Galazeth Prismari - A Commander Deck Tech

Andy Zupke • May 17, 2021

Greetings, friends! Welcome back to another Commander article here on Cardsphere. Today we’re doing a deck tech on one of the founders of Strixhaven: School of Mages. We’re gonna make treasures, get tons of mana, and cast really big spells (these are a few of my favorite things). And we’re doing it all with Galazeth Prismari

.

A Token of My Affection

Galazeth is a 3/4 elder dragon with Flying that gives us a treasure token on entry. It also lets us turn any artifact into a tappable mana rock to use for casting instants and sorceries. So the days of sacrificing your treasures for mana are gone. And it’s not just treasures either. Any artifact you control can now be tapped for mana to cast those non-permanent spells. That's right, your Keldon Battlewagon

is now playable (just kidding, don't play this card.)

Romancing the Stone

To beef up our treasure plan, we’re going to want the best treasure makers available to a blue and red deck. Dockside Extortionist

, Hullbreacher
 (sorry friends), Storm-Kiln Artist
, and Brass’s Bounty
 will all provide plenty of those beautiful rocks. We've also got Goldspan Dragon
, Shiny Impetus
, and Spell Swindle
, just to name a few.

So what are we going to be doing with all this mana? I’m glad you asked. We’re trying to win the game with spells like Crackle with Power

. For just 14 mana, Crackle deals 20 damage each to every opponent. If you copy it with a flipped Primal Amulet
, or spend an extra two mana to cast Teach by Example
, then that’s 40 each. We've also got our friend theReckless Fireweaver
 to deal a damage to each opponent whenever an artifact enters your battlefield. And since making lots of treasure is what this deck does, the Fireweaver is going to drop some life totals pretty fast.

We’ve also got a couple of alternate win conditions in the deck. Hellkite Tyrant

, recently reprinted in the Lorehold pre-con, will win you the game on your upkeep if you control 20 or more artifacts. And Mechanized Production
 can enchant one of your treasures, then end the game on your upkeep if you have 8 of them. Neither of these finishes will be hard to accomplish with this deck, as long as you can protect them until your upkeep.

X Marks the Spot

We’ve got our plans to win, now how are we gonna get there? To get to these finisher spells, we’ve got a ton of draw spells in the deck. There are several X spells with Blue Sun’s Zenith

, Commander’s Insight
, Expansion // Explosion
, Invoke the Firemind
, Mind Spring
, and Muse Vortex
. With all the mana we’re gonna have, these spells are really going to help us to dig through the deck. We also have Culmination of Studies
, a new X spell with a twist. So depending on what you have on top of your deck, you're gonna get a combination of treasure, card draw, and damage to deal out. There’s also Trail of Evidence
 which makes clue tokens (the clues can also be tapped for mana, don’t ya know). And rounding out the draw and advantage spells is Expressive Iteration
, Faithless Looting
, Pirate’s Pillage
, Practical Research
, Seize the Spoils
, Solve the Equation
, and Treasure Map
.

We can’t just rely on the treasures for mana, so we’ve got some more ramp spells with Mana Geyser

and Seething Song
. Of course, we've also got our typical rocks package, with Mind Stone
, Sol Ring
, Izzet Signet
, Thought Vessel
, Wayfarer’s Bauble
, and Talisman of Creativity
.

We’ll need to deal with threats, so we’ve got Counterspell

and Arcane Denial
 to stop unfriendly spells. Chaos Warp
, Depths of Desire
, Pongify
, Reality Shift
, and Run Away Together
 are here for targeted removal. Then there's Blasphemous Act
, Draconic Intervention
, Aetherize
, and Aetherspouts
 for mass removal. And lets not forget that we’ll want to protect Galazeth, so I’ve added Swiftfoot Boots
 and Lightning Greaves
. I'm sure the dragon will have no trouble wearing boots on its feet.

The End Step

The full decklist is below, and you can head to Archidekt here to take the deck for a spin.

1 Aetherize
1 Aetherspouts
1 Arcane Denial
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Bond of Insight
1 Brass's Bounty
1 Burnished Hart
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Castle Vantress
1 Chaos Warp
1 Command Tower
1 Commander's Insight
1 Counterspell
1 Crackle with Power
1 Creative Outburst
1 Culmination of Studies
1 Curse of Opulence
1 Depths of Desire
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Draconic Intervention
1 Expansion // Explosion
1 Expressive Iteration
1 Faithless Looting
1 Field of Ruin
1 Frostboil Snarl
1 Galazeth Prismari
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Gleaming Barrier
1 Goldspan Dragon
1 Hellkite Tyrant
1 Hornswoggle
1 Hullbreacher
1 Impulsive Pilferer
1 Invoke the Firemind
12 Island
1 Izzet Signet
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Magma Opus
1 Mana Geyser
1 Mechanized Production
1 Mind Spring
1 Mind Stone
1 Mission Briefing
11 Mountain
1 Muse Vortex
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Pirate's Pillage
1 Pongify
1 Practical Research
1 Primal Amulet // Primal Wellspring
1 Rapacious Dragon
1 Reality Shift
1 Reckless Fireweaver
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Run Away Together
1 Scavenger Grounds
1 Seething Song
1 Seize the Spoils
1 Shiny Impetus
1 Shivan Reef
1 Sol Ring
1 Solve the Equation
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Spell Swindle
1 Steam Vents
1 Storm the Vault // Vault of Catlacan
1 Storm-Kiln Artist
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Talisman of Creativity
1 Teach by Example
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Thought Vessel
1 Trail of Evidence
1 Training Center
1 Treasure Map // Treasure Cove
1 Wayfarer's Bauble

So what do you think of this Galazeth Prismari deck? Any cards you’d like to add or anything that I should take out? Hit me up at @AndyZupke on Twitter to let me know. We’ll be back soon with some more fun from Strixhaven and Commander 2021, so be sure to check back. You can also catch me streaming Sunday nights with Scrap Trawlers at 7:30PM CST at twitch.tv/scraptrawlers, or check out our videos at youtube.com/scraptrawlers.

Until next time, take care. And play lots of games!