Hey everyone, I'm working on a Yidris deck and was looking for some help with it.
I play in a *very* casual meta, and I was having a lot of fun with Yidris and tons of cascade triggers. I've been playing for about 15 years longer than the other people that I game with, and so my decks tend towards higher power level (due to card pool) relative to the group - which in turn ends up going a little archenemy (which is fine, I don't mind losing) for me. The problem was, that my turns with Yidris were taking WAY too long. Like 15 minutes or so - and it was all actions, not analysis paralysis. And then, after these epic turns, I wasn't even ending the game. So it was getting a little boring (and demoralizing when the boardsweeps kept happening) so we (including me) weren't having so much fun. So I need help!
Specifically, I like having a combo deck (this is my first EDH one), but it needs to not be guaranteed or ridiculously easy to pull off so that everyone gets a chance to do what their deck is trying to do. I removed a lot of the sweepers, but I would love some advice on how to go from what I have, to (once the engine gets running) the game ending (hopefully through creatures).
Basically, my engine centers around hitting with Yidris, then using reusable cascade triggers (through the 2 different bounce creatures), to vomit out all the mana rocks. Eventually, cascade starts whiffing, and then I can use the Reito Lantern to force spells (like Turnabout, etc) to generate arbitrarily large amounts of mana, and possibly infinite attack steps.
Yeah its super convoluted - but I'm trying to keep things competitive and interesting. I'm leaving it pretty easy to disrupt on purpose, but making it a little harder (than just getting rid of Reito Lantern) wouldn't be amiss.
What about creatures that bounce themselves automatically, like Man-o'-War and Venser, Shaper Savant? Instead of paying 5UURR with Etherium Horn Sculptor or 5UUUUU with Arcanis, you can just pay 2U for each Man-o'-War cast. Grinning Ignus costs a net of just 1 mana for each recast. Since you have few low cost spells, Man-o-War or Ignus will let you easily cascade all the mana rocks out of your deck in a few turns. Palinchron only takes 2UU per cycle but can cascade out anything in your deck that costs 6 or less. These all seem way more efficient than bouncing and recasting Arcanis.
I would cut Browbeat. It just reads "2R: Deal 5 damage to the player with the most life or the player whose turn is before yours". The option to take 5 damage will go around the table. 5 damage is nothing in commander, so someone with high life will gladly absorb it. If no one does, the very last player to decide (the one before you in turn order) will almost certainly take the damage. If there are alliances, someone who is against you will take the damage. There are very few cases where all other players will let you have the 3 cards.
Hypergenesis seems really dangerous. Opponents could have more fatties in hand than you when you cascade into it. You never know. It's a huge gamble, and in a format like Commander it can easily backfire and favor your opponents even more. What about Wheel of Fate? Drawing 7 seems good.
Man-o'-War is a great idea as it will grab all the signets/etc. out of the deck in short order. I still need Etherium because most of the game ending stuff is 4 mana (or something else I can bounce that costs 5). Arcanis was mostly for draw and back up. Grinning Ignus I've never seen and now I must get a copy of. If I had a Palinchron I'd definitely put it in.
*Apparently there's a lot of creatures like Man-o'-War I can use for the 5 mana card:
Sun Ce is out of price range, and with the rest it seems like either evasion (riftwing) or a beater (shivan wurm) would be the best choice.
Beseech the Queen is fun because it costs me 3, and it cascades for 6. I can swap it out for something else, but that's kind of a nice bonus. Browbeat is an easy drop, and Hypergenesis is probably not great - Wheel of Fate is likely better.
Oh, for 5+ cc the best one is probably Æthersnipe. You can Evoke it for 1UU (3 mana) and it cascades at 6 mana. Then you can bounce itself before it dies to the evoke trigger. And repeat. Also it says "nonland" instead of "creature", so it's extremely versatile at answering problems on the board even when you are not comboing out.
Snipe and Grinning Ignus actually seem really broken with Yidris... Use Ignus first to get all your signets out for very little mana. Every time you hit a red-producing mana rock, Ignus is basically free. Then use Snipe to get all the powerful spells at 4-5 cc. I like where this is going!
If you want something at exactly 5cc to get 4-cost targets with precision, Riftwing Cloudskate seems good. Flying. Can bounce any "permanent" when you're not comboing out. Multiple uses.
Yidris trigger + Grinning Ignus + Signets and Reito Lantern + Dramatic Reversal = infinite mana, + Mind Stone = infinite draws
And the engine wouldn't need a lot to get started - though it could stall pretty easily if I don't hit enough red.
I didn't realize that Aethersnipe can bounce itself for evoke. I had it in here and pulled it because the one time bounce was low impact... Time to resleeve it ha ha.
This is a rough draft to start. I start from a similar place as you but cut out the slower high cost stuff and went heavier on tutors, mana rocks, and alternate combos.
The main way to go off is attacking with Yidris to go "Ultimate", then keep recasting Grinning Ignus to cascade ramp spells and tutors out of the deck. Most of the ramp spells are chosen so that they can tap to produce a red the turn they enter, so they help chain Ignus. Once you've got all the 0-2 cc stuff out of your deck, Reito Lantern + Dramatic Reversal gives you infinite mana (and draw your deck by reusing Ancestral Vision) and you can trivially assemble a win condition (e.g. Purphoros, God of the Forge).
But how to help Yidris connect (e.g. haste and/or evasion and/or protection)? The problem is running spells to accomplish this dilutes the cascade quality. So I decided not to bother protecting Yidris at all. He might die. Then you just try a few turns later. If he ever does connect, he lets you go "Oops, I win". If you can't get him to stick, there are other ways to win.
Aluren Combo
The gameplan here is to get Aluren on the table and cast Imperial Recruiter for free. Then, if no one has tricks, you win the game. This is a lot easier to pull off that Yidris, and it conveniently needs exactly BRUG colors to work while going off with the SAME ENABLERS (self-bouncing creatures).
Imperial Recruiter -> Shrieking Drake
Cast Drake, returning Recruiter
Recruiter -> Cavern Harpy
Cast Drake, returning Recruiter
Cast Harpy, returning Drake and pay 1 life to return Harpy
Now, for each 1 life paid you can reuse Recruiter (bouncing Harpy, Drake and Recruiter).
Recruiter -> Grinning Ignus (infinite colorless mana, since Ignus is free with Aluren)
Recruiter -> Shardless Agent (bounce Agent with Harpy, cascading out your deck for 1 life each)
Recruiter -> Parasitic Strix (life gain to offset Harpy, if needed)
Then you can either drain people to death with Parasitic Strix or use Agent+Ignus together to do the Reito Lantern combo.
Other Recruiter/Aluren targets could include Phantasmal Image (to copy and reuse anything bigger than 3cc that any player has), Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker+Pestermite (need to hardcast Kiki), Eternal Witness (return as much as needed to your hand), Fierce Empath (to assemble a fatty combo, e.g. Palinchron+Deadeye, or a big Eldrazi), Cloud of Faeries (to untap lands and get specific colored mana).
After testing this out, Aluren combo is more consistent, less time consuming, and easier to assemble. It's now plan A. Yidris makes a great distraction to draw removal and buy time, or as a plan B when we lack the pieces to assemble Aluren.
The deck won't always get Yidris' trigger off, but when it does, the rest of the deck list (mana costs, mana sources, etc.) should be designed so that the deck "goes off" as smoothly as possible to take advantage of those cascades. Otherwise the Commander is a waste. I goldfished it a couple dozen times and made the following notes about optimizing the cascades:
1) Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are awful. You can cascade into them without something good to pitch. Mox Opal might work, getting metalcraft from mana rocks, but it could also be a dud. Lotus Petal is net neutral off a cascade and pretty weak drawn normally, so I may need to cut it.
2) Carpet of Flowers sucks too, and you don't actually need T1 Carpet mana boost thanks to all the mana rocks.
3) Due to the fantastic manabase, I rarely have color fixing problems. I can cast Yidris off my first 4 mana sources very often, even turn 3. So "any color" generators (e.g. bad Moxen, Carpet, 3cc mana rocks) are surprisingly weak and detract from draw quality. Chromatic Lantern is obviously an exception.
4) All removal and answers to disruption should be 3+cc so you don't normally have to worry about cascading into them. Luckily some of the best control spells in these colors are 3-4cc anyway.
5) Ways to access the top card of your library are good. There are a lot of topdeck tutors, but sometimes you want to tutor for something you can't cascade into (3+cc). Casting a cantrip doesn't work because the cascade triggers before the cantrip. How to get that top card? Activated abilities like Chromatic Star, Sensei's Divining Top, cycling on cards like Cloud of Faeries.
7) Yidris combo is only viable if you can go off after 1 attack. If multiple attacks are needed, it's too clunky and vulnerable to disruption. If I can't go off in 1 turn with an Yidris attack, the cascades are still useful to ramp and set up mass removal or Aluren pieces for next turn.
8) Yidris combo (with Grinning Ignus) needs redundant red mana. Mana rocks and Nature's Lore break even when you cascade (reusing Ignus costs R, but cascading into it generates R, so it takes net 0 mana). But every time you cascade into non-mana, you lose a red. So I cut mana rocks that can't tap for red, the bad moxen, and many 0-2cc drops. One option is to cut even the 1-2cc tutors and the 1-2cc Aluren pieces so that almost every cascade keeps the chain going. But Aluren combo is so good, and the tutors even help find Grinning Ignus and answers to disruption, so I'm not willing to part with them. They're an overall positive to consistency. To compensate for the lost mana, the deck needs ways to generate extra red mana to it hedge. Manamorphose and Cloud of Faeries generate RR, netting one extra mana. Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual can generate net 2 extra mana, but are awful outside of cascade combo, so I'm less sure about those. Transmute Artifact into Lotus Bloom also works, and if Bloom is already gone it can still tinker one signet into another to at least break even and thin the deck. Even Noxious Revival on a Lotus Bloom sets up your next cascade to net +1 red mana.
9) Even after optimizing the deck to chain Grinning Ignus cascades, you "accidentally" set up Aluren (with the tutors) before cascading out all the 0-2cc stuff. If you end up tutoring Aluren and any way to generate 2GGR, there's little reason not to just play it. Then with the remaining R you can loop Grinning Ignus infinitely to cascade out every single mana rock and tutor, which is enough to set up Aluren combo to go off. In fact, I "accidentally" assemble Aluren combo before I can drain the deck of 0-2cc stuff to start abusing Reito Lantern. So Yidris combo seems better as an Aluren enabler than as a win condition. Just use it to ramp and tutor into Aluren. I have needed to use Reito Lantern in 0 games and am debating cutting it. It may only be useful as a back-up, if the main Aluren wins have been thwarted.
10) The deck needs more ways to recur dead Aluren. All I've got is Eternal Witness, which can be awkward for various reasons (including too high cc to cascade into off a topdeck tutor). Regrowth. Maybe Nature's Spiral or Noxious Revival too.
11) Animar has never been needed so far. Cut for now. May come back later.
I play in a *very* casual meta, and I was having a lot of fun with Yidris and tons of cascade triggers. I've been playing for about 15 years longer than the other people that I game with, and so my decks tend towards higher power level (due to card pool) relative to the group - which in turn ends up going a little archenemy (which is fine, I don't mind losing) for me. The problem was, that my turns with Yidris were taking WAY too long. Like 15 minutes or so - and it was all actions, not analysis paralysis. And then, after these epic turns, I wasn't even ending the game. So it was getting a little boring (and demoralizing when the boardsweeps kept happening) so we (including me) weren't having so much fun. So I need help!
Specifically, I like having a combo deck (this is my first EDH one), but it needs to not be guaranteed or ridiculously easy to pull off so that everyone gets a chance to do what their deck is trying to do. I removed a lot of the sweepers, but I would love some advice on how to go from what I have, to (once the engine gets running) the game ending (hopefully through creatures).
So - to the deck!
4 Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
Lands (34)
0 Karplusan Forest
0 Underground River
0 Llanowar Wastes
0 Yavimaya Coast
0 Sulfurous Springs
0 Shivan Reef
0 Dimir Aqueduct
0 Gruul Turf
0 Rakdos Carnarium
0 Izzet Boilerworks
0 Golgari Rot Farm
0 Simic Growth Chamber
0 Frontier Bivouac
0 Savage Lands
0 Crumbling Necropolis
0 Opulent Palace
0 Temple of the False God
0 Rogue's Passage
0 Reliquary Tower
0 Ash Barrens
0 Exotic Orchard
0 Command Tower
3 Island
3 Mountain
3 Swamp
3 Forest
Mana Rocks (15)
0 Lotus Bloom
1 Sol Ring
2 Gruul Signet
2 Golgari Signet
2 Izzet Signet
2 Dimir Signet
2 Simic Signet
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Mind Stone
2 Fellwar Stone
3 Chromatic Lantern
3 Commander's Sphere
3 Worn Powerstone
4 Thran Dynamo
5 Gilded Lotus
2 Reito Lantern
3 Fireshrieker
3 Whispersilk Cloak
3 Champion's Helm
5 Soratami Cloud Chariot
9 Artisan of Kozilek
Multicolor
3 Shardless Agent
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
3 Vial Smasher the Fierce
3 Sultai Charm
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Decimate
5 Izzet Chronarch
5 Consuming Aberration
6 Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
7 Damia, Sage of Stone
8 Maelstrom Wanderer
8 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Red (10)
1 Faithless Looting
3 Browbeat
3 Chaos Warp
4 Relentless Assault
4 Breath of Fury
5 Mana Geyser
6 Hellkite Charger
6 Rage Reflection
7 Volcanic Vision
7 Devastation
Blue (8)
3 Windfall
3 Rhystic Study
4 Turnabout
5 Mulldrifter
5 Temporal Fissure
6 Sphinx of Magosi
6 Arcanis the Omnipotent
8 Treasure Cruise
0 Hypergenesis
1 Burgeoning
3 Beast Within
4 Bear Umbra
4 Wolfbriar Elemental
8 Terastodon
8 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
Black (7)
3 Haunted Crossroads
3 Phyrexian Arena
5 Beacon of Unrest
6 Beseech the Queen
6 Curtains' Call
8 Pestilence Demon
9 In Garruk's Wake
Basically, my engine centers around hitting with Yidris, then using reusable cascade triggers (through the 2 different bounce creatures), to vomit out all the mana rocks. Eventually, cascade starts whiffing, and then I can use the Reito Lantern to force spells (like Turnabout, etc) to generate arbitrarily large amounts of mana, and possibly infinite attack steps.
Yeah its super convoluted - but I'm trying to keep things competitive and interesting. I'm leaving it pretty easy to disrupt on purpose, but making it a little harder (than just getting rid of Reito Lantern) wouldn't be amiss.
So any advice is very welcome!!
Custom Set
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hu9uNBSUt92PwGhvexYlwFvsh6_SJBlEEIUV3H9_XyU/edit?usp=sharing
What about creatures that bounce themselves automatically, like Man-o'-War and Venser, Shaper Savant? Instead of paying 5UURR with Etherium Horn Sculptor or 5UUUUU with Arcanis, you can just pay 2U for each Man-o'-War cast. Grinning Ignus costs a net of just 1 mana for each recast. Since you have few low cost spells, Man-o-War or Ignus will let you easily cascade all the mana rocks out of your deck in a few turns. Palinchron only takes 2UU per cycle but can cascade out anything in your deck that costs 6 or less. These all seem way more efficient than bouncing and recasting Arcanis.
Beseech the Queen is for monoblack decks. If you are paying any more than BBB for it (e.g. 2BB or 4B), you might as well just have Diabolic Tutor or Increasing Ambition instead.
I would cut Browbeat. It just reads "2R: Deal 5 damage to the player with the most life or the player whose turn is before yours". The option to take 5 damage will go around the table. 5 damage is nothing in commander, so someone with high life will gladly absorb it. If no one does, the very last player to decide (the one before you in turn order) will almost certainly take the damage. If there are alliances, someone who is against you will take the damage. There are very few cases where all other players will let you have the 3 cards.
Hypergenesis seems really dangerous. Opponents could have more fatties in hand than you when you cascade into it. You never know. It's a huge gamble, and in a format like Commander it can easily backfire and favor your opponents even more. What about Wheel of Fate? Drawing 7 seems good.
*Apparently there's a lot of creatures like Man-o'-War I can use for the 5 mana card:
Sun Ce is out of price range, and with the rest it seems like either evasion (riftwing) or a beater (shivan wurm) would be the best choice.
Beseech the Queen is fun because it costs me 3, and it cascades for 6. I can swap it out for something else, but that's kind of a nice bonus. Browbeat is an easy drop, and Hypergenesis is probably not great - Wheel of Fate is likely better.
Custom Set
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hu9uNBSUt92PwGhvexYlwFvsh6_SJBlEEIUV3H9_XyU/edit?usp=sharing
Snipe and Grinning Ignus actually seem really broken with Yidris... Use Ignus first to get all your signets out for very little mana. Every time you hit a red-producing mana rock, Ignus is basically free. Then use Snipe to get all the powerful spells at 4-5 cc. I like where this is going!
If you want something at exactly 5cc to get 4-cost targets with precision, Riftwing Cloudskate seems good. Flying. Can bounce any "permanent" when you're not comboing out. Multiple uses.
And the engine wouldn't need a lot to get started - though it could stall pretty easily if I don't hit enough red.
I didn't realize that Aethersnipe can bounce itself for evoke. I had it in here and pulled it because the one time bounce was low impact... Time to resleeve it ha ha.
Custom Set
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hu9uNBSUt92PwGhvexYlwFvsh6_SJBlEEIUV3H9_XyU/edit?usp=sharing
This is a rough draft to start. I start from a similar place as you but cut out the slower high cost stuff and went heavier on tutors, mana rocks, and alternate combos.
4 Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
//Lands: 36
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain Valley
1 Bad River
1 Taiga
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Stomping Ground
1 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Cinder Glade
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Frontier Bivouac
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Savage Lands
1 Opulent Palace
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Volrath's Stronghold
0 Lotus Bloom
0 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Chromatic Star
2 Farseek
2 Nature's Lore
2 Three Visits
2 Manamorphose
2 Gruul Signet
2 Izzet Signet
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Talisman of Indulgence
2 Talisman of Impulse
2 Fellwar Stone
3 Chromatic Lantern
3 Wood Elves
5 Gilded Lotus
//Tutors: 13
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Gamble
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Sylvan Tutor
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
2 Transmute Artifact
3 Grim Tutor
3 Imperial Recruiter
3 Fierce Empath
4 Diabolic Tutor
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
//Bounce Engines: 5
1 Shrieking Drake
2 Cavern Harpy
3 Grinning Ignus
3 Man-o'-war
4 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Cloud of Faeries
2 Dramatic Reversal
4 Turnabout
6 Time Spiral
7 Palinchron
//Combo Enablers: 5
2 Reito Lantern
3 Parasitic Strix
4 Aluren
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
6 Deadeye Navigator
//Protection: 5
1 Noxious Revival
2 Regrowth
3 Eternal Witness
3 City of Solitude
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
//Removal: 8
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Beast Within
3 Chaos Warp
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Damnation
4 Decimate
5 Acidic Slime
//Other Good Stuff: 6
0 Ancestral Vision
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Phantasmal Image
3 Wheel of Fortune
3 Shardless Agent
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
The main way to go off is attacking with Yidris to go "Ultimate", then keep recasting Grinning Ignus to cascade ramp spells and tutors out of the deck. Most of the ramp spells are chosen so that they can tap to produce a red the turn they enter, so they help chain Ignus. Once you've got all the 0-2 cc stuff out of your deck, Reito Lantern + Dramatic Reversal gives you infinite mana (and draw your deck by reusing Ancestral Vision) and you can trivially assemble a win condition (e.g. Purphoros, God of the Forge).
But how to help Yidris connect (e.g. haste and/or evasion and/or protection)? The problem is running spells to accomplish this dilutes the cascade quality. So I decided not to bother protecting Yidris at all. He might die. Then you just try a few turns later. If he ever does connect, he lets you go "Oops, I win". If you can't get him to stick, there are other ways to win.
Aluren Combo
The gameplan here is to get Aluren on the table and cast Imperial Recruiter for free. Then, if no one has tricks, you win the game. This is a lot easier to pull off that Yidris, and it conveniently needs exactly BRUG colors to work while going off with the SAME ENABLERS (self-bouncing creatures).
Imperial Recruiter -> Shrieking Drake
Cast Drake, returning Recruiter
Recruiter -> Cavern Harpy
Cast Drake, returning Recruiter
Cast Harpy, returning Drake and pay 1 life to return Harpy
Now, for each 1 life paid you can reuse Recruiter (bouncing Harpy, Drake and Recruiter).
Recruiter -> Grinning Ignus (infinite colorless mana, since Ignus is free with Aluren)
Recruiter -> Shardless Agent (bounce Agent with Harpy, cascading out your deck for 1 life each)
Recruiter -> Parasitic Strix (life gain to offset Harpy, if needed)
Then you can either drain people to death with Parasitic Strix or use Agent+Ignus together to do the Reito Lantern combo.
Other Recruiter/Aluren targets could include Phantasmal Image (to copy and reuse anything bigger than 3cc that any player has), Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker+Pestermite (need to hardcast Kiki), Eternal Witness (return as much as needed to your hand), Fierce Empath (to assemble a fatty combo, e.g. Palinchron+Deadeye, or a big Eldrazi), Cloud of Faeries (to untap lands and get specific colored mana).
Animar Combo
Animar, Soul of Elements is in our colors and happens to go off with Imperial Recruiter and the self-bounce same enablers, so it could be an alternate win condition.
The deck won't always get Yidris' trigger off, but when it does, the rest of the deck list (mana costs, mana sources, etc.) should be designed so that the deck "goes off" as smoothly as possible to take advantage of those cascades. Otherwise the Commander is a waste. I goldfished it a couple dozen times and made the following notes about optimizing the cascades:
1) Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are awful. You can cascade into them without something good to pitch. Mox Opal might work, getting metalcraft from mana rocks, but it could also be a dud. Lotus Petal is net neutral off a cascade and pretty weak drawn normally, so I may need to cut it.
2) Carpet of Flowers sucks too, and you don't actually need T1 Carpet mana boost thanks to all the mana rocks.
3) Due to the fantastic manabase, I rarely have color fixing problems. I can cast Yidris off my first 4 mana sources very often, even turn 3. So "any color" generators (e.g. bad Moxen, Carpet, 3cc mana rocks) are surprisingly weak and detract from draw quality. Chromatic Lantern is obviously an exception.
4) All removal and answers to disruption should be 3+cc so you don't normally have to worry about cascading into them. Luckily some of the best control spells in these colors are 3-4cc anyway.
5) Ways to access the top card of your library are good. There are a lot of topdeck tutors, but sometimes you want to tutor for something you can't cascade into (3+cc). Casting a cantrip doesn't work because the cascade triggers before the cantrip. How to get that top card? Activated abilities like Chromatic Star, Sensei's Divining Top, cycling on cards like Cloud of Faeries.
6) Proactive combo protection seems good, to stop people from meddling on your turn. City of Solitude. Defense Grid. Maybe Price of Glory, although people will still sacrifice lands to stop you from winning. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir? 3+cc permanents seem good.
7) Yidris combo is only viable if you can go off after 1 attack. If multiple attacks are needed, it's too clunky and vulnerable to disruption. If I can't go off in 1 turn with an Yidris attack, the cascades are still useful to ramp and set up mass removal or Aluren pieces for next turn.
8) Yidris combo (with Grinning Ignus) needs redundant red mana. Mana rocks and Nature's Lore break even when you cascade (reusing Ignus costs R, but cascading into it generates R, so it takes net 0 mana). But every time you cascade into non-mana, you lose a red. So I cut mana rocks that can't tap for red, the bad moxen, and many 0-2cc drops. One option is to cut even the 1-2cc tutors and the 1-2cc Aluren pieces so that almost every cascade keeps the chain going. But Aluren combo is so good, and the tutors even help find Grinning Ignus and answers to disruption, so I'm not willing to part with them. They're an overall positive to consistency. To compensate for the lost mana, the deck needs ways to generate extra red mana to it hedge. Manamorphose and Cloud of Faeries generate RR, netting one extra mana. Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual can generate net 2 extra mana, but are awful outside of cascade combo, so I'm less sure about those. Transmute Artifact into Lotus Bloom also works, and if Bloom is already gone it can still tinker one signet into another to at least break even and thin the deck. Even Noxious Revival on a Lotus Bloom sets up your next cascade to net +1 red mana.
9) Even after optimizing the deck to chain Grinning Ignus cascades, you "accidentally" set up Aluren (with the tutors) before cascading out all the 0-2cc stuff. If you end up tutoring Aluren and any way to generate 2GGR, there's little reason not to just play it. Then with the remaining R you can loop Grinning Ignus infinitely to cascade out every single mana rock and tutor, which is enough to set up Aluren combo to go off. In fact, I "accidentally" assemble Aluren combo before I can drain the deck of 0-2cc stuff to start abusing Reito Lantern. So Yidris combo seems better as an Aluren enabler than as a win condition. Just use it to ramp and tutor into Aluren. I have needed to use Reito Lantern in 0 games and am debating cutting it. It may only be useful as a back-up, if the main Aluren wins have been thwarted.
10) The deck needs more ways to recur dead Aluren. All I've got is Eternal Witness, which can be awkward for various reasons (including too high cc to cascade into off a topdeck tutor). Regrowth. Maybe Nature's Spiral or Noxious Revival too.
11) Animar has never been needed so far. Cut for now. May come back later.
Changelog:
- Mox Diamond
- Chrome Mox
- Carpet of Flowers
- Commander's Sphere
- Coiling Oracle
- Animar, Soul of Elements
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Chord of Calling
- Duplicant
- Academy Ruins
- Tolaria West
+ Regrowth
+ Noxious Revival
+ Sylvan Tutor
+ Manamorphose
+ Chromatic Star
+ Transmute Artifact
+ Sensei's Divining Top
+ City of Solitude
+ Glen Elendra Archmage
+ Mountain Valley
+ Bad River
+ Sidisi, Undead Vizier