Alania, Divergent Storm Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on August 30, 2024

Alania, Divergent Storm | Illustration by Cory Godbey

The cutesy world of the Bloomburrow Magic set packs some deceptively strong commanders into some adorable little boxes. Alania, Divergent Storm, one of the best Bloomburrow commanders, is a spell-slinging otter with a high ceiling on its potential value, and it’s a love-letter to storm players the world over.

With three guaranteed spell-copy effects each turn, this otter commander is guaranteed to bury your foes in a storm of magic and lightning they’ll never see coming!

The Deck

Baral, Chief of Compliance | Illustration by Wesley Burt

This Alania, Divergent Storm deck does one thing and does it often, and that’s cast instants and sorceries. Letting your opponents draw one card for each copied spell is a small price to pay when you plan to start storming off before you pass the turn.

Ideal turns see you casting a sorcery spell (and copying it), then casting one of your Fork equivalents (and copying it), and then an otter for good measure. In a vacuum, you’re looking at four cast/copied spells per turn with Alania on the field, and that’s before you even drop a Harmonic Prodigy or Veyran, Voice of Duality.

The Commander: Alania, Divergent Storm

One of the best cards from Bloomburrow in Constructed, fairly strong in BLB Limited formats, this Izzet commander, Alania, Divergent Storm, lets you copy the first instant, first sorcery, or first otter spell (besides itself) each turn.

Importantly, that’s the first instant and first sorcery and first otter spell, meaning if you can cast all three, we’ll have three copied spells, all for the low price of letting your opponents draw a card. That might seem like a major downside, but you can play into them drawing cards with effects like Consecrated Sphinx.

Duplicate Spell Copy Effects

The most important portion of this deck revolves around copying spells with Alania, Divergent Storm and then copying those copies with cards like Reverberate and Fork.

Copy effects usually run about 2 mana for each instance of copying. Besides the aforementioned two, this deck runs Increasing Vengeance and Reiterate for recurrable copy spells.

The only way you can make your copiers even better is by removing the mana cost. Flare of Duplication is one of the best new ways to achieve this, even if you aren’t running a critical mass of red creatures. Ral, Storm Conduit’s -2 ability is also a manaless source for copying.

I’m a big fan of Dual Casting in this deck. It gives your spellslinger commander something to do each turn, and it’s one of the cheaper sources for copying spells.

Things to Copy

This varies spellslinger-to-spellslinger on exactly what sorts of cards you like to copy, but I’ve decided to go for good ol’ value and damage. These are the spells that you want to cast once Alania’s on the field, and then hit with a Fork (which you’ll copy) for a total of four instances of whatever spell you’ve cast.

The simplest way to generate value from Alania is simply to take a ton of extra turns. Time Warp and Temporal Manipulation go hand in hand with Reverberates, grinding out four extra turns if you can successfully cast one, copy with Alania, cast a Fork targeting the Time Warp, copy the Fork with Alania, and then choose Time Warp for your copied Fork’s target.

The other option is to obliterate your foes with massive fireballs and lightning storms. Note that when you copy an X spell, the value you paid for X is copied as well. Tapping out into a Crackle with Power and then copying it once, twice, or three times can see you ending the game right there. Blue Sun's Zenith works similarly, either milling an opponent out completely or letting you refill your hand at an insane rate.

More big targets for your copies are rituals. Apex of Power is by far the best of the lot, potentially adding 20+ mana and 14 “impulse” draws off the top of your library. That said, a copied Mana Geyser into Expansion // Explosion is still a great four spells to copy on any given turn. Mana Drain is also technically a ritual, if you’re nefariously-minded like me.

Single-target removal spells work wonders on the board. Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Cyber Conversion, and Chaos Warp can all be copied when cast, even on your opponents’ turns. Remember you can use Nexus of Fate on your opponent’s turn to interrupt the turn order as though you’re playing a game of Uno.

Spellslinging the Otter Way

There’s no shortage of instant and sorcery synergies in Izzet (). From the humble Guttersnipe to his new best friend Coruscation Mage, you can ping your opponents for a few points of direct damage on nearly every spell you cast. Ashling, Flame Dancer turns up the heat with a magecraft ability that triggers off the copies Alania makes, as well. Between Ashling, Harnesser of Storms, and Archmage Emeritus, you’ll be digging through the top of your library at a fairly quick rate for free while we’re busy blowing our opponents apart with your mastery of magic.

The easiest way to cast a lot of instants and sorceries every turn? Make them cheap!

Stormcatch Mentor, Baral, Chief of Compliance, and Thunderclap Drake all reduce the cost of your spells by one. This doesn’t sound like much, but often 1 mana makes the difference between having enough mana leftover to Fork our Time Warp.

There’s more to spell-slinging than just spells, of course. A handful of your creatures have prowess or an un-keyworded effect of a similar nature that’ll create some threats in combat. Veyran, Voice of Duality has a “better” prowess (since it triggers on copies as well), and copies Alania, Divergent Storm’s effect every time it triggers (no Fork required)!

The Mana Base

The new dual-face lands have been a godsend to spellslinger strategies that hate to top-deck a land. This deck runs no fewer than five of the MDFC lands to go along with the 31 regular lands to ensure you have the option to continue slinging spells late into the game. Of these, Sink into Stupor and Sundering Eruption have the most utility, but there are still instances where you’ll end up playing Hydroelectric Specimen or Pinnacle Monk as lands.

Besides these, you’ve got the typical package of mana rocks; Talisman of Creativity, Izzet Signet, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet; you know, the hits. Thought Vessel is also here to help you hold all those cards in your hand.

The Strategy

Alania, Divergent Storm wins by casting a ton of spells and copying them a ton of times. To that end, you need an opening hand where you can cast Alania by turn 3 and start storming off the following turn.

Obviously, hands with a ton of ramp are great to keep. Even if you don’t see your Time Warp early on, most anything you cast with Alania on the field starts to pull you ahead in terms of value. On the flip side, hands with lots of cost-reduction options for your spells like Baral, Chief of Compliance are useful in the early game. Despite its 4-mana cost, Storm-Kiln Artist is also one of the best ways to ramp.

Most of the time, you want to focus on getting Alania, Divergent Storm on the field as soon as possible and then cast an extra turn spell to take two or more extra turns in a row. Remember that each extra turn resets the counter on Alania, so expect to see some wacky turns when you Time Warp into two extra turns, then Epic Experiment into more cards, then dig up Temporal Manipulation and start the whole punishing process over. All the while your opponents are taking pings from Guttersnipe and Coruscation Mage.

Nobody wants to watch you durdle around and take 100 extra turns without winning the game, though. Unfortunately, there’s no tried and true way to win immediately with your extra turns, but there are ways to pull yourself far enough ahead in life and card advantage that your foes have no hope but to concede. If they need a little encouragement, hit ‘em with the ol’ Crackle with Power and blow them away.

Combos and Interactions

There’s one single infinite combo in this deck, and it doesn’t end the game all by itself. Jeska's Will and Reiterate have an extremely rare edge case that can result in infinite magecraft triggers, storm count, and red mana. Here’s how it works:

First, you need both spells in your hand and a mighty available (easily acquired via Apex of Power or Mana Geyser).

Next, you need an opponent with at least seven cards in hand.

Cast Jeska's Will by paying , targeting an opponent with at least 7 cards in hand. Holding priority, cast Reiterate with buyback, creating a copy of Jeska's Will. Resolve the Jeska's Will copy, adding at least 7 red mana. Repeat from step 2, then mix in a Guttersnipe and you win! Easy like Sunday morning!

Rule 0 Violations Check

Honestly, I don’t know what people get upset about these days. If you play a game and everyone groans as you work through three or four extra turns to see if you can even win, it may be time to swap Alania out for the night. On the other hand, how many Rule 0 purists do you know that run battlecruiser decks with no actual win condition? It’s gotta be more than zero.

Budget Options

It’s a little difficult to predict this deck’s pricing before Bloomburrow releases, but the rest of the deck rounds out to about $500 for the cheapest possible printings. That’s very steep, especially to purchase all at once, so let’s look at some cheap alternatives.

This deck runs a copy of Dockside Extortionist, as it’s the best mana-generation red has access to in Commander. It’s also nearly $80 and could easily be swapped out for a Big Score or Unexpected Windfall.

The other painful purchases are Fork and Rhystic Study at about $40 each. You can cut Fork for a sub-optimal Return the Favor, and Rhystic Study can easily be a Deep Analysis or other standard card-draw spell. Maybe even Opportunity.

Other Builds

I’m basically ignoring that Alania, Divergent Storm can  copy otters and leaning heavily into instants and sorceries. But there’s no reason you couldn’t build an entirely otter typal deck. Bloomburrow has a bunch more otters, plus there’s Frolicking Familiar. There’s also some of the best changeling creatures in the game like Taurean Mauler and Orvar, the All-Form.

Commanding Conclusion

Time Warp | Illustration by Jon Foster

Copying spells will always be a guaranteed way to generate value. Why cast one Fireball when you can cast two Fireballs? It’s almost too easy to copy your copies which are copying your copied spells in this Alania, Divergent Storm deck. You’ll have to pay attention to the stack to make sure you don’t miss one of your copies.

What are some of your favorite spellslinger commanders? Where does Alania, Divergent Storm rank compared to the rest? And what otters and changelings would you include to build Alania as a typal commander, instead? Let me know in the comments, or over on Draftsim's Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading!