How They Brew It - Adric's Super Flashback Machine

Michael Celani • June 18, 2024

Deckbuilding
Adric Dr. Who Commander cover art
Adric, Mathematical Genius
 by Billy Christian

Welcome to Science

Yes, just a little dash of engineering here, some coding and algorithms there, and... great Babbage! Who are you, and how did you get past all seven of my proxies? Well, to get this far, you must be an organism of science, like me, the illustrious and only slightly convicted Michael Celani! Welcome to my humble laboratory: Too-Specific Labs™!

Yes, search no longer, for I am the mastermind behind every invention that seemed a little bit too specific. Automatic earwax cleaners? My idea! Breathalyzers for cows? Believe it or not, also me! And it would be easier to point out which useless kitchen gadgets I didn't create. We're so ubiquitous, we've blown past Fortune 500 all the way to Fortune 50,000, and you're lucky, because you just caught me on the cusp of my greatest invention yet. I call it: the Super Flashback Machine!

In Media Res

Yes, the revolutionary Super Flashback Machine! Why share anecdotes about how your girlfriend dumped you the boring, old fashioned way when you can have everyone around you experience them as painful, painful flashbacks? Simply prepare the memory you want everyone to experience by putting it into the graveyard. Now, watch how The Fugitive Doctor

loads it into the machine, fires it off, and boom! You just instantly experienced the entirety of my rise to power as an Antarctican dictator without the need for expensive camera equipment or sepia tone filters. Four mana per spell is a sweet deal when you're purchasing spells like Clone Legion
 and Rise of the Eldrazi
!

But wait, there's more! With Adric, Mathematical Genius

's techniques, you can really kick the flashbacks into overdrive... but not the way you might think. While you can copy The Fugitive Doctor
's triggers to flashback two spells in a turn, that's dumb and bad (and bad (and dumb)). See, Adric, Mathematical Genius
 is not only capable of copying the activated and triggered abilities of permanents, but also of instants and sorceries, too (and if you don't think there's a lot of them, keep reading). Cast one of these spells, flash it back, and then duplicate their triggered abilities to get thrice the card per card!

Charging Up

Unfortunately, thanks to the fact that all of Too-Specific Labs™'s inventions run on a proprietary mixture of lithium batteries and open flames, powering the Super Flashback Machine can be expensive. You'll need a lot of mana to consistently be able to flash a spell back and copy its triggers with Adric, Mathematical Genius

. Not to worry, though: Too-Specific Labs™ has thought of everything.

Before you, you see ordinary fetch lands: Evolving Wilds

, Fabled Passage
, Terramorphic Expanse
, and many more. Any of these can sacrifice themselves to look for a land in your library and put it onto the battlefield. Note that they accomplish this through activated abilities, which means Adric, Mathematical Genius
 can copy them. Assuming you cast Adric
 by turn three each game, every fetch land played afterwards can be "kicked" to search out another land for three mana. You don't have to do this every time, as a repeatable Untamed Wilds
 isn't the most spectacular thing in the world, but we can make it more palatable by adding a few Landfall payoffs.

Lotus Cobra

and Tireless Provisioner
 can take advantage of the three Landfall triggers you get doing this maneuver to make you even more mana for additional spells that turn. Tireless Tracker
 can refresh the Clues that The Fugitive Doctor
 needs to power the Super Flashback Machine. And of course, Tatyova, Benthic Druid
 is Tatyova, Benthic Druid
.

"But fetchlands are expensive, and most of them cost more mana to search!" a straw-man version of you says for the purposes of creating a transition to this section of the deck tech. It's true that a lot of fetches, like Naya Panorama

, require you to pay additional mana for the privilege of finding more lands. Running those is an unappealing prospect, to say the least. Well, good news, because it turns out we don't have to mortgage our house a second time to pull this trick consistently: double-fetching works with the streetslands, too. At least, they work if you copy the correct trigger.

Cards like Brokers Hideout

secretly have two triggered abilities. The first one merely sacrifices it when it enters the battlefield. Do not copy this trigger. Instead, copy the reflexive triggered ability that comes after, the one that starts with "when you do." Only if you copy this trigger do you get the two lands and the two life.

Once we get up there in mana, we're going to want to ramp up our ramp up. Khalni Heart Expedition

, Invasion of Zendikar
, and Dreamscape Artist
 all find two lands with their abilities, meaning if you copy them, you're getting an Explosive Vegetation
 instead of a mere Untamed Wilds
. Dreamscape Artist
 is particularly strong, since their lands come in untapped, so you can still cast spells after a hard day of claiming new land as your own!

Act Now For a Fabulous Discount!

But why pay such exorbitant markups for the privilege of making the audience watch five hours of a completely different character scheming (damn you, Person of Interest)? Other companies' flashback machines could cost one hundred, two hundred, or even three hundred fifty million dollars. If you act now, Too-Specific Labs™™ will send you your new Super Flashback Machine at a discounted rate!

Yup, even though you're flashing them back, your instant and sorcery cards still get the same discount from cards like Goblin Electromancer

and Ral, Monsoon Mage
. With two of these, you'll be able to cast any instant and sorcery from your graveyard for just two mana. Pay attention to Font of Magic
 in particular: it counts both of your commanders, so if you cast both Adric, Mathematical Genius
 and The Fugitive Doctor
, it alone cheapens your spells to that threshold.

The Rising Action

With your five easy installments of $17.76 on its way, it's now time to put the Super Flashback Machine to good use! Everyone really needs to see exactly how I got my start as a mad scientist by stealing beakers from chemical supply warehouses and drinking whatever liquids were inside them.

Anyway, it's really easy to get big, flashy instants and sorceries into the graveyard without having to cast them first: any spell in red that draws you cards tends to make you discard some as a cost. Simply pitch the cards you want to flash back with The Fugitive Doctor

's ability.

But what long, meandering narrative breaks are we forcing our opponents to sit through? Extra turn spells are definitely an option. Not only do they let you keep your value train going for another flashback attempt next turn, they tend to be very expensive, so you'll get a pretty hefty discount if you flash them back.

Other spells worth flashing back include any big instant or sorcery that will win you the game if it resolves. Clone Legion

will take an enemy's army for yourself; Hit the Mother Lode
 will often make you loads of Treasures while casting more of your huge spells; and Prisoner's Dilemma
 will have everyone at each other's throats. There's plenty more in the full list below, but this section of the deck is really the most flexible. Add whatever spells you want to win with, and make it your own!

Inception

There's one more thing you need to know before using our fabulous product, and that's that I've been kind of holding back a secret about the real reason Adric, Mathematical Genius

is a commander. Clearly, it would make more sense to use a companion that lets The Fugitive Doctor
 attack without worrying about blockers
, and having a repeatable Untamed Wilds
 in the command zone isn't enough to compensate for that lack of evasion. So why Adric
? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the concept of flashbacks within flashbacks.

Adric

is our commander because, before you pop one of your giant spells with flashback, you're casting one of these spell-copiers. Spells like Doublecast
 don't immediately copy a spell on the stack the way a Fork
 would; instead, they create a delayed triggered ability that triggers the next time you cast an instant or sorcery... and delayed triggered abilities can be copied with Adric
. Wanted to cast a Time Stretch
 for cheap? How about a Time Stretch
, copied with Doublecast
, and then copied again by Adric
 copying Doublecast
's trigger?

What about casting Storm King's Thunder

for three (easy enough, since we have plenty of instant and sorcery discounters in play), then copying your Aminatou's Augury
 six times? That could very easily let you play out an incredible amount of your deck, all at a massive discount. It doesn't matter that The Fugitive Doctor
 can be blocked. She only needs to swing one time.

Back to the Future

Thanks for listening to my sales pitch about my new Too-Specific Invention! And that's not the only thing we here at the labs are cooking up. Did you know that it's physically possible to time travel, but only to March 2nd, 1922? We invented a Roomba that only cleans ceilings, too! And wait until you hear about our portable folding dining room set, complete with service for six, and -- wait, where are you going?

If you enjoyed this installment of How They Brew It, come check out the rest of my projects at https://gamesfreaksa.info/. Not only can you find a link to every other installment of the series there, you can also find links to other Magic related projects of mine as well as a link to the How They Brew It Discord, where you can vote on what deck you want to see next. Hope to see you there!

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Michael Celani

Michael Celani

Newly appointed member of the FDIC and insured up to $150,000 per account, Michael Celani is the member of your playgroup that makes you go "oh no, it's that guy again." He's made a Twitter account @GamesfreakSA as well as other mistakes, and his decks have been featured on places like MTGMuddstah. You can join his Discord at https://gamesfreaksa.info and vote on which decks you want to see next. In addition to writing, he has a job, other hobbies, and friends.