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Gev, Scaled Scorch is one of the many legendary creatures you can use as a commander released inMagic: The Gathering’sBloomburrow set. Gev is a Rakdos (black/red) commander that acts as a burn deck and primarily utilizes creatures of the Lizard typing to play into its effect.
A Gev, Scaled Scorch Commander deck is a slow burn, literally. You don’t need to be actively attacking, instead taking advantage of passive abilities that burn your opponents with burn effects and permanents that cause the burn to be much bigger than it normally would be. Gev plays more like a Tempo deck, taking advantage of the effects of cheap permanents and winning off of them.
x11 Mountain
x7 Swamp
Tainted Peak
Unclaimed Territory
The deck contains33 creatures, seven sorceries, two instants, 13 artifacts, ten enchantments, and 34 lands. Since Gev cares about you casting Lizard spells, the majority of the deck is made up of Lizards.
Key Cards
Gev, Scaled Scorch
The commander of the deck,Gev, Scaled Scorch,is what thewhole deck is built around. It gives youslow burn damage, dealing one damage to a target when you cast a Lizard spell. Thisonly targets one opponent, but thetargeting also commits a crimefrom which other cards can benefit.
It’ll also passively give all your creatures astat boost with a +1/+1 counter. Since most ofyour creatures are Lizards, it’ll guarantee they enter with a countersince just by casting it, Gev will deal burn damage to ensure an opponent loses life.
Make sure to spread damage evenly, and opt to start casting creatures after combat to make sure all three of your opponents are dealt damage.
Your creaturesenter with a +1/+1 counter for each opponent dealt damage, meaning if all three got damaged, they enter with three +1/+1 counters.
Agate Instigator
Agate Instigatoris a Lizard that helps to play into the burn strategy. Itturns all creatures entering the battlefield into burn damage to all opponents. Since it has offspring, you canget an extra copy of it on the battlefield.
While one burn damage (two if you used offspring) isn’t the most amount of damage, it is whenmixed with other cards that cause noncombat damage to be doubled. It progressively stacks, and later in the game, the burn damage Agate Instigator does can help close out games.
Descent Into Avernus
WithDescent into Avernus, the game will get an exponential speed to the end. The burn damage it does gets rapidly larger,as does the amount of Treasure generation. While giving your opponents Treasure is less than ideal, you get them as well to ramp, something Rakdos can struggle with.
What makes Descent into Avernus so good in a Gev deck is that you canout-burn your opponent before Descent into Avernus burns you outof the game.
The burn damage it does can become massive if Descent into Avernus isn’t removed, making it easier to close out games with Gev and other burn enablers.
Burn Multipliers
Gev’s burn damage is a bit minimal, but with the inclusion of cards likeCity on Fire, Dictate of the Twin Gods, andFiery Emancipation,the burn damage can very quickly become massive.
They are a bit costly on mana (although City on Fire can be convoked), but well worth the mana investment to get on the battlefield as soon as possible.
If more than one of the permanents that multiply damage is on the battlefield,the effects stack. For example, if City on Fire and Fiery Emancipation are on the battlefield, the damage is tripled, then tripled again for massive damage outputs.
Many of them cause damage to be doubled or tripled on all levels,not just noncreature damage. Gev can benefit from it, as well as the cards that deal a small amount of damage to all creatures and players, whichcan make the burn damage even more explosive.
Laughing Jasper Flint
Something to note about Lizards is a lot of them are outlaws, which enablesLaughing Jasper Flint’seffect. This helps to give youmore cards to cast from an opponent’s library. There is no guarantee of what you will exile, but you have the potential to steal a powerful creature that Gev can put counters on when it enters.
The amount that you exile with Laughing Jasper Flint gets progressively larger, especially sincecreatures you cast from your opponents' libraries are considered outlaws.
Since you primarily have creatures in your deck, you can utilize interaction and removal from your opponents' libraries to take care of any problems on the battlefield.
How To Play The Deck
A Gev, Scaled Scorch Commander deck wants touse its manytools to burn your opponents' lifetotals down to zeroas quickly as possible. This is primarily done through Gev itself, along with the permanents that cause sources to deal extra damage than they normally would.
Gev isn’t the only card that does burn damage.Agate Instigator,Impact Tremors, andWitty Roastmasterall deal damage for creatures entering the battlefield.
Since you have so many creature cards, these effects will go off frequently, especially if you’re also casting creatures exiled withLaughing Jasper Flint.
Cards like End the Festivities and Tectonic Hazard deal one damage to all creatures your opponents control and one damage to the opponents.
While this is a small amount on its own, when multiple burn multipliers are on the battlefield the damage becomes much more significant.
Normally, a downside of burn decks is that you are open to combat. However, Gev’sability to give creatures +1/+1 counters makes your normally weaker creatures into much bigger threatsin combat. It also makes them solid attackers so you don’t have to rely only on burn damage to bring your opponents' life totals down.
Gev, Scaled Scorchhas a very slow start, and it takes a while for the engine to get going. As such,you are fairly susceptible to offensive early in the game.
However, once burn multipliers hit the battlefield, this is when you can start turning the game around. A benefit to Gev is because of how slow it is at the start, your opponents won’t see you as a threat, giving you time to set up.
