeatedly bounce an opponent's creature, making them quite irate.

Phyrexian Metamorph - Copy something! Copy its EtB trigger. Flicker it to copy something else!

Progenitor Mimic - Ditto-pants; plus it makes more versions of itself in token form, for more EtB fun. Kinda reminds me of:

Noncreature:

Momentary Blink - Yum, my favorite.

Liberate - Also good.

Otherworldly Journey - The counter really winds up being pointless.

Turn to Mist - Another yay.

Ghostly Flicker - allows you to pick a land or artifact as well. Plus double fun. If you chose to flicker Eternal Witness as one of your choices you can chose to bring back the Ghostly Flicker each time to make an abusive flicker combo.

Flicker - the grand poohba of original blinking.

Flickerform - repeatable.

Cloudshift - cheapest, also doesn't wait til end of turn, like Momentary Blink.

Erratic Portal - 1 mana to bounce something back to hand for another EtB abuse.

Conjurer's Closet - Free, repeatable flicker.

Voyager Staff - Specifically in this deck over other cards so it can interact with both Enlightened Tutor and Sun Titan.

Venser, the Sojourner - yum yum yum yum, my favorite planeswalker simply because he was built with flicker abilities.

Proteus Staff - underrated way of abusing EtB triggers.

Unsummon - Bounce = Flicker Cousin. Can be imprinted.

Into the Roil - Bounce = Flicker Cousin. Can be imprinted. Funny thing here, when you imprint, and pay two to cast, you can then chose to pay kicker for 2 as well. If you have 4 mana and this imprinted, every turn you get a bounce and a card-draw.

Aethermage's Touch - Roundabout fun that abuses EtB triggers.

Strionic Resonator - Instead of copying permanents, why not copy the trigger????

Enters-the-Battlefield Triggers

Creatures:

First off, some of the creatures above, like Glimmerpoint Stag and Man-o'-War for example, can be flickered or bounced as well. You may find it useful to Conjurer's Closet a Flickerwisp just to target a Ravnica-common-bounce-land just to be a jerk or whatnot.

Duplicant - Creature hoser. Commander staple.

Vedalken Plotter - sometimes your opponent has a kickbutt land, and you want to deal with it, but it would be so much cooler to have it on your side instead of in your opponent's graveyard. Sometimes you wanna trade your City of Brass for his Command Tower. Sometimes you want to activate Thawing Glaciers, trade it for your opponent's Maze of Ith, and then your glaciers goes back to your hand. You netted an extra land, your opponent lost one. Blink the plotter next time your glaciers are back in play and untapped. Pretty heinous.

Twilight Shepherd - Recursion.

Hornet Queen - 1/1 flying deathtouch tokens? I has 'em.

Farhaven Elf - Mana ramp.

Eternal Witness - Recursion of the highest caliber.

Acidic Slime - Destructo fun.

Reveillark - Recursion.

Progenitor Mimic - Copycat.

Phyrexian Metamorph - Copying fun for artifacts and creatures.

Sun Titan - Recursion.

Avenger of Zendikar - Lots of ever-growing plant tokens? I has 'em.

Woodfall Primus - Destructo fun.

Gilded Drake - Stealy hilarity! Pop him out, steal something, give him away. Blink it. Steal again, hilarious.

Mulldrifter - Card draw.

Prime Speaker Zegana - Card Draw.

Brutalizer Exarch - Creature tutor or hosing fun.

Karmic Guide - Recursion.

Solemn Simulacrum - Mana Ramp.

Lavinia of the Tenth - Shutdown fun.

Peregrine Drake - Pair with Deadeye Navigator, bounce or blink to get some extra land capabilities in a turn.

Angel of Finality - Hose them graveyards.

Noncreature

Flicker, Flickerwisp, Venser, the Sojourner, Ghostly Flicker, Glimmerpoint Stag -- all allow you to pick a permanent that's not just a creature,

Spine of Ish Sah - Pair it with Phyrexia's Core as well, or use one of the other ones to hose more permanents.

Halimar Depths - Top-3-back-in-any-order repeats.

Khalni Garden - Plant token repeats.

Temple of Mystery - Scry repeats.

Thawing Glaciers - You could always, if you wanted, activate the glaciers then target them with Venser's activation; yeah they come back into play tapped, but they don't bounce back to your hand.



Batman's Utility Belt

Sol Ring, Tithe - Mana ramping. Tithe allows you to imprint it on your scepter, and search for your basic plains, your shock-duals that contain the type plains, and your Mistveil Plains.

Spin into Myth, Bant Charm - put opposing commanders, or opposing pesky creatures, on the bottom of your opponent's library.

Noxious Revival, Reclaim, Praetor's Counsel - Recursion; the first two can be imprinted on Isochron.

Worldly Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor - In a combo heavy theme deck that relies on a mechanic that can be found on creatures, instants, sorceries, enchantments and artifacts-- in absence of black, I turn to these stalwart tutor staples that can also be applied, generously, to the Isochron Scepter, for repeated tutoring.

The one creature, that doesn't provide a flicker-effect, that you simply do not want to flicker. You want Champy Von Lamby to stay on your battlefield at all times. When you are blinking the ever-loving crap out of your creatures, the champion here keeps growing and growing, and growing. Eventually, your champion is going to be 15/15 or something crazy, and then unless your opponent has a field of 16/16 elves or something, they are not blocking any of your creatures.

Two other things you can abuse with flickering effects are Morph, and Theros' own Monstrous. You can put a morph creature face-down for 3, then cast a Cloudshift on it, and get a beefy creature out on the field, like an Akroma, Angel of Fury; this doesn't fit in with the EtB theme, so I didn't include any examples of this. Want to abuse Monstrous, get more than one use out of it? Flicker it after you make it Monstrous once, so you can remonsterize it. Hythonia the Cruel? Destroy all non-gorgons repeatedly.

There was a lot more I wanted to squeeze in this deck, but couldn't. Some of that? Batman's Utility Belt stuffs. Seems I couldn't get as much standard tech in here as I'd like, but the stuff you get to pull off with EtB triggers will make up for it. Instead of Path to Exile, you have a Mangara you can abuse. Instead of (Krosan's Grip), blink an Acidic Slime.

Flicker has been, and always will be, one of my favorite mechanics that doesn't have it's own ability word like Chroma or Indestructible or Landfall. I was excited to see how much they shoved this ability into blue in addition to white, in Innistrad, and I look forward to blinking my opponent's face off when Roon hits online.

As always, thanks from the bottom of my heart for your continued reading and support.

BOOSH!

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