Errant and Giada Flying and Flash

Commander Overview

Errant and Giada is a very cool commander, and a unique one. Errant and Giada are a cheap commanders that allow us to cast flying and flash spells from the top of our library. Being able to do this gives us a ton of card selection and when combined with either Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orrery we are able to continuously cast cards from the top of our library, in a color combination like Azorius we are able to amass a big board quickly, catch up if we fall behind and draw a ton of cards at the same time. Errant and Giada are in a primary role in our deck, while we don’t need them on the battlefield. Without them, we are just an Azorius Flyers deck, which is an ok place to be, but we don’t have as much explosiveness without them. I didn’t have a ton of confidence in this deck when I first tested, but it’s been so much fun, and I’ve had a blast testing and playing around with it. Errant and Giada is a streamlined and unique experience.

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck is easy; it can get a little complicated for newer players who aren’t aware of timing rules and priority, but overall, this is nothing more than a combat deck with a little casting off the top of our library added onto it. Overall, this is a very simple deck, but it can get complicated. Because of this, I would recommend it for an intermediate player; this is most certainly a deck I wouldn’t hand to a brand-new player.

Synergy’s in the deck

Our main synergies are with flying; some of the best are cards like Warden of Evos Isle, which reduces the cost for almost every creature in our deck and is a great flyer for us as well. Winged Words is another great piece of synergy for the deck that gives us some cheap card draw and is almost always turned on. We also have some creatures that are great attackers that can get huge easily, like Pride of the Clouds and Skycat Sovereign. It’s not uncommon for us to have both of these creatures up to nine or ten power. We also have some flash synergies that interact perfectly with Errant and Giada, like Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery. Both of these allow us to cast all of our nonland cards from the top of our library!

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Since our commander only costs three and we have a ton of cheap flyers we can actually have a great time in the early-game, its really easy for us to be aggressive in the early-game since we have almost all flyers it can be quite tough for us opponents to have flying blockers at this stage of the game, be aggressive and hit hard!

Mid-Game: The mid-game is pretty much more of the same but we have a much bigger and better board, being able to use something like True Conviction can make us a powerhouse and hit like a truck in combat.

Late-Game: While we don’t often reach the late game, we are quite good at it if we do, because we have so many flyers. In my testing games, I realized that many opponents are not equipped to deal with the number of flyers we have. Just keep on swinging, and you should be just fine.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We don’t ramp at all in this deck outside of Arcane Signet and Sol Ring, but that’s perfectly ok with our deck. We have a pretty low overall cost in the deck, so we don’t need to ramp at all. Almost all of the creatures in the deck are between one and four mana. Even without the ramp, we are perfectly fine, and the deck works great without it.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

We are quite good at drawing cards in this deck, card draw matters a lot less in this deck than most in the format since we can cast things off of the top of our library but if facing a mill deck or if we are unable to keep Errant and Giada on the field being able to get value off of something like Bident of Thassa can allow us to keep our hand full or draw a non-flyer, non-flash card off of the top so we can start casting off the top again. We also have some great flyers that can help us draw cards like Mulldrifter and Cloudblazer. Both of these are great options for card draw and attacking. I also love Tide Skimmer, which is an extremely consistent source of card draw for the deck. While we aren’t heavily reliant on card draw since we have Errant and Giada, it is still great to have.

Removal

For an Azorius deck, we have quite a bit of removal in the deck. We have a bunch of very cheap sources like Pongify, Path to Exile, and Swords to Plowshares, all of which are cheap and easy ways to take a problematic creature out of the game. While not single-target removal, we do have board wipes if we fall behind, like Supreme Verdict and Austere Command, which are especially good if an opponent gets out to a fast start and needs to slow them down so we can catch up. While we aren’t a slow deck, we certainly aren’t as quick as an aggressive deck. Our removal package is great for our deck and allows us to address our opponents’ biggest threats cheaply.

Protection

Our only real forms of protection come in our counterspells and cheap ones like Swan Song or Counterspell allow us to protect our creatures and still have mana to cast creatures, while we aren’t super interested in protection outside of key creatures if one of our best and biggest attackers gets targeted we most certainly want to save them so we can keep them on the board and keep dishing out damage. While our protection package is small, it’s great for the deck and allows us to keep up the primary gameplan of swinging hard and hitting hard.

Utility / Support

Let’s go over some of our best support cards for all of our flyers in the deck. True Conviction is by far one of the best support pieces we have, and can make us an immediate threat in combat. After dropping True Conviction, we can easily one-shot an opponent. While not as big and splashy, I’m still a big fan of Favorable Winds, which is a cheap and consistent buff and allows us to be much bigger and better in the early game. We also have some great support creatures in the deck, like Kangee, Sky Warden, which is both an amazing offensive and defensive creature. Whether we want to be aggressive or defensive, Kangee assists with both. Sephara, Sky's Blade is another awesome option for the deck, and giving our creatures indestructible allows us to attack and block with no fear of our stuff dying, which is extremely powerful for us.

Mana Base

We actually have some interesting nonbasics like Celestial Collonade and Restless Anchorage while man-lands aren’t super impressive in a deck filled with flyers and a bunch of buffs and support cards animating these lands and increasing our flying count for cards like Pride of the Clouds or getting buffed up with something like Favorable Winds. Beyond that, we have a bunch of Azorius duals and basics to round out our mana base. Thirty-five is a great number for this list and allows us to have mana available, but rarely flood.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is combat, which is made a lot easier by our flyers since we are naturally evasive, but we only have one way to close out games.

Strengths of the Deck

Since nearly every creature in our deck is a flyer, we are naturally evasive, and many decks can struggle against us.

We are great at establishing a big board quickly. This is because we have a lot of cheap creatures, but Errant and Giada help a ton too.

Weaknesses of the Deck

This deck can feel a lot less explosive without Errant and Giada on the field.

We have no recursion in the deck. If we have a large board and it gets removed, we can take a long time to recover.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Hope Estheim. Matchup Record: 2-2

This was a split matchup for the deck, and it really depends on whose spells are allowed to resolve and who gets to keep their commander on the field. Hope is a very cool commander, but can get slowed down a ton if they aren’t on the field a ton. Counter Hope and swing hard is the best thing you can do in this matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Counterspell, Pongify and Selfless Spirit.

Game 2: Vs The Jolly Balloon Man. Matchup Record: 3-0

I had no trouble with this matchup, as long as they aren’t playing a combo-focused list, we just fly over them easily, killing their commander removes a lot of punch from their deck as well. Just play out our flyers and swing out.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Rapid Hybridization, Rally of Wings and Bident of Thassa.

Game 3: Vs Y'shtola, Night's Blessed. Matchup Record: 1-3

This was a tough matchup for the deck. Y’shtola’s life total keeps growing, and it is not easy to deal with all the removal and control aspects they have. We don’t have the same amount of removal and counterspells to slow them down. I struggled a lot with this matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Dovin's Veto, Aven Mindcensor and Malleable Impostor.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed it. Errant and Giada is a very underrated commander in my opinion. They are a ton of fun to play and, in my opinion, are not played enough. Flying and Flash feel like Azorius abilities and allow this deck to feel extremely thematic and just a blast.