Codie, Ravenous Codex | A $150 Prepared-Spell Deck

Codie, Ravenous Codex | Art by Steve Prescott

Hey nerds! Today we’re looking at a deck tech for Codie, Ravenous Codex, a five-color Commander deck built on a $150 budget. Reality Fracture handed us a reimagined version of Codie, Vociferous Codex. I've tried numerous times over the last several years to build a Spellslinger deck but with no luck. Thankfully, Codie finally broke that curse and handed me a creature-based spell deck.

What Does Codie, Ravenous Codex Do?

Codie is a three-mana 1/4 artifact creature with two abilities. First, whenever you cast a prepared spell, you copy it, and you may choose new targets for the copy. Second, for plus a tap, each creature you control becomes prepared.

Prepared creatures from recent sets carry a spell with them: while a creature is prepared, you can cast a copy of its spell from exile, and doing so unprepares it.

Unlike traditional Spellslinger decks, this is a creature-based value deck. The goal is to grind out games and slowly whittle down your opponents. Codie turns your creatures from being worth two cards, the creature and the prepared spell, into three or four cards of value. And because it's a creature-based deck, we can abuse these powerful spells by using clone and blink effects.

Key Cards for Codie, Ravenous Codex

Blinking

The first plan is blinking prepared creatures. A creature that enters prepared gets a fresh spell every time it returns, so Cloudshift and Ephemerate re-prep a single creature, and Hide on the Ceiling exiles X artifacts and creatures and returns them at the next end step, which resets your creatures and protects them from removal.

There is also a prepared creature, Skycoach Conductor that worked great here.

Some of the strongest creatures to blink are Emeritus of Ideation and Emeritus of Woe. It shouldn't be a surprise that Ancestral Recall and Demonic Tutor are some of the strongest cards ever printed, one being part of the Power Nine.

Clones

The second plan is cloning your creature. Token copies of creatures that enter prepared enter prepared too, so every clone arrives with its own spell. The Jolly Balloon Man makes a hasty, flying 1/1 copy of another creature you control for and a tap. The copied creature is sacrificed at end of turn, but its spell has already done its job.

Rally the Galadhrim has conspire, so tapping two creatures that share a color with it gives you two clones. Unlike Balloon Man, these tokens stick around.

Doppelgang scales with however much mana you have and can get out of hand quickly. Inspired Skypainter prepares whenever your tokens deal combat damage to a player and when it enters. So you can chain copies of Inspired Skypainter if you have enough mana.

Not From Hand

Finally, there is a small suite of cards that benefit from casting spells from anywhere other than your hand. Which is exactly what you do when you cast a prepared spell. Bilbo, Thief in the Night is generic cost reduction, with some added benefit if you have some of the few relevant card types in the graveyard.

Vega, the Watcher draws a card whenever we cast a prepared spell. Now Ancestral Recall draws four cards instead of three. Or seven instead of six with Codie in play.

Kellan, the Kid lets you cast a permanent spell with equal or lesser mana value from your hand for free, or put a land from your hand onto the battlefield instead. Which allows you to chain spells or ramp, whichever you need more.

How Does This Codie, Ravenous Codex Commander Deck Win?

Most games end with burn. Every prepare spell is an instant or sorcery, so it feeds a squad of damage creatures. Guttersnipe deals two damage to each opponent whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, Black Waltz No. 3 deals two for each noncreature spell.

While Firebrand Archer and Coruscation Mage deal one. Professor Onyx and Witherbloom Apprentice drain whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery, and Codie’s copy counts, so the drainers trigger twice.

The pingers also make great clone targets as a way to stack up burn effects. Death by a thousand cuts is the name of the game with this deck.

Even simple cards like Leech Collector deal a total of twelve damage for a single black with Codie in play.

The backup plan is a big Exsanguinate. Stensian Sanguinist makes each opponent lose X life and gains you life equal to the total lost, and Codie copies it. An X of five drains every opponent for ten, with the pingers going off on top of it.

This becomes even easier with a prepared Yavimaya Bloomsage, which gives you access to Channel, another banned card in Commander. Instead of paying mana, you can pay one life for a colorless mana. So now, you channel, spend all but one life, and Exsanguinate twice.

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The Deck List

Conclusion

This is a budget list, so it’s built for casual EDH rather than cEDH, but the engine is real.

You get a pile of cheap prepare creatures, a commander that doubles their spells, and burn that ends the game quickly when it all comes together. The main weakness is Codie itself, an artifact creature that dies to plenty of removal. Thankfully, most of the prepare creatures are fine bodies on their own, so the deck keeps working without it.

It’s also a blast to pilot. If you love the idea of casting some of Magic's most iconic spells, and want a unique five-color commander, I can't suggest Codie enough.

Alrighty nerds, I'll see you in the next one!