HELP: Wincons for Ojutai?

[PrimevalCommander]

Dragonlord Ojutai

I'm building my brother an Ojutai deck as an alternative to the Korvold, Fae-Cursed King deck that I built him about 18 months ago. He has the Korvold deck down pretty good, and with Korvold being a one card engine, it runs like a top most games. He is a new player and doesn't own any cards, so I'm building him a couple decks to play with us. He is getting pretty good at the interactions and synergies.

His Ojutai deck is struggling to reach critical mass and close out the game. So far we are only playing 1v1, which could be the main problem, but my established decks have a clear advantage at amassing a cumulative advantage that his deck is not matching. I need some big payoff spells for late game to punch through stalemates and use the mana/cards he has accumulated into the late game. Right now the shell is a weak Azorious control deck with Voltron capabilities without going too all in.

Deck breakdown:
27-28 creatures to create a board presence. Several large flyers and etb value creatures.
8 pieces of removal
7 pieces of draw (this may be one issue)
4 counter spells
3 board wipes
4 equipment for the Voltron Win
3-4 blink synergy cards
0 combos
0 dedicated "WIN CON" cards
Low synergy overall.

What I don't want:
Infinite Combos: Unless I put in a 3-4 card Sun Titan combo, but even that I am shying away from. Are there any good Sun Titan combos in UW?
Extra Turns
Mass lockdown like Enchanted Evening + mass enchanment removal

What are your favorite and lategame finishers. Creatures, Spells, Enchantments?

[Outcryqq]

Approach of the Second Sun is something I use pretty regularly in blue/white.

[pokken]

Since Dragonlord Ojutai doesn't do anything with other dragons or creatures there's really no reason to bother with them. Creatures are mostly crappy in Azorius unless you have some kinda gameplan.

The deck should control a lot, since he generates deep card quality and advantage. I'd aim for more like 15-20 total counter/removals, and some that shut off eldrazi like Disallow and Summary Dismissal, since they do a lot of work stopping shenanigans.

No combos in UW synergize strongly with Ojutai. I would just focus on controlling voltron wins vs. comboing I think.

That said, he's pretty good with planeswalkers, so running a couple like Ajani Steadfast and anything else you can find that gives vigilance is good.

I would definitely run my "don't taze me bro" package of:

• comeuppance
• aetherspouts
• settle the wreckage
• selfless squire
• teferi's protection

And possibly Angel of the Dire Hour, I have really liked tha tone.

Also consider Winds of Abandon as a Spellseeker targetable sweeper to go along with Cyclonic Rift.

If you do wind up with a blink package (Which is decent with Ojutai) you can consider a Reveillark / Karmic Guide combo I guess, that's what I lean on with Ephara.

[Mookie]

Most Dragonlord Ojutai decks I've seen have been control / voltron decks - they throw a vigilance-granting equipment (such as Sword of Vengeance or Batterskull) on Ojutai and attack a few times until their opponents die from commander damage. Meanwhile, Ojutai keeps their hand full of countermagic and interaction.

I'll second pokken's suggestion - cut the weaker creatures and add more countermagic / removal. 27 creatures is a lot for a control deck in EDH, since especially if it's heavy on board wipes. If you're only playing 1v1, board wipes are a bit less necessary, I suppose. I don't think any dedicated win conditions cards are actually necessary, since Ojutai is already enough of a win condition by himself. That said, including something like Blackblade Reforged to speed up the clock is reasonable.

[Hawk]

Agreed with all of the above - Ojutai looks to me to work best as a hard control commander who wins off of Approach of the Second Sun or Voltron-ing people to death alongside Swords, Batterskull, Commander's Plate, etc. This would also give your brother a very different playstyle to react to - a draw-go deck that plays defense until its time to start swinging out with Ojutai, rather than a tapout beatdown deck that just plays its cards and uses its mana every turn like Korvold.

That being said, you could for sure you could build some sort of fliers deck since Ojutai just so happens to have flying. Since that's white/blue's draft archetype basically every other set, there's tons of support for it. A short list is:

- Watcher of the Spheres and Warden of Evos Isle help your mana efficiency.
- Kangee, Sky Warden, Gravitational Shift, Empyrean Eagle, Favorable Winds, and Thunderclap Wyvern, make your creatures big.
- Pride of the Clouds, Skycat Sovereign and Soulcatcher will be big themselves.
- Siani, Eye of the Storm, Tide Skimmer, and ability-agnostic cards like Bident of Thassa and Reconnaissance Mission keep your hand nice and full.
- Sephara, Sky's Blade and Jubilant Skybonder keep your creatures safe.

To be fair and clear - I think such a deck is 110% improved by using Kangee or some partners (take your pick from among Siani, Ravos, Soultender, Keleth, Sunmane Familiar, Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker, and Akroma, Vision of Ixidor) as the deck's Commander instead, but it would still be fun and functional with Ojutai at the helm!

[umtiger]

You can grind out plenty of wins with control plus walkers.

Protecting Ojutai isn't too bad when you can vigilance it up or have Minamo, School at Water's Edge

[PrimevalCommander]

I was afraid that would be the consensus. I'll ask him if he wants to go harder on control or try something new. I think all of you are correct in your assessment, with no particular synergy with anything, built in protection, and card advantage on combat damage, a control/voltron strategy is a natural choice. For someone who isn't experienced with holding interaction for long periods of time, I'm not sure this would be the best deck for a relative beginner.

I like Ojutai because he is threat and draw in the command zone. Not unlike Korvold, but at a much more fair level. These types of commanders really help new players stay in the game when they have access to a commander that is always relevant. I was looking for a commander outside Jund that could introduce him to counter spells and other colors without leaning too heavy on control. In my experience giving a new player too many counterspells just leads to manipulation by other players and unintended kingmaking plays.

[Dunharrow]

I mean, if you don't want too much control you can go more heavily into voltron. Use the control aspects as tempo plays, try to one-shot or two-shot opponents.

[pokken]

I was afraid that would be the consensus. I'll ask him if he wants to go harder on control or try something new. I think all of you are correct in your assessment, with no particular synergy with anything, built in protection, and card advantage on combat damage, a control/voltron strategy is a natural choice. For someone who isn't experienced with holding interaction for long periods of time, I'm not sure this would be the best deck for a relative beginner.

I like Ojutai because he is threat and draw in the command zone. Not unlike Korvold, but at a much more fair level. These types of commanders really help new players stay in the game when they have access to a commander that is always relevant. I was looking for a commander outside Jund that could introduce him to counter spells and other colors without leaning too heavy on control. In my experience giving a new player too many counterspells just leads to manipulation by other players and unintended kingmaking plays.

If he wants to play a more swarmy azorius, I can't recommend Ephara Lifegain highly enough as a potential option. Making 5/5 horses and angels and stuff and gaining tons of life.

Ojutai jus really doesn't fit as a new player learning style of play in my opinion.

[PrimevalCommander]

If he wants to play a more swarmy azorius, I can't recommend Ephara Lifegain highly enough as a potential option. Making 5/5 horses and angels and stuff and gaining tons of life.

Decklist?

I don't have a ton of lifegain support, and I don't really want to order 1/2 of a deck as an experiment, but if there are enough cheap ($) support cards we may give it a try.

Ephara does seem to have a few staunch supporters here. I just don't want it to be too predictable, but lifegain would do well in our meta.

[pokken]

If he wants to play a more swarmy azorius, I can't recommend Ephara Lifegain highly enough as a potential option. Making 5/5 horses and angels and stuff and gaining tons of life.

Decklist?

I don't have a ton of lifegain support, and I don't really want to order 1/2 of a deck as an experiment, but if there are enough cheap ($) support cards we may give it a try.

Ephara does seem to have a few staunch supporters here. I just don't want it to be too predictable, but lifegain would do well in our meta.

Haven't built it but for theory crafting but 100% sure there's a reasonable deck there with all the support. If you don't want to order cards it's tough cos there's so much random jank.

Here's a draft I started a while back.
https://deckbox.org/sets/2383832

[ISBPathfinder]

True Conviction would fit as a finisher and it has good synergy with Ojutai in that it gives you 2x triggers. The lifegain from it is nice as well but you might also consider Duelist's Heritage as well or instead depending on if your creature count is low.