The Deadliest Pinger In The Galaxy! | Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph | $50, $100
For this week's Budget Commander I'm covering one of the most popular commanders to come out this year: Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph! This rootin' tootin' gunslingin' cowboy alien has stolen the hearts and genes of the Commander community, so I'll show you how to spellsling your way to victory with him at the lowest price points!
Spellslinger With A Pinger Twist!
Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph has a powerful ability to add +2 damage to all your 1-damage pings, essentially tripling their effectiveness. Therefore the best cards with Ghyrson are repeatable ping effects that are very mana-efficient and get their pings ideally more than once per turn, so that we're maximizing the damage output of our commander.
Most folks are focusing on oldschool pingers like the classic Timmy aka Prodigal Sorcerer. While I respect this choice and love the nostalgia appeal of running these cards, I don't believe they are the most powerful pingers to utilize with Ghyrson as they are both overcosted, have only one target, and are only repeatable with certain untap effects. Instead I'll be going back to my tried and true favorite Izzet archetype: Spellslinger!
The pingers in Izzet Spellslinger are both powerful and abundant: most of them do 1 damage to each opponent whenever we cast an instant or sorcery, which Ghyrson then triples, netting us 9 damage per instant/sorcery cast. That means with Firebrand Archer and Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph in play we just need to cast about 13 spells to kill all our opponents! Ghyrson's damage can also turn jank burn spells like Blazing Volley into one-sided board wipes for one mana; End the Festivities does the same while also dishing out 3 damage to each opponent! Pyrokinesis with Ghyrson can dish out 3 damage to 4 different targets, 12 damage total, at instant speed for free if we exile a red card from our hand!!
We also plan on utilizing all that damage output for other utility, most notably card draw: slap Curiosity, Ophidian Eye, or Tandem Lookout on Ghyrson to draw a card whenever Ghyrson triggers to ping someone's face, or slap it on to a Thermo-Alchemist to draw 3 cards each time we cast an instant/sorcery!
Other spicy tech includes Basilisk Collar, which turns any damage Ghyrson or our other pingers deal to creatures deadly while also gaining us tons of life in the process. And there's the two pinging enchantments Burning Earth and Manabarbs which put opponents on the clock, pinging everyone for 3 for tapping lands with Ghyrson out!
Basilisk Collar and Curiosity are so good in the deck that we run Dizzy Spell specifically for its transmute ability to find either card.
My favorite card in the entire deck though has to be Flame Fusillade: this obscure jank card lets you tap all the permanents on your battlefield for 1 damage, which is tripled by Ghyrson, turning it into either mass removal or straight-up burning out all your opponents! I love seeing cool unique cards get a chance to shine in Commander and this one is just amazing here!
$50 & $100 Deck Lists
The $50 version has all the key cards here: most of the Spellslinger pingers, with the biggest one being Niv-Mizzet, Parun, which is infinite draw/damage with any of our Curiosity cards (at least until we run out of cards). Dizzy Spell tutors up Curiosity or Basilisk Collar while Drift of Phantasms tutors Ophidian Eye or Tandem Lookout.
The $100 brings a lot of Spellslinger powerhouse cards such as Storm-Kiln Artist and Archmage Emeritus to really pop off hard, and way better recursion with Mizzix's Mastery which when overloaded mid/lategame should win us the game. My favorite pickup though is Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch which is another pinger that also has some bonus recursion!
That's All, Folks!
I hope you enjoyed this take on Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph. I know this is an incredibly popular commander that a lot of you folks are excited for, and I'm never one to pass an opportunity to talk about Izzet Spellslinger. Moreso, this was a real treat! Let me know if there's any sweet tech I missed. Also, feel free to suggest a commander you want to see covered in a future article! I always read the comments for inspiration. Thanks for reading!
