This week has been a sad one for Zirda. Not only was my list not accepted to the cedh-decklist-database as the first Boros cEDH Commander, no, they have accepted a
Winota, Joiner of Forces list before a single one of the many Zirda submissions the DB managers got T.T
A short breakdown of Winota, before I will add her
with gritting teeth with a more extensive description to the "Other viable Boros cEDH-Commanders" section in the next couple of days:
Winota 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 can fill up her board rather quickly with an avalanche of Stax pieces to slow down her opponents. After the deck has slowed them down, Winota tries to win with
Conspicuous Snoop lines or other
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker combos.
The deck seems to be great at generating both card and mana advantage and it probably deserves its place in the database... BUT the list how it is right now lacks removal. In fact, it only plays one artifact removal option with
Wear // Tear. Cards like
Drannith Magistrate (no Winota, no cheating creatures in),
Containment Priest (what isn't cast gets exiled fast) and especially
Grafdigger's Cage (which shuts of the deck completely) sound like Winota's worst nightmare and if the meta adapts to the deck I can see it having a hard time against those cards.
But it has also been the end of Zendikar Rising spoilers, so here is my review for this set: It's not giving us many new toys.
- Archon of Emeria - There's a reason we don't play Rule of Law effects and it being stapled onto a flying 2/3 that also slows down nonbasics doesn't change much. Usually, in the combo turn, we have to cast a Monolith, Zirda and the outlet for it, so this card will hinder us hard.
- Crawling Barrens - It would be an infinite mana outlet to take out a player who has no blockers. I don't think it's worth running.
- Forsaken Monument - Yes, it goes infinite with Basalt Monolith as well, but we have our combo piece for that in the Command Zone. I would love to get a third Monolith, though!
- Lithoform Engine - I feverishly pondered how to make this card a viable inclusion in this deck. I still don't see a reason to play it, except for maybe some kind of counterspell protection, by copying a combo piece on the stack. But eh...
- Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway - I really like this one and will try it.
- Skyclave Apparition - Would be fun to have a blinkable removal for problematic cards, but I'm unsure if this isn't just a gimmicky card that will be bad in most situations.
- Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge - Is it the card draw I expected to get in this set? Definitely not. Is it the card draw, this deck can make use of? I think so. Will try this one!
- Valakut Exploration - With fetchlands, this becomes a situational "draw 2" but I feel like it will be too slow to actually have a lot of impact.
And that's it. Some interesting cards, but there are only two that I want to play.
Time for the changes:
After a lot of discussion,
Gorilla Shaman and
Sword of Fire and Ice have to go.
Gorilla Shaman I thought would be nice with Zirda, destroying 1 and 0 cost mana rocks for just {1}, but I don't want to have Zirda out before the combo turn normally.
Vandalblast will take its place.
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.
I will implement these changes in the primer soon.
EDIT: Nevermind, I'm stupid.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and
Geier Reach Sanitarium are both Legendary.
Mirage Mirror won't work with them -.-
It's still a nice card in the deck, but now I have to consider if I should cut it...