MTG Salvation

When you think mono blue, you can easily rattle off a dozen or so commanders before you even start considering Tromokratis. That's not surprising, as there are some pretty ridiculous legends to build around, but the kraken's absolute obscurity is a bit undeserved. At first glance, he appears to be a nondescript beefslab, a bit like stuffing a Vizzerdrix into your command zone because you can. However, there's more to this bad boy than meets the eye:

• Usually hexproof. The only time when his shields are down are when he has to crawl out of the water to partake in combat, which gives you ample windows of opportunity to prepare some answers in case someone gets trigger happy. The presence of this window makes it also a bit more fun and interactive than just turning a straight untargetable feller around, as you suddenly have to account for all the mazes and other stuff that may be sitting around.
• Wonky combats. If Tromo is to be blocked, the whole team needs to do the blocking. Tap a single dude down and they can no longer fulfil that requirement, and in for damage you go. Give him wings, and a single walker on the opposing side makes him unblockable. Set down Silent Arbiter, and having more than one creature entitles you to a kraken hug. Good times.
• Beefslab. I mean, he is a massive beatstick, there's no denying that. Without any sort of enhancement, he can three shot anyone, and he wears Grafted Exoskeleton and other cheap voltron stuff like a champ.

So, what to do with him? The bulk of the shell is going to be quite similar to a lot of blue builds by default, as the colour excels at acquiring bonus cardboard and performing a variety of instant-speed shenanigans. Splash in a bit more tapdown than you'd normally have, including on stick-around permanents such as Pacification Array, and you've got yourself a bit of a "fun police" shell that can help stop the game from running away as it builds up its resources to chase out a massive, dastardly kraken and start hugging people with it.



The list was originally a budget as hell build, which also happened to be quite heavily metagamed towards what my playgroup looked like in 2014/2015. That incarnation of the deck has been retained for historical curiosity purposes below.

Figured I'd come back to this and start tweaking. The curve's still quite top-heavy, but I guess that's what running lots of theft does to you.



Aboshan was cute as heck, but also cost 6 mana to get out. Captain costs 3 mana less to get out, and his ability (whilst more expensive) is more versatile. The frostwall and vortex both don't fly, limiting their defence utility. Drift flies, and can turn into a voltron piece or tapper via transmute. Wizard's cute as heck, but heck, even Palladium Myr is better. Replaced with two-drop mana rock. Added the tower to hold all the cards I draw sometimes. Also tutor mage, which can grab O-Naginata or Mana Vault.

Massive deck overhaul!



It felt weird to have Consecrated Sphinx in the list, gunking up the place with its massive price tag. Gauntlet of Power felt awkward too. As such, I had two routes to take - go full-on pimp with Gilded Drake et al, or hack the budget and only keep the bare bone essentials. The latter is an interesting vision - I already have two relatively optimal lists, and purposefully working within sharp budget constraints should be interesting.

Where does one draw the line? Mana Vault is stupid good, and costs 2.95 euro in the pricegunner I use. Everything above it money wise - auto-axed. Combine that with a rejiggering of proportions in the list and you get a really huge deck change.

What gets truncated? There's fewer elements of tap control now, along with a slight decrease in the equipment package. There's also a little less theft now, and literally half the doubling. There's more countermagic and draw. In spite of the budget twist, none of the new cards are subpar replacements of departing options, and in fact a few have been on my radar for a while now.

Spelljack and Gather Specimens give me a bit of instant-speed utility. Desertion is cool too, but it's just a smidgen above the 3 euro mark. Maybe in the future. You can't recover something Gathered by blowing up an aura, like you could with Mind Control. Counters are a stupidly great thing to have (I can't believe my first draft of this had no counters at all!), and an overpriced counter-on-legs gets replaced with a few more spells from that department. Strip Mine crosses the 3 euro pricegun threshold, but Homeward Path and a bunch of other utility lands have been really harshing the deck's mellow. Plus, I already own one. Capsize is another good way to deal with problem permanents, and more powerful than Captivating Glance. Foresee is a Sphinx "replacement" by letting me go really, really deep in search of whatever is needed, and the other new options help provide card quantity. Palladium Myr is a Worn Powerstone on legs. Plus, once again, I already have one for some reason.

I'm quite curious where this approach to deck design will take me. The list fares pretty well in its current form, holding its own on Cockatrice most of the time. Not bad for a ~50 euro price tag on the whole thing!

Another decent-sized wave of changes, not a huge game style redesign. Still trying to land the optimal proportions.



Gather Specimens and Spelljack are both adorable, but require you to hold up a formidable 6 mana to use. What if nothing noteworthy appears? That's 6 mana you didn't spend progressing your game state. Reverting to the 5 mana enchantment thefts. The creature connects, I get to enchant it, a tissue tape parade is held (high five if you get the reference) and life goes on.

There's games where I'm flooded, there's games where I'm screwed. Being screwed really hurts here, as all the business spells are relatively high end. Better to have less games where I'm screwed. Up to 37 land and a whopping 13 ramp-related cards. That's half the deck. That'd better work. Prismatic Lens is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, I know. Was even considering Fractured Powerstone as there's a sudden push for PlanEDH in my LGS but for now I'll pass.

Unsure whether Stoic Rebuttal or Ertai's Meddling makes for a better cut. Help me, blue mages of the forum! I know you won't reply anyway, as I'm pretty much just writing this thread to myself, like just about every single freaking deck I ever posted, but still, on the off chance you read this, help me! Also unsure whether I should even be decreasing the size of my counter package. Or other packages that I've been tweaking with. Ugh. Playtesting will tell, it does seem to fare relatively reasonably in the current set-up.

Continuing to tune the list, now with more transmute!



The cycling lands have been a hit, so I added the colourless one as well. The counter suite seemed like it wanted an extra card, so I was considering all sorts of options, both previously attempted (Stoic Rebuttal) and new (Deprive). In the end, Muddle the Mixture was picked due to it doubling as a 2-cost tutor. Can hit Cyclonic Rift, a Voltron piece (Inquisitor's Flail)... it couldn't hit a tapper though. Welcome back Stonybrook Angler. It's inferior to Nibilis of the Breach in just about every way, except for the CMC that grants this potential tutor some more flexibility. Also it's a wizard, so synergy with Azami.

Tolaria West helps dig for that Strip Mine to poof that Homeward Path or Maze of Ith. Land down to 36, Ertai's Meddling (late-game'ish counterspell) replaced with Swan Song (early and cheap counter).

Land-wise, I've got 8 nonbasics - 4 give colourless mana and come into play untapped, and 4 are CIPT blue. Going higher than that is probably unwise.

Dismiss into Dream has a high cmc, but makes tapping opposing critters more entertaining. Shuts down equipments and auras, too.

Cheers!

Oh man, that's an evil card. Pity about it being a bit of a nonbo with the reason that tapping is in here in the first place - so Tromo can swing if he comes out. If an opponent has 10 creatures, all untapped, and I tap one, Tromo's unblockable. If said opponent has 10 creatures, all untapped, and I make him sac one with that dream thing, he still has 9 untapped creatures to chump Tromo for days.

Time for another one of those rambly update posts to myself! Whee!



Land destruction - good. Still a bit of space to fit colourless lands in the deck. Hello Ghost Quarter.

High curve - bad. Drop some of the high-end draw stuff in Mind Unbound and Recurring Insight. Whilst both are amazing, they do add to the deck feeling clunky at times. Swap out for cheap, early-game-applicable dig to help smooth out the early clunkiness if needed in Ponder, Preordain and Impulse.

Aura creature theft - really fun, but also quite mana intensive. Since we're doing the whole curve lowering fandango, letting go of Mind Control and Persuasion. They're both really fun cards, but it's even more fun to watch people hurl resources away to deal with a Thalakos Deceiver. Also you can't undo him stealing stuff with a simple removal spell.

Repeatable bounce - value. The games where I drew Capsize ended in blowouts, to the point where I'm considering sliding in a Merchant Scroll in spite of its lack of relevance to the main game plan. As such, another repeatable source of bounce is added in Temporal Adept. Ertai, Wizard Adept didn't work out too well as a counter on legs, but that was in a prior iteration with a bit of a higher curve and a smidgen less ramp to get there. As such, the Adept should probably be fine. I drew her once so far, but it was a really strange game and she just sat on the table, unused for the duration of the match.

Also, what with the whole curve-lowering shebang, cut the most embarrassing mana rock in Prismatic Lens.

Oho, a rules change that benefits everything I play in EDH apart from the counter package in this deck. Ah well, time to adjust!



Rip in pepperoni countertucks, you will be missed. That left open two counter slots, and it was quite daunting to figure out what to slot in instead. Ertai's Meddling played quite well during its time in the list, so it returns. Forbid may just be a Cancel, or if I hit one of those mega draw pockets I can turn it into a value engine. Not bad.

Gomazoa is also affected by the rules change, but it remains a powerful deterrent nevertheless.

That moment when one of the 99 suddenly starts rubbing you the wrong way.



So what got in the way? The creature-based tappers are quite annoying as they're unhasted, so you can't just sneak them in out of thin air and surprise someone. Stonybrook Angler isn't really optimal in any way, when you compare it to other tappers... except for the fact that he costs 2. Muddle The Mixture can now hit a tapper, I think I mention it somewhere up thread. Plus he untaps if so desired, so you can get extra mileage out of that Arcanis or Adept or something. And he's a wizard, so Azami fodder. Everything is perfect, no? Well, except he's unhasted. Trip Noose is instantaneous, doesn't untap, doesn't interact with Azami... feh. Tough call, but the ability to appear out of nowhere and do its thing is good. Subbed in.

Also, the constant curve cutting trend means that the average CMC for the deck is sub-3. There's tons of mana rocks and lands around, and I still probably need most of them as my commander costs 7 and activated abilities of tappers/wizards/equips etc can be nontrivial too. Experimenting by cutting a land though, and running some novelty in Vedalken Æthermage. I've got a bunch of cool wizards in the deck, as mentioned earlier, and this can fish out a tapper (Puppeteer), Azami, Arcanis, Temporal Adept, a limited tutor (Trinket Mage), a theft effect (Thalakos Deceiver)... not bad at all. Blue doesn't have much in the way of library searching, so this will have to do. Plus hey, a flash chump in a pinch.

Back To Basics may win games in theory, but in practice my meta is weird and there's not much nonbasic flying around. I'm actually slowly preparing myself mentally for taking out Blood Moon et al from my mono red deck *shudder*. Your list seems like it may be interesting, I'd like to take a look if possible. I probably won't change all that much here, for example a sizeable part of my nonbasic package is there to deal with things like Homeward Path which screw up my theft plan.

Blaze it, deck change incoming! A mini one, Patron-style, so the list is hopefully approaching equilibrium.



Captain of the Mists was in a class all of his own - 3 drop tapper with a 2 activation cost that's summoning sick. True, his perks in the human trick and any-permanent (un)tapping are neat, but are they worth the 1 increase in cost over Stonybrook Angler? Probably not. Mini-tweak!

Also, this isn't going in the OP, but I had trouble locating some cards and made some temporary changes to compensate.



(Edit as I went for Hart instead of Depression Automaton. The gap-filled list fared really nicely at the LGS, the Hart in particular was an MVP in one game. The simplicity of Persuasion etc is beautiful as well. Decisions, decisions... for now I have this, I'll worry if the perspective of acquiring the missing links arises)

Guess what card was about to get cut, again, but didn't?



If you guessed Stonybrook Angler, you were right. He feels like the weakest link in the 99, and his back and forth in the list has been legendary. But in the end, he does get stuff done. He taps things down. He drops for 2. He untaps Arcanis if things get stupid. He's a wizard. He may be summoning sick, but the "why not both" solution to a prior card versus scenario turned out to be correct (Trip Noose is DOING WORK).

The thing is - I need to fit Expedition Map somehow. Utility lands (be it of the Maze of Ith school or the Homeward Path school) really harsh this deck's mellow. The map is the only other source that lets me find the answer land package I run. Plus, it gets hit by Trinket Mage. In a pinch, it can double as a normal land drop finder (stalling out on mana does happen every now and then, so this will help), or even as card draw (dig up a cycle land).

What do I cut for that? Well crap. Countermagic is nice. Tappers are nice, they really do work in my preferred meta (to which I only took the deck yesterday). Bounce/tutoring/ramp goes without saying really, the proportions of everything seem pretty ok in the deck. The weakest link was eventually identified to be Grafted Wargear. It comes with all the risk of Grafted Exoskeleton with half the pay-off, and it has the odd ability to combo with O-Naginata to create a double-equipped, not-one-shotting Tromo. I mean, the decrease of volume of the Voltron package from 5 pieces to 4 shouldn't be too noticeable. If I fail to draw any pieces, I'll just have to three-shot people instead of two-shotting them.

Also Seat of the Synod in case I run out of other valid Trinket Mage targets, or just want a land for whatever reason.

Long time no posting, I know, I know. Still, deck got tweaked again, so here goes.



It started quite innocuously. Pestered a guy with a brain about whether me cutting Grafted Wargear for Expedition Map was a good idea. Ended in me showing him the whole list and him voicing an opinion that my 3-drop wall and some of my countermagic were a bad idea. Ran it by Ebline as well, who agreed, and on top of that made me realise that I wasn't getting as much mileage out of Future Sight as I would in a proper deck that actually needs it. Mind Unbound is better for what I need that particular slot to do (flood me with cards to work with), so in it goes instead. It was quite good actually. It was in the deck during an inopportune time when there was a lot of high-cost stuff and the list felt even clunkier than it does now. Hello again. I'll probably get better mileage out of you these days.

So, countermagic. The delays are cute and politically awesome, but they could be stronger. As such, making them stronger! The counters that have been knocking around the list's peripherals for a while were Deprive and Stoic Rebuttal, so in they go. Stoic Rebuttal has gotten a coincidental boost in synergy with the introduction of the artifact land. Deprive has a bit of an ugly drawback, but hey, I might just reuse Halimar Depths or pitch Tolaria West to get whatever utility I need.

So, wall. The wall originally brought up for cutting was Guard Gomazoa, but that guy's staying. A personal weakness in deck design is that most of my lists don't tend to generate much board presence, so I have to cherish whatever I let inside. Guard Gomazoa has repaid me well so far, allowing me to sponge up some damage onto something that isn't my health total. Gomazoa without the guard training is a neat rattlesnake, but has lost its sheen a bit since the tuck change. Propaganda should hopefully be more worthwhile - if my foes still wish to focus me, they'll be gimping themselves to accomplish that feat. Plus hey, another thing into the near-endless supply of stuff a Drift of Phantasms can get.

Origins has some pretty interesting stuff, but the only thing that really made my jaw drop was Willbreaker.



So, why am I such a filthy hypocrite and ignore the Dismiss into Dream suggestion made up-thread, but take this guy? Simple. Stupid amounts of board presence. If he gets to stick around, I get to be the guy holding all the bombs, whilst the former suggestion merely thins the board without providing any immediate advantage to me. If somebody gets rid of the Willbreaker, that's always one less removal that can hit the kraken, and the theft engines can be promptly recycled into ways to make Tromo connect. True, the same can be said for the former suggestion, but once again - this lets me hold all the bombs whilst the engine is active. Needed to make room, after a few days of pondering I settled on Propaganda. It's a singleton copy of the effect, and only responds to the very crowded Drift of Phantasms transmute whilst not being quite as back-breaking as Ensnaring Bridge is in my Purphoros, God of the Forge build.

So yeah, we got a Willbreaker in town. What does that call for? Expansion of the land toolbox to include a few sneaky targeting options. I managed to snag an undercosted Tower of the Magistrate on eBay not long after the spoiler, so it goes in over the least useful colorless land (Blasted Landscape is cute and all, but this is almost certainly stronger). Also upgrading an island into the original Tolaria for pure cheekiness.

Inquisitor's Flail is strictly better at killing people than Runechanter's Pike. Tromo just doesn't get blocked, my deck makes sure of that.

Relic of Progenitus is pretty cool, maybe I'll make room if graveyard decks become a thing in the meta.

There are games where Tromo doesn't even come out of the command zone. You can steal some pretty juicy things. That takes care of both alternate win conditions (nothing like killing a guy with his own Gisela) and "spot removal". There's no real need to run things like Pongify in here, as there's countermagic (to stop things from happening) and theft (which repurposes the things to be your own). I'll admit, Curse of the Swine is pretty good value, maybe I'll find a spot. The 99's already crowded. Polymorphist's Jest would be glorious if layers worked like they did in the past.

why no mind over matter? other than the cost, there's no reason not to play it imo. "free" creature tapping plus azami combo seems fine to me

You hit the nail on the head - I haven't managed to find one cheap enough. I have a 2 euro per card cap, and I even managed to get Mana Vault within that cap. Thanks for reminding me though, I'll look for it every now and then. I could use it in here, maybe. I'll probably not make as good a use out of it as dedicated lists though.

mine's pretty banged up so i managed to get a copy for a lil' discount. my personal tromokratis deck went more of a "tribal" route or as close as krakens, leviathans, etc. go. like with quest for ula's temple, whelming wave, and stuff like that. as it turns out, krakens are pretty good at tapping things down so a kraken into tromokratis attack happens pretty frequently. other than that it's a ton of ramp to pump out these expensive sea critters, but it's by far one of favorite EDHs to play to date.

i'll post my list later when i'm back at home

Go for it, I'll be really happy to look at it. Tromo's a bit of an underplayed commander, but I can see why - he takes some building around to abuse to full effect, and standard blue builds with Azami, Arcum etc are stronger on the whole. I could see the tribal approach working, but the control'y shell utilising Tromo as a finisher in case an opening presents itself works pretty well too.

Speaking of working pretty well, I took it to the local FNM for a laugh and promptly ground the game down to a halt by resolving Empress Galina and proceeding to steal anything of note (with the aid of a few other theft spells for non-legendary targets). I'd have probably won the game and snagged a promo, but a well-timed wrath plus Boros Charm when I used up my counter mana to snag a pesky Zur with a cast Diplomatic Immunity on the stack blew me out, and a prompt alpha strike sealed the deal. Ah well, happens.

I got a chance to draw Propaganda later tonight, and it DID WORK. I'm still running the old build of the deck as Willbreaker doesn't formally exist yet, and it was my first time actually using the card properly. It really helped - slowed folks down Rhystic Study-style if they chose to punch me even with a single dude, allowing me to stabilise quite a bit easier. I need to keep it. Just need to figure out what to slice instead... currently leaning towards Guard Gomazoa, will see in a while.

As mentioned, Propaganda needs to stay, that card is bonkers. The Gomazoa is awesome too, but this allows the deck to deal with swarming in an additional way to Silent Arbiter.

This took this long to "implement" as I was waiting for the Tolaria to arrive, had trouble getting it. Now that I have it, the Willbreaker toolbox went in. I actually cut the Gomazoa for the Willbreaker, but for list continuity online this is what happened.

I would reconsider cards that either bounce opponent's board state or destroys them altogether (like Dismiss into Dream). Dismiss into Dream + Icy Blast = all creatures gone. So who's gonna block Tromokratis? Also, Mind Over Matter is too broken in here to not pass up. If the point of the deck is abusing Tromokratis's abiilty, then you need to efficiently abuse Tromokratis's ability. You could give Tromokratis deathtouch just in case it is blocked. Then all creatures without regenerate or indestructible will die.

I like the idea and kudos for choosing a general no one will play with. However, if you wanna stick to the flavor, then stick to the flavor ;).

Tsk, there is no flavour to speak of I'm openly as anti-flavour as possible, all these cards could be called "chicken 1", "chicken 2" etc and I'd play them.

You'd be surprised how often Tromo ends up blocked when there's no tapper around. People are willing to take a decent board state hit to avoid getting hit by the kraken, as kraken hugs stack pretty quick and can be amplified out of nowhere (as in on my turn "out of nowhere"). Dismiss into Dream has been mentioned already, and I still stand by my previous stance - it doesn't gel as well with the strategy as something like Mindbreaker. Both of those cards are likely to get you targeted, but it's Mindbreaker that is more likely to swing the game in your favour. Both of those require you to backseat Tromo sneak attacks quite a bit, as you no longer have a way to make him connect reliably, instead turning the tappers into another game altogether.

Deathtouch is relatively wasteful. If you're going to die from a kraken hug, you are going to block no matter what. If you kill the kraken through sheer wideness, you probably bought yourself two turns to try to throw some more stuff together to put in the kraken's way. Tapdown + swing by works really well. I'm actually really happy with how the deck is performing, it's my go-to "take some cardboard out and just play a fun social game" list.

I really need a Mind Over Matter in here. I know. The problem is that this list still carries delusions of being a budget build, and I can't get that card within the self imposed per card price limit. If I ever drop the act (unlikely to be any time soon, it's super fun to puff out my chest when this thing takes down games and remind everyone that this cost less than a precon), this card is going in instantly. Or if I find one bitten by a dog or something of the sort.

Now that's an awesome card that I knew of but never thought of running in here! I should give it a go.

For now I am giving a different card a go instead



Whilst Mind Unbound is incredible in the long run, it's usually preferable to have the thing you need on hand immediately. Ugin's Insight specialises in this. Nothing quite like a scry 11 off a "borrowed" Pathrazer of Ulamog to draw into a game-ending equipment and some countermagic to protect everything.

It might be time to strip the "budget" limitation and go full potato on the list, losing some of the creature-based activated ability stuff for more brutal options like Gilded Drake and more potent, currently-out-of-price-range control spells.