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Inspirit, Flagship Vessel is the face commander ofMagic: The Gathering’sCounter Intelligence preconstructed Commander deck. Like many modern precons, Counter Intelligence is great out of the box, and Inspirit is a great commander. However, Inspirit is best used leading a unique commander deck, as opposed to Counter Intelligence.
An Inspirit, Flagship Vessel commander deck is largely artifact-based, with extra support given to artifacts that care about charge counters. Thankfully, Jeskai (blue/red/white) is the best color combination when it comes to Inspirit’s themes, allowing you to play all the best support cards to make a very formidable Commander deck to play with.
Seat of the Synod
The Mycosynth Gardens
Uthros, Titanic Godcore
The decklistcontains 30 creatures, five sorceries, eight instants, 19 artifacts, three enchantments,and34 lands. Most of the creatures included are artifact creatures, with the noncreature spells either proliferate support or interaction.
Key Cards
Inspirit, Flagship Vessel
Inspirit, Flagship Vesselis a spacecraftthatyou want to station to eight charge counters as quickly as possible. Once Inspirit is maxed out, it protects all your other artifacts, making your opponents need to take care of Inspirit before anything else on your battlefield.
Inspirit only gives hexproof and indestructible to other artifacts. It does not give it to itself, so it can still be targeted and destroyed.
Even if Inspirit ever gets removed, it is easy to get eight charge counters on it again.You can only tap one creature at a time for station, so if you have a creature with eight power, it’sbest to use that creature to station Inspirit to instantly turn on all its abilities.
Lux Artillery
The effect of Lux Artillery to give your artifact creatures sunburst is fine, but not the main attraction of Lux Artillery. Instead,Lux Artillery’s strength comes from its ability to deal ten damage to all opponents at every one of your end steps.
Lux Artilleryrequires 30 counters to be spread across your creatures and artifacts, but the deck can spread counters very easily, allowing you to “turn on” Lux Artillery very early in the game. Assuming no opponents remove it and no one can gain life, it takes only four turn cycles to take all your opponents out of the game with burn damage.
Alibou, Ancient Witness
Alibou, Ancient Witness is a great support card for artifacts,giving your artifact creatures haste and dealing excess burn damage. Since you are attacking with a ton of artifact creatures, you’ll have a high X count to deal a ton of damage to a target and scry multiple cards from the top of your library.
If Alibou is on the battlefield, make sure you tap your artifact lands before regular lands, as they count towards Alibou’s effect.
Notably,Alibou does not need to attack itself to trigger its effect. So long as just one artifact creature attacks, Alibou will trigger. It also countersall tapped artifacts you control for X, which includes things like artifact lands and mana rocks to pump the X cost extra high.
Simulacrum Synthesizer
Simulacrum Synthesizer is a staple in artifact decks, and Inspirit decks are no exception. Simulacrum Synthesizerhelps you flood the battlefield with more artifact creatures with massive stats. You doneed to cast artifacts with a mana value of three or higher, but most artifacts in the deck are above that.
For Simulacrum Synthesizer’s effect,the artifact only has to enter the battlefield, not be cast. In some cases, you can put artifacts onto the battlefield directly, and Simulacrum Synthesizer gives you a two-for-one bybringing a creature token along with it.
How To Play The Deck
General Game Plan
An Inspirit, Flagship Vessel Commander deckcares about getting as many artifacts onto the battlefield as possible while fully stationing Inspirit as quickly as you can.Once your artifacts are on the battlefield, you can start boosting them up with counters through various permanents. Yourcreatures are primarily artifact ones, benefiting from generic artifact support.
Once you start spreading +1/+1 and charge counters onto permanents, you can start proliferating them with cards like Tezzeret’s Gambit, Inexorable Tide, and Kilo, Apogee Mind to add more counters onto them by naturally playing your deck. Make sure to wait until you have at least one counter on multiple permanents before you start proliferating.
Jeskai struggles with ramp, but since most of your cards are artifacts,you can discount the generic mana costs to make them easier to cast. Enthusiast Mechanaut, Etherium Sculptor, and Foundry Inspector all do so,and you want them on the battlefield early to get ahead of your mana curve.
The deckslowly builds into a massive battlefield, so the early turns are more about set-up for the future rather than rushing to get your big creatures and artifacts out. It’sa slow start, but once your battlefield gets established, it’s easy to snowball to a victory.
Win Conditions And Flaws
Theprimary win condition is winning through combat. Your artifact creatures can get massive stat boosts in various ways, allowing you to easily attack life totals to drain your opponents to zero life quickly.
Alternatively,you may win through the alternate win condition of Darksteel Reactor, which needs 20 or more charge counters on it during your upkeep. You canalso win with burn damagethrough Alibou, Ancient Witness or Lux Artillery. Even if you don’t win with those two, itmakes it easier to win through combat.
Thedownside to the deck is its speed. Jeskai is a naturally slow color combination, soyou will be left defenseless in the early stages of the game. Even with discounting permanents on the battlefield, you don’t want to block with them, making ithard to protect yourself in combat against more aggressive decks.
The deck makes up for this downside byhaving an explosive late-game, allowing you to quickly stabilize; you just have to survive to that point.Against slower decks, Inspirit decks will often come out on top.
