Quick Links
Eluge, the Shoreless Sea is a mono-blue commander available for use inMagic: The Gathering’sCommander format. Eluge is a Calamity Beast found on the plane of Bloomburrow, featured in the story of the set and brings flooding wherever it arrives (something that translates mechanically to putting flood counters on lands).
While mono-colored decks have fewer options since they’re confined to just one color, Eluge’s effect makes it worth it to run in the command zone. You will be casting a ton of spells in an Eluge deck, making for one of the best spellslinger decks that can utilize cards with high mana costs.
Harbinger of the Seas
x25 Island
Terrain Generator
War Room
The decklist contains23 creatures, 15 sorceries, 20 instants, seven artifacts,and34 lands. Since Eluge, the Shoreless Sea discounts instants and sorceries, that’s why there is such a high count of them.
Key Cards
Eluge, the Shoreless Sea
The glue that holds the deck together,Eluge, the Shoreless Seais the best part about the deck. It wants you tospread flood countersonto all your lands so that you candiscount instant and sorcery spells each turn.
Youput a flood counter on a land whenever Eluge attacksor enters the battlefield. you may easily re-trigger its ability byblinking itto exile it and return it to the battlefield. Alternatively, you can make copies of it to spread more flood counters even quicker.
Even if Eluge leaves the battlefield, the flood counters stay on the lands. This meansonce you re-cast it, the first instant and sorcery spell you cast that turn will still be discountedby however many flood counters you have.
The Flood Of Mars
The Flood of Marsis one of the few ways to spread flood counters outside of Eluge. Since it has islandwalk, if you choose to put a flood counter on an opponent’s land, this guarantees The Flood of Mars can connect for damage.
The Flood of Mars quickly gets out of hand. If you put aflood counter on a creature itbecomes The Flood of Mars. This allows you to put even more flood counters everywhere and make the discount Eluge offers even steeper.
Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
Since you will be casting a lot of impactful spells,Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrantis a great way to double up on them. Eluge gives you a big discount, and Jin-Gitaxias lets you cast two large spells for the (discounted) price of one.
Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant also offers a layer of protection, as itrequires your opponents to cast two spellsif they don’t want it countered. They have to waste one since Jin-Gitaxias counters the first artifact, instant, or sorcery spell your opponent casts, which most removal spells fall under.
Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch // Temple Of Cyclical Time
Rebound is a very useful tool for casting extra spells for free.Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epochgives all your instant spells cast from your hand rebound, which lets you double up on all of their effects.
This isparticularly useful for blink effects,so you may trigger Eluge’s effects multiple times to ramp up the number of flood counters you have on your lands.
If Ojer Pakpatiq ever gets removed, it is very easy to bring back as ittransforms into a land that can transform back into a creature after three turns. This helps you keep rebounding your instant spells, and it is especially useful with some of the draw spells.
If you rebound an instant, it will be cast,making it the first instant or sorcery spell cast that turn. This meansEluge’s effect will not affect any other spellwhen the rebound spell is cast.
Luckily, you have the option to not cast the spell with rebound, so if you have another card you’d rather cast discounted, it’s better to ignore the rebound effect.
How To Play The Deck
Eluge, the Shoreless Sea is all aboutgetting as many flood counters as you may on your lands and casting big instant and sorcery spells for free. A lot of the sorceries have a particularly high casting cost, but the effects are fantastic, and with their discount, they can be game-winning.
The main attractions are the extra turn spells likeTime Warp, Capture of Jingzhou, andTime Stretch, the last of which gives you two extra turns instead of just one. This helps to advance your board state even further while starting to swing in for damage.
Since youhave so many expensive spells, youdon’t want to just rely on Elugeto discount them.Mindsplice ApparatusandSapphire Medallionboth give you discounts to spells you’ll be casting, and when combined with Eluge, they can potentially help you cast spells for free.
There aren’t too many ways to spread flood counters outside of Eluge.The only other options areAquitect’s Will,which just puts a flood counter on a land (and draws you a card ifyou control a Merfolk), andThe Flood of Mars,which can transform creatures into copies of itself if you opt to put a flood counter on a creature.
The biggestweakness of Eluge is that it is a very passive deck. You aren’t really going to be making aggressive plays until the late game once enough lands have flood counters on them to start giving yourself steep discounts.
As such, you will likelybe defenseless early on. You canmitigate this somewhat with a suite of counterspells. If Eluge is on the battlefield early, these counterspells can be very cheap to cast, if not free entirely.
Thestrengthof the deck comes from theability to snowball once you are set for flood counters. Once you start taking extra turns, you can push your advantage even more. There are a lot ofdraw spellsthat help youdraw into your extra turn spells quicker.
The mainwin condition of the deck is through combat. Once you get to the point where you have a lot of high-power attackers, you can startswinging in for damage on your extra turns.
Cards likeTalrand, Sky Summoner, Chrome Host Seedshark,andMurmuring Mystichelp give you more of a board presence, whileHaughty DjinnandChasm Skulkerboth grow in stats to become threatening attackers on their own.
