Sorry for double posting, but wanted to share my list. The basic idea is to seal myself of of the rest of the game with the pillowfort package (Propaganda, Solitary Confinement, etc.), make friends by letting everyone draw cards and helping players out a bit. This way, in essence, I try to give everyone enough gas to keep the table balanced, let players take each other out and when necessary, and finally take over the game with a janky wincon once I have the pieces to do so.
Like I said, I've only played it a couple of times up to now, but I like the list a lot. Still looking for some cards like the draw doublers to make it more explosive.
A hobby is by defenition something you're not any good at - otherwise it'd have been your work. Magic is my biggest hobby so I mustn't be very good at it.
To be radically honest, I do on occasion go around searching for Zedruu lists on the internet 90% trying to figure out who's riffing off of my stuff, and if I saw this list I would not have assumed you saw this thread. Not that there's nothing in common, since it's still "draw a ton of cards until nonsense happens," but I tend to look for people playing things like Memnite, Mirror of Fate, Opalescence, Knowledge Pool, Mindmoil, etc. as the "that persons seen my deck" giveaway.
Of course, all are welcome here (and I think this is the most active Zedruu thread on this site at the moment.) Looking it over, the invincible enchantment pillowfort and avoidance of actual infinite combo seems like the sort of deck that might enjoy an Enduring Ideal package. I also think that Mirrorweave should have at least some proactive target with it in the deck, and I don't think Laboratory Maniac is doing much more than waiting for you to draw out naturally, which is a tough sell. Even if you Tunnel Vision yourself, it's still a lot of waiting before that triggers.
So, I'm updating the first post here (in a text document, nothing's changed yet) and all that's left is the list of combos, but I just had an interesting goldfishing experience and I want to tell that and a few stories.
1) Had a game where I was really, really rewarded for a questionable play. In response to removal, I Jeskai Charmed my own Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage. A couple times around the table later, somebody Cyclonic Rifts and I have Raff around to just drop threats back into play. Same game, shortly after, I set up infinite turns with Temporal Mastery and Mirror of Fate, ad only 1 person isn't prepared to scoop and instead casts Teferi's Protection, so I dig out the cards to cast and bounce Knowledge Pool infinite times before passing the turn.
2) Somebody blew up all the creatures, then I did the old eot Knowledge Pool and on my turn I cleaned out the goods, including Venser, the Sojourner who +2d to flicker the Knowledge Pool. I left up mana to cast Leave // Chance from my hand in case anything really good flipped over. An Inferno Titan flips over. The next player untaps and casts an instant on his upkeep, I've got Venser at 5 and Leave in hand thinking "take the titan, take it, I dare you!" He casts Enlightened Tutor from his pooled cards and searches up Eidolon of Rhetoric. He puts Eidolon in and takes the titan (killing the 1 creature that was replayed), then casts something else and takes the Eidolon thinking now he has the only 2 creatures, one is a fast clock, and nobody can cast spells. On my turn, I point to Venser and he notices I can break the lock, but of course I just take the Inferno Titan back and between that and an emblem a turn later the game ends.
3) This is just me goldfishing the deck as a break from typing about it. It's a bit of a different experience goldfishing because without opponents, I go for things a lot more aggressively and might just lose to myself. I had a bunch of mana, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Vedalken Orrery and Mindmoil and Alhammarret's Archive with an active Bonus Round. Down to 5 mana, I hit the point where I need to remove the Archive or die, and I unfortunately don't have an answer in hand, but I do have an out. I play something cheap, leaving me with 2 mana available, then Mindmoil into Leave. Cast leave, put the Bonus Round copy on top of the Mindmoil trigger and return the Archive and a Chrome Mox to my hand and ponder whether replaying a Mox for 1 mana could win the game. Then I remember I did +1 on Teferi and move to the end step. (There are 10 cards left in the deck and Mindmoil stacks in the order of your choice, so the Mindmoil trigger is basically pick 10 cards you don't need. It no longer mattered really) I untap 2 lands, cast Chrome Mox, tap all 3 for Catch // Release (twice cause of Bonus Round) targetting Gilded Lotus and Unbender Tine, tap for 2 different colors and play Crystalline Crawler, use the 2 floating and the 2 counters for Dack's Duplicate on the crawler, then 4 counters for Phyrexian Metamorph on the hasty Crawler, tap for 2 more to Infinite Reflection the hasty Crawler, play Memnite, tap Memnite, Zedruu, and the now hasty crawler for 3 for walking archive as a hasty crawler, 4 mana plays Jeskai Ascendancy into Firestorm to untap my creatures, (noncreature spells now make 6 mana) play Strionic Resonator, play March of the Machines, play Cowardice, play Opalescence play Vanish Into Memory triggering cowardice to bounce Dack's Duplicate (which drops the Infinite Reflection) and Cowardice, recast the Duplicate as a hasty Strionic Resonator, then cast Jeskai Charm to deal 4 to an opponent triggering Bonus Round and Jeskai Ascendancy, pay 2 and tap the resonator to copy the Bonus Round trigger to get another Charm, then use Unbender Tine to untap the hasty Resonator and spend 2 more mana copying the Ascendancy trigger. And that's infinite damage right there.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
The check lands I just happened to pull from recent sets.
The man-lands I acquired deliberately when I cut Noyan Dar so I could still do funny things with lands.
Ephemeral Shields, Jeskai Charm, and Arcbond are a combo with Precursor Golem. I wanted Arcbond cause I wanted more board control, and the rest came together.
Raff is an obvious trade in for Shimmer Myr that I've enjoyed. The legendary theme of Dominaria reignited my desire to have a legend of each color pair, and after a bunch of fiddling, I settled on Razia and Nin. They're cool cards that do things.
Venser is a boomerang/counterspell that can re-buy Mind's Desire.
Dack's Duplicate is a clone with haste. The Cowardice combo just fell into place.
Unbender Tine has good flavor text.
Swans had to come back in if Nin is in.
Cathars' Crusade is here because I had a lot of infinite etb options and only 1 thing to trigger, and this makes 2,
Teferi is one of those cards that's good, but also this deck is also outstandingly good fit already. Having the flash enablers and bounce lands makes the untap substantially more relevant. The tuck is funny with Knowledge Pool and also can clear away my things that backfire just like Nahiri did, and the emblem is basically game over.
I think I've mentioned most of my cuts before this post, but credit to the discussion here for selling me on keeping Metamorph and playing Archive over Thought Reflection. I'd rather have both, but if I can find anything in here unworthy of its place, what I need to add most is another Island before trying to bring back a 7 drop.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I still love Nahiri, and I'm still mulling over possibly playing 3 planeswalkers that I can't really protect, but I got a Teferi and gave him a shot and he way overperformed my expectations. I figured the plus is better draw than Nahiri and the minus is comparable removal with a game winning ultimate that shouldn't be relevant. I didn't appreciate how rediculous untapping 2 lands is. In just the first few times I've used him, I've gotten to untap a bounce land Nykthos to have access to way more than 2 mana, and untapped a bounce land and Mikokoro to draw an extra card, and I've flashed him in at end of turn before mine and then used his minus at my end step to get to 7 for flash Temporal Mastery. His plus is just outrageous.
The Locust God was too easy sometimes, immediately dead most of the time, and forced me to not play either Swans or Warstorm Surge.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Ok, so Echo Storm vs Phyrexian Metamorph, not cause they're super comparable but because that's the cut I would need to make.
Echo Storm triggers Eye of the Storm, triggers Jeskai Ascendancy, triggers Bonus Round. It curves nicely after turn 2 signet, turn 3 zedruu, turn 4 Echo Storm for 2 more signets. It makes multiple permanents to donate. It can copy Knowledge Pool before being exiled. It brings back the Stolen Identity/Strinonic Resonator trick for less mana with an easier trigger condition and in a way that can genuinely infinite. Possibly too infinite, in fact, as it would just require Strionic Resonator/Gilden Lotus/Echo Storm and having cast Zedruu twice from the command zone. That's not four cards so much as 3 cards and a condition, but it's probably harder to do than most of the infinites in here and only makes infinite of every artifact in play, which doesn't necessarily win the game anyway. And then if you cast a spell to get it out of Knowledge Pool, you can guarantee yourself 4 Knowledge Pools by the end of it.
So, basically, do I add a bunch of nonsense at the cost of 2 more mana?
You make it sound like a rhetorical question.Artifact copies reminds me of what happened Saturday. Zedruu vs. Atraxa vs. Inalla. I ended up trying to mill everybody out with 8x Font of Mythos, Leave in my hand just in case. Never actually cast Zedruu that game. Almost managed to take that game, but then Inalla used Jace's Archivist when Atraxa had 38 cards in hand and nobody had that many cards left in their library.
So I want to mix things up, so the deck Idea becomes 70% your deck but 30%: reward the nice guys und make ********s pay (give them cards that suck so badly - like not playing lands, not playing creatures or whatnot)
Any Idea who I could achieve that? What would be the remaining win option?
If that's what you would rather do, you can look at typical cards used in Zedruu decks on edhrec.com or maybe look at other Zedruu threads on the forums (there's a decklist thread). If you want to go down that road, I suggest going all-in on one or the other for a while first — maybe even trying both separately. What average Zedruu decks do isn't really what this deck does — rather, my impression from playing it is that it's more about doing crazy, wacky stuff (as opposed to mean stuff). So it could be rather beneficial to become familiar with the crazy stuff on its own first so that you get an idea what parts of the crazy you want to keep.
I'd actively advocate against trying to do both those things in the same deck, in much the same way I advocate against playing the deck of 98 timmy permanents and a Primal Surge. If you play against the same people a lot, they learn what your decks do and react appropriately. If you 1-card combo with a Primal Surge, your opponents start playing against that possibility, and suddenly you're the sad person who's getting all your mana dorks and rocks destroyed every game because even though you do nothing most games, nobody wants to spin the roulette on whether you auto-win at 10 mana. If you go halfway into building a mean zedruu deck, your opponents are still going to to target you as though you're about to lock them out of the game because ignoring that possibility is almost like conceding.
If you want to play politics rather than going all in on bad gifts, I might go with more of a tokens build. Making tokens is a sort of pillow fort to hold back people gunning for you, and permanents that make more permanents give you low cost ways to reward people without exposing yourself. Play zedruu like a Pheldagrif player that draws more cards, and then use the few bad gifts you want to play to punish the people who don't take care of the tokens you throw at them.
Honestly, if you don't really know what you're going for yet, adding white to the Commander 2018 artifact deck would not be too bad a place to start for that strategy. It's got a bunch of token makers, Vedalken Humiliator so your opponents things aren't bigger than a servo, Coveted Jewel is a friendly self-donator, and Treasure Nabber can let you redistribute other people's mana rocks.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Honestly, if you don't really know what you're going for yet, adding white to the Commander 2018 artifact deck would not be too bad a place to start for that strategy. It's got a bunch of token makers, Vedalken Humiliator so your opponents things aren't bigger than a servo, Coveted Jewel is a friendly self-donator, and Treasure Nabber can let you redistribute other people's mana rocks.
Generally agree with all of this. When decks go in many directions, they don't tend to get far in any of those directions.
As an aside, are you looking at any of the new prints from C18 tstorm?
Generally agree with all of this. When decks go in many directions, they don't tend to get far in any of those directions.
As an aside, are you looking at any of the new prints from C18 tstorm?
I stuck Echo Storm in place of Metamorph for the moment, but I'm really terrible at drawing it. By which I mean I've played 6 games and haven't drawn it. I like it theoretically. Also, I have a deck that profits off of giving people creatures, so Xantcha and Varchild make me happy, just not in Zedruu.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I haven't really found much from this year I want to work with either. And I share the same predilection for playtesting. It's a slow process in a 100-card singleton format.
There's a few cards I got that I'll try in other decks, the most interesting being Reality Scramble. It ought to be amazing at the right time in Zada even without Retrace.
I stuckEcho Storm in place of Metamorph for the moment, but I'm really terrible at drawing it. By which I mean I've played 6 games and haven't drawn it. I like it theoretically. Also, I have a deck that profits off of giving people creatures, so Xantcha and Varchild make me happy, just not in Zedruu.
Sorry, I don't want to derail this thread, but I'd really like to hear your take on both Xantcha and Varchild, since they are the only two cards from Cmd18 I found interesting and now want to build decks around.
Xantcha, Sleeper Agent and Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor both go into my "give people creatures" deck. That deck has gone through a few iterations, at the moment it is Mathas, Fiend Seeker because card draw in the command zone is really just my favorite thing to do. The goal of the deck is to make my opponent's have creature, most efficiently with Forbidden Orchard and Varchild's War-riders, have them do my bidding with things like Fumiko the Lowblood and Ghostly Prison, and then punish them with things like Repercussion and Rakdos Charm. Basically, I just love Rakdos Charm and want to justify it. And then the rest of the deck supporting that style is a bunch of control elements, mainly spot removal.
Xantcha is perfect for that deck. It donates itself, giving my opponent a creature. It picks away at life totals, keeping them low enough to get at people. And it gives me a variant of Greed, which is an excellent card to have in a control shell. A+ addition.
Varchild is more thematically required. There are only a few cards in the game that repeatedly give your opponents creatures, so I feel obligated to include them all, but the fact that I'm already giving people creatures is going to make it significantly harder to land hits with Varchild. But if it gets down early, or if Fumiko or Goblin Spymaster are causing trouble, it could do some neat things.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Xantcha, Sleeper Agent and Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor both go into my "give people creatures" deck. That deck has gone through a few iterations, at the moment it is Mathas, Fiend Seeker because card draw in the command zone is really just my favorite thing to do. The goal of the deck is to make my opponent's have creature, most efficiently with Forbidden Orchard and Varchild's War-riders, have them do my bidding with things like Fumiko the Lowblood and Ghostly Prison, and then punish them with things like Repercussion and Rakdos Charm. Basically, I just love Rakdos Charm and want to justify it. And then the rest of the deck supporting that style is a bunch of control elements, mainly spot removal.
Xantcha is perfect for that deck. It donates itself, giving my opponent a creature. It picks away at life totals, keeping them low enough to get at people. And it gives me a variant of Greed, which is an excellent card to have in a control shell. A+ addition.
Varchild is more thematically required. There are only a few cards in the game that repeatedly give your opponents creatures, so I feel obligated to include them all, but the fact that I'm already giving people creatures is going to make it significantly harder to land hits with Varchild. But if it gets down early, or if Fumiko or Goblin Spymaster are causing trouble, it could do some neat things.
Would this deck be on MTGS anywhere? I have a Queen Marchesa deck that plays almost all these same cards (and thank you for introducing me to Varchild's War-Riders!), so I'd really be interested in looking at it.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Most of my decks are just thrown together haphazardly out of what I have lying around and what I see people trading, so they'd likely just be dead threads here. Especially with the good ol' budget manabases. That being said, the deck is right next to me sooo....
I like your list! Have you read the thread here, which talks about utilizing Mardu colors for political purposes in multiplayer games? The thesis is that politics actually means setting up a situation where you benefit from the most logical action another player could take. In most instances, it means attacking another player.
Speaking of this style of deck, another player took that idea a step further and helped popularize the term Aikido as a deck type. Their Queen Marchesa deck is well documented and interesting. You could find some good inspiration in both places for your Mathas deck.
I saw the first thread you linked a long time ago. I do like their take on politics since that's what politics actually is (as opposed to most magic players thinking collusion is politics and then I have to kill them first), though I tend to phrase it more optimistically, "Politics is making what's good for you good for someone else too." I'm not trying to be as subtle as that deck though, my Mathas deck is more an expression of my inner Timmy than most of the things I play. I should probably dig out a Batwing Brume though, I forgot about that card.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
First off let me say that I love this deck. I've had more fun playing it than anything else I've touched. Unfortunately my playgroup seems to be moving in a more competitive direction, and about a week ago I found myself on the receiving end of a turn 3 Hatred. Then the next game I drew a handful of 4 and 5 drops, and the game was out of control by turn 5 with no way to come back from it.
Can you suggest some way of lowering the mana curve of the deck, while still retaining the fun jigsaw puzzle nature of it? If you had to cut one of the 4 card win combos and replace it with something a little lower to the ground what would you do?
You don't really need to replace something with something else lower to the ground. I used to have way less space dedicated to combos, and it was still plenty goofy. The weakest combo is almost certainly Dissipation Field, but the cards that it combos with still wouldn't be worth cutting whether or not you keep that. The way to cut the most fat would probably probably be ripping out the cards related to Barren Glory and Precursor Golem.
If you want more explosiveness, you could get Mind Over Matter and Dream Halls back involved, but honestly, trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle win before someone turn 3 Hatreds you is only going to make more enemies. If your trying to lower the curve to keep up with a faster meta, you'll want your low cost cards to be interaction, and pivot into a sort of controlling role. Play enough cheap interaction to keep other players from winning or killing you before the nonsense gets going. 1 for 1 answers might feel underwhelming once everyone is drawing 5 cards a turn and the boardstates a mess, but you gotta do what you gotta do to reach that point.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Like I said, I've only played it a couple of times up to now, but I like the list a lot. Still looking for some cards like the draw doublers to make it more explosive.
1 Zedruu the Greathearted
Creature
1 Humble defector
1 Vedalken Plotter
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Walking Archive
1 Swans of Bryn Argoll
1 Kami of the Crescent Moon
1 Windborn Muse
1 Azor's Elocutors
1 Baird, Steward of Argive
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
Enchantment
1 Illusions of Grandeur
1 Delusions of Mediocrity
1 Statecraft
1 Wild Research
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Hive Mind
1 Dictate of Kruphix
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Propaganda
1 Collective Restraint
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Diplomatic Immunity
1 Aurification
1 Dissipation Field
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Cast Out
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Font of Mythos
1 Venser's Journal
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Sphere of the Suns
1 Howling Mine
1 Temple Bell
1 Azorius Signet
1 Boros Signet
1 Izzet Signet
1 Azorius Cluestone
1 Boros Cluestone
1 Izzet Cluestone
1 Sol Ring
1 Crook of Condemnation
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Mask of Avacyn
1 Proteus Staff
Sorcery
1 Approach of the Second Sun
1 Tunnel Vision
1 Fabricate
1 Political Trickery
1 Long-Term Plans
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Time Reversal
Instant
1 Shifting Borders
1 Intervention Pact
1 Pact of the Titan
1 Banishing Stroke
1 Hinder
1 Dream Fracture
1 Firestorm
1 Mirrorweave
1 Oblation
1 Chaos Warp
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Boros Garrison
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Kor Haven
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Reliquary Tower
7 Island
5 Mountain
6 Plains
Of course, all are welcome here (and I think this is the most active Zedruu thread on this site at the moment.) Looking it over, the invincible enchantment pillowfort and avoidance of actual infinite combo seems like the sort of deck that might enjoy an Enduring Ideal package. I also think that Mirrorweave should have at least some proactive target with it in the deck, and I don't think Laboratory Maniac is doing much more than waiting for you to draw out naturally, which is a tough sell. Even if you Tunnel Vision yourself, it's still a lot of waiting before that triggers.
1) Had a game where I was really, really rewarded for a questionable play. In response to removal, I Jeskai Charmed my own Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage. A couple times around the table later, somebody Cyclonic Rifts and I have Raff around to just drop threats back into play. Same game, shortly after, I set up infinite turns with Temporal Mastery and Mirror of Fate, ad only 1 person isn't prepared to scoop and instead casts Teferi's Protection, so I dig out the cards to cast and bounce Knowledge Pool infinite times before passing the turn.
2) Somebody blew up all the creatures, then I did the old eot Knowledge Pool and on my turn I cleaned out the goods, including Venser, the Sojourner who +2d to flicker the Knowledge Pool. I left up mana to cast Leave // Chance from my hand in case anything really good flipped over. An Inferno Titan flips over. The next player untaps and casts an instant on his upkeep, I've got Venser at 5 and Leave in hand thinking "take the titan, take it, I dare you!" He casts Enlightened Tutor from his pooled cards and searches up Eidolon of Rhetoric. He puts Eidolon in and takes the titan (killing the 1 creature that was replayed), then casts something else and takes the Eidolon thinking now he has the only 2 creatures, one is a fast clock, and nobody can cast spells. On my turn, I point to Venser and he notices I can break the lock, but of course I just take the Inferno Titan back and between that and an emblem a turn later the game ends.
3) This is just me goldfishing the deck as a break from typing about it. It's a bit of a different experience goldfishing because without opponents, I go for things a lot more aggressively and might just lose to myself. I had a bunch of mana, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Vedalken Orrery and Mindmoil and Alhammarret's Archive with an active Bonus Round. Down to 5 mana, I hit the point where I need to remove the Archive or die, and I unfortunately don't have an answer in hand, but I do have an out. I play something cheap, leaving me with 2 mana available, then Mindmoil into Leave. Cast leave, put the Bonus Round copy on top of the Mindmoil trigger and return the Archive and a Chrome Mox to my hand and ponder whether replaying a Mox for 1 mana could win the game. Then I remember I did +1 on Teferi and move to the end step. (There are 10 cards left in the deck and Mindmoil stacks in the order of your choice, so the Mindmoil trigger is basically pick 10 cards you don't need. It no longer mattered really) I untap 2 lands, cast Chrome Mox, tap all 3 for Catch // Release (twice cause of Bonus Round) targetting Gilded Lotus and Unbender Tine, tap for 2 different colors and play Crystalline Crawler, use the 2 floating and the 2 counters for Dack's Duplicate on the crawler, then 4 counters for Phyrexian Metamorph on the hasty Crawler, tap for 2 more to Infinite Reflection the hasty Crawler, play Memnite, tap Memnite, Zedruu, and the now hasty crawler for 3 for walking archive as a hasty crawler, 4 mana plays Jeskai Ascendancy into Firestorm to untap my creatures, (noncreature spells now make 6 mana) play Strionic Resonator, play March of the Machines, play Cowardice, play Opalescence play Vanish Into Memory triggering cowardice to bounce Dack's Duplicate (which drops the Infinite Reflection) and Cowardice, recast the Duplicate as a hasty Strionic Resonator, then cast Jeskai Charm to deal 4 to an opponent triggering Bonus Round and Jeskai Ascendancy, pay 2 and tap the resonator to copy the Bonus Round trigger to get another Charm, then use Unbender Tine to untap the hasty Resonator and spend 2 more mana copying the Ascendancy trigger. And that's infinite damage right there.
- 3x Island
- 2x Mountain
- 2x Plains
- Goblin Welder
- Shimmer Myr
- Noyan Dar
- Sky Hussar
- The Locust God
- Mox Diamond
- Anvil of Bogardan
- Teferi's Puzzle Box
- Thought Reflection
- Chaos Warp
- Nahiri's Wrath
- Stolen Identity
- Nahiri, the Harbinger
+ Clifftop Retreat
+ Glacial Fortress
+ Silfer Falls
+ Celestial Colonnade
+ Needle Spires
+ Wandering Fumerole
+ Nin, the Pain Artist
+ Dack's Duplicate
+ Raff Capashen
+ Swans of Bryn Argoll
+ Venser, Shaper Savant
+ Razia, Boros Archangel
+ Unbender Tine
+ Cathars' Crusade
+ Cowardice
+ Ephemeral Shields
+ Arcbond
+ Jeskai Charm
+ Bonus Round
+ Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
The check lands I just happened to pull from recent sets.
The man-lands I acquired deliberately when I cut Noyan Dar so I could still do funny things with lands.
Ephemeral Shields, Jeskai Charm, and Arcbond are a combo with Precursor Golem. I wanted Arcbond cause I wanted more board control, and the rest came together.
Raff is an obvious trade in for Shimmer Myr that I've enjoyed. The legendary theme of Dominaria reignited my desire to have a legend of each color pair, and after a bunch of fiddling, I settled on Razia and Nin. They're cool cards that do things.
Venser is a boomerang/counterspell that can re-buy Mind's Desire.
Dack's Duplicate is a clone with haste. The Cowardice combo just fell into place.
Unbender Tine has good flavor text.
Swans had to come back in if Nin is in.
Cathars' Crusade is here because I had a lot of infinite etb options and only 1 thing to trigger, and this makes 2,
Teferi is one of those cards that's good, but also this deck is also outstandingly good fit already. Having the flash enablers and bounce lands makes the untap substantially more relevant. The tuck is funny with Knowledge Pool and also can clear away my things that backfire just like Nahiri did, and the emblem is basically game over.
I think I've mentioned most of my cuts before this post, but credit to the discussion here for selling me on keeping Metamorph and playing Archive over Thought Reflection. I'd rather have both, but if I can find anything in here unworthy of its place, what I need to add most is another Island before trying to bring back a 7 drop.
I didn't think I'd ever see you drop Nahiri, the Harbinger. I'm looking to pick up a copy of Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage myself, he's such a good fit here.
I'm assuming The Locust God is out because it was too easy?
Let me know how Teferi, Hero of Dominaria plays out. I've yet to get a chance to play the deck since my latest changes.
The Locust God was too easy sometimes, immediately dead most of the time, and forced me to not play either Swans or Warstorm Surge.
Echo Storm triggers Eye of the Storm, triggers Jeskai Ascendancy, triggers Bonus Round. It curves nicely after turn 2 signet, turn 3 zedruu, turn 4 Echo Storm for 2 more signets. It makes multiple permanents to donate. It can copy Knowledge Pool before being exiled. It brings back the Stolen Identity/Strinonic Resonator trick for less mana with an easier trigger condition and in a way that can genuinely infinite. Possibly too infinite, in fact, as it would just require Strionic Resonator/Gilden Lotus/Echo Storm and having cast Zedruu twice from the command zone. That's not four cards so much as 3 cards and a condition, but it's probably harder to do than most of the infinites in here and only makes infinite of every artifact in play, which doesn't necessarily win the game anyway. And then if you cast a spell to get it out of Knowledge Pool, you can guarantee yourself 4 Knowledge Pools by the end of it.
Metamorph costs 2 less, is free if it copies Crystalline Crawler, has flash with Raff, and can copy Vedalken Plotter, Swans of Bryn Argoll, or Inferno Titan (every other creature in the deck is an artifact or legend). But Dack's Duplicate or Sakashima, the Impostor can do all of these things except cost 3. The other 2 clones won't be cloning Mirror of Fate, but Echo Storm can do that better than Metamorph anyway.
So, basically, do I add a bunch of nonsense at the cost of 2 more mana?
Artifact copies reminds me of what happened Saturday. Zedruu vs. Atraxa vs. Inalla. I ended up trying to mill everybody out with 8x Font of Mythos, Leave in my hand just in case. Never actually cast Zedruu that game. Almost managed to take that game, but then Inalla used Jace's Archivist when Atraxa had 38 cards in hand and nobody had that many cards left in their library.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
If that's what you would rather do, you can look at typical cards used in Zedruu decks on edhrec.com or maybe look at other Zedruu threads on the forums (there's a decklist thread). If you want to go down that road, I suggest going all-in on one or the other for a while first — maybe even trying both separately. What average Zedruu decks do isn't really what this deck does — rather, my impression from playing it is that it's more about doing crazy, wacky stuff (as opposed to mean stuff). So it could be rather beneficial to become familiar with the crazy stuff on its own first so that you get an idea what parts of the crazy you want to keep.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Tl;dr: if you play howling mine and aggressive mining, your opponents use all the extra draws to kill you.
If you want to play politics rather than going all in on bad gifts, I might go with more of a tokens build. Making tokens is a sort of pillow fort to hold back people gunning for you, and permanents that make more permanents give you low cost ways to reward people without exposing yourself. Play zedruu like a Pheldagrif player that draws more cards, and then use the few bad gifts you want to play to punish the people who don't take care of the tokens you throw at them.
Honestly, if you don't really know what you're going for yet, adding white to the Commander 2018 artifact deck would not be too bad a place to start for that strategy. It's got a bunch of token makers, Vedalken Humiliator so your opponents things aren't bigger than a servo, Coveted Jewel is a friendly self-donator, and Treasure Nabber can let you redistribute other people's mana rocks.
Generally agree with all of this. When decks go in many directions, they don't tend to get far in any of those directions.
As an aside, are you looking at any of the new prints from C18 tstorm?
I stuck Echo Storm in place of Metamorph for the moment, but I'm really terrible at drawing it. By which I mean I've played 6 games and haven't drawn it. I like it theoretically. Also, I have a deck that profits off of giving people creatures, so Xantcha and Varchild make me happy, just not in Zedruu.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Sorry, I don't want to derail this thread, but I'd really like to hear your take on both Xantcha and Varchild, since they are the only two cards from Cmd18 I found interesting and now want to build decks around.
Xantcha is perfect for that deck. It donates itself, giving my opponent a creature. It picks away at life totals, keeping them low enough to get at people. And it gives me a variant of Greed, which is an excellent card to have in a control shell. A+ addition.
Varchild is more thematically required. There are only a few cards in the game that repeatedly give your opponents creatures, so I feel obligated to include them all, but the fact that I'm already giving people creatures is going to make it significantly harder to land hits with Varchild. But if it gets down early, or if Fumiko or Goblin Spymaster are causing trouble, it could do some neat things.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
1x Mathas, Fiend Seeker
Distribution
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Weathered Wayfarer (finds Orchard)
1x Varchild's War-riders
1x Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor
1x Goblin Spymaster
1x Curse of Disturbance
1x Akroan Horse
1x Rite of the Raging Storm
1x Alliance of Arms
1x Xantcha, Sleeper Agent
1x Hunted Horror
1x Hunted Lammasu
1x Hunted Dragon
1x Mogg Infestation
Insulation
1x Dawn Charm
1x Comeuppance
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Windborn Muse
1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
1x Lightmine Field
1x Patron of the Kitsune
1x Orbs of Warding
1x Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Manipulation
1x Angel's Trumpet
1x Rage Nimbus
1x Fumiko the Lowblood
1x Disrupt Decorum
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Incite Rebellion
1x Custodi Soulbinders
1x Phyrexian Rebirth
1x Gideon, Champion of Justice
1x Brightflame
1x Blade of the Bloodchief
1x Twilight Drover
1x Deathbringer Thoctar
1x Patron of the Vein
1x Repercussion
1x Vicious Shadows
1x Black Market
Control
1x Mana Tithe
1x Mages' Contest
1x Lapse of Certainty
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Wear // Tear
1x Path to Exile
1x Terminate
1x Unexpectedly Absent
1x Chaos Warp
1x Crib Swap
1x Mortify
1x Afterlife
1x Act of Authority
1x Oblation
1x Chain Reaction
1x Fiery Confluence
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Sunforger
6x Swamp
6x Plains
8x Mountain
1x Mystifying Maze
1x Scoured Barrens
1x Orzhov Basilica
1x Boros Guildgate
1x Boros Garrison
1x Wind-Scarred Crag
1x Rakdos Carnarium
1x Bloodfell Caves
1x Akoum Refuge
1x Vivid Crag
1x Vivid Meadow
1x Vivid Marsh
1x Nomad Outpost
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Command Tower
1x Rakdos Signet
1x Boros Signet
1x Orzhov Signet
1x Rakdos Cluestone
1x Darksteel Ingot
Edit: Mages' Contest is such a stupid card to properly place the apostrophe.
Speaking of this style of deck, another player took that idea a step further and helped popularize the term Aikido as a deck type. Their Queen Marchesa deck is well documented and interesting. You could find some good inspiration in both places for your Mathas deck.
Can you suggest some way of lowering the mana curve of the deck, while still retaining the fun jigsaw puzzle nature of it? If you had to cut one of the 4 card win combos and replace it with something a little lower to the ground what would you do?
If you want more explosiveness, you could get Mind Over Matter and Dream Halls back involved, but honestly, trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle win before someone turn 3 Hatreds you is only going to make more enemies. If your trying to lower the curve to keep up with a faster meta, you'll want your low cost cards to be interaction, and pivot into a sort of controlling role. Play enough cheap interaction to keep other players from winning or killing you before the nonsense gets going. 1 for 1 answers might feel underwhelming once everyone is drawing 5 cards a turn and the boardstates a mess, but you gotta do what you gotta do to reach that point.