This deck has been retired.
Companion
Now there will be some people making cEDH decks with Zirda, the Dawnwaker as the actual commander, but here we are using the companion ability instead.
The way the deck works is that you have Zirda, the Dawnwaker as your starting companion. The requirements is that all of your permanent cards must have activated abilities.
This means that you can cast Zirda, the Dawnwaker from your "sideboard" once throughout the game.
The reason for playing Zirda, the Dawnwaker is that it has the powerful ability to give you infinite colorless mana with either Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith.
The reason for not playing Zirda, the Dawnwaker as your actual commander is so that you have access to other colors.
So the deck has a central theme around generating infinite mana, and then using mana sink cards to draw your deck.
Commander
Now Kenrith, the Returned King is a mana sink, but requires colored mana in order to keep reusing his abilities. So you cannot simply win with just Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Grim Monolith/Basalt Monolith.
It must be noted that there are only a few colorless mana sink commanders that meet the requirements of needing Boros colors AND activated abilities, as the commander is considered part of your "starting deck".
I've also theory-crafted around Golos, Tireless Pilgrim as another option, and it has many of the same ideas, but it has a few tangents to how you can win. I have the full deck list and explain later on in the post.
Colorless mana sink commander for Zirda as companion
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Sliver Overlord and Sliver Queen could be used as colorless mana sinks commander for this idea.
You could literally create infinite 1/1's with Sliver Queen. However the problem is that you actually have to spend to cast it, and then wait a full turn.
I checked options for Sliver Overlord as well, and there is no "auto win" that you can do, especially given that any Slivers need an activation ability.
Scion of the Ur-Dragon is a way to filter putting Dragons/Changelings into your graveyard and potentially going through a series of them in play to use their abilities.
You could go for Mirror Entity and make all your mana dorks infinitely large and attack for lethal.
But without evasion, or guaranteeing that you have enough creatures to attack with, is a bit hit or miss.
If you stack the Scion trigger, so that you get a series of them, then you can look to put infinite +1/+1 counters on it with Clockwork Dragon.
You can then go for a creature that give it haste in Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon or Skyship Stalker to attack for lethal.
Also you could just make it Kilnmouth Dragon to tap to deal lethal damage.
However you can only kill a single opponent with this.
To get more mana you can get Clockwork Dragon (infinite +1/+1 counters) and then Ramos, Dragon Engine and remove 5 counters to add . But even with all this colored mana there are no Dragons/Changelings that can give you a win.
This also means that your deck has to have a number of these cumbersome cards in your 99, and if you draw them they are basically dead cards.
You could literally create infinite 1/1's with Sliver Queen. However the problem is that you actually have to spend to cast it, and then wait a full turn.
I checked options for Sliver Overlord as well, and there is no "auto win" that you can do, especially given that any Slivers need an activation ability.
Scion of the Ur-Dragon is a way to filter putting Dragons/Changelings into your graveyard and potentially going through a series of them in play to use their abilities.
You could go for Mirror Entity and make all your mana dorks infinitely large and attack for lethal.
But without evasion, or guaranteeing that you have enough creatures to attack with, is a bit hit or miss.
If you stack the Scion trigger, so that you get a series of them, then you can look to put infinite +1/+1 counters on it with Clockwork Dragon.
You can then go for a creature that give it haste in Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon or Skyship Stalker to attack for lethal.
Also you could just make it Kilnmouth Dragon to tap to deal lethal damage.
However you can only kill a single opponent with this.
To get more mana you can get Clockwork Dragon (infinite +1/+1 counters) and then Ramos, Dragon Engine and remove 5 counters to add . But even with all this colored mana there are no Dragons/Changelings that can give you a win.
This also means that your deck has to have a number of these cumbersome cards in your 99, and if you draw them they are basically dead cards.
So in my opinion Kenrith, the Returned King is the best choice, as he gives you access to all 5 colors while having some very powerful abilities.
Most notable he has the ability to return Zirda, the Dawnwaker from the graveyard if it dies for any reason.
How to win with infinite mana
There are a variety of mana sink cards in the deck, spread between creatures, artifacts, instants and sorcery.
The way you finish off opponents is either Walking Ballista (infinite damage) or Blue Sun's Zenith to make all your opponents draw their decks.
Possibly even infinite +1/+1 counters on your creatures with Kenrith and attack for lethal with haste.
Grand Architect and Pili-Pala are not the most popular of infinite colored mana producers in cEDH, due to being a bit more narrow in individual card use, and Pili-Pala requiring a turn normally because of summoning sickness.
However in this deck we have a few more angles.
First of all Zirda, the Dawnwaker will mean that Pili-Pala untap activation will cost one less.
This means that with Urza, Lord High Artificer you can get infinite colored mana.
Also Kenrith, the Returned King has the ability to give your creatures haste, so can mitigate the downside of waiting a turn.
Normally the artifact tutors would be used to search for either Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith, but I wanted at least one artifact that I could tutor for that could be use as a mana sink, to search for instead. I've chosen Staff of Domination and Walking Ballista.
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is another way to get infinite colorless mana with Basalt Monolith and also a great way to generate more mana off your nonland mana producers.
If for any reason you can't use Kenrith as a mana sink (maybe be stolen with Gilded Drake?), then Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy can be used as a way to win as well, activating as many times as you need to eventually put Thrasios, Triton Hero into play.
It must be noted that although infinite colorless mana does require a mana sink to ultimately win, you can still use the colorless portions for activating Kenrith, the Returned King.
So with Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Grim Monolith/Basalt Monolith you can still spend to draw a card. If your opponents are not able to deal with this, then you can soon take over the game out resourcing people.
If it does just come down to Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Kenrith, the Returned King in play, then you can still draw a card for each which can happen during more grindy games.
5-color good stuff
With access to all 5 colors you can just play all the best spells in cEDH right? Well yes and...actually no.
The thing that you have to remember is that Zirda, the Dawnwaker is Boros colors. So if you want to cast it say Turn 2 or Turn 3 for a quick win, then you have to be able to generate some combination of the Boros colors (, , ) in those early turns.
Often Sultai has the best sort of cheap interactive spells in commander, and this is a reflection of number of quality cEDH decks that run mainly Sulati colors. There are exceptions that splash White and Red for other good stuff, but you won't find many decks that Boros colors are actually the core of cEDH decks.
My first interaction of the deck was trying to be too much about running all the 5 color good stuff, and what I was finding is that because I was fixing for Sultai colors to be able to cast all my spells, I didn't have an easy way to cast Zirda, the Dawnwaker always in a timely manner because my mana fixing didn't have Boros in mind.
I played around with a lot of different ideas on how to reactify this, thinking about more White fixing and playing more White cards, but in the end I decided that Red gave me better options.
So I've skewed the mana base to have a bit more of a Red theme, and where some cards that could be one-for-one better in another color, I've opted for a Red card instead so that its a little bit more easy to use a fetchland to get a land that provides Red.
An example of this type of thing is that I used to play Assassin's Trophy and Abrupt Decay, but are now playing Wear // Tear and Abrade as alternative options. Altough the are not the same catchall, trying to fix for Golgari colors is really hard when one of your main combo cards is Boros colors.
This also meant just cutting down on Black cards and cutting down on White in general.
This is why there are some additional mana fixing options like Tinder Wall and Manamorphose to really help with casting Zirda in a timely manner if you've assembled other parts of the combo.
Whats not in the deck?
Because Thassa's Oracle does not have an activation ability, you can't look to win with it. This has a cascading effect of not wanting to play Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact, even though we have access to Black.
Kenrith, the Returned King // Zirda, the Dawnwaker
Approximate Total Cost:
This version runs Golos, Tireless Pilgrim instead as the commander. The bulk of the deck is much the same, but it does run a few different ideas to acheive comboing.
The main reason for selecting Kenrith, the Returned King as the commander in the first place was his ability to get Zirda, the Dawnwaker back if removal sends it to the graveyard.
Also as a mana sink if you have infinite colored mana.
With Golos the ideas are slightly different. With Golos ability to get lands, you can in fact get Volrath's Stronghold as a way to get Zirda back.
The advantages of Golos as your commander is that he can get Inventors' Fair, that can be turned into a win condition.
However this land will come into played tapped, so even if you get the combo of infinite colorless mana, you'd have to wait an entire turn, and this is easy for your opponents to then be able to deal with you as its so telegraphed.
However we are playing some options to untap lands, which means that you can look to win immediately.
Candelabra of Tawnos, Magus of the Candelabra, Hope Tender, Voyaging Satyr, Deserted Temple.
This way with infinite colorless mana, you can untap the Inventors' Fair to get your win condition.
When you are playing Magic in general, you are always trying to optimize what cards are in your deck given different game states and situations.
The more cards you can play that simply don't have a single role the better.
The classic example of a one dimensional card in this deck is Staff of Domination. It really only has one role, and that is to have a way to win when you already have infinite colorless mana. I mean sure in super slow-grindy game you can tap it for mana to draw a card, but this isn't exactly your plan to win games.
I've tried to optimize the win conditions to have alternative roles potentially.
Urza, Lord High Artificer can provide additional mana, and at least the draw spells like Pull from Tomorrow and Stroke of Genius can be fired off for medium value to gain card advantages.
Let's look at an example of a card that could be played as a win condition with Goblin Cannon. With infinite colorless mana you can just keep activating it before you resolve any of it so that once you sacrifice it you already are shooting your opponents for lethal.
However in practice, you'll never play this card as a way to help clear the board in games that you don't have infinite.
So its basically a dead draw at all other times.
With cards like Candelabra of Tawnos, Magus of the Candelabra, Hope Tender, Voyaging Satyr, Deserted Temple, they at least can help to fix your mana at other times. Altough they are not amazing cards. they at least have two potential roles in the deck, and are not just "dead" win conditions.
This is where you can gain a slight edge with Golos in that you can use these to turn Golos into an immediate win condition.
Unforuntely there isn't really a good way to use these land untappers to gain more mana by untapping lands that provide lots of additional mana.
Lands that provide additonal mana
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Prime candiates are Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctum, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Cabal Coffers.
You'd think that with Golos ability to search for lands that you could angle the deck towards using some of these.
The main factors for me personally is that Inventors' Fair does require having 3 artifacts in play, so the deck does have to be skewed towards having a lot of artifacts.
Gaea's Cradle is better with lots of creatures.
Serra's Sanctum lots of enchantments.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx lots of one particular color.
Cabal Coffers is combined with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, which is actually a permanent without an activated ability, so would render playing Zirda as your companion illegal.
Now none of these lands are suggest mixing well with a deck that is looking to play lots of artifacts.
If you want to join the petition for unbanning Tolarian Academy in commander then please click here. But the RC have a habit of never wanting to give that up.
For example if you were looking to make Gaea's Cradle a good card in the deck, then you'd want to play more mana creatures. You'd normally look to cut artifact mana as a way to find slots. But as I said this means less chance of running the 3 artifact threshold for Inventors' Fair.
I'm not saying that you couldn't heavily build around that theme more. Maybe you could go for a more turbo version that looks at more mana creatures and less Blue disruption.
Then you could skew the deck towards more big mana payoff plays, as a Gaea's Cradle can provide so much mana.
Probably something I will work on. I don't like leaving avenues not explored.
You'd think that with Golos ability to search for lands that you could angle the deck towards using some of these.
The main factors for me personally is that Inventors' Fair does require having 3 artifacts in play, so the deck does have to be skewed towards having a lot of artifacts.
Gaea's Cradle is better with lots of creatures.
Serra's Sanctum lots of enchantments.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx lots of one particular color.
Cabal Coffers is combined with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, which is actually a permanent without an activated ability, so would render playing Zirda as your companion illegal.
Now none of these lands are suggest mixing well with a deck that is looking to play lots of artifacts.
If you want to join the petition for unbanning Tolarian Academy in commander then please click here. But the RC have a habit of never wanting to give that up.
For example if you were looking to make Gaea's Cradle a good card in the deck, then you'd want to play more mana creatures. You'd normally look to cut artifact mana as a way to find slots. But as I said this means less chance of running the 3 artifact threshold for Inventors' Fair.
I'm not saying that you couldn't heavily build around that theme more. Maybe you could go for a more turbo version that looks at more mana creatures and less Blue disruption.
Then you could skew the deck towards more big mana payoff plays, as a Gaea's Cradle can provide so much mana.
Probably something I will work on. I don't like leaving avenues not explored.
There are only two in the deck with Phyrexian Altar and Altar of Dementia.
Again I don't want to run too many "win only" cards, and so I've selected these on their abilities to have at least a small role at other times in the game.
Phyrexian Altar can be used in a pinch to fix your mana colors, say if wanting to cast Zirda with everything else you want to do in the turn. With Phyrexian Altar you can get infinite colored mana as well, and then activate Golos ability to cast all the cards in your deck.
Altar of Dementia can be used to mill your opponents libraries. There are also a lot of top of library tutor cards that opponents play, so its actually an underrated ability to be able to stop your opponents from using these in cEDH.
You might say, "well you need to sacrifice a creature to use it", but it you have Altar of Dementia with a creature, then its actually very hard for your opponents to play into it as it represents card disadvantage for them.
So in this respect its not even that you have to sacrifice a creature to nullify your opponents playing Imperial Seal, Vamperic Tutor, Worldly Tutor, Enlightend Tutor, Mystical Tutor, etc.
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim // Zirda, the Dawnwaker
Approximate Total Cost:
Zacama
