Excluding the mana bases, it looks like we have these cards in common: Zedruu, Leyline of Anticipation, Knowledge Pool. I guess that's the important bits.
To pass on the wisdom of Zedruu players passed on to me, play Pentad Prism. It gets Zedruu out a turn early and donates easy to draw more cards, there's very little reason not to play it.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
So, I'm testing a few of the newer released cards in here, as I like to do. Smothering Tithe on a normal time around the table feels fine, it's only really felt good with the wheeleffects, but I'm not taking it out until at least I get to donate Mindmoil with it in play.
Thousand-Year Storm is definitely something I underestimated at first glance. I recognized the power, but was afraid the requirement of doing it all in one turn and only counting instants and sorceries would hold it back, but it turns out I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 instants or sorceries that can generate mana or free additional spells even before these A, B, C, D (maybe E) get involved. Honestly, it's basically just like Eye of the Storm: you go off the turn you go for it or you sputter out and probably die horribly. It's gonna be swapping back and forth with Bonus Round for a bit while I decide which stays. I like that this upgrades Venser, Shaper Savant from the 5 card infinite solidly into the 4 card infinite club, as with enough mana or enough "TYStorm" count and Cowardice, you can cast Catch target Venser, bounce Venser, recast Venser bouncing Catch, and then use all the Catch copies to generate mana. (For anyone trying to count, if all you have are lands that produce one mana, it takes 35 mana to go infinte this way, but it goes way way down if you have things tapping for more than 1 mana or have already cast spells that turn.)
To pass on the wisdom of Zedruu players passed on to me, play Pentad Prism. It gets Zedruu out a turn early and donates easy to draw more cards, there's very little reason not to play it.
Thanks, I never would've thought of that because I didn't know about that card.
I can't figure how you can, in the mirror of fate/mind's desire/rest in peace/eye of the storm combo, get infinite damage only with warstorm surge... how would you get that combo out without first getting infinite turns/mana in order to place the warstorm surge with the zedruu/dissipation field/memnite combo?
I can't figure how you can, in the mirror of fate/mind's desire/rest in peace/eye of the storm combo, get infinite damage only with warstorm surge... how would you get that combo out without first getting infinite turns/mana in order to place the warstorm surge with the zedruu/dissipation field/memnite combo?
It wouldn't be Warstorm Surge all on it's own, but some combo in which it enables infinite damage. The first combo just allows you to get all your pieces out and assemble the other combos.
I can't figure how you can, in the mirror of fate/mind's desire/rest in peace/eye of the storm combo, get infinite damage only with warstorm surge... how would you get that combo out without first getting infinite turns/mana in order to place the warstorm surge with the zedruu/dissipation field/memnite combo?
Once the combo is operating, infinite turns and mana are largely irrelevant as you can play every card in the deck for free with infinite copies of Mind's Desire, so you no longer need more mana to cast anything, and with Mirror of Fate you're choosing what to cast.
An efficient sequencing: have Rest in Peace, Eye of the Storm, and Mirror of Fate down. Cast Mind's Desire, resolve the Eye of the Storm trigger, activate Mirror of Fate with 2 copies of Mind's Desire on the stack, put the exiled Mirror of Fate and Mind's Desire back into your library, they both get exiled to Mind's Desire. Recast Mirror of Fate, recast Mind's Desire, resolve the Eye of the Storm Trigger, then activate Mirror of Fate, but now cause of multiple storm triggers there are 8 copies of Mind's Desire waiting to resolve, so you can pick up to 7 cards to cast for free. And because Rest in Peace is out and you activated Mirror of Fate once already, every card you own that isn't in hand or in play is in exile, so pick the ones you need. In this case, we want infinite Warstorm Surge damage, so pick Warstorm Surge and a clone effect (that isn't Sakashima, I choose Dack's Duplicate). Cast the Surge, then clone Zedruu (if you don't have Zedruu out, obviously play Zedruu first, you can cast mana rocks or Turnabout if you need more mana to do that), shock an opponent from clone Zedruu entering the battlefield, sacrifice a Zedruu to the legend rule, which gets exiled by Rest in Peace so that it's a valid choice the next time you use Mirror of Fate and Mind's Desire. And now you've gone through a complete iteration of an infinite loop that included Zedruu dealing 2 damage to any target. Or if you're not in the mood to show off fancy tricks and just want the game over ASAP, you can put Jeskai Charm into Eye of the Storm so that every iteration of casting Mind's Desire domes someone for 4.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
My opponents needed to wrap things up and start heading home, assuming I was going to win, so I continued as if I still had 3 opponents and a couple of them kept watching to see what would happen as they packed up and/or wrangled their kids. After using Temporal Cascade (21 Treasure tokens!) and Ascendancy triggers to dig into Eye of the Storm, Strionic Resonator, Unbender Tine, Time Spiral, Ephemeral Shields, Catch // Release, Cowardice, I was trying to work out some hypotheticals with golems and it was at this point that my brain broke and I couldn't see a way to what I wanted.
I'd considered casting Precursor Golem and Infinite Reflection, but I probably goofed by some of the cards I pitched earlier on discards (including Vedalken Orrery and Razia, Boros Archangel - *facepalm*). I felt like I was stuck because I figured I was just one or two cards short of a few different combos or something else that I messed up by the order in which I did things. Warstorm Surge and Mirror of Fate were still in the library and I might have been able to dig into them.
I realize now (after staring at that image and writing this up) that I should have cast the Mind's Desire cards entirely differently:
Echo Storm targeting a golem token, stacking its self-copy trigger above the Precursor copy triggers, and those above the Ascendancy trigger — single self-copy of Echo targeting the original Precursor.
I figure this results in 8 Precursors and Sakashima plus 43 golem tokens, all with +1/+1 from Ascendancy already.
Then the last 3 free-to-cast spells are all noncreature for another +3/+3, not to mention some +1/+1 counters from tapping them all in response to each Ascendancy trigger and any other spells I drew into.
With Jeskai Ascendancy out, I would have slammed Infinite Reflection on the hasty crawler straight away, got a few creatures down, and crossed my fingers I'd win before I ran out of noncreature spells.
You did draw into infinite though. Eye of the Storm with Catch // Release under it means that Strionic Resonator says "2 and tap: untap strionic resonator" while casting a spell along the way, which triggers the ascendancy to pump and untap your team and loot, and you don't even have to loot because the untap makes 2 mana to repeat the process infinitely until your team is infintely powerful, and then you can even toss the last Catch at the Crawler to give it haste so that you have 3 attackers for 3 opponents.
Sure sounds like a Zedruu game to me!
Edit: Lol! Nice luck counter!
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Ah! Thanks for that. I can't remember if I got to the Resonator after Cowardice came down, but Release would have solved that.
It has 2 luck counters, hahaha. Mizzix had cast Tezzeret's Gambit earlier and this happened:
Him: "Now, is there anything else I should proliferate" *looks around the battlefield*
Me: "How about my luck counter?"
Him: "Does it do anything?"
Me: "Nope."
Him: "Okay, sure."
I'm posting mostly to gush about Leave // Chance. I starting playing with it 50% to enable Barren Glory and 50% to chuckle cause the card is named Leave to Chance, and that's my favorite way to play magic. But it does so much cool stuff. It picks up permanents I don't need to turn loots into real draws, it almost guarantees I have the converted mana costs to flip Azor's Gateway that I'm enjoying. It makes Mindmoil see half the deck in a turn. It protects my expensive pieces from removal. It's just so much more than I ever hoped.
And just now I was goldfishing cause I got some new toys in the mail (mostly just splurging on foils, but I also bought a kinda pricey land because lol they thought they bannedKarakas). I ended up in a situation where I had Eye of the Storm holding Time Spiral and Leave // Chance and had to do a few cycles of Mirror of Fate before I had both the right cards and mana to "win" the game, and it only worked smoothly because I had Leave picking up unnecessary permanents to keep my hand/library/graveyard at exactly 7 cards every time I Time Spiraled. The precision of that sequence was like watching a rotary engine fire.
On the subject of fancy blue lands, I kinda wanna try Magosi, the Waterveil. I can't combo with it. I'm not going to run Rings of Brighthearth to combo with it. I just wanna try it, cause I can think of 3 situations I'd use it, and I think they'd be worth the downside of one more tapped land occasionally. Situation A) the Vedalken Orrery standoff: I'm holding up mana to interact with people who'd rather I tap out for a moment, so I activate Magosi before my turn arrives and just sit with my mana open one more time around the table with an extra turn banked for later. Situation B) I have Knowledge Pool or Eye of the Storm in hand against an opponent who will win with them if I leave them out for a turn, so I skip a turn to get two in a row so I get first access to those things after I play them. Situation C) it's one of the earlier turns of the game and I miracle Temporal Mastery, and rather than play Explore on turn 4, I skip the turn and bank it as a more impactful Time Walk later in the game. Thoughts?
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
And just now I was goldfishing cause I got some new toys in the mail (mostly just splurging on foils, but I also bought a kinda pricey land because lol they thought they bannedKarakas). I ended up in a situation where I had Eye of the Storm holding Time Spiral and Leave // Chance and had to do a few cycles of Mirror of Fate before I had both the right cards and mana to "win" the game, and it only worked smoothly because I had Leave picking up unnecessary permanents to keep my hand/library/graveyard at exactly 7 cards every time I Time Spiraled. The precision of that sequence was like watching a rotary engine fire.
I don't quite understand and would love an example. Did you not have Rest in Peace down?
On the subject of fancy blue lands, I kinda wanna try Magosi, the Waterveil. I can't combo with it. I'm not going to run Rings of Brighthearth to combo with it. I just wanna try it, cause I can think of 3 situations I'd use it, and I think they'd be worth the downside of one more tapped land occasionally. Situation A) the Vedalken Orrery standoff: I'm holding up mana to interact with people who'd rather I tap out for a moment, so I activate Magosi before my turn arrives and just sit with my mana open one more time around the table with an extra turn banked for later. Situation B) I have Knowledge Pool or Eye of the Storm in hand against an opponent who will win with them if I leave them out for a turn, so I skip a turn to get two in a row so I get first access to those things after I play them. Situation C) it's one of the earlier turns of the game and I miracle Temporal Mastery, and rather than play Explore on turn 4, I skip the turn and bank it as a more impactful Time Walk later in the game. Thoughts?
Activating the eon counter ability (that skips the next turn) would be the perfect time for somebody to respond by stripping it. So it would make me wary.
I don't quite understand and would love an example. Did you not have Rest in Peace down?
I did not have Rest in Peace down. I had Mirror of Fate and Eye of the Storm with Time Spiral and Leave // Chance. I had tapped out to get in that position, but Time Spiral untapped 6 lands, and because I had Time Spiral, I had no cards in graveyard and 7 cards in hand. I activated Mirror of Fate just to exile my library, then I cast I think Mirrorweave from hand to trigger Eye and recast Time Spiral, this time with 6 cards in hand and just Mirror in the graveyard, shuffle them in and draw all 7. But at this point I had myself in an awkward position, cause I only had 8 mana available, and I have cards in my hand I can't cast, so I use leave to bounce Chrome Mox to my hand and cast it exiling something down to 6 cards in hand and up to 9 mana. I cast and activate Mirror putting 2 Firestorm and Turnabout in my library, activate Mikororo to draw Firestorm, cast it with no targets using my last mana. 1 card in library, 1 in graveyard, 5 in hand, Time Spiral draws all 7. I've only got 6 mana to work with, and if I Turnabout, there will only be 6 cards left to draw with Time Spiral, but I've got Leave as well, so I do that, untapping all my lands and then bouncing Howling Mine to my hand and Time Spiraling redrawing the same 7 cards, but this time I have like 15 mana floating so I can use Mirror of Fate, play the 7 mana sorcery that's been stuck in my hand the whole time, and now I just want to set up Rest in Peace and Mind's Desire, but I need to draw both so I need to get some stuff out of my hand, and I need to keep enough mana around to do anything, and all of that can be done without using Leave // Chance but you have to be unreasonably careful to make sure you always have exactly 7 cards to draw with Time Spiral, but because I had Leave available I could just double check every time I trigger Eye of the Storm and make sure I have enough and if I don't, I bounce something I don't need to get up to 7. Like if I had 7 instants and sorceries in hand, I could play them all without needing to Mirror of Fate again by bouncing a permanent to replace each one that's eaten by Eye of the Storm to keep my handsize exactly constant. It's not so much making things possible that weren't before, it's just making them a lot less of a headache.
Figuring out a deterministic win from just Time Spiral and Mirror of Fate is by far the most difficult sequencing I've ever done in Magic: the Gathering, especially because how you redraw your cards and how you you keep exactly 7 available (so the shuffle doesn't screw you and the draw doesn't kill you) is different every time based on what you have in hand and in play to balance those things, and Leave (and Chance for that matter) can be a little grease to smooth out that process. Still, the best use of your time is to just say "I might be able to win without passing the turn, but to preserve my sanity, I'll just wait a turn and hope you still can't stop me then."
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I was pondering these things at work, it's like making puzzles. For the sake of making things difficult, I'm pretending my Rest In Peace got Preator's Grasped away.
Mirrorweave Crystalline Crawler tapping 3 lands and the crawler, Ascendancy untaps creatures. Tap 3 crawlers casting Leave untapping the crawlers and floating a mana while bouncing 3 lands to hand. Cast Mirror of Fate effectively for 2, activate it just to exile the library. Mirrorweave, Mirror, Charm, and Leave in graveyard, 3 lands in hand, cast Time Spiral untapping the Crawlers and 6 remaining lands and drawing the exact 7 cards available. Tap crawlers and 2 lands for Mirror of Fate, activate putting just Time Spiral back. Tap crawlers for Jeskai Charm to deal 4 damage, loot with the Ascendancy, draw Time Spiral and discard any other card. Tap Crawlers and 3 lands for Time Spiral, untapping all the mana again. We've established a loop where we get back to where we started except with 1 extra mana and 4 damage to a player each time. Just another example of going infinite with Mirror without Rest in Peace, using a different method of making the mana and card draw work.
And thinking about it, while I designed that to be a precise answer, you can do it much easier with Smothering Tithe and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. Smothering Tithe makes each Time Spiral pay for a whole loop while also untapping Mikokoro (assuming you have at least 2 opponents), so you draw back Time Spiral with Mikokoro. So, if you can activate Mirror of Fate and cast Time Spiral while satisfying the condition of exactly 7 cards combined in hand, graveyard, and library, it's a 4 card combo of Spiral, Mirror, Tithe, and Mikokoro.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Well, I really appreciate the examples and puzzles, because I need to start looking for interactions among the cards and practicing sequences like that. Such as when I didn't see the ability of Strionic Resonator to copy Eye of the Storm's trigger to keep it going with Catch.
Actually, a section in the OP for various puzzles (not just the combo section) that have come up in the thread could be nice to have. I could help compile a list of comments including puzzles if you are interested.
Actually, a section in the OP for various puzzles (not just the combo section) that have come up in the thread could be nice to have. I could help compile a list of comments including puzzles if you are interested.
That actually sounds super neat! But that would add a ton of text to an already incredibly unwieldy post, so I think the better plan would be to make the puzzles in individual replies and then just make a directory of links to them.
Also, I still have my hypothetical plan to repurpose the second post to comment on every card ever suggested in the thread. And I should probably decide on what changes I wanna make and update the decklist at some point. Lots of projects to do, and the world is just too full of entertainment!
Edit: I've got theoretically 8 more months running the Random Card of the Day before I try and pass that off, then I'll need a new habitual task on here anyway.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Cast Turnabout. Knowledge Pool triggers, cast Eye of the Storm instead. Cast Howling Mine into pool, cast Turnabout out into Eye of the Storm, recast Turnabout untapping lands. Cast Thousand-Year Storm into pool, cast Firestorm for zero, trigger Eye to untap all lands and Firestorm for zero again. Cast Echo Storm, triggering Pool, Eye, and its own copy ability; copy Knowledge Pool (2), cast Thousand-Year Storm out of the pool, cast Turnabout untapping lands and Firestorm with no targets. Cast Barren Glory into the pool, cast Echo Storm out triggering TYS (10th instant/sorcery), Eye, and its own copy ability; Eye recasts Echo Storm (11th instant/sorcery) untap lands with Turnabout (11 times), now between Thousand Year Storm and Echo Storm's trigger, there are 22 copies of Echo Storm, aim them all at Knowledge Pool (24). Cast Ephemeral Shields triggering Pools/Eye/TYS, cast Barren Glory for style points, cast Turnabout and Echo Storm out of Eye one more time, making 15 more Knowledge Pools (39) and more mana than you'll even need. The 39 Knowledge Pools have guaranteed exiled every card from every library including yours, so every card from the deck is available through a Knowledge Pool. Cast Razia as the last card in hand to grab Leave // Chance targeting Orrery and Zedruu to return to hand, cast Zedruu from hand into whichever pool has Mirror of Fate to cast Mirror of Fate. Cast Vedalken Orrery from hand into the pool with Temporal Cascade, put a dozen or so copies of "each player draws 7" onto the stack, and in response activate Mirror of Fate to put any 7 cards exiled by Knowledge Pools back into your library. You draw exactly 7 cards and all opponents mill to death.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
That actually sounds super neat! But that would add a ton of text to an already incredibly unwieldy post, so I think the better plan would be to make the puzzles in individual replies and then just make a directory of links to them.
That sounds better. That way viewers will also have any contextual discussion or follow-on questions available, too.
You can't target your opponent's creatures, but you can target your own just fine. Mirrorweave your own Memnite, turning all creatures into Memnites, and then Detention Sphere your own Memnite. It doesn't target their creatures, so hexproof doesn't matter, and it exiles so the regenerate doesn't matter, and the Thragtusk isn't a Thragtusk anymore, so they don't even get a beast. And since we don't want those creatures coming back, we can flash in Venser, Shaper Savant to bounce the Detention Sphere in response to the etb so that the leave the battlefield resolves first and makes the exile effect permanent.
Hard challenge: kill the green player from 45 life!
We still have planeswalker Venser hanging out which can make your creatures unblockable, so if we can get 40 damage worth of attackers without summoning sickness, we can hit that green player with a game loss, the ultimate board wipe. Inferno Titan attacks for 9, so what we'd really like is like 5 of those with haste. We have 4 creatures to play, an Inferno Titan and a summoning sick Memnite in play, and we have Catch to give one creature haste. We could give 3 golems haste with Catch, and then Mirrorweave Inferno Titan to swing for 36, then Detention Sphere the Titan and Venser bounce the Sphere for another 3 damage trigger, but that's still only 39 damage. The answer I'm aware of requires some wacky sequencing. Play the mana rocks first so we'll have 4 mana available when we need it. Then we can give more creatures haste if we have more golems, and Mirrorweave can make everything a golem. But that would give us, at most, 7 3/3s with haste to swing with which isn't enough. Mirrorweaving Precursor Golem also usually makes Catch into Insurrection, but unfortunately that only works if you can target every creature. So we want more golems, but we still need to Mirrorweave Inferno Titan, which we can do, but only by ordering things carefully. First, Detention Sphere Inferno Titan to hide it from Mirrorweave. Cast Nahiri and -2 to target Detention Sphere to exile, but don't resolve the exile yet. Cast Mirrorweave targeting a golem token, triggering Precursor golem to copy Mirrorweave for each golem (put the copy targeting the actual Precursor Golem on the top of the stack so you don't accidentally get a field of vanilla 3/3s). In response to that, flash in Venser, aiming the bounce at the real Mirrorweave on the stack. Now let the whole stack resolve: Mirrorweave returns to hand, all creatures become Precursor Golems, and then Detention Sphere exiles, which brings Inferno Titan back from exile (deal 3 damage to whatever). Cast Catch targeting a golem and giving all 5 of your golems haste (or 5x haste if you're counting). Then use the 4 mana you made available a paragraph ago to actually play Mirrorweave from hand targeting Inferno Titan, -1 Venser to make creatures unblockable, and attack with 30 power and 15 direct damage from triggers.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Oh that's tough. Do I upgrade Political Trickery, or do I play a 4th version? I certainly play Role Reversal, it certainly does more than just trade lands on 3, but it'd be a tad irresponsible to substitute in a 3 color mana requirement spell for something I'd consider early game mana fixing. Shifting Borders could become it and put me at 3 3-mana trade spells, but that removes the turn 2 signet, turn 3 zedruu, 4th upkeep trade and draw immediately sequence. I can certainly argue it's a removal spell and play all 4, since I could givethemnothing or takeitback. Role Reversal is always Political Trickery and often Confiscate and of course feeds Zedruu, but making cuts is hard. Someone steal some of my cards so I don't have to make decisions.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I appreciate the excitement people are feeling with Feather, the Redeemed as it's own general, but personally, I'm interested in playing her right here. Role Reversal is an obvious fit here, and certainly the more objectively exciting Zedruu card, but Feather is exciting to me in a very different way: it's a card that's going to let me cut other cards. Razia, Boros Archangel is a card the oozes coolness and has a couple fun interactions (looking back, my justification when I added it was literally "it's a cool card that does things"), but she made the deck pretty much exclusively because I decided to have a legend of each color pair, and she was my favorite available boros option. Well, now there's a new option to consider. Let's consider it.
3/4 flyer for 3 is an efficient body to help buffer me from cheap shots. Bringing down my curve and bolstering board presence is not my priority, but it's a nice thing. The important part is clearly the triggered ability. It triggers on spells cast targeting my creatures. Sound familiar?. Depending on what ultimately makes the upcoming iteration of Zedruu (now that I have to make changes), there could be as many as 10 cards that care about Feather, and that's not including anything zany like activating a man-land so I can reuse Political Trickery later. Stand outs are probably Firestorm (I'll zap my creature and keep the Firestorm for later) and Ephemeral Shields (indestructible every turn). But also, this can be part of an infinite combo, adding Precursor Golem redundancy. Do Jeskai Charm, Ephemeral Shields, and Arcbond, and then when they return to hand at end step, get the second uses in one turn to make it loopable. I also think there might by some shenanigans in casting Echo Storm at an artifact creature, copying Mirror of Fate with the Echo Storm copy, exiling Echo Storm to feathers ability, and then tucking it back in the deck, but I haven't figured out a way to make that interaction pop yet. Also, it's nice that Feather adds a sort of recursion to the deck that plays through my own Rest in Peace
So why do I think this lets me cut other cards? First it gives me a more suitable boros legend to replace Razia. Then, I've been looking at 7 drops just because my friend has a Prime Speaker Vannifar deck that I can steal and clone and wanted to have a complete chain from 0-8, but if I cut the 8 drop, I don't care about the 7 drop for that reason and can just top the chain at Inferno Titan (which I added Inferno Titan to be my big beefy creature in the first place, so that's a return to form). And then when I'm thinking of changes, I think about which cards haven't had enough going for them, and whether I cut them or support them more. The cards that I've been thinking lately I'd like to support more are the Arcbond combo, Opalescence, and Mirrorweave. Feather is a cheapish creature that recurs Mirrorweave, making it actually a legendary creature that improves a spell that can't target legendary creatures. Feather obviously interacts favorably with Arcbond/Ephemeral Shields as detailed above (and Jeskai Charm is the 4th piece to that combo that doesn't benefit from Feather, but honestly Jeskai Charm has been stellar for me). I was sort of considering Archangel of Thune as a different card that combos with those instants (it's redundancy for Ephemeral Shields instead of Precursor Golem), and now I've got a better tool for reaching their potential dropped in my lap. So that's 3 roles I've been trying to cram in the deck, Razia and a 7-drop being actively sleeved up at the moment, consolidated onto one card. So now I can add a new toy, make room for the other new toy, and cut something from the wait list, which leaves me with 3 cards left that I want to sneak into the deck still.
Also, I plan at some point to enjoy frustrating someone to death by being able to Leave // Chance all my creatures and then also pick up Leave // Chance and then just replay everything and being immune to Wrath of God. The possibilities here go real deep.
Edit: There are still 4 too many cards that I want to play, because the more I play with Thousand-Year Storm, the more I think I want it AND Bonus Round.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/zedruus-exports-incorporated/
List of notable cards mine runs that others may wish to consider:
Emergency Powers
Worldpurge
Warp World
Scrambleverse
Thieves' Auction
Dimensional Breach (Good with Paradox Haze in particular)
Show and Tell
Braids, Conjurer Adept
Shared Fate
Knowledge Pool
Hive Mind
Confusion in the Ranks
Goblin Game
Excluding the mana bases, it looks like we have these cards in common: Zedruu, Leyline of Anticipation, Knowledge Pool. I guess that's the important bits.
To pass on the wisdom of Zedruu players passed on to me, play Pentad Prism. It gets Zedruu out a turn early and donates easy to draw more cards, there's very little reason not to play it.
What was the 5 card combo?
I've been eyeing Thousand-Year Storm myself, but for a wizard tribal spellslinger Adeliz deck with another Eye of the Storm and stuff like these. Definitely inspired by this deck's shenanigans.
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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
Venser, Shaper Savant, donated with Zedruu, enchanted with Infinite Reflection, copied with Memnite which casts for free and bounces itself to kill with Warstorm Surge/Cathars' Crusade/Mind's Desire. The legend rule makes Zedruu donation mandatory.
Thanks, I never would've thought of that because I didn't know about that card.
old thread
old thread
old thread
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
Once the combo is operating, infinite turns and mana are largely irrelevant as you can play every card in the deck for free with infinite copies of Mind's Desire, so you no longer need more mana to cast anything, and with Mirror of Fate you're choosing what to cast.
An efficient sequencing: have Rest in Peace, Eye of the Storm, and Mirror of Fate down. Cast Mind's Desire, resolve the Eye of the Storm trigger, activate Mirror of Fate with 2 copies of Mind's Desire on the stack, put the exiled Mirror of Fate and Mind's Desire back into your library, they both get exiled to Mind's Desire. Recast Mirror of Fate, recast Mind's Desire, resolve the Eye of the Storm Trigger, then activate Mirror of Fate, but now cause of multiple storm triggers there are 8 copies of Mind's Desire waiting to resolve, so you can pick up to 7 cards to cast for free. And because Rest in Peace is out and you activated Mirror of Fate once already, every card you own that isn't in hand or in play is in exile, so pick the ones you need. In this case, we want infinite Warstorm Surge damage, so pick Warstorm Surge and a clone effect (that isn't Sakashima, I choose Dack's Duplicate). Cast the Surge, then clone Zedruu (if you don't have Zedruu out, obviously play Zedruu first, you can cast mana rocks or Turnabout if you need more mana to do that), shock an opponent from clone Zedruu entering the battlefield, sacrifice a Zedruu to the legend rule, which gets exiled by Rest in Peace so that it's a valid choice the next time you use Mirror of Fate and Mind's Desire. And now you've gone through a complete iteration of an infinite loop that included Zedruu dealing 2 damage to any target. Or if you're not in the mood to show off fancy tricks and just want the game over ASAP, you can put Jeskai Charm into Eye of the Storm so that every iteration of casting Mind's Desire domes someone for 4.
Mizzix had overloaded Cyclonic Rift to buy time, so I began this turn with only lands in play capable of 8 mana and Rest in Peace (because Breya had Mindslavered me and used my Detention Sphere, so it came back).
My initial line of play was Crystalline Crawler -> Dack's Duplicate (Crawler) -> Jeskai Ascendancy -> Turnabout (my lands). I'm pretty sure I followed this with Chrome Mox (imprint Detention Sphere), Izzet Signet, Temple Bell, Dissipation Field, Howling Mine. I probably made some poor decisions on what I pitched off of the Ascendancy triggers, but storm count was 9 and my hand also included (that I remember) Knowledge Pool, Memnite, Temporal Cascade, ... and Mind's Desire.
I cast Mind's Desire and exiled three lands and seven nonlands: Smothering Tithe, Echo Storm, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Sakashima the Impostor, Pentad Prism, Infinite Reflection, and Precursor Golem. The first several I figured were pretty easy: cast Tithe, cast Sakashima copying the dethrone/haste version of Crawler, Echo Storm for two more Temple Bells, Teferi and +1 him, Prism just for storm/Ascendancy.
My opponents needed to wrap things up and start heading home, assuming I was going to win, so I continued as if I still had 3 opponents and a couple of them kept watching to see what would happen as they packed up and/or wrangled their kids. After using Temporal Cascade (21 Treasure tokens!) and Ascendancy triggers to dig into Eye of the Storm, Strionic Resonator, Unbender Tine, Time Spiral, Ephemeral Shields, Catch // Release, Cowardice, I was trying to work out some hypotheticals with golems and it was at this point that my brain broke and I couldn't see a way to what I wanted.
I'd considered casting Precursor Golem and Infinite Reflection, but I probably goofed by some of the cards I pitched earlier on discards (including Vedalken Orrery and Razia, Boros Archangel - *facepalm*). I felt like I was stuck because I figured I was just one or two cards short of a few different combos or something else that I messed up by the order in which I did things. Warstorm Surge and Mirror of Fate were still in the library and I might have been able to dig into them.
I realize now (after staring at that image and writing this up) that I should have cast the Mind's Desire cards entirely differently:
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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
You did draw into infinite though. Eye of the Storm with Catch // Release under it means that Strionic Resonator says "2 and tap: untap strionic resonator" while casting a spell along the way, which triggers the ascendancy to pump and untap your team and loot, and you don't even have to loot because the untap makes 2 mana to repeat the process infinitely until your team is infintely powerful, and then you can even toss the last Catch at the Crawler to give it haste so that you have 3 attackers for 3 opponents.
Sure sounds like a Zedruu game to me!
Edit: Lol! Nice luck counter!
It has 2 luck counters, hahaha. Mizzix had cast Tezzeret's Gambit earlier and this happened:
Him: "Now, is there anything else I should proliferate" *looks around the battlefield*
Me: "How about my luck counter?"
Him: "Does it do anything?"
Me: "Nope."
Him: "Okay, sure."
old thread
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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
And just now I was goldfishing cause I got some new toys in the mail (mostly just splurging on foils, but I also bought a kinda pricey land because lol they thought they banned Karakas). I ended up in a situation where I had Eye of the Storm holding Time Spiral and Leave // Chance and had to do a few cycles of Mirror of Fate before I had both the right cards and mana to "win" the game, and it only worked smoothly because I had Leave picking up unnecessary permanents to keep my hand/library/graveyard at exactly 7 cards every time I Time Spiraled. The precision of that sequence was like watching a rotary engine fire.
On the subject of fancy blue lands, I kinda wanna try Magosi, the Waterveil. I can't combo with it. I'm not going to run Rings of Brighthearth to combo with it. I just wanna try it, cause I can think of 3 situations I'd use it, and I think they'd be worth the downside of one more tapped land occasionally. Situation A) the Vedalken Orrery standoff: I'm holding up mana to interact with people who'd rather I tap out for a moment, so I activate Magosi before my turn arrives and just sit with my mana open one more time around the table with an extra turn banked for later. Situation B) I have Knowledge Pool or Eye of the Storm in hand against an opponent who will win with them if I leave them out for a turn, so I skip a turn to get two in a row so I get first access to those things after I play them. Situation C) it's one of the earlier turns of the game and I miracle Temporal Mastery, and rather than play Explore on turn 4, I skip the turn and bank it as a more impactful Time Walk later in the game. Thoughts?
Activating the eon counter ability (that skips the next turn) would be the perfect time for somebody to respond by stripping it. So it would make me wary.
old thread
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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
I did not have Rest in Peace down. I had Mirror of Fate and Eye of the Storm with Time Spiral and Leave // Chance. I had tapped out to get in that position, but Time Spiral untapped 6 lands, and because I had Time Spiral, I had no cards in graveyard and 7 cards in hand. I activated Mirror of Fate just to exile my library, then I cast I think Mirrorweave from hand to trigger Eye and recast Time Spiral, this time with 6 cards in hand and just Mirror in the graveyard, shuffle them in and draw all 7. But at this point I had myself in an awkward position, cause I only had 8 mana available, and I have cards in my hand I can't cast, so I use leave to bounce Chrome Mox to my hand and cast it exiling something down to 6 cards in hand and up to 9 mana. I cast and activate Mirror putting 2 Firestorm and Turnabout in my library, activate Mikororo to draw Firestorm, cast it with no targets using my last mana. 1 card in library, 1 in graveyard, 5 in hand, Time Spiral draws all 7. I've only got 6 mana to work with, and if I Turnabout, there will only be 6 cards left to draw with Time Spiral, but I've got Leave as well, so I do that, untapping all my lands and then bouncing Howling Mine to my hand and Time Spiraling redrawing the same 7 cards, but this time I have like 15 mana floating so I can use Mirror of Fate, play the 7 mana sorcery that's been stuck in my hand the whole time, and now I just want to set up Rest in Peace and Mind's Desire, but I need to draw both so I need to get some stuff out of my hand, and I need to keep enough mana around to do anything, and all of that can be done without using Leave // Chance but you have to be unreasonably careful to make sure you always have exactly 7 cards to draw with Time Spiral, but because I had Leave available I could just double check every time I trigger Eye of the Storm and make sure I have enough and if I don't, I bounce something I don't need to get up to 7. Like if I had 7 instants and sorceries in hand, I could play them all without needing to Mirror of Fate again by bouncing a permanent to replace each one that's eaten by Eye of the Storm to keep my handsize exactly constant. It's not so much making things possible that weren't before, it's just making them a lot less of a headache.
Figuring out a deterministic win from just Time Spiral and Mirror of Fate is by far the most difficult sequencing I've ever done in Magic: the Gathering, especially because how you redraw your cards and how you you keep exactly 7 available (so the shuffle doesn't screw you and the draw doesn't kill you) is different every time based on what you have in hand and in play to balance those things, and Leave (and Chance for that matter) can be a little grease to smooth out that process. Still, the best use of your time is to just say "I might be able to win without passing the turn, but to preserve my sanity, I'll just wait a turn and hope you still can't stop me then."
So imagine this scenario: 9 lands, Zedruu the Greathearted, Crystalline Crawler, Vedalken Plotter, and Jeskai Ascendancy; and then your hand is Mirrorweave, Leave // Chance, Mirror of Fate, and Time Spiral; and your graveyard is Jeskai Charm. There are tons of options of neat and probably game winning lines from this spot, but it's actually already set with a deterministic win, no good luck or additional pieces necessary.
Mirrorweave Crystalline Crawler tapping 3 lands and the crawler, Ascendancy untaps creatures. Tap 3 crawlers casting Leave untapping the crawlers and floating a mana while bouncing 3 lands to hand. Cast Mirror of Fate effectively for 2, activate it just to exile the library. Mirrorweave, Mirror, Charm, and Leave in graveyard, 3 lands in hand, cast Time Spiral untapping the Crawlers and 6 remaining lands and drawing the exact 7 cards available. Tap crawlers and 2 lands for Mirror of Fate, activate putting just Time Spiral back. Tap crawlers for Jeskai Charm to deal 4 damage, loot with the Ascendancy, draw Time Spiral and discard any other card. Tap Crawlers and 3 lands for Time Spiral, untapping all the mana again. We've established a loop where we get back to where we started except with 1 extra mana and 4 damage to a player each time. Just another example of going infinite with Mirror without Rest in Peace, using a different method of making the mana and card draw work.
And thinking about it, while I designed that to be a precise answer, you can do it much easier with Smothering Tithe and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. Smothering Tithe makes each Time Spiral pay for a whole loop while also untapping Mikokoro (assuming you have at least 2 opponents), so you draw back Time Spiral with Mikokoro. So, if you can activate Mirror of Fate and cast Time Spiral while satisfying the condition of exactly 7 cards combined in hand, graveyard, and library, it's a 4 card combo of Spiral, Mirror, Tithe, and Mikokoro.
Actually, a section in the OP for various puzzles (not just the combo section) that have come up in the thread could be nice to have. I could help compile a list of comments including puzzles if you are interested.
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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
That actually sounds super neat! But that would add a ton of text to an already incredibly unwieldy post, so I think the better plan would be to make the puzzles in individual replies and then just make a directory of links to them.
Also, I still have my hypothetical plan to repurpose the second post to comment on every card ever suggested in the thread. And I should probably decide on what changes I wanna make and update the decklist at some point. Lots of projects to do, and the world is just too full of entertainment!
Edit: I've got theoretically 8 more months running the Random Card of the Day before I try and pass that off, then I'll need a new habitual task on here anyway.
(Assume opponents can't cast spells, the order of the remaining library is irrelevant, and the library contains all the cards I love most)
You have Zedruu the Greathearted from turn 4, Vedalken Orrery from turn 5, and 6 lands in play on turn 6. You don't have much going on, so you cast Time Spiral in your main phase, untap your lands, and pass. After your opponents all tap out on their turns, you EOT flash in Knowledge Pool. From your deck you flip over Eye of the Storm, Firestorm, and a useless land. You draw for turn, and your hand is Turnabout, Howling Mine, Thousand-Year Storm, Razia, Boros Archangel, Ephemeral Shields, Barren Glory, and Echo Storm. Win before passing the turn.
Cast Turnabout. Knowledge Pool triggers, cast Eye of the Storm instead. Cast Howling Mine into pool, cast Turnabout out into Eye of the Storm, recast Turnabout untapping lands. Cast Thousand-Year Storm into pool, cast Firestorm for zero, trigger Eye to untap all lands and Firestorm for zero again. Cast Echo Storm, triggering Pool, Eye, and its own copy ability; copy Knowledge Pool (2), cast Thousand-Year Storm out of the pool, cast Turnabout untapping lands and Firestorm with no targets. Cast Barren Glory into the pool, cast Echo Storm out triggering TYS (10th instant/sorcery), Eye, and its own copy ability; Eye recasts Echo Storm (11th instant/sorcery) untap lands with Turnabout (11 times), now between Thousand Year Storm and Echo Storm's trigger, there are 22 copies of Echo Storm, aim them all at Knowledge Pool (24). Cast Ephemeral Shields triggering Pools/Eye/TYS, cast Barren Glory for style points, cast Turnabout and Echo Storm out of Eye one more time, making 15 more Knowledge Pools (39) and more mana than you'll even need. The 39 Knowledge Pools have guaranteed exiled every card from every library including yours, so every card from the deck is available through a Knowledge Pool. Cast Razia as the last card in hand to grab Leave // Chance targeting Orrery and Zedruu to return to hand, cast Zedruu from hand into whichever pool has Mirror of Fate to cast Mirror of Fate. Cast Vedalken Orrery from hand into the pool with Temporal Cascade, put a dozen or so copies of "each player draws 7" onto the stack, and in response activate Mirror of Fate to put any 7 cards exiled by Knowledge Pools back into your library. You draw exactly 7 cards and all opponents mill to death.
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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
You're playing a rather conservative game, holding people at bay with Venser, the Sojourner (currently at 7), Cowardice, and Inferno Titan, bouncing the Titan and recasting it each turn to keep the board clear of threats. But the mono-green player has had enough, and dumps his ramped up mana into Genesis Wave for 20, hitting lethal power, a Reclamation Sage for the Cowardice, a Thragtusk, and both an Asceticism and a Glaring Spotlight with a whole bunch of forests just in case anyone gets any funny ideas about targeting their creatures. But you've got some funny ideas anyway, you use all your mana to fire off a flurry of spells like Memnite that amount to very little but increasing your storm count for a big Mind's Desire. You shuffle up and flip 8 free random spells: Detention Sphere, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Precursor Golem, Gilded Lotus, Catch // Release, Venser, Shaper Savant, Boros Signet, and Mirrorweave.
Easy challenge: get rid of all the creatures.
You can't target your opponent's creatures, but you can target your own just fine. Mirrorweave your own Memnite, turning all creatures into Memnites, and then Detention Sphere your own Memnite. It doesn't target their creatures, so hexproof doesn't matter, and it exiles so the regenerate doesn't matter, and the Thragtusk isn't a Thragtusk anymore, so they don't even get a beast. And since we don't want those creatures coming back, we can flash in Venser, Shaper Savant to bounce the Detention Sphere in response to the etb so that the leave the battlefield resolves first and makes the exile effect permanent.
Hard challenge: kill the green player from 45 life!
We still have planeswalker Venser hanging out which can make your creatures unblockable, so if we can get 40 damage worth of attackers without summoning sickness, we can hit that green player with a game loss, the ultimate board wipe. Inferno Titan attacks for 9, so what we'd really like is like 5 of those with haste. We have 4 creatures to play, an Inferno Titan and a summoning sick Memnite in play, and we have Catch to give one creature haste. We could give 3 golems haste with Catch, and then Mirrorweave Inferno Titan to swing for 36, then Detention Sphere the Titan and Venser bounce the Sphere for another 3 damage trigger, but that's still only 39 damage. The answer I'm aware of requires some wacky sequencing. Play the mana rocks first so we'll have 4 mana available when we need it. Then we can give more creatures haste if we have more golems, and Mirrorweave can make everything a golem. But that would give us, at most, 7 3/3s with haste to swing with which isn't enough. Mirrorweaving Precursor Golem also usually makes Catch into Insurrection, but unfortunately that only works if you can target every creature. So we want more golems, but we still need to Mirrorweave Inferno Titan, which we can do, but only by ordering things carefully. First, Detention Sphere Inferno Titan to hide it from Mirrorweave. Cast Nahiri and -2 to target Detention Sphere to exile, but don't resolve the exile yet. Cast Mirrorweave targeting a golem token, triggering Precursor golem to copy Mirrorweave for each golem (put the copy targeting the actual Precursor Golem on the top of the stack so you don't accidentally get a field of vanilla 3/3s). In response to that, flash in Venser, aiming the bounce at the real Mirrorweave on the stack. Now let the whole stack resolve: Mirrorweave returns to hand, all creatures become Precursor Golems, and then Detention Sphere exiles, which brings Inferno Titan back from exile (deal 3 damage to whatever). Cast Catch targeting a golem and giving all 5 of your golems haste (or 5x haste if you're counting). Then use the 4 mana you made available a paragraph ago to actually play Mirrorweave from hand targeting Inferno Titan, -1 Venser to make creatures unblockable, and attack with 30 power and 15 direct damage from triggers.
old thread
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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
3/4 flyer for 3 is an efficient body to help buffer me from cheap shots. Bringing down my curve and bolstering board presence is not my priority, but it's a nice thing. The important part is clearly the triggered ability. It triggers on spells cast targeting my creatures. Sound familiar?. Depending on what ultimately makes the upcoming iteration of Zedruu (now that I have to make changes), there could be as many as 10 cards that care about Feather, and that's not including anything zany like activating a man-land so I can reuse Political Trickery later. Stand outs are probably Firestorm (I'll zap my creature and keep the Firestorm for later) and Ephemeral Shields (indestructible every turn). But also, this can be part of an infinite combo, adding Precursor Golem redundancy. Do Jeskai Charm, Ephemeral Shields, and Arcbond, and then when they return to hand at end step, get the second uses in one turn to make it loopable. I also think there might by some shenanigans in casting Echo Storm at an artifact creature, copying Mirror of Fate with the Echo Storm copy, exiling Echo Storm to feathers ability, and then tucking it back in the deck, but I haven't figured out a way to make that interaction pop yet. Also, it's nice that Feather adds a sort of recursion to the deck that plays through my own Rest in Peace
So why do I think this lets me cut other cards? First it gives me a more suitable boros legend to replace Razia. Then, I've been looking at 7 drops just because my friend has a Prime Speaker Vannifar deck that I can steal and clone and wanted to have a complete chain from 0-8, but if I cut the 8 drop, I don't care about the 7 drop for that reason and can just top the chain at Inferno Titan (which I added Inferno Titan to be my big beefy creature in the first place, so that's a return to form). And then when I'm thinking of changes, I think about which cards haven't had enough going for them, and whether I cut them or support them more. The cards that I've been thinking lately I'd like to support more are the Arcbond combo, Opalescence, and Mirrorweave. Feather is a cheapish creature that recurs Mirrorweave, making it actually a legendary creature that improves a spell that can't target legendary creatures. Feather obviously interacts favorably with Arcbond/Ephemeral Shields as detailed above (and Jeskai Charm is the 4th piece to that combo that doesn't benefit from Feather, but honestly Jeskai Charm has been stellar for me). I was sort of considering Archangel of Thune as a different card that combos with those instants (it's redundancy for Ephemeral Shields instead of Precursor Golem), and now I've got a better tool for reaching their potential dropped in my lap. So that's 3 roles I've been trying to cram in the deck, Razia and a 7-drop being actively sleeved up at the moment, consolidated onto one card. So now I can add a new toy, make room for the other new toy, and cut something from the wait list, which leaves me with 3 cards left that I want to sneak into the deck still.
Also, I plan at some point to enjoy frustrating someone to death by being able to Leave // Chance all my creatures and then also pick up Leave // Chance and then just replay everything and being immune to Wrath of God. The possibilities here go real deep.
Edit: There are still 4 too many cards that I want to play, because the more I play with Thousand-Year Storm, the more I think I want it AND Bonus Round.