Zedruu EDH - The One Goat Wrecking Machine

Good god is this deck fun to play. People come into the game expecting me to be all group hug and crap, and I do the exact opposite. Looking at this list, you may find that certain cards, like Rhystic Study, Silent Arbiter, and anything including the words "Destroy" and "Land" in the same sentence (except for Ghost Quarter (which doesn't even put opponents down a land) I don't even play standard land-killing lands)are missing. I've made a conscious decision to make this deck contain as few griefer cards as possible. Imagine EDH as a a circular battlefield, with each player commanding a fortress on the edge of the circle. Some decks send massive armies to crush the opposing fortresses. Others get one big thing (think tank) which can steamroll opponents in a few swings. Still others sit in their labs and engineer their Atomic Bombs and hope their gate holds out till the bomb is ready. Unlike these, my approach is to not engage in the Arms race at all. Play lands, maybe switch a few, some mana rocks, that's it. I make friends with the table by countering spells that would end the game upon resolution; I can usually get even the player whose spell I counted to be ok with it. While I'm never fully off anyone's radar, I'm also never at the top of anyone's list to kill. I sit behind Propaganda effects and wait. In a way, Zedruu is a combo general, in that it can kill people in one fell swoop. However, its a different sort of combo. Instead of just winning (Infinite turns, etc), Zedruu neutralizes opponents to the point where they are virtually dead, and finishes them off at her leisure. While this may seem like a simply weaker version of combo, the advantage to this idea is that it takes no prep time. With Zedruu on the field, you can topdeck a donate-able thing, and immediately play it and give it away, which will kill a player off on the spot. (If you've chosen your donate targets well). Instead of building an atomic bomb, I invite my opponents over for wine, spiced with a certain poison of my choosing. While it rarely kills my opponents (Thought Lash is the exception), the cards i give away leave my opponents so paralyzed that they can't really do very much, which is exactly what i want them to do in the first place. Political Puppets indeed :laugh:. So here's the list right now:



Edits for this list: Made manabase much more awesome, added some better cards in general (mind's eye, gilded lotus)

Below are past lists.




DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
General
1 Zedruu, The Greathearted

Take This (9)
1 Thought Lash
1 Taniwha
1 Illusions of Grandeur
1 Pyromancer's Swath
1 Steel Golem
1 Grid Monitor
1 Rust Elemental
1 Celestial Dawn
1 Statecraft

"Fair" Trades (4)
1 Gilded Drake
1 Political Tricker
1 Vedalken Plotter
1 Shifting Borders

Control (6)
1 Forbid
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Counterspell
1 Cryptic Command
1 Spell Crumple
1 Hinder

Board Wipes (3)
1 Austere Command
1 Day of Judgement
1 Hallowed Burial

Don't Attack Me (5)
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Propaganda
1 Windborn Muse
1 Collective Restraint
1 Palliation Accord

Targeted Removal (11)
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Return to Dust
1 Orim's Thunder
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Capsize
1 Oblation
1 Chaos Warp
1 Temporal Isolation
1 Arrest

Tutor and Draw (5)
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Wild Research
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Trinket Mage
1 Expedition Map

Win Conditions (6)
1 Insurrection
1 Thieves' Auction
1 Storm Herd
1 Rite of Replication
1 Numot, the Devastator
1 Psychosis Crawler

Other Unfair Stuff (3)
1 Paradox Haze
1 Copy Enchantment
1 Bazaar Trader

Protect Zedruu (2)
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Champion's Helm

Ramp (6)
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Azorius Signet
1 Izzet Signet
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Sol Ring

Lands (39)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Arid Mesa
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Boros Garrison
1 Calciform Pools
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Homeward Path
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Kher Keep
1 Lonley Sandbar
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Meadow
7 Island
6 Plains
5 Mountain



While the deck has been great so far, there are some cards that aren't working. Chromeshell Crab is really slow, and I can't help there are better cards to have that Orim's Thunder and Dismantling Blow. If you have any ideas for cards that should/shouldn't be in here (For inclusions, keep them cheap. Yes I know i need a Force of Will, but Im not dishing out that kind of $$ for EDH. Sorry.)

Edit 6/22: Looking through my binder I found Thieves' Auction. Dreams of playing this, taking Zedruu first, and then letting the board state get all out of wack, except im drawing around 5+ cards a turn sounds incredible. I also want to work brand in here, if i can. On another Note, Orim's thunder now has my repect, as it has 2-for-1ed for me many times. Dismantling blow should most likely still be replaced, though.
+1 Thieves' Auction
-1 Chromeshell Crab

Edit 6/24: I got a Taniwha! So that went in. Also, I took Archmage Ascension out for something.... Ah, thats right, for a Glen Elendra Archmage. For now, because of its uselessness so far, Elixir of immortality is coming out for a different Trinket mage tutor target: Relic of Progenitus. Given my meta, it should prove usefull.
+1 Taniwah
-1 Pilgrim's Eye
+1 Glen Elendra Archmage
-1 Archmage Ascension
+1 Relic of Progenitus
-1 Elixir of Immortality

Edit 6/26: I got to use Relic of Progenitus in a recent game, and it made the dredge player so mad he hated me out of the game immediately. I've decided to take this deck in a less grief-y direction, as the idea of the deck is to look innocent and stand behind soft walls like propaganda until you can nuke players at will. Thus, i'm putting in a gem recently found on the Zedruu thread created by fivecolorjunk located here, Palliation Accord. Yet another "don't attack me!" Sweet.
+1 Palliation Accord
-1 Relic of Proginetus
Edit 2/29/12: Big edits. Wanted to make the deck more competitive.
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