$20 Talrand, Sky Summoner Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on April 29, 2024

Talrand, Sky Summoner | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

The Commander format’s biggest strength is, in my humble opinion, the freedom it gives players to build decks they’d otherwise never consider playing. In a casual game, you can break out a 100-card pile of jank and still have a good time, even if you don’t dominate the pod.

I was never much of a blue player. I’ve run commanders with blue in their color identity, but there’s a steep gap between the blue spells in Dakkon Blackblade and the blue spells in Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. I realized I didn’t have any deck in my library of EDH decks that played that classic blue “draw, go” strategy, and I thought I had better give it the ol’ college try before deciding it wasn’t for me. So I set out to build one. I wasn’t convinced I’d enjoy the mono-blue playstyle, so I wanted to keep the budget as low as possible, banking on the possibility I’d disassemble the deck after a game or two.

How wrong I was! This $20 Talrand, Sky Summoner budget Commander deck plays the classic mono-blue control game while being fun as hell. Let’s take a look at what makes this cheap deck so fun.

The Deck

Baral, Chief of Compliance | Illustration by Wesley Burt

Mono-blue decks have a well-deserved reputation of running a lot of counterspells. This deck is, in fact, running a lot of counterspells, and rewards you for playing as many as you can. The entire premise is pretty straightforward, even for a blue deck: We’ll play Talrand, Sky Summoner as soon as we’re confident we can protect it with Counterspells, then control the board with countermagic until we’ve amassed a cawing flock of Drake tokens to beat face with!

The real test of our mettle comes with prioritizing which spells to counter – learning to read our opponents’ decks in real-time midgame can be difficult. Luckily, our library’s chock-full of counterspells, so we can afford to be a little greedy when it comes to letting our opponents’ spells resolve.

The Commander

Talrand, Sky Summoner is one of the best-designed blue legends, hailing from Magic 2013 alongside a cycle of legends that includes Yeva, Nature's Herald and [ard]Krenko, Mob Boss[/card]. Talrand is a 4-mana 2/2 that creates a 2/2 flying Drake token whenever we cast an instant or sorcery spell. On the heels of Return to Ravnica, Talrand, Sky Summoner was a bit too slow to slot into the Izzet decks of the day, but its staying power as the go-to mono-blue spell-slinging Commander is undeniable.

Talrand’s biggest drawback in this deck is its 4-mana casting cost and lack of built-in protection. This means it’ll hit the field a few turns later than other 4-drops, assuming we hold mana up to protect it. You might be able to tap out and stick Talrand on turn 4 once, but any self-respecting pod won’t let that happen again once your deck gets going.

Permanents?

It might seem antithetical to start our counterspells deck guide off with a focus on the creatures, but there are so few of them in this deck and they really set the stage for Talrand, Sky Summoner. The permanents in our deck need to play into our instants and sorceries theme as well as create a handy blocking body.

Longtime Pauper players will recognize Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall as the go-to for recurring instants and sorceries, and Baral, Chief of Compliance’s recent reprints in Time Spiral Remastered and March of the Machine have dropped its average price to a manageable level for a budget Commander deck. Jace's Sanctum works similarly.

Murmuring Mystic is effectively a second Talrand for our purposes, pumping out another flying token for each spell slung.

While Sapphire Dragon is technically a worse Negate, it's better interpreted as a “back-up” Negate with a possibly relevant option later on.

Finally, the most expensive card in our deck is Propaganda. At a whopping $3.58 this enchantment is one of the most effective stax pieces in Magic – understandably, we’ve splurged a little on this include.

Disruption

The meat and potatoes to any Talrand, Sky Summoner dish is, of course, the countermagic. We’re looking to counter anywhere from one to three spells per turn cycle to maximize the number of Drake tokens we can pump out.

Our budget restriction prevents us from running any of the more notorious counterspells, but that doesn’t mean we’re helpless. Besides the ubiquitous Counterspell, we’ve got a suite of Cancel-equivalents in the forms of Neutralize, You Find the Villains' Lair, Dissolve, Dissipate, Bane's Contingency and Wizard's Retort.

Casting multiple counters each round can be taxing on your mana, so be sure to make liberal use of Rewind, Unwind, Snap and Frantic Search to keep pumping out Drakes.

Cards with multiple modes are important to any budget deck, as well. While we don’t have access to the best of the best disruption, we do have the option to counter a spell or filter the top of your library with Supreme Will, or the aforementioned You Find the Villains' Lair. Cards like Complicate serve the double purpose of drawing and disrupting your opponents’ spells. Remember that it’s often worth the mana to cast a counter and get a Drake token plus card draw, even if your opponent has the mana available to pay the tax. You may have just befuddled their entire turn by forcing that 1 extra mana.

Blue suffers when it comes to targeted removal, but luckily Pongifys are easily replaceable. While the classic Unsummon is our best instant-speed creature removal, Temporal Cleansing and Void Snare are just about the best ways we can deal with noncreature permanents. We can even bluff that our foretold Ravenform is a Saw It Coming and surprise someone with an exile effect on their indestructible commander.

Draw and Filter

Now that we’ve got a handful of counters and our Talrand on the field, we’re ready to start denying our opponents’ spells. However, while the simple “draw, go, counter” play loop effectively stops our opponents’ game plans, it doesn’t do much to help our own. So, we’ve invested in some sub-optimal counters with additional effects to keep our engine up and running. Cards like Bone to Ash, Dismiss, and Bane's Contingency keep us digging through the deck and refill our hand with more counterspells.

Cantrips are our best friends, too. Brainstorm and Ponder are a little more than a dollar each (right now), so we’re avoiding them in favor of some spells that cost $0.10 or less. This means Anticipate, Think Twice, Opt, and Hard Evidence are our bread-and-butter spells for when we can’t (or don’t plan to) counter a spell but still want to generate a Drake or two.

Airborne Assistance

Like most Talrand, Sky Summoner decks, we’re looking to close out the game with a huge bombing run from the Royal Shandalaran Air Force. After sneaking a few 2/2s past blockers throughout the game, we’ll drop Favorable Winds to multiply the damage we can put on the board.

Opponents got us locked out with their own army of fliers? No problem! Hit ‘em with a Sleep and laugh as you get two turns of unblocked attacks straight to the dome. Similarly, Aetherize is hilarious if you can bluff effectively and can turn a game around in an instant (no pun intended).

Finally, just to double-down on our creature tokens, Rise from the Tides can typically net us six to ten zombies, assuming we’ve saved it for the end game. Be sure to keep a counter up to stop that inevitable board wipe!

The Mana Base

This blue deck is hungry for mana, and we need to have lots available to cast and protect Talrand and to counter multiple spells per turn. Our tight budget means we’ll be skipping some of the more powerful ramp in the format in favor of some mana dorks and rocks. Silver Myr and Palladium Myr are our go-to dorks, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I build a deck without a Burnished Hart. Some of the slower 2-drop mana rocks are present, including Mind Stone and Sky Diamond, plus some 3-drops like Heraldic Banner to pump up our Drakes and Decanter of Endless Water, our stand-in for the $2+ Reliquary Tower.

Of course, we’ve made space for Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Wayfarer's Bauble.

To top it all off, we’ve got 35 lands in the form of one Lonely Sandbar, one Myriad Landscape, one Halimar Depths, and 32 Islands.

The Strategy

By now, the plan for this Talrand, Sky Summoner deck should be obvious. We’re going to play Talrand as soon as possible and then protect it with counterspells while amassing an army of Drake tokens.

Waiting until turn 4 to hard-cast Talrand sucks and slows our deck down more than we’d like, so keeping a hand with a mana accelerant or two is usually beneficial. Even if we don’t see a hand with three or more lands, 2 mana is usually enough to start filtering through our top-decks for more Islands should we need them.

Once Talrand’s on the field, your strategy becomes very reactionary. Smart threat assessment and target priority are absolute necessities, especially before we have access to enough mana to cast multiple Cancels per turn. Focus on the players you know will be a problem for you in the late game, and don’t be afraid to play the politics game. You’re playing blue, after all; lean into that puppet master vibe.

Try to hold off on casting Favorable Winds or Rise from the Tides until you’re sure victory is within your grasp. Favorable Winds will draw removal like nobody’s business once someone realizes you’re putting 6 more power on the board each turn, so try to time it with a Sleep or Aetherize to stick the landing.

Let me emphasize here: Without a Lightning Greaves, protecting Talrand, Sky Summoner with counterspells is our prime directive. Without our commander on the field, we’re just a nuisance preventing anyone from playing the game with no direct out.

Combos and Interactions

As far as I can tell, nothing in this deck will combo infinitely. We are running some of the pieces to the Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker combo, but without a Peregrine Drake equivalent, we won’t see this go off infinitely. That said, recurring any instant or sorcery to your hand is always useful, and with some small upgrades you can add some nasty combos to this deck (discussed below).

Rule 0 Violations

If you explain the decklist and what it does to a new pod of players and they don’t think it sounds very fun to play against, I’d invite them to reassess their perception of Commander. This is about as basic a mono-blue deck as you can get, and it’s not hard to play around counterspells if your opponents know how to bait and bluff your counters out of your hand.

Budget

For the cheapest possible printings, this budget Talrand, Sky Summoner deck runs you about $19, including the Islands. That’s about as cheap as it gets, but let’s take a look at some budget options for adjusting that total up or down.

Cheap

Alright, fine, let’s make it even cheaper. Cut every card over $1 (Baral, Chief of Compliance, Propaganda, Sol Ring, and Heraldic Banner) and we shave seven whole dollars off the total price. Replace these with more cheap counterspells like Essence Capture, Circular Logic, and Lose Focus and you’re looking at possibly the cheapest EDH deck ever constructed.

Expensive

At just $19, we have a lot of head room to beef up this deck. The first upgrade I’d consider is getting that juicy Archaeomancer combo up and running. Easy enough to do; just add Isochron Scepter and a tutor or two in the vein of Mystical Tutor. Smooth out that mana base with a Sapphire Medallion and we’re looking at a fairly consistent mono blue Commander deck.

Wrap Up

Rise from the Tides | Illustration by Lucas Graciano

I never thought I’d find myself playing a mono-blue deck and enjoying it. Building this budget deck finally opened my eyes to the possibilities, though, and I was genuinely pleased to find I could build a cheap deck with a strategy I’d normally avoid like the plague. While this budget Talrand, Sky Summoner Commander deck won’t hold its own at any cEDH tables, it's more than enough for your casual Friday night Commander pod.

How does this $20 Commander deck stack up against other budget decks? Do you see yourself building a budget EDH deck to try out a new strategy, or do you prefer an “all or nothing” style to deckbuilding? Let me know in the comments, or join the discussion over on Draftsim’s Discord.

Thanks for reading, and always keep two blue up!