Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Riku of Many Paths!

Riku is a three mana 3/3 that has whenever you cast a modal spell, choose up to X where X is the number of times you chose a mode for that spell with the choices being exile the top card of your library and until the end of your next turn you can play it, put a +1/+1 counter on Riku and give them trample until end of turn, or create a 1/1 blue Bird creature token with flying.

I am a major fan of modal spells due to their very nature of being versatile spells depending on what you need at the moment, so having a Commander that rewards you for playing a lot of modal spells, especially ones with multiple choices, does make it more enticing to play with.

The goal of the deck is simple, play as many modal spells as possible and try to find ones that give multiple choices to get the most out of Riku’s ability as possible.

The first thing we need are the utility modal spells, which usually only give one choice but can be very useful.

Heritage Reclamation is one of a long line of modal spells that gives you the option of destroying an artifact, an enchantment, and a third effect often being set dependent with this one being exile a card from a graveyard and drawing a card. Simple, yet effective in what we would like from our utility modal spells.

Abrade is another classic modal effect in being able to destroy an artifact or dealing 3 damage to a creature, Overwhelming Surge is a modal spells that allows you to choose two options in being able to deal 3 damage to a creature or destroying a non creature artifact, and Izzet Charm can be a counter spell, deal 2 damage, or draw two then discard two cards.

There are also spells that have Escalate, which allow us to use more modes of the spell if we put some more mana into it. Collective Defiance can be used to refuel our hand, deal 4 damage to a creature, and/or 3 damage to an opponent or Planeswalker.

Charms are another classic kind of modal spells that allows us a mass of versatility, like Temur Charm being a fight spell, a counter spell, and a way to prevent small creatures from blocking.

Some of the most versatile charms are Archmage’s Charm and Archdruid’s Charm, which are a counter spell, a draw two, or gain control of a 1 mana or lower nonland permanent and a creature or land tutor, a buff and bite, or an artifact or enchantment exile spells.

The next series of spells we need to consider are spells that allow for us to make multiple choices.

Commands are the first set of spells that come to mind since they give two choices, and one that provides a lot of utility is Prismari Command, which gives the options of dealing 2 damage to any target, draw two cards then discard two cards, creating a Treasure token, and destroying an artifact.

Flame of Anor is also a spell to consider since it allows us to make a second choice if we control a Wizard, which with Riku in play it would be easy enough to fulfill and the choices being draw two cards, destroying an artifact, or dealing 5 damage to a creature for three mana is pretty solid.

We also reach the Confluence spells, which not only gives us three choices, but also allows us to choose the same mode more than once, and since Riku only counts how many modes are chosen and not if the same mode is chosen, we can cast Fiery Confluence to a decent amount of damage to creatures, to players, or destroy several artifacts if necessary.

Sublime Epiphany is an interesting card because it has up to five modes and while Riku only has three effects, most of the time we should be able to fulfill all of Riku’s conditions with just Sublime Epiphany since it can counter a spell, counter an activated or triggered ability, bounce a nonland permanent, create a token copy of a creature we control, and draw a card.

Since most of how we play our spells is based off of being more reactive, we need to make sure that we are using our mana efficiently.

Any way that we can make our spells cheaper, like say Sapphire Medallion or any of the Medallion cycle we can fit into our deck will definitely make things a lot easier.

There are also the mana reducers like Goblin Electromancer, Goblin Anarchomancer, and Stormcatch Mentor are definitely going to be must haves in the deck since even if there is just a single mana reduction then that will be immensely helpful.

We can also make use of spells that copy other spells, especially if they are modal like Twinferno which can copy the next instant or sorcery we cast, allowing for new targets, or give a creature we control double strike.

See Double is also a strong modal copy spell which allows us to choose both of its modes if an opponent has eight or more cards in the graveyard with the modes being the ability to copy any spell or create a copy token of any creature, which means we can copy a one sided mega value spell to get benefits from it first or we can create a token of a powerful creature our opponents have in play to be an even bigger threat.

The way a Riku deck wins is by trying to out value our opponents, since we can get a massive amount of impulse draw, make Riku into a threat via Commander Damage since it gets bigger and gains trample, or have a wide enough evasive board that can needle at our opponents.

It is very much a Commander that requires a lot of set up to get payoff and absolutely needs Riku in play to work, but it can definitely be a fun Commander that can potentially deal with a lot of other decks.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual