Here is the decklist:
General
Zedruu the GreatheartedCreatures
Imposing SovereignNyx-Fleece Ram
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Vedalken Plotter
Sea Gate Oracle
Trinket Mage
Fatespinner
Akroan Horse
Perplexing Chimera
Keranos, God of Storms
Consecrated Sphinx
Felidar Sovereign
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Stormtide Leviathan
Instants and Sorceries
BrainstormPonder
Preordain
Vision Skeins
Cyclonic Rift
Arcane Denial
Chaos Warp
Oblation
Render Silent
Cryptic Command
Wild Ricochet
Supreme Verdict
Armageddon
Wrath of God
Dig Through Time
Decree of Annihilation
Artifacts
Sol RingSensei's Divining Top
Helm of the Gods
Howling Mine
Temple Bell
Thran Dynamo
Batterskull
Alhammarret's Archive
Enchantments
Darksteel MutationBlind Obedience
Dictate of Kruphix
Monastery Siege
Wild Research
Oblivion Ring
Propaganda
Detention Sphere
Ghostly Prison
Sphinx's Tutelage
Sacred Mesa
Opalescence
Agressive Mining
Statecraft
Leyline of Anticipation
Sigil of the Empty Throne
Sphere of Safety
Future Sight
Well of Ideas
Planeswalkers
Jace, Architect of ThoughtJace, the Mind Sculptor
Narset Transcendent
Ajani Vengeant
Karn Liberated
Land
Command TowerMana Confluence
City of Brass
Wooded Foothills
Flooded Strand
Windswept Heath
Polluted Delta
Bloodstained Mire
Mystic Monastery
Plateau
Sacred Foundry
Temple of Triumph
Wind-Scarred Crag
Battlefield Forge
Prairie Stream
Hallowed Fountain
Temple of Enlightenment
Tranquil Cove
Adarkar Wastes
Steam Vents
Temple of Epiphany
Swiftwater Cliffs
Shivan Reef
Homeward Path
Reliquary Tower
Temple of the False God
Seat of the Synod
Halimar Depths
Ancient Den
Great Furnace
Island x3
Plains x2
Mountain x2
Deck Overview
I came into the building of this deck not knwoing if I wanted to make a control deck, a group hug deck or a chaos deck. In the end I decided on a combination of the first two, a control/group hug hybrid. This hybrid uses cards like Howling Mine and Well of Ideas allowing all of your enemies in on the card draw to keep yourself alive using one of the cornerstones of commander, politics. This deck also uses alot of prison effects, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda and Sphere of Safety these work together (and with other enchantments int he case of Sphere of Safety) to keep you alive. The enchantment synergy continues with Helm of the Gods and Sigil of the Empty Throne. Sigil gives you an army of 4/4 fliers to kill you opponents with while the Helm makes one of the creatures in the deck large enough to win the game by itself. The final piece of enchantment synergy, and one of the biggest combat focused win conditions is Opalescence. This card turns your enchantments into creatures whose P/T are equal to the cards cmc. This means that all of your utility cards turn into kill cards. This deck also runs some non-combat win conditions. The first of these is Felidar Sovereign, this card works very well with Helm of the Gods due to its lifelink allowing you to gain more life. The next of these is Sphinx's Tutelage. Being a control deck you draw alot of cards making this a very quick way to qin a game, becoming more powerful the less colours in your opponents colour identity. The last of the notable win cons is Jace the Mind Sculptor, card draw, top deck manipulation, pseudo-removal and a way to win all in one card.
Utility
Slowing Down Your Opponents
One of the biggest win conditions in commander is hitting your enemy in the face until their life total is 0. There are lots of ways of slowing down your opponents the first of these that I will talk about if causing your enemies creatures to enter the battlefield tapped. This deck uses two of these one on a creature and one on an enchantment. The first of these is Imposing Sovereign, a 2/1 for 2 that have this ability on making it quite fragile. The second is an enchantment, Blind Obedience. Not only does this card slow down your enemies but can also help you to live longer thanks to extort, dealing 1 damage to each opponent while giving you 3 life (in most cases as 4-players is a common number of players). These cards work very well at slowing down regular aggro decks but work even better against the Kiki-Jiki infinite combos as they spawn in creatures that have haste however they are useless as they cannot attack.
Another way of slowing down your enemies beating you is by gaining life. The simplest of these is Nyx-Fleece Ram, a 0/5 body that gives you 1 life every turn in your upkeep (this card is also an enchantment which is very relevant with this deck). The next method of life gain is the Planeswalker Ajani Vengeant. His -2 ability deals 3 damage to a creature or player and gives you 3 life. This can be used to remove alot of utility creatures such as Stoneforged Mystic, Mentor of the Meek and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy (this can also be to weaken a planeswalker so that the other creatures in the deck can finish them off). Ajani can also tap a permanent down stopping it from untapping in the next untap step. The commander also helps in this vein by gaining you life depending on how many of you permanents your opponents control. All of this life gain is doubled by Alhammarret's Archive.
Next on the list of not dying is damage prevention. There are two cards in this deck that prevent the cards One of them is Statecraft, an enchantment that prevents your creatures taking damage or being dealt damage in combat. Whislt this doesnt prevent your opponents damage to you normally it does when given to your opponent by Zedruu. The other card is Jace, Architect of Thought. This card gives enemies creatures -1/-0, stopping any kind of Deciever Exarch combos (Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki), this isnt Jace's only use though he also gives you card advantage and his ult is potentially game winning
Take It, I Insist
The cards in this section all have synergy with the commanders ability and near to no other use in the deck. The first of these is Vedalken Plotter, this wizard can trade one of your lands with an opponents, this means that if your opponent is in different colours you can give the what is a mostly useless land in exchange for something like a Command Tower or a different utility land. This section also includes two of my favourite creatures in all of magic, Akroan Horse and Perplecing Chimera. Akroan Horse giveseveryone but its owner 1/1 soldiers and Perplexing Chimera allows its controller to swap it with any spell, this become hilarious when it's bouncing around a 4-player game. The last of these is Aggressive Mining. This card is used only to give to the player you like the least, preventing them playing lands and essentially locking them out of the game, this card can also be used when you are land flooded to draw more cards.
Tutors
This deck has two powerful tutors. The first is Trinket Mage, this card has some incredibly good targets in this deck. The first is Helm of the Gods, a card that turns any creature into a win condition. Sensei's Divining Top one of the most powerful drawing engines in all of magic and as mentioned before should be in all EDH control decks. Finally is Sol Ring probably one of the best mana rocks you can play and often considered one of the strongest turn one plays in all of commander. The other tutor in the deck is Wild Research an enchantment that allows you to pay either 1W to search for an enchantment or 1U to search for an instant or sorcery. This tutor does however have a downside in that after you have searched for what you need the enchantment makes you discard a card from your hand at random.
Utility Lands
This deck runs two utility lands. The first is Halimar Depths, this land allows you to look at the top three cards of your library and put them into any order you choose allowing you to set up your next three draws. The other utility land is Homeward Path, a very useful card that allows you to retrieve any cards that opponents take control of for no cost.
Other Useful Cards
There are some other useful cards that don't really fit into any of the other sections. Two of these are very not only useful by themselves but they also work with the enchantment synergys in the deck. Leyline of Anticipation works well with the control theme by allowing you to wait until the last possible moment before making playing any of your cards. The other enchantment is Future Sight, this card is very useful, it gives you alot of information by showing you the top card of your library. It doesnt only give you the information but also lets you play it from the top acting like an extension of your hand. The other card is Fatespinner. This creature helps to stunt your opponents turns by stopping them taking either their draw, main or combat phase.
Now that I've covered the utility portion of the deck lets move onto how the deck actually wins.
Winning The Game
Street Fighter: MTG Edition
Like any good commander deck this one has multiple ways of winning. The first of these is the most common way of winning in magic, bringing the opponents life total to 0. The weakest of these beatdown win conditions is Sacred Mesa. This method kills through a series of 1/1 fliers, this is a particularly slow method as it requires you to sacrifice a the enchantment unless you sacrifice a pegasus meaning that building up a strong enough board to kill any opponent takes a long time, especially if you want to be doing anything else with your turns. The larger, and more reliable, version of this is Sigil of the Empty Throne. This card is very powerful in a deck like this due to the sheer volume of the enchantments in the deck. This current version runs 22 enchantments which is more than a third of the nonlands cards in the deck. The biggest difference between the Sigil and the Mesa is not only the larger fliers but also the fact that you do not have to sacrifice any of them to keep the enchantment alive.
The next set of win cons are the ones that have enchantment synergy (other than Sigil of the Empty Throne which I have written about above). These other cards are Helm of the Gods and Opalescence. Helm of the God is an equipment that gives +1/+1 for each enchantment that you control. As mentioned above the density of enchantments if very high meaning that this card can turn any creature into a serious threat. In a similar vein Opalescence turns each of these enchantments into a creature, this works alongside the Helm in turning your enchantments into threats.
The last of the beatdown win conditions are the actual creatures. I wanted to try to put as few creatures into this deck as possible. After seeing someone a Mogis enchantment deck on Commander Vs. that ran no creatures I wanted to give something similar a shot myself. I decided that the deck needed some of the better creatures in Zedruu's colours. The first of these isn't even really a creature but instead an equipment with Living Weapon. This creature is Batterskull. When played it becomes a 4/4 with vigilance and lifelink. Were this card not good enough by itself it also has the ability to be bounced back it its owner's hand. The other creatures are bother 8 cmc creatures that have the potential to win games by themselves. These creatures are Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Stormtide Leviathan. Stormtide Leviathan serves two purposes, the first is as an 8/8 unblockable body that prevents any non-flying, non-islandwalk creatures from attacking you. The other, Avacyn is an 8/8 flier with vigilance that makes all of your permenants indestructible.
The Decks Protagonists
The main characters in the majority of Magic's lore are the Planeswalkers. I have always imagined that if Magic: The Gathering were a TV show I think that Jace would be the main character. In addition to this Narset was one of the most prominent characters in the Tarkir storyline. Since I got hold of him Jace, the Mind Sculptor has been in every blue deck that I have built and for very good reason, he gives card advantage, sets up future draws and has the potential to win games by himself. On the other hand whilst Narset does not have an instant win as her ult most decks suffer alot by losing the ability to play noncreature spells.
The 'combos'
The reason the word combo is in quotation marks is because they aren't really combos in the most well known sense. Most people consider combos in commander to be infinite, Azami & Mind over Matter & Lab Maniac, Kiki-Jiki & Restoration Angel, Mikaeus & Triskelion. These are all very common combos because they can end a game in the blink of an eye. The combos in this deck dont win so quickly. Due to the amount of drawing that Zedruu allows both through her own ability and her colours the deck can win very quickly through Sphinx's Tutelage. This wins very quickly against most decks and even quicker against mono coloured decks. The other of these 'combos' is Felidar Sovereign, this card combos with not only your own life total but also with Helm of the Gods as it causes you to gain more life depending on how many enchantments you have.
Removal
Board Wipes
Board wipes are a very useful tool on multiplayer games as they give you alot of leverage when another player has a very strong board presence. Board wipes comes in all shapes and sizes. The first that I am going to talk about are the ones that destroy land. The first of these is the most well known, armageddon. A four mana cost board wipe that destroys all land. The other land board wipe is Decree of Annihilation. When actually played it exiles all artifacts, creatures, lands and graveyards however it can be cycled to draw you one card and destroy all lands, the most important part of this is that it can be done at instant speed allowing you to play your turn and then destroy your opponents lands during the next upkeep so that any mana they float beforehand leaves their pool.
The next set of board wipes are those that focus on creatures. The best known of these is Wrath of God. Alot the cards that destroy creatures and prevent regeneration are known as Wrath effects. This deck runs two of these. The first being Wrath of God and the second being Supreme Verdict. whilst Wrath of God is a very strong card the stronger of these cards is Supreme Verdict because of one line of text, 'can't be countered'. This is incredibly important in commander as the strongest decks in the format are those that can play the biggest and most powerful cards and surprise, surprise, these are almost always those that include blue in their colour identity.
Finally in this section I will talk about what I like to call a 'pseudo' removal, in this case it's one of the most powerful cards in the format. Back when David McDarby and Danny West were the hosts of Commander Vs. they nicknamed it Cyclonic Rift Vs. something that works when talking about a spell as powerful as Cyclonic Rift. An instant speed spells that returns all nonland permanents not controlled by the spells controller.
Permanent Removal
This section is about something that works very well with Zedruu even more than with other commanders. These cards are removal that replaces what you remove with a permanent that can then be given to your opponents to synergise with Zedruu. The first of these is Darksteel Mutation. This card is particularly powerful in commander as you can use it to effectively remove an opponents commander without giving them the ability to put it back into their command zone, this is especially powerful against the voltron commanders without built in protection such as Zurgo or the Combo based commanders such as Prossh. The other removal spells are Oblivion Ring and Detention Sphere, two more cards that leave a permanent behind that can then be given to others. Whilst these still allow players to put their commander into the command zone however they are still incredibly useful against any non-commanders such as Avacyn or other noncreature permanents.
Finally is the spot removal. For the most part sport removal is very weak in multiplayer commander games however this is very good removal as it allows you to remove permanents whilst reimbersing the controller with card draw or permanents to keep that player happy in terms of politics. This card draw is comes from Oblation whilst the pemanent reimbersement comes from the top of the deck after shuffling thanks to Chaos Warp.
The last piece of spot removal is Karn Liberated. This is one of the most common Planeswalkers across a series of decks due to the fact that he can be put into any deck. At 7 cmc Karn can exile any card from an opponents hand or any permanents on the battlefield. Karn is a very powerful card for removal however that is not his only use and he can also be used to reset games that are out of hand due to either an infinite life combo or just alot of life due to a commander like Oloro.
'Prison' Effects
My first ever commander deck was the pre-built Derevi one. When I started playing magic my first ever deck was a blue intro deck that ran alot of fliers so I figured why not make my first commander a flier. That deck came with a card called Propaganda. I thin proceeded to put this card in every blue commander deck I played (I played Azami for a long time). Once I put some research into playing Zedruu I found out that there were other cards with similar effects, Ghoslty prison and Sphere of Safety are the ones that this deck uses. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are esentially the same card in two different colours whilst Sphere of Safety works like alot of the other cards in this deck, it becomes stronger the more enchantments you control.
Card Draw
You Get a Card, You Get a Card, You Get a Card
One of the biggest sources of card draw in this deck are the artifacts and enchantments that let both the owner and all of the other players in the game draw cards. This works in two ways, it lets you draw and works some way towards preventing other players from just rushing you to 0 life as quickly as possible since everyone loves drawing cards. My favourite of these cards is Temple Bell, it allows you you shout ''DING!'' whenever you tap it. Then there is Howling Mine and Dictate of Kruphix, an artifact and enchantment that let all players draw an extra card in their draw step. The difference between the two is that you can flash in the Dictate in the end step of the player before you so that they do not benefit from it. The next card is Well of Ideas. Just like Howling Mine and Dictate of Kruphix that card lets other players draw and extra card in their draw step however the reason it is six cmc instead of two or three is that when you play it it lets you draw two cards as well as letting you draw two in your draw step putting you one card ahead of your opponents at all times. Finally is Vision Skeins, this isnt an artifact or enchantment but an instant speed spell that lets all players draw two. This card has incredible synergy with Consecrated Sphinx as it lets you draw two from the card itself and then four from each other player.
Cantrips
Cantrips are a very common part of all control decks. They are one mana spells that allow you to draw cards as well as allowing you to decide which one you draw from a small selection (normally two or three of the cards on top of your library. There isn't much you can write about these as at their core they're very simple but powerful cards.
Artifacts
There are some artifacts in this deck that work with card draw. One of these is a new artifact from Magic Origins, Alhammarret's Archive. This card doubles the number of cards drawn (other than the first during the draw step and any life gained. The other is Sensei's Divining Top, an incredibly powerful card that lets you both draw cards and set up your next few draws all on a card that you can play on turn one.
Creatures
Some of the drawing and card selection in this deck comes from the creatures put in this deck, part of the reason why I decided to add creatures into what was menat to be a fully enchantment based deck. One of these is another version of Jace. Since his release in Magic Origins this card has become a staple in every format a two mana looter that turns into a Snapcaster Mage on a stick.
The next of these creatures that I'd like to talk about is one that sees play in alot of duel commander decks, Sea Gate Oracle. This card is similar to anticipate but on a 1/3 body, it allows you to look at the top two cards of your library and put one of those into your hand, card advantage and card selection all in one.
The last two pieces of creature based card draw can also double up as ways to win the game. The first is Keranos, God of Storms. An insdestrctible enchantment creature (hello dedk synergy) that can either draw you an extra card or deal 3 damage to a creature or player depending on what your first draw of that turn is. Thanks to the number of enchantments in this deck its very easy to reach the seven devotion that is needed to make Keranos a creature. The other card is Consecrated Sphinx, a 4/6 flier giving you a powerful blocker and four power in the air that lets you draw two cards for every card that your opponents draw. This keeps your ahead of your opponents hand size meaning that you will almost always have an answer to what your opponents play.
Enchantments
This deck runs an enchantment that lets you loot in your draw step. This card is Monastery Siege, you have two options when you play it. The first form, 'Khans', lets you loot during your draw step, whilst the other form, 'Dragons', makes other players pay extra mana to target you or permanents you control. This cards versatility is important but so is the synergy with the other cards that benefit from enchantments.
Banned Through Time
Ever since the January after the release of Khans, Dig Through Time has been banned in modern and since September this year it has been banned in Legacy. Due to this it is clear that this card has some serious power behind it being in the banlist alongside cards like Black Lotus and Ancestral Recall. This card lets you look through the top seven cards of your library and put two into your hand at instant speed and thanks to delve all of this can be done for the low price of UU.
"I Play Kiki-Ji-" "No"
The cornerstone of blue control decks, aside from card draw, has been counter magic. Keeping the biggest threats that other players control off ot the board is the best way to keep yourself alive. This deck only runs four counter spells, a very small number compared to most countrol decks, the main reason for this is because counter spells normally annoy your opponents and get you targetted. The first of these counter spells is Arcane Denial, this card works in your favour as it allows your opponents to draw cards hopefully counteracting the fact that you just countered their Craterhoof Behemoth. The next spell is Render Silent, an Azorius counterspell that prevents players from casting any more spells that turn, something that is very strong against the Sultai and Five-Colour Goodstuff decks since they play so many spells in one turn. The next is Wild Ricochet. This isn't a traditional counterspell as it just changes the target of the spell before copying it and choosing new targets for the copy. This spell is normally used on your own spells, to get more out of them such as Dig Through Time and Vision Skeins. The last of these counterspells is the Modern staple, Cryptic Command. This card is very useful as it has alot of versatility, it can counter a spell, draw a card, tap your opponents creatures or return a permanent to its owners hand. The main use of the bouncing is for tokens such as Marit Lage or Stoneforged Blade. while the tapping of creatures can be instrumental is keeping yourself alive against aggro decks.
Ramp Artifacts
This Section is going to be very short as there isn't much to write about. This deck only runs two artifacts that ramp your mana, Sol Ring and Thran Dynamo. Sol Ring is self-explanitory, probably the best turn one play in EDH and still an incredibly useful play later into the game. Thran Dynamo is very similar but is more powerful in the late game thanks to the extra mana that it generates however its cost of four mana makes it weaker than Sol Ring over all.
And there you have it, this is the most recent iteration of what I hinestly think is my favourite commander and deck style in commander.
As always thanks for reading, check out my other articles and let me know if you want me to write about anything in particular.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThePaulsicle
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/Paulsicle
Twitter: @LiekzMudkipz
No comments:
Post a Comment