Zedruu the Greatest of All Time

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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Theory crafting nerd out ahead. Proceed with caution.

I'm curious, when you were building the deck with your "4-card combos only" rule in mind, did you lay out all the combos on paper ahead of time, or did this gradually evolve? The more I think about it, the more I'm intrigued by any deck of a bunch of infinite but "bad" combos, and specifically how to build one from scratch. Are there any pieces in the deck that are only good for use in one of the four card combos and pretty "meh" everywhere else? If so, doesn't it hurt your soul to draw that dead combo piece when the other 3 cards don't come together? Ok, that's hyperbolic, but you get my point. Card slots are limited. Frankly, I find it very difficult to parse all this out in any sort of balanced way that would produce a functional deck, and in my attempts to produce a "fair" or "bad" combo, I often find myself realizing that I had a 2-3 card combo on my hands the entire time and didn't notice.

Just as an example, and quite a janky one at that:
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I recently thought it would be cool to mess around with what I could do with Prototype Portal + Corridor Monitor and make as many of those derpy fellows as I could before running out of mana. So what to do with the etb triggers/bodies? Well, Confusion in the Ranks seems fun, so Portal + Monitor + Confusion it is, and the fourth piece is flexible and can be any sort of enchantment bounce/removal or whatever to keep my opponents from capitalizing on the Confusion in the Ranks on their turns. We'll say Vedalken Mastermind for now. Voila, I've got a 4 card combo: Portal + Monitor + Confusion + Mastermind = Steal as many artifacts and/or creatures as I can afford in increments of after paying for Confusion and holding up to activate Mastermind. So, realistically, that's 10-14 mana in the late game to steal the 4-6 best creatures/artifacts and distribute that many 1/4s, possibly more if some of the stuff I stole taps for mana. Neat. I haven't broken the format by a long shot, but still it's neat.

My next thought is, why bother putting this in a deck by itself? Let's see if I can use some of these pieces for more combos.
So I dig some more, and it turns out that Prototype Portal + Corridor Monitor + Salivating Gremlins + Soulblast is a thing. It boils down to "make as many Monitors and +2/0 Gremlin pumps for a pop as possible before spending my last for Soulblast". I think a typical case might be 3-4 monitors and gremlin pumps before the blast, coming out to 11-14 damage to a single source for 12-14 mana, assuming there was no attack with the gremlins and my board is otherwise empty. Be still my beating heart.

Any more redundancy? I can do some stuff with Prototype Portal + Corridor Monitor + Reckless Fireweaver + Panharmonicon. =2 damage to each opponent is not too shabby at all. Add any rock that taps for 2+ and I've got a 5 card infinite damage combo.

I'll bet there's more to find out there, which is really my point and the core of my (very long winded) question. Now, in the above exercise I've gotten myself 8 cards and 3 four-card combos of varying strength/jank levels, but that pile of cards includes the likes of Salivating Gremlins and Confusion in the Ranks! At this point is it best to just keep going down combo brewing rabbit holes with those individual cards and build redundancy of 2-3+ combos per card? I'm excluding from consideration all cards that have value outside of combos for this discussion.
tl;dr - In your experience, how many combos must a dedicated combo piece with no other utility in a deck apart from said combos fit in before you would even consider it?
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
I'm curious, when you were building the deck with your "4-card combos only" rule in mind, did you lay out all the combos on paper ahead of time, or did this gradually evolve? The more I think about it, the more I'm intrigued by any deck of a bunch of infinite but "bad" combos, and specifically how to build one from scratch. Are there any pieces in the deck that are only good for use in one of the four card combos and pretty "meh" everywhere else? If so, doesn't it hurt your soul to draw that dead combo piece when the other 3 cards don't come together? Ok, that's hyperbolic, but you get my point. Card slots are limited. Frankly, I find it very difficult to parse all this out in any sort of balanced way that would produce a functional deck, and in my attempts to produce a "fair" or "bad" combo, I often find myself realizing that I had a 2-3 card combo on my hands the entire time and didn't notice.

tl;dr - In your experience, how many combos must a dedicated combo piece with no other utility in a deck apart from said combos fit in before you would even consider it?
A lot of your instincts are right here. This deck did gradually evolve, so my how to build from scratch advice is largely theoretical, other than the "guess and check" method which approaches 100% success rate if you're willing to play a bad deck for an incredibly long time. But I'm confident you're asking the right questions.

Are there any cards that are only good in one of the combos and meh everywhere else? No.
Does it hurt to draw a dead combo piece? Rarely
How many combos must a dedicated combo piece with no other utility need to fit in before I consider it? Zero.
How many combos must a dedicated combo piece with no other utility need to fit in before I keep it forever? Infinity.

I have considered mountains of cards for this deck. Some of them have been terrible and useless in most cases, but that didn't stop me from considering them. But by the time a card really makes the cut to stay in the deck, I've made appropriate considerations to make sure it isn't meh everywhere else. That's why my individual card analysis is formatted the way it is, a short description with a lot more detail on interactions with other cards, because no card exists in a vacuum. And sometimes bringing a card in means bringing more than one card in. Example: Cavalier of Dawn is a great utility card. It finished a 4-card combo with 2 cards I already play, March of the Machines and Chrome Mox, and 1 card I have played in the past and am confident in, Infinite Reflection. And it's synergy with both Precursor Golem and Mirror of Fate. And yet, I still added in Phyrexian Metamorph at the time, to really make sure I had as much good context around the new addition as possible. Turns out that was overkill and Cavalier is just excellent, but you get the point. If a card in your deck is meh in all situations but one, it's because you let it be meh in all those situations.

So like, step one in not letting your combo pieces be dead cards is to just play good cards. My list of combo cards currently includes Narset's Reversal, Nahiri's Warth, Chaos Warp, Cavalier of Dawn, Jeskai Charm, Arcbond, Detention Sphere... those are all answers. I've got 3 clone effects, which are generically good. I've got planeswalkers that are generically good. Precursor Golem is 9 power over 3 bodies which is super relevant. There's an extra turn spell and some "draw seven"s. Most of my "combo pieces" are generally good cards that need nothing extra to make them playable.

Step two is making the cards more relevant yourself by including lighter weight synergies. Let's consider the three most "combo piece" cards I play. Strionic Resonator does nothing on its own, but it's got like 20 effects it can target. It's a do nothing on its own, so I have an almost guarantee that I'll have something that works with it. Mirror of Fate is an infinite combo piece with 4-cards, but it's also potentially a 2-card Doomsday combo with 7 other cards in the deck, and occasionally just plays with Temporal Mastery to Time Stretch and win before the extra turns are done. The most useless card on its own is Barren Glory, it has essentially nothing going on outside of a full setup, technically it's 9 mana to draw more with Zedruu or a big beater with Opalescence, but it's definitely the deadest combo piece in the deck. But it's also the only combo that has multiple options for every other piece of the puzzle, with multiple avenues to empty my hand, clear my board, and get back to my upkeep. But it is definitely the most likely dead card in the deck, and often if I want to test 1 card it's the temporary cut.

Step 3 is not getting into topdeck mode. If you draw multiple cards a turn, one dead card doesn't hurt. If you have scry or loot effects, you can convert dead cards into live ones. If you have practical discard outlets, you have uses for a card even if its rules text is effectively blank. And in this format, there's no reason not to have access to these things, because you have a command zone to work with. In a deck full of bad combos, you don't need a commander as a combo piece, you want a commander that helps assemble other pieces or makes bad draws worth something.

And as far as dodging 2-3 card combos, you just have to be committed to it. You'll definitely run into accidents occasionally, but then it's off to gatherer again to find something more specific that fits as a 4-piece combo but not less. And the more specific card doesn't have to be worse. Sakashima and Detention Sphere combo for me because they have highly specific phrasing, but they're also really strong in part because of how specific they are. That's where I find a lot of my inspiration. I'll look at something like Detention Sphere and think "that's very unique, I bet it can combo". Mirror of Fate combo got in here as a consequence of trying to make Temporal Mastery's exile clause beneficial. Precursor Golem is a fairly unique card I love and decided to make work. My OG combo, Memnite/Dissipation Field came to life from trying to loop with field. Something like Prototype Portal probably isn't a bad place to start, but you're right not to want to play something like Salivating Gremlins. You could start with something like Prototype Portal, Walking Ballista, and Dross Scorpion. Then anything that triggers on an artifact or creature entering or dying makes a 4 piece combo. Those same cards could rearrange to have Dross Scorpion in the portal, and then with a mana rock, enough copies of scorpion, and a sac outlet, you get infinite scorpions, mana, and whatever that sac outlet was doing. But also if you have good artifacts, Prototype Portal doesn't need to combo to be a good card. Sacrifice outlets are good to have. Mana rocks are good to have. Walking Ballista is just a good card, that is also coincidentally a spout for any infinite mana loop (just something to be careful around if you have triggers that give +1/+1 counters).

So find 4 or 5 cards like Prototype Portal that you really want to play, they don't have to be related to each other, challenge yourself to make them combo pieces, and then surround them with cards that are good on their own while making the cards you like most better. I wouldn't recommend trying to chain from one centerpiece card to the next sequentially like a rube goldberg machine, but rather choose your favorite build-around cards independently, and then hunt down the cards that work with multiple things well. For example, Mirror of Fate and Knowledge Pool are barely related other than me insisting on playing both, but Echo Storm is an artifact clone, a reasonable card to play in a vacuum, that puts both of them over the top. The infinite Sakashima combo and Swans of Bryn Argoll aren't related, but Pandemonium is a spout for one that synergizes with the other. When I wanted another spell to untap Strionic Resonator from Eye of the Storm, I found Catch // Release that also is a fine card just interacting with other players, and is a bomb with Precursor Golem, and synergizes with Azor's Gateway, and can give Nin, the Pain Artist haste. Find a small pile of sweet cards you love, and then construct the web that ties them together.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

This is the quality content I signed up for. Thanks @tstorm823! More to come from me in the future on this, so stay tuned!
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 4 years ago

Really cool discussion points here, this thread is always an enjoyable read even though I haven't even tried this deck yet
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Post by lyonhaert » 4 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
4 years ago
I found Catch // Release ... synergizes with Azor's Gateway
I hope you haven't been counting it as two CMCs for Gateway.
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

lyonhaert wrote:
4 years ago
I hope you haven't been counting it as two CMCs for Gateway.
Nah. It can untap Gateway which is sweet for catching people off guard who thought they had another turn to answer it, and it counts as a 9.
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Post by Dragonlover » 4 years ago

On the 'are four card combos good' discussion:

I ended up hitting on a similar thought process in my alt-wincons deck. When you've got that many disparate needs, you really have to make every slot do as much as possible, which is why artifact creatures with relevant abilities are the holy grail for that deck. Similarly to the process here of making sure that all the combos are four cards, I've considered (and am indeed running) some really off the wall stuff. It also feeds into my preferred method of winning, namely threat density. I'd much rather be able to play pretty much anything in my deck, knowing that if it dies it doesn't matter because either something else will show up shortly, or the fact it's dead is somehow beneficial to me. The classic control method of 'play one thing, protect it, win with it' is anathema to me, partially due to my 40K background. There's a saying in 40K that 'one of a thing may as well be zero, two is more like three' since if you've got one big thing, it'll just die, but if you've got two? Suddenly the opponent has to make a choice, and you can use that fact to make the one they don't pick do the job.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Yeah, this is sort of theory I try to build on myself. Best evidenced currently by my Varina build, but I guess in a little bit of a different way, in that the deck doesn't combo (well, there's one, but mostly I avoid it). Almost all of the pieces in the deck are small potatoes, so spot removal is sort of wasted on them, yet in any number they are bigger than the sum of their parts and a lot of the pieces work together for larger impact. Aside from that, mass removal benefits me too with the larger number of aristocrats I run, and doesn't impede me with the reanimation subtheme too. It reminds me of the idea of a chinese finger trap - the more you struggle the tighter it gets.

There's definitely bombs in the deck, like Alhammaret's Archive, Kindred Discovery and Tombstone Stairwell but they're definitely cherries on top. Literally no one knows Stairwell well enough to remove it anyway, and by that point it's too late, and the other two are pretty much distractions anyway; I'd prefer people drop removal on those and ignore whatever else I'm doing.

This whole theory of synergy between multiple pieces is the key to building to me; it's the difference between a plan sometimes coming together and having resilience in your strategies.
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Yo, anyone who happens to be following this thread, hop over here real quick. @MeowZeDung has a deck going built to be a 4-card combo deck, that's also beast tribal, and Astral Slide based, and my brain is farting out trying to find 4-card combos other than Ghostly Flicker-based ones.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
4 years ago
my brain is farting out trying to find 4-card combos other than Ghostly Flicker-based ones.
You are way more experienced with Unbender Tine than I am, and there are definitely some untap + ETB shenanigans to be had that you will probably spot while I am oblivious to them.

Thanks for the shoutout!
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Post by Sefir » 4 years ago

Have you seen the "Baracuda of the Tide" spoiled from Commander 2020?
Does the deck need another flash enabler? I think it is worth it!!
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Barracuda of the Tide is something I'm considering for my Kykar build as both a flash enabler and combo protection. Sweet card.

I'm interested what you think of Twinning Staff @tstorm823. Probably too easy to stumble upon combos with less than 4 cards, huh?
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Sefir wrote:
4 years ago
Have you seen the "Baracuda of the Tide" spoiled from Commander 2020?
Does the deck need another flash enabler? I think it is worth it!!
I have actually thought about a card giving everyone flash at times. Now that they've actually printed it, I'm not sure. It's another 4-drop in a 4-drop heavy space, it's a creature which makes it fragile, and both of it's abilities will lead to feel bad moments for my opponents. A lot of players sort of lock themselves into play patterns and aren't going to adapt to flash on everything correctly and then feel bad that they played poorly, and then also stopping people from interacting with me will never feel good for other people.

If it cost less and lost the Grand Arbiter effect, I'd be all over it. Everyone having flash is still better for me than for other people, and it's gonna be absolute chaos whenever that thing hits the field, but it's not a feel good card. So I don't know.
MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
I'm interested what you think of Twinning Staff tstorm823. Probably too easy to stumble upon combos with less than 4 cards, huh?
Yes. Turnabout with 7 mana available, activate to copy it twice, untap all artifacts and lands, repeat for infinite mana. The triggered ability on it's own is actually not that busted, it would only care about Bonus Round, Mind's Desire, and Echo Storm her. (Eye of the Storm is a weird card, it doesn't copy spells, it copies cards and then casts them.) But the activated ability is too much. If it were a trigger like Mirari, it would probably be difficult enough to combo with, but it's too easy.

The cards I'm really looking at are Flawless Maneuver, which we've already mentioned in your thread: it's a powerful reactive card that can also act as a combo piece here, and it's a free instant so it triggers everything and makes 1 storm. And Manascape Refractor, which is a tapped Manalith for its floor, but can also let me have a creature with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx mana ability either through March of the Machines or a man-land, which would be delightful with Jeskai Ascendancy. It's also one more on the growing list of ways I can abuse my opponent's fancy lands.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
4 years ago
Flawless Maneuver, which we've already mentioned in your thread: it's a powerful reactive card that can also act as a combo piece here
You have my attention. How is it a combo piece?
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
You have my attention. How is it a combo piece?
Arcbond, any way to make a second Arcbond, Jeskai Charm, and something that gives indestructibility deals infinite damage to everything and everyone while gaining me infinite life. The two creatures targeted with Arcbond bounce damage back and forth.

Right now, the only variation of that I have going is with double Precursor Golem, Arcbond, and lifelink, and damage done to a golem results in minimum of 48 damage to everything, likely much more. But that's not infinite, the infinite version with indestructibilty was why I had Ephemeral Shields for quite a while. Flawless Maneuver is more powerful and even freer than Shields.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Damn. That's spicy. I've always wanted to make a Jeskai deck based on big damage and stuff like Firesong and Sunspeaker/Soulfire Grand Master + Star of Extinction, along with all the usual suspects like Stuffy Doll, Swans of Bryn Argoll, Nin, the Pain Artist, Boros Reckoner, Spitemare, etc.. I'll have to remember this combo for whenever I get around to it.
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
Damn. That's spicy. I've always wanted to make every Jeskai deck.
FTFY
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Another card worth considering popped up: Cryptic Trilobite
.
There are a few checkboxes I look for whenever new cards are released, and this hits a few of them:
1) Mana dorks in jeskai colors make for better Jeskai Ascendancy games.
2) Mana storage is great for Zedruu, I don't need consistent mana over many turns, I just need a lot at once.
3) Optionally Free spells contribute to storm counts, power spells out of Knowledge Pool, and dramatically increase the chances I win with Mindmoil in play. It's also both a good trigger and bad hit off of Possibility Storm.
4) A 0/0 stat line is something I want to give Mirrorweave a wrath option.

I've had my eye on all these colorless hydras Wizards has pumped out lately because of points 3 and 4. Walking Ballista was almost there, but it's actually pretty hard to make a 4-card combo with Walking Ballista and cards I already play, and also very difficult to add a card to make a 4-card combo without accidentally making a 3-card combo. And now with the Cavalier of Dawn/Infinite Reflection combo, 0-mana artifact creatures are off the table. This Trilobyte is a lot more interesting to me. With the "only abilities" restriction, it's going to be genuinely difficult to find a combo for it (It's not like Zedruu is Ghave or Mikeaus), so I can throw whatever I like at it to make it work. At the same time, I'm already pretty well set-up to make the mana useful, I can filter the restricted colorless mana to more versatile mana through Skycloud Expanse, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Golden Guardian, or the 3 signets. And then there are 10 other cards in here that can use colorless mana for abilities, notably Nin, the Pain Artist.

It's not going in if I can't combo with it, but I'm reasonably confident there's something to be found between removing a counter to pay for Strionic Resonator or removing a counter to fight Golden Guardian. As I said in a semi-recent post, basically everything I'm playing that isn't a combo piece already is land, ramp, or interaction, or Golden Guardian, so if I could add a combo piece ramp card and make it combo with Golden Guardian, I'd be very happy. It is another spot where Archangel of Thune could do the job; Flawless Maneuver for indestructible, remove a counter from Trilobite to have Golden Guardian fight Archangel of Thune, gain life from lifelink and put a counter on each of my creatures, get infinite life and infinitely large creatures. But if I can avoid it, I'd rather not try Archangel of Thune again. 5 mana lightning rod creatures are not preferable for dedicated combo pieces. But I'd also be building in a combo out of 4 cards that include 2 ramp spells, 2 free spells, and 2 independently good Mirrorweave targets, so we'll see.
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Post by Sefir » 4 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
4 years ago
Another card worth considering popped up: Cryptic Trilobite

It's not going in if I can't combo with it, but I'm reasonably confident there's something to be found between removing a counter to pay for Strionic Resonator or removing a counter to fight Golden Guardian.
Isn't already the Trilobite a combo with the usual synergy of Ascendancy, Resonator and March of the Machines? At the very least it substitutes a 1C mana rock, since it can continually spend 1 mana to create colourless to put it back on itself (the combo needs an extra 1C mana rock for the Resonator ofc).
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Sefir wrote:
4 years ago
Isn't already the Trilobite a combo with the usual synergy of Ascendancy, Resonator and March of the Machines? At the very least it substitutes a 1C mana rock, since it can continually spend 1 mana to create colourless to put it back on itself (the combo needs an extra 1C mana rock for the Resonator ofc).
Yes, and I consider that a mark in its favor, but in that exact scenario it's sort of just worse than a mana rock. So I'm still hoping for more.
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Post by DrKillenger » 4 years ago

@tstorm823

Hey I've been a long time lurker of your old primer on MtGSalvation so I just want to say first, I love this deck.

I first built Zedruu waaaaay back in the day as an Enchantress deck more in line with Dechs Kaison's "Pristaxcontrombmodruu" list. While I enjoyed it and it did what it was supposed to do, I got bored with it after a while and kind of stopped playing it. I liked the idea of Enduring Ideal but every game became kind of the same thing: find and cast Ideal, lock down spells, become immortal, then gradually tutor out my wincon, Every. Single. Game.

Then I found your primer and man, reading that was a TRIP. I've since (as in like, around 6 months ago) retooled my Zedruu deck, I won't say I "copied" your list per se, more like it inspired me to do similar jank (though I did steal some of your combos and tech obviously). Every game is different and whether I win or lose it's always satisfying because the deck will at least do something dumb and ridiculous before going out in a blaze of glory lol.

I couldn't copy your list 100% even if I wanted to anyways, I can't afford stuff like Chrome Mox, Orrery, and Time Spiral; and I'm far too attached to running Illusions of Grandeur, Statecraft, and Delaying Shield in Zedruu to ever cut them.

But anyways, enough fawning, I had a couple of cards I wanted to pick your brain about that I've been running in my version with great success and didn't see mentioned in any significant capacity either here or on MtGSalvation:

Electrodominance- this thing is nuts, every time I've had it in my hand it's done insane %$#%. Worst case scenario you can just use it to effectively Flash something out for an extra and get a free burn spell out of the deal. Best case scenario I've pointed it at Swans to draw a ton of cards and I pointed it at Precursor Golem with about 7 other Golems in play to basically cast my whole hand at once. Have you ever playtested this card in your list? If so why didnt it make the cut for you? It's been an absolute bomb in mine so far. Oh and also I guess you could kill someone with it after making infinite mana, but where's the fun in that?

Fractured Identity- this seems like the kind of janky nonsense this deck was made for. It's not the most powerful card in the deck of course, but I've done some genuinely useful and/or hilarious stuff with it in a couple of games: turning one Howling Mine/Pandemonium into 3, making 3 Possibility Storms (this actually won me that game, but I give that credit more to Storm for how abuse-able it is). Giving everyone a copy of Statecraft can gum up combat for quite a while. Fracturing Swans makes it a lot easier to draw boatloads of cards off of Firestorm or Arcbond. And thats not even getting into using it on opponent's stuff. You can donate something to a player (lets use Howling Mine again as an example) then Fracture it to make more, and then donate your token-Mine back to the original opponent.

Humble Defector- I know you've said before that you don't like donating creatures because of the ubiquity of sac outlets and board wipes in EDH, but I really think this guy should be the exception to the rule for a few reasons. 1) you can only tap him on your turn, but still do it at instant speed, so at the very least you can play this guy and hold onto him until your upkeep and then tap him in response to Zedruu's trigger, as long as you don't give him to someone with an Altar then that's a guaranteed draw 3 for 1R bare minimum. 2) Politics and mental mindgames. I've had situations where me and another player who's behind made a deal to ping-pong the little guy back and forth to catch up and in those situations you get *loads* of value out of him before he bites it. And 3) holy hell is it fun to Mirrorweave this guy, I've only done it once, but it resulted in me drawing about 12 cards on the spot and donating a bunch of Servos, a Walking Atlas, and a Vedalken Plotter to my opponents, which netted me another 4 cards on my next upkeep thanks to Zedruu. Try it, it's hilarious.

and finally Spark Double I originally put this in my list because I didn't want to shell out for Sakashima, but I noticed something after the second or so time I got to play it. You can use him to copy Zedruu similarly to Sakashima, but since Spark Double isn't legendary you can Mirrorweave it. Now I know there isn't any real practical application of this in you deck (or mine really) as it is, I just wasn't sure if you'd made that connection yourself and/or if you knew of any particularly juicy ways to abuse this little loophole.

Edit: also Rainbow Vale. A land that self donates and can tap for any color of mana is pretty useful. There have been times where it gave me that crucial 4th counter on Crystalline Crawler and others where I just tapped it on the second main of my opponent's turn right before my own to draw off of it with Zedruu. Seems like a shoo-in with very little downside.

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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

DrKillenger wrote:
4 years ago
Hey I've been a long time lurker of your old primer on MtGSalvation so I just want to say first, I love this deck.

I first built Zedruu waaaaay back in the day as an Enchantress deck more in line with Dechs Kaison's "Pristaxcontrombmodruu" list. While I enjoyed it and it did what it was supposed to do, I got bored with it after a while and kind of stopped playing it. I liked the idea of Enduring Ideal but every game became kind of the same thing: find and cast Ideal, lock down spells, become immortal, then gradually tutor out my wincon, Every. Single. Game.
I jumped on the Zedruu train the first time I saw it spoiled and bought the precon at midnight release, and I was putting my deck online before I first saw Pristaxcontrombmodruu, but that thread I think was the first of the many like-minded Zedruu players I've found online, and when I eventually get posted a long list of cards that have been considered, that list will get a shout-out.
I couldn't copy your list 100% even if I wanted to anyways, I can't afford stuff like Chrome Mox, Orrery, and Time Spiral; and I'm far too attached to running Illusions of Grandeur, Statecraft, and Delaying Shield in Zedruu to ever cut them.
I'm always glad that people are playing different things in this deck, partly because I don't have the chance to test every possible thing, mostly because people just have fun in different ways then I do. I don't like the bad gifts package and I never recommend it, but I hope that the people who know they enjoy it keep doing what they enjoy. I like that people are doing their own takes. I look around at Zedruu lists online every so often, and there are quite a few that I consider influenced by me (as measured by the inclusion of Mirror of Fate, that card is my thumb print, so long as the deck is otherwise pretty similar), but I'll often see inclusions that make me go "huh, interesting". To the cards!

Electrodominance- absolutely deserves a tryout, and is really just a victim of circumstance. Return to Return to Ravnica was just an insane time for EDH cards, including for this deck, and I still have not gotten around to all of them, I genuinely forgot about Electrodominance. I would consider this a flash enabler, of which I've become very comfortable having 3, and might try this out in place of Raff for a time, which will make it easy to find the space to test it. And thinking about it further, that would be combining a flash enabler and a trigger for damage based combos at once. there's a lot of theorycrafting support for this one.
EDIT: I also like the flavor text of Electrodominance, and I am that easily swayed to add things.

Fractured Identity- I did try this out for a bit, and I understand the mortal sin I'm about to commit by saying this, but the card was kind of overkill for me. It's a funny hybrid of a removal spell and a clone effect, but it's a mana expensive option for either of those effects. Removing threats or multiplying Howling Mines is something I want to do early in the game, but this costs 5-mana. And once I have enough mana that 5 isn't a lot anymore, I'm looking for ways to win, and other than Possibility Storm or Precursor Golem, this never did that for me. And hitting Possibility Storm with it is usually just blind luck. It was an awkward spot in the deck that didn't feel right to me, but I also wasn't playing anything like Statecraft

Humble Defector- "I've had situations where me and another player who's behind made a deal to ping-pong the little guy back and forth to catch up and in those situations you get *loads* of value out of him before he bites it."

I would not get this. People certainly cooperate with me in games, good politics requires it, but I've got reputation enough among my groups that people know it's better for them to not draw the cards than to give it to me. Like, thats how the Howling Mines work, if everyone is drawing extra cards, it's my advantage, and people know that by now. And I don't like donating creatures in Zedruu. And I play this in my Mardu "give people creatures" deck (which might have a new general just printed), so I'm fine without it. Again, it'll get mentioned if I ever get around to mentioning every suggestion.

Spark Double: there's just a limit on the clones I can play. Sakashima is unique not only for cloning legends, but also for keeping its name when it does. Spark Double also is more versatile than just cloning creatures, which is always something I've liked, but I could play Clever Impersonator for that. The Mirrorweave angle is interesting, but you'll find that most non-lord legends don't benefit hugely from cloning. Wizards is pretty good at making legendary creatures feel good to play with only one copy. I definitely considered this when it came out, but ultimately decided against it because of the "you control" restriction. Being able to clone other people's things is a big, big reason to play clone effects, it's a bit of a catch-up mechanic for when you're behind. Without that factor, Spark Double is a powerful proactive spell without interactive options, and interaction is how you keep the fun in games you aren't winning linearly.

Rainbow Vale. I play so few lands, I need my lands to do work. Rainbow Vale is a fine way to fuel Zedruu in a long game, and a funny target for a Political Trickery, but I can't cut another land for it and add to my risk of early mana screw, I would need to cut a spell, and that's the hardest thing in the world.

Whirlwind of Thought: sure, why not.
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."

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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

With things settled down at least for the moment, I'm gonna summarize what I'm looking at to keep track of my own thoughts.

1) First test out other flash enablers, Electrodominance and Barracuda of the Tide. I'm going to test them individually in place of Raff to see how I like them. I expect to like Electrodominance more and Barracuda less, but you never know without trying. If either of them feels good, I'll look at having 4 flash enablers, especially if I like Barracuda, because the importance of Raff (and Shimmer Myr before him) was being instant speed on their own, because they can start a chain of responses if I need to do something big on top of the stack. Barracuda can't do that.

2) Raugrin Triome is at minimum better than some of my existing mana fixing. Manascape Refractor actually looks really cool. It's a double of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx that actually works. It makes the manlands a more meaningful contribution to Jeskai Ascendancy nonsense, as it can animate off of them for all colorless mana and then tap for more than 1 mana likely off of each untap. If I hadn't just taken Thought Vessel out for something else, I'd probably take it out for this. So I think I'm going back up to the previous number of mana rocks.

3) I'd like to try the combo of Golden Guardian, Flawless Maneuver, Archangel of Thune, and Cryptic Trilobite. All of which slot into existing packages, and most of which are useful on their own. Additionally, I've convinced myself the Archangel + Trilobite is the right pair, because it also kind of combos with Azor's Gateway and Mirrormade. If you can get a non-doublesided copy of Azor's Gateway to 5 different cmcs, it will gain 5 life and untap, but can't flip. The life gain will trigger Archangel to put a counter on Trilobite which pays for the next activation. So for every card in the library, you can gain 5 life, put a counter on your creatures, and add a Trilobite mana to your mana pool. Which will end the game on the spot if you either have regular mana to cast winning spells or have creatures enough to attack through blockers.

4) Whirlwind of Thought is just a neat card.

Sooooo, cutting a land for a land and a flash enabler for a flash enabler as the easy cuts, that leaves 5-cards I want to make cuts for... I've got my doubts that's going to happen. But let's see what I can do. My actual sleeved pile looks like this:
Greatest of All Time
Approximate Total Cost:

Last time I was looking for cuts, I looked at things that aren't lands, ramp, interaction, or combo pieces for cuts, and I cut all of them except for Golden Guardian. And this time I'm looking to make Guardian part of a 4-card infinite. And considering how the Strionic Resonator combos tend to work with either Jeskai Ascendancy or Turnabout, it's pretty accurate to call lands and mana rocks combo pieces themselves even beyond the obvious "you need mana to play the combo pieces" interpretation. So there's a definite possibility that I can make every card in the deck a theoretical combo piece. Let's find out.

Eye of the Storm/Turnabout/Catch // Release/Strionic Resonator goes infinite with lands, so I'm counting lands.
Jeskai Ascendancy/March of the Machines/Strionic Resonator goes infinite with mana rocks, so count those too, except Chrome Mox which dies in that scenario.
Chrome Mox/Cavalier of Dawn/Infinite Reflection/March of the Machines adds the Chrome Mox.
Rest in Piece/Mirror of Fate/Temporal Mastery + draw engine counts in all of the Howling Mines and Zedruu.

That already counts for 61 cards from the existing pile.

Barren Glory theoretically adds Nahiri's Wrath, Firestorm, Vedlaken Orrery, Leyline of Anticipation, Temporal Cascade, and Leave // Chance.
Precursor Golem/Jeskai Charm/Mirrormade/Arcbond is 4 more, up to 72.
There's the Mind's Desire/Echo Storm variant of Mirror of Fate, as well as the twin planeswalker version, that's 4 more up to 76.
Opalesence/Detention Sphere/Sakashima the Impostor/Pandemonium is up to 80.
Chaos Warp combo adds only Chaos Warp. Narset's Reversal combos can add Time Spiral, Bonus Round, and any of the effective spouts there to the list, which adds in Nin, the Pain Artist as well. 85 down.

That leaves 15 cards left:
I'm already talking about cutting Raff for a card that could allow surprise Barren Glory, and the additions I want to make would add Mirrorweave (by route of Archangel Precursor Arcbond) and Golden Guardian to the list. That leaves 12 non-combo pieces in the deck, and by my current flippant rationalizing, everything I'm looking adding at combos. But at this point, I'm remembering that I can't get this deck to 100% infinite combos because Knowledge Pool and Possibility Storm and Pentad Prism and Mindmoil just don't do infinite loops by nature and they're here to stay.

Remaining are 4 exchange cards. If I'm really stretching my criteria, they help Zedruu draw more cards which is how to take infinite turns with Mirror of Fate, but that's really only worth a half. With the addition of Cryptic Trilobite though, I do have a zero cost creature again, which breaks open the 5-card combo of donated Venser, Shaper Savant with Infinite Reflection, 0-mana creature bounces itself, Pandemonium. Both Role Reversal and Sudden Substitution can set that up. And Venser, Shaper Savant can do a lot of 5 or 6 card loops, like Eye of the Storm/Bonus Round/Leave // Chance/Turnabout/Venser. So those three cards all take part in multiple 5-card versions of things.

With those 3 rationalized, and 2 more turned into combos, and 4 more locked in, and Raff already maybe out, my remaining 5 cuts would be looking at coming out of the following list:

Political Trickery
Vedalken Plotter
Swans of Bryn Argoll
Inferno Titan
Vanish Into Memory

Oof. Well. Let's think it through. I had 3 exchange cards (2 3s and a 4-drop) for a long time, I could cut one Political Trickery and be back to where I started. It would make me less interactive with lands, but Chaos Warp can replace the removal aspect, Sudden Substitution replaces the donation aspect, and Manascape Refractor replaces the land effect stealing aspect. So that's one probably.

Inferno Titan was added as a combo piece ling ago, but without Dissipation Field it isn't. I'm adding in a couple big mana sinks at the moment, so the pump isn't needed, and adding a couple good Mirrorweave targets to replace that role.

Swans isn't infinite currently, but it stays.

Vanish Into Memory could probably go, I have far more interaction than I used to, but it'd hurt to see it never play alongside Cryptic Trilobite.

So that's 2 or 3 more cuts there, I get down below 6-7 remaining non-combo cards in the deck, and the rest of my cuts will have to be swapping out from redundant combo pieces. Phew, some progress made in making hard decisions. That's potentially enough cut to try out Electrodominance and the full Archangel package, and then I just need to cut a pair of cards for Whirlwind of Thought and Manascape Refractor.
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Kykar primer and other active decks (click!)

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