Spoiler season for Ikoria/Commander 2020 was weird. Not because of the global pandemic, or the fact that the spoiler season was delayed because of it. It was something different. When the first Legendary Creatures were revealed, both from the Commander precons and the regular set, I kinda felt bummed out by their abilities. They were either straightforward, with a building instruction almost written on them, or they were keyword soup; undercosted allrounders with no real place to start. Maybe it's just me, getting tired of the next new Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or Chulane, Teller of Tales. But this time it felt like there was no Commander in the whole two sets that spoke to me. But then came Zirda, the Dawnwaker. And suddenly, I was hyped.
The first idea was to generate infinite mana with Basalt Monolith/Grim Monolith, slam every Fireball-esque effect into the deck and call it a day. Of course, in the end, the deck turned out completely different and way more complex than what I had planned initially.
The infinite mana plan still stands, but there are backup plans now. And no Fireballs in sight...
Warning:
This primer is aimed at cEDH newcomers. I started playing cEDH in late 2019, so I don't have that much experience as well (I hate playing online, but managed to play a few cEDH games before the Covid-19 situation and then a couple more games in Tabletop Simulator to test an earlier version of this deck), but I hope this doesn't disqualify me from writing an elaborate primer.
If you are a more experienced cEDH player, you can skip most of the Card Choice Discussion (you probably know most of the staples).
But Zirda is Boros-colored! The two worst colors in EDH combined! Why is she worth to be built?
Why Play This Commander
First of all: Zirda is a fox! That means, we finally have a decent Legendary Fox!
Second: It is about time that Boros gets a decent combo-focused Commander. Let's make the best of it!
No really. You should consider building this fluffy fox fella from ferocious Ikoria, if you:
- want to surprise your playgroup with a color combination that most people underestimate in EDH and in cEDH anyway
- want a Training Grounds effect in the Command Zone, without having to play Blue and isn't restricted to creatures
- enjoy creating infinite mana
- like a more control-based and adaptive play-style
- prefer creatures higher in the Food Chain, Scalies (The First Sliver) for example
- still laugh about the thought that a Boros-colored deck can ever be justified to be played at cEDH level
- want to win via combat (found you, Najeela, the Blade-Blossom player!)
- like to play proactive or disruptive, but nothing in between
Wow, the last months have been really generous with Boros cEDH-Commanders. From nothing to four viable Commanders in just one and a half years, Boros really begins to shine. Winota, Joiner of Forces is the one that got in the cedh-decklist-database as the first Boros cEDH Commander and not Zirda, but let's not be mad about that. We made it into it a bit later! Alongside Koll, the Forgemaster, we finally appear in the database. At least in the Brewer's Corner. But hey, it's a partial success!
Zirda and Koll were followed by a new addition to the Brewer's Corner that should be mentioned here as well: Osgir, the Reconstructor.
With the September 2021 Update, Zirda got removed from the database without a warning. Before making it in, I heard other people saying the database was pretty biased, with the instant inclusion of Winota and now with the removal of Zirda I feel validated in that regard. To be honest, I don't really care anymore for appearing in the database with my list, but I'll still use it to analyze the other Boros decks in it.
So, let's break down Winota, Joiner of Forces.
Comed-Ian's Winota list seeks to snowball from non-human attacking creatures into human creatures that are also stax pieces. She triggers for each non-human creature that attacks, so a few cheap creatures in the early game can fill up her board rather quickly with an avalanche of Stax pieces to slow down her opponents, once Winota hits the table. After slowing her opponents down, Winota tries to win with Conspicuous Snoop lines or various Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Splinter Twin combos.
The deck seems to be great at generating both card and mana advantage and it probably deserves its place in the database, although I think that it is vulnerable to cards like Containment Priest (creatures not being cast with Winota are exiled), Drannith Magistrate (the deck relies on Winota a lot, so without her, it's just a suboptimal stax list), but the worst nightmare of Winota seems to be Grafdigger's Cage and Weathered Runestone which shut off the deck completely. The current list plays only one artifact removal (Abrade), so if the meta adapts to Winota, I can see it having a hard time against such cards.
A new challenger appears. And his name is Koll, the Forgemaster.
Koll seeks to play 0 mana creatures to kill them off while equipped with cheap equipment to generate value or shoot infinite damage. Lines like Goblin Bombardment + Shuko + Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh are very common, but also cost reducers like Auriok Steelshaper in combination with Skullclamp are pretty deadly on a 1-toughness creature, once Koll is out.
This deck seems to be great at winning out of nowhere, as its combo pieces are all pretty cheap. As far as I can tell, it looks vulnerable to Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void, but also to stax pieces like Trinisphere which shut of the combo plan completely. Cost increasers in general can hurt the deck a lot, even though it plays some removal to deal with it.
Strixhaven spawned a new Boros Lorehold General with Osgir, the Reconstructor.
He sits at the helm of a heavy-layered Stax deck. The deck tries to slow down the game with Rule of Law and other Stax effects and then win the game with copying Ugin's Nexus twice with Osgir's last ability. With just 6 mana and Ugin's Nexus in the graveyard, Osgir can take two extra turns and tries to loop this line over and over again with Mirror of Fate and then assemble a win from there. It plays around its own Rule of Law effects, but is vulnerable to cards like Null Rod, Rest in Peace and any opposing Dockside Extortionist will cackle with joy when they see this deck.
Originally, I wanted to stay with my Mono-U Fblthp, the Lost/God-Eternal Kefnet interchangeable cEDH build for a while, because it still needs a few cards to be completed. But then I saw Zirda. And to the drawing board I went.
The version of the deck I present to you here is the version I'm currently working on and it will get updates over time.
- Basalt Monolith/Grim Monolith + Zirda, the Dawnwaker – This is the goal we usually want to reach. Tap either Monolith for , untap it for less, because of Zirda's second ability. Repeat for infinite colorless.
- Lion's Eye Diamond + Auriok Salvagers – Yes, our hand will be empty, but we are netting colored mana from this with every iteration, so we can assemble infinite colored mana to use for cards already on the battlefield, or in the graveyard, thanks to Auriok Salvagers.
With infinite mana we normally have two cards to win the game. Goblin Cannon and Walking Ballista.
We can use Staff of Domination to draw through our deck and find either of the two cards to assemble a table kill. Or we can use Cogwork Assembler for creating a huge amount of tokens with Haste for lethal combat damage.
But we also have a lot of other options.
With Auriok Salvagers and Lion's Eye Diamond, we have the option to use Pyrite Spellbomb over and over again from our graveyard to shock all opponents to death.
Bomberman Combo #2 – Bow to Me:
If we don't have a Pyrite Spellbomb at our disposal, but a Blind Obedience in play, we can use the infinite mana to extort Lion's Eye Diamond with every cast to drain our opponents to death.
From the Underworld I Wheel Return #1 – Eye of the Lion:
This isn't a combo for which we need to assemble infinite mana. In fact, we just need to cast Underworld Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond and Wheel of Fortune to cycle through our deck, but we have to make sure that we have at least 6 other cards in our graveyard that we can exile for the Escape cost, the first time we cast Lion's Eye Diamond and Wheel of Fortune from our graveyard. After that, we can go on with wheeling and if our opponents have fewer cards in their library than we do, we can mill them out with that. If not, we can at least assemble our wincon from our graveyard.
From the Underworld I Wheel Return #2 – Make them Pay:
This one requires a bit more mana then #1, but makes it easier to dig for wincons. We need Smothering Tithe, Underworld Breach and Wheel of Fortune to start the combo. If our opponents can't pay for all the cards they draw, we can easily go on with cycling through our deck, but we only have to exile three cards from our graveyard every time we want to cast Wheel again. Also, we assemble a lot of mana from treasures that we can use for casting our combo pieces for the win.
From the Underworld I Wheel Return #3 – I Promised I Will Wheel:
Another variation of the combo that comes with Commander Legends. This requires either or plus an opponent with at least 6 cards in their hand to start.
Option #1: Play Underworld Breach, after that play Wheel of Fortune and play Jeska's Will from your graveyard, netting from it, then cast Wheel again and so on until you find a wincon.
Option #2: Play Underworld Breach, then cast Jeska's Will and target the opponent with 6 or more cards in their hand, then cast Wheel of Fortune and repeat from there.
Oswald himself isn't a combo, but he synergizes great with the cards we want to play anyway. If you manage to keep him on the board for multiple turns, he will unfold his true power.
These are the usual Oswald lines I'd take:
Starting from a 0-mana artifact: Getting either Codex Shredder, Esper Sentinel, Grafdigger's Cage or Sensei's Divining Top should be a good choice in almost every situation. 1-mana Mana Rocks are also valuable, but I wouldn't prioritize them. If you have Auriok Salvagers in your hand and have Lion's Eye Diamond on the board or in the grave, you can grab Pyrite Spellbomb to go into the Bomberman Combo as soon as possible.
Starting from a 1-mana artifact: If you have Zirda already on the board or if you are able to play her this turn, you could grab Grim Monolith, to create infinite mana. If you don't have an outlet for it, then you should probably prioritize something else first. Ethersworn Canonist, Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst and Weathered Runestone are all good Stax pieces, depending on the situation.
Starting from a 2-mana artifact: Again, if you have Zirda already out or are able to play her this turn, Basalt Monolith would be a great choice. If you already used Grim Monolith to create infinite mana, you can sac the Monolith to grab Staff of Domination, which then can be used to either draw the deck or to untap Oswald. For example if there is a Narset, Parter of Veils on the battlefield, you won't be able to draw the deck, but you can still win by using Staff of Domination to untap Oswald and then use him again, sacrificing the Staff to grab Goblin Cannon, which you can activate to kill the table.
Another powerhouse is Cogwork Assembler which gets around Narset.
If you still don't have infinite mana available at your disposal, you can also grab Trinisphere for more Stax.
Starting from a 3-mana artifact: I already kind of explained this line before. Since there is only one 4-mana artifact in the deck that Oswald can grab, you should only use him when you have the mana to activate Goblin Cannon over and over again to win the game.
We want to get Underworld Breach to cast Fervent Mastery from the graveyard a second time to get into the Bomberman Combo #1. To ensure that we get it on the board, we need Sevinne's Reclamation, because we can Flashback it if it is discarded. Of course, this line takes a lot of mana and/or cards in our graveyard, and since we don't have to care about our hand, we search for Lion's Eye Diamond. Now, what can happen is that either 0, 1, 2 or all 3 of these pieces go into the graveyard. I'll now go over each of the eight scenarios and sum up the total costs at the end of it, with an evaluation.
To keep things simple, I will stick to the following rules for this write-up:
1. Underworld Breach requires cards to exile from the graveyard. I will keep that to a minimum, so no casting Lion's Eye Diamond from the graveyard if not absolutely necessary, otherwise the calculation would need a chart. This will result in the raw mana cost being higher at the end of the calculation. Just remember, the more cards you have in your graveyard that you can exile to cast Lion's Eye Diamond, the less mana from other sources you need.
2. Since Fervent Mastery has an alternative cost to cast, I decided to go with the original cost of . If you dare to take the consequences of casting it for less, feel free to subtract the from each Fervent Mastery cast.
And now, the different scenarios:
1.) All pieces stay in your hand: Initial Fervent Mastery cast (- ). You discarded three other cards (+3 cards in grave) and now Sevinne's Reclamation is useless. Cast Underworld Breach (- ) and Lion's Eye Diamond, crack it (+ ; +1 card in grave) and cast Fervent Mastery from the graveyard again (-3 cards in grave; +1 card in grave; - ). This time all the cards you tutor for will end in the grave thanks to cracking LED. Find Auriok Salvagers, Pyrite Spellbomb and any other card (+1 card in grave). Cast Auriok Salvagers from your graveyard, exile Fervent Mastery, Sevinne's Reclamation and the other card you tutored for that is not Pyrite Spellbomb (-3 cards in grave; - ), use its ability to return Lion's Eye Diamond to your hand (- ) and then you have the Bomberman Loop assembled. Initial requirements: + at least 3 cards in your hand/grave.
2.) Two pieces stay in your hand:
2a.) Sevinne's Reclamation gets discarded: Just follow the steps as if all pieces stayed in your hand.
Initial requirements: + at least 3 cards in your hand/grave.
2b.) Lion's Eye Diamond gets discarded: If you have cards in your grave to spare, you can just follow the steps as if all pieces stayed in your hand with the difference that you'd have to cast Lion's Eye Diamond from your graveyard, so another 3 cards that are needed. If you don't have 3 cards to spare, you'd need an additional to cast Sevinne's Reclamation to get Lion's Eye Diamond back onto the battlefield. Then everything is the same as in 1.)
Initial requirements: Either + at least 3 cards in your hand/grave OR + at least 3 cards in your grave + at least 3 more cards in your hand/grave.
2c.) Underworld Breach gets discarded: You need to cast Sevinne's Reclamation to get Breach into play, but you won't have to cast Breach, so you'd need less and more. Rest follows 1.)
Initial requirements: + at least 3 cards in your hand/grave.
3.) One piece stays in your hand:
3a.) Only Sevinne's Reclamation stays in your hand: Same as with 2c.), you need to get Underworld Breach into play first, the only difference is, that you either need 4W more to Flashback Sevinne's Reclamation to get Lion's Eye Diamond back as well, which would require an additional card in your graveyard since Sevinne's Reclamation got exiled to Flashback, or you cast Lion's Eye Diamond from your graveyard by exiling 3 more cards.
Initial requirements: + at least 4 cards in your hand/grave OR + at least 3 cards in your grave + at least 3 more cards in your hand/grave.
3b.) Only Lion's Eye Diamond stays in your hand: Initial Fervent Mastery cast (- ). You discarded Sevinne's Reclamation and Underworld Breach, but have Lion's Eye Diamond in your hand. Cast and crack it (+ ) and cast Sevinne's Reclamation with Flashback (-1 card in grave; - ), targeting Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond. Crack Lion's Eye Diamond again (+ ) and cast Fervent Mastery from your graveyard (-3 cards in grave; - ), then get Auriok Salvagers, Pyrite Spellbomb and another card. Cast Auriok Salvagers (- ) and activate it (- ), to get Lion's Eye Diamond back and you are in the loop.
Initial requirements: + at least 4 cards in hand/grave.
3c.) Only Underworld Breach stays in your hand: Initial Fervent Mastery cast (- ). You discarded Sevinne's Reclamation and Lion's Eye Diamond, but have Underworld Breach in your hand. Cast Underworld Breach (- ) and either cast Sevinne's Reclamation with Flashback (-1 card in grave; - ) to get Lion's Eye Diamond back, or you cast Lion's Eye Diamond from your graveyard by exiling 3 more cards (-3 cards in grave). Then do as in 3b.)
Initial requirements: + at least 4 cards in grave/hand OR + at least 3 cards in your grave + at least 3 more cards in your hand/grave.
4.) All pieces go to the grave: Initial Fervent Mastery cast (- ). The first thing you want to do is to Flashback Sevinne's Reclamation (-1 card in grave; - ) to get Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond into play. You crack Lion's Eye Diamond (+ ) and cast Fervent Mastery (-3 cards from grave; - ) from your grave again. That will get you Auriok Salvagers, Pyrite Spellbomb and any other card into your graveyard. Cast Auriok Salvagers (-3 cards from grave; - ), activate it (- ) and win the game with the Bomberman Combo #1.
Initial Requirements: + at least 4 cards in hand/grave.
I will go through this card by card (except for basic lands), so it will probably be the longest part of this primer.
- Arcane Signet – An auto-include mana rock that comes untapped and produces /
- Basalt Monolith – The first Monolith that goes infinite with Zirda
- Chrome Mox – This -mana rock turns useless cards in our hand into mana
- Codex Shredder – A multi-functional artifact that can shut off cards like Vampiric Tutor and can get us back crucial cards from our graveyard
- Goblin Cannon – Our first wincon, activate it with infinite mana, hold priority and activate it again. Repeat this process to deal infinite damage to each opponent
- Grafdigger's Cage – Even though Flash is banned, Cage is still a valuable card against Pod-decks or Commanders like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and Winota, Joiner of Forces
- Grim Monolith – The second Monolith that goes infinite with Zirda
- Jeweled Lotus – Makes T1-2 wins more possible and is a great card in general to get Zirda out soon, because we can spend our "real" mana on other stuff
- Lion's Eye Diamond – Part of multiple combos and a great way to get Zirda out, when our hand is empty anyway
- Lotus Petal – A one-time use mana rock
- Mana Crypt – Another -mana rock for explosive starts. Just be careful that you don't lose too much life from it
- Mana Vault – It's a bit more risky than Mana Crypt, because we can only untap it in our upkeep, but it's still a worthy inclusion in almost every cEDH deck
- Mind Stone – Ramp and card draw in one card that can also act as a combo piece
- Moonsilver Key – It's not a Monolith, but it's a straight-up tutor for both Basalt Monolith and Grim Monolith. It can also be used to find Lion's Eye Diamond for combo purposes
- Mox Diamond – If we have any spare lands in our hand we can easily discard one into the Diamond for more speed
- Mox Opal – Metalcraft should be easy to accomplish with all the artifacts, so it's another -mana rock
- Pyrite Spellbomb – Part of the Bomberman Combo and a way to deal with small creatures
- Sensei's Divining Top – Top deck manipulation, so we know when to fetch to shuffle, or to rearrange the cards so we get to our combo faster
- Sol Ring – Come on... you know why
- Sphere of Resistance – A nice Stax piece to slow down everyone, shuts off Food Chain based combos as well as taxing "free" spells like Force of Will
- Staff of Domination – THE infinite mana outlet to draw the deck and win the game with it
- Talisman of Conviction – Battlefield Forge as an artifact for ? I like it
- Thorn of Amethyst – Doesn't really affect our game plan, but slows down noncreature-spell-heavy decks
- Trinisphere – An early game Trinisphere is awesome to slow everyone down and with all the low-cost spells in our format, it's a great Stax piece
- Weathered Runestone – It's basically a Grafdigger's Cage #2 with the upside that its first ability isn't limited to creature cards. Downside is obviously the cost of . But I think it's worth testing.
- Archivist of Oghma – Opponents's fetchlands and tutors will gain us so much life! And of course draw us so many cards as a nice bonus!
- Auriok Salvagers – Part of the Bomberman Combo, can also get us back Walking Ballista in addition to mana rocks and utility artifacts
- Aven Mindcensor|AKH – Anti tutor Stax piece
- Cogwork Assembler – Another outlet that paired with infinite mana can create infinite tokens of itself with Haste, ending the game with combat damage. Without infinite mana, it can still do good work, creating copies of Stax pieces, opposing Monoliths or other stuff.
- Containment Priest|58303 – Another Stax piece against Pod-decks and everything that tries to cheat creatures into play without casting them
- Dockside Extortionist – Red ramp. Need I say more?
- Drannith Magistrate – Shuts off opponents Commanders, graveyard shenanigans and Food Chain combos
- Esper Sentinel – Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study had a love child and it's white, an artifact creature and as such it is easily tutorable AND recurrable! Finally, some good freaking white card draw!
- Ethersworn Canonist – Anti storm Stax piece that doesn't affect us as much as it does our opponents (hopefully)
- Flamescroll Celebrant // Revel in Silence – I put this in the creature section, because of its front side, which is not bad at all. But most of the time, we want to use the Revel in Silence backside to secure our combo or stop opponents from winning.
- Goblin Engineer – Trust me, I'm an engineer. It can search for any of the two Monolith to get them out of the graveyard next turn for easy infinite mana with Zirda, but it can also tutor up other artifacts into our graveyard for them to be returned
- Grand Abolisher – Hinders opponents from reacting in our combo turn
- Imperial Recruiter – Can search for a lot of creatures, most importantly Walking Ballista
- Linvala, Keeper of Silence – Shuts off mana dorks as well as some Commanders like Urza, Lord High Artificer
- Magus of the Moon – Considering the high amount of non-basic lands that are played in cEDH and the small amount of red cEDH decks, this should be a valuable Stax piece that can lock out opponents completely from the game, depending on the decks they play
- Oswald Fiddlebender – This bad boy only works with Sorcery speed, but it's a threat that can't be left unhandled. It turns 1- and 2-mana artifacts into Grim Monolith/Basalt Monolith and in the turn after that he can search for the wincon.
- Ranger of Eos – Can search for Walking Ballista and that is all it needs to do.
- Ranger-Captain of Eos – Can search for the same cards as Ranger of Eos (I wonder why) but also acts as a Silence-effect in our combo turn
- Recruiter of the Guard – Can search for a lot of creatures, most importantly Walking Ballista
- Simian Spirit Guide – Surprise fast mana from our hand, when we need it, but also a good candidate to Imprint in Chrome Mox
- Strict Proctor – It's an EtB hindering Stax piece that we can play around pretty well. It can stop Thassa's Oracle, Isochron Scepter imprints etc. so it should be a good inclusion
- Walking Ballista – Our main wincon. With infinite mana, we can put an infinite number of counters on Ballista and then shoot down our opponents with it. But we can also use it for removing Creatures/Planeswalkers if we can't win with it on the spot
- Aura of Silence – It is both a heavy taxing effect and removal in one card that can get rid of problematic cards
- Blind Obedience – Slows down our opponents and can be used as a wincon with its Extort ability
- Blood Moon – Same as Magus of the Moon, but harder to remove
- Smothering Tithe – It either slows down our opponents (mostly in their own turns) or speeds up our own game
- Underworld Breach – Yes, it's an anti-synergy with Grafdigger's Cage, but it's also a way to combo off with Lion's Eye Diamond and Wheel of Fortune, or just to cast value from our graveyard
- Cathartic Pyre – Either removal or rummaging for two at instant speed
- Deflecting Swat – Directing a counterspell back to Deflecting Swat can save our combo from getting interrupted
- Enlightened Tutor – A versatile tutor for all of our needs
- Heliod's Intervention – Can get rid of X opposing Stax pieces, mana rocks or combo pieces with instant speed and if you have infinite mana available, you could gain a lot of life from this, maybe to survive a one-time damage effect, like a Fireball
- Pyroblast|SS3 – Red Counterspell #1 that can destroy a blue permanent if necessary
- Red Elemental Blast|A25 – Red Counterspell #2 that can destroy a blue permanent if necessary
- Swords to Plowshares – Lifegain is irrelevant, creature removal is not
- Tibalt's Trickery – Unconditional counterspell. Sure, when it pulls a second wincon after countering the first, it's GG, but better gambling than not trying at all.
- Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge – I really hope we never come into a situation where we need a land that enters the battlefield tapped, but hey... the spell side is pretty cool. It's giving us the choice what to put at the bottom of our library, so we can keep what we need while getting new cards in exchange for those we didn't want. In the worst case it's still a for drawing a single card.
- Wear // Tear – Destroying two things at once for a MV of 3 sounds good
- Ancient Tomb – 2 mana for two life doesn't sound too bad
- Arid Mesa|SLU – Fetch land #1 (hey, it's on color)
- Battlefield Forge – Pain land, because we need all the useful duals
- Blast Zone – Utility land for blowing up permanents if needed
- Bloodstained Mire – Fetch land #2
- Buried Ruin – An emergency land for getting back crucial combo pieces
- City of Brass – Rainbow land #1
- Command Tower – Rainbow land #2
- Flooded Strand – Fetch land #3
- Geier Reach Sanitarium – Utility land for filtering cards and also disrupting our opponents
- Gemstone Caverns – If we are the starting player, we should mulligan it away, otherwise we can use it as an advantage to start with a land already in play
- Inspiring Vantage – An early game dual land
- Inventors' Fair – Utility land that tutors for combo pieces
- Mana Confluence – Rainbow land #3
- Marsh Flats – Fetch land #4
- Mikokoro, Center of the Sea – Utility land for letting everyone draw a card; risky, but needed
- Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway – MDFC that I really like and adds more versatility to the mana base
- Plateau – Original dual land, because it's fetchable and comes into play untapped
- Prismatic Vista – Fetch land #5, but only for basics which we play 4 of
- Sacred Foundry – Shock dual land and fetchable
- Scalding Tarn – Fetch land #6
- Spectator Seating – Finally the crowd land in our color
- Spire of Industry – Rainbow land #4 but only if we control an artifact (which should almost always be the case)
- Strip Mine – Utility land for destroying utility lands
- Sunbaked Canyon – Pain land that can be utilized into card draw when not needed anymore
- Windswept Heath – Fetch land #7
- Wooded Foothills – Fetch land #8
- Karn, the Great Creator – Doubles as a Stax piece to shut off mana rocks or utility artifacts, but can also get us back exiled artifacts
- Faithless Looting – We need some cheap card draw to find our key pieces, so this comes in handy
- Fervent Mastery – Looks like a bad Gamble at first, but in this deck it can become almost Intuition-level good with the right cards to tutor
- Gamble – Yeah, it's a gamble, but early in the game, when our hand is still full, it's a good one
- Jeska's Will – It's ramp, it's pseudo card draw AND it's a combo piece with Underworld Breach and Wheel of Fortune
- Sevinne's Reclamation – Getting back combo pieces from the graveyard is always nice, after a failed Gamble or a removal for example
- Vandalblast – Blowing up one artifact for or all for sounds way better than targeting each one with Gorilla Shaman
- Wheel of Fortune – Refilling our hand after an explosive start is exactly the card draw we need and if it means that we discard the good opening hands our opponents had, it's even better. It also combos well with Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond
- Alms Collector – An anti-wheel effect that works well with our own Wheel of Fortune, but also shuts down Timetwister effects at instant speed. I won't go as far and say it is a white Narset, Parter of Veils but it gets very close to being one.
- Angelic Ascension – Exiling a Karn, the Great Creator or Collector Ouphe for and giving the opponent a 4/4 Angel sounds like a small price to pay
- Boros Signet – Another Signet to speed up our game
- Burnout – Isn't it fun to counter the color that is known for Counterspells with a color that shouldn't have them at all? I think it is. But it only counters blue instant spells and "Draw a card." for doesn't sound too appealing most of the time.
- By Force – A little worse than Heliod's Intervention, but still good enough to use as a mana sink. Right now, I'm playing Vandalblast instead of it
- Diviner's Wand – Another outlet that paired with infinite mana can draw your deck, but can also turn Zirda into a flying dealer of Commander Damage if needed
- Eldrazi Displacer – Can flicker our creatures to save them from spot removal or to trigger their EtBs again. As long as the current Hybrid Mana rule exists, we can't play Emiel the Blessed (which I think is the better option), so this one is the next best thing; for now it's too gimmicky
- Fellwar Stone – It probably won't produce / as often as Arcane Signet does, but it's still a 2-mana artifact that produces mana
- Flame Sweep – Instant Speed Pyroclasm that spares our Aven Mindcensor|AKH
- Goblin Welder – The original Goblin Engineer, but unfortunately it feels kinda underwhelming in comparison to his tutoring brother.
- Gorilla Shaman – Artifact removal on a stick that gets discounted by Zirda. So it would be 1 mana to destroy a Mana Crypt, but also only 1 mana to destroy a Sol Ring. For now I've cut it, because targeting artifacts with MV 2 or more gets too expensive.
- Grapeshot – Zirda, the Dawnwaker + Auriok Salvagers + Lotus Petal + would make Grapeshot another wincon, because of an infinite storm count, but I feel like this would be too much
- Heliod, Sun-Crowned – Goes infinite with Walking Ballista and is kind of a backup plan, for keeping our life total high, but right now, I don't feel he's needed.
- Jailbreak – Can be used for returning an opponent's unwanted stax piece back to battlefield while working as a cheap reanimation spell for our own cards
- Juntu Stakes – Another Stax piece that hates on mana dorks
- Mirage Mirror – This is a flex slot card that enables some combos with infinite mana already at our disposal, but can also copy a Stax piece in our opponents' upkeeps to slow them down more.
- Mishra's Workshop – Because I don't play with proxies, I'm not playing this card (at the moment) because it's hella expensive. If you and your playgroup is fine with proxies, I would cut a Mountain for it, I think.
- Oblation – Shuffling in a problematic permanent sounds like Chaos Warp, but the opponent doesn't get to put another (maybe problematic) piece onto the battlefield. But they draw two cards off of it and being down three cards in Boros is... not optimal
- Path to Exile|SS2 – With a bit of luck, your opponent doesn't have a basic land left in the deck, when you exile a key creature with this
- Pyroclasm – Gets rid of mana dorks and other small creatures, but only at sorcery speed and it kills most of my creature based Stax pieces
- Rebuff the Wicked – White 1-mana Counterspell that protects our crucial pieces and isn't limited to countering blue spells.
- Rings of Brighthearth – Goes infinite with Basalt Monolith if Zirda won't stick on board and is also a versatile piece that can double Fetch land activations and other shenanigans
- Serra Ascendant – Early game pressure, a 6/6 flyer with Lifelink can be enough to keep opponents at bay at first
- Silence – Stops our opponents from interacting with our combo. For now, I deem Revel in Silence the better option.
- Sword of Fire and Ice – Protection from red and blue sounds awesome and shocking a creature every time, we deal combat damage plus drawing a card is nice. But "nice" doesn't seem to be good enough in cEDH, so I've cut it.
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben – Thorn of Amethyst with First Strike but very fragile since it's a creature
- Voltaic Key – Untaps Basalt Monolith, Grim Monolith and Mana Vault, for another burst of mana and can be used in an infinite combo with Rings of Brighthearth. Without Rings it isn't really needed, though.
- Weathered Wayfarer – It doesn't specify a land type, so it can search a Blast Zone, Inventor's Fair or another land that suits our current situation, but ultimately it feels too slow and unreliable
- Wheel of Misfortune – This one is a little tricky to operate, because we have to read our opponents a little to estimate if they want to refill their hands or not. If so, what number will they choose? It would feel bad to spend 3 mana only to be the one with the lowest number. But betting too much is hurting us as well. Apart from that, it's another great Wheel effect
The main goal of this deck is to win through one of various combos early in the game. If that fails, it runs a good amount of Stax pieces to slow our opponents down, so we can try again. This makes the deck adaptive in nature and if we are lucky, our opponents underestimate Boros enough so we can sneak in a win from out of nowhere.
This deck is from a cEDH newbie for other cEDH newbies, but I hope that even more experienced and competent players than me can enjoy it as well.
This part is possibly the hardest when playing the deck. Deciding which hands to keep and which to shuffle away.
To make things easier, I've drawn some example starting hands.
Let's start with a hand that we will most likely never get:
Let's be honest, even if we swap out Plateau for any other land that comes in untapped and produces , Mox Opal or Lotus Petal for Simian Spirit Guide and Staff of Domination for Cogwork Assembler, it's very unlikely to be this kind of lucky and draw a hand like this.
With a hand like this you can start of by playing Plateau and Silence, so no Force of Will or whatever first turn shenanigans your opponents have can interrupt you. After that you cast Mana Crypt, tap it and play Grim Monolith. Cast Mox Opal and Lotus Petal, tap Grim Monolith for and use Opal and Petal for to cast Zirda. You still have floating, so you untap Monolith and generate infinite colorless. Cast Staff of Domination and draw your deck until you find Walking Ballista/Goblin Cannon. Win.
Let's all appreciate this possible T1 win for a short time and then move on to hands that are more common.
This is a tough one to decide. I'd probably say keep it when not going first, shuffle it in, when going first. In my eyes this hand lacks a tutor and/or a Stax piece and has one land too much, but when not going first, we can start the game with Gemstone Caverns in play (for which I would exile one of the fetch lands) and cast a Sol Ring from it. With Lotus Petal and Simian Spirit Guide we can then cast Zirda and play Mikokoro and activate it for , which is probably not the worst T1 play we can do.
Another one with both Lotus Petal and Simian Spirit Guide but also one that is pretty risky. No lands means, we have to rely on Dockside Extortionist to create enough treasure tokens on Turn 1 or 2, which means, we either have to go last or wait a turn cycle. They payoff can be huge though, as we have all the combo pieces in our hand already. This hand really depends on your opponents' decks. If you know they play heavy artifact/enchantment based strategies, this hand can give you a lot of treasure tokens by turn 1 or 2 and probably win you the game with it, by being able to cast Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Basalt Monolith from it and then killing the table with Cogwork Assembler. But if we are unsure about our opponents' strategies, I would rather shuffle it away. The risk might be too high, getting Dockside Extortionist Stifled could kill this opening.
This one seems decent. It's not fantastic but also not horrible. You probably don't even need to play Mana Crypt turn 1. Use one of the fetch lands to get out Plateau and wait until the end step before your turn to play Enlightened Tutor to search for whatever the situation requires.
I'd probably keep this hand.
A Drannith Magistrate to deny our opponents from playing their Commanders is possible on turn 1. And the Food Chain deck will love this card for sure. Shutting down early game tutors with Aven Mindcensor|AKH is also a fun thing to do.
Or we can start tutoring for our combo pieces to aim for an early combo win.
We can get try and get destroyed combo pieces back with Goblin Engineer, Sevinne's Reclamation, Codex Shredder or Underworld Breach for another try. Exiled combo pieces are not gone forever though, as Karn, the Great Creator can get artifacts back from exile.
We have many ways to start another combo, so we take a defensive position and try to recover while keeping our opponents at bay.
We have to be careful about our opponents, though. This far in the game, they may have multiple ways to win and just wait for others to combo off first, so that they spend their resources and won't be able to interrupt their own next combo. Prepare your Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast and Burnout if you are facing a lot of blue and try to further disrupt your opponents with Stax pieces and removal.
And we don't have to worry. Even if we don't have infinite mana, we can still use Pyrite Spellbomb together with Auriok Salvagers as long as we have (or with Zirda out) to shock problematic creatures, sometimes multiple times in a turn.
Hopefully all of this disruption can keep us in the game long enough to assemble a combo win which should be our goal, because it is the easiest to achieve.
Yeah... I can't really say much for this section right now, because I haven't played enough games with this deck yet. I could only give educated guesses, but this isn't what I want to do here. So this section will receive updates whenever I manage to play some games with Zirda.
If you face a Food Chain Sliver player, keep opening hands with Sphere of Resistance, Drannith Magistrate, Trinisphere, Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon in it. Ethersworn Canonist is also a valuable option.
Watch out for Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Chain of Vapor and be prepared to counter Thassa's Oracle, when they cast it, or destroy Laboratory Maniac/Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, when they attempt to deck themselves.
My advice here: Choose the disruptive play-style and only try to combo off if you can protect your combo or have shut them down with enough Stax pieces.
Cursed Totem – Almost as disruptive as Null Rod, but we can still use Goblin Cannon with it, so it's not quite as bad. It's still a juicy target to destroy when given the chance, to use the full potential of our deck, but only if there are no other threats, like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy for example that are kept in check by it.
Back to Basics – This one can hit us pretty hard. With only four basics in the deck, it's a Stax piece that shuts us down quite well. With mana rocks out we can at least try and destroy it.
Narset, Parter of Veils – This doesn't necessarily shut down our combo, but if we don't have our pieces together already, we can't use Staff of Domination properly, so Narset has to die.
I've created a Discord Channel for discussing the deck and other users' lists as well:
https://discord.gg/6xjwZhm
First of all, I want to thank darrenhabib who more or less forced me to open this thread after a lot of discussion about Zirda. I wouldn't have written this primer without your encouragement.
Also I'd like to mention the Playing With Power MTG Youtube channel and also the Casually Competitive MTG Youtube channel. They showed off multiple Zirda lists and gameplays which showed how powerful this fantastic fox can be in a competitive environment. Also Playing With Power MTG has created a very helpful Playlist of Introduction videos to the cEDH format that is worth of being checked out. It helped me a lot.
Thanks to everyone from the German mtg-forum, for suggesting cards that I didn't think of!
- benjameenbear for this Primer template and the great advice you gave me
- Mike-The Eternal Optimist for being an incredible helpful source of advice and a great discussion partner on Discord and even though our lists differ, it's awesome to have a second opinion on possible inclusions/exclusions
- All of you who read this primer and discuss with me. Thanks a lot!
I have always considered Flame Sweep a flex slot in this list, a meta choice and ready to get cut if there are better cards to include. Archivist of Oghma is such an auto-include that I'll gladly take out the Removal that would kill it as well.
Added Jailbreak to the "Cards to consider" section and finally brought that section into alphabetical order.
Also formatted some minor things and will keep improving the primer whenever I find the time to do so. I need to get the "Cards to consider" sorted by alphabetical order and stuff like that...
Anyway, better late than never.
Esper Sentinel is probably the best white card draw that has been released in a while. Fervent Mastery serves as another combo enabler (and I still haven't updated the primer with the line for it x.x). Revel in Silence replaces Silence and Strict Proctor is a great hoser for Thassa's Oracle and stuff like that.
I have moved the Mirage Mirror line here for future reference:
Codex Shredder
Let me explain how Mirror combos with Shredder and either Monolith:
- Activate copy ability, targeting Monolith, hold priority, activate copy ability, targeting Shredder, hold priority, activate copy ability, targeting Monolith again, hold priority, activate copy ability, targeting Shredder again, hold priority... Repeat this an infinite number of times.
- Let the last copy ability on the stack resolve, so the Mirror becomes a copy of Shredder for the first time now (you won't be able to copy anything else again after that in this turn, so be careful).
- Activate the first activated ability of Shredder.
- Let the ability resolve, then let the next copy ability resolve, Mirror is now a Monolith.
- Activate the untap ability and let it resolve, then let the next copy ability resolve, the untapped Mirage Mirror is now a copy of Shredder again.
- Repeat this process until you have milled your wincon into your graveyard. Then get it out with Shredder's second activated ability, cast it and win.
Sword of Fire and Ice... it's just not a cEDH card, I fear. Yes, it was the best card in the Playing With Power video, but I might have seen things through rose-colored glasses back then. Attacking just to draw a card when connecting isn't worth it. The added bonus of protection from red and blue is cool and shooting 2 damage at a target each time is nice as well... just not in cEDH. I will replace it with a card that sounds even more wonky at first: Mirage Mirror. It's a flex slot for testing purpose, so it's not final that this card stays in, but my reasoning behind this is:
Whenever I have infinite mana already, but no outlet, I wish that I could do something with it. And Mirage Mirror, paired with infinite mana (plus the chance to untap it, when it becomes a copy of a Monolith) is great. Not only can I copy an opponent's Thrasios, Triton Hero with it to draw my deck in search of wincons, I can also utilize some of the more overlooked cards in my list like Codex Shredder, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea or Geier Reach Sanitarium with it, for a win (will explain the basic line in a few seconds), plus I can copy my own Stax pieces in each opponent's upkeep for added staxing, while on my own turn I'm less affected by them.
Combo line with Mirage Mirror + infinite mana from a Basalt Monolith/Grim Monolith and one of the three cards I mentioned before (called X) is:
Activate copy ability, targeting X, hold priority, activate copy ability, targeting Monolith, hold priority, targeting X again, hold priority, targeting Monolith again. Repeat this an infinite number of times.
Let the last copy ability on the stack resolve, so the Mirror becomes a copy of X for the first time now (you won't be able to copy anything else again after that in this turn, so be careful).
Activate the activated ability of X (for Shredder, it should be the first one, use the card draw ability of one of the lands).
Let the ability resolve, then let the next copy ability resolve, Mirror is now one of the Monoliths.
Activate the untap ability and let it resolve, then let the next copy ability resolve, the untapped Mirage Mirror is now a copy of X again.
Repeat this process until you have drawn into the wincon or have it milled into your graveyard. If milled, get it out with Shredder's second activated ability, if drawn, let the whole stack resolve, cast it and win. Be careful with Mikokoro and Geier Reach, though, your opponents will draw cards with them as well, so a backup Silence or Ranger-Captain of Eos are adviced in these lines.
Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway will replace a Mountain.
Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge will replace Alms Collector.
Put the description for Voltaic Key into the Cards to Consider section.
[*]Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth – To start this combo, we need an additional . Tap Basalt Monolith, untap it for and copy the untap ability. Tap it again after the first untap, so we end up with in your mana pool and an untapped Basalt Monolith. Repeat this for infinite colorless.
With Codex Shredder we can copy Shredder's ability to get a card and Shredder itself back from the graveyard. Yes, that means, we can cast Shredder again and get every single card back from our graveyard to our hand.
If we add Voltaic Key to that, we can mill ourselves out completely by tapping Shredder to mill ourselves, then use Voltaic Key to untap Codex Shredder and itself. And after that, we can return all the cards we need to our hand.
Or if we add Mind Stone, we can draw a card, retrieve it with Codex Shredder and go on with that, until we have drawn our deck.
With Rings of Brighthearth and infinite mana Sensei's Divining Top becomes a "Draw your deck" card as well.
"Cards to consider" section and removed Gorilla Shaman and Sword of Fire and Ice from it, because they are in the deck now.
With Heliod, this section in the primer will be taken out, but I'm keeping it here in the Changelog for future reference: