by Johnny Cycles, Friday, October 9th, 2026
Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to support my content and see the videos before they make it to this site!
Decklist – Jeskai Spellslinger with Vraska, Soul of Stone
| Vraska, Soul of Stone |
Creatures (23)
| Liliana the Faultless | $5 |
| Belladonna Took | $3.43 |
| Ornithopter of Paradise | .50 cents |
| Samut, Hazoret’s Champion | $4.49 |
| Third Path Iconoclast | .40 cents |
| Breeches, the Blastmaker | .35 cents |
| Malcator, Purity Overseer | .34 cents |
| Stridehangar Automaton | $2.72 |
| Thopter Engineer | .23 cents |
| Dynaheir, Invoker Adept | .30 cents |
| Galazeth Prismari | .40 cents |
| Pia and Kiran Nalaar | .27 cents |
| Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar | .30 cents |
| Smellerbee, Rebel Fighter | .46 cents |
| Urza, Prince of Kroog | .66 cents |
| Whirler Rogue | .24 cents |
| Alibou, Ancient Witness | .37 cents |
| Draconic Visitor | $7 |
| Ironheart, Clever Champion | .40 cents |
| Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer | .35 cents |
| Sami, Wildcat Captain | $1.69 |
| Stormscale Scion | $3.25 |
| Craterclaw Colossus | $15 |
Total Cost: $48.15
Artifacts (10)
| Lantern of the Lost | .26 cents |
| Arcane Signet | .45 cents |
| Talisman of Creativity | .50 cents |
| Talisman of Progress | .35 cents |
| Commander’s Sphere | .26 cents |
| Hammer of Purphoros | .40 cents |
| Inspiring Statuary | .35 cents |
| Thopter Fabricator | .40 cents |
| Thopter Shop | .59 cents |
| Wand of the Worldsoul | $4.26 |
Total Cost: $7.63
Enchantments (5)
| Ajani’s Anguish | $1.14 |
| Roar of Resistance | $2.91 |
| Thopter Spy Network | .40 cents |
| Whirlwind of Thought | .40 cents |
| Leyline Binding | .65 cents |
Total Cost: $5.50
Instants (15)
| Consider | .37 cents |
| Crimson Wisps | $1.10 |
| Expedite | .34 cents |
| Flashback | $3.97 |
| Galvanic Blast | $2.16 |
| Leap | .57 cents |
| Lightning Bolt | .78 cents |
| Might of the Meek | .27 cents |
| Opt | .25 cents |
| Shadow Rift | $1.70 |
| Swords to Plowshares | .92 cents |
| Thought Scour | .50 cents |
| Expansion // Explosion | // .30 cents |
| Dragonshift | .30 cents |
| Flame of Anor | $3.75 |
Total Cost: $17.69
Sorceries (7)
| Crash Through | .24 cents |
| Preordain | .83 cents |
| Serum Visions | .75 cents |
| Slip Through Space | .40 cents |
| Sorcerous Sight | .30 cents |
| Supreme Verdict | $2.39 |
| Mind’s Desire | .89 cents |
Total Cost: $5.80
Lands (39)
Archway of Innovation $1.35
Battlefield Forge .35 cents
Clifftop Retreat .33 cents
Command Tower .31 cents
Deserted Beach $1.32
Evolving Wilds .20 cents
Field of Ruin .30 cents
Foundry of the Consuls .25 cents
Glacial Fortress .33 cents
Glacial Fortress .33 cents
Reliquary Tower .40 cents
Scavenger Grounds .30 cents
Secluded Starforge .43 cents
Shivan Reef .37 cents
Stormcarved Coast $2.50
Sulfur Falls .35 cents
Sundown Pass $2.66
Terramorphic Expanse .25 cents
Thriving Bluff .20 cents
Thriving Heath .20 cents
Thriving Isle .20 cents
Island (7)
Mountain (7)
Plains (4)
Total Cost: $12.93
Overall Cost: $97.88
Deck Tech
Artifact-Based Spellslinger Deck
I have a Jeskai Spellslinger deck built around Narset, Enlightened Exile. It is not a budget build and it wants to go wide and big via token Lords and prowess triggers. Building another Jeskai Spellslinger deck at first wasn’t appealing to me, until I realized that I could build a very different deck that focused on artifact synergy as its game plan. Sure, some of the same cantrips appear in both decks as an engine, but we get to play a lot of different cards that synergize specifically with artifacts.
From a fun, janky card like Breeches, the Blastmaker, to a more commonly played artifacts-matter card like Inspiring Statuary, this deck is full of artifact synergy.
Primary Game Plan
Vraska, Soul of Stone is a unique new commander for Spellslinger decks. Every noncreature spell we cast gives us a 1/1 creature, but they are artifact Sculpture Treasure tokens that we can tap to sacrifice for one mana of any color. By making these Treasure tokens creatures, Wizards is restricting Vraska’s power, since we can’t tap a creature that only just entered the battlefield.
Unless it has haste…
Our plan, then, is to use a bunch of cheap cantrips and other noncreature spells to trigger Vraska, Soul of Stone while having one of a variety of permanents that grant our creatures haste. Then, we can sacrifice the tokens to resolve one of our finishers, ideally Stormscale Scion. The 4/4 Dragons that all buff themselves will be giant and hasty. That is, game ending.
Mind’s Desire is our other storm card that can win us the game in this situation.
While not storm cards, Draconic Visitor and Dragonshift are a powerful finishers for our deck. Untapping with Draconic Visitor out should allow us to flood the board with 5/5 Dragon tokens. Overloading Dragonshift, meanwhile, will turn all of those Sculpture Treasures and Thopters into 4/4 Dragons.
Secondary Game Plan
Our other main way of winning is to flood the board with dorks, many of them Thopters with evasion, pump them up, and swing in for the kill. Whirler Rogue is uniquely powerful in our deck in conjunction with our commander, who gives all of our artifact creatures vigilance. We can attack with everything, then tap them two at a time to make half of them unblockable.
Tertiary Game Plan
Our final avenue to victory is to burn our opponent out with Expansion // Explosion or Ajani’s Anguish with all of the mana we get from the Sculpture Treasure tokens. I don’t think this scenario is very likely without us first chipping in enough damage to get our opponent’s life total to under 10 ideally.
However, this is also the part of our deck that could be expanded significantly. Cards like Guttersnipe, Impact Tremors, and Purphoros, God of the Forge would all give us more ways to deal direct damage with each instant and sorcery we cast with our commander out.
Our deck, therefore, can be divided into the following parts: cantrips to trigger Vraska, Soul of Stone and keep us flush with cards; ways to give our creatures haste; and our finishers. There is still more to the deck, however. We have token Lords outside of our commander that do a nice impression of the Gorgon Wizard, as well as ways to pump our team. We have several unique ways to take advantage of our artifact creatures via cards with convoke, affinity for artifacts, and improvise. And finally, there are a number of support cards that play well with multiple aspects of our deck.
Cantrips
These are the cards that will fuel are big turns, ideally leading to a high storm count and victory. They all do something besides drawing cards, but we are most interested in making Sculpture Treasure tokens and the cards they draw us. We never want to run out of things to do. Chaining together five or more of these will be essential to us closing out games quickly. Even when we don’t find a storm payoff, we will hopefully be flooding the board with creatures.
Instants
Consider – good early to set up our draw. This is one of the cantrips I’d say to cast in the early turns if you need lands.
Crimson Wisps – granting haste to a big threat is great, but we really just want the card and the noncreature trigger on Vraska.
Expedite – ditto all of that.
Flashback – an honorary cantrip since we can target one that’s in our graveyard.
Leap – flying can be relevant to get in commander damage over blockers. At instant speed, we can ambush block an unsuspecting opponent.
Might of the Meek – trample may be relevant in the right spot.
Opt – another card to play early if we need help finding something.
Shadow Rift – another way to make our best attacker unblockable (essentially).
Thought Scour – I would play Peek in this spot if I could find another copy.
Sorceries
More often than not, we won’t care that these are sorcery speed. Sure, it’s nice to cast instants on our opponent’s end step to make sure we can use the Sculpture Treasure tokens on our turn, but our deck is built not to care as much about that given how many ways we have of giving haste to our creatures.
Crash Through – giving all of our creatures trample can be game over.
Preordain – great at sculpting the early game or finding us action in the late…theoretically.
Serum Visions – ditto that.
Slip Through Space – unblockable is hardly ever irrelevant.
Sorcerous Sight – my budget-friendly Gitaxian Probe, which is more than $3 more expensive.
Haste ‘Em Up!
We can win games without haste, but our best and most fun turns will be when our creatures have it. This is especially true for our Sculpture Treasure tokens. Casting a bunch of cantrips to find Stormscale Scion, then cracking the Sculpture Treasure tokens to cast it needs haste to pull off. Otherwise, haste really never does go amiss. As you will see, however, haste here doesn’t always mean haste…
Alibou, Ancient Witness – only granting haste to our artifact creatures means our Dragon tokens can’t attack the turn we make them with Draconic Visitor. Furthermore, that second block of text is a nonbo with our commander (outside of mana rocks and a handful of other ways we have of tapping artifacts), but I want to give the Golem a shot. Making mana from our Sculpture Treasure tokens the turn we make them is crucial. If we ever kill something with the attack trigger, then that’s great! Finally, I want to play artifact-matters cards over those that simply grant haste, like, say, Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded, which is arguably a better card in our deck.
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer – now only our tokens get haste, but that DOES work with our Dragons from Draconic Visitor. Furthermore, we can make all of our tokens into whatever token is best at the beginning of combat on our turn. This card seems like it’s been outclassed in recent years and largely forgotten (appears in less than 3% of decks according to edhrec.com. 6 mana IS a lot, but the power and synergy is there for us to find room for it.
Dynaheir, Invoker Adept – if you haven’t guessed yet, I love playing cards I have never played elsewhere over something strictly better. There are ways to give our team straight-up haste, rather than pseudo haste, and we don’t have many targets for this Human Wizard’s own activated ability, but I like that it synergizes with our deck and that it doesn’t have a home in any of my other Commander decks.
Hammer of Purphoros – this is our second best way of giving our creatures haste. And, in a pinch, we can start rebuilding an artifact token army of Golems.
Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar – this card doesn’t give our Sculpture Treasure tokens haste, unfortunately, but being a token Lord for flying hasty Thopter tokens make Saheeli one of our best cards.
Samut, Hazoret’s Champion – 2 mana to give all our creatures haste is an amazing rate.
Smellerbee, Rebel Fighter – I love this card. In our deck, it not only gives our other creatures haste, but it can also draw us a ton of cards if we ever get to attack with it.
Thopter Engineer – gives all of our artifact creatures haste, while bringing a Thopter with it!
Roar of Resistance – I love this card. At almost $3, I think a lot of people do, though it does only have a single printing. Haste is what we’re most interested in, but the +2/+0 we can give our attacking creatures will do a lot of work for us. The first time I read this card, I thought we could pay as many times as we were able and pump our team more and more. However, the way it is worded, we can only do this once.
Finishers
These are the splashy game-enders that should end the game in our favor on the spot, or close to it.
Craterclaw Colossus – this is a clear spinoff of Craterhoof Behemoth, but I’m not sure why they weakened this version. +X/+0 means we could lose many of our attackers in combat, even if we trample through and kill our opponent. Nevertheless, this card is busted in our deck.
Draconic Visitor – this is my favorite card from Reality Fracture and it really shines alongside Vraska, Soul of Stone. We can easily make three 5/5 flying Dragons a turn.
Dragonshift – the thing worth noticing about this finisher is that it’s an instant. That means we can surprise block or wait until our opponent decides not to block to turn our team into 4/4 Dragons.
Mind’s Desire – from what I’ve heard, this card was busted back in the day. Alas, I was between Magic at the time. In our deck, it may not win us the game since we play a lot of lands and cantrips. Still, it will be fun!
Stormscale Scion – if you haven’t followed my Modern segment, Dragons in Modern, then you may be surprised at how happy playing this card makes me. If you have followed my Modern content, then you know.
Honorary Mention
These are the ways we have of burning our opponent out. I’m not sure how likely it is we’ll get to do this, but I can see one of these cards closing out a game with our opponent at 10 or less life.
Ajani’s Anguish – trample and a Vraska trigger is what we’re most interested in, but in the late game, we can use it as a Fireball.
Expansion // Explosion – copying a spell to get another trigger is great in a pinch. Otherwise, killing a creature and drawing five or more cards is a realistic use for it.
Token Lords
These cards are our way of generating a token army outside of Vraska. Many of them also do more than simply make creatures. Unfortunately, not all of them make creatures repeatedly. We could play cards like Young Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor, or Talrand, Sky Summoner, to name a few, but I wanted to stick to the artifact theme of the deck. Furthermore, I’m playing many of those cards in my nonbudget Jeskai Spellslinger deck with Narset, Enlightened Exile.
Malcator, Purity Overseer – this Phyrexian Elephant Wizard is this deck’s diamond-in-the-rough card. It makes me stupidly happy to play this. I love its synergy with our deck. I don’t even think it’s particularly good compared to some of the other cards we could play (Hangarback Walker, for instance), but I love finding cards that I wouldn’t play in any other deck.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar – we only get the two Thopters once, but don’t underestimate the power of the activated ability. From making blocking a headache for opponents, to picking off creatures, to burning our opponent out, Pia and Kiran Nalaar bring a powerful angle to the deck.
Stridehangar Automaton – one of our best token Lords, this Construct buffs our team and adds a Thopter to every artifact token we make. This card is really good in our deck.
Third Path Iconoclast – alas, we only get artifact Soldier tokens out of our noncreature spells with this Human Monk on the battlefield instead of flying Thopters. We won’t care about that once we cast Dragonshift and turn them all into 4/4 flying Dragons! Otherwise, they make great chump blockers while synergizing with the rest of our deck.
Thopter Engineer – mostly here for the haste it grants our artifact creatures, the 1/1 flying Thopter we get is great, too.
Thopter Fabricator – a powerful Thopter generator and legitimate threat as a 4/4 flier when crewed, this Vehicle could find a home in my Activate Card Draw Commander deck, but I’m glad I saved it for this deck, instead.
Thopter Shop – card draw and Thopter production all in one! This reminds me of another card…
Thopter Spy Network – talk about a powerful card! We should have no problem getting a Thopter every turn, while drawing a card more than once with this enchantment is well within reason.
Whirler Rogue – if you look at this card and shrug your shoulders – “4 mana for a 2/2 is a lot; it’s just an uncommon, surely there are mythics that are better” – think again. Besides the now obvious synergy with our deck, that second block of text will win more than one game for you. Paired with Vraska and the vigilance she grants our artifact creatures, we can attack and then tap our team to make half of them unblockable. The sweetness!!!
Buffing Our Team
These are the ways we can turn our lowly army of 1/1s into something more lethal. There are plenty of Glorious Anthem effects we could play, but I didn’t want to water down our artifact synergy too much. I play many of those anthems in other decks (like my Mono White Human deck) and would rather not run duplicates if possible. Except for Belladonna Took. I find I’m putting this Halfling Citizen in a ton of my decks.
Belladonna Took – So. Much. Value. Everything about this card is awesome in our deck. With the number of token generators we have, triggering it three times a turn is extremely doable.
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer – not your traditional buff, we instead get to turn ALL of our tokens into our best creature token. This 6-drop will be game-ending if we have a decent boardstate.
Stridehangar Automaton – an anthem effect alongside a token producer is exactly where we want to be with this deck.
Urza, Prince of Kroog – +2/+2 is no joke. The activated ability can also win us games by targeting, say, Craterclaw Colossus. Worth noting, this is the only activated ability that we can copy with Dynaheir, Invoker Adept. Still, the two together will do wonders for our chances.
More Artifact Synergy
With this many artifact tokens, I wanted more ways to take advantage of them other than sacing them for mana or attacking. These are the cards I settled on.
Galazeth Prismari – I love Dragons and I’m excited that this one synergizes with our game plan. I consider this Elder Dragon our budget Urza, Lord High Artificer. We’re limited in the use of the mana we get from our artifacts, but we should still be able to have some big turns with Galazeth out.
Inspiring Statuary – the improvise mechanic gives us yet another way to use our artifacts for mana, this time each producing for nonartifact spells.
Ironheart, Clever Champion – an Inspiring Statuary on an evasive 3/4. It’s funny, but I don’t even really look at TMNT or Spider-Man when building decks, but I don’t mind playing cards from Marvel Heroes…depending on the deck.
Sami, Wildcat Captain – affinity for artifacts is strictly better than improvise, except when we have Alibou, Ancient Witness on the battlefield and want our artifact tokens to be tapped.
Wand of the Worldsoul – it’s pretty lame that this artifact comes in tapped, even though I see why Wizards chose to restrict its power. I love this kind of ramp for my brews. Sure, I’m playing some of the industry standard cards, but whenever possible, I play what synergizes best, even if it’s less optimal, CMC-wise.
Support Cards
These are the cards that synergize with our deck in other ways.
Breeches, the Blastmaker – this is my guilty-pleasure card. I’ve resisted the urge to cut it with each tweak to the deck. Why? It’s not because I have an irrational love for pirates. Rather, our deck is uniquely positioned to make this card as good as it will ever get. Casting two spells a turn? Easy peasy. Sacrificing an artifact? No problem. Furthermore, the payoff is really good for us, too. Copying a cantrip to get another card is perfect for us. The biggest drawback is that if we lose the flip, there’s a good chance we’ll only do 1 point of damage to any target.
Liliana the Faultless – this card can gain us a ton of life. Would Guide of Souls be better? Maybe, but the pseudo-Mother of Runes effect is pretty sweet.
Whirlwind of Thought – I went with this 4-mana enchantment over Jeskai Ascendancy mainly because I don’t like discarding cards. The latter is probably strictly better in our deck full of 1/1 token creatures, so I may find room for it in later versions. Breeches, the Blastmaker, your time with us is limited, I’m afraid…
Removal
Nothing too crazy here. I’m mostly listing these cards in one place to make it easier to decide on cuts.
Ajani’s Anguish
Expansion // Explosion
Flame of Anor – Vraska, Soul of Stone is a Wizard, in case you didn’t notice.
Galvanic Blast
Lantern of the Lost
Lightning Bolt
Leyline Binding – even at , I like this enchantment over something like Prismatic Ending. Stroke of Midnight may be strictly better for us, though.
Supreme Verdict – I’m on the fence about this one. I really want to play other, more fun cards, but I also know we need at least one way to reset the board.
Swords to Plowshares
Other Options
Dispatch – I’d probably be playing this one if I could find any in my collection.
Stroke of Midnight
Blasphemous Act
Organic Extinction – this one will hit most of our enablers, but should still be somewhat 1-sided.
Ramp
For convenience of tweaking the deck, I’m including this list here. Furthermore, many of these cards will be our main way of getting damage out of Alibou, Ancient Witness. I will say that I think having some ramp is still important in a deck designed to make Treasure tokens. We still want to get ahead of the curve if possible.
Arcane Signet
Murmuring Volume – this new 3-mana mana rock made it into my Top 10!
Ornithopter of Paradise – this might should be just a 2- or 3-mana artifact like Relic of Legends, but I want to take advantage of the synergy with our deck. I originally had Troop of Ponies in this spot, but this Thopter is so much better for us.
Talisman of Creativity
Talisman of Progress
Troop of Ponies
Wand of the Worldsoul
Lands
Being on a budget means we can’t play utility lands like Inventors’ Fair, which is over $15!!! However, we do get to play some fun, synergistic lands that I’m highlighting below.
Archway of Innovation – another way we have of giving our spells improvise and taking advantage of all the artifacts we make.
Field of Ruin – every deck should have a bit of targeted land destruction.
Foundry of the Consuls – not the greatest rate for two 1/1 Thopters, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Reliquary Tower – we have the potential to draw a lot of cards. Did I mention how much I hate discarding?
Scavenger Grounds – with only one nonland card that can interact with our opponent’s graveyard, it’s nice to have a second among our mana base.
Secluded Starforge – since we can only activate the first part of this land at sorcery speed, it doesn’t combo with our commander as well as I’d like. However, we still make a ton of artifacts that we can use to make our best, most evasive threat lethal. Furthermore, it synergizes very well with Alibou, Ancient Witness. Its second activated ability isn’t great, but it’s nice for the late-game on a stalled board.
Ideal Hand and Game Play
Outside of at least three lands with all of our colors among them, our best hands will have one of our haste givers and a finisher, alongside some cantrips. This will give us a direct line to victory, should everything go right. Otherwise, having a token Lord or mana rock is a fine hand, as well. What we don’t want is a bunch of our 4- and 5-drop creatures alongside three lands.
I honestly always feel good having cantrips in my opening hand, but I wouldn’t recommend mulliganing away a hand with lands and one of our finishers like Draconic Visitor or Stormscale Scion. Maybe if it’s Dragonshift, but even then… We have more cantrips than finishers, so the likelihood of drawing the former is greater than that of drawing the latter.
As to game play, there are a few key decision points that will come up frequently. First, do we cast our cantrips on turns 1-3 just to draw extra cards? Only if you need to make land drops. With the lands to cast Vraska, I think it’s best to hold on to the cantrips for maximum value. However, if you have multiples and one of them is Preordain (or a way to sculpt your early draw), it’s probably worth casting it before turn 3. If your cantrips are more like Crimson Wisps, I’d recommend holding on to them unless you’re going to miss a land drop.
Second, do we use our Sculpture Treasure tokens for mana or save them for a big attack? If you have a way to buff your tokens, I’d say save them for combat. If you have a finisher that needs artifacts, like Craterclaw Colossus, try not to use all of your tokens to cast it. If, however, we can use those Sculpture Treasure tokens to resolve cards that make more tokens, like Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar, then go for it.
Similarly, using those tokens to cast cantrips is often fine, since we replace the token we use to cast the cantrip. This is especially true if we have a way of giving our creatures haste, since we may find a storm card that we can cast.
Finally, when do we stop casting spells? Our deck is synergistic and explosive, but at the end of the day, we’re still making 1/1s without help from other cards. This means that there will be times when the game stalls. The question will be how much to commit to the board to tilt it in our favor and how much to hold back, in order not to play into a sweeper.
Generally speaking, I’d recommend holding on to redundant pieces. Giving creatures haste twice doesn’t do anything, for instance. But the same goes for token Lords. We’ll want to rebuild as quickly as possible and these are some of our best ways. As tempting as it may be to run out Saheeli, Jewel of Avishkar and Stridehangar Automaton, it may be smarter to hold back the latter until it gives you lethal on your attack.
Weaknesses
Disruption and pressure are the best ways to attack our deck. Sniping a key combo piece (usually a token Lord) while also pressuring our life total will put us on the back foot. Fliers and big stompy Green creatures that come down ahead of curve are great ways to pressure a token deck. Even without disruption, this can force us to chump block with our tokens and never get a critical mass of them.
Similarly, our late-game bombs are mostly bombs in conjunction with what we do in the early game. Untapping with Draconic Visitor without a token generator won’t scare anyone. Casting Stormscale Scion with a storm count of 1 or 0 will also usually fail to win games.
Thus, multiple sweepers will probably be the end of us. We aren’t playing ways to protect our team from these. The best are not very budget friendly, while the cheaper ones often don’t do enough. Keeping one or two cards around is better than none, of course, but I’m currently not running any of these. This may be the wrong decision.
New Directions
One of the best parts of this deck is just how many ways it can be customized. For instance, for budgetary (and other) reasons, I’m not playing Purphoros, God of the Forge or Impact Tremors. These are fantastic cards with our deck. Ditto Guttersnipe, though it is budget-friendly enough.
Similarly, we could include more token-doubling cards. These are all crazy expensive. I’m not sure the deck needs many more of these, to be honest.
If I wasn’t on a budget, I think I’d make room for Purphoros, God of the Forge and Anointed Procession. I wouldn’t overload the deck with either effect, as I don’t want to water down what we already have going on.
Conclusion
Vraska, Soul of Stone is a powerful new commander for the Spellslinger archetype. It is also a super fun card to build around. Our deck, which is under $100, has proven to be very competitive. It needs some time to set up, but once we have a boardstate, we can close out games extremely quickly.
So if you like making tokens, drawing cards, and winning with Dragons, then give this deck a shot!
Let me know what you think in the comments. What cards would you include that I’ve left out? Thanks for reading and watching!
