Now that we're easing into 2026, I'm excited to start looking at new legendary creatures from the upcoming Lorwyn Eclipsed set. After perusing the few early spoilers and not wanting to build something too oppressive, I ended up finding an odd little Goblin Sorcerer in Izzet colors. After a little brainstorming, I realized it was a card that had a crazy potential to be a very, very silly glass cannon combo deck. Before I start getting ahead of myself, let's look at today's subject.

Sanar, Innovative First-Year is a four mana Izzet legendary Goblin Sorcerer with two hybrid Blue/Red symbols in its casting cost. That means you could theoretically build a mono-colored deck around him, but once you look at his text box, you'd never even consider doing so. This little guy's party trick is something special. At the beginning of my first main phase I'll reveal cards from the top of my library until I reveal X nonland cards where X is the number of colors among permanents I control. For each of those colors, I'll exile a card of that color from among the revealed cards. Then I'll shuffle my library. I may cast the exiled cards this turn.

That's quite a wall of text for a Magic card.

In a two color Izzet deck that means that I'll reveal cards until I reveal and exile two nonland cards - one Blue card and one Red card. I'll be able to cast a Red spell and/or a Blue spell from among the exiled cards until the end of my turn.

The reason I'm going into such detail is because this is a complicated little ability. It's easy for your thoughts to go down a "wrong path" based upon a quick reading of the card. I've done that many times when brewing up decks, and usually catch myself before I go too far.

In Sanar's case my first thought had me running artifacts, thinking you reveal cards until you revealed two nonland cards that have colors in their casting cost. In fact, that would be absolutely the wrong thing to do - I'd routinely be revealing mostly colorless cards and you wouldn't be able to exile and cast them. After a second look at the card I realized the deck really wants to only have nonland cards that have Red and/or Blue pips on them.

The silly glass cannon Sanar combo deck would be Sanar, Innovative First-Year, 97 lands, and a 2 card combo wincon. Play Sanar on turn the turn before you'll be able to afford to cast your combo. On the following turn you'll exile your combo, drop a land, and then hopefully win the game. It's not a good plan. It might be fun to do once, but I wouldn't play a deck like that a second time.

If I'm not going to build a goofy 97 lands Sanar combo deck, what am I going to build?

How Low Can I Go?

Sanar, Innovative First-Year wants me to lean really heavily into playing cards with Red and/or Blue mana pips in their casting costs. Any sensible person would load their list up with a modest number of artifacts and then work from there. I am usually a sensible deckbuilder, but for today's deck I decided to lean so heavily into what Sanar wants that I'm only running a single colorless nonland card.

That means no Sol Ring. No Arcane Signet. No Izzet Signet or Talisman of Curiosity. My choice to eschew mana rocks puts me in a familiar position. I'm building a bracket 1, or maybe a bracket 2 deck. I'm OK with that. I play at a lot of lower-powered tables and I find it both fun and very challenging to actually win games with some of these lists. Winning games in casual EDH is easy. Winning with a deck that will often be the weakest deck at the table is much, much harder, and that makes the occasional win so much more satisfying.

I'm also not entirely sure my plan will backfire. Today's list has a lot of low mana spells, and my goal is to try to maximize the chances that if I do exile two cards with Sanar's little party trick, I'll be able to cast one or maybe both of them.

In place of traditional Izzet ramp, I'm hoping my healthy number of card draw spells will keep me from missing land drops. That's not ramp, but in theory it'll keep me in the game. Beyond that I'm running a few ways to try to make mana.

Dreamscape Artist is perfect for this list if I'm really not running mana rocks. This Human Spellshaper can tap for three mana to have me discard a card and sacrifice a land to let me tutor two basic land cards into play. Those lands enter tapped, and while this isn't a great way to ramp, it is a passable option for lower powered EDH.

Seething Song and Mana Geyser are a couple of ways to get some temporary extra mana. The former is a three mana Red instant that will generate five Red mana. The latter is a sorcery spell that will give me a Red mana for each tapped land my opponents control. Mana Geyser famously goes infinite with Reiterate, which is also in the list, and infinite mana can theoretically be poured into Comet Storm to kill the table. It's unlikely I'll have all of those cards at the same time without running tutors, but it's still fun to mix a few unlikely surprises into a brew.

The first indication that this list might be able to make a splash in bracket 2 or even bracket 3 is that I'm running Storm-Kiln Artist. This is an Izzet storm deck. Storm-Kiln Artist will see me cast an Instant or Sorcery spell and will have me create a Treasure token. Those treasures can go a long way towards casting a bunch of spells and building up a big storm count.

How We Win

A big storm count on its own probably won't win the game, but if I'm able to cast a bunch of spells while I have a permanent with a magecraft trigger in play, I might be able to build something resembling an army.

Generating token creatures is a great payoff for casting instants and sorcery spells. Young Pyromancer, Murmuring Mystic, Talrand, Sky Summoner, Hermes, Overseer of Elpis, and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer are all in today's list and can all help me put tokens into play. The best are probably the 2/2 flyers I can get from Talrand, but even 1/1 creatures in sufficient quantities can make a difference. Knocking my tablemates' life totals down can also make a difference, and both Guttersnipe and Fiery Inscription will ding them each for 2 damage for each Instant or Sorcery I cast.

Thousand-Year Storm is an enchantment that can help me make a big turn much scarier. When it's in play, whenever I cast an instant or sorcery spell, I'll copy it for each other instant and sorcery spell I've cast before it this turn. I can choose new targets for the copies. If I'm able to string a bunch of little draw spells together and cap it off with a Lightning Bolt, I might be able to ding someone for a decent chunk of damage.

I'm not running many spells that are as expensive as Nalfeshnee, but this Beast Demon can help me a ton by having me copy any spell I cast from exile. If I'm lucky I'll be casting two each turn, and if I can get Possibility Storm into play, that number could be much higher on a big turn.

Passionate Archaeologist is a background enchantment that will have my commander deal damage to target opponent equal to a spell's mana value if I cast a spell from exile. That could add up, though this deck is built around low mana spells.

The cherry on top of this brew is my only colorless spell: Aetherflux Reservoir. This four-mana artifact will have me gain 1 life for each spell I've cast this turn whenever I cast a spell. The big deal is that it will also let me pay 50 life for it to deal 50 damage to any target. The goal is to get over 50 life with 1 opponent left in the game and then just zot them out of existence. I'll be quietly praying that they don't have a Deflecting Swat in hand while I activate it.

If you think this doesn't sound like the kind of deck that can compete in higher powered games, you're right. The commander doesn't bring enough to the game, and this list is pulling a few punches. I'm not running any iteration of Jin-Gitaxias. I'm also not running a "normal" Izzet ramp package. Over the years I've won my share of games where I was - or I thought I was - coming into the pod with an underpowered deck. It doesn't happen that often, but when it works it feels fantastic.

A Stormy First Year

I was way more optimistic about Sanar, Innovative First-Year when I didn't realize that the card doesn't work as well with an artifact heavy list. It took me a moment to put two and two together and realize I'd have to choose between artifacts and maximizing the number of hits I'd get with each Sanar trigger. Sanar would do better in a five-color deck, but as a commander I'm stuck with two colors unless I build around stealing my tablemates' stuff, which might make for an interesting build.

For a lower powered deck I'm pretty happy with this list. If you play and find that folks are removing Sanar a lot, you might want to load in a few more counterspells. You could also run Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, but I willfully kept away from running any colorless spells other than Aetherflux Reservoir.

Sanar, First Year | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Sanar, Innovative First-Year

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Archmage Emeritus
• 1 Archmage of Runes
• 1 Ashling, Flame Dancer
• 1 Birgi, God of Storytelling
• 1 Blistercoil Weird
• 1 Crackling Drake
• 1 Dreamscape Artist
• 1 Faerie Mastermind
• 1 Goblin Electromancer
• 1 Guttersnipe
• 1 Hermes, Overseer of Elpis
• 1 Ledger Shredder
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Murmuring Mystic
• 1 Nalfeshnee
• 1 Niblis of Frost
• 1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
• 1 Storm-Kiln Artist
• 1 Stormscale Scion
• 1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
• 1 Tempest Angler
• 1 Young Pyromancer

• Spells (30)
• 1 Abandon Attachments
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Consider
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 High Tide
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Opt
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Reiterate
• 1 Seething Song
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Teach by Example
• 1 Wild Magic Surge
• 1 Aether Gale
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Expressive Iteration
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Past in Flames
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Portent
• 1 Preordain
• 1 Serum Visions
• 1 Sleight of Hand
• 1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 As Foretold
• 1 Fiery Inscription
• 1 Mirror Sheen
• 1 Passionate Archaeologist
• 1 Possibility Storm
• 1 Thousand-Year Storm
• 1 Vow of Flight
• 1 Vow of Lightning

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 The Belligerent

• Lands (37)
• 13 Island
• 13 Mountain
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Frostboil Snarl
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stormcarved Coast
• 1 Training Center

Buy This Deck Export text

To tune this list down you could easily drop down some of the higher priced cards like Aetherflux Reservoir, Birgi, God of Storytelling, and Faerie Mastermind. Dropping a deck's price tag does not necessarily make it less powerful, but higher priced cards are often more powerful and in this case those three are all quite good. I'm not sure how much lower this deck can go, and I don't think Sanar, Innovative First-Year is going to be making a big splash in the meta.

Increasing this deck's power is an interesting challenge, as you'd normally suggest running mana rocks and those don't play well with Sanar's ability. That 97 land combo build could be done in a few different ways. My first thought was to build with Niv-Mizzet, Parun and Curiosity, but over on the Magic the Gathering EDH-Commander facebook group I came across a post about Sanar with these cards in the comments.

Casting Thassa's Oracle, holding priority and using Solstice Revelations to get rid of your entire library of lands is a cheeky way to attempt a win, but it's not going to get you there very often in cEDH pods once they know what you're doing.

Early Results

I was able to get this list into a game with my weekly Tabletop Simulator playgroup. I was up against an Elrond, Master of Healing deck, a Peter Parker deck, and a Katara, Seeking Revenge deck. We were playing somewhere in brackets 2 and 3, but we often play new decks or decks we found online so sometimes there are surprises along the way.

In the early game I started with four lands and managed to get out an early Guttersnipe and Archmage Emeritus, both of which stayed out the entire game. The Elrond player built up an impressive board and the Katara player played an early Propaganda and also built up a bit of a boardstate. Notably, the Katara pilot was losing life to a Black Market Connections at a pretty high rate - never wanting to miss a chance to draw cards.

I was able to play Sanar on turn four and for the rest of the game I was exiling cards with his Vivid trigger. I quite often hit a card of each color, but a few times I had to choose between two Blue cards. I didn't see a boardstate I'd want to attack with until the very end of the game, so I was on defense and hoping to not seem like a threat.

I occasionally had to throw a body in front of an incoming attacker, but was able to keep Sanar, Archmage of Runes, and Guttersnipe out of harm's way while slowly pinging my tablemates for 2 life. I didn't see a lot of Instants or Sorcery spells, and regretted having played a Portent and a Ponder on turns one and two when I could have held them back and just played lands and passed.

The Katara and Elrond player were going back and forth a bit, to the point where their life totals were down in the 20s while the Peter Parker player was in the 30s and I was still just under 40. I tend to interact only when necessary, and I've found that can result in less damage in the form of crackbacks. If you blow up an important piece before you really need to, you can expect to see some incoming attackers. Let it alone and sometimes it will either get dealt with by someone else, or you'll just deal with it later on.

The turning point of the game was probably when the Katara player airbent a big token on the Elrond player's board, along with an Arwen, Weaver of Hope. It was the right play, but incurred the Elrond player's wrath and he full sent on his next turn, forcing Katara to block and lose nearly all of his creatures.

Both of them were now low enough that if I was lucky I might have a window to either have a big storm turn or try to draw into a mass bounce spell before whichever survived their spat turned their attention to me.

I was lucky.

I exiled a Wild Magic Surge and a High Tide with Sanar, and somehow got my hands on a Mana Geyser - possibly by casting an Expressive Iteration. The details are a little fuzzy, but I was able to use High Tide to pump up my Islands, cast Mana Geyser to make 22 mana, and then use Wild Magic Surge to get rid of the Peter Parker player's biggest creature. It doesn't seem like much, but that big turn was just getting started and I had just killed the Katara and Elrond players with Guttersnipe damage.

At that point I was able to live a dream that I've had for a while. I proceeded to dump my hand, which included The Belligerent, and a few other permanents capped off by Stormscale Scion. That Dragon has storm, and my storm count was eight, so I passed the turn with nine 12/12 flying blockers. Not bad for a what I still think is a lower powered deck's first day out.

The Peter Parker player removed Guttersnipe, played an Eternal Witness, and got back a Myojin of Cleansing Fire I had countered earlier that he could use as a boardwipe. He then passed turn with some mana up. He was at 2 life.

On my turn I swung for lethal and Peter Parker dropped a well-timed game changer, Teferi's Protection. He had a ton of cards in hand, and I was just happy that it wasn't a boardwipe.

On his next turn he phased back in and played the boardwipe Myojin, thinking he'd wait to pop it when he had an incoming lethal attack. He passed.

I was still at something like 33 life, but it was late and I was hoping to land the win. It was looking like it might be a late night. I untapped, drew for turn, and did my Sanar trigger.

I exiled an Arcane Denial and Fiery Inscription. Even if the boardwipe hit, I could still play Fiery Inscription, cast any spell and then counter it myself. My Arcane Denial would trigger Fiery Inscription, which is an Enchantment with a Guttersnipe ability. Whenever I cast an instant or sorcery spell it would ding each opponent for 2.

That was game.

I was very lucky, but it was fun to see the list actually do something in its first game. I've had plenty of decks that had much worse showings in their inaugural voyage. I still don't think this is a high powered list by any stretch of the imagination, but it's possible it can compete in bracket 3. Brackets are about game experience as much as power level, and this list still feels like B2 to be honest.

Final Thoughts

I genuinely didn't expect Sanar to do much in the one game I was able to play with today's list, but sometimes the stars align and you're able to eke out a victory with a lot of luck and maybe a little skill. If a few of my Sanar triggers had gone differently, I could have had a very lackluster game without even threatening a win.

One of the things I like about this list is that it does look like it will be able to give you a variety of game experiences. Having a token generator or two in play will have you going into the mid and late game with a dramatically different boardstate than if you've got pingers or even an Aetherflux Reservoir to back up your storm strategy.

I should note that I considered building this list with 40 lands, and I think that makes a lot of sense for a deck that's not in Green and that's not going to be running much in the way of colorless cards. My starting hand and draw cards kept me hitting land drops but with only one game to look at, I can't guarantee my 37 land list won't have the occasional bad game where lands just aren't showing up. Every deck has games like that, but a deck without ramp or mana rocks definitely makes me a little nervous.

For the next few weeks I might just turn my attention to covering all of the "First-Year" legends in Lorwyn Eclipsed. I don't expect any of them will be real bangers, but I play more lower powered EDH anyways so that's fine by me.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!