Vivi Ornitier Commander Deck: A Bracket 3 Spellslinger That Never Taps

A Vivi Ornitier commander deck is an Izzet spellslinger deck where the commander is also the mana rock, the burn engine and, once she is big enough, the finisher. Vivi Ornitier costs , enters as a 0/3 Wizard, and does two things: every noncreature spell you cast puts a +1/+1 counter on her and deals 1 damage to each opponent, and once each turn, on your turn, she adds mana equal to her power in any mix of and . Our house build sits at bracket 3 after the audit, and this post covers how the deck sequences, how it wins, and every card we changed from the stock list and why.

That last point hides the best trick in the deck. Pull from Tomorrow and both halves of Expansion // Explosion are instants. Spend your main phases casting cheap spells off lands and holding counter mana up, then in your own end step activate Vivi at her biggest and cast Pull from Tomorrow or Explosion with it. Her mana drains when the step ends like any other, so activate and cast in the same step.

Because X is checked when you activate, not when you spend, the correct turn is almost always: cast your cheap spells off lands first, let each one grow her, then activate for the bigger number and spend it on the expensive thing. Activating her as a 3/6 and then casting four cantrips (one-mana spells that draw a card to replace themselves) is four mana thrown away.

Cost reducers push this further. Baral, Chief of Compliance, Goblin Electromancer, Stormcatch Mentor and Archmage of Runes each shave off instants and sorceries, but they only touch generic mana. Opt still costs . What changes is the payoffs: with two reducers out, Frantic Search costs and untaps three lands (net positive mana), Treasure Cruise costs before you exile a single card, and Crackle with Power loses a chunk of its price.

Then there are the doublers. Harmonic Prodigy makes triggered abilities of your Shamans and other Wizards trigger an additional time, and Vivi is a Wizard. Veyran, Voice of Duality does the same for any trigger caused by casting or copying an instant or sorcery. Wizard's Staff equips a Wizard for and doubles the equipped creature's triggers. These stack: with all three in play, one Preordain puts four counters on Vivi and deals 4 to each opponent. One gap to know: casting an aura like Curiosity triggers Vivi and Prodigy doubles it, but Veyran does nothing because an aura is not an instant or sorcery.

Past in Flames is the turn-ender. After a turn of cantrips it gives every instant and sorcery in your graveyard flashback (cast it from the graveyard, then exile it) at its own mana cost, and each recast is a fresh noncreature spell, so Vivi triggers again on all of them. The reducers apply to the flashback costs too. A reasonable Past in Flames turn is eight to twelve spells, and Guttersnipe alone adds 2 to each opponent per spell on top of Vivi's pings.

The default kill is attrition by trigger: Vivi's ping, Guttersnipe, Fiery Inscription and Coruscation Mage add up to 6 per spell to each opponent with no doublers at all. Seven spells takes a table from 40 to dead. The deck also converts her power into sudden kills, which is why she is the commander rather than a payoff in the 99.

The slower engine is the old one: Niv-Mizzet, Parun draws when anyone casts an instant or sorcery and pings when you draw, and either Curiosity or Ophidian Eye on him turns each ping into a draw and each draw into a ping until something runs out. That is a two-card combo, but a six-mana one with six colored pips, the kind of late-game combo bracket 3 allows. Curiosity on Vivi herself is the modest version: each opponent she pings is a separate trigger, so one cantrip in a four-player game draws three cards.

Sigil of Sleep on Vivi is the card new pilots skip: whenever she deals damage to a player you bounce a creature that player controls, and she damages each opponent on every spell. One aura turns every cantrip into three bounces.

The full deck is on its page at Vivi Ornitier Bracket 3, and the bracket calculator audit places it at bracket 3 with the maximum three Game Changers: Cyclonic Rift, Jeska's Will and Rhystic Study. Game Changers are the cards on Wizards' list that cap how low a deck can rate; bracket 3 allows up to three, plus no mass land destruction and no chained extra turns, and this list has neither. Jeska's Will gives both modes while you control a commander: mana equal to an opponent's hand size plus the top three cards of your library exiled and playable this turn, and the spells among those three grow Vivi as you cast them (a land does not).

The average Vivi list is a solid Izzet shell and we kept most of it. The nine changes come from one reading of her text: she rewards spells over creatures, she wants to be targeted by your own cards, and her mana wants a sink.

Lightning Greaves gives shroud, which means Vivi cannot be the target of any spell or ability, including yours. Nine cards here target your own commander: Curiosity, Ophidian Eye, Sigil of Sleep, Soul's Fire, Chandra's Ignition, Temur Battle Rage, Magic Damper, Slip Out the Back, and the equip on Wizard's Staff. All nine go blank with the Greaves on. Swiftfoot Boots gives hexproof, which only stops opponents, so it stays, and the slot went to the commander-damage spell that needs to target her.

Hullbreaker Horror is a strong seven-drop, but it is a creature, so casting it never triggers Vivi and no cost reducer touches it, and it was the most expensive creature in the list. Chandra's Ignition takes the slot as a finisher that is also a noncreature spell. Tandem Lookout has to pair with Vivi to draw, it unpairs the moment either creature leaves, and Curiosity, already in the stock list, does the same job for while growing her on cast.

Baral, Chief of Compliance is one of three two-mana reducers in the deck, alongside Goblin Electromancer and Stormcatch Mentor, and the only one that is mono-blue, which matters in an opening hand that is short on red. He is a Wizard, so he carries the Staff for , and with five counterspells in the list (An Offer You Can't Refuse, Arcane Denial, Counterspell, Negate, Swan Song) his loot on each counter is a bonus a few times a game, not an engine.

Flashback, the instant from Vivi's own set, gives one card in your graveyard flashback. Past in Flames does that to every instant and sorcery at once and is the card that turns a good turn into a lethal one. Faithless Looting leaves you a card down (draw two, discard two), and in a deck where every cheap spell counts the same for Vivi, the ones that replace themselves (Opt, Consider, Serum Visions) are better fuel.

Treasure Cruise is the late-game refill. Delve lets each card you exile from your graveyard pay for of its cost, so after a cantrip turn it is a draw-three. Past in Flames and Mizzix's Mastery want that graveyard too, so exile the spent counterspells and dead removal and leave the cantrips for the flashback turn.

Mystic Sanctuary only enters untapped with three other Islands, and this list runs eleven Island-typed lands out of thirty-four, so it came in tapped more often than not. Otawara, Soaring City always enters untapped and later channels for , less per legendary creature you control, to bounce an artifact, creature, enchantment or planeswalker. With Vivi and Baral out that is , and it dodges ordinary counterspells because it is an ability, not a spell (which is also why it does not trigger Vivi).

Windfall refills every opponent's hand at the moment you are most likely to be the archenemy, and this deck draws one spell at a time rather than in bursts, so you are rarely the one who benefits most. Pull from Tomorrow draws for you alone and scales with Vivi: it costs , so a 6-power Vivi pays for X=4 on her own, in your end step, with Reliquary Tower or Thought Vessel holding the hand.

Abrade (3 damage to a creature or destroy an artifact) lost its slot to Soul's Fire, whose damage grows all game, with Lightning Bolt, Vandalblast and Flame of Anor covering its two modes. Fire Magic gave its slot to Expansion // Explosion. Fire Magic deals 1, 2 or 3 damage to each creature depending on what you pay, and that includes yours: Coruscation Mage and Stormcatch Mentor are 1/1s that die to the mode, and Guttersnipe and Goblin Electromancer are 2/2s that join them at the Fira tier. When this deck needs a sweeper it needs Blasphemous Act, which gets cheap on exactly the crowded boards where you need it.

Expansion // Explosion plays both halves. The front half copies any instant or sorcery with mana value 4 or less, yours or an opponent's, for , and the copy triggers Archmage Emeritus, Storm-Kiln Artist and Veyran because they all count copies. The back half is X damage to any target plus X cards for a player, at , and Vivi mana in your end step pays the X.

Keep three lands and two one-mana spells. Only a turn-one Sol Ring puts Vivi on the battlefield on turn two; a turn-two Arcane Signet or Izzet Signet means turn-three Vivi with one cheap spell behind her, and otherwise she is a plain turn three. After that, at least one cheap spell every turn. Ship any hand whose spells are all four mana and up: Niv-Mizzet, Parun, Crackle with Power and Chandra's Ignition with no cantrips does nothing until turn six, and Vivi stays a 0/3 the whole time.

Her weakness is targeted removal, not combat. A 0/3 blocks a mana dork and survives a one-damage sweeper, but a Lightning Bolt the turn she lands, or any spot removal once she has grown, takes every counter with her. Slip Out the Back phases her out and adds a counter, and she comes back with everything on her. Bouncing her with Snap to save her has no commander tax (that only applies to casting from the command zone), but she returns as a 0/3 for another , so it is the last resort, not the first. Hexing Squelcher covers the other half: your spells cannot be countered, and your other creatures get ward (pay 2 life), so removal on Vivi costs something.

A sample turn three off a Sol Ring opener, with Vivi already on the battlefield from turn two and three lands plus the Ring untapped: cast Opt from a land, she is a 1/4 and each opponent takes 1. Cast Consider from a second land, she is a 2/5 and the table takes another 1. Now activate her for and cast Curiosity on her with the : she is a 3/6 and each opponent is down 3, though that third ping happens before the aura attaches, so it draws nothing yet. You have drawn two cards, the third land and Sol Ring hold up Negate, and the spare is a Lightning Bolt if you have one. Every spell from here draws three cards.

Register the deck to a league on Nerd Leagues and it carries its own rating separate from yours, the easiest way to see whether the spellslinger plan closes games or just deals 14 and dies. The bracket calculator re-audits the list after any swap, so a fourth Game Changer shows up before your pod spots it.