MTG Salvation

Zedruu is the evil sheepskin kind of deck I like playing. It looks harmless but it's quite mischievous. After a first attempt for Multiplayer games, I quickly realized how powerful this deck could be. I decided to tackle the deck from all possible angles and maximize its power. Here is the decklist

This deck is designed for Multiplayer.


Did not make the cut:

• 1 Grid Monitor
  
• 1 Grafted Skullcap
  
• 1 Rust Elemental
  
• 1 Delusions of Mediocrity
  
• 1 Donate
  
• 1 Chromeshell Crab
  

How to Play:
Zedruu can be scary very quickly, so the least thing you want is to have everything trying to get rid of you early in the game. To prevent this, you want to start by simply accelerating playing lands and exchanging lands. When you have enough mana to play and donate spells, you can start the punishment.

The donation package is very standard: Celestial Dawn locks down any non-white player. Steel Golem locks creatures from hitting play while Taniwha is very annoying, specially when combined with paradox haze (the controller phases his or her lands every turn).

The next level in evilness is pyromancer's Swath and bottled cloister, both removing its controller's hand. Bottled Cloister is specially effective against blue players and functions extraordinary with Venser, the Sojourner and Tel-Jilad Stylus.

Side:Actually, now that I mention it, Tel-Jilad Stylus is brilliant in this kind of deck because you get to recycle various permanents that you have donated, sometimes becoming a repeatable vindicate when combined with exchanging effects (see decklist) /end side.

Illusions of Grandeur is amazing on itself but just much better with Venser TS, i.e., you can kill an opponent with this mini combo.

Lich's Tomb is a delicate piece of donations, you want to play it when you have some sort of protection, mostly in the form of Solitary Confinment, and then you want to donate it at a player receiving being attacked and receiving a large amount of damage. Otherwise the controller may somehow lose 1 life and sacrifice Lich's tomb. In addition, you can respond to the triggered ability and recycle it back with Tel-Jilad Stylus.

Thought Lash is the evilest of all the donation packages, since you can donate it in response to the cumulative upkeep ability, and then choose not to pay for the ability. This will cause the current controller of the enchantment to remove his or her library. (Thanks to tompkinsd6 for this info).

Transcendence is the riskiest of all your donation targets, mostly because you can die to it if you replenish/open the vaults and you don't realize it's in there, or someone mills that one card into your graveyard in response to you casting one of these two. Additionally, you want to make sure you cast it only when you are at low life to avoid getting hit by some random damaging effect and losing in response of donating it. The existance of this card in the deck is the greatest reason why spellskite is in the deck, however I need to find a better way of paying life before casting it.

Another obscure card I'm playing is Soldevi Digger. This one is just ridiculous with Wild Research because you can basically just tutor whatever you want if you have a good number of cards in hand and enough mana.

Solitary Confinement is just straightforward synergetic with your general.

Luminarch Ascension: When I was constructing the deck I was looking for a card that would generate creature tokens that I could give away with Bazaar Trader. I thought about Goblin Assault and Elspeth, but Luminarch Ascension is an enchantment and can be tutored, additionally it can became a win condition, which is something this deck lacks.

Venser, Shaper Savant: Before adding Boseiju to the deck, I was looking for ways of getting around Dovescape if needed. Venser turned out to be just great for that and many other applications, such as bouncing an attacker, countering or simply recursive bounce when combined with its Planeswalker form.

Dovescape can set up a soft lock when combined with Solitary Confinement. If needed, Academy Rector would facilitate this combination.

I think most of the other cards are self-explanatory.

This are my comments on the deck and how to play it. Any feedback, comments, suggestions or critiques are encouraged and welcomed. Thanks for reading.

Notes:

Thought Lash should never slowly do anything. Wait for the upkeep payment trigger to hit the stack, donate the card to an opponent, and choose not to pay the cost. This works because you'll own the payment trigger, and when you don't pay it the exile your library triggers and they have to do the exiling.

Check out the crainial insertion on Thought Lash, or look through the Zedruu thread in my sig. Hope this helps, it definatly makes the deck that much more evil.

Quote from tompkinsd6

Thought Lash should never slowly do anything. Wait for the upkeep payment trigger to hit the stack, donate the card to an opponent, and choose not to pay the cost. This works because you'll own the payment trigger, and when you don't pay it the exile your library triggers and they have to do the exiling.

Check out the crainial insertion on Thought Lash, or look through the Zedruu thread in my sig. Hope this helps, it definatly makes the deck that much more evil.

I did not know that, that is sick!

If you gave me Avarice Totem I would take Zerduu every time on the end step before your upkeep.

Quote from BigTexs

If you gave me Avarice Totem I would take Zerduu every time on the end step before your upkeep.

He can give it to you in response to the Zedruu trigger. Put his trigger on the stack, tap and give you the totem and he still draws the extra card and gains the extra life. You won't be able to do anything until your upkeep step, since the totem has to tap to be exchanged.

I don't see Bottled Cloister as being that onerous. Yes you could hurt a permission heavy blue player but a lot of decks will just thank you for the extra card a turn. Heck I have run Cloister in discard heavy metas before.

Quote from Shinriko

I don't see Bottled Cloister as being that onerous. Yes you could hurt a permission heavy blue player but a lot of decks will just thank you for the extra card a turn. Heck I have run Cloister in discard heavy metas before.

I agree, Cloister has been less than stellar. It seems like only a really heavy permission commander deck would suffer from it. Every other one wouldn't really care if they got it. It seems there should be something to replace this card.

I feel like I'm missing something in the interaction between taniwha and paradox haze. Things phase in/out before the untap phase. Are you doing something else to cause them to have no lands?

Nice Zedruu deck. I have one as well. Take a look and critique it if you can. I've thought about putting in Quicken and Scout's warning for things like Thieves auction, wraths, Orgg, and Niv Mizzet.

btw Thought lash doesn't work that way anymore. New wording
http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184582

You do it when someone's gonna take a massive amount of damage. It works a lot better with a flash enabler.

Hate to break your deck apart but the only way this would be truly viable is URW Stax Control with a win condition like Azor's Elocutors or Test of Endurance.

Unfortunately, Thought Lash was errata'd so that the old "donate in response to my trigger and exile your library" no longer works. Believe me, I was a pretty sad panda when I found out : /