WHO IS ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED? WHY PLAY THIS COMMANDER?
Remember a long time ago when the original Commander set was released? Man it had some sweet cards. The set gave birth to Kaalia, a very popular general among casuals. Animar, a very powerful creature-combo general when fine-tuned. Ghave, a strong token-based general. Mimeoplasm and Damia, two in BUG colors (now known as Sultai clan), arguably the three strongest colors in EDH, which made them stuffed with powerful goodstuff cards or a good shell for Hermit Druid decks. Edric, a guy so annoying he had to be banned in French 1v1 as a commander. That's not including other powerful cards like Flusterstorm, Stranglehold, etc. The list goes on.
And then we get to Zedruu.
Who is this minotaur? She's a 4-mana 2/4 which is not very good. RWU (now known as Jeskai clan) is an okay 3-color combination but not really great. At the beginning of your upkeep you gain life and draw cards for... permanents you own that your opponents control? What? And she can donate your permanents?
I can't think of a creature that provokes a stronger reaction than Zedruu. When people read powerful generals they usually respond with "Holy crap, this card is amazing!" When they see Zedruu they also give an exasperated response, but for a different reason.
Unfortunately it's for good reason. Zedruu isn't a powerful commander. 4-mana for a commander is par for the course, but she has no impact the turn she's played, and often you don't gain any value the turn AFTER she's played if you play her on curve. She's not good at attacking, she's average at blocking, and she has no innate protections. Most powerful generals can combo kill or stax out the table by turn 5 pretty reliably. In Zedruu, you're lucky if you've managed to donate one permanent by turn 5, which will net you 1 card and 1 life for your troubles. Any fast kills in a Zedruu deck will be in no thanks to Zedruu herself.
So after that's said, why would you even want to play Zedruu?
And, of course, the answer is, "Because the concept behind Zedruu is absolutely ridiculous." Literally no other legendary creature gets better when your opponents have your cards. Some generals will have a deck that will just smash your face in (Prossh). Some generals will have a deck that will control the board and make everyone miserable (Zur). Some just have an extremely high power level (Derevi). But none have a more ridiculous ability than Zedruu. Zedruu is for the pure Johnnies out there. For all the spikes, look elsewhere. For all the timmies, you won't see alot of big creatures in here.
Zedruu gets a lot of comparisons to Phelddagrif since they both fit under the group hug/pillow fort archetypes. The obvious difference is that Zedruu has red and hippo has green. Hippo in a vacuum is better as group hug since it's easier to give out creatures and life to opponents (not so easy to give cards for free, since the U activation requires you to unsummon your hippo). With green, the hippo is also potent at ramping everyone's mana with cards like Heartbeat of Spring and Veteran Explorer (red has Mana Flare but that's largely it). Zedruu is more fit to be a pillow fort or stax deck as the donation ability is more aggressive, since you can donate crippling permanents like Pyromancer's Swath. With red, the minotaur is more suited to being aggressive, as it has some pretty potent cards like Ruination to really pull the rug beneath everyone.
This build is geared towards being more like a pillow fort that eventually wants to win. Pure group hug tends to be frowned upon because it just causes chaos in a somewhat erratic way, and in the hands of a bad player, ends up as a kingmaker. Everyone gets 10 cards and 10 mana by turn 4! It's almost like roleplaying as Oprah. The only problem is doing that is a really good way to just get yourself killed.
"You get a land! You get a land! Everyone gets a land!"
Stax builds also work but tend to be frowned upon in all but the cutthroat playgroups. EDH games are pretty long to begin with and stax decks that grind them to a halt can be frustrating for many to play against and this causes you to be the center of attention. Some generals are so powerful that they can fight through the attrition from multiple players, but Zedruu is not one of them.
As a pillow fort, you play out the beginning much like a group hug, but you are much more careful about exactly what you are throwing out. This pillow fort build is geared towards letting people draw cards, but there are no group hug effects here that boost mana. This lets people be happy with the cards they're drawing while trying to prevent things from getting out of control. When you throw up even the smallest defense (e.g. Play a T3 Ghostly Prison after a T2 Howling Mine), people will tend to ignore you for awhile, which lets you build up your fort until it's too late. Also, all the card drawing has effects besides just making everyone happy; one of the main kill conditions, Vicious Shadows, gets pretty strong when opponents have 10+ cards in their hand, while you can use your fat hand of cards to feed your Solitary Confinement to stay safe.
Because Zedruu is a slow commander, you need to be careful about everything you play. You never want to draw attention to you. That turn 1 land tax is great in your typical white deck, but in Zedruu it will put a target on you. Play that land tax on a later turn after everyone else has run out their sol rings or Survival of the Fittest so that your land tax isn't a big deal. That fast Consecrated Sphinx is one of the best moves in a typical blue deck, but in Zedruu it will get you into trouble. Make it so that no one has a reason to spot removal your things. Make it so that players have a greater reason to attack other players instead of you, even if you have no blockers. By playing group hug, you can actually reduce the number of card slots you'd devote to removal and protection because players will typically ignore you anyway, and they will shoot their removal spells at the other players. Would you disrupt the guy who's just playing a bunch of howling mines, or would you disrupt the guy who's attacking you? Should players try to attack you early, there are some pillow fort cards to discourage them from attacking you.
The important thing with pillow fort is that you play it like group hug that eventually wants to win. Because games go long, there are a lot more decisions that need to be made, and a lot more mistakes that you can make. Because games go long, it's important to make sure that everyone on the table is happy, or at least happy with you. Moreso than your average general, Zedruu requires massive amounts of politics. You will need to adjust your deck based on your playgroup, and what will help keep pressure off of you.
You should play this deck if you...
- Like the wacky concept behind Zedruu.
- Like group hug/pillow fort.
- Like playing very long games.
- Like politics.
You should not play this deck if you...
- Want to play a strong commander.
- Hate group hug, or know your playgroup hates group hugs.
- Your playgroup loves infinite combos (this general can only win until it's 1v1, but with infinite combos everyone immediately dies, preventing you from reaching a 1v1 state). You can certainly stop one player from going infinite, but if every player wins with infinites, you'll have an extremely hard time winning.
- Are okay with losing more than your share of games.
PERSONAL HISTORY
I've been playing magic on and off since Mirrodin, although I didn't start even considering some semblance of competitive play (and by that I mean lofty FNMs and currently nothing higher, so yes, I am not the most skilled player out there) until Zendikar, where after that block finished I again took a break until Return to Ravnica, and have been playing steadily since. I was drawn back to the game at Zendikar largely because I found a new playgroup, and this playgroup quickly introduced me to the EDH format. While I was skeptical about it at first, once I made my first deck I was hooked.
The allure of EDH to me is the accessibility and the atmosphere of the format. You have an extremely large array of cards to choose from, which can result in many decks with wildly varying themes and power levels, so players are better able to construct the decks they desire. Because of the huge emphasis on politics in a typical EDH game, players who have weaker decks can still compete with players with fine-tuned decks as long as they play their politics correctly. This also reduces the monetary barrier to the format compared to something like legacy or even standard.
I consider myself to be a Timmy and a Johnny with some elements of Spike. The Spike part of me, however, barely shows up if there are no tangible prizes to play for. When there are tangible prizes to play for, I do enjoy getting those prizes. However, during EDH with friends where we play for fun and for pride, the frequency that I win at in EDH doesn't matter as much as how I win.
My EDH decks therefore are not for highly competitive play or for entering actual EDH tournaments; they are constructed based on my personal whims. As the playgroup I hang out with don't have hyper-strong decks (they are good decks but they purposely avoid the extremely powerful cards/interactions), I purposely drop the power level of my decks to around theirs. They are my friends, and as such having everyone in the group split games fairly evenly personally makes me happy too. No one likes losing every single game, and the best way to have your playgroup get annoyed with you is to win an overwhelming amount of games, and I don't want to be the guy to force players to get better or to start playing a certain way.
This doesn't mean my EDH decks cannot be fine-tuned for more aggressive playgroups or have a shot in tournaments. Often it just takes a couple of changes in card choices, or a quick change in the theme/game plan (which then relates to making a bunch of easy card changes). You can also often make power level reductions or cost reductions to the deck as well.
DECK HISTORY
It was a warm, summer evening. A group of four young men were gathered around a kitchen table, with their Commander decks out. It was 2-headed giant EDH style; my ally with Sedris and I with Zedruu, and my opponents with Rafiq and Karador. My ally and I were at very low life with few cards in hand, while our opponents were at much higher life with more cards, and they just refilled the board and would kill us next turn. I had Zedruu with 9 lands and my ally had his general out with a little bit more, and that was basically it for our sad board. Our opponents ended their turn with one removal spell, and decided to kill Sedris, saying, "It's only Zedruu." They tapped out to kill poor Sedris.
My ally said, "I think we're dead," but I told him to wait. I had an enlightened tutor in hand, so I cast it at the end of their turn and frantically searched through my deck. My ally looked over my shoulder to see my library as I searched.
Illusions of Grandeur? The 20 life wouldn't really help, and they could take the 20 damage easily or just pay the upkeep cost.
Oblivion ring? Single bullets wouldn't help.
Wild Research? The discard is random, and playing it to tutor for enchantments would be pointless, and tutoring for instants instead wouldn't help because there are no instants to save us.
Suddenly, Transcendence caught my eye. I forgot I put it in the deck. I took it out of my library to reread it and my ally read the card. His first words were, "Is that legal?"
Our opponents were confounded. What could I have possibly found to save us? I revealed the Transcendence, put it on top of my library, then drew for the turn. Used 6 mana to play it, then used the last 3 to donate it.
We won instantly.
That game awakened the Johnny in me. Even if I don't win very many games in EDH, it's not the number of games I win. It's how I win them.
She is the most interesting minotaur in the multiverse.
Amazing stories aside, I've gone through many iterations with this deck. After trying out a "normal" Zedruu deck, then into a chaos deck, I decided to go with a group hug/pillow fort approach. This is because when Zedruu dies or cannot be in the field, griefer effects that require you to donate them are absolutely dead cards in your hand. Group hug effects you can always run out to your discretion. Griefer cards can also backfire on you; for example, in one of my games, someone cast warp world, causing my Zedruu to get tucked (before the change to the tuck rule), then I flipped over Pyromancer's Swath and Steel Golem, and was basically locked out of the game. Another game someone cast Chaos Warp on one of my things, and I flipped over Transcendence and instantly died. I also turned away from a chaos build because my playgroup didn't like it. As for your group, see if they embrace the chaos and see if you can put in things like Shared Fate and Confusion in the Ranks; they're generally a better way to get permanents donated quickly, but not everyone will enjoy the chaos.
I will go over all the cards by major functions. I also will have a personal rating for each card in the deck, from 1 to 5 stars.
* - I mostly run this card for personal preference.
** - Has a nice niche, but can be cut for a different card.
*** - A good value card. You can cut for a different card but I don't recommend it.
**** - A staple. I do not recommend cutting this card.
***** - One of the cornerstones of the deck, you will almost always want to see this card.
Any card that is bolded means that it also doubles as a donation target, although be careful about who gets donated what; don't donate creatures to the guy with the creature sac outlet, for example. You'll also notice that most donation targets cost little mana to get out - again, Zedruu is mana hungry, so you want to spend as little mana as possible to get that card draw going. Theoretically any permanent can be donated, such as your Ghostly Prison, if you want to make temporary allies, but the bolded cards are the ones where the controller doesn't matter for most scenarios.
Any card that is italicized means that you can replace it with a budget option. Most cards are already cheap (since this deck is basically playing with bad cards anyway), but it should be noted.
HUGS
The core of the deck. You want to have a fat hand of cards in order to prepare for your lategame (where having a ton of disposable cards in hand is useful) but also to keep your opponents happy and give them an incentive to ignore you. In addition, most of these cards listed here can also be donated, giving you even more card draw from Zedruu, which is the nice part. Once you are drawing a lot of cards, Zedruu drawing even more will usually go under the radar, especially when everyone will usually have a lot of cards.
*****Dakra Mystic - A 1-mana howling mine. While it does require 1-mana to activate and it needs to tap, being able to get a hug in play on turn 1 is nice. And since you get to see the cards before they're drawn, you can mill instead if someone would get a gamebreaking card, which is a nice way to disrupt Vampiric Tutor and the like which also adds an interesting political dynamic to the card. Also unlike regular Howling Mines, you can time whenever you want to draw the card, so you'll get the same benefit as everyone else.
*****Howling Mine - Trademark group hug card. There's no greater way to make friends than a turn 2 Mine.
*****Kami of the Crescent Moon - A weaker Howling Mine in that it's harder to cast and dies more often. But we want it anyway. This is dicier to donate since creatures die so often (including the player chump blocking with it), so don't just automatically give this away. You must also know when this could die and be prepared for the lower influx of cards.
*****Anvil of Bogardan - Another Howling Mine. It doesn't give extra cards, but it filters which is nice, and having no maximum hand size is again nice for lategame when you have 20+ cards in hand. Giving everyone no maximum hand size also helps keep pressure off of you when coupled with all the group hug (people are much happier if they don't have to discard after your Font of Mythos and Howling Mines puts them at 10 cards), and it's actually a good kill with Vicious Shadows which I will cover later. You usually want either this or reliquary tower in play in the mid-lategame because of your massive hand size.
*****Humble Defector - It's a divination that automatically donates itself. You get the first draw 2 then send it off, so unlike normal howling mines you actually get the benefit first. If the opponent wants to send it back to you, you get another draw 2. If not, you get a donated permanent for Zedruu. Remember that this can only be used on your turn though it can be used at instant speed on your turn. Generally you'll donate this to your opponent who has the weakest board position, but depending on your opponents, you may want to just spread the love to keep things fairer and let your opponents make more key decisions. Out of the howling mine effects in this deck, this requires the most politics to use properly, since only one person will have this card at a given time.
*****Dictate of Kruphix - A howling mine with flash is great as it helps negate the big drawback of howling mine (your opponents get the cards before you), plus as an enchantment it helps fuel Serra's Sanctum.
*****Walking Archive - Another Howling Mine. One major distinction is that the draw from this happens at the beginning of the upkeep and not the draw phase. That means with Solitary Confinement in play we can still draw the extra cards. Also, once in awhile I put extra +1/+1 counters on this. Also, like Kami of the Crescent Moon, creatures die often so prepare accordingly.
*****Jace Beleren - Another Howling Mine. You usually don't use the -1; use the +2 to keep the table happy. Also, Jace's draw obviously happens outside of the draw step, so this can fuel cards to your Solitary Confinement. If Jace is out for a long time the ultimate can actually be a wincon once it's a 1v1 state as long as the opponent is vulnerable to mill. I've actually had a Jace out for so long I used his ultimate... twice... in a row. (I won that game.)
*****Temple Bell - Howling Mine that gets the draw whenever you want it, as opposed to the beginning of a draw step. If you want a more competitive Zedruu deck, pair this with Mind over Matter and anything that gives you an "infinite" library size (such as a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to discard to Mind over Matter) and you instantly mill everyone on the table. And obviously if you have that wincon, don't donate this.
*****Fevered Visions - A hug that triggers at end step instead of upkeep so you get the draw effect first, plus it gets around Solitary Confinement. Also it can clock opponents for 2 damage a turn. It's not a great donate target since you'll be the one getting shocked, but you can if you need to.
****Font of Mythos - Double Howling Mine at double the cost. Not usually as useful as Howling Mine, but we'll take it. However don't run this out extremely quickly; it's liable to get destroyed. Wait until other players run out better targets first.
****Well of Ideas - This is an interesting group hug-like card. It favors you more than your opponents which means it's not quite a group hug, and people will notice this card. However, enchantment hugs are nice because it gives mana to Serra's Sanctum, and it does divination immediately. However, unlike other normal hugs, this is something you don't want to donate and it's more likely to draw attention to you. This is usually something you play after your other hugs have been churning out cards and you have a massive hand already; if you've got 10 cards in hand, people are less likely to care that you're drawing 2 more a turn.
RAMP
Since Zedruu has no green, you're fairly limited on ramp, especially lands, as lands are usually safer from dying than anything else in EDH. Ramp is not particularly important in group hug as you want the games to go on forever and you don't usually care about getting an explosive start (in fact, you usually want to fly under the radar). However a little bit of ramp can never hurt. These either fetch out Mistveil Plains, help color fix you, or are just plain sol ring.
*****Sol Ring - Staple. While Turn 1 Sol Rings will draw attention, following it up with group hugs will help divert it away from you. Sometimes you may not even want to run this out turn 1 if it will draw attention regardless. It's still a fine turn 3 or 4 play.
***Wayfarer's Bauble - Poor man's rampant growth. It's not great but you should spread your ramp options out. Too many mana rocks makes you vulnerable to artifact hate.
***Knight of the White Orchid - Not particularly reliable at ramping, but if you play against at least one green deck on the table it is reliable. Good because it can fetch Mistveil Plains.
****Chromatic Lantern - This is nice to have because you do run some nonbasics, especially Maze of Ith which can't even tap for mana. Zedruu's donation ability is also very mana intensive, so this helps fix that. Similar to the above, there are many 3-mana rocks, but this is very important for Zedruu.
***Kor Cartographer - Basically a 4 mana version of Knight of the White Orchid.
REMOVAL
Like any good deck, you need to keep other people in check. Be careful about removing TOO many things though, or else people will start noticing you. Remove only things that will cause actual problems. This means even if some of your stuff will be dying, you may have to let it go.
****Swords to Plowshares - It's one time use, but you should run at least 1 cheap spot removal.
****Gilded Drake - It's a mind control that automatically donates itself for Zedruu. Pretty amazing if you ask me. If you can't afford this, your best shot is to just play a spot removal card.
***Aura of Silence - Against those pesky artifact decks, this shuts them down. Depending on how many friends you want to make, keep this out to really piss people off, although if you do that I recommend that you have some other pillow fort cards out to protect yourself (such as Karmic Justice and Ghostly Prison). Usually this is just a disenchant that you can get back with Sun Titan.
****Imprisoned in the Moon - With the nerf to tuck, these types of cards that strand generals in play have great value.
****Return to Dust - 2-for-1 removal at sorcery speed, still good at instant. Also fetchable off Sunforger.
****Austere Command - The mana cost is high, but its flexibility makes it worth it.
****Supreme Verdict - Uncounterable sweeper without needing Boseiju. You will usually cast this at least once per game.
****Pyrohemia - Enchantment-based creature sweeper. You get this out with one of your multiple enchantment tutors. Be careful about the mana though because without Chromatic Lantern out, you can't get many activations per turn.
GRAVEYARD HATE
Many EDH decks love using the graveyard as a second resource. While your group hug effects will keep their hands full and thus reduce the incentive of reaching for the graveyard for additional "cards", you still want something to stop people from doing graveyard shenanigans, as there are many infinite combos that involve the graveyard (sup Hermit Druid).
***Rest in Peace - Play this if a graveyard-happy player is getting cute with his graveyard and/or you expect that player to go infinite with his graveyard. Otherwise it'll annoy a lot of players, so don't just throw this out for no reason. Note that if this dies, it will exile itself. Also it will stop creature death triggers like from the Vicious Shadows in this deck so be careful.
COUNTERS
This deck doesn't run too many because counters are not particularly good in or against "fair" decks. But against players who like to use infinite combos, you must run some and be prepared when you expect someone to go infinite.
****Arcane Denial - Gets the nod over regular Counterspell because of the easier mana cost (this applies significantly more often than you may think) and the draw 2 for the opponent is actually a bonus for group hug. They won't feel like they were badly destroyed, but they really were. Counter something like Tooth and Nail, and you'll gladly let the opponent draw 2 cards instead of instantly winning the game.
****Counterflux - For those pesky storm players, or if a lot of crap is flying around and you want to keep the board stable. Against other blue decks this also just says "No your spell cannot resolve." If you really want to catch that new player in the group offguard, fetch this off Sunforger.
****Spell Crumple - It lost a lot of power now that it can't tuck generals, but it's still a useful card in this build. Since it automatically goes back to your library, you can loop Wild Research to get this card back, so it's a more luck-based Forbid in a way. However this gets the nod over Forbid because it's less likely to get you hated on compared to Forbid until you start the loop. Do this loop only when you have the game under control.
PILLOW FORT
As Zedruu has no innate protection nor does she alone help you set up a strong board presence, you need to find ways to keep her on the board, but you also need ways to protect yourself. These cards protect Zedruu, but more importantly try to convince enemies to attack others before you.
****Spellskite - Protects basically any permanent on the board, yours or another player's. At 2 mana, you can't really ask for more.
****Containment Priest - I really like this card. It only stops people from doing degenerate/unfair things, like, say, flashing in Derevi, Empyrial Tactician for cheap, or looping Deadeye Navigator, or winning with Tooth and Nail, or abusing graveyards with reanimation shenanigans. However, it's not as oppressive as cards like Humility or Winter Orb because people can still play magic, so it's unlikely to get you hated out of the game. What containment priest does is tell everyone they have to play "fair" magic. They need to spend actual mana on their cards. The flash also means that this will often act as a counterspell when it ETBs too. This card also hardly affects this deck negatively either. Granted, this card doesn't stop every broken thing (Doomsday) but at 2-mana with flash, you can't ask for more.
****Boros Charm - Protect yourself from most sweepers. Fetchable off Sunforger and Wild Research. Also the other two modes are not irrelevant; I have actually killed someone by doming him for 4 with this, and in another game I helped kill someone by giving an attacking general double strike.
****Ghostly Prison - Trademark pillow fort. Great play early on, then you let Solitary Confinement be your lategame pillow fort card. Gets the nod over Propaganda as this is a white permanent to help trigger Mistveil Plains.
*****Solitary Confinement - This is the card that signifies that you are entering the lategame. This protects you against a large portion of the cards seen in EDH. All of your group hug effects basically are to prepare you to fuel to this card. You must run this card because when you want to try and win the game, you will normally require several turns, and this will keep you protected against many things. Remember that the beginning steps go untap, upkeep, draw, so at your upkeep step you can choose not to discard and sac this, draw from your draw step, then find a way to get this back into play. This is important since many of your group hug draw effects affect your draw step and this will make you skip that step.
****Karmic Justice - Makes people think twice about blowing up anything on your field. You can run this out relatively early because it's a rattlesnake card and will typically fly under the radar, but once you get a good board presence, anyone that wants to sweep your board will pay dearly. It won't protect your creatures though so don't just run Zedruu out there. Note that this will not protect your cards that have been donated. It will also not protect from exile effects (Utter End) or bounce effects (Cyclonic Rift).
***Statecraft - On your side, it helps your creatures block. When donated to an aggressive opponent, it blanks his ability to kill you through combat. It doesn't do much against players who win through infinite combos or "unfair" methods.
***Greater Auramancy - Basically Karmic Justice except taken to a larger extreme. Be careful as with this out, you won't be able to donate enchantments anymore. Play Copy Enchantment on this to really stonewall spot removal on your pillowfort cards.
****Torpor Orb - A "fairer" version of Humility. In stronger playgroups you have to run Humility, but in a weaker group Torpor Orb is enough.
****Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory - Your big card versus any decks that try to go infinite with spells. It also helps you in 1v1 counter wars, as if your opponent plays something you don't have to worry about your counter getting blasted. It's also useful lategame as the general gameplan is that opponents have a million cards in hand, and it's lategame so they have mana to cast multiple problematic spells in a row and this helps slow the game down even more. If you get Leyline of Anticipation out this gives you a lot of tempo. If nothing else, this helps slow the game down as people love their ramp and playing multiple spells a turn, whereas this deck in the early-midgame is generally tapping out for 1 spell a turn. This card is so important I'm running both cards that have this effect.
***Stranglehold - Many of the degenerate generals are repeatable tutors (Zur, Arcum, etc.) or loop infinite time warps (Narset, etc.), so this is a way to stop them. It will draw hate so make sure you play it properly, or else it will get you killed. However since this deck is also card draw hugging, it won't make AS many enemies, as it can help people draw into things they would want to tutor for. Its purpose is to stop degenerate things, like what was just listed with broken generals, where people are tutoring AND getting mana discounts.
TUTORS
Zedruu can draw you cards, but you still need tutors to smooth out draws, drag out your all-star cards, and overall make the deck more consistent.
*****Enlightened Tutor - With a heavy enchantment and a minor artifact theme, there are a lot of targets to get.
*****Gamble - You really need this, even though sometimes you can get screwed over by the random discard.
*****Idyllic tutor - Can find Wild Research, Solitary Confinement, Propaganda, Rest in Peace, and so on. An all-star.
***Fabricate - Not as important as Idyllic Tutor in this deck, but you still have enough targets to run this.
****Sunforger - Can be awkward to use at times because you need a creature to equip this to and this deck doesn't run many creatures; usually it's Zedruu herself with this. This isn't amazing in this build but it has enough value to run. Fetch out that Counterflux to really perplex someone.
*****Wild Research - This is one of the biggest reasons to ever play RWU. Repeatable tutors are nice cards. Repeatable tutors at an extremely affordable mana cost are no joke. This, along with Solitary Confinement, is the reason to play card draw hugs; get a full hand so that you can minimize the chance that the random discard will hurt you. This is also a good reason to have an enchantment theme as this can fetch out most of the cards. Couple this with a timely enlightened tutor or mystical tutor and you can even fetch out sorceries and artifacts.
*****Academy Rector - People know how powerful and scary this card is, so be careful about playing this - people who have never played against this deck before usually assume this gets Omniscience. Usually you shouldn't play this unless you have your High Market out, but if you know your opponents don't have exile effects or mind control effects, this stops people from attacking you on the ground.
GRAVEYARD RECURSION
Things die often. The longer the game goes, the more things that die. Zedruu wants long games. Therefore you will have a lot of things die. These cards help bring those cards back.
*****Sun Titan - There are a lot of stuff to get back with this guy, the big ones being Solitary Confinement and Wild Research. Sun Titan is one of my pet cards and I imagine I will be forcing him into every white EDH deck I have.
*****Replenish - I want all the enchantments back. All of them.
CARD DRAW
You have group hug effects to get a full hand, but there's no problem running a few more card draw.
****Rhystic Study - Blue staple. Extremely likely to fly under everyone's radar when all the group hugging is going on.
***Blue Sun's Zenith - Mainly run because of its interaction with Wild Research; after you cast USZ, you can find it with Wild Research and do it again, assuming you don't pitch USZ to the random discard (if you do, use Mistveil Plains to get it back in your library). Eventually you can actually use this with Wild Research as your finisher to deck your opponent out. Don't laugh. I actually killed someone with this plan.
FINISHER
As the deck doesn't want to apply pressure until it's a 1v1, there aren't many finishers in the deck. You have several finishers to choose from, so it's basically pick and choose a handful of cards you want based on personal preference and what your playgroup has. Usually you don't want to play finishers until your fort is established though.
****Vicious Shadows - Only really useful versus creature-heavy decks, but this is one of the few cards where you can pull a surprise win out of nowhere. With all the group hug drawing cards, sometimes a single creature dying can let this card blast for 20 damage. Fetch this off Academy Rector in response to a sweeper and you can sometimes OHKO the whole table.
****Iron Maiden - A bit weaker than Vicious Shadows, but as the deck is focused on hugging and everyone having 15+ cards in hand, this can quickly kill people off. This gets the nod over Black Vise because while the Vise costs 1 mana and not 3, both can be recurred with Sun Titan, and by the time you want to cast finishers, the 2-mana difference shouldn't be a big deal. This has upside in that if for whatever reason you need to kill off more than 1 person, this one does it faster.
**Transcendence - In here mostly for the lulz, and it can easily backfire on you against chaos red decks running cards like Warp World. Under the right conditions it does win out of nowhere though.
VALUE
Cards that didn't quite fit in any other category.
****Leyline of Anticipation - This can draw hate especially if it's in your starting hand, but you really need it so you don't time walk yourself when you try to keep mana open for removal and don't spend it on anything. The interaction with Rule of Law is pretty strong though.
****Copy Enchantment - Lots of powerful enchantments not only in this deck, but in opposing decks. I'm always happy when someone plays Mirari's Wake as it gives me a nice choice for Copy Enchantment. However it's usually your second Greater Auramancy to fortify your pillow fort.
LANDS
The deck has a lot of lands and features the three karoo lands from ravnica and thawing glaciers, so you are effectively running even more. Again, there's no green, so you absolutely do not want to miss a land drop. Even with some of the draw engines in the deck, it's still possible to miss one early on.
***Glacial Fortress - I've been meaning to pick up the Innistrad duals but wanted to wait until rotation. Haven't gotten them yet because I've been busy.
***Izzet Boilerworks, Boros Garrison, Azorius Chancery - They're actually card advantage because they're two land drops in 1 card. They're vulnerable to strip mine effects, but chances are other players on the table have bigger things to destroy over your karoo lands.
****Maze of Ith - Stop attackers in their tracks. Some sword'd up guy trying to get cocky and swinging? Stop him from attacking you, or even stop him from attacking someone else to make a temporary ally.
****Kor haven - Similar to Maze of Ith, although not quite as strong.
*****Serra's Sanctum - Not nearly as good as Tolarian Academy or Gaea's Cradle, but you can still get a couple mana out of it. Sometimes it sits around and does absolutely nothing though, which is embarrassing.
*****Mistveil Plains - Gives some graveyard recursion. Allows you to reuse with Wild Research in particular. Many of the land tutors and fetchlands are here to find this card. It's an extremely important piece that you almost always want out by the midgame.
*****Reliquary Tower - Once the deck gets going, you can fill your hand quickly. Most decks play this card for value, but it's actually very important to have a massive hand. More often than not you will Transmute your Tolaria West to find it, and people may chuckle while not understanding your true intentions.
*****Mikokoro, Center of the Sea - Land that hugs. You don't usually activate this unless you have nothing else to do but it's an additional hug.
****High Market - Basically here just for Academy Rector, but for the odd times people want to steal or exile one of your creatures.
****Forbidden Orchard - Mana fixing and politics. Also forcibly puts creatures into play if you're trying to kill with Vicious Shadows. Often you'll give opponents 1/1s even if you aren't spending that mana on anything if it'll keep them happy.
*****Tolaria West - Basically to find High Market for Academy Rector, but tutors are nice in general. Sometimes getting Reliquary tower after you have Howling Mine + Font of Mythos out is nice too. In a pinch it can also get Mistveil Plains, though you usually don't have to do that.
****Thawing Glaciers - Helps you not miss those land drops. It's a slow card, but the deck is slow anyway, so this shouldn't matter much. Note that it returns to your hand "at end of turn" so if you don't actually have another land in hand you will miss that land drop.
****Myriad Landscape - 3-color decks can afford it and it's ramp on a land.
OTHER OPTIONS
Not all defensive cards are the same. There are many types of defensive cards, some of which I don't really know how to even categorize them. I'll briefly break down multiple types of defensive cards as best as I can, in order of increasing control/stranglehold on the game.
Rattlesnake - These cards simply encourage opponents to ignore you. They typically don't do anything unless you are being targeted or attacked. These cards make opponents say to themselves, "If I must deal with this guy sometime down the future I can." They will usually fly under the radar because of that while helping you not get attacked. Karmic Justice and Ghostly Prison are examples of Rattlesnakes.
Tax/Griefer - These hinder players from playing Magic in a certain way. They don't completely stop them but it hinders their plans in a way. These are the most dangerous defensive cards to use as they don't actually stop opponents from doing things completely, so if you piss off enough people on the table they can gang up and kill you. Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter are tutor griefers. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is a mana griefer. etc.
Lock - These just stop players from playing Magic in a certain way. These are the most annoying to play against because they can grind the game to a halt depending on how many locks are out (and how potent they are). The most powerful locks are so good that your opponents may just decide to kill you before games even start. Humility is a creature lock. Stranglehold is a tutor lock. Embargo is a creature/artifact lock. Stasis is a lock. etc.
Phil has made a very comprehensive Stax primer and goes much more indepth on card choices (and has more experience with control builds) than I have. Just keep in mind that the idea of this deck is to hug and the second is to pillow fort, so I wouldn't recommend cards like Smokestack in here unless you're trying to build this deck into something more competitive. In a stax build you might be better off removing all the group hug elements and going harder on the control route. However adding a few pieces to this build can make it very potent, such as landing a well-timed winter orb.
DONATABLE STAX/GRIEFERS/LOCKS
As said earlier, you can take the griefer route with Zedruu. Most cards soft-lock the opponent out of the game. Do not run these out early unless you know they won't die; if the permanent gets killed before the opponent is dead (say someone sweeps the board and the permanent gets caught in it), be prepared to feel the full wrath of that player for the rest of the game, perhaps the day. As a rule of thumb, it's safer to play donation targets/finishers that are beneficial to you when they're on your side of play, because this lets you run them out with or without Zedruu already in play. For example, Celestial Dawn is acceptable because it color fixes you and then donating it to a nonwhite deck makes them unable to play any of their colored spells. On the flip side, Grid Monitor is significantly less acceptable because when it's on your side of play it hurts you.
Celestial Dawn - When someone thinks of Zedruu, they think of this card. Because of how EDH rules work, if you donate this to someone whose general is not white, all mana they produce is colorless, whether the mana is produced from their lands, artifacts, creatures, etc. It's basically contamination that hits a single player instead of everyone, affects fewer types of decks, and takes more work, and it's still pretty insane (so that says what you need to know about Contamination). Of all the griefer cards this is one of the safest and best ones to play because you can run it out easily when Zedruu isn't around since it actually color fixes you, and the lock it has is generally much better than most other locks you could donate. However since it basically does nothing vs white decks, this cannot be your only lock in the deck. Also note that with this out, your lands become straight plains and lose their regular abilities (like Reliquary Tower). With the update to the new rules about mana color generation, this card is worthless.
Grid monitor, steel golem - Stop a player from playing creature spells. This includes their general. However as creatures are probably the easiest card type to deal with, don't expect these to stay out for very long. They can just block with their donated dude to have it die and players often have sac outlets for their creatures (but not often for their other card types). These are much weaker than they look and I'm only listing it here to be thorough; I don't recommend playing them.
Pyromancer's Swath - Stop a player from having cards in his hand. Doesn't work very well if you have card draw group hug.
Illusions of Grandeur - 20 life seems like a lot, but most players can work around this. If life totals started at 20 like they do in constructed, this would be much more interesting. Note that it's not a real "griefer" card, because this doesn't really stop the opponent from casting spells, it just does a ton of damage.
Thought lash - Before it got errata'd it could one shot a player. Now this is just a very slow death card and isn't that great.
Vibrating Sphere - Donate this to an opponent so that all his creatures get Elesh Norn'd. The only drawback is that on that player's turn, his creatures will be smashing you for slightly more damage.
ADDITIONAL GRIEFERS/LOCKS
If your playgroup is way too fast, you will need more powerful locks on the board. Most of these you don't want to donate, but regardless they have an extremely high power level. The most powerful locks are so good that they can actually help you win with multiple opponents still left in the game. Basically, you're Wolf and your opponents are Foxes.
Just what we needed to see... Star Wolf Zedruu
Stranglehold - The best way to deal with locks is to tutor for an answer that kills the lock. This prevents them from doing that. It also stops blue mages from time warping infinite times.
Aven Mindcensor, Mindlock orb, Leonin Arbiter, Widespread Panic - Much less potent than Stranglehold, but are usable if you need more than one of that effect. Mindlock Orb and Widespread Panic have the slight benefit of being universal so you can donate them with Zedruu (technically so will Leonin Arbiter but as a creature it will die very quickly).
Humility - People like playing creatures. This prevents them from doing that. If your playgroup has very powerful green decks, this tells them "You guys can't play magic anymore". This is so powerful that if your opponents know this is in your deck, they may just kill you early on anyway, so be very careful.
Dovescape - People like playing magic. This prevents them from doing that. When this is out on the field, no one is playing an actual game of magic anymore. The game turns into "Who can make the most bird tokens?" Like Humility, if your opponents know this is in your deck, this can get you killed way before you even play it.
Forbid - Not a permanent that locks, but if your gameplan is to group hug with card draw, you'll have plenty of cards to pitch. This is better in a Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck because you have an actual clock, but it's viable here too. Once you start spamming Forbid, everyone will start attacking you, so be careful.
MANA HUGS
The current build hugs with card draw. The other big hug build is to instead make a lot of mana. Don't combine both of them in the same build; it'll just allow players to go too fast. It's harder to make a mana hug deck without green (green gives Heartbeat of Spring, Collective Voyage, and so on) but you have a few cards that help. Also mana hugging tends to be more dangerous than card hugging because this allows players to start going really wild with their gamebreaking spells.
Mana Flare - Everyone's favorite card. It's also the card that will probably kill you if you're not extremely careful.
Helm of Awakening - Watch out for any of those storm players that try to go off early; keep a counter to keep them in check.
Urza's Filter - The deck doesn't run too many multicolored spells, but it reduces the cost of Zedruu, who will probably die often even when you're playing it safe. You'll need to build around this card to get the full value.
Oath of Lieges - A mana hug that increases land count. It does a couple of nice things; lets nongreen decks catch up to the green decks in land count, as well as reward players for having a good number of basics to fetch.
Arcane Melee - Better in a storm version that wants to use Firemind's Foresight and Sunforger, but viable.
Dream Halls - Doesn't give mana, but I'm pretty sure letting people play everything for free is a great way to hug. You'll probably die unless you're very careful though. It's worth noting that players can cast their generals off Dream Halls too, although they'll have to actually pay commander tax.
ADDITIONAL CARDS
These are random cards that I've tested or have been interested in, but either have no room or were disappointed in their results.
Auramancer, Hanna, Ship's Navigator, etc. - In a deck full of enchantments and artifacts, recurring them should be sweet. But if you have card draw hug, you almost never need graveyard recursion. The enchantments you actually would want to recur are lategame bombs that you should already be protecting with countermagic and such, and everything else is disposable. Replenish gets a slot because it's graveyard recursion that also saves you a ton of mana since the enchantments go straight to the battlefield. These are better in mana hug decks where you gas out quickly.
Pacifism, Faith's Fetters, etc - Enchant something, then donate the enchantment. Sounds like a good plan on paper, but they're too easy to remove, and they don't get rid of all problematic permanents (for example anything that had static effects would still be a problem).
Oblivion Ring, Detention Sphere, etc. - Sounds like an upgrade to Pacifism and the like, but they're only temporary removal spells. I prefer to play spells that just get rid of what's causing problems. However if your playgroup has a lot of graveyard recursion, these don't send the permanent to the graveyard.
Cultural Exchange - If you have a much higher creature count (this includes tokens), this can get a lot of card draw out, as well as stealing good things for donating crap things. This build doesn't have a lot of creatures though.
Paradox Haze - Requires a lot of work to build around. It doesn't do anything on its own, and it only felt really good when I had a lot of stuff donated + Zedruu out and alive (and/or have other cards with upkeep triggers).
Shared Fate - Similar to the red chaos cards in that, in theory, this is a quick way to get your permanents on your opponents' board. The problem is that everyone will obviously see that and avoid playing your stuff.
Vedalken Plotter, Political Trickery, Shifting Borders, etc. - These cards allow you to donate lands while still having the same land count, possibly stealing utility lands too (like Gaea's Cradle). However these are too weak without Zedruu out to draw cards off the donated lands, and when that happens Zedruu gets killed more often.
Bazaar Trader - First, it can't donate enchantments. Second, Zedruu does the same thing, and while Bazaar Trader does it for a lot less mana, most of the things you want to donate are in the lategame when you do have the mana to spend. I'd rather spend the card slot on something else.
Brand - You normally don't want the things you donate back to you.
Enduring Ideal - In most white-based enchantment decks this is nice to have, but the theme is card draw hugging so you almost never actually need to play this spell. In addition, if someone is able to resolve a Stranglehold or something similar after this is cast you are basically dead.
Thieves' Auction, Scrambleverse, etc. - These can quickly donate a lot of your permanents, potentially giving Zedruu a lot of card draw (you can cast Thieves' Auction with Zedruu out as long as Zedruu is your first choice since you go first, but you should probably not cast Scrambleverse with Zedruu out). The problem comes purely with the playgroup. If your playgroup does not like chaos cards do not run these. If your playgroup is fine, these are almost auto-includes.
Duergar Hedge-Mage - While it's not hard to kill both an artifact and enchantment, with the printing of Act of Authority I decided to go with exile removal instead while not needing the requirements to trigger the Hedge-Mage.
Firemind's Foresight - In a sunforger deck this is not a bad toolbox card, as you will have a lot of cheap instants for sunforger and this will help find those same cards. 7 mana is a lot though. This is better if you want to go infinite; for example, fetch Mystical Tutor + Reiterate (your 2 CMC card can be anything, but a counterspell to protect isn't bad), then Mystical Tutor for Turnabout and with enough lands or artifacts in play you make infinite mana.
Crawlspace - It fills a similar role with Ghostly Prison/Propaganda, but there are some major differences. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are stronger earlier in the game when paying the 2 mana per attacking creature is a big deal since there's less mana available, while with Crawlspace your opponents may only be attacking you with two creatures anyway. Lategame, the first two get weaker as players have more mana to work with while Crawlspace may now be stopping more creatures as boards get bigger. The problem with Crawlspace is that because it's a fairly weak pillowfort card early and is strong late, that fills the same role as Solitary Confinement (a card that is pretty bad early and is way better lategame), so they overlap. By the time you want Solitary Confinement you should have either drawn into it or tutored for it so you don't really need Crawlspace for redundancy.
Otherworld Atlas - It's a hug machine but it hugs far too slowly without ways to untap it or generate additional charge counters (like proliferate effects). However it does have a use in that it gets around Solitary Confinement's draw-step skipping.
Contested War Zone - A land that automatically donates itself, but only if you get attacked. Considering we don't want to get attacked in the first place, that is a problem. In addition, because there's no green, we don't want to lose lands.
Rainbow Vale - A land that automatically donates itself, but what usually happens is that when Zedruu is out, this land comes back to you before your upkeep, so what it basically does is give your opponents 1 extra mana.
Terrain Generator - Helps a non-green deck ramp. However it's only basics and it's fairly mana intensive.
Good Stuffs - There are plenty of goodstuffs in RWU, like Consecrated Sphinx, Force of Will, Stoneforge Mystic, Palinchron, additional counterspells, and so on. Most of the strong ones probably don't belong - or don't need to be - in a group hug deck. Anything that could draw attention to you early on is not a good idea. If you are looking for a control approach, possibly building a 1v1 Zedruu deck, by all means play them.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
+ Feelgood. Who doesn't like drawing cards?
- Slow. The deck generally cannot win before turn 10 or so.
- Vulnerable. You have some amount of protection, but if two players both focus on you, the deck will falter.
Do not play group hug in a 1v1 or a 2-headed giant for obvious reasons.
STRATEGY
GENERAL
- Ramp and group hug. Ramp is difficult because there is no green, meaning you need to rely on mana rocks which die after the first board wipe. But having lots of mana is important, because Zedruu is very mana hungry, and if you can draw cards, you will have stuff to cast with all that mana. The group hug is more important though because you do not want your opponents to be attacking you.
- Once players start developing their boards, start getting your pillow fort up. Usually with your howling mine effects out, players will normally ignore you, but some players will know that you are just waiting in the shadows and may attack you anyway. Play cards that discourages those players from attacking you.
- There's a very small counter suite. Counter only the most important spells, usually if that spell would instantly end the game.
- Do not draw any attention to you unless you can finish everyone off before they can respond.
There are multiple strategies with Zedruu. As said earlier, you can play a griefer/tax deck, a chaos deck (these two can be combined somewhat), or a group hug deck. They all require different strategies but have one common theme; they want the game to go long. Zedruu is one of the least explosive decks out there, so the way to balance the game out is to take it long.
Magic in general has three major resources; cards in hand, mana, and life. In EDH the life total doesn't really matter unless it's at 0, so you'll notice that most prominent group hug cards do one of two things; increase cards in hand or increase mana. What you want to do is focus your group hug on increasing one resource, and you can also decrease the other resource if needed (although you may draw hate). You want players to either draw a lot of cards but not have the mana to play them all, or give players a ton of mana but have nothing to use it on. This gives the illusion of group hug while preventing people from actually going insane with the massive influx of resources you're giving them. Both are valid group hug strategies.
The type of group hug you do also alters the support cards you play as well as general playstyle. For example, this build currently hugs on card draw. If you instead focus on mana ramp hugs, Vicious Shadows loses its power. In these cases, people will generally not have cards in their hands, so Vicious Shadows will usually do nothing. When you mana ramp hug, you also want to get Zedruu out early and have her start donating things so you can get card draw online and put that mana ramp you're getting to use (when you hug with card draw, usually you don't need to play Zedruu at all).
STRATEGY
Mulligans are fairly easy with this deck. Keep going until you get a howling mine effect and the mana required to cast them. You can usually go down to 5 or 6 cards because the howling mine(s) will refill you quickly. Sometimes you do that and someone immediately blows up the howling mine, but there's not much you can do about that.
Your first priority is to get the group hug online. Ramp is also important and should be your other earlygame focus, but group hug helps keep your hand full and helps entice other players to ignore you. You also want a huge hand of cards for your lategame and you really need a lot of turns and hugs to build it up. Generally if you are drawing 3-4 cards a turn, you should try to keep your other group hug effects in your hand. If your board gets wiped, you want to deploy additional hugs ASAP and you don't want all your hugs to get swept away if you have no way to recur them. Play them if you have nothing better to do, but once you get some hugs online, you should proceed to the next step.
The next step is to establish your pillow fort and control the board. You don't want to remove everything, because then everyone will get annoyed at you. You just need to slow down the player with the best position so that he/she is no further than the other players. When the board gets too crazy and multiple players can threaten to kill everyone in his or her next turn, that's when you want to sweep or get another player to sweep for you. However if only one player will die, you can usually let that go through, but that depends on the alliances you have forged over the course of the game, or if that player who will die can help slow the game down without constricting you. For example, if the other players are focusing on another control deck who wants to take the game long, it may be in your best interest to save that player. However if those players are ganging up on someone who is going to do an infinite combo next turn, you probably want to let them do as they please. It's all politics and it all depends on the situation.
Occasionally you'll run into that player who realizes what you are doing and will try to kill you even with your hugs out. When that happens, throw out a couple of pillow forts. If that player still focuses on you, you have enough removal to fend him off, and hopefully other players will help you because you have hugs online and they want to reap the benefits. If more than one player will consistently focus on you every game, then that playgroup does not like group hug and you must switch to a different deck. Group hug simply cannot compete with that much aggression.
You don't usually enter your lategame/kill mode until only 1-2 opponents remain. This is when you must start breaking out your bombs, and usually you're only going to have 1-2 turns to solidify your fort, as the last player standing will usually have a big board. Usually this is when you assemble Solitary Confinement and Wild Research. If you play these cards with more than one opponent left, they may team up on you, and that can be hard to beat.
Other cards necessary for your ultimate fort but can be played earlier in the game include Greater Auramancy, a Copy Enchantment on Greater Auramancy or a Karmic Justice, a hug or two that do not use the draw phase (since Solitary Confinement makes you skip that), a card that gives you no maximum handsize, and Mistveil Plains. What this does is prevent all damage to you and you have shroud, and you have Wild Research to repeatably tutor for something like Spell Crumple, and mistveil Plains is there in case you randomly discard anything that's important so you can fetch it again with Wild Research. The Greater Auramancy/Karmic Justice are to protect your enchantments which are protecting you, and your hugs are so that you can keep your hand full to discard to Solitary Confinement and Wild Research.
Your area of the table should look something like this.
These are the basic cards you need to defeat the last player, but you will also need additional cards depending on your opponent's deck. For example, you will need that Torpor Orb or Humility out against that creature deck. Against anyone with a lot of cheap threatening spells, get out a Rule of Law to totally stymie them (Rule of Law also laughs at blue mages who think they can play a finisher with countermagic backup on the same turn). If your opponent's plan to beat your pillow fort involves an overloaded Cyclonic Rift off his Boseiju, who shelters all, stick a Perplexing Chimera to stop it beforehand. etc.
Once you are totally protected, use Wild Research to find a finisher and kill them. Usually the best finisher is Vicious Shadows, as you've been card hugging the entire game and your opponent's hand should be massive, so he'll be dead after a few creatures die. Vicious Shadows will usually be strong enough where you can actually play it relatively "early" and kill more than one person. The other finishers in the deck are for redundancy.
Sometimes you won't have the time to set up your pillow fort when going for a kill. That depends on the game state. I have no real suggestions for those scenarios and you'll have to play it by ear.
It's important to not get baited at this point. This player will have a ton of cards and lands in play since the game has gone on forever, so he/she will be able to play multiple spells and you will not have enough mana to counter them all. If you assembled your pillow fort correctly, you will be protected against many things, so basically you only need to counter anything that can actually destroy your fort. If you're worried about getting baited, try and get a Rule of Law or similar effect in your fort.
At this point, sweepers are the cards that can actually beat you, particularly those that can't be countered (like if they're cast off Boseiju, who shelters all). However, sweepers that simply destroy are pretty easy to defend, as if you have Karmic justice out you will blow up his entire board, and you have Replenish to get your fort back (Sun Titan gets back the crucial ones slowly). Sweepers that don't trigger Karmic justice are tougher, such as an overloaded Cyclonic Rift or Merciless Eviction. Your only real outs are to try and gain control of that spell or simply prevent them from casting it. Perplexing Chimera does an excellent job at this, but be careful if you have a Humility out. Alternately Mindbreak Trap and Commandeer are the only cards I can think of that can get around uncounterable spells (you don't really care about uncounterable creatures if you have Torpor Orb and/or Humility out). Time Stop can handle almost anything but at 6-mana it's hard to keep up all the time. Sometimes you can assemble your wincon and then play something like Stasis or Winter Orb to prevent them from coming back, although in those situations your wincon should be more proactive, and these are fairly powerful stax effects that may draw hate.
Knowing when to play Zedruu is also crucial. While she's 4 mana, she's not something you run out ASAP. In fact you normally don't even want to play her until you can play her plus immediately donate something, or if you have nothing to do. However there are no set rules on when to play Zedruu, but the general rule of thumb is that you do not want Zedruu to have a big target on her head. If Zedruu would be one of the biggest threats on the table, she'll get killed easily thanks to not having any protection. However you must also not run Zedruu into a very cluttered board as you must expect a sweeper to be coming soon (sometimes your sweeper). An ideal time to run Zedruu out is if 1-2 players each have 1 creature more threatening than Zedruu but no more than, say, 3-4 threatening creatures are out in total (so you can expect spot removal on the other creatures, but there are not enough creatures out to warrant sweeping), and each creature cannot be an "answer now" card (for example, a single Hermit Druid in play will warrant sweeping if that player's only removal spell is a sweeper).
CHANGELOG
12/7/16
+ Statecraft
+ Stranglehold
+ Fevered Visions
+ Thought Vessel
+ Imprisoned in the Moon
I had statecraft in my early build, but took it out for some reason. I'm putting it back in. It helps you play defense early in case as something like a second ghostly prison, then you can donate it to the aggro player to put his gameplan on hold.
Stranglehold is starting to approach stax territory so it can be dangerous, but if you have tons of card draw hug, you might not make that many enemies, as they could draw into the things they wanted to tutor for anyway. What this is aimed to stop are degenerate things; tutoring with birthing pod, Zur, Arcum Daggson, etc. While they could draw into things that they would tutor for, it's mostly to prevent them from getting the mana discount. It also has a nice side effect of stopping someone like Narset from looping 9001 time warps. Also, if you can survive to a 1v1 state, one of the biggest ways to break your fort is when someone tutors for a specific answer. Regardless, make sure you play this appropriately. Stopping people from cracking fetchlands or their sakura-tribe elders when nothing degenerate is going on might create more enemies than allies.
Fevered Visions is another hug, but with a slightly more aggressive side. With all the hugs, you're almost guaranteed to trigger the shock effect, and the 2 damage will usually fly under the radar, but the damage will add up. Shocking their planeswalker is not irrelevant either. You also usually won't donate this either, even if 2 damage isn't a lot.
Act of Authority was an awkward card, especially when coupled with the fact that I already had Return to Dust. Act does donate itself automatically, but getting it sent back to you can be a big problem.
Weathered Wayfarer is nice, but it was mostly to hit your land drops early. If you can load up on a critical mass of hug effects, you probably don't need it.
Perplexing chimera was perplexing. It sounds so amazing for Zedruu on paper, but it would often just eat the first removal spell. People don't like you stealing their spells even though the only things you generally steal are those that immediately end the game. Still, it would never serve its full purpose.
Thought Vessel is another spellbook-like effect which the deck actually wants. Since it also doubles as ramp, I decided to cut wayfarer's bauble as it felt like the weakest ramp effect.
Contents:
i. Why Play Zedruu?
ii. How Does Zedruu Win?
iii. The Deck
iv. The Breakdown
v. Match-ups
vi. Change Log
i. Why Play Zedruu?
Before you read the rest, here is a little bit about what playing Zedruu in this fashion means for your opponents. Zedruu the Greathearted has always been regarded as a 'group hug' sort of commander; kind of like Phelddagrif, Braids, Conjurer Adept, and friends. However, in a parallel universe, Zedruu can be built to support a heavy control build that shuts the game down while keeping you more or less invulnerable. The deck is a tool box, specific to my playgroup. I don't run things like Rest in Peace for example, because I don't run up against enough graveyard based decks for it to be a must have. My best advice is to use my list as a guide and swap out arguably less useful things in your playgroup for more relevant things.
The set up is very simple: Drop global (and frankly, masochistic) effects and donate them either with Zedruu or other effects, reap life and draws, wait for scoops. Yes, I said it, wait for scoops. Zedruu is in it for the long run, she is a slow moving fortress in the sky, specializing in crippling and prohibiting effects while becoming harder and harder to reach with each passing turn. Like previous Zedruu builds, there isn't much in the way of fast win conditions. There is no combo-out or infinitely abusable effects, there is only a vast tool box for disabling each of your opponents. This deck is meant to slow the game down, it is expected of the pilot to be able to navigate through the multiplayer playgroup at hand correctly in order to survive. This means politics is paramount, you need to play good cop bad cop, know your opponents outside of the game, and their decks as well as play styles.
ii. How Does Zedruu Work?
An excellent question indeed, Zedruu the Greathearted works by creating a strangle-hold and putting your own debilitating effects in a zone where they are even harder to destroy: under your opponents' control. It's admittedly a janky plan at first glance, but once you look at the list, you'll know that there are enough cards printed that 'no one really wants under their control' to toss into a 100 card EDH deck and enough donate effects out there that you'll see that this deck is a possibility. Sure, you need a list of weird and unheard of cards, but with their powers combined: you have a force to be reckoned with. My playgroup consists of about 20 different players, of whom I play with each at least once (usually more than once) per month. I bring this up here to say that this deck can easily be undercut if you are under the spotlight each game. It's hard to avoid drawing hate from giving your Trostani, Selesnya's Voice opponent your Torpor Orb, your Animar, Soul of Elements opponent a brand new Steel Golem, or Nevermore to just about any commander-intensive deck, unless you are prepared to keep their face on the ground for the rest of the game or until they die. You need to know how to do it or you aren't going to have a good time. I play with some rapid-threat, combo loving, board state changing friends. You want to be able to team up and stay aloof at the same time. Zedruu lasts.
Primarily, my version runs off of enchantments and artifacts. There are a few creatures good-stuff or utility being run. This deck is not for people who want to win just by turning sideways. But for a quick disclaimer: I wouldn't break this deck out if your plan is to win on your own, unless you are sure you can keep control or are doing 1v1.
your deck is in a pretty different direction than mine
I did try it as a more control/stax type deck but I would get killed off pretty quickly, and for some reason the people I play with don't like the mass confusion effects like Thieves' Auction and Shared Fate.
What about Statecraft? I know you're aiming for not drawing attention to yourself, but it's a more or less solution to hexproof voltron generals, which can be a political thing too.
I came here following my tradition of clicking every zedruu I see in a signature, and I have a MAJOR complaint about your thread, because you said the most horribly incorrect thing I've ever seen! You say "There's no greater way to make friends than a turn 2 Mine." But you've got Sol Ring, so there is a better way: turn 1 Howling Mine.
Otherwise, you're good, but that's just heinous.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
TLDR - Cards that I would consider putting into this deck: Fevered Visions
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
I also added a new feature, where after I talk about a card that has any sort of relevance to EDH I will say what decks I have that I would consider putting this card in.
***Bygone Bishop - A new take on Mentor of the Meek. They trigger on slightly different creature cards/spells, but they fill a fairly similar role; draw you cards as you cast your weenies. Bygone has a slightly better body with flying and sometimes making disposable artifacts has its uses (Arcbound Ravager, Tamiyo's Journal, etc.). Cracking the clue takes 2 mana versus Mentor's 1 mana, but the 2 mana can be paid anytime as long as the clue is in play while Mentor has to be paid upfront, which is important if you want to curve out quickly. With that said, I think Mentor is more useful if all you want to do is draw cards since it's more mana efficient, while Bygone generating artifacts will be more for artifact decks with lots of weenies in them, but isn't bad for straight up weenie decks either. Still, a 3-mana creature that can generate permanents will find a home.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Descend upon the Sinful - So it's strictly better than Final Judgment, and the Delirium trigger shouldn't be that hard to get because at 6-mana, you probably will fulfill the requirement normally. The question of course is whether you want to play this over Wrath of God or Austere Command, or if you're W/x, versus things like Supreme Verdict, Merciless Eviction, etc. I believe that if you are not RW but you still have an aggressive gameplan, this won't be too bad, because getting a 4/4 immediately so you can strap equipments to it will be useful (red gives you haste outlets so you don't need the 4/4 out for a turn to get rid of the summoning sickness).
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Drogskol Cavalry - Seems a bit overcosted. It really needs to be 1 less mana, or at least be a 5/5 or something. Token generators also care more about quantity than quality, so the fact that this makes 1/1 fliers is not really a big deal unless you need flying chump blockers, but if you're paying 7 mana for this dude and 4 mana for the token, it should be for something better than chump blocking.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Eerie Interlude - It's basically Ghostway #2. It's slightly worse because you're often exiling everything you've got as these kinds of cards are generally cast in response to a sweeper, which means this card can't protect something like Progenitus. With that said it's 95% the same card. However with the printing of Containment Priest and to a lesser extent Hallowed Moonlight, it makes these cards a bit more dangerous.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Odric, Lunarch Marshal - He's an updated version of Concerted Effort in that he can help grant you more abilities overall (Concerted Effort is flying, fear, first strike, double strike, landwalk, protection, trample, and vigilance, while Odric is first strike, flying, deathtouch, double strike, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, skulk, trample, and vigilance), and it's on a 3/3 creature instead of an enchantment. I don't have much experience with this type of effect and it could be win-more, but it sounds intriguing.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
****Open the Armory - Similar to Steelshaper's Gift. 1 more mana but can also find auras. Another strong tutor for voltron decks, or perhaps another tutor to go find your skullclamp, etc. Solid card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Thalia's Lieutenant - I'm not sure if human tribal is a thing, but he's an anthem effect of sorts for 2 mana, and then he gets bigger later.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Engulf the Shore - The instant speed means it might be the go-to sweeper for monoblue decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
**Epiphany at the Drownyard - It's not an X-version of fact or fiction, it's steam augury which is much worse. Granted, in multiplayer you can try to play politics and choose an opponent that will give you the pile you need ("If you don't give me the counterspell we lose."). Still, you play fact or fiction first.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - I find it funny that his unsummon is strictly worse than the version on his Mind Sculptor counterpart (ignoring the fact that Mind Sculptor is a broken POS). With that said, he's a pretty slow draw engine, since unsummon isn't that strong in EDH unless you're unsummoning your own creatures to reuse ETB effects, though I'm sure there are worse things you could play.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Pieces of the Puzzle - A take on Peer Through Depths. This is 1 more mana and is sorcery, but it gets an additional card and the rest go into your graveyard. With that said, this requires significantly more instants and sorceries to get the full value compared to Peer Through Depths. My Talrand deck has over 40 instants and sorceries and often I only see one legal card when I cast Peer, so this card can whiff pretty often. If you can get 50 instants/sorceries in the deck then maybe you can play this safely.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
****Rattlechains - Definitely has a lot of potential. It's low CMC and will often counter a removal spell on one of your spirits, and then lets you play draw-go with your spirits the rest of the game. As for spirits, Brago, King Eternal, all the Kamigawa legendary dragons (or just lots of spirits in Kamigawa in general), Deadeye Navigator, Karmic Guide, Sovereigns of Lost Alara, this list goes on. If you have a semi-spirit tribal theme, or even just a spirit general like Brago, this card should do good work.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Thing in the Ice///Awoken Horror - Could be useful in instant/sorcery-heavy blue decks so you can quickly trigger the transform on command. Once it transforms you can attack for 7 a bit then maybe bounce it back to your hand. Sounds like a lot of work but it's only a 2-mana creature. You'll have to drop it early so you can get the transformation in a reasonable amount of time.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro, Talrand with no polymorph/proteus staff.
**Trail of Evidence - It's a spell-version of Bygone Bishop. With that said, a deck that plays this card would want to have a lot of instants and sorceries and I'm not sure how many of those decks also care about disposable artifacts.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Avacyn's Judgment - You can wipe out a good number of creatures with the madness ability at instant speed, albeit for a lot of mana. But it can also pick off a weak creature at its 2-mana baseline. However I don't think it's as good as Mizzium Mortars unless you're using the madness ability to snipe a huge creature, but that seems somewhat inefficient. I would stick with mortars for the "red mini-sweeper that can also hit one target early" and then use a regular kill card if I want to kill a 5+ toughness creature.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Falkenrath Gorger - I'm not sure if BR vampires is a deck, nor if said vampire decks have a lot of discard outlets, but this is a very interesting effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wolf of Devil's Breach - It's a decent body and whenever it attacks you usually will kill something, but it requires mana to do so and can be done only once per attack. It just seems very slow and clunky.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Archangel Avacyn///Avacyn, the Purifier - Giving your whole board indestructible at instant speed is nice, although at 5-mana it's easily telegraphed. However you kind of want a sac outlet so that you can trigger her transform trigger and mini-wrath while your team is indestructible. An alternative is to play few creatures, or mostly play creatures that have 4+ toughness that don't die to Avacyn's mini-wrath. Remember that she and your creatures can die with the indestructible trigger on the stack. In particular, with the trigger on the stack they can kill another creature you control so avacyn flips before the indestructible trigger resolves and then your weenies still take 3 damage.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Fevered Visions - Another Howling Mine variant that helps with some of Mine's flaws. This triggers at end step and not draw step (or upkeep), so that means you can get the benefit first as opposed to traditional mine effects, and it also circumvents Solitary Confinement. You can also bring this back with Sun Titan and it fuels Serra's Sanctum. While people will generally get shocked by this, in more ways than one, 2 damage usually flies under the radar, but that damage can add up if the game goes very long. It's not totally useless in builds that aren't group hug/pillowfort (and Nekusar, the Mindrazer), but probably will only be for those archetypes.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu guaranteed
**Nahiri, the Harbinger - Her +2 is underwhelming, but her -2 is a decent removal spell. The ultimate seems whatever, but if you +2 a bunch it will crack quickly. I think she will be mostly used for her -2 though, which isn't bad.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Brain in a Jar - It's a really bad version of Aether Vial for nonpermanents. It takes more mana to cast and to trigger its ability, and it's more difficult to scale the counters, since Vial lets you stop ticking it up if needed while this will always go up everytime you activate its first ability. It'll be mostly used to flash in sorceries but you really want to flash in more than 1 sorcery to make this pull its weight.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Corrupted Grafstone - Presumably if you can get cards into your graveyard quickly it can be decent. However you really want at least 2 colors in your graveyard quickly, or else it'll just be a crappier Fire Diamond or random 2 mana rock. I think signets are more reliable ramp.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Skeleton Key - Similar to Mask of Memory, except you add in skulk but drawing only 1 card instead of 2. So it'll be more reliable in connecting but it's not card advantage, just card selection. Still, that doesn't sound too bad for weenie decks, though because weenie decks tend to have multiple equipment, you might just have Mask of Memory instead of this as you can strap several equipments to a weenie so that nobody can block it well anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Port Town, Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, Game Trail, Fortified Village - These will be mostly used in 2-color decks. Revealing one of the two land types can be an issue for 3-color (I don't have the math behind it, but if you play 3-5 basics of each color and the 3 shocklands, those are pretty low odds, roughly 10 or so cards will satisfy this) and it'll be ridiculously difficult to do reliably in 5-color. 2-color decks can go up to like 10 basics of each plus the shockland. Still, more dual land cycles are nice to give players some more options. They may or may not be budget friendly (they will after SOI cycles out of standard) but it'll give players the opportunity to stick in whatever playable duals they traded, opened, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Drownyard Temple - This is a unique effect and I think it will find a home, perhaps in stax or against stax where being able to get some kind of mana back after a land wipe will be useful. If you really want to go deep, have a mill theme to get this into your graveyard and you can bring this back as a rampant growth. That's somewhat narrow, but again, the effect is unique so it's not something to just write off.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Warped Landscape - This is generally going to be more useful than Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in budget builds for 3-color decks. However it's worse than the panoramas (Bant Panorama, etc.) unless you're 5-color (in which case you should really go for the regular fetchlands). Even in wedges, panoramas getting two of your three types is usually good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
I'm a little skeptical of Pyrohemia. As you say, a three-color deck isn't going to be able to activate it much without Chromatic Lantern in play, which makes it a two card combo conditional sweeper that costs a lot of mana. Doesn't seem great, especially when your Commander is on the smaller side (as far as EDH creatures go). Also, I get what you're saying about O-Ring effects being temporary removal, but if an opponent was going to spend a Disenchant on one of them that's one less way they have to suck the down out of your pillows. If you time it right you can even get a card or two out of donating one of these before an opponent pops them; that's where the real value in these cards lies. And speaking of pillows, Moat is obviously incredible and Magus of the Moat is a decent substitute you won't have to sell a kidney to afford.
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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.
1 or 2 activations will wipe out small creatures which is where most of the value comes from. It is inefficient compared to moat, but moat costs too much money, and magus is liable to get killed and cannot be fetched out with the enchantment tutors.
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
***Elder Deep-Fiend - The flash on this card combined with emerge actually makes it intriguing, as you can sacrifice something in response to something. Tapping things down at instant speed can catch people off guard and buy valuable time.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Emrakul, the Promised End - She's not as oppressive as her original form at first glance, which I guess is a good thing because this means she probably won't get banned. But mindslaver is a VERY powerful effect in EDH. The chosen player gets an extra turn so they have a chance to rebuild, but they will never get back to the board state (or hand) they had before the mindslaver. In addition, the cost reduction means that she can cost 8-10 generic mana in the mid-lategame. Compare that to the other eldrazi titans that hover around 10-11 mana as well, as well as mindslaver costing a total of 10 mana (6 to hardcast, 4 to crack). Of course the major distinction between this and her first form is that she doesn't have annihilator 6 which means cheating her out on turn 3 or 4 isn't game over for the unlucky player(s) that gets attacked. The protections are also weaker. Ultimately I think she will be a nice player in EDH and will definitely teach new players how powerful the mindslaver effect is.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eternal Scourge - Food chain users eat your heart out. Food chain Prossh combo gets another toy to feed to food chain. This of course would also go into competitive Wanderer decks that also use Food Chain to end games quickly. Of course my wanderer build is more durdly so I won't be playing this as I hate 2-card infinites. There might be other combos that go with this though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Bruna, the Fading Light - The more playable one of the new eldrazi angel sisters, as graveyard reanimation is more useful than Gisela being a generic midrange beatstick (Gisela is basically a smaller baneslayer angel). Still, with Karmic Guide hogging all the spotlight, plus the fact that her trigger is on cast and not ETB so it can't be looped easily, you probably wouldn't bother with Bruna unless you want more of these kinds of effects.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Brisela, Voice of Nightmares - This card is definitely scary when you note that most removal spells cost 3 or less mana, and things that can kill her at 4+ mana are fairly clunky and you can see them coming. In GW if you can somehow get Brisela plus Gaddock Teeg that's pretty close to a hard lock. Regardless, she probably won't actually meld together often, as it's hard enough to get two specific cards into play in constructed, and have fun doing that in 99-card singleton decks. You can play one of the two sisters as your general but then you're forced into monowhite. Basically, you probably will lose if someone gets her out, but it'll happen very infrequently that you don't have to warp your deck around it. Scary art though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Deploy the Gatewatch - See the Unwritten for planeswalkers. It's very obvious this will only go into superfriends decks and you want at least, like, 30 planeswalkers in the deck so you can more reliably get two walkers out of the deal. You probably want a little bit of library manipulation as well (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) to get the big and scary ones (like Ugin and Karn) to cheat out. If you can hit big though, you'll hit big.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Collective Effort - It can remove a fatty, an enchantment, and anthem your entire team, all at the cost of 3 mana. Tapping a bunch of untapped creatures you control means that you likely will need to be a white token deck to reliably do all three modes, but this is a solid card in white token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Faith Unbroken - Could be an interesting tool for voltron decks with auras (mostly Uril, but there could be others). You get a journey to nowhere effect while doubling as an offensive aura. Seems unplayable otherwise though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Ironclad Slayer - Budget voltron decks to get back a key aura or equipment.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selfless Spirit - One of Boros Charm's watered down modes on a body (though msot of the time you'll be saving your creatures, but saving your noncreatures, like in response to armageddon, is obviously relevant). Still, creatures are much easier to recur (Reveillark, Sun Titan, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Sigarda's Aid - We could see a resurgence in white voltron decks on the back of this card. The fact that this is just 1 mana means it's so easy to sneak it, PLUS equipments you play immediately attach themselves to something for free and at instant speed. Flash in swiftfoot boots to fizzle a removal spell, flash in sword of X and Y to eat an attacker, flash in grafted exoskeleton in response to no blocks, etc. Every white voltron deck will play this card and it will be quite scary.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Subjugator Angel - Pricy, but could be a budget way to get an alpha strike in. Usually it's better to just go over the top with an infinite combo though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Thalia, Heretic Cathar - A fairer version of Kismet and the like, but at 3-mana with relevant stats is nothing to sneeze at. The only decks she won't affect are monocolor decks that don't have a lot of creatures and there are a couple of decks that do that (most monoblue decks) but she can slow down a lot of things. Of course the reason to pick her over said Kismet and similar cards is the ability to attack, so this is more for the creature decks that want some hatebears (or big hatebears), etc.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
****Thalia's Lancers - Relevant stats and a tutor on a stick? Captain Sisay never looked so fair. And much like Sisay, it says "legendary card", so you can grab your Gaea's Cradle or the like, in addition to something like Elesh Norn.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white decks
**Curious Homunculus - Only for spellslinger decks. It's a fairly slow mana dork, but it can flip into a Goblin Electromancer which is certainly powerful, plus it can swing for a lot after you throw out a bunch of spells. It probably is worse than regular old Electromancer but more copies of that effect can't be bad.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Displace - Pauper gets another tool. Though it's still not bad as a budget option for blink/goodstuff decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Docent of Perfection//Final Iteration - I kind of don't like this guy becoming an Eldrazi. I just liked the story, going from Delver in the original Innistrad into Abberant Form in Shadows and I think the eldrazi ending ruined that story. I do like how it basically spits out delvers though. Obviously this only goes into spellslinger decks, and even then it might be too slow. Most spellslinger decks just go infinite with spells and probably have no need to make 1/1s though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fortune's Favor - I really like the design of this card, being a fairer fact or fiction. FoF was intended to be a deep card with lots of intricacies, but in reality it doesn't really play like that because it's just too good. This is much fairer and we'll see what happens. Regardless in EDH this doesn't seem like it's strong enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Identity Thief - On one hand, flickering creatures is always handy. Flicker something you control, flicker out something an opponent controls to get attacker(s) in, etc. On the other hand, it sounds like it'll be more difficult to use than it should.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Imprisoned in the Moon - With the nerf to tuck, these types of cards that strand generals in play are always scary (Darksteel Mutation, Song of the Dryads, etc.), and the fact that blue now gets to jump in on the fun is scarier. In a pinch it can also hit a Gaea's Cradle or something. Most blue decks that want to play fair will likely play this card, although green and white do have these types of effects, but if you want multiple copies of this effect then it'll do good work, and if you don't have green or white this will be welcomed.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
*Lunar Force - It's Hesitation for 1 more mana but only triggers on an opponent's spell. In EDH it's too easy for an opponent to throw away a bad spell though.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
***Mausoleum Wanderer - The fact that this is 1 mana will be a huge annoyance. If you can find ways to pump its power at instant speed (flash in other spirits for example) you can catch people off guard and this can become a hard counter.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Mind's Dilation - It sounds like a hilarious effect, but it's 7-mana and if they flip a land you don't get anything, and they can hit mediocre cards, or cards that don't do anything (e.g. flip Green Sun's Zenith).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Summary Dismissal - Counterspells that get around uncounterable spells (e.g. Supreme Verdict) are always interesting. On top of that, you get stifle. It's similar to Voidslime in a way in that it's a catch-all counterspell. While it does say "all" you usually won't be exiling more than one spell or ability (or storm trigger) so don't get your hopes up. If you can get multiple spells and/or abilities with this card though it'll be quite the blowout. The effect is certainly powerful but I don't have any decks that really want this effect. It's just nice to know that if people get cheeky with their Cavern of Souls or Boseijus, thinking their key spell is safe, you always have an out.
My decks that I would play it in: May or may not play in blue decks
**Unsubstantiate - It's Venser, Shaper Savant's ETB effect for 2-mana, although it only unsummons and not boomerangs. Regardless in combo decks this can be a useful counterspell as it's a fairly versatile card to get something out of the way temporarily while you combo out. I don't really see a place for this card in fairer decks though that want the game to go longer. It's not usually worth a card just to gain some tempo against one player. Could see use in 1v1 though.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand
**Bedlam Reveler - In spellsinger decks, this reads "RR - get a 3/4 with prowess, pitch your hand and draw 3 cards". This could be a nifty way for spellslinger decks to refill for cheap. Not very playable in other decks, but it should do good work in the right build.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Mirrorwing Dragon - Get one more copy of Zada, Precursor Golem, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Nahiri's Wrath - Read the card carefully and note that you can't target players with this, so this really is a wrath with card disadvantage. It might be decent in red decks with reanimation to pitch fatties, or maybe with some weird Stuffy Doll or the like. I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a niche card though. If you need red wraths, stick to Blasphemous Act.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Shreds of Sanity - A double graveyard recursion card for spellslinger decks at 3 mana is pretty solid, even though this exiles itself. You probably will have something to discard to this too.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Thermo-Alchemist - If your spellslinger deck has trouble keeping planeswalkers in check, this can be handy. It can also act as your win con once you go infinite, although there might be better ways to do that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Spell Queller - In tempo decks, especially those with instant blink effects, this can be valuable. Many spells do get hit by this, notably many generals that cost 4 or less mana and since most people probably don't want their general stuck under this, they will send their commander back to the command zone and this guy will act as a straight up counterspell. Also note that this has the "Oblivion Ring" wording in that the LTB effect can be triggered before the ETB effect resolves, exiling the targeted spell permanently. It's a fair tempo card but can generate solid value when you build around it.
My decks that I would play it in: Most UW decks with blink effects and tempo gameplan
*Soul Separator - This card is quite flavorful, but it seems too mana intensive to be any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Hanweir Battlements - Granting haste is always very potent, although requiring red means it can't be used in, say, Zur or Kaalia. It does seem quite scary for Narset, Kaalia, etc. Giving it haste means it will effectively cost 2 more mana though (1 for the activation cost and 1 because you're tapping this land) so make sure you plan around that. Regardless, it will see play in red decks that want their general to get haste.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Nephalia Academy - Library of Leng on a land. Similar to how Reliquary Tower laughed at Spellbook, this will laugh Library of leng for decks that, for whatever reason, need this effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
N/A
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
MONARCH CARDS IN GENERAL - Many cards in this set make you the monarch and do things based on who the monarch is. The strength of these cards depends on the difficulty to stay as the monarch. Many cards' strength will greatly vary depending on that. My guess is that if the card only does relevant things while you're the monarch, it's not going to be very good, especially if the trigger occurs at the beginning of your upkeep. For example, Skyline Despot is very mediocre for 7-mana. I don't know if I would play it even if it made the 5/5 flier every single turn, and the fact that you have to be the monarch at the beginning of your upkeep just makes it all the more sketchier. On the flip side, something like Queen Marchesa does look playable, because she does something if someone else is the monarch, which is significantly more likely to happen than you being the monarch.
***Sanctum Prelate - Potentially shutting off many cards from being cast at just 3 mana has some value, although I imagine it will be tough to use this properly, particularly since it only hits noncreatures so you can't name the CMC of a problematic general. You'd have to specifically know what would cause your deck problems. It seems more like a value grey ogre stax piece. It could be quite good in the competitive circles though where many of the spells played are noncreature spells between 1-3 CMC so you can name a low number and shut off a lot of spells.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Recruiter of the Guard - CAN YOU SAY "STAPLE"? What have we learned from EDH? 3-mana tutors is the sweetspot for fair costing tutors. 3-mana creatures that tutor become staples. Imperial Recruiter is a strong card, although its price is more because of its rarity, but if it was a $10-20 card it would be played in almost every red creature deck. This guy gets dudes with toughness 2 or less. There are plenty of good ones (Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness, most clones, etc.). It also can be recurred with Sun Titan and Reveilark. I've proclaimed many cards to become EDH staples and whiffed hard on those claims, but this is as close to a surefire thing as Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter making the hall of fame. Just look at your existing white creature-based decks and see what worthwhile creatures this guy could fetch out. Chances are there's a good list.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
***Expropriate - Very rarely will anyone let you take an extra turn and there's obviously no reason for you to choose money, so this is basically 9-mana for Time Warp + Blatant Thievery with the upside that this card doesn't target (whereas Time warp and Blatant Thievery do, which means they can backfire via Fork effects, or sacrificing the permanent in response, etc.) though this does exile itself much like all new-world-order time walk effects. That certainly is powerful, but you get what you pay for. The huge mana cost will prevent it from becoming a staple, but like all time walk effects, this is going into Narset decks and her laugh will become even more obnoxious.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Stunt Double - Another 4-mana clone with upside, this time it's tacking on flash, which is certainly a useful ability. It could be a good clone card in a draw-go control deck. However for battlecruiser/casual decks that tap out most of their mana on their turn, you probably would be better off with other clones.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Capital Punishment - This card has a Death Cloud type of feeling, although this card cannot destroy lands in play which is unfortunate for stax decks. Regardless these types of Council's Dilemma cards scale in power with more players in the game, but keep in mind that the type of deck that would play this card is probably the type of deck that would get ganged up on (stax).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Grenzo, Havoc Raiser - Interesting card with some play to it. It will likely be done in some kind of goblin tribal swarming with tokens to get as many triggers as possible (if he's the general) or a R/x/x token deck (as part of the 99). The first ability can give you some crowd control (goad opponent's small utility creatures) and the second gives card advantage. Most notably, goading works well with his ability, as if the opponent's creatures are attacking, presumably they won't be back to block, allowing more of your guys to get in again.
My decks that I would play it in: Red token decks, or a new deck with him as the general
***Subterranean Tremors - It's an earthquake that can't hit players (meaning it can't kill planeswalkers), but at 5-mana you get a shatterstorm effect while doing 4 to each creature, which isn't too bad. Making an 8/8 is more of a bonus than anything, but it will be difficult to sweep away large creatures in general with this card. Probably only monored will play this card, but it will be playable in monored.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - A 3-mana card that can give card draw (albeit it technically can help other players, but green often has high power creatures) and is a decent mana dork at worse. In other words she can provide some card advantage and mana, the two biggest resources in EDH, albeit she's not terrific at either. This is interesting because many generals usually provide one or the other. In terms of competitiveness she won't be as good as Yisan, the Wandering Bard as repeatable tutoring is too good, but she'll be fine alternatives to Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Omnath, Locus of Mana or other monogreen stompy decks. She also looks playable as part of the 99 if you are just slamming a bunch of huge creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: Maelstrom Wanderer
***Selvala's Stampede - Flashy 6-mana sorcery. I think most people will vote for Free as that isn't real card advantage (since they're coming from your hand and not from your library). You can cheat at least one huge thing in your hand if needed since you have a vote. Hard to say what decks will really want this effect, but it's certainly powerful.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Adriana, Captain of the Guard - Essentially it's a 5-mana 4/4 general that gives a bit of an anthem effect to the team. That's fine but not very exciting. Boros is definitely lacking in the general department and red and white are the two weakest colors in EDH. We'll see if she can make boros relevant. The melee ability in general doesn't seem very strong; it's usually best to focus down players one at a time rather than attack each player and draw attention from everyone.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - RB or RBx artifacts could be an interesting build. The +1 is fairly weak and ultimates in general are almost impossible to get without Doubling Season or other similar cards, but the -1 is solid since you should have various artifacts that you don't care about (Ichor Wellspring or perhaps already did its job (Mana Vault) and being able to get a semi-putrefy effect is solid. Basically it's a 3-mana card where you can putrefy something once a turn for up to three turns. Saccing artifacts is a cost but depending on what you sac it could even be beneficial as well. That's decent value.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Kaya, Ghost Assassin - She doesn't kill creatures so she doesn't really have an "assassin" feeling to her. In any case, if you're a WB deck that wants to get creature ETBs then maybe she's good (she's 1 mana less than Conjurer's Closet and she can target opposing creatures if necessary), but her -1 is worthless and the -2 is okay but usually is worse than blinking a creature. Keep in mind that PWs die fairly quickly in EDH unless you drop them really early (usually off the back of sol ring or friends) or you set up a monster pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Sultai stax incoming? This guy sounds pretty sick as a general. It greatly hinders players from gaining card advantage (plus unlike cards such as Spirit of the Labyrinth this only affects your opponents), and it is doubly insane with wheel effects (everyone discards their hand and only draws 1, while you refill like normal). Plus the one worry people have about whether or not to play certain cards is if they die before they can do anything, specifically generals. With Leovold, especially with Lightning Greaves attached to him (they need to kill the greaves and then Leovold) or countermagic backup (someone attempts to kill Leovold, you draw a card and then counter the spell), that problem is nicely alleviated. Blue, green, and black are the three best colors in EDH, and now you can make a stax deck with those colors.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with him as the general
***Queen Marchesa - Interesting that she drops the blue from her previous form (Marchesa, the Black Rose to pick up white. She's the only monarch card that interests me as she does things when you're not the monarch, which generally happens more often than being the monarch. She is also a token generator of sorts, and the tokens actually are decent on their own (deathtouch makes for nice ground blockers in a pinch). Mardu now gets to build a token-theme deck of sorts so we'll see what options they have.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
???Spy Kit - I have no idea what to do with this card. There's got to be something you can do with this, since it's such a unique effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
N/A
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
ENERGY CARDS - Most energy cards I'm rating will be solely on their own merits. For example, a card like Demon of Dark Schemes which can potentially generate tons of energy at once, and can put that energy to good use. Versus something like Dynavolt Tower which will be mostly used to generate energy, and thus its playability depends on what other cards you play that can put that energy to use. This makes it difficult to rate the latter type of cards as they rely on other cards to reach their full potential, particularly when the dynamics of those cards aren't really known. Whereas something like Demon of Dark Schemes can be played as a standalone card, where you don't necessarily have to play other energy-generating cards to make it playable.
Unless the card generates a ton of energy, you usually shouldn't play the energy card unless it mana ramps you or generates some kind of card advantage. I would avoid playing cards that generate a small amount of energy but mostly only care about beating face with huge P/T.
VEHICLES - Most vehicles are just large creatures that require a crew and pure P/T is not useful in EDH. The vehicles that could be useful are those that can mana ramp or generate some kind of card advantage, either as an artifact or a creature. Crewing a vehicle isn't actually that hard since you'll have a ton of dorks lying around to crew it, so the important thing is whether or not the vehicle does anything to justify a spot.
**Angel of Invention - You often will not be putting the counters on it, so it's a 5-mana anthem that spawns 2 1/1s, which is decent value for token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Authority of the Consuls - Being 1-mana is nice, although if you really want to play this card you really want to care about the lifegain. If having things ETB tapped is what you care about most, you might be better off playing something like Kismet or Blind Obedience. Despite the higher mana costs those cards are simply more potent and more aligned towards what stax/control decks want to do, whereas this card is more for a stream of lifegain triggers.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro
***Cataclysmic Gearhulk - It's similar to Tragic Arrogance, with the difference being that Arrogance let you choose what each player kept, whereas this leaves you with a 4/5 vigilance but the opponents choose the permanents they keep. (Despite its name, Cataclysm is much different from this card, because Cataclysm was used more for being a mass land destruction card that also acted as a sweeper, whereas this is just a sweeper). In EDH that's a losing trade unless you are a dedicated blink/ETB deck to keep using this over and over. As long as there's no key permanent in play that needs to be removed (like an important general, which you can use spot removal for) and you just want to keep the board clear, it's fine.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fumigate - It's a sad time that we may not see 4-mana sweepers in standard anymore. Regardless, this is simply not a good card. Unless you are desperate for lifegain, play more efficient sweepers.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Master Trinketeer - Maybe there's a servos/thopters deck? I'm not paying 4 mana to pump out a 1/1 otherwise.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Refurbish - White has a couple of cards that recur artifacts from graveyards, so add this to the list of decent recursion cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aethersquall Ancient - It requires a lot of energy and it doesn't build up energy at a fast rate. If you can generate a lot of energy then this can keep the board clear. It's too slow on its own though. You ideally want 8 energy before playing this so you can immediately clear the board. At 7-mana if you stuff a bunch of energy cards then maybe.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Ceremonious Rejection - 1-mana hard counters are nothing to scoff at even when they're limited in scope. In the right meta this can be quite good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Dramatic Reversal - This can't untap lands which means it's more limited in scope than Turnabout but it is only 2-mana and it still untaps your mana rocks. Spellslinger decks will probably play this as another way to make infinite mana with Reiterate.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Era of Innovation - It's a reliable but slow way to generate energy. The card drawing is nice but likely you'll play this for the energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Glint-Nest Crane - Passable value creature for artifact decks, but artifact decks might be more interested in playing an artifact that can do something similar.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Insidious Will - It's a cute card, but it's 1 mana too expensive for its effects. 4+ mana counterspells are extremely tricky and hard to use, particularly when Cryptic Command sets the bar for 4-mana counters.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Metallurgic Summonings - It's a 5-mana do nothing, but in the right build this can be scary. Making some creatures whenever you cast an instant or sorcery is nice, but being able to recur tons of spells back to your hand is scary. Requiring 6 artifacts in play sounds like a huge task, but when you consider that you'll likely be playing a lot of mana rocks, it shouldn't be that hard to reach. Note that the creatures created by this card are artifacts which count towards the second ability.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Padeem, Consul of Innovation - Blue version of Leonin Abunas except this can draw you cards slowly and can be your general. It doesn't look like a very strong general, though if you want a monoblue artifact general and you don't want to play Arcum Dagsson who draws obvious hate, you could try this one. As part of the other 99 it has some value, but because this doesn't have hexproof it'll be easy to remove this.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Paradoxical Outcome - My initial instinct is that this card won't be very good. I guess you could play this in response to a wrath, but you would probably be better off just countering the wrath instead of having this in your deck if there are cards you have that you are interested in saving. It is a unique effect and that's why I don't think it'll be useless, but I can't think of any situation where this would be really good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Saheeli's Artistry - Similar to Stolen Identity in that it's a 6-mana sorcery that copies either creatures or artifacts. There are some obvious differences (Stolen Identity ciphers and needs to connect to clone again, this generally is harder to fizzle with removal spells as you will usually have two targets whereas Stolen Identity only has one, etc.), but ultimately the bar for clones is pretty high. It's decent but doesn't really stand out.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Shrewd Negotiation - These types of donate cards are mostly for Zedruu decks, but 5-mana for an exchange effect is still expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Torrential Gearhulk - 6-mana is a lot, so you really want to be a dedicated draw-go deck where leaving up 6 mana doesn't fire off alarms in everyone's heads. Only hitting instants is somewhat restrictive as well, though there are plenty of good instants to get (namely counterspells and removal spells). However you really want to flashback an instant of CMC 5+ before you really get your money's worth with this card, and while there are a couple (Dig Through Time being obvious, even though it's more like a 2-mana card), there aren't numerous amounts of high-CMC instants that are useful in EDH. This does limit the value of the card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cathartic Reunion - A 2-mana sorcery that draws three cards always has some potential, even with the huge drawback of discarding 2 (especially as the extra cost which makes it vulnerable to counters). Build around this properly and it can certainly do scary things.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Chandra, Torch of Defiance - People are very hyped for her potential in modern and even legacy. Of course EDH is a different type of format, and walkers aren't as dominant. Still, you can't ignore the fact that she's built similarly to Chandra, Pyromaster, where Pyromaster's 0 is now a +1 that even smacks each opponent for 2 damage when you don't play the card. Granted, this Chandra can't play land cards (you have to "cast" the card, and you don't "cast" lands, you "play" lands) which is actually notable in EDH as hitting land drops beyond 4-5 mana is usually important. Still, she's a mini ritual or a flame slash as additional bonuses, and she does pass the doubling season test. More people will play her in EDH than they should, but she's certainly playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Combustible Gearhulk - Punisher mechanics are always overrated in every format, and this will be no different. Unless the opponent you target is at a low life, you will not get the card draw, and nuking a player for a little damage is just not good enough in EDH. You could perhaps stack the top of your deck with huge CMC cards (think worldspine wurm) then play this and target the opponent with a very low life total. It could have an interesting dynamic since the opponent has to choose the option first, so they won't see the milled cards until it's too late. The problem is that early-midgame this is gonna be a 6-mana 6/6, mill 3 cards and someone takes like 8-10 damage, which isn't that exciting. There are worse things you could play in monored, but it's simply too hard to use.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fateful Showdown - Nuking an opponent for a little damage is not very useful. You'll wheel away the cards in your hand, but at 4-mana that is expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Madcap Experiment - Obviously this is used when you're trying to cheat a huge artifact into play. There is a very interesting clause attached to this card that you don't see on cards that are similar to this one (e.g. Polymorph) in that this hits you for a bunch of damage equal to the number of cards revealed, so for those who think you can just play a Blightsteel Colossus and no other artifacts, you could just instantly die. More likely than not you'll have to set up the top of your library (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) before playing this. Still, anything that can potentially give you a huge mana discount is something worth building around, and worth keeping an eye on.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Pia Nalaar - Not sure where Mr. Nalaar went (apparently he's dead?) but she's basically just the baby version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In EDH she could be better than the version where both are available, which is kind of funny, because making a creature unable to block can be scary, mostly in red voltron decks. You could play this in a red token deck but 3-mana to get only 2 bodies is not a superb rate, and in a token deck you don't really care about her activated abilities.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Cloudblazer - We did it guys! We got a Mulldrifter clone! Same CMC as mulldrifter, where you trade off the evoke and a harder color requirement for 2 life (sorry UG you can't play this card). Lifegain is not a big deal, and losing evoke is actually a big deal (mulldrifter basically let you keep risky hands if it was in your opening hand, and sometimes you want mulldrifter in the graveyard anyway), but it's still 5-mana dude that draws you 2 cards. Goes great with the obvious blink effects, graveyard stuff, etc. If you're interested in Mulldrifter and you're UW, chances are you'll be interested in him too. Redundacy for these types of effects are key.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white-blue creature-based decks, maybe Oloro
***Depala, Pilot Exemplar - Maybe there will be a dwarf deck, or a vehicle deck, which would be glorious to see. 3-mana lords is the baseline obviously, and she can be card advantage engine. Also if you can find a way to tap her (not necessarily attack, but tap her with something like Springleaf Drum) you can get the triggered ability too. She's obviously only going into these tribes, so time will tell if the tribes will have enough support.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
***Dovin Baan - Lock down a creature with an important activated ability (Arcum Daggson) and with some politics you may be able to keep it alive for a few turns. The -1 is alright. Unfortunately he doesn't pass the doubling season test but it is very powerful, basically Static Orb for only your opponents. UW or UWx stax decks might be interested.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Saheeli Rai - UR artifacts now gets a solid clone effect at 3-mana. You only keep the token for one turn, but again, 3-mana. She doesn't pass the doubling season test though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aetherflux Reservoir - PAY 50 LIFE. Funny enough that's more achievable than you would expect in EDH, though you obviously need to be very dedicated to lifegain, and even then it's still pretty hefty (I am questioning whether or not to really play this in Oloro, as you still need some cards that gain you an exhorbitant amount of life, such as Beacon of Immortality, before you really want this card). You can nuke one player out of the game but you really need to put your life total at a huge amount before you can shotgun down multiple players. It's also going to be embarrassing if it gets stifle'd. Regardless this is a hilarious card.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Oloro?
****Aetherworks Marvel - It takes some work, but again, it can help cheat on mana costs, and if you can manipulate the top of your library you can get some scary stuff out. Most likely it can see use in token decks since those generate tons of permanents. It does say "permanent you control", so that includes fetchlands, things that need to sacrifice anyway (e.g. Sakura-Tribe Elder), and so on, but I believe token decks will generate energy the fastest anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
**Animation Module - Kind of slow, but it's a new-world card that can actually give an additional loyalty counter to a planeswalker, which is something that wizards is scared to do ever since Doubling Season started laughing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Cultivator's Caravan - The baseline for mana rocks that make a mana of any color is 3-mana, so this lines up. The bonus this card has over other similar cards is the ability to become a 5/5 creature. If you're an aggro deck then this could be useful over other 3-mana "rainbow" rocks with the exception of Coalition Relic. If you're midrange or control though you're likely be better off with Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Deadlock Trap - Stax decks can sometimes have trouble dealing with planeswalkers, as many of the hateful stax cards can deal with creatures, artifacts, and lands fairly well. ETBing tapped kind of sucks and you do need multiple ways to generate energy to keep a planeswalker locked down (or maybe use something like Goblin Welder to keep it flipping from battlefield to graveyard and back repeatedly), but it's nice to know this exists as an option.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Filigree Familiar - Some people compared this to Solemn Simulacrum. They're artifacts that can go into any deck, they're 2/2s, and they draw a card when they die. The difference is that this is 1 less mana, but ramp is almost always better than 2 life. It might be more appropriate to compare this to Kitchen Finks where you trade off the persist trigger (which comes with 2 extra life) for a card draw, and nobody is going crazy over Finks. While I don't think this will be stellar in EDH, it is a decent value card, and could be seen if you care about trying to reanimate this multiple times for the card draw. As said multiple times, though, the lifegain isn't that important unless you're playing against more casual, fair decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Foundry Inspector - Inferior Etherium Sculptor but having multiples of these effects can't be bad, and if you're a non-blue artifact deck that can't play Sculptor then w/e.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Ghirapur Orrery - In my Zedruu topic I talk about hug effects. Basically, there are two types of hug effects; those that increase players' mana (Mana Flare) and those that increase players' cards (Howling Mine). Generally cards that hug with both effects are very dangerous as those are the ones that allow players to get out of control quickly, and thus unless you're going for a pure group hug deck, you generally only want to focus on one type of hug effect. Here this card hugs both, which means this is dangerous to play, even if this doesn't always help people draw cards immediately. Basically, I don't think I would play this in Zedruu.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Key to the City - Much like many discard-outlets, you really want to make the discard cost not actually be a cost. Discard a fatty is the obvious thing, discard Squee, etc. Since you can only discard once a turn, you also want to make the unblockable effect relevant. So there will be a somewhat narrow build that wants this card. But at 2-mana it's not a huge cost.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Metalwork Colossus - Creatures with just a lot of power and toughness are not great. If you can find a way to make its CMC matter (Bosh, Iron Golem?) then maybe. Or maybe having a sac outlet while this is in the graveyard could see some use. You'll need to build around it to make it work and even then it seems alright.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Panharmonicon - This card is going to be in every bloody creature deck that relies on ETB effects. Hell, since this card also affects artifacts, decks with artifact ETB effects will love this card too (Spine of Ish Sah). Be prepared to see this everywhere and make dumb midrange durdle decks even dumber. If you're not on the ETB bandwagon, ready your Torpor Orbs and similar cards because this is going to be everywhere. Pick up foils because so many people will want one for their EDH deck.
My decks that I would play it in: A lot
**Scraphead Scrounger - Low CMC creatures that can come back from the graveyard on an affordable cost are always worth keeping an eye out for, even if it's going to be hard to abuse this because it requires mana and a creature sac.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Skysovereign, Consul Flagship - It has the "Titan" trigger in that it goes off on ETB or attack, which is cool. Lightning bolt is not super good, but it's repeatable and it's evasion. Tap your wood elves and oracle of mul daya and send this thing in the air. Doesn't jump off the page but it sounds solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Aether Hub - This is a surprisingly solid card. It's similar to Tendo Ice Bridge except if you can generate more energy this can keep tapping for colored mana. Obviously you do want a stream of energy but since it still taps for colorless it's not like you need to have multiple sources of it. At uncommon, it should be easy on the budget as well. If nothing else, it's a land that generates 1 energy in case you are built around energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Enemy Fastlands - Much like the Scars of Mirrodin fastlands, these will be great in low-curve decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Inventor's Fair - A land that you can effectively pay 5 mana to cast a Fabricate is definitely nice value, especially since this is a colorless card. Since it's not that hard to get 3 artifacts in play if you really give a damn, this can go into a lot of decks as long as there's a worthwhile artifact to fetch out.
My decks that I would play it in: Some
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
PARTNER CARDS - The partner ability means it will be difficult to gauge the power level of the card, because one card could work very well with a different partner card, but the large amount of permutations available will make it difficult to quickly determine which partners stand out. Because of that, I'll be basing a partner card's power level on its own merits; would you play it as part of your 99, and could this card be passable as a standalone general, or is this card relegated to partnering with another general?
WHITE
**Duelist's Heritage - Mostly for voltron decks, but it's a way to pump up voltrons without relying on equipment or auras. Not sure if it's better than whatever is available at the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Entrapment Maneuver - 4-mana for a combat trick is expensive, so for this to be worth it you need to care about the tokens. However sacrificing is very potent against voltrons, and given how many voltrons soup up their P/T, this can make a lot of tokens. You likely want to reduce the number of creatures they have out though in order to make sure that they can only attack with their voltron, or find a way to only have their voltron swing in (e.g. tax with pillow forts).
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Orzhov Advokist - Pillow fort card. Make people be inclined to not attack you (Ghostly Prison taxed opponents for attacking you, while this gives them a bonus for not attacking you).
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
**Selfless Squire - Fogs for a turn and gets huge. There are several types of cards that fog and do some kind of benefit (Comeuppance) so if you want to have this separate from the other huge fog effects you will need to build around it. Note that its last ability triggers for all prevented damage to you, not just from this guy's abilit (e.g. Orbs of Warding), so you likely want to be dedicated pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu (if some tweaks are made)
*Sublime Exhalation - You need three opponents before this just becomes Day of Judgment, and note that as opponents get knocked out of the game the cost increases back to normal. If you have four opponents it's only 3 mana, but jokes on you, you're playing a 5-man FFA and anything more than 4 total players takes forever. I would only play this in decks where I know it would be, say, three teams of 2, so there are only 3 teams taking turns but you technically have 4 opponents. That's still very narrow.
My decks that I would play it in: None
BLUE
**Coastal Breach - Ignore the fact that every bounce blue sweeper pales in comparison to Cyclonic Rift (let alone how most sweepers are worse than Rift). Better or worse than Crush of Tentacles or Devastation Tide? If you have three opponents this costs 4, which is actually not bad. Tide has more upside though since you can miracle it for just 2 (and miracle also means you can cast it at instant speed if you build around it enough) and Crush can leave behind an 8/8. The other issue is that if you have only two opponents this costs 5 and then becomes strictly worse than Tide. Seems okay overall but not particularly exciting because of that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Deepglow Skate - Is this blue's version of Doubling Season? It won't let planeswalkers enter the battlefield and then immediately ultimate (one of the advantages of doubling season) but it does affect PWs already on your board. You can double charge counters, -1/-1 counters, and of course +1/+1 counters as well. Tons of flexibility and power in the right builds.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Faerie Artisans - This creature, at only 4 mana, continuously clones creatures that your opponents play, for no additional mana. However, not all creatures give value, and since you are forced to exile the token, sometimes that creature could do nothing. For example, an opponent could play Consecrated Sphinx and then immediately play Birds of Paradise so you lose your Sphinx token. If an opponent has a big ETB creature (e.g. Terastodon) they will just hold onto it until Artisans leaves play, or if they absolutely have to play the creature. In other words, it will sometimes act as a punisher mechanic. Also, it will generally not affect the hypercompetitive circles as those don't have as many ETB value creatures and are more infinite combos/hyperstax. To improve this card's floor, play some flicker effects, so you can flicker the artisan at will which will let you keep the last token it made (which can also catch people off guard; e.g. in the above example, flicker your artisan before Birds resolves so you keep your Consecrated Sphinx token). It is an extremely powerful card and has the potential to take over a game by itself, but there are some situations where it's not that good.
My decks that I would play it in: Blue creature decks with ETB/flicker theme
***Grip of Phyresis - Is that germ token holding sword of fire and ice? That's amazing. In any case, making this instant speed makes this very interesting. It can throw off a lot of math (were you relying on untapping your lands with sword of feast and famine?). Depending on the attacker and the equipment you steal, you can actually eat the attacker. You likely want to be a voltron deck so you can guarantee that whatever equipment you steal will still retain value (strap the stolen equipment onto your general) but it should be solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Manifold Insights - Very few punisher mechanics are playable. I'm not sure this is one of them. If you can argue some politics you could convince an opponent to give you a key card ("Give me this removal spell to kill this permanent or else we lose"). Also this does say "nonland", and any spell is generally better than nothing. If you are intentionally playing a low-power deck you could also maybe convince people to give you certain cards you want. Again, I tend to not like punisher mechanics, but you could try it out in your playgroup and see how it fares.
My decks that I would play it in: None
RED
****Divergent Transformations - Red double Polymorph at instant speed. You likely will be targeting your own creatures (much like Polymorph) and you will need to build around it. Of course polymorph is powerful when built around, and opening it to red makes for some interesting things.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (with some major changes)
**Frenzied Fugue - Most theft effects are 3 mana (and are also not that great), so this costing 4 is a bummer. You do get any permanent though, which includes planeswalkers, that cool Mana reflection, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Goblin Spymaster - This sounds strong on paper. Your opponents get a creature that forces all of their creatures to attack. However since the token is generated at that opponent's end step, it actually takes 2 turns - from the time you play this guy to the time where the forcing attack occurs. This card is only 3 mana so it's hard to ask for more, but that's pretty slow. On top of that, if they have a sac outlet, it actually will do more harm than good. Then, because the creatures can still attack you, they could just run you over. Basically unless your opponents are bad at the game and don't run sac outlets, this can backfire horrendously. The potential of this card prevents it from being unplayable, but it's going to take serious work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Runehorn Hellkite - Nekusar and similar decks will want this wheel effect. Maybe monored because monored has terrible draw options. It's awkward that it doesn't do anything while it's in play so you probably just want to put it in the graveyard all the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
4-COLOR GENERALS
(NULL-RED)
****Atraxa, Praetor's voice - That's a lot of keywords, making it a decent overall midrange general. Proliferate is also a nice ability. It doesn't really feel like a 4-color card, but it's not bad to play to gain the colors, and proliferate gives you just enough build around, particularly superfriends (losing out on red means you don't get peeps like Dack Fayden and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which sucks).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-GREEN)
****Breya, Etherium Shaper - This does feel sort of 4-color minus green, since it cares about artifacts and green hates artifacts the most of the 5 colors. Regardless, it's a decent token generator but the sac outlet costing 2 mana AND two artifacts is too much so you likely won't be triggering it often. Then again, there are lots of nice sac outlets (Krark-Clan Ironworks) so it's not the end of the world. Giving you red does make her significantly different than Sharuum or Sydri while likely being a similar power level, which means she'll likely be strong.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-BLACK)
*Kynaios and Terio of Meletis - For a 4-color general I was hoping for something more than a plain group hug card and it doesn't even give you any control over how to hug (the opponents can either ramp or card draw and they choose which one). You can play them for the colors, but more often than not actually casting these guys will actively hurt you.
My decks that I would play it in: None
(NULL-BLUE)
**Saskia the Unyielding - You can double up your damage on one player, or try and take down two separate players at once. However 3-power for 4 mana isn't even that aggressive without some kind of evasion. It doesn't provide mana or card advantage and it's not even very aggressive on its own, so you need support cards to do anything. Play it if you want the colors, but it's a very underwhelming card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(NULL-WHITE)
****Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - So nevermind the fact that the name sounds similar to Maelstrom Wanderer. This is certainly a powerful card. Note that unlike Maelstrom Nexus, ALL your spells you cast this turn gain cascade. Also, multiple instances of cascade stack (again, see Wanderer) so if you give this double strike, or additional combat phases, you can add even more cascades to a single spell. Play spells that have alternate casting costs or ways to reduce their casting cost (Snuff Out, Pyrokinesis, Dismember, some of the cards in this set that have cost reduction like Curtains' Call, etc.) to help maximize the number of spells you can cast that will trigger cascade. You can also play fewer cards that would be dead cascades (Green Sun's Zenith won't be stellar and Arcane Denial won't be as good, but you won't cascade into Chord of Calling on spells that are 3 or less mana).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
PARTNER GENERALS
(AZORIUS)
***Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker - Starts off small but opponents cast a lot of spells every round so this thing can quickly grow out of control. This seems decently aggressive and Azorius doesn't get many of those, which will allow you to build UW in an interesting voltron-ish way.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(IZZET)
***Kraum, Ludevic's Opus - Wizards' refusal to make a UR artifact general is frustrating, but let's ignore that for now. Flying + haste on a 4/4 for 5 is decent stats for voltron on its own, and many players do cast 2+ spells a turn, which makes it not bad at drawing cards. However given its aggressive stats, people may kill this because they don't want to get voltron'd out, which means the card draw effect is more of a bonus, and you likely want to play this card more for the fact that it's a relatively aggressive general. UR doesn't really have a voltron general and it'll be interesting if this will fill that role.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
**Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist - While I'm not as high on lore as some other people, this card is quite disappointing for someone who is supposed to be a "Necro-Alchemist". When I hear "Necro-Alchemist", I'm expecting actual necromancy things, not some weird group hug effect.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
(BOROS)
***Akiri, Line-Slinger - Boros is an underwhelming guild for EDH, but this could be aggressive enough to get the job done. If you don't have green, you often are relying on mana rocks for ramp (though this guy is very low-costed so you probably don't need that many, but it's still important to have some so you can play some of your other expensive cards and also recast this guy after he dies a couple times). If you're voltron, you will be using equipment to bolster him. Recent sets also have some ways to produce artifacts cheaply, namely investigate (Thraben Inspector) and fabricate (Angel of Invention). Getting up to 3-4 artifacts already makes him cost efficient (3 artifacts make him a 2-mana 3/3 first strike and vigilance) and that shouldn't be hard to do to start getting the beats on.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
**Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder - Double strike is very potent in voltron, which is presumably what kind of decks want this guy. Since he can target himself with the ability it makes him a decent voltron general as well. Lifelink is fine too but the double strike is where its at. To really push through damage though you need flying or trample (or just straight up make it unblockable).
My decks that I would play it in: None
MISC MULTICOLOR
*Migratory Route - Meh.
My decks that I would play it in: None
ARTIFACTS/LANDS
****Armory Automaton - This card will be sneaky annoying. You likely only want to play it in voltron decks as it will guarantee that you'll have good equipment to strap to it, but what makes it scary is how it can strip off ANY equipments, including opponents' stuff. Many people run lightning greaves/swiftfoot boots, or Sword of X and Y. Notably, it can force those equipment off to leave the previous wearers vulnerable. This is also ignoring the fact that you can get a hit in to trigger any valuable effects. The opponents can move the equipment off later, but they will often need to spend mana to do so. Against the right opponents, this will be supremely annoying.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Boompile - Sweepers that only have a 50% chance of working cannot be relied on to save you. It is 4 less mana total than Oblivion Stone (3 to play and 5 to activate) but I'll take reliability over that 4 mana discount. At least Oblivion Stone will do something when I want it to.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Conqueror's Flail - While it's more potent in 4 or 5 color decks, you can play it as a Grand Abolisher type of card, with the difference being in what cards kill these permanents. Of course since it doesn't do anything unless it's equipped, the creature can be killed in response to the equip. Ultimately unless you don't have white and can't play Abolisher, you likely want to be 4 or 5 color before you bother with this, and you probably want a voltron general as well where the pump effect matters more.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Crystalline Crawler - If you have a +1/+1 counter theme this is not bad to dump it on to store mana. Since it color fixes you to an extent you could just play it in normal 5-color as well though it's not great there. Thankfully with the change to the mana generation rule, your 2 and 3 color decks can converge this for 4 if you have the right lands out (City of Brass, Darksteel ingot, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: Some?
***Prismatic Geoscope - Obviously this is almost entirely for 4 and 5-color. If you're 3-color you're better off with Gilded Lotus and unless you need multiples of that effect you won't need this card. Even in 4/5-color, ETBing tapped sucks, but it often will give you perfect mana, though it won't be great for 4/5-color budget builds; you really do need the fetchland + shockland/ABU dual combination. Also one of the reasons to play mana rocks is to give you some protection against Armageddon and similar cards, where this being unable to tap for much mana is a problem.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus
****Ash Barrens - This surprisingly looks solid for budget decks that rely on Evolving Wilds or terramorphic expanse for color fixing, and is likely better than those two cards. All three of these cards technically cost you one mana (Wilds and Expanse's basic land ETBs tapped, this costs 1 to cycle) but this can provide you colorless mana if necessary whereas Wilds/Expanse always "cost" 1 mana. Its weakness of course is if this is your only land in your hand it doesn't really color fix you, but that means you have a 1-lander and those are difficult to keep anyway. I'm rating this highly solely because of budget reasons. If you aren't budget then don't play this card. I'm also assuming the card will be budget (like, same price as wilds/expanse).
My decks that I would play it in: All budget decks that are 3-5 colors
Traded for this card a few days ago and stumbled upon your write up. I laughed after seeing all the fun I could have. I will certainly be building this commander.
Thanks for all the input.
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
**Consulate Crackdown - It's similar to Vandalblast in that it hits all artifacts except yours. Comparable to many other artifact sweepers in general as well, such as Creeping Corrosion. Of course this has its ups and downs; exiling is useful as many artifact decks have graveyard recursion, but the artifacts all come back once this is removed.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Exquisite Archangel - Similar to Resolute Archangel, where they're 7-mana angels that alter your life total in a noticeable way. Personally this doesn't impress me, as most of the time you lose because of an infinite combo which doesn't care about something that lets you restart your life total.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Felidar Guardian - Similar to Restoration Angel, but blinking any permanent you control (other than itself) instead of non-angel creature can lead to some hilarious things (e.g. he goes infinite with Saheeli Rai so we get splinter twin combo T4 kills in standard lulz). The lack of flash and the lower stats (lower power, no flying) are notable drawbacks, but there are nice interactions with being able to blink the things that restoration angel can't get (e.g. blink a mana rock), and being a little easier on the wallet is nice too.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Derevi
****Restoration Specialist - For essentially 1WW you recur an artifact plus enchantment, which actually is quite strong. Most creatures only do one or the other. As an extra bonus you get to decide when to pull the "trigger".
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Various white decks, preferably with creature recursion
***Sram, Senior Edificer - Vehicles are still not that playable in EDH, so it's just drawing cards off your aura and equipment spells, which is still not bad for voltron decks. It's a similar card to Kor Spiritdancer and Puresteel Paladin - 2-mana dudes that help draw cards in your voltron decks. It should slot in decently in said voltron decks or possibly be a monowhite voltron general.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Sram's Expertise - Making a bunch of 1/1s is whatever at 4-mana, so you really want to be cheating in something cool, and you still have to care about the tokens.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
BLUE
*Aethertide Whale - Generates a lot of energy upon ETB but does nothing much besides that.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Baral, Chief of Compliance - Goblin Electromancer with upside and only one color will be quite sick. Obviously for spellslinger decks, but it will be an automatic include in them. The second ability might make it also playable in a control/counterspell control deck as the loot ability is nice too.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Baral's Expertise - One of the best in the cycle, as it affects the board in a meaningful and flexible way while also giving a free spell, which helps make this slot into a lot of different blue decks as a decent value/tempo card. Being able to bounce artifacts is also very relevant. Bounce three threats and cheat in a Rhystic Study or Jace isn't too bad.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Disallow - Voidslime for 1UU instead of GUU will see good amounts of play. Having flexible counterspells is always nice to have. It won't be a broken card but it will be solid.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: most blue decks
*Efficient Construction - It's unfortunate this isn't an artifact itself, but regardless it's a slow but fair way to slowly pump out artifacts. Most artifact combos are just looping from the graveyard over and over again though and not hardcasting much of anything so this likely won't see much play.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Illusionist's Stratagem - +1 mana over Displace for a cantrip. The cantrip probably isn't worth it at this point, as 4-mana starts to get quite pricy.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Mechanized Production - Way too slow and vulnerable for EDH. I wouldn't play this even if Phyrexian Metamorph or Sculpting Steel didn't exist, but the fact that those two cards do exist means this card is straight unplayable. It will be funny if you ever win the game with this (note that your 8+ copies of the artifact do not have to be whatever you enchanted, all the card cares about is if you have 8+ copies of any artifact) but shigs and tiggles don't make you more playable.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Metallic Rebuke - Mana Leak is not bad if you're in a tight meta where mana curves are lower and people often won't have 3 open to pay for their spell. However, you need to improvise for at least 1 before it becomes mana leak and only for 2 does it actually become better, meaning this is not a great early play, and being a great early play is the exact reason why mana leak was so good.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Quicksmith Spy - Maybe it has an infinite combo with something?
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Reverse Engineer - If you improvise for 1 it becomes Concentrate, though you really want to improvise for 3 before you really want to consider playing this. Improvising for only two means it's still generally worse than Thirst for Knowledge, the standard 3-mana draw-three spell for artifact decks.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Skyship Bandit - Literally Thrummingbird except it's a 2/1 instead of a 1/1. The extra point of power has some uses, mostly in being able to trade with 2 toughness creatures, but if your deck doesn't want Thrummingbird, it very likely doesn't want this either.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*****Trophy Mage - Obvious brother (or sister in this case) to Trinket Mage and Treasure Mage, two cards that see massive amounts of play. There are tons of 3-mana artifacts to get, such as Ashnod's Altar, Mimic Vat, Sword of X and Y, many mana rocks, Cloudstone Curio, and the list goes on. 3-mana is always the fair spot for tutors, especially when it comes with a body. Pick up your foils fast because this will be a staple. Like many of these 3-mana dudes that tutor for something, Trophy mage won't be broken, but it will become a staple.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Any blue deck with 2+ critical 3-mana artifacts
*****Whir of Invention - It's obviously a Chord of Calling for artifacts. Chord is a 5-star card and this will easily be another 5-star card as well. With Chord, you don't even need to convoke, just tutoring up a creature at instant speed is strong, and the convoke just made it ridiculous. This will be the same thing; you don't need to abuse the improvise part of the card, it's still going to be very good. The only difference is that Chord's convoke cost allowed you to tap green creatures to pay for the triple green, whereas there aren't many blue artifacts you can improvise, meaning you'll often have to pay at least the triple blue. Still, it's going to be strong.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Any blue deck with critical artifacts
RED
**Indomitable Creativity - Really huge polymorph-variant must be interesting, right? Well this one seems like it'll be very difficult to abuse. While you can target artifacts or creatures, revealing either one will satisfy the card. For example, if you wanted to kill 4 of your dumb creature tokens, you might end up revealing underwhelming artifacts instead of these huge creatures you wanted to flip over, and vice versa. If you played something like Divergent Transformations instead, which only cares about creatures, you will instead keep flipping until you hit creatures, making it easier to cheat in bombs. This means this card seems more like a multi-kill spell that gives the controller something in return at random, rather than something you can build around and be able to cheat in a fattie with the proper deckbuilding. Given that monored has problems killing large creatures this might still see play, but it's not going to be as good as your normal Polymorph-type card.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Kari Zev, Skyship Raider - She's a lower CMC Geist of Saint Traft who doesn't hit as hard and can be killed with spot removal, but is a little harder to kill in actual combat. She'll be interesting in standard, but it doesn't seem like she'll be enough for EDH as a voltron. She comes down early and is hard to block, but she needs serious equipment/aura to boost her power and she can still be killed with removal spells.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Kari Zev's Expertise - This might be the most interesting of the cycle not because the Threaten effect is bonkers, but the fact that it's the lowest CMC of the cycle, meaning if you want to go out of your way to abuse Ancestral Vision or the like, this is the best of the cycle to do so.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Lightning Runner - Extra attack steps can be strong in the right build, but because you need so much energy for it, there's not many places that can use this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Pia's Revolution - Punisher mechanics are not good in EDH, but this is at a low enough CMC and is repeatable where either choice the opponent makes is generally acceptable. It's similar to Combustible Gearhulk in that you get to target the opponent who has to make the choice, so you can target the guy at a low life total if you want to recur an artifact.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Quicksmith Rebel - Granting an artifact an ability while this guy is in play is cool design, although just poking something for 2 damage isn't that useful in EDH.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Release the Gremlins - There are a bunch of cards that destroy multiple artifacts, and I feel like there are enough of them that are more efficient than this card. It's a nice mana sink late in the game, but it is very inefficient early-midgame, so I would rather play Shattering Spree, Vandalblast, etc.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
MULTICOLOR
**Maverick Thopterist - This guy will be quite fun in draft, as the thopters you make can help cast additional maverick thopterists, assuming you draft multiples. In any case, he's like an easier to cast Breya, Etherium Shaper albeit without any extra abilities. If you can improvise for 2-3 he's certainly not bad, and will likely be good in budget artifact decks. He may be good enough in normal artifact decks but it seems unlikely since he himself is not an artifact.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Spire Patrol - Mini-Frost Titan looks underwhelming. Despite being 2 less mana and with flying, it is 2 colors, and it only taps when it ETBs, and it only affects creatures, and it doesn't have any sort of protection (albeit you probably don't care if a 4-drop with an ETB effect has protection, but still).
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
ARTIFACT
***Cogwork Assembler - 7-mana for its activation is very hefty, so I imagine it'll be used for infinite combos or something as the ability doesn't require tapping. For example, Krark-Clan ironworks + Myr Battlesphere + this card = infinite colorless mana. Of course artifact decks generally don't have problems generating mana (unless they get hit with a sweeper) and so maybe this being a mana dump will make it good, I don't know.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Crackdown Construct - With any ability that requires no cost to activate and isn't a mana ability, you can get an infinite power and toughness artifact creature, and I'm sure there's a lot of things you can do with that. In standard we get Wandering Fumarole for lulz which is funny as hell, and I know there are other things you can do.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Gonti's Aether Heart - Seems not bad if you're focused on generating energy. If you want to play this card with the idea of taking an extra turn, you'll probably be disappointed, as you would be better off just playing Time Warp effects or something.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Heart of Kiran - Simple beatsticks in EDH don't cut it.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Hope of Ghirapur - Legendary version of Xantid Swarm. You need to have this actually connect while Xantid Swarm just needs to attack, and while this does have flying and is only a 1-drop, it's going to be hard for a 1/1 to force through damage, and you need to sacrifice this for the effect, and it only stops noncreature spells. Granted, this does last for a full turn cycle while Xantid Swarm was more like a Grand Abolisher placed on one player for just the rest of the turn. I guess being legendary maybe you can make colorless voltron or something, but I don't know. Xantid Swarm is better when you attack a player with counterspells to help resolve a combo, whereas this is more like a stax piece on the control/storm player, but this is fairly clunky unless you can play it really early and continuously recur it. It is a relatively unique effect so it isn't unplayable, but I wouldn't be excited to test this out.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Inspiring Statuary - Most artifact decks don't have a problem generating mana, especially if this card only helps power out nonartifact spells which an artifact deck won't have a ton of (especially those that cost a lot of mana). Still, it is something to keep your eye on.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Lifecrafter's Bestiary - Essentially it's a bad Glimpse of Nature, but Glimpse of Nature was more like a deck that enabled storm decks/combo and that kind of thing, whereas this is more of a card that just gives all your creature spells "Kicker G, draw a card". Still should be playable in any case. You obviously want a high number of creatures, maybe 30-40 or more, before you should even consider this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Merchant's Dockhand - It's a hefty mana cost per turn and tapping some artifacts can be annoying, but it is only 1-mana. Doesn't sound exciting but I imagine there are worse things you can play.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Metallic Mimic - If you have a tribal theme this should be fine for just 2-mana, though it's more for weenie decks as I don't think something like Dragon tribal really needs +1/+1 counters on them.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
BANNEDParadox Engine - I'm not even going to spend much time talking about this card. It's going to get banned really fast. I would be shocked if the RC doesn't ban it. Prophet of Kruphix got hammered and it isn't nearly as insane as this. It combos with way too many things, namely a bunch of mana rocks and/or mana dorks + some dumb enabler. Buyback cards like Capsize becomes bounce everything you want. Put something stupid like Think twice under an Isochron Scepter and it draws your deck. There are tons of combos, and none of them are good for the game. Play the crap out of this card and have fun with it until it gets banned.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Probably everything pending budget
*Peacekeeper Colossus - Most vehicles are still not particularly playable as many of them don't do much except beat face. I guess it might be nice in Depala in case you can't use her to crew vehicles for whatever reason.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Planar Bridge - Obvious parallel to Planar Portal right down to the name. Both are artifacts that cost 6 to hardcast, and this one is 8 mana instead of 6 to find your card and only for permanents but you do put it into play immediately (e.g. sneak in Blightsteel Colossus end of turn). These types of cards are fine in big mana decks that need mana sinks.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Scrap Trawler - Artifact recursion for no additional costs at just 3 mana upfront is not bad. There are some restrictions but it is repeatable, and it should do some nice work.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Servo Schematic - Similar to Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring in that they're 2-mana artifacts that do the same thing upon ETB or hitting the graveyard. Here though I think making a 1/1 flier is worse than drawing a card or fetching a basic land to ensure your next land drop.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Treasure Keeper - Similar to Matter Reshaper except you add one mana, remove the colorless requirement, and there are fewer restrictions on the free card you get when it dies (any nonland card that is CMC 3 or less can be cast for free). Seems decent.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Universal Solvent - Decks get another way to deal with problematic permanents that their colors won't allow them to (e.g. black/red vs enchantments), and it's another tool for Trinket Mage, and is another object that can be recurred with Salvaging Station. Unassuming card that most decks won't play because it is overcosted, but if your deck/colors are desperate it should be good, and artifact decks don't really have problems generating the necessary mana.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Walking Ballista - Functions similarly to Triskelion. Interestingly enough if you pay 6 it ETBs with three +1/+1 counters which is the same as Triskelion. The difference is obviously that Triskelion is better for infinite combos as it always ETBs with the counters while cheating this into play doesn't do anything. It's kind of more like Hangarback walker as they are playable artifact creatures with XX costs.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
LAND
***Spire of Industry - Glimmervoid that requires you to pay 1 life to get the colored mana, but it doesn't disappear if you have zero artifacts in play. It's usually worse than Glimmervoid; 1 life isn't much, but they can add up, and it's not that hard to have at least 1 artifact in play if you are the kind of deck that actually wants to play Glimmervoid. Still, artifact decks likely want to play this anyway, and this could be passable in non-artifact decks although there are usually going to be better options.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
Gonna try something a little different for my set review.
Instead of just copying and pasting my review of the cards that match the deck's colors, I'm just going to link to my Progenitus review (which covers all cards I think will be relevant for EDH) and then put the summary in my respective topics.
I don't like Bazaar trader unless you focus more on stax pieces to donate (e.g. steel golem) and you want trader as a backup Zedruu effect. In stax you want to slow the game down and then use Zedruu as a slow draw engine, so saving mana on your donation can help. however Since this deck is built as group hug, donating things like howling mine and such doesn't do anything unless Zedruu is out (in order to get the lifegain and card draw triggers at your upkeep), and if Zedruu is out I don't need bazaar trader out as well. The deck often doesn't even play Zedruu unless I don't have anything else to do and/or I don't have enough hug effects in play and I need to donate to start drawing cards, but if that happens it usually means I have nothing to spend mana on and thus bazaar trader saving me mana on my donation effect isn't as helpful as usual. I'd rather just play a mana ramp option so I can get zedruu out faster if I need to.
Also, some of the best things to donate are enchantments (things that can hurt opponents like illusions of grandeur and pyromancer's swath, to things who don't care about who its controller is like Oblivion Ring, etc.) and trader can't donate those off.
WHO IS ZEDRUU THE GREATHEARTED? WHY PLAY THIS COMMANDER?
And then we get to Zedruu.
Who is this minotaur? She's a 4-mana 2/4 which is not very good. RWU (now known as Jeskai clan) is an okay 3-color combination but not really great. At the beginning of your upkeep you gain life and draw cards for... permanents you own that your opponents control? What? And she can donate your permanents?
I can't think of a creature that provokes a stronger reaction than Zedruu. When people read powerful generals they usually respond with "Holy crap, this card is amazing!" When they see Zedruu they also give an exasperated response, but for a different reason.
Unfortunately it's for good reason. Zedruu isn't a powerful commander. 4-mana for a commander is par for the course, but she has no impact the turn she's played, and often you don't gain any value the turn AFTER she's played if you play her on curve. She's not good at attacking, she's average at blocking, and she has no innate protections. Most powerful generals can combo kill or stax out the table by turn 5 pretty reliably. In Zedruu, you're lucky if you've managed to donate one permanent by turn 5, which will net you 1 card and 1 life for your troubles. Any fast kills in a Zedruu deck will be in no thanks to Zedruu herself.
So after that's said, why would you even want to play Zedruu?
And, of course, the answer is, "Because the concept behind Zedruu is absolutely ridiculous." Literally no other legendary creature gets better when your opponents have your cards. Some generals will have a deck that will just smash your face in (Prossh). Some generals will have a deck that will control the board and make everyone miserable (Zur). Some just have an extremely high power level (Derevi). But none have a more ridiculous ability than Zedruu. Zedruu is for the pure Johnnies out there. For all the spikes, look elsewhere. For all the timmies, you won't see alot of big creatures in here.
Zedruu gets a lot of comparisons to Phelddagrif since they both fit under the group hug/pillow fort archetypes. The obvious difference is that Zedruu has red and hippo has green. Hippo in a vacuum is better as group hug since it's easier to give out creatures and life to opponents (not so easy to give cards for free, since the U activation requires you to unsummon your hippo). With green, the hippo is also potent at ramping everyone's mana with cards like Heartbeat of Spring and Veteran Explorer (red has Mana Flare but that's largely it). Zedruu is more fit to be a pillow fort or stax deck as the donation ability is more aggressive, since you can donate crippling permanents like Pyromancer's Swath. With red, the minotaur is more suited to being aggressive, as it has some pretty potent cards like Ruination to really pull the rug beneath everyone.
This build is geared towards being more like a pillow fort that eventually wants to win. Pure group hug tends to be frowned upon because it just causes chaos in a somewhat erratic way, and in the hands of a bad player, ends up as a kingmaker. Everyone gets 10 cards and 10 mana by turn 4! It's almost like roleplaying as Oprah. The only problem is doing that is a really good way to just get yourself killed.
"You get a land! You get a land! Everyone gets a land!"
Stax builds also work but tend to be frowned upon in all but the cutthroat playgroups. EDH games are pretty long to begin with and stax decks that grind them to a halt can be frustrating for many to play against and this causes you to be the center of attention. Some generals are so powerful that they can fight through the attrition from multiple players, but Zedruu is not one of them.
As a pillow fort, you play out the beginning much like a group hug, but you are much more careful about exactly what you are throwing out. This pillow fort build is geared towards letting people draw cards, but there are no group hug effects here that boost mana. This lets people be happy with the cards they're drawing while trying to prevent things from getting out of control. When you throw up even the smallest defense (e.g. Play a T3 Ghostly Prison after a T2 Howling Mine), people will tend to ignore you for awhile, which lets you build up your fort until it's too late. Also, all the card drawing has effects besides just making everyone happy; one of the main kill conditions, Vicious Shadows, gets pretty strong when opponents have 10+ cards in their hand, while you can use your fat hand of cards to feed your Solitary Confinement to stay safe.
Because Zedruu is a slow commander, you need to be careful about everything you play. You never want to draw attention to you. That turn 1 land tax is great in your typical white deck, but in Zedruu it will put a target on you. Play that land tax on a later turn after everyone else has run out their sol rings or Survival of the Fittest so that your land tax isn't a big deal. That fast Consecrated Sphinx is one of the best moves in a typical blue deck, but in Zedruu it will get you into trouble. Make it so that no one has a reason to spot removal your things. Make it so that players have a greater reason to attack other players instead of you, even if you have no blockers. By playing group hug, you can actually reduce the number of card slots you'd devote to removal and protection because players will typically ignore you anyway, and they will shoot their removal spells at the other players. Would you disrupt the guy who's just playing a bunch of howling mines, or would you disrupt the guy who's attacking you? Should players try to attack you early, there are some pillow fort cards to discourage them from attacking you.
The important thing with pillow fort is that you play it like group hug that eventually wants to win. Because games go long, there are a lot more decisions that need to be made, and a lot more mistakes that you can make. Because games go long, it's important to make sure that everyone on the table is happy, or at least happy with you. Moreso than your average general, Zedruu requires massive amounts of politics. You will need to adjust your deck based on your playgroup, and what will help keep pressure off of you.
You should play this deck if you...
- Like the wacky concept behind Zedruu.
- Like group hug/pillow fort.
- Like playing very long games.
- Like politics.
You should not play this deck if you...
- Want to play a strong commander.
- Hate group hug, or know your playgroup hates group hugs.
- Your playgroup loves infinite combos (this general can only win until it's 1v1, but with infinite combos everyone immediately dies, preventing you from reaching a 1v1 state). You can certainly stop one player from going infinite, but if every player wins with infinites, you'll have an extremely hard time winning.
- Are okay with losing more than your share of games.
PERSONAL HISTORY
The allure of EDH to me is the accessibility and the atmosphere of the format. You have an extremely large array of cards to choose from, which can result in many decks with wildly varying themes and power levels, so players are better able to construct the decks they desire. Because of the huge emphasis on politics in a typical EDH game, players who have weaker decks can still compete with players with fine-tuned decks as long as they play their politics correctly. This also reduces the monetary barrier to the format compared to something like legacy or even standard.
I consider myself to be a Timmy and a Johnny with some elements of Spike. The Spike part of me, however, barely shows up if there are no tangible prizes to play for. When there are tangible prizes to play for, I do enjoy getting those prizes. However, during EDH with friends where we play for fun and for pride, the frequency that I win at in EDH doesn't matter as much as how I win.
My EDH decks therefore are not for highly competitive play or for entering actual EDH tournaments; they are constructed based on my personal whims. As the playgroup I hang out with don't have hyper-strong decks (they are good decks but they purposely avoid the extremely powerful cards/interactions), I purposely drop the power level of my decks to around theirs. They are my friends, and as such having everyone in the group split games fairly evenly personally makes me happy too. No one likes losing every single game, and the best way to have your playgroup get annoyed with you is to win an overwhelming amount of games, and I don't want to be the guy to force players to get better or to start playing a certain way.
This doesn't mean my EDH decks cannot be fine-tuned for more aggressive playgroups or have a shot in tournaments. Often it just takes a couple of changes in card choices, or a quick change in the theme/game plan (which then relates to making a bunch of easy card changes). You can also often make power level reductions or cost reductions to the deck as well.
DECK HISTORY
My ally said, "I think we're dead," but I told him to wait. I had an enlightened tutor in hand, so I cast it at the end of their turn and frantically searched through my deck. My ally looked over my shoulder to see my library as I searched.
Illusions of Grandeur? The 20 life wouldn't really help, and they could take the 20 damage easily or just pay the upkeep cost.
Oblivion ring? Single bullets wouldn't help.
Wild Research? The discard is random, and playing it to tutor for enchantments would be pointless, and tutoring for instants instead wouldn't help because there are no instants to save us.
Suddenly, Transcendence caught my eye. I forgot I put it in the deck. I took it out of my library to reread it and my ally read the card. His first words were, "Is that legal?"
Our opponents were confounded. What could I have possibly found to save us? I revealed the Transcendence, put it on top of my library, then drew for the turn. Used 6 mana to play it, then used the last 3 to donate it.
We won instantly.
That game awakened the Johnny in me. Even if I don't win very many games in EDH, it's not the number of games I win. It's how I win them.
She is the most interesting minotaur in the multiverse.
Amazing stories aside, I've gone through many iterations with this deck. After trying out a "normal" Zedruu deck, then into a chaos deck, I decided to go with a group hug/pillow fort approach. This is because when Zedruu dies or cannot be in the field, griefer effects that require you to donate them are absolutely dead cards in your hand. Group hug effects you can always run out to your discretion. Griefer cards can also backfire on you; for example, in one of my games, someone cast warp world, causing my Zedruu to get tucked (before the change to the tuck rule), then I flipped over Pyromancer's Swath and Steel Golem, and was basically locked out of the game. Another game someone cast Chaos Warp on one of my things, and I flipped over Transcendence and instantly died. I also turned away from a chaos build because my playgroup didn't like it. As for your group, see if they embrace the chaos and see if you can put in things like Shared Fate and Confusion in the Ranks; they're generally a better way to get permanents donated quickly, but not everyone will enjoy the chaos.
DECK LIST
BY CARD TYPE
1x Azorius Chancery
1x Battlefield Forge
1x Boros Garrison
1x Cascade Bluffs
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x High Market
3x Island
1x Izzet Boilerworks
1x Kor Haven
1x Maze of Ith
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1x Mistveil Plains
3x Mountain
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Mystic Gate
1x Mystic Monastery
3x Plains
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Serra's Sanctum
1x Steam Vents
1x Thawing Glaciers
1x Tolaria West
1x Windswept Heath
1x Jace Beleren
1x Aura of Silence
1x Copy Enchantment
1x Dictate of Kruphix
1x Fevered Visions
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Greater Auramancy
1x Imprisoned in the Moon
1x Karmic Justice
1x Leyline of Anticipation
1x Pyrohemia
1x Rest in Peace
1x Rhystic Study
1x Rule of Law
1x Solitary Confinement
1x Statecraft
1x Stranglehold
1x Transcendence
1x Vicious Shadows
1x Well of Ideas
1x Wild Research
1x Anvil of Bogardan
1x Chromatic Lantern
1x Font of Mythos
1x Howling Mine
1x Iron Maiden
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Sunforger
1x Temple Bell
1x Torpor Orb
1x Thought Vessel
1x Fabricate
1x Gamble
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Replenish
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Academy Rector
1x Burnished Hart
1x Containment Priest
1x Dakra Mystic
1x Gilded Drake
1x Humble Defector
1x Kami of the Crescent Moon
1x Knight of the White Orchid
1x Kor Cartographer
1x Phantasmal Image
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Spellskite
1x Sun Titan
1x Walking Archive
1x Arcane Denial
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Boros Charm
1x Counterflux
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Return to Dust
1x Spell Crumple
1x Swords to Plowshares
BY CMC
1 dakra mystic
1 enlightened tutor
1 gamble
1 mystical tutor
1 sensei's divining top
1 sol ring
1 swords to plowshares
2 (15)
1 anvil of bogardan
1 arcane denial
1 boros charm
1 containment priest
1 gilded drake
1 greater auramancy
1 howling mine
1 humble defector
1 kami of the crescent moon
1 knight of the white orchid
1 phantasmal image
1 Rest in Peace
1 spellskite
1 torpor orb
1 thought vessel
3 (24)
1 arcane laboratory
1 aura of silence
1 blue sun's zenith
1 burnished hart
1 chromatic lantern
1 copy enchantment
1 counterflux
1 dictate of kruphix
1 fabricate
1 fevered visions
1 ghostly prison
1 idyllic tutor
1 imprisoned in the moon
1 iron maiden
1 jace beleren
1 karmic justice
1 rhystic study
1 rule of law
1 solitary confinement
1 spell crumple
1 sunforger
1 temple bell
1 walking archive
1 wild research
1 academy rector
1 font of mythos
1 kor cartographer
1 leyline of anticipation
1 phyrexian metamorph
1 pyrohemia
1 replenish
1 return to dust
1 solemn simulacrum
1 statecraft
1 stranglehold
1 supreme verdict
5 (0)
6 (4)
1 austere command
1 sun titan
1 transcendence
1 well of ideas
7 (1)
1 vicious shadows
lands (36)
3 plains
3 island
3 mountain
1 windswept heath
1 flooded strand
1 sacred foundry
1 steam vents
1 hallowed fountain
1 command tower
1 forbidden orchard
1 city of brass
1 mystic monastery
1 mystic gate
1 cascade bluffs
1 battlefield forge
1 adarkar wastes
1 glacial fortress
1 izzet boilerworks
1 boros garrison
1 azorius chancery
1 tolaria west
1 serra's sanctum
1 mikokoro, center of the sea
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 high market
1 myriad landscape
1 kor haven
1 mistveil plains
1 reliquary tower
1 maze of ith
CARD CHOICES
* - I mostly run this card for personal preference.
** - Has a nice niche, but can be cut for a different card.
*** - A good value card. You can cut for a different card but I don't recommend it.
**** - A staple. I do not recommend cutting this card.
***** - One of the cornerstones of the deck, you will almost always want to see this card.
Any card that is bolded means that it also doubles as a donation target, although be careful about who gets donated what; don't donate creatures to the guy with the creature sac outlet, for example. You'll also notice that most donation targets cost little mana to get out - again, Zedruu is mana hungry, so you want to spend as little mana as possible to get that card draw going. Theoretically any permanent can be donated, such as your Ghostly Prison, if you want to make temporary allies, but the bolded cards are the ones where the controller doesn't matter for most scenarios.
Any card that is italicized means that you can replace it with a budget option. Most cards are already cheap (since this deck is basically playing with bad cards anyway), but it should be noted.
HUGS
The core of the deck. You want to have a fat hand of cards in order to prepare for your lategame (where having a ton of disposable cards in hand is useful) but also to keep your opponents happy and give them an incentive to ignore you. In addition, most of these cards listed here can also be donated, giving you even more card draw from Zedruu, which is the nice part. Once you are drawing a lot of cards, Zedruu drawing even more will usually go under the radar, especially when everyone will usually have a lot of cards.
*****Dakra Mystic - A 1-mana howling mine. While it does require 1-mana to activate and it needs to tap, being able to get a hug in play on turn 1 is nice. And since you get to see the cards before they're drawn, you can mill instead if someone would get a gamebreaking card, which is a nice way to disrupt Vampiric Tutor and the like which also adds an interesting political dynamic to the card. Also unlike regular Howling Mines, you can time whenever you want to draw the card, so you'll get the same benefit as everyone else.
*****Howling Mine - Trademark group hug card. There's no greater way to make friends than a turn 2 Mine.
*****Kami of the Crescent Moon - A weaker Howling Mine in that it's harder to cast and dies more often. But we want it anyway. This is dicier to donate since creatures die so often (including the player chump blocking with it), so don't just automatically give this away. You must also know when this could die and be prepared for the lower influx of cards.
*****Anvil of Bogardan - Another Howling Mine. It doesn't give extra cards, but it filters which is nice, and having no maximum hand size is again nice for lategame when you have 20+ cards in hand. Giving everyone no maximum hand size also helps keep pressure off of you when coupled with all the group hug (people are much happier if they don't have to discard after your Font of Mythos and Howling Mines puts them at 10 cards), and it's actually a good kill with Vicious Shadows which I will cover later. You usually want either this or reliquary tower in play in the mid-lategame because of your massive hand size.
*****Humble Defector - It's a divination that automatically donates itself. You get the first draw 2 then send it off, so unlike normal howling mines you actually get the benefit first. If the opponent wants to send it back to you, you get another draw 2. If not, you get a donated permanent for Zedruu. Remember that this can only be used on your turn though it can be used at instant speed on your turn. Generally you'll donate this to your opponent who has the weakest board position, but depending on your opponents, you may want to just spread the love to keep things fairer and let your opponents make more key decisions. Out of the howling mine effects in this deck, this requires the most politics to use properly, since only one person will have this card at a given time.
*****Dictate of Kruphix - A howling mine with flash is great as it helps negate the big drawback of howling mine (your opponents get the cards before you), plus as an enchantment it helps fuel Serra's Sanctum.
*****Walking Archive - Another Howling Mine. One major distinction is that the draw from this happens at the beginning of the upkeep and not the draw phase. That means with Solitary Confinement in play we can still draw the extra cards. Also, once in awhile I put extra +1/+1 counters on this. Also, like Kami of the Crescent Moon, creatures die often so prepare accordingly.
*****Jace Beleren - Another Howling Mine. You usually don't use the -1; use the +2 to keep the table happy. Also, Jace's draw obviously happens outside of the draw step, so this can fuel cards to your Solitary Confinement. If Jace is out for a long time the ultimate can actually be a wincon once it's a 1v1 state as long as the opponent is vulnerable to mill. I've actually had a Jace out for so long I used his ultimate... twice... in a row. (I won that game.)
*****Temple Bell - Howling Mine that gets the draw whenever you want it, as opposed to the beginning of a draw step. If you want a more competitive Zedruu deck, pair this with Mind over Matter and anything that gives you an "infinite" library size (such as a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to discard to Mind over Matter) and you instantly mill everyone on the table. And obviously if you have that wincon, don't donate this.
*****Fevered Visions - A hug that triggers at end step instead of upkeep so you get the draw effect first, plus it gets around Solitary Confinement. Also it can clock opponents for 2 damage a turn. It's not a great donate target since you'll be the one getting shocked, but you can if you need to.
****Font of Mythos - Double Howling Mine at double the cost. Not usually as useful as Howling Mine, but we'll take it. However don't run this out extremely quickly; it's liable to get destroyed. Wait until other players run out better targets first.
****Well of Ideas - This is an interesting group hug-like card. It favors you more than your opponents which means it's not quite a group hug, and people will notice this card. However, enchantment hugs are nice because it gives mana to Serra's Sanctum, and it does divination immediately. However, unlike other normal hugs, this is something you don't want to donate and it's more likely to draw attention to you. This is usually something you play after your other hugs have been churning out cards and you have a massive hand already; if you've got 10 cards in hand, people are less likely to care that you're drawing 2 more a turn.
RAMP
Since Zedruu has no green, you're fairly limited on ramp, especially lands, as lands are usually safer from dying than anything else in EDH. Ramp is not particularly important in group hug as you want the games to go on forever and you don't usually care about getting an explosive start (in fact, you usually want to fly under the radar). However a little bit of ramp can never hurt. These either fetch out Mistveil Plains, help color fix you, or are just plain sol ring.
*****Sol Ring - Staple. While Turn 1 Sol Rings will draw attention, following it up with group hugs will help divert it away from you. Sometimes you may not even want to run this out turn 1 if it will draw attention regardless. It's still a fine turn 3 or 4 play.
***Wayfarer's Bauble - Poor man's rampant growth. It's not great but you should spread your ramp options out. Too many mana rocks makes you vulnerable to artifact hate.
***Knight of the White Orchid - Not particularly reliable at ramping, but if you play against at least one green deck on the table it is reliable. Good because it can fetch Mistveil Plains.
****Burnished Hart - Poor man's explosive vegetation.
****Chromatic Lantern - This is nice to have because you do run some nonbasics, especially Maze of Ith which can't even tap for mana. Zedruu's donation ability is also very mana intensive, so this helps fix that. Similar to the above, there are many 3-mana rocks, but this is very important for Zedruu.
****Solemn Simulacrum - This may be the ultimate value card in EDH.
***Kor Cartographer - Basically a 4 mana version of Knight of the White Orchid.
REMOVAL
Like any good deck, you need to keep other people in check. Be careful about removing TOO many things though, or else people will start noticing you. Remove only things that will cause actual problems. This means even if some of your stuff will be dying, you may have to let it go.
****Swords to Plowshares - It's one time use, but you should run at least 1 cheap spot removal.
****Gilded Drake - It's a mind control that automatically donates itself for Zedruu. Pretty amazing if you ask me. If you can't afford this, your best shot is to just play a spot removal card.
***Aura of Silence - Against those pesky artifact decks, this shuts them down. Depending on how many friends you want to make, keep this out to really piss people off, although if you do that I recommend that you have some other pillow fort cards out to protect yourself (such as Karmic Justice and Ghostly Prison). Usually this is just a disenchant that you can get back with Sun Titan.
****Imprisoned in the Moon - With the nerf to tuck, these types of cards that strand generals in play have great value.
****Return to Dust - 2-for-1 removal at sorcery speed, still good at instant. Also fetchable off Sunforger.
****Austere Command - The mana cost is high, but its flexibility makes it worth it.
****Supreme Verdict - Uncounterable sweeper without needing Boseiju. You will usually cast this at least once per game.
****Pyrohemia - Enchantment-based creature sweeper. You get this out with one of your multiple enchantment tutors. Be careful about the mana though because without Chromatic Lantern out, you can't get many activations per turn.
GRAVEYARD HATE
Many EDH decks love using the graveyard as a second resource. While your group hug effects will keep their hands full and thus reduce the incentive of reaching for the graveyard for additional "cards", you still want something to stop people from doing graveyard shenanigans, as there are many infinite combos that involve the graveyard (sup Hermit Druid).
***Rest in Peace - Play this if a graveyard-happy player is getting cute with his graveyard and/or you expect that player to go infinite with his graveyard. Otherwise it'll annoy a lot of players, so don't just throw this out for no reason. Note that if this dies, it will exile itself. Also it will stop creature death triggers like from the Vicious Shadows in this deck so be careful.
COUNTERS
This deck doesn't run too many because counters are not particularly good in or against "fair" decks. But against players who like to use infinite combos, you must run some and be prepared when you expect someone to go infinite.
****Arcane Denial - Gets the nod over regular Counterspell because of the easier mana cost (this applies significantly more often than you may think) and the draw 2 for the opponent is actually a bonus for group hug. They won't feel like they were badly destroyed, but they really were. Counter something like Tooth and Nail, and you'll gladly let the opponent draw 2 cards instead of instantly winning the game.
****Counterflux - For those pesky storm players, or if a lot of crap is flying around and you want to keep the board stable. Against other blue decks this also just says "No your spell cannot resolve." If you really want to catch that new player in the group offguard, fetch this off Sunforger.
****Spell Crumple - It lost a lot of power now that it can't tuck generals, but it's still a useful card in this build. Since it automatically goes back to your library, you can loop Wild Research to get this card back, so it's a more luck-based Forbid in a way. However this gets the nod over Forbid because it's less likely to get you hated on compared to Forbid until you start the loop. Do this loop only when you have the game under control.
PILLOW FORT
As Zedruu has no innate protection nor does she alone help you set up a strong board presence, you need to find ways to keep her on the board, but you also need ways to protect yourself. These cards protect Zedruu, but more importantly try to convince enemies to attack others before you.
****Spellskite - Protects basically any permanent on the board, yours or another player's. At 2 mana, you can't really ask for more.
****Containment Priest - I really like this card. It only stops people from doing degenerate/unfair things, like, say, flashing in Derevi, Empyrial Tactician for cheap, or looping Deadeye Navigator, or winning with Tooth and Nail, or abusing graveyards with reanimation shenanigans. However, it's not as oppressive as cards like Humility or Winter Orb because people can still play magic, so it's unlikely to get you hated out of the game. What containment priest does is tell everyone they have to play "fair" magic. They need to spend actual mana on their cards. The flash also means that this will often act as a counterspell when it ETBs too. This card also hardly affects this deck negatively either. Granted, this card doesn't stop every broken thing (Doomsday) but at 2-mana with flash, you can't ask for more.
****Boros Charm - Protect yourself from most sweepers. Fetchable off Sunforger and Wild Research. Also the other two modes are not irrelevant; I have actually killed someone by doming him for 4 with this, and in another game I helped kill someone by giving an attacking general double strike.
****Ghostly Prison - Trademark pillow fort. Great play early on, then you let Solitary Confinement be your lategame pillow fort card. Gets the nod over Propaganda as this is a white permanent to help trigger Mistveil Plains.
*****Solitary Confinement - This is the card that signifies that you are entering the lategame. This protects you against a large portion of the cards seen in EDH. All of your group hug effects basically are to prepare you to fuel to this card. You must run this card because when you want to try and win the game, you will normally require several turns, and this will keep you protected against many things. Remember that the beginning steps go untap, upkeep, draw, so at your upkeep step you can choose not to discard and sac this, draw from your draw step, then find a way to get this back into play. This is important since many of your group hug draw effects affect your draw step and this will make you skip that step.
****Karmic Justice - Makes people think twice about blowing up anything on your field. You can run this out relatively early because it's a rattlesnake card and will typically fly under the radar, but once you get a good board presence, anyone that wants to sweep your board will pay dearly. It won't protect your creatures though so don't just run Zedruu out there. Note that this will not protect your cards that have been donated. It will also not protect from exile effects (Utter End) or bounce effects (Cyclonic Rift).
***Statecraft - On your side, it helps your creatures block. When donated to an aggressive opponent, it blanks his ability to kill you through combat. It doesn't do much against players who win through infinite combos or "unfair" methods.
***Greater Auramancy - Basically Karmic Justice except taken to a larger extreme. Be careful as with this out, you won't be able to donate enchantments anymore. Play Copy Enchantment on this to really stonewall spot removal on your pillowfort cards.
****Torpor Orb - A "fairer" version of Humility. In stronger playgroups you have to run Humility, but in a weaker group Torpor Orb is enough.
****Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory - Your big card versus any decks that try to go infinite with spells. It also helps you in 1v1 counter wars, as if your opponent plays something you don't have to worry about your counter getting blasted. It's also useful lategame as the general gameplan is that opponents have a million cards in hand, and it's lategame so they have mana to cast multiple problematic spells in a row and this helps slow the game down even more. If you get Leyline of Anticipation out this gives you a lot of tempo. If nothing else, this helps slow the game down as people love their ramp and playing multiple spells a turn, whereas this deck in the early-midgame is generally tapping out for 1 spell a turn. This card is so important I'm running both cards that have this effect.
***Stranglehold - Many of the degenerate generals are repeatable tutors (Zur, Arcum, etc.) or loop infinite time warps (Narset, etc.), so this is a way to stop them. It will draw hate so make sure you play it properly, or else it will get you killed. However since this deck is also card draw hugging, it won't make AS many enemies, as it can help people draw into things they would want to tutor for. Its purpose is to stop degenerate things, like what was just listed with broken generals, where people are tutoring AND getting mana discounts.
TUTORS
Zedruu can draw you cards, but you still need tutors to smooth out draws, drag out your all-star cards, and overall make the deck more consistent.
*****Enlightened Tutor - With a heavy enchantment and a minor artifact theme, there are a lot of targets to get.
*****Gamble - You really need this, even though sometimes you can get screwed over by the random discard.
*****Idyllic tutor - Can find Wild Research, Solitary Confinement, Propaganda, Rest in Peace, and so on. An all-star.
***Fabricate - Not as important as Idyllic Tutor in this deck, but you still have enough targets to run this.
****Sunforger - Can be awkward to use at times because you need a creature to equip this to and this deck doesn't run many creatures; usually it's Zedruu herself with this. This isn't amazing in this build but it has enough value to run. Fetch out that Counterflux to really perplex someone.
*****Wild Research - This is one of the biggest reasons to ever play RWU. Repeatable tutors are nice cards. Repeatable tutors at an extremely affordable mana cost are no joke. This, along with Solitary Confinement, is the reason to play card draw hugs; get a full hand so that you can minimize the chance that the random discard will hurt you. This is also a good reason to have an enchantment theme as this can fetch out most of the cards. Couple this with a timely enlightened tutor or mystical tutor and you can even fetch out sorceries and artifacts.
*****Academy Rector - People know how powerful and scary this card is, so be careful about playing this - people who have never played against this deck before usually assume this gets Omniscience. Usually you shouldn't play this unless you have your High Market out, but if you know your opponents don't have exile effects or mind control effects, this stops people from attacking you on the ground.
GRAVEYARD RECURSION
Things die often. The longer the game goes, the more things that die. Zedruu wants long games. Therefore you will have a lot of things die. These cards help bring those cards back.
*****Sun Titan - There are a lot of stuff to get back with this guy, the big ones being Solitary Confinement and Wild Research. Sun Titan is one of my pet cards and I imagine I will be forcing him into every white EDH deck I have.
*****Replenish - I want all the enchantments back. All of them.
CARD DRAW
You have group hug effects to get a full hand, but there's no problem running a few more card draw.
****Rhystic Study - Blue staple. Extremely likely to fly under everyone's radar when all the group hugging is going on.
***Blue Sun's Zenith - Mainly run because of its interaction with Wild Research; after you cast USZ, you can find it with Wild Research and do it again, assuming you don't pitch USZ to the random discard (if you do, use Mistveil Plains to get it back in your library). Eventually you can actually use this with Wild Research as your finisher to deck your opponent out. Don't laugh. I actually killed someone with this plan.
FINISHER
As the deck doesn't want to apply pressure until it's a 1v1, there aren't many finishers in the deck. You have several finishers to choose from, so it's basically pick and choose a handful of cards you want based on personal preference and what your playgroup has. Usually you don't want to play finishers until your fort is established though.
****Vicious Shadows - Only really useful versus creature-heavy decks, but this is one of the few cards where you can pull a surprise win out of nowhere. With all the group hug drawing cards, sometimes a single creature dying can let this card blast for 20 damage. Fetch this off Academy Rector in response to a sweeper and you can sometimes OHKO the whole table.
****Iron Maiden - A bit weaker than Vicious Shadows, but as the deck is focused on hugging and everyone having 15+ cards in hand, this can quickly kill people off. This gets the nod over Black Vise because while the Vise costs 1 mana and not 3, both can be recurred with Sun Titan, and by the time you want to cast finishers, the 2-mana difference shouldn't be a big deal. This has upside in that if for whatever reason you need to kill off more than 1 person, this one does it faster.
**Transcendence - In here mostly for the lulz, and it can easily backfire on you against chaos red decks running cards like Warp World. Under the right conditions it does win out of nowhere though.
VALUE
Cards that didn't quite fit in any other category.
*****Sensei's Divining Top - EDH staple.
****Phantasmal Image - Blue staple.
****Leyline of Anticipation - This can draw hate especially if it's in your starting hand, but you really need it so you don't time walk yourself when you try to keep mana open for removal and don't spend it on anything. The interaction with Rule of Law is pretty strong though.
****Phyrexian metamorph - Blue staple.
****Copy Enchantment - Lots of powerful enchantments not only in this deck, but in opposing decks. I'm always happy when someone plays Mirari's Wake as it gives me a nice choice for Copy Enchantment. However it's usually your second Greater Auramancy to fortify your pillow fort.
LANDS
The deck has a lot of lands and features the three karoo lands from ravnica and thawing glaciers, so you are effectively running even more. Again, there's no green, so you absolutely do not want to miss a land drop. Even with some of the draw engines in the deck, it's still possible to miss one early on.
3 plains
3 island
3 mountain
*****flooded strand, windswept heath - They fetch out Mistveil Plains.
****sacred foundry, steam vents, hallowed Fountain - Fetch them with the fetchlands.
***Mystic Gate, Cascade Bluffs - Filter lands I managed to pick up cheap a long time ago. Don't think I'm getting the WR one for awhile.
***Battlefield Forge, Adarkar Wastes - Pain lands I happened to have.
***Glacial Fortress - I've been meaning to pick up the Innistrad duals but wanted to wait until rotation. Haven't gotten them yet because I've been busy.
***Izzet Boilerworks, Boros Garrison, Azorius Chancery - They're actually card advantage because they're two land drops in 1 card. They're vulnerable to strip mine effects, but chances are other players on the table have bigger things to destroy over your karoo lands.
****Maze of Ith - Stop attackers in their tracks. Some sword'd up guy trying to get cocky and swinging? Stop him from attacking you, or even stop him from attacking someone else to make a temporary ally.
****Kor haven - Similar to Maze of Ith, although not quite as strong.
*****Serra's Sanctum - Not nearly as good as Tolarian Academy or Gaea's Cradle, but you can still get a couple mana out of it. Sometimes it sits around and does absolutely nothing though, which is embarrassing.
*****Mistveil Plains - Gives some graveyard recursion. Allows you to reuse with Wild Research in particular. Many of the land tutors and fetchlands are here to find this card. It's an extremely important piece that you almost always want out by the midgame.
*****Reliquary Tower - Once the deck gets going, you can fill your hand quickly. Most decks play this card for value, but it's actually very important to have a massive hand. More often than not you will Transmute your Tolaria West to find it, and people may chuckle while not understanding your true intentions.
*****Command Tower - EDH staple.
*****Mikokoro, Center of the Sea - Land that hugs. You don't usually activate this unless you have nothing else to do but it's an additional hug.
****High Market - Basically here just for Academy Rector, but for the odd times people want to steal or exile one of your creatures.
****Forbidden Orchard - Mana fixing and politics. Also forcibly puts creatures into play if you're trying to kill with Vicious Shadows. Often you'll give opponents 1/1s even if you aren't spending that mana on anything if it'll keep them happy.
*****Tolaria West - Basically to find High Market for Academy Rector, but tutors are nice in general. Sometimes getting Reliquary tower after you have Howling Mine + Font of Mythos out is nice too. In a pinch it can also get Mistveil Plains, though you usually don't have to do that.
****Thawing Glaciers - Helps you not miss those land drops. It's a slow card, but the deck is slow anyway, so this shouldn't matter much. Note that it returns to your hand "at end of turn" so if you don't actually have another land in hand you will miss that land drop.
****Mystic Monastery - Good.
****Myriad Landscape - 3-color decks can afford it and it's ramp on a land.
OTHER OPTIONS
Rattlesnake - These cards simply encourage opponents to ignore you. They typically don't do anything unless you are being targeted or attacked. These cards make opponents say to themselves, "If I must deal with this guy sometime down the future I can." They will usually fly under the radar because of that while helping you not get attacked. Karmic Justice and Ghostly Prison are examples of Rattlesnakes.
Tax/Griefer - These hinder players from playing Magic in a certain way. They don't completely stop them but it hinders their plans in a way. These are the most dangerous defensive cards to use as they don't actually stop opponents from doing things completely, so if you piss off enough people on the table they can gang up and kill you. Aven Mindcensor and Leonin Arbiter are tutor griefers. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is a mana griefer. etc.
Lock - These just stop players from playing Magic in a certain way. These are the most annoying to play against because they can grind the game to a halt depending on how many locks are out (and how potent they are). The most powerful locks are so good that your opponents may just decide to kill you before games even start. Humility is a creature lock. Stranglehold is a tutor lock. Embargo is a creature/artifact lock. Stasis is a lock. etc.
Phil has made a very comprehensive Stax primer and goes much more indepth on card choices (and has more experience with control builds) than I have. Just keep in mind that the idea of this deck is to hug and the second is to pillow fort, so I wouldn't recommend cards like Smokestack in here unless you're trying to build this deck into something more competitive. In a stax build you might be better off removing all the group hug elements and going harder on the control route. However adding a few pieces to this build can make it very potent, such as landing a well-timed winter orb.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204260-the-stax-primer
DONATABLE STAX/GRIEFERS/LOCKS
As said earlier, you can take the griefer route with Zedruu. Most cards soft-lock the opponent out of the game. Do not run these out early unless you know they won't die; if the permanent gets killed before the opponent is dead (say someone sweeps the board and the permanent gets caught in it), be prepared to feel the full wrath of that player for the rest of the game, perhaps the day. As a rule of thumb, it's safer to play donation targets/finishers that are beneficial to you when they're on your side of play, because this lets you run them out with or without Zedruu already in play. For example, Celestial Dawn is acceptable because it color fixes you and then donating it to a nonwhite deck makes them unable to play any of their colored spells. On the flip side, Grid Monitor is significantly less acceptable because when it's on your side of play it hurts you.
Celestial Dawn - When someone thinks of Zedruu, they think of this card. Because of how EDH rules work, if you donate this to someone whose general is not white, all mana they produce is colorless, whether the mana is produced from their lands, artifacts, creatures, etc. It's basically contamination that hits a single player instead of everyone, affects fewer types of decks, and takes more work, and it's still pretty insane (so that says what you need to know about Contamination). Of all the griefer cards this is one of the safest and best ones to play because you can run it out easily when Zedruu isn't around since it actually color fixes you, and the lock it has is generally much better than most other locks you could donate. However since it basically does nothing vs white decks, this cannot be your only lock in the deck. Also note that with this out, your lands become straight plains and lose their regular abilities (like Reliquary Tower).With the update to the new rules about mana color generation, this card is worthless.Grid monitor, steel golem - Stop a player from playing creature spells. This includes their general. However as creatures are probably the easiest card type to deal with, don't expect these to stay out for very long. They can just block with their donated dude to have it die and players often have sac outlets for their creatures (but not often for their other card types). These are much weaker than they look and I'm only listing it here to be thorough; I don't recommend playing them.
Pyromancer's Swath - Stop a player from having cards in his hand. Doesn't work very well if you have card draw group hug.
Illusions of Grandeur - 20 life seems like a lot, but most players can work around this. If life totals started at 20 like they do in constructed, this would be much more interesting. Note that it's not a real "griefer" card, because this doesn't really stop the opponent from casting spells, it just does a ton of damage.
Thought lash - Before it got errata'd it could one shot a player. Now this is just a very slow death card and isn't that great.
Vibrating Sphere - Donate this to an opponent so that all his creatures get Elesh Norn'd. The only drawback is that on that player's turn, his creatures will be smashing you for slightly more damage.
ADDITIONAL GRIEFERS/LOCKS
If your playgroup is way too fast, you will need more powerful locks on the board. Most of these you don't want to donate, but regardless they have an extremely high power level. The most powerful locks are so good that they can actually help you win with multiple opponents still left in the game. Basically, you're Wolf and your opponents are Foxes.
Just what we needed to see...
Star WolfZedruuStranglehold - The best way to deal with locks is to tutor for an answer that kills the lock. This prevents them from doing that. It also stops blue mages from time warping infinite times.
Aven Mindcensor, Mindlock orb, Leonin Arbiter, Widespread Panic - Much less potent than Stranglehold, but are usable if you need more than one of that effect. Mindlock Orb and Widespread Panic have the slight benefit of being universal so you can donate them with Zedruu (technically so will Leonin Arbiter but as a creature it will die very quickly).
Humility - People like playing creatures. This prevents them from doing that. If your playgroup has very powerful green decks, this tells them "You guys can't play magic anymore". This is so powerful that if your opponents know this is in your deck, they may just kill you early on anyway, so be very careful.
Dovescape - People like playing magic. This prevents them from doing that. When this is out on the field, no one is playing an actual game of magic anymore. The game turns into "Who can make the most bird tokens?" Like Humility, if your opponents know this is in your deck, this can get you killed way before you even play it.
Forbid - Not a permanent that locks, but if your gameplan is to group hug with card draw, you'll have plenty of cards to pitch. This is better in a Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck because you have an actual clock, but it's viable here too. Once you start spamming Forbid, everyone will start attacking you, so be careful.
MANA HUGS
The current build hugs with card draw. The other big hug build is to instead make a lot of mana. Don't combine both of them in the same build; it'll just allow players to go too fast. It's harder to make a mana hug deck without green (green gives Heartbeat of Spring, Collective Voyage, and so on) but you have a few cards that help. Also mana hugging tends to be more dangerous than card hugging because this allows players to start going really wild with their gamebreaking spells.
Mana Flare - Everyone's favorite card. It's also the card that will probably kill you if you're not extremely careful.
Helm of Awakening - Watch out for any of those storm players that try to go off early; keep a counter to keep them in check.
Urza's Filter - The deck doesn't run too many multicolored spells, but it reduces the cost of Zedruu, who will probably die often even when you're playing it safe. You'll need to build around this card to get the full value.
Oath of Lieges - A mana hug that increases land count. It does a couple of nice things; lets nongreen decks catch up to the green decks in land count, as well as reward players for having a good number of basics to fetch.
Arcane Melee - Better in a storm version that wants to use Firemind's Foresight and Sunforger, but viable.
Dream Halls - Doesn't give mana, but I'm pretty sure letting people play everything for free is a great way to hug. You'll probably die unless you're very careful though. It's worth noting that players can cast their generals off Dream Halls too, although they'll have to actually pay commander tax.
ADDITIONAL CARDS
These are random cards that I've tested or have been interested in, but either have no room or were disappointed in their results.
Auramancer, Hanna, Ship's Navigator, etc. - In a deck full of enchantments and artifacts, recurring them should be sweet. But if you have card draw hug, you almost never need graveyard recursion. The enchantments you actually would want to recur are lategame bombs that you should already be protecting with countermagic and such, and everything else is disposable. Replenish gets a slot because it's graveyard recursion that also saves you a ton of mana since the enchantments go straight to the battlefield. These are better in mana hug decks where you gas out quickly.
Pacifism, Faith's Fetters, etc - Enchant something, then donate the enchantment. Sounds like a good plan on paper, but they're too easy to remove, and they don't get rid of all problematic permanents (for example anything that had static effects would still be a problem).
Oblivion Ring, Detention Sphere, etc. - Sounds like an upgrade to Pacifism and the like, but they're only temporary removal spells. I prefer to play spells that just get rid of what's causing problems. However if your playgroup has a lot of graveyard recursion, these don't send the permanent to the graveyard.
Cultural Exchange - If you have a much higher creature count (this includes tokens), this can get a lot of card draw out, as well as stealing good things for donating crap things. This build doesn't have a lot of creatures though.
Paradox Haze - Requires a lot of work to build around. It doesn't do anything on its own, and it only felt really good when I had a lot of stuff donated + Zedruu out and alive (and/or have other cards with upkeep triggers).
Shared Fate - Similar to the red chaos cards in that, in theory, this is a quick way to get your permanents on your opponents' board. The problem is that everyone will obviously see that and avoid playing your stuff.
Spawnbroker - A budget and bad version of Gilded Drake.
Vedalken Plotter, Political Trickery, Shifting Borders, etc. - These cards allow you to donate lands while still having the same land count, possibly stealing utility lands too (like Gaea's Cradle). However these are too weak without Zedruu out to draw cards off the donated lands, and when that happens Zedruu gets killed more often.
Bazaar Trader - First, it can't donate enchantments. Second, Zedruu does the same thing, and while Bazaar Trader does it for a lot less mana, most of the things you want to donate are in the lategame when you do have the mana to spend. I'd rather spend the card slot on something else.
Brand - You normally don't want the things you donate back to you.
Enduring Ideal - In most white-based enchantment decks this is nice to have, but the theme is card draw hugging so you almost never actually need to play this spell. In addition, if someone is able to resolve a Stranglehold or something similar after this is cast you are basically dead.
Thieves' Auction, Scrambleverse, etc. - These can quickly donate a lot of your permanents, potentially giving Zedruu a lot of card draw (you can cast Thieves' Auction with Zedruu out as long as Zedruu is your first choice since you go first, but you should probably not cast Scrambleverse with Zedruu out). The problem comes purely with the playgroup. If your playgroup does not like chaos cards do not run these. If your playgroup is fine, these are almost auto-includes.
Duergar Hedge-Mage - While it's not hard to kill both an artifact and enchantment, with the printing of Act of Authority I decided to go with exile removal instead while not needing the requirements to trigger the Hedge-Mage.
Firemind's Foresight - In a sunforger deck this is not a bad toolbox card, as you will have a lot of cheap instants for sunforger and this will help find those same cards. 7 mana is a lot though. This is better if you want to go infinite; for example, fetch Mystical Tutor + Reiterate (your 2 CMC card can be anything, but a counterspell to protect isn't bad), then Mystical Tutor for Turnabout and with enough lands or artifacts in play you make infinite mana.
Crawlspace - It fills a similar role with Ghostly Prison/Propaganda, but there are some major differences. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are stronger earlier in the game when paying the 2 mana per attacking creature is a big deal since there's less mana available, while with Crawlspace your opponents may only be attacking you with two creatures anyway. Lategame, the first two get weaker as players have more mana to work with while Crawlspace may now be stopping more creatures as boards get bigger. The problem with Crawlspace is that because it's a fairly weak pillowfort card early and is strong late, that fills the same role as Solitary Confinement (a card that is pretty bad early and is way better lategame), so they overlap. By the time you want Solitary Confinement you should have either drawn into it or tutored for it so you don't really need Crawlspace for redundancy.
Otherworld Atlas - It's a hug machine but it hugs far too slowly without ways to untap it or generate additional charge counters (like proliferate effects). However it does have a use in that it gets around Solitary Confinement's draw-step skipping.
Contested War Zone - A land that automatically donates itself, but only if you get attacked. Considering we don't want to get attacked in the first place, that is a problem. In addition, because there's no green, we don't want to lose lands.
Rainbow Vale - A land that automatically donates itself, but what usually happens is that when Zedruu is out, this land comes back to you before your upkeep, so what it basically does is give your opponents 1 extra mana.
Terrain Generator - Helps a non-green deck ramp. However it's only basics and it's fairly mana intensive.
Good Stuffs - There are plenty of goodstuffs in RWU, like Consecrated Sphinx, Force of Will, Stoneforge Mystic, Palinchron, additional counterspells, and so on. Most of the strong ones probably don't belong - or don't need to be - in a group hug deck. Anything that could draw attention to you early on is not a good idea. If you are looking for a control approach, possibly building a 1v1 Zedruu deck, by all means play them.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
+ Feelgood. Who doesn't like drawing cards?
- Slow. The deck generally cannot win before turn 10 or so.
- Vulnerable. You have some amount of protection, but if two players both focus on you, the deck will falter.
Do not play group hug in a 1v1 or a 2-headed giant for obvious reasons.
STRATEGY
GENERAL
- Once players start developing their boards, start getting your pillow fort up. Usually with your howling mine effects out, players will normally ignore you, but some players will know that you are just waiting in the shadows and may attack you anyway. Play cards that discourages those players from attacking you.
- There's a very small counter suite. Counter only the most important spells, usually if that spell would instantly end the game.
- Do not draw any attention to you unless you can finish everyone off before they can respond.
There are multiple strategies with Zedruu. As said earlier, you can play a griefer/tax deck, a chaos deck (these two can be combined somewhat), or a group hug deck. They all require different strategies but have one common theme; they want the game to go long. Zedruu is one of the least explosive decks out there, so the way to balance the game out is to take it long.
Magic in general has three major resources; cards in hand, mana, and life. In EDH the life total doesn't really matter unless it's at 0, so you'll notice that most prominent group hug cards do one of two things; increase cards in hand or increase mana. What you want to do is focus your group hug on increasing one resource, and you can also decrease the other resource if needed (although you may draw hate). You want players to either draw a lot of cards but not have the mana to play them all, or give players a ton of mana but have nothing to use it on. This gives the illusion of group hug while preventing people from actually going insane with the massive influx of resources you're giving them. Both are valid group hug strategies.
The type of group hug you do also alters the support cards you play as well as general playstyle. For example, this build currently hugs on card draw. If you instead focus on mana ramp hugs, Vicious Shadows loses its power. In these cases, people will generally not have cards in their hands, so Vicious Shadows will usually do nothing. When you mana ramp hug, you also want to get Zedruu out early and have her start donating things so you can get card draw online and put that mana ramp you're getting to use (when you hug with card draw, usually you don't need to play Zedruu at all).
STRATEGY
Your first priority is to get the group hug online. Ramp is also important and should be your other earlygame focus, but group hug helps keep your hand full and helps entice other players to ignore you. You also want a huge hand of cards for your lategame and you really need a lot of turns and hugs to build it up. Generally if you are drawing 3-4 cards a turn, you should try to keep your other group hug effects in your hand. If your board gets wiped, you want to deploy additional hugs ASAP and you don't want all your hugs to get swept away if you have no way to recur them. Play them if you have nothing better to do, but once you get some hugs online, you should proceed to the next step.
The next step is to establish your pillow fort and control the board. You don't want to remove everything, because then everyone will get annoyed at you. You just need to slow down the player with the best position so that he/she is no further than the other players. When the board gets too crazy and multiple players can threaten to kill everyone in his or her next turn, that's when you want to sweep or get another player to sweep for you. However if only one player will die, you can usually let that go through, but that depends on the alliances you have forged over the course of the game, or if that player who will die can help slow the game down without constricting you. For example, if the other players are focusing on another control deck who wants to take the game long, it may be in your best interest to save that player. However if those players are ganging up on someone who is going to do an infinite combo next turn, you probably want to let them do as they please. It's all politics and it all depends on the situation.
Occasionally you'll run into that player who realizes what you are doing and will try to kill you even with your hugs out. When that happens, throw out a couple of pillow forts. If that player still focuses on you, you have enough removal to fend him off, and hopefully other players will help you because you have hugs online and they want to reap the benefits. If more than one player will consistently focus on you every game, then that playgroup does not like group hug and you must switch to a different deck. Group hug simply cannot compete with that much aggression.
You don't usually enter your lategame/kill mode until only 1-2 opponents remain. This is when you must start breaking out your bombs, and usually you're only going to have 1-2 turns to solidify your fort, as the last player standing will usually have a big board. Usually this is when you assemble Solitary Confinement and Wild Research. If you play these cards with more than one opponent left, they may team up on you, and that can be hard to beat.
Other cards necessary for your ultimate fort but can be played earlier in the game include Greater Auramancy, a Copy Enchantment on Greater Auramancy or a Karmic Justice, a hug or two that do not use the draw phase (since Solitary Confinement makes you skip that), a card that gives you no maximum handsize, and Mistveil Plains. What this does is prevent all damage to you and you have shroud, and you have Wild Research to repeatably tutor for something like Spell Crumple, and mistveil Plains is there in case you randomly discard anything that's important so you can fetch it again with Wild Research. The Greater Auramancy/Karmic Justice are to protect your enchantments which are protecting you, and your hugs are so that you can keep your hand full to discard to Solitary Confinement and Wild Research.
Your area of the table should look something like this.
These are the basic cards you need to defeat the last player, but you will also need additional cards depending on your opponent's deck. For example, you will need that Torpor Orb or Humility out against that creature deck. Against anyone with a lot of cheap threatening spells, get out a Rule of Law to totally stymie them (Rule of Law also laughs at blue mages who think they can play a finisher with countermagic backup on the same turn). If your opponent's plan to beat your pillow fort involves an overloaded Cyclonic Rift off his Boseiju, who shelters all, stick a Perplexing Chimera to stop it beforehand. etc.
Once you are totally protected, use Wild Research to find a finisher and kill them. Usually the best finisher is Vicious Shadows, as you've been card hugging the entire game and your opponent's hand should be massive, so he'll be dead after a few creatures die. Vicious Shadows will usually be strong enough where you can actually play it relatively "early" and kill more than one person. The other finishers in the deck are for redundancy.
Sometimes you won't have the time to set up your pillow fort when going for a kill. That depends on the game state. I have no real suggestions for those scenarios and you'll have to play it by ear.
It's important to not get baited at this point. This player will have a ton of cards and lands in play since the game has gone on forever, so he/she will be able to play multiple spells and you will not have enough mana to counter them all. If you assembled your pillow fort correctly, you will be protected against many things, so basically you only need to counter anything that can actually destroy your fort. If you're worried about getting baited, try and get a Rule of Law or similar effect in your fort.
At this point, sweepers are the cards that can actually beat you, particularly those that can't be countered (like if they're cast off Boseiju, who shelters all). However, sweepers that simply destroy are pretty easy to defend, as if you have Karmic justice out you will blow up his entire board, and you have Replenish to get your fort back (Sun Titan gets back the crucial ones slowly). Sweepers that don't trigger Karmic justice are tougher, such as an overloaded Cyclonic Rift or Merciless Eviction. Your only real outs are to try and gain control of that spell or simply prevent them from casting it. Perplexing Chimera does an excellent job at this, but be careful if you have a Humility out. Alternately Mindbreak Trap and Commandeer are the only cards I can think of that can get around uncounterable spells (you don't really care about uncounterable creatures if you have Torpor Orb and/or Humility out). Time Stop can handle almost anything but at 6-mana it's hard to keep up all the time. Sometimes you can assemble your wincon and then play something like Stasis or Winter Orb to prevent them from coming back, although in those situations your wincon should be more proactive, and these are fairly powerful stax effects that may draw hate.
Knowing when to play Zedruu is also crucial. While she's 4 mana, she's not something you run out ASAP. In fact you normally don't even want to play her until you can play her plus immediately donate something, or if you have nothing to do. However there are no set rules on when to play Zedruu, but the general rule of thumb is that you do not want Zedruu to have a big target on her head. If Zedruu would be one of the biggest threats on the table, she'll get killed easily thanks to not having any protection. However you must also not run Zedruu into a very cluttered board as you must expect a sweeper to be coming soon (sometimes your sweeper). An ideal time to run Zedruu out is if 1-2 players each have 1 creature more threatening than Zedruu but no more than, say, 3-4 threatening creatures are out in total (so you can expect spot removal on the other creatures, but there are not enough creatures out to warrant sweeping), and each creature cannot be an "answer now" card (for example, a single Hermit Druid in play will warrant sweeping if that player's only removal spell is a sweeper).
CHANGELOG
12/7/16
+ Statecraft
+ Stranglehold
+ Fevered Visions
+ Thought Vessel
+ Imprisoned in the Moon
- Act of Authority
- Weathered Wayfarer
- Perplexing Chimera
- Wayfarer's Bauble
- 1 plains
I had statecraft in my early build, but took it out for some reason. I'm putting it back in. It helps you play defense early in case as something like a second ghostly prison, then you can donate it to the aggro player to put his gameplan on hold.
Stranglehold is starting to approach stax territory so it can be dangerous, but if you have tons of card draw hug, you might not make that many enemies, as they could draw into the things they wanted to tutor for anyway. What this is aimed to stop are degenerate things; tutoring with birthing pod, Zur, Arcum Daggson, etc. While they could draw into things that they would tutor for, it's mostly to prevent them from getting the mana discount. It also has a nice side effect of stopping someone like Narset from looping 9001 time warps. Also, if you can survive to a 1v1 state, one of the biggest ways to break your fort is when someone tutors for a specific answer. Regardless, make sure you play this appropriately. Stopping people from cracking fetchlands or their sakura-tribe elders when nothing degenerate is going on might create more enemies than allies.
Fevered Visions is another hug, but with a slightly more aggressive side. With all the hugs, you're almost guaranteed to trigger the shock effect, and the 2 damage will usually fly under the radar, but the damage will add up. Shocking their planeswalker is not irrelevant either. You also usually won't donate this either, even if 2 damage isn't a lot.
Act of Authority was an awkward card, especially when coupled with the fact that I already had Return to Dust. Act does donate itself automatically, but getting it sent back to you can be a big problem.
Weathered Wayfarer is nice, but it was mostly to hit your land drops early. If you can load up on a critical mass of hug effects, you probably don't need it.
Perplexing chimera was perplexing. It sounds so amazing for Zedruu on paper, but it would often just eat the first removal spell. People don't like you stealing their spells even though the only things you generally steal are those that immediately end the game. Still, it would never serve its full purpose.
Thought Vessel is another spellbook-like effect which the deck actually wants. Since it also doubles as ramp, I decided to cut wayfarer's bauble as it felt like the weakest ramp effect.
2/3/16
Version 1.0
SET REVIEWS
Shadows over Innistrad
Eldritch Moon
Conspiracy Take the Crown
Kaladesh
Commander 2016
Aether Revolt
Aether Revolt
Hour of Devastation
Commander 2017
Ixalan
Rivals of Ixalan
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
I did try it as a more control/stax type deck but I would get killed off pretty quickly, and for some reason the people I play with don't like the mass confusion effects like Thieves' Auction and Shared Fate.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Otherwise, you're good, but that's just heinous.
starting hand gemstone mine, leyline of anticipation, howling mine, either sol ring or simian spirit guide, and you're not the starting player
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
It is one of those cards that, played too early, will incite at least one player to gun for you. But it's fantastic for that last player.
Fevered Visions
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
I also added a new feature, where after I talk about a card that has any sort of relevance to EDH I will say what decks I have that I would consider putting this card in.
***Bygone Bishop - A new take on Mentor of the Meek. They trigger on slightly different creature cards/spells, but they fill a fairly similar role; draw you cards as you cast your weenies. Bygone has a slightly better body with flying and sometimes making disposable artifacts has its uses (Arcbound Ravager, Tamiyo's Journal, etc.). Cracking the clue takes 2 mana versus Mentor's 1 mana, but the 2 mana can be paid anytime as long as the clue is in play while Mentor has to be paid upfront, which is important if you want to curve out quickly. With that said, I think Mentor is more useful if all you want to do is draw cards since it's more mana efficient, while Bygone generating artifacts will be more for artifact decks with lots of weenies in them, but isn't bad for straight up weenie decks either. Still, a 3-mana creature that can generate permanents will find a home.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Descend upon the Sinful - So it's strictly better than Final Judgment, and the Delirium trigger shouldn't be that hard to get because at 6-mana, you probably will fulfill the requirement normally. The question of course is whether you want to play this over Wrath of God or Austere Command, or if you're W/x, versus things like Supreme Verdict, Merciless Eviction, etc. I believe that if you are not RW but you still have an aggressive gameplan, this won't be too bad, because getting a 4/4 immediately so you can strap equipments to it will be useful (red gives you haste outlets so you don't need the 4/4 out for a turn to get rid of the summoning sickness).
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Drogskol Cavalry - Seems a bit overcosted. It really needs to be 1 less mana, or at least be a 5/5 or something. Token generators also care more about quantity than quality, so the fact that this makes 1/1 fliers is not really a big deal unless you need flying chump blockers, but if you're paying 7 mana for this dude and 4 mana for the token, it should be for something better than chump blocking.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Eerie Interlude - It's basically Ghostway #2. It's slightly worse because you're often exiling everything you've got as these kinds of cards are generally cast in response to a sweeper, which means this card can't protect something like Progenitus. With that said it's 95% the same card. However with the printing of Containment Priest and to a lesser extent Hallowed Moonlight, it makes these cards a bit more dangerous.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Odric, Lunarch Marshal - He's an updated version of Concerted Effort in that he can help grant you more abilities overall (Concerted Effort is flying, fear, first strike, double strike, landwalk, protection, trample, and vigilance, while Odric is first strike, flying, deathtouch, double strike, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, menace, reach, skulk, trample, and vigilance), and it's on a 3/3 creature instead of an enchantment. I don't have much experience with this type of effect and it could be win-more, but it sounds intriguing.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
****Open the Armory - Similar to Steelshaper's Gift. 1 more mana but can also find auras. Another strong tutor for voltron decks, or perhaps another tutor to go find your skullclamp, etc. Solid card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Thalia's Lieutenant - I'm not sure if human tribal is a thing, but he's an anthem effect of sorts for 2 mana, and then he gets bigger later.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Engulf the Shore - The instant speed means it might be the go-to sweeper for monoblue decks.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
**Epiphany at the Drownyard - It's not an X-version of fact or fiction, it's steam augury which is much worse. Granted, in multiplayer you can try to play politics and choose an opponent that will give you the pile you need ("If you don't give me the counterspell we lose."). Still, you play fact or fiction first.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - I find it funny that his unsummon is strictly worse than the version on his Mind Sculptor counterpart (ignoring the fact that Mind Sculptor is a broken POS). With that said, he's a pretty slow draw engine, since unsummon isn't that strong in EDH unless you're unsummoning your own creatures to reuse ETB effects, though I'm sure there are worse things you could play.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Pieces of the Puzzle - A take on Peer Through Depths. This is 1 more mana and is sorcery, but it gets an additional card and the rest go into your graveyard. With that said, this requires significantly more instants and sorceries to get the full value compared to Peer Through Depths. My Talrand deck has over 40 instants and sorceries and often I only see one legal card when I cast Peer, so this card can whiff pretty often. If you can get 50 instants/sorceries in the deck then maybe you can play this safely.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand.
****Rattlechains - Definitely has a lot of potential. It's low CMC and will often counter a removal spell on one of your spirits, and then lets you play draw-go with your spirits the rest of the game. As for spirits, Brago, King Eternal, all the Kamigawa legendary dragons (or just lots of spirits in Kamigawa in general), Deadeye Navigator, Karmic Guide, Sovereigns of Lost Alara, this list goes on. If you have a semi-spirit tribal theme, or even just a spirit general like Brago, this card should do good work.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Thing in the Ice///Awoken Horror - Could be useful in instant/sorcery-heavy blue decks so you can quickly trigger the transform on command. Once it transforms you can attack for 7 a bit then maybe bounce it back to your hand. Sounds like a lot of work but it's only a 2-mana creature. You'll have to drop it early so you can get the transformation in a reasonable amount of time.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro, Talrand with no polymorph/proteus staff.
**Trail of Evidence - It's a spell-version of Bygone Bishop. With that said, a deck that plays this card would want to have a lot of instants and sorceries and I'm not sure how many of those decks also care about disposable artifacts.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Avacyn's Judgment - You can wipe out a good number of creatures with the madness ability at instant speed, albeit for a lot of mana. But it can also pick off a weak creature at its 2-mana baseline. However I don't think it's as good as Mizzium Mortars unless you're using the madness ability to snipe a huge creature, but that seems somewhat inefficient. I would stick with mortars for the "red mini-sweeper that can also hit one target early" and then use a regular kill card if I want to kill a 5+ toughness creature.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Falkenrath Gorger - I'm not sure if BR vampires is a deck, nor if said vampire decks have a lot of discard outlets, but this is a very interesting effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Wolf of Devil's Breach - It's a decent body and whenever it attacks you usually will kill something, but it requires mana to do so and can be done only once per attack. It just seems very slow and clunky.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Archangel Avacyn///Avacyn, the Purifier - Giving your whole board indestructible at instant speed is nice, although at 5-mana it's easily telegraphed. However you kind of want a sac outlet so that you can trigger her transform trigger and mini-wrath while your team is indestructible. An alternative is to play few creatures, or mostly play creatures that have 4+ toughness that don't die to Avacyn's mini-wrath. Remember that she and your creatures can die with the indestructible trigger on the stack. In particular, with the trigger on the stack they can kill another creature you control so avacyn flips before the indestructible trigger resolves and then your weenies still take 3 damage.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Fevered Visions - Another Howling Mine variant that helps with some of Mine's flaws. This triggers at end step and not draw step (or upkeep), so that means you can get the benefit first as opposed to traditional mine effects, and it also circumvents Solitary Confinement. You can also bring this back with Sun Titan and it fuels Serra's Sanctum. While people will generally get shocked by this, in more ways than one, 2 damage usually flies under the radar, but that damage can add up if the game goes very long. It's not totally useless in builds that aren't group hug/pillowfort (and Nekusar, the Mindrazer), but probably will only be for those archetypes.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu guaranteed
**Nahiri, the Harbinger - Her +2 is underwhelming, but her -2 is a decent removal spell. The ultimate seems whatever, but if you +2 a bunch it will crack quickly. I think she will be mostly used for her -2 though, which isn't bad.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Brain in a Jar - It's a really bad version of Aether Vial for nonpermanents. It takes more mana to cast and to trigger its ability, and it's more difficult to scale the counters, since Vial lets you stop ticking it up if needed while this will always go up everytime you activate its first ability. It'll be mostly used to flash in sorceries but you really want to flash in more than 1 sorcery to make this pull its weight.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Corrupted Grafstone - Presumably if you can get cards into your graveyard quickly it can be decent. However you really want at least 2 colors in your graveyard quickly, or else it'll just be a crappier Fire Diamond or random 2 mana rock. I think signets are more reliable ramp.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Skeleton Key - Similar to Mask of Memory, except you add in skulk but drawing only 1 card instead of 2. So it'll be more reliable in connecting but it's not card advantage, just card selection. Still, that doesn't sound too bad for weenie decks, though because weenie decks tend to have multiple equipment, you might just have Mask of Memory instead of this as you can strap several equipments to a weenie so that nobody can block it well anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Port Town, Choked Estuary, Foreboding Ruins, Game Trail, Fortified Village - These will be mostly used in 2-color decks. Revealing one of the two land types can be an issue for 3-color (I don't have the math behind it, but if you play 3-5 basics of each color and the 3 shocklands, those are pretty low odds, roughly 10 or so cards will satisfy this) and it'll be ridiculously difficult to do reliably in 5-color. 2-color decks can go up to like 10 basics of each plus the shockland. Still, more dual land cycles are nice to give players some more options. They may or may not be budget friendly (they will after SOI cycles out of standard) but it'll give players the opportunity to stick in whatever playable duals they traded, opened, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Drownyard Temple - This is a unique effect and I think it will find a home, perhaps in stax or against stax where being able to get some kind of mana back after a land wipe will be useful. If you really want to go deep, have a mill theme to get this into your graveyard and you can bring this back as a rampant growth. That's somewhat narrow, but again, the effect is unique so it's not something to just write off.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Warped Landscape - This is generally going to be more useful than Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse in budget builds for 3-color decks. However it's worse than the panoramas (Bant Panorama, etc.) unless you're 5-color (in which case you should really go for the regular fetchlands). Even in wedges, panoramas getting two of your three types is usually good enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Emrakul, the Promised End
Eternal Scourge
Collective Effort
Deploy the Gatewatch
Selfless Spirit
Sigarda's Aid
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Thalia's Lancers
Imprisoned in the Moon
Mausoleum Wanderer
Summary Dismissal
Noosegraf Mob
Tree of Perdition
Shreds of Sanity
Eldritch Evolution
Splendid Reclamation
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
Spell Queller
Tamiyo, Field Researcher
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Imprisoned in the Moon
Summary Dismissal
Geier Reach sanitarium
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
***Elder Deep-Fiend - The flash on this card combined with emerge actually makes it intriguing, as you can sacrifice something in response to something. Tapping things down at instant speed can catch people off guard and buy valuable time.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Emrakul, the Promised End - She's not as oppressive as her original form at first glance, which I guess is a good thing because this means she probably won't get banned. But mindslaver is a VERY powerful effect in EDH. The chosen player gets an extra turn so they have a chance to rebuild, but they will never get back to the board state (or hand) they had before the mindslaver. In addition, the cost reduction means that she can cost 8-10 generic mana in the mid-lategame. Compare that to the other eldrazi titans that hover around 10-11 mana as well, as well as mindslaver costing a total of 10 mana (6 to hardcast, 4 to crack). Of course the major distinction between this and her first form is that she doesn't have annihilator 6 which means cheating her out on turn 3 or 4 isn't game over for the unlucky player(s) that gets attacked. The protections are also weaker. Ultimately I think she will be a nice player in EDH and will definitely teach new players how powerful the mindslaver effect is.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Eternal Scourge - Food chain users eat your heart out. Food chain Prossh combo gets another toy to feed to food chain. This of course would also go into competitive Wanderer decks that also use Food Chain to end games quickly. Of course my wanderer build is more durdly so I won't be playing this as I hate 2-card infinites. There might be other combos that go with this though I can't think of any off the top of my head.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Bruna, the Fading Light - The more playable one of the new eldrazi angel sisters, as graveyard reanimation is more useful than Gisela being a generic midrange beatstick (Gisela is basically a smaller baneslayer angel). Still, with Karmic Guide hogging all the spotlight, plus the fact that her trigger is on cast and not ETB so it can't be looped easily, you probably wouldn't bother with Bruna unless you want more of these kinds of effects.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Brisela, Voice of Nightmares - This card is definitely scary when you note that most removal spells cost 3 or less mana, and things that can kill her at 4+ mana are fairly clunky and you can see them coming. In GW if you can somehow get Brisela plus Gaddock Teeg that's pretty close to a hard lock. Regardless, she probably won't actually meld together often, as it's hard enough to get two specific cards into play in constructed, and have fun doing that in 99-card singleton decks. You can play one of the two sisters as your general but then you're forced into monowhite. Basically, you probably will lose if someone gets her out, but it'll happen very infrequently that you don't have to warp your deck around it. Scary art though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Deploy the Gatewatch - See the Unwritten for planeswalkers. It's very obvious this will only go into superfriends decks and you want at least, like, 30 planeswalkers in the deck so you can more reliably get two walkers out of the deal. You probably want a little bit of library manipulation as well (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) to get the big and scary ones (like Ugin and Karn) to cheat out. If you can hit big though, you'll hit big.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Collective Effort - It can remove a fatty, an enchantment, and anthem your entire team, all at the cost of 3 mana. Tapping a bunch of untapped creatures you control means that you likely will need to be a white token deck to reliably do all three modes, but this is a solid card in white token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Faith Unbroken - Could be an interesting tool for voltron decks with auras (mostly Uril, but there could be others). You get a journey to nowhere effect while doubling as an offensive aura. Seems unplayable otherwise though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Ironclad Slayer - Budget voltron decks to get back a key aura or equipment.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selfless Spirit - One of Boros Charm's watered down modes on a body (though msot of the time you'll be saving your creatures, but saving your noncreatures, like in response to armageddon, is obviously relevant). Still, creatures are much easier to recur (Reveillark, Sun Titan, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Sigarda's Aid - We could see a resurgence in white voltron decks on the back of this card. The fact that this is just 1 mana means it's so easy to sneak it, PLUS equipments you play immediately attach themselves to something for free and at instant speed. Flash in swiftfoot boots to fizzle a removal spell, flash in sword of X and Y to eat an attacker, flash in grafted exoskeleton in response to no blocks, etc. Every white voltron deck will play this card and it will be quite scary.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Subjugator Angel - Pricy, but could be a budget way to get an alpha strike in. Usually it's better to just go over the top with an infinite combo though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Thalia, Heretic Cathar - A fairer version of Kismet and the like, but at 3-mana with relevant stats is nothing to sneeze at. The only decks she won't affect are monocolor decks that don't have a lot of creatures and there are a couple of decks that do that (most monoblue decks) but she can slow down a lot of things. Of course the reason to pick her over said Kismet and similar cards is the ability to attack, so this is more for the creature decks that want some hatebears (or big hatebears), etc.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
****Thalia's Lancers - Relevant stats and a tutor on a stick? Captain Sisay never looked so fair. And much like Sisay, it says "legendary card", so you can grab your Gaea's Cradle or the like, in addition to something like Elesh Norn.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white decks
**Curious Homunculus - Only for spellslinger decks. It's a fairly slow mana dork, but it can flip into a Goblin Electromancer which is certainly powerful, plus it can swing for a lot after you throw out a bunch of spells. It probably is worse than regular old Electromancer but more copies of that effect can't be bad.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Displace - Pauper gets another tool. Though it's still not bad as a budget option for blink/goodstuff decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Docent of Perfection//Final Iteration - I kind of don't like this guy becoming an Eldrazi. I just liked the story, going from Delver in the original Innistrad into Abberant Form in Shadows and I think the eldrazi ending ruined that story. I do like how it basically spits out delvers though. Obviously this only goes into spellslinger decks, and even then it might be too slow. Most spellslinger decks just go infinite with spells and probably have no need to make 1/1s though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fortune's Favor - I really like the design of this card, being a fairer fact or fiction. FoF was intended to be a deep card with lots of intricacies, but in reality it doesn't really play like that because it's just too good. This is much fairer and we'll see what happens. Regardless in EDH this doesn't seem like it's strong enough.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Identity Thief - On one hand, flickering creatures is always handy. Flicker something you control, flicker out something an opponent controls to get attacker(s) in, etc. On the other hand, it sounds like it'll be more difficult to use than it should.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Imprisoned in the Moon - With the nerf to tuck, these types of cards that strand generals in play are always scary (Darksteel Mutation, Song of the Dryads, etc.), and the fact that blue now gets to jump in on the fun is scarier. In a pinch it can also hit a Gaea's Cradle or something. Most blue decks that want to play fair will likely play this card, although green and white do have these types of effects, but if you want multiple copies of this effect then it'll do good work, and if you don't have green or white this will be welcomed.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
*Lunar Force - It's Hesitation for 1 more mana but only triggers on an opponent's spell. In EDH it's too easy for an opponent to throw away a bad spell though.
My decks that I would play it in: Most blue decks
***Mausoleum Wanderer - The fact that this is 1 mana will be a huge annoyance. If you can find ways to pump its power at instant speed (flash in other spirits for example) you can catch people off guard and this can become a hard counter.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Mind's Dilation - It sounds like a hilarious effect, but it's 7-mana and if they flip a land you don't get anything, and they can hit mediocre cards, or cards that don't do anything (e.g. flip Green Sun's Zenith).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Summary Dismissal - Counterspells that get around uncounterable spells (e.g. Supreme Verdict) are always interesting. On top of that, you get stifle. It's similar to Voidslime in a way in that it's a catch-all counterspell. While it does say "all" you usually won't be exiling more than one spell or ability (or storm trigger) so don't get your hopes up. If you can get multiple spells and/or abilities with this card though it'll be quite the blowout. The effect is certainly powerful but I don't have any decks that really want this effect. It's just nice to know that if people get cheeky with their Cavern of Souls or Boseijus, thinking their key spell is safe, you always have an out.
My decks that I would play it in: May or may not play in blue decks
**Unsubstantiate - It's Venser, Shaper Savant's ETB effect for 2-mana, although it only unsummons and not boomerangs. Regardless in combo decks this can be a useful counterspell as it's a fairly versatile card to get something out of the way temporarily while you combo out. I don't really see a place for this card in fairer decks though that want the game to go longer. It's not usually worth a card just to gain some tempo against one player. Could see use in 1v1 though.
My decks that I would play it in: Talrand
**Bedlam Reveler - In spellsinger decks, this reads "RR - get a 3/4 with prowess, pitch your hand and draw 3 cards". This could be a nifty way for spellslinger decks to refill for cheap. Not very playable in other decks, but it should do good work in the right build.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Mirrorwing Dragon - Get one more copy of Zada, Precursor Golem, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Nahiri's Wrath - Read the card carefully and note that you can't target players with this, so this really is a wrath with card disadvantage. It might be decent in red decks with reanimation to pitch fatties, or maybe with some weird Stuffy Doll or the like. I'll be surprised if it's anything more than a niche card though. If you need red wraths, stick to Blasphemous Act.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Shreds of Sanity - A double graveyard recursion card for spellslinger decks at 3 mana is pretty solid, even though this exiles itself. You probably will have something to discard to this too.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Thermo-Alchemist - If your spellslinger deck has trouble keeping planeswalkers in check, this can be handy. It can also act as your win con once you go infinite, although there might be better ways to do that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Spell Queller - In tempo decks, especially those with instant blink effects, this can be valuable. Many spells do get hit by this, notably many generals that cost 4 or less mana and since most people probably don't want their general stuck under this, they will send their commander back to the command zone and this guy will act as a straight up counterspell. Also note that this has the "Oblivion Ring" wording in that the LTB effect can be triggered before the ETB effect resolves, exiling the targeted spell permanently. It's a fair tempo card but can generate solid value when you build around it.
My decks that I would play it in: Most UW decks with blink effects and tempo gameplan
*Soul Separator - This card is quite flavorful, but it seems too mana intensive to be any good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Geier Reach sanitarium - Similar to Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. Seems nifty for group hug but not very exciting in anything else.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
**Hanweir Battlements - Granting haste is always very potent, although requiring red means it can't be used in, say, Zur or Kaalia. It does seem quite scary for Narset, Kaalia, etc. Giving it haste means it will effectively cost 2 more mana though (1 for the activation cost and 1 because you're tapping this land) so make sure you plan around that. Regardless, it will see play in red decks that want their general to get haste.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Nephalia Academy - Library of Leng on a land. Similar to how Reliquary Tower laughed at Spellbook, this will laugh Library of leng for decks that, for whatever reason, need this effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Recruiter of the Guard
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
N/A
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
MONARCH CARDS IN GENERAL - Many cards in this set make you the monarch and do things based on who the monarch is. The strength of these cards depends on the difficulty to stay as the monarch. Many cards' strength will greatly vary depending on that. My guess is that if the card only does relevant things while you're the monarch, it's not going to be very good, especially if the trigger occurs at the beginning of your upkeep. For example, Skyline Despot is very mediocre for 7-mana. I don't know if I would play it even if it made the 5/5 flier every single turn, and the fact that you have to be the monarch at the beginning of your upkeep just makes it all the more sketchier. On the flip side, something like Queen Marchesa does look playable, because she does something if someone else is the monarch, which is significantly more likely to happen than you being the monarch.
***Sanctum Prelate - Potentially shutting off many cards from being cast at just 3 mana has some value, although I imagine it will be tough to use this properly, particularly since it only hits noncreatures so you can't name the CMC of a problematic general. You'd have to specifically know what would cause your deck problems. It seems more like a value grey ogre stax piece. It could be quite good in the competitive circles though where many of the spells played are noncreature spells between 1-3 CMC so you can name a low number and shut off a lot of spells.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Recruiter of the Guard - CAN YOU SAY "STAPLE"? What have we learned from EDH? 3-mana tutors is the sweetspot for fair costing tutors. 3-mana creatures that tutor become staples. Imperial Recruiter is a strong card, although its price is more because of its rarity, but if it was a $10-20 card it would be played in almost every red creature deck. This guy gets dudes with toughness 2 or less. There are plenty of good ones (Karmic Guide, Eternal Witness, most clones, etc.). It also can be recurred with Sun Titan and Reveilark. I've proclaimed many cards to become EDH staples and whiffed hard on those claims, but this is as close to a surefire thing as Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter making the hall of fame. Just look at your existing white creature-based decks and see what worthwhile creatures this guy could fetch out. Chances are there's a good list.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white creature decks
***Expropriate - Very rarely will anyone let you take an extra turn and there's obviously no reason for you to choose money, so this is basically 9-mana for Time Warp + Blatant Thievery with the upside that this card doesn't target (whereas Time warp and Blatant Thievery do, which means they can backfire via Fork effects, or sacrificing the permanent in response, etc.) though this does exile itself much like all new-world-order time walk effects. That certainly is powerful, but you get what you pay for. The huge mana cost will prevent it from becoming a staple, but like all time walk effects, this is going into Narset decks and her laugh will become even more obnoxious.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Stunt Double - Another 4-mana clone with upside, this time it's tacking on flash, which is certainly a useful ability. It could be a good clone card in a draw-go control deck. However for battlecruiser/casual decks that tap out most of their mana on their turn, you probably would be better off with other clones.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Capital Punishment - This card has a Death Cloud type of feeling, although this card cannot destroy lands in play which is unfortunate for stax decks. Regardless these types of Council's Dilemma cards scale in power with more players in the game, but keep in mind that the type of deck that would play this card is probably the type of deck that would get ganged up on (stax).
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Grenzo, Havoc Raiser - Interesting card with some play to it. It will likely be done in some kind of goblin tribal swarming with tokens to get as many triggers as possible (if he's the general) or a R/x/x token deck (as part of the 99). The first ability can give you some crowd control (goad opponent's small utility creatures) and the second gives card advantage. Most notably, goading works well with his ability, as if the opponent's creatures are attacking, presumably they won't be back to block, allowing more of your guys to get in again.
My decks that I would play it in: Red token decks, or a new deck with him as the general
***Subterranean Tremors - It's an earthquake that can't hit players (meaning it can't kill planeswalkers), but at 5-mana you get a shatterstorm effect while doing 4 to each creature, which isn't too bad. Making an 8/8 is more of a bonus than anything, but it will be difficult to sweep away large creatures in general with this card. Probably only monored will play this card, but it will be playable in monored.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - A 3-mana card that can give card draw (albeit it technically can help other players, but green often has high power creatures) and is a decent mana dork at worse. In other words she can provide some card advantage and mana, the two biggest resources in EDH, albeit she's not terrific at either. This is interesting because many generals usually provide one or the other. In terms of competitiveness she won't be as good as Yisan, the Wandering Bard as repeatable tutoring is too good, but she'll be fine alternatives to Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Omnath, Locus of Mana or other monogreen stompy decks. She also looks playable as part of the 99 if you are just slamming a bunch of huge creatures.
My decks that I would play it in: Maelstrom Wanderer
***Selvala's Stampede - Flashy 6-mana sorcery. I think most people will vote for Free as that isn't real card advantage (since they're coming from your hand and not from your library). You can cheat at least one huge thing in your hand if needed since you have a vote. Hard to say what decks will really want this effect, but it's certainly powerful.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Adriana, Captain of the Guard - Essentially it's a 5-mana 4/4 general that gives a bit of an anthem effect to the team. That's fine but not very exciting. Boros is definitely lacking in the general department and red and white are the two weakest colors in EDH. We'll see if she can make boros relevant. The melee ability in general doesn't seem very strong; it's usually best to focus down players one at a time rather than attack each player and draw attention from everyone.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - RB or RBx artifacts could be an interesting build. The +1 is fairly weak and ultimates in general are almost impossible to get without Doubling Season or other similar cards, but the -1 is solid since you should have various artifacts that you don't care about (Ichor Wellspring or perhaps already did its job (Mana Vault) and being able to get a semi-putrefy effect is solid. Basically it's a 3-mana card where you can putrefy something once a turn for up to three turns. Saccing artifacts is a cost but depending on what you sac it could even be beneficial as well. That's decent value.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Kaya, Ghost Assassin - She doesn't kill creatures so she doesn't really have an "assassin" feeling to her. In any case, if you're a WB deck that wants to get creature ETBs then maybe she's good (she's 1 mana less than Conjurer's Closet and she can target opposing creatures if necessary), but her -1 is worthless and the -2 is okay but usually is worse than blinking a creature. Keep in mind that PWs die fairly quickly in EDH unless you drop them really early (usually off the back of sol ring or friends) or you set up a monster pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Sultai stax incoming? This guy sounds pretty sick as a general. It greatly hinders players from gaining card advantage (plus unlike cards such as Spirit of the Labyrinth this only affects your opponents), and it is doubly insane with wheel effects (everyone discards their hand and only draws 1, while you refill like normal). Plus the one worry people have about whether or not to play certain cards is if they die before they can do anything, specifically generals. With Leovold, especially with Lightning Greaves attached to him (they need to kill the greaves and then Leovold) or countermagic backup (someone attempts to kill Leovold, you draw a card and then counter the spell), that problem is nicely alleviated. Blue, green, and black are the three best colors in EDH, and now you can make a stax deck with those colors.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with him as the general
***Queen Marchesa - Interesting that she drops the blue from her previous form (Marchesa, the Black Rose to pick up white. She's the only monarch card that interests me as she does things when you're not the monarch, which generally happens more often than being the monarch. She is also a token generator of sorts, and the tokens actually are decent on their own (deathtouch makes for nice ground blockers in a pinch). Mardu now gets to build a token-theme deck of sorts so we'll see what options they have.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
???Spy Kit - I have no idea what to do with this card. There's got to be something you can do with this, since it's such a unique effect.
My decks that I would play it in: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Demon of Dark Schemes
Nissa, Vital Force
Cloudblazer
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
Aetherworks Marvel
Panharmonicon
Inventor's Fair
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
N/A
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
ENERGY CARDS - Most energy cards I'm rating will be solely on their own merits. For example, a card like Demon of Dark Schemes which can potentially generate tons of energy at once, and can put that energy to good use. Versus something like Dynavolt Tower which will be mostly used to generate energy, and thus its playability depends on what other cards you play that can put that energy to use. This makes it difficult to rate the latter type of cards as they rely on other cards to reach their full potential, particularly when the dynamics of those cards aren't really known. Whereas something like Demon of Dark Schemes can be played as a standalone card, where you don't necessarily have to play other energy-generating cards to make it playable.
Unless the card generates a ton of energy, you usually shouldn't play the energy card unless it mana ramps you or generates some kind of card advantage. I would avoid playing cards that generate a small amount of energy but mostly only care about beating face with huge P/T.
VEHICLES - Most vehicles are just large creatures that require a crew and pure P/T is not useful in EDH. The vehicles that could be useful are those that can mana ramp or generate some kind of card advantage, either as an artifact or a creature. Crewing a vehicle isn't actually that hard since you'll have a ton of dorks lying around to crew it, so the important thing is whether or not the vehicle does anything to justify a spot.
**Angel of Invention - You often will not be putting the counters on it, so it's a 5-mana anthem that spawns 2 1/1s, which is decent value for token decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Authority of the Consuls - Being 1-mana is nice, although if you really want to play this card you really want to care about the lifegain. If having things ETB tapped is what you care about most, you might be better off playing something like Kismet or Blind Obedience. Despite the higher mana costs those cards are simply more potent and more aligned towards what stax/control decks want to do, whereas this card is more for a stream of lifegain triggers.
My decks that I would play it in: Oloro
***Cataclysmic Gearhulk - It's similar to Tragic Arrogance, with the difference being that Arrogance let you choose what each player kept, whereas this leaves you with a 4/5 vigilance but the opponents choose the permanents they keep. (Despite its name, Cataclysm is much different from this card, because Cataclysm was used more for being a mass land destruction card that also acted as a sweeper, whereas this is just a sweeper). In EDH that's a losing trade unless you are a dedicated blink/ETB deck to keep using this over and over. As long as there's no key permanent in play that needs to be removed (like an important general, which you can use spot removal for) and you just want to keep the board clear, it's fine.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fumigate - It's a sad time that we may not see 4-mana sweepers in standard anymore. Regardless, this is simply not a good card. Unless you are desperate for lifegain, play more efficient sweepers.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Master Trinketeer - Maybe there's a servos/thopters deck? I'm not paying 4 mana to pump out a 1/1 otherwise.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Refurbish - White has a couple of cards that recur artifacts from graveyards, so add this to the list of decent recursion cards.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aethersquall Ancient - It requires a lot of energy and it doesn't build up energy at a fast rate. If you can generate a lot of energy then this can keep the board clear. It's too slow on its own though. You ideally want 8 energy before playing this so you can immediately clear the board. At 7-mana if you stuff a bunch of energy cards then maybe.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Ceremonious Rejection - 1-mana hard counters are nothing to scoff at even when they're limited in scope. In the right meta this can be quite good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Dramatic Reversal - This can't untap lands which means it's more limited in scope than Turnabout but it is only 2-mana and it still untaps your mana rocks. Spellslinger decks will probably play this as another way to make infinite mana with Reiterate.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Era of Innovation - It's a reliable but slow way to generate energy. The card drawing is nice but likely you'll play this for the energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Glint-Nest Crane - Passable value creature for artifact decks, but artifact decks might be more interested in playing an artifact that can do something similar.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Insidious Will - It's a cute card, but it's 1 mana too expensive for its effects. 4+ mana counterspells are extremely tricky and hard to use, particularly when Cryptic Command sets the bar for 4-mana counters.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Metallurgic Summonings - It's a 5-mana do nothing, but in the right build this can be scary. Making some creatures whenever you cast an instant or sorcery is nice, but being able to recur tons of spells back to your hand is scary. Requiring 6 artifacts in play sounds like a huge task, but when you consider that you'll likely be playing a lot of mana rocks, it shouldn't be that hard to reach. Note that the creatures created by this card are artifacts which count towards the second ability.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Padeem, Consul of Innovation - Blue version of Leonin Abunas except this can draw you cards slowly and can be your general. It doesn't look like a very strong general, though if you want a monoblue artifact general and you don't want to play Arcum Dagsson who draws obvious hate, you could try this one. As part of the other 99 it has some value, but because this doesn't have hexproof it'll be easy to remove this.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Paradoxical Outcome - My initial instinct is that this card won't be very good. I guess you could play this in response to a wrath, but you would probably be better off just countering the wrath instead of having this in your deck if there are cards you have that you are interested in saving. It is a unique effect and that's why I don't think it'll be useless, but I can't think of any situation where this would be really good.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Saheeli's Artistry - Similar to Stolen Identity in that it's a 6-mana sorcery that copies either creatures or artifacts. There are some obvious differences (Stolen Identity ciphers and needs to connect to clone again, this generally is harder to fizzle with removal spells as you will usually have two targets whereas Stolen Identity only has one, etc.), but ultimately the bar for clones is pretty high. It's decent but doesn't really stand out.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Shrewd Negotiation - These types of donate cards are mostly for Zedruu decks, but 5-mana for an exchange effect is still expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Torrential Gearhulk - 6-mana is a lot, so you really want to be a dedicated draw-go deck where leaving up 6 mana doesn't fire off alarms in everyone's heads. Only hitting instants is somewhat restrictive as well, though there are plenty of good instants to get (namely counterspells and removal spells). However you really want to flashback an instant of CMC 5+ before you really get your money's worth with this card, and while there are a couple (Dig Through Time being obvious, even though it's more like a 2-mana card), there aren't numerous amounts of high-CMC instants that are useful in EDH. This does limit the value of the card.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Cathartic Reunion - A 2-mana sorcery that draws three cards always has some potential, even with the huge drawback of discarding 2 (especially as the extra cost which makes it vulnerable to counters). Build around this properly and it can certainly do scary things.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Chandra, Torch of Defiance - People are very hyped for her potential in modern and even legacy. Of course EDH is a different type of format, and walkers aren't as dominant. Still, you can't ignore the fact that she's built similarly to Chandra, Pyromaster, where Pyromaster's 0 is now a +1 that even smacks each opponent for 2 damage when you don't play the card. Granted, this Chandra can't play land cards (you have to "cast" the card, and you don't "cast" lands, you "play" lands) which is actually notable in EDH as hitting land drops beyond 4-5 mana is usually important. Still, she's a mini ritual or a flame slash as additional bonuses, and she does pass the doubling season test. More people will play her in EDH than they should, but she's certainly playable.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Combustible Gearhulk - Punisher mechanics are always overrated in every format, and this will be no different. Unless the opponent you target is at a low life, you will not get the card draw, and nuking a player for a little damage is just not good enough in EDH. You could perhaps stack the top of your deck with huge CMC cards (think worldspine wurm) then play this and target the opponent with a very low life total. It could have an interesting dynamic since the opponent has to choose the option first, so they won't see the milled cards until it's too late. The problem is that early-midgame this is gonna be a 6-mana 6/6, mill 3 cards and someone takes like 8-10 damage, which isn't that exciting. There are worse things you could play in monored, but it's simply too hard to use.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Fateful Showdown - Nuking an opponent for a little damage is not very useful. You'll wheel away the cards in your hand, but at 4-mana that is expensive.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Madcap Experiment - Obviously this is used when you're trying to cheat a huge artifact into play. There is a very interesting clause attached to this card that you don't see on cards that are similar to this one (e.g. Polymorph) in that this hits you for a bunch of damage equal to the number of cards revealed, so for those who think you can just play a Blightsteel Colossus and no other artifacts, you could just instantly die. More likely than not you'll have to set up the top of your library (brainstorm, scroll rack, etc.) before playing this. Still, anything that can potentially give you a huge mana discount is something worth building around, and worth keeping an eye on.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Pia Nalaar - Not sure where Mr. Nalaar went (apparently he's dead?) but she's basically just the baby version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In EDH she could be better than the version where both are available, which is kind of funny, because making a creature unable to block can be scary, mostly in red voltron decks. You could play this in a red token deck but 3-mana to get only 2 bodies is not a superb rate, and in a token deck you don't really care about her activated abilities.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Cloudblazer - We did it guys! We got a Mulldrifter clone! Same CMC as mulldrifter, where you trade off the evoke and a harder color requirement for 2 life (sorry UG you can't play this card). Lifegain is not a big deal, and losing evoke is actually a big deal (mulldrifter basically let you keep risky hands if it was in your opening hand, and sometimes you want mulldrifter in the graveyard anyway), but it's still 5-mana dude that draws you 2 cards. Goes great with the obvious blink effects, graveyard stuff, etc. If you're interested in Mulldrifter and you're UW, chances are you'll be interested in him too. Redundacy for these types of effects are key.
My decks that I would play it in: Most white-blue creature-based decks, maybe Oloro
***Depala, Pilot Exemplar - Maybe there will be a dwarf deck, or a vehicle deck, which would be glorious to see. 3-mana lords is the baseline obviously, and she can be card advantage engine. Also if you can find a way to tap her (not necessarily attack, but tap her with something like Springleaf Drum) you can get the triggered ability too. She's obviously only going into these tribes, so time will tell if the tribes will have enough support.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with her as the general
***Dovin Baan - Lock down a creature with an important activated ability (Arcum Daggson) and with some politics you may be able to keep it alive for a few turns. The -1 is alright. Unfortunately he doesn't pass the doubling season test but it is very powerful, basically Static Orb for only your opponents. UW or UWx stax decks might be interested.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Saheeli Rai - UR artifacts now gets a solid clone effect at 3-mana. You only keep the token for one turn, but again, 3-mana. She doesn't pass the doubling season test though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Aetherflux Reservoir - PAY 50 LIFE. Funny enough that's more achievable than you would expect in EDH, though you obviously need to be very dedicated to lifegain, and even then it's still pretty hefty (I am questioning whether or not to really play this in Oloro, as you still need some cards that gain you an exhorbitant amount of life, such as Beacon of Immortality, before you really want this card). You can nuke one player out of the game but you really need to put your life total at a huge amount before you can shotgun down multiple players. It's also going to be embarrassing if it gets stifle'd. Regardless this is a hilarious card.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Oloro?
****Aetherworks Marvel - It takes some work, but again, it can help cheat on mana costs, and if you can manipulate the top of your library you can get some scary stuff out. Most likely it can see use in token decks since those generate tons of permanents. It does say "permanent you control", so that includes fetchlands, things that need to sacrifice anyway (e.g. Sakura-Tribe Elder), and so on, but I believe token decks will generate energy the fastest anyway.
My decks that I would play it in: Maybe Prossh
**Animation Module - Kind of slow, but it's a new-world card that can actually give an additional loyalty counter to a planeswalker, which is something that wizards is scared to do ever since Doubling Season started laughing.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Cultivator's Caravan - The baseline for mana rocks that make a mana of any color is 3-mana, so this lines up. The bonus this card has over other similar cards is the ability to become a 5/5 creature. If you're an aggro deck then this could be useful over other 3-mana "rainbow" rocks with the exception of Coalition Relic. If you're midrange or control though you're likely be better off with Chromatic Lantern, Commander's Sphere, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Deadlock Trap - Stax decks can sometimes have trouble dealing with planeswalkers, as many of the hateful stax cards can deal with creatures, artifacts, and lands fairly well. ETBing tapped kind of sucks and you do need multiple ways to generate energy to keep a planeswalker locked down (or maybe use something like Goblin Welder to keep it flipping from battlefield to graveyard and back repeatedly), but it's nice to know this exists as an option.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Filigree Familiar - Some people compared this to Solemn Simulacrum. They're artifacts that can go into any deck, they're 2/2s, and they draw a card when they die. The difference is that this is 1 less mana, but ramp is almost always better than 2 life. It might be more appropriate to compare this to Kitchen Finks where you trade off the persist trigger (which comes with 2 extra life) for a card draw, and nobody is going crazy over Finks. While I don't think this will be stellar in EDH, it is a decent value card, and could be seen if you care about trying to reanimate this multiple times for the card draw. As said multiple times, though, the lifegain isn't that important unless you're playing against more casual, fair decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Foundry Inspector - Inferior Etherium Sculptor but having multiples of these effects can't be bad, and if you're a non-blue artifact deck that can't play Sculptor then w/e.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Ghirapur Orrery - In my Zedruu topic I talk about hug effects. Basically, there are two types of hug effects; those that increase players' mana (Mana Flare) and those that increase players' cards (Howling Mine). Generally cards that hug with both effects are very dangerous as those are the ones that allow players to get out of control quickly, and thus unless you're going for a pure group hug deck, you generally only want to focus on one type of hug effect. Here this card hugs both, which means this is dangerous to play, even if this doesn't always help people draw cards immediately. Basically, I don't think I would play this in Zedruu.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Key to the City - Much like many discard-outlets, you really want to make the discard cost not actually be a cost. Discard a fatty is the obvious thing, discard Squee, etc. Since you can only discard once a turn, you also want to make the unblockable effect relevant. So there will be a somewhat narrow build that wants this card. But at 2-mana it's not a huge cost.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Metalwork Colossus - Creatures with just a lot of power and toughness are not great. If you can find a way to make its CMC matter (Bosh, Iron Golem?) then maybe. Or maybe having a sac outlet while this is in the graveyard could see some use. You'll need to build around it to make it work and even then it seems alright.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Panharmonicon - This card is going to be in every bloody creature deck that relies on ETB effects. Hell, since this card also affects artifacts, decks with artifact ETB effects will love this card too (Spine of Ish Sah). Be prepared to see this everywhere and make dumb midrange durdle decks even dumber. If you're not on the ETB bandwagon, ready your Torpor Orbs and similar cards because this is going to be everywhere. Pick up foils because so many people will want one for their EDH deck.
My decks that I would play it in: A lot
**Scraphead Scrounger - Low CMC creatures that can come back from the graveyard on an affordable cost are always worth keeping an eye out for, even if it's going to be hard to abuse this because it requires mana and a creature sac.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Skysovereign, Consul Flagship - It has the "Titan" trigger in that it goes off on ETB or attack, which is cool. Lightning bolt is not super good, but it's repeatable and it's evasion. Tap your wood elves and oracle of mul daya and send this thing in the air. Doesn't jump off the page but it sounds solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Aether Hub - This is a surprisingly solid card. It's similar to Tendo Ice Bridge except if you can generate more energy this can keep tapping for colored mana. Obviously you do want a stream of energy but since it still taps for colorless it's not like you need to have multiple sources of it. At uncommon, it should be easy on the budget as well. If nothing else, it's a land that generates 1 energy in case you are built around energy.
My decks that I would play it in: None
***Enemy Fastlands - Much like the Scars of Mirrodin fastlands, these will be great in low-curve decks.
My decks that I would play it in: None
****Inventor's Fair - A land that you can effectively pay 5 mana to cast a Fabricate is definitely nice value, especially since this is a colorless card. Since it's not that hard to get 3 artifacts in play if you really give a damn, this can go into a lot of decks as long as there's a worthwhile artifact to fetch out.
My decks that I would play it in: Some
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Deepglow Skate
Faerie Artisans
Divergent Transformations
Benefactor's Draught
Atraxa, Praetor's voice
Breya, Etherium Shaper
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
Armory Automaton
Ash Barrens
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Orzhov Advokist
Selfless Squire (if some tweaks are made)
Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist
THIS PAGE COVERS ALL COMBINATIONS OF PAIRS FOR THE PARTNER GENERALS
https://badaro.github.io/edhpartners/partners.html
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
PARTNER CARDS - The partner ability means it will be difficult to gauge the power level of the card, because one card could work very well with a different partner card, but the large amount of permutations available will make it difficult to quickly determine which partners stand out. Because of that, I'll be basing a partner card's power level on its own merits; would you play it as part of your 99, and could this card be passable as a standalone general, or is this card relegated to partnering with another general?
WHITE
**Duelist's Heritage - Mostly for voltron decks, but it's a way to pump up voltrons without relying on equipment or auras. Not sure if it's better than whatever is available at the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Entrapment Maneuver - 4-mana for a combat trick is expensive, so for this to be worth it you need to care about the tokens. However sacrificing is very potent against voltrons, and given how many voltrons soup up their P/T, this can make a lot of tokens. You likely want to reduce the number of creatures they have out though in order to make sure that they can only attack with their voltron, or find a way to only have their voltron swing in (e.g. tax with pillow forts).
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Orzhov Advokist - Pillow fort card. Make people be inclined to not attack you (Ghostly Prison taxed opponents for attacking you, while this gives them a bonus for not attacking you).
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
**Selfless Squire - Fogs for a turn and gets huge. There are several types of cards that fog and do some kind of benefit (Comeuppance) so if you want to have this separate from the other huge fog effects you will need to build around it. Note that its last ability triggers for all prevented damage to you, not just from this guy's abilit (e.g. Orbs of Warding), so you likely want to be dedicated pillow fort.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu (if some tweaks are made)
*Sublime Exhalation - You need three opponents before this just becomes Day of Judgment, and note that as opponents get knocked out of the game the cost increases back to normal. If you have four opponents it's only 3 mana, but jokes on you, you're playing a 5-man FFA and anything more than 4 total players takes forever. I would only play this in decks where I know it would be, say, three teams of 2, so there are only 3 teams taking turns but you technically have 4 opponents. That's still very narrow.
My decks that I would play it in: None
BLUE
**Coastal Breach - Ignore the fact that every bounce blue sweeper pales in comparison to Cyclonic Rift (let alone how most sweepers are worse than Rift). Better or worse than Crush of Tentacles or Devastation Tide? If you have three opponents this costs 4, which is actually not bad. Tide has more upside though since you can miracle it for just 2 (and miracle also means you can cast it at instant speed if you build around it enough) and Crush can leave behind an 8/8. The other issue is that if you have only two opponents this costs 5 and then becomes strictly worse than Tide. Seems okay overall but not particularly exciting because of that.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Deepglow Skate - Is this blue's version of Doubling Season? It won't let planeswalkers enter the battlefield and then immediately ultimate (one of the advantages of doubling season) but it does affect PWs already on your board. You can double charge counters, -1/-1 counters, and of course +1/+1 counters as well. Tons of flexibility and power in the right builds.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*****Faerie Artisans - This creature, at only 4 mana, continuously clones creatures that your opponents play, for no additional mana. However, not all creatures give value, and since you are forced to exile the token, sometimes that creature could do nothing. For example, an opponent could play Consecrated Sphinx and then immediately play Birds of Paradise so you lose your Sphinx token. If an opponent has a big ETB creature (e.g. Terastodon) they will just hold onto it until Artisans leaves play, or if they absolutely have to play the creature. In other words, it will sometimes act as a punisher mechanic. Also, it will generally not affect the hypercompetitive circles as those don't have as many ETB value creatures and are more infinite combos/hyperstax. To improve this card's floor, play some flicker effects, so you can flicker the artisan at will which will let you keep the last token it made (which can also catch people off guard; e.g. in the above example, flicker your artisan before Birds resolves so you keep your Consecrated Sphinx token). It is an extremely powerful card and has the potential to take over a game by itself, but there are some situations where it's not that good.
My decks that I would play it in: Blue creature decks with ETB/flicker theme
***Grip of Phyresis - Is that germ token holding sword of fire and ice? That's amazing. In any case, making this instant speed makes this very interesting. It can throw off a lot of math (were you relying on untapping your lands with sword of feast and famine?). Depending on the attacker and the equipment you steal, you can actually eat the attacker. You likely want to be a voltron deck so you can guarantee that whatever equipment you steal will still retain value (strap the stolen equipment onto your general) but it should be solid.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Manifold Insights - Very few punisher mechanics are playable. I'm not sure this is one of them. If you can argue some politics you could convince an opponent to give you a key card ("Give me this removal spell to kill this permanent or else we lose"). Also this does say "nonland", and any spell is generally better than nothing. If you are intentionally playing a low-power deck you could also maybe convince people to give you certain cards you want. Again, I tend to not like punisher mechanics, but you could try it out in your playgroup and see how it fares.
My decks that I would play it in: None
RED
****Divergent Transformations - Red double Polymorph at instant speed. You likely will be targeting your own creatures (much like Polymorph) and you will need to build around it. Of course polymorph is powerful when built around, and opening it to red makes for some interesting things.
My decks that I would play it in: Prossh (with some major changes)
**Frenzied Fugue - Most theft effects are 3 mana (and are also not that great), so this costing 4 is a bummer. You do get any permanent though, which includes planeswalkers, that cool Mana reflection, etc.
My decks that I would play it in: None
*Goblin Spymaster - This sounds strong on paper. Your opponents get a creature that forces all of their creatures to attack. However since the token is generated at that opponent's end step, it actually takes 2 turns - from the time you play this guy to the time where the forcing attack occurs. This card is only 3 mana so it's hard to ask for more, but that's pretty slow. On top of that, if they have a sac outlet, it actually will do more harm than good. Then, because the creatures can still attack you, they could just run you over. Basically unless your opponents are bad at the game and don't run sac outlets, this can backfire horrendously. The potential of this card prevents it from being unplayable, but it's going to take serious work.
My decks that I would play it in: None
**Runehorn Hellkite - Nekusar and similar decks will want this wheel effect. Maybe monored because monored has terrible draw options. It's awkward that it doesn't do anything while it's in play so you probably just want to put it in the graveyard all the time though.
My decks that I would play it in: None
4-COLOR GENERALS
(NULL-RED)
****Atraxa, Praetor's voice - That's a lot of keywords, making it a decent overall midrange general. Proliferate is also a nice ability. It doesn't really feel like a 4-color card, but it's not bad to play to gain the colors, and proliferate gives you just enough build around, particularly superfriends (losing out on red means you don't get peeps like Dack Fayden and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which sucks).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-GREEN)
****Breya, Etherium Shaper - This does feel sort of 4-color minus green, since it cares about artifacts and green hates artifacts the most of the 5 colors. Regardless, it's a decent token generator but the sac outlet costing 2 mana AND two artifacts is too much so you likely won't be triggering it often. Then again, there are lots of nice sac outlets (Krark-Clan Ironworks) so it's not the end of the world. Giving you red does make her significantly different than Sharuum or Sydri while likely being a similar power level, which means she'll likely be strong.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(NULL-BLACK)
*Kynaios and Terio of Meletis - For a 4-color general I was hoping for something more than a plain group hug card and it doesn't even give you any control over how to hug (the opponents can either ramp or card draw and they choose which one). You can play them for the colors, but more often than not actually casting these guys will actively hurt you.
My decks that I would play it in: None
(NULL-BLUE)
**Saskia the Unyielding - You can double up your damage on one player, or try and take down two separate players at once. However 3-power for 4 mana isn't even that aggressive without some kind of evasion. It doesn't provide mana or card advantage and it's not even very aggressive on its own, so you need support cards to do anything. Play it if you want the colors, but it's a very underwhelming card.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
(NULL-WHITE)
****Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - So nevermind the fact that the name sounds similar to Maelstrom Wanderer. This is certainly a powerful card. Note that unlike Maelstrom Nexus, ALL your spells you cast this turn gain cascade. Also, multiple instances of cascade stack (again, see Wanderer) so if you give this double strike, or additional combat phases, you can add even more cascades to a single spell. Play spells that have alternate casting costs or ways to reduce their casting cost (Snuff Out, Pyrokinesis, Dismember, some of the cards in this set that have cost reduction like Curtains' Call, etc.) to help maximize the number of spells you can cast that will trigger cascade. You can also play fewer cards that would be dead cascades (Green Sun's Zenith won't be stellar and Arcane Denial won't be as good, but you won't cascade into Chord of Calling on spells that are 3 or less mana).
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
PARTNER GENERALS
(AZORIUS)
***Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker - Starts off small but opponents cast a lot of spells every round so this thing can quickly grow out of control. This seems decently aggressive and Azorius doesn't get many of those, which will allow you to build UW in an interesting voltron-ish way.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
(IZZET)
***Kraum, Ludevic's Opus - Wizards' refusal to make a UR artifact general is frustrating, but let's ignore that for now. Flying + haste on a 4/4 for 5 is decent stats for voltron on its own, and many players do cast 2+ spells a turn, which makes it not bad at drawing cards. However given its aggressive stats, people may kill this because they don't want to get voltron'd out, which means the card draw effect is more of a bonus, and you likely want to play this card more for the fact that it's a relatively aggressive general. UR doesn't really have a voltron general and it'll be interesting if this will fill that role.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
**Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist - While I'm not as high on lore as some other people, this card is quite disappointing for someone who is supposed to be a "Necro-Alchemist". When I hear "Necro-Alchemist", I'm expecting actual necromancy things, not some weird group hug effect.
My decks that I would play it in: Zedruu
(BOROS)
***Akiri, Line-Slinger - Boros is an underwhelming guild for EDH, but this could be aggressive enough to get the job done. If you don't have green, you often are relying on mana rocks for ramp (though this guy is very low-costed so you probably don't need that many, but it's still important to have some so you can play some of your other expensive cards and also recast this guy after he dies a couple times). If you're voltron, you will be using equipment to bolster him. Recent sets also have some ways to produce artifacts cheaply, namely investigate (Thraben Inspector) and fabricate (Angel of Invention). Getting up to 3-4 artifacts already makes him cost efficient (3 artifacts make him a 2-mana 3/3 first strike and vigilance) and that shouldn't be hard to do to start getting the beats on.
My decks that I would play it in: New deck with this as the general
**Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder - Double strike is very potent in voltron, which is presumably what kind of decks want this guy. Since he can target himself with the ability it makes him a decent voltron general as well. Lifelink is fine too but the double strike is where its at. To really push through damage though you need flying or trample (or just straight up make it unblockable).
My decks that I would play it in: None
MISC MULTICOLOR
*Migratory Route - Meh.
My decks that I would play it in: None
ARTIFACTS/LANDS
****Armory Automaton - This card will be sneaky annoying. You likely only want to play it in voltron decks as it will guarantee that you'll have good equipment to strap to it, but what makes it scary is how it can strip off ANY equipments, including opponents' stuff. Many people run lightning greaves/swiftfoot boots, or Sword of X and Y. Notably, it can force those equipment off to leave the previous wearers vulnerable. This is also ignoring the fact that you can get a hit in to trigger any valuable effects. The opponents can move the equipment off later, but they will often need to spend mana to do so. Against the right opponents, this will be supremely annoying.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
*Boompile - Sweepers that only have a 50% chance of working cannot be relied on to save you. It is 4 less mana total than Oblivion Stone (3 to play and 5 to activate) but I'll take reliability over that 4 mana discount. At least Oblivion Stone will do something when I want it to.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
**Conqueror's Flail - While it's more potent in 4 or 5 color decks, you can play it as a Grand Abolisher type of card, with the difference being in what cards kill these permanents. Of course since it doesn't do anything unless it's equipped, the creature can be killed in response to the equip. Ultimately unless you don't have white and can't play Abolisher, you likely want to be 4 or 5 color before you bother with this, and you probably want a voltron general as well where the pump effect matters more.
My decks that I would play it in: None.
***Crystalline Crawler - If you have a +1/+1 counter theme this is not bad to dump it on to store mana. Since it color fixes you to an extent you could just play it in normal 5-color as well though it's not great there. Thankfully with the change to the mana generation rule, your 2 and 3 color decks can converge this for 4 if you have the right lands out (City of Brass, Darksteel ingot, etc.).
My decks that I would play it in: Some?
***Prismatic Geoscope - Obviously this is almost entirely for 4 and 5-color. If you're 3-color you're better off with Gilded Lotus and unless you need multiples of that effect you won't need this card. Even in 4/5-color, ETBing tapped sucks, but it often will give you perfect mana, though it won't be great for 4/5-color budget builds; you really do need the fetchland + shockland/ABU dual combination. Also one of the reasons to play mana rocks is to give you some protection against Armageddon and similar cards, where this being unable to tap for much mana is a problem.
My decks that I would play it in: Progenitus
****Ash Barrens - This surprisingly looks solid for budget decks that rely on Evolving Wilds or terramorphic expanse for color fixing, and is likely better than those two cards. All three of these cards technically cost you one mana (Wilds and Expanse's basic land ETBs tapped, this costs 1 to cycle) but this can provide you colorless mana if necessary whereas Wilds/Expanse always "cost" 1 mana. Its weakness of course is if this is your only land in your hand it doesn't really color fix you, but that means you have a 1-lander and those are difficult to keep anyway. I'm rating this highly solely because of budget reasons. If you aren't budget then don't play this card. I'm also assuming the card will be budget (like, same price as wilds/expanse).
My decks that I would play it in: All budget decks that are 3-5 colors
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Stranglehold
+ Fevered Visions
+ Thought Vessel
+ Imprisoned in the Moon
- Act of Authority
- Weathered Wayfarer
- Perplexing Chimera
- Wayfarer's Bauble
- 1 plains
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Thanks for all the input.
TLDR
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Restoration Specialist
Baral, Chief of Compliance
Baral's Expertise
Disallow
Trophy Mage
Whir of Invention
Heroic Intervention
Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Paradox Engine (will likely get banned)
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Restoration Specialist
Baral, Chief of Compliance
Baral's Expertise
Disallow
Trophy Mage
Whir of Invention
Paradox Engine
Here is my review for this set. I will go over any card that has any sort of interest, or could draw unwarranted interest (e.g. the card looks powerful but has some costs that are too difficult to overcome that people may try to work around and be disappointed with).
* = I don't think this card will be played outside of very fringe/budget decks
** = Will appear once in awhile but is generally outclassed, or is for very specific decks.
*** = Keep an eye out on this card. Appears highly volatile in terms of playability.
**** = New staple in EDH. Either a flexible card for many decks, or extremely potent for specific decks.
***** = Will have a massive impact on EDH. If you're in these colors you're likely playing it.
If I don't talk about a card that is in the set that's because either it's a reprint or I think it's not going to do anything at all.
(I'm using my Progenitus topic to go over all the cards that pique my interest for various builds, and then largely copying/pasting it into my other topics, so if it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time talking about cards that have no potential in a particular build, it's because of that)
WHITE
*Call for Unity - Play Cathars' Crusade instead.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Consulate Crackdown - It's similar to Vandalblast in that it hits all artifacts except yours. Comparable to many other artifact sweepers in general as well, such as Creeping Corrosion. Of course this has its ups and downs; exiling is useful as many artifact decks have graveyard recursion, but the artifacts all come back once this is removed.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Exquisite Archangel - Similar to Resolute Archangel, where they're 7-mana angels that alter your life total in a noticeable way. Personally this doesn't impress me, as most of the time you lose because of an infinite combo which doesn't care about something that lets you restart your life total.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Felidar Guardian - Similar to Restoration Angel, but blinking any permanent you control (other than itself) instead of non-angel creature can lead to some hilarious things (e.g. he goes infinite with Saheeli Rai so we get splinter twin combo T4 kills in standard lulz). The lack of flash and the lower stats (lower power, no flying) are notable drawbacks, but there are nice interactions with being able to blink the things that restoration angel can't get (e.g. blink a mana rock), and being a little easier on the wallet is nice too.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Derevi
****Restoration Specialist - For essentially 1WW you recur an artifact plus enchantment, which actually is quite strong. Most creatures only do one or the other. As an extra bonus you get to decide when to pull the "trigger".
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Various white decks, preferably with creature recursion
***Sram, Senior Edificer - Vehicles are still not that playable in EDH, so it's just drawing cards off your aura and equipment spells, which is still not bad for voltron decks. It's a similar card to Kor Spiritdancer and Puresteel Paladin - 2-mana dudes that help draw cards in your voltron decks. It should slot in decently in said voltron decks or possibly be a monowhite voltron general.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Sram's Expertise - Making a bunch of 1/1s is whatever at 4-mana, so you really want to be cheating in something cool, and you still have to care about the tokens.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
BLUE
*Aethertide Whale - Generates a lot of energy upon ETB but does nothing much besides that.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Baral, Chief of Compliance - Goblin Electromancer with upside and only one color will be quite sick. Obviously for spellslinger decks, but it will be an automatic include in them. The second ability might make it also playable in a control/counterspell control deck as the loot ability is nice too.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Baral's Expertise - One of the best in the cycle, as it affects the board in a meaningful and flexible way while also giving a free spell, which helps make this slot into a lot of different blue decks as a decent value/tempo card. Being able to bounce artifacts is also very relevant. Bounce three threats and cheat in a Rhystic Study or Jace isn't too bad.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
****Disallow - Voidslime for 1UU instead of GUU will see good amounts of play. Having flexible counterspells is always nice to have. It won't be a broken card but it will be solid.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: most blue decks
*Efficient Construction - It's unfortunate this isn't an artifact itself, but regardless it's a slow but fair way to slowly pump out artifacts. Most artifact combos are just looping from the graveyard over and over again though and not hardcasting much of anything so this likely won't see much play.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Illusionist's Stratagem - +1 mana over Displace for a cantrip. The cantrip probably isn't worth it at this point, as 4-mana starts to get quite pricy.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Mechanized Production - Way too slow and vulnerable for EDH. I wouldn't play this even if Phyrexian Metamorph or Sculpting Steel didn't exist, but the fact that those two cards do exist means this card is straight unplayable. It will be funny if you ever win the game with this (note that your 8+ copies of the artifact do not have to be whatever you enchanted, all the card cares about is if you have 8+ copies of any artifact) but shigs and tiggles don't make you more playable.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Metallic Rebuke - Mana Leak is not bad if you're in a tight meta where mana curves are lower and people often won't have 3 open to pay for their spell. However, you need to improvise for at least 1 before it becomes mana leak and only for 2 does it actually become better, meaning this is not a great early play, and being a great early play is the exact reason why mana leak was so good.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Quicksmith Spy - Maybe it has an infinite combo with something?
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Reverse Engineer - If you improvise for 1 it becomes Concentrate, though you really want to improvise for 3 before you really want to consider playing this. Improvising for only two means it's still generally worse than Thirst for Knowledge, the standard 3-mana draw-three spell for artifact decks.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Skyship Bandit - Literally Thrummingbird except it's a 2/1 instead of a 1/1. The extra point of power has some uses, mostly in being able to trade with 2 toughness creatures, but if your deck doesn't want Thrummingbird, it very likely doesn't want this either.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*****Trophy Mage - Obvious brother (or sister in this case) to Trinket Mage and Treasure Mage, two cards that see massive amounts of play. There are tons of 3-mana artifacts to get, such as Ashnod's Altar, Mimic Vat, Sword of X and Y, many mana rocks, Cloudstone Curio, and the list goes on. 3-mana is always the fair spot for tutors, especially when it comes with a body. Pick up your foils fast because this will be a staple. Like many of these 3-mana dudes that tutor for something, Trophy mage won't be broken, but it will become a staple.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Any blue deck with 2+ critical 3-mana artifacts
*****Whir of Invention - It's obviously a Chord of Calling for artifacts. Chord is a 5-star card and this will easily be another 5-star card as well. With Chord, you don't even need to convoke, just tutoring up a creature at instant speed is strong, and the convoke just made it ridiculous. This will be the same thing; you don't need to abuse the improvise part of the card, it's still going to be very good. The only difference is that Chord's convoke cost allowed you to tap green creatures to pay for the triple green, whereas there aren't many blue artifacts you can improvise, meaning you'll often have to pay at least the triple blue. Still, it's going to be strong.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Any blue deck with critical artifacts
RED
**Indomitable Creativity - Really huge polymorph-variant must be interesting, right? Well this one seems like it'll be very difficult to abuse. While you can target artifacts or creatures, revealing either one will satisfy the card. For example, if you wanted to kill 4 of your dumb creature tokens, you might end up revealing underwhelming artifacts instead of these huge creatures you wanted to flip over, and vice versa. If you played something like Divergent Transformations instead, which only cares about creatures, you will instead keep flipping until you hit creatures, making it easier to cheat in bombs. This means this card seems more like a multi-kill spell that gives the controller something in return at random, rather than something you can build around and be able to cheat in a fattie with the proper deckbuilding. Given that monored has problems killing large creatures this might still see play, but it's not going to be as good as your normal Polymorph-type card.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Kari Zev, Skyship Raider - She's a lower CMC Geist of Saint Traft who doesn't hit as hard and can be killed with spot removal, but is a little harder to kill in actual combat. She'll be interesting in standard, but it doesn't seem like she'll be enough for EDH as a voltron. She comes down early and is hard to block, but she needs serious equipment/aura to boost her power and she can still be killed with removal spells.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Kari Zev's Expertise - This might be the most interesting of the cycle not because the Threaten effect is bonkers, but the fact that it's the lowest CMC of the cycle, meaning if you want to go out of your way to abuse Ancestral Vision or the like, this is the best of the cycle to do so.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Lightning Runner - Extra attack steps can be strong in the right build, but because you need so much energy for it, there's not many places that can use this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Pia's Revolution - Punisher mechanics are not good in EDH, but this is at a low enough CMC and is repeatable where either choice the opponent makes is generally acceptable. It's similar to Combustible Gearhulk in that you get to target the opponent who has to make the choice, so you can target the guy at a low life total if you want to recur an artifact.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Quicksmith Rebel - Granting an artifact an ability while this guy is in play is cool design, although just poking something for 2 damage isn't that useful in EDH.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Release the Gremlins - There are a bunch of cards that destroy multiple artifacts, and I feel like there are enough of them that are more efficient than this card. It's a nice mana sink late in the game, but it is very inefficient early-midgame, so I would rather play Shattering Spree, Vandalblast, etc.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
MULTICOLOR
**Maverick Thopterist - This guy will be quite fun in draft, as the thopters you make can help cast additional maverick thopterists, assuming you draft multiples. In any case, he's like an easier to cast Breya, Etherium Shaper albeit without any extra abilities. If you can improvise for 2-3 he's certainly not bad, and will likely be good in budget artifact decks. He may be good enough in normal artifact decks but it seems unlikely since he himself is not an artifact.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Spire Patrol - Mini-Frost Titan looks underwhelming. Despite being 2 less mana and with flying, it is 2 colors, and it only taps when it ETBs, and it only affects creatures, and it doesn't have any sort of protection (albeit you probably don't care if a 4-drop with an ETB effect has protection, but still).
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
ARTIFACT
***Cogwork Assembler - 7-mana for its activation is very hefty, so I imagine it'll be used for infinite combos or something as the ability doesn't require tapping. For example, Krark-Clan ironworks + Myr Battlesphere + this card = infinite colorless mana. Of course artifact decks generally don't have problems generating mana (unless they get hit with a sweeper) and so maybe this being a mana dump will make it good, I don't know.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Crackdown Construct - With any ability that requires no cost to activate and isn't a mana ability, you can get an infinite power and toughness artifact creature, and I'm sure there's a lot of things you can do with that. In standard we get Wandering Fumarole for lulz which is funny as hell, and I know there are other things you can do.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Gonti's Aether Heart - Seems not bad if you're focused on generating energy. If you want to play this card with the idea of taking an extra turn, you'll probably be disappointed, as you would be better off just playing Time Warp effects or something.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Heart of Kiran - Simple beatsticks in EDH don't cut it.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Hope of Ghirapur - Legendary version of Xantid Swarm. You need to have this actually connect while Xantid Swarm just needs to attack, and while this does have flying and is only a 1-drop, it's going to be hard for a 1/1 to force through damage, and you need to sacrifice this for the effect, and it only stops noncreature spells. Granted, this does last for a full turn cycle while Xantid Swarm was more like a Grand Abolisher placed on one player for just the rest of the turn. I guess being legendary maybe you can make colorless voltron or something, but I don't know. Xantid Swarm is better when you attack a player with counterspells to help resolve a combo, whereas this is more like a stax piece on the control/storm player, but this is fairly clunky unless you can play it really early and continuously recur it. It is a relatively unique effect so it isn't unplayable, but I wouldn't be excited to test this out.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Inspiring Statuary - Most artifact decks don't have a problem generating mana, especially if this card only helps power out nonartifact spells which an artifact deck won't have a ton of (especially those that cost a lot of mana). Still, it is something to keep your eye on.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Lifecrafter's Bestiary - Essentially it's a bad Glimpse of Nature, but Glimpse of Nature was more like a deck that enabled storm decks/combo and that kind of thing, whereas this is more of a card that just gives all your creature spells "Kicker G, draw a card". Still should be playable in any case. You obviously want a high number of creatures, maybe 30-40 or more, before you should even consider this.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Merchant's Dockhand - It's a hefty mana cost per turn and tapping some artifacts can be annoying, but it is only 1-mana. Doesn't sound exciting but I imagine there are worse things you can play.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Metallic Mimic - If you have a tribal theme this should be fine for just 2-mana, though it's more for weenie decks as I don't think something like Dragon tribal really needs +1/+1 counters on them.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
BANNEDParadox Engine - I'm not even going to spend much time talking about this card. It's going to get banned really fast. I would be shocked if the RC doesn't ban it. Prophet of Kruphix got hammered and it isn't nearly as insane as this. It combos with way too many things, namely a bunch of mana rocks and/or mana dorks + some dumb enabler. Buyback cards like Capsize becomes bounce everything you want. Put something stupid like Think twice under an Isochron Scepter and it draws your deck. There are tons of combos, and none of them are good for the game. Play the crap out of this card and have fun with it until it gets banned.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: Probably everything pending budget
*Peacekeeper Colossus - Most vehicles are still not particularly playable as many of them don't do much except beat face. I guess it might be nice in Depala in case you can't use her to crew vehicles for whatever reason.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Planar Bridge - Obvious parallel to Planar Portal right down to the name. Both are artifacts that cost 6 to hardcast, and this one is 8 mana instead of 6 to find your card and only for permanents but you do put it into play immediately (e.g. sneak in Blightsteel Colossus end of turn). These types of cards are fine in big mana decks that need mana sinks.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Renegade Map - I'd rather play Wanderer's Twig or Mycosynth Wellspring if I wanted these cheap artifacts that got me basic lands.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Scrap Trawler - Artifact recursion for no additional costs at just 3 mana upfront is not bad. There are some restrictions but it is repeatable, and it should do some nice work.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
*Servo Schematic - Similar to Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring in that they're 2-mana artifacts that do the same thing upon ETB or hitting the graveyard. Here though I think making a 1/1 flier is worse than drawing a card or fetching a basic land to ensure your next land drop.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Treasure Keeper - Similar to Matter Reshaper except you add one mana, remove the colorless requirement, and there are fewer restrictions on the free card you get when it dies (any nonland card that is CMC 3 or less can be cast for free). Seems decent.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
***Universal Solvent - Decks get another way to deal with problematic permanents that their colors won't allow them to (e.g. black/red vs enchantments), and it's another tool for Trinket Mage, and is another object that can be recurred with Salvaging Station. Unassuming card that most decks won't play because it is overcosted, but if your deck/colors are desperate it should be good, and artifact decks don't really have problems generating the necessary mana.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
**Walking Ballista - Functions similarly to Triskelion. Interestingly enough if you pay 6 it ETBs with three +1/+1 counters which is the same as Triskelion. The difference is obviously that Triskelion is better for infinite combos as it always ETBs with the counters while cheating this into play doesn't do anything. It's kind of more like Hangarback walker as they are playable artifact creatures with XX costs.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
LAND
***Spire of Industry - Glimmervoid that requires you to pay 1 life to get the colored mana, but it doesn't disappear if you have zero artifacts in play. It's usually worse than Glimmervoid; 1 life isn't much, but they can add up, and it's not that hard to have at least 1 artifact in play if you are the kind of deck that actually wants to play Glimmervoid. Still, artifact decks likely want to play this anyway, and this could be passable in non-artifact decks although there are usually going to be better options.
MY DECKS THAT I WOULD PLAY IT IN: None
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Gonna try something a little different for my set review.
Instead of just copying and pasting my review of the cards that match the deck's colors, I'm just going to link to my Progenitus review (which covers all cards I think will be relevant for EDH) and then put the summary in my respective topics.
Amonkhet
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS OVERALL (no particular build or deck)
Anointed Procession
As Foretold
Pull from Tomorrow
Shadow of the Grave
Harsh Mentor
Harvest Season
Manglehorn
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
MOST EXCITING/INTERESTING/RELEVANT CARDS FOR THIS DECK
Pull from Tomorrow
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Also, some of the best things to donate are enchantments (things that can hurt opponents like illusions of grandeur and pyromancer's swath, to things who don't care about who its controller is like Oblivion Ring, etc.) and trader can't donate those off.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)