As you can imagine, I get asked this one a lot. Usually I decline — they tend to be built at too high of a power level for me to find them interesting — but in this case there’s enough crunchiness to pique my interest and not an overbearing focus on hypercompetitive play, and the parts I don’t like are small enough that I can safely excise them and chase the parts I do.

Mind over Matter bores me. I’m sorry to say it, but turn five Azami, turn six play this goofy card that accidentally says ‘I win’ is not my idea of a fun game. That you draw your deck, untap enough lands to cast Laboratory Maniac, then tap some more wizards to put ‘win the game’ on the stack as many times as you need to… yeah. Boring! Not fun! But after cutting them, there’s plenty to work with, so I’m content to pursue it and see where it leads, because here in this decklist at least there isn’t too much that makes me have to hold my nose in order to play Azami, Lady of Scrolls.

Playing fair is hard to do, but Wizard tribal should at least keep it fun and interesting. I’m also a little risk-averse, so we’ll be trying to hedge some of our bets while we’re at it, to have fewer swings of misfortune in our lives by taking fewer risks — that means you, Extraplanar Lens. This one’s going to end up a little bit of an odd deck, since it’s going to look like it doesn’t have a lot of ways to deal with creatures or anything, but since you’re taking advantage of cards flowing into your hand quickly and some mild suppression effects alongside a fair bit of countermagic, things should actually work out in your favor more often than not. We want to build a fair deck that can win, instead of a combo deck, however… so we give up the right to have some turn-six “I win!” games, but make up for it by hopefully having some more consistent turn-thirty “Finally, I get to win!” games.

Starting with the mana-base, we’ll be rocking fewer basic Islands (as well as the thing that forces you towards that restriction) and that’s something we’re overall going to be okay with. You get some extra benefits thanks to this, like getting to rock out with Mutavault next to Azami, Lady of Scrolls, but overall the mid-game strength should end up the same thanks to the little hints of upgrades here and there that we’ll be making.

Cuts: -7 Islands

Additions:

Remote Isle, Lonely Sandbar — A little bit of cycling lands in your life can help balance your draw. I know you have access to a lot of cards if you want ’em, but there is still such a thing as drawing too many lands.

Tolaria West — Riptide Laboratory and Reliquary Tower are both so very good to draw, that you might want to do that a little more often. Tolaria West helps with that.

Dust Bowl — A little bit of mana control goes a long way, and Dust Bowl gives you the most competency for breaking up problems at the lowest space for inclusion.

Winding Canyons — I have written love letters to this card. I know tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, but I won’t force anyone to read more embarrassing terrible poetry written to their secret paramours than they themselves have written. (Besides, if I do gush on further about this, I’m totally getting broken up with. Via text message. On valentine’s day. By a land.)

Coral Atoll — Bouncelands are good in this format, and even a terrible bounceland is a pretty decent land to have in your deck. Slight dashes of card advantage help, if your Plan A of “cast Azami” doesn’t work out quite so neatly.

Mutavault — Is a land that is also a Wizard, and thus taps to draw you a card. Theoretically has other unintended cross-Tribal interactions, like blocking and returning to your hand with Riptide Laboratory or tapping to counter a spell with Patron Wizard. Mostly meant to work with Azami, though!

Artifacts are usually up next when I go over these reader-submitted decks, but because there are interconnected parts I have to step back for a second and note that I concur, the Trinket Mage package is a little underwhelming in this deck, so that Aether Spellbomb slot is open. But then I also knew I was going to cut Extraplanar Lens before gutting all those basic Islands, so I guess I should quit worrying over semantics.

Subtractions – Gilded Lotus, Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Power, Aether Spellbomb

Artifact mana has to be a little higher impact to be worth the price of committing a permanent to the board that is likely to disappear, and thus I am not talking about a five-drop that helps get you to eight or nine. I’m more interested in getting to Azami a little early, and not getting two-for-one’d out of some mana while I do it.

Coalition Relic — The safest answer for an accelerant is Darksteel Ingot, but this gets you to five even if you don’t have a fourth land drop and can get you from three to six if that is the job that needs doing. Higher power for the card investment is what I am looking for here, since Azami gives cards back so freely.

Mind Stone — A simple and beloved card. It makes it into more decks than it fails to make it into, at this point.

Caged Sun — It cares not whether your land is a Lonely Sandbar or a basic Island, and it does not help the opponent, either. It’s also a six-drop for Treasure Mage, who is totally getting included over Trinket Mage, since that gives you way more access to it over Gauntlet of Power and ‘only’ costs one more.

Mindslaver — Note there is no Academy Ruins, before any twitch reflexes go off. Mindslaver without recursion capability is just a cool spell, and I thought it would benefit this deck to be able to hunt down a major politics game-changer for those situations it can’t easily dig itself out of otherwise. Instead of worrying over board sweepers or how to best play the control game, Mindslaver someone and have them go to town on crippling someone else to the best of their ability, it’ll solve a fairly large number of situations that can be messy, and like Caged Sun this is a card that is technically in your Tutor chain (Aethermage for Treasure Mage for Mindslaver still ends up with a Mindslaver, even if it does spend a ton of mana).

Moving to the noncreature spells next, I see your pitch-counter theme and heartily approve, and in fact will seek also to improve while we’re at it. Stuff for free is a great benefit to go alongside cards for free, since when things are going at their best it will just be mana that is the choke point, so this’ll be a minor-used but still totally relevant theme to build up in your spells.

Subtractions — Merchant Scroll, Telling Time, Ovinize, Sage’s Dousing, Negate, Mind Over Matter

Mind Over Matter gets lit on fire because I don’t want any cheesy combo-kills, and am in fact happiest with everyone knowing that fact up front and starting with no insta-win combos. Azami’s good enough you don’t need them, and adding them just makes games less fun and gives people more reason to do bad things to the blue mage they already want to do bad things to. In the spirit of ‘having a good time’ most people ascribe to in this format, this card’s just made of unhappiness and kicked puppies.

Adding back in, we sneak in another artifact to go with protecting the Commander once she’s in play, but otherwise chase the low-cost or even free theme with what’s left.

Preordain — I cut a mana off your Telling Time. At two mana, I’m even fairly certain Impulse is just better than Telling Time, but Preordain is better than either. I assume you want to actually clear through cards, not just improve your opening draw, which is why you don’t see me scratching my head and wondering where Brainstorm is. Cards will come into your hand with fair frequency, putting two bad ones on bottom’s the interesting trick worth doing in that case.

Swiftfoot Boots — Lightning Greaves was good enough, this is basically a second copy, presumably it’s still worth including even for the modest equip cost.

Pongify — Replacing Ovinize with an outright kill spell seems preferable. Sure, you give someone a token creature. But you also get to say ‘I make a monkey out of you!’ and it doesn’t hurt that you also don’t have to figure out logistics like ‘blocking’ with your anemic squad of fighters designed to fold over in a stiff breeze.

Submerge — Free far more often than not, since green is one of the most prevalent colors for Commander (which is to say, Primeval Titan is one of the most prevalent colors for Commander). Free board control that’s even better than Snapback has to be worth some variance on whether it works out that way or not, and it’s not like you can’t pay retail, it’s that paying retail sucks.

Thwart — Another free counterspell, though the drawback to get that price is steep. That said, the more pitch counters the more often you’ll draw a pitch counter to protect your plan with, and Thwart’s surprisingly good — it’s the counter you want if you have to lose a counter battle against an Armageddon, weird and interesting corner cases come up.

Mindbreak Trap — Not easy to make free — you don’t exactly get a lot of control over the trap cost — but it solves problems no other counter besides Time Stop can, like an uncounterable Tooth and Nail, and some significant portion of the time will fit right into your suite of bonkers free countermagic.

Lastly, we have the creature base, which is where the most changes were made. For the most part, the cuts were due to small size or marginal effects, stuff that didn’t really catch my interest. It’s hard to convince me to play Sage of Epityr in a 40-card deck, you’re not very likely to compel me to give it a try in my next Commander experience, and focusing on drawing cards isn’t as relevant anyway with Azami already specializing on exactly that.

– Empress Galina: I’m not as ‘sold’ as you are that this is a good addition. We could stay with Wizards and try the new Beguiler of Wills, but I’m not convinced either of these really suit the needs of the deck. A little more immediate creature control may be in order.

– Laboratory Maniac: We’re gutting the combo, so this no longer has a home. It’s not how I want to win the game, and you’ll make more friends and face less push-back overall by not trying to combo-kill and just designing your deck to win fair games more often.

– Lighthouse Chronologist: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Teferi is a jerk card, but at least it’s one people don’t get to see coming from a mile away; Lighthouse Chronologist online makes you no friends, even if it is a powerful advantage. This is either going to be so awesome it makes people angry at you, or downright terrible, and we want more evenly good cards and less high-variance ones so this is getting cut.

– Stonybrook Angler, Inspired Sprite, Apprentice Wizard, Daring Apprentice, Trinket Mage, Arcanis the Omnipotent, Sage of Epityr, Information Dealer, Riptide Director

The rest get cut either for being too small and fragile to accomplish what they set out to, or focusing on drawing you cards (but not necessarily well, save for Arcanis) when that is already something you do exceptionally well.

Adding back in, we’ll start with your one non-Wizard creature, then everyone else will fit the tribe as the baseline requirement

Duplicant — Another Treasure Mage target, and a little bit of high power pinpoint removal to get you out of a sticky situation. A solid Commander staple that happens to fit your tutoring chain as well by swapping Trinkets for Treasure.

Vedalken Plotter — A little bit of control over what lands are on the other side of the table can go a long way, and since this can both be reused and searched for when needed, this plus your Dust Bowl access should cover the basic needs of paying attention to that particular permanent type.

Rayne, Academy Chancellor — A little bit of extra insurance to help draw cards if bad things happen. Rayne is a fun card and slots neatly into the mana curve your deck is designed on and can also help make sure that if Azami is killed immediately, at least you get a decent refill of cards in hand for your trouble, hopefully enough to set up to do it again soon.

Vedalken Dismisser — Another effort to work on creature control, and unlike Duplicant this is something you can return to your hand repeatedly with Riptide Laboratory to maintain control of the game in the later phases. I’d much rather my opponents groan because I played Dismisser fifteen times to hold them down while I tried to kill them, than groan because I combo-killed them turn six again. One of these two is the kind of thing you get kudos for. The other earns Azami a bad reputation.

Merchant of Secrets — Pyknite is a Wizard! Who knew?

Uyo, Silent Prophet — Potentially having access to a copy of whatever spell is threatening the table is a great way to keep threatening spells off the stack. When you can copy Time Stretch three times, then counter it, people tend not to cast Time Stretch in your general vicinity.

Voidmage Husher — Stifle with a built-in re-buy mechanism, Voidmage Husher is one of those cards I have been trying to find a home for forever now and not being quite satisfied. It fits the format perfectly, and I think with your control shell and Wizard-tribal theme it finally does enough to give it a home here.

Voidmage Apprentice — Speaking of creatures I don’t get to put into a deck very often… Voidmage Apprentice is potentially another way to counter multiple spells over the course of the game thanks to Riptide Laboratory. Sure, it’s expensive and small, but the potential to be reached is at least very high, and it does the job you ask of it very consistently.

Treasure Mage — The switch from Trinket to Treasure gives the deck a lot more holding it together; Duplicant is a better creature control mechanism than Aether Spellbomb, and I’d rather be able to hunt up Mindslaver and do goofy things on turn twenty-seven than be able to finally put Sol Ring in my hand. This switch makes Ivory Tower harder to find, but makes up for it by making Caged Suns appear more often (now that we switched Gauntlet of Power for it, anyway), so there is still a balancing of power and versatility.

Glen Elendra Archmage — One persistent little bugger, combining very nicely with the theme of returning things to your hand for re-use since you can counter a spell and still do that. Unlike Daring Apprentice this can be used immediately, and re-used too, even if there are whole classes of spells it just can’t target. Daring Apprentice often didn’t target those spells anyway, due to being dead at the time.

Enclave Cryptologist — My replacement for Sage of Epityr, in this case it fits the curve and the theme, offering selection instead of just a peek.

Spellstutter Sprite — Sure, it mostly counters one-drops unless you’ve somehow drawn the all-Faerie side of the deck with Mutavault and Glen Elendra plus Vendilion Clique and Sower of Temptation. That’s not intended to happen much, so we’re looking at this as a Wizard that comes with a free counterspell for Swords to Plowshares or some similarly cheap removal spell if you want it to. Personally, I would start out with the plan of countering every single copy of Sensei’s Divining Top played during the game, but that’s just me.

Vodalian Illusionist — Our last addition is another creature-control element, this time able to keep trouble off your back or even save a creature of yours. Sadly, phasing out has never allowed for comes-into-play abilities to trigger so we don’t get any benefits from that angle, but it still keeps problems somewhat under control and thus aimed away from your general direction.

Putting it all together, that gives us the following as your final decklist:

Azami, Lady of Scrolls

Sean McKeown

Test deck on 02-19-2012

Commander

Creatures (39)

• 1 Uyo, Silent Prophet
• 1 Willbender
• 1 Voidmage Prodigy
• 1 Jushi Apprentice
• 1 Graceful Adept
• 1 Patron Wizard
• 1 Merchant of Secrets
• 1 Temporal Adept
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Vedalken Mastermind
• 1 Puppeteer
• 1 Voidmage Apprentice
• 1 Vodalian Illusionist
• 1 Stern Proctor
• 1 Rayne, Academy Chancellor
• 1 Vedalken Dismisser
• 1 Vedalken Plotter
• 1 Martyr of Frost
• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1 Voidmage Husher
• 1 Serendib Sorcerer
• 1 Magus of the Future
• 1 Vedalken Aethermage
• 1 Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1 Fallowsage
• 1 Sower of Temptation
• 1 Spellstutter Sprite
• 1 Surgespanner
• 1 Sage of Fables
• 1 Stonybrook Banneret
• 1 Vendilion Clique
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Merrow Levitator
• 1 Enclave Cryptologist
• 1 Sea Gate Oracle
• 1 Aether Adept
• 1 Treasure Mage
• 1 Snapcaster Mage
• 1 Deranged Assistant

Lands (36)

• 27 Island
• 1 Remote Isle
• 1 Riptide Laboratory
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Winding Canyons
• 1 Coral Atoll
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 Mutavault
• 1 Reliquary Tower

Spells (24)

• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Force of Will
• 1 Ivory Tower
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Forbid
• 1 Foil
• 1 Mindslaver
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Sapphire Medallion
• 1 Thwart
• 1 Misdirection
• 1 Submerge
• 1 Chrome Mox
• 1 Commandeer
• 1 Snapback
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Mindbreak Trap
• 1 Preordain
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

Pricing each of these additions out, we have one expensive card in Mutavault but the rest is downright reasonable. We’re adding mostly commons and the occasional Commander staple, but you have Force of Will in your deck so I am presuming that having access to the occasional constructed staple card is not unreasonable, and a little bit of price does not make an individual card off-putting. It’s not like last week, where a $60 Gaea’s Cradle threw the deck into a new stratosphere entirely — replacing Mutavault with Island gives you almost exactly the same deck — but if the price point’s acceptable, there are clear benefits to the swap.

As always, for your participation you will be receiving a $20 coupon to the StarCityGames.com store, which covers a fairly large chunk of the cards — it should spread pretty far, actually, since a decent chunk of these are easy to find in-print cards, and the overall expense on most of the singles is very low. Next week we’ll depart from monocolor pastures to the rare realm of five-color deck design, since it’s not often I try and tackle a deck that attempts to ‘taste the rainbow’ as a general rule.

— Sean McKeown

Want to submit a deck for consideration to Dear Azami? We’re always accepting deck submission to consider for use in a future article, like Jon’s Ezuri, Renegade Leader deck or Chris’s Kangee, Aerie Keeper deck. Only one deck submission will be chosen per article, but being selected for the next edition of Dear Azami includes not just deck advice but also a $20 coupon to the StarCityGames.com Store!

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