Commander Overview
Lorwyn Eclipsed keeps on delivering amazing Pauper EDH commanders, and Twinflame Travelers is a great example of this. A strong commander in great colors that doubles elemental triggered abilities, while this may seem underwhelming on the surface when you look at some of the elements in the format like Chillbringer or Coal Stoker, you can see the power this deck can have. Twinflame Travelers is a very strong commander for a creature type that doesn’t have a ton of love. I love seeing less popular creature types get support, and Twinflame Travelers is a great example!
How to Play the Deck
Playing the deck is extremely straightforward; all we really do is play out our commander as soon as we can and then use our elementals and their double triggers to do some busted things, and then we turn stuff sideways! We are a combat deck that has some control elements, but Twinflame Travelers is the true star of the show in this deck. This deck is great for a player of any skill level, as long as they have an understanding of triggered abilities, they will be perfectly fine.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our whole deck is pretty much one big synergistic pool. We only have one creature that isn’t an elemental in Stirring Bard, which is an amazing card for our combat game plan, since we have so many elementals, our commander is strong in this deck and can help us control our opponents’ boards, draw a ton of cards, and control the game in combat. The whole deck synergizes with itself extremely well.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: We really take what our hand gives us here, the only real goal of the early-game is to get Twinflame Travelers on the board as quick as we can, I typically never wait for them to be out, we do have some good early game elementals and if we can play them out we do, if we can attack early we take all of those opportunities as well.
Mid-Game: By this point, Twinflame Travelers is out, and we are able to start attacking and, more importantly, doubling our elemental triggers! Cards like Phase Dolphin can really assist us with the combat game plan at this stage of the game as well.
Late-Game: The late-game is pretty much like all of the other phases of the game. We can drop some bigger and better creatures like Wave-Wing Elemental, which can be a great attacker, especially if Twinflame is on the board and we can trigger it twice, just a great way to hit evasively. The core game plan doesn’t change in the late game, turn our elementals sideways, and use our commander to our advantage.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Even though we are in Izzet, we actually have a decent amount of ramp. Sadly, we can’t drop something like Llanowar Elves. Still, we do have a ton of mana rocks and some of them even act as additional card draw like Mind Stone, Bonder’s Ornament, and Izzet Locket. All of our mana rocks are primarily used in the early game to get us as close as we can to our commander, but they are helpful throughout the entire game. Our ramp package isn’t great compared to some decks, but overall it’s quite helpful!
Card Draw/Card Advantage
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the Izzet deck is pretty good at card draw, well, we are! We have many sources of card draw. Cards like Mulldrifter can be extremely strong with our commander, whether we Evoke them or hard cast them, their ability still triggers, and we can draw a ton for cheap. We can certainly never say no to pay three and draw four! Cloudkin Seer is another great card draw source for the deck. It’s already an efficient creature, but adding a double draw makes it a lot better. Being in Izzet also helps with our card draw package a lot as well, cards like Big Score, Unexpected Windfall, and Brainstorm are just some of our great card draw options. If you play this deck, you should really never run out of cards!
Removal
Our removal package isn’t huge, but it is sufficient for our deck. Our commander assists with this as well, using creatures like Spitebellows to kill some pretty big creatures. Bogardan Firefiend is a great option as well, dealing four to a creature can be very good, especially after combat! While not strictly removal, we do have Witness Protection and Unable to Scream. While it doesn’t remove the creature, it does effectively make them useless, which is always good. We don’t have a huge removal package, but our creatures help a lot!
Protection
This is one of the strongest aspects of our deck, we have quite a bit of counterspell effects in the deck and are easily able to stop problematic permanents from resolving or protect our commander or are creatures as we need, we have a wide range of counterspells like Cancel, Arcane Denial and Dispel, whether we use these offensively or defensively really depends on the situation but either option is strong! As long as Twinflame Travelers can stay on the board, we are happy.
Utility / Support
Lets go over some of the best and coolest elementals in the deck! Aethersnipe is a great option for the deck and while we typically evoke being able to bounce two creatures can be very strong. Brighthearth Banneret is one of the best cards in the deck and discounts thirty-two out of thirty-three creatures and is an amazing asset for our deck. Enraged Flamecaster is another extremely powerful elemental, being able to do four damage after any mana value four or greater spell in conjunction with our strength in combat can put a lot of pressure on our opponents. We also have elementals that support our combat gameplan like Lavakin Brawler which is an extremely strong attacker and triggering their ability twice can spell doom for our opponents. I also love our more control focused elementals like Ice Flan, Frost Lynx and Chillbringer being able to tap down our opponents best creature is very strong.
Mana Base
I like our manabase a lot, nothing super crazy here, I always try to include cycling lands so late-game lands drops aren’t a waste of a draw, but other than that, we have some basics and dual lands. We do have some synergies with some of our landfall creatures like Akoum Hellhound and Wave-Wing Elemental with Evolving Wilds, and while it’s not consistent, it can make Evolving Wilds a less bad draw in the late-game. After all of my testing games, I had no trouble with.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition is combat. We do have creatures that help whittle down our opponents, like Goretusk Firebeast and Enraged Flamecaster, but combat is the primary win condition in the deck, and we are pretty good at it!
Strengths of the Deck
Our commander is a huge strength of the deck, double abilities are truly never bad, and allow us to scale very quickly and be a present threat in the game.
Being in Izzet and having access to counters/removal allows us to disrupt our opponents and protect ourselves.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We rely on our commander heavily; while the deck can certainly function without them, it’s a lot slower.
Stompy decks and other huge creature decks can outpace us, especially on the ground. We do have some evasiveness, but it can be rough in the late-game.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Sigil Captain. Matchup Record: 2-2
This is an ok matchup for the deck; they can get scary if we let their commander hang around. Killing Sigil Captain or simply countering them is a big part of this matchup.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Abrade, Counterspell and Phase Dolphin.
Game 2: Vs Tannuk, Memorial Ensign. Matchup Record: 3-0
I didn’t have a lot of struggles with this matchup. We are a lot quicker, and while they can get some early damage, it can be quite hard for them to kill us quickly. In my experience, as the game went on, we were able to take over combat and the game pretty easily. We also have better direct damage than they do.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Pyroceratops, Unable to Scream and Big Score.
Game 3: Vs Bushi Tenderfoot. Matchup Record: 3-2
This was an alright matchup for the deck, where we had the slight advantage. At the same time, their commander can be pretty scary limiting them with something like Fall from Favor or Unable to Scream can make this matchup pretty easy, we do need to be careful as they are able to one-shot but with all of our elementals we are typically able to block, make sure you counter their Whispersilk Cloak!
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Dispel, Fall from Favor and Spitebellows.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! As someone who enjoys creature decks focusing on less supported types, this deck is a slam deck, and Twinflame Travelers is just a very fun commander. If you love elementals or just playing silly things and having double triggers, then you will love this one!