Ok, if you read my last post, this should need no preamble. Animar came, he saw, he amassed +1/+1 counters and he conquered the shit out of my playgroup and started to annoy them. So, I'll post the final list here, with some additional thoughts on improvement, and let the deck die for the good of my playgroup.
Creatures
Animar, Soul of Elements
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Aethersnipe
Consecrated Sphinx
Frost Titan
Phyrexian Ingestor
Sphinx of Uthuun
Flametongue Kavu
Spitebellows
Inferno Titan
Bogardan Hellkite
Lotus Cobra
Bloom Tender
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Fierce Empath
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Garruk's Packleader
Silverglade Elemental
Hystrodon
Acidic Slime
Silklash Spider
Brutalizer Exarch
Deadwood Treefolk
Primordial Sage
Primeval Titan
Spearbreaker Behemoth
Avenger of Zendikar
Coiling Oracle
Momir Vig
Simic Sky Swallower
Alloy Myr
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Artisan of Kozilek
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Spells and Stuff
Pongify
Equilibrium
Tezzeret's Gambit
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Rite of Replication
Warstorm Surge
Beast Within
Birthing Pod
Momentous FallPattern of Rebirth
Greater Good
Primal Command
Overwhelming Stampede
Wild Pair
Garruk Wildspeaker
Sarkhan Vol
Izzet Signet
Gruul Signet
Simic Signet
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Akroma's Memorial
38 Lands including the following:
Llanowar Reborn
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
These three lands were obviously chosen as ways to "cheat" counters onto Animar, and all three performed. I highly recommend all of them, but Llanowar Reborn was surprisingly the best. You could play it on turn 1 or 2 and still be able to make Animar on turn 3, grafting a counter on him immediately. Novijen and Oran-Rief were kinda expensive and slow, BUT both saved my ass a time or two.
The rest of the mana base was all duals and basics - Novijen was THE only land in the deck that made only colorless mana. Colored mana was too crucial, which is why I cut Sol Ring and Temple of the False God - both were marginally helpful in re-casting Animar but that was about it, and if you ever have to pay more than 5 for your general, you've probably already lost anyway.
Every single creature in the list I stand by 100% but there are too many non-creature spells in the list. I kept drawing creature-light hands despite the fact that this list already has more creatures than any other EDH list I've ever built.
All of the non-creatures spells make sense and are good - there's just too many. I like ALL of the cards in the list, but some just didn't pull their weight like they should have.
Akroma's Memoral was the biggest disappointment, thought it did outright win me one game. It was just too costly most of the time. Usually, if I could afford to cast it, and had creatures out to benefit from it, I was already winning - thus it was just a "win-more" card most of the time.
Same goes for Overwhelming Stampede - it was just win-more 90% of the time, irrelevant the other 10%.
Birthing Pod might be the biggest overall disappointment in New Phyrexia. When the set was spoiled, I really thought Birthing Pod was somewhere between Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman - i.e. better than Shaman, but not as good as Survival. I thought sac'ing a dude and discarding a dude would be roughly the same as a drawback, while putting the guy right into play with the Pod would more than make up for it. Even in this creature-packed deck, though, sac-ing a dude I'd already paid for was just painful. There were times I won because I was able to "silver bullet" a problematic threat with the Pod, but ultimately it was dead in my hand roughly half the time.
The one caveat is when it's paired with Mimic Vat - if those two stay on the board together, unanswered, you better win or you probably are playing the wrong game.
Still, I'd keep the Vat without hesitation, but I think the Pod can go.
Greater Good and Momentous Fall are logical choices as they are draw-spells that depend on creatures. They make good sense here, but ultimately I think the deck only wants one or the other, not both. I'd favor Momentous Fall, oddly enough, but there is very little life-gain in this deck and that's sometimes important.
Primal Command was very powerful, but oddly difficult to cast. I always had plenty of mana, but I also always needed to just cast more creatures, not go tutor one up. Momir Vig was just SO much better at this, I think I'd cut the Command.
Finally, the Signets ended up being "meh" I'd probably cut them for two more Lands to bring us up to 40 land, and add one more Wood Elves variant, perhaps Pilgrim's Eye or something?
Warstorm Surge
Equilibrium
Mimic Vat
and Wild Pair
These 4 are, without question, the best non-creature cards in the deck. They all preformed well above expectations and Wild Pair in particular is probably the single best card in the deck for giving you a shot at winning a game without Animar.
Pongify and Beast Within were critically-needed utility answers, and I'd probably try to supplement those with at least two more non-Creature removal spells, probably Krosan Grip and something that can kill dudes.
Sarkhan Vol, Garuuk and Jace were all terrific, but none of them really seemed necessary for the deck's success. I'd say Jace pulled his weight the most, but Garruk and Sarkhan just rarely showed up for some reason. The few times I drew them I wasn't unhappy to see them, though.
Finally, the deck's biggest weakness was Wrath of God effects, as expected. To a lesser extent, anything that could kill Animar himself was a back-breaker. I dreaded playing against any deck with Red, because Flametongue Kavu and Spitebellows usually showed up before I could get enough counters on Animar for him to survive their damage.
I strongly recommend countermagic as an all-purpose answer to anything that could kill Animar, but I would say that you should never blow a counterspell unless it's to protect Animar or Wild Pair.
Well, that is all. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label mirror mastery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mirror mastery. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Animar, Soul of Elements Decklist
So... now that the flurry of excitement and anticipation over the new Commander decks from WotC has died down a bit, people are settling into their new generals, having tried on some of the new Legends to see what fits and what doesn't.
Recently, I posted deck tech articles examining the preconstructed decklists and giving suggestions on how to tune them up, while keeping them fairly in line with the original themes and strategies, at least in spirit. One of the most exciting interactions, for me at least, was between the three Generals of the Mirror Mastery deck. Riku was the official designated driver of that list, but both optional wedge commanders - Intet, the Dreamer and Animar, Soul of Elements - had great synergy with Riku. Animar made your creatures cheaper to cast, freeing up the mana needed to copy those creatures, while Intet let you play all kinds of things for free, also allowing you extra mana for copying purposes.
Of all the decks, Mirror Mastery had the best overall synergy between all three of its generals. And as fun as Riku was - who doesn't love copying spells and creatures? - Animar always intrigued me far more. The most exciting games I played with Riku were those in which I landed an early Animar, and eventually I decided that Animar was just the better general overall.
Adding to that, one of the players in my regular playgroup kinda latched onto Riku as his new favorite commander, so I hardly got the chance to play my own build. This made it plainly clear that the only recourse was to switch tracks and morph my deck into an Animar build, which was something I was considering anyway.
I am still in the process of fine-tuning the deck, of course (I rarely leave any list alone, as tinkering and tweaking is one of the biggest draws of Magic to me). But, I feel like the list is very playable already, and truth be told it's as close to "complete" as it will ever likely be.
That said I am very interested in hearing ideas - Secret Tech, or just obvious stuff I somehow overlooked - so feel free to chime in on the Comments section.
Enough chatter, here is the list:
Animar, Soul of Elements
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Aethersnipe
Consecrated Sphinx
Frost Titan
Phyrexian Ingester
Sphinx of Uthuun
Flametongue Kavu
Spitebellows
Inferno Titan
Bogardan Hellkite
Bloom Tender
Lotus Cobra
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Fierce Empath
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Hystrodon
Garruk's Packleader
Silverglade Elemental
Acidic Slime
Silklash Spider
Primordial Sage
Primeval Titan
Spearbreaker Behemoth
Avenger of Zendikar
Coiling Oracle
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Simic Sky Swallower
Alloy Myr
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Artisan of Kozilek
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Ulamog of the Infinite Gyre
Pongify
Equillibrium
Tezzeret's Gambit
Rite of Replication
Warstorm Surge
Beast Within
Birthing Pod
Pattern of Rebirth
Momentous Fall
Greater Good
Primal Command
Overwhelming Stampede
Wild Pair
Prophetic Bolt
Vengeful Rebirth
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Garruk Wildspeaker
Sarkhan Vol
Izzet Signet
Simic Signet
Gruul Signet
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Akroma's Memorial
Breeding Pool
Stomping Ground
Steam Vents
Flooded Grove
Fire-lit Thicket
Cascade Bluffs
Simic Growth Chamber
Gruul Turf
Izzet Boilerworks
Scalding Tarn
Misty Rainforest
Kazandu Refuge
Rootbound Crag
Command Tower
Vesuva
Vivid Crag
Vivid Creek
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Llanowar Reborn
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Island x6
Mountain x5
Forest x7
LANDS
Let's start with the Mana base first, get it out of the way. My article on Riku already stated that colored mana was a huge priority and colorless-producing lands should be kept to a strict minimum. That hold true here, as well. Animar only reduced the colorless portion of the CMC of your creatures, so often times you will be subjected to some very stringent color requirements. I did the best I could with what I had, but obviously just run the best dual lands you can get your hands on. I chose the Ravnica duals to go along with the Zendikar fetches, the Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands (absolute rock stars here), and the vivids and bounce-lands already included with the deck.
An odd thing about this deck: I've been playing three-colored EDH decks almost exclusively for years now, and I've always run EVERY Ravnica bounce-land in every deck, and never have I once doubted that this was wise. But, for the first time ever, I find myself disappointed with them in this deck. If I stick one Turn 2, it's great, but I absolutely hate seeing them any later. It's crucial that we stick Animar on turn 3 consitently, so we need the smoothest mana-base possible, but if I'm forced to drop a Ravnica bounce-land on turn 3 instead of casting Animar that loss of tempo almost guarantees that instead of setting the pace, I'll be playing catch-up.
That said, simply throwing in three more Basics doesn't seem any better. If I had the old ABUR dual lands, I'd definitely run those instead of the Rav Karoos (as opposed to "in addition too"). But alas, we work with what we've got.
The only colorless-only producing land I'm running is Novijen, Heart of Progress. I'm still not sure how good this will be over time, but it has come in handy once or twice. Oran-Rief is much better: cheaper to use, taps for green. But both are pretty key here. Dropping Llanowar Reborn one turn one or two is pretty good.
As you can see, I only have three utility lands that aren't strictly there for color-fixing, and all three of them are capable of putting +1/+1 counters on Animar. The only other ones I'd consider are High Market, Maze of Ith, and Reliquary Tower (I've had a few games where getting 10+ cards in hand was easy). But as stated, I'm minimizing the colorless producers, so Novijen amusingly gets the nod in favor of those usually-superior lands.
SPELLS
As for the non-Creature stuff, we obviously have a limited number of slots available, so competition for these spots is very fierce - we might make room for janky, underpowered pet cards in the Creature category, but in these slots, we need every single spell to have impact.
And what's more, most of them need to synergize with our creature-centric strategy.
For mana rocks, I've gone with the Signets as they produce colored mana. Sol Ring, while it's true that it is near-universal in EDH, has been cut for the simple fact that dropping a Turn 1 Sol Ring doesn't help us cast Animar any sooner than turn 3, nor does it fix our mana to ensure a turn 3 Animar. Unless it is followed by a Signet, that is. So I've opted for reliability and consistency over speed here. We can turn to creatures for our true mana acceleration.
Other artifacts included are those that best enable strong creature-based tricks. Mimic Vat, for instance, is one of the best EDH cards printed in recent memory, and it thrives in an environment laden with creatures. Lightning Greaves are fantastic for helping to protect our general, and also plays well with a number of other creatures, especially the Titans. Akroma's Memorial is just a big, splashy and fun way to win games out of nowhere. Turning your Primeval Titans into Akromas is scary, indeed. Birthing Pod is a neat way to find the right creature at the right time, and it also has the benefit of making your Mimic Vat even more broken. Whatever you sac to the Pod can be Imprinted on the Vat!
Planeswalkers are not necessary, but I happen to like them. Haste is essential to the success of this deck, and Sarkhan Vol does a fine job of showing up Fires of Yavimaya. He is far more potent for only a single mana more. Garruk is also a superb supplement to any creature-intensive strategy, fixing and ramping mana with his +1, while winning games with his -4. Finally, Jace the Mind Sculptor is simply too powerful to pass up, but he is subtly more relevant that you'd think here. Typically, in EDH, I find his -1 ability of unsummoning a creature to be near worthless, but in this deck it's actually more relevant. I still prefer to just Brainstorm every turn, but removing a pesky blocker, or even bouncing one of our many ETBF-effect creatures is wonderful too.
Overwhelming Stampede and Rite of Replication are hold-overs from my Riku build, but obviously are well-suited to a deck packed to the brim with strong, powerful Creatures. Either spell can simply win games on the spot, even without Riku to copy them.
This deck packs a small host of powerful Enchantments. Pattern of Rebirth is a fun way to dissuade an opponent from killing Animar or some other important creature, but even if they do, Pattern will see that you have the means to punish them for it.
Greater Good is one of the most powerful draw-engines ever printed, and it's not even Blue, or Black! This deck will fold to one or two Wrath effects, if you don't find a way to keep your hand full. Greater Good lets us convert creatures that are about to die anyway into more cards with which to rebuild.
Of the remaining three, it's tough to say which Enchantment is the most powerful. Wild Pair likely gets the nod, though. I carefully tweaked and adjusted the creature selection of this deck to ensure that virtually every creature on the list has at least two or three Wild Pair targets, many of them with utility effects. This makes Wild Pair a repeatable tutor effect as well as a card-advantage engine. For every creature you play from your hand, you wind up with an extra one in play.
Equilibrium benefits from having many, many creatures to cast and the reduction in cost Animar gives. But the nice thing is that it allows you to recycle and reuse your ETBF utility creatures like Mulldrifter and Acidic Slime over and over, while adding counters to Animar all the while.
And who could resist Warstorm Surge? A Pandemonium that only works for you? Very enticing, very powerful in a deck capable of dropping several large creatures every turn.
Vengeful Rebirth and Prophetic Bolt are also hold-overs from Riku. Prophetic Bolt is just a pet card of mine, and I am loathe to cut it from any deck that can play it. That said, it's been awkward the few times I've drawn it - often, it is correct to just cast more creatures instead of a middling burn spell. However it can provide us with a creature when find our hand full of lands and non-creature spells.
Vengeful Rebirth is a necessary evil, though. Eternal Witness is really our only other form of graveyard manipulation, so the Rebirth stays in for now.
For my card-draw spells, I chose two: Momentous Fall and Tezzeret's Gambit. The Gambit is a good way to dig for creatures while proliferating to "cheat" an extra counter onto Animar. It's nice if you have a Planeswalker out, too, but mostly it's just here for the Animar interaction. Momentous Fall is clutch, as one of our few sources of life-gain, and it happens to be a powerful draw spell too. I don't recall ever getting fewer than five cards and five life from it, and at Instant speed, no less! Eat it, Blue mages.
Rounding out this section is Primal Command and two oddball removal spells in the form of Pongify and Beast Within. URG is a bit short on options when it comes to hard removal. Red has burn, but most of it is underpowered in this format of fatties. Beast Within and Pongify both have the benefit of being very versatile answers with an almost laugable "drawback" of granting a 3/3 token to replace whatever was destroyed. It should also be noted that either card can be used on one of your own creatures or permanents to draw and extra card if you have Garruk's Packleader on the board. Sure, circumstances would have to be grim for that option to be appealing... but what counts is that it's there at all, and sometimes drawing one single card can be the difference between winning and losing.
Primal Command is just a good, all-around utility spell, but you'll almost always want to choose to search for a creature as one of your modes. The others all have their uses and are great to have, but tutoring for creatures is powerful in this deck - so much so that I'm strongly considering adding Worldly Tutor. This deck rarely does anything before casting Animar, unless it's to drop a Signet. Casting Worldly Tutor on turn 1 or 2, to ensure you have a cheap creature to cast immediately after Animar hits is crucial.
Brutalizer Exarch, a card I pretty much poo-pooed in my EDH set review of New Phyrexia, is also worthy of consideration here. It's already won over many fans who think I judge it too harshly. Perhaps I'm right about it in general, but this is one deck where I think it can shine. My only gripe in the first place was that it was a tad too expensive for what it did. Animar makes him cheaper, so casting him for 4 mana seems perfectly fair while casting him for 1 seems downright broken...
And that brings us to the real heart of the deck: Creatures.
CREATURES
Creatures are Animar's lifeblood. Without them, there is no compelling reason to have him as our general, or cast him at all. And the more creatures you cast, the better Animar is.
But, even with Animar's cost-reduction ability, we need to ensure that we have plenty of lands in play and of the right colors. No small amount of thought went into my selection of mana-fixing and ramping creatures. As a rule, I generally loathe playing creatures that generate mana themselves, such as Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves. When an opponent casts a Wrath to get rid of some giant threat, it kinda blows when they also happen to take out one or two of your lands in the process. No, creatures like Wood Elves and Silverglade Elemental have proven far more effective and reliable: loosing the creature itself doesn't also cost you a "land".
But for this deck, I feel the need to make an exception to this rule. Oh, we still want Wood Elves and many more land-fetchers, but there are three mana-makers that I feel are worth the risk: Lotus Cobra, Bloom Tender and Alloy Myr. You can follow a turn-two Bloom Tender with a turn-three Animar, and still have 3 mana open to drop Wood Elves, Mimic Vat or an evoked Mulldrifter. Bloom tender lets you untap and cast a Primeval Titan (or his Frost or Inferno brothers) on turn four.
Lotus Cobra, I shouldn't have to sell you on. If it stays in play for two turns, it's highly likely you'll have made your two-mana investment back plus interest. Any longer and it'll probably win you the game.
The third one might raise some eyebrows. Alloy Myr is, in the world of EDH, a strictly worse Darksteel Ingot, a strictly worse Coalition Relic. Hell, in most decks, the little Myr would be worse than Mind Stone. But, I chose him for this deck because he can easily - very easily - be a free Coalition Relic. Casting him puts a counter on Animar, so even if he doesn't live to tap for mana, he still likely made one or two creatures cheaper for you. Trust me - he might seem like rubbish, but he has been golden for me here.
These three fine specimens are supplemented by: Coiling Oracle (the only creature in the deck that CANNOT benefit from Animar in any way, yet is still undisputedly worth running), Wood Elves and his bastard stepbrother Farhaven Elf, Solemn Simulacrum, Silverglade Elemental and of course the Primeval Titan himself.
Solemn Simulacrum is probably not surprising - he sees a massive amount of play in the format. What makes him such an interesting choice, for me, is that this is the only deck with access to green mana that I play him in. Why? Well, because when I have access to green I can easily pay three mana or even two for what Solemn does for four mana. Green just has better options. I chose him here, though, for the same reasons as Alloy Myr - he can be free to cast, netting me a land AND another Animar counter. Also, he fits a sweet spot in the mana curve for Birthing Pod purposes, but he's also a crucial piece in the Wild Pair puzzle, Pairing up with Mulldrifter, Momir Vig or other such goodies.
Fierce Empath and Fauna Shaman are fantastic creature-tutors (very important!). If an unwary opponent happens to allow you to Fauna Shaman up a Momir Vig, well... I like your chances.
Eternal Witness is a big fat "DUH!" here.
Forgotten Ancient is also pretty obvious, but he lets you cheat savagely, basically granting Animar counters for EVERY spell played, yours or your opponents, creature or not.
Hystrodon, Garruk's Packleader and Primordial Sage are all phenomenal card-drawers. Packleader might look odd, but the single G in the top right means you can easily cast him for one mana, and follow him up with something big enough to trigger him. Hystrodon can be played face-down as a Morph for free, if Animar has three counters or more.
Primordial Sage has an awkward P/T total, so Silklash Spider was the only suitable mate I could find him for Wild Pair, but I was needing something to ward off Akromas and various Dragons. The Spider is already good enough, but the fact that I needed a Wild Pair mate for Primordial Sage is also compelling.
Spearbreaker Behemoth is another way to keep the deck from rolling over and dying to a single Wrath of God. Simic Sky Swallower is just a "good stuff" inclusion in most decks, but here he can also Wild Pair for one of your three Titans.
Duplicant and Phyrexian Ingester both supply us with some much-needed creature removal, and such a purpose similarly suits Flametongue Kavu and Spitebellows. Or, of course, the dread Bogardan Hellkite.
Aethersnipe can temporarily remove an obstacle and is much more cost-efficient at 3 mana or less.
Phyrexian Metamorph does whatever you need it to do. Simple.
Mulldrifter, Consecrated Sphinx, and Sphinx of Uthuun keep your hand full of stuff to do.
And, finally, we come to the biggest and the meanest - the Eldrazi. I liked Artisan of Kozilek enough to keep him around - this deck doesn't have access to Karmic Guide or Beacon of Unrest, so we make do with a nine-mana version of Karmic Guide. Except you won't often need to pay all nine mana. Sometimes, with a little luck he can even be free. As can his big, Legendary brothers Kozilek and Ulamog. Emrakul should have no trouble staying banned now that Animar is here.
I've also considered It That Betrays as well, but without access to stuff like Grave Pact and Barter in Blood, he looses some of his appeal. Then again casting him for half-price or even less gains him back some of that appeal...
True story: playing a three-way game with this deck, I had managed to get Animar high enough that I ended one turn by dropping Ulamog for zero mana. Passing the turn, one of my two opponents played Evacuation (as no one was fortunate enough to have real Wrath handy). So I began my next turn with no permanents in play, save my lands. I ended THAT turn by casting Ulamog for 1 mana, meaning I cast 10 creatures before him. Without Alloy Myr, Solemn Simulacrum and Phyrexian Metamorph - all cast for free just to get another counter on Animar, this turn would not have been possible.
Yes, the deck is weak against Wrath-heavy decks, but you can easily subvert that by using some counter magic - I'd suggest Venser and Draining Whelk for starters. Also, you can supplement the Spearbreaker Behemoth with other Indestructibility-granters like Eldrazi Monument.
It might also be fun to see if you can go "all creature" and cut everything else to make room for more creatures. I don't know if that's wise or if it'd win many games, but if you're fortunate enough to play in a group that tends to undervalue Wrath effects, you could very easily make them regret that evaluation, playing a deck like this.
Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!
Recently, I posted deck tech articles examining the preconstructed decklists and giving suggestions on how to tune them up, while keeping them fairly in line with the original themes and strategies, at least in spirit. One of the most exciting interactions, for me at least, was between the three Generals of the Mirror Mastery deck. Riku was the official designated driver of that list, but both optional wedge commanders - Intet, the Dreamer and Animar, Soul of Elements - had great synergy with Riku. Animar made your creatures cheaper to cast, freeing up the mana needed to copy those creatures, while Intet let you play all kinds of things for free, also allowing you extra mana for copying purposes.
Of all the decks, Mirror Mastery had the best overall synergy between all three of its generals. And as fun as Riku was - who doesn't love copying spells and creatures? - Animar always intrigued me far more. The most exciting games I played with Riku were those in which I landed an early Animar, and eventually I decided that Animar was just the better general overall.
Adding to that, one of the players in my regular playgroup kinda latched onto Riku as his new favorite commander, so I hardly got the chance to play my own build. This made it plainly clear that the only recourse was to switch tracks and morph my deck into an Animar build, which was something I was considering anyway.
I am still in the process of fine-tuning the deck, of course (I rarely leave any list alone, as tinkering and tweaking is one of the biggest draws of Magic to me). But, I feel like the list is very playable already, and truth be told it's as close to "complete" as it will ever likely be.
That said I am very interested in hearing ideas - Secret Tech, or just obvious stuff I somehow overlooked - so feel free to chime in on the Comments section.
Enough chatter, here is the list:
Animar, Soul of Elements
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Aethersnipe
Consecrated Sphinx
Frost Titan
Phyrexian Ingester
Sphinx of Uthuun
Flametongue Kavu
Spitebellows
Inferno Titan
Bogardan Hellkite
Bloom Tender
Lotus Cobra
Fauna Shaman
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Fierce Empath
Eternal Witness
Forgotten Ancient
Hystrodon
Garruk's Packleader
Silverglade Elemental
Acidic Slime
Silklash Spider
Primordial Sage
Primeval Titan
Spearbreaker Behemoth
Avenger of Zendikar
Coiling Oracle
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Simic Sky Swallower
Alloy Myr
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Artisan of Kozilek
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Ulamog of the Infinite Gyre
Pongify
Equillibrium
Tezzeret's Gambit
Rite of Replication
Warstorm Surge
Beast Within
Birthing Pod
Pattern of Rebirth
Momentous Fall
Greater Good
Primal Command
Overwhelming Stampede
Wild Pair
Prophetic Bolt
Vengeful Rebirth
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Garruk Wildspeaker
Sarkhan Vol
Izzet Signet
Simic Signet
Gruul Signet
Lightning Greaves
Mimic Vat
Akroma's Memorial
Breeding Pool
Stomping Ground
Steam Vents
Flooded Grove
Fire-lit Thicket
Cascade Bluffs
Simic Growth Chamber
Gruul Turf
Izzet Boilerworks
Scalding Tarn
Misty Rainforest
Kazandu Refuge
Rootbound Crag
Command Tower
Vesuva
Vivid Crag
Vivid Creek
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Llanowar Reborn
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Island x6
Mountain x5
Forest x7
LANDS
Let's start with the Mana base first, get it out of the way. My article on Riku already stated that colored mana was a huge priority and colorless-producing lands should be kept to a strict minimum. That hold true here, as well. Animar only reduced the colorless portion of the CMC of your creatures, so often times you will be subjected to some very stringent color requirements. I did the best I could with what I had, but obviously just run the best dual lands you can get your hands on. I chose the Ravnica duals to go along with the Zendikar fetches, the Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands (absolute rock stars here), and the vivids and bounce-lands already included with the deck.
An odd thing about this deck: I've been playing three-colored EDH decks almost exclusively for years now, and I've always run EVERY Ravnica bounce-land in every deck, and never have I once doubted that this was wise. But, for the first time ever, I find myself disappointed with them in this deck. If I stick one Turn 2, it's great, but I absolutely hate seeing them any later. It's crucial that we stick Animar on turn 3 consitently, so we need the smoothest mana-base possible, but if I'm forced to drop a Ravnica bounce-land on turn 3 instead of casting Animar that loss of tempo almost guarantees that instead of setting the pace, I'll be playing catch-up.
That said, simply throwing in three more Basics doesn't seem any better. If I had the old ABUR dual lands, I'd definitely run those instead of the Rav Karoos (as opposed to "in addition too"). But alas, we work with what we've got.
The only colorless-only producing land I'm running is Novijen, Heart of Progress. I'm still not sure how good this will be over time, but it has come in handy once or twice. Oran-Rief is much better: cheaper to use, taps for green. But both are pretty key here. Dropping Llanowar Reborn one turn one or two is pretty good.
As you can see, I only have three utility lands that aren't strictly there for color-fixing, and all three of them are capable of putting +1/+1 counters on Animar. The only other ones I'd consider are High Market, Maze of Ith, and Reliquary Tower (I've had a few games where getting 10+ cards in hand was easy). But as stated, I'm minimizing the colorless producers, so Novijen amusingly gets the nod in favor of those usually-superior lands.
SPELLS
As for the non-Creature stuff, we obviously have a limited number of slots available, so competition for these spots is very fierce - we might make room for janky, underpowered pet cards in the Creature category, but in these slots, we need every single spell to have impact.
And what's more, most of them need to synergize with our creature-centric strategy.
For mana rocks, I've gone with the Signets as they produce colored mana. Sol Ring, while it's true that it is near-universal in EDH, has been cut for the simple fact that dropping a Turn 1 Sol Ring doesn't help us cast Animar any sooner than turn 3, nor does it fix our mana to ensure a turn 3 Animar. Unless it is followed by a Signet, that is. So I've opted for reliability and consistency over speed here. We can turn to creatures for our true mana acceleration.
Other artifacts included are those that best enable strong creature-based tricks. Mimic Vat, for instance, is one of the best EDH cards printed in recent memory, and it thrives in an environment laden with creatures. Lightning Greaves are fantastic for helping to protect our general, and also plays well with a number of other creatures, especially the Titans. Akroma's Memorial is just a big, splashy and fun way to win games out of nowhere. Turning your Primeval Titans into Akromas is scary, indeed. Birthing Pod is a neat way to find the right creature at the right time, and it also has the benefit of making your Mimic Vat even more broken. Whatever you sac to the Pod can be Imprinted on the Vat!
Planeswalkers are not necessary, but I happen to like them. Haste is essential to the success of this deck, and Sarkhan Vol does a fine job of showing up Fires of Yavimaya. He is far more potent for only a single mana more. Garruk is also a superb supplement to any creature-intensive strategy, fixing and ramping mana with his +1, while winning games with his -4. Finally, Jace the Mind Sculptor is simply too powerful to pass up, but he is subtly more relevant that you'd think here. Typically, in EDH, I find his -1 ability of unsummoning a creature to be near worthless, but in this deck it's actually more relevant. I still prefer to just Brainstorm every turn, but removing a pesky blocker, or even bouncing one of our many ETBF-effect creatures is wonderful too.
Overwhelming Stampede and Rite of Replication are hold-overs from my Riku build, but obviously are well-suited to a deck packed to the brim with strong, powerful Creatures. Either spell can simply win games on the spot, even without Riku to copy them.
This deck packs a small host of powerful Enchantments. Pattern of Rebirth is a fun way to dissuade an opponent from killing Animar or some other important creature, but even if they do, Pattern will see that you have the means to punish them for it.
Greater Good is one of the most powerful draw-engines ever printed, and it's not even Blue, or Black! This deck will fold to one or two Wrath effects, if you don't find a way to keep your hand full. Greater Good lets us convert creatures that are about to die anyway into more cards with which to rebuild.
Of the remaining three, it's tough to say which Enchantment is the most powerful. Wild Pair likely gets the nod, though. I carefully tweaked and adjusted the creature selection of this deck to ensure that virtually every creature on the list has at least two or three Wild Pair targets, many of them with utility effects. This makes Wild Pair a repeatable tutor effect as well as a card-advantage engine. For every creature you play from your hand, you wind up with an extra one in play.
Equilibrium benefits from having many, many creatures to cast and the reduction in cost Animar gives. But the nice thing is that it allows you to recycle and reuse your ETBF utility creatures like Mulldrifter and Acidic Slime over and over, while adding counters to Animar all the while.
And who could resist Warstorm Surge? A Pandemonium that only works for you? Very enticing, very powerful in a deck capable of dropping several large creatures every turn.
Vengeful Rebirth and Prophetic Bolt are also hold-overs from Riku. Prophetic Bolt is just a pet card of mine, and I am loathe to cut it from any deck that can play it. That said, it's been awkward the few times I've drawn it - often, it is correct to just cast more creatures instead of a middling burn spell. However it can provide us with a creature when find our hand full of lands and non-creature spells.
Vengeful Rebirth is a necessary evil, though. Eternal Witness is really our only other form of graveyard manipulation, so the Rebirth stays in for now.
For my card-draw spells, I chose two: Momentous Fall and Tezzeret's Gambit. The Gambit is a good way to dig for creatures while proliferating to "cheat" an extra counter onto Animar. It's nice if you have a Planeswalker out, too, but mostly it's just here for the Animar interaction. Momentous Fall is clutch, as one of our few sources of life-gain, and it happens to be a powerful draw spell too. I don't recall ever getting fewer than five cards and five life from it, and at Instant speed, no less! Eat it, Blue mages.
Rounding out this section is Primal Command and two oddball removal spells in the form of Pongify and Beast Within. URG is a bit short on options when it comes to hard removal. Red has burn, but most of it is underpowered in this format of fatties. Beast Within and Pongify both have the benefit of being very versatile answers with an almost laugable "drawback" of granting a 3/3 token to replace whatever was destroyed. It should also be noted that either card can be used on one of your own creatures or permanents to draw and extra card if you have Garruk's Packleader on the board. Sure, circumstances would have to be grim for that option to be appealing... but what counts is that it's there at all, and sometimes drawing one single card can be the difference between winning and losing.
Primal Command is just a good, all-around utility spell, but you'll almost always want to choose to search for a creature as one of your modes. The others all have their uses and are great to have, but tutoring for creatures is powerful in this deck - so much so that I'm strongly considering adding Worldly Tutor. This deck rarely does anything before casting Animar, unless it's to drop a Signet. Casting Worldly Tutor on turn 1 or 2, to ensure you have a cheap creature to cast immediately after Animar hits is crucial.
Brutalizer Exarch, a card I pretty much poo-pooed in my EDH set review of New Phyrexia, is also worthy of consideration here. It's already won over many fans who think I judge it too harshly. Perhaps I'm right about it in general, but this is one deck where I think it can shine. My only gripe in the first place was that it was a tad too expensive for what it did. Animar makes him cheaper, so casting him for 4 mana seems perfectly fair while casting him for 1 seems downright broken...
And that brings us to the real heart of the deck: Creatures.
CREATURES
Creatures are Animar's lifeblood. Without them, there is no compelling reason to have him as our general, or cast him at all. And the more creatures you cast, the better Animar is.
But, even with Animar's cost-reduction ability, we need to ensure that we have plenty of lands in play and of the right colors. No small amount of thought went into my selection of mana-fixing and ramping creatures. As a rule, I generally loathe playing creatures that generate mana themselves, such as Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves. When an opponent casts a Wrath to get rid of some giant threat, it kinda blows when they also happen to take out one or two of your lands in the process. No, creatures like Wood Elves and Silverglade Elemental have proven far more effective and reliable: loosing the creature itself doesn't also cost you a "land".
But for this deck, I feel the need to make an exception to this rule. Oh, we still want Wood Elves and many more land-fetchers, but there are three mana-makers that I feel are worth the risk: Lotus Cobra, Bloom Tender and Alloy Myr. You can follow a turn-two Bloom Tender with a turn-three Animar, and still have 3 mana open to drop Wood Elves, Mimic Vat or an evoked Mulldrifter. Bloom tender lets you untap and cast a Primeval Titan (or his Frost or Inferno brothers) on turn four.
Lotus Cobra, I shouldn't have to sell you on. If it stays in play for two turns, it's highly likely you'll have made your two-mana investment back plus interest. Any longer and it'll probably win you the game.
The third one might raise some eyebrows. Alloy Myr is, in the world of EDH, a strictly worse Darksteel Ingot, a strictly worse Coalition Relic. Hell, in most decks, the little Myr would be worse than Mind Stone. But, I chose him for this deck because he can easily - very easily - be a free Coalition Relic. Casting him puts a counter on Animar, so even if he doesn't live to tap for mana, he still likely made one or two creatures cheaper for you. Trust me - he might seem like rubbish, but he has been golden for me here.
These three fine specimens are supplemented by: Coiling Oracle (the only creature in the deck that CANNOT benefit from Animar in any way, yet is still undisputedly worth running), Wood Elves and his bastard stepbrother Farhaven Elf, Solemn Simulacrum, Silverglade Elemental and of course the Primeval Titan himself.
Solemn Simulacrum is probably not surprising - he sees a massive amount of play in the format. What makes him such an interesting choice, for me, is that this is the only deck with access to green mana that I play him in. Why? Well, because when I have access to green I can easily pay three mana or even two for what Solemn does for four mana. Green just has better options. I chose him here, though, for the same reasons as Alloy Myr - he can be free to cast, netting me a land AND another Animar counter. Also, he fits a sweet spot in the mana curve for Birthing Pod purposes, but he's also a crucial piece in the Wild Pair puzzle, Pairing up with Mulldrifter, Momir Vig or other such goodies.
Fierce Empath and Fauna Shaman are fantastic creature-tutors (very important!). If an unwary opponent happens to allow you to Fauna Shaman up a Momir Vig, well... I like your chances.
Eternal Witness is a big fat "DUH!" here.
Forgotten Ancient is also pretty obvious, but he lets you cheat savagely, basically granting Animar counters for EVERY spell played, yours or your opponents, creature or not.
Hystrodon, Garruk's Packleader and Primordial Sage are all phenomenal card-drawers. Packleader might look odd, but the single G in the top right means you can easily cast him for one mana, and follow him up with something big enough to trigger him. Hystrodon can be played face-down as a Morph for free, if Animar has three counters or more.
Primordial Sage has an awkward P/T total, so Silklash Spider was the only suitable mate I could find him for Wild Pair, but I was needing something to ward off Akromas and various Dragons. The Spider is already good enough, but the fact that I needed a Wild Pair mate for Primordial Sage is also compelling.
Spearbreaker Behemoth is another way to keep the deck from rolling over and dying to a single Wrath of God. Simic Sky Swallower is just a "good stuff" inclusion in most decks, but here he can also Wild Pair for one of your three Titans.
Duplicant and Phyrexian Ingester both supply us with some much-needed creature removal, and such a purpose similarly suits Flametongue Kavu and Spitebellows. Or, of course, the dread Bogardan Hellkite.
Aethersnipe can temporarily remove an obstacle and is much more cost-efficient at 3 mana or less.
Phyrexian Metamorph does whatever you need it to do. Simple.
Mulldrifter, Consecrated Sphinx, and Sphinx of Uthuun keep your hand full of stuff to do.
And, finally, we come to the biggest and the meanest - the Eldrazi. I liked Artisan of Kozilek enough to keep him around - this deck doesn't have access to Karmic Guide or Beacon of Unrest, so we make do with a nine-mana version of Karmic Guide. Except you won't often need to pay all nine mana. Sometimes, with a little luck he can even be free. As can his big, Legendary brothers Kozilek and Ulamog. Emrakul should have no trouble staying banned now that Animar is here.
I've also considered It That Betrays as well, but without access to stuff like Grave Pact and Barter in Blood, he looses some of his appeal. Then again casting him for half-price or even less gains him back some of that appeal...
True story: playing a three-way game with this deck, I had managed to get Animar high enough that I ended one turn by dropping Ulamog for zero mana. Passing the turn, one of my two opponents played Evacuation (as no one was fortunate enough to have real Wrath handy). So I began my next turn with no permanents in play, save my lands. I ended THAT turn by casting Ulamog for 1 mana, meaning I cast 10 creatures before him. Without Alloy Myr, Solemn Simulacrum and Phyrexian Metamorph - all cast for free just to get another counter on Animar, this turn would not have been possible.
Yes, the deck is weak against Wrath-heavy decks, but you can easily subvert that by using some counter magic - I'd suggest Venser and Draining Whelk for starters. Also, you can supplement the Spearbreaker Behemoth with other Indestructibility-granters like Eldrazi Monument.
It might also be fun to see if you can go "all creature" and cut everything else to make room for more creatures. I don't know if that's wise or if it'd win many games, but if you're fortunate enough to play in a group that tends to undervalue Wrath effects, you could very easily make them regret that evaluation, playing a deck like this.
Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Lunch Mastery: Riku of Two Reflections Deck Tech
For our third examination of the new Commander decks from WotC, we’re going to pick apart the BRG deck, commanded by Riku of Two Reflections. As the name of the deck, and it’s signature Commander’s title would suggest, the BRG wedge is all about copying, cloning, and doubling things. Do a quick Gatherer search for the word cards with the word “double” or “copy” in their rules text, and quite a few of the results are in the BRG color wheel. Red, Blue and Green all have a variety of effects that double something or copy something, whether it be creatures, spells, mana or damage.
Riku himself is a Xerox machine with legs and a bad J-RPG hairdo. Let’s get the cursory “official” decklist out of the way, and get to the Tech.
1 Æthersnipe
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Artisan of Kozilek
1 Avatar of Fury
1 Baloth Woodcrasher
1 Chartooth Cougar
1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Deadwood Treefolk
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Elvish Aberration
1 Faultgrinder
1 Fierce Empath
1 Hydra Omnivore
1 Intet, the Dreamer
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Magmatic Force
1 Magus of the Vineyard
1 Nucklavee
1 Rapacious One
1 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Spitebellows
1 Trench Gorger
1 Valley Rannet
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Brainstorm
1 Call the Skybreaker
1 Chain Reaction
1 Collective Voyage
1 Colossal Might
1 Cultivate
1 Death by Dragons
1 Disaster Radius
1 Electrolyze
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Fire/Ice
1 Firespout
1 Gruul Signet
1 Hull Breach
1 Hunting Pack
1 Invigorate
1 Izzet Signet
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Prophetic Bolt
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Ray of Command
1 Ruination
1 Savage Twister
1 Simic Signet
1 Sol Ring
1 Spell Crumple
1 Tribute to the Wild
1 Vengeful Rebirth
1 Vow of Flight
1 Vow of Lightning
1 Vow of Wildness
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
13 Forest
1 Fungal Reaches
1 Gruul Turf
1 Homeward Path
7 Island
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Kazandu Refuge
8 Mountain
1 Rupture Spire
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Grove
So, there are some juicy big-mana spells and creatures that should prove fun to copy. Magmatic Force, Simic Sky Swallower, Call the Skybreaker, etc… yeah, those can win some games, especially when you have two of them.
One thing that strikes me as odd about this deck is that it contains no other ways to copy things – there is zero redundancy here, which kinda sucks, because as a 2/2 with no way to protect himself, Riku dies a lot – even more than Kaalia! One of the very first things I did to this deck was to move Champion’s Helm from the Zedruu deck into this one. Hexproof is relevant for obvious reasons, but the +2/+2 is significant because it helps Riku survive several of the “mass removal” spells included in these decks. Firespout, Evincar’s Justice, Sulfurous Blast, etc… all kill Riku unless he’s protected by the helm.
Another great option is Magebane Armor. Unlike Kaalia, swinging into the red zone is not a big thing for Riku, so protection from non-Combat damage keeps him safe from stuff like Savage Twister, Earthquake or Flametongue Kavu.
The by-now-obvious suggestion of Asceticism comes in at this point. Pretty much the go-to for green decks with fragile generals, Asceticism really shines here, where it protects Riku and the many, many creature tokens he will create.
We need to be very careful not to run too many enchantments or artifacts, as those are things Riku cannot copy. It’d be very tough and equally foolish to build a deck with nothing but Creatures, Instants and Sorceries, so a few non-copy-able spells is a necessary evil. Remember: Do not be a slave to your theme. Sticking too close to any theme can leave you with massive weaknesses and cost you games.
But, for the sake of making Riku worth casting repeatedly (because he will get killed, believe me) we’ll try to minimize the number of cards he can’t duplicate.
One of the first things I’d do is take out the Ravnica Signets. They’re great, and I’m a big fan usually, but I’d rather play a copy-able ramp spell instead. Starting off, we have Collective Voyage, Cultivate and Explosive Vegetation. Those are fine, but we can supplement those with the additions of Explore, Kodama’s Reach and Wood Elves. I’d also consider Farhaven Elf and Silverglade Elemental.
Harrow is awesome in this deck, if you aren’t worried about it being countered. Remember: If you copy Harrow with Riku or Mirari, you don’t have to sac land to the copy, just the original!
If you have the ABUR Duals or Ravnica Duals, then Skyshroud Claim is often just plain better than Explosive Veggies. Getting Breeding Pool and Stomping Ground untapped is usually better than getting Island and Mountain tapped.
This deck is mana-hungry, so the biggest pitfall trap to avoid is cutting your ramp back to make room for splashy spells. Don’t do this. Run the ramp, and I assure you, you’ll have plenty of room for splashy stuff too. You’ll be re-casting Riku often, and without sufficient ramp, you’ll but JUST re-casting him, and not getting to do anything relevant.
Which brings me back to the redundancy issue. Whatever your strategy, if you are counting on having your general out to facilitate that strategy, you better bring a back-up plan. There’s a chance Riku will become too expensive to reasonably expect to cast him and still have mana to do stuff. Fortunately we have plenty of options, and here are a few:
Phyrexian Metamorph (and every other Clone variant)
I’m probably missing a few more, but this is a good start. And we don’t want to overdo it here – winding up with a handful of copy spells, but nothing to copy would suck big time. Ideally, we want a couple that copy creatures and a couple that copy spells.
Creatures tend to die often in EDH, so stuff like Echo Mage and Djinn Illuminatus are not appealing to me, as I would expect them to die before I’d gotten my mana’s worth out of them. In short, they’re bad investments. I love the potential they offer, but the fact is that they’ll rarely, if ever actually deliver on that potential.
On the flip side, I do like effects like Phyrexian Metamorph for sheer utility. They can copy a Legend to kill it, or something with an ETBF effect, or whatever. It’s easier to get a return on your investment, and they’re usually a lot cheaper than leveling up an Echo Mage.
Mirari and Minion Reflector are both highly recommended. They can do Riku’s job in his absence, survive most board-wipes and if Riku does show up, they can double his doubling power.
Kiki-Jiki is a strong inclusion as well, despite the slightly more narrow applications, simply making a hasted copy of a Primeval Titan can lead to tremendous board advantage.
I think we probably want one or two ways to copy other players’ spells. Twincast and Wild Ricochet get my votes. Wild Ricochet is just too fun and awesome, and since I chose it as the red spell, I wanted to pick Twincast to balance out the red/blue mana requirements. Reiterate is good, but I rarely have the mana open for Buyback, especially when playing a deck this mana-hungry.
Finally, Rite of Replication is probably the single best spell in the list above, as it can often end games on the spot when Kicked. It’s powerful and swingy, and can do really funny things too. A great card in any deck, it’s a perfect fit for this one.
Drawing cards is going to be important. I’ve seen the Riku deck as-is ramp up to obscene mana, and then just run out of gas after playing and copying one big creature or spell, then having nothing to do with all that mana the rest of the game.
Obviously, some creature-based draw will be great – Mulldrifter, Regal Force and Consecrated Sphinx are all fantastic inclusions. I especially like the way Mulldrifter interacts – you can evoke it for 2U, copy it for UG, draw four cards and still have a Mulldrifter token in play.
Similar to the Evoke mechanic, stuff like Sneak Attack will achieve similar results. You can Sneak Attack something in, copy it with Riku, and while the original will die EOT, the token copy will stick around!
Eternal Witness is a big fat “Duh!”, and should have been included in this deck over Devour For Power. Fortunately they did give us Vengeful Rebirth, a card I’ve long considered too expensive for its effect and have never really played. But in this deck, it really does make quite an impact. I’ve seen it do some sick things in the Riku precon, so I’m rather surprised to find that I’m leaving it in my modified build.
Also, Izzet Chronarch has been far, far better to me than Nucklavee. Nucklavee is just too restrictive and I NEVER once got to return more than a single card with it anyway, and there was usually a Harmonize or some other green spell that I really wanted to get, so I just swapped out the Nuck for the Chronarch and I’ve been much happier.
Restock or All Suns' Dawn might be worth considering as well.
On the spell side, we have almost boundless options, but I want to focus on the early game because this is a deck with a stupidly high curve, overall. Explore and Coiling Oracle are kinda draw/ramp in one package… in fact Coiling Oracle might be the single most egregious omission of all, in this deck. Treasure Hunt is actually pretty awesome here, too. Late game it has the potential to draw you a bunch of lands to fuel your Retrace spells, and it’ll ALWAYS give you one non-Land card, guaranteed.
At the four-mana slot, we have a variety of options. Harmonize is great, and I’m really excited to copy a Foresee. Scry 8, draw 4, for only six mana? Sounds like a great deal to me. Deep Analysis is always solid, but not necessarily the best choice in this deck.
The next area to work on is early-to-midgame defense. Spitebellows is actually a fantastic card, and I’m glad they included it. We could use a Flametongue Kavu as well. I’ve already mentioned Mulldrifter as a card-drawer, but he can also be an early flier to block with. Aethersnipe is fun and we could easily use Man-O-War here too. I generally find a tempo/bounce effect like Man-O-War to be not really worth it in EDH. But with the ability to copy it, it’s value increases slightly.
Instead of the jellyfish, though, I want to suggest Temporal Spring. This card can do a pretty decent impression of a Vindicate for 1UG, but copying this putting a sizeable threat back on the library, with a comes-into-play-tapped land on top of that threat can really set an opponent back. It’s still little more than a stall tactic, but it can buy you the time you need to start dropping big threats yourself.
Plow Under is an attractive choice, but I feel like it might be a bit too mean and unfun for my opponents, so I’ll be pass, but feel free to try it out on your group.
Undo is another good bounce spell that packs just enough punch to make it possibly worth running. I still like Temporal Spring better, but if you have some fast aggro decks in your group, you should consider both.
Evacuation doesn’t really do anything extra if you copy it, but it’s probably worth including as a potential reset if someone manages to get out more creatures than you. Or you could just use Red’s arsenal of blow-up-the-world effect and massive damage spells like Starstorm and the already included Savage Twister.
All of these big spells makes me think of Jhoira of the Ghitu – which is sure to get a lot of groans and eye-rolls, as she’s degenerate and played-out as a general, but if you just throw her in here and you don’t do the whole Obliterate then un-Suspend a bunch of guys thing, she’s totally fair. You can suspend some stuff, then if you manage to keep Riku alive for it to un-Suspend, you’ll have all that mana open to copy the shit out of everything.
One of the spells included in the deck is Prophetic Bolt. I’m a big fan of this card already, but it is so much fun to copy! I love it. Fire // Ice and Electrolyze, however have not proven effective, at least for me. Even copying them has not really gotten the kind of mileage we want from them. I replaced them with Beast Within and Chaos Warp in my build. Chaos Warp is fun to copy - I never know weather to use it on my utility guy and hope for a big threat, or use it on my opponent's big threat and hope he hits a land!
I need more ways to deal with problematic Lands, Equipment and Enchantments in my metagame – Hull Breach is great, but it’s not quite enough. I suggest Acidic Slime and Indrik Stomphowler, both obvious staples, so I won’t spend any more time on them. They’re just good.
Primal Command is a great spell to copy. The copy has to have the same modes as the original, but it’s still usually worth it. 7 mana to Plow Under and gain 14 life? Or screw the guy playing out of everyone’s graveyards while you tutor up two creatures? Brilliant!
Doubling Season is a great card to add, but that was probably painfully obvious already, and I put it in the Ghave deck so we’ll give it a rest. It’s harder to find a deck Doubling Season is NOT good in at this point.
Same goes for Mana Reflection. While I’ve never been the biggest fan of this 6-mana enchantment, a deck this greedy should probably make good use of it. Taking the whole “doubling” theme to the extreme, we could do Thought and Rage Reflections as well, but I’m not advocating this – just throwing the idea out there if anyone wants it.
Speaking of Titans, Primeval and Frost versions are equally recommended, especially Prime Time (duh, again). All three are great when copied with Riku or Minion Reflector, and casting Rite of Replication, kicked, and then copied with Riku should pretty much end a game on the spot. Especially if you have ways to give them Haste…
On that note, obviously Fires of Yavimaya and Sarkhan Vol are going to be terrific inclusions, but In the Web of War and Urabrask the Hidden can participate if you prefer. Lightning Greaves is already in the deck, and should not be cut for anything ever! Akroma’s Memorial is just plain awesome, and grants Haste as well as a bunch of other relevant bonuses.
Other big, dumb guys that are fun to copy:
Darksteel Colossus (Or Blightsteel if you’re mean like that)
With all the huge guys we’re probably going to be running, Spearbreaker Behemoth looks promising as well. Eldrazi Monument also grants mass-Indestructibility but the upkeep is kinda tough in a deck like this – we don’t really pump out massive hordes of tokens, just a few really big ones! Probably best to just go with the Spearbreaker.
A quick note on the other Legends:
Edric is fun but he doesn’t really do much for this deck. I found him to be a largely useless card 90% of the time, and only drew me 1 or 2 cards before a Wrath came down the rest of the time. I like him much better as a general or just in some other deck than this one (I currently have him earmarked for Rafiq).
Intet is cool, and has a some synergy with Riku – she lets you play stuff for free, which frees your mana up to do other things, like copy the stuff she plays for free. But to make Intet reliable enough to be worth playing you need some additional support. Sensei’s Divining Top, Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Sphinx of Jwar Isle all come to mind, as well as Crystal Ball and Scroll Rack. If you have all these, and can find room for them, they make a fine Plan B of “getting free shit with Intet”, while interacting with your existing Plan A of “copy shit”. If not, I’d cut the Dragon for something less complicated.
Stuff like Future Sight and Oracle of Mul Daya can help too, but I don’t realy like my opponents to see what’s coming, so I’m avoiding those effects for that reason alone. Otherwise I’d say that Oracle of Mul Daya was a must-run.
Sphinx Ambassador really tickles me because you can obviously copy the Sphinx, but whenever one or both hit, you get two creatures which Riku can also copy! Bribery does the same thing, of course – copy the Bribery, get two guys, then copy those guys. It’s 11 mana to do all that, but trust me, it’s worth it.
Knowledge Exploitation is similar, but at seven mana it’s a tad more difficult to pull off. Probably worth it if you manage to do it, though. Also, it can be used in an emergency as a Wrath effect – just target the player most likely to have a few sweepers in his deck.
The money-shot for Blue (other than Rite of Replication), though, has to be Blatant Thievery. Permanent Insurrection FTW?
At this point I feel I should point out that I’m not forgetting or overlooking Time Stretch and Time Warp, etc. I’m ignoring them, because A) they’re friggin obvious, and b) LAME!
Green has the ubiquitous Tooth and Nail, and probably Genesis Wave, but I’m still trying to find something a little less overused. Praetor's Counsel is the new hotness for big-mana Green, but it doesn’t actually do anything more if you copy it, so that’s pointless. I’m actually looking at something a little less expensive for Green’s big win-the-game spell: Overwhelming Stampede. Dubbed “Super Overrun” by me, just this very minute, it seems like casting this once and copying it once should generally result in your guys getting, oh, somewhere around +18/+18 and Trample, assuming you have a Titan out, that’s +6/+6 when the copy resolves, then the original comes in and grants +12/+12. Swingy enough for you?
Red is tricky, though. Many of its game-enders and big-mana effects are damage spells, usually X-mana stuff. Then there’s Warp World and the like, which again, don’t do a whole lot copied – yeah, you get some ETBF triggers after each one, but that’s just not really what we’re looking for here. Disaster Radius is pretty keen, and I have dreams of killing the whole table buy dropping a Repercussion and then playing Disaster Radius on a board full of guys. But no, that’s not likely to happen, and Repurcussion can be a serious liability in a creature-oriented deck like this.
If you want to push the sorcery/instant theme more, and cut back on creatures it could work, though.
So neither Insurrection nor Warp World appeal to me, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t playable. Just not really contributing to the THEME per se. But as I said, don’t be a slave to the theme – if copying Warp World is what floats your boat, go for it.
I feel I’m beating a dead horse with these next few cards, but Mimic Vat and Birthing Pod go hand-in-hand with any deck that care about creatures. Mimic Vat doesn’t really interact with Riku, of course, but believe me when I say your creatures will die a lot, so chucking any Titan or even Mulldrifter onto the Vat will be perfectly fine. Birthing Pod has a more desirable interaction – you can sac TOKEN copies of creatures to get ACTUAL creatures, then copy THOSE too!
If your build is really creature-heavy, Wild Pair will probably be over-the-top busted. Uh, for 10 mana, I’ll cast Inferno Titan, copy it, Wild Pair for Frost Titan, copy it too. Shenanigans abound! Free creatures! Card Advantage! WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE?!
There is a lot of room for variety and customization with this deck – the key is to just minimize the number of things that aren’t copy-able, ramp like mad, and then just start doing everything twice!
As for the land base, I can only really give you one very important piece of advice – minimize the colorless producing lands as much as possible. Temple of the False God is great in this deck, and I’d probably run High Market as an out for opposing theft effects, but beyond that you need all of your lands to make colored mana.
I cut the Vivid lands for the Ravnica duals, and cut some sub-par stuff like Rupture Spire for the Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands. Homeward Path wound up in the Zedruu deck where it made more sense, thus creating the need for High Market as a theft deterrent. I suppose I could make a case for Yavimaya Hollow, too, to regenerate Riku where applicable. But yeah, most important rule is: COLORED MANA!
One final idea I had, briefly, was to go with an Ally tribal theme, as Riku’s copying ability would be pretty busted with that particular tribe! However, RGU isn’t really the optimal color combination. For every all-star we’d get like Harabaz Druid and Sea Gate Loremaster, we’d also be reduced to playing turds like Seascape Aerialist and Tuktuk Grunts. Still, with some judicious use of Changelings and Xenograft, it could be done!
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