Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Ral, Monsoon Mage!

Ral is a two mana 1/3 that makes your instants and sorceries cost one less to cast, and whenever you cast an instant or sorcery you flip a coin where if you lose you take one damage, buut if you win you may transform Ral, Monsoon Mage into Ral, Leyline Prodigy.

Ral Leyline Prodigy enters with additional loyalty counters equal to the number of instants and sorceries you cast this turn, a +1 making your instants and sorceries cost one mana less to cast, a -2 that deals two damage divided between one or two targets and if you control another blue permanent you draw a card, and a -8 where you exile the top eight cards of your library and cast any number of instants and sorceries among them for free.

With the recent news of the Modern unbannings, I am reminded of the one Modern deck that I wanted to try when Modern Horizons 3 was released, and that was the Storm deck that used Ral, Monsoon Mage.

Now Storm is a notoriously difficult deck to pilot, but let’s give it a go.

One of the first things we need to do is get our instants and sorceries as cheap as we can get them.

Stormcatch Mentor and Goblin Electromancer are some of the cheaper ways to get the mana cost of your instants and sorceries down, with Stormcatch Mentor being one of the more desirable options because they have haste and prowess.

Baral, Chief of Compliance is a good option as well because not only does it reduce the cost of our instants and sorceries, but when we counter a spell we can draw and discard a card, which makes counter spells a more viable option.

There is also Case of the Ransacked Lab, which provides a discount and when the case is solved, our instants and sorceries draw us a card.

We also have access to Ruby and Sapphire Medallions, but we should be aware that most of our deck is going to comprise of instants and sorceries so deck space is going to be tight.

The next thing we need for a Storm deck is the mana to cast all of our cards. Red has a large number of rituals that we need to take advantage of.

Seething Song is a ritual that is banned in Modern, but perfectly legal in Commander and with all the other cost reducers, this could cast for one mana fairly consistently.

There are also the classic standbys of Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual, which again should allow us to end up being mana positive by a huge margin if we sequence correctly.

Another option we have for the late game is Mana Geyser, which makes a red mana for each tapped land each opponent controls, which if everyone makes their land drops and we are forced to cast it on curve and we are the fourth player can make up to 15 mana.

There is also Storm-Kiln Artist that makes a Treasure token whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, which in a Storm deck is going to happen a lot.

While red has a ton of ritual cards, blue doesn’t have as many options, but there are still some to consider. High Tide can make Islands produce an additional blue mana for a turn and Energy Tap taps a creature we control and makes colorless mana equal to its mana value.

The way we win can depend on which Storm payoff you want to fulfill.

For me personally, winning the game with Ral, Crackling Wit is one of the more interesting options. The reason why it’s the most interesting is because Ral, Crackling Wit gains a loyalty counter whenever we cast a noncreature spell, and the ultimate is an emblem that gives our instants and sorceries Storm.

That means when we finally decide to combo off to win the game, we don’t need to just have something like Grapeshot to deal lethal damage to a player, or Empty the Warrens to make a bunch of Goblin tokens, but we can turn something like Boltwave into a game win after casting only 14 spells, which shouldn’t be hard to do.

Not only that, but pair that with our rituals and cheap cantrips then we can potentially cast our whole deck if they all have Storm, and if we cast the previously mentioned Storm spells with the Ral, Crackling Wit emblem, then we get to double Storm.

Having a proper Storm deck is a dream of mine, and the one of the only things holding me back is being anxious for piloting the deck incorrectly.

Ral, Monsoon Mage is probably the Storm Commander that I would build towards, but only after getting some goldfishing in to make sure I know the lines to take to win the game.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual