Someday I'll get a copy of Cheese Stands Alone to carry with zedruu and slam down when I Barren Glory. I've been wanting that for a while. But I'm not gonna actually run un-cards; I did check to make sure I have all 26 letters represented though!
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Nahiri, the Harbinger comes to mind if you've got a free slot in the deck. It's great, but unfortunately people have started to notice that it's great in Standard so it's climbing in price. As for goofy win conditions, you could Warp World a board full of lands and mana rocks into all sorts of expensive nonsense and win with whatever comes up. Warp World has each player shuffle up the permanents they own and then get new cards based on that so there's no tension between Zedruu wanting to donate stuff and Warp World. (Unless warping the world doesn't win you the game on that turn. It would kinda suck to take back all your gifts.)
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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.
Nahiri, the Harbinger comes to mind if you've got a free slot in the deck. It's great, but unfortunately people have started to notice that it's great in Standard so it's climbing in price. As for goofy win conditions, you could Warp World a board full of lands and mana rocks into all sorts of expensive nonsense and win with whatever comes up. Warp World has each player shuffle up the permanents they own and then get new cards based on that so there's no tension between Zedruu wanting to donate stuff and Warp World. (Unless warping the world doesn't win you the game on that turn. It would kinda suck to take back all your gifts.)
I've played Warp World to my heart's content, I think. The only thing holding me back on Nahiri is that "exile target enchantment" clause, cause that makes it yet another card that people can draw from my deck with Shared Fate and effectively make me discard my hand. Still, I'm heavily considering her, but if I play her, I think she goes in place of Jace to maintain that magical exactly 2 planeswalker balance that lets me play through Possibility Storm pretty often. That is the ultimate reason Jace made the cut here over other draw effects, because playing 1 planeswalker in a deck with Possibility Storm was a mistake. Nahiri would fill that role even better since whichever planeswalker I toss into Possibility Storm, I'll be pulling out a way to kill it when I need to.
And also sneak attack Knowledge Pool.
P.S. I did a quick gatherer search of each player draw to see if there's a Howling Mine effect better for me than Fevered Visions that I'm not running, and man Oath of Scholars is dissappointing every time I see it. And I wish I could play Rites of Flourishing.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
It's been a while since anyone posted here, but I have slowly accumulated the cards to build your version of this deck.
Mine originally included more harsh cards like Aggressive Mining, but I'd like to play the deck how you intended so I can get a better feel for how a less-hated Zedruu deck would run.
I'm currently 4 cards short from your list (Diamond, Sakashima, Mikokoro, Time Spiral), but decided to just use Sol Ring in place of Diamond and chose not to put in Mikokoro for the same reason you had for Temple Bell.
I don't have the deck with me right now, but I've slotted in Storm Entity and Capsize to help out your "Combo 1" and I'd like to hear your thoughts on those. Sure, Entity could be just a 1-shotter, but it would basically speed the combo up a bit, especially if one player doesn't have any blockers.
It's been a while since anyone posted here, but I have slowly accumulated the cards to build your version of this deck.
Mine originally included more harsh cards like Aggressive Mining, but I'd like to play the deck how you intended so I can get a better feel for how a less-hated Zedruu deck would run.
I'm currently 4 cards short from your list (Diamond, Sakashima, Mikokoro, Time Spiral), but decided to just use Sol Ring in place of Diamond and chose not to put in Mikokoro for the same reason you had for Temple Bell.
I don't have the deck with me right now, but I've slotted in Storm Entity and Capsize to help out your "Combo 1" and I'd like to hear your thoughts on those. Sure, Entity could be just a 1-shotter, but it would basically speed the combo up a bit, especially if one player doesn't have any blockers.
Storm Entity is cool just looking at it cause of that Future Sight border. That still confuses people sometimes. It actually really appeals to me as a win condition. It's just one of those cards you look at, know it's capable of doing big things, but you really have to work to make it happen so that when it does it'll be nice and satisfying. I like it.
Capsize is a strong card in the format. I don't know if it has much presence in this deck. Capsize usually makes it's name when it hits with infinite or immense amounts of mana, and if this deck ever reaches that point, the game is gonna end without Capsize. But as a support role, it's plenty strong. But since I think you'll be just casting it once more often than you go on buyback sprees, I've always been a fan of Wipe Away as my bounce spell of choice.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I haven't played the deck exactly as listed here in quite a while, but I just didn't play a whole lot of magic over the summer to justify listing changes to the front post here. But a few sets have come and gone without me saying much, so I'm gonna update the list to exactly how it is at the moment.
Cuts:
Tidespout Tyrant - The card is good here. Very, very good. But I can't play new cards without making cuts, and unnecessary redundancy is the first victim of that axe. Tidespout Tyrant really doesn't do much short of ending the game, and when it does that, it's just winning in a way the deck is already capable of with greater efficiency. Booooo efficiency. And right now, it's the only thing in the deck worth that any other deck could steal or clone and win with. Booooo other people winning. That said, I'm going to leave the part about Tidespout Combos in within a spoiler so that people who might like to play the card can see some of its potential.
Shared Fate - On the fun spectrum, Shared Fate hits the highest peaks and the lowest troughs in one card. I thought the changes to the mana rule would smooth out the troughs, but hard locking the game with Shared Fate is shockingly easy to do with one opponent, and with multiple opponents and the right sequencing it can become a Mind Twist on every player. Once again, this card has great potential, and even though I'm cutting it, I'd encourage anyone playing a deck like this to try it out. To add to that, I'm interested in playing this online and Shared Fate is hectic enough in paper form.
Jace Beleren - He's a Howling Mine, I get that. But I need to keep my planeswalker count low for practical purposes, and also Jace is a weenie character and I think he should be eaten by a dragon. He made the deck because I needed a second planeswalker, preferably one the draws cards, and I have one now that I like better, so ha!
Additions:
Drogskol Reaver - I'd like a higher end creature to sneak attack in if the situation allows (see below), and this one was on my mind cause it's worth swinging with, it triggers off of Zedruu, and Mirrorweave on an opponent's Reaver was one of my most memorable plays ever. And all of that while being a pretty tame Bribery target. Time will tell if it's impact here is worth its inclusion, but I'm willing to give it a real try now that I can make my own Recycle (also see below).
Nahiri, the Harbinger - Replaced Jace with her a while ago. The plus ability is excellent because my hand is usually fat enough that the discard is a meaningless cost. The minus is solid if I need it, which is exactly how I like my answers: incidental. The ultimate sneak attacks Knowledge Pool, which is awesome. And I get to constantly remind myself that I knew it was good when everyone was crying that they'd rather have pulled Arlinn Kord.
Aetherflux Reservoir - It's a fun new card. It's sort of a storm card, which is something I like. It's life gain, which is something I like. It's a tactical nuke, which is something I like. Lots to like. The worry is that I can get over 50 life easy and then nuke one player which is pretty lame, but I don't think that'll often be the right play as anyone left would be quite happy to finish me off. So the bomb ability is either gonna be enough to kill everyone or be the world's most desperate spot removal. And alongside Drogskol Reaver, it build's a new mega draw engine where every spell cast draws a card. Two factors were the final nail it getting my attention here: they spelled it Aether without the stupid a/e hybrid that makes it hard to type names in, and it with Zedruu and Swans helped me stump a judge. The question was "if I target Swans of Bryn Argoll with Aetherflux Resevoir and then donate away the resevoir in response, who draws 50 cards?" The judge said I still would, the rules on Swans indicate otherwise (which I was pretty sure of anyway and was just being cheeky with my hypotheticals). New win conditions are always fun.
Cards I'm not playing yet but I'd like to try them but I don't own them and don't even know where I'd make space:
Nahiri's Wrath - Firestorm, take 2. It's not a one mana instant like Firestorm, but the potential to murder people in one big blaze of glory is much higher. Would make a nice addition to the damage-based control the deck has going on. And also Swans.
Day's Undoing - I've already got two of this effect that do me good, and this one would be very powerful. I don't know if this card is the best card for this deck, but with 2 draw doublers, 2 instant speed enablers, and 2 card disadvantage moxen, I'm already playing all the tools that would push Day's Undoing to its absolute highest potential.
Show and Tell - I like the card. I like the card's name. I like that this format makes it fair to play. I like that it can be acquired for much cheaper than it used to be... still probably never going to actually play it. But it would let me daydream of the magical christmasland turn 1 land mox mox, S&T, Possibility Storm, Memnite -> Knowledge Pool and then sit and watch the rest of the game happen around me.
That's all for today's broadcast.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I was just about to ask if there were any updates. I haven't been playing Zedruu much these days. Most of the games I play involve three people, and the deck never seems to fare well (for me) in situations like that. And in the last five-person game, another guy in my group ran a Jhoira deck that included a lot of the same chaos elements Zedruu does. So I played something else.
Looking forward to picking it up again sometime soon, however. Unfortunately I don't have Nahiri (and the $15 price tag makes me not super excited to chase after that one) but I do have Show and Tell (which I own because of Legacy Reanimator, totally contradicting my previous statement about not wanting to spend money...), so I'll give that a try.
I was never a huge fan of Shared Fate (I think the one time I did play it, I ended up locking someone out of the game). Looking forward to trying out Drogskol Reaver (currently in my Shu Yun deck) and Aetherflux Reservoir.
Aetherflux Reservoir - It's a fun new card. It's sort of a storm card, which is something I like. It's life gain, which is something I like. It's a tactical nuke, which is something I like. Lots to like. The worry is that I can get over 50 life easy and then nuke one player which is pretty lame, but I don't think that'll often be the right play as anyone left would be quite happy to finish me off. So the bomb ability is either gonna be enough to kill everyone or be the world's most desperate spot removal. And alongside Drogskol Reaver, it build's a new mega draw engine where every spell cast draws a card. Two factors were the final nail it getting my attention here: they spelled it Aether without the stupid a/e hybrid that makes it hard to type names in, and it with Zedruu and Swans helped me stump a judge. The question was "if I target Swans of Bryn Argoll with Aetherflux Resevoir and then donate away the resevoir in response, who draws 50 cards?" The judge said I still would, the rules on Swans indicate otherwise (which I was pretty sure of anyway and was just being cheeky with my hypotheticals). New win conditions are always fun.
I think the Judge is right here. Ability ownership is based on who controls the permanent that produced it at the time of activation (I think). You're not donating the ability on the stack, just the card that produced it. If the ruling ends up going the other way (i.e. they draw 50) you could donate Thought Reflection and deck the player who just gained infinite life.
I may need to make a proxy of this with my avatar art, though I should splice more arts in than just Mindmoil and Eye of the Storm first. I like that confusing the whole table resolves before pissing them off.
I think the Judge is right here. Ability ownership is based on who controls the permanent that produced it at the time of activation (I think). You're not donating the ability on the stack, just the card that produced it. If the ruling ends up going the other way (i.e. they draw 50) you could donate Thought Reflection and deck the player who just gained infinite life.
You are correct about ability ownership, but the source of damage isn't the ability. Determining the source of damage is a really fringe rule scenario that I only know because of the gatherer rulings on Swans of Bryn Argoll.
5/1/2008 If an ability is causing damage to be dealt, that ability will always identify the source of the damage. The ability itself is never the source. However, the source of the ability is often the source of the damage. For example, Knollspine Invocation’s ability says “Knollspine Invocation deals X damage to target creature or player.”
5/1/2008 If the source of the damage is a permanent, Swans of Bryn Argoll checks who that permanent’s controller is at the time that damage is prevented. If the permanent has left the battlefield by then, its last known information is used. If the source of the damage is a spell, its controller is obvious. If the source of the damage is a card from some other zone (such as a cycled Gempalm Incinerator), Swans of Bryn Argoll checks its owner rather than its controller.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Just played a game on cockatrice to test out some potential changes for this deck, and it's worth describing the whole tale here. It was Zedruu against Kaervek the Merciless against Kozilek, the Great Distortion. The Kaervek player had started the lobby and named it fast plays to try and scare away slow players. I won the roll to go first.
Turn 1 - The Beginning of the End: I played command tower, Kaervek played command tower, Kozilek played Mishra's Workshop into Worn Powerstone into suspended Lotus Bloom. Kaervek player cries fowl at the competitive eldrazi deck, Kozilek denies it being competitive, Kaervek scoops. I choose to stay (and try to encourage Kozilek to tone it down if he wants to avoid scoops like that).
Turn 3 - Seriously, I had nothing to play early: I play Izzet Boilerworks, Kozilek plays another Wastes and Blinkmoth Urn and makes comments about how everyone leaves when he gets a good start and talks about how magic was different when those cards were printed and how he has fun with them.
Turn 4 - The Savior Arrives: I play a Plains into Zedruu. What could possibly compete with that!? He gets his Lotus Bloom and a crap ton of Urn mana, drops in Sol Ring into ye olde Turn 4 Blightsteel Colossus, calling it a good opening once again, and offering not to attack for 2 turns.
Turn 5 - Dawn of a New Era: With nothing to handle Blightsteel in hand, I play back Command Tower into Izzet Signet into the first real casting of Day's Undoing in Zedruu (not official yet, but making a good argument for itself). I shuffle a hand full of lands into non-lands and fill him up from 1 card to 7. It's terrible card advantage, but so is dying. He takes his turn with basically a million mana, drops down Homeward Path, Staff of Nin, Endbringer, and Palladium Myr, and then clicks to his end step. I plead for him to attack me, saying I'm not dead to it, and I'd rather lose and start fresh than sit in purgatory for 2 turns, and that he should play as aggressively as he thinks is best to win, but he doesn't budge insisting it was to compensate for turn 4 Blightsteel.
Turn 6 - He probably should have attacked: 8 brand new cards to play with (and a mana from Blinkmoth Urn), I play Gilded Lotus into Azorius Signet into Clever Impersonator on Blightsteel. For his turn, he plays Inventor's Fair to fetch Sensei's Divining Top. At this point, he chose not to attack, possibly keeping up his unwanted promise, but he could reasonably fear dying to the back swing, so we may never know. Instead, he played Kozilek and passed back.
Turn 7 - Seriously, He Done Goofed: For my turn, he Endbringer's my Blightsteel to not attack while I play Leyline of Anticipation and pass because that's just what you do with a Leyline of Anticipation. On his turn, he Endbringer's my Blightsteel to not block, plays Eye of Ugin and Staff of Domination and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre killing Gilded Lotus, and finally moves to combat. He attacks with Blightsteel and Kozilek. I cast Phyrexian Metamorph for 3 and he draws with staff looking for a 4 drop to counter with. He says go, and I copy Blightsteel a second time. He thinks to untap Staff (probably to tap the new Blightsteel), but he only has 3 mana left so he couldn't stop anything from blocking. I proceed to blocks and choose to block his Blightsteel with just Zedruu (told you she was the savior!). I take 7 poison and go down to 23 life. Post combat, I use my 3 mana available to cast instant speed Blasphemous Act with a discount of 6. (For anyone who lost track, that leaves me with 2 Blightsteel Colossus, him with only 1 Ulamog to block, and he's pretty much tapped out). He leaves the room without another word.
Takeaways of the day: Day's Undoing is a good card, nobody likes to lose to Blightsteel Colossus, and never ever play with your food. Just eat the goat.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Turn one I start things off with an aggro flourish, hitting Mox Diamond into an Izzet Signet, which resulted in a turn 2 Zedruu. I started giving away things in the attempt to keep the heat off me and draw cards.
Regardless, Phenax and Sharuum were going after me, milling a bunch of lands and swinging for some amount of commander damage, because that's usually how things go in my group, regardless of what I'm playing. I manage to stay under the radar enough that everyone eventually redirected their attention to the Sharuum player because, well, Sharuum.
Said player gets a Gilded Lotus in play and starts threatening some sick reanimations. A few turns earlier I resolved an Academy Rector and Swans of Bryn Argoll. I convinced the Intet player to block my attack with the human, which died and tutored a Rest in Peace to keep things from getting out of hand.
So the next turn things got out of hand. I resolved a Mind Over Matter and copied the Lotus with a Phyrexian Metamorph. Blasphemous Act drew me 13 cards and the Phenax player left to watch some League of Legends streams.
In the end I had Aetherflux Reservoir and Eye of the Storm with a Temporal Mastery and Turnabout exiled under it, so I kept playing instants and sorceries, drew 21 more cards off Myojin of Seeing Winds, piled up I don't know how many turns, then got up to 200 life and blasted everyone with Aetherflux Reservoir, mostly because I couldn't find my copy of Mind's Desire, and it was sweet to show off the new tech anyway.
I do love it when things get out of hand. I recognize the heavy possibility that Aetherflux Reservoir becomes the next Psychosis Crawler where I decide to cut a card just because it will be too easy of a win condition once the whole deck is available, but for now it's super fun. I wait impatiently for the opportunity to pay 50 at Swans and grab the whole library.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I feel like I've trained myself to require Mind Over Matter for most of my wins, and I'm pretty sure my group has caught on how effective that card is. Need to review ways to win without it.
One of my ongoing experiments is cutting Mind Over Matter while trying to support everything the deck needs it for, just less efficiently. I mentioned this to a friend that I wish there was something like Mind Over Matter but worse, and he boldly declared "there is, it's called passing the turn." Psshhh, not interested. Dream Halls has a lot the uses covered already, and Noyan Dar with Jeskai Ascendancy or Turnabout on Eye of the Storm can do a lot of the happy untappy stuff, but it's hard to replace instant speed, free targeted board disruption and it's really hard to do non-infinite Barren Glory without it. It's theoretically possible to make every permanent into a creature and then Firestorm my whole board with my whole hand, but that's tough. Nahiri's Wrath could offer some redundancy there, but it's still far-fetched. I'm considering with the addition of Drogskol Reaver trying out good old Claws of Gix as a sac outlet, and while I'm fond of having cheap sac outlets in edh and a little giddy at the idea that saccing out to Claws of Gix is only possible with some permanent providing more than one man, it still feels like such a stretch to require that one card, plus a way to get rid of all the cards in hand, plus Barren Glory, plus nobody does anything to stop it, I'd much prefer to have another way of making massive amounts of mana to donate everything with class.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I don't actually mind (heh) playing it, given that my playgroup tends to run fairly abusive cards, so it's nice having a powerful effect to keep me alive or enable a big turn.
If you could design a card that supports everything the deck needs it for, what would that card look like?
I don't actually mind (heh) playing it, given that my playgroup tends to run fairly abusive cards, so it's nice having a powerful effect to keep me alive or enable a big turn.
If you could design a card that supports everything the deck needs it for, what would that card look like?
Zedruu's Karma
RWU
Enchantment
(rare)
At the beginning of your upkeep,
if opponents control at least 20 cards
you own, you win the game. "Baaaaaaaah!"
-Zedruu
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Let's be real, I'm not gonna beat DementedKirby here.
But there have been many specific cards I've wished were real, including some specifically for this deck.
Right now, I wish there was a card with the ability "Whenever you draw a card, add one mana of any color to your mana pool" cause that'd be just about perfect.
Something I've always thought would be fun is a card like Vedalken Orrery except it only costs 1 or 2 and gives flash to everything for every player. That would really screw with people.
A Possiblity Storm except it cascades through an opponent's library instead.
I'm pretty confident though that whatever I wish existed for Zedruu is probably not the perfect card for the deck because the perfect card is the one that surprises you when it works.
Yeah, but I want it to make mana, not waste it. (I actually did see that and consider it, but making that do anything of value would require a bigger restructuring than I'm imagining and would probably require the space that I'm using to play with Aetherflux Reservoir at the moment.)
First off tstorm, great deck. It's been awesome to see it evolve, as I've been lurking on this thread for awhile. With zedruu I've finally found a general who satisfies my urge for chaotic game states, but hopefully in a way that my playmates will not find cumbersome.
I've been looking at emulating your deck (to an extent - to an extent I like to individualise my decks too) , but there are a couple of cards I'm struggling to find - some through price, and others through sheer availability. I was wondering if anyone here would have suggestions.
Mind over Matter
Land Tax
Vanish into Memory
Political Trickery
Firestorm
Sakashima The Impostor
Anvil of Bogardan
Mostly availability is the issue, although I am building on a budget too. The planeswalkers are a tough ask price wise too, with Nahiri at a high price due to standard at present. I currently have Tamiyo 1 and Ral Zarek doing duty, but I'm not sure whether they are a perfect fit.
Mind over Matter
Land Tax
Vanish into Memory
Political Trickery
Firestorm
Sakashima The Impostor
Anvil of Bogardan
Mostly availability is the issue, although I am building on a budget too. The planeswalkers are a tough ask price wise too, with Nahiri at a high price due to standard at present. I currently have Tamiyo 1 and Ral Zarek doing duty, but I'm not sure whether they are a perfect fit.
What can you guys suggest?
Thanks in advance!
I honestly don't believe there's any direct replacement for most of the things you don't have, and you're just going to have to pick things that suit your fancy instead.
Land Tax is a very unique card, and with things like Weathered Wayfarer or Gift of Estates aren't bad cards at all, I'd probably just be filling that slot with more card draw. That's really what it's here for.
Firestorm again is really unique. Lightning Bolt's honestly not bad, plenty underrated in this format. Nahiri's Wrath now is similar, but most of the time I'm glad to have Firestorm is because it's a one mana instant, so something like Swords to Plowshares would be a much closer approximation. Vanish Into Memory is in the same boat here. Just make sure you have instant speed answers to replace these cause you don't want to run this or any deck totally shields down. Just the threat of blowing someone out with removal is enough to change people's behavior and open opportunities to assemble some nonsense later.
Mind Over Matter is not replaceable. It's too much power over every alternative. But I'm also currently trying to replace it in my deck because I don't want that power, so your guess here is as good as mine.
Ral Zarek is cool. I never played Tamiyo 1 (in this deck) because she scares the hell out of people more than I like to. Venser, the Sojourner has such a distinct role in this deck, I don't think just playing other planeswalkers is a reasonable replacement, but your choice of planeswalkers is fine. Just make sure that at least one of the things you include as removal is capable of removing enchantments so that you don't lock yourself behind a donated Forced Fruition or a MindmoilThought Reflection combo.
If I think of anything else relevant, I'll let you know.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Got to witness the awesome power of Oath of Lieges and Zedruu today. Being able to donate my lands to draw more cards while still hitting my drops, so to speak, was absolutely fantastic.
Would have won, too, as Mind Over Matter had the board locked down.
Then my opponent tapped out for a large Exsanguinate and a particularly dull victory...
Edit: Zedruu is my default deck now, regardless of how big the play group is. Expect more reports.
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Someday I'll get a copy of Cheese Stands Alone to carry with zedruu and slam down when I Barren Glory. I've been wanting that for a while. But I'm not gonna actually run un-cards; I did check to make sure I have all 26 letters represented though!
I've played Warp World to my heart's content, I think. The only thing holding me back on Nahiri is that "exile target enchantment" clause, cause that makes it yet another card that people can draw from my deck with Shared Fate and effectively make me discard my hand. Still, I'm heavily considering her, but if I play her, I think she goes in place of Jace to maintain that magical exactly 2 planeswalker balance that lets me play through Possibility Storm pretty often. That is the ultimate reason Jace made the cut here over other draw effects, because playing 1 planeswalker in a deck with Possibility Storm was a mistake. Nahiri would fill that role even better since whichever planeswalker I toss into Possibility Storm, I'll be pulling out a way to kill it when I need to.
And also sneak attack Knowledge Pool.
P.S. I did a quick gatherer search of each player draw to see if there's a Howling Mine effect better for me than Fevered Visions that I'm not running, and man Oath of Scholars is dissappointing every time I see it. And I wish I could play Rites of Flourishing.
Mine originally included more harsh cards like Aggressive Mining, but I'd like to play the deck how you intended so I can get a better feel for how a less-hated Zedruu deck would run.
I'm currently 4 cards short from your list (Diamond, Sakashima, Mikokoro, Time Spiral), but decided to just use Sol Ring in place of Diamond and chose not to put in Mikokoro for the same reason you had for Temple Bell.
I don't have the deck with me right now, but I've slotted in Storm Entity and Capsize to help out your "Combo 1" and I'd like to hear your thoughts on those. Sure, Entity could be just a 1-shotter, but it would basically speed the combo up a bit, especially if one player doesn't have any blockers.
Storm Entity is cool just looking at it cause of that Future Sight border. That still confuses people sometimes. It actually really appeals to me as a win condition. It's just one of those cards you look at, know it's capable of doing big things, but you really have to work to make it happen so that when it does it'll be nice and satisfying. I like it.
Capsize is a strong card in the format. I don't know if it has much presence in this deck. Capsize usually makes it's name when it hits with infinite or immense amounts of mana, and if this deck ever reaches that point, the game is gonna end without Capsize. But as a support role, it's plenty strong. But since I think you'll be just casting it once more often than you go on buyback sprees, I've always been a fan of Wipe Away as my bounce spell of choice.
I haven't played the deck exactly as listed here in quite a while, but I just didn't play a whole lot of magic over the summer to justify listing changes to the front post here. But a few sets have come and gone without me saying much, so I'm gonna update the list to exactly how it is at the moment.
Cuts:
Tidespout Tyrant - The card is good here. Very, very good. But I can't play new cards without making cuts, and unnecessary redundancy is the first victim of that axe. Tidespout Tyrant really doesn't do much short of ending the game, and when it does that, it's just winning in a way the deck is already capable of with greater efficiency. Booooo efficiency. And right now, it's the only thing in the deck worth that any other deck could steal or clone and win with. Booooo other people winning. That said, I'm going to leave the part about Tidespout Combos in within a spoiler so that people who might like to play the card can see some of its potential.
Shared Fate - On the fun spectrum, Shared Fate hits the highest peaks and the lowest troughs in one card. I thought the changes to the mana rule would smooth out the troughs, but hard locking the game with Shared Fate is shockingly easy to do with one opponent, and with multiple opponents and the right sequencing it can become a Mind Twist on every player. Once again, this card has great potential, and even though I'm cutting it, I'd encourage anyone playing a deck like this to try it out. To add to that, I'm interested in playing this online and Shared Fate is hectic enough in paper form.
Jace Beleren - He's a Howling Mine, I get that. But I need to keep my planeswalker count low for practical purposes, and also Jace is a weenie character and I think he should be eaten by a dragon. He made the deck because I needed a second planeswalker, preferably one the draws cards, and I have one now that I like better, so ha!
Additions:
Drogskol Reaver - I'd like a higher end creature to sneak attack in if the situation allows (see below), and this one was on my mind cause it's worth swinging with, it triggers off of Zedruu, and Mirrorweave on an opponent's Reaver was one of my most memorable plays ever. And all of that while being a pretty tame Bribery target. Time will tell if it's impact here is worth its inclusion, but I'm willing to give it a real try now that I can make my own Recycle (also see below).
Nahiri, the Harbinger - Replaced Jace with her a while ago. The plus ability is excellent because my hand is usually fat enough that the discard is a meaningless cost. The minus is solid if I need it, which is exactly how I like my answers: incidental. The ultimate sneak attacks Knowledge Pool, which is awesome. And I get to constantly remind myself that I knew it was good when everyone was crying that they'd rather have pulled Arlinn Kord.
Aetherflux Reservoir - It's a fun new card. It's sort of a storm card, which is something I like. It's life gain, which is something I like. It's a tactical nuke, which is something I like. Lots to like. The worry is that I can get over 50 life easy and then nuke one player which is pretty lame, but I don't think that'll often be the right play as anyone left would be quite happy to finish me off. So the bomb ability is either gonna be enough to kill everyone or be the world's most desperate spot removal. And alongside Drogskol Reaver, it build's a new mega draw engine where every spell cast draws a card. Two factors were the final nail it getting my attention here: they spelled it Aether without the stupid a/e hybrid that makes it hard to type names in, and it with Zedruu and Swans helped me stump a judge. The question was "if I target Swans of Bryn Argoll with Aetherflux Resevoir and then donate away the resevoir in response, who draws 50 cards?" The judge said I still would, the rules on Swans indicate otherwise (which I was pretty sure of anyway and was just being cheeky with my hypotheticals). New win conditions are always fun.
Cards I'm not playing yet but I'd like to try them but I don't own them and don't even know where I'd make space:
Nahiri's Wrath - Firestorm, take 2. It's not a one mana instant like Firestorm, but the potential to murder people in one big blaze of glory is much higher. Would make a nice addition to the damage-based control the deck has going on. And also Swans.
Day's Undoing - I've already got two of this effect that do me good, and this one would be very powerful. I don't know if this card is the best card for this deck, but with 2 draw doublers, 2 instant speed enablers, and 2 card disadvantage moxen, I'm already playing all the tools that would push Day's Undoing to its absolute highest potential.
Show and Tell - I like the card. I like the card's name. I like that this format makes it fair to play. I like that it can be acquired for much cheaper than it used to be... still probably never going to actually play it. But it would let me daydream of the magical christmasland turn 1 land mox mox, S&T, Possibility Storm, Memnite -> Knowledge Pool and then sit and watch the rest of the game happen around me.
That's all for today's broadcast.
Looking forward to picking it up again sometime soon, however. Unfortunately I don't have Nahiri (and the $15 price tag makes me not super excited to chase after that one) but I do have Show and Tell (which I own because of Legacy Reanimator, totally contradicting my previous statement about not wanting to spend money...), so I'll give that a try.
I was never a huge fan of Shared Fate (I think the one time I did play it, I ended up locking someone out of the game). Looking forward to trying out Drogskol Reaver (currently in my Shu Yun deck) and Aetherflux Reservoir.
Hurray! Nahiri is Rummaging Goblin stapled to Altar's Light+ stapled to tstorm's Command. Haven't heard of that last card? It reads "Choose two:
I think the Judge is right here. Ability ownership is based on who controls the permanent that produced it at the time of activation (I think). You're not donating the ability on the stack, just the card that produced it. If the ruling ends up going the other way (i.e. they draw 50) you could donate Thought Reflection and deck the player who just gained infinite life.
I may need to make a proxy of this with my avatar art, though I should splice more arts in than just Mindmoil and Eye of the Storm first. I like that confusing the whole table resolves before pissing them off.
You are correct about ability ownership, but the source of damage isn't the ability. Determining the source of damage is a really fringe rule scenario that I only know because of the gatherer rulings on Swans of Bryn Argoll.
5/1/2008 If an ability is causing damage to be dealt, that ability will always identify the source of the damage. The ability itself is never the source. However, the source of the ability is often the source of the damage. For example, Knollspine Invocation’s ability says “Knollspine Invocation deals X damage to target creature or player.”
5/1/2008 If the source of the damage is a permanent, Swans of Bryn Argoll checks who that permanent’s controller is at the time that damage is prevented. If the permanent has left the battlefield by then, its last known information is used. If the source of the damage is a spell, its controller is obvious. If the source of the damage is a card from some other zone (such as a cycled Gempalm Incinerator), Swans of Bryn Argoll checks its owner rather than its controller.
Just played a game on cockatrice to test out some potential changes for this deck, and it's worth describing the whole tale here. It was Zedruu against Kaervek the Merciless against Kozilek, the Great Distortion. The Kaervek player had started the lobby and named it fast plays to try and scare away slow players. I won the roll to go first.
Turn 1 - The Beginning of the End: I played command tower, Kaervek played command tower, Kozilek played Mishra's Workshop into Worn Powerstone into suspended Lotus Bloom. Kaervek player cries fowl at the competitive eldrazi deck, Kozilek denies it being competitive, Kaervek scoops. I choose to stay (and try to encourage Kozilek to tone it down if he wants to avoid scoops like that).
Turn 2 - Not Much Has Improved: I play Reliquary Tower, Kozilek plays a Wastes and Grim Monolith and says "workshop is a good draw".
Turn 3 - Seriously, I had nothing to play early: I play Izzet Boilerworks, Kozilek plays another Wastes and Blinkmoth Urn and makes comments about how everyone leaves when he gets a good start and talks about how magic was different when those cards were printed and how he has fun with them.
Turn 4 - The Savior Arrives: I play a Plains into Zedruu. What could possibly compete with that!? He gets his Lotus Bloom and a crap ton of Urn mana, drops in Sol Ring into ye olde Turn 4 Blightsteel Colossus, calling it a good opening once again, and offering not to attack for 2 turns.
Turn 5 - Dawn of a New Era: With nothing to handle Blightsteel in hand, I play back Command Tower into Izzet Signet into the first real casting of Day's Undoing in Zedruu (not official yet, but making a good argument for itself). I shuffle a hand full of lands into non-lands and fill him up from 1 card to 7. It's terrible card advantage, but so is dying. He takes his turn with basically a million mana, drops down Homeward Path, Staff of Nin, Endbringer, and Palladium Myr, and then clicks to his end step. I plead for him to attack me, saying I'm not dead to it, and I'd rather lose and start fresh than sit in purgatory for 2 turns, and that he should play as aggressively as he thinks is best to win, but he doesn't budge insisting it was to compensate for turn 4 Blightsteel.
Turn 6 - He probably should have attacked: 8 brand new cards to play with (and a mana from Blinkmoth Urn), I play Gilded Lotus into Azorius Signet into Clever Impersonator on Blightsteel. For his turn, he plays Inventor's Fair to fetch Sensei's Divining Top. At this point, he chose not to attack, possibly keeping up his unwanted promise, but he could reasonably fear dying to the back swing, so we may never know. Instead, he played Kozilek and passed back.
Turn 7 - Seriously, He Done Goofed: For my turn, he Endbringer's my Blightsteel to not attack while I play Leyline of Anticipation and pass because that's just what you do with a Leyline of Anticipation. On his turn, he Endbringer's my Blightsteel to not block, plays Eye of Ugin and Staff of Domination and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre killing Gilded Lotus, and finally moves to combat. He attacks with Blightsteel and Kozilek. I cast Phyrexian Metamorph for 3 and he draws with staff looking for a 4 drop to counter with. He says go, and I copy Blightsteel a second time. He thinks to untap Staff (probably to tap the new Blightsteel), but he only has 3 mana left so he couldn't stop anything from blocking. I proceed to blocks and choose to block his Blightsteel with just Zedruu (told you she was the savior!). I take 7 poison and go down to 23 life. Post combat, I use my 3 mana available to cast instant speed Blasphemous Act with a discount of 6. (For anyone who lost track, that leaves me with 2 Blightsteel Colossus, him with only 1 Ulamog to block, and he's pretty much tapped out). He leaves the room without another word.
Takeaways of the day: Day's Undoing is a good card, nobody likes to lose to Blightsteel Colossus, and never ever play with your food. Just eat the goat.
Turn one I start things off with an aggro flourish, hitting Mox Diamond into an Izzet Signet, which resulted in a turn 2 Zedruu. I started giving away things in the attempt to keep the heat off me and draw cards.
Regardless, Phenax and Sharuum were going after me, milling a bunch of lands and swinging for some amount of commander damage, because that's usually how things go in my group, regardless of what I'm playing. I manage to stay under the radar enough that everyone eventually redirected their attention to the Sharuum player because, well, Sharuum.
Said player gets a Gilded Lotus in play and starts threatening some sick reanimations. A few turns earlier I resolved an Academy Rector and Swans of Bryn Argoll. I convinced the Intet player to block my attack with the human, which died and tutored a Rest in Peace to keep things from getting out of hand.
So the next turn things got out of hand. I resolved a Mind Over Matter and copied the Lotus with a Phyrexian Metamorph. Blasphemous Act drew me 13 cards and the Phenax player left to watch some League of Legends streams.
In the end I had Aetherflux Reservoir and Eye of the Storm with a Temporal Mastery and Turnabout exiled under it, so I kept playing instants and sorceries, drew 21 more cards off Myojin of Seeing Winds, piled up I don't know how many turns, then got up to 200 life and blasted everyone with Aetherflux Reservoir, mostly because I couldn't find my copy of Mind's Desire, and it was sweet to show off the new tech anyway.
I do love it when things get out of hand. I recognize the heavy possibility that Aetherflux Reservoir becomes the next Psychosis Crawler where I decide to cut a card just because it will be too easy of a win condition once the whole deck is available, but for now it's super fun. I wait impatiently for the opportunity to pay 50 at Swans and grab the whole library.
If you could design a card that supports everything the deck needs it for, what would that card look like?
if opponents control at least 20 cards
you own, you win the game.
"Baaaaaaaah!"
-Zedruu
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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But there have been many specific cards I've wished were real, including some specifically for this deck.
Right now, I wish there was a card with the ability "Whenever you draw a card, add one mana of any color to your mana pool" cause that'd be just about perfect.
Something I've always thought would be fun is a card like Vedalken Orrery except it only costs 1 or 2 and gives flash to everything for every player. That would really screw with people.
A Possiblity Storm except it cascades through an opponent's library instead.
I'm pretty confident though that whatever I wish existed for Zedruu is probably not the perfect card for the deck because the perfect card is the one that surprises you when it works.
There's Telekinetic Bonds.
Yeah, but I want it to make mana, not waste it. (I actually did see that and consider it, but making that do anything of value would require a bigger restructuring than I'm imagining and would probably require the space that I'm using to play with Aetherflux Reservoir at the moment.)
First off tstorm, great deck. It's been awesome to see it evolve, as I've been lurking on this thread for awhile. With zedruu I've finally found a general who satisfies my urge for chaotic game states, but hopefully in a way that my playmates will not find cumbersome.
I've been looking at emulating your deck (to an extent - to an extent I like to individualise my decks too) , but there are a couple of cards I'm struggling to find - some through price, and others through sheer availability. I was wondering if anyone here would have suggestions.
Mind over Matter
Land Tax
Vanish into Memory
Political Trickery
Firestorm
Sakashima The Impostor
Anvil of Bogardan
Mostly availability is the issue, although I am building on a budget too. The planeswalkers are a tough ask price wise too, with Nahiri at a high price due to standard at present. I currently have Tamiyo 1 and Ral Zarek doing duty, but I'm not sure whether they are a perfect fit.
What can you guys suggest?
Thanks in advance!
toc
I honestly don't believe there's any direct replacement for most of the things you don't have, and you're just going to have to pick things that suit your fancy instead.
Sakashima could be reasonably approximated by any other Clone unless you're focusing on cloning Zedruu in which case you could try out Strionic Resonator, which can copy the triggers from Zedruu, any of the Howling Mine-type cards, Teferi's Puzzlebox, Mindmoil, Vedalken Plotter, Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper, Drogskol Reaver, Land Tax, Oath of Lieges, Jeskai Ascendancy, Paradox Haze, Forced Fruition (if you control the card and want your opponent to draw extra), Warstorm Surge, or most potently Eye of the Storm, Possibility Storm, or the storm trigger from Mind's Desire.
Political Trickery has replacements, but they're already here; Anvil of Bogardan has half replacements that are mostly already here.
Land Tax is a very unique card, and with things like Weathered Wayfarer or Gift of Estates aren't bad cards at all, I'd probably just be filling that slot with more card draw. That's really what it's here for.
Firestorm again is really unique. Lightning Bolt's honestly not bad, plenty underrated in this format. Nahiri's Wrath now is similar, but most of the time I'm glad to have Firestorm is because it's a one mana instant, so something like Swords to Plowshares would be a much closer approximation. Vanish Into Memory is in the same boat here. Just make sure you have instant speed answers to replace these cause you don't want to run this or any deck totally shields down. Just the threat of blowing someone out with removal is enough to change people's behavior and open opportunities to assemble some nonsense later.
Mind Over Matter is not replaceable. It's too much power over every alternative. But I'm also currently trying to replace it in my deck because I don't want that power, so your guess here is as good as mine.
Ral Zarek is cool. I never played Tamiyo 1 (in this deck) because she scares the hell out of people more than I like to. Venser, the Sojourner has such a distinct role in this deck, I don't think just playing other planeswalkers is a reasonable replacement, but your choice of planeswalkers is fine. Just make sure that at least one of the things you include as removal is capable of removing enchantments so that you don't lock yourself behind a donated Forced Fruition or a Mindmoil Thought Reflection combo.
If I think of anything else relevant, I'll let you know.
Would have won, too, as Mind Over Matter had the board locked down.
Then my opponent tapped out for a large Exsanguinate and a particularly dull victory...
Edit: Zedruu is my default deck now, regardless of how big the play group is. Expect more reports.