Magic: The Gathering - Chun Li, Countless Kicks/Zethi, Arcane Blademaster Commander Deck Guide

Chun-Li, Countless Kicks was a part of Magic: The Gathering's Universes Beyond crossover with the Street Fighter series. The card was later re-released as Zethi, Arcane Blademaster to give players an opportunity to purchase the card who missed the window on the original Secret Lair release or prefer to not use a crossover card. Both cards are functionally the same, but this guide will refer to it as Chun-Li.

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The deck is Azorius (white/blue) with a unique playstyle that lands between Voltron (focusing on a specific creature and keeping it protected with high stats) and spellslinger (casting as many spells as possible).

Sample Decklist

Commander: Chun-Li, Countless Kicks/Zethi, Arcane Blademaster

Archmage Emeritus

Docent of Perfection // Final Iteration

Geralf, the Fleshwright

Hullbreaker Horror

Leonin Lightscribe

Monastery Mentor

Murmuring Mystic

Niblis of Frost

Solemn Simulacrum

Talrand, Sky Summoner

Triton Wavebreaker

Tura Kennerüd, Skyknight

Vega, the Watcher

Gift of Estates

Gitaxian Probe

Ponder

Preordain

Single Combat

Careful Study

Time Wipe

Windfall

An Offer You Can't Refuse

Brain Freeze

Brainstorm

Consider

Counterspell

Disenchant

Dovin's Veto

Fading Hope

Faithful Mending

Frantic Search

Generous Gift

High Tide

Leap

Loran's Escape

Negate

Opt

Path to Exile

Pongify

Prologue to Phyresis

Rapid Hybridization

Run Away Together

Shadow Rift

Shelter

Show of Confidence

Snap

Surge of Brilliance

Swords to Plowshares

Take Up the Shield

Thought Scour

Unsummon

Aetherflux Reservoir

Arcane Signet

Azorius Signet

Commander's Sphere

Fellwar Stone

Lightning Greaves

Sentinel Tower

Sol Ring

Swiftfoot Boots

Sword of the Animist

Talisman of Progress

Amphibian Downpour

Aqueous Form

Wizard Class

Adarkar Wastes

Command Tower

Deserted Beach

Glacial Fortress

x13 Island

Mystic Gate

Mystic Sanctuary

Nimbus Maze

x8 Plains

Prairie Stream

Reliquary Tower

Rivendell

Rogue's Passage

Sanctum of Eternity

Seachrome Coast

The deck consists of 13 creatures, eight sorceries, 30 instants, 11 artifacts, three enchantments, and 34 lands. Since Chun-Li, Countless Kicks can only target instant spells with its ability, they make up a majority of the deck.

Key Cards

Chun-Li, Countless Kicks

Chun-Li, Countless Kicks is the heart and soul of the deck. It lets you constantly cast instant spells with the multikicker ability. Chun-Li copies all the spells exiled and lets you cast them, meaning that you still need to pay mana to actually cast the spells.

Chun-Li is unique for a Voltron commander since it getting removed isn't the end of the world. This is because it lets you re-cast Chun-Li and activate the multikicker effect again to exile even more cards with kick counters.

Once a card is exiled with a kick counter, they will remain in exile with the kick counter permanently (unless moved to a different zone). Chun-Li copies all cards with kick counters, so even if you used the effect on cast for two different sets of cards, you can copy all of them since they all have a kick counter.

You do need to attack in order to copy the spells, so you do have to put Chun-Li in the line of danger. However, by giving it evasion with lands such as Rogue's Passage, this doesn't become an issue. Even if Chun-Li is destroyed in combat, this just gives you another chance for more multikicker usage.

Aetherflux Reservoir

Since you are still casting the copies with Chun-Li, this still counts as casting a spell. As such, Aetherflux Reservoir will continuously give you extra life each time you cast a spell. Since you can cast so many spell with Chun-Li, the lifegain from Aetherflux Reservoir will constantly give you life so you won't have to worry about getting attacked.

You start with 40 life in Commander, letting you reach the 50 life needed for Aetherflux Reservoir's activation easily. You'll be casting so many spells that even after the life payment, you'll still have a hefty amount of life remaining so you'll stay in the game after activation or recover quickly after use.

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Monastery Mentor

While Chun-Li is your main source of spellcasitng, Monastery Mentor is one of your biggest payoffs. The deck mostly consists of noncreature spells, letting you constantly trigger Monastery Mentor's ability to create token creatures with prowess.

You can spend a turn building up an army of tokens, and then with the next Chun-Li attack, swing in with a ton of creatures with prowess, gaining massive stat boosts from all the spells you'll be casting.

High Tide

High Tide is the most useful instant in the entire deck. You need to pay mana to cast your instants, and High Tide lets you generate even more mana with all of your Islands. You want High Tide in the graveyard as soon as possible to exile with Chun-Li so you can use it every attack.

High Tide only affects Islands, so it won't affect your Plains or mana generated from artifacts. It will only add an extra blue mana for cards with the Island typing, but since that's so many of your lands, this won't be much of an issue.

Vega, The Watcher

Cards you copy with Chun-Li are being cast from exiled, meaning you'll get to draw cards from their cast with Vega, the Watcher. One of the biggest downsides of spellslinger decks is that you'll quickly run out of cards in your hand.

Vega, the Watcher ensures your hand is always refilled with more action, letting you cast more spells to take advantage of your other creatures' effects. The extra card draw lets you get interaction like counterspells and removal into your hand so that you can make sure you cut off your opponents' ability to interact with you if needed.

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How To Play The Deck

A Chun-Li, Countless Kicks Commander decks wants to get their best instants in the graveyard early. This can be accomplished with cards that draw and discard such as Careful Study, Windfall, and Faithful Mending.

The mana curve is very low, with only two instants being over two mana. This lets you ensure you can always cast the spells with Chun-Li's ability to constantly without having to worry about not having the mana to cast them.

There are a few different win conditions for Chun-Li decks. Since you cast so many spells, this helps bring up your storm counter with ease. Brain Freeze works for multiple players. You can either use it aggressively to mill your opponents every turn, or on yourself to mill your own cards to get more instants into the graveyard.

Show of Confidence is another route to a wind condition. This gives Chun-Li (or any other creature) a +1/+1 counter for each instant and sorcery cast that turn. This gives a massive stat boost and if used on Chun-Li, opens up the ability to take someone out of the game through commander damage.

Cards that cantrip (draw a card for one mana) are also a vital part of the strategy. Cards like Leap and Shadow Rift both make Chun-Li by giving it flying and shadow respectively, and draw you a card in the process. You can re-use these spells every attack, keeping your hand full while swinging in wth Chun-Li without having to worry about blockers.

The non-commander creature lineup is primarily made up of cards that create a token whenever you cast a noncreature spell. This helps to generate a large battlefield of creatures so that you'll always have blockers available to fend off any attackers. Since you can make so many tokens, another route to victory is winning with a large amount of tokens.

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