WHO IS MAELSTROM WANDERER? WHY PLAY THIS COMMANDER?
Some people hate the cascade mechanic, and have valid complaints. It's random. It takes little skill to play. It's too powerful.
I blame this guy.
But I like the cascade effect. The randomness is part of the fun; it's almost like playing the lottery. Cascade is always a strong effect, because in a properly designed EDH deck, every card is worth its weight to some degree. That one mana top is valuable just like that six mana consecrated sphinx. Even hitting ramp cards is not bad as EDH tends to have higher mana curves than other formats and you can always find something to do with extra mana. If your cascade is on an efficiently sized creature, you'll be pretty happy with anything you hit.
Introduce Maelstrom Wanderer, an easy way to gain card advantage. Let's break down his parameters.
Blue gives copy effects, counters, and card draw. However, counters have a poor interaction with cascade, so this deck does not run them. We gladly will take copy and card draw though. Blue also has time warp, but since the deck is also built around Primal Surge, and there are no really good extra turn permanents, it can be hard to play that many.
Red is by far the weakest color in EDH, but it's usually better to have it than not have it at all. Red gives access to haste-like effects, letting you win games out of nowhere. In its most powerful form it can also provide mass land destruction, which also lets you win games out of nowhere.
Green gives ramp and big creatures with some card draw. These are all great effects.
8 mana is a lot, but it's fine. He can be the top of the curve, and we can run extra ramp effects to get him out earlier. And look on the bright side; there are more cards to cascade into.
7 power is pretty good. It kills opponents in three hits. 5 toughness is weak for an 8-drop, but we are okay with this guy dying often. Sometimes I'll throw Wanderer under the bus just so I can recast him.
Giving this to all your creatures means you want to build a creature-based deck. Haste being an aggressive mechanic means you want to be applying pressure when you slam him down, but since this guy costs 8 mana you don't need to be playing cheap aggressive dudes; you can curve out and have this guy at the top.
This is the reason to run this guy. Cascade is, as said earlier, very powerful. Getting two free cards is no joke when this guy's baseline power and haste ability would make him slightly playable; this puts him over the top. Cascading into "harmless" things like, say, Wood Elves + Sensei's Divining Top means that you put a 7/5 haste, extra mana to recast Wanderer for a later turn, and a draw engine that sets you up for the lategame, and this is on the bottom of the spectrum. Imagine cascading into Avenger of Zendikar then into Boundless Realms.
"Wait a minute, did you just put ten 10-power plant tokens into play at once?"
"Yeah, so?"
"That's against the rules, isn't it?"
"Screw the rules, I have cascade."
For those who are unaware of the rulings on cascade...
- You can't pay alternative costs (if you cascade into a Cyclonic Rift you cannot use its overload).
- X-costs are always 0 (Chord of Calling).
- You can pay extra costs such as Kicker (Rite of Replication) or Entwine (Tooth and Nail).
- If you exile a split card with Cascade, check if at least one half of that split card has a converted mana cost that's less than the converted mana cost of the spell with cascade. If so, you can cast either half of that split card.
- Since your cascaded cards are cast, they will trigger anything that cares about such things (if you cascade into a creature spell with Animar, Soul of Elements out, it will trigger Animar, and if there's a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir out, you lose your cascaded spells).
- You only get the mana discount, so anything with "as an additional cost to cast" must still be paid or else you won't cast it (Harrow).
- Anything that makes spells cost more mana (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben) forces you to pay that mana when you do cascade.
- When you cast Wanderer, the first cascade must resolve fully (ex. you cascade into Mulldrifter, it has to enter the battlefield, trigger any abilities, and so on) and you may even respond between cascades with abilities, instants, etc. Once the first cascade is done, only then do you continue revealing for your 2nd cascade. After that, Wanderer finally enters the battlefield.
- You can choose not to cast the card you cascaded into. If you don't cast it, it will stay exiled (the other cards you exiled during the cascade still go to the bottom of the library in a random order).
That's a lot of rules for cascade. When you play with cascade, especially with Wanderer (people still get confused about how to handle cascading twice), it'll take some time to get used to it. Once you do, however, it's a very fast process.
Wanderer's strength is its simplicity. Wanderer at its core is a ramp deck, and ramp decks are simple to play. Ramp hard the first few turns and then slam your general and smash away. Draw more cards and flood the board some more. Play a ton of threats and make your opponents think about how to deal with them. Be proactive, not reactive.
Wanderer's strength is its resiliency. While it can be explosive, the fact that you get two free spells off Wanderer means control decks cannot shut down your 8-drop with one counterspell or one removal spell. After a board wipe, Wanderer is one of the best decks at rebounding, though its resilience depends on exactly the type of ramp spells you played up to that point. As long as your mana remains intact, you will quickly rebuild.
Wanderer's strength is its explosiveness. The double cascade can get you free wins out of nowhere.
Unfortunately, Wanderer is not a top tier general. He is one of the most overrated generals in commander; many people think he's a top tier threat, but he's nothing compared to the cutthroat strategies. He's not even the best general in this color combination! The randomness of cascade prevents him from competing with the best, fine-tuned decks. You'll get some cheap, easy wins with a triple ramp hand into a turn 4 or 5 wanderer and then flipping over two giant bombs or an infinite combo, but just as often that fast Wanderer start cascades into duds, or you don't get the explosive start. In addition, 8-mana is a massive amount compared to the cutthroat strategies that are relying on cards that range from 2-4 mana. Wins with Wanderer are not as consistent or as fast as top tier generals like Prossh, Hermit Druid decks, Zur, etc. Because of how Wanderer and cascade interact very poorly with counterspells, Wanderer will normally be weaker than a vast majority of blue decks that can afford counterspells.
Regardless, RUG (now known as Temur) is the 3-color combination that epitomizes explosiveness the most. You get the mana ramp of green, the draw power of blue, and the haste (and in cutthroat builds, the mass land destruction) of red. Each temur general is explosive, albeit in different ways. They also have some nuances and restrictions in their builds that aren't seen with other generals in the color combination. I will quickly go over them, as well as why you would want to play Wanderer in this color combination, or go with the other Temur general.
Animar, Soul of Elements - A voltron-ish general that exemplifies explosiveness and combos. Animar differs from the other Temur generals in that you are typically all-in on Animar while the other RUG generals are there mostly for their colors. While Animar can be built as a goodstuff.dec, the most consistent gameplan with Animar is to do a fast infinite combo which usually involves casting a bunch of low-CMC creatures, followed by some colorless creatures that can eventually cost 0 mana with a large Animar out. This gives you a large Animar that can generate infinite value from looping creature spells over and over, or smashing with general damage. Most Animar decks fizzle if Animar is killed more than once or twice, as the cheap creatures they play to build counters on Animar are usually not that impressive on their own. However, protection from black and from white makes it difficult to kill as those are the colors with the most spot removal. Most Animar decks are extremely high on creatures and have extremely few noncreatures/nonlands. Animar is your deck if you like fast, infinite combos involving creatures.
Intet, the Dreamer - It's the first RUG legendary creature to actually be printed. It's a relatively weak general that is basically just a slower version of Wanderer. It's 2 mana cheaper than Wanderer and flies, but does not give global haste and needs to connect to get the "free" spell, and it's only 1 spell and you're paying 2U for it. Without extreme library manipulation to get huge spells on top (like Time Stretch) you are generally just better off playing Wanderer. Intet is better than Wanderer at playing control, but that's not saying much.
Riku of Two Reflections - Arguably one of the most common goodstuff.decs in any color combinations, Riku is all about durdling, value, and grinding the game out, but also having multiple 2-card infinite combos for explosive wins. At base stats, Riku is a 5-mana 2/2 which is horrendous, and you really need to protect and untap with him. He is your typical glass cannon; easy to kill, but has great firepower. Once Riku is cast, if he is not killed in a few turns the game effectively ends because of how much value Riku generates after only a few activations. As Riku copies only instants, sorceries, and creatures, the deck is light on the other spell types.
Maelstrom Wanderer is also similar to Riku; he can be a pretty typical goodstuff.dec, but there are a few differences. The most important thing is that while both give you "free" spells, Wanderer's free spells come immediately upon casting while Riku needs to untap. While it's true that Riku is also 3 mana cheaper and thus can come down sooner, he is easy to kill while Wanderer can die or get countered immediately and you won't really care. In other words, Wanderer has higher value when they are cast immediately, then if both generals stay out on the field, Riku "catches" up with every passing turn as you clone/fork something every turn and then eventually generates more value than Wanderer, although every turn Wanderer is out it's attacking for 7 general damage too and that's assuming Wanderer isn't being recast somehow. Wanderer does have a special restriction compared to the other RUG generals though, in that the cascade mechanic actually restricts certain types of cards that can be played in other RUG generals, although I'll go over that later.
Riku is better if your gameplan is to power out a fast infinite combo that can also play like a grindy midrange deck. In these types of decks your 6+ mana spells will just instantly win the game (e.g. entwine'd Tooth and Nail gets Deadeye Navigator and Palinchron) so it's more important to have a general that you can play lower on the curve. Outside of the cutthroat builds, Riku and Wanderer have similar power levels, though their builds will not be exactly the same (for example, Wanderer builds tend to play more mana rocks than Riku builds).
Surrak Dragonclaw - Surrak can be a good general if your playgroup has a lot of blue. Giving your other creatures trample also helps against noncontrol decks that pack a bunch of creatures to push through damage. For his CMC, he has the best power and toughness out of all the Temur generals, but he doesn't generate card advantage on his own, which can be a problem. Since he makes your other creatures stronger, you'll be more inclined to play more creatures, particularly those with high power to make the trample he gives more relevant. Wanderer is also pretty good against control thanks to double cascades, but does have other weaknesses (e.g. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir wrecks him hard) while Surrak isn't really neutered as badly as Wanderer is against any given card. Surrak can come down earlier to beat face than Wanderer can, but you'll need to play additional card-advantage spells to make sure you don't gas out. Surrak is not as explosive as Wanderer, but he has less variance than Wanderer. Wanderer can cascade into low-impact spells and then flop around and die. You know exactly what you're getting with Surrak.
Yasova Dragonclaw - She's the most voltron-ish of the Temur generals, given the 3-CMC and 4 power with trample. 2 toughness means she'll die often so strap her with equipment/auras to make her better in combat. Equipment that pump her power are also useful because it means you can steal a bigger creature than normal. Paying 3 mana to steal a creature is a lot though, so often you'll only be using it if it's a very large creature (say you managed to get her to 8 power and stole a Balefire Dragon) or you have nothing else to do. She's very different from Wanderer, so the choice between her or Wanderer depends on your playstyle.
You should play this deck if you...
- Like a simple, straightforward deck
- Like attacking with creatures
- Like the randomness cascade brings
- Like Boundless Realms and/or Primal Surge
- Are on a budget (many of the expensive cards can be replaced with cheaper alternatives quite easily)
- Like curving out
You should not play this deck if you...
- Like playing control
- Dislike cascade/randomness
- Want a deck with a single focus or win-con
- Like playing with your graveyard (Wanderer draws extra resources from the top of the library rather than graveyard recursion)
The deck is built around Boundless Realms and Primal Surge. I'll go a little more into detail under Deck History and Card options.
PERSONAL HISTORY
I've been playing magic on and off since Mirrodin, although I didn't start even considering some semblance of competitive play (and by that I mean lofty FNMs and currently nothing higher, so yes, I am not the most skilled player out there) until Zendikar, where after that block finished I again took a break until Return to Ravnica, and have been playing steadily since. I was drawn back to the game at Zendikar largely because I found a new playgroup, and this playgroup quickly introduced me to the EDH format. While I was skeptical about it at first, once I made my first deck I was hooked.
The allure of EDH to me is the accessibility and the atmosphere of the format. You have an extremely large array of cards to choose from, which can result in many decks with wildly varying themes and power levels, so players are better able to construct the decks they desire. Because of the huge emphasis on politics in a typical EDH game, players who have weaker decks can still compete with players with fine-tuned decks as long as they play their politics correctly. This also reduces the monetary barrier to the format compared to something like legacy or even standard.
I consider myself to be a Timmy and a Johnny with some elements of Spike. The Spike part of me, however, barely shows up if there are no tangible prizes to play for. When there are tangible prizes to play for, I do enjoy getting those prizes. However, during EDH with friends where we play for fun and for pride, the frequency that I win at in EDH doesn't matter as much as how I win.
My EDH decks therefore are not for highly competitive play or for entering actual EDH tournaments; they are constructed based on my personal whims. As the playgroup I hang out with don't have hyper-strong decks (they are good decks but they purposely avoid the extremely powerful cards/interactions), I purposely drop the power level of my decks to around theirs. They are my friends, and as such having everyone in the group split games fairly evenly personally makes me happy too. No one likes losing every single game, and the best way to have your playgroup get annoyed with you is to win an overwhelming amount of games, and I don't want to be the guy to force players to get better or to start playing a certain way.
This doesn't mean my EDH decks cannot be fine-tuned for more aggressive playgroups or have a shot in tournaments. Often it just takes a couple of changes in card choices, or a quick change in the theme/game plan (which then relates to making a bunch of easy card changes). You can also often make power level reductions or cost reductions to the deck as well.
DECK HISTORY
My first deck was Progenitus, because he is literally a badass. My second deck was Zedruu, whose ability is so off-the-wall idiotic that I knew that I had to build around her. Unfortunately she doesn't win very many games and I was never satisfied with a build, and she is still currently under repairs.
When Planechase 2012 came out, and I saw Maelstrom Wanderer, I knew that I had to have him as my general. I like cascade. I like cascading twice. And I knew "then do it again" would herald good times.
Let's do the time warpcascade again.
However, Progenitus consumed a lot of my budget, so I wanted to try and keep this guy cheap. I was also a bit lazy in planning another deck, as I was still trying to fix Zedruu. Thus he was delayed for a few months.
Along came Magic 2013. Boundless Realms was spoiled. I know this card is powerful, perfect for EDH. Then I noticed that it was 7 mana, 1 below Maelstrom Wanderer, and I could cascade into it. I immediately started brewing the deck. Since Boundless Realms requires basic lands, it was a great way to keep the deck cheap as well, as I could load the deck with 10 cent lands over nonbasics that cost several dollars, throwing in only the bare minimum nonbasics. Unfortunately at the moment I have come to terms with the fact that there are superior alternatives in a Primal Surge build and Boundless Realms is currently out of the deck.
Avacyn Restored was also released several months before Magic 2013, and one of my friends was immediately using Primal Surge. Being impressed with the times his Primal Surge hits (and laughing at the times it whiffed hard), I knew that I could also alter the deck to fit Primal Surge, as I was planning on running mostly creatures anyway. Thus the subthemes of the deck were born.
The deck was initially built to be very cheap. I didn't even have the appropriate shocklands. Slowly, as I was more and more impressed with Maelstrom Wanderer, I added more money into the deck. Some remnants of the budget era still exist, and eventually I will replace them with more powerful cards. Feel free to adjust the deck to your budget, as many of the expensive cards can be replaced with cheaper alternatives pretty easily.
Because the deck has birthing pod, it is important to have creatures at every cmc level so you have a good curve to pod up. With that, I will break down the creatures at each cmc amount.
Also I will put * for each card, indicating my personal rating of the card, ranging from 1 to 5.
* - I mostly run this card for personal preference.
** - Has a nice niche, but can be cut for a different card.
*** - A good value card. You can cut for a different card but I don't recommend it.
**** - A staple. I do not recommend cutting this card.
***** - One of the cornerstones of the deck, you will almost always want to see this card as soon as you reach the mana to cast it.
Italicized cards are ones that you can replace with cheaper alternatives as they are not cornerstones of the deck. If an expensive card is not italicized, that means I recommend that you do pick it up.
1
****Birds of Paradise - Mana fixes, ramps a 3-drop on turn 2, and is a cheap enabler for Cloudstone Curio. Hard to ask for more on a 1-drop.
****Joraga Treespeaker - On turn 1 it's mana parity (you spend turn 2 to make it give you 2 mana), then it becomes a double Llanowar Elf, giving you 5 mana on turn 3. It's a bad cascade but it does a lot of work in the early turns. If you can T1 this, T2 level up into a 2-drop, you get very far ahead on the board.
****Gilded Drake - Blue staple. It's one of the few ways to interact with opponents early by stealing their generals or utility creatures. If you can't afford the drake your best option is to run more ramp or put in a cheap removal spell.
****Fauna Shaman - Any green creature deck must run this (or survival of the fittest, or both). Repeatable creature tutor is too good to pass up. Normally this is a 5-star card, but this deck runs very little graveyard recursion, so be careful about what you pitch; you usually won't get it back.
****Scavenging Ooze - It gives this deck reusable graveyard hate. The life gain and +1/+1 counters are nice too. The M14 reprint brought his price down significantly.
****Lotus Cobra - The deck has every fetchland except Marsh Flats. This guy generates insane amounts of mana for a 2-drop.
3
***Wood Elves - Fetches for forest shocklands. Reliable ramp.
???Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - Slow draw engine that can sometimes backfire and let opponents draw a card or two, and a relatively slow ramp option, but being able to do double duty has its merits and is worth considering.
****Thada Adel, Acquisitor - On paper, it's a slow but reusable artifact "tutor". Early on it can find mana rocks for ramp, later on it can find finishers, meaning it should have value at every point in the game. You'll be surprised how many blue players hate to see this card against them.
****Eternal Witness - Staple for green decks. Occasionally she's an embarrassing cascade, but she's still too strong to not run.
****Somberwald Sage - As most of the cards in this deck are creatures, this guy does a lot of work. By itself it enables a turn 5 Wanderer, which is powerful. It dies to a stiff breeze though which can sometimes be a problem.
****Trygon Predator - Early on he's difficult to block and can start popping things like sol rings. Mid-lategame you need to get rid of the fliers in the way, but now you can start popping things like equipment, birthing pod, and so on. Your opponents need to get a flier out or kill this guy, or none of their artifact/enchantment engines will ever stick. Think of it as a "fair" version of aura shards. While it doesn't ramp, it heavily disrupts each opponent who can't block this guy while surviving a ping from Sword of Fire and Ice. If you can't outramp them, slow them down.
***Trinket Mage - Fetches out Mana Crypt, so he acts like a 3-mana ramp spell. Later he can find Top. That's all he does, but they're both nice cards to have, so he pulls his weight.
****Thassa, God of the Sea - Does double duty by increasing card quality and helping Wanderer finish off enemies. Her role earlygame is to help find lands and ramp spells, then tucks those dead cards late in the game to find finishers. Mid-lategame she'll also help force through damage from Wanderer by making it unblockable. Being indestructible also helps as there's a weakness to sweepers in this deck. It's not easy to get devotion, and most of the time you don't actually want devotion anyway (it's easier to deal with indestructible creatures than to deal with indestructible noncreatures thanks to swords to plowshares, duplicant, terminus, etc) but in a "fair" deck that wants to win with damage rather than infinite combos, she's good at 3 mana.
*****Animar, Soul of Elements - A powerful voltron/combo general on its own, in this deck if you can get it out turns 2-4 and it doesn't die (and it has protection from the two colors that have the most spot removal, so it's sturdy), it is absolutely amazing. After a few creatures you can cast Maelstrom wanderer for chump change even if wanderer dies several times, and you get out of control if you also have Food Chain out. Also note that whatever creatures Wanderer cascades into (in addition to Wanderer itself) will power up Animar because the cascades are "cast", even if you spent no mana on them. Even lategame if you have enough engines out this will power you through a ton of mana and at the very worst has protection from two colors so it can chump block. As with your typical Animar deck, be careful about overextending.
4
*****Oracle of Mul Daya - Another staple in green decks. Combine this with library manipulation that Wanderer decks like to have and it gets ugly... for your opponents.
****Solemn Simulacrum - This may very well be the ultimate value card in EDH.
****Phyrexian Metamorph - Another blue staple card. Being able to copy artifacts or creatures means he is significantly less likely to be a dead cascade than a clone such as Progenitor Mimic. Also great with Tezzeret the Seeker.
****Venser, Shaper Savant - A temporary catch-all to anything. Also one of the best things to stick to a Deadeye Navigator.
****Glen Elendra Archmage - A great counterspell on a creature. It functions more as a rattlesnake than anything, but at 4-mana it's great.
****Clever Impersonator - Good card. There are many great clones available, but Clever Impersonator gets the nod in Wanderer because the flexibility makes it the best cascade out of all the clones. The fewer restrictions on what you can copy the better.
5
****Mulldrifter - Divination that's awesome instead of bad. Evoke means you can keep risky starting hands.
***Malignus - It seems goofy, but Wanderer gives it some much needed haste. Ideally you want to also combine it with another type of evasion (such as Thassa or Akroma's Memorial) to seal the deal. With a little bit of help, he kills people insanely quickly.
6
*****Consecrated sphinx - Blue staple. I was surprised to see this not get banned when Prime Time did.
*****Deadeye Navigator - I am seriously wondering when this card will get banned. It is incredibly sick with cards like Venser and Zegana. Usually if you are unable to cast Wanderer for whatever reason (say he got tucked), this is a strong backup wincon.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
7
****Avenger of Zendikar - Another green staple, this guy can win games on his own. I can't give a 5 because often the board gets wiped before I get to attack with him.
***Phyrexian Ingester - Exiling creatures is always nice. I decided on this over duplicant as I had enough creatures at the 6 mana slot and not enough at the 7.
***Molten Primordial - Stealing multiple creatures can be powerful. Its at its best if you have food chain out though.
REST IN ****
8
****Craterhoof Behemoth - If you have a few creatures out, you basically one-shot someone with this guy. If you have a lot of creatures out, you overkill everyone on the table in a single turn. He's definitely one of the most explosive finishers in green. Wanderer can't cascade into him but it's usually not the end of the world.
RAMP
As said earlier, because Wanderer costs 8 mana, the deck is a race to that amount. Therefore you need a ton of mana ramp. Most EDH decks run 10-15. Wanderer needs at least 20. And creatures alone won't get the ramp for you. Here are the noncreature ramp cards.
*****Sol Ring - Staple. Many of the temporary alliances forged in a standard EDH game are created based on who gets the turn 1 sol rings.
*****Mana Crypt - One of the most busted cards in EDH. If you can afford it, you play it, no questions.
*****Mana Vault - It's annoying to untap, but Wanderer decks are really a big race to 8 mana. It won't really help power out your other ramp cards you want to drop on your race to 8 mana and often won't do anything else once you do cast Wanderer, but it alone gives 3 mana. Sometimes a fast race to a Consecrated Sphinx or whatnot is enough too. And you can untap with Tezzeret too.
*****Grim Monolith - Not as crucial as sol ring, but getting 3 mana from a 2-mana artifact is huge. It's Thran Dynamo at 2-less mana, and unlike mana vault, you can untap this at any time you have 4 mana open; for example, T2 Grim Monolith, T3 Thran Dynamo and untap Monolith, T4 Wanderer is a valid line of play. By itself it enables a turn 5 Wanderer which is still good. It also generates infinite colorless mana with Mana Reflection in play.
****Basalt Monolith - Basically an extra Grim Monolith/Thran Dynamo effect. It also generates infinite colorless mana with Mana Reflection in play.
****Chromatic Lantern - The deck has some strict mana requirements. This fixes that.
****Thran Dynamo - This alone enables a Turn 5 Wanderer, assuming you hit your land drops and your lands provide the necessary colors. Combine this with any other early ramp spell and he's coming down even earlier, which is a dangerous threat.
***Gilded Lotus - Mostly used because of its interaction with Tezzeret, and is a fine ramp card on its own. If you can play something with the mana this provides the turn you drop this, that's a good tempo play.
***Frontier Siege - You'll almost always choose Khans. It's a playable midrange ramp option that adds GG on both of your main phases. It's not broken, but spreading out ramp options is important so that a sweeper or two doesn't snag all of your mana producers.
*****Paradox Engine - This card combines with Magic: the Gathering cards. And doubly so when the cascades on Wanderer will trigger this card.
****Tezzeret the Seeker - When played early it can either untap your mana rocks or go tutor you a mana rock to help you ramp. When played later it can find you engines like Cloudstone Curio or Birthing Pod, untap your engines like said Pod or Crystal Shard, maybe Perilous Vault if you're behind, etc. It's never a dead card.
****Teferi, Temporal Archmage - 6 mana is a lot so it's hard to say this is actually a "ramp" spell, but the -1 is very strong. It gives creatures pseudo-vigilance, it can ramp hard especially if you're untapping mana rocks (so something like Tezzeret's +1 except Teferi's -1 can hit lands and mana dorks if needed and hits twice as many things), it can untap Birthing Pod, and so on. Basically it's a fairer version of Mind over Matter. There's also the +1 but it probably won't be used very often, but it is still relevant when you're flooding out.
NON-CREATURE BOMBS
These are cards that aren't creatures, but they're huge and are badass. You normally don't want to hardcast them, but you want to manipulate the library so you can use your general to cascade into them and get really far ahead on the board.
*****Primal Surge - There are no cards to cascade into this and nothing that can tutor for this, but there are only a few nonpermanents in the deck. A good Primal Surge means the game ends. It has a tendency to whiff hard though. I would not cast Primal Surge until you have two or less non-permanents left in the deck, so the more nonpermanents you run, the longer you will wait to cast Primal Surge or take the risk of whiffing hard. It's not really a powerful card (it IS 10 mana), but it's so goofy and it completely alters a lot of the card choices in this deck, so if Primal Surge is not your cup of tea then this likely won't be a useful topic for you. NOTE: Be careful about how many permanents you actually put onto the board with this card. Don't just flip your whole library into play; the deck has a couple of mandatory draw effects (like Mulldrifter) and if you hit them with an empty library you die.
*****Tooth and Nail - While it does interfere with Primal Surge, an entwine'd Tooth and Nail cascaded from Wanderer is a massive tempo swing, and in cutthroat builds will end the game. You do need to pay that 2 mana for the entwine though. The deck purposely doesn't have an auto-win with an entwine'd Tooth and Nail though, but it's ridiculously easy to build it with an auto-win.
*****Time Warp - Another card that interferes with Primal Surge, but in a deck that wants to go over the top, taking that extra turn is all you need. More Time Warp effects in the deck would be nice but then Primal Surge would have to get axed. Cutthroat Wanderer decks will want additional time warps.
****Mana Reflection - You normally can't do much with double mana unless you have a good engine out. When you do though, you'll likely find a way to instantly win.
****Karn Liberated - A badass. Also the only real out against cards like Torpor Orb and Humility which would make this deck cry. With the recent success of the urzatron in modern this cost is very prohibitive. If you can't afford Karn and need a way to deal with Humility and the like, you may need to run nonpermanents like Beast Within.
****Akroma's Memorial - The haste is somewhat unnecessary when the general gives it. The rest of the abilities are worth it. Cascading into this with the general is big game.
****Eldrazi Monument - Similar to Akroma's Memorial, although the fact that it costs 2 less mana doesn't matter too much as you only play them late in the game, and sacrificing a creature a turn is occasionally a problem (but can be a blessing if you want to sacrifice Wanderer). Still, when played at the right time, you will end the game.
ENGINES
These are the cards that give you additional gas and resilience. Typically your first couple of turns are spent ramping to get Wanderer out, but Wanderer hitting one of these cards is great value as they will refill your hand after you empty it out to ramp Wanderer early. These cards are also strong in your starting hand (some moreso than others), but don't clutter it with engines; ramping in the first couple of turns is much more important.
*****Sensei's Divining Top - Staple. The library manipulation is even better with Wanderer's cascades.
*****Sylvan Library - It's effectively a free top effect once a turn and you can pay life (a hefty amount) to get cards. Against control decks this is great as the life barely matters. Even better than in your typical green deck because of the library manipulation for Wanderer's cascades. One of the best turn 2 plays in the deck, but you are never unhappy to see it late.
****Scroll Rack - Sets up cascade if high mana cards are in your hand. It's also nice to tuck a bunch of worthless cards, get a bunch of new ones, and shuffle your library. Much like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, there aren't too many cards that have an effect of putting cards from your hand on top of your library. If you can't afford Scroll Rack you are best off playing another cheap draw spell like Fact or Fiction or maybe a permanent like Soothsaying.
*****Birthing Pod - I heard repeatable tutors are good. What about repeatable tutors that get you mana discounts on your tutored cards?
****Rhystic Study - Very powerful in a ramp deck. Explosive starts tend to leave you with few cards in hand, so this is a good way to refill. And if players keep paying the 1, that hinders their board development. It's a worthless card if you explode onto the board and force everyone else at the table to gang up on you (where they will be cautious about paying the 1), but at that point it's usually too late for them to catch up.
****Crystal Shard - Lots of value from this. If you can bounce Maelstrom Wanderer every turn you will bury opponents in card advantage, but there's still plenty of value from bouncing any other random creature, and unsummoning something an opponent controls when he's tapped out can catch people off guard. The cool thing is that bouncing the general allows you to still recast it for the base mana cost regardless of how often it died.
*****Cloudstone Curio - Basically, it's a Crystal Shard that can be used more than once per turn. Ever dropped a birds of paradise to unsummon your own Maelstrom Wanderer? Not nearly as abusive as it is in Animar decks, but still a great way to get more value. When you get a lot of mana (e.g. Animar with lots of counters on it, or mana reflection), it basically ends the game.
****Equilibrium - What if Cloudstone Curio could unsummon your opponents' creatures? While it's not exactly the same card as Cloudstone Curio - you do need to pay the mana - they are similar enough, and unsummoning your opponents' creatures is backbreaking in many scenarios. It's not as explosive as Curio since Curio lets you unsummon your creatures for 0 mana and not 1, but this has a higher floor as it can disrupt opponents when needed.
****Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Brainstorm effect works well with cascade. Also, with all the fetchlands you get the classic brainstorm + fetchland combo where your first brainstorm is basically just straight up ancestral. Unsummon isn't too bad either, as you can bounce wanderer to regain value, or bounce a blocker out of the way. You normally won't use the other abilities. However the price tag is not worth it unless you have the money to burn. Consider using actual Brainstorm as a budget replacement but remember that Brainstorm interferes with Primal Surge.
*****Food Chain - Despite the fact that it alone won't get you cards, it is one of the most powerful cards in the deck. With Maelstrom Wanderer, hopefully you hit 1 or 2 creatures with the cascades to fuel next food chains, with your cascaded creatures hopefully having an ETB effect. Exile those creatures and wanderer for more mana after they get their effects to get more cascades, and eventually you will create a huge board presence to one shot everyone on the table. As Food Chain requires creatures, this is yet another incentive to stick with a creature theme with the deck, and a couple of theft effects so you can steal and then exile your opponents' creatures. Use cards liek Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio to help bounce Wanderer once he starts casting high mana amounts. Be careful that you don't get blown out though from anyone flashing in a sweeper or so, as if you don't win after a food chain turn, Wanderer will become prohibitively expensive to cast and you lost a bunch of creatures. Also, I've purposely excluded abusive cards like Misthollow Griffin because I'm personally not a fan of 2-card infinite combos for EDH, so slamming Food Chain isn't an autowin; you do need to plan your moves ahead and figure if you should try to go "off" with Food Chain.
OTHER
These are cards that aren't creatures, or lands, or quite engines. Basically they're value cards.
****Dack Fayden - A card that says "1UR Sorcery - Gain control of target artifact" is playable in a format where every deck loves their T1 sol rings, and Dack is that with an upside that also doesn't stop Primal Surge. Early turns you can steal a sol ring or such for an early ramp option, and later you can steal better artifacts like birthing pod, maybe a darksteel forge, etc. Looting is also very relevant if you need to dig. It's not great at defending himself, so you're getting 1 activation before he dies, 2 if you're lucky, but getting 1 crack at his -2 ability pays for himself most of the time. Remember that if you're stealing something that has a Tap activation, your opponent will tap it in response if he's paying attention so you won't get to use it on your turn. Dack has an argument for actually being the best planeswalker in Vintage; chances are he'll be fine in EDH.
****Song of the Dryads - A solid removal spell that can hit anything. While it technically ramps the opponent by turning the permanent into a forest, that's better than having the troublesome permanent in play. Also, stranding generals in play with this is a nice bonus compared to standard removal spells, particularly since the tuck rule change made it even more difficult to stop opponents from playing their generals.
****Perilous Vault - A sweeper on a permanent. It's something to keep opponents honest. You can fetch it out with Tezzeret, and if Wanderer cascades into it, you can always cast it and activate it later. For Wanderer builds that want to try and play things fairly (i.e. no mass land destruction and no 2-card infinite combos), it's a necessary evil.
LAND BASE As the deck also has a little theme with Boundless Realms, the mana base is cheap. The nonbasics are minimal, and adding nonbasics makes Boundless Realms weaker anyway.
****Steam Vents - Actually the least important of the three shocklands, purely because Wood Elves can't fetch this. Still a great card.
*****Command Tower - Thanks, Wizards, for printing a true EDH staple. I can't think of any decks other than mono-color and maybe B/x that wouldn't want this card.
****City of Brass - Taps for any color. 1 damage hurts only slightly.
****Cascade Bluffs, Fire-lit Thicket, Flooded Grove - They're going up in price in modern, but in sheer power level they might be the best duals after fetches/shocks/ABU duals. If budget is a concern then you can certainly replace them. I picked them up awhile ago when they were much cheaper.
****karplusan Forest, Shivan Reef, Yavimaya Coast - Duals that are relatively low on budget and don't come into play tapped. Like city of brass, you can deal with 1 damage.
***Reliquary Tower - The deck can actually fill your hand with cards fairly easily, so this is nice to have.
****Temple of the False God - Sol ring land, but be careful as it obviously can't tap for mana early.
*****Ancient Tomb - What if Temple of the False God didn't have a drawback? 2 damage is something you can deal with for the earlygame, so be happy. If you draw this early you surge ahead, but if you don't close out the game, you'll find that 2 damage per crack to really hurt you, so be sure you win quickly.
****Kessig Wolf Run - Making only colorless mana hurts, but it's a land-based way to help Wanderer push through damage.
****Myriad Landscape - 3-color decks can afford this and it's ramp on a land.
4 Island
3 Mountain
4 Forest
OTHER OPTIONS
GENERAL NOTES
Maelstrom Wanderer isn't exactly the hardest general to build around, but he does provide a couple different builds to experiment with. He can be a goodstuff.dec like this build, or he can be a fast combo deck, or he can be a control deck (just find the counterspells that work with Wanderer). The deck is built around Boundless Realms and especially Primal Surge, but you can easily remove them from the deck - as long as you make the appropriate adjustments.
In general, Wanderer gives you two free cards per cast. This means you can cut down on the number of draw engines you would normally play and instead stick in a few more ramp cards. For example, an Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck can afford to play fewer ramp spells because the general is a ramp spell, and thus Azusa decks tend to pack more bombs and card draw (they'll have some 1-mana dorks so you can force Azusa in on turn 2, but you will almost never see cards like Wood Elves or Explosive Vegetation). In a similar vein, you can play Wanderer if you need to get more cards, and use ramp spells to get him out faster. Typical Wanderer decks pack 15-20 ramp spells or more while your average EDH deck may run 10-15. Basically, if you need to fill some slots in your Wanderer deck, look to ramp cards first.
Well, you don't need to go that deep.
Wanderer's cascades present a drawback that isn't seen in other decks. To get the full value from Wanderer, you must always want to cast the things you cascade into. There's also a larger randomness variable than in other decks because of the double cascade. Because of this, you are best off trying to minimize that randomness. While you can try to minimize the randomness with library manipulation (such as Top or Sylvan Library) your whole deck can't just be durdle do-nothings mess around with the library cards, and often you won't have the luxury of doing library manipulation before casting Wanderer. In other words, you should try to run cards that have a very broad range of applications so that anytime Wanderer hits them, you will almost always play them and have a use for them.
To put it in another way, in normal decks, if you have a card that doesn't do anything important at the moment, you just hold onto it, or you discard it, or whatever. You only cast it if you want to. With Wanderer and cascade, you are significantly more likely to be casting things at unoptimal times, and thus must tamper expectations of that card. For example, Eternal Witness is a staple in every green deck. Most green decks will hold onto their Witnesses until they want to get back a gamebreaking card. However in Wanderer, cascading into Witness means you may get something not as exciting (like say you play Wanderer turn 5 and hit Witness, you may get back your Sakura-Tribe Elder or a fetchland), or in a worst-case scenario you cascaded into it with nothing in your graveyard. While you must still run Witness, tamper your expectations of that card, and add cards that can help make an early cascaded Witness not a dead hit (for example, Fact or Fiction can get some cards in the graveyard early, and fetchlands quickly put something in the graveyard).
Another example would be Indrik Stomphowler versus Acidic Slime. They fill a similar role, being 5-mana green creatures that destroy a type of permanent when it enters the battlefield. While Stomphowler has more power and Slime has deathtouch, the real breaker is Slime's ability to hit lands. That flexibility gives it more reach when cascaded into. Stomphowler has times where you will not want to cast it should you cascade into it, while Slime can just hit a land.
There are some cards that are normally powerful, but in Wanderer are almost dead cascades. Because of this, you'll need to be more wary of their power level...
- Cards with X in its CMC. When you cascade into those cards, X will always be 0, making them dead cards. Chord of Calling and Green Sun's Zenith are very powerful, but think of an alternative that isn't a dead Wanderer cascade. Primal Command isn't as powerful, but it is more flexible and isn't a bad Wanderer cascade. If you do wish to run cards with X in their CMC, try to put in certain cards that will help them not be bad cascades; for example, Dryad Arbor helps prevent Chord and GSZ from being totally dead cascades.
- Counterspells. Most times when you cascade into a counter, there will be no spells to target, making it a dead card. One of the few counterspells I would consider in Wanderer is Cryptic Command because the other options on it are almost never dead. Permanents that give counterspell options such as Voidmage Prodigy are fine too. You could run cards like Mana Drain because you could target Maelstrom Wanderer and get mana (although because Mana Drain is like over $100, it's still not worth it unless you have that money to spend) but usually you are better off running a card that would be a live cascade and then spending that extra turn Wanderer is in play to smash for 7 damage rather than recasting him next turn.
- Anything with a fairly steep "as an additional cost to cast ~", such as Harrow. The idea of cascade is to play spells for free, but when you cascade into those types of cards, you still need to pay those costs to cast them because you are only getting the mana cost for free.
Certain cards are fine to play, but you need a specialized build for them. For example, normal sweepers are awkward to cascade into because at times you will not want to cast them. However, if you instead have a control-shell Wanderer, you will normally be behind on the board and thus will instead cast them often should you cascade into them.
Basically if there's a realistic chance the card is dead if you cascade into them, be careful of them. Even if you run, say, only 1 X-spell, there is still a chance that you will cascade into it, and it's usually better if you simply ran something else that had a similar function that wasn't dead if you cascade into it. You'll notice that most of the problematic spells to run in Wanderer are reactive; counterspells, removal, sweepers, and so on, because there will be times where you do not need to be reactive. Proactive cards (such as Avenger of Zendikar and Eldrazi Monument) are usually better because there's a much lower chance that they don't have an impact on the board.
An allstar in every other green EDH deck, but in Wanderer it's an embarrassing cascade.
Note that cards with entwine/kicker/etc. are okay with cascade, as you can still pay those, but you need to consider to keep mana open when you play a cascade card so that in case you do hit them, you can pay their bonuses.
One other note is what ramp spells to play in Wanderer. Every EDH deck packs ramp cards, but it's especially important in Wanderer because it plays more ramp spells than your average EDH deck because of how much mana Wanderer costs, as well as the fact that wanderer's cascades will often hit these ramp cards. Most ramp spells are fine, but they all have different functions/strengths/weaknesses, and you will need to tailor your ramp spells based on your overall gameplan as well as your playgroup. Ramp spells can be divided into several general categories (ignoring ritual effects, such as Seething Song, which I don't think are very useful in EDH outside of storm decks or specific builds). This is pretty common knowledge, but again because of how important ramp is in Wanderer it's worth going over anyway.
The best example here is to see the difference between Llanowar Elves (mana dorks), Nature's Lore (spell ramp), Wood Elves (creature-land ramp), and Moss Diamond (mana rocks). They each net you G (technically the middle two are fetching forests so they're normally getting shocklands, but it's close enough), but they have varying mana costs so they will get you that mana on different turns, and the mana they provide are nullified by different cards. There are other cards that provide mana in different ways (such as Awakening Zone) but these four are the most common.
In terms of explosiveness (the mana they get you for the mana they cost), generally colorless mana rocks are the most explosive, then mana dorks, then spell ramp and are about equal to colored mana rocks, and then creature-land ramp. Each type has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to resiliency; for example, mana dorks are easy to kill, while creature ramp give you the most "value" (lands are usually the permanent type that is least fooled around with, and the creature ramp provide bodies for combat, Birthing Pod, etc), and you just need to tailor your build to what your friends play. For example, if everyone in your group loves Stranglehold, Aven Mindcensor and other similar cards, you may want to limit the land searching spells simply because you won't be searching your library for them. If your group loves their Aura shards, Creeping Corrosion, and other cards, you'll want to limit your artifact rampers. And so on.
Certain Wanderer builds allow you to forgo certain ramp; for example, a Wanderer build that wants to be extremely explosive, throw caution to the wind, and combo out the whole table by turn 4 or 5 will want the explosiveness of the mana dorks and the best artifact ramp. However, in an unknown "meta" or a group of friends that all have wildly different decks, your best bet is to just spread out your ramp into different types so that you don't get nullified by a specific strategy, then start messing around with your ramp cards if you encounter certain strategies often.
Of course the most important thing with ramp is to get a good curve. You don't want every ramp card to be 1 or 2 mana because most of them don't ramp hard enough to power Wanderer out in a timely manner; rather, your cheap mana rampers help power out your higher mana rampers and those cards drastically cut down on Wanderer's clock. The ideal hand would be to tap out all your mana for 1 ramp spell per turn until you reach 8 mana, to make the most use of your mana per turn and cards. For example, T1 Birds of Paradise, T2 Cultivate, T3 Gilded Lotus, T4 Wanderer is an efficient ramp curve.
Or you could just play Sol Ring on turn 1.
NON-PRIMAL SURGE BUILD
Primal Surge alters the build of a specific deck so greatly that this deserves its own section. Some players may think Primal Surge is not worth the mana cost. Some players think it's a boring card. Some players may dislike it for whatever reason. Whatever the case, it's important to know that Primal Surge is merely one way to build this deck. To do that, it's important to know what weaknesses Primal Surge forces onto the deck.
1) Greatly limits the number of nonpermanents to run. This is pretty obvious. Time Warp, Blatant Thievery, and many other nonpermanents are problematic to run with in a Primal Surge build. However, because there are plenty of permanent cards that are bomby and splashy, this can be worked around.
2) Restricts certain permanent cards to run. Some permanent cards will have effects that you sometimes may not want, and a Primal Surge build kicks them out. For example, Kederekt Leviathan was something I played for a short while until I Primal Surge'd one game, revealed it, and realized that if I put it into play it basically resets my Primal Surge up to that point, and if I stop then it just killed the Surge.
3) Forces an overabundance of certain cards which gives you weaknesses to certain cards. For example, because Wanderer decks rely on a lot of ramp, Primal Surge prevents you from profitably playing Cultivate, Skyshroud Claim, and so on. Therefore Primal Surge forces you to play more mana rocks and mana dork creatures. Take note that most playgroups frown upon mass land D (and not many decks run mass land D even if they could anyway) so your land rampers are going to be safe after sweepers. Also take note that sweepers are often the best cards to use against Wanderer, because it helps "equalize" Wanderer (you spend Wanderer to get 2 free cards, and the sweeper is 1 card that can kill multiple cards).
In a Primal Surge build, because you cannot play the instants/sorceries that fetch lands, this forces you to play permanents that can get caught up in sweepers, which means depending on your draw, you become very vulnerable to a sweeper. For example, it's quite often that you play mana dorks to ramp out Wanderer, then Wanderer hits two creatures, and then someone immediately plays a Wrath of God, leaving you with maybe 5-6 lands and nothing else and a Wanderer that now costs 10. Othertimes, you ramp out Wanderer with Mana rocks, play Wanderer and hit a bunch of artifacts or enchantments, then someone kills Wanderer and another plays a Fracturing Gust and now you're left with nothing. Sometimes you draw all your cards that get you extra lands in play but someone lands a Contamination.
This is similar to something I said earlier about diversifying your ramp options, where an overabundance of one type of ramp card leaves you weak to certain cards.
I'm not going to bother with constructing a totally new deck list for a non-primal surge build (not yet anyway) because I haven't tried taking Surge out of the deck. However, if I were to make such a build, I would cut some of the mana dorks for instant/sorcery land ramps. As said, diversifying your ramp spells to prevent being crippled by sweepers is important. For example, you could probably cut some of the mana dorks for nonpermanent ramp spells. While cutting the creatures could be a problem because of their profitable interaction with Food Chain, unless you want to devote the deck to Food Chain combo (which is a totally valid strategy) you are probably better off trying to be more resilient to sweepers than a 1-of card in the deck, even if Food Chain is probably the best card in said deck. Playing Cultivate plus Kodama's Reach would allow you to cut a land as those cards fetch a land for you.
POWER LEVEL
Cards that I do not run because of money, power level, and so on.
There are plenty of 2-card infinite combo potential that you could construct in your standard RUG deck, and you can easily slot them in here. A simple example would be adding Palinchron to the deck, since it plus Deadeye Navigator generates infinite mana (then you stick Wanderer to Deadeye and exile it, but choose to send it to the command zone instead of back to the battlefield). Tooth and Nail to find it - and have Wanderer potentially cascade into it - is also valid. RUG also gives the Kiki-Jiki infinites that are seen in modern (Pestermite, etc.)
Mass Land Destruction - MLD is a very powerful type of card where basically if you are ahead on board, MLD severely hampers everyone's mana, and therefore ability to catch up. It's a common tactic in the most powerful builds and is frowned upon because of its power, and also because if it is not used properly it prolongs the game to unnecessary lengths. White is the marquee color for MLD because of Armageddon, but red has many other MLD effects. Jokulhaups, Wildfire, Destructive Force, etc. are all strong cards to cascade into, and some of them even sweep creatures somewhat to get the board clear for Wanderer to start smacking away. These are very powerful to cascade into, as you can clear the board before Wanderer hits the field because the cascaded spells resolve before Wanderer. If your playgroup is ok with huge land D, these types of cards are almost necessary in cutthroat Wanderer builds. Since they're nonpermanents, you can't play Primal Surge, so keep that in mind. Since some of them sweep lands, you'll be relying more on mana rocks, which is fine because the mana rocks tend to ramp harder than other ramp options (sol ring, thran dynamo, etc.). Note that the big sweepers that are 8+ mana are much worse because Wanderer can't hit them (Obliterate, etc.). Mystical Tutor goes up in value since you can set up a MLD card on top for a cascade. I don't play these cards because my group isn't that cutthroat and it would cause me to get hated out every single game, but in more competitive circles you pretty much need these.
Imperial Recruiter - Last I checked his price, he was about $350. If money isn't a concern then any red deck will run this guy, but if you don't then I don't see a problem in ignoring him. If it was in this deck it'd probably be just an Animar tutor or maybe Zegana.
Survival of the Fittest - You could probably build your deck such that landing this card immediately wins you the game. I've seen what this card can do in other decks. RUG misses out on the two colors with the best creature reanimation though so maybe not? I wouldn't be surprised if you could still do it though.
misthollow Griffin - With Food Chain you get infinite mana to spend on creatures - presumably for Wanderer. I'm not a fan of 2-card "infinite" combos, but if your friends are fine with it, by all means insert this in. Keep in mind that Misthollow Griffin does nothing without Food Chain.
Gaea's Cradle - Not as insane as in token decks, but even if it just taps for 2-3 mana, that's strong for a land. You'll have to run more creatures to reliably get this online early, so you may need to lean on more mana dorks. This card is also really expensive. Wanderer decks are totally fine running tons of mana rocks to generate the mana, so this is more of a luxury for creature-focused builds.
BUDGET CUTS
Augury Owl - I ran this before using Scroll Rack. Scroll Rack does the job better, but it's also much more expensive. It's also a dude to exile with Food Chain so it's not strictly worse anyway.
Spawnbroker - Nowhere near as good as Gilded Drake, but if you are short on money, he's an okay alternative. Do note the whole power thing so you would usually end up swapping low power utility creatures instead of huge fatties.
Brainstorm - If you don't have the money to run Jace, the Mind Sculptor (and I imagine most people won't), this is an acceptable replacement.
More ramp cards in general - There are a lot of ramp cards - both permanents and nonpermanents - that ramp that aren't on this list. Ramp cards in general are very cheap (they are usually commons or uncommons), and they can power out Maelstrom Wanderer faster. Cut out some of the money cards, stick in more ramp, and it's still a very viable deck.
MISC. ALTERNATIVES
Cards that I have considered originally and/or played around with, but ultimately cut them or haven't tried for whatever reason. It doesn't make these cards bad though, but I am playing the deck with certain subthemes and some of these cards don't fit them.
Boundless Realms - A subtheme of this build for a long time, I've come to terms with how this doesn't carry its weight enough to offset the fact that it interfers with Primal Surge.
general Instants/Sorceries - You'll first notice that Primal Surge greatly restricts deckbuilding. If you do not want to run Primal Surge, you can remove some of the more unimpressive cards and replace them with instants/sorceries. For example, you won't have to run mediocre cards like Dawntreader Elk or Greenweaver Druid if you could instead run cards like Cultivate or Skyshroud Claim. You'll also get access to very powerful nonpermanents like Time Warp, Knowledge Exploitation and the like. These things are covered in the non-primal build surge section above.
general value creatures - Cards like Borderland ranger, Elvish Visionary, and Sea Gate Oracle that get you a card when they enter the battlefield. Normally you should play more ramp over durdle creatures to rush out Wanderer since Wanderer will get you cards anyway. However they aren't the worst things you could add to the deck.
Ancestral Vision - Cascading into this is nice, but the most value would come from playing a low mana cascade creature (like Bloodbraid Elf) into this, otherwise it's just a concentrate. Also interferes with Primal Surge. The deck has enough engines that I didn't find it necessary to run this.
Blatant Thievery - An incredibly sick card with huge value, but even more if you have Food Chain out and you can steal a few creatures. It's 7 mana so Wanderer can cascade into it too. I just can't find the room for it with Primal Surge in the build.
Fabricate - Tutors for birthing pod, but interferes with primal surge. Without surge in the deck this is a definite include.
Gamble - In a deck that doesn't run Primal Surge and also wants to focus on winning with combo, this isn't too bad.
Genesis Wave - Primal Surge for the current build is almost strictly better. It's also a dead card to cascade into.
Long-term Plans - Cool for picking a specific card for Maelstrom Wanderer to cascade into. But it's 3 mana for card disadvantage and interferes with Primal Surge. Also be aware that sometimes when you play this and immediately play Wanderer (or Wanderer hits this with the first cascade) that you may not even cascade into the card you get, because you could have legal cards placed on top.
Spelljack - A counterspell that works with Wanderer. If you cascade into it, simply target Wanderer to get another free cast whenever you want. 6 mana is a lot to hold up though for its regular function though, and it interfers with Primal Surge. This can't really just be inserted into the deck - it needs to be a more responsive/flash deck to shine.
Mana Drain - Basically Spelljack that costs 4 less mana, and about 200 more dollars. The problem is that you also get the mana at your next main phase, not next precombat main phase; that's a pretty significant problem if Wanderer cascades into this, since you want it on a precombat main phase so you can attack with Wanderer. It also makes only colorless which is a problem if you tapped out completely for Wanderer and hit this.
Plasm Capture - In between Spelljack and mana Drain in terms of mana cost, but basically functions the same. It's usually better than mana drain because you get the mana at your next precombat main phase and you get it in any combination of colors, but it's worse as a regular counter.
Cloudthresher - If your playgroup likes small flying creatures, he'll have a field day.
Coiling Oracle - It was never a reliable ramp card, and being a "strictly better" Elvish Visionary doesn't really help when the deck doesn't need Elvish Visionary.
Dawntreader Elk - A weak ramp card, but it's a creature and it still ramps. If you don't have Primal Surge you don't need this card.
Deadwood Treefolk - 3-for-1 at 6 mana is theoretically strong, but graveyard durdling is not something this deck really wants to do. It's also a realistic early cascade whiff.
Diluvian Primordial - In theory, it has the highest potential power level of any of the 5 primordials, or just cards in general. In reality you will usually not be stealing time stretches or primal surges or such, unless said cards were milled into the graveyard beforehand. Normally you'll hit ramp spells, tutors, or spot removals, and occasionally sweepers, and you may have a player at the table with no legal targets at all. It's still a strong value card though, but when deckbuilding you do need to watch your mana curve. Usually this is better in a deck that makes people discard their hands and/or mills so you get the strong targets into the graveyard directly.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest - Basically none of the early weenies in this deck have any evasion so this is a weak draw engine early on, and later in the game you can find stronger draw engines.
Etherium-Horn Sorcerer - Unlike the other cascade creatures in the deck, this one isn't as good, because a 3/6 creature for 6 mana isn't very efficient. While he can unsummon himself, the only time you'd do that is if you have nothing else to do.
Fierce Empath - 3 mana cards that tutor for something are decent but whatever they find has to be useful. Fierce Empath used to be a good card because it could tutor up Primeval Titan, and then Sylvan Primordial. With both of those banned, there are less enticing targets.
Genesis - Slow graveyard recursion. However, the deck has many redundant pieces when it comes to creatures, meaning it's uncommon that there is something crucial you want to recur; the recursion is usually done when you can't cast Wanderer for whatever reason and you have nothing relevant in your hand. This is at its best in grindy midrange decks that want to use the graveyard as a second hand, not so much ramp decks which can also use the top of the library as a second hand.
Greenweaver Druid - Generic mana dude. Not the most exciting card but he adds redundant ramp to the deck as well as different sources of mana that die to different types of removal. If you don't have Primal Surge you don't need this card.
Heartwood Storyteller - The deck has a lot of creatures but has enough noncreatures where this can backfire on you. You're better off just playing more ramp or a different card draw engine.
Kederekt Leviathan - Gives a creature-based board sweep, even if it's just temporary. However it's awkward to Primal Surge into.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - Very powerful even if you don't bother with infinites. However it only copies nonlegendary creatures you control, which can be a problem since this deck has its fair share of legendary creatures and sometimes you'll cascade into Kiki with no legal targets for it.
Krosan Tusker - He's technically 7 mana but you will rarely hardcast him. He's basically an instant speed divination, so a fairly bad mulldrifter. That's not terrible by any means, but not great either.
Laboratory maniac - Basically auto-wins if Primal Surge lets you dump your entire library into play because you will probably hit some kind of draw effect, but since it literally doesn't do anything otherwise I don't like it. If you want to win with this card, I advise that you remove every other nonpermanent so Primal Surge immediately allows you to just flip your library into play and get the win and make sure you can protect this guy when you try to get your win.
Loaming Shaman - Gives more graveyard hate and is a creature. Better than Scavenging Ooze at nuking multiple cards in a graveyard at once, but worse because it doesn't actually exile them, and it's one time use until you can retrigger his ability. Usually scavenging ooze is enough unless your playgroup is very grindy and love their graveyards to death.
Man-o'-War, Aether Adept, etc. - They're awkward to cascade into at times. However if your playgroup love aggressive decks these are strong tempo plays.
Mindclaw Shaman - Has reliability problems. It's similar to Diluvian Primordial.
Molten Primordial - Great with Food Chain and doing alpha strikes, not really useful otherwise.
Phantasmal Image - 2-mana clones are always powerful, but there are more and more cards that have repeatable targeting (Staff of Nin, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, etc.) where the drawback becomes a big problem. In addition, the fact that it is 2-mana isn't the biggest deal in the deck. It's not something you play in the early turns very often, and occasionally is a bad cascade. I wanted to cut it to try out other cards.
Prime Speaker Zegana - It's funny if you hit it after playing Wanderer, but it was often a bad cascade early on.
Progenitor Mimic - While a powerful card in normal builds, you really want to copy a bomb to get the full value. Wanderer's cascades makes it awkward to play. You normally won't be copying powerful cards like Avenger of Zendikar but instead something more average like Solemn Simulacrum.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - Poor guy got banned largely because the EDH committee got tired of distinguishing "all banned" and "mostly banned". Not nearly as crazy as it can be in monogreen, but it could pretty easily tap for 3-4 green and that was good enough.
Seedborne Muse - Great if you build around it a little more, like putting in flash enablers or permanents with abilities (such as Planar Portal).
Shardless Agent, Bloodbraid Elf - In a void they provide card advantage. But they can whiff often enough (such as Bloodbraid into Eternal Witness with an empty graveyard) and they are not 100% reliable. Also their bodies aren't very relevant in EDH; for example, Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Wood Elves isn't really exciting.
Sphinx of Uthuun - The deck has a lot of card draw already, and it doesn't have the greatest graveyard recursion such that a fact or fiction is not as insane as it is in other decks.
Silklash Spider - If your playgroup likes any flying creatures, he'll have a field day.
Steel Hellkite - It gives the deck some board control, although you do have to connect with it and use mana.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - It's not the greatest in a Primal Surge deck (this card is much better when you have a lot of stuff you want to play at instant speed like counterspells), but at the very least getting this out will help protect you when you are trying to swarm for a win, so a 5-mana Grand Abolisher/City of Solitude. With the huge creature count, giving all your creatures - including Wanderer - flash is no joke either. Be careful though; he only restricts opponents at casting spells. They can still activate abilities normally. You also probably won't get hated out as long as you tell your opponents that you are not running abusive cards with Teferi (like Knowledge Pool + Teferi lock).
Terastodon - Extremely powerful, but being unable to cascade into it with Wanderer is a bit of a problem. This is much more powerful in a dedicated blink deck.
Vendilion Clique - Strong value card and gives a Primal Surge build a good way to combat combo decks. However it will usually not do enough to justify the money you need for it.
Veteran Explorer - Not the best ramp card because it ramps everyone. You will make a few quick friends with it, but after you play Wanderer you'll probably draw attention back to you.
Wonder - If you have a lot of discard outlets this is strong. This deck can't really afford messing around with discard outlets.
Woodfall Primus - This creature doesn't feel too strong anymore, especially since you can't even cascade into it.
Yaviyama Dryad - It's a slightly harder to cast Wood Elves whose forest also can't enter the battlefield untapped. In a build that wants to use equipment or auras though, the forestwalk is handy, but this isn't really the deck for it.
Yaviyama Elder - It's a 3-for-1, but two of the cards are basic lands. It's decent but never was a big threat.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger - The effects are cool, but it has no protection and it always quickly dies. This deck also isn't a big-mana deck; by the time you reach 8 mana, you don't really need more. The fact that Wanderer can't hit this also hinders its value.
Abundance - Great with Sylvan Library but not that good on its own.
Beastmaster Ascension - Potential finisher I have been thinking about. You really need a stronger token theme though.
Defense of the Heart - A permanent, cheaper version of Tooth and Nail. That's the theory behind it anyway. In reality players will play around it (and the creature-light builds almost never care), or one player will spend a 1-for-1 removal spell on it, which means you almost never trigger it, and you don't slow down enough opponents to make it worthwhile. However, with the prevalence of Prossh, Defense is a passable soft-counter, where if Prossh isn't out he can't play it, and if Prossh is out then he's given one turn to kill you or it (which they will, Prossh decks always have it, since everything combos with Prossh).
Garruk Wildspeaker - On paper he does two important things; ramp early-midgame, and give trample lategame. However, planeswalkers tend to get attacked alot and die, and losing this guy early on to random creatures is a huge deal. He has high upside, but he's also high risk.
Greater Good - Sac outlets are important, but the big reason why to run sac outlets is to get them out of play so that you can recast them again. Maelstrom Wanderer is less about using the graveyard as a resource and more using the library as a resource. While it's also cool to sac Wanderer to this to recast him, you can get similar functions like Crystal Shard and the like. This is also a fairly weak card early on as most early creatures have less than 3 power. Greater Good is a powerful card, but it doesn't quite fit Wanderer's build and gameplan.
Lurking Predators - If you have a little more library manipulation and a little higher creature count, it's worth it.
Erratic Portal - Between Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio, I didn't really want to run a 3rd bouncer. You can definitely tune your deck to run this too though.
Mimic Vat - One of my pet cards and one that I fully believe can fit into any EDH deck and improve it, here I decided to cut it to experiment with new engines due to its lack of real synergy it has with Wanderer over other engines (library manipulation ones such as Sylvan Library, or unsummoning ones such as Cloudstone Curio).
Oblivion Stone - Used to be the sweeper of choice until Perilous Vault got printed.
Planar Portal, Ring of Three Wishes - Both are very mana intensive (Ring of Three Wishes slightly less so, and the part about having only 3 wishes isn't normally a big deal), but it is a tutor on a permanent that fits for Primal Surge. I would not run either without seedborn Muse though.
Skullclamp - The deck doesn't have enough 1-toughness dudes and sac outlets to really abuse this card.
Equipment in general - As the deck has lots of cheap creatures, playing equipment would allow your smaller creatures to smash face. Unfortunately RUG doesn't have a whole lot of equipment tutors on permanents (heck, there aren't many that just find artifacts in general). I decided to just run extra creatures and ramp to get Maelstrom Wanderer out, and use certain cards to just make my entire board a threat and/or make Wanderer's hits strong.
Garruk, Primal Hunter - Nice value card, but making 3/3 beasts isn't particularly relevant and its -3 is basically "Zegana that isn't a super awkward cascade at times" but that's not really amazing since planeswalkers are hard to tutor out. Triple green can be a problem to get it down early too.
Forbidden Orchard - A card I used when the build had Defense of the Heart. With that card gone, Forbidden Orchard doesn't serve a good purpose, as making 1/1s to chump block a future attack from Wanderer is a big problem.
Mosswort Bridge, Spinerock Knoll - Coming into play tapped is a huge tempo problem. They get a free spell, but you usually can't trigger it until Wanderer is in play.
Rootbound Crag, Hinterland Harbor, Sulfur Falls - Cheap duals since the M10 ones have been reprinted a bunch of times and the Innistrad ones rotated out of standard. They'll enter the battlefield tapped at the wrong times though, so when you obtain more powerful lands, these will usually be the first nonbasics you cut.
More graveyard hate - There aren't many creatures in RUG that hit graveyards. If your playgroup really love their graveyards, you can add cards like relic of progenitus that can exile graveyards while being a permanent for Primal Surge.
More sacrifice outlets - It's cool to sacrifice your general to recast him, but I'm a bit wary about adding too many sac outlets. This deck currently is poor at playing from behind, so sacrificing too many creatures can be a problem. Usually it's better to use bounce effects so you can just recast Wanderer, instead of having to pay the commander tax from him dying.
Tutors - There aren't many cards in RUG that can tutor and are also permanents that don't interfere with Primal Surge. If you don't want Primal Surge, then it opens up a lot more cards. Mystical Tutor is very interesting to cascade into (assuming you would also run Tooth and Nail), Gamble is fine, etc.
Token producers - Cards like Deranged Hermit and Siege-gang Commander are interesting, since Eldrazi Monument does like tokens to sacrifice to, and you have skullclamp. Still, I wouldn't play token producers unless you build around them more.
STRATEGY
Summary:
- Spend the first ~5 turns ramping and/or getting a cheap engine online.
- Flood the board with stuff and turn things sideways.
- Finish the game with Food Chain, Primal Surge, Craterhoof Behemoth, Avenger of Zendikar, Deadeye Navigator, or smacking with Wanderer given evasion
As Maelstrom Wanderer is an 8-mana engine, the biggest priority the deck has in the first ~5 turns is to ramp. If you get a starting hand with 3+ lands and 2+ ramp cards (that's not over 5 mana), you're sitting pretty. Getting a cheap engine online (such as Sylvan Library) can also smooth out your early draws.
In most cases, playing Wanderer ASAP is your best option. Chances are that whatever you hit in addition to Wanderer will be better than a single card in your hand. For example, Consecrated Sphinx is powerful, but if you have 8 mana and must decide whether to throw out the sphinx or Wanderer, and if Wanderer hits a Mulldrifter and some random other spell, the Wanderer probably gave you the better turn. However you have a handful of library manipulation spells as well, so if you have one in hand you can try to set it up to maximize your cascades. The obvious exceptions are when a card in your hand answers a specific threat that you need to deal with (say an opponent has Teferi out that would nullify your cascades entirely).
Once Wanderer is in play, just attack. A lot. Mass haste means you will constantly apply pressure, but haste alone will not let Wanderer finish the job, because it gets chump blocked easily. Try to get out something that can give it evasion (such as Akroma's Memorial or Thassa, or even trample off a Kessig Wolf Run), or have threat(s) that already have evasion and the haste they gain from Wanderer makes them potent (Avenger of Zendikar, big dragons, etc). This forces the opponents to spend a card dealing with whatever is giving Wanderer said evasion, or they'll have to kill Wanderer, which in most cases we are totally fine with as we can recast him for two more free cards.
The most consistent wins are with Food Chain or Primal Surge. Craterhoof is usually the way you actually kill someone, although Avenger swarms can do the trick. Sometimes you can also just smack with Wanderer 3 times and kill them with general damage that way, or just chipping away at opponents with your large creature suite, since you have a couple pieces to give evasion. Also, chaining ETB removal creatures, such as Venser, with Deadeye Navigator and alot of mana will demand an answer or you will just remove your opponents' boards.
In general, a really good Wanderer cascade can take someone out of the game quickly, but Food Chain and Primal Surge will really allow you to power through the table at the same time. Note that Food Chain by itself in this particular build is not a one-way ticket to infinite combo town; you need to cascade into the pieces (or have them already on the board), and every game will play differently - as is the nature of cascade - and you will need to figure out what to do with the pieces you hit. Sometimes you won't continue with Food Chain, and sometimes you will need to YOLO and go for it.
In most games you will be the target unless you are facing a tier 1 deck (Zur, etc). Wanderer will let you explode onto the board, and with greater board presence comes greater focus on you. Extremely bad cascades are embarrassing (say you hit two clone effects when there are no creatures in play at all), but most of the time you will put a ton of pressure on the board. Even if you only hit ramp spells, you still have a 7/5 beater that grants one-sided haste and your opponents can't just ignore it. If the Wanderer dies, the ramp spells you hit will allow you to recast Wanderer anyway. If you instead hit great cascades, I hope you enjoy Archenemy.
Wanderer into Time Warp into entwine'd Tooth and Nail causes a lot of rage. And dead players.
Primal Surge Math
The number of other nonpermanents you have left in your library obviously affects the outcome of the primal surge. The more nonpermanents you run, the longer your Primal Surge will have to wait (so you cast or draw into those nonpermanents beforehand) or risk whiffing.
Doing some quick math, and let's assume there are 80 cards in the library when you surge (changing this number does alter your chance to whiff, but it isn't significant unless it's a huge change).
When you have 1 other nonpermanent left in the deck...
5.7% chance whiff at 4 cards
10% chance at 7
20% at 14
25.7% at 18
50% at 35
When you have 2 other nonpermanents left in the deck...
5.7% chance whiff at 2 cards
11.1% at 4
21.7% at 8
26.7% at 10
51.3% at 21
At 3 other nonpermanents...
4.3% whiffing at 1 card (lol)
12.5% at 3
20.2% at 5
27.4% at 7
49.3% at 14
As you can see, having 2 nonpermanents over 1 nonpermanent results in having about half the number of cards revealed before hitting a dud (which makes sense because there are twice as many nonpermanents). The success rates at 3 nonpermanents are already pretty sketchy, and I would not even try at 4+ other nonpermanents.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF CURRENT VERSION
+ Explosive. The deck has a lot of ramp, Wanderer gives you two extra spells for free and a big body and will put pressure on opponents. Turn 5 Wanderer is very common, and Turn 3 Wanderer is possible with a good draw.
+ Resilience. Wanderer gives a ton of card advantage, and if one of the cascades is a draw spell, you will basically refill your hand and still end up with a threat in play. And you can just simply hardcast the engines too.
+ Redundancy. While certain cards are more powerful than others (such as Food Chain being probably the best card in the deck), the deck isn't focused around a single win con. It isn't a combo deck that crumbles when the wincons are stripped from the deck or destroyed. There are a handful of one-ofs that you do need to be careful about (such as Eternal Witness being the only real source of graveyard recursion).
+ Haste. The deck can frequently win in a single turn.
- Randomness. As is the nature of cascade, sometimes your cascades hit bombs, and sometimes they hit duds.
- Few board sweeps. It's difficult to fall behind, particularly because of the explosive nature of the deck, but if you fall behind, it's difficult to come back.
- Humility, Torpor Orb, etc. You win with creature beats and things that hinder creatures are problematic.
- Mana hate. Sweepers that hit your mana, cards that prevent you from getting mana, and so on are very problematic, since Wanderer costs so much mana, and Wanderer's ability to rebound depends solely on your mana being intact.
CHANGELOG
+ Paradox Engine
- Prime Speaker Zegana
12/7/16
+ Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
+ Faerie Artisans
+ Molten Primordial
- Carpet of Flowers
- Halimar Depths
- Balefire Dragon
Testing out Selvala. On paper she's a slow draw engine (that other players can sometimes utilize) and a relatively slow mana dork, but being able to do double duty has its merits. The dream is to have this out and Malignus, though obviously you can't expect that often.
Faerie Artisans has quickly caught my eye and I'm interested in testing it.
Carpet of Flowers has underperformed. Despite there being a bunch of blue decks in my group, not many of them are hyper cutthroat, and they often don't have more than 1 island out in the early turns which is when mana production from this card is the most important. Unless I'm up against monoblue, this card often doesn't do anything in the early turns which is where the 1-mana tag is at its most relevant.
Halimar Depths is fine, but it felt like the weakest land. Down to 36 lands is fine, but I really can't go below this.
Molten Primordial over Balefire dragon is just experimenting more at the top end of the curve.
3/22/16
+ Song of the Dryads
+ Trinket Mage
+ Mana Crypt
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Farhaven Elf
RIP Prophet.
Song of the Dryads is almost always better than Brutalizer Exarch. It's 3 less mana and can also hit creatures. Brutalizer Exarch can be fed to food chain, and sometimes tucking is better than turning the permanent into a forest, but Song of the Dryad is more efficient.
I finally bit the bullet and bought a mana crypt for this deck. I also will put Trinket mage back in, as playing him on 3 to find mana crypt is quite a valid play. Later in the game mage can still find me top or sol ring too.
I took out farhaven elf as it was one of the more boring ramp options. Finding lands is safe, but he never ramped hard. I'm keeping wood elves in for now because the forest ETBs untapped, which can make a difference.
- Oblivion Stone
- Academy Ruins
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Acidic Slime
+ Added more to introduction, comparing Wanderer to other RUG generals
Perilous Vault is an easy swap that has slipped my mind. Exiling vs destroying is absolutely huge (I lost a game where this was relevant and it made me remember that Perilous Vault was printed), and while vault is 1 more mana, it's still fetchable off tezzeret, Wanderer still cascades into it, and activation for both artifacts is still 5 mana. Stone has the ability to pute fate counters on permanents, but normally, you'd rather just play and crack ASAP. Stone can also be recurred since Vault exiles itself, but I'll make my Eternal Witness worse if it means being better against every opponent.
Balefire Dragon is another fatty that has always caught my eye but never knew what to remove to make room for it. A large amount of small critters has given this deck some problems. I decided to cut Academy Ruins, since it doesn't manafix, and with the removal of oblivion stone (to make room for perilous vault which obviously cannot be recurred), I decided that Ruins wasn't good enough. It can recur pod but that's really it. In the meantime, Dragon is a repeatable sweeper when it connects. 7-mana is hefty AND it needs to connect with a player, but Wanderer cascades into it and also gives some much needed haste.
Frontier Siege replaced Garruk. Frontier Siege isn't particularly good but it does normally give the same amount of mana Garruk would (unless Garruk is untapping Ancient Tomb/Temple of the False God) and gives GG on all your main phases. In addition Frontier Siege is usually less likely to die than Garruk. Since this deck wants to be attacking often, this left Garruk open for counterattacks. Garruk's better in decks that want to play defensively and then go for an alpha strike in one turn where you can ultimate him.
I'm also trying out Teferi planeswalker. He sounds like a fairer version of Mind over Matter. The -1 is certainly powerful, although at 6 mana you get what you pay for. I decided to take out Acidic Slime, since it basically fills the same role that Brutalizer Exarch does except not as efficiently.
With the land cut, the land count is down to 37, which is still healthy. Just mulligan for lands a little more aggressively. After you hit your first 4-5 land drops it's okay to miss a few beyond that because there's alot of ramp to give you mana, and there's some good mid-lategame draw power to get more lands.
Rofellos got all-banned now (as opposed to mostly banned). With mostly banned, he's still playable in the 99. All banned, well, there's only one thing you can do; swap in another ramp spell and hope for the best.
Khans brought in good lands. The tri-land is great mana fixing, while the fetchland reprints drops their price to something more reasonable while giving value to Lotus Cobra, Scroll Rack, etc. I also squeezed in Verdant Catacombs now that I see that every fetchland counts.
Also putting in Myriad Landscape. There are enough basics to get it reliably in the early-midgame, and by lategame if there are no basics left, just don't crack it, you probably have perfect color mana already anyway.
To make room for all the land switches, I cut down a few forests (because Rofellos is gone), put in an additional island, and took out the M10/Innistrad lands. They ETB'd tapped in the 1st turn which can be annoying, and unlike Myriad Landscape they weren't ramp on a land.
The hideaway lands were cut. They're okay because free spells are cool, but the deck's biggest priority is getting to 8 mana. There's enough draw power and filtering to be able to get good stuff after that. Coming into play tapped and not color fixing is a problem. Also, you don't usually get the free spells until Wanderer comes into play.
I still really like Phantasmal Image, but with Clever Impersonator printed, I felt like this was an easy swap. For starters, Image being 2-mana isn't the most relevant thing in Wanderer because it's not something you usually play early on. Later, it's always a weaker cascade than Clever Impersonator. Finally, my playgroup has added more and more cards that can repeatedly target something (Mother of Runes, Staff of Nin, etc.) where this would just die. I still like Image in my white decks because Sun Titan can recur it so easily, but in RUG, it won't have enough upside compared to Impersonator.
Hellkite Tyrant isn't a bad card, but its main purpose is to steal artifacts. With the printing of Dack Fayden, who largely does the same thing except at 3 less mana, it sounds like a good opportunity to test out Dack. Just remember that when you play Dack Fayden to steal a mana rock in the first few turns, opponents will tap it in response (very awkward if it happens to be mana vault or grim monolith).
I'm cutting Kiki-Jiki because it can be an awkward cascade. Copying mana dorks doesn't really do anything, and it can't copy legendary creatures like Venser, so there's actually not that many good choices for it.
In its place I'm trying Malignus. I wasn't high on this guy (right now I'm still not) because it has no innate evasion, but several people (including ambivalentduck, who has by far the most active Wanderer topic right now) are very happy with it. Much like Hellkite Tyrant, the fact that Wanderer can give it haste is a nice boon to trying out Malignus.
I also got a Grim Monolith (I used to have one and it disappeared, I guess I traded it away, so I had to get another one), so it's automatically coming in. I'm taking out Karametra's Acolyte because I feel like it's probably the worst ramp spell in my deck.
- Sylvan Primordial
- Defense of the Heart
- Forbidden Orchard
- Fierce Empath
- 1 Forest
teh banhammer on Primordial.
Acidic Slime was slotted back in to replace Sylvan Primordial for now.
Hellkite Tyrant is being tested just because. I don't know how good it'll actually be, but with Wanderer giving it haste, the potential is there.
Defense of the Heart's cut sounds extremely odd on paper, but you have to believe me when I say that the card is much better in theory than in reality, and that most of the streamlined Wanderer decks on this site also don't have this card. The obvious theory behind Defense is that it's basically a 4-mana Tooth and Nail. But in practice, one of several things ends up happening...
1) When you play it too early, opponents play around it, making sure not to have 3 creatures in play by your next upkeep. This slows down the creature decks a bit but usually by not a lot (and for those that don't play a lot of creatures they don't care).
2) Opponents play a 1-for-1 spell to remove it.
3) No one at the table is somehow capable of killing it before your next turn, in which case you could have won with a lot of different cards in place of Defense.
The way to get ahead in a multiplayer game is to accelerate yourself to a huge game-winning situation, or to slow down all threatening opponents. When Defense dies, usually it's because someone threw a spot removal at it, so you took out one card from an opponent's hand but the other players did not lose anything.
With Defense out, Forbidden Orchard is an awkward play. The 1/1s can chump block Wanderer most of the time, which is a problem.
In Forbidden Orchard's place I'll test Mosswort Bridge. Coming into play tapped is a huge tempo problem, much like Halimar Depths, but there's a lot of potential. I might as well test Spinerock Knoll as well, and that will replace 1 forest.
Fierce Empath was cut after a little more testing. It used to be decent because it could get Primeval Titan. And then Sylvan Primordial. Until both got banned. It's still okay but the cards it finds are mostly value cards that get me a random bomb card or a draw spell.
Mana Vault is thrown in now. While it doesn't help power out your other ramp spells, it knocks so much off the Wanderer clock that it's worth playing. Sometimes a fast Consecrated Sphinx is nice too.
Thada Adel is being tested. On paper it's a slow but reusable tutor. While you need to hit with it, if no player has islands then you are already in good shape.
Rhystic study is being tested. On paper is a good draw engine and it's always a strong early play. Since Wanderer is all about being explosive, Rhystic Study lets you refill your hand quickly, and if your opponents decide to keep paying the 1, they will fall behind in board presence.
Scalding Tarn was added since I finally found one. I may add additional fetches later, but the three that are in Wanderer's colors are the important ones.
Yavimaya Elder was cut for Thada Adel. It wasn't a bad card, as any card that is a 3-for-1 and 3 mana can't be bad. However it was never a threatening bomb and it didn't ramp directly. I may put this back in later but for now it was expendable.
Mimic vat is being cut to make room for Rhystic Study. It's very powerful but out of the draw engines already in the deck, it has one of the weakest synergies. Things like Sylvan library and Jace allow library manipulation which work well with Wanderer, and things like Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio allow multiple castings of Wanderer. Mimic vat is not a particularly useful early turn play (compared to Sylvan Library and Jace), and it usually isn't as explosive as other engines (like Crystal Shard). Mimic vat is one of my pet cards so it may find its way back into the list eventually, but for now I'm testing Rhystic Study.
For some reason the basics I listed in the decklist were not the same as what I had in the deck. I modified the decklist to 3 islands/3 mountains/8 forests.
12/28/13
+ Mana Reflection
+ Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Time Warp
+ Kessig Wolf Run
+ Rootbound Crag
+ Sulfur Falls
+ Hinterland Harbor
+ Wooded Foothills
+ misty Rainforest
I really liked Boundless Realms because it was such a silly card, and it was a subtheme in the deck, but I must come to terms with reality; in a Primal Surge deck, the whiff potential does not make up for its upside, not when a card like Mana Reflection (or even Vorinclex) exist to fill a similar role in being a lategame huge mana acceleration card. While I'm also on the fence about Primal Surge, Boundless Realms really doesn't belong for as long as Primal Surge is in the deck. I've tried Vorinclex before and it draws a lot of (well-deserved) hate. Mana Reflection is a little harder to kill and Wanderer can cascade into it, so I'll try out that instead.
With Boundless Realms out I can experiment with additional nonbasics. Kessig Wolf Run gives a land-based way to help push through damage with Wanderer. Since I'm adding lands that make colorless mana, I have to buff the mana base, so I threw in the taplands from M10 and Innistrad, and I got the RG and UG fetchlands. 6 basics get cut to make room for these.
Time Warp is being tried as the deck can usually afford 2 nonpermanents to go with Primal Surge. It's also one of the most backbreaking cards to hit when attempting to Food Chain combo.
Kiki-Jiki is being tested largely because the deck has a serious shortage of 5-mana creatures, which makes pod chains incredibly awkward. Triple-red in the mana cost is a problem to reach, but it is very powerful. I'm not a fan of 2-card infinites so I won't be sticking cards like Zealous Conscripts in here, but I'm open to having a clone on them with Kiki-Jiki out...
Carpet of Flowers is being tested. It's a 1-mana card that has the potential to add quite a bit of mana. While it only works if there's an actual blue opponent, if no one is blue that means no counterspells so you already have a pretty good chance at winning anyway. Even if there are blue opponents, this stops them from playing extra islands which reduces their countermagic.
Progenitor Mimic is being cut. When Wanderer cascades into it, often it's not copying something backbreaking unless it's late in the game, and often it will copy some random 3 or 4 mana dork I have when I was ramping to Wanderer. While it's gamebreaking if it copies something great like Sylvan Primordial, the deck has no shortage of lategame power. Plus this is largely to make space for the 5-mana creature I want to use to make a smoother pod curve (which right now is Kiki-Jiki).
Yavimaya Dryad is being cut because I have two other 3-drop elves that ramp for one land, and I don't need a third. Rather I should get a few more cards that can ramp harder to reduce the Wanderer clock. Plus double-green on a 3-drop can be hard to reach at times.
Coiling Oracle is cut because it's not a reliable ramp card.
12/14/13
+ Fire-lit Thicket
+ Flooded Grove
+ Ancient Tomb
+ Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+ Karametra's Acolyte
- Vivid Grove
- Vivid Creek
- Vivid Crag
- Skullclamp
- Trinket Mage
I decided to get the two missing filter lands to complement Cascade Bluffs. They're not cheap, but the mana fixing is required, and vivids are very bad tempo plays.
Ancient Tomb is basically a better Temple of the False God.
Rofellos is not nearly as bonkers as he is in a monogreen deck, but there should still be enough forests to tap for 2-3 mana on a 2-drop early on, which is more than enough.
In a similar vein, Karametra's Acolyte is being tested. It starts as an expensive Llanowar Elf/Greenweaver Druid, but once devotion is 4 or greater it's a decent card.
Skullclamp got cut. There are fewer than 10 creatures that I really like clamping away; things like clamping Birds of Paradise are only desperate measures and not something I want to do often. It's not as abusive as it can be in a token deck and doesn't play to its potential power level. Normally I'd rather have another ramp spell in place of skullclamp early in the game unless I also have the 1-toughness creatures I want to clamp away as well.
With skullclamp out, I can relatively safely cut Trinket Mage. It's either a 4 mana sol ring or 4 mana top and those plays are fine but not great.
12/2/13
+ Garruk Wildspeaker
+ Thassa, God of the Sea
+ Equilibirum
One of the problems with a fast Maelstrom Wanderer is that while haste is strong, lack of evasion means it can get chump blocked. Playing ramp to hit Wanderer quickly is a strong gameplan, but if you can't close the game out quickly, your opponents can get back into the game very fast. One way to fix that is to make sure Wanderer's hits are always threatening.
What Garruk Wildspeaker does is do both things the deck wants; early ramp and get trampling damage through. It's not guaranteed to survive to do its -4, and +3/+3 is not big enough to let just Wanderer finish the job (you need some kind of army out), but at 4 mana you can't ask for more.
Thassa is also something that I want to test. Making Wanderer unblockable is a sure way to close out the game quickly while being difficult to kill herself. She doesn't technically ramp, but when she's played on turn 3 she can fix draws to help find ramp/land cards, and once you have enough mana around she can tuck the now-dead ramp/land cards to find finishers.
Equilibrium is being tested. On paper it's basically a repeatable crystal shard that doesn't have the "unless you pay 1" clause.
Mindclaw Shaman is getting axed quickly. It's amazing value if it hits well. But there are many times where it's a whiff or you steal something minor. It doesn't really fill an important role; it's more of a value card with high variance. Maelstrom Wanderer already has high variance due to how cascade works, and while it's fun to have the randomness around, sometimes getting reliability is important too. Basically it was fairly rare where I wanted to play this card because it did something very important, as opposed to playing it and hoping for value.
Dawntreader Elk is axed. Garruk is a piece of ramp, so I can remove one ramp card existing, and Dawntreader Elk is probably the weakest ramp card.
Greenweaver Druid is getting the axe just because. Ramp is always nice, but this is one of the more unimpressive ramp cards.
I've been wanting to test a Seedborne Muse type card. Prophet of Kruphix seems like a great fit without having to stretch the deck around it (whereas you need some flash enablers to fully utilize Seedborne Muse). While it doesn't untap mana rocks, you get an effect similar to Reset/Sword of Feast and Famine/Mirari's Wake on everyone else's turn. The deck has fairly strong draw power, so this will let you flood the board very quickly.
Teferi will be removed for the Prophet. Teferi was used for protecting on Food Chain/Primal Surge turns, until I realized that doing so would cause the deck to centralize around those themes. While that's not actually a bad thing in terms of trying to make a competitive deck, I personally want to try and win in different ways whenever possible, as whenever I play EDH there are no actual prizes to play and it's only for fun and pride, and I find no joy in winning games with exactly the same way.
Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast are duals. 1 Island and 1 forest are removed for them.
9/10/13
+ Chromatic Lantern
+ Gilded Lotus
+ Thran Dynamo
+ Tooth and Nail
+ Mindclaw Shaman
+ Defense of the Heart
+ Forbidden Orchard
- Molten Primordial
- Veteran Explorer
- Acidic Slime
- Genesis
- Diluvian Primordial
- Greater Good
- Forest
Chromatic Lantern is included because with a Boundless Realms deck in 3-color, color screw is an actual thing. It also just ramps by itself too.
Gilded Lotus is another ramp spell that I'm testing specifically because of Tezzeret. 5 mana is a lot, but being able to play the lotus plus a smaller drop with the lotus mana is a good tempo play.
Thran Dynamo is more redundancy in both ramp and targets for Tezzeret's +1. If you also have the correct colors in lands, this alone on turn 4 with zero other ramp can enable a turn 5 Wanderer. Also like with Lotus, playing this then having a 3-drop is a good tempo play, although because it does only make colorless that's less likely to happen.
Tooth and Nail is being tested in this build. It interfers with Primal Surge, and paying the entwine cost is sometimes troublesome, but hitting it for full value is great value.
Mindclaw Shaman is being tested in place of Diluvian Primordial, mostly because I need a few more options at 5 mana than at 7 for a birthing pod curve.
Defense of the Heart is being tested just because. I'm also testing Forbidden Orchard because of this card too.
Molten Primordial was cool with Food Chain, and occasionally could catch an opponent out of nowhere as you steal a bunch of creatures and swing for a ton of extra power, but outside of that it was never a particularly strong draw or cascade.
Veteran Explorer was cut because of the increasing popularity of Wanderer itself. People find out how strong the deck is, and powering everyone else can be a problem. Explorer is cool in a group-hug deck (usually the hippo), but not here.
Acidic Slime is honest removal, but Brutalizer Exarch did about the same thing except better since it could hit planeswalkers and also get around indestructible/graveyard recursion. Wanting to test out new things, I cut this guy.
Genesis is, on paper, a strong card. The issue is that the deck has a lot of redundancy and draw power (due to Wanderer giving card advantage and having a plethora of engines in the deck, probably more than what's really needed), and that I rarely find myself recurring a creature because it did something important, but rather that I had nothing better to spend 2G on for the turn. I don't think there's a single creature in this deck that is so important that I would want to recur it rather than play something else from my hand, assuming I have relevant cards left in my hand. In other words, Genesis' ability isn't really relevant unless Wanderer is stuck in play and I have a worthless hand and I don't have any permanents in play to sink my mana in.
Diluvian Primordial has potential to be very powerful. One of the problems though is that you rarely get the sweet spells like time warp or tooth and nail, because if those cards would be in a graveyard they're usually there because someone cast them, in which case you would probably be dead before you even got to play the primordial in the first place. (Occasionally they get milled into the graveyard, or the player has to discard them for whatever reason.) Mindclaw is tested over it because it's more likely that the sweet spells are sitting in someone's hand, and while Mindclaw is less reliable than something like Knowledge Exploitation, it's a permanent so it doesn't interfere with Primal Surge.
Greater Good is a strong card, but the real plan behind Greater Good is to get creatures in the graveyard (rather than get them exiled or stolen or cloned or whatever), and thus it fits decks that want to use the graveyard as a resource. Wanderer, however, would rather use the top of the library as a resource, and you don't quite need to do both. With Genesis also going out there's almost no graveyard recursion at all.
1 Forest was cut for the Forbidden Orchard.
This update I'm not 100% sure about. In a deck that has Food Chain and Animar, cutting creatures to put in noncreatures could be a problem. Granted, the added cards have synergy with other cards (such as the mana rocks with Tezzeret), but it must be noted. Most importantly is that all the added cards do have power on their own and are simply boosted with the proper synergy.
8/7/13
+ Teferi, mage of Zhalfir
+ Tezzeret the Seeker
+ Veteran Explorer
+ Dawntreader Elk
+ Greenweaver Druid
+ Lotus Cobra
+ Joraga Treespeaker
This edition really made me realize that Wanderer is all about ramp. I prefer to play with creatures if possible, mostly because they can be exiled with Food Chain (for more mana), but I am attempting to make the deck more streamlined to power out Wanderer quickly.
Edric, Deadwood, and Wonder felt like do-nothings most of the time. Wonder was clunky, Edric usuaully doesn't do anything without wonder in the graveyard, and Deadwood was a very bad early Wanderer Cascade. Deadwood (and Genesis) are also awkward with Food Chain because then nothing goes into the graveyard, and the deck doesn't really need recursion desperately.
In their place I put in more ramp. Lotus Cobra is not utilized to its full potential because I don't have the fetches to power it, but it can still ramp decently without them. Joraga Treespeaker is oddly enough something I had cut earlier.
I'm testing out Teferi. I don't have anything broken with Teferi (such as knowledge pool), but it is more or less a Grand Abolisher on the turn when I'm attempting to finish the game. It also will force control players to deal with it.
Tezzeret is basically a better Fabricate. I have no idea why I never thought of Tezzeret until now. With Fabricate gone, the Primal Surge only has to worry about hitting Boundless Realms.
Steel Hellkite isn't bad, but I'm just testing cards and decided to cut him for no real reason.
Bloodbraid and Shardless were cut for reliability. The main gameplan is to just ramp quickly and get Wanderer out quickly, and while these two always gave good value (in a void, whatever you cascade into would be card advantage), I could not count on them for getting me ramp cards. Their bodies are also not particularly relevant in EDH. They also whiffed sometimes, such as Bloodbraid cascading into Eternal Witness when your graveyard is empty and while similar things could happen with Wanderer, the dead cascades can happen more often with Bloodbraid/Shardless (e.g. suppose 40 cards have CMC 7 or less versus 20 cards have CMC 3 or less, 1/40 chance to hit Eternal Witness in an empty graveyard vs 1/20 chance).
7/15/13
+ vivid Crag
+ Vivid Creek
+ Vivid Grove
+ Cloudstone Curio
Cloudstone Curio replaced Erratic Portal, because Curio is basically Portal/Crystal Shard that can be used more than once per turn.
The lands are just more color fixing. There's still over 20 basics so Boundless Realms should still get a lot of lands out.
6/6/2013
+ Prime Speaker Zegana
+ Yaviyama Dryad
+ Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+ Progenitor Mimic
+ Animar, Soul of Elements
- Veteran Explorer
- Woodfall Primus
- Jin gitaxias, core augur
- Loaming Shaman
- Brainstorm
I cut out some of the top end of the curve because I felt like when I had that much mana at that point, I would usually rather cast my general over one of these two. Craterhoof Behemoth stays in though because of how it can just end the game immediately. Jin Gitaxias in particular gets Bribery'd a lot.
Loaming Shaman was cut because it filled the same function as Scavenging Ooze except the Ooze is generally better, and right now I didn't need two sources of graveyard hate as long as the Ooze is played at the proper time.
Yavimaya Dryad was added because it's more ramp on a creature. You usually won't give the forest to another player, but maybe you could get into a situation that called for it (say 2-headed giant).
Zegana is being tested, but right now it's a little awkward as if you cascade into it, Zegana enters the battlefield before Wanderer. It's basically another consecrated sphinx though.
Jace was moved from my Progenitus deck to this one, as Wanderer can benefit from Jace more due to setting up cascade triggers. Therefore I cut Brainstorm as well.
Progenitor Mimic is being tested; on paper it's really sweet. But it might be too slow. This may be better in a Reveilark deck because this card has 0 power.
Animar is tested as another ramp source; I'm quite impressed with Somberwald Sage, and this guy will function as something better once it gets just a few creature spells going.
- Abundance
- Lurking Predators
- Sphinx of Uthuun
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
Food Chain was suggested several other users to get an explosive turn. It's also the big reason why Molten Primordial is also getting tested as well. As well as Erratic Portal being a second Crystal Shard.
The other two primordials are being used just because the primordials in general are too good to pass up in EDH.
Abundance was cut because it felt very weak without Sylvan Library in play.
Lurking Predators did fit the theme of manipulating the library, but it took a little too much work.
Sphinx of Uthuun was cut because with 3 primordials, ingester, and avenger, that's a little too top heavy. It may get put in again later though.
Two lands were cut, because the deck still has 38 lands, which is okay. Just mulligan for lands more aggressively.
12/28/12
+ Birds of Paradise
+ Deadwood Treefolk
+ Abundance
+ Sphinx of Uthuun
+ Steel Hellkite
+ Cascade Bluffs
+ karplusan Forest
+ City of Brass
Birds is replacing Treespeaker because the color fixing does matter, and it can produce mana without an investment (for example, if you tap out for Maelstrom Wanderer and you hit a Birds of Paradise, it can still make mana so you can activate a fauna shaman or birthing pod or crystal shard or whatever). You can also clamp it at any time, while clamp won't instantly kill treespeaker. Treespeaker eventually ramps harder though.
Deadwood treefolk gave some more graveyard recursion beyond Genesis. I think at two different cards it's a bit better, since at just one card filling a role it's a little sketch, especially since Genesis requires 3 mana to recur for the turn.
Abundance is just silly with Sylvan Library. However, the deck also tends to get mana flooded, since it runs 40 lands. This can help you get more usable cards, and if needed you can get a land drop.
Sphinx wasn't really put in because of how good it is (there aren't that many ways to recur from the graveyard for this deck, making fact or fiction a tad weaker), but rather I wanted to try something over Vorinclex.
Steel Hellkite was put in because the deck felt like it needed some more sweepers, or sweeping effects. It's not reliable, but it's still a beater that enemies have to deal with.
After more playing, it's quite possible to get color screwed early on due to not enough nonbasics. I added three that I happened to have in my stash and cut 1 of each basic. There's still 29 basics, or almost 75% of the whole mana base; more than enough to satisfy Boundless Realms.
Zealous Conscripts is funny, but its best role is to steal planeswalkers. It felt a little too narrow because planeswalkers don't usually last long enough to steal and ultimate them.
Aethersnipe felt somewhat superfluous. At the 6 mana slot, Brutalizer Exarch filled the role better (it couldn't hit creatures, but tucking is better than bouncing, and the Exarch can occasionally Worldly Tutor), and there's enough removal from mana costs 3-8 that this felt like the weakest removal spell.
Krosan Tusker was never disappointing. But it was never stellar either.
Vorinclex has always felt suspectible. It doesn't win the game immediately, and it has no protection so it quickly dies.
12/12/12
+ Wonder
+ Academy Ruins
- Garruk, Primal Hunter
- 1 Island
After a little more testing, flying really does wonders. Makes a good alpha strike after cascading with Maelstrom Wanderer, or just letting all your Avenger tokens fly over, or getting early attacks with an Edric out.
The Academy Ruins is pretty nice with Birthing Pod, Oblivion Stone, Skullclamp, and other artifacts.
Garruk has good value. He's awesome to draw 7, especially if you cascade into him, and the ultimate with mass haste out ends the game. But he just didn't feel like he had great synergy with the deck.
I took out an island for the ruins because there's enough basics left to fetch out with Boundless Realms.
Oblivion Stone replaced Kederekt Leviathan because the latter is awkward to Primal Surge into. Oblivion Stone is also better at removing things because it doesn't simply bounce them.
Fabricate was put in, despite being a nonpermanent, because with the addition of stone, there are enough artifacts in the deck where this is worth using.
Glen Elendra Archmage was put in as a counter, something this deck appreciates.
Lurking Predators is currently being tested, but in theory it works in a heavy-creature deck and some library manipulation for the general.
The Leviathan was cut as said earlier.
The eldrazi spawns got the axe; they just didn't feel very strong.
The sorcerer got axed because the body isn't worth the cascade, and the whiffs do kinda suck.
3/22/16
+ Song of the Dryads
+ Trinket Mage
+ Mana Crypt
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Farhaven Elf
RIP Prophet.
Song of the Dryads is almost always better than Brutalizer Exarch. It's 3 less mana and can also hit creatures. Brutalizer Exarch can be fed to food chain, and sometimes tucking is better than turning the permanent into a forest, but Song of the Dryad is more efficient.
I finally bit the bullet and bought a mana crypt for this deck. I also will put Trinket mage back in, as playing him on 3 to find mana crypt is quite a valid play. Later in the game mage can still find me top or sol ring too.
I took out farhaven elf as it was one of the more boring ramp options. Finding lands is safe, but he never ramped hard. I'm keeping wood elves in for now because the forest ETBs untapped, which can make a difference.
- Oblivion Stone
- Academy Ruins
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Acidic Slime
+ Added more to introduction, comparing Wanderer to other RUG generals
Perilous Vault is an easy swap that has slipped my mind. Exiling vs destroying is absolutely huge (I lost a game where this was relevant and it made me remember that Perilous Vault was printed), and while vault is 1 more mana, it's still fetchable off tezzeret, Wanderer still cascades into it, and activation for both artifacts is still 5 mana. Stone has the ability to pute fate counters on permanents, but normally, you'd rather just play and crack ASAP. Stone can also be recurred since Vault exiles itself, but I'll make my Eternal Witness worse if it means being better against every opponent.
Balefire Dragon is another fatty that has always caught my eye but never knew what to remove to make room for it. A large amount of small critters has given this deck some problems. I decided to cut Academy Ruins, since it doesn't manafix, and with the removal of oblivion stone (to make room for perilous vault which obviously cannot be recurred), I decided that Ruins wasn't good enough. It can recur pod but that's really it. In the meantime, Dragon is a repeatable sweeper when it connects. 7-mana is hefty AND it needs to connect with a player, but Wanderer cascades into it and also gives some much needed haste.
Frontier Siege replaced Garruk. Frontier Siege isn't particularly good but it does normally give the same amount of mana Garruk would (unless Garruk is untapping Ancient Tomb/Temple of the False God) and gives GG on all your main phases. In addition Frontier Siege is usually less likely to die than Garruk. Since this deck wants to be attacking often, this left Garruk open for counterattacks. Garruk's better in decks that want to play defensively and then go for an alpha strike in one turn where you can ultimate him.
I'm also trying out Teferi planeswalker. He sounds like a fairer version of Mind over Matter. The -1 is certainly powerful, although at 6 mana you get what you pay for. I decided to take out Acidic Slime, since it basically fills the same role that Brutalizer Exarch does except not as efficiently.
With the land cut, the land count is down to 37, which is still healthy. Just mulligan for lands a little more aggressively. After you hit your first 4-5 land drops it's okay to miss a few beyond that because there's alot of ramp to give you mana, and there's some good mid-lategame draw power to get more lands.
Rofellos got all-banned now (as opposed to mostly banned). With mostly banned, he's still playable in the 99. All banned, well, there's only one thing you can do; swap in another ramp spell and hope for the best.
Khans brought in good lands. The tri-land is great mana fixing, while the fetchland reprints drops their price to something more reasonable while giving value to Lotus Cobra, Scroll Rack, etc. I also squeezed in Verdant Catacombs now that I see that every fetchland counts.
Also putting in Myriad Landscape. There are enough basics to get it reliably in the early-midgame, and by lategame if there are no basics left, just don't crack it, you probably have perfect color mana already anyway.
To make room for all the land switches, I cut down a few forests (because Rofellos is gone), put in an additional island, and took out the M10/Innistrad lands. They ETB'd tapped in the 1st turn which can be annoying, and unlike Myriad Landscape they weren't ramp on a land.
The hideaway lands were cut. They're okay because free spells are cool, but the deck's biggest priority is getting to 8 mana. There's enough draw power and filtering to be able to get good stuff after that. Coming into play tapped and not color fixing is a problem. Also, you don't usually get the free spells until Wanderer comes into play.
I still really like Phantasmal Image, but with Clever Impersonator printed, I felt like this was an easy swap. For starters, Image being 2-mana isn't the most relevant thing in Wanderer because it's not something you usually play early on. Later, it's always a weaker cascade than Clever Impersonator. Finally, my playgroup has added more and more cards that can repeatedly target something (Mother of Runes, Staff of Nin, etc.) where this would just die. I still like Image in my white decks because Sun Titan can recur it so easily, but in RUG, it won't have enough upside compared to Impersonator.
Hellkite Tyrant isn't a bad card, but its main purpose is to steal artifacts. With the printing of Dack Fayden, who largely does the same thing except at 3 less mana, it sounds like a good opportunity to test out Dack. Just remember that when you play Dack Fayden to steal a mana rock in the first few turns, opponents will tap it in response (very awkward if it happens to be mana vault or grim monolith).
I'm cutting Kiki-Jiki because it can be an awkward cascade. Copying mana dorks doesn't really do anything, and it can't copy legendary creatures like Venser, so there's actually not that many good choices for it.
In its place I'm trying Malignus. I wasn't high on this guy (right now I'm still not) because it has no innate evasion, but several people (including ambivalentduck, who has by far the most active Wanderer topic right now) are very happy with it. Much like Hellkite Tyrant, the fact that Wanderer can give it haste is a nice boon to trying out Malignus.
I also got a Grim Monolith (I used to have one and it disappeared, I guess I traded it away, so I had to get another one), so it's automatically coming in. I'm taking out Karametra's Acolyte because I feel like it's probably the worst ramp spell in my deck.
- Sylvan Primordial
- Defense of the Heart
- Forbidden Orchard
- Fierce Empath
- 1 Forest
teh banhammer on Primordial.
Acidic Slime was slotted back in to replace Sylvan Primordial for now.
Hellkite Tyrant is being tested just because. I don't know how good it'll actually be, but with Wanderer giving it haste, the potential is there.
Defense of the Heart's cut sounds extremely odd on paper, but you have to believe me when I say that the card is much better in theory than in reality, and that most of the streamlined Wanderer decks on this site also don't have this card. The obvious theory behind Defense is that it's basically a 4-mana Tooth and Nail. But in practice, one of several things ends up happening...
1) When you play it too early, opponents play around it, making sure not to have 3 creatures in play by your next upkeep. This slows down the creature decks a bit but usually by not a lot (and for those that don't play a lot of creatures they don't care).
2) Opponents play a 1-for-1 spell to remove it.
3) No one at the table is somehow capable of killing it before your next turn, in which case you could have won with a lot of different cards in place of Defense.
The way to get ahead in a multiplayer game is to accelerate yourself to a huge game-winning situation, or to slow down all threatening opponents. When Defense dies, usually it's because someone threw a spot removal at it, so you took out one card from an opponent's hand but the other players did not lose anything.
With Defense out, Forbidden Orchard is an awkward play. The 1/1s can chump block Wanderer most of the time, which is a problem.
In Forbidden Orchard's place I'll test Mosswort Bridge. Coming into play tapped is a huge tempo problem, much like Halimar Depths, but there's a lot of potential. I might as well test Spinerock Knoll as well, and that will replace 1 forest.
Fierce Empath was cut after a little more testing. It used to be decent because it could get Primeval Titan. And then Sylvan Primordial. Until both got banned. It's still okay but the cards it finds are mostly value cards that get me a random bomb card or a draw spell.
Mana Vault is thrown in now. While it doesn't help power out your other ramp spells, it knocks so much off the Wanderer clock that it's worth playing. Sometimes a fast Consecrated Sphinx is nice too.
Thada Adel is being tested. On paper it's a slow but reusable tutor. While you need to hit with it, if no player has islands then you are already in good shape.
Rhystic study is being tested. On paper is a good draw engine and it's always a strong early play. Since Wanderer is all about being explosive, Rhystic Study lets you refill your hand quickly, and if your opponents decide to keep paying the 1, they will fall behind in board presence.
Scalding Tarn was added since I finally found one. I may add additional fetches later, but the three that are in Wanderer's colors are the important ones.
Yavimaya Elder was cut for Thada Adel. It wasn't a bad card, as any card that is a 3-for-1 and 3 mana can't be bad. However it was never a threatening bomb and it didn't ramp directly. I may put this back in later but for now it was expendable.
Mimic vat is being cut to make room for Rhystic Study. It's very powerful but out of the draw engines already in the deck, it has one of the weakest synergies. Things like Sylvan library and Jace allow library manipulation which work well with Wanderer, and things like Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio allow multiple castings of Wanderer. Mimic vat is not a particularly useful early turn play (compared to Sylvan Library and Jace), and it usually isn't as explosive as other engines (like Crystal Shard). Mimic vat is one of my pet cards so it may find its way back into the list eventually, but for now I'm testing Rhystic Study.
For some reason the basics I listed in the decklist were not the same as what I had in the deck. I modified the decklist to 3 islands/3 mountains/8 forests.
12/28/13
+ Mana Reflection
+ Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Time Warp
+ Kessig Wolf Run
+ Rootbound Crag
+ Sulfur Falls
+ Hinterland Harbor
+ Wooded Foothills
+ misty Rainforest
I really liked Boundless Realms because it was such a silly card, and it was a subtheme in the deck, but I must come to terms with reality; in a Primal Surge deck, the whiff potential does not make up for its upside, not when a card like Mana Reflection (or even Vorinclex) exist to fill a similar role in being a lategame huge mana acceleration card. While I'm also on the fence about Primal Surge, Boundless Realms really doesn't belong for as long as Primal Surge is in the deck. I've tried Vorinclex before and it draws a lot of (well-deserved) hate. Mana Reflection is a little harder to kill and Wanderer can cascade into it, so I'll try out that instead.
With Boundless Realms out I can experiment with additional nonbasics. Kessig Wolf Run gives a land-based way to help push through damage with Wanderer. Since I'm adding lands that make colorless mana, I have to buff the mana base, so I threw in the taplands from M10 and Innistrad, and I got the RG and UG fetchlands. 6 basics get cut to make room for these.
Time Warp is being tried as the deck can usually afford 2 nonpermanents to go with Primal Surge. It's also one of the most backbreaking cards to hit when attempting to Food Chain combo.
Kiki-Jiki is being tested largely because the deck has a serious shortage of 5-mana creatures, which makes pod chains incredibly awkward. Triple-red in the mana cost is a problem to reach, but it is very powerful. I'm not a fan of 2-card infinites so I won't be sticking cards like Zealous Conscripts in here, but I'm open to having a clone on them with Kiki-Jiki out...
Carpet of Flowers is being tested. It's a 1-mana card that has the potential to add quite a bit of mana. While it only works if there's an actual blue opponent, if no one is blue that means no counterspells so you already have a pretty good chance at winning anyway. Even if there are blue opponents, this stops them from playing extra islands which reduces their countermagic.
Progenitor Mimic is being cut. When Wanderer cascades into it, often it's not copying something backbreaking unless it's late in the game, and often it will copy some random 3 or 4 mana dork I have when I was ramping to Wanderer. While it's gamebreaking if it copies something great like Sylvan Primordial, the deck has no shortage of lategame power. Plus this is largely to make space for the 5-mana creature I want to use to make a smoother pod curve (which right now is Kiki-Jiki).
Yavimaya Dryad is being cut because I have two other 3-drop elves that ramp for one land, and I don't need a third. Rather I should get a few more cards that can ramp harder to reduce the Wanderer clock. Plus double-green on a 3-drop can be hard to reach at times.
Coiling Oracle is cut because it's not a reliable ramp card.
12/14/13
+ Fire-lit Thicket
+ Flooded Grove
+ Ancient Tomb
+ Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+ Karametra's Acolyte
- Vivid Grove
- Vivid Creek
- Vivid Crag
- Skullclamp
- Trinket Mage
I decided to get the two missing filter lands to complement Cascade Bluffs. They're not cheap, but the mana fixing is required, and vivids are very bad tempo plays.
Ancient Tomb is basically a better Temple of the False God.
Rofellos is not nearly as bonkers as he is in a monogreen deck, but there should still be enough forests to tap for 2-3 mana on a 2-drop early on, which is more than enough.
In a similar vein, Karametra's Acolyte is being tested. It starts as an expensive Llanowar Elf/Greenweaver Druid, but once devotion is 4 or greater it's a decent card.
Skullclamp got cut. There are fewer than 10 creatures that I really like clamping away; things like clamping Birds of Paradise are only desperate measures and not something I want to do often. It's not as abusive as it can be in a token deck and doesn't play to its potential power level. Normally I'd rather have another ramp spell in place of skullclamp early in the game unless I also have the 1-toughness creatures I want to clamp away as well.
With skullclamp out, I can relatively safely cut Trinket Mage. It's either a 4 mana sol ring or 4 mana top and those plays are fine but not great.
12/2/13
+ Garruk Wildspeaker
+ Thassa, God of the Sea
+ Equilibirum
One of the problems with a fast Maelstrom Wanderer is that while haste is strong, lack of evasion means it can get chump blocked. Playing ramp to hit Wanderer quickly is a strong gameplan, but if you can't close the game out quickly, your opponents can get back into the game very fast. One way to fix that is to make sure Wanderer's hits are always threatening.
What Garruk Wildspeaker does is do both things the deck wants; early ramp and get trampling damage through. It's not guaranteed to survive to do its -4, and +3/+3 is not big enough to let just Wanderer finish the job (you need some kind of army out), but at 4 mana you can't ask for more.
Thassa is also something that I want to test. Making Wanderer unblockable is a sure way to close out the game quickly while being difficult to kill herself. She doesn't technically ramp, but when she's played on turn 3 she can fix draws to help find ramp/land cards, and once you have enough mana around she can tuck the now-dead ramp/land cards to find finishers.
Equilibrium is being tested. On paper it's basically a repeatable crystal shard that doesn't have the "unless you pay 1" clause.
Mindclaw Shaman is getting axed quickly. It's amazing value if it hits well. But there are many times where it's a whiff or you steal something minor. It doesn't really fill an important role; it's more of a value card with high variance. Maelstrom Wanderer already has high variance due to how cascade works, and while it's fun to have the randomness around, sometimes getting reliability is important too. Basically it was fairly rare where I wanted to play this card because it did something very important, as opposed to playing it and hoping for value.
Dawntreader Elk is axed. Garruk is a piece of ramp, so I can remove one ramp card existing, and Dawntreader Elk is probably the weakest ramp card.
Greenweaver Druid is getting the axe just because. Ramp is always nice, but this is one of the more unimpressive ramp cards.
I've been wanting to test a Seedborne Muse type card. Prophet of Kruphix seems like a great fit without having to stretch the deck around it (whereas you need some flash enablers to fully utilize Seedborne Muse). While it doesn't untap mana rocks, you get an effect similar to Reset/Sword of Feast and Famine/Mirari's Wake on everyone else's turn. The deck has fairly strong draw power, so this will let you flood the board very quickly.
Teferi will be removed for the Prophet. Teferi was used for protecting on Food Chain/Primal Surge turns, until I realized that doing so would cause the deck to centralize around those themes. While that's not actually a bad thing in terms of trying to make a competitive deck, I personally want to try and win in different ways whenever possible, as whenever I play EDH there are no actual prizes to play and it's only for fun and pride, and I find no joy in winning games with exactly the same way.
Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast are duals. 1 Island and 1 forest are removed for them.
9/10/13
+ Chromatic Lantern
+ Gilded Lotus
+ Thran Dynamo
+ Tooth and Nail
+ Mindclaw Shaman
+ Defense of the Heart
+ Forbidden Orchard
- Molten Primordial
- Veteran Explorer
- Acidic Slime
- Genesis
- Diluvian Primordial
- Greater Good
- Forest
Chromatic Lantern is included because with a Boundless Realms deck in 3-color, color screw is an actual thing. It also just ramps by itself too.
Gilded Lotus is another ramp spell that I'm testing specifically because of Tezzeret. 5 mana is a lot, but being able to play the lotus plus a smaller drop with the lotus mana is a good tempo play.
Thran Dynamo is more redundancy in both ramp and targets for Tezzeret's +1. If you also have the correct colors in lands, this alone on turn 4 with zero other ramp can enable a turn 5 Wanderer. Also like with Lotus, playing this then having a 3-drop is a good tempo play, although because it does only make colorless that's less likely to happen.
Tooth and Nail is being tested in this build. It interfers with Primal Surge, and paying the entwine cost is sometimes troublesome, but hitting it for full value is great value.
Mindclaw Shaman is being tested in place of Diluvian Primordial, mostly because I need a few more options at 5 mana than at 7 for a birthing pod curve.
Defense of the Heart is being tested just because. I'm also testing Forbidden Orchard because of this card too.
Molten Primordial was cool with Food Chain, and occasionally could catch an opponent out of nowhere as you steal a bunch of creatures and swing for a ton of extra power, but outside of that it was never a particularly strong draw or cascade.
Veteran Explorer was cut because of the increasing popularity of Wanderer itself. People find out how strong the deck is, and powering everyone else can be a problem. Explorer is cool in a group-hug deck (usually the hippo), but not here.
Acidic Slime is honest removal, but Brutalizer Exarch did about the same thing except better since it could hit planeswalkers and also get around indestructible/graveyard recursion. Wanting to test out new things, I cut this guy.
Genesis is, on paper, a strong card. The issue is that the deck has a lot of redundancy and draw power (due to Wanderer giving card advantage and having a plethora of engines in the deck, probably more than what's really needed), and that I rarely find myself recurring a creature because it did something important, but rather that I had nothing better to spend 2G on for the turn. I don't think there's a single creature in this deck that is so important that I would want to recur it rather than play something else from my hand, assuming I have relevant cards left in my hand. In other words, Genesis' ability isn't really relevant unless Wanderer is stuck in play and I have a worthless hand and I don't have any permanents in play to sink my mana in.
Diluvian Primordial has potential to be very powerful. One of the problems though is that you rarely get the sweet spells like time warp or tooth and nail, because if those cards would be in a graveyard they're usually there because someone cast them, in which case you would probably be dead before you even got to play the primordial in the first place. (Occasionally they get milled into the graveyard, or the player has to discard them for whatever reason.) Mindclaw is tested over it because it's more likely that the sweet spells are sitting in someone's hand, and while Mindclaw is less reliable than something like Knowledge Exploitation, it's a permanent so it doesn't interfere with Primal Surge.
Greater Good is a strong card, but the real plan behind Greater Good is to get creatures in the graveyard (rather than get them exiled or stolen or cloned or whatever), and thus it fits decks that want to use the graveyard as a resource. Wanderer, however, would rather use the top of the library as a resource, and you don't quite need to do both. With Genesis also going out there's almost no graveyard recursion at all.
1 Forest was cut for the Forbidden Orchard.
This update I'm not 100% sure about. In a deck that has Food Chain and Animar, cutting creatures to put in noncreatures could be a problem. Granted, the added cards have synergy with other cards (such as the mana rocks with Tezzeret), but it must be noted. Most importantly is that all the added cards do have power on their own and are simply boosted with the proper synergy.
8/7/13
+ Teferi, mage of Zhalfir
+ Tezzeret the Seeker
+ Veteran Explorer
+ Dawntreader Elk
+ Greenweaver Druid
+ Lotus Cobra
+ Joraga Treespeaker
This edition really made me realize that Wanderer is all about ramp. I prefer to play with creatures if possible, mostly because they can be exiled with Food Chain (for more mana), but I am attempting to make the deck more streamlined to power out Wanderer quickly.
Edric, Deadwood, and Wonder felt like do-nothings most of the time. Wonder was clunky, Edric usuaully doesn't do anything without wonder in the graveyard, and Deadwood was a very bad early Wanderer Cascade. Deadwood (and Genesis) are also awkward with Food Chain because then nothing goes into the graveyard, and the deck doesn't really need recursion desperately.
In their place I put in more ramp. Lotus Cobra is not utilized to its full potential because I don't have the fetches to power it, but it can still ramp decently without them. Joraga Treespeaker is oddly enough something I had cut earlier.
I'm testing out Teferi. I don't have anything broken with Teferi (such as knowledge pool), but it is more or less a Grand Abolisher on the turn when I'm attempting to finish the game. It also will force control players to deal with it.
Tezzeret is basically a better Fabricate. I have no idea why I never thought of Tezzeret until now. With Fabricate gone, the Primal Surge only has to worry about hitting Boundless Realms.
Steel Hellkite isn't bad, but I'm just testing cards and decided to cut him for no real reason.
Bloodbraid and Shardless were cut for reliability. The main gameplan is to just ramp quickly and get Wanderer out quickly, and while these two always gave good value (in a void, whatever you cascade into would be card advantage), I could not count on them for getting me ramp cards. Their bodies are also not particularly relevant in EDH. They also whiffed sometimes, such as Bloodbraid cascading into Eternal Witness when your graveyard is empty and while similar things could happen with Wanderer, the dead cascades can happen more often with Bloodbraid/Shardless (e.g. suppose 40 cards have CMC 7 or less versus 20 cards have CMC 3 or less, 1/40 chance to hit Eternal Witness in an empty graveyard vs 1/20 chance).
7/15/13
+ vivid Crag
+ Vivid Creek
+ Vivid Grove
+ Cloudstone Curio
Cloudstone Curio replaced Erratic Portal, because Curio is basically Portal/Crystal Shard that can be used more than once per turn.
The lands are just more color fixing. There's still over 20 basics so Boundless Realms should still get a lot of lands out.
6/6/2013
+ Prime Speaker Zegana
+ Yaviyama Dryad
+ Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+ Progenitor Mimic
+ Animar, Soul of Elements
- Veteran Explorer
- Woodfall Primus
- Jin gitaxias, core augur
- Loaming Shaman
- Brainstorm
I cut out some of the top end of the curve because I felt like when I had that much mana at that point, I would usually rather cast my general over one of these two. Craterhoof Behemoth stays in though because of how it can just end the game immediately. Jin Gitaxias in particular gets Bribery'd a lot.
Loaming Shaman was cut because it filled the same function as Scavenging Ooze except the Ooze is generally better, and right now I didn't need two sources of graveyard hate as long as the Ooze is played at the proper time.
Yavimaya Dryad was added because it's more ramp on a creature. You usually won't give the forest to another player, but maybe you could get into a situation that called for it (say 2-headed giant).
Zegana is being tested, but right now it's a little awkward as if you cascade into it, Zegana enters the battlefield before Wanderer. It's basically another consecrated sphinx though.
Jace was moved from my Progenitus deck to this one, as Wanderer can benefit from Jace more due to setting up cascade triggers. Therefore I cut Brainstorm as well.
Progenitor Mimic is being tested; on paper it's really sweet. But it might be too slow. This may be better in a Reveilark deck because this card has 0 power.
Animar is tested as another ramp source; I'm quite impressed with Somberwald Sage, and this guy will function as something better once it gets just a few creature spells going.
- Abundance
- Lurking Predators
- Sphinx of Uthuun
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
Food Chain was suggested several other users to get an explosive turn. It's also the big reason why Molten Primordial is also getting tested as well. As well as Erratic Portal being a second Crystal Shard.
The other two primordials are being used just because the primordials in general are too good to pass up in EDH.
Abundance was cut because it felt very weak without Sylvan Library in play.
Lurking Predators did fit the theme of manipulating the library, but it took a little too much work.
Sphinx of Uthuun was cut because with 3 primordials, ingester, and avenger, that's a little too top heavy. It may get put in again later though.
Two lands were cut, because the deck still has 38 lands, which is okay. Just mulligan for lands more aggressively.
12/28/12
+ Birds of Paradise
+ Deadwood Treefolk
+ Abundance
+ Sphinx of Uthuun
+ Steel Hellkite
+ Cascade Bluffs
+ karplusan Forest
+ City of Brass
Birds is replacing Treespeaker because the color fixing does matter, and it can produce mana without an investment (for example, if you tap out for Maelstrom Wanderer and you hit a Birds of Paradise, it can still make mana so you can activate a fauna shaman or birthing pod or crystal shard or whatever). You can also clamp it at any time, while clamp won't instantly kill treespeaker. Treespeaker eventually ramps harder though.
Deadwood treefolk gave some more graveyard recursion beyond Genesis. I think at two different cards it's a bit better, since at just one card filling a role it's a little sketch, especially since Genesis requires 3 mana to recur for the turn.
Abundance is just silly with Sylvan Library. However, the deck also tends to get mana flooded, since it runs 40 lands. This can help you get more usable cards, and if needed you can get a land drop.
Sphinx wasn't really put in because of how good it is (there aren't that many ways to recur from the graveyard for this deck, making fact or fiction a tad weaker), but rather I wanted to try something over Vorinclex.
Steel Hellkite was put in because the deck felt like it needed some more sweepers, or sweeping effects. It's not reliable, but it's still a beater that enemies have to deal with.
After more playing, it's quite possible to get color screwed early on due to not enough nonbasics. I added three that I happened to have in my stash and cut 1 of each basic. There's still 29 basics, or almost 75% of the whole mana base; more than enough to satisfy Boundless Realms.
Zealous Conscripts is funny, but its best role is to steal planeswalkers. It felt a little too narrow because planeswalkers don't usually last long enough to steal and ultimate them.
Aethersnipe felt somewhat superfluous. At the 6 mana slot, Brutalizer Exarch filled the role better (it couldn't hit creatures, but tucking is better than bouncing, and the Exarch can occasionally Worldly Tutor), and there's enough removal from mana costs 3-8 that this felt like the weakest removal spell.
Krosan Tusker was never disappointing. But it was never stellar either.
Vorinclex has always felt suspectible. It doesn't win the game immediately, and it has no protection so it quickly dies.
12/12/12
+ Wonder
+ Academy Ruins
- Garruk, Primal Hunter
- 1 Island
After a little more testing, flying really does wonders. Makes a good alpha strike after cascading with Maelstrom Wanderer, or just letting all your Avenger tokens fly over, or getting early attacks with an Edric out.
The Academy Ruins is pretty nice with Birthing Pod, Oblivion Stone, Skullclamp, and other artifacts.
Garruk has good value. He's awesome to draw 7, especially if you cascade into him, and the ultimate with mass haste out ends the game. But he just didn't feel like he had great synergy with the deck.
I took out an island for the ruins because there's enough basics left to fetch out with Boundless Realms.
Oblivion Stone replaced Kederekt Leviathan because the latter is awkward to Primal Surge into. Oblivion Stone is also better at removing things because it doesn't simply bounce them.
Fabricate was put in, despite being a nonpermanent, because with the addition of stone, there are enough artifacts in the deck where this is worth using.
Glen Elendra Archmage was put in as a counter, something this deck appreciates.
Lurking Predators is currently being tested, but in theory it works in a heavy-creature deck and some library manipulation for the general.
The Leviathan was cut as said earlier.
The eldrazi spawns got the axe; they just didn't feel very strong.
The sorcerer got axed because the body isn't worth the cascade, and the whiffs do kinda suck.
It looks like a bunch of your heavy hitting cards (Craterhoof, Surge, Woodfall, the Praetors) are going to get tucked when you cast Maelstrom. Scroll Rack will help a lot, but do you ever have trouble from cascading past them?
It sucks that wanderer can't hit them, but it's not too bad. From my experiences as long as whatever you hit is not a 100% whiff, you get your mana's worth from it. There's also a couple of tutors (fauna shaman, fierce empath, birthing pod, somewhat brutalizer exarch) to get the 8+ mana creatures out.
Have you thought about running Food Chain? I've seen it get pretty insane pretty quickly since if you cascade into something you don't want you just eat them both and Wanderer and cast him again.
Have you thought about running Food Chain? I've seen it get pretty insane pretty quickly since if you cascade into something you don't want you just eat them both and Wanderer and cast him again.
And let's say you repeat that process 4+ times, and you are still unable to take someone out? You've effectively put your general out of reach to recast in the future wise because of the commander tax. The card is narrow and pretty much a one shot effect with maelstrom.
Maelstrom's power lies in how fast he can rebuild your position after the inevitable wipe. By abusing him with food chain, you basically put all your cascades for the game into one basket and hope you can win off that. Then someone wipes and you won't have enough mana to recast him.
if I'm not mistaken, food chain + mana reflection gives you enough mana to recast wanderer many times; not infinite as that combo would produce 18 mana per cast, but a lot. It's still an all-in move though, particularly if someone has the ability to do an instant speed board wipe.
if I'm not mistaken, food chain + mana reflection gives you enough mana to recast wanderer many times; not infinite as that combo would produce 18 mana per cast, but a lot. It's still an all-in move though, particularly if someone has the ability to do an instant speed board wipe.
Mana Reflection doesn't work with Food Chain as it requires a permanent to be tapped for it to work.
Food Chain isn't just useful as an attempt to make Maelstrom repeatable. Sure it's an amazing combo but it's also useful for getting mana from creatures you don't really find as useful as they could be since you don't use the GY much the exile doesn't really matter. Cast Bloodbraid get something for free and exile them to cast big. Better yet exile that Brutalizer you just used to put something useful on the top of your deck and cast Maelstrom.
It works best when you abuse it with theft but it's still a card worthy of consideration at least.
the green primordial looks pretty sick. It makes me think whether to run that or woodfall primus.
+ 1 mana less, is possible for wanderer to cascade into it.
+ If there is 3+ opponents, it can hit more permanents than woodfall primus.
+ Ramps (although at 7 mana that doesn't matter as much, but it's something).
- Persist is pretty huge. It works really well if I can copy it (so when it persists I have the option to copy something else if needed), and it provides a total higher p/t (11/11 vs 6/8).
- I do need some options at 8 cmc to keep the pod chain going.
Little question: Does Primal Surge make people angry? is an instant win in this deck?
I'm new to commander, but not to magic, and I'm still not sure about how much do I have to think about not bothering the others players while having a good deck at the same time.
For example, I'm pretty sure I wont be playing obliterate and similar with wanderer because I wouldn't like my opponent doing that, but I'm sure about Primal Surge.
Consider this question in the context of multiplayer (and online)
It's not an instant win. While you could design this deck such that primal surge is the only nonpermanent, it's difficult to tutor for it (AFAIK the only permanent in RUG that could find primal surge reliably is planar portal), so you shouldn't rely on primal surge to win it for you.
In any case, with a group of friends you just need to find out (or ask) what they find frustrating. Maybe they're ok with instant wins (my playgroup all have at least one interaction in their decks which instant wins). I personally dislike any infinite combo that can be assembled with only 2 cards, because then it starts feeling like the deck is geared towards that combo, rather than a 3-4 card combo where all the pieces are good individually and they just happen to have a special interaction. If it's an online game with people you don't know, then just do whatever you want, but make sure to play politics.
food chain is definitely an interesting card, but it can't really just be inserted in the deck. I'd need to think of a few changes, like putting in cloudstone curio and erratic portal, as well as a few theft effects.
In one game my opponent (using rhys the redeemed) had avenger of zendikar, beastmaster ascension (which he just turned online) and collective blessing. On my previous turn I cloned the avenger to get tokens so I managed to chump block, but I had no answers in my hand.
But I had enough mana to cast wanderer the first time and hit food chain. I won that turn. Wanderer ended up casting 16 mana by the time I was able to swing for lethal.
So yeah, food chain performed way beyond my expectations. Maybe it's cause there wasn't a control deck present, but food chain can give a very explosive (but all-in) turn.
I've never had a problem casting MW when Food Chain was out. By the time the tax becomes prohibitively high, you've already cascades about 10 times, and you should have hit something to bounce him to your hand, or just won.
My question is why don't you have a 9cc creature for Birthing Pod? In my deck I'm usually looking for a way to remove MW when my opponent's aren't kind enough to do it for me. Having a 9cc for the Pod allowed you to sac your general to cast him again, as well as completing the chain up to Jin.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Play with me on Cockatrice at cockatrice.woogerworks.com
Currently playing:
Legacy
GW(G/B) Maverick RRR Burn (G/B)G(G/R) Elves!
Building: Who knows?
EDH WR Jor Kadeen - 100% pimp URG Maelstrom Wanderer - rampramprampbomb.dec UG Prime Speaker Zegana Control UBR Gwendlyn di Corci and her band of Scantily Clad Women UR Pauper Gelectrode
I've been definitely thinking about that, but I'm not impressed with any creatures at 9 mana. Artisan of Kozilek is the closest 9 mana creature I'd play, but because it's a cast and not "etb", it's weird to pod into.
Also, I need more sweepers in this deck. oblivion stone seems fine for the reset button, but I need permanents that can sweep creatures (token decks are a thing), but unlike most of how the deck is built, having the sweep effect be an "etb" effect would be awkward to cascade or primal surge into. Of course the alternative would be to just go balls to the wall ramp and stick in extra ramp to get wanderer out faster...
Have you considered running Misthollow Griffin? Infinite creature (Maelstrom) mana with Food Chain. My only problem is that it is practically useless outside of comboing.
I'm not a fan of 2 card infinite combos. While Food Chain + Maelstrom Wanderer is so powerful it almost is infinite, it actually isn't guaranteed (I have attempted to go off but whiffed because I couldn't cascade into any creatures).
I've only managed to play Progenitor Mimic once, and it was a 1v1 so that meant less removal was thrown around. But I threw it down after my friend played Terastodon and deadeye navigator and then neither of us had any lands in play and like 15 elephant tokens. He eventually scooped because of my top in play.
So in this situation it functioned as a slower terastodon + deadeye navigator together, but without the ability to dodge spot removal (like deadeye navigator can). I need to play more games with it, but for now I like it.
WHO IS MAELSTROM WANDERER? WHY PLAY THIS COMMANDER?
I blame this guy.
But I like the cascade effect. The randomness is part of the fun; it's almost like playing the lottery. Cascade is always a strong effect, because in a properly designed EDH deck, every card is worth its weight to some degree. That one mana top is valuable just like that six mana consecrated sphinx. Even hitting ramp cards is not bad as EDH tends to have higher mana curves than other formats and you can always find something to do with extra mana. If your cascade is on an efficiently sized creature, you'll be pretty happy with anything you hit.
Introduce Maelstrom Wanderer, an easy way to gain card advantage. Let's break down his parameters.
Blue gives copy effects, counters, and card draw. However, counters have a poor interaction with cascade, so this deck does not run them. We gladly will take copy and card draw though. Blue also has time warp, but since the deck is also built around Primal Surge, and there are no really good extra turn permanents, it can be hard to play that many.
Red is by far the weakest color in EDH, but it's usually better to have it than not have it at all. Red gives access to haste-like effects, letting you win games out of nowhere. In its most powerful form it can also provide mass land destruction, which also lets you win games out of nowhere.
Green gives ramp and big creatures with some card draw. These are all great effects.
8 mana is a lot, but it's fine. He can be the top of the curve, and we can run extra ramp effects to get him out earlier. And look on the bright side; there are more cards to cascade into.
7 power is pretty good. It kills opponents in three hits. 5 toughness is weak for an 8-drop, but we are okay with this guy dying often. Sometimes I'll throw Wanderer under the bus just so I can recast him.
Giving this to all your creatures means you want to build a creature-based deck. Haste being an aggressive mechanic means you want to be applying pressure when you slam him down, but since this guy costs 8 mana you don't need to be playing cheap aggressive dudes; you can curve out and have this guy at the top.
This is the reason to run this guy. Cascade is, as said earlier, very powerful. Getting two free cards is no joke when this guy's baseline power and haste ability would make him slightly playable; this puts him over the top. Cascading into "harmless" things like, say, Wood Elves + Sensei's Divining Top means that you put a 7/5 haste, extra mana to recast Wanderer for a later turn, and a draw engine that sets you up for the lategame, and this is on the bottom of the spectrum. Imagine cascading into Avenger of Zendikar then into Boundless Realms.
"Wait a minute, did you just put ten 10-power plant tokens into play at once?"
"Yeah, so?"
"That's against the rules, isn't it?"
"Screw the rules, I have cascade."
For those who are unaware of the rulings on cascade...
- You can't pay alternative costs (if you cascade into a Cyclonic Rift you cannot use its overload).
- X-costs are always 0 (Chord of Calling).
- You can pay extra costs such as Kicker (Rite of Replication) or Entwine (Tooth and Nail).
- If you exile a split card with Cascade, check if at least one half of that split card has a converted mana cost that's less than the converted mana cost of the spell with cascade. If so, you can cast either half of that split card.
- Since your cascaded cards are cast, they will trigger anything that cares about such things (if you cascade into a creature spell with Animar, Soul of Elements out, it will trigger Animar, and if there's a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir out, you lose your cascaded spells).
- You only get the mana discount, so anything with "as an additional cost to cast" must still be paid or else you won't cast it (Harrow).
- Anything that makes spells cost more mana (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben) forces you to pay that mana when you do cascade.
- When you cast Wanderer, the first cascade must resolve fully (ex. you cascade into Mulldrifter, it has to enter the battlefield, trigger any abilities, and so on) and you may even respond between cascades with abilities, instants, etc. Once the first cascade is done, only then do you continue revealing for your 2nd cascade. After that, Wanderer finally enters the battlefield.
- You can choose not to cast the card you cascaded into. If you don't cast it, it will stay exiled (the other cards you exiled during the cascade still go to the bottom of the library in a random order).
That's a lot of rules for cascade. When you play with cascade, especially with Wanderer (people still get confused about how to handle cascading twice), it'll take some time to get used to it. Once you do, however, it's a very fast process.
Wanderer's strength is its simplicity. Wanderer at its core is a ramp deck, and ramp decks are simple to play. Ramp hard the first few turns and then slam your general and smash away. Draw more cards and flood the board some more. Play a ton of threats and make your opponents think about how to deal with them. Be proactive, not reactive.
Wanderer's strength is its resiliency. While it can be explosive, the fact that you get two free spells off Wanderer means control decks cannot shut down your 8-drop with one counterspell or one removal spell. After a board wipe, Wanderer is one of the best decks at rebounding, though its resilience depends on exactly the type of ramp spells you played up to that point. As long as your mana remains intact, you will quickly rebuild.
Wanderer's strength is its explosiveness. The double cascade can get you free wins out of nowhere.
Unfortunately, Wanderer is not a top tier general. He is one of the most overrated generals in commander; many people think he's a top tier threat, but he's nothing compared to the cutthroat strategies. He's not even the best general in this color combination! The randomness of cascade prevents him from competing with the best, fine-tuned decks. You'll get some cheap, easy wins with a triple ramp hand into a turn 4 or 5 wanderer and then flipping over two giant bombs or an infinite combo, but just as often that fast Wanderer start cascades into duds, or you don't get the explosive start. In addition, 8-mana is a massive amount compared to the cutthroat strategies that are relying on cards that range from 2-4 mana. Wins with Wanderer are not as consistent or as fast as top tier generals like Prossh, Hermit Druid decks, Zur, etc. Because of how Wanderer and cascade interact very poorly with counterspells, Wanderer will normally be weaker than a vast majority of blue decks that can afford counterspells.
Regardless, RUG (now known as Temur) is the 3-color combination that epitomizes explosiveness the most. You get the mana ramp of green, the draw power of blue, and the haste (and in cutthroat builds, the mass land destruction) of red. Each temur general is explosive, albeit in different ways. They also have some nuances and restrictions in their builds that aren't seen with other generals in the color combination. I will quickly go over them, as well as why you would want to play Wanderer in this color combination, or go with the other Temur general.
Animar, Soul of Elements - A voltron-ish general that exemplifies explosiveness and combos. Animar differs from the other Temur generals in that you are typically all-in on Animar while the other RUG generals are there mostly for their colors. While Animar can be built as a goodstuff.dec, the most consistent gameplan with Animar is to do a fast infinite combo which usually involves casting a bunch of low-CMC creatures, followed by some colorless creatures that can eventually cost 0 mana with a large Animar out. This gives you a large Animar that can generate infinite value from looping creature spells over and over, or smashing with general damage. Most Animar decks fizzle if Animar is killed more than once or twice, as the cheap creatures they play to build counters on Animar are usually not that impressive on their own. However, protection from black and from white makes it difficult to kill as those are the colors with the most spot removal. Most Animar decks are extremely high on creatures and have extremely few noncreatures/nonlands. Animar is your deck if you like fast, infinite combos involving creatures.
Intet, the Dreamer - It's the first RUG legendary creature to actually be printed. It's a relatively weak general that is basically just a slower version of Wanderer. It's 2 mana cheaper than Wanderer and flies, but does not give global haste and needs to connect to get the "free" spell, and it's only 1 spell and you're paying 2U for it. Without extreme library manipulation to get huge spells on top (like Time Stretch) you are generally just better off playing Wanderer. Intet is better than Wanderer at playing control, but that's not saying much.
Riku of Two Reflections - Arguably one of the most common goodstuff.decs in any color combinations, Riku is all about durdling, value, and grinding the game out, but also having multiple 2-card infinite combos for explosive wins. At base stats, Riku is a 5-mana 2/2 which is horrendous, and you really need to protect and untap with him. He is your typical glass cannon; easy to kill, but has great firepower. Once Riku is cast, if he is not killed in a few turns the game effectively ends because of how much value Riku generates after only a few activations. As Riku copies only instants, sorceries, and creatures, the deck is light on the other spell types.
Maelstrom Wanderer is also similar to Riku; he can be a pretty typical goodstuff.dec, but there are a few differences. The most important thing is that while both give you "free" spells, Wanderer's free spells come immediately upon casting while Riku needs to untap. While it's true that Riku is also 3 mana cheaper and thus can come down sooner, he is easy to kill while Wanderer can die or get countered immediately and you won't really care. In other words, Wanderer has higher value when they are cast immediately, then if both generals stay out on the field, Riku "catches" up with every passing turn as you clone/fork something every turn and then eventually generates more value than Wanderer, although every turn Wanderer is out it's attacking for 7 general damage too and that's assuming Wanderer isn't being recast somehow. Wanderer does have a special restriction compared to the other RUG generals though, in that the cascade mechanic actually restricts certain types of cards that can be played in other RUG generals, although I'll go over that later.
Riku is better if your gameplan is to power out a fast infinite combo that can also play like a grindy midrange deck. In these types of decks your 6+ mana spells will just instantly win the game (e.g. entwine'd Tooth and Nail gets Deadeye Navigator and Palinchron) so it's more important to have a general that you can play lower on the curve. Outside of the cutthroat builds, Riku and Wanderer have similar power levels, though their builds will not be exactly the same (for example, Wanderer builds tend to play more mana rocks than Riku builds).
Surrak Dragonclaw - Surrak can be a good general if your playgroup has a lot of blue. Giving your other creatures trample also helps against noncontrol decks that pack a bunch of creatures to push through damage. For his CMC, he has the best power and toughness out of all the Temur generals, but he doesn't generate card advantage on his own, which can be a problem. Since he makes your other creatures stronger, you'll be more inclined to play more creatures, particularly those with high power to make the trample he gives more relevant. Wanderer is also pretty good against control thanks to double cascades, but does have other weaknesses (e.g. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir wrecks him hard) while Surrak isn't really neutered as badly as Wanderer is against any given card. Surrak can come down earlier to beat face than Wanderer can, but you'll need to play additional card-advantage spells to make sure you don't gas out. Surrak is not as explosive as Wanderer, but he has less variance than Wanderer. Wanderer can cascade into low-impact spells and then flop around and die. You know exactly what you're getting with Surrak.
Yasova Dragonclaw - She's the most voltron-ish of the Temur generals, given the 3-CMC and 4 power with trample. 2 toughness means she'll die often so strap her with equipment/auras to make her better in combat. Equipment that pump her power are also useful because it means you can steal a bigger creature than normal. Paying 3 mana to steal a creature is a lot though, so often you'll only be using it if it's a very large creature (say you managed to get her to 8 power and stole a Balefire Dragon) or you have nothing else to do. She's very different from Wanderer, so the choice between her or Wanderer depends on your playstyle.
You should play this deck if you...
- Like a simple, straightforward deck
- Like attacking with creatures
- Like the randomness cascade brings
- Like
Boundless Realms and/orPrimal Surge- Are on a budget (many of the expensive cards can be replaced with cheaper alternatives quite easily)
- Like curving out
You should not play this deck if you...
- Like playing control
- Dislike cascade/randomness
- Want a deck with a single focus or win-con
- Like playing with your graveyard (Wanderer draws extra resources from the top of the library rather than graveyard recursion)
The deck is built around
Boundless Realms andPrimal Surge. I'll go a little more into detail under Deck History and Card options.PERSONAL HISTORY
The allure of EDH to me is the accessibility and the atmosphere of the format. You have an extremely large array of cards to choose from, which can result in many decks with wildly varying themes and power levels, so players are better able to construct the decks they desire. Because of the huge emphasis on politics in a typical EDH game, players who have weaker decks can still compete with players with fine-tuned decks as long as they play their politics correctly. This also reduces the monetary barrier to the format compared to something like legacy or even standard.
I consider myself to be a Timmy and a Johnny with some elements of Spike. The Spike part of me, however, barely shows up if there are no tangible prizes to play for. When there are tangible prizes to play for, I do enjoy getting those prizes. However, during EDH with friends where we play for fun and for pride, the frequency that I win at in EDH doesn't matter as much as how I win.
My EDH decks therefore are not for highly competitive play or for entering actual EDH tournaments; they are constructed based on my personal whims. As the playgroup I hang out with don't have hyper-strong decks (they are good decks but they purposely avoid the extremely powerful cards/interactions), I purposely drop the power level of my decks to around theirs. They are my friends, and as such having everyone in the group split games fairly evenly personally makes me happy too. No one likes losing every single game, and the best way to have your playgroup get annoyed with you is to win an overwhelming amount of games, and I don't want to be the guy to force players to get better or to start playing a certain way.
This doesn't mean my EDH decks cannot be fine-tuned for more aggressive playgroups or have a shot in tournaments. Often it just takes a couple of changes in card choices, or a quick change in the theme/game plan (which then relates to making a bunch of easy card changes). You can also often make power level reductions or cost reductions to the deck as well.
DECK HISTORY
When Planechase 2012 came out, and I saw Maelstrom Wanderer, I knew that I had to have him as my general. I like cascade. I like cascading twice. And I knew "then do it again" would herald good times.
Let's do the
time warpcascade again.However, Progenitus consumed a lot of my budget, so I wanted to try and keep this guy cheap. I was also a bit lazy in planning another deck, as I was still trying to fix Zedruu. Thus he was delayed for a few months.
Along came Magic 2013. Boundless Realms was spoiled. I know this card is powerful, perfect for EDH. Then I noticed that it was 7 mana, 1 below Maelstrom Wanderer, and I could cascade into it. I immediately started brewing the deck. Since Boundless Realms requires basic lands, it was a great way to keep the deck cheap as well, as I could load the deck with 10 cent lands over nonbasics that cost several dollars, throwing in only the bare minimum nonbasics.Unfortunately at the moment I have come to terms with the fact that there are superior alternatives in a Primal Surge build and Boundless Realms is currently out of the deck.Avacyn Restored was also released several months before Magic 2013, and one of my friends was immediately using Primal Surge. Being impressed with the times his Primal Surge hits (and laughing at the times it whiffed hard), I knew that I could also alter the deck to fit Primal Surge, as I was planning on running mostly creatures anyway. Thus the subthemes of the deck were born.
The deck was initially built to be very cheap. I didn't even have the appropriate shocklands. Slowly, as I was more and more impressed with Maelstrom Wanderer, I added more money into the deck. Some remnants of the budget era still exist, and eventually I will replace them with more powerful cards. Feel free to adjust the deck to your budget, as many of the expensive cards can be replaced with cheaper alternatives pretty easily.
DECK LIST
BY CARD TYPE
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
CREATURES (31)
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Faerie Artisans
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Gilded Drake
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Malignus
1 Molten Primordial
1 Mulldrifter
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Somberwald Sage
1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Trinket Mage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Wood Elves
1 Dack Fayden
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Karn Liberated
1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
ARTIFACTS/ENCHANTMENTS (24)
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Birthing Pod
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Crystal Shard
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Equilibrium
1 Frontier Siege
1 Food Chain
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Reflection
1 Mana Vault
1 Paradox Engine
1 Perilous Vault
1 Rhystic Study
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Sylvan Library
1 Thran Dynamo
INSTANT/SORCERIES (3)
1 Primal Surge
1 Time Warp
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Fire-lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
1 Flooded Strand
4 Forest
1 Frontier Bivouac
4 Island
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Mountain
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple of the False God
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yavimaya Coast
BY MANA COST
1 maelstrom wanderer
0 (1)
1 Mana Crypt
1 (5)
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
2 (8)
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Gilded Drake
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scroll Rack
1 Sylvan Library
3 (18)
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Crystal Shard
1 Dack Fayden
1 Equilibrium
1 Eternal Witness
1 Food Chain
1 Rhystic Study
1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
1 Somberwald Sage
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Trinket Mage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Wood Elves
1 Birthing Pod
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Faerie Artisans
1 Frontier Siege
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Perilous Vault
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thran Dynamo
1 venser, Shaper Savant
5 (7)
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Malignus
1 Mulldrifter
1 Paradox Engine
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Time Warp
6 (4)
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Mana Reflection
1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
7 (6)
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Karn Liberated
1 Molten Primordial
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Tooth and Nail
8 (1)
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Primal Surge
LANDS (37)
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Fire-lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
1 Flooded Strand
4 Forest
1 Frontier Bivouac
4 Island
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Mountain
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple of the False God
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yavimaya Coast
CARD OPTIONS
Also I will put * for each card, indicating my personal rating of the card, ranging from 1 to 5.
* - I mostly run this card for personal preference.
** - Has a nice niche, but can be cut for a different card.
*** - A good value card. You can cut for a different card but I don't recommend it.
**** - A staple. I do not recommend cutting this card.
***** - One of the cornerstones of the deck, you will almost always want to see this card as soon as you reach the mana to cast it.
Italicized cards are ones that you can replace with cheaper alternatives as they are not cornerstones of the deck. If an expensive card is not italicized, that means I recommend that you do pick it up.
1
****Birds of Paradise - Mana fixes, ramps a 3-drop on turn 2, and is a cheap enabler for Cloudstone Curio. Hard to ask for more on a 1-drop.
****Joraga Treespeaker - On turn 1 it's mana parity (you spend turn 2 to make it give you 2 mana), then it becomes a double Llanowar Elf, giving you 5 mana on turn 3. It's a bad cascade but it does a lot of work in the early turns. If you can T1 this, T2 level up into a 2-drop, you get very far ahead on the board.
2
****Sakura-Tribe Elder - Green staple. He's reliable ramp.
****Gilded Drake - Blue staple. It's one of the few ways to interact with opponents early by stealing their generals or utility creatures. If you can't afford the drake your best option is to run more ramp or put in a cheap removal spell.
****Fauna Shaman - Any green creature deck must run this (or survival of the fittest, or both). Repeatable creature tutor is too good to pass up. Normally this is a 5-star card, but this deck runs very little graveyard recursion, so be careful about what you pitch; you usually won't get it back.
****Scavenging Ooze - It gives this deck reusable graveyard hate. The life gain and +1/+1 counters are nice too. The M14 reprint brought his price down significantly.
****Lotus Cobra - The deck has every fetchland except Marsh Flats. This guy generates insane amounts of mana for a 2-drop.
3
***Wood Elves - Fetches for forest shocklands. Reliable ramp.
???Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - Slow draw engine that can sometimes backfire and let opponents draw a card or two, and a relatively slow ramp option, but being able to do double duty has its merits and is worth considering.
****Thada Adel, Acquisitor - On paper, it's a slow but reusable artifact "tutor". Early on it can find mana rocks for ramp, later on it can find finishers, meaning it should have value at every point in the game. You'll be surprised how many blue players hate to see this card against them.
****Eternal Witness - Staple for green decks. Occasionally she's an embarrassing cascade, but she's still too strong to not run.
****Somberwald Sage - As most of the cards in this deck are creatures, this guy does a lot of work. By itself it enables a turn 5 Wanderer, which is powerful. It dies to a stiff breeze though which can sometimes be a problem.
****Trygon Predator - Early on he's difficult to block and can start popping things like sol rings. Mid-lategame you need to get rid of the fliers in the way, but now you can start popping things like equipment, birthing pod, and so on. Your opponents need to get a flier out or kill this guy, or none of their artifact/enchantment engines will ever stick. Think of it as a "fair" version of aura shards. While it doesn't ramp, it heavily disrupts each opponent who can't block this guy while surviving a ping from Sword of Fire and Ice. If you can't outramp them, slow them down.
***Trinket Mage - Fetches out Mana Crypt, so he acts like a 3-mana ramp spell. Later he can find Top. That's all he does, but they're both nice cards to have, so he pulls his weight.
****Thassa, God of the Sea - Does double duty by increasing card quality and helping Wanderer finish off enemies. Her role earlygame is to help find lands and ramp spells, then tucks those dead cards late in the game to find finishers. Mid-lategame she'll also help force through damage from Wanderer by making it unblockable. Being indestructible also helps as there's a weakness to sweepers in this deck. It's not easy to get devotion, and most of the time you don't actually want devotion anyway (it's easier to deal with indestructible creatures than to deal with indestructible noncreatures thanks to swords to plowshares, duplicant, terminus, etc) but in a "fair" deck that wants to win with damage rather than infinite combos, she's good at 3 mana.
*****Animar, Soul of Elements - A powerful voltron/combo general on its own, in this deck if you can get it out turns 2-4 and it doesn't die (and it has protection from the two colors that have the most spot removal, so it's sturdy), it is absolutely amazing. After a few creatures you can cast Maelstrom wanderer for chump change even if wanderer dies several times, and you get out of control if you also have Food Chain out. Also note that whatever creatures Wanderer cascades into (in addition to Wanderer itself) will power up Animar because the cascades are "cast", even if you spent no mana on them. Even lategame if you have enough engines out this will power you through a ton of mana and at the very worst has protection from two colors so it can chump block. As with your typical Animar deck, be careful about overextending.
4
*****Oracle of Mul Daya - Another staple in green decks. Combine this with library manipulation that Wanderer decks like to have and it gets ugly... for your opponents.
****Solemn Simulacrum - This may very well be the ultimate value card in EDH.
****Phyrexian Metamorph - Another blue staple card. Being able to copy artifacts or creatures means he is significantly less likely to be a dead cascade than a clone such as Progenitor Mimic. Also great with Tezzeret the Seeker.
****Venser, Shaper Savant - A temporary catch-all to anything. Also one of the best things to stick to a Deadeye Navigator.
****Glen Elendra Archmage - A great counterspell on a creature. It functions more as a rattlesnake than anything, but at 4-mana it's great.
****Clever Impersonator - Good card. There are many great clones available, but Clever Impersonator gets the nod in Wanderer because the flexibility makes it the best cascade out of all the clones. The fewer restrictions on what you can copy the better.
???Faerie Artisans - On paper it sounds insane.
5
****Mulldrifter - Divination that's awesome instead of bad. Evoke means you can keep risky starting hands.
***Malignus - It seems goofy, but Wanderer gives it some much needed haste. Ideally you want to also combine it with another type of evasion (such as Thassa or Akroma's Memorial) to seal the deal. With a little bit of help, he kills people insanely quickly.
6
*****Consecrated sphinx - Blue staple. I was surprised to see this not get banned when Prime Time did.
*****Deadeye Navigator - I am seriously wondering when this card will get banned. It is incredibly sick with cards like Venser and Zegana. Usually if you are unable to cast Wanderer for whatever reason (say he got tucked), this is a strong backup wincon.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
7
****Avenger of Zendikar - Another green staple, this guy can win games on his own. I can't give a 5 because often the board gets wiped before I get to attack with him.
***Phyrexian Ingester - Exiling creatures is always nice. I decided on this over duplicant as I had enough creatures at the 6 mana slot and not enough at the 7.
***Molten Primordial - Stealing multiple creatures can be powerful. Its at its best if you have food chain out though.
REST IN ****
8
****Craterhoof Behemoth - If you have a few creatures out, you basically one-shot someone with this guy. If you have a lot of creatures out, you overkill everyone on the table in a single turn. He's definitely one of the most explosive finishers in green. Wanderer can't cascade into him but it's usually not the end of the world.
RAMP
As said earlier, because Wanderer costs 8 mana, the deck is a race to that amount. Therefore you need a ton of mana ramp. Most EDH decks run 10-15. Wanderer needs at least 20. And creatures alone won't get the ramp for you. Here are the noncreature ramp cards.
*****Sol Ring - Staple. Many of the temporary alliances forged in a standard EDH game are created based on who gets the turn 1 sol rings.
*****Mana Crypt - One of the most busted cards in EDH. If you can afford it, you play it, no questions.
*****Mana Vault - It's annoying to untap, but Wanderer decks are really a big race to 8 mana. It won't really help power out your other ramp cards you want to drop on your race to 8 mana and often won't do anything else once you do cast Wanderer, but it alone gives 3 mana. Sometimes a fast race to a Consecrated Sphinx or whatnot is enough too. And you can untap with Tezzeret too.
*****Grim Monolith - Not as crucial as sol ring, but getting 3 mana from a 2-mana artifact is huge. It's Thran Dynamo at 2-less mana, and unlike mana vault, you can untap this at any time you have 4 mana open; for example, T2 Grim Monolith, T3 Thran Dynamo and untap Monolith, T4 Wanderer is a valid line of play. By itself it enables a turn 5 Wanderer which is still good. It also generates infinite colorless mana with Mana Reflection in play.
****Basalt Monolith - Basically an extra Grim Monolith/Thran Dynamo effect. It also generates infinite colorless mana with Mana Reflection in play.
****Chromatic Lantern - The deck has some strict mana requirements. This fixes that.
****Thran Dynamo - This alone enables a Turn 5 Wanderer, assuming you hit your land drops and your lands provide the necessary colors. Combine this with any other early ramp spell and he's coming down even earlier, which is a dangerous threat.
***Gilded Lotus - Mostly used because of its interaction with Tezzeret, and is a fine ramp card on its own. If you can play something with the mana this provides the turn you drop this, that's a good tempo play.
***Frontier Siege - You'll almost always choose Khans. It's a playable midrange ramp option that adds GG on both of your main phases. It's not broken, but spreading out ramp options is important so that a sweeper or two doesn't snag all of your mana producers.
*****Paradox Engine - This card combines with Magic: the Gathering cards. And doubly so when the cascades on Wanderer will trigger this card.
****Tezzeret the Seeker - When played early it can either untap your mana rocks or go tutor you a mana rock to help you ramp. When played later it can find you engines like Cloudstone Curio or Birthing Pod, untap your engines like said Pod or Crystal Shard, maybe Perilous Vault if you're behind, etc. It's never a dead card.
****Teferi, Temporal Archmage - 6 mana is a lot so it's hard to say this is actually a "ramp" spell, but the -1 is very strong. It gives creatures pseudo-vigilance, it can ramp hard especially if you're untapping mana rocks (so something like Tezzeret's +1 except Teferi's -1 can hit lands and mana dorks if needed and hits twice as many things), it can untap Birthing Pod, and so on. Basically it's a fairer version of Mind over Matter. There's also the +1 but it probably won't be used very often, but it is still relevant when you're flooding out.
NON-CREATURE BOMBS
These are cards that aren't creatures, but they're huge and are badass. You normally don't want to hardcast them, but you want to manipulate the library so you can use your general to cascade into them and get really far ahead on the board.
*****Primal Surge - There are no cards to cascade into this and nothing that can tutor for this, but there are only a few nonpermanents in the deck. A good Primal Surge means the game ends. It has a tendency to whiff hard though. I would not cast Primal Surge until you have two or less non-permanents left in the deck, so the more nonpermanents you run, the longer you will wait to cast Primal Surge or take the risk of whiffing hard. It's not really a powerful card (it IS 10 mana), but it's so goofy and it completely alters a lot of the card choices in this deck, so if Primal Surge is not your cup of tea then this likely won't be a useful topic for you. NOTE: Be careful about how many permanents you actually put onto the board with this card. Don't just flip your whole library into play; the deck has a couple of mandatory draw effects (like Mulldrifter) and if you hit them with an empty library you die.
*****Tooth and Nail - While it does interfere with Primal Surge, an entwine'd Tooth and Nail cascaded from Wanderer is a massive tempo swing, and in cutthroat builds will end the game. You do need to pay that 2 mana for the entwine though. The deck purposely doesn't have an auto-win with an entwine'd Tooth and Nail though, but it's ridiculously easy to build it with an auto-win.
*****Time Warp - Another card that interferes with Primal Surge, but in a deck that wants to go over the top, taking that extra turn is all you need. More Time Warp effects in the deck would be nice but then Primal Surge would have to get axed. Cutthroat Wanderer decks will want additional time warps.
****Mana Reflection - You normally can't do much with double mana unless you have a good engine out. When you do though, you'll likely find a way to instantly win.
****Karn Liberated - A badass. Also the only real out against cards like Torpor Orb and Humility which would make this deck cry. With the recent success of the urzatron in modern this cost is very prohibitive. If you can't afford Karn and need a way to deal with Humility and the like, you may need to run nonpermanents like Beast Within.
****Akroma's Memorial - The haste is somewhat unnecessary when the general gives it. The rest of the abilities are worth it. Cascading into this with the general is big game.
****Eldrazi Monument - Similar to Akroma's Memorial, although the fact that it costs 2 less mana doesn't matter too much as you only play them late in the game, and sacrificing a creature a turn is occasionally a problem (but can be a blessing if you want to sacrifice Wanderer). Still, when played at the right time, you will end the game.
ENGINES
These are the cards that give you additional gas and resilience. Typically your first couple of turns are spent ramping to get Wanderer out, but Wanderer hitting one of these cards is great value as they will refill your hand after you empty it out to ramp Wanderer early. These cards are also strong in your starting hand (some moreso than others), but don't clutter it with engines; ramping in the first couple of turns is much more important.
*****Sensei's Divining Top - Staple. The library manipulation is even better with Wanderer's cascades.
*****Sylvan Library - It's effectively a free top effect once a turn and you can pay life (a hefty amount) to get cards. Against control decks this is great as the life barely matters. Even better than in your typical green deck because of the library manipulation for Wanderer's cascades. One of the best turn 2 plays in the deck, but you are never unhappy to see it late.
****Scroll Rack - Sets up cascade if high mana cards are in your hand. It's also nice to tuck a bunch of worthless cards, get a bunch of new ones, and shuffle your library. Much like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, there aren't too many cards that have an effect of putting cards from your hand on top of your library. If you can't afford Scroll Rack you are best off playing another cheap draw spell like Fact or Fiction or maybe a permanent like Soothsaying.
*****Birthing Pod - I heard repeatable tutors are good. What about repeatable tutors that get you mana discounts on your tutored cards?
****Rhystic Study - Very powerful in a ramp deck. Explosive starts tend to leave you with few cards in hand, so this is a good way to refill. And if players keep paying the 1, that hinders their board development. It's a worthless card if you explode onto the board and force everyone else at the table to gang up on you (where they will be cautious about paying the 1), but at that point it's usually too late for them to catch up.
****Crystal Shard - Lots of value from this. If you can bounce Maelstrom Wanderer every turn you will bury opponents in card advantage, but there's still plenty of value from bouncing any other random creature, and unsummoning something an opponent controls when he's tapped out can catch people off guard. The cool thing is that bouncing the general allows you to still recast it for the base mana cost regardless of how often it died.
*****Cloudstone Curio - Basically, it's a Crystal Shard that can be used more than once per turn. Ever dropped a birds of paradise to unsummon your own Maelstrom Wanderer? Not nearly as abusive as it is in Animar decks, but still a great way to get more value. When you get a lot of mana (e.g. Animar with lots of counters on it, or mana reflection), it basically ends the game.
****Equilibrium - What if Cloudstone Curio could unsummon your opponents' creatures? While it's not exactly the same card as Cloudstone Curio - you do need to pay the mana - they are similar enough, and unsummoning your opponents' creatures is backbreaking in many scenarios. It's not as explosive as Curio since Curio lets you unsummon your creatures for 0 mana and not 1, but this has a higher floor as it can disrupt opponents when needed.
****Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Brainstorm effect works well with cascade. Also, with all the fetchlands you get the classic brainstorm + fetchland combo where your first brainstorm is basically just straight up ancestral. Unsummon isn't too bad either, as you can bounce wanderer to regain value, or bounce a blocker out of the way. You normally won't use the other abilities. However the price tag is not worth it unless you have the money to burn. Consider using actual Brainstorm as a budget replacement but remember that Brainstorm interferes with Primal Surge.
*****Food Chain - Despite the fact that it alone won't get you cards, it is one of the most powerful cards in the deck. With Maelstrom Wanderer, hopefully you hit 1 or 2 creatures with the cascades to fuel next food chains, with your cascaded creatures hopefully having an ETB effect. Exile those creatures and wanderer for more mana after they get their effects to get more cascades, and eventually you will create a huge board presence to one shot everyone on the table. As Food Chain requires creatures, this is yet another incentive to stick with a creature theme with the deck, and a couple of theft effects so you can steal and then exile your opponents' creatures. Use cards liek Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio to help bounce Wanderer once he starts casting high mana amounts. Be careful that you don't get blown out though from anyone flashing in a sweeper or so, as if you don't win after a food chain turn, Wanderer will become prohibitively expensive to cast and you lost a bunch of creatures. Also, I've purposely excluded abusive cards like Misthollow Griffin because I'm personally not a fan of 2-card infinite combos for EDH, so slamming Food Chain isn't an autowin; you do need to plan your moves ahead and figure if you should try to go "off" with Food Chain.
OTHER
These are cards that aren't creatures, or lands, or quite engines. Basically they're value cards.
****Dack Fayden - A card that says "1UR Sorcery - Gain control of target artifact" is playable in a format where every deck loves their T1 sol rings, and Dack is that with an upside that also doesn't stop Primal Surge. Early turns you can steal a sol ring or such for an early ramp option, and later you can steal better artifacts like birthing pod, maybe a darksteel forge, etc. Looting is also very relevant if you need to dig. It's not great at defending himself, so you're getting 1 activation before he dies, 2 if you're lucky, but getting 1 crack at his -2 ability pays for himself most of the time. Remember that if you're stealing something that has a Tap activation, your opponent will tap it in response if he's paying attention so you won't get to use it on your turn. Dack has an argument for actually being the best planeswalker in Vintage; chances are he'll be fine in EDH.
****Song of the Dryads - A solid removal spell that can hit anything. While it technically ramps the opponent by turning the permanent into a forest, that's better than having the troublesome permanent in play. Also, stranding generals in play with this is a nice bonus compared to standard removal spells, particularly since the tuck rule change made it even more difficult to stop opponents from playing their generals.
****Perilous Vault - A sweeper on a permanent. It's something to keep opponents honest. You can fetch it out with Tezzeret, and if Wanderer cascades into it, you can always cast it and activate it later. For Wanderer builds that want to try and play things fairly (i.e. no mass land destruction and no 2-card infinite combos), it's a necessary evil.
LAND BASE
As the deck also has a little theme with Boundless Realms, the mana base is cheap. The nonbasics are minimal, and adding nonbasics makes Boundless Realms weaker anyway.*****Wooded Foothills, Misty Rainforest, Scalding Tarn, Verdant Catacombs, Windswept Heath, Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand, Bloodstained Mire - Fetchlands give value to Lotus Cobra, Top, Scroll Rack, and so on. Also, they mana fix very well. Khans of Tarkir has made the allied-colored fetches drop to reasonable prices. The enemy-colored ones are still fairly expensive though. At the very least, run Wooded Foothills for being in Wanderer colors and the extra printings.
****Breeding Pool - See stomping grounds.
****Stomping Grounds - See breeding pool.
****Steam Vents - Actually the least important of the three shocklands, purely because Wood Elves can't fetch this. Still a great card.
*****Command Tower - Thanks, Wizards, for printing a true EDH staple. I can't think of any decks other than mono-color and maybe B/x that wouldn't want this card.
****City of Brass - Taps for any color. 1 damage hurts only slightly.
****Cascade Bluffs, Fire-lit Thicket, Flooded Grove - They're going up in price in modern, but in sheer power level they might be the best duals after fetches/shocks/ABU duals. If budget is a concern then you can certainly replace them. I picked them up awhile ago when they were much cheaper.
****karplusan Forest, Shivan Reef, Yavimaya Coast - Duals that are relatively low on budget and don't come into play tapped. Like city of brass, you can deal with 1 damage.
****Frontier Bivouac - Solid.
***Reliquary Tower - The deck can actually fill your hand with cards fairly easily, so this is nice to have.
****Temple of the False God - Sol ring land, but be careful as it obviously can't tap for mana early.
*****Ancient Tomb - What if Temple of the False God didn't have a drawback? 2 damage is something you can deal with for the earlygame, so be happy. If you draw this early you surge ahead, but if you don't close out the game, you'll find that 2 damage per crack to really hurt you, so be sure you win quickly.
****Kessig Wolf Run - Making only colorless mana hurts, but it's a land-based way to help Wanderer push through damage.
****Myriad Landscape - 3-color decks can afford this and it's ramp on a land.
4 Island
3 Mountain
4 Forest
OTHER OPTIONS
Boundless Realms and especiallyPrimal Surge, but you can easily remove them from the deck - as long as you make the appropriate adjustments.In general, Wanderer gives you two free cards per cast. This means you can cut down on the number of draw engines you would normally play and instead stick in a few more ramp cards. For example, an Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck can afford to play fewer ramp spells because the general is a ramp spell, and thus Azusa decks tend to pack more bombs and card draw (they'll have some 1-mana dorks so you can force Azusa in on turn 2, but you will almost never see cards like Wood Elves or Explosive Vegetation). In a similar vein, you can play Wanderer if you need to get more cards, and use ramp spells to get him out faster. Typical Wanderer decks pack 15-20 ramp spells or more while your average EDH deck may run 10-15. Basically, if you need to fill some slots in your Wanderer deck, look to ramp cards first.
Well, you don't need to go that deep.
Wanderer's cascades present a drawback that isn't seen in other decks. To get the full value from Wanderer, you must always want to cast the things you cascade into. There's also a larger randomness variable than in other decks because of the double cascade. Because of this, you are best off trying to minimize that randomness. While you can try to minimize the randomness with library manipulation (such as Top or Sylvan Library) your whole deck can't just be durdle do-nothings mess around with the library cards, and often you won't have the luxury of doing library manipulation before casting Wanderer. In other words, you should try to run cards that have a very broad range of applications so that anytime Wanderer hits them, you will almost always play them and have a use for them.
To put it in another way, in normal decks, if you have a card that doesn't do anything important at the moment, you just hold onto it, or you discard it, or whatever. You only cast it if you want to. With Wanderer and cascade, you are significantly more likely to be casting things at unoptimal times, and thus must tamper expectations of that card. For example, Eternal Witness is a staple in every green deck. Most green decks will hold onto their Witnesses until they want to get back a gamebreaking card. However in Wanderer, cascading into Witness means you may get something not as exciting (like say you play Wanderer turn 5 and hit Witness, you may get back your Sakura-Tribe Elder or a fetchland), or in a worst-case scenario you cascaded into it with nothing in your graveyard. While you must still run Witness, tamper your expectations of that card, and add cards that can help make an early cascaded Witness not a dead hit (for example, Fact or Fiction can get some cards in the graveyard early, and fetchlands quickly put something in the graveyard).
Another example would be Indrik Stomphowler versus Acidic Slime. They fill a similar role, being 5-mana green creatures that destroy a type of permanent when it enters the battlefield. While Stomphowler has more power and Slime has deathtouch, the real breaker is Slime's ability to hit lands. That flexibility gives it more reach when cascaded into. Stomphowler has times where you will not want to cast it should you cascade into it, while Slime can just hit a land.
There are some cards that are normally powerful, but in Wanderer are almost dead cascades. Because of this, you'll need to be more wary of their power level...
- Cards with X in its CMC. When you cascade into those cards, X will always be 0, making them dead cards. Chord of Calling and Green Sun's Zenith are very powerful, but think of an alternative that isn't a dead Wanderer cascade. Primal Command isn't as powerful, but it is more flexible and isn't a bad Wanderer cascade. If you do wish to run cards with X in their CMC, try to put in certain cards that will help them not be bad cascades; for example, Dryad Arbor helps prevent Chord and GSZ from being totally dead cascades.
- Counterspells. Most times when you cascade into a counter, there will be no spells to target, making it a dead card. One of the few counterspells I would consider in Wanderer is Cryptic Command because the other options on it are almost never dead. Permanents that give counterspell options such as Voidmage Prodigy are fine too. You could run cards like Mana Drain because you could target Maelstrom Wanderer and get mana (although because Mana Drain is like over $100, it's still not worth it unless you have that money to spend) but usually you are better off running a card that would be a live cascade and then spending that extra turn Wanderer is in play to smash for 7 damage rather than recasting him next turn.
- Anything with a fairly steep "as an additional cost to cast ~", such as Harrow. The idea of cascade is to play spells for free, but when you cascade into those types of cards, you still need to pay those costs to cast them because you are only getting the mana cost for free.
Certain cards are fine to play, but you need a specialized build for them. For example, normal sweepers are awkward to cascade into because at times you will not want to cast them. However, if you instead have a control-shell Wanderer, you will normally be behind on the board and thus will instead cast them often should you cascade into them.
Basically if there's a realistic chance the card is dead if you cascade into them, be careful of them. Even if you run, say, only 1 X-spell, there is still a chance that you will cascade into it, and it's usually better if you simply ran something else that had a similar function that wasn't dead if you cascade into it. You'll notice that most of the problematic spells to run in Wanderer are reactive; counterspells, removal, sweepers, and so on, because there will be times where you do not need to be reactive. Proactive cards (such as Avenger of Zendikar and Eldrazi Monument) are usually better because there's a much lower chance that they don't have an impact on the board.
An allstar in every other green EDH deck, but in Wanderer it's an embarrassing cascade.
Note that cards with entwine/kicker/etc. are okay with cascade, as you can still pay those, but you need to consider to keep mana open when you play a cascade card so that in case you do hit them, you can pay their bonuses.
One other note is what ramp spells to play in Wanderer. Every EDH deck packs ramp cards, but it's especially important in Wanderer because it plays more ramp spells than your average EDH deck because of how much mana Wanderer costs, as well as the fact that wanderer's cascades will often hit these ramp cards. Most ramp spells are fine, but they all have different functions/strengths/weaknesses, and you will need to tailor your ramp spells based on your overall gameplan as well as your playgroup. Ramp spells can be divided into several general categories (ignoring ritual effects, such as Seething Song, which I don't think are very useful in EDH outside of storm decks or specific builds). This is pretty common knowledge, but again because of how important ramp is in Wanderer it's worth going over anyway.
The best example here is to see the difference between Llanowar Elves (mana dorks), Nature's Lore (spell ramp), Wood Elves (creature-land ramp), and Moss Diamond (mana rocks). They each net you G (technically the middle two are fetching forests so they're normally getting shocklands, but it's close enough), but they have varying mana costs so they will get you that mana on different turns, and the mana they provide are nullified by different cards. There are other cards that provide mana in different ways (such as Awakening Zone) but these four are the most common.
In terms of explosiveness (the mana they get you for the mana they cost), generally colorless mana rocks are the most explosive, then mana dorks, then spell ramp and are about equal to colored mana rocks, and then creature-land ramp. Each type has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to resiliency; for example, mana dorks are easy to kill, while creature ramp give you the most "value" (lands are usually the permanent type that is least fooled around with, and the creature ramp provide bodies for combat, Birthing Pod, etc), and you just need to tailor your build to what your friends play. For example, if everyone in your group loves Stranglehold, Aven Mindcensor and other similar cards, you may want to limit the land searching spells simply because you won't be searching your library for them. If your group loves their Aura shards, Creeping Corrosion, and other cards, you'll want to limit your artifact rampers. And so on.
Certain Wanderer builds allow you to forgo certain ramp; for example, a Wanderer build that wants to be extremely explosive, throw caution to the wind, and combo out the whole table by turn 4 or 5 will want the explosiveness of the mana dorks and the best artifact ramp. However, in an unknown "meta" or a group of friends that all have wildly different decks, your best bet is to just spread out your ramp into different types so that you don't get nullified by a specific strategy, then start messing around with your ramp cards if you encounter certain strategies often.
Of course the most important thing with ramp is to get a good curve. You don't want every ramp card to be 1 or 2 mana because most of them don't ramp hard enough to power Wanderer out in a timely manner; rather, your cheap mana rampers help power out your higher mana rampers and those cards drastically cut down on Wanderer's clock. The ideal hand would be to tap out all your mana for 1 ramp spell per turn until you reach 8 mana, to make the most use of your mana per turn and cards. For example, T1 Birds of Paradise, T2 Cultivate, T3 Gilded Lotus, T4 Wanderer is an efficient ramp curve.
Or you could just play Sol Ring on turn 1.
NON-PRIMAL SURGE BUILD
1) Greatly limits the number of nonpermanents to run. This is pretty obvious. Time Warp, Blatant Thievery, and many other nonpermanents are problematic to run with in a Primal Surge build. However, because there are plenty of permanent cards that are bomby and splashy, this can be worked around.
2) Restricts certain permanent cards to run. Some permanent cards will have effects that you sometimes may not want, and a Primal Surge build kicks them out. For example, Kederekt Leviathan was something I played for a short while until I Primal Surge'd one game, revealed it, and realized that if I put it into play it basically resets my Primal Surge up to that point, and if I stop then it just killed the Surge.
3) Forces an overabundance of certain cards which gives you weaknesses to certain cards. For example, because Wanderer decks rely on a lot of ramp, Primal Surge prevents you from profitably playing Cultivate, Skyshroud Claim, and so on. Therefore Primal Surge forces you to play more mana rocks and mana dork creatures. Take note that most playgroups frown upon mass land D (and not many decks run mass land D even if they could anyway) so your land rampers are going to be safe after sweepers. Also take note that sweepers are often the best cards to use against Wanderer, because it helps "equalize" Wanderer (you spend Wanderer to get 2 free cards, and the sweeper is 1 card that can kill multiple cards).
In a Primal Surge build, because you cannot play the instants/sorceries that fetch lands, this forces you to play permanents that can get caught up in sweepers, which means depending on your draw, you become very vulnerable to a sweeper. For example, it's quite often that you play mana dorks to ramp out Wanderer, then Wanderer hits two creatures, and then someone immediately plays a Wrath of God, leaving you with maybe 5-6 lands and nothing else and a Wanderer that now costs 10. Othertimes, you ramp out Wanderer with Mana rocks, play Wanderer and hit a bunch of artifacts or enchantments, then someone kills Wanderer and another plays a Fracturing Gust and now you're left with nothing. Sometimes you draw all your cards that get you extra lands in play but someone lands a Contamination.
This is similar to something I said earlier about diversifying your ramp options, where an overabundance of one type of ramp card leaves you weak to certain cards.
I'm not going to bother with constructing a totally new deck list for a non-primal surge build (not yet anyway) because I haven't tried taking Surge out of the deck. However, if I were to make such a build, I would cut some of the mana dorks for instant/sorcery land ramps. As said, diversifying your ramp spells to prevent being crippled by sweepers is important. For example, you could probably cut some of the mana dorks for nonpermanent ramp spells. While cutting the creatures could be a problem because of their profitable interaction with Food Chain, unless you want to devote the deck to Food Chain combo (which is a totally valid strategy) you are probably better off trying to be more resilient to sweepers than a 1-of card in the deck, even if Food Chain is probably the best card in said deck. Playing Cultivate plus Kodama's Reach would allow you to cut a land as those cards fetch a land for you.
POWER LEVEL
There are plenty of 2-card infinite combo potential that you could construct in your standard RUG deck, and you can easily slot them in here. A simple example would be adding Palinchron to the deck, since it plus Deadeye Navigator generates infinite mana (then you stick Wanderer to Deadeye and exile it, but choose to send it to the command zone instead of back to the battlefield). Tooth and Nail to find it - and have Wanderer potentially cascade into it - is also valid. RUG also gives the Kiki-Jiki infinites that are seen in modern (Pestermite, etc.)
Mass Land Destruction - MLD is a very powerful type of card where basically if you are ahead on board, MLD severely hampers everyone's mana, and therefore ability to catch up. It's a common tactic in the most powerful builds and is frowned upon because of its power, and also because if it is not used properly it prolongs the game to unnecessary lengths. White is the marquee color for MLD because of Armageddon, but red has many other MLD effects. Jokulhaups, Wildfire, Destructive Force, etc. are all strong cards to cascade into, and some of them even sweep creatures somewhat to get the board clear for Wanderer to start smacking away. These are very powerful to cascade into, as you can clear the board before Wanderer hits the field because the cascaded spells resolve before Wanderer. If your playgroup is ok with huge land D, these types of cards are almost necessary in cutthroat Wanderer builds. Since they're nonpermanents, you can't play Primal Surge, so keep that in mind. Since some of them sweep lands, you'll be relying more on mana rocks, which is fine because the mana rocks tend to ramp harder than other ramp options (sol ring, thran dynamo, etc.). Note that the big sweepers that are 8+ mana are much worse because Wanderer can't hit them (Obliterate, etc.). Mystical Tutor goes up in value since you can set up a MLD card on top for a cascade. I don't play these cards because my group isn't that cutthroat and it would cause me to get hated out every single game, but in more competitive circles you pretty much need these.
Imperial Recruiter - Last I checked his price, he was about $350. If money isn't a concern then any red deck will run this guy, but if you don't then I don't see a problem in ignoring him. If it was in this deck it'd probably be just an Animar tutor or maybe Zegana.
Survival of the Fittest - You could probably build your deck such that landing this card immediately wins you the game. I've seen what this card can do in other decks. RUG misses out on the two colors with the best creature reanimation though so maybe not? I wouldn't be surprised if you could still do it though.
misthollow Griffin - With Food Chain you get infinite mana to spend on creatures - presumably for Wanderer. I'm not a fan of 2-card "infinite" combos, but if your friends are fine with it, by all means insert this in. Keep in mind that Misthollow Griffin does nothing without Food Chain.
Gaea's Cradle - Not as insane as in token decks, but even if it just taps for 2-3 mana, that's strong for a land. You'll have to run more creatures to reliably get this online early, so you may need to lean on more mana dorks. This card is also really expensive. Wanderer decks are totally fine running tons of mana rocks to generate the mana, so this is more of a luxury for creature-focused builds.
BUDGET CUTS
Spawnbroker - Nowhere near as good as Gilded Drake, but if you are short on money, he's an okay alternative. Do note the whole power thing so you would usually end up swapping low power utility creatures instead of huge fatties.
Brainstorm - If you don't have the money to run Jace, the Mind Sculptor (and I imagine most people won't), this is an acceptable replacement.
More ramp cards in general - There are a lot of ramp cards - both permanents and nonpermanents - that ramp that aren't on this list. Ramp cards in general are very cheap (they are usually commons or uncommons), and they can power out Maelstrom Wanderer faster. Cut out some of the money cards, stick in more ramp, and it's still a very viable deck.
MISC. ALTERNATIVES
Boundless Realms - A subtheme of this build for a long time, I've come to terms with how this doesn't carry its weight enough to offset the fact that it interfers with Primal Surge.
general Instants/Sorceries - You'll first notice that Primal Surge greatly restricts deckbuilding. If you do not want to run Primal Surge, you can remove some of the more unimpressive cards and replace them with instants/sorceries. For example, you won't have to run mediocre cards like Dawntreader Elk or Greenweaver Druid if you could instead run cards like Cultivate or Skyshroud Claim. You'll also get access to very powerful nonpermanents like Time Warp, Knowledge Exploitation and the like. These things are covered in the non-primal build surge section above.
general value creatures - Cards like Borderland ranger, Elvish Visionary, and Sea Gate Oracle that get you a card when they enter the battlefield. Normally you should play more ramp over durdle creatures to rush out Wanderer since Wanderer will get you cards anyway. However they aren't the worst things you could add to the deck.
Ancestral Vision - Cascading into this is nice, but the most value would come from playing a low mana cascade creature (like Bloodbraid Elf) into this, otherwise it's just a concentrate. Also interferes with Primal Surge. The deck has enough engines that I didn't find it necessary to run this.
Blatant Thievery - An incredibly sick card with huge value, but even more if you have Food Chain out and you can steal a few creatures. It's 7 mana so Wanderer can cascade into it too. I just can't find the room for it with Primal Surge in the build.
Fabricate - Tutors for birthing pod, but interferes with primal surge. Without surge in the deck this is a definite include.
Gamble - In a deck that doesn't run Primal Surge and also wants to focus on winning with combo, this isn't too bad.
Genesis Wave - Primal Surge for the current build is almost strictly better. It's also a dead card to cascade into.
Long-term Plans - Cool for picking a specific card for Maelstrom Wanderer to cascade into. But it's 3 mana for card disadvantage and interferes with Primal Surge. Also be aware that sometimes when you play this and immediately play Wanderer (or Wanderer hits this with the first cascade) that you may not even cascade into the card you get, because you could have legal cards placed on top.
Spelljack - A counterspell that works with Wanderer. If you cascade into it, simply target Wanderer to get another free cast whenever you want. 6 mana is a lot to hold up though for its regular function though, and it interfers with Primal Surge. This can't really just be inserted into the deck - it needs to be a more responsive/flash deck to shine.
Mana Drain - Basically Spelljack that costs 4 less mana, and about 200 more dollars. The problem is that you also get the mana at your next main phase, not next precombat main phase; that's a pretty significant problem if Wanderer cascades into this, since you want it on a precombat main phase so you can attack with Wanderer. It also makes only colorless which is a problem if you tapped out completely for Wanderer and hit this.
Plasm Capture - In between Spelljack and mana Drain in terms of mana cost, but basically functions the same. It's usually better than mana drain because you get the mana at your next precombat main phase and you get it in any combination of colors, but it's worse as a regular counter.
Champion of Lambholt - Potential finisher I have been thinking about.
Cloudthresher - If your playgroup likes small flying creatures, he'll have a field day.
Coiling Oracle - It was never a reliable ramp card, and being a "strictly better" Elvish Visionary doesn't really help when the deck doesn't need Elvish Visionary.
Dawntreader Elk - A weak ramp card, but it's a creature and it still ramps. If you don't have Primal Surge you don't need this card.
Deadwood Treefolk - 3-for-1 at 6 mana is theoretically strong, but graveyard durdling is not something this deck really wants to do. It's also a realistic early cascade whiff.
Diluvian Primordial - In theory, it has the highest potential power level of any of the 5 primordials, or just cards in general. In reality you will usually not be stealing time stretches or primal surges or such, unless said cards were milled into the graveyard beforehand. Normally you'll hit ramp spells, tutors, or spot removals, and occasionally sweepers, and you may have a player at the table with no legal targets at all. It's still a strong value card though, but when deckbuilding you do need to watch your mana curve. Usually this is better in a deck that makes people discard their hands and/or mills so you get the strong targets into the graveyard directly.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest - Basically none of the early weenies in this deck have any evasion so this is a weak draw engine early on, and later in the game you can find stronger draw engines.
Etherium-Horn Sorcerer - Unlike the other cascade creatures in the deck, this one isn't as good, because a 3/6 creature for 6 mana isn't very efficient. While he can unsummon himself, the only time you'd do that is if you have nothing else to do.
Farhaven Elf - Decent but unexciting ramp option.
Fierce Empath - 3 mana cards that tutor for something are decent but whatever they find has to be useful. Fierce Empath used to be a good card because it could tutor up Primeval Titan, and then Sylvan Primordial. With both of those banned, there are less enticing targets.
Flametongue Kavu - Similar to Man-o'-War and Aether Adept.
Genesis - Slow graveyard recursion. However, the deck has many redundant pieces when it comes to creatures, meaning it's uncommon that there is something crucial you want to recur; the recursion is usually done when you can't cast Wanderer for whatever reason and you have nothing relevant in your hand. This is at its best in grindy midrange decks that want to use the graveyard as a second hand, not so much ramp decks which can also use the top of the library as a second hand.
Greenweaver Druid - Generic mana dude. Not the most exciting card but he adds redundant ramp to the deck as well as different sources of mana that die to different types of removal. If you don't have Primal Surge you don't need this card.
Heartwood Storyteller - The deck has a lot of creatures but has enough noncreatures where this can backfire on you. You're better off just playing more ramp or a different card draw engine.
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa - Potential finisher I have been thinking about.
Karametra's Acolyte - It's okay but not a reliable ramper.
Kederekt Leviathan - Gives a creature-based board sweep, even if it's just temporary. However it's awkward to Primal Surge into.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - Very powerful even if you don't bother with infinites. However it only copies nonlegendary creatures you control, which can be a problem since this deck has its fair share of legendary creatures and sometimes you'll cascade into Kiki with no legal targets for it.
Krosan Tusker - He's technically 7 mana but you will rarely hardcast him. He's basically an instant speed divination, so a fairly bad mulldrifter. That's not terrible by any means, but not great either.
Laboratory maniac - Basically auto-wins if Primal Surge lets you dump your entire library into play because you will probably hit some kind of draw effect, but since it literally doesn't do anything otherwise I don't like it. If you want to win with this card, I advise that you remove every other nonpermanent so Primal Surge immediately allows you to just flip your library into play and get the win and make sure you can protect this guy when you try to get your win.
Loaming Shaman - Gives more graveyard hate and is a creature. Better than Scavenging Ooze at nuking multiple cards in a graveyard at once, but worse because it doesn't actually exile them, and it's one time use until you can retrigger his ability. Usually scavenging ooze is enough unless your playgroup is very grindy and love their graveyards to death.
Magus of the Future - Great synergy with top. Mediocre otherwise.
Man-o'-War, Aether Adept, etc. - They're awkward to cascade into at times. However if your playgroup love aggressive decks these are strong tempo plays.
Mindclaw Shaman - Has reliability problems. It's similar to Diluvian Primordial.
Molten Primordial - Great with Food Chain and doing alpha strikes, not really useful otherwise.
Phantasmal Image - 2-mana clones are always powerful, but there are more and more cards that have repeatable targeting (Staff of Nin, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, etc.) where the drawback becomes a big problem. In addition, the fact that it is 2-mana isn't the biggest deal in the deck. It's not something you play in the early turns very often, and occasionally is a bad cascade. I wanted to cut it to try out other cards.
Prime Speaker Zegana - It's funny if you hit it after playing Wanderer, but it was often a bad cascade early on.
Primeval Titan - teh banhammer
Progenitor Mimic - While a powerful card in normal builds, you really want to copy a bomb to get the full value. Wanderer's cascades makes it awkward to play. You normally won't be copying powerful cards like Avenger of Zendikar but instead something more average like Solemn Simulacrum.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - Poor guy got banned largely because the EDH committee got tired of distinguishing "all banned" and "mostly banned". Not nearly as crazy as it can be in monogreen, but it could pretty easily tap for 3-4 green and that was good enough.
Seedborne Muse - Great if you build around it a little more, like putting in flash enablers or permanents with abilities (such as Planar Portal).
Shardless Agent, Bloodbraid Elf - In a void they provide card advantage. But they can whiff often enough (such as Bloodbraid into Eternal Witness with an empty graveyard) and they are not 100% reliable. Also their bodies aren't very relevant in EDH; for example, Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Wood Elves isn't really exciting.
Sphinx of Uthuun - The deck has a lot of card draw already, and it doesn't have the greatest graveyard recursion such that a fact or fiction is not as insane as it is in other decks.
Silklash Spider - If your playgroup likes any flying creatures, he'll have a field day.
Steel Hellkite - It gives the deck some board control, although you do have to connect with it and use mana.
Sylvan Primordial - teh banhammer
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - It's not the greatest in a Primal Surge deck (this card is much better when you have a lot of stuff you want to play at instant speed like counterspells), but at the very least getting this out will help protect you when you are trying to swarm for a win, so a 5-mana Grand Abolisher/City of Solitude. With the huge creature count, giving all your creatures - including Wanderer - flash is no joke either. Be careful though; he only restricts opponents at casting spells. They can still activate abilities normally. You also probably won't get hated out as long as you tell your opponents that you are not running abusive cards with Teferi (like Knowledge Pool + Teferi lock).
Terastodon - Extremely powerful, but being unable to cascade into it with Wanderer is a bit of a problem. This is much more powerful in a dedicated blink deck.
Vendilion Clique - Strong value card and gives a Primal Surge build a good way to combat combo decks. However it will usually not do enough to justify the money you need for it.
Veteran Explorer - Not the best ramp card because it ramps everyone. You will make a few quick friends with it, but after you play Wanderer you'll probably draw attention back to you.
Wonder - If you have a lot of discard outlets this is strong. This deck can't really afford messing around with discard outlets.
Woodfall Primus - This creature doesn't feel too strong anymore, especially since you can't even cascade into it.
Yaviyama Dryad - It's a slightly harder to cast Wood Elves whose forest also can't enter the battlefield untapped. In a build that wants to use equipment or auras though, the forestwalk is handy, but this isn't really the deck for it.
Yaviyama Elder - It's a 3-for-1, but two of the cards are basic lands. It's decent but never was a big threat.
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger - The effects are cool, but it has no protection and it always quickly dies. This deck also isn't a big-mana deck; by the time you reach 8 mana, you don't really need more. The fact that Wanderer can't hit this also hinders its value.
Abundance - Great with Sylvan Library but not that good on its own.
Beastmaster Ascension - Potential finisher I have been thinking about. You really need a stronger token theme though.
Defense of the Heart - A permanent, cheaper version of Tooth and Nail. That's the theory behind it anyway. In reality players will play around it (and the creature-light builds almost never care), or one player will spend a 1-for-1 removal spell on it, which means you almost never trigger it, and you don't slow down enough opponents to make it worthwhile. However, with the prevalence of Prossh, Defense is a passable soft-counter, where if Prossh isn't out he can't play it, and if Prossh is out then he's given one turn to kill you or it (which they will, Prossh decks always have it, since everything combos with Prossh).
Garruk Wildspeaker - On paper he does two important things; ramp early-midgame, and give trample lategame. However, planeswalkers tend to get attacked alot and die, and losing this guy early on to random creatures is a huge deal. He has high upside, but he's also high risk.
Greater Good - Sac outlets are important, but the big reason why to run sac outlets is to get them out of play so that you can recast them again. Maelstrom Wanderer is less about using the graveyard as a resource and more using the library as a resource. While it's also cool to sac Wanderer to this to recast him, you can get similar functions like Crystal Shard and the like. This is also a fairly weak card early on as most early creatures have less than 3 power. Greater Good is a powerful card, but it doesn't quite fit Wanderer's build and gameplan.
Lurking Predators - If you have a little more library manipulation and a little higher creature count, it's worth it.
Erratic Portal - Between Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio, I didn't really want to run a 3rd bouncer. You can definitely tune your deck to run this too though.
Mimic Vat - One of my pet cards and one that I fully believe can fit into any EDH deck and improve it, here I decided to cut it to experiment with new engines due to its lack of real synergy it has with Wanderer over other engines (library manipulation ones such as Sylvan Library, or unsummoning ones such as Cloudstone Curio).
Oblivion Stone - Used to be the sweeper of choice until Perilous Vault got printed.
Planar Portal, Ring of Three Wishes - Both are very mana intensive (Ring of Three Wishes slightly less so, and the part about having only 3 wishes isn't normally a big deal), but it is a tutor on a permanent that fits for Primal Surge. I would not run either without seedborn Muse though.
Skullclamp - The deck doesn't have enough 1-toughness dudes and sac outlets to really abuse this card.
Equipment in general - As the deck has lots of cheap creatures, playing equipment would allow your smaller creatures to smash face. Unfortunately RUG doesn't have a whole lot of equipment tutors on permanents (heck, there aren't many that just find artifacts in general). I decided to just run extra creatures and ramp to get Maelstrom Wanderer out, and use certain cards to just make my entire board a threat and/or make Wanderer's hits strong.
Garruk, Primal Hunter - Nice value card, but making 3/3 beasts isn't particularly relevant and its -3 is basically "Zegana that isn't a super awkward cascade at times" but that's not really amazing since planeswalkers are hard to tutor out. Triple green can be a problem to get it down early too.
Forbidden Orchard - A card I used when the build had Defense of the Heart. With that card gone, Forbidden Orchard doesn't serve a good purpose, as making 1/1s to chump block a future attack from Wanderer is a big problem.
Vivid Crag, Vivid Creek, Vivid Grove - Fine budget options, but entering the battlefield tapped is a problem.
Mosswort Bridge, Spinerock Knoll - Coming into play tapped is a huge tempo problem. They get a free spell, but you usually can't trigger it until Wanderer is in play.
Rootbound Crag, Hinterland Harbor, Sulfur Falls - Cheap duals since the M10 ones have been reprinted a bunch of times and the Innistrad ones rotated out of standard. They'll enter the battlefield tapped at the wrong times though, so when you obtain more powerful lands, these will usually be the first nonbasics you cut.
More graveyard hate - There aren't many creatures in RUG that hit graveyards. If your playgroup really love their graveyards, you can add cards like relic of progenitus that can exile graveyards while being a permanent for Primal Surge.
More sacrifice outlets - It's cool to sacrifice your general to recast him, but I'm a bit wary about adding too many sac outlets. This deck currently is poor at playing from behind, so sacrificing too many creatures can be a problem. Usually it's better to use bounce effects so you can just recast Wanderer, instead of having to pay the commander tax from him dying.
Tutors - There aren't many cards in RUG that can tutor and are also permanents that don't interfere with Primal Surge. If you don't want Primal Surge, then it opens up a lot more cards. Mystical Tutor is very interesting to cascade into (assuming you would also run Tooth and Nail), Gamble is fine, etc.
Token producers - Cards like Deranged Hermit and Siege-gang Commander are interesting, since Eldrazi Monument does like tokens to sacrifice to, and you have skullclamp. Still, I wouldn't play token producers unless you build around them more.
STRATEGY
Summary:
- Spend the first ~5 turns ramping and/or getting a cheap engine online.
- Flood the board with stuff and turn things sideways.
- Finish the game with Food Chain, Primal Surge, Craterhoof Behemoth, Avenger of Zendikar, Deadeye Navigator, or smacking with Wanderer given evasion
As Maelstrom Wanderer is an 8-mana engine, the biggest priority the deck has in the first ~5 turns is to ramp. If you get a starting hand with 3+ lands and 2+ ramp cards (that's not over 5 mana), you're sitting pretty. Getting a cheap engine online (such as Sylvan Library) can also smooth out your early draws.
In most cases, playing Wanderer ASAP is your best option. Chances are that whatever you hit in addition to Wanderer will be better than a single card in your hand. For example, Consecrated Sphinx is powerful, but if you have 8 mana and must decide whether to throw out the sphinx or Wanderer, and if Wanderer hits a Mulldrifter and some random other spell, the Wanderer probably gave you the better turn. However you have a handful of library manipulation spells as well, so if you have one in hand you can try to set it up to maximize your cascades. The obvious exceptions are when a card in your hand answers a specific threat that you need to deal with (say an opponent has Teferi out that would nullify your cascades entirely).
Once Wanderer is in play, just attack. A lot. Mass haste means you will constantly apply pressure, but haste alone will not let Wanderer finish the job, because it gets chump blocked easily. Try to get out something that can give it evasion (such as Akroma's Memorial or Thassa, or even trample off a Kessig Wolf Run), or have threat(s) that already have evasion and the haste they gain from Wanderer makes them potent (Avenger of Zendikar, big dragons, etc). This forces the opponents to spend a card dealing with whatever is giving Wanderer said evasion, or they'll have to kill Wanderer, which in most cases we are totally fine with as we can recast him for two more free cards.
The most consistent wins are with Food Chain or Primal Surge. Craterhoof is usually the way you actually kill someone, although Avenger swarms can do the trick. Sometimes you can also just smack with Wanderer 3 times and kill them with general damage that way, or just chipping away at opponents with your large creature suite, since you have a couple pieces to give evasion. Also, chaining ETB removal creatures, such as Venser, with Deadeye Navigator and alot of mana will demand an answer or you will just remove your opponents' boards.
In general, a really good Wanderer cascade can take someone out of the game quickly, but Food Chain and Primal Surge will really allow you to power through the table at the same time. Note that Food Chain by itself in this particular build is not a one-way ticket to infinite combo town; you need to cascade into the pieces (or have them already on the board), and every game will play differently - as is the nature of cascade - and you will need to figure out what to do with the pieces you hit. Sometimes you won't continue with Food Chain, and sometimes you will need to YOLO and go for it.
In most games you will be the target unless you are facing a tier 1 deck (Zur, etc). Wanderer will let you explode onto the board, and with greater board presence comes greater focus on you. Extremely bad cascades are embarrassing (say you hit two clone effects when there are no creatures in play at all), but most of the time you will put a ton of pressure on the board. Even if you only hit ramp spells, you still have a 7/5 beater that grants one-sided haste and your opponents can't just ignore it. If the Wanderer dies, the ramp spells you hit will allow you to recast Wanderer anyway. If you instead hit great cascades, I hope you enjoy Archenemy.
Wanderer into Time Warp into entwine'd Tooth and Nail causes a lot of rage. And dead players.
Primal Surge Math
The number of other nonpermanents you have left in your library obviously affects the outcome of the primal surge. The more nonpermanents you run, the longer your Primal Surge will have to wait (so you cast or draw into those nonpermanents beforehand) or risk whiffing.
Doing some quick math, and let's assume there are 80 cards in the library when you surge (changing this number does alter your chance to whiff, but it isn't significant unless it's a huge change).
When you have 1 other nonpermanent left in the deck...
5.7% chance whiff at 4 cards
10% chance at 7
20% at 14
25.7% at 18
50% at 35
When you have 2 other nonpermanents left in the deck...
5.7% chance whiff at 2 cards
11.1% at 4
21.7% at 8
26.7% at 10
51.3% at 21
At 3 other nonpermanents...
4.3% whiffing at 1 card (lol)
12.5% at 3
20.2% at 5
27.4% at 7
49.3% at 14
As you can see, having 2 nonpermanents over 1 nonpermanent results in having about half the number of cards revealed before hitting a dud (which makes sense because there are twice as many nonpermanents). The success rates at 3 nonpermanents are already pretty sketchy, and I would not even try at 4+ other nonpermanents.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF CURRENT VERSION
+ Resilience. Wanderer gives a ton of card advantage, and if one of the cascades is a draw spell, you will basically refill your hand and still end up with a threat in play. And you can just simply hardcast the engines too.
+ Redundancy. While certain cards are more powerful than others (such as Food Chain being probably the best card in the deck), the deck isn't focused around a single win con. It isn't a combo deck that crumbles when the wincons are stripped from the deck or destroyed. There are a handful of one-ofs that you do need to be careful about (such as Eternal Witness being the only real source of graveyard recursion).
+ Haste. The deck can frequently win in a single turn.
- Randomness. As is the nature of cascade, sometimes your cascades hit bombs, and sometimes they hit duds.
- Few board sweeps. It's difficult to fall behind, particularly because of the explosive nature of the deck, but if you fall behind, it's difficult to come back.
- Humility, Torpor Orb, etc. You win with creature beats and things that hinder creatures are problematic.
- Mana hate. Sweepers that hit your mana, cards that prevent you from getting mana, and so on are very problematic, since Wanderer costs so much mana, and Wanderer's ability to rebound depends solely on your mana being intact.
CHANGELOG
+ Paradox Engine
- Prime Speaker Zegana
12/7/16
+ Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
+ Faerie Artisans
+ Molten Primordial
- Carpet of Flowers
- Halimar Depths
- Balefire Dragon
Testing out Selvala. On paper she's a slow draw engine (that other players can sometimes utilize) and a relatively slow mana dork, but being able to do double duty has its merits. The dream is to have this out and Malignus, though obviously you can't expect that often.
Faerie Artisans has quickly caught my eye and I'm interested in testing it.
Carpet of Flowers has underperformed. Despite there being a bunch of blue decks in my group, not many of them are hyper cutthroat, and they often don't have more than 1 island out in the early turns which is when mana production from this card is the most important. Unless I'm up against monoblue, this card often doesn't do anything in the early turns which is where the 1-mana tag is at its most relevant.
Halimar Depths is fine, but it felt like the weakest land. Down to 36 lands is fine, but I really can't go below this.
Molten Primordial over Balefire dragon is just experimenting more at the top end of the curve.
3/22/16
+ Song of the Dryads
+ Trinket Mage
+ Mana Crypt
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Farhaven Elf
RIP Prophet.
Song of the Dryads is almost always better than Brutalizer Exarch. It's 3 less mana and can also hit creatures. Brutalizer Exarch can be fed to food chain, and sometimes tucking is better than turning the permanent into a forest, but Song of the Dryad is more efficient.
I finally bit the bullet and bought a mana crypt for this deck. I also will put Trinket mage back in, as playing him on 3 to find mana crypt is quite a valid play. Later in the game mage can still find me top or sol ring too.
I took out farhaven elf as it was one of the more boring ramp options. Finding lands is safe, but he never ramped hard. I'm keeping wood elves in for now because the forest ETBs untapped, which can make a difference.
5/6/15
+ Perilous Vault
+ Balefire Dragon
+ Frontier Siege
+ Teferi, Temporal Archmage
- Oblivion Stone
- Academy Ruins
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Acidic Slime
+ Added more to introduction, comparing Wanderer to other RUG generals
Perilous Vault is an easy swap that has slipped my mind. Exiling vs destroying is absolutely huge (I lost a game where this was relevant and it made me remember that Perilous Vault was printed), and while vault is 1 more mana, it's still fetchable off tezzeret, Wanderer still cascades into it, and activation for both artifacts is still 5 mana. Stone has the ability to pute fate counters on permanents, but normally, you'd rather just play and crack ASAP. Stone can also be recurred since Vault exiles itself, but I'll make my Eternal Witness worse if it means being better against every opponent.
Balefire Dragon is another fatty that has always caught my eye but never knew what to remove to make room for it. A large amount of small critters has given this deck some problems. I decided to cut Academy Ruins, since it doesn't manafix, and with the removal of oblivion stone (to make room for perilous vault which obviously cannot be recurred), I decided that Ruins wasn't good enough. It can recur pod but that's really it. In the meantime, Dragon is a repeatable sweeper when it connects. 7-mana is hefty AND it needs to connect with a player, but Wanderer cascades into it and also gives some much needed haste.
Frontier Siege replaced Garruk. Frontier Siege isn't particularly good but it does normally give the same amount of mana Garruk would (unless Garruk is untapping Ancient Tomb/Temple of the False God) and gives GG on all your main phases. In addition Frontier Siege is usually less likely to die than Garruk. Since this deck wants to be attacking often, this left Garruk open for counterattacks. Garruk's better in decks that want to play defensively and then go for an alpha strike in one turn where you can ultimate him.
I'm also trying out Teferi planeswalker. He sounds like a fairer version of Mind over Matter. The -1 is certainly powerful, although at 6 mana you get what you pay for. I decided to take out Acidic Slime, since it basically fills the same role that Brutalizer Exarch does except not as efficiently.
With the land cut, the land count is down to 37, which is still healthy. Just mulligan for lands a little more aggressively. After you hit your first 4-5 land drops it's okay to miss a few beyond that because there's alot of ramp to give you mana, and there's some good mid-lategame draw power to get more lands.
12/15/14
+ Basalt Monolith
+ Frontier Bivouac
+ Bloodstained Mire
+ Windswept Heath
+ Polluted Delta
+ Flooded Strand
+ Verdant Catacombs
+ Myriad Landscape
+ Clever Impersonator
+ 1 island
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
- 3 Forest
- Mosswort Bridge
- Spinerock Knoll
- Phantasmal Image
- Hinterland Harbor
- Rootbound Crag
- Sulfur Falls
Rofellos got all-banned now (as opposed to mostly banned). With mostly banned, he's still playable in the 99. All banned, well, there's only one thing you can do; swap in another ramp spell and hope for the best.
Khans brought in good lands. The tri-land is great mana fixing, while the fetchland reprints drops their price to something more reasonable while giving value to Lotus Cobra, Scroll Rack, etc. I also squeezed in Verdant Catacombs now that I see that every fetchland counts.
Also putting in Myriad Landscape. There are enough basics to get it reliably in the early-midgame, and by lategame if there are no basics left, just don't crack it, you probably have perfect color mana already anyway.
To make room for all the land switches, I cut down a few forests (because Rofellos is gone), put in an additional island, and took out the M10/Innistrad lands. They ETB'd tapped in the 1st turn which can be annoying, and unlike Myriad Landscape they weren't ramp on a land.
The hideaway lands were cut. They're okay because free spells are cool, but the deck's biggest priority is getting to 8 mana. There's enough draw power and filtering to be able to get good stuff after that. Coming into play tapped and not color fixing is a problem. Also, you don't usually get the free spells until Wanderer comes into play.
I still really like Phantasmal Image, but with Clever Impersonator printed, I felt like this was an easy swap. For starters, Image being 2-mana isn't the most relevant thing in Wanderer because it's not something you usually play early on. Later, it's always a weaker cascade than Clever Impersonator. Finally, my playgroup has added more and more cards that can repeatedly target something (Mother of Runes, Staff of Nin, etc.) where this would just die. I still like Image in my white decks because Sun Titan can recur it so easily, but in RUG, it won't have enough upside compared to Impersonator.
9/5/14
+ Grim Monolith
+ Dack Fayden
+ Malignus
- Karametra's Acolyte
- Hellkite Tyrant
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Hellkite Tyrant isn't a bad card, but its main purpose is to steal artifacts. With the printing of Dack Fayden, who largely does the same thing except at 3 less mana, it sounds like a good opportunity to test out Dack. Just remember that when you play Dack Fayden to steal a mana rock in the first few turns, opponents will tap it in response (very awkward if it happens to be mana vault or grim monolith).
I'm cutting Kiki-Jiki because it can be an awkward cascade. Copying mana dorks doesn't really do anything, and it can't copy legendary creatures like Venser, so there's actually not that many good choices for it.
In its place I'm trying Malignus. I wasn't high on this guy (right now I'm still not) because it has no innate evasion, but several people (including ambivalentduck, who has by far the most active Wanderer topic right now) are very happy with it. Much like Hellkite Tyrant, the fact that Wanderer can give it haste is a nice boon to trying out Malignus.
I also got a Grim Monolith (I used to have one and it disappeared, I guess I traded it away, so I had to get another one), so it's automatically coming in. I'm taking out Karametra's Acolyte because I feel like it's probably the worst ramp spell in my deck.
2/23/14
+ Acidic Slime
+ Hellkite Tyrant
+ Mosswort Bridge
+ Spinerock Knoll
+ Mana Vault
- Sylvan Primordial
- Defense of the Heart
- Forbidden Orchard
- Fierce Empath
- 1 Forest
teh banhammer on Primordial.
Acidic Slime was slotted back in to replace Sylvan Primordial for now.
Hellkite Tyrant is being tested just because. I don't know how good it'll actually be, but with Wanderer giving it haste, the potential is there.
Defense of the Heart's cut sounds extremely odd on paper, but you have to believe me when I say that the card is much better in theory than in reality, and that most of the streamlined Wanderer decks on this site also don't have this card. The obvious theory behind Defense is that it's basically a 4-mana Tooth and Nail. But in practice, one of several things ends up happening...
1) When you play it too early, opponents play around it, making sure not to have 3 creatures in play by your next upkeep. This slows down the creature decks a bit but usually by not a lot (and for those that don't play a lot of creatures they don't care).
2) Opponents play a 1-for-1 spell to remove it.
3) No one at the table is somehow capable of killing it before your next turn, in which case you could have won with a lot of different cards in place of Defense.
The way to get ahead in a multiplayer game is to accelerate yourself to a huge game-winning situation, or to slow down all threatening opponents. When Defense dies, usually it's because someone threw a spot removal at it, so you took out one card from an opponent's hand but the other players did not lose anything.
With Defense out, Forbidden Orchard is an awkward play. The 1/1s can chump block Wanderer most of the time, which is a problem.
In Forbidden Orchard's place I'll test Mosswort Bridge. Coming into play tapped is a huge tempo problem, much like Halimar Depths, but there's a lot of potential. I might as well test Spinerock Knoll as well, and that will replace 1 forest.
Fierce Empath was cut after a little more testing. It used to be decent because it could get Primeval Titan. And then Sylvan Primordial. Until both got banned. It's still okay but the cards it finds are mostly value cards that get me a random bomb card or a draw spell.
Mana Vault is thrown in now. While it doesn't help power out your other ramp spells, it knocks so much off the Wanderer clock that it's worth playing. Sometimes a fast Consecrated Sphinx is nice too.
1/30/14
+ Thada Adel, Acquisitor
+ Rhystic Study
+ scalding tarn
- Yavimaya Elder
- Mimic Vat
- basics
Thada Adel is being tested. On paper it's a slow but reusable tutor. While you need to hit with it, if no player has islands then you are already in good shape.
Rhystic study is being tested. On paper is a good draw engine and it's always a strong early play. Since Wanderer is all about being explosive, Rhystic Study lets you refill your hand quickly, and if your opponents decide to keep paying the 1, they will fall behind in board presence.
Scalding Tarn was added since I finally found one. I may add additional fetches later, but the three that are in Wanderer's colors are the important ones.
Yavimaya Elder was cut for Thada Adel. It wasn't a bad card, as any card that is a 3-for-1 and 3 mana can't be bad. However it was never a threatening bomb and it didn't ramp directly. I may put this back in later but for now it was expendable.
Mimic vat is being cut to make room for Rhystic Study. It's very powerful but out of the draw engines already in the deck, it has one of the weakest synergies. Things like Sylvan library and Jace allow library manipulation which work well with Wanderer, and things like Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio allow multiple castings of Wanderer. Mimic vat is not a particularly useful early turn play (compared to Sylvan Library and Jace), and it usually isn't as explosive as other engines (like Crystal Shard). Mimic vat is one of my pet cards so it may find its way back into the list eventually, but for now I'm testing Rhystic Study.
For some reason the basics I listed in the decklist were not the same as what I had in the deck. I modified the decklist to 3 islands/3 mountains/8 forests.
12/28/13
+ Mana Reflection
+ Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Time Warp
+ Kessig Wolf Run
+ Rootbound Crag
+ Sulfur Falls
+ Hinterland Harbor
+ Wooded Foothills
+ misty Rainforest
- Boundless Realms
- Progenitor Mimic
- Yavimaya Dryad
- Coiling Oracle
- 3 Forest
- 2 Island
- 1 Mountain
I really liked Boundless Realms because it was such a silly card, and it was a subtheme in the deck, but I must come to terms with reality; in a Primal Surge deck, the whiff potential does not make up for its upside, not when a card like Mana Reflection (or even Vorinclex) exist to fill a similar role in being a lategame huge mana acceleration card. While I'm also on the fence about Primal Surge, Boundless Realms really doesn't belong for as long as Primal Surge is in the deck. I've tried Vorinclex before and it draws a lot of (well-deserved) hate. Mana Reflection is a little harder to kill and Wanderer can cascade into it, so I'll try out that instead.
With Boundless Realms out I can experiment with additional nonbasics. Kessig Wolf Run gives a land-based way to help push through damage with Wanderer. Since I'm adding lands that make colorless mana, I have to buff the mana base, so I threw in the taplands from M10 and Innistrad, and I got the RG and UG fetchlands. 6 basics get cut to make room for these.
Time Warp is being tried as the deck can usually afford 2 nonpermanents to go with Primal Surge. It's also one of the most backbreaking cards to hit when attempting to Food Chain combo.
Kiki-Jiki is being tested largely because the deck has a serious shortage of 5-mana creatures, which makes pod chains incredibly awkward. Triple-red in the mana cost is a problem to reach, but it is very powerful. I'm not a fan of 2-card infinites so I won't be sticking cards like Zealous Conscripts in here, but I'm open to having a clone on them with Kiki-Jiki out...
Carpet of Flowers is being tested. It's a 1-mana card that has the potential to add quite a bit of mana. While it only works if there's an actual blue opponent, if no one is blue that means no counterspells so you already have a pretty good chance at winning anyway. Even if there are blue opponents, this stops them from playing extra islands which reduces their countermagic.
Progenitor Mimic is being cut. When Wanderer cascades into it, often it's not copying something backbreaking unless it's late in the game, and often it will copy some random 3 or 4 mana dork I have when I was ramping to Wanderer. While it's gamebreaking if it copies something great like Sylvan Primordial, the deck has no shortage of lategame power. Plus this is largely to make space for the 5-mana creature I want to use to make a smoother pod curve (which right now is Kiki-Jiki).
Yavimaya Dryad is being cut because I have two other 3-drop elves that ramp for one land, and I don't need a third. Rather I should get a few more cards that can ramp harder to reduce the Wanderer clock. Plus double-green on a 3-drop can be hard to reach at times.
Coiling Oracle is cut because it's not a reliable ramp card.
12/14/13
+ Fire-lit Thicket
+ Flooded Grove
+ Ancient Tomb
+ Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+ Karametra's Acolyte
- Vivid Grove
- Vivid Creek
- Vivid Crag
- Skullclamp
- Trinket Mage
I decided to get the two missing filter lands to complement Cascade Bluffs. They're not cheap, but the mana fixing is required, and vivids are very bad tempo plays.
Ancient Tomb is basically a better Temple of the False God.
Rofellos is not nearly as bonkers as he is in a monogreen deck, but there should still be enough forests to tap for 2-3 mana on a 2-drop early on, which is more than enough.
In a similar vein, Karametra's Acolyte is being tested. It starts as an expensive Llanowar Elf/Greenweaver Druid, but once devotion is 4 or greater it's a decent card.
Skullclamp got cut. There are fewer than 10 creatures that I really like clamping away; things like clamping Birds of Paradise are only desperate measures and not something I want to do often. It's not as abusive as it can be in a token deck and doesn't play to its potential power level. Normally I'd rather have another ramp spell in place of skullclamp early in the game unless I also have the 1-toughness creatures I want to clamp away as well.
With skullclamp out, I can relatively safely cut Trinket Mage. It's either a 4 mana sol ring or 4 mana top and those plays are fine but not great.
12/2/13
+ Garruk Wildspeaker
+ Thassa, God of the Sea
+ Equilibirum
- Mindclaw Shaman
- Dawntreader Elk
- Greenweaver Druid
One of the problems with a fast Maelstrom Wanderer is that while haste is strong, lack of evasion means it can get chump blocked. Playing ramp to hit Wanderer quickly is a strong gameplan, but if you can't close the game out quickly, your opponents can get back into the game very fast. One way to fix that is to make sure Wanderer's hits are always threatening.
What Garruk Wildspeaker does is do both things the deck wants; early ramp and get trampling damage through. It's not guaranteed to survive to do its -4, and +3/+3 is not big enough to let just Wanderer finish the job (you need some kind of army out), but at 4 mana you can't ask for more.
Thassa is also something that I want to test. Making Wanderer unblockable is a sure way to close out the game quickly while being difficult to kill herself. She doesn't technically ramp, but when she's played on turn 3 she can fix draws to help find ramp/land cards, and once you have enough mana around she can tuck the now-dead ramp/land cards to find finishers.
Equilibrium is being tested. On paper it's basically a repeatable crystal shard that doesn't have the "unless you pay 1" clause.
Mindclaw Shaman is getting axed quickly. It's amazing value if it hits well. But there are many times where it's a whiff or you steal something minor. It doesn't really fill an important role; it's more of a value card with high variance. Maelstrom Wanderer already has high variance due to how cascade works, and while it's fun to have the randomness around, sometimes getting reliability is important too. Basically it was fairly rare where I wanted to play this card because it did something very important, as opposed to playing it and hoping for value.
Dawntreader Elk is axed. Garruk is a piece of ramp, so I can remove one ramp card existing, and Dawntreader Elk is probably the weakest ramp card.
Greenweaver Druid is getting the axe just because. Ramp is always nice, but this is one of the more unimpressive ramp cards.
10/12/13
+ Prophet of Kruphix
+ Shivan Reef
+ Yavimaya Coast
- Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 1 island
- 1 Forest
I've been wanting to test a Seedborne Muse type card. Prophet of Kruphix seems like a great fit without having to stretch the deck around it (whereas you need some flash enablers to fully utilize Seedborne Muse). While it doesn't untap mana rocks, you get an effect similar to Reset/Sword of Feast and Famine/Mirari's Wake on everyone else's turn. The deck has fairly strong draw power, so this will let you flood the board very quickly.
Teferi will be removed for the Prophet. Teferi was used for protecting on Food Chain/Primal Surge turns, until I realized that doing so would cause the deck to centralize around those themes. While that's not actually a bad thing in terms of trying to make a competitive deck, I personally want to try and win in different ways whenever possible, as whenever I play EDH there are no actual prizes to play and it's only for fun and pride, and I find no joy in winning games with exactly the same way.
Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast are duals. 1 Island and 1 forest are removed for them.
9/10/13
+ Chromatic Lantern
+ Gilded Lotus
+ Thran Dynamo
+ Tooth and Nail
+ Mindclaw Shaman
+ Defense of the Heart
+ Forbidden Orchard
- Molten Primordial
- Veteran Explorer
- Acidic Slime
- Genesis
- Diluvian Primordial
- Greater Good
- Forest
Chromatic Lantern is included because with a Boundless Realms deck in 3-color, color screw is an actual thing. It also just ramps by itself too.
Gilded Lotus is another ramp spell that I'm testing specifically because of Tezzeret. 5 mana is a lot, but being able to play the lotus plus a smaller drop with the lotus mana is a good tempo play.
Thran Dynamo is more redundancy in both ramp and targets for Tezzeret's +1. If you also have the correct colors in lands, this alone on turn 4 with zero other ramp can enable a turn 5 Wanderer. Also like with Lotus, playing this then having a 3-drop is a good tempo play, although because it does only make colorless that's less likely to happen.
Tooth and Nail is being tested in this build. It interfers with Primal Surge, and paying the entwine cost is sometimes troublesome, but hitting it for full value is great value.
Mindclaw Shaman is being tested in place of Diluvian Primordial, mostly because I need a few more options at 5 mana than at 7 for a birthing pod curve.
Defense of the Heart is being tested just because. I'm also testing Forbidden Orchard because of this card too.
Molten Primordial was cool with Food Chain, and occasionally could catch an opponent out of nowhere as you steal a bunch of creatures and swing for a ton of extra power, but outside of that it was never a particularly strong draw or cascade.
Veteran Explorer was cut because of the increasing popularity of Wanderer itself. People find out how strong the deck is, and powering everyone else can be a problem. Explorer is cool in a group-hug deck (usually the hippo), but not here.
Acidic Slime is honest removal, but Brutalizer Exarch did about the same thing except better since it could hit planeswalkers and also get around indestructible/graveyard recursion. Wanting to test out new things, I cut this guy.
Genesis is, on paper, a strong card. The issue is that the deck has a lot of redundancy and draw power (due to Wanderer giving card advantage and having a plethora of engines in the deck, probably more than what's really needed), and that I rarely find myself recurring a creature because it did something important, but rather that I had nothing better to spend 2G on for the turn. I don't think there's a single creature in this deck that is so important that I would want to recur it rather than play something else from my hand, assuming I have relevant cards left in my hand. In other words, Genesis' ability isn't really relevant unless Wanderer is stuck in play and I have a worthless hand and I don't have any permanents in play to sink my mana in.
Diluvian Primordial has potential to be very powerful. One of the problems though is that you rarely get the sweet spells like time warp or tooth and nail, because if those cards would be in a graveyard they're usually there because someone cast them, in which case you would probably be dead before you even got to play the primordial in the first place. (Occasionally they get milled into the graveyard, or the player has to discard them for whatever reason.) Mindclaw is tested over it because it's more likely that the sweet spells are sitting in someone's hand, and while Mindclaw is less reliable than something like Knowledge Exploitation, it's a permanent so it doesn't interfere with Primal Surge.
Greater Good is a strong card, but the real plan behind Greater Good is to get creatures in the graveyard (rather than get them exiled or stolen or cloned or whatever), and thus it fits decks that want to use the graveyard as a resource. Wanderer, however, would rather use the top of the library as a resource, and you don't quite need to do both. With Genesis also going out there's almost no graveyard recursion at all.
1 Forest was cut for the Forbidden Orchard.
This update I'm not 100% sure about. In a deck that has Food Chain and Animar, cutting creatures to put in noncreatures could be a problem. Granted, the added cards have synergy with other cards (such as the mana rocks with Tezzeret), but it must be noted. Most importantly is that all the added cards do have power on their own and are simply boosted with the proper synergy.
8/7/13
+ Teferi, mage of Zhalfir
+ Tezzeret the Seeker
+ Veteran Explorer
+ Dawntreader Elk
+ Greenweaver Druid
+ Lotus Cobra
+ Joraga Treespeaker
- Steel Hellkite
- Fabricate
- Shardless Agent
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Edric, Spymaster of Trest
- Deadwood Treefolk
- Wonder
This edition really made me realize that Wanderer is all about ramp. I prefer to play with creatures if possible, mostly because they can be exiled with Food Chain (for more mana), but I am attempting to make the deck more streamlined to power out Wanderer quickly.
Edric, Deadwood, and Wonder felt like do-nothings most of the time. Wonder was clunky, Edric usuaully doesn't do anything without wonder in the graveyard, and Deadwood was a very bad early Wanderer Cascade. Deadwood (and Genesis) are also awkward with Food Chain because then nothing goes into the graveyard, and the deck doesn't really need recursion desperately.
In their place I put in more ramp. Lotus Cobra is not utilized to its full potential because I don't have the fetches to power it, but it can still ramp decently without them. Joraga Treespeaker is oddly enough something I had cut earlier.
I'm testing out Teferi. I don't have anything broken with Teferi (such as knowledge pool), but it is more or less a Grand Abolisher on the turn when I'm attempting to finish the game. It also will force control players to deal with it.
Tezzeret is basically a better Fabricate. I have no idea why I never thought of Tezzeret until now. With Fabricate gone, the Primal Surge only has to worry about hitting Boundless Realms.
Steel Hellkite isn't bad, but I'm just testing cards and decided to cut him for no real reason.
Bloodbraid and Shardless were cut for reliability. The main gameplan is to just ramp quickly and get Wanderer out quickly, and while these two always gave good value (in a void, whatever you cascade into would be card advantage), I could not count on them for getting me ramp cards. Their bodies are also not particularly relevant in EDH. They also whiffed sometimes, such as Bloodbraid cascading into Eternal Witness when your graveyard is empty and while similar things could happen with Wanderer, the dead cascades can happen more often with Bloodbraid/Shardless (e.g. suppose 40 cards have CMC 7 or less versus 20 cards have CMC 3 or less, 1/40 chance to hit Eternal Witness in an empty graveyard vs 1/20 chance).
7/15/13
+ vivid Crag
+ Vivid Creek
+ Vivid Grove
+ Cloudstone Curio
- 1 Island
- 1 Forest
- 1 Mountain
- Erratic Portal
Cloudstone Curio replaced Erratic Portal, because Curio is basically Portal/Crystal Shard that can be used more than once per turn.
The lands are just more color fixing. There's still over 20 basics so Boundless Realms should still get a lot of lands out.
6/6/2013
+ Prime Speaker Zegana
+ Yaviyama Dryad
+ Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+ Progenitor Mimic
+ Animar, Soul of Elements
- Veteran Explorer
- Woodfall Primus
- Jin gitaxias, core augur
- Loaming Shaman
- Brainstorm
I cut out some of the top end of the curve because I felt like when I had that much mana at that point, I would usually rather cast my general over one of these two. Craterhoof Behemoth stays in though because of how it can just end the game immediately. Jin Gitaxias in particular gets Bribery'd a lot.
Loaming Shaman was cut because it filled the same function as Scavenging Ooze except the Ooze is generally better, and right now I didn't need two sources of graveyard hate as long as the Ooze is played at the proper time.
Yavimaya Dryad was added because it's more ramp on a creature. You usually won't give the forest to another player, but maybe you could get into a situation that called for it (say 2-headed giant).
Zegana is being tested, but right now it's a little awkward as if you cascade into it, Zegana enters the battlefield before Wanderer. It's basically another consecrated sphinx though.
Jace was moved from my Progenitus deck to this one, as Wanderer can benefit from Jace more due to setting up cascade triggers. Therefore I cut Brainstorm as well.
Progenitor Mimic is being tested; on paper it's really sweet. But it might be too slow. This may be better in a Reveilark deck because this card has 0 power.
Animar is tested as another ramp source; I'm quite impressed with Somberwald Sage, and this guy will function as something better once it gets just a few creature spells going.
2/6/2013
+ Food Chain
+ Erratic Portal
+ Sylvan Primordial
+ Diluvian Primordial
+ Molten Primordial
- Abundance
- Lurking Predators
- Sphinx of Uthuun
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
Food Chain was suggested several other users to get an explosive turn. It's also the big reason why Molten Primordial is also getting tested as well. As well as Erratic Portal being a second Crystal Shard.
The other two primordials are being used just because the primordials in general are too good to pass up in EDH.
Abundance was cut because it felt very weak without Sylvan Library in play.
Lurking Predators did fit the theme of manipulating the library, but it took a little too much work.
Sphinx of Uthuun was cut because with 3 primordials, ingester, and avenger, that's a little too top heavy. It may get put in again later though.
Two lands were cut, because the deck still has 38 lands, which is okay. Just mulligan for lands more aggressively.
12/28/12
+ Birds of Paradise
+ Deadwood Treefolk
+ Abundance
+ Sphinx of Uthuun
+ Steel Hellkite
+ Cascade Bluffs
+ karplusan Forest
+ City of Brass
- Joraga Treespeaker
- Zealous Conscripts
- Aethersnipe
- Krosan Tusker
- Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
- 1 Island
- 1 Mountain
- 1 Forest
Birds is replacing Treespeaker because the color fixing does matter, and it can produce mana without an investment (for example, if you tap out for Maelstrom Wanderer and you hit a Birds of Paradise, it can still make mana so you can activate a fauna shaman or birthing pod or crystal shard or whatever). You can also clamp it at any time, while clamp won't instantly kill treespeaker. Treespeaker eventually ramps harder though.
Deadwood treefolk gave some more graveyard recursion beyond Genesis. I think at two different cards it's a bit better, since at just one card filling a role it's a little sketch, especially since Genesis requires 3 mana to recur for the turn.
Abundance is just silly with Sylvan Library. However, the deck also tends to get mana flooded, since it runs 40 lands. This can help you get more usable cards, and if needed you can get a land drop.
Sphinx wasn't really put in because of how good it is (there aren't that many ways to recur from the graveyard for this deck, making fact or fiction a tad weaker), but rather I wanted to try something over Vorinclex.
Steel Hellkite was put in because the deck felt like it needed some more sweepers, or sweeping effects. It's not reliable, but it's still a beater that enemies have to deal with.
After more playing, it's quite possible to get color screwed early on due to not enough nonbasics. I added three that I happened to have in my stash and cut 1 of each basic. There's still 29 basics, or almost 75% of the whole mana base; more than enough to satisfy Boundless Realms.
Zealous Conscripts is funny, but its best role is to steal planeswalkers. It felt a little too narrow because planeswalkers don't usually last long enough to steal and ultimate them.
Aethersnipe felt somewhat superfluous. At the 6 mana slot, Brutalizer Exarch filled the role better (it couldn't hit creatures, but tucking is better than bouncing, and the Exarch can occasionally Worldly Tutor), and there's enough removal from mana costs 3-8 that this felt like the weakest removal spell.
Krosan Tusker was never disappointing. But it was never stellar either.
Vorinclex has always felt suspectible. It doesn't win the game immediately, and it has no protection so it quickly dies.
12/12/12
+ Wonder
+ Academy Ruins
- Garruk, Primal Hunter
- 1 Island
After a little more testing, flying really does wonders. Makes a good alpha strike after cascading with Maelstrom Wanderer, or just letting all your Avenger tokens fly over, or getting early attacks with an Edric out.
The Academy Ruins is pretty nice with Birthing Pod, Oblivion Stone, Skullclamp, and other artifacts.
Garruk has good value. He's awesome to draw 7, especially if you cascade into him, and the ultimate with mass haste out ends the game. But he just didn't feel like he had great synergy with the deck.
I took out an island for the ruins because there's enough basics left to fetch out with Boundless Realms.
12/8/12
+ Oblivion Stone
+ Fabricate
+ Glen Elendra Archmage
+ Lurking Predators
- Kederekt Leviathan
- Kozilek's Predator
- Emrakul's Hatcher
- Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
Oblivion Stone replaced Kederekt Leviathan because the latter is awkward to Primal Surge into. Oblivion Stone is also better at removing things because it doesn't simply bounce them.
Fabricate was put in, despite being a nonpermanent, because with the addition of stone, there are enough artifacts in the deck where this is worth using.
Glen Elendra Archmage was put in as a counter, something this deck appreciates.
Lurking Predators is currently being tested, but in theory it works in a heavy-creature deck and some library manipulation for the general.
The Leviathan was cut as said earlier.
The eldrazi spawns got the axe; they just didn't feel very strong.
The sorcerer got axed because the body isn't worth the cascade, and the whiffs do kinda suck.
11/27/12
Version 1.0
SET REVIEWS
Khans of Tarkir and Commander 2014
Magic 2015
Fate Reforged
Dragons of Tarkir
Magic Origins
Battle for Zendikar
Commander 2015
Oath of the Gatewatch
Shadows over Innistrad
Eldritch Moon
Conspiracy Take the Crown
Kaladesh
Commander 2016
Aether Revolt
Amonkhet
Hour of Devastation
Commander 2017
Ixalan
Rivals of Ixalan
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
3/22/16
+ Song of the Dryads
+ Trinket Mage
+ Mana Crypt
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Brutalizer Exarch
- Farhaven Elf
RIP Prophet.
Song of the Dryads is almost always better than Brutalizer Exarch. It's 3 less mana and can also hit creatures. Brutalizer Exarch can be fed to food chain, and sometimes tucking is better than turning the permanent into a forest, but Song of the Dryad is more efficient.
I finally bit the bullet and bought a mana crypt for this deck. I also will put Trinket mage back in, as playing him on 3 to find mana crypt is quite a valid play. Later in the game mage can still find me top or sol ring too.
I took out farhaven elf as it was one of the more boring ramp options. Finding lands is safe, but he never ramped hard. I'm keeping wood elves in for now because the forest ETBs untapped, which can make a difference.
5/6/15
+ Perilous Vault
+ Balefire Dragon
+ Frontier Siege
+ Teferi, Temporal Archmage
- Oblivion Stone
- Academy Ruins
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Acidic Slime
+ Added more to introduction, comparing Wanderer to other RUG generals
Perilous Vault is an easy swap that has slipped my mind. Exiling vs destroying is absolutely huge (I lost a game where this was relevant and it made me remember that Perilous Vault was printed), and while vault is 1 more mana, it's still fetchable off tezzeret, Wanderer still cascades into it, and activation for both artifacts is still 5 mana. Stone has the ability to pute fate counters on permanents, but normally, you'd rather just play and crack ASAP. Stone can also be recurred since Vault exiles itself, but I'll make my Eternal Witness worse if it means being better against every opponent.
Balefire Dragon is another fatty that has always caught my eye but never knew what to remove to make room for it. A large amount of small critters has given this deck some problems. I decided to cut Academy Ruins, since it doesn't manafix, and with the removal of oblivion stone (to make room for perilous vault which obviously cannot be recurred), I decided that Ruins wasn't good enough. It can recur pod but that's really it. In the meantime, Dragon is a repeatable sweeper when it connects. 7-mana is hefty AND it needs to connect with a player, but Wanderer cascades into it and also gives some much needed haste.
Frontier Siege replaced Garruk. Frontier Siege isn't particularly good but it does normally give the same amount of mana Garruk would (unless Garruk is untapping Ancient Tomb/Temple of the False God) and gives GG on all your main phases. In addition Frontier Siege is usually less likely to die than Garruk. Since this deck wants to be attacking often, this left Garruk open for counterattacks. Garruk's better in decks that want to play defensively and then go for an alpha strike in one turn where you can ultimate him.
I'm also trying out Teferi planeswalker. He sounds like a fairer version of Mind over Matter. The -1 is certainly powerful, although at 6 mana you get what you pay for. I decided to take out Acidic Slime, since it basically fills the same role that Brutalizer Exarch does except not as efficiently.
With the land cut, the land count is down to 37, which is still healthy. Just mulligan for lands a little more aggressively. After you hit your first 4-5 land drops it's okay to miss a few beyond that because there's alot of ramp to give you mana, and there's some good mid-lategame draw power to get more lands.
12/15/14
+ Basalt Monolith
+ Frontier Bivouac
+ Bloodstained Mire
+ Windswept Heath
+ Polluted Delta
+ Flooded Strand
+ Verdant Catacombs
+ Myriad Landscape
+ Clever Impersonator
+ 1 island
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
- 3 Forest
- Mosswort Bridge
- Spinerock Knoll
- Phantasmal Image
- Hinterland Harbor
- Rootbound Crag
- Sulfur Falls
Rofellos got all-banned now (as opposed to mostly banned). With mostly banned, he's still playable in the 99. All banned, well, there's only one thing you can do; swap in another ramp spell and hope for the best.
Khans brought in good lands. The tri-land is great mana fixing, while the fetchland reprints drops their price to something more reasonable while giving value to Lotus Cobra, Scroll Rack, etc. I also squeezed in Verdant Catacombs now that I see that every fetchland counts.
Also putting in Myriad Landscape. There are enough basics to get it reliably in the early-midgame, and by lategame if there are no basics left, just don't crack it, you probably have perfect color mana already anyway.
To make room for all the land switches, I cut down a few forests (because Rofellos is gone), put in an additional island, and took out the M10/Innistrad lands. They ETB'd tapped in the 1st turn which can be annoying, and unlike Myriad Landscape they weren't ramp on a land.
The hideaway lands were cut. They're okay because free spells are cool, but the deck's biggest priority is getting to 8 mana. There's enough draw power and filtering to be able to get good stuff after that. Coming into play tapped and not color fixing is a problem. Also, you don't usually get the free spells until Wanderer comes into play.
I still really like Phantasmal Image, but with Clever Impersonator printed, I felt like this was an easy swap. For starters, Image being 2-mana isn't the most relevant thing in Wanderer because it's not something you usually play early on. Later, it's always a weaker cascade than Clever Impersonator. Finally, my playgroup has added more and more cards that can repeatedly target something (Mother of Runes, Staff of Nin, etc.) where this would just die. I still like Image in my white decks because Sun Titan can recur it so easily, but in RUG, it won't have enough upside compared to Impersonator.
9/5/14
+ Grim Monolith
+ Dack Fayden
+ Malignus
- Karametra's Acolyte
- Hellkite Tyrant
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Hellkite Tyrant isn't a bad card, but its main purpose is to steal artifacts. With the printing of Dack Fayden, who largely does the same thing except at 3 less mana, it sounds like a good opportunity to test out Dack. Just remember that when you play Dack Fayden to steal a mana rock in the first few turns, opponents will tap it in response (very awkward if it happens to be mana vault or grim monolith).
I'm cutting Kiki-Jiki because it can be an awkward cascade. Copying mana dorks doesn't really do anything, and it can't copy legendary creatures like Venser, so there's actually not that many good choices for it.
In its place I'm trying Malignus. I wasn't high on this guy (right now I'm still not) because it has no innate evasion, but several people (including ambivalentduck, who has by far the most active Wanderer topic right now) are very happy with it. Much like Hellkite Tyrant, the fact that Wanderer can give it haste is a nice boon to trying out Malignus.
I also got a Grim Monolith (I used to have one and it disappeared, I guess I traded it away, so I had to get another one), so it's automatically coming in. I'm taking out Karametra's Acolyte because I feel like it's probably the worst ramp spell in my deck.
2/23/14
+ Acidic Slime
+ Hellkite Tyrant
+ Mosswort Bridge
+ Spinerock Knoll
+ Mana Vault
- Sylvan Primordial
- Defense of the Heart
- Forbidden Orchard
- Fierce Empath
- 1 Forest
teh banhammer on Primordial.
Acidic Slime was slotted back in to replace Sylvan Primordial for now.
Hellkite Tyrant is being tested just because. I don't know how good it'll actually be, but with Wanderer giving it haste, the potential is there.
Defense of the Heart's cut sounds extremely odd on paper, but you have to believe me when I say that the card is much better in theory than in reality, and that most of the streamlined Wanderer decks on this site also don't have this card. The obvious theory behind Defense is that it's basically a 4-mana Tooth and Nail. But in practice, one of several things ends up happening...
1) When you play it too early, opponents play around it, making sure not to have 3 creatures in play by your next upkeep. This slows down the creature decks a bit but usually by not a lot (and for those that don't play a lot of creatures they don't care).
2) Opponents play a 1-for-1 spell to remove it.
3) No one at the table is somehow capable of killing it before your next turn, in which case you could have won with a lot of different cards in place of Defense.
The way to get ahead in a multiplayer game is to accelerate yourself to a huge game-winning situation, or to slow down all threatening opponents. When Defense dies, usually it's because someone threw a spot removal at it, so you took out one card from an opponent's hand but the other players did not lose anything.
With Defense out, Forbidden Orchard is an awkward play. The 1/1s can chump block Wanderer most of the time, which is a problem.
In Forbidden Orchard's place I'll test Mosswort Bridge. Coming into play tapped is a huge tempo problem, much like Halimar Depths, but there's a lot of potential. I might as well test Spinerock Knoll as well, and that will replace 1 forest.
Fierce Empath was cut after a little more testing. It used to be decent because it could get Primeval Titan. And then Sylvan Primordial. Until both got banned. It's still okay but the cards it finds are mostly value cards that get me a random bomb card or a draw spell.
Mana Vault is thrown in now. While it doesn't help power out your other ramp spells, it knocks so much off the Wanderer clock that it's worth playing. Sometimes a fast Consecrated Sphinx is nice too.
1/30/14
+ Thada Adel, Acquisitor
+ Rhystic Study
+ scalding tarn
- Yavimaya Elder
- Mimic Vat
- basics
Thada Adel is being tested. On paper it's a slow but reusable tutor. While you need to hit with it, if no player has islands then you are already in good shape.
Rhystic study is being tested. On paper is a good draw engine and it's always a strong early play. Since Wanderer is all about being explosive, Rhystic Study lets you refill your hand quickly, and if your opponents decide to keep paying the 1, they will fall behind in board presence.
Scalding Tarn was added since I finally found one. I may add additional fetches later, but the three that are in Wanderer's colors are the important ones.
Yavimaya Elder was cut for Thada Adel. It wasn't a bad card, as any card that is a 3-for-1 and 3 mana can't be bad. However it was never a threatening bomb and it didn't ramp directly. I may put this back in later but for now it was expendable.
Mimic vat is being cut to make room for Rhystic Study. It's very powerful but out of the draw engines already in the deck, it has one of the weakest synergies. Things like Sylvan library and Jace allow library manipulation which work well with Wanderer, and things like Crystal Shard and Cloudstone Curio allow multiple castings of Wanderer. Mimic vat is not a particularly useful early turn play (compared to Sylvan Library and Jace), and it usually isn't as explosive as other engines (like Crystal Shard). Mimic vat is one of my pet cards so it may find its way back into the list eventually, but for now I'm testing Rhystic Study.
For some reason the basics I listed in the decklist were not the same as what I had in the deck. I modified the decklist to 3 islands/3 mountains/8 forests.
12/28/13
+ Mana Reflection
+ Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
+ Carpet of Flowers
+ Time Warp
+ Kessig Wolf Run
+ Rootbound Crag
+ Sulfur Falls
+ Hinterland Harbor
+ Wooded Foothills
+ misty Rainforest
- Boundless Realms
- Progenitor Mimic
- Yavimaya Dryad
- Coiling Oracle
- 3 Forest
- 2 Island
- 1 Mountain
I really liked Boundless Realms because it was such a silly card, and it was a subtheme in the deck, but I must come to terms with reality; in a Primal Surge deck, the whiff potential does not make up for its upside, not when a card like Mana Reflection (or even Vorinclex) exist to fill a similar role in being a lategame huge mana acceleration card. While I'm also on the fence about Primal Surge, Boundless Realms really doesn't belong for as long as Primal Surge is in the deck. I've tried Vorinclex before and it draws a lot of (well-deserved) hate. Mana Reflection is a little harder to kill and Wanderer can cascade into it, so I'll try out that instead.
With Boundless Realms out I can experiment with additional nonbasics. Kessig Wolf Run gives a land-based way to help push through damage with Wanderer. Since I'm adding lands that make colorless mana, I have to buff the mana base, so I threw in the taplands from M10 and Innistrad, and I got the RG and UG fetchlands. 6 basics get cut to make room for these.
Time Warp is being tried as the deck can usually afford 2 nonpermanents to go with Primal Surge. It's also one of the most backbreaking cards to hit when attempting to Food Chain combo.
Kiki-Jiki is being tested largely because the deck has a serious shortage of 5-mana creatures, which makes pod chains incredibly awkward. Triple-red in the mana cost is a problem to reach, but it is very powerful. I'm not a fan of 2-card infinites so I won't be sticking cards like Zealous Conscripts in here, but I'm open to having a clone on them with Kiki-Jiki out...
Carpet of Flowers is being tested. It's a 1-mana card that has the potential to add quite a bit of mana. While it only works if there's an actual blue opponent, if no one is blue that means no counterspells so you already have a pretty good chance at winning anyway. Even if there are blue opponents, this stops them from playing extra islands which reduces their countermagic.
Progenitor Mimic is being cut. When Wanderer cascades into it, often it's not copying something backbreaking unless it's late in the game, and often it will copy some random 3 or 4 mana dork I have when I was ramping to Wanderer. While it's gamebreaking if it copies something great like Sylvan Primordial, the deck has no shortage of lategame power. Plus this is largely to make space for the 5-mana creature I want to use to make a smoother pod curve (which right now is Kiki-Jiki).
Yavimaya Dryad is being cut because I have two other 3-drop elves that ramp for one land, and I don't need a third. Rather I should get a few more cards that can ramp harder to reduce the Wanderer clock. Plus double-green on a 3-drop can be hard to reach at times.
Coiling Oracle is cut because it's not a reliable ramp card.
12/14/13
+ Fire-lit Thicket
+ Flooded Grove
+ Ancient Tomb
+ Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+ Karametra's Acolyte
- Vivid Grove
- Vivid Creek
- Vivid Crag
- Skullclamp
- Trinket Mage
I decided to get the two missing filter lands to complement Cascade Bluffs. They're not cheap, but the mana fixing is required, and vivids are very bad tempo plays.
Ancient Tomb is basically a better Temple of the False God.
Rofellos is not nearly as bonkers as he is in a monogreen deck, but there should still be enough forests to tap for 2-3 mana on a 2-drop early on, which is more than enough.
In a similar vein, Karametra's Acolyte is being tested. It starts as an expensive Llanowar Elf/Greenweaver Druid, but once devotion is 4 or greater it's a decent card.
Skullclamp got cut. There are fewer than 10 creatures that I really like clamping away; things like clamping Birds of Paradise are only desperate measures and not something I want to do often. It's not as abusive as it can be in a token deck and doesn't play to its potential power level. Normally I'd rather have another ramp spell in place of skullclamp early in the game unless I also have the 1-toughness creatures I want to clamp away as well.
With skullclamp out, I can relatively safely cut Trinket Mage. It's either a 4 mana sol ring or 4 mana top and those plays are fine but not great.
12/2/13
+ Garruk Wildspeaker
+ Thassa, God of the Sea
+ Equilibirum
- Mindclaw Shaman
- Dawntreader Elk
- Greenweaver Druid
One of the problems with a fast Maelstrom Wanderer is that while haste is strong, lack of evasion means it can get chump blocked. Playing ramp to hit Wanderer quickly is a strong gameplan, but if you can't close the game out quickly, your opponents can get back into the game very fast. One way to fix that is to make sure Wanderer's hits are always threatening.
What Garruk Wildspeaker does is do both things the deck wants; early ramp and get trampling damage through. It's not guaranteed to survive to do its -4, and +3/+3 is not big enough to let just Wanderer finish the job (you need some kind of army out), but at 4 mana you can't ask for more.
Thassa is also something that I want to test. Making Wanderer unblockable is a sure way to close out the game quickly while being difficult to kill herself. She doesn't technically ramp, but when she's played on turn 3 she can fix draws to help find ramp/land cards, and once you have enough mana around she can tuck the now-dead ramp/land cards to find finishers.
Equilibrium is being tested. On paper it's basically a repeatable crystal shard that doesn't have the "unless you pay 1" clause.
Mindclaw Shaman is getting axed quickly. It's amazing value if it hits well. But there are many times where it's a whiff or you steal something minor. It doesn't really fill an important role; it's more of a value card with high variance. Maelstrom Wanderer already has high variance due to how cascade works, and while it's fun to have the randomness around, sometimes getting reliability is important too. Basically it was fairly rare where I wanted to play this card because it did something very important, as opposed to playing it and hoping for value.
Dawntreader Elk is axed. Garruk is a piece of ramp, so I can remove one ramp card existing, and Dawntreader Elk is probably the weakest ramp card.
Greenweaver Druid is getting the axe just because. Ramp is always nice, but this is one of the more unimpressive ramp cards.
10/12/13
+ Prophet of Kruphix
+ Shivan Reef
+ Yavimaya Coast
- Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 1 island
- 1 Forest
I've been wanting to test a Seedborne Muse type card. Prophet of Kruphix seems like a great fit without having to stretch the deck around it (whereas you need some flash enablers to fully utilize Seedborne Muse). While it doesn't untap mana rocks, you get an effect similar to Reset/Sword of Feast and Famine/Mirari's Wake on everyone else's turn. The deck has fairly strong draw power, so this will let you flood the board very quickly.
Teferi will be removed for the Prophet. Teferi was used for protecting on Food Chain/Primal Surge turns, until I realized that doing so would cause the deck to centralize around those themes. While that's not actually a bad thing in terms of trying to make a competitive deck, I personally want to try and win in different ways whenever possible, as whenever I play EDH there are no actual prizes to play and it's only for fun and pride, and I find no joy in winning games with exactly the same way.
Shivan Reef and Yavimaya Coast are duals. 1 Island and 1 forest are removed for them.
9/10/13
+ Chromatic Lantern
+ Gilded Lotus
+ Thran Dynamo
+ Tooth and Nail
+ Mindclaw Shaman
+ Defense of the Heart
+ Forbidden Orchard
- Molten Primordial
- Veteran Explorer
- Acidic Slime
- Genesis
- Diluvian Primordial
- Greater Good
- Forest
Chromatic Lantern is included because with a Boundless Realms deck in 3-color, color screw is an actual thing. It also just ramps by itself too.
Gilded Lotus is another ramp spell that I'm testing specifically because of Tezzeret. 5 mana is a lot, but being able to play the lotus plus a smaller drop with the lotus mana is a good tempo play.
Thran Dynamo is more redundancy in both ramp and targets for Tezzeret's +1. If you also have the correct colors in lands, this alone on turn 4 with zero other ramp can enable a turn 5 Wanderer. Also like with Lotus, playing this then having a 3-drop is a good tempo play, although because it does only make colorless that's less likely to happen.
Tooth and Nail is being tested in this build. It interfers with Primal Surge, and paying the entwine cost is sometimes troublesome, but hitting it for full value is great value.
Mindclaw Shaman is being tested in place of Diluvian Primordial, mostly because I need a few more options at 5 mana than at 7 for a birthing pod curve.
Defense of the Heart is being tested just because. I'm also testing Forbidden Orchard because of this card too.
Molten Primordial was cool with Food Chain, and occasionally could catch an opponent out of nowhere as you steal a bunch of creatures and swing for a ton of extra power, but outside of that it was never a particularly strong draw or cascade.
Veteran Explorer was cut because of the increasing popularity of Wanderer itself. People find out how strong the deck is, and powering everyone else can be a problem. Explorer is cool in a group-hug deck (usually the hippo), but not here.
Acidic Slime is honest removal, but Brutalizer Exarch did about the same thing except better since it could hit planeswalkers and also get around indestructible/graveyard recursion. Wanting to test out new things, I cut this guy.
Genesis is, on paper, a strong card. The issue is that the deck has a lot of redundancy and draw power (due to Wanderer giving card advantage and having a plethora of engines in the deck, probably more than what's really needed), and that I rarely find myself recurring a creature because it did something important, but rather that I had nothing better to spend 2G on for the turn. I don't think there's a single creature in this deck that is so important that I would want to recur it rather than play something else from my hand, assuming I have relevant cards left in my hand. In other words, Genesis' ability isn't really relevant unless Wanderer is stuck in play and I have a worthless hand and I don't have any permanents in play to sink my mana in.
Diluvian Primordial has potential to be very powerful. One of the problems though is that you rarely get the sweet spells like time warp or tooth and nail, because if those cards would be in a graveyard they're usually there because someone cast them, in which case you would probably be dead before you even got to play the primordial in the first place. (Occasionally they get milled into the graveyard, or the player has to discard them for whatever reason.) Mindclaw is tested over it because it's more likely that the sweet spells are sitting in someone's hand, and while Mindclaw is less reliable than something like Knowledge Exploitation, it's a permanent so it doesn't interfere with Primal Surge.
Greater Good is a strong card, but the real plan behind Greater Good is to get creatures in the graveyard (rather than get them exiled or stolen or cloned or whatever), and thus it fits decks that want to use the graveyard as a resource. Wanderer, however, would rather use the top of the library as a resource, and you don't quite need to do both. With Genesis also going out there's almost no graveyard recursion at all.
1 Forest was cut for the Forbidden Orchard.
This update I'm not 100% sure about. In a deck that has Food Chain and Animar, cutting creatures to put in noncreatures could be a problem. Granted, the added cards have synergy with other cards (such as the mana rocks with Tezzeret), but it must be noted. Most importantly is that all the added cards do have power on their own and are simply boosted with the proper synergy.
8/7/13
+ Teferi, mage of Zhalfir
+ Tezzeret the Seeker
+ Veteran Explorer
+ Dawntreader Elk
+ Greenweaver Druid
+ Lotus Cobra
+ Joraga Treespeaker
- Steel Hellkite
- Fabricate
- Shardless Agent
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Edric, Spymaster of Trest
- Deadwood Treefolk
- Wonder
This edition really made me realize that Wanderer is all about ramp. I prefer to play with creatures if possible, mostly because they can be exiled with Food Chain (for more mana), but I am attempting to make the deck more streamlined to power out Wanderer quickly.
Edric, Deadwood, and Wonder felt like do-nothings most of the time. Wonder was clunky, Edric usuaully doesn't do anything without wonder in the graveyard, and Deadwood was a very bad early Wanderer Cascade. Deadwood (and Genesis) are also awkward with Food Chain because then nothing goes into the graveyard, and the deck doesn't really need recursion desperately.
In their place I put in more ramp. Lotus Cobra is not utilized to its full potential because I don't have the fetches to power it, but it can still ramp decently without them. Joraga Treespeaker is oddly enough something I had cut earlier.
I'm testing out Teferi. I don't have anything broken with Teferi (such as knowledge pool), but it is more or less a Grand Abolisher on the turn when I'm attempting to finish the game. It also will force control players to deal with it.
Tezzeret is basically a better Fabricate. I have no idea why I never thought of Tezzeret until now. With Fabricate gone, the Primal Surge only has to worry about hitting Boundless Realms.
Steel Hellkite isn't bad, but I'm just testing cards and decided to cut him for no real reason.
Bloodbraid and Shardless were cut for reliability. The main gameplan is to just ramp quickly and get Wanderer out quickly, and while these two always gave good value (in a void, whatever you cascade into would be card advantage), I could not count on them for getting me ramp cards. Their bodies are also not particularly relevant in EDH. They also whiffed sometimes, such as Bloodbraid cascading into Eternal Witness when your graveyard is empty and while similar things could happen with Wanderer, the dead cascades can happen more often with Bloodbraid/Shardless (e.g. suppose 40 cards have CMC 7 or less versus 20 cards have CMC 3 or less, 1/40 chance to hit Eternal Witness in an empty graveyard vs 1/20 chance).
7/15/13
+ vivid Crag
+ Vivid Creek
+ Vivid Grove
+ Cloudstone Curio
- 1 Island
- 1 Forest
- 1 Mountain
- Erratic Portal
Cloudstone Curio replaced Erratic Portal, because Curio is basically Portal/Crystal Shard that can be used more than once per turn.
The lands are just more color fixing. There's still over 20 basics so Boundless Realms should still get a lot of lands out.
6/6/2013
+ Prime Speaker Zegana
+ Yaviyama Dryad
+ Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+ Progenitor Mimic
+ Animar, Soul of Elements
- Veteran Explorer
- Woodfall Primus
- Jin gitaxias, core augur
- Loaming Shaman
- Brainstorm
I cut out some of the top end of the curve because I felt like when I had that much mana at that point, I would usually rather cast my general over one of these two. Craterhoof Behemoth stays in though because of how it can just end the game immediately. Jin Gitaxias in particular gets Bribery'd a lot.
Loaming Shaman was cut because it filled the same function as Scavenging Ooze except the Ooze is generally better, and right now I didn't need two sources of graveyard hate as long as the Ooze is played at the proper time.
Yavimaya Dryad was added because it's more ramp on a creature. You usually won't give the forest to another player, but maybe you could get into a situation that called for it (say 2-headed giant).
Zegana is being tested, but right now it's a little awkward as if you cascade into it, Zegana enters the battlefield before Wanderer. It's basically another consecrated sphinx though.
Jace was moved from my Progenitus deck to this one, as Wanderer can benefit from Jace more due to setting up cascade triggers. Therefore I cut Brainstorm as well.
Progenitor Mimic is being tested; on paper it's really sweet. But it might be too slow. This may be better in a Reveilark deck because this card has 0 power.
Animar is tested as another ramp source; I'm quite impressed with Somberwald Sage, and this guy will function as something better once it gets just a few creature spells going.
2/6/2013
+ Food Chain
+ Erratic Portal
+ Sylvan Primordial
+ Diluvian Primordial
+ Molten Primordial
- Abundance
- Lurking Predators
- Sphinx of Uthuun
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
Food Chain was suggested several other users to get an explosive turn. It's also the big reason why Molten Primordial is also getting tested as well. As well as Erratic Portal being a second Crystal Shard.
The other two primordials are being used just because the primordials in general are too good to pass up in EDH.
Abundance was cut because it felt very weak without Sylvan Library in play.
Lurking Predators did fit the theme of manipulating the library, but it took a little too much work.
Sphinx of Uthuun was cut because with 3 primordials, ingester, and avenger, that's a little too top heavy. It may get put in again later though.
Two lands were cut, because the deck still has 38 lands, which is okay. Just mulligan for lands more aggressively.
12/28/12
+ Birds of Paradise
+ Deadwood Treefolk
+ Abundance
+ Sphinx of Uthuun
+ Steel Hellkite
+ Cascade Bluffs
+ karplusan Forest
+ City of Brass
- Joraga Treespeaker
- Zealous Conscripts
- Aethersnipe
- Krosan Tusker
- Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
- 1 Island
- 1 Mountain
- 1 Forest
Birds is replacing Treespeaker because the color fixing does matter, and it can produce mana without an investment (for example, if you tap out for Maelstrom Wanderer and you hit a Birds of Paradise, it can still make mana so you can activate a fauna shaman or birthing pod or crystal shard or whatever). You can also clamp it at any time, while clamp won't instantly kill treespeaker. Treespeaker eventually ramps harder though.
Deadwood treefolk gave some more graveyard recursion beyond Genesis. I think at two different cards it's a bit better, since at just one card filling a role it's a little sketch, especially since Genesis requires 3 mana to recur for the turn.
Abundance is just silly with Sylvan Library. However, the deck also tends to get mana flooded, since it runs 40 lands. This can help you get more usable cards, and if needed you can get a land drop.
Sphinx wasn't really put in because of how good it is (there aren't that many ways to recur from the graveyard for this deck, making fact or fiction a tad weaker), but rather I wanted to try something over Vorinclex.
Steel Hellkite was put in because the deck felt like it needed some more sweepers, or sweeping effects. It's not reliable, but it's still a beater that enemies have to deal with.
After more playing, it's quite possible to get color screwed early on due to not enough nonbasics. I added three that I happened to have in my stash and cut 1 of each basic. There's still 29 basics, or almost 75% of the whole mana base; more than enough to satisfy Boundless Realms.
Zealous Conscripts is funny, but its best role is to steal planeswalkers. It felt a little too narrow because planeswalkers don't usually last long enough to steal and ultimate them.
Aethersnipe felt somewhat superfluous. At the 6 mana slot, Brutalizer Exarch filled the role better (it couldn't hit creatures, but tucking is better than bouncing, and the Exarch can occasionally Worldly Tutor), and there's enough removal from mana costs 3-8 that this felt like the weakest removal spell.
Krosan Tusker was never disappointing. But it was never stellar either.
Vorinclex has always felt suspectible. It doesn't win the game immediately, and it has no protection so it quickly dies.
12/12/12
+ Wonder
+ Academy Ruins
- Garruk, Primal Hunter
- 1 Island
After a little more testing, flying really does wonders. Makes a good alpha strike after cascading with Maelstrom Wanderer, or just letting all your Avenger tokens fly over, or getting early attacks with an Edric out.
The Academy Ruins is pretty nice with Birthing Pod, Oblivion Stone, Skullclamp, and other artifacts.
Garruk has good value. He's awesome to draw 7, especially if you cascade into him, and the ultimate with mass haste out ends the game. But he just didn't feel like he had great synergy with the deck.
I took out an island for the ruins because there's enough basics left to fetch out with Boundless Realms.
12/8/12
+ Oblivion Stone
+ Fabricate
+ Glen Elendra Archmage
+ Lurking Predators
- Kederekt Leviathan
- Kozilek's Predator
- Emrakul's Hatcher
- Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
Oblivion Stone replaced Kederekt Leviathan because the latter is awkward to Primal Surge into. Oblivion Stone is also better at removing things because it doesn't simply bounce them.
Fabricate was put in, despite being a nonpermanent, because with the addition of stone, there are enough artifacts in the deck where this is worth using.
Glen Elendra Archmage was put in as a counter, something this deck appreciates.
Lurking Predators is currently being tested, but in theory it works in a heavy-creature deck and some library manipulation for the general.
The Leviathan was cut as said earlier.
The eldrazi spawns got the axe; they just didn't feel very strong.
The sorcerer got axed because the body isn't worth the cascade, and the whiffs do kinda suck.
11/27/12
Version 1.0
SET REVIEWS
Khans of Tarkir and Commander 2014
Magic 2015
Fate Reforged
Dragons of Tarkir
Magic Origins
Battle for Zendikar
Commander 2015
Oath of the Gatewatch
Shadows over Innistrad
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
- Garruk, primal hunter
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Deadwood Treefolk
+ Abundance
+ Sphinx of Uthuun
+ Steel Hellkite
+ Cascade Bluffs
+ karplusan Forest
+ City of Brass
- Joraga Treespeaker
- Zealous Conscripts
- Aethersnipe
- Krosan Tusker
- Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
- 1 Island
- 1 Mountain
- 1 Forest
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
And let's say you repeat that process 4+ times, and you are still unable to take someone out? You've effectively put your general out of reach to recast in the future wise because of the commander tax. The card is narrow and pretty much a one shot effect with maelstrom.
Maelstrom's power lies in how fast he can rebuild your position after the inevitable wipe. By abusing him with food chain, you basically put all your cascades for the game into one basket and hope you can win off that. Then someone wipes and you won't have enough mana to recast him.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Mana Reflection doesn't work with Food Chain as it requires a permanent to be tapped for it to work.
Food Chain isn't just useful as an attempt to make Maelstrom repeatable. Sure it's an amazing combo but it's also useful for getting mana from creatures you don't really find as useful as they could be since you don't use the GY much the exile doesn't really matter. Cast Bloodbraid get something for free and exile them to cast big. Better yet exile that Brutalizer you just used to put something useful on the top of your deck and cast Maelstrom.
It works best when you abuse it with theft but it's still a card worthy of consideration at least.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ 1 mana less, is possible for wanderer to cascade into it.
+ If there is 3+ opponents, it can hit more permanents than woodfall primus.
+ Ramps (although at 7 mana that doesn't matter as much, but it's something).
- Persist is pretty huge. It works really well if I can copy it (so when it persists I have the option to copy something else if needed), and it provides a total higher p/t (11/11 vs 6/8).
- I do need some options at 8 cmc to keep the pod chain going.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
I'm new to commander, but not to magic, and I'm still not sure about how much do I have to think about not bothering the others players while having a good deck at the same time.
For example, I'm pretty sure I wont be playing obliterate and similar with wanderer because I wouldn't like my opponent doing that, but I'm sure about Primal Surge.
Consider this question in the context of multiplayer (and online)
In any case, with a group of friends you just need to find out (or ask) what they find frustrating. Maybe they're ok with instant wins (my playgroup all have at least one interaction in their decks which instant wins). I personally dislike any infinite combo that can be assembled with only 2 cards, because then it starts feeling like the deck is geared towards that combo, rather than a 3-4 card combo where all the pieces are good individually and they just happen to have a special interaction. If it's an online game with people you don't know, then just do whatever you want, but make sure to play politics.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Food Chain
+ Erratic Portal
+ Sylvan Primordial
+ Diluvian Primordial
+ Molten Primordial
- Abundance
- Lurking Predators
- Sphinx of Uthuun
- 1 Forest
- 1 Island
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
In one game my opponent (using rhys the redeemed) had avenger of zendikar, beastmaster ascension (which he just turned online) and collective blessing. On my previous turn I cloned the avenger to get tokens so I managed to chump block, but I had no answers in my hand.
But I had enough mana to cast wanderer the first time and hit food chain. I won that turn. Wanderer ended up casting 16 mana by the time I was able to swing for lethal.
So yeah, food chain performed way beyond my expectations. Maybe it's cause there wasn't a control deck present, but food chain can give a very explosive (but all-in) turn.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
My question is why don't you have a 9cc creature for Birthing Pod? In my deck I'm usually looking for a way to remove MW when my opponent's aren't kind enough to do it for me. Having a 9cc for the Pod allowed you to sac your general to cast him again, as well as completing the chain up to Jin.
Currently playing:
GW(G/B) Maverick
RRR Burn
(G/B)G(G/R) Elves!
Building: Who knows?
EDH
WR Jor Kadeen - 100% pimp
URG Maelstrom Wanderer - rampramprampbomb.dec
UG Prime Speaker Zegana Control
UBR Gwendlyn di Corci and her band of Scantily Clad Women
UR Pauper Gelectrode
Modern/Casual
WU Acid Trip
WURZedruu's Didgeridoo
ThePrevailer on The Source, MTGO, and Cockatrice
Also, I need more sweepers in this deck. oblivion stone seems fine for the reset button, but I need permanents that can sweep creatures (token decks are a thing), but unlike most of how the deck is built, having the sweep effect be an "etb" effect would be awkward to cascade or primal surge into. Of course the alternative would be to just go balls to the wall ramp and stick in extra ramp to get wanderer out faster...
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ Prime Speaker Zegana
+ Yaviyama Dryad
+ Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+ Progenitor Mimic
+ Animar, Soul of the Elements
- Veteran Explorer
- Woodfall Primus
- Jin gitaxias, core augur
- Loaming Shaman
- Brainstorm
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
+ vivid Crag
+ Vivid Creek
+ Vivid Grove
+ Cloudstone Curio
- 1 Island
- 1 Forest
- 1 Mountain
- Erratic Portal
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Also, how is Progenitor working out for you?
I've only managed to play Progenitor Mimic once, and it was a 1v1 so that meant less removal was thrown around. But I threw it down after my friend played Terastodon and deadeye navigator and then neither of us had any lands in play and like 15 elephant tokens. He eventually scooped because of my top in play.
So in this situation it functioned as a slower terastodon + deadeye navigator together, but without the ability to dodge spot removal (like deadeye navigator can). I need to play more games with it, but for now I like it.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)