Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Elminster

Elminster

Legendary Planeswalker — Elminster · {3}{W}{U} · Blue/White commander

Whenever you scry, the next instant or sorcery spell you cast this turn costs {X} less to cast, where X is the number of cards looked at while scrying this way. +2: Draw a card, then scry 2. −3: Exile the top card of your library. Create a number of 1/1 blue Faerie Dragon creature tokens with flying equal to that card's mana value. Elminster can be your commander.

Build an Elminster deck →

What Elminster actually does

Read off the card by the same engine the Forge and Analyzer use — this is the mechanical classification, not a summary.

• Triggered ability · otherWhenever you scry, the next instant or sorcery spell you cast this turn costs {X} less to cast, where X is the number of cards looked at while scrying this way.
• Activated ability+2: Draw a card, then scry 2.
• Activated ability−3: Exile the top card of your library. Create a number of 1/1 blue Faerie Dragon creature tokens with flying equal to that card's mana value.

What an Elminster deck needs

Plays as spellslinger. What the commander asks of the other 99 — read from the card and checked by hand.

• ways to keep the commander planeswalker alive (blockers, fogs, pillowfort), loyalty growth (proliferate, loyalty boosters) and planeswalker synergies — it must survive a turn cycle to work
• cheap instants and sorceries (every one you cast feeds it)
• scry and surveil effects — cantrips, scry and surveil lands (each one triggers it)
• token payoffs — anthems, sacrifice outlets and go-wide finishers (it makes tokens on repeat)

The Elminster deck plan

The roles the Forge fills for this commander, and how many cards of each.

• 22× Instants and sorceries — for a magecraft/prowess commander the spell COUNT is the engine
• 6× Proliferate — every counter already placed is placed again
• 6× Repeat, double, protect or find planeswalkers — the engine around a planeswalker commander
• 12× Make creature tokens — a static anthem or a go-wide commander needs a board to be wide
• 4× A team pump that actually pumps tokens
• 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
• 9× Find the exact card the plan needs
• 2× Answer a spell or ability before it resolves
• 1× Answer a whole board at once

Best cards for Elminster

Ranked by an engine that reads what each card does — its real cost, its delay and how reliably it works — rather than counting how often other people play it.

Combos with Elminster

Known combos from Commander Spellbook that Elminster is a piece of, and how many decks list them.

• Elminster + Chakram Retriever + Mystic Speculation27 decks

Build this deck in the Arcane Forge →

Arcane Foundry is free to join and every tool is included: the Arcane Forge deck builder, the ARCANE Analyzer that scores a deck by simulating games rather than counting staples, a card scanner, a collection vault, and live webcam Commander tables. Read the guide · Browse all commanders · Pricing