Riku of Two Reflections had two passions: the study of spellcraft and the study of life. The mage could never choose, but had no time to master both. Through an ancient illusionist's spell, he found the solution: he secretly split himself into two reflections, and each Riku trained and studied for years in its chosen field. Today Riku is hailed as a master of both disciplines, and few know his secrets. The reflections never stray far from each other, and when danger threatens, enemies face the power of both Rikus. (Savor the Flavor)
Riku of Two Reflections is the lead commander of the Mirror Mastery Commander pre-constructed deck released in June 2011. He is flanked by Animar, Soul of Elements and Intet the Dreamer, as well as the bicolored legend Edric, Spymaster of Trest. While the the latter three are real build-around me commanders with a specific purpose, Riku is very versatile and can be played with many different strategies. After all, the only thing better than a powerful spell is two of them, right?
Let’s run though the card and establish a frame of reference for just what Riku can do for us, as well as what other Magic cards can do for Riku:
Mana Cost: :2mana::symu::symr::symg:
5 mana is a good spot for a commander like Riku. It is not too high, so he can be recast if necessary. At the same time, 5 mana is a lot to spend on a guy with no protection, so you will have to be wary of casting him against control players and have a backup plan if he dies. If he draws removal so you can play your 6-drop, it wasn’t too bad for you :).
The most important thing to remember about Riku is what his role is in your deck: an investment in your spells. The payoff may be a little, or it may be great. But Riku represents an investment. He costs you 5 mana and probably an entire turn, for a lousy 2/2 that doesn’t affect the board (a poor play in a vacuum, surely), in exchange for added value for your spells down the road. A question I will ask frequently as we consider other “investment” cards, like Mana Reflection: “Doesn’t Riku already do this?” If you jam your deck full of cards that do what he does, in some form or another, you will have a hand full of dead cards and no threats to multiply. I will discuss this in detail later.
Now for the colors. We’re got access to blue, green and red. These are (arguably) the best, second best and worst colors for EDH, in that order. Together, however, they are full of powerful and synergistic effects and allow the pilot to play pretty much whatever style they want.
Blue gives access to card draw, bounce, control magic effects, extra turn effects and counters. And fatties.
Green gives access to ramp, graveyard recursion and noncreature destruction. And fatties.
Red gives access to removal, sweeps, land destruction and copy and redirect effects. And yes, more fatties.
Creature Type: Human Wizard
Not much human synergy but wizard tribal is definitely a possibility. Riptide Laboratory will probably be the most common usage of his typing.
Power/Toughness: 2/2
That’s right, he’s a small fry like most wizards. Obviously, he’ll be staying out of the red zone unless you slap a sword on him.
Ability 1: “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay :symu::symr:. If you do, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.”
A Fork on legs. With the important limitation that it can only copy your own spells. Anyway, that’s some sweet card advantage there. You can copy removal spells like Decimate, ramp spells like Skyshroud Claim, extra turn spells like Time Warp, and even game-ending haymakers like Rite of Replication or Genesis Wave. Also plays very well with Flashback and Rebound. Copying the right spell at the right time can surely win you the game. 2 extra colored mana is no joke though, so you will find color-fixing is even more important to Riku than to other commanders.
Ability 2: “Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay :symg::symu:. If you do, put a token that's a copy of that creature onto the battlefield.”
Of course it gets better. Now he gives you free clones. Incredible. Copying guys with “enters the battlefield” effects (henceforth referred to as “ETB” effects) are the most efficient and powerful way to abuse this ability, since even if the next player casts a sweeper, you will have already attained incredible value for your one card. Creatures like Chancellor of the Spires, Terastodon and Deadeye Navigator are the kinds of spells you want to be casting to maximize this particular effect, though there are plenty of less expensive creature spells that love this treatment.
Bonus time!: Using both abilities at once
The most versatile and potentially powerful way of using these abilities is to get them both on the stack. Instants and sorceries which cause non-token creatures to enter the battlefield under your control are at a premium here because Riku can copy the spell on the stack and copy each non-token creature that enters the battlefield when the spell resolves, provided you have the mana and he isn’t removed in response to the original casting. Tooth and Nail, Bribery, and Chord of Calling are good examples of these kinds of spells. When you have all that mana lategame and nothing to do with it, this is how you will break through board stalls and take home the win.
Why Play Riku?
Riku: when 5 copies are not enough.
If I had to describe Riku in one word, it would be explosive. If your opponents let him live, they risk their iminent demise simply by giving you a chance to untap with him. Copying a Time Warp or a Chord of Calling fetching Avenger of Zendikar and Glen Elendra Archmage will typically be enough to end the game. At that same time, he’s a bit of a glass cannon. He’s a 2/2 for with no protection. He’s out there for a whole turn and typically you won’t get to copy something the turn he comes into play. Thankfully, a good Riku deck will be able to function and even thrive without him, and his colors certainly give you the opportunity to do that.
Somehow, I think Riku represents the giddy risk-taker in all of us as it applies to Magic. You throw him out there, hope he sticks, and if he does you just go Godzilla on the table.
In summary:
This may be the commander for you if you like:
Copying Things
Copying Things
Ridiculous, over-the-top death-laser-on-the-moon style plays
Not losing if your commander gets tucked
Creature-based strategies
Comboing out
This may not be the commander for you if you don't like:
Tapping out
Goodstuff.dec
Long, interactive (and unpredictable) games
Beating face
Shuffling your deck
Looking in the Mirror
My name is Kyle, and I like to copy things. I am a Johnny and Melvin first and a Timmy and Spike second. I have been playing magic since the Rise of Eldrazi pre-release and I have loved it ever since. I have a particular a passion for Commander, deckbuilding, and for the social interactions that come from this sweet game.
My favorite ways to play Magic are Commander and Draft, but most of all it has to be fun or I don’t want anything to do with it. For this reason, I try to stay away from “un-fun” stuff like easy infinite combos, board lock/stax strategies and such. At the same time, I love the color blue and its representation in magic, so most of my decks have had access to that color. Some of my favorite decks include Melek WheelStorm, Nin, the Pain Artist steal-n-sac, Thromok token bonanza and Trostani token enchantress
I moved to the Kansas City area in 2011. I'm closest to Win More Games and Collector's Cache. I have a relaxed playgroup at my new home where we play once a week. If you want to play Commander, or if you think I'd be fun in your playgroup, send me a PM! Though as a new father and homeowner you can imagine my time is limited
Strategy
"HEY GUYS! I FOUND SOME MORE TREES!"
The Investment
As I said before- Riku is an investment. Riku is a lost turn, in exchange for explosive turns around the corner. If he is removed, you have lost some valuable tempo, even if it’s nice when someone burns a card on your Commander that you can just get back for another :2mana:. If he sticks, however, that’s where the fun begins.
Now, people love to look at this guy, make a deck with a mean CMC of 5, and just hope no one fights back. Let me give you a hint: that is as dumb as it sounds. I will attempt to explain what you should do instead.
Riku is very good at two things. Firstly, and most obviously, is copying you big spells to just crush everyone. The only thing stronger than one Time Stretch is two of them. This is obvious. But in many cases, this is the very definition of “win more”. What, was one Craterhoof Behemoth not enough? There can be some nuance to this copying business, perhaps contrary to popular belief. The other thing Riku excels at is copying small spells to keep them useful all game instead of just at the beginning.
One of my all time favorite plays in this deck is a turn 3 or 4 Riku, followed by a copied Fact or Fiction. “But that’s only a 4-mana spell”, you say. That’s exactly right. I just did FoF twice for 6 mana, and my hand and graveyard are now chock full of gas for the rest of the game. Unless I have some sort of Identity Crisis, I'll be in this dominant position for a while. And I haven’t yet cast a spell over 5 mana.
If you just tapped out for Riku, then next turn you may probably have that much mana plus one. You COULD play a 6-mana bomb like a titan. Which is good on its own. In which case, why did you play Riku last turn, unless you were just using your commander to bait removal (an acceptable move in some cases, of course)? Or, you can copy a 4-mana spell for ridiculous value. Do you know how aggravating it is to face two copies of Sower of Temptation, stealing your board right out from under you? Or how awesome it is to hit twoSkyshroud Claims, putting 4 untapped forests into play that early in the game? Or in a token deck, where just 4 1/1 tokens can attack for 36 with a copied Tears of Rage, and any more is surely a blowout? The Fact or Fiction example is my favorite, but it’s definitely not the only one. All those 2, 3, and 4-mana spells that are normally very helpful early game and somewhat marginal lategame are now amplified greatly by your commander. You can play a normal mana curve and have an explosive endgame with most of your deck, rather than having just a few haymakers sitting at the top of your curve. Those 2, 3 and 4-drop spots are just as important as the 6 and 7-drops you are dying to get out there in pairs, perhaps even moreso. And while there will be a time for that, it is important to live long enough to get to that point, and to be well established enough to push back against table resistence once you get there. This is a luxury not every deck has, and a luxury that the most successful decks use to stay on top.
You can pack your deck full of silly six-drops and above and just hope no one kicks your legs out from underneath you. It’s funny to try, but at a real table you are going to get slaughtered by aggro-control and any kind of disruption, be it hand, board, yard, or otherwise. Using Riku to amplify the potency of your less expensive spells is the best and most consistent path to victory.
"Quick! Get the shaving cream!"
Card Type Synergy
This section may even go without saying, but I am consistently surprised at how many decks I see pop up which completely ignore card type synergy in favor of just playing big dudes and big spells. The benefits of restricting yourself to a particular card type in a practical manner are huge. Think of it as a set bonus or a buff in an MMO. Your deck can be greater than the sum of its parts if you choose to build it that way.
With Riku, there are a couple of ways to do this. The most effective, in my opinion, is to stick with as many creatures as possible. This allows you to run a creature toolbox and to take advantage of all the cards that like creatures. I prefer creatures over instants and sorceries for a couple of reasons:
Creatures are on the board and threaten as long as they are there. They can attack, block, deter attacks simply by being there, get pitched to Survival, sacrificed to Birthing Pod or Natural Order, get Skullclamped and draw you cards, and I could go on and on here. Their utility is much greater than their power and toughness. This in comparison to most instants and sorceries, which tend to be one shot and done.
Creatures are easier to recur from the graveyard or the board itself. Spells are much harder to return to your hand in general, although it can be done effectively with buyback and cool cards like Mystic Retrieval.
This goes for all of the archetypes I will describe in detail below. While it is not totally necessary to play a bunch of creatures or a bunch of noncreature spells to have a successful deck, perhaps a control deck particularly, it can be much more rewarding on several levels to stick with your guns in deckbuilding and ride the synergy to victory. And most importantly, for those times when you don’t have Riku at your disposal due to removal, tuck, or otherwise, this type synergy will get you through the rest of the game without him. Choose your spells appropriately for the deck.
A Brief Ramp Discussion
Ramp is good. Ramp is really really good. To be a turn or two ahead of slower decks is a phenomenal advantage that adds up over the course of the game. Ramp also tends to fix your colors, making it much more likely for you to actually play your spells. Riku tends to be very mana-hungry as a Commander, since you always want two mana more than you have so you can copy your on-curve spells. So play ramp. I like to play at least 7 to 8 pieces of ramp in my commander decks minumum and I hold Riku to the same principle.
There are two kinds of ramp worth talking about here, because most rituals are awful awful card disadvantage in this format. There is artifact ramp and land ramp. Since we are in green, I pretty much don’t even want to hear about artifact ramp unless it is stupid broken ramp like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. Land ramp is better in almost every way. It allows you to fix your colors, it can be copied with Riku, it is harder to kill, it is not swept away by artifact sweepers, and I will say it again, it can be copied with Riku. Do not play things like Darksteel Ingot or the signets over Cultivate or Farhaven Elf unless your manabase is like, all basics. You do not need them. Green ramp should give you all the fixing and ramp you should need. Skew your manabase towards green so you can likely cast your ramp, use your ramp to fix and gain tempo, and don’t look back. Leave the shiny things to non-green decks that need them.
Counterspells and Riku
Many players see that their commander is blue and think, “welp, better play my counter suite”. Don’t do this. Play only your most critical counters. JUST enough to make your opponents think you could tuck their commander with your open mana. I will explain why.
Riku, your commander whose job is to amplify your spells and creatures as a payback on an initial investment, can do almost NOTHING with counterspells. They are close to being complete waste of your commander and they encourage poor deck construction. You should not play spells that don’t want to be copied. If you need control elements (which you should), play removal spells instead, which can be copied by Riku for guaranteed two-for-ones or even more.
Riku decks tend to be extremely mana hungry. That is, you will be tapping out most every turn. Slowing yourself down to keep up counter mana is a good way to give up your inherent tempo advantage. In this way, counters encourage poor play here. Develop your board and let your opponents respond. Even if your opponents’ threats resolve, your guys should be bigger and better and generally not care about what they have to say.
However, not all counters are bad. Some counters are worth playing even in here. Pact of Negation is a favorite of mine for several reasons, which I’ll describe in the Card Options section. But most importantly, you can cast it when tapped out. This makes it a get out of jail free card you can bluff at any time. Arcane Denial is another favorite of mine because it is cheap, unconditional, and draws you a card. Keeping two mana open is much easier than three. The drawback is negligible in multiplayer. And finally, at least one of Hinder or Spell Crumple will keep your opponents honest. So even if you have nothing, you can leave 3 mana untapped and make them think really hard about casting something critical, like their commander. Just the threat of having a counter available, as opposed to actually playing one, is often enough to keep your opponents in check.
Archetypes
As mentioned before, Riku is a particularly open-ended commander. There are several viable strategies, as well as some that are more quirky. It will be up to you to make a decision here before you start putting your list together. Like any good Commander deckbuilder, how well you stick to your strategy or theme will be vital to your success and overall enjoyment of the game.
"Oh, dear! How ever will I find an answer?"
Creature Toolbox- This Deck Has Legs
This is my primary style of play. You’ll find the Primer slightly biased towards this style as I have considerable experience with it, and I know it is very good and very fun to play. The idea here is to play an efficient and varied toolbox of ETB creatures, starting with your two drops and working all the way up the curve to 5, 6 and 7 drops that you want to win you the game. Every creature does something other than just being a creature. That whole “synergy” thing I was talking about before? It’s here where you can see it in action.
If you play a lot creatures, then first of all your board will never be too vulnerable. More importantly though, you can play cards that work with creatures and really maximize their effectiveness. Tutors which search for creatures are the most common application, which is where the “Creature Toolbox” really earns its name. Then you use those tutors to search up creatures, usually ones with ETB abilities, that help you adapt to a changing board state with the best solution for the problems you face.
Creature tutors like Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest/Fauna Shaman, Fierce Empath, and Green Sun’s Zenith will be very important here in allowing you to adapt to the board state with your ETB guys. Need to kill a shrouded commander? Phyrexian Metamorph has got you covered. Need to ramp ramp ramp to catch up to the monoblack player? Oracle of Mul Daya or Boundless Realms will get you back on track. Or maybe their Coffers just has to die? Slime it. Do you have to wrath now or lose? Ixidron or Crater Hellion or Kederekt Leviathan should slow them down. Just want to win the game? Ok, fetch yourself Craterhoof Behemoth and swarm the last guy left. Want to get some recursion going with these creatures? Creeping Renaissance and Genesis have you covered. Always having an answer doesn’t mean just playing counterspells. It means having a gameplan like this, having the ability to respond in the best way possible to the unpredictable board state inherent in multiplayer magic.
Bounce outlets like Crystal Shard and blink cards like Conjurer’s Closet will help to generate additional value out of your creatures, in some cases at instant speed. Riku can copy those cretaures as they re-enter the battlefield, which is just amazing. They are very good in here, but be careful not to get cute and go overboard with these. They are rarely good in multiples and increase the risk that you will have all bounce outlets and no creatures to bounce.
Swords of X and Y are quite good in here to strap on to the early weenies and turn them into serious threats. Feast and Famine is a gamechanger for all the mana it provides. Fire and Ice is very respectable card advantage. Light and Shadow is a fine recursion engine with the best colors of protection for Riku. I don’t recommend the others because they don’t really fit with the deck’s gameplan.
Skullclamp is another way to get great value out of your early plays for when Riku wasn’t around to copy them. Just draw a bunch of cards and keep winning. There are more cards like this and I encourage you to find them in the Card Options section as you build this deck.
I like to call this “the Birthing Pod deck”, even if the goal isn’t always to tutor for Pod (though I have no shame in casting Fabricate for it). Pod is just insane. I can’t sing its praises enough. You can use it the turn you play it, with just 4 mana too, so it’s fast. It likes having good options at every part of your mana curve, which encourages good deck construction. With each activation, you are tutoring for an answer, establishing a board state further, and with Riku potentially copying every guy you put into play, it is a fantastic card advantage engine that will absolutely end games if unanswered. Everything this card does more or less exemplifies what this style of deck is trying to do. If you think this card is any good, I urge you to try it out and play this particular style of deck. It is extremely resilient and retains if not surpasses the reach of the most powerful creature decks in the format.
What is a "turn", anyway?
Control- Seedborn Muse Deck Wins
There's no need to get all derpy with creatures like most of us. You can play a control shell around Riku pretty easily and use him as a perfectly acceptable wincon.
Seedborn Muse is an extremely powerful card. It allows you to play your deck full of instant speed threats on other players’ turns. It is a control player’s best friend and Timmy’s worst nightmare. Since not every card in your deck will be castable at instant speed (or will it?), some flash enablers are recommended. Vedalken Orrery and Alchemist's Refuge go a long way here, hitting other player’s threats on their end step, then untapping for some action. You can use bounce outlets like Crystal Shard to replay some cards over again every turn. Mystic Snake and Draining Whelk are near board locks, but any creature with an ETB effect is fair game here. A Capsize soft lock is another common way to keep things under control and/or just win the game. Don't forget to pack High Market and/or Homeward Path to keep other players from stealing your Seedborn Muse, a common way for you to lose a game of Magic.
Otherwise, this is just a more defensive version of Riku. Play plenty of removal and counters and draw, as in your typical control suite. Stuff like Chaos Warp, Beast Within and Spell Crumple will do a lot of work for you. The legendary fog machine Spike Weaver is one of the best ways to keep other players off your back in the meantime and protects you from a token or Insurrection blowout. Some decks just cannot beat Constant Mists either. Keep Riku in your back pocket for when it’s time to go over the top. Then, when your opponents’ resources are depleted play a wincon and back it up with a counter or two. Tooth and Nail or Time Stretch, with either one copied, should very easily take over the game. Glen Elendra Archmage is the perfect protection for your wincon.
Card advantage and selection will be vital here even moreso than in other decks. You’ll want to play everything from Rhystic Study all the way down to Brainstorm, which is actually very good with all the shuffle effects green brings to the table. Tutors such as Gamble and Mystical Tutor will be indispensable for responding to the changing board state.
I don’t run this strategy personally, so I am always open to feedback here, as I am with every other facet of this Primer.
Combos with everything, I'm pretty sure.
Combo- "Oops, I win"
Of all the strategies outlined, this is probably the most competitive. Use that power wisely. Combo bring a certain ruthless efficiency to the table that many players find unfun or at least unsettling. Riku has several two-card combos that include him which come very close to, if not actually, winning the game on the spot.
Fast mana will be important in any combo deck, so pack your Bloom Tender and perhaps Somberwald Sage. Play plenty of other ramp to get you to the point where you can combo out. Bring a couple counterspells like Pact of Negation to protect your combo. Vexing Shusher is a great tutor target to protect yourself when you go off. And then try some of these on for size:
Riku + Palinchron: Infinite mana, infinite Palinchrons. Seems good for a two-card combo with your general. Finish with Stroke of Genius, Comet Storm or something similar.
Riku + Worldgorger Dragon: Stack the triggers right for infinite mana and infinite creature ETB triggers. Win with Comet Storm, Warstorm Surge and similar cards.
Reiterate + Turnabout = Infinite mana, infinitely copied spells. Blue Sun’s Zenith will deck the table, Comet Storm will just nuke them.
That ought to be enough to get you guys started. The previous list was by no means exhaustive, but it does hit the most popular candidates for comboing out with Riku. Keep in mind that Riku himself is often outdone by any one of several Momir Vig combo decks. His combos are faster and more resilient and he tutors for them., so make sure you are playing the right general here.
Hope you got a wrath handy there, buddy.
Tokens- Dodge This
These are great colors for building token armies. Doubling Season and Parallel Lives ensure that the math will get difficult as you swing for eleventy-billion, and cards like Deranged Hermit and Avenger of Zendikar are the perfect guys to help you get there.
Now, there is a teensy-tiny problem with relying on the doubling enchantments: they a royal pain in the butt to dig for in this deck without access to black or white tutors. That leaves you with a few viable options, some moreso than others:
Even moreso than those two enchantments, a card that will elevate the deck to much higher levels of explosiveness is Gaea’s Cradle. I should not have to explain why. This card is the best card in any token deck, period. There have been calls to ban this card for a reason. There is no argument that would convince me otherwise. I understand that Cradle is very expensive. I also understand that many players are uneasy about proxies for expensive cards they do not intend to buy, including me. I used to play a gold-bordered version of this (while I was planning to buy one) but now that it's up past almost $150 I can safely say I don't intend to buy one anytime soon... so I have cut this card from all of my decks. If you can get one, it's insane. If you can't, it doesn't mean you're at a disadvantage so much as you are missing out on a stupid powerful card.
Now that we have that taken care of, you basically want to look at the first strategy I listed (the one with ETB utility guys) and replace all the midrange and high-end stuff with token generators and buffs.
There are essentially two kinds of token generation: ETB, or “burst” token generation (Deranged Hermit), and tokens over time generation (Ant Queen). With Riku at the helm, I will try to explain why I believe that the burst token making is the way to go, using Deranged Hermit and Ant Queen as examples.
It does no good to copy Ant Queen-type producers with Riku. Deranged Hermit pays you back in spades.
Ant Queen is a prime target for removal as she draws irrational hate because of what she *could* become in terms of threat level. No one will kill Deranged Hermit because he is already dead next turn.
Ant Queen is less efficient in the short term. She is 11 total mana for 4 bodies (and a "token deck" should not care that one is a 5/5). Deranged Hermit is only 5 mana for 5 bodies, one of which must be sacrificed next turn. Oh, and he's clampable and/or saccable to pod (for a 6-drop!) as well, to make up for the echo business.
Deranged Hermit is faster. If you need some tokens after a wrath, Ant Queen is a slow play. Hermit immediately rebuilds your board state for more token shenanigans.
In the long term, I will concede that Ant Queen is a great mana sink, which is why she is famous and still a very good card. If you have 20 mana to dump into her tokens and haste and Citanul Heirophants at work then you can pump out an army every turn. I contend that this is overkill in many cases when a simple Overrun effect would have done the job in the first place. 2 mana per token is great to have an unlimited supply of but I believe is pretty inefficient when you consider realistic mana production.
When building your token deck, I would encourage you to stay away from cards that generate just one token per upkeep. They are typically too slow and are outclassed by better cards. Keep in mind that some “slower” token generators like Dragon Broodmother and Dragonlair Spider do a reasonable job of imitating burst token generation because they make tokens on other players’ turns as well, leaving you with a decent output by your next upkeep to use for whatever you like. Awakening Zone also gets a pass because its tokens are Eldrazi Spawn that can be used for ramp as well.
Other than just having tokens, now we need things to do with them. Haste effects like Anger and Concordant Crossroads are critical here and make finishers like Genesis Wave just insane. Birthing Pod and Survial of the Fittest are great ways to tutor for Anger and get in the graveyard quickly. Do not underrate haste. It wins games far more often than whatever other cards you were going to play instead. A Kessig Cagebreakers without haste is merely good. One with haste, mid-to-late-game, is just nuts.
Other than haste, the more common way to win with tokens is to overrun with them. Tears of Rage, Overwhelming Stampede and Craterhoof Behemoth are fine ways to do this, and there are plenty more in the Card Options section. Be sure to play enough token generators that these finishers are reliable. This is the most typical path to victory with a token army.
Some other generally good token synergies:
Post-wrath stabilization is important. Spawning Pit and other sac outlets will help out greatly here. Skullclamp is insane in any token deck and its inclusion is really not up for discussion. You really have to play one, and maybe even a Trinket Mage to tutor for it.
Mimic Vat is also awesome with any token-generating ETB creatures, as the tokens remain on the board even after the creature off the vat is sacrificed. Previously mentioned bounce and blink enablers will also contribute.
Blue brings some really cool stuff to the table too, like Cultural Exchange and Day of the Dragons for massive power plays and Opposition for total board control. Do your research.
Some players prefer to just play a few big token generators and not stuff the deck full of them. They can certainly be successful, but I contend that committing fully to token generation will establish a lot of synergy between your cards and will make your “token” deck a true token deck that is greater than the sum of its parts. As I have said before, choose your cards wisely.
"Look at you, soaring through the air
like an eagle... piloting a blimp." -GLaDOS
Warp World Combo- You Monster
Riku may be one of the finest Warp World generals available.
Building around Warp World itself is a much more solid plan and is a very viable path to victory. The strategy is bafflingly simple (as are many great plans).
And that's it! You get your side of the field loaded with permanents, cast Warp World, recur it and copy it as many times as you like, and either swing for the win or cause every other player to scoop in frustration. It's sort of a griefer deck because of the time it takes to resolve Warp World multiple times, so be careful with your friends if you get attached to your decks.
Spellslinging- A Theme Deck by DramaTurtle
Special Thanks to DramaTurtle, who explored and embraced instant and sorcery synergy in this thread, then went off and made his own concept. It is excellent and I encourage you to give it a read.
Storm- A Theme Deck by TheEndIsNear
Also, I'd like to thank TheEndisNear, who added green to the bobthefunny's fantastical Tibor and Lumia aggro/storm deck and created a somewhat casual Riku Storm list. You know something wacky is going on when you are casting Genesis Wave as a ramp spell. Great job over there and there's lots of room for creative adjustments too.
Riku Voltron- Strictly Casual
Oh yeah. This is actually kind of playable thanks to Wild Defiance, Beserk, Rush of Blood, Fatal Frenzy, etc. Hopefully I'll try this out someday!
Card Options (Updated to RTR block. See set review posts on last the last few pages for new card discussion)
I'm not going to attempt to list every playable card in RUG, but I will do my best to cover the highlights. Bolded cards are what I would consider standouts in multiple archetpyes.
Creatures
1-drops Goblin Welder: Great for artifact creature shenanigans. An all around useful card, even without much Riku synergy. Pair with Solemn Simulacrum for hilarity.
Nephalia Smuggler: Reuseable blink for 3U is pretty fairly costed. He can be a great value generator for creature decks.
Spore Frog: He will take the heat off of you long enough to pod him into a 2-drop like Gilded Drake or Phantasmal Image, enough time to turn the game around and steal an Avacyn or copy a Sylvan Primordial. In the token deck that plays Birthing Pod, this is a solid choice.
Ulvenwald Tracker: Repeatable removal this good on a 1-drop is very hard to come by. Again, creature decks will get the most of out him.
2-drops Bloom Tender: Fast mana dork. Good for combo decks.
Coiling Oracle: Gets better with your manabase. An early one can be a fantastic tempo boost. Loves Skullclamp.
Dawntreader Elk: A nice two-drop that ramps for a small price. It is behind Sakura-Tribe Elder and Farhaven Elf in preference but it's very playable.
Fauna Shaman: A Survival of the Fittest on legs. Obviously not as good as Survival, but redundancy in that department is always good in a creature-based deck.
Gilded Drake: Stealing a guy for 2 mana is bananas. Loves Mimic Vat and long walks on the beach.
Goblin Electromancer: Spellslingers rejoice! What an awesome little mana dork that is way better than a mana dork. Should make any deck that is pushing the instant/sorcery angle.
Nivix Guildmage: 2 extremely relevant abilities. Looting is good, and it makes a nice Riku substitute in a pinch. With enough mana you can copy spells infinitely- combo decks will copy Turnabout for infinite mana, although you need 8 mana to start the reaction since you have to copy Turnabout while it's on the stack.
Phantasmal Image: An ETB effect on legs for 2 mana who might even block or beat face! That’s value.
Sakura-Tribe Elder: Rampant Growth on legs. Not that exciting but otherwise a great budget ramp guy and very solid in your opening hand.
Scavenging Ooze: Decent grave hate that can grow to be a threat, albeit with no evasion.
Snapcaster Mage: WAT. His effect is bonkers in any format, this one included. And he has flash. You don't even need that many spells for this effect to be good, and don't forget Riku, Mirari and such can copy flashed-back spells since they are cast.
Spellskite: Lets Riku and your bombs dodge spot removal. Not much use against wraths though. Recurrable with Academy Ruins (as are all artifacts mentioned from here on out).
Tunnel Ignus: For the Warp World deck specifically. This guy will hit HARD.
Vexing Shusher: Protect your big spells later on. If you expect to be countered, this guy is a great answer.
Void Stalker: An awesome deterrent for other commanders in general. Unlike Gomazoa, this guy threatens to tuck at any time. A bargain for just 2 mana to play and 3 to activate. Will probably eat removal for Riku as well, which is also good.
Zameck Guildmage: Bigger creatures are good and drawing cards are really good. He's a nifty little engine.
3-drops
Biovisionary: A pretty janky combo card in my opinion but his synergy with a general that clones creatures can't be ignored here. Rite of Replication for 7UU probably ends the game.
Eternal Witness: The green auto-include you know and love. Recurs everything from the Tooth and Nail used to find it to Time Warp and other bomb spells. If you spend 3-4 bucks on one card for your green deck, make it this one.
Farhaven Elf: Worse than Wood Elves for decks with shocks and duals and better in ones without them. I often play both anyway.
Fierce Empath: Tutors for a fatty. Loves Skullclamp.
Imperial Recruiter: If you can afford this, I hope a grand piano falls on your head. If you're on Cockatrice or proxying, congratulations- he's incredible. Tutors for nearly any utility effect you could possibly need in a creature-based deck. Would love to play him myself...
Loaming Shaman: Great graveyard utility guy. Recycles your own spells or screws up opponents' yards. I often fine myself choosing between this guy and Primal Command for the obligatory yard hate spot.
Shardless Agent: You can’t use Riku to get a second cascade, but you can copy what he cascades into. Nifty little bear.
Somberwald Sage: Gets you from 3 to 7 mana (!) for creatures. An early Terastodon might signal it's time to shuffle up another game. Otherwise frees up your mana for copying the creatures you're casting.
Squee, Goblin Nabob: Infinite Survival/Fauna Shaman fuel and also a great draw engine with Skullclamp. Chump blocker in a pinch.
Wood Elves: Searches up an untapped Forest card (read: dual/shockland). Allows T4 Riku. A fine ramp card if you have the forest cards to search for.
Wormfang Drake: Champion shenanigans! bobthefunny lays out the process and benefits here. The end result of a copied Drake is an awful lot of ETB triggers, many of which Riku is happy to abuse and make more permanent.
Yavimaya Dryad: A bit worse that Wood Elves at first glance, but forestwalk has fantastic synergy with any equipment in your deck, particularly the Sword of X and Y cycle.
Yavimaya Elder: Ensures your mid-game land drops and draws a card to boot. Sickening with Skullclamp. Early :symg::symg: requirement means T3 is no gimme, so shore up your manabase.
4-drops Anger/Brawn/Wonder: Good guys to survival away for your aggro decks. Anger is probably the best in most decks. Particularly good with Warp World, Genesis Wave and sac outlets.
Archaeomancer: A cheaper (and improved) Izzet Chronarch/Mnemonic Wall. These are a worse Eternal Witness, but still good in the right build. Be careful that you include non-ramp instants and sorceries that actually want to be recurred. They play well with Time Warp.
Citanul Heirophants: All your tokens make you more mana. This goes great in a Birthing Pod chain and can generate you a ton of mana by surprise. I really like this card in token decks.
Clone: When Phyrexian Metamorph isn't enough, play this guy too. Nothing wrong with packing a few clone effects as they all double as commander removal.
Fathom Mage: If you're playing creatures, you're drawing cards. Pretty cool card in the critical 4-drop spot. When it is too big to evolve, you can beat face or sac it to a Birthing Pod or something.
Forgotten Ancient: The Simic Evolve cards make this guy worth a mention. His synergy with Fathom Mage and Zameck Guildmage (among others) is off the charts, and even without them he gets large frighteningly fast in multiplayer.
Elgauld Shieldmate: Very unassuming until your bomb or general comes in hexproofed. Requires a sweeper or instant-speed removal to deal with.
Flametongue Kavu: 187 at some of its finest. Wrecks a lot of utility generals and swings for 4 later.
Gamekeeper: No ETB trigger but the death trigger is sexy. Mill some stuff and get a free random creature? Sounds like EDH to me! Of course, Riku can copy the creature when it enters play.
Glen Elendra Archmage: Counterspells aren’t usually a good fit for Riku, but this one is fantastic as it’s on legs and even has persist, which interacts favorably with Riku. Should probably make your deck.
Krenko, Mob Boss: Goblin token making is not at all out of the question in token-based decks.
Hellrider: All your token damage will really add up with a a couple of these on the field.
Master Biomancer: Great clone synergy as one of them will enter the battlefield as a 4/6 and each creature thereafter will be +6/+6. Can be seriously threatening in any aggressive deck.
Mystic Snake: The counterspell on a creature. Impressive creature who begs for a Mimic Vat. I’d almost always play this before any traditional counterspells becase of its synergy with other creature-loving cards like Survival of the Fittest and Mimic Vat.
Oracle of Mul Daya: The diesel engine of ramp. A little slow to get going, but once it does it will reward you handsomely. Gets better with more card draw.
Phyrexian Metamorph: Auto-include material. Extremely versatile and at a fantastic mana cost. Note that clones copy the clone target’s converted mana cost for Birthing Pod shenanigans.
Roaring Primadox: A good creature-based bounce outlet. A nice alternative to Crystal Shard and friends in creature form.
Solemn Simulacrum: A fine card. Some say he’s uncuttable- I say that in green, you have better ramp options and he doesn’t have enough impact for 4 mana. If he was clampable it would be a much different story.
Sower of Temptation: Theft on a flying 2/2. If you’re lucky, the rest of the table won’t mind your recent acquisition. Loves the protection and pump given by swords.
Spike Weaver: The fog machine himself. Great for deflecting early hate and shutting down Insurrections.
Talrand, Sky Summoner: The instant and sorcery deck can use him like a second Riku, pumping out card advantage just by playing the rest of your deck.
Venser, Shaper Savant: Another good way for Riku decks to interact at instant speed. Note that he can actually be copied with Riku for profit and recasting. When he enters the battlefield, both his ETB trigger and Riku’s trigger go on the stack. Simply have Venser’s trigger resolve first, returning himself to your hand. Then Riku’s ability resolves and you get a token Venser which bounces whatever you want, while keeping the original Venser in your hand.
5-drops(note: because they share their mana cost with Riku, these have to be really good for your deck to make the cut) Acidic Slime: The two-for-one master. Almost always gets something good and threatens to trade with your opponents’ biggest non-flying threats. Auto-include material. A real all star.
Body Double: The blue reanimation spell, except it’s a creature, which is nuts. It’s fun to pitch a fattie like Terastodon to Survival EOT and fetch for Body Double to “reanimate” it. The versatility here makes this guy auto-include material.
Caldera Hellion: A nice mini-sweeper for the price. Very good in creature toolbox decks that like to be able to tutor up an answer for tokens. Also, copying him with a few of your own guys makes the sweep 6 damage instead of 3 and you could very well have a 7/7 or greater left over from the blast.
Furystoke Giant: A cool reach card for token decks. Remove a serious threat or burn out a player. Persist makes him phenomenal with Birthing Pod.
Genesis: Amazing card advantage. Doubly sick with Survival and other discard outlets. Do not underrate this guy. He is a fantastic recursion engine and represents a huge threat that other players may unwisely ignore- the best kind of threat in free-for-all situations.
Indrik Stomphowler: Acidic Slime #2. Bigger body, can't kill lands and doesn't have deathtouch. Always play Slime first, then this guy if you need to.
Ingot Chewer: See Mulldrifter. Great value here and casting it for early to kill Sol Rings and signets can really destroy some opponents’ openers.
Ixidron: A creature-based Wrath in blue? SWEET. This guy does good work. Not much of an answer against swarms, however.
Kessig Cagebreakers: If you play with a lot of creatures and have some haste outlets, this guy is a serious threat. One of my favorite token generators because of his upside. Luckily, lots of creatures and some haste outlets are good cards already.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: Wow. What a card. :symr::symr::symr: is not for the faint of heart but the reward is worth it. More than half of the creatures in any given Riku deck get stupidly broken with this guy, the best of which is Pestermite if you want to go infinite. Haste will catch many players with their proverbial pants down.
Mindclaw Shaman: This guy should hit pretty often with stacked hands like those in Commander. If he hits removal or draw, he's a 3-for-1 or better for having removed the card from your opponent's hand. He loves to be copied because you can copy both the shaman and both spells the two of them hit.
Mulldrifter: Evoke cards are really solid with Riku because you can get a copy of the creature even if you are only playing it for its evoke cost, and the copy sticks around for more. Mulldrifter is one of the best and card draw is huge here. Gets better with your equipment.
Seedborn Muse: Basically gets its own topic. If you have a reliable flash enabler or two like Winding Canyons or Leyline of Anticipation, you can easily build a strategy around her and play Magic on everyone else’s turns.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir: Extremely powerful effect, but sort of does double duty with Riku as they both represent an upfront mana investment for significant future payoff. Probably best for control decks.
Zealous Conscripts: A really great card that can take permanents for your bidding and let you Birthing Pod from 4 to 6, among other neat tricks. Combos with Kiki-Jiki as well for infinte hasty damage.
6-drops Æthersnipe: Double Disperse and a 4/4 for :1mana::symu::symu::symu::symg:? Huge tempo swing on a relevant body. Best played directly after Riku resolves.
Brutailzer Exarch: Solid utility guy and great to copy. A fine card if a little underwhelming. Better in budget decks.
Charmbreaker Devils: Slow but the recursion is decent in spellslinger lists. Much better in mono-red.
Consecrated Sphinx: Similar to Primetime in terms of game-warping presence. A truly fantastic creature. He has become less auto-include since the rise of Prime Speaker Zegana (who has much more synergy with the creature toolbox deck in general while blanking removal) but he is still fantastic and should be considered in nearly every blue deck.
Deadeye Navigator: If you can untap with this guy you can pretty much build an insurmountable card advantage lead. The amount of ETB shenanigans you can have here is just enormous. I worry he is a turn too slow to own and he may be better as a faux-8-drop, saving 2 mana to protect himself from spot removal. Overall verdict is that he is like the other 6-drop threats that take a turn to get going but his blowout potential is off the charts.
Deadwood Treefolk: A great recursion option for creature-heavy decks. I like my recursion a little cheaper but he will get the job done in long games.
Draining Whelk: Crystal Shard, anyone? I don’t like leaving the mana open for him waiting for a big spell to go off but in a control-style deck he can be pretty nuts.
Duplicant: Great exiling removal on a body. I get disappointed when he’s a 2/2, but removing a Titan makes it feel pretty sweet. Academy Ruins takes it to the next level.
Frost Titan: Another really fine way to beat face that's great in twos. Represents a temporary answer to any permanent that's bugging you. Can lock down everything from pesky utility commanders to Gaea's Cradle and Maze of Ith.
Godo, Bandit Warlord: Equipment tutorer and a beatstick in his own right. Only as good as your swords. Like most good threats, demands an answer.
Keiga, the Tide Star: Great beater that no one wants to kill. Cold to wraths, unfortunately. A cool copy interaction here exists though as creating a copy of Keiga will "Legend Rule" them both, immediately letting you steal two creatures.
Inferno Titan: Repeatable removal and a hell of a beater. I love that he prevents low-toughness commanders from sticking as long as he’s on the table.
Prime Speaker Zegana: The July 13, 2013 changes to the legend rule push Zegana over the top. Copying a Zegana used to kill them both. Now you can keep one of them to clone, blink, bounce and recast. The huge boost in utility here makes here a VERY attractive card draw option for creature-based decks. Perhaps the best we've got! Consecrated Sphinx is very powerful as well but it lacks synergy with ETB effects and tends to eat removal before he draws you any appreciable amount of cards. Zegana gives you all the value up-front and blanks their removal and I believe she will in time prove to be the wiser choice.
Progenitor Mimic: A clone that clones itself every turn is just insane. Riku does not trigger on tokens entering the battlefield but he does get another clone on his first copy, and clones ETB-ing every turn just has massive synergy with the rest of any creature-based deck, including sexniess with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives. Have fun with this one.
Rampaging Baloths: Gets completely out of hand in just a couple of turns turning your late-game dead lands into an army of 4/4s. I have underestimated this card in the past and paid dearly for it.
Steel Hellkite: A solid budget choice here. Must be dealt with in most cases and almost never a bad draw.
Worldgorger Dragon: Now unbanned and here for your sick, twisted combo pleasure. Goes infinite with Riku and 8 mana, but is easily disruptable so watch out.
Wurmcoil Engine: Fares much better after a wrath than some other 6-drops. Great synergy with token doublers.
Chancellor of the Spires/Diluvian Primordial: Another fantastic use of seven mana. Diluvian's ability to cast multiple spells has more blowout potential, but if you are blinking a lot, the Chancellor becomes better because he allows you to recast the spells over multiple activations (whereas the Primordial exiles them). Between these guys and Sphinx of Uthuun, it will come down to personal preference.
Hornet Queen: Another sick token producer. Makes you basically impossible to attack profitably, which increases its usefulness in multiplayer situations.
Moldgraf Monstrosity: Consider him wrath protection. Death triggers are not as reliable as ETB triggers but at least this guy beats for 8 in the meantime.
Molten Primordial: Mass Mutiny stapled to a hasty 6/4 is the closest to an Insurrection you're going to get on a creature for a while. Really good copied and of course with sac outlets like High Market.
Palinchron: An absolute combo machine. Easily goes infinite with Riku in play to make infinite mana and infinite flyers. If you want to win fast and decidedly, this is one way to do it.
Phyrexian Ingester: Super-Duplicant. I think he needs evasion to put him over the edge but it's a fine card just the same and a really great budget choice.
Regal Force: The token deck can draw a ton of cards off of this guy.
Sphinx of Uthuun: Fact or Fiction that beats for 5 in the air? Completely ridiculous. Awesome card draw slot for the deck.
Sylvan Primordial: The closest thing you'll get to a Primeval Titan replacement, and in most decklists should probably replace Boundless Realms. A 6/8 with reach is very hard to kill in combat, and you ramp and you blow things up. What's not to love about this guy, other than that he's maybe too good? Autoinclude material.
8-drops and up Bogardan Hellkite: A disgusting ETB ability and a great beater. Flash just piles on the goodness. Expensive, but often worth it, especially if your next play is a kicked Rite of Replication.
Craterhoof Behemoth: With even a modest army you are probably swinging for lethal. This is very good in any creature deck full of utility guys and extremely lethal in any token deck. Consider keeping this "I win" button around at the top of your curve.
Kederekt Leviathan: This card solves an awful lot of problems. Unearth is incredible.
Maelstrom Wanderer: The unpredictable nature of a double cascade at 8 mana leaves this guy in the "casual only" bin. But the effect has huge potential and the haste he grants to all creatures still leave him a fun and effective way to spend 8 mana. He's no Insurrection but as a source of laughs and cries of rage he is the perfect EDH fattie.
Magmatic Force: A lightning bolt per turn is a ridiculous threat. Gets a mention for being in the Mirror Mastery precon.
Terastodon: A superbomb of the highest order. Keep the elephants to yourself or just lay waste to the board. Somehow seems to be hit with a Body Double nearly every game, so watch out for opponents’ reanimation options and be prepared to exile your own graveyard if necessary.
Woodfall Primus: Persist is lovely with Riku for obvious reasons. Solves an awful lot of problems if you’re willing to pay the price. A heck of a beatstick that no one wants to kill. Combine with Oran-Rief, the Vastwood for hilarity. Plays very well with clones, who can persist and come back as something else.
Artisan of Kozilek: Riku likes him because he can copy the reanimated creature, if you have eleven mana to spare. Note that copying the Artisan does not reanimate two creatures due to the “cast” clause in the ETB ability. Other Eldrazi are pretty expensive manawise and I wouldn’t generally recommend them unless you’ve got lots of ways to cheat them out, since copying them is somewhat useless.
Worldspine Wurm: A tasty Natural Order target whose mana cost restricts him to pretty much that. Really cool death trigger with great synergy with the token-copying enchantments.
Mystic Remora: Best to cast mid-to-late game when the upkeep is no problem and opponents will be hesitant to pay the cost.
Survival of the Fittest: Possibly the best card in the deck. This enchantment is perfect for assembling your combo, generating CA with Genesis and/or Squee and responding to game situations with a creature toolbox. Nearly indispensable in any deck whose budget can handle it.
Sylvan Library: Free filtering every turn and for 4 to 8 life you can get greedy with it! Less mana intensive than Top at the expense of being nearly untutorable. If I could have hit this with Trinket Mage, the decision between the two would have been much easier.
Beastmaster Ascension: Token/aggro strategies will love this anthem. Very easy to turn on in a FFA situation where not everyone has blockers.
Ceta Sanctuary: Every turn looting is pretty simple to pull off. If you can stick it with a red and a green permanent for the full effect (oh by the way your Commander is red and green), it’s draw AND loot for just the 3 mana initial investment, which is fantastic. A hidden gem in the truest sense. I recommend this over Rhystic Study because it’s far less annoying to other players and it has even more upside.
Equilibrium: Creature re-usability that can be tempo advantage lategame. Good for ETB-style decks.
Fecundity: Legitimate draw engine for token decks and a very good one at that. Nothing punishes a wrath better than drawing 9 cards off of it.
Holistic Wisdom: Good way to turn early-game chaff into late-game gas. A true hidden gem that lets you repeatedly cast your best spells. Works really well with draw spells, allowing you to chain them together as long as you have the mana.
Rhystic Study: Free cards early on and a one-sided Sphere of Resistance later when your opponents want to cast more than one spell per turn. Somewhat annoying and hate-drawing as you have to keep asking people if they want to pay, so keep that in mind.
Sneak Attack: Insane in creature-based decks. With Riku around, just :symu::symr::symg: gives you two of any creature from your hand at instant speed, one of which sticks around as a token and the other gets sacrificed EOT. Fits beautifully in the curve under Riku's 5 mana entry fee. The power level ceiling on this card, in this deck, is just sky high. Genesis and/or Survival of the Fittest break this in half in their own special ways.
Defense of the Heart: Pop this with Riku out (a non-trivial task!) and some open copy mana and you should probably win.
Greater Good: Solid card advantage engine, even if only virtual by way of Bazaar of Bagdhad activations on your 2-toughness utility guys. If you are a true Timmy and lean on your fatties to win games, this sac outlet will give you resilience against wraths and control magic effects and be a solid card advantage machine.
Pattern of Rebirth: Solid tutor that puts your guy directly onto the battlefield, allowing a Riku copy for a minimal price. Weak to exiling removal, obviously.
Parallel Lives/Doubling Season: Token decks rejoice! Don’t you wish this could just be your Commander? The tokens Riku’s ability put into play are certainly copied by this. It’s mostly win-more but if you can’t win-more in Commander, I don’t know where you can. Parallel Lives is actually BETTER in than Doubling Season in this deck because of the cost reduction.
Opposition: Absolutely crushing in token decks. The ability to tap lands and mana rocks with your guys is nearly unfair.
Stranglehold: Honestly, likely to just make the table kill you faster. Can’t deny its power though. Almost completely screws your mono-black opponents.
Perilous Forays: A fantastic sac outlet for token decks where Greater Good seems weak. Those lands add up really fast.
Possibility Storm: Insanely good in the spellslinger deck. For instants and sorceries, Riku gets to copy the original spell cast AND the spell hit off the P-Storm trigger for a total of three spells for one cast. Also there is a stax element to this card because Riku's first spell copy allows you to actually cast the spell you want instead of just random spells, while the rest of the table is stuck casting only random spells. And finally, the enchantment protects Riku AND itself by spellshifting any removal in your opponents' hands. A definite sleeper hit from Dragon's Maze and a must in any spellslinger deck.
Mana Reflection: Huge mana doubler and a green staple. Like many of these highly-costed enchantments, we’re getting into high risk territory in terms of running out mana which does nothing now to do something else later (like Riku, Teferi, etc.). Be careful not to include too much of this in your deck. This card is not the auto-include I once thought it was here.
Lurking Predators: If you have around 35 or more creatures, this can be a beating.
Warstorm Surge: Lovely in creature-based decks if it sticks and you don’t die after you cast it. If you’re not sure you can get two activations from it, stay clear.
Wild Pair: Like Warstorm Surge, Riku, Teferi, etc. I’m not sure I want to dump all my mana into something that might not pay off later when my Commander does that already. That said, if this is not dealt with and you construct your creature base properly, this can definitely win games for you. A wonderful budget choice.
Day of the Dragons: Bet you didn't know blue could do this. Quite the buff for token decks. Tells your opponents to wrath or die.
Vicious Shadows: Wins games, not friends. A great top end finisher for token decks, who have the creatures and sac outlets to kill off players at a time. Also functions as very good wrath protection.
Cultivate/Kodama’s Reach: Fantastic land searchers. Nothing wrong with playing both. More desirable than almost any mana rock. Harrow can get two basics as well but it's a bit riskier and doesn't guarantee the next land drop.
Skyshroud Claim: The best pure ramp spell for the deck. With top-flight manabases, your colors are good for the rest of the game. Copying this with Riku makes the initial casting free, since those 4 (!) Forests ETB untapped.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss/Frenzied Tilling/Reap and Sow: LD and land tutoring ramp together. Each one does something different whether you want any land, a Forest, or just a basic. Especially good in duels.
Spot Removal Pongify/Rapid Hybridization: Can’t beat the instant-speed efficiency and come on, no one really cares about a 3/3, right? It might be the right play to use both of these.
Vandalblast: Kill ALL the artifacts! That aren't yours, of course. Still pretty good with Riku because sometimes copying the first mode of the spell is going to be enough.
Ancient Grudge: Flashback is great here. Riku loves flashback.
Cyclonic Rift: A pretty good bounce spell that is also an extremely disruptive tempo wipe that can get you out of sticky situations and put away unsuspecting opponents. The best word on the card is "Instant". Multiple useful modes make this a format all-star, but don't confuse it for a wrath or you will get burned.
Echoing Truth: Owns token decks for a very small cost.
Ground Assault: If you need creature removal beyond Pongify and Rapid Hybridization, this is a good choice and will almost always kill its intended target for just 2 mana, although at sorcery speed. Pit Fight is a decent option for another instant speed alternative.
Hull Breach: A fine use of two mana. Almost never dead, but sometimes a little narrow seeing as how it can't deal with creatures like some of our other choices.
Izzet Charm: A fine role-player that is always useful. Depends on how often you want to be killing X/2 commanders.
Mizzium Mortars: With two useful modes at reasonable costs and Riku's copy ability helping both, it's incredibly playable removal.
Turn//Burn: A neat little shock that can kill a Blightsteel or shut off a Soul of the Harvest. Has some decent utility as with Izzet Charm.
Beast Within: More incredible removal. Instant speed, 3 mana and a negligable drawback. Doesn’t get much better than this, folks.
Capsize: Terrible to have to waste early but a good finisher late game when you’ve got 25 mana and you need a way to win. Much better in duels.
Chaos Warp: Incredible tuck removal. Obviously with a little bit of risk, but for 3 mana at instant speed on any permanent, it’s totally worth it.
Aftershock: Copying this hurts but this baby has some great versatility for a red removal spell.
Bramblecrush: Versatile, but a sorcery unfortunately.
Decimate: This card has huge blowout potential but you can't just play it whenever you like. The enchantment restriction will be the hardest to fulfill in a vacuum. Remember that as long there's one of each type in play, the spell can be copied targeting the same target(s) as the first and both will resolve even if a target is gone by the time the second is ready to resolve.
Grab the Reins: Will almost always kill the most threatening two creatures on the board when entwined.
Submerge: In response to a fetch crack, I tuck your general for free. LOL. Forests are in nearly every game of EDH so you should have no problem hitting the reduced cost here.
Wash Out: Can really blow out an unprepared set of opponents. Sorcery speed makes me a little sad but, like Decimate, has a lot of potential in the right situation.
Fissure: Expensive, but versatile and an instant. Can’t complain too much here.
Prophetic Bolt: Solid removal that cantrips into something useful. A little expensive on the mana though.
Switcheroo: Creature-based decks should have plenty of dorks to trade for the nearest Gisela or Avacyn.
Relic Crush: Guaranteed 2-for-1 at instant speed is always a good cast.
Spin into Myth: Expensive at 5 mana but does it ever get the job done. Good thing it’s an instant.
Sweepers Creeping Corrosion/Shatterstorm: If you're playing with only a couple of artifacts, consider breaking the symmetry of this mass artifact hate.
Evacuation/Devastation Tide: Mass bounce. Evacuation is just creatures as an instant, while Devastation Tide is a sorcery, but has the miracle cost and hits all nonland permanents. Make a meta call here.
All is Dust: Gets around all kinds of protection. Constantly underrated. This is a quality card.
Inferno: Instant speed sweeping is always worth a look. Doesn’t hit pro-red guys (like carriers of SoFI) but mostly will get the job done. Again, don’t play Savage Twister or Fault Line over this.
Blasphemous Act: This will often be cheap enough that you can cast it, then cast a big dude and say go. The best red wrath in my opinion.
Disaster Radius: It's a lot of mana and a big restriction to have a creature in hand, but it does hit all opponents' creatures. Maybe a better budget choice.
Fault Line: Instant speed earthquake that hits players. A great sweeper/finisher. Not as good as Starstorm but warrants consideration in its absence or along side it.
Starstorm: Instant speed, scalable, and cycles if you don’t want it. A top-notch sweeper. Never play something like Savage Twister or Fault Line over this. See also: Oblivion Stone
Draw Brainstorm/Preordain/Ponder: The eye of the stormy debate about cantripping small spells in EDH. Some people swear by these for the marginal increase in card quality. Others would rather just play another bomb at their own peril. Personally, I don’t fault other players for using them, especially in U/G decks with lots of ramp-induced shuffle effects for Brainstorm. It’s a matter or personal taste, really. Combo decks will like these, including Ponder (which most decks should not want).
Life from the Loam: Recycles your fetchlands and other valuable nonbasics. Great with the Onslaught cycling lands like Lonely Sandbar.
Manamorphose: One-way ticket to value town. Belongs in every Riku list. It cycles for free and it can draw you cards and ramp you at the same time if Riku is out.
Nostalgic Dreams: Ridiculous when copied. Also discards your Genesis and Spitting Image.
Regrowth: Extremely solid. Almost always gets you something good. Great for re-casting dead creatures and re-using removal spells and wraths. Wildwood Rebirth is similar but limited only to creatures, which may be fine for you.
Guided Passage: Good opponents won't give you anything you can use. Good teammates will give you whatever you want...
Fact or Fiction: The one and only. No matter who picks what, you win! This is a fine draw spell and a terrific copy target the turn after Riku’s first cast. This would be the first pure draw spell I would recommend in any blue deck.
Momentous Fall: Instant speed makes this a great response to a Wrath or removal spell. Drawing three or more cards makes it worth it- drawing six or more makes it hilarious.
Past in Flames: Yawgwin for instants and sorceries. Abusable in big mana instant/sorcery builds.
Restock/All Suns' Dawn/Creeping Renaissance: Can get several cards back with these. All Suns' Dawn is a little restrictive for my tastes but if you get at least two cards back, it's not a bad spell at all. Renaissance naming "creature" can be brutal in the right deck.
Recurring Insight: For 6 mana you basically can’t draw more cards than this can without some sort of combo. Unmatched in pure power.
Praetor's Counsel: This can be underwhelming if you don't have much in the yard but ridiculous if you do.
Stroke of Genius/Blue Sun’s Zenith: Instant speed, scale very well for big-mana decks and a great infinite mana finisher targeting your opponent(s).
Gamble: I’m sick of hearing about how bad this card is. It’s not. It’s fantastic. How else do you tutor up enchantments (like Survival) in these colors? Gets you nearly whatever you want. When you’re not playing black, that’s saying something.
Signal the Clans: The random element can be played around to some extent. It's instant speed for just 2 mana, and if you need to go get a bomb or something, you can just get three of them. Copying it is good card advantage.
Fabricate: Gets you that Sword or Birthing Pod, no questions asked.
Intuition: Sooo good. Can name Target Card/Eternal Witness/Regrowth, Target Artifact/Crucible of Worlds/Academy Ruins, Target Creature/Body Double/Eternal Witness, Kederekt Leviathan and Spitting Image are lose/lose for your opponent... the list goes on. Takes skill to know what to search for. For instance, any time you say “Genesis”, it’s probably going to end up clogging your hand if you don’t have a discard outlet.
Long-Term Plans: Don't shuffle your library! Be careful casting this early as any tutor or ramp spell will totally mess you up. The upside is, of course, that you get whatever you want. Sensei's Divining Top can put the card right into your hand.
Natural Order: Sac a utility guy and Terastodon their manabse, or bring about other general hilarity. An amazing card if you can afford it.
Green Sun’s Zenith: Gets you what you need when you need it. Sometimes you will be bummed when you want a non-green creature and you can’t have it, but hey, that’s life. Riku can copy both the spell and the creature that hits play.
Chord of Calling: Gets you anything you want at instant speed. Again, Riku can copy the spell and the creature that enters play. Best in token decks due to Convoke. I find that I prefer Worldly Tutor these days to GSZ and CoC because of the cheap cost.
Counters (With so many counters available, I’m just going to pick my favorites.)
Pact of Negation: The get out of jail free card. Great for several reasons: If it’s in your hand, you can plan for disaster without leaving mana open and completely surprise your opponents. If it’s not in your hand, you can bluff it pretty easily. Green decks like this one should have no problem playing the upkeep cost in LD-light metas.
Arcane Denial/Remand: Cantripping counterspells that are slightly less likely to make enemies because of the perks. I am unlikely to play Counterspell over either of these two.
Spell Crumple/Hinder: Commonly used to tuck other commanders, but they’re still good counterspells on their own too. Can’t do better for three mana.
Voidslime: Counters basically everything. Can't beat the versatility here.
Cryptic Command: Does everything you could possibly ask for, if you can produce the :symu::symu::symu: to cast it.
Plasm Capture: Stops any spell dead in its tracks and sets you up for a huge next turn. Be careful of telegraphing this. One of the few counters worth playing in all nearly Riku decks.
Desertion: A hilariously effective steal spell at best and an expensive counter at worst. Very versatile if you can stand to keep the mana open. Gather Specimens is similar, if you like that sort of thing.
Mystic Genesis: Counters and makes a dude. Neat Doubling Season and Parallel Lives synergy but otherwise it's not that impressive for 5 mana.
Utility Constant Mists: Ridiculous fog machine. Watch out for free-for-all situations where you are likely to be ganged up on- you won't want to sacrifice your entire manabase just to survive.
Fork/Twincast/Reverberate/Reiterate/Wild Ricochet/Ricochet Trap: If you want to copy and manipulate spells, well, here you go. These effects are especially devastating against Time Warp effects. I don’t like leaving the mana open for these effects but thankfully they are (mostly) cheap. Reverberate combos infinitely with Turnabout.
Flash: Very abusable with Riku. 1UUG lets you cast any creature in your hand at instant speed and double its ETB effect while putting the original copy in your yard for later use. Big blowout potential.
Gaea's Blessing: Some sweet little instant grave hate that does not cost you a card. Every time you build a deck without grave hate, Yawgmoth kills a kitten.
Cackling Counterpart: Really strong as an instant but really weak in that it can only copy your own guys. Make sure you have a lot of creatures...
Ghostly Flicker: Saves your guys from spot removal, untaps your Gaea's Cradle, and gives you extra copy and ETB opportunities? A great utility spell for creature decks.
Heat Shimmer: Dead to removal but the low cost and the haste on the token and its potential copy give this some great utility. Consider this a meta call against M11/M12 Titans, although it's much worse without Primeval Titan around to fetch you up to 8 lands.
Turnabout: Combos with Reiterate and can be a decent ritual with Riku around. Also takes out an opponent if you want to go off with something else.
Unexpected Results: Another "fun" card for Riku, who can copy this spell and anything that comes in off of it (except a land, of course).
Bribery: If one thing is consistent across the EDH community, it’s that nearly every table has big dudes. At five mana, this is extremely undercosted and a blue staple by any measure. Telemin Performance is a much worse Bribery, but funnier.
Mana Geyser: Generates a ludicrous amount of mana in multiplayer games. Be sure to leave behind enough colored mana to cast spells that require blue and green mana.
Plow Under: Copy this to basically take someone out of the game. They may as well go make some popcorn.
Primal Command: Grave hate, creature tutoring, tucks noncreature permanents, and yes, it gains you life. A fine card in any green deck.
Time Warp: A wonderful way to keep the pressure on and gain some more value out of your graveyard recursion. Can be looped just a few times or infinitely, depending on what you want to get out of it.
Urban Evolution: Draw and ramp stapled together for a fair cost. Key word: fair.
Word of Seizing: Steals a permanent at instant speed, letting you do what you want with it. Really versatile. Best with sac outlets like Greater Gargadon to keep your opponents from getting their stuff back.
Spelltwine: A fun, swingy card for instant and sorcery builds. If you play Knowledge Exploitation first, you'll have stacked your yard and someone else's for Spelltwine shenanigans.
Spitting Image/Stolen Identitiy: Reusable copy effects are tough to beat. Spitting image has the inevitability factor, since you can recast it as many times as you draw a land. Stolen Identity's Cipher threatens multiple copies with just one cast though, so if you have a bunch of evasive guys you may prefer that instead.
Blatant Thievery: Guaranteed to make you public enemy number one. Not always worth the trouble.
Knowledge Exploitation: It’s practically any spell you want, albeit at sorcery speed. You can almost always get a bomb, a removal spell or a wrath. Game enders like Insurrection are also great targets. This is an underrated swiss army knife.
Haymakers Beserk/Fatal Frenzy/Rush of Blood: These can all be copied to quadruple a creature's power. Rush does not grant trample but it is an instant.
Rite of Replication: A classic Timmy game-ender. Watch out for sac outlets and removal in response to the copy. I think this card is representative of the EDH card- versatile, scaleable and completely over the top.
Dragonshift/Tears of Rage/Overwhelming Stampede/Savage Beating/Biomass Mutation: A few overrun spells with a lot of finishing potential. Dragonshift and Tears of Rage are instants, making for surprise kills out of nowhere. Especially good with Kessig Cagebreakers before the declare blockers step. Overwhelming Stampede is safer and you have to have a big guy to make it great but even with 3 dorks and a 6/6 you are swinging for 30-40 damage (as long as the 6/6 isn't zapped with removal in response). Savage Beating simply quadruples their power, which looks real spicy if you have 2/2 wolves or better. Biomass Mutation grants no evasion but like Dragonshift and Tears of Rage have instant-speed to sweeten the deal, along with huge levels of pump depending on how much mana you have.
Burn at the Stake: Just gross in token decks and the small mana cost compared to X spells makes copying it extremely appetizing. With just 5 tokens and Riku in play you can spend 7 mana for 30 direct player damage. Really not fair with Avenger of Zendikar.
Rude Awakening: Land overrun is no joke. Riku effectively reduces the entwine cost to :symu::symr: and copying the entwined spell can pay for itself by untapping all the lands twice.
Insurrection: With even a few beaters on the table, this will knock out at least one player. Another classic game-ender. Has a better reputation that some of the others because the win is though turning guys sideways. Watch out for Homeward Path completely negating its effect.
Tooth and Nail: Needs no introduction! Assembles all kinds of combos and game-ending situations. As previously mentioned, Glen Elendra Archmage and Avenger of Zendikar is one good way to go. The possibilities are endless.
Time Stretch: It’s really hard to lose a game of EDH after taking three turns in a row. Be careful playing this with strangers who find extra turns lame. Sometimes it’s just better to run Time Warp instead for social reasons.
Bonfire of the Damned/Comet Storm/Banefire/Devil's Play/Clan Defiance: Your go-to killer X spells (well, these and Blue Sun’s Zenith if you’re dealing with infinite mana). Two are instants, one can hit twice, one hits up to three times, and one can wipe their whole board. Bonfire combos with Mystical Tutor to end a game fast or stabilize against a threat. Comet Storm is more useful outside its “I win” qualities and for its instant speed, while Banefire is nearly impossible to stop. Devil's Play gives you extra reach and the most damage to a single target. Clan Defiance gives you up to three targets for XRG, so it's the most efficient of the bunch until you get up into the 10 mana range or more where Comet Storm takes over.
Eternal Dominion: Copy this for two epic triggers! Should be quite difficult to lose after that.
Genesis Wave/Epic Experiment: Massive spells that let you play out a significant portion of your deck, be it creatures or noncreature spells. Genesis Wave is one of the best game-enders and plays very well with haste enablers. Epic Experiment goes great with draw spells and storm, but blanks on X spells so watch out for that.
Artifacts
Support Sensei’s Divining Top: Really fantastic filtering with all the shuffle effects available here. Plus Trinket Mage? Absolutely an auto-include here.
Skullclamp: As long as things are going to be dying, you may as well draw cards. Incredible with Sneak Attack, Birthing Pod, Mimic Vat, Squee, and merely amazing with the rest of your creature-based deck. A frequent Trinket Mage target.
Sol Ring/Mana Crypt: Allow for explosive starts. Completely overpowered, but no one will ban them since they’re so popular. I’m part of the problem, of course.
(On other, non-ridiculous mana rocks, including signets: You are playing green- you do not need many mana rocks, if at all. Land-based ramp is almost always the better choice. Lands are much less likely to be targeted by destructive effects or become collateral damage to a sweeper. Additionally, Riku can copy land-based ramp spells like Cultivate for added value, whereas he can do nothing special with mana rocks. Play the signets only if your fixing is very poor.)
Lightning Greaves/Swiftfoot Boots: Protect Riku and your guys and give them haste. Do not underestimate the haste part- it will screw up blocking for all your opponents and will keep you safer simply by being on the board.
Crystal Ball: In my opinion, a worse Top. Still provides excellent filtering though. Great for when Top is not an option.
Oblivion Stone/Nevinyrral’s Disk: Sweepers recurrable by Academy Ruins make one of these a fine choice. I don’t like the slowness of the disk but it is cheaper on your mana.
Rings of Brighthearth: Any non-mana activated abilities can be doubled with this. Includes Kiki-Jiki, Fetchlands, Survival effects... absolutely fantastic if your deck is built to support it.
Sword of Feast and Famine: Random weenies untapping your mana and forcing discard. Untapping your lands in a big mana deck with blue for draw can be just brutal. Probably my favorite of the big three swords in this deck. Again, Godo swings this twice.
Sword of Fire and Ice: Turns random weenies into killing machines that draw you cards. Protections are lackluster- fantastic otherwise. Godo swings twice!
Helm of Possession: Your tokens will almost never have a better use than to repeatedly steal your opponents’ creatures. Vicious.
Quicksilver Amulet: A flash enabler and cost reducer for fatties. Riku gets funny with this- flashed-in double Woodfall Primus for :4mana::symu::symg:? Sure!
Vedalken Orrery: Classic flash enabler. See also Leyline of Anticipation, which is more difficult to tutor for in RUG.
Mindslaver: Locks down players with Academy Ruins. A mean card, but you can't argue with results here if that's all you're looking for.
Akroma’s Memorial: Superbuffs your token army for a hefty price considering no P/T changes. Probably most useful as a haste enabler off a Genesis Wave.
Recursion Voyager Staff: One-shot blinking. Riku can copy the creature as it re-enters the battlefield and Academy Ruins can let you re-use it cheaply. Works on offense and defense. A really fine utility card.
Nim Deathmantle: per activation is steep but this baby does some great work. Riku can copy a creature that comes into play off the rez ability as well. Intimidate and the P/T boost is very relevant in some situations.
Spawning Pit: Great wrath recovery for token decks.
Isochron Scepter: Spellslinging decks can use a scepter package to generate some serious card advantage. Stick a Remand or Arcane Denial on one and enjoy
Sword of Light and Shadow: Random weenies recurring creatures from the yard is no joke. Protections are super relevant as they are the two colors most likely to kill a creature.
Crucible of Worlds: Play with fetches and Strip Mine to keep the gas coming. A fantastic Intuition target along with Academy Ruins and another regrowth effect. Some folks will cry and whine when you play Crucible and Strip Mine, but the fact is that it costs you a land drop to nuke a land (Exploration notwithstanding) and often you will have better things to do than abuse this. At the same time, this is why you do not play Ravnica bouncelands unless you are absolutely financially destitute.
Crystal Shard/Erratic Portal: Lets you reuse your ETB effects and save your guys from removal. Opponents need two mana to save their guys from bounce (tap it on their end step, they pay, tap it again on your own turn). Devastating with Sneak Attack, Mystic Snake and Eternal Witness among others.
Mimic Vat: Along the lines of Skullclamp- as long as creatures are dying, why not take advantage of the situation? An awesome in creature decks or against them. Pair with Glided Drake, Skullclamp, etc for a devastating impact on the game.
Proteus Staff: Really versatile. You can repurpose you mana fetchers and tokens into threats from your deck, then copy the guys you put into play. With lots of ETB effects this is a pretty good card advantage engine. Also has the extremly good upside of having the defensive capabilty to hit opposing commanders with this and tuck them. A fine card for any Riku deck.
Birthing Pod: Incredible. It's like a Proteus Staff with more control and less aggro. An under-the-radar style threat that constantly keeps the pressure on with minimal mana investment and can assemble your infinite combos rather easily. Riku can copy the creatures you put in play, turning this card from merely great to just stellar. Check out my decklist for some ideas on pod chains. Works very well Cauldron of Souls, Sneak Attack, Mimic Vat, Skullclamp, etc.
Cauldron of Souls: Keep your guys around and recycle their ETB effects while letting Riku copy them? Can’t ask for much more for 5 mana, though it is expensive and costs the same as Riku. Works great with Oran-Rief, the Vastwood and Novijen, Heart of Progress. Completely nuts with Melira, Sylvok Outcast, as are all other persist cards. Note that tokens do not persist. Colfenor's Urn is more narrow but costs less.
Conjurer's Closet: The end step trigger (rather than an upkeep trigger) makes this very playable. A fantastic value generator for your creatures. In creature decks I see this as a super Phyrexian Arena.
Minion Reflector: Another up-front investment for inevitability later on. A fine value choice that loves ETB and graveyard/leaves play triggers.
Lands
Duals (Tropical Island, Volcanic Island, Taiga): Incredible, especially with those with the “Forest” type as they can be searched up by Wood Elves, Skyshroud Claim, etc.
Fetches (Misty Rainforest, Scalding Tarn, Wooded Foothills): Great for fetching duals or otherwise cleaning up the fixing situation. OP with Crucible of Worlds, obviously. Also note that there are plenty of off-color fetches you can play like Flooded Strand which will fetch you only one of the two basic land types. I don't play them for flavor and budget reasons but don't restrict yourself just because I do if you want to go all-out.
Taplands (Hinterland Harbor, Sulfur Falls, Rootbound Crag): Extremely solid. With some ramp, getting Forests and Islands into play should be fairly easy for when you draw these.
Land Destruction (Strip Mine, Wasteland, Tectonic Edge, Dust Bowl, Ghost Quarter): Listed in order of preference. Slot at least one in your deck, maybe more. Crucible of Worlds helps keep the Cradle or Coffers/Urborg player in check.
Gaea’s Cradle: Almost always taps for 2 or more in a creature-based deck and can get really busted if you bring tokens along for the ride.
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge: Good with Kiki-Jiki, Gaea's Cradle, Yavimaya Hollow... not too much else though, since Riku doesn't play well with most legendary creatures and legendary non-creatures worth playing are few and far between.
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds: Great with landfall triggers on Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar, and the legend rule is unlikely to be a factor. If landfall didn't make this an every-deck play, then nothing will.
Dryad Arbor: A land that's also a creature. Pitchable to survival, searchable with Green Sun's Zenith, clampable, and is awesome as a surprise chump blocker off a fetch activation.
Mosswort Bridge/Spinerock Knoll: These will likely go off by the end of your game. Will that be too late? I find these lands get targeted by LD effects a little too often for my tastes.
Tolaria West: Transmute for any land you like, or even Pact of Negation! Very useful.
Academy Ruins: Incredible recursion here. You can get back a lot more than Mindslaver with this. Swords, Mimic Vat... there’s almost always something worth re-drawing.
Alchemist's Refuge: A fine flash enabler for controlling decks and a big upgrade over Winding Canyons, which only works on creatures.
Ancient Tomb: Super ramp, but be careful leaning too hard on this.
Desolate Lighthouse: Also great for control decks, but good in general at sculpting your hand and graveyard and triggering miracles and such on other players' turns. 4 mana is a bit expensive for the ability but any less and I think standard would become URx control versus the field.
High Market: Absolute all star land. Protects against control magic effects and Rite of Replication blowouts. See also Miren, the Moaning Well if you like that sort of thing.
Homeward Path: Kind of overpowered and potentially devastating to you if you like borrowing creatures. Bribery and Insurrection are nearly useless with this card out, so be aware of its presence in all games.
Kessig Wolf Run: As long as you have a creature, you will be a threat for lethal damage. An amazing mana sink. This is an extremely powerful land and it's probably good for the format that it's restricted to two colors.
Maze of Ith: Discourages opponents from attacking you and can legitimately keep you alive late into the game. Mystifying Maze generates mana but is far more expensive to activate.
Temple of the False God: There's enough ramp and draw in RUG decks that this is very playable. Doesn't get you to Riku any faster though.
Thespian's Stage: Comes down colorless but untapped, and you can pay just 2 mana to kill a legendary land or make your own Temple of the False God or Command Tower or something. Very good.
Yavimaya Hollow: Only have to leave open a lousy 2 mana to keep Riku or a bomb around after a kill spell or a sweeper without the "no regen" clause. Keep quiet about it and many players will forget you even have it...
Planeswalkers
(I find most planeswalkers to be poor choices in multiplayer with the exception of Tezzeret the Seeker. They tend to be "small effect + Fog" when they are not protected. Play them at your own risk.)
Jace Beleren: I think there are better draw engines than him, but if he lives for two activations you did all right.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: The brainstorms and unsummons do help, but he will draw more hate than he deserves in most instances (to your detriment).
Karn Liberated: He's big. He's bad. He exiles things and threatens to start the whole damn thing over again. I like that 10 loyalty (after a +4) is not easy to compromise.
Sarkhan Vol: +1 is really great after you hit a bomb or token generator. Doubling Season for bigtime lulz.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage: A serviceable 5-mana walker with a lot of upside. I like her better than most.
Tezzeret the Seeker: Great for tutoring up utility artifacts. Grab anything from Top to Metamorph.
Deck Lists These will change often and unexpectedly. Build what works for you!
Creature Toolbox
I started off playing a generic goodstuff Riku deck without a real plan that was a lot more top-heavy. I played a good deal of 7 and 8-drops. When disruption and otherwise sputtering out before 8 or 10 mana became a point of concern for me, I tightened things up a bit and focused some more on the lower end of the curve. I also tried to play creatures over instants or sorceries when possible, though some non-creature spells and artifacts simply cannot be replaced. I feel I have managed to find a balance which captures the best of both worlds- powerful creature synergy flanked by powerful supplemental spells. And since Riku can copy both, the dichotomy, though somewhat lopsided, isn't that much of an issue. The end result is leaner and meaner than your average Riku deck, but not without a few big-mana haymakers to get over the top.
I put this list together and I was preparing to test it when Thromok the Insatiable was spoiled from Planechase 2012. Let's just say I was sidetracked.
This list is somewhat untested but I believe it is a good place to start for anyone looking to win with tokens and Riku. It is based off my own Thromok list, which is now linked in my sig. I have plenty of reason to believe that this is a winning strategy and that this deck would be more than capable in most Commander settings.
When I met my new playgroup here in Kansas City, they were new to Commander but pretty excited to be playing. I didn't want to crush them with a finely tuned, fully powered Riku deck, but I still wanted to play him and at the same time show them what could be done on a tight budget. I built this deck a few months ago and played it with them a few times. I still won all the games but it was close on most occasions, so I have a feeling it would be competent in any casual to semi-casual Commander setting. It doesn't take a lot of money to have a lot of fun with this guy, and this list is proof of that. I will update it if necessary, and as with all my decks, I welcome your feedback.
Anyone who's played with Riku has thought of the idea of just focusing on instants and sorceries. This type of build is considered to be an suboptimal theme build which sacrifices most tradition forms of defense (by playing so few creatures) for instant and sorcery-based ramp and control. It's a lot of fun and an exciting challenge to tackle, but don't expect to take down your PTQ side events with it.
Credit to ISBPathfinder and fivecolorjunk for primer layout, DramaTurtle for the Spellslinging Primer and TheEndisNear for the Storm list. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
One thing that I disagree with Biomechanika is that I think Pongify should stay in the deck. RUG's color scheme doesn't provide great removal besides burn and even that cannot deal with huge monsters. At one mana it would be a great removal card to copy. The same applies to Beast Within.
Proteus Staff since you have so many etb activation's you can just cycle through them with this, albeit randomly, but it is better than just sitting there with a 2/2 that served its purpose.
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"It was probably a lousy spell in the first place."
—Ertai, wizard adept
I don't think Trygon Predator, Glen Elendra Archmage, Flametongue Kavu, or Pongify are doing you any favors. If you cut any of them, it would free up some space for creatures with better EtB effects.
Firstly, thanks.
I like the Archmage because she protects Riku AND his copy ability triggers when she Persists, so you can potentially get four uses out of her. Still, I could be convinced to play Mystic Snake or Hinder number 2 instead.
You don't like FTK huh? 4 damage kills an awful lot in the format. A lot of small generals get the axe and I can copy him with Riku easily for another 2 mana. OK then, I'll upgrade him to Inferno Titan.
I agree that Chaos Warp is probably better than Pongify. I should make that switch but I'm afraid of what will happen when my opponent flips over something gross and I don't like letting them draw off of it. Somehow a 3/3 is safer. Perhaps I'll play both?
I'll also agree that Trygon Predator doesn't need to stay in ETB-wise. I had a vision for the deck at one point that involved more swords and delivery systems and he must have been one of them.
One thing that I disagree with Biomechanika is that I think Pongify should stay in the deck. RUG's color scheme doesn't provide great removal besides burn and even that cannot deal with huge monsters. At one mana it would be a great removal card to copy. The same applies to Beast Within.
I suppose I should always have green mana available for the renegades and 3 power is better than 2. Why not...
As for your finishers, the ones you suggested (besides the titans) seem pretty underwhelming to me. I did have Inferno Titan on the list before cuts at one point. I like him better when I have Basilisk Collar along for the ride but I'll think about what else to finish with in the meantime. Thanks.
Proteus Staff since you have so many etb activation's you can just cycle through them with this, albeit randomly, but it is better than just sitting there with a 2/2 that served its purpose.
This is a winner because Riku can copy the guy that comes out, just like with Birthing Pod. I'll have to see what I can do. Thanks for the reminder this existed.
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Keep 'em coming guys! I can take it. Also taking suggestions for more ETB finishers.
Oh, and I ditched Treachery. That new land is the last straw for that card that didn't really fit with Riku anyway.
Not sure how good it'd be, but Rings of Brighthearth seems like it would be sooooo much fun in this deck.
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Quote from Fry, from Futurama »
It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came and the grasshopper died and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?
Not sure how good it'd be, but Rings of Brighthearth seems like it would be sooooo much fun in this deck.
Yeah it's a bit expensive manawise but it would be sweet. I worry about having all this stuff to help out his copy ability and then he dies or I have nothing good to copy.
One way to go with this deck (and that's why I love Riku so much, you can go 10 different ways with him) is to play Doubling Season and abuse the crap out of creature tokens and Planeswalkers. Consider (and this is without Riku even involved) Sarkhan Vol coming down with a Doubling Season and a Rings of Brighthearth in play. You can ultimate immediately with 2 loyalty remaining, spend two additional mana on the rings and get TWENTY 4/4 dragons. And all those cards are good cards too that don't suck on their own.
Yeah it's a bit expensive manawise but it would be sweet. I worry about having all this stuff to help out his copy ability and then he dies or I have nothing good to copy.
One way to go with this deck (and that's why I love Riku so much, you can go 10 different ways with him) is to play Doubling Season and abuse the crap out of creature tokens and Planeswalkers. Consider (and this is without Riku even involved) Sarkhan Vol coming down with a Doubling Season and a Rings of Brighthearth in play. You can ultimate immediately with 2 loyalty remaining, spend two additional mana on the rings and get TWENTY 4/4 dragons. And all those cards are good cards too that don't suck on their own.
Suggestions for cuts: Sower (dies whenever anyone does anything), Brutalizer Exarch (anti-synergetic with your general, expensive), Mulldrifter (why not play a better card draw spell, you're in blue. Brainstorm anyone? Seriously, there are better options).
Cards to keep an eye on while your playing (like, whether you'd rather have something else rather than these): Crystal Shard (too cute, does nothing w/o your general), Birthing Pod (cute, but interesting. See if you actually use it or if it sits while you do other things with your mana, cause it can turn into a tutoring aether vial), Cauldron of Souls (again, a card with cute interactions that doesn't seem to do much alot of the time), Pongify (again, a card with cute interactions with your general, but kind of meh otherwise [seeing a theme here?]), Heat Shimmer (why?), Sword of Fire and Ice (Feast and Famine seems better in this deck, considering all the ways to use mana and the lack of need for carddraw)
It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came and the grasshopper died and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?
Not sure how good it'd be, but Rings of Brighthearth seems like it would be sooooo much fun in this deck.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Riku's abilities start with "Whenever..." aren't they technically triggered abilities, not activated abilities (and thus not able to be copied with Rings)?
Brutalizer Exarch: Sure. I didn't like him that much anyway. Primal Command it is. (The cool thing about that is now I can remove Loaming Shaman. SWEET.) Sower: I can see ditching Sower. I haven't used her that often yet and that new land is bound to piss me off down the road. Good time to include that Sylvan Library I forgot about. Mulldrifter: Doesn't Brainstorm not do so well with Riku? My problem is that I haven't used it enough in play because I always wrote it off as one of those low-power spells that isn't great for EDH even though I know it's actually better than that. Perhaps I'll use this time to try it out. Crystal Shard: I feel like you're poking a sacred cow here. That is, I probably have an irrational attachment to this card. I don't see though how it "does nothing" without Riku. It's useful early game to punish tapped out opponents and it's useful late game to both save my guys from removal and to re-use their ETB effects. Like you said, I'll have to keep an eye out for this one. Birthing Pod: This is one I intend to keep for now. Riku gets to copy the creature that comes into play off the pod, so for 3 mana and 2 life I am tutoring for something useful and potentially getting that effect twice. Besides, who doesn't want to turn Acidic Slime into double Primeval Titan for that cost? And even without Riku in play, I still like it. Cauldron of Souls: I am noticing a theme here. You're suggesting that I may be trying too hard to plan for recursion interactions which may or may not be powerful enough or reliable enough to care about. Again though, the persist thing is so gross because everything that comes back off persist can be copied with Riku, even if he's persisting with them all with proper trigger-stacking. Is this effect not good enough for a slot? I'm not sure if it is or isn't. I'm willing to try something else here. Vorinclex can't be bad, right? Pongify: I'm running this on a trial basis now. I notice a theme around the community lately with people just not playing enough spot removal and for 1 mana at instant speed the 3/3 is just not enough downside to convince me not to try it out. So like you said, I'll keep an eye on it. Heat Shimmer: I know the power level on this is a bit low but I just want to double copy Primetime so bad and swing for 8 lands and 12 damage off 5 mana. Here I go off to magical christmasland again... (Fun Fact: If this is in the yard and someone else plays Blue Chancellor copying it, they win). Ugghh... uuuhhhhhhh... SoFAF? SoFI: What can I say, I love drawing cards. If I find that two swords is too much, I'll cut it.
Izzet Chronarch: Oh, he's good. I just don't know how good yet. He was on the list when I started. The "twincast" version of this deck would obviously want him and his friends more. Nim Deathmantle: I am new to green though so maybe I should consider it based on the fact that I might possibly have more mana than I know what to do with lategame. Otherwise I'm not crazy about leaving the open to use it at will. I admit this is probably better than Cauldron of Souls. Into the Roil: Bouncing a single non-land permanent for a card has been great for me in standard but I don't like it for EDH. I don't play enough counterspells to be able to deal with the threat from their hand anyway.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Riku's abilities start with "Whenever..." aren't they technically triggered abilities, not activated abilities (and thus not able to be copied with Rings)?
Yes.
/headdesk
Thanks guys for the suggestions. MORE SACRED COW BURGERS PLEASE!
EDIT: I made some more cuts and forgot what they were
*DISCLAIMER: I don't know how to be blatantly honest without somehow sounding hostile. Deal.*
first of all, you are running seedborn muse. That was a statement not a question. You're in blue, you have counterspells, you are running seedborn muse.
Cards you can cut In my very humble opinion which is totally never wrong
Wood Elves: you have coiling oracle, plus you can just run Green Sun's Zenith and Dryad Arbor if you need the land that badly. Green sun is stupidly powerful in this deck.
Solemn Simulacrum: This card does not die to skullclamp, yavimaya elder does. not bad if you copy it, but there are just better cards you can run. Spitting Image comes to mind now that I'm speaking of yavimaya elder.
Vithian Renegades: Unless your meta has one or more Arcum Dagsson decks, this is a severe kind of overkill on the artifact hate. You have big ass green creatures you can copy that destroy more than just artifacts, I'd cut this for something like Time Warp or Crucible of Worlds or if you need more removal, Oblivion Stone. Or if you really like this card you can cut Hull Breach to keep it in which is also a bit on the overkill side of things.
Hull Breach: Like I said you could cut this for the renegades, but I'd run Leyline of Anticipation here, because flash with green cards is freaking amazing.
Chaos Warp: this versus Mystic Snake is really no contest. Snake is a counterspell you can bounce to your hand with Crystal Shard, or chump block with.
Brainstorm: Everyone wants to run this card in EDH and I have no idea why. For the record: One shot spells with small effects are bad. Cut this for Sol Ring.
Cultivate: Same thing applies here, why not run out Bloom Tender, it's so god damn good in 3 color decks, and you can COPY IT :thumbsup:.
Crop Rotation: Unless you're ramping in the early game this isn't very good, and if you want something to fetch cradle Sylvan Scrying won't cost you a land. Granted the ability to put the land straight into play untapped is damn strong but it won't always be necessary. I suppose this is more of a play style choice. Other than Scrying, Coalition Relic is a solid ramp card, as is the more resilient Darksteel Ingot.
Gamble: Red's only tutor, and it still sucks balls. This deck loves creatures and that makes Worldly Tutor your friend.
Mimic Vat: I'll be honest, this card is absolutely terrible for any deck running green. The absolute LAST thing green wants is to exile it's creatures, that's why we have Riftsweeper. I could see this in a U/B/G deck but not in here. Cut this for Hinder or Pact of Negation or something to add more control.
Proteus Staff: If you have no control over the end result, then the end result is a bad card. It doesn't matter how you use it, lack of control is almost never a good thing unless you know you will come out ahead, like those old Warp World standard decks. Cut this for Force of Will, Stifle or Trickbind.
Birthing Pod: Honestly I feel like it takes too much work when you can play GSZ, Chord of Calling and Tooth and Nail. Your deck needs ramp BADLY and Gilded Lotus is your friend.
THE SIDEBOARD: It is well worth running a 10 card sideboard in a 3 color deck, it gives you Living Wish, Burning Wish and Cunning Wish and frees up vital deck space. Cutting niche cards that you won't use every game for wishes or other things streamlines the deck and makes it more consistent, plus you essentially add 7 extra cards to the deck (not counting the wishes) and allow yourself to keep your options open.
That gives you 3 slots for the wishes and 1 extra for some more ramp or tutor power. After that you have 6 sideboard slots you can fill with whatever dirty tricks jump into your mind
Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Riku's abilities start with "Whenever..." aren't they technically triggered abilities, not activated abilities (and thus not able to be copied with Rings)?
sorry. *facepalm*
Oh and about brainstorm, I kind of wasn't thinking there too... *doublefacepalm* But there are plenty of card-draw spells that could go nice with Riku or just good in general. Mulldrifter is usually underwhelming for me when I play it in my other decks.
Lol. The guy above me says Brutalizer Exarch is way better than Primal Command. He looks like he knows what he's doing more than I do, so I'm probably missing something.
It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came and the grasshopper died and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?
Birthing Pod: This is one I intend to keep for now. Riku gets to copy the creature that comes into play off the pod, so for 3 mana and 2 life I am tutoring for something useful and potentially getting that effect twice. Besides, who doesn't want to turn Acidic Slime into double Primeval Titan for that cost? And even without Riku in play, I still like it.
Tokens have a converted mana cost of 0, so if you sacrifice a token with Birthing Pod, you'll only be able to get a 1cc creature. EDIT: Just realized you meant just copying Primeval with Riku; apologies.
Sure, but he should actually run both. In addition, aside from Gamble, he has no way to tutor for Survival, yet there are many, many ways in green to find a creature. Redundancy is good.
Birthing Pod: Honestly I feel like it takes too much work when you can play GSZ, Chord of Calling and Tooth and Nail. Your deck needs ramp BADLY and Gilded Lotus is your friend.
It doesn't take work, it takes efficient creatures at every spot along the curve from 2-6, which the deck is doing anyway to take advantage of Riku. The ability to turn something that isn't cutting it anymore into something better (and sometimes double) is excellent.
Also, saying he shouldn't run X card and run Force of Will instead when his blue card count is too low to reliably pitchcast it just doesn't seem like a great plan. Constructed decks tend to set 16 as the minimum # of blue cards for Force, and that is for 60 card decks. The number for 99 card decks is going to be significantly higher, and the list as above is barely at the minimum for a 60 card deck.
I fail to see how you win by paying UG to kill your own Vorinclex.
Tokens have a converted mana cost of 0, so if you sacrifice a token with Birthing Pod, you'll only be able to get a 1cc creature.
I guess I need to avoid posting late at night
*crawls back into hole*
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Quote from Fry, from Futurama »
It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came and the grasshopper died and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?
All right, firstly, thanks for the suggestions. Now, it's time to rumble
Ok before the rumble first I'll talk a litte bit of budget. I bought the duals not long after my wife and decided to have a baby so I can't blow 20-30 bucks on singles unless I'm trading for them or if they will go into every deck I ever make. So right now Fauna Shaman is a worse survival and there is just no substitute for Exploration. Also, there is not enough blue in this deck for Force of Will. It's also over my budget. So thanks, but no thanks on that front.
Secondly, no wishboards. It's just a pain in the ass and though I play to win, I don't play competitively enough to care about sideboarding in EDH. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Seedborn Muse: OKAY OKAY MY ARM--> No seriously though, the deck that really, really wants seedborn muse is the deck with lots of things to do on other people's turns. To make this work, this deck needs a style change that gives it more instant speed options. It's really, really great with Crystal Shard, Kiki-Jiki and Mimic Vat though so I'll have to seriously think about it. Maybe I need more bounce outlets to support it. At the end of this post I'll likely come up with a batch swap that includes it.
Fauna Shaman: Like I said, it's a bad Survival. You're right, but I've got to get one first. Aardvark helpfully noted that I have no way to tutor for the latter if I cut Gamble.
Wood Elves: He fetches duals and puts them into play untapped. I like that. I don't really see a downside there.
Solemn Simulacrum: You say it's not bad if I can copy it. That's reason enough to keep it, don't you think?
A larger point about ramp: You've mentioned in several places in your post that I need ramp, then proceed to suggest that I cut land ramp and play artifact ramp instead. I don't agree with this philosophy as green is pretty damn good at getting lands out there and I don't want to have my manabase be collateral damage to a sweeper. Say, the O-stone you recommended. We'll have to agree to disagree for now. I've played lots of artifact ramp in my non-green decks and I was always jealous of the guy playing Cultivate.
Vithian Renegades: I like artifact removal more than most people, mostly so I can torch stuff like Lightning Greaves, Sol Ring and Gilded Lotus (again with the artifact mana). There are almost always targets for this guy. As for Crucible... I used to completely ignore this because I felt it was too mean with Strip Mine. But it's so good with fetches and I do have one. I'll have to think about it more.
Hoarding Dragon: I'll give you that he's not as good as he could be. Believe it or not, he used to be Fabricate at one point.
Pongify: I don't understand all the hate about this card. How good does spot removal have to be before you play it? I intend to try it and see if I like it. It's a common misconception that spot removal is bad in multiplayer and this is one of the better choices for it in these colors.
Hull Breach: You said flash is amazing. So are four-for-ones. I didn't realize that this is a sorcery though. You might be right that this could be overkill. I'll have to think about it. (that's just the thing though- with flash, this is even better).
Primal Command: Wow, so we can't decide if this is good or not, huh? This card was Brutalizer Exarch yesterday and now you think it should be back? Hm. Maybe I'll run neither, but I still have to have a piece of grave hate in here. It used to be Loaming Shaman and I refuse not to play at least one so I will have to make a decision here.
Chaos Warp: Dealing with permanents via tuck is extremely powerful and Riku can do it twice. I'm not sure you should write this off so quickly. I do really like Mystic Snake though so we will see.
Brainstorm: Ah, the never-ending debate about 1-shot card selection in EDH. Some say it's great, some say it's garbage. I used to say it's garbage but I'm not so sure anymore. It's also a crappy spell to copy with Riku and that might be the make-or-break issue with it. I'd replace it with Sol Ring, but then I'd have two :).
Cultivate: I don't see how this is a small effect. The fixing is important and the ramp never goes away outside of an armageddon. UGGGH SO HARD
Crop Rotation: I just figured this said "get target Gaea's Cradle" on it and let it go. I guess Sylvan Scrying is better for that though. I'd be interested to hear some other opinions on this.
Gamble: Worldly Tutor is probably better but I might leave it in anyway. I want to actually play some red cards in here, otherwise I would have used Momir Vig as the general.
Mimic Vat: Remember when you told me Seedborn Muse wasn't an option? Well neither is this. This card is good in ALL DECKS. Green decks even more so because you know you're going to get good stuff on it! As far as exiling creatures goes, it can only exile one guy at a time. Anything else you imprint on it makes the last guy imprinted go to the yard. I'm willing to take that small loss for the incredible power and inevitability of this card. Especially in a deck where each activation could be a Chancellor of the Spires or Woodfall Primus (note: Where's Terastodon?). Funnily enough, Seedborn Muse makes this card utterly insane. Hm...
Proteus Staff: I'm not super attached to this. If I add a Seedborn Muse package, it could probably get cut and/or just become a flash enabler.
Birthing Pod: I'm surprised you don't think that this is busted enough with Riku that it's worth playing. The value gained from sacrificing a guy, then copying his friend is just ridiculous. Hell, it turns any four-drop into Seedborn Muse. I'd still like to try it.
Winding Canyons: Again, so gross with Seedborn Muse. You sure?
OK then I will update this post in a little bit when I've had some time to think about this. Having Seedborn Muse around changes things and I'm convinced that's a good way to go but I've got to be smart about it.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I need to re-evaluate my pet cards just like everyone else and this is my first green and three-color deck so I do like the advice.
Sure, but he should actually run both. In addition, aside from Gamble, he has no way to tutor for Survival, yet there are many, many ways in green to find a creature. Redundancy is good.
true, both isn't a bad idea.
The other modes are often relevant also, which Brutalizer cannot do. You can also copy Primal with Riku.
You can clone brutalizer with riku as well. 7 Life doesn't do much compared to running Wurmcoil Engine or Winhammer, or now Batterskull and shuffling the grave can be handled by running the eldrazi titans, which I always recommend but I didn't find space for I guess.
It doesn't take work, it takes efficient creatures at every spot along the curve from 2-6, which the deck is doing anyway to take advantage of Riku. The ability to turn something that isn't cutting it anymore into something better (and sometimes double) is excellent.
I suppose you're right, guess I'm too used to running Natural Order over it but in a multicolor deck pod seems the better option
Also, saying he shouldn't run X card and run Force of Will instead when his blue card count is too low to reliably pitchcast it just doesn't seem like a great plan. Constructed decks tend to set 16 as the minimum # of blue cards for Force, and that is for 60 card decks. The number for 99 card decks is going to be significantly higher, and the list as above is barely at the minimum for a 60 card deck.
Whether it's Force of Will or Pact of Negation doesn't matter all that much, Honestly like survival/shaman I'd be running both. Either way this deck is going be tapping out A LOT, and that's when people will try to sneak a win past the blue player.
Holding force or pact is a necessary panic button that stops games from ending too early. Believe me I've been stopped in my tracks more than once when I figured all my opponents' resources were spent.
I tend to lean more towards control when playing blue because blue control is different than black or white. Playing the reaction game allows you to stop people from blowing you out with terastodons or sundering titans and infinite combos etc. etc. etc.
It takes a lot of dedicated space to run a good control suite but doing so can be very rewarding. Running things like Vendilion Clique over flametongue kavu and Venser, Shaper Savant over inferno titan allows you to pick and choose what threats get let through. Pick the right ones and you find the path to victory far easier to walk.
True you may not be able to copy them for big swingy effects, but if the game ends before you get a chance to play the big threats you DO have, why did you play at all?
I've found that the one thing I despise most is sitting at the table with nothing to do but wait to get steamrolled by the guy spiraling out of control. That's why when I build decks my goal is one of two things:
1. When not playing blue, to ramp out of control as fast as possible and stop people from doing the same, usually by attacking their mana base
2. When playing blue, to keep the game alive with counters and rattlesnake people away from me long enough to build up a good board position and start swinging.
All right, firstly, thanks for the suggestions. Now, it's time to rumble
Ok before the rumble first I'll talk a litte bit of budget. I bought the duals not long after my wife and decided to have a baby so I can't blow 20-30 bucks on singles unless I'm trading for them or if they will go into every deck I ever make. So right now Fauna Shaman is a worse survival and there is just no substitute for Exploration. Also, there is not enough blue in this deck for Force of Will. It's also over my budget. So thanks, but no thanks on that front.
Secondly, no wishboards. It's just a pain in the ass and though I play to win, I don't play competitively enough to care about sideboarding in EDH. Thanks for the suggestion though.
fair enough
shaman is the best option then
Seedborn Muse: OKAY OKAY MY ARM--> No seriously though, the deck that really, really wants seedborn muse is the deck with lots of things to do on other people's turns. To make this work, this deck needs a style change that gives it more instant speed options. It's really, really great with Crystal Shard, Kiki-Jiki and Mimic Vat though so I'll have to seriously think about it. Maybe I need more bounce outlets to support it. At the end of this post I'll likely come up with a batch swap that includes it.
Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orerry turn everything into instants, piece one of those with muse, and you should win the game with little problem.
Wood Elves: He fetches duals and puts them into play untapped. I like that. I don't really see a downside there.
That's all he does though, and you have Skyshroud Claim AND Nature's Lore for that. If you really want to keep it since it's clonable, I'd cut the lore.
Solemn Simulacrum: You say it's not bad if I can copy it. That's reason enough to keep it, don't you think?
not bad isn't the same as good though. honestly 4 mana for a land and a card is better off in decks that can't ramp, like R/W decks.
A larger point about ramp: You've mentioned in several places in your post that I need ramp, then proceed to suggest that I cut land ramp and play artifact ramp instead. I don't agree with this philosophy as green is pretty damn good at getting lands out there and I don't want to have my manabase be collateral damage to a sweeper. Say, the O-stone you recommended. We'll have to agree to disagree for now. I've played lots of artifact ramp in my non-green decks and I was always jealous of the guy playing Cultivate.
Artifact land if topdecked mid to late game can at least be played and used immediately on that turn, and the following turn, and the following turn until dealt with. cultivate drops one land. tapped. If you need basics in hand, you have yav elder, which you can tutor for
Vithian Renegades: I like artifact removal more than most people, mostly so I can torch stuff like Lightning Greaves, Sol Ring and Gilded Lotus (again with the artifact mana). There are almost always targets for this guy. As for Crucible... I used to completely ignore this because I felt it was too mean with Strip Mine. But it's so good with fetches and I do have one. I'll have to think about it more.
Stuff like that is why I like my sweepers though. People rarely hold things back in EDH. When someone spirals they're going to crap nonland permanents like a grizzly bear with diarrhea, that's why Oblivion Stone is my favorite card, especially if you're a dick like me and pair it with Academy Ruins
And as far as discretion goes, don't forget you can always hold back your artifact ramp if the board needs sweeping up.
Hoarding Dragon: I'll give you that he's not as good as he could be. Believe it or not, he used to be Fabricate at one point.
yeah, especially without a sac outlet, I've had him exiled on me before, not fun.
Pongify: I don't understand all the hate about this card. How good does spot removal have to be before you play it? I intend to try it and see if I like it. It's a common misconception that spot removal is bad in multiplayer and this is one of the better choices for it in these colors.
Never said this was a bad card, but there are certainly better cards you could be running. Pongify isn't going to stop Sundering Titan or Terastodon from nailing three of your lands.
Hull Breach: You said flash is amazing. So are four-for-ones. I didn't realize that this is a sorcery though. You might be right that this could be overkill. I'll have to think about it. (that's just the thing though- with flash, this is even better).
I think you're thinking of Decimate, that's the 4-4-1.
Primal Command: Wow, so we can't decide if this is good or not, huh? This card was Brutalizer Exarch yesterday and now you think it should be back? Hm. Maybe I'll run neither, but I still have to have a piece of grave hate in here. It used to be Loaming Shaman and I refuse not to play at least one so I will have to make a decision here.
Exarch to me is better. you may not get life or shuffle, but you get blockers, removal and tutoring all in one card, that- wait for it- can be bounced!
Chaos Warp: Dealing with permanents via tuck is extremely powerful and Riku can do it twice. I'm not sure you should write this off so quickly. I do really like Mystic Snake though so we will see.
tuck is good, tucking a Primeval Titan into a Blightsteel Colossus? not so good. Same reason I don't like the staff. Oblation is arguably better for the opponent in some ways, but it doesn't run the risk of dumping another threat on the table.
Brainstorm: Ah, the never-ending debate about 1-shot card selection in EDH. Some say it's great, some say it's garbage. I used to say it's garbage but I'm not so sure anymore. It's also a crappy spell to copy with Riku and that might be the make-or-break issue with it. I'd replace it with Sol Ring, but then I'd have two :).
Ohh, I usually list ring under ramp, guess I didn't see it. In that case I'd run Mind's Eye or Recurring Insight. Insight is freaking awesome I might add, best draw spell around.
Cultivate: I don't see how this is a small effect. The fixing is important and the ramp never goes away outside of an armageddon. UGGGH SO HARD
I covered that with the yavimaya elder thing above I think. The ramp may not go away but it's still a terrible topdeck UNLESS you get hit with armageddon.
Crop Rotation: I just figured this said "get target Gaea's Cradle" on it and let it go. I guess Sylvan Scrying is better for that though. I'd be interested to hear some other opinions on this.
My azusa deck uses rotation for cradle and turn 1 Ancient Tomb, outside of that it can get academy, but scrying while slower, is less costly. And if you're a dick like me, you'd Venser, Shaper Savant it just to screw the caster out of a land, like Harrow. What time walk?
Gamble: Worldly Tutor is probably better. OK.
Mimic Vat: Remember when you told me Seedborn Muse wasn't an option? Well neither is this. This card is good in ALL DECKS. Green decks even more so because you know you're going to get good stuff on it! As far as exiling creatures goes, it can only exile one guy at a time. Anything else you imprint on it makes the last guy imprinted go to the yard. I'm willing to take that small loss for the incredible power and inevitability of this card. Especially in a deck where each activation could be a Chancellor of the Spires or Woodfall Primus (note: Where's Terastodon?). Funnily enough, Seedborn Muse makes this card utterly insane. Hm...
I run mono green so I know I can't afford to take the risk but you can test it out. Honestly in decks without creature sweepers I always found it a dead draw.
Proteus Staff: I'm not super attached to this. If I add a Seedborn Muse package, it could probably get cut and/or just become a flash enabler.
Birthing Pod: I'm surprised you don't think that this is busted enough with Riku that it's worth playing. The value gained from sacrificing a guy, then copying his friend is just ridiculous. Hell, it turns any four-drop into Seedborn Muse. I'd still like to try it.
I has been schooled
Winding Canyons: Again, so gross with Seedborn Muse. You sure?
Yes, which you stated previously; I mentioned that you can also copy Primal specifically because you mentioned that Exarch is copiable. It's also 1 less mana overall.
7 Life doesn't do much compared to running Wurmcoil Engine or Winhammer, or now Batterskull and shuffling the grave can be handled by running the eldrazi titans, which I always recommend but I didn't find space for I guess.
Sometimes you need the 7 life immediately (or 14 life if you copy) and need to find a creature of some sort. The reshuffle can also target opponents, so if they have Genesis going, or are dredging into ridiculousness, etc. you can shut it down. Primal is just very, very flexible, which is why it deserves a spot.
Just because a deck has blue in it doesn't mean that identifies as a "blue deck". If the OP's playgroup doesn't typically combo off and prefers to have battles over board position or whatever, cards like Force of Will (which you need probably 27+ blue cards in your deck to run reliably) and Pact just aren't as important. Control of the stack isn't as relevant in some environments as others, because there are plenty of people out there who would rather just throw down permanents and win through bashing in. Counters are also much worse in multiplayer than 1v1, generally speaking, due to usually being 1 for 1, so they're not always attractive to certain decks.
It's kind of a moot point anyway, since the OP said Force is out of his budget.
You make a lot of good points, especially with Pact of Negation over Pongify. I also feel I'm running too few sweepers in the deck and since I have Academy Ruins here, I should probably consider a spot for O-stone as well.
Rather than reply point-by-point (again) to your suggestions, let me just think about it all and make changes to the deck. Hopefully you'll see some things you'll like when I've updated it.
Also, on Primal Command, why are we talking about the lifegain mode? That will basically never get used. Look, here's the thing with that card. If I don't slot graveyard hate, I will lose. This is non-negotiable to me. That's why though I do like the Exarch, Primal Command will probably stay because I can hit it with mystical tutor and it has the graveyard mode. Exarch cannot touch my opponents' yards. And if I play exarch, I've got to make room for more yard hate, which takes yet another slot out of the deck. So the command's its versatility is likely going to earn it the start next week if you know what I mean.
Thanks again to you both for your helpful perspectives. I intend to be running this guy for a very long time in many different ways and this is but one way to start it. I really appreciate your posts.
Just because a deck has blue in it doesn't mean that identifies as a "blue deck". If the OP's playgroup doesn't typically combo off and prefers to have battles over board position or whatever, cards like Force of Will (which you need probably 27+ blue cards in your deck to run reliably) and Pact just aren't as important. Control of the stack isn't as relevant in some environments as others, because there are plenty of people out there who would rather just throw down permanents and win through bashing in. Counters are also much worse in multiplayer than 1v1, generally speaking, due to usually being 1 for 1, so they're not always attractive to certain decks.
I disagree. How many massive creatures have been printed with idiotically overpowered ETB abilities lately? lots. Counter say, Primeval Titan, and not only do they spend 6 mana for nothing, but they don't get to search their library for two lands (ANY lands at that). Even if combo isn't huge, if you're tapped out and the difference between winning and losing is countering Akroma's Memorial, wouldn't you want Pact of Negation in hand?
I disagree. How many massive creatures have been printed with idiotically overpowered ETB abilities lately? lots. Counter say, Primeval Titan, and not only do they spend 6 mana for nothing, but they don't get to search their library for two lands (ANY lands at that). Even if combo isn't huge, if you're tapped out and the difference between winning and losing is countering Akroma's Memorial, wouldn't you want Pact of Negation in hand?
Maybe I should have been clearer. In some environments, people just don't play counters. It may not be common, but I have heard of such things, and have talked with many, many players over the years who just have no desire to play casual games against counters of any kind. Is that "wrong"? Not if that is how they define "fun" for their playgroup; a lot of people just hate the entire color blue and just won;t play it. I mean, since introducing the local group here to EDH in 2007, one of the people who has been playing the longest literally just made his first EDH deck with blue in it this week; it took him literally 4 years to do it because he just dislikes the color and what it represents so much. It's not out of the realm of possibility that there are groups of players who either hate blue and rarely play it or groups that will play blue but use it more as a support color, or for non-countering things.
tl;dr: Controlling the stack is the most powerful thing you can do. But not everyone plays that way or wants to do so.
Riku of Two Reflections
A Multiplayer Primer
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Bio
Let’s run though the card and establish a frame of reference for just what Riku can do for us, as well as what other Magic cards can do for Riku:
Mana Cost: :2mana::symu::symr::symg:
5 mana is a good spot for a commander like Riku. It is not too high, so he can be recast if necessary. At the same time, 5 mana is a lot to spend on a guy with no protection, so you will have to be wary of casting him against control players and have a backup plan if he dies. If he draws removal so you can play your 6-drop, it wasn’t too bad for you :).
The most important thing to remember about Riku is what his role is in your deck: an investment in your spells. The payoff may be a little, or it may be great. But Riku represents an investment. He costs you 5 mana and probably an entire turn, for a lousy 2/2 that doesn’t affect the board (a poor play in a vacuum, surely), in exchange for added value for your spells down the road. A question I will ask frequently as we consider other “investment” cards, like Mana Reflection: “Doesn’t Riku already do this?” If you jam your deck full of cards that do what he does, in some form or another, you will have a hand full of dead cards and no threats to multiply. I will discuss this in detail later.
Now for the colors. We’re got access to blue, green and red. These are (arguably) the best, second best and worst colors for EDH, in that order. Together, however, they are full of powerful and synergistic effects and allow the pilot to play pretty much whatever style they want.
Blue gives access to card draw, bounce, control magic effects, extra turn effects and counters. And fatties.
Green gives access to ramp, graveyard recursion and noncreature destruction. And fatties.
Red gives access to removal, sweeps, land destruction and copy and redirect effects. And yes, more fatties.
Creature Type: Human Wizard
Not much human synergy but wizard tribal is definitely a possibility. Riptide Laboratory will probably be the most common usage of his typing.
Power/Toughness: 2/2
That’s right, he’s a small fry like most wizards. Obviously, he’ll be staying out of the red zone unless you slap a sword on him.
Ability 1: “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay :symu::symr:. If you do, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.”
A Fork on legs. With the important limitation that it can only copy your own spells. Anyway, that’s some sweet card advantage there. You can copy removal spells like Decimate, ramp spells like Skyshroud Claim, extra turn spells like Time Warp, and even game-ending haymakers like Rite of Replication or Genesis Wave. Also plays very well with Flashback and Rebound. Copying the right spell at the right time can surely win you the game. 2 extra colored mana is no joke though, so you will find color-fixing is even more important to Riku than to other commanders.
Ability 2: “Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay :symg::symu:. If you do, put a token that's a copy of that creature onto the battlefield.”
Of course it gets better. Now he gives you free clones. Incredible. Copying guys with “enters the battlefield” effects (henceforth referred to as “ETB” effects) are the most efficient and powerful way to abuse this ability, since even if the next player casts a sweeper, you will have already attained incredible value for your one card. Creatures like Chancellor of the Spires, Terastodon and Deadeye Navigator are the kinds of spells you want to be casting to maximize this particular effect, though there are plenty of less expensive creature spells that love this treatment.
Bonus time!: Using both abilities at once
The most versatile and potentially powerful way of using these abilities is to get them both on the stack. Instants and sorceries which cause non-token creatures to enter the battlefield under your control are at a premium here because Riku can copy the spell on the stack and copy each non-token creature that enters the battlefield when the spell resolves, provided you have the mana and he isn’t removed in response to the original casting. Tooth and Nail, Bribery, and Chord of Calling are good examples of these kinds of spells. When you have all that mana lategame and nothing to do with it, this is how you will break through board stalls and take home the win.
Riku: when 5 copies are not enough.
Somehow, I think Riku represents the giddy risk-taker in all of us as it applies to Magic. You throw him out there, hope he sticks, and if he does you just go Godzilla on the table.
In summary:
This may be the commander for you if you like:
This may not be the commander for you if you don't like:
My name is Kyle, and I like to copy things. I am a Johnny and Melvin first and a Timmy and Spike second. I have been playing magic since the Rise of Eldrazi pre-release and I have loved it ever since. I have a particular a passion for Commander, deckbuilding, and for the social interactions that come from this sweet game.
My favorite ways to play Magic are Commander and Draft, but most of all it has to be fun or I don’t want anything to do with it. For this reason, I try to stay away from “un-fun” stuff like easy infinite combos, board lock/stax strategies and such. At the same time, I love the color blue and its representation in magic, so most of my decks have had access to that color. Some of my favorite decks include Melek WheelStorm, Nin, the Pain Artist steal-n-sac, Thromok token bonanza and Trostani token enchantress
I moved to the Kansas City area in 2011. I'm closest to Win More Games and Collector's Cache. I have a relaxed playgroup at my new home where we play once a week. If you want to play Commander, or if you think I'd be fun in your playgroup, send me a PM! Though as a new father and homeowner you can imagine my time is limited
"HEY GUYS! I FOUND SOME MORE TREES!"
As I said before- Riku is an investment. Riku is a lost turn, in exchange for explosive turns around the corner. If he is removed, you have lost some valuable tempo, even if it’s nice when someone burns a card on your Commander that you can just get back for another :2mana:. If he sticks, however, that’s where the fun begins.
Now, people love to look at this guy, make a deck with a mean CMC of 5, and just hope no one fights back. Let me give you a hint: that is as dumb as it sounds. I will attempt to explain what you should do instead.
Riku is very good at two things. Firstly, and most obviously, is copying you big spells to just crush everyone. The only thing stronger than one Time Stretch is two of them. This is obvious. But in many cases, this is the very definition of “win more”. What, was one Craterhoof Behemoth not enough? There can be some nuance to this copying business, perhaps contrary to popular belief. The other thing Riku excels at is copying small spells to keep them useful all game instead of just at the beginning.
One of my all time favorite plays in this deck is a turn 3 or 4 Riku, followed by a copied Fact or Fiction. “But that’s only a 4-mana spell”, you say. That’s exactly right. I just did FoF twice for 6 mana, and my hand and graveyard are now chock full of gas for the rest of the game. Unless I have some sort of Identity Crisis, I'll be in this dominant position for a while. And I haven’t yet cast a spell over 5 mana.
If you just tapped out for Riku, then next turn you may probably have that much mana plus one. You COULD play a 6-mana bomb like a titan. Which is good on its own. In which case, why did you play Riku last turn, unless you were just using your commander to bait removal (an acceptable move in some cases, of course)? Or, you can copy a 4-mana spell for ridiculous value. Do you know how aggravating it is to face two copies of Sower of Temptation, stealing your board right out from under you? Or how awesome it is to hit two Skyshroud Claims, putting 4 untapped forests into play that early in the game? Or in a token deck, where just 4 1/1 tokens can attack for 36 with a copied Tears of Rage, and any more is surely a blowout? The Fact or Fiction example is my favorite, but it’s definitely not the only one. All those 2, 3, and 4-mana spells that are normally very helpful early game and somewhat marginal lategame are now amplified greatly by your commander. You can play a normal mana curve and have an explosive endgame with most of your deck, rather than having just a few haymakers sitting at the top of your curve. Those 2, 3 and 4-drop spots are just as important as the 6 and 7-drops you are dying to get out there in pairs, perhaps even moreso. And while there will be a time for that, it is important to live long enough to get to that point, and to be well established enough to push back against table resistence once you get there. This is a luxury not every deck has, and a luxury that the most successful decks use to stay on top.
You can pack your deck full of silly six-drops and above and just hope no one kicks your legs out from underneath you. It’s funny to try, but at a real table you are going to get slaughtered by aggro-control and any kind of disruption, be it hand, board, yard, or otherwise. Using Riku to amplify the potency of your less expensive spells is the best and most consistent path to victory.
"Quick! Get the shaving cream!"
This section may even go without saying, but I am consistently surprised at how many decks I see pop up which completely ignore card type synergy in favor of just playing big dudes and big spells. The benefits of restricting yourself to a particular card type in a practical manner are huge. Think of it as a set bonus or a buff in an MMO. Your deck can be greater than the sum of its parts if you choose to build it that way.
With Riku, there are a couple of ways to do this. The most effective, in my opinion, is to stick with as many creatures as possible. This allows you to run a creature toolbox and to take advantage of all the cards that like creatures. I prefer creatures over instants and sorceries for a couple of reasons:
- Creatures are on the board and threaten as long as they are there. They can attack, block, deter attacks simply by being there, get pitched to Survival, sacrificed to Birthing Pod or Natural Order, get Skullclamped and draw you cards, and I could go on and on here. Their utility is much greater than their power and toughness. This in comparison to most instants and sorceries, which tend to be one shot and done.
- Creatures are easier to recur from the graveyard or the board itself. Spells are much harder to return to your hand in general, although it can be done effectively with buyback and cool cards like Mystic Retrieval.
This goes for all of the archetypes I will describe in detail below. While it is not totally necessary to play a bunch of creatures or a bunch of noncreature spells to have a successful deck, perhaps a control deck particularly, it can be much more rewarding on several levels to stick with your guns in deckbuilding and ride the synergy to victory. And most importantly, for those times when you don’t have Riku at your disposal due to removal, tuck, or otherwise, this type synergy will get you through the rest of the game without him. Choose your spells appropriately for the deck.A Brief Ramp Discussion
Ramp is good. Ramp is really really good. To be a turn or two ahead of slower decks is a phenomenal advantage that adds up over the course of the game. Ramp also tends to fix your colors, making it much more likely for you to actually play your spells. Riku tends to be very mana-hungry as a Commander, since you always want two mana more than you have so you can copy your on-curve spells. So play ramp. I like to play at least 7 to 8 pieces of ramp in my commander decks minumum and I hold Riku to the same principle.
There are two kinds of ramp worth talking about here, because most rituals are awful awful card disadvantage in this format. There is artifact ramp and land ramp. Since we are in green, I pretty much don’t even want to hear about artifact ramp unless it is stupid broken ramp like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. Land ramp is better in almost every way. It allows you to fix your colors, it can be copied with Riku, it is harder to kill, it is not swept away by artifact sweepers, and I will say it again, it can be copied with Riku. Do not play things like Darksteel Ingot or the signets over Cultivate or Farhaven Elf unless your manabase is like, all basics. You do not need them. Green ramp should give you all the fixing and ramp you should need. Skew your manabase towards green so you can likely cast your ramp, use your ramp to fix and gain tempo, and don’t look back. Leave the shiny things to non-green decks that need them.
Counterspells and Riku
Many players see that their commander is blue and think, “welp, better play my counter suite”. Don’t do this. Play only your most critical counters. JUST enough to make your opponents think you could tuck their commander with your open mana. I will explain why.
As mentioned before, Riku is a particularly open-ended commander. There are several viable strategies, as well as some that are more quirky. It will be up to you to make a decision here before you start putting your list together. Like any good Commander deckbuilder, how well you stick to your strategy or theme will be vital to your success and overall enjoyment of the game.
"Oh, dear! How ever will I find an answer?"
This is my primary style of play. You’ll find the Primer slightly biased towards this style as I have considerable experience with it, and I know it is very good and very fun to play. The idea here is to play an efficient and varied toolbox of ETB creatures, starting with your two drops and working all the way up the curve to 5, 6 and 7 drops that you want to win you the game. Every creature does something other than just being a creature. That whole “synergy” thing I was talking about before? It’s here where you can see it in action.
If you play a lot creatures, then first of all your board will never be too vulnerable. More importantly though, you can play cards that work with creatures and really maximize their effectiveness. Tutors which search for creatures are the most common application, which is where the “Creature Toolbox” really earns its name. Then you use those tutors to search up creatures, usually ones with ETB abilities, that help you adapt to a changing board state with the best solution for the problems you face.
Creature tutors like Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest/Fauna Shaman, Fierce Empath, and Green Sun’s Zenith will be very important here in allowing you to adapt to the board state with your ETB guys. Need to kill a shrouded commander? Phyrexian Metamorph has got you covered. Need to ramp ramp ramp to catch up to the monoblack player? Oracle of Mul Daya or Boundless Realms will get you back on track. Or maybe their Coffers just has to die? Slime it. Do you have to wrath now or lose? Ixidron or Crater Hellion or Kederekt Leviathan should slow them down. Just want to win the game? Ok, fetch yourself Craterhoof Behemoth and swarm the last guy left. Want to get some recursion going with these creatures? Creeping Renaissance and Genesis have you covered. Always having an answer doesn’t mean just playing counterspells. It means having a gameplan like this, having the ability to respond in the best way possible to the unpredictable board state inherent in multiplayer magic.
Bounce outlets like Crystal Shard and blink cards like Conjurer’s Closet will help to generate additional value out of your creatures, in some cases at instant speed. Riku can copy those cretaures as they re-enter the battlefield, which is just amazing. They are very good in here, but be careful not to get cute and go overboard with these. They are rarely good in multiples and increase the risk that you will have all bounce outlets and no creatures to bounce.
Swords of X and Y are quite good in here to strap on to the early weenies and turn them into serious threats. Feast and Famine is a gamechanger for all the mana it provides. Fire and Ice is very respectable card advantage. Light and Shadow is a fine recursion engine with the best colors of protection for Riku. I don’t recommend the others because they don’t really fit with the deck’s gameplan.
Skullclamp is another way to get great value out of your early plays for when Riku wasn’t around to copy them. Just draw a bunch of cards and keep winning. There are more cards like this and I encourage you to find them in the Card Options section as you build this deck.
I like to call this “the Birthing Pod deck”, even if the goal isn’t always to tutor for Pod (though I have no shame in casting Fabricate for it). Pod is just insane. I can’t sing its praises enough. You can use it the turn you play it, with just 4 mana too, so it’s fast. It likes having good options at every part of your mana curve, which encourages good deck construction. With each activation, you are tutoring for an answer, establishing a board state further, and with Riku potentially copying every guy you put into play, it is a fantastic card advantage engine that will absolutely end games if unanswered. Everything this card does more or less exemplifies what this style of deck is trying to do. If you think this card is any good, I urge you to try it out and play this particular style of deck. It is extremely resilient and retains if not surpasses the reach of the most powerful creature decks in the format.
What is a "turn", anyway?
There's no need to get all derpy with creatures like most of us. You can play a control shell around Riku pretty easily and use him as a perfectly acceptable wincon.
Seedborn Muse is an extremely powerful card. It allows you to play your deck full of instant speed threats on other players’ turns. It is a control player’s best friend and Timmy’s worst nightmare. Since not every card in your deck will be castable at instant speed (or will it?), some flash enablers are recommended. Vedalken Orrery and Alchemist's Refuge go a long way here, hitting other player’s threats on their end step, then untapping for some action. You can use bounce outlets like Crystal Shard to replay some cards over again every turn. Mystic Snake and Draining Whelk are near board locks, but any creature with an ETB effect is fair game here. A Capsize soft lock is another common way to keep things under control and/or just win the game. Don't forget to pack High Market and/or Homeward Path to keep other players from stealing your Seedborn Muse, a common way for you to lose a game of Magic.
Otherwise, this is just a more defensive version of Riku. Play plenty of removal and counters and draw, as in your typical control suite. Stuff like Chaos Warp, Beast Within and Spell Crumple will do a lot of work for you. The legendary fog machine Spike Weaver is one of the best ways to keep other players off your back in the meantime and protects you from a token or Insurrection blowout. Some decks just cannot beat Constant Mists either. Keep Riku in your back pocket for when it’s time to go over the top. Then, when your opponents’ resources are depleted play a wincon and back it up with a counter or two. Tooth and Nail or Time Stretch, with either one copied, should very easily take over the game. Glen Elendra Archmage is the perfect protection for your wincon.
Card advantage and selection will be vital here even moreso than in other decks. You’ll want to play everything from Rhystic Study all the way down to Brainstorm, which is actually very good with all the shuffle effects green brings to the table. Tutors such as Gamble and Mystical Tutor will be indispensable for responding to the changing board state.
I don’t run this strategy personally, so I am always open to feedback here, as I am with every other facet of this Primer.
Combos with everything, I'm pretty sure.
Of all the strategies outlined, this is probably the most competitive. Use that power wisely. Combo bring a certain ruthless efficiency to the table that many players find unfun or at least unsettling. Riku has several two-card combos that include him which come very close to, if not actually, winning the game on the spot.
Fast mana will be important in any combo deck, so pack your Bloom Tender and perhaps Somberwald Sage. Play plenty of other ramp to get you to the point where you can combo out. Bring a couple counterspells like Pact of Negation to protect your combo. Vexing Shusher is a great tutor target to protect yourself when you go off. And then try some of these on for size:
- Tooth and Nail, fetching:
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch/Zealous Conscripts: Infinite hasty attackers. Like any combat wincons, you are cold to fogs like Spike Weaver and Knight-Captain of Eos.
- Riku + Palinchron: Infinite mana, infinite Palinchrons. Seems good for a two-card combo with your general. Finish with Stroke of Genius, Comet Storm or something similar.
- Riku + Worldgorger Dragon: Stack the triggers right for infinite mana and infinite creature ETB triggers. Win with Comet Storm, Warstorm Surge and similar cards.
- Time Warp + Eternal Witness/Izzet Chronarch + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Crystal Shard/Mimic Vat: Infinite turns. Not very difficult to pull off if you bring Fabricate along for the ride. Note that there are other cards to make this loop work- I simply listed the most useful ones.
- Sensei’s Divining Top + Future Sight/Magus of the Future + Etherium Sculptor/Cloud Key: Storm combo which draws your deck. Any storm finisher like Mind’s Desire should do.
- Reiterate + Turnabout = Infinite mana, infinitely copied spells. Blue Sun’s Zenith will deck the table, Comet Storm will just nuke them.
That ought to be enough to get you guys started. The previous list was by no means exhaustive, but it does hit the most popular candidates for comboing out with Riku. Keep in mind that Riku himself is often outdone by any one of several Momir Vig combo decks. His combos are faster and more resilient and he tutors for them., so make sure you are playing the right general here.Hope you got a wrath handy there, buddy.
These are great colors for building token armies. Doubling Season and Parallel Lives ensure that the math will get difficult as you swing for eleventy-billion, and cards like Deranged Hermit and Avenger of Zendikar are the perfect guys to help you get there.
Now, there is a teensy-tiny problem with relying on the doubling enchantments: they a royal pain in the butt to dig for in this deck without access to black or white tutors. That leaves you with a few viable options, some moreso than others:
-->Gamble
-->Intuition, searching up your target, Regrowth and Eternal Witness (or other recursion)
-->Long Term Plans (thanks Weebo)
-->Planar Portal
Even moreso than those two enchantments, a card that will elevate the deck to much higher levels of explosiveness is Gaea’s Cradle. I should not have to explain why. This card is the best card in any token deck, period. There have been calls to ban this card for a reason. There is no argument that would convince me otherwise. I understand that Cradle is very expensive. I also understand that many players are uneasy about proxies for expensive cards they do not intend to buy, including me. I used to play a gold-bordered version of this (while I was planning to buy one) but now that it's up past almost $150 I can safely say I don't intend to buy one anytime soon... so I have cut this card from all of my decks. If you can get one, it's insane. If you can't, it doesn't mean you're at a disadvantage so much as you are missing out on a stupid powerful card.
Now that we have that taken care of, you basically want to look at the first strategy I listed (the one with ETB utility guys) and replace all the midrange and high-end stuff with token generators and buffs.
There are essentially two kinds of token generation: ETB, or “burst” token generation (Deranged Hermit), and tokens over time generation (Ant Queen). With Riku at the helm, I will try to explain why I believe that the burst token making is the way to go, using Deranged Hermit and Ant Queen as examples.
When building your token deck, I would encourage you to stay away from cards that generate just one token per upkeep. They are typically too slow and are outclassed by better cards. Keep in mind that some “slower” token generators like Dragon Broodmother and Dragonlair Spider do a reasonable job of imitating burst token generation because they make tokens on other players’ turns as well, leaving you with a decent output by your next upkeep to use for whatever you like. Awakening Zone also gets a pass because its tokens are Eldrazi Spawn that can be used for ramp as well.
Other than just having tokens, now we need things to do with them. Haste effects like Anger and Concordant Crossroads are critical here and make finishers like Genesis Wave just insane. Birthing Pod and Survial of the Fittest are great ways to tutor for Anger and get in the graveyard quickly. Do not underrate haste. It wins games far more often than whatever other cards you were going to play instead. A Kessig Cagebreakers without haste is merely good. One with haste, mid-to-late-game, is just nuts.
Other than haste, the more common way to win with tokens is to overrun with them. Tears of Rage, Overwhelming Stampede and Craterhoof Behemoth are fine ways to do this, and there are plenty more in the Card Options section. Be sure to play enough token generators that these finishers are reliable. This is the most typical path to victory with a token army.
Some other generally good token synergies:
- Post-wrath stabilization is important. Spawning Pit and other sac outlets will help out greatly here. Skullclamp is insane in any token deck and its inclusion is really not up for discussion. You really have to play one, and maybe even a Trinket Mage to tutor for it.
- Mimic Vat is also awesome with any token-generating ETB creatures, as the tokens remain on the board even after the creature off the vat is sacrificed. Previously mentioned bounce and blink enablers will also contribute.
- Blue brings some really cool stuff to the table too, like Cultural Exchange and Day of the Dragons for massive power plays and Opposition for total board control. Do your research.
Some players prefer to just play a few big token generators and not stuff the deck full of them. They can certainly be successful, but I contend that committing fully to token generation will establish a lot of synergy between your cards and will make your “token” deck a true token deck that is greater than the sum of its parts. As I have said before, choose your cards wisely."Look at you, soaring through the air
like an eagle... piloting a blimp." -GLaDOS
Riku may be one of the finest Warp World generals available.
Building around Warp World itself is a much more solid plan and is a very viable path to victory. The strategy is bafflingly simple (as are many great plans).
- Include lots of permanents which bring other permanents into play (Kozilek's Predator, Rampaging Baloths, Precursor Golem)
- Include a few guys that can recur spells from your graveyard (Eternal Witness, Izzet Chronarch, Mnemonic Wall).
- Include a couple haste enablers (Concordant Crossroads, Akroma's Memorial, Urabrask, the Hidden).
- Include Warp World and some tutors (Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor).
- Include counter backup for Warp World (Pact of Negation, Glen Elendra Archmage).
And that's it! You get your side of the field loaded with permanents, cast Warp World, recur it and copy it as many times as you like, and either swing for the win or cause every other player to scoop in frustration. It's sort of a griefer deck because of the time it takes to resolve Warp World multiple times, so be careful with your friends if you get attached to your decks.Spellslinging- A Theme Deck by DramaTurtle
Special Thanks to DramaTurtle, who explored and embraced instant and sorcery synergy in this thread, then went off and made his own concept. It is excellent and I encourage you to give it a read.
Storm- A Theme Deck by TheEndIsNear
Also, I'd like to thank TheEndisNear, who added green to the bobthefunny's fantastical Tibor and Lumia aggro/storm deck and created a somewhat casual Riku Storm list. You know something wacky is going on when you are casting Genesis Wave as a ramp spell. Great job over there and there's lots of room for creative adjustments too.
Riku Voltron- Strictly Casual
Oh yeah. This is actually kind of playable thanks to Wild Defiance, Beserk, Rush of Blood, Fatal Frenzy, etc. Hopefully I'll try this out someday!
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
(Updated to RTR block. See set review posts on last the last few pages for new card discussion)
I'm not going to attempt to list every playable card in RUG, but I will do my best to cover the highlights. Bolded cards are what I would consider standouts in multiple archetpyes.
Creatures
Goblin Welder: Great for artifact creature shenanigans. An all around useful card, even without much Riku synergy. Pair with Solemn Simulacrum for hilarity.
Nephalia Smuggler: Reuseable blink for 3U is pretty fairly costed. He can be a great value generator for creature decks.
Spore Frog: He will take the heat off of you long enough to pod him into a 2-drop like Gilded Drake or Phantasmal Image, enough time to turn the game around and steal an Avacyn or copy a Sylvan Primordial. In the token deck that plays Birthing Pod, this is a solid choice.
Ulvenwald Tracker: Repeatable removal this good on a 1-drop is very hard to come by. Again, creature decks will get the most of out him.
2-drops
Bloom Tender: Fast mana dork. Good for combo decks.
Coiling Oracle: Gets better with your manabase. An early one can be a fantastic tempo boost. Loves Skullclamp.
Dawntreader Elk: A nice two-drop that ramps for a small price. It is behind Sakura-Tribe Elder and Farhaven Elf in preference but it's very playable.
Fauna Shaman: A Survival of the Fittest on legs. Obviously not as good as Survival, but redundancy in that department is always good in a creature-based deck.
Gilded Drake: Stealing a guy for 2 mana is bananas. Loves Mimic Vat and long walks on the beach.
Goblin Electromancer: Spellslingers rejoice! What an awesome little mana dork that is way better than a mana dork. Should make any deck that is pushing the instant/sorcery angle.
Nivix Guildmage: 2 extremely relevant abilities. Looting is good, and it makes a nice Riku substitute in a pinch. With enough mana you can copy spells infinitely- combo decks will copy Turnabout for infinite mana, although you need 8 mana to start the reaction since you have to copy Turnabout while it's on the stack.
Phantasmal Image: An ETB effect on legs for 2 mana who might even block or beat face! That’s value.
Sakura-Tribe Elder: Rampant Growth on legs. Not that exciting but otherwise a great budget ramp guy and very solid in your opening hand.
Scavenging Ooze: Decent grave hate that can grow to be a threat, albeit with no evasion.
Snapcaster Mage: WAT. His effect is bonkers in any format, this one included. And he has flash. You don't even need that many spells for this effect to be good, and don't forget Riku, Mirari and such can copy flashed-back spells since they are cast.
Spellskite: Lets Riku and your bombs dodge spot removal. Not much use against wraths though. Recurrable with Academy Ruins (as are all artifacts mentioned from here on out).
Tunnel Ignus: For the Warp World deck specifically. This guy will hit HARD.
Vexing Shusher: Protect your big spells later on. If you expect to be countered, this guy is a great answer.
Void Stalker: An awesome deterrent for other commanders in general. Unlike Gomazoa, this guy threatens to tuck at any time. A bargain for just 2 mana to play and 3 to activate. Will probably eat removal for Riku as well, which is also good.
Zameck Guildmage: Bigger creatures are good and drawing cards are really good. He's a nifty little engine.
3-drops
Biovisionary: A pretty janky combo card in my opinion but his synergy with a general that clones creatures can't be ignored here. Rite of Replication for 7UU probably ends the game.
Eternal Witness: The green auto-include you know and love. Recurs everything from the Tooth and Nail used to find it to Time Warp and other bomb spells. If you spend 3-4 bucks on one card for your green deck, make it this one.
Farhaven Elf: Worse than Wood Elves for decks with shocks and duals and better in ones without them. I often play both anyway.
Fierce Empath: Tutors for a fatty. Loves Skullclamp.
Imperial Recruiter: If you can afford this, I hope a grand piano falls on your head. If you're on Cockatrice or proxying, congratulations- he's incredible. Tutors for nearly any utility effect you could possibly need in a creature-based deck. Would love to play him myself...
Loaming Shaman: Great graveyard utility guy. Recycles your own spells or screws up opponents' yards. I often fine myself choosing between this guy and Primal Command for the obligatory yard hate spot.
Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch: Notable for going infinite with Kiji-Jiki.
Shardless Agent: You can’t use Riku to get a second cascade, but you can copy what he cascades into. Nifty little bear.
Somberwald Sage: Gets you from 3 to 7 mana (!) for creatures. An early Terastodon might signal it's time to shuffle up another game. Otherwise frees up your mana for copying the creatures you're casting.
Squee, Goblin Nabob: Infinite Survival/Fauna Shaman fuel and also a great draw engine with Skullclamp. Chump blocker in a pinch.
Trinket Mage: Tutors for Sol Ring, Skullclamp, Sensei’s Divining Top, Pithing Needle, Relic of Progenitus, etc. An all-star by any definition.
Vithian Renegades/Manic Vandal: Artifact 187 guys. Solid early plays, if a little narrow.
Wood Elves: Searches up an untapped Forest card (read: dual/shockland). Allows T4 Riku. A fine ramp card if you have the forest cards to search for.
Wormfang Drake: Champion shenanigans! bobthefunny lays out the process and benefits here. The end result of a copied Drake is an awful lot of ETB triggers, many of which Riku is happy to abuse and make more permanent.
Yavimaya Dryad: A bit worse that Wood Elves at first glance, but forestwalk has fantastic synergy with any equipment in your deck, particularly the Sword of X and Y cycle.
Yavimaya Elder: Ensures your mid-game land drops and draws a card to boot. Sickening with Skullclamp. Early :symg::symg: requirement means T3 is no gimme, so shore up your manabase.
4-drops
Anger/Brawn/Wonder: Good guys to survival away for your aggro decks. Anger is probably the best in most decks. Particularly good with Warp World, Genesis Wave and sac outlets.
Archaeomancer: A cheaper (and improved) Izzet Chronarch/Mnemonic Wall. These are a worse Eternal Witness, but still good in the right build. Be careful that you include non-ramp instants and sorceries that actually want to be recurred. They play well with Time Warp.
Citanul Heirophants: All your tokens make you more mana. This goes great in a Birthing Pod chain and can generate you a ton of mana by surprise. I really like this card in token decks.
Clone: When Phyrexian Metamorph isn't enough, play this guy too. Nothing wrong with packing a few clone effects as they all double as commander removal.
Fathom Mage: If you're playing creatures, you're drawing cards. Pretty cool card in the critical 4-drop spot. When it is too big to evolve, you can beat face or sac it to a Birthing Pod or something.
Forgotten Ancient: The Simic Evolve cards make this guy worth a mention. His synergy with Fathom Mage and Zameck Guildmage (among others) is off the charts, and even without them he gets large frighteningly fast in multiplayer.
Elgauld Shieldmate: Very unassuming until your bomb or general comes in hexproofed. Requires a sweeper or instant-speed removal to deal with.
Flametongue Kavu: 187 at some of its finest. Wrecks a lot of utility generals and swings for 4 later.
Gamekeeper: No ETB trigger but the death trigger is sexy. Mill some stuff and get a free random creature? Sounds like EDH to me! Of course, Riku can copy the creature when it enters play.
Glen Elendra Archmage: Counterspells aren’t usually a good fit for Riku, but this one is fantastic as it’s on legs and even has persist, which interacts favorably with Riku. Should probably make your deck.
Krenko, Mob Boss: Goblin token making is not at all out of the question in token-based decks.
Hellrider: All your token damage will really add up with a a couple of these on the field.
Master Biomancer: Great clone synergy as one of them will enter the battlefield as a 4/6 and each creature thereafter will be +6/+6. Can be seriously threatening in any aggressive deck.
Mystic Snake: The counterspell on a creature. Impressive creature who begs for a Mimic Vat. I’d almost always play this before any traditional counterspells becase of its synergy with other creature-loving cards like Survival of the Fittest and Mimic Vat.
Oracle of Mul Daya: The diesel engine of ramp. A little slow to get going, but once it does it will reward you handsomely. Gets better with more card draw.
Phyrexian Metamorph: Auto-include material. Extremely versatile and at a fantastic mana cost. Note that clones copy the clone target’s converted mana cost for Birthing Pod shenanigans.
Roaring Primadox: A good creature-based bounce outlet. A nice alternative to Crystal Shard and friends in creature form.
Solemn Simulacrum: A fine card. Some say he’s uncuttable- I say that in green, you have better ramp options and he doesn’t have enough impact for 4 mana. If he was clampable it would be a much different story.
Sower of Temptation: Theft on a flying 2/2. If you’re lucky, the rest of the table won’t mind your recent acquisition. Loves the protection and pump given by swords.
Spike Weaver: The fog machine himself. Great for deflecting early hate and shutting down Insurrections.
Talrand, Sky Summoner: The instant and sorcery deck can use him like a second Riku, pumping out card advantage just by playing the rest of your deck.
Venser, Shaper Savant: Another good way for Riku decks to interact at instant speed. Note that he can actually be copied with Riku for profit and recasting. When he enters the battlefield, both his ETB trigger and Riku’s trigger go on the stack. Simply have Venser’s trigger resolve first, returning himself to your hand. Then Riku’s ability resolves and you get a token Venser which bounces whatever you want, while keeping the original Venser in your hand.
5-drops (note: because they share their mana cost with Riku, these have to be really good for your deck to make the cut)
Acidic Slime: The two-for-one master. Almost always gets something good and threatens to trade with your opponents’ biggest non-flying threats. Auto-include material. A real all star.
Body Double: The blue reanimation spell, except it’s a creature, which is nuts. It’s fun to pitch a fattie like Terastodon to Survival EOT and fetch for Body Double to “reanimate” it. The versatility here makes this guy auto-include material.
Caldera Hellion: A nice mini-sweeper for the price. Very good in creature toolbox decks that like to be able to tutor up an answer for tokens. Also, copying him with a few of your own guys makes the sweep 6 damage instead of 3 and you could very well have a 7/7 or greater left over from the blast.
Furystoke Giant: A cool reach card for token decks. Remove a serious threat or burn out a player. Persist makes him phenomenal with Birthing Pod.
Genesis: Amazing card advantage. Doubly sick with Survival and other discard outlets. Do not underrate this guy. He is a fantastic recursion engine and represents a huge threat that other players may unwisely ignore- the best kind of threat in free-for-all situations.
Indrik Stomphowler: Acidic Slime #2. Bigger body, can't kill lands and doesn't have deathtouch. Always play Slime first, then this guy if you need to.
Ingot Chewer: See Mulldrifter. Great value here and casting it for
Ixidron: A creature-based Wrath in blue? SWEET. This guy does good work. Not much of an answer against swarms, however.
Kessig Cagebreakers: If you play with a lot of creatures and have some haste outlets, this guy is a serious threat. One of my favorite token generators because of his upside. Luckily, lots of creatures and some haste outlets are good cards already.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: Wow. What a card. :symr::symr::symr: is not for the faint of heart but the reward is worth it. More than half of the creatures in any given Riku deck get stupidly broken with this guy, the best of which is Pestermite if you want to go infinite. Haste will catch many players with their proverbial pants down.
Mindclaw Shaman: This guy should hit pretty often with stacked hands like those in Commander. If he hits removal or draw, he's a 3-for-1 or better for having removed the card from your opponent's hand. He loves to be copied because you can copy both the shaman and both spells the two of them hit.
Mulldrifter: Evoke cards are really solid with Riku because you can get a copy of the creature even if you are only playing it for its evoke cost, and the copy sticks around for more. Mulldrifter is one of the best and card draw is huge here. Gets better with your equipment.
Seedborn Muse: Basically gets its own topic. If you have a reliable flash enabler or two like Winding Canyons or Leyline of Anticipation, you can easily build a strategy around her and play Magic on everyone else’s turns.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir: Extremely powerful effect, but sort of does double duty with Riku as they both represent an upfront mana investment for significant future payoff. Probably best for control decks.
Urabrask, the Hidden: Good haste enabler for Warp World and Genesis Wave shenanigans.
Zealous Conscripts: A really great card that can take permanents for your bidding and let you Birthing Pod from 4 to 6, among other neat tricks. Combos with Kiki-Jiki as well for infinte hasty damage.
6-drops
Æthersnipe: Double Disperse and a 4/4 for :1mana::symu::symu::symu::symg:? Huge tempo swing on a relevant body. Best played directly after Riku resolves.
Brutailzer Exarch: Solid utility guy and great to copy. A fine card if a little underwhelming. Better in budget decks.
Charmbreaker Devils: Slow but the recursion is decent in spellslinger lists. Much better in mono-red.
Consecrated Sphinx: Similar to Primetime in terms of game-warping presence. A truly fantastic creature. He has become less auto-include since the rise of Prime Speaker Zegana (who has much more synergy with the creature toolbox deck in general while blanking removal) but he is still fantastic and should be considered in nearly every blue deck.
Deadeye Navigator: If you can untap with this guy you can pretty much build an insurmountable card advantage lead. The amount of ETB shenanigans you can have here is just enormous. I worry he is a turn too slow to own and he may be better as a faux-8-drop, saving 2 mana to protect himself from spot removal. Overall verdict is that he is like the other 6-drop threats that take a turn to get going but his blowout potential is off the charts.
Deadwood Treefolk: A great recursion option for creature-heavy decks. I like my recursion a little cheaper but he will get the job done in long games.
Draining Whelk: Crystal Shard, anyone? I don’t like leaving the mana open for him waiting for a big spell to go off but in a control-style deck he can be pretty nuts.
Duplicant: Great exiling removal on a body. I get disappointed when he’s a 2/2, but removing a Titan makes it feel pretty sweet. Academy Ruins takes it to the next level.
Frost Titan: Another really fine way to beat face that's great in twos. Represents a temporary answer to any permanent that's bugging you. Can lock down everything from pesky utility commanders to Gaea's Cradle and Maze of Ith.
Godo, Bandit Warlord: Equipment tutorer and a beatstick in his own right. Only as good as your swords. Like most good threats, demands an answer.
Keiga, the Tide Star: Great beater that no one wants to kill. Cold to wraths, unfortunately. A cool copy interaction here exists though as creating a copy of Keiga will "Legend Rule" them both, immediately letting you steal two creatures.
Inferno Titan: Repeatable removal and a hell of a beater. I love that he prevents low-toughness commanders from sticking as long as he’s on the table.
Prime Speaker Zegana: The July 13, 2013 changes to the legend rule push Zegana over the top. Copying a Zegana used to kill them both. Now you can keep one of them to clone, blink, bounce and recast. The huge boost in utility here makes here a VERY attractive card draw option for creature-based decks. Perhaps the best we've got! Consecrated Sphinx is very powerful as well but it lacks synergy with ETB effects and tends to eat removal before he draws you any appreciable amount of cards. Zegana gives you all the value up-front and blanks their removal and I believe she will in time prove to be the wiser choice.
Progenitor Mimic: A clone that clones itself every turn is just insane. Riku does not trigger on tokens entering the battlefield but he does get another clone on his first copy, and clones ETB-ing every turn just has massive synergy with the rest of any creature-based deck, including sexniess with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives. Have fun with this one.
Rampaging Baloths: Gets completely out of hand in just a couple of turns turning your late-game dead lands into an army of 4/4s. I have underestimated this card in the past and paid dearly for it.
Steel Hellkite: A solid budget choice here. Must be dealt with in most cases and almost never a bad draw.
Worldgorger Dragon: Now unbanned and here for your sick, twisted combo pleasure. Goes infinite with Riku and 8 mana, but is easily disruptable so watch out.
Wurmcoil Engine: Fares much better after a wrath than some other 6-drops. Great synergy with token doublers.
7-drops
Avenger of Zendikar: The one, the only. The army in a can and one hell of a win condition. As previously mentioned, Glen Elendra Archmage is the perfect partner for a Tooth and Nail dance party.
Balefire Dragon: Untap with him and take someone out.
Chancellor of the Forge: Best reserved for token decks, where he just wrecks face.
Chancellor of the Spires/Diluvian Primordial: Another fantastic use of seven mana. Diluvian's ability to cast multiple spells has more blowout potential, but if you are blinking a lot, the Chancellor becomes better because he allows you to recast the spells over multiple activations (whereas the Primordial exiles them). Between these guys and Sphinx of Uthuun, it will come down to personal preference.
Giant Adephage: Not a hugely threatening guy at first but his interaction with Parallel Lives and Doubling Season really allows you to push that token synergy.
Hornet Queen: Another sick token producer. Makes you basically impossible to attack profitably, which increases its usefulness in multiplayer situations.
Moldgraf Monstrosity: Consider him wrath protection. Death triggers are not as reliable as ETB triggers but at least this guy beats for 8 in the meantime.
Molten Primordial: Mass Mutiny stapled to a hasty 6/4 is the closest to an Insurrection you're going to get on a creature for a while. Really good copied and of course with sac outlets like High Market.
Palinchron: An absolute combo machine. Easily goes infinite with Riku in play to make infinite mana and infinite flyers. If you want to win fast and decidedly, this is one way to do it.
Phyrexian Ingester: Super-Duplicant. I think he needs evasion to put him over the edge but it's a fine card just the same and a really great budget choice.
Regal Force: The token deck can draw a ton of cards off of this guy.
Sphinx of Uthuun: Fact or Fiction that beats for 5 in the air? Completely ridiculous. Awesome card draw slot for the deck.
Sylvan Primordial: The closest thing you'll get to a Primeval Titan replacement, and in most decklists should probably replace Boundless Realms. A 6/8 with reach is very hard to kill in combat, and you ramp and you blow things up. What's not to love about this guy, other than that he's maybe too good? Autoinclude material.
8-drops and up
Bogardan Hellkite: A disgusting ETB ability and a great beater. Flash just piles on the goodness. Expensive, but often worth it, especially if your next play is a kicked Rite of Replication.
Craterhoof Behemoth: With even a modest army you are probably swinging for lethal. This is very good in any creature deck full of utility guys and extremely lethal in any token deck. Consider keeping this "I win" button around at the top of your curve.
Kederekt Leviathan: This card solves an awful lot of problems. Unearth is incredible.
Maelstrom Wanderer: The unpredictable nature of a double cascade at 8 mana leaves this guy in the "casual only" bin. But the effect has huge potential and the haste he grants to all creatures still leave him a fun and effective way to spend 8 mana. He's no Insurrection but as a source of laughs and cries of rage he is the perfect EDH fattie.
Magmatic Force: A lightning bolt per turn is a ridiculous threat. Gets a mention for being in the Mirror Mastery precon.
Terastodon: A superbomb of the highest order. Keep the elephants to yourself or just lay waste to the board. Somehow seems to be hit with a Body Double nearly every game, so watch out for opponents’ reanimation options and be prepared to exile your own graveyard if necessary.
Woodfall Primus: Persist is lovely with Riku for obvious reasons. Solves an awful lot of problems if you’re willing to pay the price. A heck of a beatstick that no one wants to kill. Combine with Oran-Rief, the Vastwood for hilarity. Plays very well with clones, who can persist and come back as something else.
Artisan of Kozilek: Riku likes him because he can copy the reanimated creature, if you have eleven mana to spare. Note that copying the Artisan does not reanimate two creatures due to the “cast” clause in the ETB ability. Other Eldrazi are pretty expensive manawise and I wouldn’t generally recommend them unless you’ve got lots of ways to cheat them out, since copying them is somewhat useless.
Worldspine Wurm: A tasty Natural Order target whose mana cost restricts him to pretty much that. Really cool death trigger with great synergy with the token-copying enchantments.
Concordant Crossroads/Mass Hysteria: Haste enabler off Genesis Wave, Warp World, etc.
Mystic Remora: Best to cast mid-to-late game when the upkeep is no problem and opponents will be hesitant to pay the cost.
Survival of the Fittest: Possibly the best card in the deck. This enchantment is perfect for assembling your combo, generating CA with Genesis and/or Squee and responding to game situations with a creature toolbox. Nearly indispensable in any deck whose budget can handle it.
Sylvan Library: Free filtering every turn and for 4 to 8 life you can get greedy with it! Less mana intensive than Top at the expense of being nearly untutorable. If I could have hit this with Trinket Mage, the decision between the two would have been much easier.
Beastmaster Ascension: Token/aggro strategies will love this anthem. Very easy to turn on in a FFA situation where not everyone has blockers.
Ceta Sanctuary: Every turn looting is pretty simple to pull off. If you can stick it with a red and a green permanent for the full effect (oh by the way your Commander is red and green), it’s draw AND loot for just the 3 mana initial investment, which is fantastic. A hidden gem in the truest sense. I recommend this over Rhystic Study because it’s far less annoying to other players and it has even more upside.
Equilibrium: Creature re-usability that can be tempo advantage lategame. Good for ETB-style decks.
Fecundity: Legitimate draw engine for token decks and a very good one at that. Nothing punishes a wrath better than drawing 9 cards off of it.
Holistic Wisdom: Good way to turn early-game chaff into late-game gas. A true hidden gem that lets you repeatedly cast your best spells. Works really well with draw spells, allowing you to chain them together as long as you have the mana.
Rhystic Study: Free cards early on and a one-sided Sphere of Resistance later when your opponents want to cast more than one spell per turn. Somewhat annoying and hate-drawing as you have to keep asking people if they want to pay, so keep that in mind.
Sneak Attack: Insane in creature-based decks. With Riku around, just :symu::symr::symg: gives you two of any creature from your hand at instant speed, one of which sticks around as a token and the other gets sacrificed EOT. Fits beautifully in the curve under Riku's 5 mana entry fee. The power level ceiling on this card, in this deck, is just sky high. Genesis and/or Survival of the Fittest break this in half in their own special ways.
Defense of the Heart: Pop this with Riku out (a non-trivial task!) and some open copy mana and you should probably win.
Greater Good: Solid card advantage engine, even if only virtual by way of Bazaar of Bagdhad activations on your 2-toughness utility guys. If you are a true Timmy and lean on your fatties to win games, this sac outlet will give you resilience against wraths and control magic effects and be a solid card advantage machine.
Pattern of Rebirth: Solid tutor that puts your guy directly onto the battlefield, allowing a Riku copy for a minimal price. Weak to exiling removal, obviously.
Parallel Lives/Doubling Season: Token decks rejoice! Don’t you wish this could just be your Commander? The tokens Riku’s ability put into play are certainly copied by this. It’s mostly win-more but if you can’t win-more in Commander, I don’t know where you can. Parallel Lives is actually BETTER in than Doubling Season in this deck because of the cost reduction.
Opposition: Absolutely crushing in token decks. The ability to tap lands and mana rocks with your guys is nearly unfair.
Stranglehold: Honestly, likely to just make the table kill you faster. Can’t deny its power though. Almost completely screws your mono-black opponents.
Perilous Forays: A fantastic sac outlet for token decks where Greater Good seems weak. Those lands add up really fast.
Possibility Storm: Insanely good in the spellslinger deck. For instants and sorceries, Riku gets to copy the original spell cast AND the spell hit off the P-Storm trigger for a total of three spells for one cast. Also there is a stax element to this card because Riku's first spell copy allows you to actually cast the spell you want instead of just random spells, while the rest of the table is stuck casting only random spells. And finally, the enchantment protects Riku AND itself by spellshifting any removal in your opponents' hands. A definite sleeper hit from Dragon's Maze and a must in any spellslinger deck.
Mana Reflection: Huge mana doubler and a green staple. Like many of these highly-costed enchantments, we’re getting into high risk territory in terms of running out mana which does nothing now to do something else later (like Riku, Teferi, etc.). Be careful not to include too much of this in your deck. This card is not the auto-include I once thought it was here.
Lurking Predators: If you have around 35 or more creatures, this can be a beating.
Warstorm Surge: Lovely in creature-based decks if it sticks and you don’t die after you cast it. If you’re not sure you can get two activations from it, stay clear.
Wild Pair: Like Warstorm Surge, Riku, Teferi, etc. I’m not sure I want to dump all my mana into something that might not pay off later when my Commander does that already. That said, if this is not dealt with and you construct your creature base properly, this can definitely win games for you. A wonderful budget choice.
Day of the Dragons: Bet you didn't know blue could do this. Quite the buff for token decks. Tells your opponents to wrath or die.
Vicious Shadows: Wins games, not friends. A great top end finisher for token decks, who have the creatures and sac outlets to kill off players at a time. Also functions as very good wrath protection.
Nature’s Lore/Three Visits/Farseek: Solid one-shot land searchers. Fantastic for early fixing in a green-heavy deck. Rampant Growth gets basics too if necessary.
Cultivate/Kodama’s Reach: Fantastic land searchers. Nothing wrong with playing both. More desirable than almost any mana rock. Harrow can get two basics as well but it's a bit riskier and doesn't guarantee the next land drop.
Skyshroud Claim: The best pure ramp spell for the deck. With top-flight manabases, your colors are good for the rest of the game. Copying this with Riku makes the initial casting free, since those 4 (!) Forests ETB untapped.
Explosive Vegetation: The budget Skyshroud Claim. Gets you any basics you want.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss/Frenzied Tilling/Reap and Sow: LD and land tutoring ramp together. Each one does something different whether you want any land, a Forest, or just a basic. Especially good in duels.
Spot Removal
Pongify/Rapid Hybridization: Can’t beat the instant-speed efficiency and come on, no one really cares about a 3/3, right? It might be the right play to use both of these.
Vandalblast: Kill ALL the artifacts! That aren't yours, of course. Still pretty good with Riku because sometimes copying the first mode of the spell is going to be enough.
Ancient Grudge: Flashback is great here. Riku loves flashback.
Cyclonic Rift: A pretty good bounce spell that is also an extremely disruptive tempo wipe that can get you out of sticky situations and put away unsuspecting opponents. The best word on the card is "Instant". Multiple useful modes make this a format all-star, but don't confuse it for a wrath or you will get burned.
Echoing Truth: Owns token decks for a very small cost.
Ground Assault: If you need creature removal beyond Pongify and Rapid Hybridization, this is a good choice and will almost always kill its intended target for just 2 mana, although at sorcery speed. Pit Fight is a decent option for another instant speed alternative.
Hull Breach: A fine use of two mana. Almost never dead, but sometimes a little narrow seeing as how it can't deal with creatures like some of our other choices.
Izzet Charm: A fine role-player that is always useful. Depends on how often you want to be killing X/2 commanders.
Mizzium Mortars: With two useful modes at reasonable costs and Riku's copy ability helping both, it's incredibly playable removal.
Turn//Burn: A neat little shock that can kill a Blightsteel or shut off a Soul of the Harvest. Has some decent utility as with Izzet Charm.
Beast Within: More incredible removal. Instant speed, 3 mana and a negligable drawback. Doesn’t get much better than this, folks.
Capsize: Terrible to have to waste early but a good finisher late game when you’ve got 25 mana and you need a way to win. Much better in duels.
Chaos Warp: Incredible tuck removal. Obviously with a little bit of risk, but for 3 mana at instant speed on any permanent, it’s totally worth it.
Krosan Grip: Split second makes Tops and blue decks cry.
Aftershock: Copying this hurts but this baby has some great versatility for a red removal spell.
Bramblecrush: Versatile, but a sorcery unfortunately.
Decimate: This card has huge blowout potential but you can't just play it whenever you like. The enchantment restriction will be the hardest to fulfill in a vacuum. Remember that as long there's one of each type in play, the spell can be copied targeting the same target(s) as the first and both will resolve even if a target is gone by the time the second is ready to resolve.
Grab the Reins: Will almost always kill the most threatening two creatures on the board when entwined.
Submerge: In response to a fetch crack, I tuck your general for free. LOL. Forests are in nearly every game of EDH so you should have no problem hitting the reduced cost here.
Wash Out: Can really blow out an unprepared set of opponents. Sorcery speed makes me a little sad but, like Decimate, has a lot of potential in the right situation.
Fissure: Expensive, but versatile and an instant. Can’t complain too much here.
Prophetic Bolt: Solid removal that cantrips into something useful. A little expensive on the mana though.
Switcheroo: Creature-based decks should have plenty of dorks to trade for the nearest Gisela or Avacyn.
Relic Crush: Guaranteed 2-for-1 at instant speed is always a good cast.
Spin into Myth: Expensive at 5 mana but does it ever get the job done. Good thing it’s an instant.
Sweepers
Creeping Corrosion/Shatterstorm: If you're playing with only a couple of artifacts, consider breaking the symmetry of this mass artifact hate.
Evacuation/Devastation Tide: Mass bounce. Evacuation is just creatures as an instant, while Devastation Tide is a sorcery, but has the miracle cost and hits all nonland permanents. Make a meta call here.
All is Dust: Gets around all kinds of protection. Constantly underrated. This is a quality card.
Inferno: Instant speed sweeping is always worth a look. Doesn’t hit pro-red guys (like carriers of SoFI) but mostly will get the job done. Again, don’t play Savage Twister or Fault Line over this.
Blasphemous Act: This will often be cheap enough that you can cast it, then cast a big dude and say go. The best red wrath in my opinion.
Disaster Radius: It's a lot of mana and a big restriction to have a creature in hand, but it does hit all opponents' creatures. Maybe a better budget choice.
Fault Line: Instant speed earthquake that hits players. A great sweeper/finisher. Not as good as Starstorm but warrants consideration in its absence or along side it.
Starstorm: Instant speed, scalable, and cycles if you don’t want it. A top-notch sweeper. Never play something like Savage Twister or Fault Line over this.
See also: Oblivion Stone
Draw
Brainstorm/Preordain/Ponder: The eye of the stormy debate about cantripping small spells in EDH. Some people swear by these for the marginal increase in card quality. Others would rather just play another bomb at their own peril. Personally, I don’t fault other players for using them, especially in U/G decks with lots of ramp-induced shuffle effects for Brainstorm. It’s a matter or personal taste, really. Combo decks will like these, including Ponder (which most decks should not want).
Life from the Loam: Recycles your fetchlands and other valuable nonbasics. Great with the Onslaught cycling lands like Lonely Sandbar.
Manamorphose: One-way ticket to value town. Belongs in every Riku list. It cycles for free and it can draw you cards and ramp you at the same time if Riku is out.
Nostalgic Dreams: Ridiculous when copied. Also discards your Genesis and Spitting Image.
Regrowth: Extremely solid. Almost always gets you something good. Great for re-casting dead creatures and re-using removal spells and wraths. Wildwood Rebirth is similar but limited only to creatures, which may be fine for you.
Guided Passage: Good opponents won't give you anything you can use. Good teammates will give you whatever you want...
Fact or Fiction: The one and only. No matter who picks what, you win! This is a fine draw spell and a terrific copy target the turn after Riku’s first cast. This would be the first pure draw spell I would recommend in any blue deck.
Momentous Fall: Instant speed makes this a great response to a Wrath or removal spell. Drawing three or more cards makes it worth it- drawing six or more makes it hilarious.
Past in Flames: Yawgwin for instants and sorceries. Abusable in big mana instant/sorcery builds.
Restock/All Suns' Dawn/Creeping Renaissance: Can get several cards back with these. All Suns' Dawn is a little restrictive for my tastes but if you get at least two cards back, it's not a bad spell at all. Renaissance naming "creature" can be brutal in the right deck.
Recurring Insight: For 6 mana you basically can’t draw more cards than this can without some sort of combo. Unmatched in pure power.
Praetor's Counsel: This can be underwhelming if you don't have much in the yard but ridiculous if you do.
Stroke of Genius/Blue Sun’s Zenith: Instant speed, scale very well for big-mana decks and a great infinite mana finisher targeting your opponent(s).
Tutors
Crop Rotation/Sylvan Scrying: Gets you that critical nonbasic land, like Gaea's Cradle or Maze of Ith.
Gamble: I’m sick of hearing about how bad this card is. It’s not. It’s fantastic. How else do you tutor up enchantments (like Survival) in these colors? Gets you nearly whatever you want. When you’re not playing black, that’s saying something.
Worldly Tutor/Mystical Tutor: Good, cheap, and they get you what you need. Can’t ask for much better.
Muddle the Mixture: Decent transmute for 2 in spell-based decks. Great synergy with Isochron Scepter.
Signal the Clans: The random element can be played around to some extent. It's instant speed for just 2 mana, and if you need to go get a bomb or something, you can just get three of them. Copying it is good card advantage.
Fabricate: Gets you that Sword or Birthing Pod, no questions asked.
Intuition: Sooo good. Can name Target Card/Eternal Witness/Regrowth, Target Artifact/Crucible of Worlds/Academy Ruins, Target Creature/Body Double/Eternal Witness, Kederekt Leviathan and Spitting Image are lose/lose for your opponent... the list goes on. Takes skill to know what to search for. For instance, any time you say “Genesis”, it’s probably going to end up clogging your hand if you don’t have a discard outlet.
Long-Term Plans: Don't shuffle your library! Be careful casting this early as any tutor or ramp spell will totally mess you up. The upside is, of course, that you get whatever you want. Sensei's Divining Top can put the card right into your hand.
Natural Order: Sac a utility guy and Terastodon their manabse, or bring about other general hilarity. An amazing card if you can afford it.
Green Sun’s Zenith: Gets you what you need when you need it. Sometimes you will be bummed when you want a non-green creature and you can’t have it, but hey, that’s life. Riku can copy both the spell and the creature that hits play.
Chord of Calling: Gets you anything you want at instant speed. Again, Riku can copy the spell and the creature that enters play. Best in token decks due to Convoke. I find that I prefer Worldly Tutor these days to GSZ and CoC because of the cheap cost.
Counters
(With so many counters available, I’m just going to pick my favorites.)
Pact of Negation: The get out of jail free card. Great for several reasons: If it’s in your hand, you can plan for disaster without leaving mana open and completely surprise your opponents. If it’s not in your hand, you can bluff it pretty easily. Green decks like this one should have no problem playing the upkeep cost in LD-light metas.
Arcane Denial/Remand: Cantripping counterspells that are slightly less likely to make enemies because of the perks. I am unlikely to play Counterspell over either of these two.
Spell Crumple/Hinder: Commonly used to tuck other commanders, but they’re still good counterspells on their own too. Can’t do better for three mana.
Voidslime: Counters basically everything. Can't beat the versatility here.
Cryptic Command: Does everything you could possibly ask for, if you can produce the :symu::symu::symu: to cast it.
Plasm Capture: Stops any spell dead in its tracks and sets you up for a huge next turn. Be careful of telegraphing this. One of the few counters worth playing in all nearly Riku decks.
Desertion: A hilariously effective steal spell at best and an expensive counter at worst. Very versatile if you can stand to keep the mana open. Gather Specimens is similar, if you like that sort of thing.
Mystic Genesis: Counters and makes a dude. Neat Doubling Season and Parallel Lives synergy but otherwise it's not that impressive for 5 mana.
Utility
Constant Mists: Ridiculous fog machine. Watch out for free-for-all situations where you are likely to be ganged up on- you won't want to sacrifice your entire manabase just to survive.
Fork/Twincast/Reverberate/Reiterate/Wild Ricochet/Ricochet Trap: If you want to copy and manipulate spells, well, here you go. These effects are especially devastating against Time Warp effects. I don’t like leaving the mana open for these effects but thankfully they are (mostly) cheap. Reverberate combos infinitely with Turnabout.
Flash: Very abusable with Riku. 1UUG lets you cast any creature in your hand at instant speed and double its ETB effect while putting the original copy in your yard for later use. Big blowout potential.
Gaea's Blessing: Some sweet little instant grave hate that does not cost you a card. Every time you build a deck without grave hate, Yawgmoth kills a kitten.
Cackling Counterpart: Really strong as an instant but really weak in that it can only copy your own guys. Make sure you have a lot of creatures...
Ghostly Flicker: Saves your guys from spot removal, untaps your Gaea's Cradle, and gives you extra copy and ETB opportunities? A great utility spell for creature decks.
Heat Shimmer: Dead to removal but the low cost and the haste on the token and its potential copy give this some great utility. Consider this a meta call against M11/M12 Titans, although it's much worse without Primeval Titan around to fetch you up to 8 lands.
Turnabout: Combos with Reiterate and can be a decent ritual with Riku around. Also takes out an opponent if you want to go off with something else.
Unexpected Results: Another "fun" card for Riku, who can copy this spell and anything that comes in off of it (except a land, of course).
Bribery: If one thing is consistent across the EDH community, it’s that nearly every table has big dudes. At five mana, this is extremely undercosted and a blue staple by any measure. Telemin Performance is a much worse Bribery, but funnier.
Mana Geyser: Generates a ludicrous amount of mana in multiplayer games. Be sure to leave behind enough colored mana to cast spells that require blue and green mana.
Plow Under: Copy this to basically take someone out of the game. They may as well go make some popcorn.
Primal Command: Grave hate, creature tutoring, tucks noncreature permanents, and yes, it gains you life. A fine card in any green deck.
Time Warp: A wonderful way to keep the pressure on and gain some more value out of your graveyard recursion. Can be looped just a few times or infinitely, depending on what you want to get out of it.
Urban Evolution: Draw and ramp stapled together for a fair cost. Key word: fair.
Word of Seizing: Steals a permanent at instant speed, letting you do what you want with it. Really versatile. Best with sac outlets like Greater Gargadon to keep your opponents from getting their stuff back.
Spelltwine: A fun, swingy card for instant and sorcery builds. If you play Knowledge Exploitation first, you'll have stacked your yard and someone else's for Spelltwine shenanigans.
Spitting Image/Stolen Identitiy: Reusable copy effects are tough to beat. Spitting image has the inevitability factor, since you can recast it as many times as you draw a land. Stolen Identity's Cipher threatens multiple copies with just one cast though, so if you have a bunch of evasive guys you may prefer that instead.
Blatant Thievery: Guaranteed to make you public enemy number one. Not always worth the trouble.
Knowledge Exploitation: It’s practically any spell you want, albeit at sorcery speed. You can almost always get a bomb, a removal spell or a wrath. Game enders like Insurrection are also great targets. This is an underrated swiss army knife.
Haymakers
Beserk/Fatal Frenzy/Rush of Blood: These can all be copied to quadruple a creature's power. Rush does not grant trample but it is an instant.
Rite of Replication: A classic Timmy game-ender. Watch out for sac outlets and removal in response to the copy. I think this card is representative of the EDH card- versatile, scaleable and completely over the top.
Dragonshift/Tears of Rage/Overwhelming Stampede/Savage Beating/Biomass Mutation: A few overrun spells with a lot of finishing potential. Dragonshift and Tears of Rage are instants, making for surprise kills out of nowhere. Especially good with Kessig Cagebreakers before the declare blockers step. Overwhelming Stampede is safer and you have to have a big guy to make it great but even with 3 dorks and a 6/6 you are swinging for 30-40 damage (as long as the 6/6 isn't zapped with removal in response). Savage Beating simply quadruples their power, which looks real spicy if you have 2/2 wolves or better. Biomass Mutation grants no evasion but like Dragonshift and Tears of Rage have instant-speed to sweeten the deal, along with huge levels of pump depending on how much mana you have.
Burn at the Stake: Just gross in token decks and the small mana cost compared to X spells makes copying it extremely appetizing. With just 5 tokens and Riku in play you can spend 7 mana for 30 direct player damage. Really not fair with Avenger of Zendikar.
Rude Awakening: Land overrun is no joke. Riku effectively reduces the entwine cost to :symu::symr: and copying the entwined spell can pay for itself by untapping all the lands twice.
Insurrection: With even a few beaters on the table, this will knock out at least one player. Another classic game-ender. Has a better reputation that some of the others because the win is though turning guys sideways. Watch out for Homeward Path completely negating its effect.
Tooth and Nail: Needs no introduction! Assembles all kinds of combos and game-ending situations. As previously mentioned, Glen Elendra Archmage and Avenger of Zendikar is one good way to go. The possibilities are endless.
Time Stretch: It’s really hard to lose a game of EDH after taking three turns in a row. Be careful playing this with strangers who find extra turns lame. Sometimes it’s just better to run Time Warp instead for social reasons.
Bonfire of the Damned/Comet Storm/Banefire/Devil's Play/Clan Defiance: Your go-to killer X spells (well, these and Blue Sun’s Zenith if you’re dealing with infinite mana). Two are instants, one can hit twice, one hits up to three times, and one can wipe their whole board. Bonfire combos with Mystical Tutor to end a game fast or stabilize against a threat. Comet Storm is more useful outside its “I win” qualities and for its instant speed, while Banefire is nearly impossible to stop. Devil's Play gives you extra reach and the most damage to a single target. Clan Defiance gives you up to three targets for XRG, so it's the most efficient of the bunch until you get up into the 10 mana range or more where Comet Storm takes over.
Eternal Dominion: Copy this for two epic triggers! Should be quite difficult to lose after that.
Genesis Wave/Epic Experiment: Massive spells that let you play out a significant portion of your deck, be it creatures or noncreature spells. Genesis Wave is one of the best game-enders and plays very well with haste enablers. Epic Experiment goes great with draw spells and storm, but blanks on X spells so watch out for that.
Sensei’s Divining Top: Really fantastic filtering with all the shuffle effects available here. Plus Trinket Mage? Absolutely an auto-include here.
Skullclamp: As long as things are going to be dying, you may as well draw cards. Incredible with Sneak Attack, Birthing Pod, Mimic Vat, Squee, and merely amazing with the rest of your creature-based deck. A frequent Trinket Mage target.
Sol Ring/Mana Crypt: Allow for explosive starts. Completely overpowered, but no one will ban them since they’re so popular. I’m part of the problem, of course.
(On other, non-ridiculous mana rocks, including signets: You are playing green- you do not need many mana rocks, if at all. Land-based ramp is almost always the better choice. Lands are much less likely to be targeted by destructive effects or become collateral damage to a sweeper. Additionally, Riku can copy land-based ramp spells like Cultivate for added value, whereas he can do nothing special with mana rocks. Play the signets only if your fixing is very poor.)
Tormod’s Crypt/Relic of Progenitus: Standard Trinket Mage grave hate cards. Every deck should have some tutorable grave hate.
Lightning Greaves/Swiftfoot Boots: Protect Riku and your guys and give them haste. Do not underestimate the haste part- it will screw up blocking for all your opponents and will keep you safer simply by being on the board.
Crystal Ball: In my opinion, a worse Top. Still provides excellent filtering though. Great for when Top is not an option.
Oblivion Stone/Nevinyrral’s Disk: Sweepers recurrable by Academy Ruins make one of these a fine choice. I don’t like the slowness of the disk but it is cheaper on your mana.
Rings of Brighthearth: Any non-mana activated abilities can be doubled with this. Includes Kiki-Jiki, Fetchlands, Survival effects... absolutely fantastic if your deck is built to support it.
Sword of Feast and Famine: Random weenies untapping your mana and forcing discard. Untapping your lands in a big mana deck with blue for draw can be just brutal. Probably my favorite of the big three swords in this deck. Again, Godo swings this twice.
Sword of Fire and Ice: Turns random weenies into killing machines that draw you cards. Protections are lackluster- fantastic otherwise. Godo swings twice!
Helm of Possession: Your tokens will almost never have a better use than to repeatedly steal your opponents’ creatures. Vicious.
Quicksilver Amulet: A flash enabler and cost reducer for fatties. Riku gets funny with this- flashed-in double Woodfall Primus for :4mana::symu::symg:? Sure!
Vedalken Orrery: Classic flash enabler. See also Leyline of Anticipation, which is more difficult to tutor for in RUG.
Mindslaver: Locks down players with Academy Ruins. A mean card, but you can't argue with results here if that's all you're looking for.
Akroma’s Memorial: Superbuffs your token army for a hefty price considering no P/T changes. Probably most useful as a haste enabler off a Genesis Wave.
Recursion
Voyager Staff: One-shot blinking. Riku can copy the creature as it re-enters the battlefield and Academy Ruins can let you re-use it cheaply. Works on offense and defense. A really fine utility card.
Nim Deathmantle:
Spawning Pit: Great wrath recovery for token decks.
Isochron Scepter: Spellslinging decks can use a scepter package to generate some serious card advantage. Stick a Remand or Arcane Denial on one and enjoy
Sword of Light and Shadow: Random weenies recurring creatures from the yard is no joke. Protections are super relevant as they are the two colors most likely to kill a creature.
Crucible of Worlds: Play with fetches and Strip Mine to keep the gas coming. A fantastic Intuition target along with Academy Ruins and another regrowth effect. Some folks will cry and whine when you play Crucible and Strip Mine, but the fact is that it costs you a land drop to nuke a land (Exploration notwithstanding) and often you will have better things to do than abuse this. At the same time, this is why you do not play Ravnica bouncelands unless you are absolutely financially destitute.
Crystal Shard/Erratic Portal: Lets you reuse your ETB effects and save your guys from removal. Opponents need two mana to save their guys from bounce (tap it on their end step, they pay, tap it again on your own turn). Devastating with Sneak Attack, Mystic Snake and Eternal Witness among others.
Mimic Vat: Along the lines of Skullclamp- as long as creatures are dying, why not take advantage of the situation? An awesome in creature decks or against them. Pair with Glided Drake, Skullclamp, etc for a devastating impact on the game.
Proteus Staff: Really versatile. You can repurpose you mana fetchers and tokens into threats from your deck, then copy the guys you put into play. With lots of ETB effects this is a pretty good card advantage engine. Also has the extremly good upside of having the defensive capabilty to hit opposing commanders with this and tuck them. A fine card for any Riku deck.
Birthing Pod: Incredible. It's like a Proteus Staff with more control and less aggro. An under-the-radar style threat that constantly keeps the pressure on with minimal mana investment and can assemble your infinite combos rather easily. Riku can copy the creatures you put in play, turning this card from merely great to just stellar. Check out my decklist for some ideas on pod chains. Works very well Cauldron of Souls, Sneak Attack, Mimic Vat, Skullclamp, etc.
Cauldron of Souls: Keep your guys around and recycle their ETB effects while letting Riku copy them? Can’t ask for much more for 5 mana, though it is expensive and costs the same as Riku. Works great with Oran-Rief, the Vastwood and Novijen, Heart of Progress. Completely nuts with Melira, Sylvok Outcast, as are all other persist cards. Note that tokens do not persist. Colfenor's Urn is more narrow but costs less.
Conjurer's Closet: The end step trigger (rather than an upkeep trigger) makes this very playable. A fantastic value generator for your creatures. In creature decks I see this as a super Phyrexian Arena.
Minion Reflector: Another up-front investment for inevitability later on. A fine value choice that loves ETB and graveyard/leaves play triggers.
Shocks (Breeding Pool, Steam Vents, Stomping Ground): Duals with a tiny drawback. Also incredible.
Fetches (Misty Rainforest, Scalding Tarn, Wooded Foothills): Great for fetching duals or otherwise cleaning up the fixing situation. OP with Crucible of Worlds, obviously. Also note that there are plenty of off-color fetches you can play like Flooded Strand which will fetch you only one of the two basic land types. I don't play them for flavor and budget reasons but don't restrict yourself just because I do if you want to go all-out.
Filters (Flooded Grove, Cascade Bluffs, Fire-Lit Thicket): Very good for casting your double and triple-colored spells like Bribery and Kiki-Jiki.
Taplands (Hinterland Harbor, Sulfur Falls, Rootbound Crag): Extremely solid. With some ramp, getting Forests and Islands into play should be fairly easy for when you draw these.
Rainbow Lands (Command Tower, Reflecting Pool, Vesuva, City of Brass, Rupture Spire/Transguild Promenade, Forbidden Orchard, Gemstone Mine, Exotic Orchard, Tarnished Citadel, Cavern of Souls, Ancient Ziggurat, Pillar of the Paruns): Listed in order of preference. The drawbacks really add up as you go further down the list.
Karoos (Simic Growth Chamber, Izzet Boilerworks, Gruul Turf): I hate these for all their drawbacks and getting them slimed is the worst, but when you’re on a budget you do what you gotta do.
Cyclers (Lonely Sandbar, Forgotten Cave, Tranquil Thicket): Really great with Life from the Loam or if you have a higher land count than usual. Otherwise, I’d pass on these.
Artifact Lands (Seat of the Synod, Great Furnace, Tree of Tales): Good to search up with Trinket Mage. Watch out that they don't become collateral damage to something like Nevinyrral's Disk.
Land Destruction (Strip Mine, Wasteland, Tectonic Edge, Dust Bowl, Ghost Quarter): Listed in order of preference. Slot at least one in your deck, maybe more. Crucible of Worlds helps keep the Cradle or Coffers/Urborg player in check.
Gaea’s Cradle: Almost always taps for 2 or more in a creature-based deck and can get really busted if you bring tokens along for the ride.
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood: Abuse Woodfall Primus with this. See also Novijen, Heart of Progress to get around the green limitation.
Minamo, School at Water’s Edge: Good with Kiki-Jiki, Gaea's Cradle, Yavimaya Hollow... not too much else though, since Riku doesn't play well with most legendary creatures and legendary non-creatures worth playing are few and far between.
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds: Great with landfall triggers on Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar, and the legend rule is unlikely to be a factor. If landfall didn't make this an every-deck play, then nothing will.
Dryad Arbor: A land that's also a creature. Pitchable to survival, searchable with Green Sun's Zenith, clampable, and is awesome as a surprise chump blocker off a fetch activation.
Mosswort Bridge/Spinerock Knoll: These will likely go off by the end of your game. Will that be too late? I find these lands get targeted by LD effects a little too often for my tastes.
Tolaria West: Transmute for any land you like, or even Pact of Negation! Very useful.
Academy Ruins: Incredible recursion here. You can get back a lot more than Mindslaver with this. Swords, Mimic Vat... there’s almost always something worth re-drawing.
Alchemist's Refuge: A fine flash enabler for controlling decks and a big upgrade over Winding Canyons, which only works on creatures.
Ancient Tomb: Super ramp, but be careful leaning too hard on this.
Desolate Lighthouse: Also great for control decks, but good in general at sculpting your hand and graveyard and triggering miracles and such on other players' turns. 4 mana is a bit expensive for the ability but any less and I think standard would become URx control versus the field.
High Market: Absolute all star land. Protects against control magic effects and Rite of Replication blowouts. See also Miren, the Moaning Well if you like that sort of thing.
Homeward Path: Kind of overpowered and potentially devastating to you if you like borrowing creatures. Bribery and Insurrection are nearly useless with this card out, so be aware of its presence in all games.
Kessig Wolf Run: As long as you have a creature, you will be a threat for lethal damage. An amazing mana sink. This is an extremely powerful land and it's probably good for the format that it's restricted to two colors.
Maze of Ith: Discourages opponents from attacking you and can legitimately keep you alive late into the game. Mystifying Maze generates mana but is far more expensive to activate.
Temple of the False God: There's enough ramp and draw in RUG decks that this is very playable. Doesn't get you to Riku any faster though.
Thespian's Stage: Comes down colorless but untapped, and you can pay just 2 mana to kill a legendary land or make your own Temple of the False God or Command Tower or something. Very good.
Yavimaya Hollow: Only have to leave open a lousy 2 mana to keep Riku or a bomb around after a kill spell or a sweeper without the "no regen" clause. Keep quiet about it and many players will forget you even have it...
Jace Beleren: I think there are better draw engines than him, but if he lives for two activations you did all right.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: The brainstorms and unsummons do help, but he will draw more hate than he deserves in most instances (to your detriment).
Karn Liberated: He's big. He's bad. He exiles things and threatens to start the whole damn thing over again. I like that 10 loyalty (after a +4) is not easy to compromise.
Sarkhan Vol: +1 is really great after you hit a bomb or token generator. Doubling Season for bigtime lulz.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage: A serviceable 5-mana walker with a lot of upside. I like her better than most.
Tezzeret the Seeker: Great for tutoring up utility artifacts. Grab anything from Top to Metamorph.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
These will change often and unexpectedly. Build what works for you!
Creature Toolbox
I started off playing a generic goodstuff Riku deck without a real plan that was a lot more top-heavy. I played a good deal of 7 and 8-drops. When disruption and otherwise sputtering out before 8 or 10 mana became a point of concern for me, I tightened things up a bit and focused some more on the lower end of the curve. I also tried to play creatures over instants or sorceries when possible, though some non-creature spells and artifacts simply cannot be replaced. I feel I have managed to find a balance which captures the best of both worlds- powerful creature synergy flanked by powerful supplemental spells. And since Riku can copy both, the dichotomy, though somewhat lopsided, isn't that much of an issue. The end result is leaner and meaner than your average Riku deck, but not without a few big-mana haymakers to get over the top.
5 Riku of Two Reflections
Creatures
2 Gilded Drake
2 Fauna Shaman
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Eternal Witness
3 Fierce Empath
3 Wood Elves
3 Loaming Shaman
3 Yavimaya Elder
4 Anger
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Sower of Temptation
4 Spike Weaver
5 Acidic Slime
5 Body Double
5 Genesis
5 Ixidron
5 Kessig Cagebreakers
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Mulldrifter
6 Consecrated Sphinx
6 Deadeye Navigator
6 Duplicant
6 Inferno Titan
6 Progenitor Mimic
7 Avenger of Zendikar
7 Chancellor of the Spires
7 Sphinx of Uthuun
7 Sylvan Primordial
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
0 Pact of Negation
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Beast Within
3 Chaos Warp
7 All Is Dust
Dedicated Ramp Spells
1 Sol Ring
2 Explore
3 Cultivate
3 Kodama's Reach
4 Skyshroud Claim
Draw/Tutoring Spells
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Worldly Tutor
2 Survival of the Fittest
3 Fabricate
3 Holistic Wisdom
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Momentous Fall
4 Natural Order
5 Bribery
Support
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Manamorphose
3 Crystal Shard
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Birthing Pod
4 Sneak Attack
5 Conjurer's Closet
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Flooded Grove
1 Fire-lit Thicket
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Command Tower
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Vesuva
1 Tolaria West
1 High Market
1 Academy Ruins
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Strip Mine
1 Yavimaya Hollow
8 Forest
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Void Stalker
1 Regrowth
1 Intuition (bored of this)
1 Tooth and Nail (also bored of this)
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Gaea's Cradle (out of budget)
Tokens
I put this list together and I was preparing to test it when Thromok the Insatiable was spoiled from Planechase 2012. Let's just say I was sidetracked.
This list is somewhat untested but I believe it is a good place to start for anyone looking to win with tokens and Riku. It is based off my own Thromok list, which is now linked in my sig. I have plenty of reason to believe that this is a winning strategy and that this deck would be more than capable in most Commander settings.
5 Riku of Two Reflections
//Token Producers
2 Kazandu Tuskcaller
3 Imperious Perfect
4 Kozilek’s Predator
4 Beetleback Captain
4 Wolfbriar Elemental
5 Kessig Cagebreakers
5 Deranged Hermit
5 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
5 Siege-Gang Commander
6 Dragon Broodmother
6 Dragonlair Spider
7 Avenger of Zendikar
7 Hornet Queen
//Haste
4 Anger
5 Urabrask the Hidden
3 Fires of Yavimaya
3 Fervor
//Doublers
4 Parallel Lives
5 Doubling Season
//Ramp
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Wood Elves
3 Farhaven Elf
4 Citanul Heirophants
4 Oracle of Mul-Daya
3 Growth Spasm
3 Cultivate
4 Skyshroud Claim
//Draw/Recursion/Clones
3 Eternal Witness
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Regrowth
3 Fecundity
4 Fact or Fiction
//Tutors/Filters
2 Fauna Shaman
3 Trinket Mage
1 Gamble
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Sylvan Library
2 Survival of the Fittest
4 Birthing Pod
5 Bribery
//Disruption
4 Sower of Temptation
4 Glen Elendra Archmage
5 Acidic Slime
5 Beguiler of Wills
6 Duplicant
0 Pact of Negation
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Night Soil
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Goblin Bombardment
3 Chaos Warp
3 Beast Within
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Opposition
4 Creeping Corrosion
//Finishers
8 Craterhoof Behemoth
5 Overwhelming Stampede
6 Mass Polymorph
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Steam Vents
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Flooded Grove
1 Fire-lit Thicket
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Command Tower
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Vesuva
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Tolaria West
1 High Market
1 Academy Ruins
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Kher Keep
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Strip Mine
7 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Island
1 Burn at the Stake (Finisher spots are tight, want to try out Mass Poly)
Creature Toolbox on a Budget
When I met my new playgroup here in Kansas City, they were new to Commander but pretty excited to be playing. I didn't want to crush them with a finely tuned, fully powered Riku deck, but I still wanted to play him and at the same time show them what could be done on a tight budget. I built this deck a few months ago and played it with them a few times. I still won all the games but it was close on most occasions, so I have a feeling it would be competent in any casual to semi-casual Commander setting. It doesn't take a lot of money to have a lot of fun with this guy, and this list is proof of that. I will update it if necessary, and as with all my decks, I welcome your feedback.
5 Riku of Two Reflections (0)
//Creature
2 Coiling Oracle (0.25)
2 Dawntreader Elk (0.05)
2 Fauna Shaman (2.99)
3 Farhaven Elf (0.19)
3 Fierce Empath (0.1)
3 Manic Vandal (0.05)
3 Somberwald Sage (0.99)
3 Trinket Mage (0.19)
3 Wormfang Drake (0.05)
4 Anger (.75)
4 Archaeomancer (0.05)
4 Clone (0.21)
4 Elgaud Shieldmate (0.05)
4 Fathom Mage (0.50)
4 Flametongue Kavu (0.50)
5 Acidic Slime (0.15)
5 Body Double (1.99)
5 Ixidron (0.25)
5 Kessig Cagebreakers (0.25)
5 Mulldrifter (0.25)
6 Brutalizer Exarch (0.10)
6 Deadeye Navigator (.50)
6 Inferno Titan (1.99)
6 Steel Hellkite (0.39)
7 Sphinx of Uthuun (0.25)
7 Diluvian Primordial (0.25)
7 Molten Primordial (0.25)
7 Sylvan Primordial (.50)
8 Terastodon (0.99)
1 Pongify (0.35)
1 Rapid Hybridization (0.25)
1 Relic of Progenitus (0.99)
3 Beast Within (1.49)
4 Aftershock (0.09)
4 Ruination (0.42)
9 Blasphemous Act (0.50)
//Dedicated Ramp
2 Farseek (0.09)
2 Rampant Growth (0.05)
3 Cultivate (0.35)
3 Kodama's Reach (0.49)
4 Explosive Vegetation (0.49)
7 Boundless Realms (0.25)
//Draw/Tutor
1 Skullclamp (2.29)
2 Nostalgic Dreams (0.69)
3 Ceta Sanctuary (0.12)
3 Fabricate (0.39)
3 Recollect (0.19)
4 Birthing Pod (2.49)
4 Fact or Fiction (1.99)
4 Momentous Fall (0.35)
6 Wild Pair (1.00)
6 Recurring Insight (0.19)
//Finishers
4 Rite of Replication (0.89)
5 Overwhelming Stampede (1.00)
1 Voyager Staff (0.09)
3 Mimic Vat (1.49)
3 Crystal Shard (0.29)
3 Proteus Staff (0.79)
5 Conjurer's Closet (0.39)
6 Spitting Image (0.42)
//Lands (39)
1 Buried Ruin (0.25)
1 Command Tower (0)
1 Evolving Wilds (0.25)
1 Ghost Quarter (0.50)
1 Haunted Fengraf (0.05)
1 Kessig Wolf Run (1.49)
1 Rupture Spire (0.29)
1 Terramorphic Expanse (0.20)
1 Transguild Promenade (0.05)
14 Forest (0)
9 Island (0)
6 Mountain (0)
Anyone who's played with Riku has thought of the idea of just focusing on instants and sorceries. This type of build is considered to be an suboptimal theme build which sacrifices most tradition forms of defense (by playing so few creatures) for instant and sorcery-based ramp and control. It's a lot of fun and an exciting challenge to tackle, but don't expect to take down your PTQ side events with it.
1 Riku of Two Reflections
//Ramp
1 Nature's Lore
1 Farseek
1 Explore
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Mwonvuli Acid Moss
1 Sol Ring
1 Arcane Melee
1 Mana Reflection
//Threats
1 Reins of Power
1 Rite of Replication
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Bribery
1 Time Warp
1 Insurrection
1 Eternal Dominion
1 Runechanter's Pike
1 Mirari
//Spot Removal
1 Pongify
1 Hull Breach
1 Blood Frenzy
1 Echoing Truth
1 Beast Within
1 Chaos Warp
1 Aftershock
1 Comet Storm
1 All is Dust
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Starstorm
//Recursion
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Regrowth
1 All Suns' Dawn
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Mystic Retrieval
//Counterspells
1 Arcane Denial
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Voidslime
//Defense
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Constant Mists
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Torpor Orb
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Propaganda
//Draw/Filtering
1 Brainstorm
1 Manamorphose
1 Impulse
1 Keep Watch
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Braingeyser
1 Rhystic Study
1 Holistic Wisdom
//Tutors
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gamble
//Other
1 Reiterate
1 Turnabout
1 Spelltwine
1 Knowledge Exploitation
//Lands
1 Tweaked Riku Manabase (later)
Credit to ISBPathfinder and fivecolorjunk for primer layout, DramaTurtle for the Spellslinging Primer and TheEndisNear for the Storm list. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
One thing that I disagree with Biomechanika is that I think Pongify should stay in the deck. RUG's color scheme doesn't provide great removal besides burn and even that cannot deal with huge monsters. At one mana it would be a great removal card to copy. The same applies to Beast Within.
Commander: *Five Color Fun-Stuff *Grixis Artifacts *Beast Tribal
Brawl: To Be Decided At Eldraine Release!
"It was probably a lousy spell in the first place."
—Ertai, wizard adept
Legacy: UW Miracle, U MUC, UW StoneBlade, U Merfolk, R Burn, & UB Reanimator
EDH: U Azami, Lady of Scrolls & URG Riku of Two Reflections
Casual: UR Dragonstorm, UB Dralnu-Teachings, U NinjaFae, & UR Izzet EDH
Firstly, thanks.
I like the Archmage because she protects Riku AND his copy ability triggers when she Persists, so you can potentially get four uses out of her. Still, I could be convinced to play Mystic Snake or Hinder number 2 instead.
You don't like FTK huh? 4 damage kills an awful lot in the format. A lot of small generals get the axe and I can copy him with Riku easily for another 2 mana. OK then, I'll upgrade him to Inferno Titan.
I agree that Chaos Warp is probably better than Pongify. I should make that switch but I'm afraid of what will happen when my opponent flips over something gross and I don't like letting them draw off of it. Somehow a 3/3 is safer. Perhaps I'll play both?
I'll also agree that Trygon Predator doesn't need to stay in ETB-wise. I had a vision for the deck at one point that involved more swords and delivery systems and he must have been one of them.
Spell Crumple is better than Hinder. You're right.
I suppose I should always have green mana available for the renegades and 3 power is better than 2. Why not...
As for your finishers, the ones you suggested (besides the titans) seem pretty underwhelming to me. I did have Inferno Titan on the list before cuts at one point. I like him better when I have Basilisk Collar along for the ride but I'll think about what else to finish with in the meantime. Thanks.
This is a winner because Riku can copy the guy that comes out, just like with Birthing Pod. I'll have to see what I can do. Thanks for the reminder this existed.
-----------------------------------------
Keep 'em coming guys! I can take it. Also taking suggestions for more ETB finishers.
Oh, and I ditched Treachery. That new land is the last straw for that card that didn't really fit with Riku anyway.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Yeah it's a bit expensive manawise but it would be sweet. I worry about having all this stuff to help out his copy ability and then he dies or I have nothing good to copy.
One way to go with this deck (and that's why I love Riku so much, you can go 10 different ways with him) is to play Doubling Season and abuse the crap out of creature tokens and Planeswalkers. Consider (and this is without Riku even involved) Sarkhan Vol coming down with a Doubling Season and a Rings of Brighthearth in play. You can ultimate immediately with 2 loyalty remaining, spend two additional mana on the rings and get TWENTY 4/4 dragons. And all those cards are good cards too that don't suck on their own.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Suggestions for cuts: Sower (dies whenever anyone does anything), Brutalizer Exarch (anti-synergetic with your general, expensive), Mulldrifter (why not play a better card draw spell, you're in blue. Brainstorm anyone? Seriously, there are better options).
Cards to keep an eye on while your playing (like, whether you'd rather have something else rather than these): Crystal Shard (too cute, does nothing w/o your general), Birthing Pod (cute, but interesting. See if you actually use it or if it sits while you do other things with your mana, cause it can turn into a tutoring aether vial), Cauldron of Souls (again, a card with cute interactions that doesn't seem to do much alot of the time), Pongify (again, a card with cute interactions with your general, but kind of meh otherwise [seeing a theme here?]), Heat Shimmer (why?), Sword of Fire and Ice (Feast and Famine seems better in this deck, considering all the ways to use mana and the lack of need for carddraw)
Cards to add: Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger (copy this and you basically win), Primal Command (so good, seems like you forgot about it. An autoinclude.)
Nim Deathmantle helps you abuse your EtB triggers.
Cloudstone Curio again abuse those triggers.
Instead of using Pongify why not Into the Roil?
EDIT:
Couple more that have not been mentioned.
Mnemonic Wall
Anarchist
Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Riku's abilities start with "Whenever..." aren't they technically triggered abilities, not activated abilities (and thus not able to be copied with Rings)?
Thanks much!
Brutalizer Exarch: Sure. I didn't like him that much anyway. Primal Command it is. (The cool thing about that is now I can remove Loaming Shaman. SWEET.)
Sower: I can see ditching Sower. I haven't used her that often yet and that new land is bound to piss me off down the road. Good time to include that Sylvan Library I forgot about.
Mulldrifter: Doesn't Brainstorm not do so well with Riku? My problem is that I haven't used it enough in play because I always wrote it off as one of those low-power spells that isn't great for EDH even though I know it's actually better than that. Perhaps I'll use this time to try it out.
Crystal Shard: I feel like you're poking a sacred cow here. That is, I probably have an irrational attachment to this card. I don't see though how it "does nothing" without Riku. It's useful early game to punish tapped out opponents and it's useful late game to both save my guys from removal and to re-use their ETB effects. Like you said, I'll have to keep an eye out for this one.
Birthing Pod: This is one I intend to keep for now. Riku gets to copy the creature that comes into play off the pod, so for 3 mana and 2 life I am tutoring for something useful and potentially getting that effect twice. Besides, who doesn't want to turn Acidic Slime into double Primeval Titan for that cost? And even without Riku in play, I still like it.
Cauldron of Souls: I am noticing a theme here. You're suggesting that I may be trying too hard to plan for recursion interactions which may or may not be powerful enough or reliable enough to care about. Again though, the persist thing is so gross because everything that comes back off persist can be copied with Riku, even if he's persisting with them all with proper trigger-stacking. Is this effect not good enough for a slot? I'm not sure if it is or isn't. I'm willing to try something else here. Vorinclex can't be bad, right?
Pongify: I'm running this on a trial basis now. I notice a theme around the community lately with people just not playing enough spot removal and for 1 mana at instant speed the 3/3 is just not enough downside to convince me not to try it out. So like you said, I'll keep an eye on it.
Heat Shimmer: I know the power level on this is a bit low but I just want to double copy Primetime so bad and swing for 8 lands and 12 damage off 5 mana. Here I go off to magical christmasland again... (Fun Fact: If this is in the yard and someone else plays Blue Chancellor copying it, they win). Ugghh... uuuhhhhhhh... SoFAF?
SoFI: What can I say, I love drawing cards. If I find that two swords is too much, I'll cut it.
Izzet Chronarch: Oh, he's good. I just don't know how good yet. He was on the list when I started. The "twincast" version of this deck would obviously want him and his friends more.
Nim Deathmantle: I am new to green though so maybe I should consider it based on the fact that I might possibly have more mana than I know what to do with lategame. Otherwise I'm not crazy about leaving the
Into the Roil: Bouncing a single non-land permanent for a card has been great for me in standard but I don't like it for EDH. I don't play enough counterspells to be able to deal with the threat from their hand anyway.
Yes.
/headdesk
Thanks guys for the suggestions. MORE SACRED COW BURGERS PLEASE!
EDIT: I made some more cuts and forgot what they were
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
first of all, you are running seedborn muse. That was a statement not a question. You're in blue, you have counterspells, you are running seedborn muse.
Cards you can cut In my very humble opinion which is totally never wrong
Fauna Shaman: If you can afford duals you can afford Survival of the Fittest. It's just miles and miles ahead especially when running Genesis.
Wood Elves: you have coiling oracle, plus you can just run Green Sun's Zenith and Dryad Arbor if you need the land that badly. Green sun is stupidly powerful in this deck.
Solemn Simulacrum: This card does not die to skullclamp, yavimaya elder does. not bad if you copy it, but there are just better cards you can run. Spitting Image comes to mind now that I'm speaking of yavimaya elder.
Vithian Renegades: Unless your meta has one or more Arcum Dagsson decks, this is a severe kind of overkill on the artifact hate. You have big ass green creatures you can copy that destroy more than just artifacts, I'd cut this for something like Time Warp or Crucible of Worlds or if you need more removal, Oblivion Stone. Or if you really like this card you can cut Hull Breach to keep it in which is also a bit on the overkill side of things.
Hoarding Dragon: Not even riku can make this card better than plain old Fabricate. I'd either run that or Capsize here.
Pongify: Beast Within should be more than enough with Mystical tutor in the deck, run Force of Will here or Pact of Negation
Hull Breach: Like I said you could cut this for the renegades, but I'd run Leyline of Anticipation here, because flash with green cards is freaking amazing.
Primal Command: Garbage. If you really want the removal you can run Brutalizer Exarch which can tutor your creatures and be copied. I'd cut this for your Seedborn Muse though.
Chaos Warp: this versus Mystic Snake is really no contest. Snake is a counterspell you can bounce to your hand with Crystal Shard, or chump block with.
Brainstorm: Everyone wants to run this card in EDH and I have no idea why. For the record: One shot spells with small effects are bad. Cut this for Sol Ring.
Cultivate: Same thing applies here, why not run out Bloom Tender, it's so god damn good in 3 color decks, and you can COPY IT :thumbsup:.
Crop Rotation: Unless you're ramping in the early game this isn't very good, and if you want something to fetch cradle Sylvan Scrying won't cost you a land. Granted the ability to put the land straight into play untapped is damn strong but it won't always be necessary. I suppose this is more of a play style choice. Other than Scrying, Coalition Relic is a solid ramp card, as is the more resilient Darksteel Ingot.
Gamble: Red's only tutor, and it still sucks balls. This deck loves creatures and that makes Worldly Tutor your friend.
Mimic Vat: I'll be honest, this card is absolutely terrible for any deck running green. The absolute LAST thing green wants is to exile it's creatures, that's why we have Riftsweeper. I could see this in a U/B/G deck but not in here. Cut this for Hinder or Pact of Negation or something to add more control.
Proteus Staff: If you have no control over the end result, then the end result is a bad card. It doesn't matter how you use it, lack of control is almost never a good thing unless you know you will come out ahead, like those old Warp World standard decks. Cut this for Force of Will, Stifle or Trickbind.
Birthing Pod: Honestly I feel like it takes too much work when you can play GSZ, Chord of Calling and Tooth and Nail. Your deck needs ramp BADLY and Gilded Lotus is your friend.
Winding Canyons: without a ton of ramp you're not likely to use this very often, cut for Exploration
THE SIDEBOARD: It is well worth running a 10 card sideboard in a 3 color deck, it gives you Living Wish, Burning Wish and Cunning Wish and frees up vital deck space. Cutting niche cards that you won't use every game for wishes or other things streamlines the deck and makes it more consistent, plus you essentially add 7 extra cards to the deck (not counting the wishes) and allow yourself to keep your options open.
If you decide to use the side board, I would take the following cards out of the deck and add them in: Decimate, Insurrection, Body Double, Tower of the Magistrate.
That gives you 3 slots for the wishes and 1 extra for some more ramp or tutor power. After that you have 6 sideboard slots you can fill with whatever dirty tricks jump into your mind
sorry. *facepalm*
Oh and about brainstorm, I kind of wasn't thinking there too... *doublefacepalm* But there are plenty of card-draw spells that could go nice with Riku or just good in general. Mulldrifter is usually underwhelming for me when I play it in my other decks.
Lol. The guy above me says Brutalizer Exarch is way better than Primal Command. He looks like he knows what he's doing more than I do, so I'm probably missing something.
I fail to see how you win by paying UG to kill your own Vorinclex.
Tokens have a converted mana cost of 0, so if you sacrifice a token with Birthing Pod, you'll only be able to get a 1cc creature. EDIT: Just realized you meant just copying Primeval with Riku; apologies.
More edit:
Sure, but he should actually run both. In addition, aside from Gamble, he has no way to tutor for Survival, yet there are many, many ways in green to find a creature. Redundancy is good.
The other modes are often relevant also, which Brutalizer cannot do. You can also copy Primal with Riku.
It doesn't take work, it takes efficient creatures at every spot along the curve from 2-6, which the deck is doing anyway to take advantage of Riku. The ability to turn something that isn't cutting it anymore into something better (and sometimes double) is excellent.
Also, saying he shouldn't run X card and run Force of Will instead when his blue card count is too low to reliably pitchcast it just doesn't seem like a great plan. Constructed decks tend to set 16 as the minimum # of blue cards for Force, and that is for 60 card decks. The number for 99 card decks is going to be significantly higher, and the list as above is barely at the minimum for a 60 card deck.
I guess I need to avoid posting late at night
*crawls back into hole*
All right, firstly, thanks for the suggestions. Now, it's time to rumble
Ok before the rumble first I'll talk a litte bit of budget. I bought the duals not long after my wife and decided to have a baby so I can't blow 20-30 bucks on singles unless I'm trading for them or if they will go into every deck I ever make. So right now Fauna Shaman is a worse survival and there is just no substitute for Exploration. Also, there is not enough blue in this deck for Force of Will. It's also over my budget. So thanks, but no thanks on that front.
Secondly, no wishboards. It's just a pain in the ass and though I play to win, I don't play competitively enough to care about sideboarding in EDH. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Seedborn Muse: OKAY OKAY MY ARM--> No seriously though, the deck that really, really wants seedborn muse is the deck with lots of things to do on other people's turns. To make this work, this deck needs a style change that gives it more instant speed options. It's really, really great with Crystal Shard, Kiki-Jiki and Mimic Vat though so I'll have to seriously think about it. Maybe I need more bounce outlets to support it. At the end of this post I'll likely come up with a batch swap that includes it.
Fauna Shaman: Like I said, it's a bad Survival. You're right, but I've got to get one first. Aardvark helpfully noted that I have no way to tutor for the latter if I cut Gamble.
Wood Elves: He fetches duals and puts them into play untapped. I like that. I don't really see a downside there.
Solemn Simulacrum: You say it's not bad if I can copy it. That's reason enough to keep it, don't you think?
A larger point about ramp: You've mentioned in several places in your post that I need ramp, then proceed to suggest that I cut land ramp and play artifact ramp instead. I don't agree with this philosophy as green is pretty damn good at getting lands out there and I don't want to have my manabase be collateral damage to a sweeper. Say, the O-stone you recommended. We'll have to agree to disagree for now. I've played lots of artifact ramp in my non-green decks and I was always jealous of the guy playing Cultivate.
Vithian Renegades: I like artifact removal more than most people, mostly so I can torch stuff like Lightning Greaves, Sol Ring and Gilded Lotus (again with the artifact mana). There are almost always targets for this guy. As for Crucible... I used to completely ignore this because I felt it was too mean with Strip Mine. But it's so good with fetches and I do have one. I'll have to think about it more.
Hoarding Dragon: I'll give you that he's not as good as he could be. Believe it or not, he used to be Fabricate at one point.
Pongify: I don't understand all the hate about this card. How good does spot removal have to be before you play it? I intend to try it and see if I like it. It's a common misconception that spot removal is bad in multiplayer and this is one of the better choices for it in these colors.
Hull Breach: You said flash is amazing. So are four-for-ones. I didn't realize that this is a sorcery though. You might be right that this could be overkill. I'll have to think about it. (that's just the thing though- with flash, this is even better).
Primal Command: Wow, so we can't decide if this is good or not, huh?
Chaos Warp: Dealing with permanents via tuck is extremely powerful and Riku can do it twice. I'm not sure you should write this off so quickly. I do really like Mystic Snake though so we will see.
Brainstorm: Ah, the never-ending debate about 1-shot card selection in EDH. Some say it's great, some say it's garbage. I used to say it's garbage but I'm not so sure anymore. It's also a crappy spell to copy with Riku and that might be the make-or-break issue with it. I'd replace it with Sol Ring, but then I'd have two :).
Cultivate: I don't see how this is a small effect. The fixing is important and the ramp never goes away outside of an armageddon. UGGGH SO HARD
Crop Rotation: I just figured this said "get target Gaea's Cradle" on it and let it go. I guess Sylvan Scrying is better for that though. I'd be interested to hear some other opinions on this.
Gamble: Worldly Tutor is probably better but I might leave it in anyway. I want to actually play some red cards in here, otherwise I would have used Momir Vig as the general.
Mimic Vat: Remember when you told me Seedborn Muse wasn't an option? Well neither is this. This card is good in ALL DECKS. Green decks even more so because you know you're going to get good stuff on it! As far as exiling creatures goes, it can only exile one guy at a time. Anything else you imprint on it makes the last guy imprinted go to the yard. I'm willing to take that small loss for the incredible power and inevitability of this card. Especially in a deck where each activation could be a Chancellor of the Spires or Woodfall Primus (note: Where's Terastodon?). Funnily enough, Seedborn Muse makes this card utterly insane. Hm...
Proteus Staff: I'm not super attached to this. If I add a Seedborn Muse package, it could probably get cut and/or just become a flash enabler.
Birthing Pod: I'm surprised you don't think that this is busted enough with Riku that it's worth playing. The value gained from sacrificing a guy, then copying his friend is just ridiculous. Hell, it turns any four-drop into Seedborn Muse. I'd still like to try it.
Winding Canyons: Again, so gross with Seedborn Muse. You sure?
OK then I will update this post in a little bit when I've had some time to think about this. Having Seedborn Muse around changes things and I'm convinced that's a good way to go but I've got to be smart about it.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I need to re-evaluate my pet cards just like everyone else and this is my first green and three-color deck so I do like the advice.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
true, both isn't a bad idea.
You can clone brutalizer with riku as well. 7 Life doesn't do much compared to running Wurmcoil Engine or Winhammer, or now Batterskull and shuffling the grave can be handled by running the eldrazi titans, which I always recommend but I didn't find space for I guess.
I suppose you're right, guess I'm too used to running Natural Order over it but in a multicolor deck pod seems the better option
Whether it's Force of Will or Pact of Negation doesn't matter all that much, Honestly like survival/shaman I'd be running both. Either way this deck is going be tapping out A LOT, and that's when people will try to sneak a win past the blue player.
Holding force or pact is a necessary panic button that stops games from ending too early. Believe me I've been stopped in my tracks more than once when I figured all my opponents' resources were spent.
I tend to lean more towards control when playing blue because blue control is different than black or white. Playing the reaction game allows you to stop people from blowing you out with terastodons or sundering titans and infinite combos etc. etc. etc.
It takes a lot of dedicated space to run a good control suite but doing so can be very rewarding. Running things like Vendilion Clique over flametongue kavu and Venser, Shaper Savant over inferno titan allows you to pick and choose what threats get let through. Pick the right ones and you find the path to victory far easier to walk.
True you may not be able to copy them for big swingy effects, but if the game ends before you get a chance to play the big threats you DO have, why did you play at all?
I've found that the one thing I despise most is sitting at the table with nothing to do but wait to get steamrolled by the guy spiraling out of control. That's why when I build decks my goal is one of two things:
1. When not playing blue, to ramp out of control as fast as possible and stop people from doing the same, usually by attacking their mana base
2. When playing blue, to keep the game alive with counters and rattlesnake people away from me long enough to build up a good board position and start swinging.
Blue is very good at rattlesnaking. Crystal Shard, Erratic Portal and sometimes Riptide Laboratory turn annoying one-off creatures into repeatable tempo and card advantage engines
I'm pretty sure I'm rambling here but the point is, control is important no matter what you need to cut.
Can also be done with Eternal Witness and Crystal Shard. Now I just have to add Time Warp to the deck...
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
fair enough
shaman is the best option then
Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orerry turn everything into instants, piece one of those with muse, and you should win the game with little problem.
That's all he does though, and you have Skyshroud Claim AND Nature's Lore for that. If you really want to keep it since it's clonable, I'd cut the lore.
not bad isn't the same as good though. honestly 4 mana for a land and a card is better off in decks that can't ramp, like R/W decks.
Artifact land if topdecked mid to late game can at least be played and used immediately on that turn, and the following turn, and the following turn until dealt with. cultivate drops one land. tapped. If you need basics in hand, you have yav elder, which you can tutor for
Stuff like that is why I like my sweepers though. People rarely hold things back in EDH. When someone spirals they're going to crap nonland permanents like a grizzly bear with diarrhea, that's why Oblivion Stone is my favorite card, especially if you're a dick like me and pair it with Academy Ruins
And as far as discretion goes, don't forget you can always hold back your artifact ramp if the board needs sweeping up.
yeah, especially without a sac outlet, I've had him exiled on me before, not fun.
Never said this was a bad card, but there are certainly better cards you could be running. Pongify isn't going to stop Sundering Titan or Terastodon from nailing three of your lands.
Pact of Negation will.
I think you're thinking of Decimate, that's the 4-4-1.
Exarch to me is better. you may not get life or shuffle, but you get blockers, removal and tutoring all in one card, that- wait for it- can be bounced!
tuck is good, tucking a Primeval Titan into a Blightsteel Colossus? not so good. Same reason I don't like the staff. Oblation is arguably better for the opponent in some ways, but it doesn't run the risk of dumping another threat on the table.
Ohh, I usually list ring under ramp, guess I didn't see it. In that case I'd run Mind's Eye or Recurring Insight. Insight is freaking awesome I might add, best draw spell around.
I covered that with the yavimaya elder thing above I think. The ramp may not go away but it's still a terrible topdeck UNLESS you get hit with armageddon.
My azusa deck uses rotation for cradle and turn 1 Ancient Tomb, outside of that it can get academy, but scrying while slower, is less costly. And if you're a dick like me, you'd Venser, Shaper Savant it just to screw the caster out of a land, like Harrow. What time walk?
I run mono green so I know I can't afford to take the risk but you can test it out. Honestly in decks without creature sweepers I always found it a dead draw.
I has been schooled
Vedalken Orerry or Leyline of Anticipation are both better IMO, but you can try it if you like, it has worked sometimes for me.
Yes, which you stated previously; I mentioned that you can also copy Primal specifically because you mentioned that Exarch is copiable. It's also 1 less mana overall.
Sometimes you need the 7 life immediately (or 14 life if you copy) and need to find a creature of some sort. The reshuffle can also target opponents, so if they have Genesis going, or are dredging into ridiculousness, etc. you can shut it down. Primal is just very, very flexible, which is why it deserves a spot.
Just because a deck has blue in it doesn't mean that identifies as a "blue deck". If the OP's playgroup doesn't typically combo off and prefers to have battles over board position or whatever, cards like Force of Will (which you need probably 27+ blue cards in your deck to run reliably) and Pact just aren't as important. Control of the stack isn't as relevant in some environments as others, because there are plenty of people out there who would rather just throw down permanents and win through bashing in. Counters are also much worse in multiplayer than 1v1, generally speaking, due to usually being 1 for 1, so they're not always attractive to certain decks.
It's kind of a moot point anyway, since the OP said Force is out of his budget.
You make a lot of good points, especially with Pact of Negation over Pongify. I also feel I'm running too few sweepers in the deck and since I have Academy Ruins here, I should probably consider a spot for O-stone as well.
Rather than reply point-by-point (again) to your suggestions, let me just think about it all and make changes to the deck. Hopefully you'll see some things you'll like when I've updated it.
Also, on Primal Command, why are we talking about the lifegain mode? That will basically never get used. Look, here's the thing with that card. If I don't slot graveyard hate, I will lose. This is non-negotiable to me. That's why though I do like the Exarch, Primal Command will probably stay because I can hit it with mystical tutor and it has the graveyard mode. Exarch cannot touch my opponents' yards. And if I play exarch, I've got to make room for more yard hate, which takes yet another slot out of the deck. So the command's its versatility is likely going to earn it the start next week if you know what I mean.
Thanks again to you both for your helpful perspectives. I intend to be running this guy for a very long time in many different ways and this is but one way to start it. I really appreciate your posts.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
I disagree. How many massive creatures have been printed with idiotically overpowered ETB abilities lately? lots. Counter say, Primeval Titan, and not only do they spend 6 mana for nothing, but they don't get to search their library for two lands (ANY lands at that). Even if combo isn't huge, if you're tapped out and the difference between winning and losing is countering Akroma's Memorial, wouldn't you want Pact of Negation in hand?
Maybe I should have been clearer. In some environments, people just don't play counters. It may not be common, but I have heard of such things, and have talked with many, many players over the years who just have no desire to play casual games against counters of any kind. Is that "wrong"? Not if that is how they define "fun" for their playgroup; a lot of people just hate the entire color blue and just won;t play it. I mean, since introducing the local group here to EDH in 2007, one of the people who has been playing the longest literally just made his first EDH deck with blue in it this week; it took him literally 4 years to do it because he just dislikes the color and what it represents so much. It's not out of the realm of possibility that there are groups of players who either hate blue and rarely play it or groups that will play blue but use it more as a support color, or for non-countering things.
tl;dr: Controlling the stack is the most powerful thing you can do. But not everyone plays that way or wants to do so.