Zaffai and the Tempests

Gameplan

Cast Zaffai, then drop a free expensive instant or sorcery every turn to snowball card advantage and tempo. You leverage cost-reduction, copy effects, and free spells to chain into a game-ending burn or extra-turns loop. The deck plays as a midrange-control spellslinger that grinds value before exploding.

Key Cards

• Expropriate — Free-casting a seven-or-more mana extra-turn-and-steal spell every turn is backbreaking.
• Time Warp — Free extra turns let you re-trigger Zaffai and run away with the game.
• Cyclonic Rift — A free overloaded Rift is a one-sided board reset that often ends games.
• Thousand-Year Storm — Each spell after the first copies, multiplying your free big spell into a blowout.
• Mizzix's Mastery — Reanimates a huge sorcery from your yard with overload, ideal to cast for free.
• Underworld Breach — Lets you recur instants/sorceries to keep feeding Zaffai's free cast and combo off.

Upgrade Path

Lean into the most expensive impactful instants/sorceries (Expropriate, Time Stretch, Insurrection, Apex of Power) so the free cast saves maximum mana, and add cheap protection like Lightning Greaves and Veil of Summer-style answers. Tighten the mana with fast rocks (Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, signets) to deploy Zaffai earlier, and add recursion (Underworld Breach, Snapcaster Mage, Archaeomancer) to keep refueling. For higher power, build toward an extra-turns or storm-style loop that lets Zaffai's free trigger close the game in a single turn cycle.