Sorry I missed these two comments for so long. I've been checking in occasionally on mtgsalvation, but apparently I'm no longer notified of posts in this thread.
Congrats on the deckbuild! Zedruu was my first commander, and it has had quite a few iterations throughout the years. I was wondering if you've tried homeward path in your deck. It works well with Starke of Rath and a couple of other creatures that exchange as a result of an activated ability. Also, since you are drawing so many cards, Wild Research might be useful to make sure you can draw what you need. My version of the deck is more of a exchange / control version, but I like some of your ideas.
I have not considered Homeward Path, as I prefer not to be donating creatures in the first place due to fragility. But I have been with Sudden Substitution, so maybe it's worth a test run. I don't see myself moving towards much more theft than that though.
A while back you posted a Mathas, Fiend Seeker deck that I thought was pretty cool. Did you ever update that?
I update that as more cards to give people tokens come out, but I'm not gonna pretend I put a lot of thought into that process. Flipping through it just now, it looks like the recently printed changes are Generous Gift, Massacre Girl, and Chandra, Awakened Inferno, and I picked up a Dousing Dagger that I just didn't own before.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Sudden Substitution is getting a chance in here. As far as corner cases and fringe interactions, I think this card is more complex than some entire decks I've played. I haven't had enough experience with it yet to gauge the power in my deck, but the intrigue level is off the charts. Being able to trade like a Howling Mine on the stack with a creature in play seems pretty alright. And even better than trading a preordain, I can trade things like Firestorm or Nahiri's Wrath with no targets, or Pentad Prism cast with colorless mana. Or Chrome Mox lets them ramp, but they have to put the card in, and I get split second Naturalize-proof Control Magic.
Split second is already a weird mechanic that have some fringe benefit with Eye of the Storm or Knowledge Pool. Just being able to say "no, I get to use these, stay out for a second is sweet. Then with Thousand-Year Storm out, you can do some creative stacking of triggers to effectively give the spells in the Eye split second (you have to cast the split second spell out of eye last, but then all the spells trigger TYS anyway and you get all the storm copies with split second still on the stack, and then use the copies of Sudden Substitution on the originals cast out of Eye of the Storm and take control of a bunch of creatures. Then if you're like 6 levels deep on shenanigans, you can do things like cast a spell with Sudden Substitution already in Knowledge Pool, then respond to your own spell with another, cast Sudden Substitution out of the pool to steal a creature and give them the first spell, then resolve the original Knowledge Pool trigger to exile the spell anyway.
Precursor Golem is kind of interesting with it. It doesn't trigger the golem, but I can trade 1/3 of my Precursor for a noncreature spell, or trade like 1/3 of an Arcbond for their creature. And while I'm not playing any cards that lose the game at the moment, I can do really fringe things like kill every creature except an Inferno Titan, pump it to 100 power, and then donate a Vanish Into Memory to someone.
But even more thought provoking than all of those interactions with other cards in the deck is the fact that you don't have to control either target. You can use this spell to donate people each other's creatures, or use it as a political redirect on targeted removal. Without playing anything yourself, Sudden Substitution can be killer disruption just by rearranging people's pieces. Things like taking the commander from the player with no other creatures and swapping it for another player's Earthcraft on the stack. With split second. This card is going to be really hard to play optimally, but it's gonna make some sweet blowouts sometimes.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I've begun migrating this thread over to MTGNexus, making it more detailed and prettier than ever. I've got a text document saved with notes of suggestions made in this thread so I can eventually port over a lot of that discussion value.
I have every intention of continuing to check up over here if anyone comments on this thread, but if the future is anything like today as far as salvation working, that may not always be an option.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Can you think of any fun stuff to use with the newly unbanned Painter’s Servant? It doesn’t seem to do much with the current build, but possibly opens up new avenues?
Painter's Servant is super neat, I fully intend to play it somewhere in one of my decks, but probably not here. It does, I believe, literally nothing at the moment.
If you were so inclined to make Painter's Servant a Zedruu card, I'd like to see 5 or 6 colors matter cards worth playing on their own. Dream Halls for sure would be fun. Off the top of my head, color lords would work and are already acceptable just as Mirrorweave targets, so something like Grand Architect. The cards from Ravnica with radiance might have something. Tibor and Lumia could be worthwhile (too bad Swans has flying). I hate to ever consider Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, but 1-2 mana discount on every spell could be nutty. Circles of Protection are neat sometimes. I'm sure there are gems waiting to be found.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I actually do have a playset of Precursor Golems now that you mention it. If I wanted to go off brand for my tokens, I think the winning move is to get a bunch of Golem pokemon cards.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I am a really long-time "lurker" of your thread, and finally, I can maybe contribute !
For your interesting fog effect that you were looking for, I think that Dawn Charm could pretty fit the bill, no ?
Fog, regen Zedruu and the unusual counterspell that could come in handy sometimes ?
Thank you very much for your awesome decklist and description that ia a real pleasure to read.
Thank you for the kind words. As a fan of fogs over the years, I honestly think Dawn Charm was in Zedruu at some point a long time ago. It does have fun modes, the regenerate clause could replace the Ephemeral Shields protection I've deemed replaceable, and counter a spell that targets me is so narrow as to be exciting on the rare occasion it's relevant. But like, that's just how charms work, they sucker you in with options. When I'm imagining interesting Fogs, I'm imagining things like Blaze of Glory. Not really a fog exactly, but it mostly blanks a combat in a cool way that can be exploited by the right deck. Just not really this deck. Or Comeuppance is one of my favorite cards, and not just for the name, but sitting around with 4 mana open hoping for people to attack me isn't great strategy here. Reins of Power is another weird card, you can cast during combat to remove everything from combat, but it also can serve as a win condition sometimes. But again, 4 mana instants are good like that. But like, imagine something goofy like "RW instant, Prevent all combat damage, add R for each attacking creature. Or like, imagine a card that gave you the Swans of Bryn Argoll ability for a turn. That could cost less than 4 and be both wonderful and hilarious.I'm probably hoping for too much, but I'm greedy like that.
Why do you not like the original Scars of Mirrodin Golem?
Cause all the golem tokens from that block are really angry and metallic (the 9/9's not terrible), and that's not my image of golems. To me, golems are earthy, like rocks or ceramics, and they're not emotional actors. Like, check out Chippy's art from Precursor Golem, they're big stone-faced Karn-looking things, bouldering along. Not shrieking death robots.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I put the changes from post #462 into the front post, and did a little bit of cleaning there. I'm comfortable enough with those changes to post them up. I have more radical ideas in the works, but considering the likelihood of site migration soon, I'm not looking to cut any of the sacred cows here.
I playtested like a half dozen cards from Modern Horizons. Despite all the jokes of it being edh horizons, it turns out it wasn't that edh exciting for me. Things like Urza and the splice spells are just huge mana sinks that this deck can't manage and are very lackluster if you don't spend into them (except for maybe Mirrorweaving Urza's construct, but even that is suspect if other people have lots of creatures). Of the bloaty mana-sinks, the one that actually performed best, believe it or not, was Throes of Chaos. I've paid close attention to both cascade spells and retrace spells for this deck over the years because they are ways to abuse cast triggers effectively, but none have ever stuck. This card has both keywords, so I was obligated to try it even if my hopes were low. All of Zedruu's interesting things are at 4+ mana, than Throes only grabs 3 or less. But having actually tried, that's sort of perfect, it's like turboing out early game build up. Of the 28 hits, 9 draw cards or set up zedruu to draw cards, 6 make mana, 9 interact with opponents. And in my games playing with it, it was good after something like Nevinyrral's Disk to rebuild the whole early game. And it was outstanding with Eye of the Storm, both occasions I got it into Eye, I proceeded to cast every spell that cost 3 or less from the deck (and won one of the games!). That's the only recent card I would consider wedging in here.
And a couple minor tweaks that have been in the back of my mind for a while: Ephemeral Shields is unnecessary to combo kill with Arcbond, Precursor Golem, a clone, Jeskai Charm, and Arcbond can hit everyone for 44+ without being infinite, and that's just fine. The only reason I haven't cut it yet is because being able to convoke away the mana cost of an instant for Eye of the Storm has been clutch a few times. But there are other free spells out there that would be more versatile, and good Clones that would preserve the combo potential. So those are some possible direct swaps. And then Rest in Peace is kind of iconic, but I've gotten very good at doing Mirror of Fate without it, and there are so many alternative cards that can exile a card out of my graveyard at instant speed that are more proactive than the blanket answer.I don't really need to use the most textbook example of Mirror of Fate looping when there are weirder options.
Edit: While I don't care about the instant that makes golems in M20, I do care about the golems. I've been using Theros enchantment golems as my golem tokens because the mismatched type line bothers me less than New Phyrexia pointy golem art, but the new ones look great and I intend to collect like 10 of them.
Meh. I like that it's an instant, but 6 mana is a lot for either one Precursor Golem etb or Mirrorweave for artifacts. If it could do both, if it could target or effect other people's artifacts, if it laste longer than end of turn, if it cost less than six... there's a lot of ways to make me like this card, but I don't really like it as is.
I am not sure if this deck can support the CMC of this thing or has a want for it but it is the first thread I thought of when seeing it
When has cmc ever stopped me? I unapologetically play 7 and 8 drops! A flickerable Confiscate that might Mirrorweaveably draw cards is interesting at the very least, but all things considered, the card that looks most fun to me is the Jeskai Ascendancy bird you put in your signature. That has me pondering all sorts of things.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Oh, I'm jealous! I've stolen planewalkers prepped to ult before, but I've never ulted a Karn. That's sweet!
I've thought about the Velis Vel cards. Blades of Velis Vel would be the likely pick as it plays with Precursor Golem in 2 ways (making things golems but also I can pick one golem target and make my golems all bigger) but also make creatures bigger for Warstorm Surge, and Vanish Into Memory. I was thinking of them recently too because having a tribal spell for Aminatou's Augury would be neat.
Incidental mill doesn't do much for me. Something old and weird like Kyren Negotiations would be better at just ending the game, but ideally I'd like a card that does more than just end the game. I was looking at Soulherder from MH1 as something that both acts as a 4th card and potentially gives me incremental value with my etb creatures, but in testing it was a dead card as often as most combo pieces are while also not ending the game in the combo it was chosen for. The most fun I've had with things that trigger off of infinite Sakashima Sphere have been the constellation spells, Skybind and Forgeborn Oreads. The red one pings everyone to death in the combo, but also can situationally ping away creatures and plaenswalkers over the course of the game or draw cards with Swans. Also, kinda interesting with Mirrorweave is a plus. "whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, destroy target creature for each 2 creatures you control." Skybind doesn't even approach being good as that fourth combo piece, it exiles any number of permanents until end of turn, but it's just a fun card to begin with. I'm fairly hopeful they'll revisit constellation at some point and maybe throw more options my way.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
+ Minamo, School at Water's Edge
+ Forsaken City
+ Thousand-Year Storm
+ Role Reversal
+ Golden Guardian
+ Azor's Gateway
+ Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
+ Echo Storm
+ Aminatou's Augury
Getting my thoughts together for the final mtgsalvation revision of Zedruu. Obviously, there's a whole Core Set to come out before this website is locked away, but I update so glacially I need the head start. Up above is what I currently have sleeved.
Phyrexian Metamorph swapped out for Echo Storm. Dack's Duplicate swapped out for Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Though funny enough, Saheeli often plays like Metamorph as a 3 mana clone if I already have an artifact collecting dust. Saheeli also has some synergy with Echo Storm, as the clone she makes is an artifact no matter what, so you can do things like Echo Storm and Inferno Titan. Saheeli also has a triggered ability that can be a win condition with one of the cast doublers in play. And Echo Storm has the triggered ability trick that Stolen Identity used to where you can Strionic Resonator a trigger to make another Strionic Resonator, except this time it can go infinite with Gilded Lotus + 2x casts of Zedruu.
Bonus Round swapped for Thousand-Year Storm. TYS is a nutty card. I was worried upon reveal that it would be harder to do things with than Bonus Round because it take multiple spells to start snowballing where Bonus Round could go off with just it and like Time Spiral. In retrospect, I should have realize right away that it would play out like Eye of the Storm does. And it tosses in possible infinites with Strionic Resonator or Venser bouncing instants and sorceries back to hand.
Role Reversal knocked out Shifting Borders, solidifying my Political Trickery trio into the 3 drop spot. Role Reversal is like Donate + Confiscate, it's pretty neat.
Cowardice, Cathars' Crusade, and Infinite Reflection came out for space. The combination of relatively big mana costs and occasional feel bad moments pushed these off the cut cliff. there are other things I'd rather play. Azor's Gateway is one of the most fun cards I've added in a long time. Getting it to flip is a neat little sub-game all on its own, and then when it does flip you do crazy things, especially with 5 ways to untap it and a pile of ways to reuse those untappers. Golden Guardian, if you;ve followed previous posts here, got a try out for reasons that didn't make the deck, but I've been fairly impressed. It draws cards with Swans (2 mana, draw 4, and flip). It draws extra cards with Swans and Razia (4 mana, draw 11, and flip). It sets up clean Arcbonds and then flips. I can give my creatures lifelink with Jeskai Charm, I can kill oppenet's stuff with Catch, I can bounce it off of Inferno Titan, and both the double command tower and golem factory on the back are strong (golems for Precursor). And then the cheesiest part is Gtway + Guardian + Saheeli, where you can turn Azor's Gateway into a Golden Guardian, make them fight, and return Sanctum of the Sun to play. (I've actually done it a few times in standard on arena now).
Aminatou's Augury is basically Mind's Desire #2, and can deliver some very clean doomsday combos, or at least as clean as double activating Mirror of Fate and then drawing and casting an 8 drop can be.
And then the lands. I cut the last 2 basics I ever intend to cut, leaving a clean 3 of each. In their place, I added Minamo which has 5 relevant legendary tapping permanents plus the potential of Sakashima becoming a relevant target. The check lands have been just fine and can stay, but I would gladly substitute them out for a cycle of tapped dual lands with more interesting upside. Unfortunately, there are only so many complete cycles of 10 lands. Then my new secret weapon is Forsaken City. The downside of the card is obvious, you have to exile cards from hand to untap it. But a card a turn isn't the end of the world here, and it has 3 big upsides: it's untapped mana of any color, it can be traded away for a normal land, and it can tap twice during your upkeep if you start the turn with it untapped. That last part is relevant with Leyline of Anticipation, you can play this turn 1 after Leyline, and then tap in response to its trigger and exile a card to untap for a 2nd mana during upkeep to flash in Howling Mine. And in really strange situations with Mirror of Fate and Time Spiral doing things together, you can help manage the size of your hand choosing whether to exile to this or not.
Lastly, some things that I wish I had in this deck, but mostly just don't exist the way I want them to.
1) An instant or sorcery that turns a permanent into a creature until end of turn (a golem ideally).
2) A variant of Stuffy Doll/Boros Reckoner that can target creatures but not itself (to avoid 3 card infinite).
3) I was hoping for a splice spell that would target a creature to make Time Spiral target a golem, but no dice.
4) An interesting fog effect at 1 or 2 mana. There are interesting 4 mana fogs, but then you're paying full price for the extra turn you bought.
5) Another permanent to etb trigger from the Sakashima Sphere loop, but not one that gains infinite life.
6) Maybe another discard effect for Barren Glory, though I use that as my test card slot so often, it's almost not worth dedicating support to.
7) And if I'm being totally greedy, I'd love something like Mistveil Plains but from exile.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Been a while since I've posted here but I've been following along the way. Looking forward to your next update! Compared to your most recent list, I've reverted a bit back to the previous version. I was missing Nahiri's Wrath as an enabler for Barren Glory since I could never seem to have enough targets for Firestorm with how many cards I'm drawing. What are your thoughts on Spark Double as another Sakashima?
Edit: Meant to ask, are you looking to put this primer elsewhere since it looks like MTGS is closing down?
I do intend to move Zedruu. I intend to follow the moderators from here to the new home they've promised.
But First! I intend to do one more update of this thread to a condition that I'm happy with, have it nice and pretty for however long they leave Salvation up in read-only mode.
But First! I've got some splice spells to test drive. When I saw Splice's Skill, my interest was piqued. What I genuinely wanted was a non-arcane version of Psychic Puppetry, cause that would be super busted. Any bounce land or Gilded Lotus could have generated more mana as I cast spells, or drawn cards with Temple Bell, or (what I really wanted) I could splice onto Time Spiral targeting Precursor Golem to make 3 Time Spirals. But alas, it was not meant to be.
The splice we did get is just kind of meh in theory. Draw a card or make a 3/3 are uninspiring, and the splice costs are mana intensive enough that if I can afford them, I should just win the game. But I'm compelled to try them anyway, just for the goofy interactions with storm and Precursor Golem. Maybe someday they'll let me radiate a draw 7.
Also on my radar: Aminatou's Augury is a card I paid no attention to because the big ugly baby head made me uncomfortable, but it very strong. It's very nearly a second Mind's Desire, with the added bonus of putting extra lands into play. Also, Ignition Team is something I feel obligated to test. My gut feeling is against what's largely a big dumb vanilla 7-drop, but it keeps coming up in my very specific card searches: it has 0 printed toughness, so can boardwipe with Mirrorweave, it has a ton of power so it packs a punch with Warstorm Surge or Venser -1, it can draw me a huge pile of cards with Vanish Into Memory and then discard less because my lands are untapped the second time it enters, and it turns lands into creatures that can be cloned or untapped with Jeskai Ascendancy. Again, my gut says I'll be disappointed, but it intersects a lot of things I want to do.
As far as Spark Double, Imma go with maybe. Upon further playing, I feel like I'd rather take out Infinite Reflection for Saheeli, Sublime Artificer than a clone, which means maybe Spark Double, Phyrexian Metamorph or Dack's Duplicate could edge back into the deck, and Double is as good with Crystalline Crawler as Duplicate is, Saheeli and Echo Storm have artifact cloning covered, and copying planeswalkers is at least a little neat. I have to weigh that against not copying other people's things.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Had a fun game today, where something silly redeemed an otherwise lame game. As unlikely as it is, this deck does occasionally just draw a hyperlinear combo win. In this instance, it was turn 0 Leyline of Anticipation, flash in signet before 3rd turn, flash in Crystalline Crawler before 4th turn, flash in Eye of the Storm before 5th turn, and then untap for 5th turn, 5th land, Turnabout, Strionic Resonator, Catch // Release, infinite mana (activate Resonator on Eye trigger, untap resonator/signet/crawler with Turnabout). And typically people are pretty meh about dying on turn 5, but my infinite mana didn't do anything. I could Catch and Release all their permanents, but that still wasn't deadly. The combo was only game ending because one of my lands happened to be Forbidden Orchard. So I kept untapping Resonator with Catch and untapping lands with Turnabout to give away infinite 1/1 spirits, and then swapped to untapping resonator with Turnabout and using Catch to take control of the infinite spirits I made. I thought that was neato.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Ok, so I've been playing with Archangel of Thune, and while I would describe its performance so far as "reasonable" rather than anything outrageous, I sort of really want to keep it because it's a rather unique piece for a 4 card combo. Archangel is actually the nexus that brings together a combo with Precursor Golem, Mirrorweave, and Arcbond. Target a golem with Arcbond so that you have multiple Arcbonded creatures, then Mirrorweave the angel so that all creatures are Archangel of Thune, then non-lethally damage an angel and kill everyone. And that's pretty sweet.
But here:s what's driving me mad: there has to be a way to make Archangel of Thune combo into 4 card infinite with Crystalline Crawler using only reasonable cards. I'd need 2 cards that would let me turn 1 mana into gain a life. Or with a clone, I could do 2 mana to gain a life. Claws of Gix (a card I have considered because of Barren Glory in the past) almost does it if a 4th card would feed me permanents, but those all require mana. The card Life Chisel gains the life for free, and then something like Pentavus would make the creatures to sacrifice (only during my upkeep), but man those cards would be terrible inclusions. Peace of Mind with Drogskol Reaver would do it, but the result would be a bunch of counters and I loot through my deck, and that's asking for a 7 mana creature and a do-nothing enchantment to make the cut into the deck. My goal ideally is to find a card that's both a reasonable addition and a 4th piece using only the card I'm already playing. Drogskol Cavaliers almost does it, but it needs 4 mana to do, so I'd have to do something like Mirrorweave the Crawler before Archangel or Cavaliers so that I can make 4 mana for every instance of life gain, so that makes a 4 card combo if I have 4 creatures in play and 16 mana in a single turn. Oof. There are cards that tap for life and cards that untap for mana, but anything that untaps a permanent for mana is destined to go 3-card infinite and do nothing else in the deck. Royal Herbalist fits the 2-mana mold, but has the finite limitation of cards in my library while also being utterly pointless outside of a combo. So there are a couple ways to make it a 4 card combo, but they really aren't good.
Much more reasonable than all of those unreasonable options are etb lifegain. A Soul Warden effect and either Pentavus or Triskelavus would let me go "1 and a counter: make a creature, when it enters gain a life, when you gain a life put a +1/+1 counter on everything, remove a counter: make a mana... repeat". Put I don't really want to play Triskelavus, as most of the time it's a huge amount of mana for a flyer that maybe pings something and synergizes with almost nothing else I play. It would just play with Archangel and Swans of Bryn Argoll that I can think of. I guess Mirrorweaving a pentavite would be kinda funny. But then I really don't want to play any variation of Soul Warden. They're all just minor life gain that die immediately because people hate watching you tick your life up whenever they play a thing. I don't want to add any card where the only synergy to list is Archangel of Thune. Any addition needs to work with the rest of the deck as well. Also, Soul Warden would make the Sakashima Sphere combo into "gain infinite life" and I don't want to even be capable of an infinite combo that doesn't actually kill people.
I already can give my creatures lifelink with Jeskai Charm, so I was thinking if I had a creature that I could pay 1 mana to deal a damage, then gain 1 life then put a counter on everything to make a mana again, that would be the way to do it. And a creature that pings that way would be cool with Swans and Arcbond combos etc too. But the creature 1:ping doesn't exist at any rarity from any era of magic. The combo would also gain infinite life and put infinite counters on everything, but "1, remove a counter: ping" on a creature or "1, pay a life: ping" don't exist either. That's not quite true, because "1, remove a counter: ping" exist on both Ulasht, the Hate Seed and Marath, Will of the Wild, but those are both green so they don't count. The previously mentioned Triskelavus comes super close, but the tokens it makes are what deal the damage, so making it combo would require a static lifelink granting ability rather than Jeskai Charm, and I've gotten tons of mileage out of the other two modes of Jeskai Charm.
There are some "almosts", ways to do the combo with 5 or more cards. Something like Kumano, Master Yamabushi can do it for 2 mana instead of 1, so 2 angels or 2 crawlers would make a 5 card combo, even Spitting Hydra which has the counter removal aspect costs 2 mana. There are Tims like Prodigal Sorceror that adding something like Freed from the Real (not that it's a safe inclusion here anyway) would make a 5 card combo. There are things that require a sacrifice like Magmaw than don't get there. Ancient Hydra removes fade counters instead of +1/+1. There are creatures like Ancient Hellkite or Godo's Irregulars that would require me to make an opponent's creature indestructible, which is a 5th card to combo. Arc-Slogger would run out of cards in the deck, and not even Mirror of Fate could put them back again. There's not even something like Firedrinker Satyr that you ping yourself for 1 mana.
And then there are a few damage dealing options that are too efficient. Walking Ballista is a messed up card that has no mana cost, so you could 3 card infinite with just Archangel and Jeskai Charm, no Crawler needed. Similarly, a card like Boros Reckoner given lifelink could be damaged for 1 and then repeatedly target itself forever to gain infinite life and make creatures infinitely large with no Crawler necessary. And then when I thought I had dug up an obscure enough card, Dizzying Gaze, is actually too easy as well. Slap it on Archangel which already has lifelink, and you can pay 1 mana to target itself to gain a life and pump your creatures infinite times. What a world where Dizzying Gaze is too powerful to play.
So if I'm going to consider adding a card just for the sake of comboing with Archangel of Thune and Crystalline Crawler, the 4-card options I've found are lame enough I'd rather need a five card combo. Unless there's some perfect final piece that I just haven't found, there are 2 options from my digging into damage dealers that stuck out to me. A) I could change my Izzet legend to Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius (which should be safe now that I lack Mind Over Matter), as a 2-crawler, Angel, Jeskai Charm, dragon combo that kills everyone and/or draws my library (the draw ability is a trigger that resolves after the damage is dealt, so you can kill people from infinite life without decking first). B) The much cuter option is Golden Guardian. It's ability costs 2 mana, but two of my creatures (all of which have lifelink) would deal damage, putting two counters on everything which is enough to pay to fight again. The downside of this is that it repeatedly slams a creature for increasingly violent amounts of damage, so I would need Ephemeral Shields to give Crystalline Crawler indestructible so that they can fight forever without dying.
Unlike adding something like Royal Herbalist or Triskelavus/Soul Warden, those two options would do neat things outside of angel time. Niv kills opponent's creatures, kills opponent's planeswalkers, draws card (especially with Swans), and is a mana spout if I find myself flooding. Golden Guardian is another defender to Mirrorweave and blank a combat step, it also draws cards with Swans , it lets me trigger a pretty big Arcbond (which would inherently let this die and flip), it's sort of ramp if you squint, and both it and the tokens it makes fit the golem tribal. But I also don't know what I cut for this one.
I don't really know what I'm doing. Side note: if Archangel is in fact here to stay, that's probably a good reason to back track my mana base updates a bit and play some refuges. I miss gaining 1 and telling people I'm winning.
Edit: I had a thought, but I'm not actually a judge, nor am I certain a judge would know the answer to this off the top of their head, but if I have March of the Machines, Golden Guardian, and Azor's Gateway in play, and I Mirrorweave Golden Guardian, and then activate the Guardian ability on Azor's Gateway Golden Guardian (that's one card title, we're playing Yu-Gi-Oh now!), does Azor's Gateway return as Sanctum of the Sun? I think it does. I know from previous research into double-faced shananigans that you try to put a regular card into play transformed, it jst stays in whatever zone it was in before-hand, but if the card actually has a backside, I think it should work. And that sounds neat and bizarre.
Second edit: Definitely trying out Golden Guardian. Realized it's neat with Catch // Release as well as a sort of steal your thing and sacrifice it. And if I like it, that might be the deciding factor between Saheeli 1 and Saheeli 3. I like getting the ETB from making token copies of things with Saheeli Rai, but Saheeli, Sublime Artificer lets me do the Azor's Gateway cheese flip with only 3 cards, which means it's totally gonna happen at some point. Also, that's all standard legal if anyone feels particularly insane.
I have not considered Homeward Path, as I prefer not to be donating creatures in the first place due to fragility. But I have been with Sudden Substitution, so maybe it's worth a test run. I don't see myself moving towards much more theft than that though.
I update that as more cards to give people tokens come out, but I'm not gonna pretend I put a lot of thought into that process. Flipping through it just now, it looks like the recently printed changes are Generous Gift, Massacre Girl, and Chandra, Awakened Inferno, and I picked up a Dousing Dagger that I just didn't own before.
Sudden Substitution is getting a chance in here. As far as corner cases and fringe interactions, I think this card is more complex than some entire decks I've played. I haven't had enough experience with it yet to gauge the power in my deck, but the intrigue level is off the charts. Being able to trade like a Howling Mine on the stack with a creature in play seems pretty alright. And even better than trading a preordain, I can trade things like Firestorm or Nahiri's Wrath with no targets, or Pentad Prism cast with colorless mana. Or Chrome Mox lets them ramp, but they have to put the card in, and I get split second Naturalize-proof Control Magic.
Split second is already a weird mechanic that have some fringe benefit with Eye of the Storm or Knowledge Pool. Just being able to say "no, I get to use these, stay out for a second is sweet. Then with Thousand-Year Storm out, you can do some creative stacking of triggers to effectively give the spells in the Eye split second (you have to cast the split second spell out of eye last, but then all the spells trigger TYS anyway and you get all the storm copies with split second still on the stack, and then use the copies of Sudden Substitution on the originals cast out of Eye of the Storm and take control of a bunch of creatures. Then if you're like 6 levels deep on shenanigans, you can do things like cast a spell with Sudden Substitution already in Knowledge Pool, then respond to your own spell with another, cast Sudden Substitution out of the pool to steal a creature and give them the first spell, then resolve the original Knowledge Pool trigger to exile the spell anyway.
Precursor Golem is kind of interesting with it. It doesn't trigger the golem, but I can trade 1/3 of my Precursor for a noncreature spell, or trade like 1/3 of an Arcbond for their creature. And while I'm not playing any cards that lose the game at the moment, I can do really fringe things like kill every creature except an Inferno Titan, pump it to 100 power, and then donate a Vanish Into Memory to someone.
But even more thought provoking than all of those interactions with other cards in the deck is the fact that you don't have to control either target. You can use this spell to donate people each other's creatures, or use it as a political redirect on targeted removal. Without playing anything yourself, Sudden Substitution can be killer disruption just by rearranging people's pieces. Things like taking the commander from the player with no other creatures and swapping it for another player's Earthcraft on the stack. With split second. This card is going to be really hard to play optimally, but it's gonna make some sweet blowouts sometimes.
I have every intention of continuing to check up over here if anyone comments on this thread, but if the future is anything like today as far as salvation working, that may not always be an option.
Painter's Servant is super neat, I fully intend to play it somewhere in one of my decks, but probably not here. It does, I believe, literally nothing at the moment.
If you were so inclined to make Painter's Servant a Zedruu card, I'd like to see 5 or 6 colors matter cards worth playing on their own. Dream Halls for sure would be fun. Off the top of my head, color lords would work and are already acceptable just as Mirrorweave targets, so something like Grand Architect. The cards from Ravnica with radiance might have something. Tibor and Lumia could be worthwhile (too bad Swans has flying). I hate to ever consider Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, but 1-2 mana discount on every spell could be nutty. Circles of Protection are neat sometimes. I'm sure there are gems waiting to be found.
Thank you for the kind words. As a fan of fogs over the years, I honestly think Dawn Charm was in Zedruu at some point a long time ago. It does have fun modes, the regenerate clause could replace the Ephemeral Shields protection I've deemed replaceable, and counter a spell that targets me is so narrow as to be exciting on the rare occasion it's relevant. But like, that's just how charms work, they sucker you in with options. When I'm imagining interesting Fogs, I'm imagining things like Blaze of Glory. Not really a fog exactly, but it mostly blanks a combat in a cool way that can be exploited by the right deck. Just not really this deck. Or Comeuppance is one of my favorite cards, and not just for the name, but sitting around with 4 mana open hoping for people to attack me isn't great strategy here. Reins of Power is another weird card, you can cast during combat to remove everything from combat, but it also can serve as a win condition sometimes. But again, 4 mana instants are good like that. But like, imagine something goofy like "RW instant, Prevent all combat damage, add R for each attacking creature. Or like, imagine a card that gave you the Swans of Bryn Argoll ability for a turn. That could cost less than 4 and be both wonderful and hilarious.I'm probably hoping for too much, but I'm greedy like that.
Cause all the golem tokens from that block are really angry and metallic (the 9/9's not terrible), and that's not my image of golems. To me, golems are earthy, like rocks or ceramics, and they're not emotional actors. Like, check out Chippy's art from Precursor Golem, they're big stone-faced Karn-looking things, bouldering along. Not shrieking death robots.
I playtested like a half dozen cards from Modern Horizons. Despite all the jokes of it being edh horizons, it turns out it wasn't that edh exciting for me. Things like Urza and the splice spells are just huge mana sinks that this deck can't manage and are very lackluster if you don't spend into them (except for maybe Mirrorweaving Urza's construct, but even that is suspect if other people have lots of creatures). Of the bloaty mana-sinks, the one that actually performed best, believe it or not, was Throes of Chaos. I've paid close attention to both cascade spells and retrace spells for this deck over the years because they are ways to abuse cast triggers effectively, but none have ever stuck. This card has both keywords, so I was obligated to try it even if my hopes were low. All of Zedruu's interesting things are at 4+ mana, than Throes only grabs 3 or less. But having actually tried, that's sort of perfect, it's like turboing out early game build up. Of the 28 hits, 9 draw cards or set up zedruu to draw cards, 6 make mana, 9 interact with opponents. And in my games playing with it, it was good after something like Nevinyrral's Disk to rebuild the whole early game. And it was outstanding with Eye of the Storm, both occasions I got it into Eye, I proceeded to cast every spell that cost 3 or less from the deck (and won one of the games!). That's the only recent card I would consider wedging in here.
And a couple minor tweaks that have been in the back of my mind for a while: Ephemeral Shields is unnecessary to combo kill with Arcbond, Precursor Golem, a clone, Jeskai Charm, and Arcbond can hit everyone for 44+ without being infinite, and that's just fine. The only reason I haven't cut it yet is because being able to convoke away the mana cost of an instant for Eye of the Storm has been clutch a few times. But there are other free spells out there that would be more versatile, and good Clones that would preserve the combo potential. So those are some possible direct swaps. And then Rest in Peace is kind of iconic, but I've gotten very good at doing Mirror of Fate without it, and there are so many alternative cards that can exile a card out of my graveyard at instant speed that are more proactive than the blanket answer.I don't really need to use the most textbook example of Mirror of Fate looping when there are weirder options.
Edit: While I don't care about the instant that makes golems in M20, I do care about the golems. I've been using Theros enchantment golems as my golem tokens because the mismatched type line bothers me less than New Phyrexia pointy golem art, but the new ones look great and I intend to collect like 10 of them.
Meh. I like that it's an instant, but 6 mana is a lot for either one Precursor Golem etb or Mirrorweave for artifacts. If it could do both, if it could target or effect other people's artifacts, if it laste longer than end of turn, if it cost less than six... there's a lot of ways to make me like this card, but I don't really like it as is.
When has cmc ever stopped me? I unapologetically play 7 and 8 drops! A flickerable Confiscate that might Mirrorweaveably draw cards is interesting at the very least, but all things considered, the card that looks most fun to me is the Jeskai Ascendancy bird you put in your signature. That has me pondering all sorts of things.
I've thought about the Velis Vel cards. Blades of Velis Vel would be the likely pick as it plays with Precursor Golem in 2 ways (making things golems but also I can pick one golem target and make my golems all bigger) but also make creatures bigger for Warstorm Surge, and Vanish Into Memory. I was thinking of them recently too because having a tribal spell for Aminatou's Augury would be neat.
Incidental mill doesn't do much for me. Something old and weird like Kyren Negotiations would be better at just ending the game, but ideally I'd like a card that does more than just end the game. I was looking at Soulherder from MH1 as something that both acts as a 4th card and potentially gives me incremental value with my etb creatures, but in testing it was a dead card as often as most combo pieces are while also not ending the game in the combo it was chosen for. The most fun I've had with things that trigger off of infinite Sakashima Sphere have been the constellation spells, Skybind and Forgeborn Oreads. The red one pings everyone to death in the combo, but also can situationally ping away creatures and plaenswalkers over the course of the game or draw cards with Swans. Also, kinda interesting with Mirrorweave is a plus. "whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, destroy target creature for each 2 creatures you control." Skybind doesn't even approach being good as that fourth combo piece, it exiles any number of permanents until end of turn, but it's just a fun card to begin with. I'm fairly hopeful they'll revisit constellation at some point and maybe throw more options my way.
1x Azorius Chancery
1x Izzet Boilerworks
1x Boros Garrison
1x Cascade Bluffs
1x Mystic Gate
1x Rugged Prairie
1x Temple of Enlightenment
1x Temple of Epiphany
1x Temple of Triumph
1x Clifftop Retreat
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Sulfur Falls
1x Celestial Colonnade
1x Needle Spires
1x Wandering Fumarole
1x Mystic Monastery
1x Command Tower
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Gemstone Caverns
1x Forsaken City
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1x Reliquary Tower
3x Island
3x Mountain
3x Plains
Creatures (14)
1x Memnite
1x Kami of the Crescent Moon
1x Nin, the Pain Artist
1x Vedalken Plotter
1x Walking Archive
1x Crystalline Crawler
1x Golden Guardian
1x Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage
1x Sakashima the Impostor
1x Swans of Bryn Argoll
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Precursor Golem
1x Inferno Titan
1x Razia, Boros Archangel
1x Chrome Mox
1x Azorius Signet
1x Azor's Gateway
1x Boros Signet
1x Howling Mine
1x Izzet Signet
1x Pentad Prism
1x Strionic Resonator
1x Thought Vessel
1x Temple Bell
1x Font of Mythos
1x Unbender Tine
1x Vedalken Orrery
1x Alhammarret's Archive
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Mirror of Fate
1x Knowledge Pool
Enchantments (14)
1x Rest in Peace
1x Detention Sphere
1x Dictate of Kruphix
1x Jeskai Ascendancy
1x Dissipation Field
1x Leyline of Anticipation
1x March of the Machines
1x Opalescence
1x Mindmoil
1x Possibility Storm
1x Barren Glory
1x Thousand-Year Storm
1x Warstorm Surge
1x Eye of the Storm
1x Firestorm
1x Ephemeral Shields
1x Leave // Chance
1x Arcbond
1x Jeskai Charm
1x Mirrorweave
1x Turnabout
1x Vanish Into Memory
Sorceries (9)
1x Catch // Release
1x Political Trickery
1x Role Reversal
1x Echo Storm
1x Mind's Desire
1x Time Spiral
1x Temporal Cascade
1x Temporal Mastery
1x Aminatou's Augury
Planeswalkers (3)
1x Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1x Venser, the Sojourner
- Dack's Duplicate
- Phyrexian Metamorph
- Cowardice
- Cathars' Crusade
- Infinite Reflection
- Shifting Borders
- Bonus Round
- Mountain
- Island
+ Minamo, School at Water's Edge
+ Forsaken City
+ Thousand-Year Storm
+ Role Reversal
+ Golden Guardian
+ Azor's Gateway
+ Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
+ Echo Storm
+ Aminatou's Augury
Getting my thoughts together for the final mtgsalvation revision of Zedruu. Obviously, there's a whole Core Set to come out before this website is locked away, but I update so glacially I need the head start. Up above is what I currently have sleeved.
Phyrexian Metamorph swapped out for Echo Storm. Dack's Duplicate swapped out for Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Though funny enough, Saheeli often plays like Metamorph as a 3 mana clone if I already have an artifact collecting dust. Saheeli also has some synergy with Echo Storm, as the clone she makes is an artifact no matter what, so you can do things like Echo Storm and Inferno Titan. Saheeli also has a triggered ability that can be a win condition with one of the cast doublers in play. And Echo Storm has the triggered ability trick that Stolen Identity used to where you can Strionic Resonator a trigger to make another Strionic Resonator, except this time it can go infinite with Gilded Lotus + 2x casts of Zedruu.
Bonus Round swapped for Thousand-Year Storm. TYS is a nutty card. I was worried upon reveal that it would be harder to do things with than Bonus Round because it take multiple spells to start snowballing where Bonus Round could go off with just it and like Time Spiral. In retrospect, I should have realize right away that it would play out like Eye of the Storm does. And it tosses in possible infinites with Strionic Resonator or Venser bouncing instants and sorceries back to hand.
Role Reversal knocked out Shifting Borders, solidifying my Political Trickery trio into the 3 drop spot. Role Reversal is like Donate + Confiscate, it's pretty neat.
Cowardice, Cathars' Crusade, and Infinite Reflection came out for space. The combination of relatively big mana costs and occasional feel bad moments pushed these off the cut cliff. there are other things I'd rather play. Azor's Gateway is one of the most fun cards I've added in a long time. Getting it to flip is a neat little sub-game all on its own, and then when it does flip you do crazy things, especially with 5 ways to untap it and a pile of ways to reuse those untappers. Golden Guardian, if you;ve followed previous posts here, got a try out for reasons that didn't make the deck, but I've been fairly impressed. It draws cards with Swans (2 mana, draw 4, and flip). It draws extra cards with Swans and Razia (4 mana, draw 11, and flip). It sets up clean Arcbonds and then flips. I can give my creatures lifelink with Jeskai Charm, I can kill oppenet's stuff with Catch, I can bounce it off of Inferno Titan, and both the double command tower and golem factory on the back are strong (golems for Precursor). And then the cheesiest part is Gtway + Guardian + Saheeli, where you can turn Azor's Gateway into a Golden Guardian, make them fight, and return Sanctum of the Sun to play. (I've actually done it a few times in standard on arena now).
Aminatou's Augury is basically Mind's Desire #2, and can deliver some very clean doomsday combos, or at least as clean as double activating Mirror of Fate and then drawing and casting an 8 drop can be.
And then the lands. I cut the last 2 basics I ever intend to cut, leaving a clean 3 of each. In their place, I added Minamo which has 5 relevant legendary tapping permanents plus the potential of Sakashima becoming a relevant target. The check lands have been just fine and can stay, but I would gladly substitute them out for a cycle of tapped dual lands with more interesting upside. Unfortunately, there are only so many complete cycles of 10 lands. Then my new secret weapon is Forsaken City. The downside of the card is obvious, you have to exile cards from hand to untap it. But a card a turn isn't the end of the world here, and it has 3 big upsides: it's untapped mana of any color, it can be traded away for a normal land, and it can tap twice during your upkeep if you start the turn with it untapped. That last part is relevant with Leyline of Anticipation, you can play this turn 1 after Leyline, and then tap in response to its trigger and exile a card to untap for a 2nd mana during upkeep to flash in Howling Mine. And in really strange situations with Mirror of Fate and Time Spiral doing things together, you can help manage the size of your hand choosing whether to exile to this or not.
Lastly, some things that I wish I had in this deck, but mostly just don't exist the way I want them to.
1) An instant or sorcery that turns a permanent into a creature until end of turn (a golem ideally).
2) A variant of Stuffy Doll/Boros Reckoner that can target creatures but not itself (to avoid 3 card infinite).
3) I was hoping for a splice spell that would target a creature to make Time Spiral target a golem, but no dice.
4) An interesting fog effect at 1 or 2 mana. There are interesting 4 mana fogs, but then you're paying full price for the extra turn you bought.
5) Another permanent to etb trigger from the Sakashima Sphere loop, but not one that gains infinite life.
6) Maybe another discard effect for Barren Glory, though I use that as my test card slot so often, it's almost not worth dedicating support to.
7) And if I'm being totally greedy, I'd love something like Mistveil Plains but from exile.
Good luck, I hope you enjoy. I intend to follow the moderators here to their new place.
I do intend to move Zedruu. I intend to follow the moderators from here to the new home they've promised.
But First! I intend to do one more update of this thread to a condition that I'm happy with, have it nice and pretty for however long they leave Salvation up in read-only mode.
But First! I've got some splice spells to test drive. When I saw Splice's Skill, my interest was piqued. What I genuinely wanted was a non-arcane version of Psychic Puppetry, cause that would be super busted. Any bounce land or Gilded Lotus could have generated more mana as I cast spells, or drawn cards with Temple Bell, or (what I really wanted) I could splice onto Time Spiral targeting Precursor Golem to make 3 Time Spirals. But alas, it was not meant to be.
The splice we did get is just kind of meh in theory. Draw a card or make a 3/3 are uninspiring, and the splice costs are mana intensive enough that if I can afford them, I should just win the game. But I'm compelled to try them anyway, just for the goofy interactions with storm and Precursor Golem. Maybe someday they'll let me radiate a draw 7.
Also on my radar: Aminatou's Augury is a card I paid no attention to because the big ugly baby head made me uncomfortable, but it very strong. It's very nearly a second Mind's Desire, with the added bonus of putting extra lands into play. Also, Ignition Team is something I feel obligated to test. My gut feeling is against what's largely a big dumb vanilla 7-drop, but it keeps coming up in my very specific card searches: it has 0 printed toughness, so can boardwipe with Mirrorweave, it has a ton of power so it packs a punch with Warstorm Surge or Venser -1, it can draw me a huge pile of cards with Vanish Into Memory and then discard less because my lands are untapped the second time it enters, and it turns lands into creatures that can be cloned or untapped with Jeskai Ascendancy. Again, my gut says I'll be disappointed, but it intersects a lot of things I want to do.
As far as Spark Double, Imma go with maybe. Upon further playing, I feel like I'd rather take out Infinite Reflection for Saheeli, Sublime Artificer than a clone, which means maybe Spark Double, Phyrexian Metamorph or Dack's Duplicate could edge back into the deck, and Double is as good with Crystalline Crawler as Duplicate is, Saheeli and Echo Storm have artifact cloning covered, and copying planeswalkers is at least a little neat. I have to weigh that against not copying other people's things.
Had a fun game today, where something silly redeemed an otherwise lame game. As unlikely as it is, this deck does occasionally just draw a hyperlinear combo win. In this instance, it was turn 0 Leyline of Anticipation, flash in signet before 3rd turn, flash in Crystalline Crawler before 4th turn, flash in Eye of the Storm before 5th turn, and then untap for 5th turn, 5th land, Turnabout, Strionic Resonator, Catch // Release, infinite mana (activate Resonator on Eye trigger, untap resonator/signet/crawler with Turnabout). And typically people are pretty meh about dying on turn 5, but my infinite mana didn't do anything. I could Catch and Release all their permanents, but that still wasn't deadly. The combo was only game ending because one of my lands happened to be Forbidden Orchard. So I kept untapping Resonator with Catch and untapping lands with Turnabout to give away infinite 1/1 spirits, and then swapped to untapping resonator with Turnabout and using Catch to take control of the infinite spirits I made. I thought that was neato.
But here:s what's driving me mad: there has to be a way to make Archangel of Thune combo into 4 card infinite with Crystalline Crawler using only reasonable cards. I'd need 2 cards that would let me turn 1 mana into gain a life. Or with a clone, I could do 2 mana to gain a life. Claws of Gix (a card I have considered because of Barren Glory in the past) almost does it if a 4th card would feed me permanents, but those all require mana. The card Life Chisel gains the life for free, and then something like Pentavus would make the creatures to sacrifice (only during my upkeep), but man those cards would be terrible inclusions. Peace of Mind with Drogskol Reaver would do it, but the result would be a bunch of counters and I loot through my deck, and that's asking for a 7 mana creature and a do-nothing enchantment to make the cut into the deck. My goal ideally is to find a card that's both a reasonable addition and a 4th piece using only the card I'm already playing. Drogskol Cavaliers almost does it, but it needs 4 mana to do, so I'd have to do something like Mirrorweave the Crawler before Archangel or Cavaliers so that I can make 4 mana for every instance of life gain, so that makes a 4 card combo if I have 4 creatures in play and 16 mana in a single turn. Oof. There are cards that tap for life and cards that untap for mana, but anything that untaps a permanent for mana is destined to go 3-card infinite and do nothing else in the deck. Royal Herbalist fits the 2-mana mold, but has the finite limitation of cards in my library while also being utterly pointless outside of a combo. So there are a couple ways to make it a 4 card combo, but they really aren't good.
Much more reasonable than all of those unreasonable options are etb lifegain. A Soul Warden effect and either Pentavus or Triskelavus would let me go "1 and a counter: make a creature, when it enters gain a life, when you gain a life put a +1/+1 counter on everything, remove a counter: make a mana... repeat". Put I don't really want to play Triskelavus, as most of the time it's a huge amount of mana for a flyer that maybe pings something and synergizes with almost nothing else I play. It would just play with Archangel and Swans of Bryn Argoll that I can think of. I guess Mirrorweaving a pentavite would be kinda funny. But then I really don't want to play any variation of Soul Warden. They're all just minor life gain that die immediately because people hate watching you tick your life up whenever they play a thing. I don't want to add any card where the only synergy to list is Archangel of Thune. Any addition needs to work with the rest of the deck as well. Also, Soul Warden would make the Sakashima Sphere combo into "gain infinite life" and I don't want to even be capable of an infinite combo that doesn't actually kill people.
I already can give my creatures lifelink with Jeskai Charm, so I was thinking if I had a creature that I could pay 1 mana to deal a damage, then gain 1 life then put a counter on everything to make a mana again, that would be the way to do it. And a creature that pings that way would be cool with Swans and Arcbond combos etc too. But the creature 1:ping doesn't exist at any rarity from any era of magic. The combo would also gain infinite life and put infinite counters on everything, but "1, remove a counter: ping" on a creature or "1, pay a life: ping" don't exist either. That's not quite true, because "1, remove a counter: ping" exist on both Ulasht, the Hate Seed and Marath, Will of the Wild, but those are both green so they don't count. The previously mentioned Triskelavus comes super close, but the tokens it makes are what deal the damage, so making it combo would require a static lifelink granting ability rather than Jeskai Charm, and I've gotten tons of mileage out of the other two modes of Jeskai Charm.
There are some "almosts", ways to do the combo with 5 or more cards. Something like Kumano, Master Yamabushi can do it for 2 mana instead of 1, so 2 angels or 2 crawlers would make a 5 card combo, even Spitting Hydra which has the counter removal aspect costs 2 mana. There are Tims like Prodigal Sorceror that adding something like Freed from the Real (not that it's a safe inclusion here anyway) would make a 5 card combo. There are things that require a sacrifice like Magmaw than don't get there. Ancient Hydra removes fade counters instead of +1/+1. There are creatures like Ancient Hellkite or Godo's Irregulars that would require me to make an opponent's creature indestructible, which is a 5th card to combo. Arc-Slogger would run out of cards in the deck, and not even Mirror of Fate could put them back again. There's not even something like Firedrinker Satyr that you ping yourself for 1 mana.
And then there are a few damage dealing options that are too efficient. Walking Ballista is a messed up card that has no mana cost, so you could 3 card infinite with just Archangel and Jeskai Charm, no Crawler needed. Similarly, a card like Boros Reckoner given lifelink could be damaged for 1 and then repeatedly target itself forever to gain infinite life and make creatures infinitely large with no Crawler necessary. And then when I thought I had dug up an obscure enough card, Dizzying Gaze, is actually too easy as well. Slap it on Archangel which already has lifelink, and you can pay 1 mana to target itself to gain a life and pump your creatures infinite times. What a world where Dizzying Gaze is too powerful to play.
So if I'm going to consider adding a card just for the sake of comboing with Archangel of Thune and Crystalline Crawler, the 4-card options I've found are lame enough I'd rather need a five card combo. Unless there's some perfect final piece that I just haven't found, there are 2 options from my digging into damage dealers that stuck out to me. A) I could change my Izzet legend to Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius (which should be safe now that I lack Mind Over Matter), as a 2-crawler, Angel, Jeskai Charm, dragon combo that kills everyone and/or draws my library (the draw ability is a trigger that resolves after the damage is dealt, so you can kill people from infinite life without decking first). B) The much cuter option is Golden Guardian. It's ability costs 2 mana, but two of my creatures (all of which have lifelink) would deal damage, putting two counters on everything which is enough to pay to fight again. The downside of this is that it repeatedly slams a creature for increasingly violent amounts of damage, so I would need Ephemeral Shields to give Crystalline Crawler indestructible so that they can fight forever without dying.
Unlike adding something like Royal Herbalist or Triskelavus/Soul Warden, those two options would do neat things outside of angel time. Niv kills opponent's creatures, kills opponent's planeswalkers, draws card (especially with Swans), and is a mana spout if I find myself flooding. Golden Guardian is another defender to Mirrorweave and blank a combat step, it also draws cards with Swans , it lets me trigger a pretty big Arcbond (which would inherently let this die and flip), it's sort of ramp if you squint, and both it and the tokens it makes fit the golem tribal. But I also don't know what I cut for this one.
I don't really know what I'm doing. Side note: if Archangel is in fact here to stay, that's probably a good reason to back track my mana base updates a bit and play some refuges. I miss gaining 1 and telling people I'm winning.
Edit: I had a thought, but I'm not actually a judge, nor am I certain a judge would know the answer to this off the top of their head, but if I have March of the Machines, Golden Guardian, and Azor's Gateway in play, and I Mirrorweave Golden Guardian, and then activate the Guardian ability on Azor's Gateway Golden Guardian (that's one card title, we're playing Yu-Gi-Oh now!), does Azor's Gateway return as Sanctum of the Sun? I think it does. I know from previous research into double-faced shananigans that you try to put a regular card into play transformed, it jst stays in whatever zone it was in before-hand, but if the card actually has a backside, I think it should work. And that sounds neat and bizarre.
Second edit: Definitely trying out Golden Guardian. Realized it's neat with Catch // Release as well as a sort of steal your thing and sacrifice it. And if I like it, that might be the deciding factor between Saheeli 1 and Saheeli 3. I like getting the ETB from making token copies of things with Saheeli Rai, but Saheeli, Sublime Artificer lets me do the Azor's Gateway cheese flip with only 3 cards, which means it's totally gonna happen at some point. Also, that's all standard legal if anyone feels particularly insane.