Ideally we would have a useful 5c general to let us just jam everything.
That's likely the end goal. If there's a general that also wins with infinite mana like Tasigur or Thrasios then it will likely be the poster child for a long time
All you have to to is play Niv-Mizzet. Gives you all sorts of stupid utility in the CZ. I feel like I can't find a reason to play a midrange deck not headed by him right now, because he gives you this absurd toolbox and an infinite mana outlet.
Best part is that you don't have to rely on Laboratory Maniac, so its trading a functionally vanilla 2/2 for a 5/5 beater with upside as your dead-slot wincon.
I noticed in your list that you want to add Imperial Seal. Honestly its just not worth the price. The sorcery speed is actually a major factor. A full round can change the dynamics of what you tutored for. Like honestly as I say your deck would perform better if it was just a land instead. I'm not even joking, over the course of games, your ability to mull better with higher land counts is a major factor.
I couldn't disagree more; this card isn't for the midgame, its for T1/2 or way late in the game when the other players are all starved on resources and you can reload. Drawing that card late in a game is huge, opening with it in the hand is huger. Its like a mull to a perfect six, which tends to be better than an average seven.
So, I've heard a lot of buzz about the new commanders. Specifically, if you pair the Vial Smasher with Thrasios, you can still build a Hermit Druid deck that can win off Buried Alive! Many people have asked me about my thoughts, and generally I've not given a strong opinion because I hadn't tested it yet. After testing, it pretty much sucks. You get more combos, less resilience, and more dead draws. Currently at less than 10% of my deck being things I dislike, and trading a wincon plus toolbox in my command zone for raising that number to 15% (making everything worse, basically), AND giving up white? Nah.
New windfall from the graveyard dragon looks pretty cool, but costs infinite mana. I doubt he will make the cut, but he will be played.
Basically what Kahno said; if Niv-Curiosity has resolved, and you are currently pinging out your opponents, we can usually assume at least 80 damage to split. Thats two easy kills right there, yeah? Not to mention, you are drawing your deck! All you have to do is cast Frantic Search (Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox all give mana for free), untap some lands and discard the entire Necrotic Ooze combo (Nooze, Devoted Druid, Morselhoarder,) make infinite mana, then cast the other Niv-Mizzet for damage. If a table ever doesn't scoop to that board state, you should almost always be able to demonstrate a win. Drawing your entire deck in EDH is basically unbeatable.
As far as a replacement, I'd honestly go for whatever 1-off card advantage spell helps you the most. Just make sure you have an easy time finding a wheel or summit like it to reset if all goes south.
I'd try to fit in a card in the notable excludes section, but if the best you can get is a Ponder, thats still far better than nothing!
Your decklist was hard to find. Why isn't it in your navigation bar?
Great question, I'll keep that marked for when I update the OP next.
You mention how powerful shallow grave and corpse dance are, yet you omit postmortem lunge which in my experience is superior to either of them.
I did cover it at the end; basically, the colorless is basically the same as black mana, since I end up finding it almost every game regardless. In addition, Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance give me the option of popping the Nooze into play in my upkeep the turn after druiding (assuming I get stopped), should Memories Journey get hit; instant speed is most of the reason I made the choice to run those two instead of Postmortem Lunge. Instant Speed also lets me troll people with Faerie Macabre/Tormods Crypt style grave hate a bit better.
I've found that if your playgroup is strong enough to be okay with you playing hermit druid, then playing hermit druid on turn 2 means there is virtually no chance that he will still be there on turn 3. Unless he has haste, he's hard to use. Two cards that have been extremely effective for me in this regard (and curiously, I never see anyone else use them) is generator servant and lightning mauler. Not only do these creatures give druid haste (even better than a lightning greaves since the druid can get killed before greaves is equipped), but they both function as mana as well (ie, having lightning mauler on the battlefield means you have enough creatures that you don't need to have an extra mana open to use fatestitcher). Paying 1R to get mana plus haste on the druid is definitely worth it.
They can still kill in response to soulbond, but I do like the idea of those two. That said, this deck wins maybe 1 out of 10 games with the turn two druid, and the rest by either reanimating druid five times, resolving a necrotic ooze then druiding, buried alive into reanimate, curiosity on niv, or whatever other silly trick I've got. The big problem with those is that they only help the Hermit Druid plan, while this deck is totally capable of winning without it and thus I have tried to minimize the number of dead cards as much as possible. I will give them a test regardless, and see how they work, because haste is very strong.
they can still kill the druid in response to lightning mauler's soulbond trigger. I don't think it's going to be worth it taking an extra turn just to set up a hasty hermit druid. espcially since those haste enablers don't contribute outside of a hermit druid plan.
Postmortem lunge is largely inferior to shallow grave and corpse dance, because reanimating necrotic ooze with those is a very common backup play, and postmortem lunge sucks at that. If you play all in hermit druid, then post mortem is better. but since this wants to have a midrange option, then postmortem is strictly inferior as it is the card that is least able to transition into a midgame strategy.
EDIT: on the deck itself, i kinda prefer ertai's meddling to delay, because of the fringe case where you can counter uncounterable spells. for the same cost, one turn is not that much different from three turns when it really matters
key to the city over lotleth troll?
Ertai's Meddling does seem like a tricky include, I will definitely be testing that out. Key to the City has to be in play unfortunately, while Lotleth Troll just has to be in my graveyard for Necrotic Ooze to do its thing. Thats tricky if I don't have it in hand or need to win before I can spare mana on stuff like that.
Update to the previous post; I'm entirely confident on the idea of Mental Misstep now; Rapid Hybridization, Pongify, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Swan Song, Dispel, Force Spike, Spell Pierce, and about twenty tutors are all now popping up in the majority of games I play. Currently considering Frantic Search as the cut, since I don't exactly need the looting, but the basically free discard and mana filtering is something I'm not sure that I'm willing to lose.
Eternal Witness may also be cut, since she does very little for me in the majority of games, but I am definitely of the "be ready for any situation" mentality, and I have no idea if I want to sacrifice the option of recursion she gives me.
Lotleth Troll is a bad card, considering just cutting it altogether? Just makes it stupendously difficult to win if I ever draw Morselhoarder...
Its currently up to date, actually. Haven't had much time to look at all of the cards for Kaladesh in this light, but I doubt much will change.
Blue control is back in my meta, so I'm currently considering swapping one of my wheels with Mental Misstep. Testing -Wheel of Fortune right just just because blue cards pitch to force, but it may be Windfall that I cut. I will update the list when I decide what I should do.
It often gets passed over in 5c combo, but since your plan is to go midrange Grand Abolisher is an amazing piece of protection. At worst it draws out a removal spell that could otherwise break up your combos. What I like about it is that removing it on your turn and then casting more spells to disrupt a combo is not an option for your opponents. If it's going to be dealt with you know about that in advance of comboing.
I do tenatively like the idea of that, but if I were to play Grand Abolisher it would only be after I've already decided I need a second copy of Silence. They both protect my combo the turn I cast them and they both can only be hit by counterspells, but Silence costs one less (WW is no joke) and can be used to disrupt somebody elses turn.
I played it for a while when you could combo Anger+Jace in yard and a Necrotic Ooze in play, but since that rules change (why wotc, it was friggin' cool!) and the slower build of my deck, I've found that Entomb + Shallow Grave is a much safer way to get a hasty Druid online, and doesn't require yet another dead draw. Dead draws are already something I try to minimize, so it was a fairly easy cut.
I missed that; that line was from an older version of this from three or four months ago. I was playing against Mono Black Sidisi, Jarad, Sisay, Anafenza, and 0-counterspell Derevi (for real tho, why), none of which play wheels or the like. I now get a vunch of games against Azami, Tasigur, and Zur Staxish as well.
Keen sense may be better than curiosity since its easier to set up G + UU for, say, keen sense with mana drain back up than UUU for curiosity with mana drain backup.
A slight upgrade I think. Foil keen sense also contributes more to the money tribal theme.
Thats a good thought. My current justification is "pitches to Force", but I'll definitely look into it.
Its not actually that many combos, for a midrange-style deck.
I didn't mean that as a negative; I think it's sweet. There's a lot of overlap in your combos.
So, I've got all the cards that are required for the Druid win, yeah? In addition, the only 3 "combo" cards are Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Curiosity, and Worldgorger Dragon. I was playing all of the enchantment reanimates regardless of the build I invested on.
What I was trying to get at is: can you do anything on the deckbuilding side, without cutting combo pieces, to reduce the number of clunky opening hands? Given the number of combo creatures and interaction spells you have, it seems like you'd be prone to fanning open nonsense hands like Morselhoarder, Eternal Witness, Swan Song, Chaos Warp and three lands. I get that the plan is to ship those hands back, but is there nothing to be done about it before shuffling up and presenting?
Honestly, its the biggest flaw of the deck. That said, I justify it with my experience playing storm. Sometimes you'd have a hand with Time Spiral[, Mind's Desire, and no lands. Or maybe you have the Ad Naus, Doomsday, and your only black comes from a Dark Ritual, or High Tide, but your only blue source is also your only Island. Part of the downside of these super powerfully consistent turbo-decks is that they are just barely consistent enough to work, and you have to accept the aggressive mulligans. At least, thats my experience.
For some time, yes. I cannot stand losing to salt, and I hated the post-game comments of stuff like "wow why did you counter my Doomsday now he gets to win." No ***** I countered your Doomsday, dumbass, shouldn't've cast it. That, and when people would not give me Arcane Denial or whatever in response to the dude tutoring for Tooth and Nail, and say retarded ***** like "I don't want you to counter my spells." It really drove home how massively bad most people are at reading the table, and I would rather exploit it for wins then try to fight it in order to just not lose.
While that is a quicker line, its definitely less safe. I'd rather hold up the counterspell and ensure at least one level of protection for my combo, since that specific hand has no backup plan.
of course it depends on the gamestate too but the more time goes the more mana opponents could develop and the more cards they draw. so imo its more common to face answers past turn 2.
basically this hand played like i thought would be like your 4 card pile (3lands and vampiric) because turn 2 druid and 3 mana total with no backup business.
but exactely these minor looking details is what makes it all interesting. imo there can never be talked enough about the "obvious" / "too small details everyone should know".
btw nice write-up
Definitely agreed there, appreciate the comment. In playing against people who don't know the deck, I'd definitely recommend the quicker line be at least considered, for sure.
I really like this list over something like the traditional 'glass cannon' build. I actually have most of the deck already, as most of these cards are EDH staples or relatively cheap (except Time Twister and Imperial Seal). Personal Tutor and Chain of Vapor should suffice. I'll try it out in league this week, and see how it goes.
Sylvan Tutor is probably better than Personal Tutor, and honestly I'd say something like Mystic Remora if you are unable to find access to literally a P9 card. The card draw is hugely important to the function of the deck.
Wow, that's a lot of combos in one deck. Since you run so many different combos with incompatible parts, how about some cantrips? Aside from the awesome blue ones, Faithless Looting and Careful Study are card disadvantage but they put things in the bin when you want. Also, Sylvan Tutor may be worse than every tutor you run but it's still good. Finally, with all the creature tutoring power I feel like you'd benefit from some sort of Disenchant on a stick. Maybe Caustic Caterpillar?
Its not actually that many combos, for a midrange-style deck. So, I've got all the cards that are required for the Druid win, yeah? In addition, the only 3 "combo" cards are Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Curiosity, and Worldgorger Dragon. I was playing all of the enchantment reanimates regardless of the build I invested on.
first mulligan i would play the birds turn 1
turn2 upkeep wordly tutor for hermit into
turn 3 UGx
While that is a quicker line, its definitely less safe. I'd rather hold up the counterspell and ensure at least one level of protection for my combo, since that specific hand has no backup plan.
Casual double-post, reserving this for future post shenanigans. I intend to keep links to some of the better conversation topics that come up here, to keep from cluttering up the OP.
Hey MTGS, you probably know me as some random guy you've never heard of who happened to write this thread you are reading. Yeah, amazing credentials I know, dropping my name will get you far in life. Promise. I'm just here to talk about our lord and savior, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and his good friend Hermit Druid.
More specifically, I just wanted to devote a little bit of time clearing up a misconception about this deck. Druid was, at one point, the posterboy of "too good," yeah? Then we all got good and realized that a combo which loses to any removal, counterspell, stifle, gravehate, etc. is not the place to be if you want to win. The deck got a reputation of being a glass cannon, and then post mulligan change everybody agreed that it wasn't really great anymore and have dismissed it as a bygone legend, one too fragile to ever function as anything but a gimmick. I would like to put forward the argument that it is in fact one of the top tier decks, and also clear up the appropriate way to actually win with the deck. Since the current standard on the deck is a very out of date, very linear, very fragile, and not even terribly fast build, there are a ton of misconceptions on how the deck functions as a whole.
It's also possible you saw the list posted to the competitive EDH subreddit. That was me, and this is the evolution of that, following much testing and practice.
My History
Before I go on, let me walk you through my process of finding this guy. I originally started with a Melek top control/artifact deck, but it was really bad and we don't talk about it, and it only lasted a month or so before I built a real commander deck. This was super budget Mayael, and she taught me a lot of things. I filled the deck with nothing but enablers; I had the Worldly Tutors, Birthing Pods,Lurking Predators, and Sylvan Librarys, but my creatures were like Pelakka Wurm and Rumbling Baloths. People were always afraid of the deck and it could never win... this taught me a very important lesson. Some people buy all the bombs and don't get the expensive lands and ramp needed to use them, but I bought all the lands and ramp without the bombs! My deck was just an extraordinarily consistent pile of poop. I also learned that W and R are for squares and moved on to something real.
Up to this point, I was consistently getting crushed by players around me with their Jace, the Mind Sculptors and their Palinchrons. It was time for change in my eyes, and this change came with a lot of research. Somehow, I learned that Sharuum the Hegemon is a good deck, and that sold me! I'd loved sphinxes since I was very young, and the first Magic deck I ever played was a really bad Esper Steel Overseer deck. Given 2-3 years of tuning, and my Hybrid Engine Sharuum turned into a monster the likes of which my playgroup had never seen. Well, my old playgroup. What actually happened here was that I met a guy known by the alias "razzliox", who was piloting his (in)famous Jarad Midrange deck. He taught me most of what I know, and what followed was a good long period of the two of us having great, high-powered games with his crew, then beating up the poor kids from my town. This continued for some time, up until about December '15, where I was starting to get annoyed with every one of my opponents playing 4+ mass artifact destruction effects. Out of frustration, I built Oona, Queen of the Fae control; this deck was a real piece, and lasted me about a month. Remember what happened in January? Tasigur, the Golden Fang was spoiled. I got on that train harder than anyone before, and crashed it right into a deck I like to call Midrange Druid. Thats this one. Spend a few months exploring the various edh storm decks, bombing out of a Modern GP, and tuning this beast, then we find me here!
Before we get really into the heart and lungs of Dragon-Combo, I want you guys to take a quick look at my decklist. I cannot promise it will always be one-hundred percent up-to-date, but it will usually be as close as I can get it. Since Commander is a great combination of meta-dependent, unexplored, playstyle variable, I expect that the list any other individual finds to perform best for them will differ by as many as twenty cards or so, and I would recommend this as not much more than a starter. For example, say your meta is only turn 3/4/5 combo decks; you want to replace my 3cmc catch-alls with stuff like Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and Chain of Vapor. Maybe its super wheel heavy, and you need to slot in Notion Thief and Consecrated Sphinx! It all depends on your life, so I'm gonna just say that this is accurate as of my personal decklist for the Kansas City cedh meta:
First; why go with this list instead of the typical turbo-druid? Frankly, I do not like the list, but it definitely has a place. That deck will perform much better in a specific meta, one where you expect to see a removal-heavy deck and one or two decks that are just as fast as you; IE GAAIV, Sidisi Ad Naus, and Zur Storm. There you gotta go under the removal, or just lose to one of the storm decks! This list is definitely capable of doing it, but you still end up getting more wins by playing on the back foot, which isn't necessarily where I like to find myself in a four player game.
Step outside of that realm, and I love this deck's positioning. It is a similar speed to the UB storm package when Druid runs his fastest, and if you sit down across from three Storm decks you can just goldfish with them. Table is all stax? You use your instant-speed catch-all's to allow you to untap go for any of the wins on your turn. Or just jam Scion and get infinite value. Midrange for days? You are playing the most streamlined win-cons, almost no narrow interaction, and 5 colors that give you as many tutors as you could hope for. Where something like Jarad cries about triple storm, and Jeleva feels bad at seeing infinite Thalia effects, this deck tends to be very solid at taking advantage of an inbred meta.
This deck begins and ends with winning. It is the primary goal, and it wants to get there quickly and without any bulls*** along the way. That philosophy makes the rest of this very easy, since the win-package determines the core of the build. First, why do we play Scion? I could go over other possible commanders, but it's really not necessary. See, we start with Hermit Druid. Whats the best combo? One that can also win with Buried Alive and Reanimate, preferably, since that gives us at least three "1 card combos" (Buried Alive, Survival of the Fittest, and Hermit Druid). That means a Necrotic Ooze line is likely. Morselhoarder and Devoted Druid? Thats three cards, dodges creature removal, and one of the cards can kill itself to help enable. Memory's Journey, finally, puts us already in five colors, since it represents UBRG as far as color identity is concerned. This all, finally, comes to needing a commander who is an outlet for infinite mana. This gives us the following list:
General Tazri. Does not work with the other wins very well, though could be an option for a very real deck with the right tuning. Cannot find Worldgorger Dragon or win with Curiosity either, but can make a very real food chain deck.
Horde of Notions. Does work in a real weird deck, but not with Buried Alive.
Sliver Overlord. Works, but requires way, way more awful pieces and has significantly less synergy.
One more time; Scion is an infinite mana outlet, a 1 card combo, Entombs a 1 card combo, is a Windfall, is a Reanimate, is an Engineered Explosives, and thanks to the reanimate gets to literally build his own beatdown army of flying dragons. I want to give a quick shout to Jund Druid, a deck that is inches short of working. This deck is mostly black and green! The only reason we don't go for the consistent and playable manabase is that Jund does not have access to Memory's Journey (which is half of the decks absurd resiliency, since you see it every game) or a commander who wins with infinite mana (the other half of the decks consistency, since it lets you Buried Alive into Reanimate). Second honorable mention is the Sidisi, Brood Tyrant list, which tends to play extremely similar to this one but goes harder on the self mill plan.
Winning 101
All right. Let's start by looking at the combo. So, you may notice the typical Angel of Glory's Rise, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Laboratory Maniac, etc combo is missing. Guess why? It's because the combo is straight garbage, and the reason the deck has a negative stereotype. The druid win here is instead a very streamlined Morselhoarder plus Devoted Druid with a Necrotic Ooze in play. This is important because, once the ooze hits the battlefield, you generate infinite mana at mana speed. Tough to interact with that. Once you have this infinite mana, you just use Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius' ability on Necrotic Ooze to infinitely ping every opponent. This all can be done if, theoretically, if your entire library is still in your library. There are some other reasons to use this combo as well; it works if part of the combo is in your hand (just use Lotleth Troll's ability to discard, and since it's part of the cost you never pass priority), it doesn't lose to one counterspell, and Sudden Death isn't a total gimp on you.
The REAL reason it is better, however, is that this works with Buried Alive, Intuition, Survival of the Fittest, etc. Your win-con isn't to activate druid, it's to have Necrotic Ooze in play with Morselhoarder and Devoted Druid in your graveyard. If you find yourself in this situation, you can make infinite mana, cast Scion of the Ur-Dragon, then use Scion's ability to entomb Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius, giving you infinite damage and a ton of card draw. If they try to counter Scion, you can just keep casting him again until he resolves, at which point you've more or less won the game. What it all means is that you aren't playing a Hermit Druid deck, you are playing a Necrotic Ooze combo deck that has multitudes of winning lines. This is why we play Scion over the other options, and why I think that this deck is a real contender. Mystical Tutor and Enlighted Tutor can now tutor win-conditions that are both non-awkward and powerful, you can drop a lot of the real awkward tutors you play for consistency, you can devote more slots to card advantage, removal, counterspells, and you can build an actual interactive Commander deck, rather than one that simply folds to your opponent playing Rest in Peace and counterspells.
Now, what happens if druid gets exiled? I can just pull out one of the awful facsimiles like Mirror-Mad Phantasm plus a clone, or maybe go all Four-Horseman and grab a Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith? Nah, that sounds awful. First of all, Worldgorger Dragon. I play 3 enchantment reanimates already, so I don't have to waste slots on a backup combo. It's basically *another* 1-card win-condition, since I can make infinite mana then entomb Niv-Mizzet, draw my deck/deal infinite damage, etc. Beautiful, and in no way subtle. What else? Well, I might as well play Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind as well. This way I can just have my commander be a one-card win with Curiosity! 3 mana, win the game. What if all of that gets stopped though? My commander tutors large flying beatsticks with very bomby effects. In the triple Anafenza the Foremost, my beatdown plan can be very real.
That, folks, is how Midrange Druid wins games. It is not the awkward Azami plan, it is not the fragile "Lemme give it haste with Thornling, then start tapping it...," it is one of a handful of powerful, streamlined ways to assemble a Necrotic Ooze combo that wins with Scion of the Ur-Dragon.
Piloting
I won't lie; the primary gameplan of this deck isn't very difficult. Anyone can probably pick up the list and figure it out up to a point, but I'll go ahead and give a quick rundown of the flowchart for the way every game should start. See, this deck is an interesting one to play; many of the other top level decks in the format start out with approximately five-billion lines, and close down on their favorite as they approach winning. This deck does the opposite; you are playing an all-in combo in your Midrange deck, so your first approach should almost ALWAYS be to get a Druid online. See if you can get a free gimp. This doesn't always result in a win, but the reason this deck is so successful is because, should this get stopped, you invested almost no resources into getting Druid on line 9/10 times, and you can almost guarantee the guy gets cast turn two or so. Should it not get answered? Free win. Another very important part of this opening is that it gives you a very real estimate of what each opponent is going to be doing. The player who starts asking if anyone has removal usually has a strong gameplan, the player who sets down their hand immediately usually has nothing, and the guy who stares at their hand trying to give no reaction will almost always attempt to win before your next turn, or hold up instant-speed removal.
Note - Always leave Necrotic Ooze on top of your graveyard.
It bluffs stuff like Shallow Grave, and maybe the
game state will advance towards you having that in hand?
Who knows...
So, thats step one. Following this, four things can happen, each tend towards a different gameplan. Technically two others exist, but they are rare.
Nothing. You activate Hermit Druid and win the game, congratulations!
Hermit Druid gets killed. Pognify, Murderous Cut, who knows. It happened. From here, you can either just jump straight on a different gameplan (hey, sometimes you have a turn 3 Buried Alive -> Reanimate to follow your turn 2 Druid), or go for a reanimate of some variety on Druid. The best ones are obviously Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance, but if you just have the Animate Dead in hand, it's not like it's terribly wrong to just pop it and hope you untap.
Hermit Druid gets exiled. Abandon ship! You get to play a reasonably fair midrange game from here out. Look to set up a Curiosity combo, maybe grab value off a Dragon Mage, start getting the flying corps online, maybe even just cast Buried Alive? Basically, what you do here is get on gameplan B, which is most of the deck.
They try to counter/Faerie Macabre/otherwise interact with your combo while it is in the graveyard. This is usually not a payoff for them, since you have Memory's Journey, which gives you infinite play. At worst, you can just put a Timetwister on top of your deck and reset yourself back to gameplan B.
Druid can also get bounced or tucked, but those are more rare. If he gets bounced, just cast again. If he gets tucked, plan B it is!
Plan B
Here it is folks; this is what sets this primer apart from every other dedicated Hermit Druid decklist you have seen. What is plan B exactly, besides an unfortunately body-wrecking form of birth control? It's to play the deck as a Midrange deck. Suddenly, you are playing BUG with some random white and red cards. Use your catch-alls (notably all 3 cmc because A: you aren't doing anything other than trying to Druid before your third turn, and B: having only unconditional answers is something you may have noticed I enjoy) to control the board, get an engine like Sylvan Library on Board, or just dump your hand for value and wheel into a new one, and try to find Survival of the Fittest, Buried Alive, Intuition, or Curiosity to set up a win. If all that fails, and the game has fallen into the realm of turns 8-12, cast Scion, start reanimating Dragons, and start attacking people. You WILL win the occasional game this way, and surprisingly few people are actually upset about you reanimating Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind once your combo has been stopped, you have no cards in hand, and nothing to do. Somebody might try to stop you, but pity politics can get you a long way. Complain about being out of the game, just wanting to have some fun before it's all over, really what can this dragon do to you anyway? Draw a Wheel of Fortune, attack you three times for the kill, control the hatebears, and give you huge political clout. Thats what.
Here are the keys that successful midrange decks tend to check off:
1) Individual card power - Thats a huge theme of this deck. Sure, you have to play trash like Morselhoarder and Fatestitcher, but I've streamlined the combo to the point that your average draw should still be a powerful, game-impacting card. You can use things like Sylvan Library, the powerful removal, and even your role-playing dragons to ensure that you will be a huge threat at all stages of the game.
2) Commander-Centric - With the current mulligan rule and tuck rule, having a commander that enables your strategy is more important than ever. Luckily, Scion of the Ur-Dragon has one of the best toolboxes in the format, more than enough to make up for his difficult mana cost. He can be used to wipe out problem permanents, to entomb a giant, flying Phyrexian Arena, lets you cast Wheel of Fortune for two colorless, gets to just win the game with Curiosity, and can start wheeling the table for massive damage in addition to the card advantage.
3) Powerful Synergies - While the list occasionally has less than other midrange decks, you can are still playing 3 wheels... and Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind. And at some tables, also Consecrated Sphinx and Notion Thief. The dragons you play for your Scion toolbox? They work with all of the Reanimates and Entombs that you already play. A huge notable here is Riftsweeper over Pull from Eternity. Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind got exiled? Guess that Curiosity on Scion isn't really all that scary. Until you drop Riftsweeper, which puts Niv in your library rather than your graveyard! ggez.
4) Good Interaction - I've had many looks of disgust come my way from a Captain Sisay or Derevi player who couldn't believe that I played Damnation and Toxic Deluge, and I've sent Anafenza, the Foremost to the command zone so many times I don't know if I can count them all. This is where midrange decks get their power; being able to drop Sylvan Library, start slowing grinding out advantage on board, and keeping their opponents from winning while they sculpt a victory for themselves! This deck has all of the tools to do this.
5) Beatdown - This is a debatable one, but an aspect that midrange decks have over storm is their ability to win that turn 30 game where nobody has a clean win left. Some of the bombier effects you get to play in these slower games are enough to attack somebody five times, and in the case of this deck they all fly. And are huge. What it means for us is that we are never out of the game, and we are much less likely to die to the hatebears beatdown than any of the other fast decks at the table since we get to play that game as well, similar to the famous Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord backup of just throwing the random Baleful Force once every turn cycle.
6) Flexibility - This is the final piece of the puzzle. You are playing somewhere between control and combo, you need to be able to get the most out of every game. Sometimes, you'll do it by attacking your opponent, sometimes by casting Chaos Warp fourteen times, sometimes by a Turn 1 Buried Alive into Reanimate, and sometimes just by sitting and not losing the game twelve turns in a row. If you want to win games with this deck, you need to be willing and aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are at any point in the game, and leverage that to the best of your ability.
Alright, time for a bit of practice. I've picked three hands to illustrate three different ideas about the deck; first, we see mana problems and possible solutions, including why its definitely worth it to slow down your gameplan if you can guarantee some form of protection. Second, we'll cover the duality of the list, and how it can both offer really powerful options that other decks lack, but also possibly trap you in what would be a great hand for a different table. Third, a brutal mulligan, where everything looks bleak...
Say you have the following hand.
Looks great, right? Worldly Tutor immediately finds Hermit Druid, who can be cast turn two! Unfortunately, on the turn we win, we need both a Green mana and a Blue mana available; one to activate Druid and one to unearth Fatestitcher. This hand would probably be a mulligan, if not for the combination of Birds of Paradise and Arcane Denial, which means we can have a turn 4 Druid with protection held up the whole way. Thats very important against various Storm decks, which may take advantage of our slow start! Being able to EoT Worldly Tutor after having cast Arcane Denial is a very powerful play. That said, this hand has a huge weakness in that, should your Druid get stopped, you really have no backup plan. I would very likely ship this back if I knew my opponents were playing non-creature control decks, though the Toxic Deluge pleases me should Derevi pop up.
Lets check out another.
Turn 1 Sylvan Library, Turn 2 hold up Chaos Warp, Force of Will, and Frantic Search? This hand is really good, a real example of the midrange potential of this deck. If you are playing against a table with some weird combination of Stax, Midrange, and Control, this hand is incredible amounts of gas, since you should just be able to outvalue them all. However, a big part of my gameplan involves aggressive mulliganing. We are playing a two-faced deck, and sometimes you don't want to be playing midrange. Are the other commanders Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Zur the Enchanter, and Sidisi, Undead Vizier? This hand may not be the hand for you.
Finally, lets check out a hand following mulligan.
This is a hand I mulliganed to on camera, and I proceeded to win that game. If Razzliox ever releases the footage, you'll be able to watch it happen! See, the farther you mulligan, the worse your backup gameplan has to be. This hand, however, looks like just butts. Three lands and a tutor? Okay, attempt to Druid, it gets countered. Yippee, we lose. But... do we? Three lands is actually a lot in this deck, even for a hand of seven. This kind of start tells me something about the draws on our first, third, and fourth turns; they are almost certainly going to be something we want. If we have any hope of winning this game after mulliganning this far, its going to likely be off the back of a windfall, yes? That means we can draw the following cards; Timetwister, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Entomb + a Reanimate variant, any tutor (except Bring to Light), any wincon (such as Buried Alive plus a Reanimate variant, Entomb plus any Animate Dead variant, etc), or even something as simple as just two lands, since that lets us cast Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and get the Dragon Mage gameplan online. This four is likely better than the average five, if I'm going to be entirely honest, and while it sucks that we had to pitch this deep, we got rewarded for our aggression instead of punished for it.
Card by Card Analysis
Here we have the list of every card in the deck, with a short bit on why each card is currently in. I intend to update this with any more niche scenarios and thoughts that anybody else is able to share with me, so if you've got anything you think should be added to a specific card, please let me know and I'll work on getting it in.
Lands
Fetchlands - You should have all ten. The mana will be very shakey without them, since they offer you ten copies of any two colors of mana, making it so you functionally play ten of every dual. Seems good, right?
Dual Lands - This can be budgeted as a Shockland, if you want to save significant income, but part of the deck is the cost, right? As far as numbers, I am playing 11. Why not just the ten duals? I've found that having the second Bayou is extremely important as far as casting some of your later game cards goes. I might also include a Breeding Pool down the line, since sometimes I need a second U/G dual as well. Ancient Tomb - Taps for two mana! This is also a nonbasic, which helps. Bojuka Bog - Played with Crop Rotation, Bog allows that card to be an instant-speed toolbox like none other. And it is yet another nonbasic. Cavern of Souls - Uncounterable creatures tends to be fine, and it can always just name Dragon to make casting your commander significantly easier. Usually it is either naming Ooze or Druid though. City of Brass - Five color lands are spectacular, and this deck doesn't hurt itself too much anyway. Plus, we can win during any turn of the game with a single topdeck, starting on the very first one. Command Tower - Ah yes, a better City of Brass. Crystal Vein - Sometimes you need two mana. Once again, I think it's a rare deck that eschews this one. Dryad Arbor - Played for Green Sun's Zenith, and also allows for slightly easier sacrificing of Hermit Druid. Gemstone Caverns - Never unhappy to see this "gem" in my opener; being able to cast a two cmc spell on my first turn is kind of alright in this archetype. The majority of games where it's a colorless land are more than made up for by games where you start on turn two, and can Vampiric Tutor even before your first turn. Mana Confluence - Yet another City of Brass, whoopie. Strip Mine - Use to take other people off Gaea's Cradle, typically. This will likely be cut down the line for another colored source, but for now it does its job pretty effectively. Tarnished Citadel - Is it better or worse than City of Brass? In this deck worse, but in one that needs colorless this land is great. Also nonbasic, also taps for five colors. Thats what we actually care about.
Artifacts
Chromatic Lantern - This card is awful, but sometimes your opponent casts Blood Moon and you sell your soul in order to topdeck it. Did you know this deck REALLY struggles against Blood Moon? Who would have thought. Chrome Mox - Sometimes you don't really have anything you can exile to this, and other times you cast Hermit Druid on turn one. YMMV. Lotus Petal - A free land drop! Who cares if it's gone next turn, you already won! We get to be absurdly greedy in our turn three combo deck, why not with ramp too? Mana Crypt - I could talk about how this card is only alright here, but instead I'm gonna whine about the reprint. Now that everybody has them, I can't rub this all over my nipples at the game table. The EMA spoiler was a sad day for me. Mox Diamond - Another free land! But better! The (rare) mulligan this card causes counts for much less than the games we win because of Turn 1 Hermit Druid. Sensei's Divining Top - Is actually only marginally decent here, could be replaced by [/c]Wheel of Fortune[/c] if you want to play the faster game. I've kept top because of its synergy with Scion in the aggressively grindy games. Two mana free shuffle? Please and thank you! Sol Ring - If I told you that you could play two Mana Crypt's, would you? Three? Four? Yup. Only two though.
Birds of Paradise - Rainbow mana dork. We play these so we can actually cast our commander in this deck that probably plays like seven lands less than what it would if it wanted him consistently on turn 5. Deathrite Shaman - A dork that is gravehate, reach, and lifegain. Yeah, WotC actually printed this. I'll just chill over here with my 10 fetchlands and enjoy life. Devoted Druid - Not only is this part of the combo, but it can kill itself without passing priority, so we can literally use this as a dork of some sort. It is very, very good considering how useful the other half is. Dragon Mage - Yeah, my commander Wheel of Fortune's on combat damage, what about yours? Elvish Spirit Guide - Hey look, we can cast Hermit Druid on turn one! Eternal Witness - Recursion that is very easily tutorable. We have enough enchantments and creatures to get back that this gets the nod over Snapcaster Mage (even though a foil Snap better fits money-tribal). Faerie Macabre - Free, uncounterable grave hate? On a creature that I can easily tutor? Sure, why not. Fatestitcher - Nearly free part of the combo, since he comes back and then untaps a permanent. Usually should be a source of green mana for Memory's Journey flashback. If the game gets weird, can also be used with Top for extra draw, Deathrite for extra lifegain/lifedrain, Niv for extra draws... Hermit Druid - Only finds basic lands? What a bad card! Lotleth Troll - Play to make Intuition better, and in case we have part of the combo in our hands when Necrotic Ooze hits play. Like most other parts of the combo, discard is part of the cost, so we dodge removal. Morselhoarder - This is the half of the combo that has basically no other use. Even if we get on the beats plan, I'd rather use my mana to start entombing and reanimating dragons with big effects than to play a 6/4. Worst card in the deck, but the reason that the combo is so good and works with Buried Alive. So, we play him! Narcomoeba - Hey, it's the second worst card in the deck! He gets played because he comes in for free off Druid, and I need to flashback Dread Return somehow. Necrotic Ooze - This guy is what makes the combo work, and is just an actually degenerate card as far as I'm concerned. I don't think it's too strong, but it basically exists only to be unfair. Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius - Yes, my commander is an infinite mana outlet, what about yours? Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind - Yes, my commander has a one card combo with a 1cmc enchantment, what about yours? Riftsweeper - Sometimes you need to get something back from exile. I won a game once by letting the Firemind get exiled, equipping Curiosity on my commander, casting this guy, then turning Scion into the Firemind. It was a pretty sick win. Steel Hellkite - Yes, my commander has firebreathing and is an Engineered Explosives, what about yours? Worldgorger Dragon - Yes, my commander is an entomb, what about yours?
Instants
Anguished Unmaking - One of a solid handful of instant speed 3cmc "Answer Target Permanent" spells. This one is probably the best because it exiles. Playing 5 color is pretty amazing. Arcane Denial - Some people think this counterspell is bad because it draws your opponent two cards. That said, remember that it replaces itself, and any two cards out of your deck are probably worse than resolving Buried Alive, right? This might be one of the best counterspells in the format, in my opinion. Beast Within Another "Answer Target Permanent." This one gives em a beast, but can hit lands! Corpse Dance - One of my two cards for the Intuition package. While this is definitely just a backup of Shallow Grave, it gets the nod over Postmortem Lunge because of the Buyback cost, and its insane power in the triple stax meta, where I can reanimate one of my dragons every turn for infinite value. Delay - Three turns is a very, very long time in competitive games of EDH. Most of the time this is an easier to cast Counterspell that just exiles, with no other text on it. Eladamri's Call - Tutors Hermit Druid to hand, not much else to say. To hand is why we play this over the 1 mana cheaper Sylvan Tutor, though in the turbodruid build, the latter tends to be better. Enlightened Tutor Finds Curiosity, Necromancy, and Survival of the Fittest. What more could we want? Entomb - Builds Worldgorger Dragon combo, and helps set up other quick reanimates. Force of Will - Oh look, a free counterspell. Should be good in our turn 3 deck. Frantic Search - Basically free on mana, and lets us discard twice if we have things like Morselhoarder in our hand. The card draw is bonus text. Intuition - Triple tutor? With Entomb, or Reanimate it tends to be a guaranteed win. This card is much of the reason we play Lotleth Troll, because it lets us force piles very easily. You can also go for Hermit Druid, Shallow Grave, and Corpse Dance later in the game (like turn four or something insane) for an easy untap, upkeep, draw, win. Mana Drain - It's not like I use the colorless mana all too often, but this IS an amazing counterspell regardless, and sometimes you get to Mana Drain T2, Buried Alive into Reanimate T3 Memory's Journey - Probably the most important card in the entire deck. Deck myself turn 2, somebody has a counterspell? Don't worry, my library is now Demonic Tutor, Reanimate, and Frantic Search. Or Frantic Search, Demonic Tutor, Windfall. Or Three reanimates. Who cares, this card has flashback at instant speed! Even lets me dodge Faerie Macabre! And if that weren't enough, YOU Get to choose the targets, so it can even be played as grave hate. This card actually does it all, much like Crop Rotation in some BUG decks. Mystical Tutor - Finds Reanimate, Buried Alive, counterspells, wheels, etc. Nearly a third of my deck. Oblation - Yet another 3cmc answer to whatever ails me, this one tucks which is nice. My opponent drawing two cards sucks, but not that bad. Pact of Negation - Amazing on my combo turn, generally awful otherwise. But its free, so who cares! Shallow Grave - The better half of the instant-speed hasty reanimate pair. This card wins many games. While its true that the two life I pay to Postmortem Lunge is easier to come by than the black mana, black is still my primary color and instant speed is much better than two life! Swan Song - I'm not really concerned about my opponent having a Swan Token. Vampiric Tutor - Turn two Hermit Druid? Don't mind if I do. Worldly Tutor - Yup, same deal as Vampiric Tutor.
Sorceries
Bring to Light - A 5 mana second copy of more than half of the cards in my deck. Sure, I'll play this. Buried Alive - Wins by finding Necrotic Ooze, Morselhoarder, and Devoted Druid, then reanimating the Ooze, making infinite mana, casting Scion, finding Niv Mizzet, then burninating the tableside. With a Mana Crypt in hand, this happens on my second turn. Damnation - I need a second board wipe, behind Toxic Deluge, and this one is the easiest on my mana. We play the board wipes because there are so many creature-centric decks running around post the mulligan change, and many commander-centric lists refuse. Demonic Tutor - Is there a single card in your deck you wouldn't play a second of if the only difference was that it cost 1B more? Sorta like that, except this card is always whichever option is best. Pretty good. Dread Return - Part of my combo. I really wish it was 3cmc so it could ride through Gaddock Teeg, but we have to think of the eternal formats sometimes. Unfortunately. Gamble - I always lose and I still play this card. Tutoring Hermit Druid on turn one is too important to pass up. Green Sun's Zenith -Finds Dryad Arbor (is actually the reason we play Dryad Arbor), but more importantly just puts a Druid into play. Imperial Seal - This card isn't spectacular, but casting Druid on turn 2 is. So we play it. Reanimate - The best of its namesake category, all hail the king of abusing graveyards. Timetwister - Gravehate, draw seven, lets us reset after a failed Druid activation. This card is very important. Toxic Deluge - My other wipe, this one dodges Gaddock Teeg and is generally the best option. Unburial Rites Redundancy on the flashback reanimates, this card is pretty bad except when having it wins me the game. YMMV. Wheel of Fortune - This gets the nod over Windfall just because I generally would rather have my seven over another players seven, and sometimes late game the latter only draws you up to like four. That said, I do play both because drawing cards is like winning, but better. Windfall - Hey, I was just talking smack on this card! It's still absurdly good, and worth running, just because it is the third best in my opinion.
Cut/Benched/Needs Testing Anger - I played it for a while when you could combo Anger+Jace in yard and a Necrotic Ooze in play, but since that rules change (why wotc, it was friggin' cool!) and the slower build of my deck, I've found that Entomb + Shallow Grave is a much safer way to get a hasty Druid online, and doesn't require yet another dead draw. Dead draws are already something I try to minimize, so it was a fairly easy cut. Consecrated Sphinx - This plus any wheel can usually be considered a win, and it's basically the only pure reanimate target that I would play (since I can actually cast it), but its not currently something the deck is looking for. If I ever need to adopt more of a reanimator approach to combat a specific meta (which is easily doable, since we already play most of the reanimates and entombs), this is the first target to come in. Mental Misstep - Not enough Swords to Plowshares in my meta, simple as that. Definitely an auto-include if your opponent's aren't degenerate, and good enough that I play slot it in anyway. Notion Thief - My meta has no friggin' blue. Card loses a lot of its power when you can't use it as a "gotcha," but I am still a firm believer in it. This plus a wheel is basically a win. Teneb, the Harvester - Was in the list for the added power against reanimator decks, but the ones I've played with for years are having existential crisis' of various levels. Don't actually even need it against them, since its already a pretty easy game for you, but if you sit down against triple stax, this card is worth the slot even if he is infinitly slow. Unexpectedly Absent - Instant speed as well, and for 3 mana gives me (usually) at least a turn cycle of value. Respond to a fetch for a true, 2cmc tuck. The only consideration is that WW is pretty tough here, so this card SHOULD be considered as a 4 cmc spell, at which point it becomes pretty bad. If you struggle with cards like Rest in Peace and Anafenza, the Foremost, you may be able to find a slot, but I doubt it.
The End...?
Thats it guys; that is Midrange Druid. This is probably the best Niv-Mizzet combodeck you'll ever see! Any questions, suggestions, comments, gifts of money, I'll take em all, just send em my way. I'd specifically like to get some discussion regarding this archetype started up, because while I know about many magic cards, there are some real weird holes I'm looking to fill (like, if I could get "0, discard any card;" as an ability of a card in my graveyard, such as on Raven's Crime but without the land specification, that would be infinitely gravy for when I draw Dread Return) and I'd love any suggestions. If somebody wants a powerful, redundant, and stupendously expensive deck to play competitive EDH with, this is probably the only tier 1 deck that shows off how dedicated you are to the "stupendously expensive" part in its entirety. Money Tribal, represent.
And as a final word, I'd love to give a huge shoutout to the Kansas City players in all of their degeneracy; this meta has taught me a lot about myself as a player and as a human, and they are some of the smartest, coolest guys I know. Razzliox in particular helped a bunch with this (he was more or less my main editor), so you should go give his Sidisi and Jarad lists a real quick look. Jarad in particular is what this deck was based off, since I've been in love with how intricate yet streamlined the list is since I first met him.
9/28 - Added Anger section in Cut/Benched/Needs Testing
-> Scion of the Ur-Dragon
All you have to to is play Niv-Mizzet. Gives you all sorts of stupid utility in the CZ. I feel like I can't find a reason to play a midrange deck not headed by him right now, because he gives you this absurd toolbox and an infinite mana outlet.
Best part is that you don't have to rely on Laboratory Maniac, so its trading a functionally vanilla 2/2 for a 5/5 beater with upside as your dead-slot wincon.
I couldn't disagree more; this card isn't for the midgame, its for T1/2 or way late in the game when the other players are all starved on resources and you can reload. Drawing that card late in a game is huge, opening with it in the hand is huger. Its like a mull to a perfect six, which tends to be better than an average seven.
New windfall from the graveyard dragon looks pretty cool, but costs infinite mana. I doubt he will make the cut, but he will be played.
As far as a replacement, I'd honestly go for whatever 1-off card advantage spell helps you the most. Just make sure you have an easy time finding a wheel or summit like it to reset if all goes south.
I'd try to fit in a card in the notable excludes section, but if the best you can get is a Ponder, thats still far better than nothing!
Great question, I'll keep that marked for when I update the OP next.
I did cover it at the end; basically, the colorless is basically the same as black mana, since I end up finding it almost every game regardless. In addition, Shallow Grave and Corpse Dance give me the option of popping the Nooze into play in my upkeep the turn after druiding (assuming I get stopped), should Memories Journey get hit; instant speed is most of the reason I made the choice to run those two instead of Postmortem Lunge. Instant Speed also lets me troll people with Faerie Macabre/Tormods Crypt style grave hate a bit better.
They can still kill in response to soulbond, but I do like the idea of those two. That said, this deck wins maybe 1 out of 10 games with the turn two druid, and the rest by either reanimating druid five times, resolving a necrotic ooze then druiding, buried alive into reanimate, curiosity on niv, or whatever other silly trick I've got. The big problem with those is that they only help the Hermit Druid plan, while this deck is totally capable of winning without it and thus I have tried to minimize the number of dead cards as much as possible. I will give them a test regardless, and see how they work, because haste is very strong.
Ertai's Meddling does seem like a tricky include, I will definitely be testing that out. Key to the City has to be in play unfortunately, while Lotleth Troll just has to be in my graveyard for Necrotic Ooze to do its thing. Thats tricky if I don't have it in hand or need to win before I can spare mana on stuff like that.
Eternal Witness may also be cut, since she does very little for me in the majority of games, but I am definitely of the "be ready for any situation" mentality, and I have no idea if I want to sacrifice the option of recursion she gives me.
Lotleth Troll is a bad card, considering just cutting it altogether? Just makes it stupendously difficult to win if I ever draw Morselhoarder...
Its currently up to date, actually. Haven't had much time to look at all of the cards for Kaladesh in this light, but I doubt much will change.
Blue control is back in my meta, so I'm currently considering swapping one of my wheels with Mental Misstep. Testing -Wheel of Fortune right just just because blue cards pitch to force, but it may be Windfall that I cut. I will update the list when I decide what I should do.
I do tenatively like the idea of that, but if I were to play Grand Abolisher it would only be after I've already decided I need a second copy of Silence. They both protect my combo the turn I cast them and they both can only be hit by counterspells, but Silence costs one less (WW is no joke) and can be used to disrupt somebody elses turn.
I played it for a while when you could combo Anger+Jace in yard and a Necrotic Ooze in play, but since that rules change (why wotc, it was friggin' cool!) and the slower build of my deck, I've found that Entomb + Shallow Grave is a much safer way to get a hasty Druid online, and doesn't require yet another dead draw. Dead draws are already something I try to minimize, so it was a fairly easy cut.
EDIT: I will add that to the OP.
Will update later tonight.
Thats a good thought. My current justification is "pitches to Force", but I'll definitely look into it.
Honestly, its the biggest flaw of the deck. That said, I justify it with my experience playing storm. Sometimes you'd have a hand with Time Spiral[, Mind's Desire, and no lands. Or maybe you have the Ad Naus, Doomsday, and your only black comes from a Dark Ritual, or High Tide, but your only blue source is also your only Island. Part of the downside of these super powerfully consistent turbo-decks is that they are just barely consistent enough to work, and you have to accept the aggressive mulligans. At least, thats my experience.
For some time, yes. I cannot stand losing to salt, and I hated the post-game comments of stuff like "wow why did you counter my Doomsday now he gets to win." No ***** I countered your Doomsday, dumbass, shouldn't've cast it. That, and when people would not give me Arcane Denial or whatever in response to the dude tutoring for Tooth and Nail, and say retarded ***** like "I don't want you to counter my spells." It really drove home how massively bad most people are at reading the table, and I would rather exploit it for wins then try to fight it in order to just not lose.
Definitely agreed there, appreciate the comment. In playing against people who don't know the deck, I'd definitely recommend the quicker line be at least considered, for sure.
Sylvan Tutor is probably better than Personal Tutor, and honestly I'd say something like Mystic Remora if you are unable to find access to literally a P9 card. The card draw is hugely important to the function of the deck.
Its not actually that many combos, for a midrange-style deck. So, I've got all the cards that are required for the Druid win, yeah? In addition, the only 3 "combo" cards are Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Curiosity, and Worldgorger Dragon. I was playing all of the enchantment reanimates regardless of the build I invested on.
While that is a quicker line, its definitely less safe. I'd rather hold up the counterspell and ensure at least one level of protection for my combo, since that specific hand has no backup plan.
Before I go on, let me walk you through my process of finding this guy. I originally started with a Melek top control/artifact deck, but it was really bad and we don't talk about it, and it only lasted a month or so before I built a real commander deck. This was super budget Mayael, and she taught me a lot of things. I filled the deck with nothing but enablers; I had the Worldly Tutors, Birthing Pods,Lurking Predators, and Sylvan Librarys, but my creatures were like Pelakka Wurm and Rumbling Baloths. People were always afraid of the deck and it could never win... this taught me a very important lesson. Some people buy all the bombs and don't get the expensive lands and ramp needed to use them, but I bought all the lands and ramp without the bombs! My deck was just an extraordinarily consistent pile of poop. I also learned that W and R are for squares and moved on to something real.
Up to this point, I was consistently getting crushed by players around me with their Jace, the Mind Sculptors and their Palinchrons. It was time for change in my eyes, and this change came with a lot of research. Somehow, I learned that Sharuum the Hegemon is a good deck, and that sold me! I'd loved sphinxes since I was very young, and the first Magic deck I ever played was a really bad Esper Steel Overseer deck. Given 2-3 years of tuning, and my Hybrid Engine Sharuum turned into a monster the likes of which my playgroup had never seen. Well, my old playgroup. What actually happened here was that I met a guy known by the alias "razzliox", who was piloting his (in)famous Jarad Midrange deck. He taught me most of what I know, and what followed was a good long period of the two of us having great, high-powered games with his crew, then beating up the poor kids from my town. This continued for some time, up until about December '15, where I was starting to get annoyed with every one of my opponents playing 4+ mass artifact destruction effects. Out of frustration, I built Oona, Queen of the Fae control; this deck was a real piece, and lasted me about a month. Remember what happened in January? Tasigur, the Golden Fang was spoiled. I got on that train harder than anyone before, and crashed it right into a deck I like to call Midrange Druid. Thats this one. Spend a few months exploring the various edh storm decks, bombing out of a Modern GP, and tuning this beast, then we find me here!
Before we get really into the heart and lungs of Dragon-Combo, I want you guys to take a quick look at my decklist. I cannot promise it will always be one-hundred percent up-to-date, but it will usually be as close as I can get it. Since Commander is a great combination of meta-dependent, unexplored, playstyle variable, I expect that the list any other individual finds to perform best for them will differ by as many as twenty cards or so, and I would recommend this as not much more than a starter. For example, say your meta is only turn 3/4/5 combo decks; you want to replace my 3cmc catch-alls with stuff like Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and Chain of Vapor. Maybe its super wheel heavy, and you need to slot in Notion Thief and Consecrated Sphinx! It all depends on your life, so I'm gonna just say that this is accurate as of my personal decklist for the Kansas City cedh meta:
Last Updated: 9/18
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Crystal Vein
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Flooded Strand
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plateau
1 Polluted Delta
1 Savannah
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
1 Taiga
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
//Artifact (7)
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Diamond
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Arcane Denial
1 Beast Within
1 Chaos Warp
1 Corpse Dance
1 Delay
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Force of Will
1 Frantic Search
1 Intuition
1 Mana Drain
1 Memory's Journey
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Oblation
1 Pact of Negation
1 Shallow Grave
1 Swan Song
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
//Sorcery 14
1 Bring to Light
1 Buried Alive
1 Damnation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dread Return
1 Gamble
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Imperial Seal
1 Reanimate
1 Timetwister
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Unburial Rites
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Devoted Druid
1 Dragon Mage
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Fatestitcher
1 Hermit Druid
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Morselhoarder
1 Narcomoeba
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1 Riftsweeper
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Worldgorger Dragon
//Enchantment 7
1 Animate Dead
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Curiosity
1 Dance of the Dead
1 Necromancy
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
First; why go with this list instead of the typical turbo-druid? Frankly, I do not like the list, but it definitely has a place. That deck will perform much better in a specific meta, one where you expect to see a removal-heavy deck and one or two decks that are just as fast as you; IE GAAIV, Sidisi Ad Naus, and Zur Storm. There you gotta go under the removal, or just lose to one of the storm decks! This list is definitely capable of doing it, but you still end up getting more wins by playing on the back foot, which isn't necessarily where I like to find myself in a four player game.
Step outside of that realm, and I love this deck's positioning. It is a similar speed to the UB storm package when Druid runs his fastest, and if you sit down across from three Storm decks you can just goldfish with them. Table is all stax? You use your instant-speed catch-all's to allow you to untap go for any of the wins on your turn. Or just jam Scion and get infinite value. Midrange for days? You are playing the most streamlined win-cons, almost no narrow interaction, and 5 colors that give you as many tutors as you could hope for. Where something like Jarad cries about triple storm, and Jeleva feels bad at seeing infinite Thalia effects, this deck tends to be very solid at taking advantage of an inbred meta.
This deck begins and ends with winning. It is the primary goal, and it wants to get there quickly and without any bulls*** along the way. That philosophy makes the rest of this very easy, since the win-package determines the core of the build. First, why do we play Scion? I could go over other possible commanders, but it's really not necessary. See, we start with Hermit Druid. Whats the best combo? One that can also win with Buried Alive and Reanimate, preferably, since that gives us at least three "1 card combos" (Buried Alive, Survival of the Fittest, and Hermit Druid). That means a Necrotic Ooze line is likely. Morselhoarder and Devoted Druid? Thats three cards, dodges creature removal, and one of the cards can kill itself to help enable. Memory's Journey, finally, puts us already in five colors, since it represents UBRG as far as color identity is concerned. This all, finally, comes to needing a commander who is an outlet for infinite mana. This gives us the following list:
One more time; Scion is an infinite mana outlet, a 1 card combo, Entombs a 1 card combo, is a Windfall, is a Reanimate, is an Engineered Explosives, and thanks to the reanimate gets to literally build his own beatdown army of flying dragons. I want to give a quick shout to Jund Druid, a deck that is inches short of working. This deck is mostly black and green! The only reason we don't go for the consistent and playable manabase is that Jund does not have access to Memory's Journey (which is half of the decks absurd resiliency, since you see it every game) or a commander who wins with infinite mana (the other half of the decks consistency, since it lets you Buried Alive into Reanimate). Second honorable mention is the Sidisi, Brood Tyrant list, which tends to play extremely similar to this one but goes harder on the self mill plan.
I won't lie; the primary gameplan of this deck isn't very difficult. Anyone can probably pick up the list and figure it out up to a point, but I'll go ahead and give a quick rundown of the flowchart for the way every game should start. See, this deck is an interesting one to play; many of the other top level decks in the format start out with approximately five-billion lines, and close down on their favorite as they approach winning. This deck does the opposite; you are playing an all-in combo in your Midrange deck, so your first approach should almost ALWAYS be to get a Druid online. See if you can get a free gimp. This doesn't always result in a win, but the reason this deck is so successful is because, should this get stopped, you invested almost no resources into getting Druid on line 9/10 times, and you can almost guarantee the guy gets cast turn two or so. Should it not get answered? Free win. Another very important part of this opening is that it gives you a very real estimate of what each opponent is going to be doing. The player who starts asking if anyone has removal usually has a strong gameplan, the player who sets down their hand immediately usually has nothing, and the guy who stares at their hand trying to give no reaction will almost always attempt to win before your next turn, or hold up instant-speed removal.
Note - Always leave Necrotic Ooze on top of your graveyard.
It bluffs stuff like Shallow Grave, and maybe the
game state will advance towards you having that in hand?
Who knows...
So, thats step one. Following this, four things can happen, each tend towards a different gameplan. Technically two others exist, but they are rare.
Druid can also get bounced or tucked, but those are more rare. If he gets bounced, just cast again. If he gets tucked, plan B it is!
Alright, time for a bit of practice. I've picked three hands to illustrate three different ideas about the deck; first, we see mana problems and possible solutions, including why its definitely worth it to slow down your gameplan if you can guarantee some form of protection. Second, we'll cover the duality of the list, and how it can both offer really powerful options that other decks lack, but also possibly trap you in what would be a great hand for a different table. Third, a brutal mulligan, where everything looks bleak...
Say you have the following hand.
Looks great, right? Worldly Tutor immediately finds Hermit Druid, who can be cast turn two! Unfortunately, on the turn we win, we need both a Green mana and a Blue mana available; one to activate Druid and one to unearth Fatestitcher. This hand would probably be a mulligan, if not for the combination of Birds of Paradise and Arcane Denial, which means we can have a turn 4 Druid with protection held up the whole way. Thats very important against various Storm decks, which may take advantage of our slow start! Being able to EoT Worldly Tutor after having cast Arcane Denial is a very powerful play. That said, this hand has a huge weakness in that, should your Druid get stopped, you really have no backup plan. I would very likely ship this back if I knew my opponents were playing non-creature control decks, though the Toxic Deluge pleases me should Derevi pop up.
Lets check out another.
Turn 1 Sylvan Library, Turn 2 hold up Chaos Warp, Force of Will, and Frantic Search? This hand is really good, a real example of the midrange potential of this deck. If you are playing against a table with some weird combination of Stax, Midrange, and Control, this hand is incredible amounts of gas, since you should just be able to outvalue them all. However, a big part of my gameplan involves aggressive mulliganing. We are playing a two-faced deck, and sometimes you don't want to be playing midrange. Are the other commanders Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Zur the Enchanter, and Sidisi, Undead Vizier? This hand may not be the hand for you.
Finally, lets check out a hand following mulligan.
This is a hand I mulliganed to on camera, and I proceeded to win that game. If Razzliox ever releases the footage, you'll be able to watch it happen! See, the farther you mulligan, the worse your backup gameplan has to be. This hand, however, looks like just butts. Three lands and a tutor? Okay, attempt to Druid, it gets countered. Yippee, we lose. But... do we? Three lands is actually a lot in this deck, even for a hand of seven. This kind of start tells me something about the draws on our first, third, and fourth turns; they are almost certainly going to be something we want. If we have any hope of winning this game after mulliganning this far, its going to likely be off the back of a windfall, yes? That means we can draw the following cards; Timetwister, Windfall, Wheel of Fortune, Entomb + a Reanimate variant, any tutor (except Bring to Light), any wincon (such as Buried Alive plus a Reanimate variant, Entomb plus any Animate Dead variant, etc), or even something as simple as just two lands, since that lets us cast Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and get the Dragon Mage gameplan online. This four is likely better than the average five, if I'm going to be entirely honest, and while it sucks that we had to pitch this deep, we got rewarded for our aggression instead of punished for it.
Here we have the list of every card in the deck, with a short bit on why each card is currently in. I intend to update this with any more niche scenarios and thoughts that anybody else is able to share with me, so if you've got anything you think should be added to a specific card, please let me know and I'll work on getting it in.
Thats it guys; that is Midrange Druid. This is probably the best Niv-Mizzet combodeck you'll ever see! Any questions, suggestions, comments, gifts of money, I'll take em all, just send em my way. I'd specifically like to get some discussion regarding this archetype started up, because while I know about many magic cards, there are some real weird holes I'm looking to fill (like, if I could get "0, discard any card;" as an ability of a card in my graveyard, such as on Raven's Crime but without the land specification, that would be infinitely gravy for when I draw Dread Return) and I'd love any suggestions. If somebody wants a powerful, redundant, and stupendously expensive deck to play competitive EDH with, this is probably the only tier 1 deck that shows off how dedicated you are to the "stupendously expensive" part in its entirety. Money Tribal, represent.
And as a final word, I'd love to give a huge shoutout to the Kansas City players in all of their degeneracy; this meta has taught me a lot about myself as a player and as a human, and they are some of the smartest, coolest guys I know. Razzliox in particular helped a bunch with this (he was more or less my main editor), so you should go give his Sidisi and Jarad lists a real quick look. Jarad in particular is what this deck was based off, since I've been in love with how intricate yet streamlined the list is since I first met him.
9/28 - Added Anger section in Cut/Benched/Needs Testing