Lutri, the Spellchaser Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on March 6, 2026

Lutri, the Spellchaser | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Lutri, the Spellchaser has finally been unbanned in Commander, so it’s time to make an EDH decklist to show its power and versatility. While the community argues whether it was a good move by WotC, or if it should really have been banned in the first place, I’ve put together a list based on my ideas and some interesting interactions I’ve found in online discussions.

We can’t use Lutri as a companion, but I’m not interested in that. This card can be a lot better in the command zone, where we can play it more than once during the course of the game. With that in mind, let’s look at the decklist, its main elements, and how it effectively wins.

The Deck

Dualcaster Mage | Illustration by Matt Stewart

This Lutri, the Spellchaser decklist is basically a spellslinger deck on a budget that has some combo elements to it. I’d say it’s between a Bracket 2 and 3 deck. It’s not very optimized with tutors and the like, so many times you won’t find your combo, although there’s a lot of card draw and filtering that could lead you there. Also, this list contains no Game Changers.

The Commander: Lutri, the Spellchaser

Lutri, the Spellchaser was a prebanned card in EDH for a simple reason: Lutri’s deckbuilding requirement to be a companion is free in singleton formats, so any deck with a blue and red color identity could add this card as a companion.

Recently, WotC decided that it’s okay to play Lutri as a commander, but not as a companion card. As a commander, it’s basically a 3/2 with flash that gives you a free copy spell from the command zone. Think about it as your legendary Dualcaster Mage that’s also Izzet (), or your 3-mana Naru Meha, Master Wizard.

You could explore this in a lot of ways. One interesting approach is to run a lot of spells that are good to copy, like your Thrill of Possibility and Cathartic Reunion. You can add some prowess and magecraft creatures to the mix, then consider some flashback cards. On top of that, Lutri is also an elemental and an otter, so you can think of typal synergies, too.

Creatures

Most of the creatures in this deck give you some benefit if you cast or copy spells. Magecraft plays a very important role through cards like Archmage Emeritus and Veyran, Voice of Duality. Storm-Kiln Artist gives you some Treasure here and there, which helps a lot when you want to combo off.

Offspring creatures are important to this deck. Coruscation Mage adds extra damage, while Agate Instigator acts as Impact Tremors #2 and #3.

Elementals Matter

I selected most of these creatures because they have synergies with noncreature spells, be it prowess or magecraft, but there’s a little elemental-matters theme. To start, Young Pyromancer makes elemental tokens. Smokebraider ramps elementals, and your commander is also an elemental.

Ashling's Command can give you some value in the elemental department. Twinflame Travelers can double elemental triggers – including your commander’s precious copy trigger.

Copy Matters

The main combo for this deck revolves around copying. The idea is to create a loop where Lutri copies a spell, and that spell lets you recast Lutri to copy it again, resulting in infinite enter triggers and copy triggers.

From there, you can win via Impact Tremors, Ral, Storm Conduit, and more. Cards with magecraft and prowess give you additional value while you cast and copy spells. Cards like Dualcaster Mage and Narset's Reversal add more redundancy.

Interaction

The blue and red color combination gives you access to a lot of interaction, so staples like Chaos Warp and Arcane Denial are good to have.

Pongify is good creature removal in blue. Cards like This Town Ain't Big Enough are often used to bounce a commander and something else, be it yours or your opponent’s.

Gandalf's Sanction is a card that can dish out a lot of damage to a creature and its controller, and it’s a nice burn spell to copy.

Sweepers

This list basically plays Evacuation and Blasphemous Act as sweepers. Evacuation is nice because many times you’ll want your commander in your hand instead of on the battlefield. Grapeshot can work as a good sweeper from time to time.

Noncreature Spells

This deck has a lot of noncreature spells, especially instants and sorceries. Most of them are filter spells, like draw and discard, and you have some rituals. The red spells like Big Score are some of the best to copy since you get a lot of cards and Treasure. Crystal Shard is awesome to bounce your commander back to hand, and you can add a “3-mana kicker” to all your subsequent spells.

Past in Flames is a good card to have in the 99. At some point your graveyard will be full of instants and sorceries, and you can flash all the rituals and cantrips back in a big turn.

Finishers

Besides the combos, you can finish the game with a charged-up Crackle with Power, preferably copied by your commander. Price of Progress plus Lutri is another way to finish games, and Snapcaster Mage can help in that regard. A turn when you sequence Price into Snapcaster then Price again is a lot of damage out of nowhere.

An overloaded Mizzix's Mastery is unpredictable, but it can finish games. Thousand-Year Storm can be a finisher and value engine. Even Bria, Riptide Rogue can finish games sometimes by giving big creatures unblockable and prowess.

The Mana Base

The mana base for this deck is mostly basic lands with the occasional mana rock. Izzet Signet and Talisman of Creativity help to fix your mana. Thought Vessel is very good in a deck that draws a lot of cards and doesn’t want to discard to hand size.

This deck has a lot of filtering, Treasure generation, and card draw, and you don’t rely that much on 5- and 6-mana spells. This is mainly a budget list, but it won’t hurt if you add some fetch lands and more expensive dual lands to improve the consistency of your mana base.

The Strategy

Playing this deck is a little bit confusing at first, and I suggest that you practice it on a platform that enforces rules first, like MTGO or MTG Forge (goldfishing or playing against the platform’s A.I.).

Initially, you’ll want cheap creatures that interact favorably with noncreature spells while making your first land drops or casting a mana rock. Always try to extract the maximum value from a noncreature spell. For example, it’s often bad just to cast a Consider or Opt unless you need something like a land. Wait for when you can copy it. It’s best to lead with something like a Galvanic Iteration and then cast a Thrill of Possibility because you’ll draw four cards but discard just one. And I don’t need to say that you should have Guttersnipe in play before doing all of that.

This is a deck that pulls off big turns. Most of the time you’re not casting your commander just to copy a random spell. It’s better to cast a Smokebraider that adds 2 mana for your commander first, then cast something like Big Score followed by Lutri, the Spellchaser.

Combos and Interactions

There are a few combos in this decklist. Let’s see them in greater detail, along with some of the weirdest interactions. Keep in mind that Lutri needs to be cast in order to copy a spell, so simply copying Lutri won't result in any infinite combos on its own.

Lutri, the Spellchaser can create infinite copies of itself if you have cards like Baral's Expertise. For example, if I copy Baral’s Expertise with Lutri, the copy returns Lutri to my hand, and I can cast it again for free to copy the spell again. It’s similar to a Splinter Twin + Pestermite situation. Impact Tremors deals infinite damage to all opponents due to the infinite enter triggers. It also works if I have a card that pings whenever I copy an instant or sorcery spell.

Ral, Storm Conduit can be a win condition if we make infinite copies of spells, and this deck has a few ways to do it.

Crystal Shard can bounce your commander back to hand for just 1 mana, and that makes it easier to reuse Lutri.

Twinning Staff makes another copy of a copied spell, which is awesome when you manage to copy rituals for a nice mana boost.

Thousand-Year Storm is a card that makes a lot of crazy stuff possible with some mass spell copying, and that generates many magecraft triggers.

Rule 0 Violations Check

There are infinite combos in this decklist, but they’re sparse, and the deck can be a little bit inconsistent. Sometimes the deck whiffs by drawing and discarding a lot of cards and effectively doing nothing good or powerful. The combos involve either casting your commander over and over again with an Impact Tremors on the board, or having Ral, Storm Conduit and copying Expansion // Explosion with Lutri, which copies Expansion again, and so on.

Budget Options

This is already a budget-friendly list, and replacing the few expensive spells will make the deck significantly worse.

Other Builds

Lutri, the Spellchaser is actually a very flexible commander. Here’s how you can make other builds by taking advantage of the commander and different spells-matter themes.

You can think of graveyard interaction if you draw and discard like crazy. Threshold cards can be really powerful here. Cards like Drake Haven shine in these builds, as well.

A typal approach is certainly possible, focusing on otters, elementals, or even wizards.

There’s also a build that uses Eternal Dominion as a win condition. You’ll cast it and copy it for the rest of the game, and the epic spell will “use” your opponent’s win conditions against them.

You can make this deck much more competitive, using tutors like Mystical Tutor to find the cards you need to combo, or Imperial Recruiter to get a desired creature like Agate Instigator or Smokebraider for ramp.

And of course, since we’re talking about copying spells, some Game Changers like Jeska's Will or Gamble will help, and Fierce Guardianship is excellent for protection. Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph isn’t a bad idea, either.

Commanding Conclusion

Narset's Reversal | Illustration by Nathaniel Himawan

Lutri, the Spellchaser can really be a fun commander. But Izzet spellslinger has a lot of other fun commanders, and this deck even plays some of them. Having a spell copy ability in the command zone is very flexible, and you can copy ritual spells, draw spells, or even some removal spells here and there. And when you add cards like Crystal Shard that let you copy stuff every turn, it gets even funnier.

What do you think about this decklist, guys? Are you excited to bring a Lutri EDH deck to the Commander table? Let me know in the comments section below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time!