Otrimi Take 2: All My Eggs in One (unkillable) Basket

[DirkGently]

Otrimi lands was amusing but, as anticipated, awkward as hell. So, it's time for an alternative take: Otrimi hexproof/indestructible. I'm aware that the title misleadingly implies that the archetype is eggs, but I don't care.

Specifically, the key card here is Elusive Tormentor // Insidious Mist. Find it, flip it, dump every mutate in existence onto it. As a backup, we've got Thrun, the Last Troll and Troll Ascetic. They die to Wrath of God, and require mana up to regen, but at least they can block and don't require as much setup. Also have 1 witches cottage to recur it once if necessary.

Of course, requiring a non-commander creature to start doing anything proactive is pretty limiting, so we're running every tutor imaginable to get this party started.

The rest of the deck is basically just a control deck with some light ramp. Mutates should take care of the rest - mopping up problematic permanents and giving lots of assorted value. Loam engine is in there as well, because honestly I just can't help myself. It's not a crucial part of the deck, but it fills our grave with mutates and lets us hit land drops reliably.

Otrimi Basket

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Otrimi, the Ever-Playful

Baskets (3)

1 Elusive Tormenter

1 Thrun, the Last Troll

1 Troll Ascetic

Eggs (18)

1 Archipelagore

1 Sawtooth Demolisher

1 Auspicious Starrix

1 Dreamtail Heron

1 Souvenir Snatcher

1 Pouncing Shoreshark

1 Mindleecher

1 Chittering Harvester

1 Cavern Whisperer

1 Boneyard Lurker

1 Parcelbeast

1 Dirge Bat

1 Insatiable Hemophage

1 Migratory Greathorn

1 Gemrazer

1 Sea-Dasher Octopus

1 Trupeting Gnarr

1 Glowstone Recluse

Unlimited Tutors (16)

1 Worldly Tutor

1 Sylvan Tutor

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Final Parting

1 Grim Tutor

1 Imperial Seal

1 Clutch of the Undercity

1 Shared Summons

1 Dimir House Guard

1 Intuition

1 Uncage the Menagerie

1 Traverse the Ulvenwald

1 Survival of the Fittest

1 Fauna Shaman

1 Jarad's Orders

Removal (12)

1 Assassin's Trophy

1 Decree of Pain

1 Find // Finality

1 Oblivion Stone

1 Crux of Fate

1 Boompile

1 Nevinyrral's Disk

1 Pernicious Deed

1 Coercive Portal

1 Damnation

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Beast Within

Counters (6)

1 Voidslime

1 Counterspell

1 Arcane Denial

1 Mana Drain

1 Fierce Guardianship

1 commit // memory

Ramp Things (9)

1 Life from the Loam

1 Cultivate

1 Kodama's Reach

1 Exploration

1 Burgeoning

1 Nature's Lore

1 Three Visits

1 Mana Crypt

1 Sol Ring

Land (35)

11 Fetches

3 Duals

3 Shocks

1 Command Tower

1 Exotic Orchard

1 Inkmoth Nexus

1 Fetid Pools

1 Zagoth Triome

1 Barren Moor

1 Lonely Sandbar

1 Tranquil Thicket

1 Witch's Cottage

2 Swamp

3 Island

4 Forest

1 Otrimi, the Ever-Playful 1 Elusive Tormenter 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 1 Troll Ascetic 1 Archipelagore 1 Sawtooth Demolisher 1 Auspicious Starrix 1 Dreamtail Heron 1 Souvenir Snatcher 1 Pouncing Shoreshark 1 Mindleecher 1 Chittering Harvester 1 Cavern Whisperer 1 Boneyard Lurker 1 Parcelbeast 1 Dirge Bat 1 Insatiable Hemophage 1 Migratory Greathorn 1 Gemrazer 1 Sea-Dasher Octopus 1 Trupeting Gnarr 1 Glowstone Recluse 1 Worldly Tutor 1 Sylvan Tutor 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Final Parting 1 Grim Tutor 1 Imperial Seal 1 Clutch of the Undercity 1 Shared Summons 1 Dimir House Guard 1 Intuition 1 Uncage the Menagerie 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald 1 Survival of the Fittest 1 Fauna Shaman 1 Jarad's Orders 1 Assassin's Trophy 1 Decree of Pain 1 Find // Finality 1 Oblivion Stone 1 Crux of Fate 1 Boompile 1 Nevinyrral's Disk 1 Pernicious Deed 1 Coercive Portal 1 Damnation 1 Cyclonic Rift 1 Beast Within 1 Voidslime 1 Counterspell 1 Arcane Denial 1 Mana Drain 1 Fierce Guardianship 1 commit // memory 1 Life from the Loam 1 Cultivate 1 Kodama's Reach 1 Exploration 1 Burgeoning 1 Nature's Lore 1 Three Visits 1 Mana Crypt 1 Sol Ring 11 Fetches 3 Duals 3 Shocks 1 Command Tower 1 Exotic Orchard 1 Inkmoth Nexus 1 Fetid Pools 1 Zagoth Triome 1 Barren Moor 1 Lonely Sandbar 1 Tranquil Thicket 1 Witch's Cottage 2 Swamp 3 Island 4 Forest //Sideboard

[DirkGently]

Ran this thrice last night, and it won...I think 2/3 of them. Unless I played 4 and it won 2/4. Anyway.

Probably the most interesting game was the first, where I got out the vampire and started loading him up, but an Ugin exiled him (oops, didn't leave up countermana). But I was able to rebuild on an eot bat and got away with a narrow win.

Overall I think this strategy falls into a bad spot fun-wise. If you pull it off, it's still usually 3-4 turns per person to kill someone with commander damage, and in the meantime you're just spinning a lot of wheels and wasting a lot of time. And if you don't pull it off, you're basically doing nothing. So it tends not to be super fun, unfortunately. I think the more fun version is probably to accept interaction from your opponents rather than trying to prevent it, and try to play around it by diversifying your targets rather than piling every mutate onto one insane supertarget. This also plays better with Otrimi since he often doesn't do anything in this build, since your mutates never hit the grave.

That said, I think I've had my fill of mutate for now.