MTG Salvation

I used to play Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and Mayael the Anima as my two other generals. Needless to say, Niv got boring, and Mayael never really excited me too much either. I liked playing Karador, Ghost Chieftain (who was Teneb, the Harvester at the time) because he had no seriously linear strategy, and could adapt on the fly. The same could not be any less true for my other two generals, so I scrapped them both and thought long and hard about what I wanted to do.

My first thought (once Commander had come out) was Damia, Sage of Stone. I thought, 'Wow, that's some insane card advantage. Maybe I could use her and build a REAL man's control deck!' Even though I had the best colors in the format, I just couldn't build a solid deck list, and it never was able to put the icing on the cake in terms of winning games. Back to the drawing board again.

In my quest to build Damia, I needed a Garruk Wildspeaker, so I snagged Mirror Mastery. From that moment forward, I found the general I actually wanted to build around: Riku of Two Reflections. It has a general with an awesome ability that's easy to build around, yet still survives without him at the helm. The man is an absolute blast to play, and after some initial tweaks, I found the way I wanted to go with him. So here's my list, with each card listed with its converted mana cost, and I hope you enjoy Riku's Mirror Gallery:



Comments and suggestions are welcome and encouraged. There are some cards I won't be able to acquire (duals, etc.), or refuse to pay an absurd price for (I'm looking at you Chaos Warp), but other than that I am willing to look into most things. I look forward to the feedback you guys will give me.

O-Kay then, finally got some time to check this out for ya. Sorry for the delay.

Looks a little like my list when I first started out. A lot of cute interactions but some stuff is just a little more inefficient than I realized. I may slaughter a few sacred cows here but here goes:

Potential Cuts:
Comet Storm- The big X spells are actually not automatically good with Riku because you'll have to weaken them to be able to copy them. That is to say, they're only useful when you have a metric ton of mana. Genesis Wave was always a tough one for me because I never wanted to cast it for X<6. So I needed 9 mana just to cast it and another two to copy it. Or I could wave for X>=8 . I just don't think this does enough damage for the mana I guess. I do like that it's an instant and it can give you that 10 life swing to win. If you just want good removal, consider Aftershock. Chaos Warp is obviously a budget issue but if you can snag one, it's the best choice here. And if you want a sweeper, Try Molten Disaster or Evacuation. For a get-out-of-jail free card, try Pact of Negation.

Restock/Praetor's Counsel- I don't think you need both of these. I think Praetor's Counsel would be the one to go due to its mana cost and its anti-synergy with Riku. I would suggest Sphinx of Uthuun or Chancellor of the Spires here on the high end or Regrowth on the low end.

Seedborn Muse/Crystal Shard- When you aren't playing a control deck with tons of things to do on other players' turns, I just don't think she does that much for you. Not to mention she conflicts with Riku's mana cost. I will not deny how powerful she can be if you've got a full grip and Riku is on the board, but I feel like the best thing she is going to do for you is eat removal. Or worse, get stolen. I do like that you went with Crystal Shard with her because that two-card combo is pretty backbreaking with all the ETB creatures available. If you do cut her, you can take Crystal Shard with her. If not, then I'm sure she's fine. Another great card with Crystal Shard is Sneak Attack, but of course budget's going to be an issue there (just like it is for me). A suitable replacement for the Muse would be Time Warp, a card that is always good, can't eat removal, goes infinite with Shard and Eternal Witness, and absolutely loves to be copied. I do see Time Stretch in the list already but having more than one of those effects isn't really a bad thing :). And if you really intend to keep her and the shard, consider Mystic Snake as a table-lock with the other two of them. Two of those three pieces are extremely easy to tutor up for here. I guess I don't really know what I'm saying here other than I'm not sure she's really that special for this deck.

Solemn Simulacrum- I think you have enough creature-based ramp without this guy. I know he's mostly an autoinclude but I cut him and I haven't really missed him. Green is so good at ramping already and mostly your gameplan is going to be survival for Primeval Titan, which will somewhat obsolete this guy's use. I do like the cost though as it's at the perfect post-Riku copy target. I think you should replace him with Body Double, an all-around all star that has extra synergy with Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman. Like this: T4 EOT pitch Terastodon for Body Double, T5 LOLephants destroy your manabase go

Garruk Wildspeaker- Funny that he's the reason you even started the deck in the first place and yet he's certainly cuttable. Planeswalkers in FFA formats (like Commander) are just fog+small effect most of the time since the table will just attack him. You are already playing PLENTY of ramp spells and creatures and Riku really doesn't care about the beast token or overrun effects. So on the whole he's really anti-synergistic with the deck's gameplan. He can't be copied, he's worse in multiplayer, and the only thing he does that is good with Riku (+1) is easily covered by the rest of your deck. I say you sit him for this one and replace him with Phyrexian Metamorph, who is just an absolute all-star. He really should need no defense and you really should find a spot for him- it almost doesn't matter what you cut. His low cost goes great with Riku as you can imagine.

Reliquary Tower/Temple of the False God- Color fixing is going to be a big deal for you, especially since you aren't ramping with Duals. That means your colorless lands have to REALLY pull their weight. 7 cards should always be enough for you and you can always recur things if you like. The max hand size is also a neat discard outlet for guys like Genesis. If you have any sort of control magic in your meta, consider High Market to protect your fatties and your commander from those effects. I routinely fetch High Market with Primeval Titan just to make sure he doesn't get taken by some sort of Mind Control effect or copied by something like an opponent's Rite of Replication!

Artifact Lands- Very nice that they are fetchable by Trinket Mage but they are often collateral damage to global sweepers and I don't like to take my chances with those. These are better as just basic lands. MAYBE leave the green one in there just so you have a green source to fetch to enable your ramp strategies. Also, consider a spot for Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, which is bananas with Woodfall Primus.

All in all a very good first start. Be careful not to get too cute with resource development only to have your only bomb countered. You should always have a few creature-based win conditions here. I hope you have tons of fun playing your deck and feel free to drop by the primer thread anytime. I have not got a chance to update it yet but I felt responding to your request was the more important issue this evening. Good luck!

I just wanted to share my $50 limit Riku list since I was impressed with the power of Riku. My friend and I decided to build $50 limit decks with the cards we had on hand, so I picked apart my Mirror Mastery precon, adding a fair amount of good stuff and was even able to fit in Lightning Greaves after fleshing out the list. Most of my cards are from ZEN onward, so I decided to have a small defender theme to to fill out my early drops along with the regular Coiling Oracle and Wood Elves. Otherwise, the deck does several things: draws cards, plays decently large creatures, recurs everything, and casts (and hopefully doubles or triples with Mirari) large game-ending spells. It surprised me how powerful the deck was, easily blowing my friend's $50 deck out of the water (Meriki, I think?) and even going toe-to-toe with this tryhard Animar list. It could definitely use some work but I was definitely inspired and amazed at Riku's power: he is an awesome general and easily Top 3 of the new ones.