Wizard Tribal: Cast Spells and More Spells

Wizards are one of the most popular creature types in all of Magic. Aside from Humans, it is actually the creature type with the highest number of cards. With such a big selection, Wizard tribal is very common, both with commanders built with Wizards in mind and in more generic Spellslinger strategies. Wizards have been around since the very first set of Magic back in 1993. As such, the number of strategies and support cards for Wizards is countless.

What Colors Are Wizards In?

Wizards appear in every color of the color pie. Many of them care about casting spells, though this isn’t always the case. When it comes to building a Wizard tribal deck, you are most often playing Izzet , as those two colors are where most Wizard support cards are found. Other colors may pop up, but the majority of Wizard decks include at least Red and Blue.

Creature Staples

In Wizard tribal decks, you are going to play a lot of different kinds of Wizards. These may offer discounts for effects or provide utility that the rest of your Wizards can use. Outside of niche cases, this Wizards are often included in any deck built around the Wizard creature type.

Spell Discounters

Wizard decks often involve the use of noncreature spells. These creatures help to make your more expensive spells easier to cast. This lets you conserve mana to cast your creatures, or enables you to cast multiple spells in one turn. Mizzix of the Izmagnus gives a growing number of experience counters to discount your spells for each one you have. Stormcatch Mentor, Goblin Electromancer, and Baral, Chief of Compliance all discount your instant and sorcery spells by one mana. If you have multiple copies of this effect on the battlefield, they all stack for a bigger discount.

Card Draw

Something that Wizards shine at is card draw. There are a ton of different Wizard cards that make it easy to draw through your deck. Azami, Lady of Scrolls is one of the easiest, only requiring you to tap a Wizard to draw a card. These can even be summoning sick and can be done at instant speed, so you can get value out of them right away. With how many spells you’ll likely be casting, Archmage Emeritus turns all those spells into card draw. Likewise, Whirlwind of Thought is ran for the same reasons.

Wizard Copying

A common subtheme of Wizard tribal is copying both your Wizard spells and your abilities. As a commander, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist lets you pay just one mana to make a temporary Wizard token. Naban, Dean of Iteration doubles up on any effect triggers from Wizards entering, and Harmonic Prodigy will copy the triggered effects of all Wizards (and Shamans). When Naru Meha, Master Wizard and Dualcaster Mage enter, these can copy an instant or sorcery (the former of which is a part of mana combos). To copy all your Wizards, you can utilize Reflections of Littjara. For instants and sorcery consistent copying, you have Thousand-Year Storm.

Burn Damage

With all the spellslinger you do in Wizard tribal, you want some ways to deal burn damage on top of everything else. Luckily, there are a ton of Wizards with effects that trigger when you cast spells. All of the Wizard tokens made with cards like Kuja, Genome Sorcerer and Circle of Power will burn whenever you cast noncreature spells. Vivi Ornitier burns and grows in stats for every noncreature spell, and can be used to generate a ton of mana each turn. Coruscation Mage and Guttersnipe have a similar effect, both dealing burn damage when you cast spells.

Four Flavors of Wizard Tribal Commanders

When it comes to Wizard tribal, there are four distinct ways to build it. These are Copy, Spellslinger, Burn, and Card Draw. Despite all of them being built around the Wizard typing, all of them have a rather distinct playstyle. Each one is a bit different, so if you like Wizards, you have a wide selections of ways to play the archetype.

Wizard Tribal: Copy (Inalla, Archmage Ritualist)

When it comes to copying spells, it’s hard to pick a better commander than Inalla, Archmage Ritualist. You don’t even have to ever actually cast it from the command zone, as you can always copy Wizard spells so long as you have a mana to pay. Since these spells are sacrificed at the end step, you can use them as fuel for cards like Culling the Weak and Burnt Offering for a little jump in mana.

There are ways to keep these copied Wizard tokens around. The Master, Multiplied prevents triggered abilities from getting rid of creature tokens. As an added bonus, it lets you keep copies of legendary creature tokens around for extra value. These tokens are exiled at the end step, so Obeka, Brute Chronologist and Sundial of the Infinite can end the turn before you ever have to exile the tokens.

In this build, you want to blink your Wizards so you can copy them more. As such, there is a subtheme of Blink within the deck. Conjurer's Closet blinks a creature at every end step for a free, consistent blink. Essence Flux, Displace, and Illusionist's Stratagem all blink creatures, letting you make more Wizard copies and get more enter the battlefield triggers.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is all about copying Wizards and getting extra triggers of your best enter the battlefield effects.

Wizard Tribal: Spellslinger (Bria, Riptide Rogue)

Spellslinger decks are very common for Wizards. Bria, Riptide Rogue is one of the best commanders for this flavor of Wizard tribal. By giving all your creatures prowess, each spell boosts up their stats. Many Otters are Wizards, so the deck has a sub-Otter tribal theme as well. It utilizes cards like Valley Floodcaller and Stormsplitter to get more value out of all your noncreature spells.

With how many spells you cast, you want to play creatures that create creature tokens when you cast them. This not only gives you a bigger boardstate, but also more powerful attackers since your commander grants them all prowess. Murmuring Mystic creates Birds with flying to make them even better in combat. Talrand, Sky Summoner, Young Pyromancer, and Third Path Iconoclast all create tokens as well.

To help the deck maintain steam, you want a lot of draw spells. With how many Otters you have in the deck, Pearl of Wisdom can usually be cast at a discount. Treasure Cruise can draw a bunch of cards with ease thanks to delve. Frantic Search and Snap are both essentially free spells since you untap lands equal to their casting cost. If you copy it with a card like Alania, Divergent Storm, that’s even more free mana you can get out of them.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. If you’re more in the market to cast a ton of spells and attack with giant creatures, look no further than Bria, Riptide Rogue.

Wizard Tribal: Burn (Kuja, Genome Sorcerer)

Kuja, Genome Sorcerer is one of the rare Wizard tribal commanders that opt to not play Blue. Instead, it focuses on the Black Wizard tokens from the Final Fantasy set that deal 1 damage to each opponent when you cast noncreature spells. These are created both by the commander, as well as cards like Vivi's Persistence and Queen Brahne as ways to keep creating them on top of all the one-time generators.

To help deal even more burn damage, the deck runs multiple cards that make your creatures deal extra damage. Cards like Fiery Emancipation, Collective Inferno, and City on Fire all help to dwindle down life totals quicker. Since the creatures themselves are dealing damage, Whip of Erebos gives all your creatures lifelink. With just one Black Mage effect, that’s three life gained from just one trigger.

With how many spells you want to cast, you want ways to save mana so you always have access to mana. Ashling, Flame Dancer and Electro, Assaulting Battery both prevent your red mana from your mana pool from draining, with the latter providing extra mana. Urabrask and Birgi, God of Storytelling both provide red mana when you cast your spells as well to never run out.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. This deck is as midrange as they come. It takes a little bit of time to setup, but once you do, it’s a snowball to victory.

Wizard Tribal: Card Draw (Azami, Lady of Scrolls)

When looking at Azami, Lady of Scrolls, it’s hard to think of building anything but Wizard tribal with it. Despite being a bit pricey in mana, the effect is well worth the payoff, as your entire deck becomes a draw engine. A one-mana creature like Cursecatcher isn’t fantastic, but with Azami, it’s way better, as even if the effect isn’t used, it’s still draw power. Docent of Perfection is especially strong, as every instant and sorcery creates a Wizard token, which means more to draw with.

With how many cards you’ll be drawing, you have to be sure you don’t have a hand size limit otherwise you’ll constantly be discarding useful cards. Spellbook is a simple zero-cost spell that gives you no maximum hand size. Thought Vessel acts as a mana rock while keep your hand size unlimited. Wizard Class at its base level unrestricts the hand size, and can get some extra value out of its other effects if you have mana to spend.

There are a few different win conditions in the deck. When you combine Azami, Lady of Scrolls with Teferi's Ageless Insight, that equates to a ton of cards being drawn without investing much mana. This makes winning with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Laboratory Maniac, and Triskaidekaphile very easy. There are also a handful of extra turn spells like Time Warp to make this even easier to accomplish after just a few cycles.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The one downside to this deck is that it might feel a bit like “solitaire” once your board is set up, but the fun part is working toward that board state and using counterspells in the meantime.

What Makes Wizard Tribal Stand Out?

Tribal decks exist for just about every creature type, from Elves to Nobles. So, why play a Wizard tribal deck compared to any other tribal option? For starters, unlike many other tribal decks, Wizard tribal has a wide variety of playstyles. As seen with the four decks showcased here, while each of them is Wizard tribal, all of them have different playstyles and win conditions. They may win through combat or burn, or maybe even by getting rid of your entire deck.

Regardless of your preferred style of play, Wizard tribal offers something for everyone. If you like Control, you can lean into builds more focused on counterspells. Or, if you prefer more aggressive decks, you can build one that focuses more on amassing a battlefield of Wizards. The possibilities are endless. And since Wizards are one of the most popular creature types, there’ll be constant influxes of new cards to play with.

In Conclusion

Wizard tribal is a very fun archetype in the grand scheme of playable tribal decks. There is no “wrong” way to build a Wizard deck. Aggro, Midrange, Control, it doesn’t matter. All of them are viable across all Commander brackets.

You can make Wizard tribal decks at the hyper-casual bracket 1, or even push it to its limits at the bracket 5 level. This isn’t something that every tribal deck can do. Some are either too powerful for the lower brackets or too weak for the highest bracket levels. Ultimately, you can make Wizard decks work at any power level, which is what makes it such a unique archetype. Purposefully weak and themed or refined and powerful, you can do whatever you like with Wizards.