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Vivi Ornitier is one of the many legendary creatures available inMagic: The Gathering’sFinal Fantasy crossover set. Vivi is a plucky little Black Mage, and one of the playable party members in Final Fantasy 9, acting as one of the game’s main characters.
A Black Mage in Final Fantasy, Vivi’s Magic card involves a lot of casting spells. In Final Fantasy IX, Vivi is your primary offensive spellcaster, and it’s no different in Magic. He’s a very strong spellslinger commander (a deck that wants to cast as many spells as possible in one turn). So if you like casting spells and burning opponents, you’ll love Vivi Ornitier as a commander.
Will of the Jeskai
Rite of the Dragoncaller
x11 Island
x11 Mountain
Stormcarved Coast
Sulfur Falls
The decklistcontains one planeswalker, 19 creatures, ten sorceries, 17 instants, 15 artifacts, three enchantments,and34 lands. The deck is heavily focused on noncreature spells, hence the high number of them, while the suite of creatures all benefit from noncreature spells being cast along with Vivi Ornitier.
Key Cards
Vivi Ornitier
The commander of the deck, Vivi Ornitier is what’s going to do a lot of the heavy lifting.All noncreature spells turn into +1/+1 counters on Vivi and minor burn damage to your opponent. It’s like a permanent prowess boost thatcan be turned into blue and red mana without using the counters.
You will want to hold up mana for your opponents' turns to verify you have mana available for counterspells. As such, if Vivi has the power for it, it’s better to use Vivi’s effect for mana rather than from lands or mana rocks to cast spells on your turn.
Vivi’s effect costs zero mana to activate, but does require you to have cast a spell before it can do anything.Vivi can only be used be turn and only your turn, so you won’t be able to have excess mana to work with on your opponents' turns. Luckily, you’ll often only be casting spells on your turn to begin with (minus interaction like counterspells).
Bria, Riptide Rogue
Bria, Riptide Rogue does a whole lot for the deck. Itgives allyour creatures prowess, which will give them a stat boost whenever a noncreature spell is cast. This helps to improve the mana generation of Vivi and turns the rest of your creatures into better attackers.
Briais one of the main ways to help you win through combat. It’s best combined with cards that create token creatures when you cast spells, as it’ll give you a large number of creatures to attack with. Bria can evenmake your strongest creatures unblockable, since it triggers every noncreature spell cast and isn’t once per turn.
Hullbreaker Horror
Hullbreaker Horror is what you can consider to be a “cleanup” creature. It helps toclear the battlefield of any problematic permanents whenever you cast a spell, helping you to set your opponent back while advancing your plays.
There are cases whereyou want to bounce your own permanents instead. In fact, Hullbreaker Horror’s best use in the deck is a part of an infinite combo that lets you cast an infinite amount of noncreature spells. Here is how the combo works.
Prerequisites: Hullbreaker Horror and Sol Ring are on the battlefield. Permanent that costs zero mana (Lotus Petal will be used in this example), or one that costs two mana that can produce at least one mana (Arcane Signet will be used in this example) in the hand.
Harmonic Prodigy
Harmonic Prodigydoubles all your triggers of Wizards and Shamans, which is the creature type of nearly every creature in the deck. As such,Harmonic Prodigy is a creature you want on the battlefield as quickly as possible.
The creature only costs two mana to cast, so getting it out as early as turn one is within the realm of possibility. Harmonic Prodigyhelps to get your battlefield set up much quicker than normal, allowing you to get a head start on all your opponents.
How To Play The Deck
A Vivi Ornitier Commander deck isall aboutcasting as many spells as you can, converting them into damage and extra mana through Vivi. Even if Vivi isn’t on the battlefield, your creatures help to make up the difference by providing token creatures or excess mana generation to make it easier to cast multiple spells a turn.
Cards with storm aren’t plentiful, but are very useful in the deck. They copy themselves for each spell cast before it, so it’s possible to cast enough spells to burn all your opponents with Grapeshot, or mill them all with Brain Freeze if you’re able to cast a ton of spells in one turn (made easier with the Hullbreaker Horror combo).
Normally, some of the better spellslinger support cards cost a bit too much mana to take advantage of. Luckily, Vivi helps you get around that downside andmakes playing cards like Arcane Bombardment andThousand-Year Stormmuch more realistic and impactful. These cards lead to larger turns that help push your advantage in the game even further towards victory.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through burn. This is done through cards like Vivi, Guttersnipe, and Coruscation Mage. Alternatively,you can win through combatby creating a ton of creature tokens off of Rite of the Dragoncaller, Ovika, Enigma Goliath, and Third Path Iconoclast. If you have Bria, Riptide Rogue, these tokens have prowess which can make for enough damage to take everyone out of the game in one turn.
Thebiggest weakness of the deck is its early game. Izzet (blue/red) decks are not known for the ability to ramp, so you’ll be spending the first few turns setting up mana rocks for mana generation, leaving your defenses open.Getting creature token generators out early is very helpful, as this will help you to start forming a battlefield to block incoming attackers while you work on setting up your battlefield.
