Vraska, Soul of Stone Bracket 3 Commander Deck Guide

Vraska, Soul of Stone | Illustration by Syd Mills

One of the Reality Fracture commanders that caught my eye immediately was Vraska, Soul of Stone. I love commanders that give you a world to explore but don’t railroad you. A trigger that pumps out mana dork tokens for any noncreature spell of yours combined with a lordly ability to grant them a relevant keyword gets my brewing brain buzzin’.

This commander does a bit of everything. It’s a spellslinger commander. An equipment commander. An auras commander. Vehicles. Spacecraft. Sagas. Planeswalkers. While it won’t do so the most powerfully, Vraska, Soul of Stone can support each of them.

It’s impossible to pack all of these themes into the same build, but I’ve sown a couple into this deck to give you a taste of the kinds of things you can do in your own Vraska deck.

The Deck

Vraska, the Silencer | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

Vraska, Soul of Stone has possibly surpassed Alela, Artful Provocateur as my favorite customizable commander. I’ve built this this deck to be middle-of-the-road and showcase a few different things you can do, but you can take Vraska in all kinds of directions once you start to specialize.

Since I’m not focused on one card type over another, most of the cast payoffs are as generic as Vraska’s “noncreature spell” text, with a second layer to reward you when creatures or artifacts enter the battlefield. As a result, this deck slots in around Brackets 2 and 3. It’s certainly “legal” for 2 since there’s no combos to speak of or Game Changers, and it’s a bit grindier than you’d usually want in Bracket 3.

The Commander: Vraska, Soul of Stone

Vraska, Soul of Stone is a Jeskai commander () that pumps out unique Sculpture Treasure artifact creature tokens and gives all your artifact creatures vigilance. Treasure tokens that are creatures is a neat way to slow down easy combos, since they’ll have summoning sickness.

Your commander isn’t the main game plan, but rather a key cog that drives this deck. You don’t need Vraska if your deck is already running smoothly, but it’ll get you started or enhance what you have going on.

Noncreature and Artifact Payoffs

Inspired by Vraska, the deck runs a bunch of different noncreature spell types to showcase the different avenues available to you. Therefore, other triggers and cost reducers have to be just as generic so that they benefit as many cards as possible.

Reality Fracture has a few cards that work nicely in this deck, like Geist of Saint Thalia. Monastery Mentor and Third Path Iconoclast add more tokens to the board, while you get consistent card draw from Whirlwind of Thought and pings from the wizard token that Mage Siege produces.

Wizard Staff's

Harmonic Prodigy and Wizard's Staff both double up on Vraska’s trigger for even more board presence, and the Staff also gives Vraska prowess.

A trio of cards add yet more artifact tokens when you make artifact tokens: Academy Manufactor, Xorn, and Stridehangar Automaton.

Tezzeret, Cruel Captain tutors for Sol Ring, Skullclamp, and any of your artifact lands, though with enough mana, you can also sequence your spells so that you ultimate Tezzeret the turn that you cast it. The 0-loyalty untap ability lets you reset a mana rock, an artifact land, or your Idol of Oblivion, if you aren’t untapping one of your creatures.

Chandra, Spark Hunter plays multiple roles. It can pump out more artifact tokens for you, or it let you trade artifacts for card advantage. But if you don’t need cards, you don’t have to pay anything and just add two loyalty counters on the way to a sweet emblem. That emblem is a problem for opponents, who should do everything in their power to prevent you from getting there.

Enters Triggers, Anthems, and More

Weftstalker Ardent and Reckless Fireweaver are also artifact payoffs, but they headline the enters triggers as damage dealers that ping opponents every time you pump out an artifact. Warleader's Call doubles up as both an Impact Tremors variant and as an anthem. Speaking of Impact Tremors, the original is here too.

Fateful Discovery’s card draw has a lot of potential when combined with Academy Manufactor. Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards can go berserk too, but at least its “may” ability prevents you from decking yourself or drawing into a hand you need to discard from.

More cards from FRA include Samut, Hazoret's Champion as a haste enabler, and the flexible Ajani's Anguish. The baseline is just a 1-mana enchantment that gives your creatures trample, which may be all you need to set up your alpha strike. But it’s also a fireball that you can pump a bunch of mana into.

Frostcliff Siege’s modality lets you choose between what you need, whether that’s to help your creatures get into combat or to extract more value when they do. Thopter Spy Network also provides you saboteur card draw, with even more board presence and pinger triggers.

I once said that I prefer Skullclamp in decks with aristocrats and similar death payoffs, but I really like how it works here. Your 1/1s die to give you instant card draw, standard Skullclamp stuff. But if you have an anthem that buffs your Sculpture Treasure tokens, they’ll draw when you sac them for mana instead. Even if you sac a sculpture just to draw two and float the mana to equip Skullclamp to its next Sculpture, you’re still digging through your deck.

Alibou, Ancient Witness is worse in this build than in the Vraska Vehicles build. Its attack trigger cares about tapped artifact creatures, but your commander gives your artifact creatures vigilance. Unlike other decks, you can’t rely on that trigger as a win condition here, just a haste enabler.

Interaction

Jeskai colors are packed full of spot removal, board wipes, and counterspells, and there’s a healthy dose of all of them to answer threats and trigger your commander.

Let’s face it: If there’s anyone playing red at the table, you know a Vandalblast is coming. You have a few counterspells that’ll handle it, but otherwise, your saving grace is indestructible enablers like Flawless Maneuver.

While it won’t interact with your opponents’ stuff, Inspirit, Flagship Vessel gives you something to do with any creatures you have with summoning sickness, as you work towards a fully stationed spacecraft that protects your artifact creatures with hexproof and indestructible.

Kindred Judgment is just too fun in this deck, because you can choose “sculpture” and leave only your Sculpture Treasure tokens standing. The better one-sided sweeper is Organic Extinction, since you have a few other artifact creatures that it’ll leave behind, though that’s also true for any opposing thopter tokens, etc.

Win Conditions

Hellkite Tyrant is here as the mandatory alternate win condition. Magda, Brazen Outlaw can tutor it, at instant speed, too.

I’ve got also Craterclaw Colossus and Moonshaker Cavalry as overrun variants, and they get better paired with Cyberdrive Awakener.

Smaug the Magnificent burns any target, including your opponents’ life totals every time it attacks. A few other creatures here gain power and/or toughness based on the number of artifacts you control and can serve as beatsticks, like Master of Etherium, a fully stationed Uthros Research Craft, and Brotherhood Vertibird.

The Mana Base

The land base shouldn’t be too surprising. There’s a Raugrin Triome and shock lands, but check lands and artifact lands keep the mana base from costing too much, for the most part.

Uthros, Titanic Godcore has a station ability to keep you busy in grindy matches, with a payoff of huge bursts of mana if you fully station the planet. Spire of Industry is a cheap color fixer for artifact decks, so it needs to be here. Lindblum, Industrial Regency is a pinger body and a land in one card; artifact or enchantment versions of Vraska should run the white one.

MDFCs help with consistency as lands that can be spells. Legion Leadership doesn’t have the best targets here, but it’s cheap. Kabira Takedown handles many problematic fatties, and Valakut Awakening is good in case you need to reset your hand, like if Fateful Discovery has been popping off but only giving you more lands.

Even though the deck should make a bunch of Treasure, most of them will be creatures. I don’t mind filling out the list with nearly all the Talismans and Signets, since they’ll also count for payoffs like Smaug. Boros Signet came out because I realized that two of my card draw sources aren’t optional, so I wanted to make room for Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower. Since the deck doesn’t have a recycling program, I opted to slot in these two hand size modifiers.

And I probably over-rely on Rogue's Passage to get around stalled board states, but sometimes your sweepers and your evasion just don’t cut it. Or you have nothing to do with your mana, and your saboteur triggers are your only source of card draw.

The Strategy

Turn 3 is critical for this deck. Vraska, Soul of Stone is a 3-mana commander, one that needs exactly to cast it. None of those pips are hybrid, so you want access to all your colors as early as you can get them. But sequencing is also important; I’d rather cast Vraska or Third Path Iconoclast when I have enough mana to follow them up with a noncreature spell.

Ideally you’ll want some value pieces in place before you start truly casting noncreature spells. Token generators, card draw, and pingers all play a part here. By the midgame to early endgame, everything you do should have ripple effects. Every spell you cast generates tokens, which then generates burn damage. Spells, tokens entering, or combat damage refill your hand for next turn and help you to dig for the card that’ll put you over the edge, something like Craterclaw Colossus or Smaug the Magnificent.

Combos and Interactions

This deck is rather straightforward, with no infinite combos, and hardly any timing quirks to speak of.

There’s the wrinkle of Tezzeret, Cruel Captain and Vraska, Soul of Stone, though. Tezzeret triggers Vraska to create a Sculpture Treasure, but the planeswalker won’t see that artifact token enter because that trigger resolves before the Tezzeret spell even resolves, let alone before the planeswalker itself has entered.

Rule 0 Violations Check

This deck should pass a Rule 0 conversation for Brackets 2 and 3 without any problems.

Budget Options

The mana base is always the first place to make cuts, and in this case the main offenders are Raugrin Triome and the shock lands, plus Uthros, Titanic Godcore and Valakut Awakening. Uthros and Valakut can be a basics, the shocks can swap out for matching duals, and I’d run a basic Island, an Izzet land, or a Path of Ancestry over the Triome.

Flawless Maneuver should be more accessible right now due to a reprint in Reality Fracture Commander, but you could swap it out for another counterspell if you must.

Tezzeret, Cruel Captain isn’t cheap on the singles market, but you can cut that slot’s budget tenfold by swapping in Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Smaug the Magnificent is also rather costly, but if you’re staying at a lower power, you could consider a Maskwood Nexus for a mana sink that gives you board presence and also saves your other creatures from Kindred Judgment.

Academy Manufactor and Xorn will keep rising in price until they’re reprinted in a Masters set or something, as more and more commanders mess around with Treasure and other utility artifact tokens. I don’t like Draconic Visitor in this deck since it turns off Reckless Fireweaver and Fateful Discovery, but you can choose to make your tokens bigger immediately rather than go for sheer numbers.

Moonshaker Cavalry and Craterclaw Colossus are in the $10-15 range, but you’ll need other finishers if you cut them. You could pivot to more sweepers, and hope for your indestructible enablers to make them one-sided.

Other Builds

I’m not saying that these are the most powerful options, but “noncreature spell” leaves the trigger open to many avenues. I can’t cover them all, so here’s the ones that appeal to my gremlin brain. Once again, not saying these are powerful, because I like silly convoluted stuff more than min-maxed hyper efficiency.

Jeskai spellslinging is the obvious route. I skipped many prowess and pure spellslinger cards like Archmage Emeritus, Veyran, Voice of Duality, and Vivi Ornitier, but you could explore that path. I also just really like the idea of using Bria, Riptide Rogue to give your Sculpture Treasures prowess, although tracking prowess triggers as you keep making more and more permanents sounds like a nightmare.

I’m always trying to see if a commander is viable for vehicles, and I like the potential here: Every vehicle you cast comes with a pilot-sized creature that can’t do anything but tap to crew stuff unless you give it haste. With Vraska and Cyberdrive Awakener out, your attacking creatures have both vigilance and flying (disgusting). Unwinding Clock and Jeskai Ascendancy untap your artifact creatures so they can crew more often, including on your opponents’ turns. Vraska Vehicles may be one of the only builds in which Doomed Artisan is playable, unless you’re building a deck that’s laser-focused on flinging Karnstructs at your opponents’ faces.

Commodore Guff was at the front of a planeswalker precon, and Vraska triggers off of ‘walkers, too. You’ve got some proliferation, legendary tutors, and All Will Be One, plus some noncreature empower Jace cards. It’s definitely not the most consistent way to trigger Vraska, whose only role in this version of the deck is to provide bodies to chump block for you and maybe ramp you.

Even auras and sagas trigger Vraska. White has some tutors, cost reducers, and reanimators for enchantments. There’s plenty of creatures that are great to slap auras onto, including personal favorites like Three Dog, Galaxy News DJ and Valduk, Keeper of the Flame. If you’re going sagas, blue offers proliferation and interactive spells as protection, and red has All Will Be One to burn your opponents as you place lore counters.

Oh snap! I didn’t even look at prepared spells before finishing the deck. Emeritus of Conflict likes the spellslinger deck, Eiganjo Dynastorian likes the enchantment builds, and I like Inspired Skypainter’s prepared spell to set up Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer.

Commanding Conclusion

Vraska Joins Up | Illustrationby Wylie Beckert

Color me obsessed. Seriously, I could probably build a different deck around each of the card types and subtypes I’ve mentioned today and have fun finding all the niche synergies I can jam into them.

Let us know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord if you want to see a breakdown of the variety of Vraska builds, and share your own builds, if you’re so inclined. For more deck guides and building tips, check out our newsletter and YouTube channel, both called The Daily Upkeep.

Until next time, happy brewing!