Hi, tstorm! I'm currently testing this deck and was wondering, has anything from Battle for Zendikar caught your eye? I haven't noticed anything in particular that would slot in effectively, and would love to hear your thoughts on how the set contributes, or doesn't contribute, to the deck.
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STANDARD DECKS
URB Dragons BRU
EDH W Darien, King of Kjeldor W URG Maelstrom Wanderer GRU RG Wort, the Raidmother GR RWU Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
Hi, tstorm! I'm currently testing this deck and was wondering, has anything from Battle for Zendikar caught your eye? I haven't noticed anything in particular that would slot in effectively, and would love to hear your thoughts on how the set contributes, or doesn't contribute, to the deck.
It very much doesn't contribute so far as I can tell. Brutal Expulsion is an interesting card in the right colors, but it's definitely not for this deck. Big mana colorless things are nearly useless since bulk mana isn't this decks game and free spells happen when they have a color. Rally is obviously pretty useless as well since it would take a whole pile of allies to really accomplish anything (not to mention there's only really one I find interesting). Awaken is kind of lame when you put that much mana into something to essentially destroy one of your lands when the next board wipe hits; it could be interesting if it was cheap and repeatable since there are some cute interactions, but the only one with an effect I care about is an extra turn, and I would never use the awaken cost anyway.
So the only card I'd even consider testing from BFZ is Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper. He triggers off of instant and sorcery casts, so Eye of the Storm/ Knowledge Pool/ Possibility Storm can go from zero to lethal pretty darn fast, he animates lands which can do the cute combo with Jeskai Ascendancy where each noncreature spell nets mana, and animated lands can make Mirrorweave into fogs. And he'd sort of be like the Living Plane that I can't play because I'm not green enough. At any rate, this deck is to the point where if everything else is working, the 99th card can be any win condition I feel like, so I'll probably take him for a test ride or two just because I can but not bother to adjust the thread for it.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Chimed in to say I love the deck idea, I've been brewing something similar as a judgebreaker deck to toy around with my local lgs owner and wannabe judge friends. It's nice to see others who see Zedruu as more than pyromancer's swath or celestial dawn donate deck, as many of said friends scoffed at the idea of Zedruu's donates being for pretty much just CA instead of soul crushing combos.
On average, how many players are in the games you play and are there many austere command or fracturing gust effects played in your meta? How has avoiding the pillowfort cards gone? I can't see myself living through a game without prison or propaganda effects with a removal light, creature light deck.
Chimed in to say I love the deck idea, I've been brewing something similar as a judgebreaker deck to toy around with my local lgs owner and wannabe judge friends. It's nice to see others who see Zedruu as more than pyromancer's swath or celestial dawn donate deck, as many of said friends scoffed at the idea of Zedruu's donates being for pretty much just CA instead of soul crushing combos.
On average, how many players are in the games you play and are there many austere command or fracturing gust effects played in your meta? How has avoiding the pillowfort cards gone? I can't see myself living through a game without prison or propaganda effects with a removal light, creature light deck.
Yeah, your friends are probably going to learn quickly enough to kill Zedruu even if you have nothing bad to donate. People seem to recognize instantly that something like Azami of Arcanis will steamroll the table after half a dozen or so free cards, but it takes a few games before they notice that Zedruu is doing the same thing.
I usually play at tables of 4 (if you exclude the small handful of friends I've played a ton of 1 on 1 against). I understand your worry about the lack of pillowfort. This deck used to have a lot of pillowfort cards. Dissipation Field is the only thing left, but there used to be the whole package of Propoganda/Ghostly Prison/Windborn Muse, and at some point there was a Lightmine Field (part of the reason I started playing Mogg Infestation). And up until very recently there was a good segment of the deck dedicated to walls. Little by little it all came out as I needed more room for the things I wanted to do, and I've managed to survive pretty well without them. You'd be amazed how long you can stall with a Mirrorweave here and a Turnabout there and some goodblockers. And 3 clone effects let me have the best thing on board without playing it myself.(4 mana cards that let you keep up with the ramp decks 7-drops are pretty good). At any rate, it's just personal experience that lets me play confidently without pillow forting. Going in blind, especially if you play with aggressive opponents, they're not bad inclusions and you can always take them out if you aren't having trouble getting hated on early.
But all that only matters if you're trying to be political about it. Only play Porpoganda here if you're trying to let people have their fun and still survive. If you don't mind disrupting people, you'd be much safer with counterspells than pillow forts.
With regards to Austere Command, Fracturing Gust, and all their similar friends, it's usually no big deal. Creature based decks don't fold to a single Wrath of God, and people play a lot more mass creature removal than mass enchantment removal. And if someone removes all your stuff, you're usually ok anyway because you've got the most gas left in hand. So those effects are only really scary when combined with mass discard effect or a few turns of draw denial (I hate Uba Mask, I really do). Just make sure you don't over-extend unless you're trying to win that turn and you never get blown out by just a Fracturing Gust or really any single card...
Except Aura Shards. Aura Shards is my Zedruu's worst nightmare. It doesn't matter if I've got gas in hand when my opponent can blow up every single enchantment I play every single turn. Whenever someone plays Aura Shards, I basically just stall as much as I can until I get access to Copy Enchantment of Clever Impersonator to Aura Shards their Aura Shards. My only saving grace is that it's selesnya colored, so the vast majority of my opponents can't play it. Pretty much just Bant etb decks and Ghave decks.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Chimed in to say I love the deck idea, I've been brewing something similar as a judgebreaker deck to toy around with my local lgs owner and wannabe judge friends. It's nice to see others who see Zedruu as more than pyromancer's swath or celestial dawn donate deck, as many of said friends scoffed at the idea of Zedruu's donates being for pretty much just CA instead of soul crushing combos.
On average, how many players are in the games you play and are there many austere command or fracturing gust effects played in your meta? How has avoiding the pillowfort cards gone? I can't see myself living through a game without prison or propaganda effects with a removal light, creature light deck.
Yeah, your friends are probably going to learn quickly enough to kill Zedruu even if you have nothing bad to donate. People seem to recognize instantly that something like Azami of Arcanis will steamroll the table after half a dozen or so free cards, but it takes a few games before they notice that Zedruu is doing the same thing.
I usually play at tables of 4 (if you exclude the small handful of friends I've played a ton of 1 on 1 against). I understand your worry about the lack of pillowfort. This deck used to have a lot of pillowfort cards. Dissipation Field is the only thing left, but there used to be the whole package of Propoganda/Ghostly Prison/Windborn Muse, and at some point there was a Lightmine Field (part of the reason I started playing Mogg Infestation). And up until very recently there was a good segment of the deck dedicated to walls. Little by little it all came out as I needed more room for the things I wanted to do, and I've managed to survive pretty well without them. You'd be amazed how long you can stall with a Mirrorweave here and a Turnabout there and some goodblockers. And 3 clone effects let me have the best thing on board without playing it myself.(4 mana cards that let you keep up with the ramp decks 7-drops are pretty good). At any rate, it's just personal experience that lets me play confidently without pillow forting. Going in blind, especially if you play with aggressive opponents, they're not bad inclusions and you can always take them out if you aren't having trouble getting hated on early.
But all that only matters if you're trying to be political about it. Only play Porpoganda here if you're trying to let people have their fun and still survive. If you don't mind disrupting people, you'd be much safer with counterspells than pillow forts.
With regards to Austere Command, Fracturing Gust, and all their similar friends, it's usually no big deal. Creature based decks don't fold to a single Wrath of God, and people play a lot more mass creature removal than mass enchantment removal. And if someone removes all your stuff, you're usually ok anyway because you've got the most gas left in hand. So those effects are only really scary when combined with mass discard effect or a few turns of draw denial (I hate Uba Mask, I really do). Just make sure you don't over-extend unless you're trying to win that turn and you never get blown out by just a Fracturing Gust or really any single card...
Except Aura Shards. Aura Shards is my Zedruu's worst nightmare. It doesn't matter if I've got gas in hand when my opponent can blow up every single enchantment I play every single turn. Whenever someone plays Aura Shards, I basically just stall as much as I can until I get access to Copy Enchantment of Clever Impersonator to Aura Shards their Aura Shards. My only saving grace is that it's selesnya colored, so the vast majority of my opponents can't play it. Pretty much just Bant etb decks and Ghave decks.
Games in my meta can see between 2 to a dozen plus not-just-creature wraths, lots of discs, o-stones, ugins, and evictions. I was mostly just curious, metas shape decks way more than some people realize just with subtle decisions alone such as here going below 36 lands is practically suicide as we don't partial paris but use a standard multiplayer mull (the new "vancouver" scry mull, with one free mull to seven) so 34 lands even with rocks, ramp, and draw is very risky.
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URGRiku, Sorcerer SupremeGRU Who needs permanents anyways? WUBRGDeckbuilder's ToolboxGRBUW Warning:Contents include 34 decks and growing
Games in my meta can see between 2 to a dozen plus not-just-creature wraths, lots of discs, o-stones, ugins, and evictions. I was mostly just curious, metas shape decks way more than some people realize just with subtle decisions alone such as here going below 36 lands is practically suicide as we don't partial paris but use a standard multiplayer mull (the new "vancouver" scry mull, with one free mull to seven) so 34 lands even with rocks, ramp, and draw is very risky.
I do mostly play with Partial Paris, but I've also played with normal multiplayer mulligans, and on occassion I've used the 99 cards of this deck to play against people's 60 card casual decks (specifically inexperienced players without much of a card pool where the downside of a 99 card singleton deck in a 20 life format balances against their lack of skill or resources pretty well). The point I'm trying to get to is that I've played this deck in a variety of mulligan scenarios and it finds its mana more consistently than any deck I own other than the ones that just have 40 lands. People do the "cheap mana rocks count as a half land" rule, but I also think there's a "things that cost 3 or less and can dig me deeper every turn count as half of a land" rule. I've got 34 lands. I've got 4 mana rocks if you sensibly ignore Mox Diamond because you discard a land drop to use it and Gilded Lotus because it costs too much. And I've got 7 Howling Mine type effects that cost 3 or less, as well as Land Tax, to make 8 cards that can potentially dig me into land drops every turn. So 34 + 1/2 * 4 + 1/2 * 8 = 40, the magic number. Add in the much more subtle effects of the triplicate bounce lands, Expedition Map, Oath of Lieges, Pentad Prism, Mox Diamond, and Gilded Lotus in making sure my mana flows smoothly in both quantity and color every game, and there's actually a lot more of this deck making the mana happen than one would expect from the 34 lands.
I think I'll try doing a bunch of Vancouver mulligans just to see how consistent it is in the hypothetical near future where that takes over, but I'm pretty confident the land count is safe as it is.
And in a world with a high density of discs and stones and ugins, I'd actually recommend playing this more the way that I do. This deck can drop Dream Halls or Mind Over Matter onto an empty board and win before anyone gets a chance to wipe anything. With Leyline, I've won games with board wipes on the stack Playing a more conservative deck with more pillowfort elements makes you more susceptible to O Stone and the like, and a bunch of O Stones makes it less likely that you'll need the pillows.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
So these two cards were just spoiled on the mothership... Does the deck want either of these? I feel like at least Arjun is worth testing in the Barren Glory slot.
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STANDARD DECKS
URB Dragons BRU
EDH W Darien, King of Kjeldor W URG Maelstrom Wanderer GRU RG Wort, the Raidmother GR RWU Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
So these two cards were just spoiled on the mothership... Does the deck want either of these? I feel like at least Arjun is worth testing in the Barren Glory slot.
The weird thing is Thought Vessel is actually more relevant to this deck right now. I've been considering swapping Library of Leng out for plain old Spellbook since even with a few cards that make me discard, I never use Library of Leng for its second effect. I will gladly try out Thought Vessel in its place since the extra mana cost replaces itself and I'll definitely use a mana rock second ability.
Of course, I'm absolutely going to play Arjun. But I may have to make that its own deck. Mindmoil is one of my favorite cards ever printed, so when they make it into a general, I feel like I have build it. Or maybe I don't since it would be like 50% Zedruu just to start with. Oh, what a great conflict to have.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
So with the commander products imminent, I made an update to the things I've been playing. I don't want to start testing new stuff before putting the last release's changes in. These are basically 3 lateral changes.
+ Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper: I stuck that in my test slot to see how it played, and I liked it. It's sort of like the third piece of the puzzle next to March of the Machines and Opalescence in making all the traditional permanents into creatures. Goes great with Jeskai Ascendancy, goes great with Mirrorweave, helps balance out the low creature count in the deck. Kind of by coincidence, it fills the same "make things creatures, gain value by playing the game" slot as the thing that's ultimately getting cut for it.
- Starfield of Nyx: The card that was added in last change and has underperformed. It's just so slow. I can play it, neat, and it doesn't make my things into creatures until I play 4 more things. It brings things back from graveyard, if I wait a turn, hey someone killed it. It's got two clauses, one of which maybe makes things creatures and one of which maybe gets me free value, and sometimes both those maybes hit the not half and it doesn't do anything at all for 5 mana. I can use my left hand to count the 1 time 1 time I got the upkeep trigger to do something, and I can use my right hand to count the 2 times I got to kill with the Starfield + Mirrorweave synergy. Noyan Dar also can be hit or miss and can work its magic slowly, but at least it is a proactive slowly, and it opens up now space for interactions rather than adding some redundancy and recursion onto old ones.
+ Vanish Into Memory: I was inspired by Noyan Dar to add this back in. It was in the deck a long time ago just for being interesting, but that was when I played walls and used it for little more than 1 turn removal. Nowadays I have clones instead of walls, and with Noyan Dar and Jeskai Ascendancy, I have lots of good opportunities to aim Vanish Into Memory at my own creatures. Anything that can either control on my opponents or push my gameplan forward is a solid inclusion. Vanish Into Memory often does both at the same time. And I've already used it to feed turn 5 or 6 Temporal Trespass a couple times.
- Wall of Omens: The last wall has died. I mostly used it as a one off draw that slowed down a fatty for a turn. Vanish Into Memory can also do that, but does more with the rest of the deck. Now Venser can't draw me cards, but that's just fine. He's busy taking back donations, stealing lands, and resetting clones.
+ Blasphemous Act: It's a board wipe that can draw cards with Swans or become one-sided with enough Jeskai Ascendancy nonsense. It's in just to be better than what it's replacing.
- Mogg Infestation: There used to be lots of synergy with this card. There isn't anymore. Blasphemous Act works better for me and usually costs 4 mana less.
So yeah, just 3 things being replaced by 3 other things that fill about the same role with a little more deck synergy.
Next on the testing table are Arjun, the Shifting Flame and Thought Vessel as mentioned above. I'm also perpetually tempted to add Sakashima as a Zedruu clone, but not enough to go out and buy one. All this adding legendary creatures sort of makes me want to find a Boros legend to finish the two-color cycle, but alas, interesting Boros legends aren't a thing that happens.
Wow, what a fun deck. Put this together and I had a blast. It is going to take me a while to learn all the card interactions as seamlessly as you described, but it seems very worth it. I love that you are rocking a reasonable person's mana base and everything! I might even put this together in paper, it is that much fun. Thanks!
Wow, what a fun deck. Put this together and I had a blast. It is going to take me a while to learn all the card interactions as seamlessly as you described, but it seems very worth it. I love that you are rocking a reasonable person's mana base and everything! I might even put this together in paper, it is that much fun. Thanks!
I'm glad you like it. If you can manage to process all the card interactions as seamlessly as I described, you're a better magic player than I am. Sometimes I get 40 cards in hand and just brain fart for a minute. I will say, in my experience, it's a lot easier to end the game with it in paper where you can just put half your hand to the side and focus on the important parts (not to mention how much easier it is explaining to people in person what will happen when they cast a spell).
I'm pretty sure I set world records on how fast my facial expressions changed while reading that card. For new cards, my eyes tend to start at the center of the card and read out, so withing a second or two my brain went:
1) Uncommon blue creature, probably not that great.
2) HOLY CRAP! Swans with flash that always benefits me!?
3) But no protection so it can die. That seems reasonable.
4) 1 toughness, So it's a 1 creature fog with upside if they don't have trample.
5) And it's 5 mana.
Pass.
Mind you, there are many decks, including a couple that I have assembled, that like 5 mana to block a creature, potentially kill it, and draw some cards. But for this deck, it's a pass. If I don't have Leyline or Orrery out, there's nothing I can do at instant speed but ruin combat, so the people who play with me often enough aren't just going to swing at Zedruu with a bunch of mana open and cards in hand.
It's just a card that's costed correctly for it's optimal use in decks that leave mana open all the time. Except for the narrow situation of flashing that in the end step before I Blasphemous Act, it'd be pretty suboptimal here.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
A few of those are easy because I played this deck pretty budget for a very long time.
Time Spiral - Time Reversal. I didn't own a Time Spiral until a year or two ago. My Zedruu had Time Reversal in it for a long time. Is it a big downgrade? Absolutely. But it still reclaims the graveyard to stop self-mill, it still can go bonkers with Dream Halls and Eye of the Storm out, it still has strong synergy setting up wins with Mirror of Fate. It just doesn't net you mana.
Mind Over Matter - This is the card that made Wild Evocation and Mana Flare feel obsolete. Those cards can give you the free explosions Mind Over Matter does, but they make you wait a turn.
Mox Diamond - Probably just a basic land. There's not much replacement for moxen going around, especially not budget replacements. Of course, you're also not required to follow my personal self-limiting decisions, so you could absolutely just play Sol Ring.
The other 2 are tougher because they're really darn unique. Nothing else is ever going to get you the bulk cards Land Tax does for 1 mana. If you want to delve into more conventional options, there are the staples Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora. And I've never played this deck without Academy Rector. It's really the only thing like it. If you want to preserve enchantment toolboxing, you could try Wild Research. If you want to preserve rattlesnaking, there's things like Stuffy Doll. If you want to preserve free enchantments, you could try Enduring Ideal (the deck can win with it. just stick infinite reflection on warstorm surge and then everything that drops in explodes.) You could count Mana Flare as Mind Over Matter and Wild Evocation as Academy Rector. I don't know.
I will say, however, that without Mind Over Matter, there are some definite changes you can make. There's no longer an infinite with tap to draw cards, so you can play Temple Bell. As a 1 for 1 replacement for Jace, that cuts a lot of money out if budget is a thing. The same is true for Mikokoro and Forbidden Orchard which lose half the fun without Mind Over Matter and can probably just be cheaper lands. Most importantly, Barren Glory is like 75% dead card without Mind Over Matter instead of the normal 50% dead card it is usually. MOM, Gilded Lotus, and Barren Glory can go the distance out of nowhere. Without Mind Over Matter, you're only going to pull off Barren Glory if you have infinite turns or infinite Mind's Desire, and then you really, really don't need it. Which I guess is already true in my deck, but if you find you need more utility after replacing those 5 cards, that's obviously the first cut.
So yeah, if I was just replacing those 5 directly with other things I've played, I'd do Time Reversal, Wild Evocation, Mana Flare, Wild Research, basic land. Which shopping around, it looks like those cards run about $3 - $5 in total. Hooray cheap cardboard! Just be aware, pretty much every change described will have the deck play mostly the same except it will have to wait a turn to end the game once it hits critical. Changing out those cards for more available things won't make the deck unfun, but it will slow you down by one turn, and that's really frequently the difference between really dramatic win and really dramatic loss. But I'm guessing you didn't come to this thread because you're only interested in winning.
Edit: As if just to mess with me, I finish typing that and go to check spoilers and they made Oreskos Explorer that could sort of pretend to be Land Tax.
I went ahead a put this together (very inexpensively I might add) through local shops. Due to the budgeting and some availability, I made the following changes.
The other 92 are exactly the same. Of the cards listed, I'm going to slowly add Time Spiral, Academy Rector, Land Tax, Chrome Mox, and Firestorm back into the deck. The other 3 will probably be permanent replacements for me (though maybe Thought Vessel stays over Spellbook) mostly because at this point in my life $35 is a pack of diapers, not a piece of cardboard. I have thoroughly enjoyed this deck, and I feel like I learn more each time I play it. I have killed myself twice now... so working on not doing that anymore, but I have never not had fun playing this deck other than when someone else wins on turn 3/4. Thanks so much!
I have thoroughly enjoyed this deck, and I feel like I learn more each time I play it.
Me too. Playing with these goofy cards has made me grow as a magic player, and growing as a magic player, I've made this deck even better at nonsense. And at this point I'm really confident that the backbone of the deck can support any silly win condition, so I hope at some point you start trying out your own silly win conditions.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I feel like Day's Undoing might also be worth trying if you can't afford Time Spiral. It is a Timetwister on an opponent's turn if you have a flash enabler and it might be worth experimenting with. I don't see the "If it's your turn, end the turn" part being much of an issue for this deck.
Funny you should mention that, I'm considering slotting Day's Undoing in place of Temporal Cascade in the "I've ended the game with everything exiled but Barren Glory on like 10 different occasions, and now I'm ready to try different shenanigans update."
I don't know if I'll like Day's Undoing, but I know if it works well in any deck, it'll work well here. I've got double flash enabling, I'd got double draw doubling, I've got the moxen that can play it on like turn 1. But we'll see. I'm gonna try it (since I think my friend implied he was going to bring me one.)
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Yes, I also thought about adding that a turn one day's undoing could really screw with your opponent's perfectly mulliganed hands. I know lot of players have told me how much an early Wheel of Fortune can sometimes be a key element that really screws up the combo players in their games. Day's Undoing won't dump the cards in the graveyard, but it still could be great disruption.
If the deck had a way to give haste, you could do goofy stuff with Eye of the Storm, Rite of Replication, and Magus of the Wheel. Get a Turnabout in there for the extra mana and chain instants and sorceries together. That actually reminds me of a goofy idea I had once that involved using Insurrection in Eye of the Storm as a way to repeatedly untap creatures and also incidentally give them haste. So if you get out Eye of the Storm, cast Insurrection with animated lands or mana rocks or mana dorks of some kind that will give mana back, and then put in Rite of Replication hitting Magus of the Wheel, and then wheel through the entire library until you mill your opponents out, it would be an outstandingly flashy victory. It would actually be a satisfyingly perfect infinite with Mirror of Fate and Rest in Peace, as you could use the Mirror to put 7 back including something from under the Eye, draw 7 with a Magus, and then cast the instant or sorcery to clone a Magus.
I want to say that is far too much of an adjustment to the deck, but it is actually only 2 cards that aren't already in here. Maybe there should be a "things I haven't done but have been discussed and are funny" section in the first post.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
This deck is truly impressive! My only hesitation is that I would prefer to win without infinite combos... Yeah, it's a big hesitation. I'm fine with the janky interactions you've discovered, and win conditions that take a number of turns and cards to pull off, though. I would LOVE to hear your suggestions on tweaking the deck to take advantage of milling opponents or using Enduring Ideal and/or Form of the Dragon to close out a game. I've always wanted to build an Enduring Ideal deck and this looks like the deck list that can make it happen.
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Also, to make this deck infinite free would take a lot more work than expected because of what happens when you start looking for 5 card loops. For example, it's possible to go infinite with a flash enabler, Time Spiral, Mirror of Fate, Mind's Desire, and Possibility Storm all stacked together in some insane way.
As far as non-infinite wonky synergies, Repercussion is an excellent candidate for some nonsense. Magus of the Wheel has potential as discussed above. I've recently wondered what I could do with Eye of the Storm and heroic triggers. Sphinx's Tutelage really does mill the hell out of people. Rite of Replication on Hamletback Goliath results in some thousands of +1/+1 counters. My Enduring Ideal win was usually to stick Infinite Reflection on a Warstorm Surge. Seriously, I put Barren Glory in the deck to end a combo I ended up cutting and it still works. As long as you keep all the card drawing and mana making/cheating, you can get away with just about anything.
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URB Dragons BRU
EDH
W Darien, King of Kjeldor W
URG Maelstrom Wanderer GRU
RG Wort, the Raidmother GR
RWU Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
It very much doesn't contribute so far as I can tell. Brutal Expulsion is an interesting card in the right colors, but it's definitely not for this deck. Big mana colorless things are nearly useless since bulk mana isn't this decks game and free spells happen when they have a color. Rally is obviously pretty useless as well since it would take a whole pile of allies to really accomplish anything (not to mention there's only really one I find interesting). Awaken is kind of lame when you put that much mana into something to essentially destroy one of your lands when the next board wipe hits; it could be interesting if it was cheap and repeatable since there are some cute interactions, but the only one with an effect I care about is an extra turn, and I would never use the awaken cost anyway.
So the only card I'd even consider testing from BFZ is Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper. He triggers off of instant and sorcery casts, so Eye of the Storm/ Knowledge Pool/ Possibility Storm can go from zero to lethal pretty darn fast, he animates lands which can do the cute combo with Jeskai Ascendancy where each noncreature spell nets mana, and animated lands can make Mirrorweave into fogs. And he'd sort of be like the Living Plane that I can't play because I'm not green enough. At any rate, this deck is to the point where if everything else is working, the 99th card can be any win condition I feel like, so I'll probably take him for a test ride or two just because I can but not bother to adjust the thread for it.
On average, how many players are in the games you play and are there many austere command or fracturing gust effects played in your meta? How has avoiding the pillowfort cards gone? I can't see myself living through a game without prison or propaganda effects with a removal light, creature light deck.
URGRiku, Sorcerer SupremeGRU
Who needs permanents anyways?
WUBRGDeckbuilder's ToolboxGRBUW
Warning:Contents include 34 decks and growing
Yeah, your friends are probably going to learn quickly enough to kill Zedruu even if you have nothing bad to donate. People seem to recognize instantly that something like Azami of Arcanis will steamroll the table after half a dozen or so free cards, but it takes a few games before they notice that Zedruu is doing the same thing.
I usually play at tables of 4 (if you exclude the small handful of friends I've played a ton of 1 on 1 against). I understand your worry about the lack of pillowfort. This deck used to have a lot of pillowfort cards. Dissipation Field is the only thing left, but there used to be the whole package of Propoganda/Ghostly Prison/Windborn Muse, and at some point there was a Lightmine Field (part of the reason I started playing Mogg Infestation). And up until very recently there was a good segment of the deck dedicated to walls. Little by little it all came out as I needed more room for the things I wanted to do, and I've managed to survive pretty well without them. You'd be amazed how long you can stall with a Mirrorweave here and a Turnabout there and some good blockers. And 3 clone effects let me have the best thing on board without playing it myself.(4 mana cards that let you keep up with the ramp decks 7-drops are pretty good). At any rate, it's just personal experience that lets me play confidently without pillow forting. Going in blind, especially if you play with aggressive opponents, they're not bad inclusions and you can always take them out if you aren't having trouble getting hated on early.
But all that only matters if you're trying to be political about it. Only play Porpoganda here if you're trying to let people have their fun and still survive. If you don't mind disrupting people, you'd be much safer with counterspells than pillow forts.
With regards to Austere Command, Fracturing Gust, and all their similar friends, it's usually no big deal. Creature based decks don't fold to a single Wrath of God, and people play a lot more mass creature removal than mass enchantment removal. And if someone removes all your stuff, you're usually ok anyway because you've got the most gas left in hand. So those effects are only really scary when combined with mass discard effect or a few turns of draw denial (I hate Uba Mask, I really do). Just make sure you don't over-extend unless you're trying to win that turn and you never get blown out by just a Fracturing Gust or really any single card...
Except Aura Shards. Aura Shards is my Zedruu's worst nightmare. It doesn't matter if I've got gas in hand when my opponent can blow up every single enchantment I play every single turn. Whenever someone plays Aura Shards, I basically just stall as much as I can until I get access to Copy Enchantment of Clever Impersonator to Aura Shards their Aura Shards. My only saving grace is that it's selesnya colored, so the vast majority of my opponents can't play it. Pretty much just Bant etb decks and Ghave decks.
Games in my meta can see between 2 to a dozen plus not-just-creature wraths, lots of discs, o-stones, ugins, and evictions. I was mostly just curious, metas shape decks way more than some people realize just with subtle decisions alone such as here going below 36 lands is practically suicide as we don't partial paris but use a standard multiplayer mull (the new "vancouver" scry mull, with one free mull to seven) so 34 lands even with rocks, ramp, and draw is very risky.
URGRiku, Sorcerer SupremeGRU
Who needs permanents anyways?
WUBRGDeckbuilder's ToolboxGRBUW
Warning:Contents include 34 decks and growing
I do mostly play with Partial Paris, but I've also played with normal multiplayer mulligans, and on occassion I've used the 99 cards of this deck to play against people's 60 card casual decks (specifically inexperienced players without much of a card pool where the downside of a 99 card singleton deck in a 20 life format balances against their lack of skill or resources pretty well). The point I'm trying to get to is that I've played this deck in a variety of mulligan scenarios and it finds its mana more consistently than any deck I own other than the ones that just have 40 lands. People do the "cheap mana rocks count as a half land" rule, but I also think there's a "things that cost 3 or less and can dig me deeper every turn count as half of a land" rule. I've got 34 lands. I've got 4 mana rocks if you sensibly ignore Mox Diamond because you discard a land drop to use it and Gilded Lotus because it costs too much. And I've got 7 Howling Mine type effects that cost 3 or less, as well as Land Tax, to make 8 cards that can potentially dig me into land drops every turn. So 34 + 1/2 * 4 + 1/2 * 8 = 40, the magic number. Add in the much more subtle effects of the triplicate bounce lands, Expedition Map, Oath of Lieges, Pentad Prism, Mox Diamond, and Gilded Lotus in making sure my mana flows smoothly in both quantity and color every game, and there's actually a lot more of this deck making the mana happen than one would expect from the 34 lands.
I think I'll try doing a bunch of Vancouver mulligans just to see how consistent it is in the hypothetical near future where that takes over, but I'm pretty confident the land count is safe as it is.
And in a world with a high density of discs and stones and ugins, I'd actually recommend playing this more the way that I do. This deck can drop Dream Halls or Mind Over Matter onto an empty board and win before anyone gets a chance to wipe anything. With Leyline, I've won games with board wipes on the stack Playing a more conservative deck with more pillowfort elements makes you more susceptible to O Stone and the like, and a bunch of O Stones makes it less likely that you'll need the pillows.
URB Dragons BRU
EDH
W Darien, King of Kjeldor W
URG Maelstrom Wanderer GRU
RG Wort, the Raidmother GR
RWU Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
The weird thing is Thought Vessel is actually more relevant to this deck right now. I've been considering swapping Library of Leng out for plain old Spellbook since even with a few cards that make me discard, I never use Library of Leng for its second effect. I will gladly try out Thought Vessel in its place since the extra mana cost replaces itself and I'll definitely use a mana rock second ability.
Of course, I'm absolutely going to play Arjun. But I may have to make that its own deck. Mindmoil is one of my favorite cards ever printed, so when they make it into a general, I feel like I have build it. Or maybe I don't since it would be like 50% Zedruu just to start with. Oh, what a great conflict to have.
+ Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper: I stuck that in my test slot to see how it played, and I liked it. It's sort of like the third piece of the puzzle next to March of the Machines and Opalescence in making all the traditional permanents into creatures. Goes great with Jeskai Ascendancy, goes great with Mirrorweave, helps balance out the low creature count in the deck. Kind of by coincidence, it fills the same "make things creatures, gain value by playing the game" slot as the thing that's ultimately getting cut for it.
- Starfield of Nyx: The card that was added in last change and has underperformed. It's just so slow. I can play it, neat, and it doesn't make my things into creatures until I play 4 more things. It brings things back from graveyard, if I wait a turn, hey someone killed it. It's got two clauses, one of which maybe makes things creatures and one of which maybe gets me free value, and sometimes both those maybes hit the not half and it doesn't do anything at all for 5 mana. I can use my left hand to count the 1 time 1 time I got the upkeep trigger to do something, and I can use my right hand to count the 2 times I got to kill with the Starfield + Mirrorweave synergy. Noyan Dar also can be hit or miss and can work its magic slowly, but at least it is a proactive slowly, and it opens up now space for interactions rather than adding some redundancy and recursion onto old ones.
+ Vanish Into Memory: I was inspired by Noyan Dar to add this back in. It was in the deck a long time ago just for being interesting, but that was when I played walls and used it for little more than 1 turn removal. Nowadays I have clones instead of walls, and with Noyan Dar and Jeskai Ascendancy, I have lots of good opportunities to aim Vanish Into Memory at my own creatures. Anything that can either control on my opponents or push my gameplan forward is a solid inclusion. Vanish Into Memory often does both at the same time. And I've already used it to feed turn 5 or 6 Temporal Trespass a couple times.
- Wall of Omens: The last wall has died. I mostly used it as a one off draw that slowed down a fatty for a turn. Vanish Into Memory can also do that, but does more with the rest of the deck. Now Venser can't draw me cards, but that's just fine. He's busy taking back donations, stealing lands, and resetting clones.
+ Blasphemous Act: It's a board wipe that can draw cards with Swans or become one-sided with enough Jeskai Ascendancy nonsense. It's in just to be better than what it's replacing.
- Mogg Infestation: There used to be lots of synergy with this card. There isn't anymore. Blasphemous Act works better for me and usually costs 4 mana less.
So yeah, just 3 things being replaced by 3 other things that fill about the same role with a little more deck synergy.
Next on the testing table are Arjun, the Shifting Flame and Thought Vessel as mentioned above. I'm also perpetually tempted to add Sakashima as a Zedruu clone, but not enough to go out and buy one. All this adding legendary creatures sort of makes me want to find a Boros legend to finish the two-color cycle, but alas, interesting Boros legends aren't a thing that happens.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
I'm glad you like it. If you can manage to process all the card interactions as seamlessly as I described, you're a better magic player than I am. Sometimes I get 40 cards in hand and just brain fart for a minute. I will say, in my experience, it's a lot easier to end the game with it in paper where you can just put half your hand to the side and focus on the important parts (not to mention how much easier it is explaining to people in person what will happen when they cast a spell).
I'm pretty sure I set world records on how fast my facial expressions changed while reading that card. For new cards, my eyes tend to start at the center of the card and read out, so withing a second or two my brain went:
1) Uncommon blue creature, probably not that great.
2) HOLY CRAP! Swans with flash that always benefits me!?
3) But no protection so it can die. That seems reasonable.
4) 1 toughness, So it's a 1 creature fog with upside if they don't have trample.
5) And it's 5 mana.
Pass.
Mind you, there are many decks, including a couple that I have assembled, that like 5 mana to block a creature, potentially kill it, and draw some cards. But for this deck, it's a pass. If I don't have Leyline or Orrery out, there's nothing I can do at instant speed but ruin combat, so the people who play with me often enough aren't just going to swing at Zedruu with a bunch of mana open and cards in hand.
It's just a card that's costed correctly for it's optimal use in decks that leave mana open all the time. Except for the narrow situation of flashing that in the end step before I Blasphemous Act, it'd be pretty suboptimal here.
I am trying to put this together and a few cards are going to be difficult. Do you have any replacement ideas for:
These will be temporary, but I'm unlikely to acquire those cards by the time I'd like to try this out. It also shaves about $100 off the total price.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Time Spiral - Time Reversal. I didn't own a Time Spiral until a year or two ago. My Zedruu had Time Reversal in it for a long time. Is it a big downgrade? Absolutely. But it still reclaims the graveyard to stop self-mill, it still can go bonkers with Dream Halls and Eye of the Storm out, it still has strong synergy setting up wins with Mirror of Fate. It just doesn't net you mana.
Mind Over Matter - This is the card that made Wild Evocation and Mana Flare feel obsolete. Those cards can give you the free explosions Mind Over Matter does, but they make you wait a turn.
Mox Diamond - Probably just a basic land. There's not much replacement for moxen going around, especially not budget replacements. Of course, you're also not required to follow my personal self-limiting decisions, so you could absolutely just play Sol Ring.
The other 2 are tougher because they're really darn unique. Nothing else is ever going to get you the bulk cards Land Tax does for 1 mana. If you want to delve into more conventional options, there are the staples Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora. And I've never played this deck without Academy Rector. It's really the only thing like it. If you want to preserve enchantment toolboxing, you could try Wild Research. If you want to preserve rattlesnaking, there's things like Stuffy Doll. If you want to preserve free enchantments, you could try Enduring Ideal (the deck can win with it. just stick infinite reflection on warstorm surge and then everything that drops in explodes.) You could count Mana Flare as Mind Over Matter and Wild Evocation as Academy Rector. I don't know.
I will say, however, that without Mind Over Matter, there are some definite changes you can make. There's no longer an infinite with tap to draw cards, so you can play Temple Bell. As a 1 for 1 replacement for Jace, that cuts a lot of money out if budget is a thing. The same is true for Mikokoro and Forbidden Orchard which lose half the fun without Mind Over Matter and can probably just be cheaper lands. Most importantly, Barren Glory is like 75% dead card without Mind Over Matter instead of the normal 50% dead card it is usually. MOM, Gilded Lotus, and Barren Glory can go the distance out of nowhere. Without Mind Over Matter, you're only going to pull off Barren Glory if you have infinite turns or infinite Mind's Desire, and then you really, really don't need it. Which I guess is already true in my deck, but if you find you need more utility after replacing those 5 cards, that's obviously the first cut.
So yeah, if I was just replacing those 5 directly with other things I've played, I'd do Time Reversal, Wild Evocation, Mana Flare, Wild Research, basic land. Which shopping around, it looks like those cards run about $3 - $5 in total. Hooray cheap cardboard! Just be aware, pretty much every change described will have the deck play mostly the same except it will have to wait a turn to end the game once it hits critical. Changing out those cards for more available things won't make the deck unfun, but it will slow you down by one turn, and that's really frequently the difference between really dramatic win and really dramatic loss. But I'm guessing you didn't come to this thread because you're only interested in winning.
Edit: As if just to mess with me, I finish typing that and go to check spoilers and they made Oreskos Explorer that could sort of pretend to be Land Tax.
Library of Leng ---> Spellbook
Forbidden Orchard ---> Prairie Stream (opened in draft)
Mox Diamond ---> Sol Ring
Time Spiral ---> Time Reversal
Academy Rector ---> Wild Research
Land Tax ---> Oreskos Explorer (pre-ordered)
Chrome Mox ---> Thought Vessel (pre-ordered)
Firestorm ---> Chain Reaction
The other 92 are exactly the same. Of the cards listed, I'm going to slowly add Time Spiral, Academy Rector, Land Tax, Chrome Mox, and Firestorm back into the deck. The other 3 will probably be permanent replacements for me (though maybe Thought Vessel stays over Spellbook) mostly because at this point in my life $35 is a pack of diapers, not a piece of cardboard. I have thoroughly enjoyed this deck, and I feel like I learn more each time I play it. I have killed myself twice now... so working on not doing that anymore, but I have never not had fun playing this deck other than when someone else wins on turn 3/4. Thanks so much!
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Me too. Playing with these goofy cards has made me grow as a magic player, and growing as a magic player, I've made this deck even better at nonsense. And at this point I'm really confident that the backbone of the deck can support any silly win condition, so I hope at some point you start trying out your own silly win conditions.
I don't know if I'll like Day's Undoing, but I know if it works well in any deck, it'll work well here. I've got double flash enabling, I'd got double draw doubling, I've got the moxen that can play it on like turn 1. But we'll see. I'm gonna try it (since I think my friend implied he was going to bring me one.)
Speaking of shenanigans... Magus of the Wheel might be fun too, especially with Mirrorweave or Infinite Reflection and a way to untap lands like Mind over Matter. If you can get enough creatures in play, it could be a creative way of making everyone mill themselves to death (it also digs for Elixir of Immortality).
I want to say that is far too much of an adjustment to the deck, but it is actually only 2 cards that aren't already in here. Maybe there should be a "things I haven't done but have been discussed and are funny" section in the first post.
Thanks.
Cheers!
Krichaiushii on PucaTrade.
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Also, to make this deck infinite free would take a lot more work than expected because of what happens when you start looking for 5 card loops. For example, it's possible to go infinite with a flash enabler, Time Spiral, Mirror of Fate, Mind's Desire, and Possibility Storm all stacked together in some insane way.
As far as non-infinite wonky synergies, Repercussion is an excellent candidate for some nonsense. Magus of the Wheel has potential as discussed above. I've recently wondered what I could do with Eye of the Storm and heroic triggers. Sphinx's Tutelage really does mill the hell out of people. Rite of Replication on Hamletback Goliath results in some thousands of +1/+1 counters. My Enduring Ideal win was usually to stick Infinite Reflection on a Warstorm Surge. Seriously, I put Barren Glory in the deck to end a combo I ended up cutting and it still works. As long as you keep all the card drawing and mana making/cheating, you can get away with just about anything.