NOTICE: I have not worked on this deck for some time. I want to slowly get back to it, so the old primer will be in a spoiler if you wish to look at it, but it is very out dated.
Ixidor was a powerful illusionist and a well-known pit champion, but he lost all his fame and fortune after his love Nivea was killed by Phage in a Cabal pit fight.
After the fight, he was banished to a desert for failing to pay his debts to the Cabal. There he discovered his powers to create real things instead of just illusions (this was in fact the power of the numena Lowallyn, who was reincarnated within him.) He used his newfound abilities to create a bizarre paradise for himself, shaped entirely by his mind's whims. He also created an army led by Akroma to wage war on the Cabal in order to get revenge on Phage for killing Nivea. From WikiSalvation
"Arise from your slumber. We have lots of work to do."
A first glance at Ixidor is often a dismissive one. He is a legendary creature, um, yeah, but he supports a weak mechanic that is very outclasses in Commander. There is no way you could put him in a competitive deck. Please. I’ll make you a believer. I think the question you should be asking is, why wouldn't you play him? We got a decent 3/4 body that costs 5 to cast. He pumps up morph creatures (I’ll get to them soon) and even shaves down some of the more expensive costs. Ixidor allows you to play with Morph creatures. Morph creatures. How cool is that?!? What other general allows you to support a Morph theme? Ha, thought so. Ixidor also allows you to be the ultimate machine of deception and tricks on the table. In every game, your opponents will be guessing what those faceless creatures are.
You may like playing Ixidor if:
You like being Tricky
You like being Unique
You want to play Blue without locking out the entire board.
You believe you can run blue with little to no counterspells.
Surprising your opponents and making them fall for traps gives you a fuzzy feeling.
My name is Roheen and my alias is Rhakee. I am a seasoned Commander player (Or at least I tell myself that to make me feel better). I've been playing Magic since 9th Edition (Laugh all you want) and I have been playing Commander for about two years now. I've always had a casual view towards Magic and never really got into the Competitive scene. My usual playgroup consists of Draven and Fran, two of my best friends. Us three make up my playgroup, with the occasional guy from the shop. I bounce back and forth between Kitchen Table, Modern, and Standard. Once the Commander Precons came out, my English Teacher (of all people) offered for me to come to a Commander night. I threw together a Dranlu deck with like 40 commons and 5 rares, and went to town. Since then, I’ve ran all kinds of generals, strategies, and color combinations of the color pie. My story with Ixidor is actually an odd one.
One day, Draven and I saw him in one of the sale binders at my shop. Drave joked about Ixidor being a “good” Commander. I never heard about Ixidor and looked him up on the Wiki. I was moved by his love story. Made me think, why couldn’t you make a Commander deck with him at the helm? I toyed with the idea for a couple of months, looking at all the mono-blue morph creatures and mono blue Commander strategies. I decided to throw some cards together and test it. I started testing Ixidor with some aggro elements. Didn’t work. Tried cutting out the morph creatures and throwing in a control package. Didn’t work either. Finally decided to use bouncers to reuse my morph creatures. I tested it out once again. And that’s when I fell in love with Ixidor. I realized he was the perfect general for me. Someone unique, casual, who can kick major butt. I told Fran, the other member of our playgroup, that I made him as my number one general. He laughed. Until I played him. Now he has sworn Ixidor as his mortal enemy. Who could blame him? Over time, the deck was tuned and revamped. Now, it runs like a dream.
Before I get into the decklist, I would like to state my playstyle. I am a Vorthos to the max. I am all about the flavor and creativity a Commander brings to the table. This is why I love Ixidor so much. He is unique, and everyone gives me props when I slap him out. Even when I win a game, people will still be happy that they played something new. Something different. That is what I look for in a Commander. Now, with that said, I am a very anti-political player to some extent. I’m not the player that gets the table going. I don’t pump out the threats to. I usually keep to myself and set up defenses immediately. I let the stronger players soften the board. Since this isn't a aggro deck, I rarely swing all out with my creatures. Instead, I lend my services to struggling players, or players that are poorly developed. I use bounce spells to take care of their threats as well as my own. Of course, I never put any other player before myself. If I happen to be getting some beat down, I will focus all resources on keeping me alive. This deck has been tuned and molded to that play style. Of defensive plays, controlling the board to stop massive threats, and on occasion, helping those in need. If you were looking for a selfish, board manipulating deck of doom, this isn’t it. Still, this deck is super fun and I love it with all my heart, and I know you will as well
Lands:
Mana development is the most important part in deck building. After all, lands are the foundation of your plan for world domination. Might as well put some thought into it right? When I build a mana base for decks, I usually focus heavily on color fixing. In a mono colored deck, however, it’s actually pretty simple to color fix, since you only have one color. Duh. But because of this, it left me more room and energy to focus on utility lands. That is, making my mana base a resource as well as producing what I need to cast spells. I run a low count of lands- 35 to be exact. In Commander, that’s a pretty low curve to be busting out spells on. But it actually works for this kind of deck. Since most of your creatures are weenies, and you have numerous artifacts to double mana or add significant amounts, lands in the late game become dead. I have a number of cards that can use your dead draws to good use, but that still doesn’t change the fact that in the late game I got a hand full of Islands. That’s why I run a low curve.
Snow-Covered Islands are our bread and butter of the mana base. Count as basic Islands, synergize with Scrying Sheets as a drawing/ramping engine. If you can’t get your hands on 28-30 of these, then normal Islands work just as fine, simply cut the snow package.
Riptide Laboratory and Academy Ruins are vital recursion engines. The Lab allows us to reuse any wizard we have (if they happen to have a ETB ability) or save them from board wipes. There happens to be quite a few Wizards in the deck, including Ixidor himself. Why counter a kill spell, when you can return the wizard to your hand and simply let the spell fizz out? Academy Ruins allows us to recur very important artifacts from our graveyard. This is important, since our build heavily depends on artifacts, for ramp or bouncing.
Strip Mine and Ghost Quarter are our answers for problematic lands. Coffers? Please, you’re not ramping up anytime soon! Lands happen to be, for the most part, out of our reach of answers. So these two lands can help get rid of any of those lands.
Lonley Sandbar goes back to my point of having lands in your hand in the late game. In the early game, it’s a minor loss of tempo. In the late game, it’s a free draw. Doesn’t hurt to have. Temple of the False God is another utility land for the late game, that allows us to get a little extra edge in the arms race for mana.
Reliquary Tower is another good utility land. I often play all my spells and creatures and don’t have the issue of having too many cards in my hand. This deck doesn’t draw mad amounts of cards. Instead, we draw just enough to dig for answers or to play out creatures. But just in case, there is the tower.
Laslty, we have Zoetic Cavern. In most other decks, they run it as a creature in the late game. In our deck: it is part of our army. Counting as a morph creature, Ixidor can pump it up. I sometimes even whip this guy out in the early game to put on the early pressure. Opponents get pretty shocked when they spend their kill spell on it, and end up destroying a land.
Artifacts:
Artifacts serve numerous purposes. Ramping is an important one. We got everything in our robot package, from stupid ramp (Sol Ring) to game enders (Akroma’s Memorial). With artifacts, we gain the majority of support of our morph creatures.
Draven-“That’s seriously unfair. I love it!”
Some of this support comes from mana reducers, such as Dream Chisel and Cloud Key. The Chisel is Ixidor’s signature weapon after all, so how could you not include it? Cloud Key gets points for versatility. Usually it is used for creatures, shaving down morph creatures to a measly one mana with the Chisel out as well. Or you could chose another card type if that’s what your planning on utilizing the most in a game.
Ramp is a crucial part of our robot package. Sol Ring is just stupid good and doesn’t need an explanation. Explanar Lens synergizes with our Snow Lands, so we, and only we, can benefit from the Lens. Guilded Lotus gets us some more significant edge. And as if that wasn’t enough with mana doublers and insane ramp, we got Caged Sun, that can even pump up our face up guys. Sigh, we’re too good.
Another thing to consider in our package is bounce outlets. These allow us to reuse our morph creature’s abilities once they’re turned face up. These can also help maximize the effectiveness of ETB triggers. Not only that, we can control the board by bouncing any problematic permanents on the other side of the table. Erratic Portal and Crystal Shard favor your permanents, while Cloudstone Curio can simply ruin someone’s day. No seriously. Ruin. Someone's. Day.
Hand size matters since we're gonna be drawing a buttload of cards. So, what to do when the tower simply isn't enough? Why, thats why we have Venser's Journal! And after we've played all our spells and need to recycle a bit, there is always the Elixir of Immortality
And now, off to the armory we go! View our wonderful (and super limited) selection of weapons and gear. For protecting a Commander or any important creature, we got the good ol’ Lightning Greaves. Now with added haste! And over here, we have the wonderfully powerful Darksteel Plate! Say no to board wipes and removal spells! Next, all the way from Mirr- erm, New Phyrexia, we have the famed Sword of Feast and Famine! Untap all your lands to wreck havoc and play all the spells to your heart’s content! Also able to make Ixidor swing for lethal finally, we have the game ender, the cream to the ice, the Legendary memorial, crafted from Ixidor’s own two hands in memory of his beloved wife, we have Akroma’s Memorial! Make your morph creatures from an army of tricksters to a alpha squad of hardened killers! Hope you enjoyed our tour of Ixidor’s Armory!
Best Morph Creature. Ever.
Creatures:
Creatures. THEE most important part of our build. This seperates us from all other mono blue builds. How you say? We depend on our creatures. Our effect on the board comes from our creatures most of the time. We attack with our creatures. We defend with them. And most of all, we flip the living excrement outta them!
Morph creatures are fascinating and amazing at once. We have a good number of Morph creatures. Each can be played face down for three mana. Now we have a face down creature. Your opponent doesn’t know what it is, and can’t find out. It is actually a rule that opponents cannot touch your morphed creatures until face up or they are destroyed. Pretty cool right? Hands off! Morph creatures give you an extra edge no other creature does: the element of surprise. Your opponent doesn’t know what lies under that card. Could it be just some creature? Perhaps a disruption spell? Or even a counterspell! Or maybe a thief ability. Or maybe it does something devastating when it connects with an opponent. Your opponent has no clue. In addition, there are bigger threats on the field than a face down 2/2. These two factors in their own pretty much secure your morphed creatures from removal. This allows you to set up any shenanigan you want. Your morph creatures are backed up by some of Magic’s most devious and powerful Blue Legends, as well as a couple of Wizards to help you out in your quest of domination through deception. This, gentlemen, is how we play Magic!
Morph creatures, for the most part, fill the roll of utility. Master of the Veil is amazing by letting you reuse any morph creature you wish or need to. Unblinking Bleb allows you to foresee any card coming into your hand. Not only that, it is whenever a creature is turned face up. Pretty neat! And if you needed to run more shenanigans, we got the self flipping copy-engine of Mischievous Quanar.
Solemn Simulacrum is a awesome reusable source of mana at our diabolic fingertips. Wonder gives our creatures what they need so desperately: flying. Our last two utility dudes are all-stars gives you unmatched recursion that can be reused with any bounce outlet. Arcaeomancer and Archbound Reclaimer, come on out!
Disruption is a major highlight of our Morph guys. Voidmage Apprentice and Voidmage Prodigy are countering engines that stop any spell in it’s tracks, whether it be a Commander or board wipe. Willbender could be considered counter, but more so he simply redirects any large spell that harms you or ally. Echo Tracer can bounce your own folks or perhaps a large monster bearing down that you simply can’t deal with. You feel that your opponents are having too much fun at your expense? Brine Elemental can wipe away an opponent’s turn with a blink of a eye. Note that with enough mana and a bounce outlet, you can lock down every turn for your opponent. It’s not too fun and gets pretty boring as a matter of fact. Just lock them out every once in a while. And just for kicks and giggles and if we feel REALLY mean, there is always Patron Wizard.
Our non-Morph disruption consists of good ‘ol Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. He can bring the game to a grinding halt for other disruption players. Aggro players won’t be affected by him too much. He also gives you that extra surprise edge, as if you didn’t need it. Venser, Shaper Savant is more bounce worth your buck that can always be reused with any bounce outlet. Lastly, we have Ixidron. A monster from Ixidor’s very own psyche, this guy pretty much wraths the board and gets huge on top of it. Can be reused, like most other creatures. He also resets all of our face up Morphs.
Draw is always a nice resource to have. Our Morph guys continue to impress with their next talent, drawing you mad advantage. Fathom Seer and Riptide Survivor can fill up your hand quickly. Aphetto Runecaster turns any Morph flipping into advantage. Consecrated Sphinx is a unparalleled staple in mono-blue decks. I cannot being to describe the crazy stuff you can do with this guy. Finally, Azami, Lady of the Scrolls puts any Wizards who are simply standing around to work, grinding out answer from your deck into your hand to be put to use.
Besides, with all of these abilities and features, do we really need more? Oh wait, what is blue without theft?! Riptide Entrancer takes the biggest, fattest creature your opponent controls if she connects. Chromeshell Crab is so good; he even made a camo appearance in the Commander Pre-Cons. Vesuvan Shapeshifter has been a long time favorite of Modern and Legacy players. We now have a reason to run him in Commander, with a self reuse engine built-in. Any these thieves are all lead by Sakashima the Imposter. She can copy ANYONE! Even a Commander! She has a built-in bounce outlet for herself, so she can be reused whenever you please. Legendary rule? What’s that?
Finally, with any creature-based strategy, what would this build be without bombs? Raven Guild Master is a sleeper agent that dishes out massive disadvantage to graveyard-based strategies, and well is simply a griefer to any other build. Ten cards exiled is no small thing. That’s a good chunk of their deck, as well as their strategy. Combo players will cry. No seriously… I made a combo player cry because I exiled one of his pieces. Ah, who cares. On with the point, since we are in the middle of shattering the stereotype of mono-builds, let’s just throw in some dragons, why not? Quicksilver Dragon is virtually untouchable and slips through any defenses to eat an opponent’s face. And finally, for the coup de grait, Weaver of Lies. With Ixidor out, you can reuse all of your morph dudes for as little as three mana. Hells yeah!
“We don’t lock down the board. We stimulate it.”
Planeswalkers:
We are currently only running two Planeswalkers. There are plenty of good mono blue Planeswalkers. One of them happens to be Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Jace is an amazing ‘walker. I mean, look at him. Brainstorm every turn? Simply devastate an opponent in a matter of turns? I could go on and on, but let it go on the record: he is easily one of the most powerful Planeswalkers in the game. And that’s we’re not running him.
I’m not the biggest fan of power creeping, and JTMS is an understatement of power creep. Since he doesn’t quite creep. He just smacks you in the face. Hard. With a chair. Made of steel. Darksteel. With that said, I make my decks balanced to the point where I have a chance of winning, but not to the point of ruining it for everyone else on the table. Commander is a fun and casual format. That’s why I believe the cards you run should effect the board and the game, but not to the point where you dominate unquestionably. Because of this, I personally don’t run THAT Jace. My choice for the Jace slot is an odd one. One that makes people’s heads turn. I run Jace, Architect of Thought. I will be bold and call him one of the most fun and interactive of the ‘walkers. Yeah, I said it. Come at me bro! None of Jace’s abilities lock down the board or eliminate a player with a single stroke of his fancy gloved hands. His first abilty is my favorite, since he softens attacks from across the board. If a player is getting unnecessarily pounded, this is my way of buying them time to develop some answers. No, it’s not called politics. Its called good sportsmanship. His second ability helps me dig when my hand starts getting empty, and his last ability is simple hilarious, though I usually never reach it. Argue all you want, but this is my argument for JAoT.
Jace is flanked by his mortal enemy: Tezzeret, the Seeker. Tezzy helps us with our robot package. His first ability is simply stupid. Oh, Sol Ring now makes four mana per turn. Giggles. Once in a game, a Nin player was getting picked on pretty bad, and his mana base was being poorly developed. I used Tezzeret’s ability to untap his rocks instead of mine, that way he was able to get on his feet faster. He was still taken out, but he was thankful someone teamed up with him briefly. That’s what I love about Tezzy’s first ability. Don’t got a Sol Ring? Or rock? Or even a weapon? You got it, Tezzy’s second ability got you covered. And his last ability, while rarely used, is a fun way to use the dormant artifacts lying around on your field. If I need to push through anymore damage, then I’ll use his ultimate.
Enchantments:
We only have four features enchantments. They are, however, extremely powerful. Enchantments are nice, since they are harder to remove than creatures. They are permanent, and can greatly help you in a game.
It is safe to say, that we are not the strongest aggro deck in town. I believe there are about 50 Commanders that take that title before we even climb onto the bottom of the list. So any protection or help we can get is superb. Propaganda is an amazing card. With this card out, your opponents will see that attacking you, tapping out, only to be chump blocked by some morph creature is not worth their time, and turn to more pressing matters, such as that token army building, or perhaps the combo player who is assembling. Perhaps the guy who is trolling everyone on the table. No matter who is around you, you need time. This give you time.
Ixidor already does a good job of shaving down your creature's morph costs. He let's any morph creature with a flip cost of 3< have a cost of 3. With Training Grounds, now they can be flipped for a simple U. This can let your mana be used for more spells and flip your creatures much more efficiently.
In addition to time, you need answers. And you need them now. Draw is the number one way you’re gonna get these answers. Rhystic Study turns your opponent’s own spells to your advantage or their disadvantage. Coastal Piracy turns all of your morph creatures into a rowdy pirate crew, attacking the enemy for information. Seems pretty fair, right? Using your opponents as your resource is exactly what these enchantments do.
One last thing before we move on. Equilibrium has to be one of the most powerful enchantments printed. Every time you play your morph creature, or any creature for that matter, bounce another. Perhaps an opponents? Perhaps your own. The possibilities are endless. You can gain so much reach and solutions for answers with this card. If this card comes on the field, your opponents better scramble for some sort of removal, or they will soon have no creature presence, letting you swing with ease. Or allow you to maximize the effect of your morphs.
Instants/Sorceries:
Lets start with instants. Instants are a huge part of this build, as well as any other blue build. Instants are those necessary spells that allow you to have reach during an opponent’s turn. With that said, I would like to say some thing about counterspells in blue.
“Has anyone seen my Commander around?”
When people see mono blue, most people think, oh herp derp, this guy is running nothing but control and counterspells. Well, so we are. But it is for the greater good. I mean, blue without counter magic is like green without ramp spells. It's simply what we do. Now stop crying. Spell Crumple is amazing for tucking Commanders and has a built-in reuse package. Hinder has the same ability, and is in here for the same purpose. Cryptic Command, on the other hand, is only used as a counterspell against, again, Commanders. I usually use it for some of its other abilities or reach. And beside our creature counters on a stick, we have the basically free Foil.
The way we get rid of threats? Simple. Removal. Blue, unknown to most people, runs some pretty impressive creature answers. Spin into Myth tucks away any general or troublesome creature. Ovinize is a funny spell I adore, since any creature turns into a sheep. Oh no! He’s gonna attack with a Eldrazi! Oh… oh… no it’s just a sheep. Lamb for dinner tonight! In addition, we have Pongify. Flat out, this creature dies. In it’s place, you’ll get a monkey token. No one cares about tokens, right? Compared to what it was before? Naaaaa. And we have Rite of Replication. Did you know it's quite healthy to kick a Rite on a Consecrated Sphinx? I do it once a week
But what if its not creatures you need an answer to? What if its some other non land permanent? Or perhaps a token army, about to alpha strike you? We got mass bounce for that. Devistation Tide does the job quite well. We also have Wash Out, in which you trade sorcery speed for specific color targeting. I would like to take this moment to shower Cyclonic Rift with praise. Overloading this on an opponent’s turn leaves them with no field and tapped out. This card has saved my butt and won me games more than once. It can completely change the tide of the board.
And for those specific bounces, we got you covered. Chain Vapor can create some fun scenarios with everyone on the table. Capsize is reusable and can target any permanent. Perfect.
Another way spells are vital to us, is digging into our deck for answers. Brainstorm is a amazing draw spell that can help find any answer you need. Blue Sun’s Zenith is reusable draw. Often, you can draw five or more cards once you get it. Don’t be afraid to draw even two or three. You’ll get it back. And at last, we have Fact or Fiction. A win-win card is always nice to have. You can put any opponent in a tight pickle of handing you answers. Or perhaps you can chose an opponent who is getting picked on. They will sort out piles that will give you the most answers to help them. Either way, this card can give you some insane Advantage.
One more thing: Tutors. Blue is somewhat limited in good tutors, but still, we got some hard core spells. Fabricate is cheap and can get us any robot we need. Superb! Do we need a certain spell or answer? Mystic Tutor is there. How about an unconditional tutor, that when combed with draw, can give you any card you want for three mana? We got Long-Term Plans.
And last, but not least, we have Time Warp. Not that we are gonna be asses about it, but sometimes you need that extra turn to push through a win.
You have your general. You have your purpose. You have your tools. Now how do you use all of them? Ixidor is a tricky deck to pilot and requires some thought, like any blue deck. You need to mix the approach of a Aggro deck with a Control deck. I’ll tell you all I can about how to navigate this sea of mischief and shenanigans. Keep in mind that you really need to play with Ixidor a couple of times before you begin to grasp the philosophy of piloting the deck with him at the helm.
Early Game:
This is when you are THEE most vulnerable. Quick aggro, such as Rafiq of the Many or Wort, the Raidmother, will demolish you and set you back. If you are facing one of these decks, pray there is a bigger threat than you. Which thankfully, there usually is. Ixidor, unlike most mono-blue Commanders, don’t paint a target on your head. Even uncommon blue generals draw some hate due towards the common view of blue: if you don’t kill them, they’re gonna lock you down. Ixidor, unlike other blue generals, doesn’t draw any hate, since they look at his abilities and say… really? Okay, I’ll deal with you, once I get Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. With that out of the way, your number one agenda is to ramp. Numerous artifacts can come down early and add some more mana into your pool. Some of these artifacts can be used for other purposes later in the game. The deck utilizes mana rocks so they aren’t dead draws in the late game. Playing a morph creature or two wouldn’t hurt, but don’t expect to do any damage.
Mid Game:
This is a very important aspect of the game. Now, you have numerous rocks out, your hand is stuffed with goodies and you have one or two morph creatures on the field. Your opponents have finished their early game assault and are now recuperating. Don’t take this as an opportunity to attack. Ixidor does not, and I mean, does NOT win fast and dish out large amount of damage. Your morph creatures deal small amounts, flipped or not. They can only chip away at an opponent’s life total. Other player’s jobs are to do the heavy lifting. You simply sneak in an attack now and then. Now, start dropping more morph creatures and bring out Ixidor to pump them and help flip them for cheap. Assemble bounce outlets and begin some healthy flipping.
Late Game:
Crucial moment in the game. By this point, usually, one opponent is down, or close to dying. You are half way there, and your other opponents are weak from assaulting one another. You yourself have taken a number of devastating hits. Now, you need to lock down the board. Establish control and bounce your opponents’ creatures back to their hands. Get rid of troublesome permanents, or reduce them to sorcery speed only. Get in those last points of damage any way you can. Slap a sword on Ixidor and go to town. With the board under your control and a small army of shapeshifters, victory is yours!
In closing, I would simply like to thank a good number of people. Ace from Ace of Spades Studios has lent us his amazing talent and work with the banner which was better than I ever though of. MiffledMoogle, bGnomes, and especially Zephynoir deserve a bear hug for helping me develop this deck from a run down, not going anywhere build to what it is today. I also need to thank the Moderators as well as the Primer Gurus, Gaka, ISBPathfinder, and SuperSonik, whose work inspired me to write this. And one last thanks to everyone on the forums for their input and help. You guys are the best! Rhakee out
Here I'll put everything extra about the deck. This includes stories, fan art, special links, or anything else for my fellow Reality Sculptors.
You know, Ixidor is already a unique commander when he comes onto the field. People stop and look at you, think your crazy, or give you mad props for running a deck with him at the helm. But still, Ixidor can be more explosive and bolder than he already is. How? Make him more unique than he already is. So without further ado, I present you with my very own custom art Ixidor, the Reality Sculptor, painted by me!! I know I'm a amateur, but still, it feels nice to have a Cmmander you can honestly call your own. So, here he is
Ref. Vivi from Final Fantasy
Also, an older version of this decklist was featured in Carlos Gutierrez's article "5 Decks You Can't Miss this Week". I am very honored and thank him from the bottom of my heart. You can find the link below:
I love Ixidor. Lore, flavor. THis guy has it all. I wish they would have made another copy of him in Time Spiral that was also mono blue but with an ability to flip creatures back down as well. My only complaint about him though! =)
I don't have long as I worked a long day today, but I was thinking with Aphetto Alchemist You could run Gilded Lotus and Freed from the Real to make infinite blue mana? =) I realize its a 3 card combo, but to me it makes it more fair.
I will probably post more tomorrow as I want to actually order cards for my Ixidor list. ^^
I love Ixidor. Lore, flavor. THis guy has it all. I wish they would have made another copy of him in Time Spiral that was also mono blue but with an ability to flip creatures back down as well. My only complaint about him though! =)
I don't have long as I worked a long day today, but I was thinking with Aphetto Alchemist You could run Gilded Lotus and Freed from the Real to make infinite blue mana? =) I realize its a 3 card combo, but to me it makes it more fair.
I will probably post more tomorrow as I want to actually order cards for my Ixidor list. ^^
Fellow reality sculptor!! I'm glad to learn there is more than one!
Im not a very big combo player, especially 3 pieces. The other thing is, there is VERY little I'd use infinite mana in this deck. But thanks! Ny other suggestions? If you need help with your list just ask (:
I feel like Dream Chisel could be better supported. Cloud Key does the same thing for all creatures. Crystal Shard is good with a lot of morph guys. Fact or Fiction is much better than Foresee, and much more fun.
I feel like Dream Chisel could be better supported. Cloud Key does the same thing for all creatures. Crystal Shard is good with a lot of morph guys. Fact or Fiction is much better than Foresee, and much more fun.
Hmmm Thanks for the input! I'll make a note to add those cards
I also have an Ixidor deck, although I suppose I try to abuse the morphs a bit harder without many combos besides the Vesuvan-Brine one. You may want to try Coastal Piracy if your goal is to attack.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
I also have an Ixidor deck, although I suppose I try to abuse the morphs a bit harder without many combos besides the Vesuvan-Brine one. You may want to try Coastal Piracy if your goal is to attack.
How do you abuse the morph mechanic. I'm still new with this build and would love to know how to stretch and use morph to its full extent. I like Coastal Piracy. Let me try that.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Hey, I like the list and Ixidor has been one of my favorite cards ever since I started playing. The biggest issue with him (as you probably know) is that in order to make morph really good, you need a critical mass of morph creatures in your deck, and there just aren't that many truly playable morphs in mono-blue.
One thing you really need with morph creatures is the flash enablers (Leyline of Anticipation, Vedalken Orrery, and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir). When playing the morph game, you REALLY don't want to tap out, as all your bluffing and mind-games is not that useful when your mana is tapped out and they can just wipe your field of amorphous 2/2s.
Once you start setting up some of your morph shenanigans, you are limited only by your mana. You also have the added benefit of being mono-colored, allowing you to run a myriad of mana-doublers (I see that you have Caged Sun, and Gauntlet of Power and Extraplanar Lens have a similar effect).
Training Grounds, while not reducing the actual cost of unmorphing a creature, does reduce Ixidor's ability to a delicious ONE BLUE MANA. Heartstone has a similar effect, but is not nearly as efficient and might not be worth including.
Morph creatures are also mostly Wizards, which lends itself to a Wizard tribal sub-theme. The only inclusions I would really suggest for that would be Azami, Lady of Scrolls for some card draw, and perhaps Patron Wizard if you are feeling evil.
Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal are a must for morphs in order to re-use them efficiently and save your creatures from removal. They also play very well with Ixidron.
There are also plenty of miscellanious good-stuff additions such as top, sol ring, and solemn simulacrum that I'm sure you don't need my help finding.
Hey, I like the list and Ixidor has been one of my favorite cards ever since I started playing. The biggest issue with him (as you probably know) is that in order to make morph really good, you need a critical mass of morph creatures in your deck, and there just aren't that many truly playable morphs in mono-blue.
One thing you really need with morph creatures is the flash enablers (Leyline of Anticipation, Vedalken Orrery, and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir). When playing the morph game, you REALLY don't want to tap out, as all your bluffing and mind-games is not that useful when your mana is tapped out and they can just wipe your field of amorphous 2/2s.
Once you start setting up some of your morph shenanigans, you are limited only by your mana. You also have the added benefit of being mono-colored, allowing you to run a myriad of mana-doublers (I see that you have Caged Sun, and Gauntlet of Power and Extraplanar Lens have a similar effect).
Training Grounds, while not reducing the actual cost of unmorphing a creature, does reduce Ixidor's ability to a delicious ONE BLUE MANA. Heartstone has a similar effect, but is not nearly as efficient and might not be worth including.
Morph creatures are also mostly Wizards, which lends itself to a Wizard tribal sub-theme. The only inclusions I would really suggest for that would be Azami, Lady of Scrolls for some card draw, and perhaps Patron Wizard if you are feeling evil.
Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal are a must for morphs in order to re-use them efficiently and save your creatures from removal. They also play very well with Ixidron.
There are also plenty of miscellanious good-stuff additions such as top, sol ring, and solemn simulacrum that I'm sure you don't need my help finding.
You have no clue how helpful this was Thanks man!
Massive changes to the decklist. Hopefully steady testing will start the week after next. Anymore suggestions? Let's build this deck together! I hope that once I have enough experience, and if my love for Ixidor grows, then we can have a primer on out hands What do you guys think?
Sounds good, this has been a deck that I've always really wanted to build haha.
Now that I've actually had a time to look through the decklist, some other suggestions:
-1 Familiar's Ruse: While cute and on-theme, I feel like you are better off just running the repeatable self-bounce effects because there is nothing more awkward that wanting to counter something when all you have are face-down morphs that you really don't want to bounce, or needing to bounce something when there are no spells to counter.
+1 Draining Whelk: Also cute and on-theme, a counterspell that is able to be reused with the myriad of self-bounce effects.
-1 Chain of Vapor: Good, but there is better, such as...
+1 Echoing Truth: Same as ^, but can also take out swarms of tokens.
-1 Linessa, Zephyr Mage: A little slow, and extremely mana-hungry, which we already have problems with.
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant: Bounces creatures and spells, and is reusable with Erratic Portal and friends (and is a wizard!).
-1 Inundate: I'm not sure if this is right, as I haven't actually played with the card, but it seems like most of the creatures of your own that you want to bounce are blue, and the ones you DON'T want to bounce are all colorless.
+1 Wash Out: Similar effect, cheaper, bounces non-creatures, and doesn't touch our morphs.
Other cards I like: Archaeomancer: Gives us some much needed recursion, is reusable with Erratic Portal and friends, and is a wizard! Citanul Flute: While it may take away from some of the surprise, they still don't know WHICH morph is that Willbender you just fetched up (hint: they all are). I feel like there are some very key morphs we need for the deck to work, and not a whole lot of ways to get them in mono-blue. This is one of the few. Codex Shredder: While normally I wouldn't suggest this, if one of those key morph creatures dies, we need some way to get it back, and this is one of the very few in mono-blue. Another is Elixir of Immortality, which, along with Codex Shredder, has the nice perk of being fetchable by Trinket Mage (Who is reusable by Erratic Portal and friends and happens to be a wizard) Strata Scythe: Very good in mono-colored decks running this many basics, and makes some of our morphs a little beefier.
Sounds good, this has been a deck that I've always really wanted to build haha.
Now that I've actually had a time to look through the decklist, some other suggestions:
-1 Familiar's Ruse: While cute and on-theme, I feel like you are better off just running the repeatable self-bounce effects because there is nothing more awkward that wanting to counter something when all you have are face-down morphs that you really don't want to bounce, or needing to bounce something when there are no spells to counter.
+1 Draining Whelk: Also cute and on-theme, a counterspell that is able to be reused with the myriad of self-bounce effects.
-1 Chain of Vapor: Good, but there is better, such as...
+1 Echoing Truth: Same as ^, but can also take out swarms of tokens.
-1 Linessa, Zephyr Mage: A little slow, and extremely mana-hungry, which we already have problems with.
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant: Bounces creatures and spells, and is reusable with Erratic Portal and friends (and is a wizard!).
-1 Inundate: I'm not sure if this is right, as I haven't actually played with the card, but it seems like most of the creatures of your own that you want to bounce are blue, and the ones you DON'T want to bounce are all colorless.
+1 Wash Out: Similar effect, cheaper, bounces non-creatures, and doesn't touch our morphs.
Other cards I like: Archaeomancer: Gives us some much needed recursion, is reusable with Erratic Portal and friends, and is a wizard! Citanul Flute: While it may take away from some of the surprise, they still don't know WHICH morph is that Willbender you just fetched up (hint: they all are). I feel like there are some very key morphs we need for the deck to work, and not a whole lot of ways to get them in mono-blue. This is one of the few. Codex Shredder: While normally I wouldn't suggest this, if one of those key morph creatures dies, we need some way to get it back, and this is one of the very few in mono-blue. Another is Elixir of Immortality, which, along with Codex Shredder, has the nice perk of being fetchable by Trinket Mage (Who is reusable by Erratic Portal and friends and happens to be a wizard) Strata Scythe: Very good in mono-colored decks running this many basics, and makes some of our morphs a little beefier.
Dude, you have no clue how helpful you've been!! Thank you so much man.
Draining Whelk: I like this alot better than Familiar's Ruse and I totally agree with you. Here is my issue though: My creature base is starting to include quite a few non morph creatures. Is this okay? Do other morph players got issues with this? When do you compensate non morph creatures and how many do you include?
Chain of Vapor vs. Echoing Truth: I gotta disagree with you on this. Chain Vapor isn't the best mass bounce spell, however it holds value since its amazing in the late game, in casual multiplayer, as well as the best feature: selective bounce for one mana and X lands. Echoing Truth is amazing against swarm. But people don't really run swarm in my meta. In fact, up until recently, I was the token swarm guy. But I will consider it if someone whips out a Rhys.
Linessa, Zephyr Mage vs. Venser, Shaper Savant: Linessa is inferior in most every ways (besides frame) to Venser. However, with bouncing him and all, Venser is a pretty liable mana hungry bouncer too. Perhaps I can switch that out for a diffrent bounce outlit? Or maybe Azami, Lady of Scolls, since that was your earlier suggestion.
Inundate vs. Wash Out: Wash Out wins. Thanks
Island vs. Strip Mine: Makes sense. Thanks
And of your suggestions, I liked the Flute and Strata Scythe.
So, with all of that outta the way and changes to the deck, what else? Any other Ixidor players out there? What would you suggest in this deck? Also, what would you wanna see in a Primer for Ixidor?
I like this. I would like to see how you actually use him, and definitely some history behind it, because I love this guy. Your list has 101 cards, by the way.
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I like this. I would like to see how you actually use him, and definitely some history behind it, because I love this guy. Your list has 101 cards, by the way.
Oops, thanks for catching that!
I'm glad to hear more people love him than just me! Haha, well I think that's a good idea. Once I get more familiar with him, I think I can do that
I might build a list from scratch, and try to converse a lot with you on it. I love him, used to play a 60-card with him, and I want him for a commander.
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I might build a list from scratch, and try to converse a lot with you on it. I love him, used to play a 60-card with him, and I want him for a commander.
I probably will. The deck seems kind of high curve O_O
In terms of mana? Or in terms of investment and performance? Because actually, with the mana rocks and ramp machines the deck provides, mana shouldn't be too much of a problem. If its for performance, at least give it a shot! If it doesn't suit you, you can always just play him casually with friends.
Dude, you have no clue how helpful you've been!! Thank you so much man.
Draining Whelk: I like this alot better than Familiar's Ruse and I totally agree with you. Here is my issue though: My creature base is starting to include quite a few non morph creatures. Is this okay? Do other morph players got issues with this? When do you compensate non morph creatures and how many do you include?
Chain of Vapor vs. Echoing Truth: I gotta disagree with you on this. Chain Vapor isn't the best mass bounce spell, however it holds value since its amazing in the late game, in casual multiplayer, as well as the best feature: selective bounce for one mana and X lands. Echoing Truth is amazing against swarm. But people don't really run swarm in my meta. In fact, up until recently, I was the token swarm guy. But I will consider it if someone whips out a Rhys.
Linessa, Zephyr Mage vs. Venser, Shaper Savant: Linessa is inferior in most every ways (besides frame) to Venser. However, with bouncing him and all, Venser is a pretty liable mana hungry bouncer too. Perhaps I can switch that out for a diffrent bounce outlit? Or maybe Azami, Lady of Scolls, since that was your earlier suggestion.
Inundate vs. Wash Out: Wash Out wins. Thanks
Island vs. Strip Mine: Makes sense. Thanks
And of your suggestions, I liked the Flute and Strata Scythe.
So, with all of that outta the way and changes to the deck, what else? Any other Ixidor players out there? What would you suggest in this deck? Also, what would you wanna see in a Primer for Ixidor?
I have never played with or against Chain of Vapor, I never really considered its uses. The reason I originally thought of Echoing Truth was that I thought it could bounce all your morphs in a pinch, however it totally can't and I forgot to reevaluate it after realizing that.
I don't think there is really any problem with running quite a few non-morphs. The problem that I have had building Ixidor decks in the past is that a lot of the abuse you do with morph creatures just doesn't have the raw power that other EDH decks tend to have doing durdly stuff with copying spells and abusing etb creatures. Morph creatures by themselves, barring the 'Pickles' lock, are small, don't do anything THAT powerful, and are very mana-intensive to create any sort of repeatable engine-type effects.
The nice thing about these two types of engines is that there is a lot of overlap in the card choices between reusing etb effects and reusing morph effects, as they are very similar. It only makes sense to run cards like Draining Whelk and Glen Elendra Archmage when they play so well with cards we are already including. That does not, however, mean our morphs are useless. Ixidor gives us a nice way of taking our myriad of overpriced effects and making them cheap, and, with an effect like Training Grounds, he turns them into a powerful value engine that can repeat one of many useful effects.
On another note:
If you are looking for a bounce effect, Echo Tracer? Although I still think the added redundancy with Venser is nice, and him having flash allows us to save key creatures with Cloudstone Curio and Equilibrium.
Another cute flash creature I really like is Voidmage Husher, who is deceptively useful and comes with a built-in reuse engine.
There aren't a ton of differences, but I still feel it runs a lot smoother for my playstyle. I like to have a lot of control over what happens in a game, so I threw in some more countermagic. I felt some creatures were in the deck just because they had the word "Morph" on them and weren't TOTALLY useless, but I trimmed it down some.
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I have never played with or against Chain of Vapor, I never really considered its uses. The reason I originally thought of Echoing Truth was that I thought it could bounce all your morphs in a pinch, however it totally can't and I forgot to reevaluate it after realizing that.
I don't think there is really any problem with running quite a few non-morphs. The problem that I have had building Ixidor decks in the past is that a lot of the abuse you do with morph creatures just doesn't have the raw power that other EDH decks tend to have doing durdly stuff with copying spells and abusing etb creatures. Morph creatures by themselves, barring the 'Pickles' lock, are small, don't do anything THAT powerful, and are very mana-intensive to create any sort of repeatable engine-type effects.
The nice thing about these two types of engines is that there is a lot of overlap in the card choices between reusing etb effects and reusing morph effects, as they are very similar. It only makes sense to run cards like Draining Whelk and Glen Elendra Archmage when they play so well with cards we are already including. That does not, however, mean our morphs are useless. Ixidor gives us a nice way of taking our myriad of overpriced effects and making them cheap, and, with an effect like Training Grounds, he turns them into a powerful value engine that can repeat one of many useful effects.
On another note:
If you are looking for a bounce effect, Echo Tracer? Although I still think the added redundancy with Venser is nice, and him having flash allows us to save key creatures with Cloudstone Curio and Equilibrium.
Another cute flash creature I really like is Voidmage Husher, who is deceptively useful and comes with a built-in reuse engine.
The issue I'm starting to see in this deck is, as it edges toward the competetive side and tries to compete with to par decks, it simply ends up looking like a normal blue control deck, with a bunch of random, useless morph creatures. I think we should come back to the fact that Ixidor is a casual tier general. He can have strong cards, such as huge ramp and such, but the moment we start adding too many non morph creatures and such, we might as well change our general. So just keep that in mind.
I like what you said about bounce engines. They can utilize ETB creatures as well as morphed creatures. I have a few engines in the deck already. I added Training Grounds and Echo Tracer. I'm having trouble figuring out what I should take out. Any suggestions?
There aren't a ton of differences, but I still feel it runs a lot smoother for my playstyle. I like to have a lot of control over what happens in a game, so I threw in some more countermagic. I felt some creatures were in the deck just because they had the word "Morph" on them and weren't TOTALLY useless, but I trimmed it down some.
I like it I do think you may need like one more morph creature. But besides that, seems good!
I found I usually end up just either swarming, or Ixidron gets waaay big way too fast. I might include a sword of feast and famine and a sword of war and peace, so I can make Ixidron do things sometimes.
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I found I usually end up just either swarming, or Ixidron gets waaay big way too fast. I might include a sword of feast and famine and a sword of war and peace, so I can make Ixidron do things sometimes.
Seems legit. I wanna test Skullclamp sometime soon
Ixidor, Crafter of Dreams
Banner by the amazing ">Ace
“I live in my own little world. But that's okay. They know me there.”
NOTICE: I have not worked on this deck for some time. I want to slowly get back to it, so the old primer will be in a spoiler if you wish to look at it, but it is very out dated.
Genesis
"Arise from your slumber. We have lots of work to do."
You may like playing Ixidor if:
You may not like to play Ixidor if:
We good? Let’s do this!
My name is Roheen and my alias is Rhakee. I am a seasoned Commander player (Or at least I tell myself that to make me feel better). I've been playing Magic since 9th Edition (Laugh all you want) and I have been playing Commander for about two years now. I've always had a casual view towards Magic and never really got into the Competitive scene. My usual playgroup consists of Draven and Fran, two of my best friends. Us three make up my playgroup, with the occasional guy from the shop. I bounce back and forth between Kitchen Table, Modern, and Standard. Once the Commander Precons came out, my English Teacher (of all people) offered for me to come to a Commander night. I threw together a Dranlu deck with like 40 commons and 5 rares, and went to town. Since then, I’ve ran all kinds of generals, strategies, and color combinations of the color pie. My story with Ixidor is actually an odd one.
One day, Draven and I saw him in one of the sale binders at my shop. Drave joked about Ixidor being a “good” Commander. I never heard about Ixidor and looked him up on the Wiki. I was moved by his love story. Made me think, why couldn’t you make a Commander deck with him at the helm? I toyed with the idea for a couple of months, looking at all the mono-blue morph creatures and mono blue Commander strategies. I decided to throw some cards together and test it. I started testing Ixidor with some aggro elements. Didn’t work. Tried cutting out the morph creatures and throwing in a control package. Didn’t work either. Finally decided to use bouncers to reuse my morph creatures. I tested it out once again. And that’s when I fell in love with Ixidor. I realized he was the perfect general for me. Someone unique, casual, who can kick major butt. I told Fran, the other member of our playgroup, that I made him as my number one general. He laughed. Until I played him. Now he has sworn Ixidor as his mortal enemy. Who could blame him? Over time, the deck was tuned and revamped. Now, it runs like a dream.
Before I get into the decklist, I would like to state my playstyle. I am a Vorthos to the max. I am all about the flavor and creativity a Commander brings to the table. This is why I love Ixidor so much. He is unique, and everyone gives me props when I slap him out. Even when I win a game, people will still be happy that they played something new. Something different. That is what I look for in a Commander. Now, with that said, I am a very anti-political player to some extent. I’m not the player that gets the table going. I don’t pump out the threats to. I usually keep to myself and set up defenses immediately. I let the stronger players soften the board. Since this isn't a aggro deck, I rarely swing all out with my creatures. Instead, I lend my services to struggling players, or players that are poorly developed. I use bounce spells to take care of their threats as well as my own. Of course, I never put any other player before myself. If I happen to be getting some beat down, I will focus all resources on keeping me alive. This deck has been tuned and molded to that play style. Of defensive plays, controlling the board to stop massive threats, and on occasion, helping those in need. If you were looking for a selfish, board manipulating deck of doom, this isn’t it. Still, this deck is super fun and I love it with all my heart, and I know you will as well
5 Ixidor, Reality Sculptor
Artifacts (16)
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Sol Ring
2 Dream Chisel
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Sky Diamond
3 Cloud Key
3 Cloudstone Curio
3 Crystal Shard
3 Extraplanar Lens
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Erratic Portal
4 Thran Dynamo
5 Gilded Lotus
6 Caged Sun
Morphs (20)
2 Fathom Seer
2 Voidmage Apprentice
2 Voidmage Prodigy
2 Willbender
3 Dulcet Sirens
3 Echo Tracer
3 Raven Guild Master
3 Riptide Entrancer
3 Riptide Survivor
3 Shaper Parasite
4 Kheru Spellsnatcher
4 Master of the Veil
4 Mistfire Weaver
4 Unblinking Bleb
5 Chromeshell Crab
5 Mischievous Quanar
5 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
6 Brine Elemental
6 Quicksilver Dragon
6 Thousand Winds
7 Weaver of Lies
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Patron Wizard
4 Clever Impersonator
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Vedalken Aethermage
5 Ixidron
Planeswalkers (1)
5 Tezzeret, the Seeker
Instant (13)
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Pongify
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Hinder
3 Long-Term Plans
3 Spell Crumple
3 Stroke of Genius
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Pact of Negation
5 Evacuation
5 Spin into Myth
8 Dig Through Time
Enchantments (3)
3 Bident of Thassa
3 Equilibrium
3 Rhystic Study
Sorcery (4)
3 Fabricate
4 Rite of Replication
5 Time Warp
7 All is Dust
0 Academy Ruins
0 Darksteel Citadel
0 Ghost Quarter
0 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
0 Reliquary Tower
0 Riptide Laboratory
0 Scrying Sheets
0 Seat of the Synod
23 Snow-Covered Island
0 Strip Mine
0 Temple of the False God
0 Tolaria West
0 Zoetic Cavern
Card Selection
“Even the ground below us bends to my whim.”
Mana development is the most important part in deck building. After all, lands are the foundation of your plan for world domination. Might as well put some thought into it right? When I build a mana base for decks, I usually focus heavily on color fixing. In a mono colored deck, however, it’s actually pretty simple to color fix, since you only have one color. Duh. But because of this, it left me more room and energy to focus on utility lands. That is, making my mana base a resource as well as producing what I need to cast spells. I run a low count of lands- 35 to be exact. In Commander, that’s a pretty low curve to be busting out spells on. But it actually works for this kind of deck. Since most of your creatures are weenies, and you have numerous artifacts to double mana or add significant amounts, lands in the late game become dead. I have a number of cards that can use your dead draws to good use, but that still doesn’t change the fact that in the late game I got a hand full of Islands. That’s why I run a low curve.
Snow-Covered Islands are our bread and butter of the mana base. Count as basic Islands, synergize with Scrying Sheets as a drawing/ramping engine. If you can’t get your hands on 28-30 of these, then normal Islands work just as fine, simply cut the snow package.
Riptide Laboratory and Academy Ruins are vital recursion engines. The Lab allows us to reuse any wizard we have (if they happen to have a ETB ability) or save them from board wipes. There happens to be quite a few Wizards in the deck, including Ixidor himself. Why counter a kill spell, when you can return the wizard to your hand and simply let the spell fizz out? Academy Ruins allows us to recur very important artifacts from our graveyard. This is important, since our build heavily depends on artifacts, for ramp or bouncing.
Strip Mine and Ghost Quarter are our answers for problematic lands. Coffers? Please, you’re not ramping up anytime soon! Lands happen to be, for the most part, out of our reach of answers. So these two lands can help get rid of any of those lands.
Lonley Sandbar goes back to my point of having lands in your hand in the late game. In the early game, it’s a minor loss of tempo. In the late game, it’s a free draw. Doesn’t hurt to have. Temple of the False God is another utility land for the late game, that allows us to get a little extra edge in the arms race for mana.
Reliquary Tower is another good utility land. I often play all my spells and creatures and don’t have the issue of having too many cards in my hand. This deck doesn’t draw mad amounts of cards. Instead, we draw just enough to dig for answers or to play out creatures. But just in case, there is the tower.
Laslty, we have Zoetic Cavern. In most other decks, they run it as a creature in the late game. In our deck: it is part of our army. Counting as a morph creature, Ixidor can pump it up. I sometimes even whip this guy out in the early game to put on the early pressure. Opponents get pretty shocked when they spend their kill spell on it, and end up destroying a land.
Artifacts:
Artifacts serve numerous purposes. Ramping is an important one. We got everything in our robot package, from stupid ramp (Sol Ring) to game enders (Akroma’s Memorial). With artifacts, we gain the majority of support of our morph creatures.
Draven-“That’s seriously unfair. I love it!”
Ramp is a crucial part of our robot package. Sol Ring is just stupid good and doesn’t need an explanation. Explanar Lens synergizes with our Snow Lands, so we, and only we, can benefit from the Lens. Guilded Lotus gets us some more significant edge. And as if that wasn’t enough with mana doublers and insane ramp, we got Caged Sun, that can even pump up our face up guys. Sigh, we’re too good.
Another thing to consider in our package is bounce outlets. These allow us to reuse our morph creature’s abilities once they’re turned face up. These can also help maximize the effectiveness of ETB triggers. Not only that, we can control the board by bouncing any problematic permanents on the other side of the table. Erratic Portal and Crystal Shard favor your permanents, while Cloudstone Curio can simply ruin someone’s day. No seriously. Ruin. Someone's. Day.
Hand size matters since we're gonna be drawing a buttload of cards. So, what to do when the tower simply isn't enough? Why, thats why we have Venser's Journal! And after we've played all our spells and need to recycle a bit, there is always the Elixir of Immortality
And now, off to the armory we go! View our wonderful (and super limited) selection of weapons and gear. For protecting a Commander or any important creature, we got the good ol’ Lightning Greaves. Now with added haste! And over here, we have the wonderfully powerful Darksteel Plate! Say no to board wipes and removal spells! Next, all the way from Mirr- erm, New Phyrexia, we have the famed Sword of Feast and Famine! Untap all your lands to wreck havoc and play all the spells to your heart’s content! Also able to make Ixidor swing for lethal finally, we have the game ender, the cream to the ice, the Legendary memorial, crafted from Ixidor’s own two hands in memory of his beloved wife, we have Akroma’s Memorial! Make your morph creatures from an army of tricksters to a alpha squad of hardened killers! Hope you enjoyed our tour of Ixidor’s Armory!
Best Morph Creature. Ever.
Creatures. THEE most important part of our build. This seperates us from all other mono blue builds. How you say? We depend on our creatures. Our effect on the board comes from our creatures most of the time. We attack with our creatures. We defend with them. And most of all, we flip the living excrement outta them!
Morph creatures are fascinating and amazing at once. We have a good number of Morph creatures. Each can be played face down for three mana. Now we have a face down creature. Your opponent doesn’t know what it is, and can’t find out. It is actually a rule that opponents cannot touch your morphed creatures until face up or they are destroyed. Pretty cool right? Hands off! Morph creatures give you an extra edge no other creature does: the element of surprise. Your opponent doesn’t know what lies under that card. Could it be just some creature? Perhaps a disruption spell? Or even a counterspell! Or maybe a thief ability. Or maybe it does something devastating when it connects with an opponent. Your opponent has no clue. In addition, there are bigger threats on the field than a face down 2/2. These two factors in their own pretty much secure your morphed creatures from removal. This allows you to set up any shenanigan you want. Your morph creatures are backed up by some of Magic’s most devious and powerful Blue Legends, as well as a couple of Wizards to help you out in your quest of domination through deception. This, gentlemen, is how we play Magic!
Morph creatures, for the most part, fill the roll of utility. Master of the Veil is amazing by letting you reuse any morph creature you wish or need to. Unblinking Bleb allows you to foresee any card coming into your hand. Not only that, it is whenever a creature is turned face up. Pretty neat! And if you needed to run more shenanigans, we got the self flipping copy-engine of Mischievous Quanar.
Solemn Simulacrum is a awesome reusable source of mana at our diabolic fingertips. Wonder gives our creatures what they need so desperately: flying. Our last two utility dudes are all-stars gives you unmatched recursion that can be reused with any bounce outlet. Arcaeomancer and Archbound Reclaimer, come on out!
Disruption is a major highlight of our Morph guys. Voidmage Apprentice and Voidmage Prodigy are countering engines that stop any spell in it’s tracks, whether it be a Commander or board wipe. Willbender could be considered counter, but more so he simply redirects any large spell that harms you or ally. Echo Tracer can bounce your own folks or perhaps a large monster bearing down that you simply can’t deal with. You feel that your opponents are having too much fun at your expense? Brine Elemental can wipe away an opponent’s turn with a blink of a eye. Note that with enough mana and a bounce outlet, you can lock down every turn for your opponent. It’s not too fun and gets pretty boring as a matter of fact. Just lock them out every once in a while. And just for kicks and giggles and if we feel REALLY mean, there is always Patron Wizard.
Our non-Morph disruption consists of good ‘ol Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. He can bring the game to a grinding halt for other disruption players. Aggro players won’t be affected by him too much. He also gives you that extra surprise edge, as if you didn’t need it. Venser, Shaper Savant is more bounce worth your buck that can always be reused with any bounce outlet. Lastly, we have Ixidron. A monster from Ixidor’s very own psyche, this guy pretty much wraths the board and gets huge on top of it. Can be reused, like most other creatures. He also resets all of our face up Morphs.
Draw is always a nice resource to have. Our Morph guys continue to impress with their next talent, drawing you mad advantage. Fathom Seer and Riptide Survivor can fill up your hand quickly. Aphetto Runecaster turns any Morph flipping into advantage. Consecrated Sphinx is a unparalleled staple in mono-blue decks. I cannot being to describe the crazy stuff you can do with this guy. Finally, Azami, Lady of the Scrolls puts any Wizards who are simply standing around to work, grinding out answer from your deck into your hand to be put to use.
Besides, with all of these abilities and features, do we really need more? Oh wait, what is blue without theft?! Riptide Entrancer takes the biggest, fattest creature your opponent controls if she connects. Chromeshell Crab is so good; he even made a camo appearance in the Commander Pre-Cons. Vesuvan Shapeshifter has been a long time favorite of Modern and Legacy players. We now have a reason to run him in Commander, with a self reuse engine built-in. Any these thieves are all lead by Sakashima the Imposter. She can copy ANYONE! Even a Commander! She has a built-in bounce outlet for herself, so she can be reused whenever you please. Legendary rule? What’s that?
Finally, with any creature-based strategy, what would this build be without bombs? Raven Guild Master is a sleeper agent that dishes out massive disadvantage to graveyard-based strategies, and well is simply a griefer to any other build. Ten cards exiled is no small thing. That’s a good chunk of their deck, as well as their strategy. Combo players will cry. No seriously… I made a combo player cry because I exiled one of his pieces. Ah, who cares. On with the point, since we are in the middle of shattering the stereotype of mono-builds, let’s just throw in some dragons, why not? Quicksilver Dragon is virtually untouchable and slips through any defenses to eat an opponent’s face. And finally, for the coup de grait, Weaver of Lies. With Ixidor out, you can reuse all of your morph dudes for as little as three mana. Hells yeah!
“We don’t lock down the board. We stimulate it.”
We are currently only running two Planeswalkers. There are plenty of good mono blue Planeswalkers. One of them happens to be Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Jace is an amazing ‘walker. I mean, look at him. Brainstorm every turn? Simply devastate an opponent in a matter of turns? I could go on and on, but let it go on the record: he is easily one of the most powerful Planeswalkers in the game. And that’s we’re not running him.
I’m not the biggest fan of power creeping, and JTMS is an understatement of power creep. Since he doesn’t quite creep. He just smacks you in the face. Hard. With a chair. Made of steel. Darksteel. With that said, I make my decks balanced to the point where I have a chance of winning, but not to the point of ruining it for everyone else on the table. Commander is a fun and casual format. That’s why I believe the cards you run should effect the board and the game, but not to the point where you dominate unquestionably. Because of this, I personally don’t run THAT Jace. My choice for the Jace slot is an odd one. One that makes people’s heads turn. I run Jace, Architect of Thought. I will be bold and call him one of the most fun and interactive of the ‘walkers. Yeah, I said it. Come at me bro! None of Jace’s abilities lock down the board or eliminate a player with a single stroke of his fancy gloved hands. His first abilty is my favorite, since he softens attacks from across the board. If a player is getting unnecessarily pounded, this is my way of buying them time to develop some answers. No, it’s not called politics. Its called good sportsmanship. His second ability helps me dig when my hand starts getting empty, and his last ability is simple hilarious, though I usually never reach it. Argue all you want, but this is my argument for JAoT.
Jace is flanked by his mortal enemy: Tezzeret, the Seeker. Tezzy helps us with our robot package. His first ability is simply stupid. Oh, Sol Ring now makes four mana per turn. Giggles. Once in a game, a Nin player was getting picked on pretty bad, and his mana base was being poorly developed. I used Tezzeret’s ability to untap his rocks instead of mine, that way he was able to get on his feet faster. He was still taken out, but he was thankful someone teamed up with him briefly. That’s what I love about Tezzy’s first ability. Don’t got a Sol Ring? Or rock? Or even a weapon? You got it, Tezzy’s second ability got you covered. And his last ability, while rarely used, is a fun way to use the dormant artifacts lying around on your field. If I need to push through anymore damage, then I’ll use his ultimate.
Enchantments:
We only have four features enchantments. They are, however, extremely powerful. Enchantments are nice, since they are harder to remove than creatures. They are permanent, and can greatly help you in a game.
It is safe to say, that we are not the strongest aggro deck in town. I believe there are about 50 Commanders that take that title before we even climb onto the bottom of the list. So any protection or help we can get is superb. Propaganda is an amazing card. With this card out, your opponents will see that attacking you, tapping out, only to be chump blocked by some morph creature is not worth their time, and turn to more pressing matters, such as that token army building, or perhaps the combo player who is assembling. Perhaps the guy who is trolling everyone on the table. No matter who is around you, you need time. This give you time.
Ixidor already does a good job of shaving down your creature's morph costs. He let's any morph creature with a flip cost of 3< have a cost of 3. With Training Grounds, now they can be flipped for a simple U. This can let your mana be used for more spells and flip your creatures much more efficiently.
In addition to time, you need answers. And you need them now. Draw is the number one way you’re gonna get these answers. Rhystic Study turns your opponent’s own spells to your advantage or their disadvantage. Coastal Piracy turns all of your morph creatures into a rowdy pirate crew, attacking the enemy for information. Seems pretty fair, right? Using your opponents as your resource is exactly what these enchantments do.
One last thing before we move on. Equilibrium has to be one of the most powerful enchantments printed. Every time you play your morph creature, or any creature for that matter, bounce another. Perhaps an opponents? Perhaps your own. The possibilities are endless. You can gain so much reach and solutions for answers with this card. If this card comes on the field, your opponents better scramble for some sort of removal, or they will soon have no creature presence, letting you swing with ease. Or allow you to maximize the effect of your morphs.
Instants/Sorceries:
Lets start with instants. Instants are a huge part of this build, as well as any other blue build. Instants are those necessary spells that allow you to have reach during an opponent’s turn. With that said, I would like to say some thing about counterspells in blue.
“Has anyone seen my Commander around?”
The way we get rid of threats? Simple. Removal. Blue, unknown to most people, runs some pretty impressive creature answers. Spin into Myth tucks away any general or troublesome creature. Ovinize is a funny spell I adore, since any creature turns into a sheep. Oh no! He’s gonna attack with a Eldrazi! Oh… oh… no it’s just a sheep. Lamb for dinner tonight! In addition, we have Pongify. Flat out, this creature dies. In it’s place, you’ll get a monkey token. No one cares about tokens, right? Compared to what it was before? Naaaaa. And we have Rite of Replication. Did you know it's quite healthy to kick a Rite on a Consecrated Sphinx? I do it once a week
But what if its not creatures you need an answer to? What if its some other non land permanent? Or perhaps a token army, about to alpha strike you? We got mass bounce for that. Devistation Tide does the job quite well. We also have Wash Out, in which you trade sorcery speed for specific color targeting. I would like to take this moment to shower Cyclonic Rift with praise. Overloading this on an opponent’s turn leaves them with no field and tapped out. This card has saved my butt and won me games more than once. It can completely change the tide of the board.
And for those specific bounces, we got you covered. Chain Vapor can create some fun scenarios with everyone on the table. Capsize is reusable and can target any permanent. Perfect.
Another way spells are vital to us, is digging into our deck for answers. Brainstorm is a amazing draw spell that can help find any answer you need. Blue Sun’s Zenith is reusable draw. Often, you can draw five or more cards once you get it. Don’t be afraid to draw even two or three. You’ll get it back. And at last, we have Fact or Fiction. A win-win card is always nice to have. You can put any opponent in a tight pickle of handing you answers. Or perhaps you can chose an opponent who is getting picked on. They will sort out piles that will give you the most answers to help them. Either way, this card can give you some insane Advantage.
One more thing: Tutors. Blue is somewhat limited in good tutors, but still, we got some hard core spells. Fabricate is cheap and can get us any robot we need. Superb! Do we need a certain spell or answer? Mystic Tutor is there. How about an unconditional tutor, that when combed with draw, can give you any card you want for three mana? We got Long-Term Plans.
And last, but not least, we have Time Warp. Not that we are gonna be asses about it, but sometimes you need that extra turn to push through a win.
You have your general. You have your purpose. You have your tools. Now how do you use all of them? Ixidor is a tricky deck to pilot and requires some thought, like any blue deck. You need to mix the approach of a Aggro deck with a Control deck. I’ll tell you all I can about how to navigate this sea of mischief and shenanigans. Keep in mind that you really need to play with Ixidor a couple of times before you begin to grasp the philosophy of piloting the deck with him at the helm.
Early Game:
This is when you are THEE most vulnerable. Quick aggro, such as Rafiq of the Many or Wort, the Raidmother, will demolish you and set you back. If you are facing one of these decks, pray there is a bigger threat than you. Which thankfully, there usually is. Ixidor, unlike most mono-blue Commanders, don’t paint a target on your head. Even uncommon blue generals draw some hate due towards the common view of blue: if you don’t kill them, they’re gonna lock you down. Ixidor, unlike other blue generals, doesn’t draw any hate, since they look at his abilities and say… really? Okay, I’ll deal with you, once I get Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. With that out of the way, your number one agenda is to ramp. Numerous artifacts can come down early and add some more mana into your pool. Some of these artifacts can be used for other purposes later in the game. The deck utilizes mana rocks so they aren’t dead draws in the late game. Playing a morph creature or two wouldn’t hurt, but don’t expect to do any damage.
Mid Game:
This is a very important aspect of the game. Now, you have numerous rocks out, your hand is stuffed with goodies and you have one or two morph creatures on the field. Your opponents have finished their early game assault and are now recuperating. Don’t take this as an opportunity to attack. Ixidor does not, and I mean, does NOT win fast and dish out large amount of damage. Your morph creatures deal small amounts, flipped or not. They can only chip away at an opponent’s life total. Other player’s jobs are to do the heavy lifting. You simply sneak in an attack now and then. Now, start dropping more morph creatures and bring out Ixidor to pump them and help flip them for cheap. Assemble bounce outlets and begin some healthy flipping.
Late Game:
Crucial moment in the game. By this point, usually, one opponent is down, or close to dying. You are half way there, and your other opponents are weak from assaulting one another. You yourself have taken a number of devastating hits. Now, you need to lock down the board. Establish control and bounce your opponents’ creatures back to their hands. Get rid of troublesome permanents, or reduce them to sorcery speed only. Get in those last points of damage any way you can. Slap a sword on Ixidor and go to town. With the board under your control and a small army of shapeshifters, victory is yours!
In closing, I would simply like to thank a good number of people. Ace from Ace of Spades Studios has lent us his amazing talent and work with the banner which was better than I ever though of. MiffledMoogle, bGnomes, and especially Zephynoir deserve a bear hug for helping me develop this deck from a run down, not going anywhere build to what it is today. I also need to thank the Moderators as well as the Primer Gurus, Gaka, ISBPathfinder, and SuperSonik, whose work inspired me to write this. And one last thanks to everyone on the forums for their input and help. You guys are the best! Rhakee out
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Coming Soon!
12/21/12
Change Log added. Primer Format Updated.
12/22/12
-Sculpting Steel
+Training Grounds
1/21/12
-Akroma's Memorial
-Wash Out
-Chain of Vapor
-Ovinize
-Evacuation
-Aphetto Alchemist
-Echo Tracer
-Aphetto Runecaster
+Consecrated Sphinx
+Arcbound Reclaimer
+Solemn Simulacrum
+Rite of Replication
+Devistation Tide
+Swiftfoot Boots
+Patron Wizard
+Elixar of Immortality
+Foil
+Wonder
+Venser's Journal
Here I'll put everything extra about the deck. This includes stories, fan art, special links, or anything else for my fellow Reality Sculptors.
You know, Ixidor is already a unique commander when he comes onto the field. People stop and look at you, think your crazy, or give you mad props for running a deck with him at the helm. But still, Ixidor can be more explosive and bolder than he already is. How? Make him more unique than he already is. So without further ado, I present you with my very own custom art Ixidor, the Reality Sculptor, painted by me!! I know I'm a amateur, but still, it feels nice to have a Cmmander you can honestly call your own. So, here he is
Ref. Vivi from Final Fantasy
Also, an older version of this decklist was featured in Carlos Gutierrez's article "5 Decks You Can't Miss this Week". I am very honored and thank him from the bottom of my heart. You can find the link below:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/carlosgutierrez-11012014-5-decks-you-cant-miss-this-week/
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
I love Ixidor. Lore, flavor. THis guy has it all. I wish they would have made another copy of him in Time Spiral that was also mono blue but with an ability to flip creatures back down as well. My only complaint about him though! =)
I don't have long as I worked a long day today, but I was thinking with Aphetto Alchemist You could run Gilded Lotus and Freed from the Real to make infinite blue mana? =) I realize its a 3 card combo, but to me it makes it more fair.
I will probably post more tomorrow as I want to actually order cards for my Ixidor list. ^^
Fellow reality sculptor!! I'm glad to learn there is more than one!
Im not a very big combo player, especially 3 pieces. The other thing is, there is VERY little I'd use infinite mana in this deck. But thanks! Ny other suggestions? If you need help with your list just ask (:
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Fact or Fiction is much better than Foresee, and much more fun.
Hmmm Thanks for the input! I'll make a note to add those cards
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
How do you abuse the morph mechanic. I'm still new with this build and would love to know how to stretch and use morph to its full extent. I like Coastal Piracy. Let me try that.
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
To use your morphs more than once you need to bounce them, like with Erratic Portal, Crystal Shard, Equilibrium, Cloudstone Curio. I also run a few blue wraths, ie. mass bounce to help reset board.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
I really like your list I am thinking of taking this into the competetive sense. What do you guys think I should add or cut?
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
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GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
One thing you really need with morph creatures is the flash enablers (Leyline of Anticipation, Vedalken Orrery, and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir). When playing the morph game, you REALLY don't want to tap out, as all your bluffing and mind-games is not that useful when your mana is tapped out and they can just wipe your field of amorphous 2/2s.
Once you start setting up some of your morph shenanigans, you are limited only by your mana. You also have the added benefit of being mono-colored, allowing you to run a myriad of mana-doublers (I see that you have Caged Sun, and Gauntlet of Power and Extraplanar Lens have a similar effect).
Training Grounds, while not reducing the actual cost of unmorphing a creature, does reduce Ixidor's ability to a delicious ONE BLUE MANA. Heartstone has a similar effect, but is not nearly as efficient and might not be worth including.
Morph creatures are also mostly Wizards, which lends itself to a Wizard tribal sub-theme. The only inclusions I would really suggest for that would be Azami, Lady of Scrolls for some card draw, and perhaps Patron Wizard if you are feeling evil.
Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal are a must for morphs in order to re-use them efficiently and save your creatures from removal. They also play very well with Ixidron.
There are also plenty of miscellanious good-stuff additions such as top, sol ring, and solemn simulacrum that I'm sure you don't need my help finding.
You have no clue how helpful this was Thanks man!
Massive changes to the decklist. Hopefully steady testing will start the week after next. Anymore suggestions? Let's build this deck together! I hope that once I have enough experience, and if my love for Ixidor grows, then we can have a primer on out hands What do you guys think?
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BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
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{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Now that I've actually had a time to look through the decklist, some other suggestions:
-1 Familiar's Ruse: While cute and on-theme, I feel like you are better off just running the repeatable self-bounce effects because there is nothing more awkward that wanting to counter something when all you have are face-down morphs that you really don't want to bounce, or needing to bounce something when there are no spells to counter.
+1 Draining Whelk: Also cute and on-theme, a counterspell that is able to be reused with the myriad of self-bounce effects.
-1 Chain of Vapor: Good, but there is better, such as...
+1 Echoing Truth: Same as ^, but can also take out swarms of tokens.
-1 Linessa, Zephyr Mage: A little slow, and extremely mana-hungry, which we already have problems with.
+1 Venser, Shaper Savant: Bounces creatures and spells, and is reusable with Erratic Portal and friends (and is a wizard!).
-1 Inundate: I'm not sure if this is right, as I haven't actually played with the card, but it seems like most of the creatures of your own that you want to bounce are blue, and the ones you DON'T want to bounce are all colorless.
+1 Wash Out: Similar effect, cheaper, bounces non-creatures, and doesn't touch our morphs.
-1 Island: To make room for...
+1 Strip Mine: You can never have too many answers for Cabal Coffers.
Other cards I like:
Archaeomancer: Gives us some much needed recursion, is reusable with Erratic Portal and friends, and is a wizard!
Citanul Flute: While it may take away from some of the surprise, they still don't know WHICH morph is that Willbender you just fetched up (hint: they all are). I feel like there are some very key morphs we need for the deck to work, and not a whole lot of ways to get them in mono-blue. This is one of the few.
Codex Shredder: While normally I wouldn't suggest this, if one of those key morph creatures dies, we need some way to get it back, and this is one of the very few in mono-blue. Another is Elixir of Immortality, which, along with Codex Shredder, has the nice perk of being fetchable by Trinket Mage (Who is reusable by Erratic Portal and friends and happens to be a wizard)
Strata Scythe: Very good in mono-colored decks running this many basics, and makes some of our morphs a little beefier.
Dude, you have no clue how helpful you've been!! Thank you so much man.
Draining Whelk: I like this alot better than Familiar's Ruse and I totally agree with you. Here is my issue though: My creature base is starting to include quite a few non morph creatures. Is this okay? Do other morph players got issues with this? When do you compensate non morph creatures and how many do you include?
Chain of Vapor vs. Echoing Truth: I gotta disagree with you on this. Chain Vapor isn't the best mass bounce spell, however it holds value since its amazing in the late game, in casual multiplayer, as well as the best feature: selective bounce for one mana and X lands. Echoing Truth is amazing against swarm. But people don't really run swarm in my meta. In fact, up until recently, I was the token swarm guy. But I will consider it if someone whips out a Rhys.
Linessa, Zephyr Mage vs. Venser, Shaper Savant: Linessa is inferior in most every ways (besides frame) to Venser. However, with bouncing him and all, Venser is a pretty liable mana hungry bouncer too. Perhaps I can switch that out for a diffrent bounce outlit? Or maybe Azami, Lady of Scolls, since that was your earlier suggestion.
Inundate vs. Wash Out: Wash Out wins. Thanks
Island vs. Strip Mine: Makes sense. Thanks
And of your suggestions, I liked the Flute and Strata Scythe.
So, with all of that outta the way and changes to the deck, what else? Any other Ixidor players out there? What would you suggest in this deck? Also, what would you wanna see in a Primer for Ixidor?
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Done by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery signatures!
Oops, thanks for catching that!
I'm glad to hear more people love him than just me! Haha, well I think that's a good idea. Once I get more familiar with him, I think I can do that
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Done by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery signatures!
By all means! I encourage you too!
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Done by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery signatures!
In terms of mana? Or in terms of investment and performance? Because actually, with the mana rocks and ramp machines the deck provides, mana shouldn't be too much of a problem. If its for performance, at least give it a shot! If it doesn't suit you, you can always just play him casually with friends.
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
I have never played with or against Chain of Vapor, I never really considered its uses. The reason I originally thought of Echoing Truth was that I thought it could bounce all your morphs in a pinch, however it totally can't and I forgot to reevaluate it after realizing that.
I don't think there is really any problem with running quite a few non-morphs. The problem that I have had building Ixidor decks in the past is that a lot of the abuse you do with morph creatures just doesn't have the raw power that other EDH decks tend to have doing durdly stuff with copying spells and abusing etb creatures. Morph creatures by themselves, barring the 'Pickles' lock, are small, don't do anything THAT powerful, and are very mana-intensive to create any sort of repeatable engine-type effects.
There are a few ways to get around this to make the deck on par with other EDH decks. One way is to run some of the non-morph etb creature abuse that a lot of other EDH decks use, which gives us some of the raw power we need. The bottom line is that Draining Whelk or Glen Elendra Archmage and a bounce effect like Erratic Portal, Riptide Laboratory, or Crystal Shard is a lot more mana efficient, easier to assemble, and harder to disrupt than a weird combination of Weaver of Lies, Master of the Veil, and Voidmage Apprentice, or Voidmage Apprentice and one of the aforementioned bounce effects.
The nice thing about these two types of engines is that there is a lot of overlap in the card choices between reusing etb effects and reusing morph effects, as they are very similar. It only makes sense to run cards like Draining Whelk and Glen Elendra Archmage when they play so well with cards we are already including. That does not, however, mean our morphs are useless. Ixidor gives us a nice way of taking our myriad of overpriced effects and making them cheap, and, with an effect like Training Grounds, he turns them into a powerful value engine that can repeat one of many useful effects.
On another note:
If you are looking for a bounce effect, Echo Tracer? Although I still think the added redundancy with Venser is nice, and him having flash allows us to save key creatures with Cloudstone Curio and Equilibrium.
Another cute flash creature I really like is Voidmage Husher, who is deceptively useful and comes with a built-in reuse engine.
After getting around to looking through all the Wizard tribal cards, I think the only ones really worth considering are:
Riptide Laboratory
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Sigil Tracer
Vedalken AEthermage
1 Ixidor, Reality Sculptor
Artifacts
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Caged Sun
1 Chrome Mox
1 Citanul Flute
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Crystal Shard
1 Dream Chisel
1 Erratic Portal
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mind Stone
1 Mox Opal
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Thran Dynamo
Instants
1 Backslide
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brainstorm
1 Capsize
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Counterspell
1 Cryptic Command
1 Evacuation
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Hinder
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Pongify
1 Spell Crumple
1 Spin into Myth
1 Trickbind
1 Compulsive Research
1 Fabricate
1 Wash Out
Enchantments
1 Equilibrium
1 Rhystic Study
Creatures
1 Aphetto Alchemist
1 Aphetto Runecaster
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Brine Elemental
1 Chromeshell Crab
1 Draining Whelk
1 Fathom Seer
1 Ixidron
1 Master of the Veil
1 Mischievous Quanar
1 Proteus Machine
1 Quicksilver Dragon
1 Raven Guild Master
1 Riptide Entrancer
1 Riptide Survivor
1 Shaper Parasite
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Unblinking Bleb
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1 Voidmage Apprentice
1 Wall of Deceit
1 Weaver of Lies
1 Willbender
1 Wonder
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ghost Quarter
28 Island
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Strip Mine
1 Temple of the False God
1 Zoetic Cavern
Planeswalker
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
There aren't a ton of differences, but I still feel it runs a lot smoother for my playstyle. I like to have a lot of control over what happens in a game, so I threw in some more countermagic. I felt some creatures were in the deck just because they had the word "Morph" on them and weren't TOTALLY useless, but I trimmed it down some.
Done by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery signatures!
The issue I'm starting to see in this deck is, as it edges toward the competetive side and tries to compete with to par decks, it simply ends up looking like a normal blue control deck, with a bunch of random, useless morph creatures. I think we should come back to the fact that Ixidor is a casual tier general. He can have strong cards, such as huge ramp and such, but the moment we start adding too many non morph creatures and such, we might as well change our general. So just keep that in mind.
I like what you said about bounce engines. They can utilize ETB creatures as well as morphed creatures. I have a few engines in the deck already. I added Training Grounds and Echo Tracer. I'm having trouble figuring out what I should take out. Any suggestions?
I like it I do think you may need like one more morph creature. But besides that, seems good!
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Done by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery signatures!
Seems legit. I wanna test Skullclamp sometime soon
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH