The new red-blue Commander deck is looking pretty awesome, with a unique take on a familiar strategy. If you want to learn more about it, you’ve come to the right place. We’re diving deep into Prismari Artistry, one of the five Secrets of Strixhaven precons.
First, we’ll take a look at the decks theme, then we’ll check the full decklist and new cards. At the end, you’ll also discover a few early upgrade ideas.
Unleash Expensive and Potent Sorceries
Blue-red color combination is very well known for casting instant and sorceries. Thus it’s not to surprising to see this game plan return. However, there is a major twist to it.
Most such decks reward you for casting lots of cheap spells. That’s not the case here. You’ll want to go big by casting sorceries with high mana value (and subsequently powerful effects). Expensive instants also work, but you’ll want to cast them in your first main phase most of the time.
Why? Because your commander will reward you for doing so. Speaking of which, let’s check the decklist and the new cards.
Prismari Artistry Decklist
Quick note: the new cards’ images might not be working yet. Nevertheless, you can find them in the following section.
Prismari Artistry Spoilers
There’s a total of 12 new cards in Prismari Artistry precon. Two of them are your main and secondary commander, while the other 10 are useful cards in the 99.
Rootha, Mastering the Moment
Rootha is pretty straightforward as a precon commander. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a good card, or that it doesn’t provide a good deck building challenge, though. It can certainly reward you if you build around her.
You’ll want to cast an expensive instant or sorcery in your first main phase. That will also result in an X/X Elemental token with flying and haste. (X being the greatest mana value among the instants and sorceries you’ve cast that turn.)
On its face that’s pretty neat, but if you want to really break the card, you’ll need to lean heavily into the synergies. The original decklist already does a good job of doing so, but there’s still room for further upgrades. (You could, for example, add some extra combat steps in the 99.)
Other New Cards
Prismari Artistry Upgrade Ideas
Before we wrap up, here are three quick upgrade suggestions. These cards could spike in price, if a lot of players find them useful. Thus, you might want to pick them soon, particularly if they seem fun to you.
Full Throttle
Extra combats can be useful if you have lots of attackers, and at least one of your opponents doesn’t have good blocks.
But when you pair such effect with Rootha, you unlock a ton of extra value. Let’s say, you’ve cast Full Throttle in your first main step.
When your first combat phase begins, you get a 6/6 flying Elemental with haste from Rootha. You attack with it, then you get an additional combat phase, untap the token and get another one. You can now attack with two of them, and then repeat this with three tokens in the last extra combat.
So in total you’ll create three 6/6 Elementals and attack for 36 damage. That’s without accounting for other creatures you might control. Pretty neat for just six mana, right?
Call Forth the Tempest
This sorcery is quite expensive, but it does a ton of work. (Plus, you’re already in the market for expensive sorceries, anyways.) Thanks to cascade, you’re drawing and casting two spells and likely wiping out your opponents’ board. On top of that, You’ll also get an 8/8 Elemental, if you also control Rootha.
In a deck that wants to play powerful sorceries that cost a lot of mana, this is one that you don’t want to miss.
Quantum Misalignment
Here’s a card from Doctor Who Commander precons, that’s a really neat way to get an additional copy of your commander in play.
If you’re targeting Rootha, you’ll end up with two of them, each popping out a 5/5 token. You’re kinda getting 13/14 stats across three bodies, with potential for even more impact on your next turn. (Thanks to rebound.)
The card already sees play in some blue decks, but given that it actually offers additional synergies in this shell, makes it an awesome addition.
If you’re looking for more upgrade ideas, read our Prismari Artistry Upgrade Guide.
What’s the Flashiest Play You Can Make?
Do you know another card that would enable an epic play with Rootha, Mastering the Moment? Let us and our readers know in the comments below.
If you like the flashiness Rootha enables, you can pick up a Prismari Artistry deck on Amazon. This way you’ll lock-in that preorder price and avoid potential spikes.
Furthermore, all five decks are also available for preorder. Usually, these are somewhat balanced to play against one another, so you can use them as a self-contained Commander game. No need to worry that someone brought a too powerful deck.
In case you want more information about these decks, feel free to read our article about Secrets of Strixhaven Commander precons.
Until next time, have fun and may you always have enough mana to unleash your strongest spells.