Archetypes of Imagination - Making a Flicker Deck

Niko, Light of Hope | art by Vance Kelly

Blink and you'll miss it

Hello again! Welcome back to Archetypes of Imagination, a series where I build decks based on popular Commander archetypes. I'll be using Scryfall's tagging system and EDHREC's Tag pages to build around a new theme each week.

Scryfall has a really cool way of categorizing cards, where each card has specific labels attached to it for later reference. For example, Mana Drain has the counterspell tag and Worn Powerstone has the ramp tag. EDHREC's tag system is really cool too, letting users see popular cards associated with a given strategy.

For example, Waste Not is great in discard decks and Thousand-Faced Shadow is great in ninjutsu decks. These tagging systems are great ways to get inspiration for certain deck archetypes, and I often start there when it's time for me to build a new deck!

This week, we'll be building a deck focused on flickering (and blinking) permanents. We'll fill our deck with creatures that have powerful abilities that trigger when they enter the battlefield, and ways to make those creatures hit the battlefield multiple times each game.

There's a ton of commanders that do well at the helm of a flicker deck, most of whom are in Azorius (). I'll be building this deck around a commander from a relatively recent set… Niko, Light of Hope!

Niko's newest form, much like their previous card, focuses on Shard tokens. The new Niko makes 2 Shard tokens (which are like upgraded, enchantment-ified Clue tokens) when they enter the battlefield.

Then, by paying two mana and tapping Niko, we can flicker one of our creatures to turn all of our Shards into copies of the exiled creature. This is super strong, letting us re-use our best creature's enter the battlefield effects, and make tons of copies of the creature we can attack with.

Niko provides room for some creativity, and we'll want a mix between strong attackers and creatures with strong enters abilities.

We'll also want some extra ways to blink Niko to make extra Shard tokens. Seems like we've got our work cut out for us. Let's get going!

You've got a target on your back…

As I mentioned, there's two main categories that our creatures fall into. First, let's talk about the creatures with strong enter the battlefield abilities. There's a group of land-fetching creatures, Loyal Warhound, Knight of the White Orchid, and Claim Jumper that work so well in this deck.

Although their efficacy drops off after being blinked a few times, these creatures can let us stay caught up with any Cultivate-casting Green players at the table. There's also a lot of creatures that provide us with some form of removal when they enter the battlefield, from Loran of the Third Path to Fiend Hunter.

My favorite, though, has got to be Riptide Gearhulk. This Aetherdrift card can interact with EACH of our opponents every time that it enters the battlefield. And, on top of that, it's a fantastic attacker.

As a 2/5 with double strike and prowess, this can be lethal should we make a few Shard tokens into a copy of it. I'd also like to give a quick shoutout to Moonshaker Cavalry, which can be a repeatable Craterhoof Behemoth should we have a way to flicker/blink it other than our commander.

There's a whole host of other creatures with great enter the battlefield abilities too, like White Plume Adventurer. This is the only card that mentions the initiative in our deck.

But, we really like having the ability to untap at least one creature on each upkeep, and we'll be flickering and blinking this creature so much that it'll run us through the undercity quite quickly. I'm also a big fan of Canoptek Scarab Swarm, which can be a repeatable source of graveyard hate and token creation.

Speaking as a Meren of Clan Nel Toth player, this is exactly the kind of hate piece that excels against graveyard decks. And, although it's somewhat boring, Charming Prince works so well in flicker decks. It provides three good options every time it enters the battlefield, and really overperforms as a 2-drop.

There's also a whole bunch of creatures that we really, really want to turn our Shard tokens into copies of. Among them, one of my favorites is Silverwing Squadron. Should we have a few Shards on the battlefield, and make them into copies of this creature, we can wipe out all three of our opponents in a single attack.

The same thing's true for Skyhunter Strike Force, which can present another lethal, table-killing threat with a critical mass of Shard tokens.

Lastly, I think Angel of Destiny works so well in this deck. We'll be gaining genuinely massive amounts of life should we turn our Shards into copies of this creature, and should be able to cause our opponents to lose the game very easily.

But, not all of our creatures can be so impressive. For more mundane (but still powerful) options, we've got Hero of Bladehold, Sludge Monster and Dream Trawler. Notably, all of these creatures do cost a good amount of mana. But, should we be able to survive into the late game, we'll be presenting strong board states consistently.

Gone in a flash

We need a critical mass of ways to flicker our best creatures, and Niko in particular. The deck functions best when we have a ton of Shard tokens lying around, and the ability to Cloudshift a creature in response to a removal spell.

Speaking of, one-mana ways to blink creatures like Cloudshift, Ephemerate, and Essence Flux are great. Having repeatable ways to blink our creatures is important too. Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, and Kykar, Zephyr Awakener are all great role-players here.

And, even though it isn't the most powerful creature in the deck, I think Twining Twins is great. It flickers a creature for 2 mana (which isn't a terrible rate), and acts as a nice attacker when we cast the creature half of it (4/4 vigilant fliers do well in combat).

Our creatures will constantly be entering and leaving the battlefield, so let's add some payoffs for that. Dour Port-Mage will provide us with a ton of card advantage (and a very slow, expensive blink effect should we need it). Extraordinary Journey does the same thing, and can even act as some temporary removal should we need it.

Lastly but certainly not least-ly Preston, the Vanisher is a super strong payoff for blink and flicker effects. He can double-up on enter the battlefield effects, and even remove our opponent's threats if we flicker enough creatures while he's on the board.

Here's the full decklist, in all of it's Azorius glory:

That article was over in a blink!

That's it for this week, folks! Before you go, though, there's a few cards that work particularly well with our commander. Unstoppable Plan is a newer card, letting us untap all our nonland permanents at the end of our turn.

With Niko and a few mana rocks, this represents an extra activation of our commander's ability on one of our opponents turns. Drumbellower is here for the same reason.

And, because we'll be flickering/blinking our commander frequently, Naban, Dean of Iteration can double the amount of shards we'll receive. There's a few other wizards in this decklist, but Naban is primarily here to augment Niko.

And, finally, Training Grounds and The Enigma Jewel both help us activate our commander's ability more frequently. Again, there's a few other activated abilities in the deck that benefit from these cards, but they're mostly here to make Niko even better.

I'll see you all next week for a deck based around hatebears!