Flickerwisp has always been a powerful but unassuming card. It’s often the forgotten card in Death and Taxes, both Legacy and Modern variants, because it’s not as splashy as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Leonin Arbiter. But it has always been a critical part of both of those decks, especially in combination with Aether Vial.
It’s one of those cards that you really have to play with in order to appreciate, because its ability is so flexible that you will always find new corner case ways to use it. No one of these cases is that significant alone, but together they combine to make the effect nearly always relevant and sometimes devastating.
Today’s deck appreciates Flickerwisp and its effect more than any before it. It’s all about blinking with the triumvirate of Flickerwisp, Eldrazi Displacer, and Restoration Angel. The rest of the creature base appreciates the many blink effects, giving you extra cards, creatures, life, and even disruption in the form of Thought-Knot Seer. Blinking the powerful Eldrazi may not seem all that effective, but it’s quite good against decks that operate at sorcery speed, like Scapeshift, giving you a soft lock with Eldrazi Displacer.
The resource advantages this deck accrues make it particularly good against other creature decks and heavy disruption decks. Auriok Champion gives you a maindeck bullet against Burn and Death’s Shadow, so the primary issue the deck faces is fast combo. Fortunately, white offers all the best sideboard cards for those matchups, and we see them all there. Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Aven Mindcensor, and Ethersworn Canonist all help out against unfair decks, although with the rise of Storm I’d look to Eidolon of Rhetoric as well.
Tron could also be an issue, since those decks can go over the top of the value you gain, but the single-color manabase allows you to play four maindeck copies of Ghost Quarter, and making a bunch of colorless Golem tokens that can’t be touched by All Is Dust sounds good to me, so long as you protect your Blade Splicer so first strike dominates combat.
You’re not going to get as many free wins as you would with Leonin Arbiter and friends, but this deck also won’t fold as often against removal, so go out there and make Craig Wescoe proud.
Creatures (28)
- 4 Auriok Champion
- 4 Flickerwisp
- 4 Wall of Omens
- 4 Blade Splicer
- 4 Restoration Angel
- 4 Eldrazi Displacer
- 4 Thought-Knot Seer
Lands (24)
Spells (8)
