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Shiko and Narset are two of the leaders of the Jeskai Way inMagic: The Gathering. Together, they help lead the Jeskai clan on Tarkir, with Narset acting as its khan and Shiko its Spirit Dragon. Jeskai (blue/red/white) is all about casting spells, something Shiko and Narset, Unified reflect in their card.
Shiko and Narset, Unified is interesting as a spellslinger deck since you want to cast no more than two spells a turn rather than as many as you can like most other spellslinger decks. If you like casting spells, but over time, instead of immediately, Shiko and Narset, Unified is the perfect commander for you.
Commander: Shiko and Narset, Unified
Baral and Kari Zev
Curse of the Swine
x6 Island
x5 Mountain
x4 Plains
Sulfur Falls
Sundown Pass
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 20 creatures, 15 sorceries, 19 instants, eight artifacts, two enchantments,and34 lands. Non-creature spells are the most important kind, which is why they make up the majority of the deck.
Key Cards
Shiko And Narset, Unified
Shiko and Narset, Unifiedwants you to be casting two spells every turn to trigger its flurry ability. This lets you double up on a lot of your best removal spells, and even if youdon’t copy the spell, you get to draw a cardto find more action for later turns.
Shiko and Narset’s flurry ability will only trigger if your second spell is targeting a player or permanent. If your second spell doesn’t target, you’ll draw a card instead.
Shiko and Narset, Unified have a solid statline and keyword abilities. This is especially usefulwhen combined with other permanents that grant your other creatures prowess. This makes Shiko and Narset much more threatening in combat, and helps to close out games quicker.
Taigam, Ojutai Master
Taigam, Ojutai Master makes it much easier to achieve your flurry triggers. Aspell cast through rebound is still cast,and since it’s cast for free on your next turn, whatever your next spell is will trigger Flurry. Thespell must be cast from the hand to get rebound, otherwise it’ll go to the graveyard like normal.
Notably,Taigam’s effect is not once per turn. So long as Taigam attacked, you can cast as many instant and sorcery spells you’d like from your hand, all of them will have rebound. This is great when paired with permanents that trigger off of casting non-creature spells for extra triggers.
Bria, Riptide Rogue
You’ll be casting a ton of non-creature spells over the course of a game, allowing for Bria, Riptide Rogue to trigger constantly. It comes with the added bonus ofmaking a creature unblockable whenever you cast a non-creature spell, letting you ensure your most damaging creatures get in for damage.
The main attraction isBria’s ability to give all your other creatures prowess. Since yougenerate a lot of tokensthanks to other permanents, the ability to give them prowess helps to make them into much bigger threats instead of just 1/1s.
If a creature has multiple instances of prowess (either by getting it granted from multiple permanents or it already has prowess), each will trigger individually. So if a creature has three instances of prowess, one non-creature spell will lead to a +3/+3 stat boost thanks to three separate prowess triggers.
Aligned Heart
Aligned Heart isone of your main ways to generate tokens. You only get them when the flurry ability triggers, but with how easy that is to accomplish, you can get a large battlefield of creatures in just one turn cycle. If you have the mana and spells to cast, you canget up to ten creature tokens in the same turn cycleyou cast it.
The tokens that Aligned Heart makes are what make it so good. 1/1 Monk creatures with prowess are among the best kinds of tokens,especially in a spellslinger deck. Thetokens created are based on the number of counters on the card, so even missing a flurry trigger isn’t the end of the world, since you’ll constantly be growing the amount of tokens it makes over the game.
How To Play The Deck
In a Shiko and Narset, Unified Commander deck,you want to cast two spells a turn as often as possible to make sure all of your flurry triggers are activating. The flurry effects are often powerful, and backed up by permanents that care about you casting non-creature spells.
Cards with flurry will trigger off of whatever your second spell is. If a permanent has flurry, it’s often best to play that card first so the spell you cast after it triggers the flurry ability.
Theprimary way to amass a battlefield is with token generators. There are multiple ways to do so, such as Third Path Iconoclast or Young Pyromancer, with the best options being Monastery Mentor and Aligned Heart.These all create tokenswhen you cast non-creature spells, andare best used together to stack all these effects up.
Only cards that target a player or permanent can be copied by Shiko and Narset, so it’s best to save your powerful spells like Time Warp and Jeskai Revelation for when you know you can make them the second spell cast.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. You will be able to get a large battlefield of tokens, allowing you to amass a battlefield to act as both attackers and blockers. They can be given an extra boost with Narset, Enlightened Exile and Bria, Riptide Rogue which give all your creatures prowess to give them an extra kick.
Thebiggest weakness of the deck is how tight it is on mana. You need mana to both cast permanents that care about non-creature spells being cast, as well as the mana actually to cast those non-creature spells. Jeskai isn’t known for ramping, so you’ll need to utilize mana rocks to have excess mana. Ritual spells can also help to jump ahead on your mana curve, but these can only be used once. The deck isalso susceptible to board wipes, and can be hard to come back from if a board wipe takes out your best permanents.
