Juri, Master of the RevueJuri, Master of the Revue | Art By Dmitry Burmak

Hello, and welcome to Archetypes of Imagination, the series in which we build decks based on popular Commander archetypes. I'm back with another unhinged addition to this otherwise very normal series. Let's look at how best to shove our commander in a cannon and blast him at our opponents by making a Fling deck.

FlingFling decks are built around the eponymous spell's effect of sacrificing a creature to deal damage equal to its stats to another player or permanent.

Decks with this strategy try to take opponents down with noncombat damage, either by flinging lots of different creatures via a commander that has the ability - see Brion StoutarmBrion Stoutarm and Ziatora, the IncineratorZiatora, the Incinerator - or by making a commander so absolutely massive that one fling from it will end someone's game on the spot - like absolute chungus, Thromok the InsatiableThromok the Insatiable

I'll be using Scryfall's tagging system and EDHREC's Tag pages to build a deck around our theme, using a commander that actually manages to combine the two methods together all wrapped up in a sacrifice matters sub-theme.

Skewer the Critics, and Your Opponents!

Juri, Master of the RevueJuri, Master of the Revue is a two-cost, Rakdos () legendary creature with just one power and toughness each. However, whenever you sacrifice any kind of permanent, Juri will get a +1/+1 counter added to him.

You might know Juri as the head honcho of The Cult of Rakdos' premier, blood-soaked, cursed clown circus on the plane of Ravnica. When I play my own personal build of him, I like to refer to Juri as the O.B.L. (the Orbital Death Laser).

The strategy is incredibly simple with this deck. We sacrifice as many of our permanents for value as possible and all the while, Juri gets more and more swole. Then, when Juri dies for any reason (usually because we sacrificed him) he deals damage equal to his power to any target of our choice.

Forking the Fling

One of the troubles of a Fling deck is trying to find a card in your deck that delivers the effect. Whether it's FlingFling itself or one of the other cards that have been printed that delivers the same effect. This is usually why people like to go for a commander that has the effect stapled on them, like Brion StoutarmBrion Stoutarm.

But the problem with those cards is the fact that they then need to find and cast something big to actually fling.

Juri allows us to eat our cake and have it too, not only by having the ability to get super large with a load of sacrifices in our deck, but also by flinging himself whenever he dies.

The fun thing about this effect being triggered by Juri dying though is that by sacrificing him to a card like Fling, we actually get to double dip. We get two different instances of damage going to any target equal to Juri's power.

In an ideal final turn of the game we could potentially swing Juri in to one of our opponents, dealing lethal commander damage, then cast Fling and deal lethal noncombat damage to both of the other players at the table.

That might seem ambitious but it's in fact very achievable. I've done it multiple times before!

Charging Up the Laser

Before we can start shooting the laser at our opponents, we gotta charge it up first. And that means making some sacrifices. Not of any great loss to us of course, as we'll be sacrificing pretty much everything we have for value to add counters to our commander.

There's a huge amount of things we can sacrifice in Commander, and Juri doesn't really care what we're sacrificing when we're triggering his ability. Even just sacking a land like Terramorphic ExpanseTerramorphic Expanse will net us a +1/+1 counter.

As we're in Rakdos () colors, it would be downright senseless of us to ignore TreasureTreasure tokens. Most people who've played one or two games of Commander, especially against Prosper, Tome-BoundProsper, Tome-Bound, will know how busted they can be in the format. There's a reason they banned Dockside ExtortionistDockside Extortionist!

There's plenty of great cards that can dump out Treasure tokens for us during the game.

The Reaver CleaverThe Reaver Cleaver is an absolutely terrifying thing to put on a giant commander as it is, but when you can also make that commander even bigger with the Treasures it makes, it gets even worse. Cards like Deadly DisputeDeadly Dispute allow us to see card draw, sac a creature, and make a Treasure to sac later all in one card.

Keeping Momentum

One of the common pitfalls of a strategy like this is running out of things to sacrifice and floating around with a midsized Juri and no good targets.

When you're picking your sac outlets, try and look for cards that not only sacrifice stuff but also give you other bits of sac fodder in return.

Warren SoultraderWarren Soultrader is a perfect bit of tech, allowing you to not only blend up your chaff creatures but also get a Treasure token for your troubles. These double value cards will get your Juri snowball rolling much faster in the long run.

To make sure you have good access to expendable creatures, a few token generators will definitely come in handy. It's a Game Changer, but Orcish BowmastersOrcish Bowmasters will put in serious work. Or OphiomancerOphiomancer can also provide plenty of access to bodies as well.

Ghoulcaller GisaGhoulcaller Gisa works perfectly in a Juri deck as it not only works as a sacrifice trigger, and a way to sac Juri himself, but it also can turn Juri's huge statline into an army of 2/2 Zombie tokens.

Pull the Trigger

When we've got Juri suitably fattened up for the cannon, it's time to light the fuse and fling for the win.

As I've mentioned before, the benefit of this commander is that it comes pre loaded with its Fling effect. We can have Juri die to any effect at all to blast his power into someone's face at instant speed. But having Juri die to one of those Fling effects will effectively double the amount of damage he can do.

For that reason, we definitely want to include some of those cards in our list. FlingFling works great of course but we can also use some other options to achieve the same goal.

The adventure spell on Callous Sell-SwordCallous Sell-Sword, Burn Together, trades instant speed for one less mana. It also has the potential benefit of only sacrificing Juri if the spell actually resolves, rather than it being a casting cost. At least if it gets countered, we won't miss out on our double damage!

Voldaren ThrillseekerVoldaren Thrillseeker is one of my personal favorite picks using the currently set-exclusive mechanic of Backup which puts two +1/+1 counters on Juri and gives him the Fling text as an activated ability until end of turn for the price of one mana. And of course you can even fling the Thrillseeker herself!

Backup Cannon Fodder

One thing to bear in mind when building this deck is that it (like pretty much everything I build, honestly) is very commander centric. This deck doesn't really do a whole lot if Juri isn't on the board.

Luckily our commander is super cheap at only two mana to cast, so we can get a few instances of him out through the course of a game. But if we started getting loaded up with commander tax, it would be good to get some alternate options to fling.

Storm-Kiln ArtistStorm-Kiln Artist works as a nice combo with Juri, not only providing us Treasures whenever we cast or copy instants and sorceries, but also getting more and more power with each artifact we have on the board. If Juri is out we can sac the Treasures to make him bigger. If he isn't, then we can keep the Treasures around and think about flinging the artist instead.

This card pairs so well with Plumb the ForbiddenPlumb the Forbidden (shock horror, they're from the same set) as we dump a ton of card draw, sacrifice triggers, and Treasures.

Crime NovelistCrime Novelist is like a sort of soft-Juri clone. He can't fling himself but he does get bigger whenever we sacrifice an artifact - not to mention he'll provide us with an extra red mana for each of our spent treasure Tokens. Double mana Treasures can provide us with some explosive turns, and this creature once again gives us some redundancy for our strategy.

I'll also give a quick mention to Blackblade ReforgedBlackblade Reforged and other such Equipment cards that give a huge boost to our creatures. These can make fling fodder out of pretty much anything.

Build It Yourself

Fling decks are pretty simple to put together and a ton of fun to play. Taking out an entire table in one fell swoop feels unreal when you pull it off and even the sorest of losers will at least be treated to some spectacle. Just like the Cult of Rakdos would have wanted.

Juri, Master of the Revue Fling Commander Deck List

If you want to build Juri for yourself, here's a list I've played before below with some pretty good results.