Posted in: Card Games, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: commander, deck tech, EDH, magic, MTG, MTGAFC, MTGAFR, WotC

Magic: The Gathering "Prosper, Tome-Bound" Commander Deck Tech

Hello and welcome, players, collectors, and fans of Magic: The Gathering, the premier trading card game by Wizards of the Coast! With the prerelease of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Magic's next set, upon the horizon, Wizards is releasing four new decks for the Commander format to coincide with this set, based on their other big game, Dungeons & Dragons! As such, in anticipation of this release, we have for you today an abridged deck tech based on our pick of the lot, Prosper, Tome-Bound.

The way that Prosper works is that at the end of each of your turns, you exile the top card of your library, which you can then cast until the end of your next turn. Furthermore, whenever you play a land from exile or cast a spell from exile, you create a single-use, mana-producing Treasure token. This does not solely apply to the cards you exile with Prosper, however. As a result of this realization, this deck is effectively a spellslinger deck that works through exiling cards through various means to cast later on. These means include "impulsive" draw, spells that steal from opponents' resources, and spells with suspend, rebound, madness, adventure, cascade, and foretell. As you can see from the keyword soup, above, there are a ton of ways to make Prosper make you, well, prosper.

You can find the deck list for the deck we are to go over on TappedOut by clicking here. Without further ado, let's look at some of the more important cards for this deck's victory strategy.

Spellslinger Strategies

The key means to keep the opposition on their toes is by churning out spell after spell with this deck, making things hard to manage for opponents until you defeat them with some win condition or another. One of the all-star cards that can capitalize on all of this is Chandra, Torch of Defiance.

Not only can Chandra produce mana and exile cards to cast, but her emblem can be used to deal massive amounts of damage to targets. This includes players, and since player removal is the best kind of removal, this is the kind of card that wins games.

Treasure Token Synergies

As one could likely surmise, this deck is not all about slinging spells. Another key aspect of this deck is the generation of Treasure tokens for mana. However, Treasures aren't always just for the sake of making mana, due to the synergies available by way of them being artifacts that can self-sacrifice. What card really likes artifacts being destroyed or sacrificed? Marionette Master, that's the one.

Like the aforementioned version of Chandra, Marionette Master is a card from the artifact-centric expansion set Kaladesh from 2016. Similar to Disciple of the Vault, another card in the deck, Marionette Master loves to see artifacts get removed from the table and hit the graveyard. However, even though it's only going to look at your own artifacts, it will typically deal far more life loss to opponents due to how it is worded as well as its fabricate ability. Ten Treasure tokens and a single opponent at 40 life will soon typically give way to zero Treasure tokens, a dead opponent at 0 life, and a won game besides. Revel In Riches be damned (although that's also in here)!

The Looming Eldritch Storm

Hardly any of the decks we tech here are complete without at least one game-ending infinite combo. Obviously if you wish to emulate this deck you can choose to omit this combo but it is quite good for breaking many different stale boardstates.

The combo utilizes the following cards:

• Prosper, Tome-Bound
• Ashnod's Altar
• Planar Void OR Flaying Tendrils OR Cry of the Carnarium
• Eternal Scourge
• Grapeshot OR Tendrils of Agony

This combo works as such: Have all permanents among the combo pieces in play as well as at least 3-5 mana available. Of that mana, at least one mana must be red if you have Grapeshot, or else two must be black if using Tendrils of Agony. Cast either Cry of the Carnarium or Flaying Tendrils if Planar Void is not in play, using additional mana from resources as needed. Sacrifice the Eternal Scourge to Ashnod's Altar, netting two generic mana. Cast Eternal Scourge, which has been exiled, using the mana produced by sacrificing it and one instance of the extra mana needed. Prosper makes a Treasure token. Sacrifice it to itself and the Scourge to the Altar for mana. Repeat casting Scourge with this mana until your storm count is high enough to lethally cast either Grapeshot or Tendrils of Agony on each opponent in order to win the game.

We have tested this deck in a few different Commander environments. This deck is much stronger against multiple opponents but also has very little difficulty in one-on-one play. The wins are explosive, but the losses if any are in grinding, prolonged games. If you try out this Magic: The Gathering deck, let us know what you think of it in the comments below!

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