Maybeboard


The goal of deck is to gain a huge card advantage using Zedruu the Greathearted, and then win using any of the listed win conditions. The key pieces, that being the gifts and the commander are fairly inexpensive. This is a great budget deck, which made me like commander in the first place, with room for more expensive tech, that can be added as you collect them.

Explanation of Categories


It is to your advantage to last a long time. "Inevitability" I believe is the term. To this end, you use chaos effects to make it hard for your opponents to efficiently accomplish their goals. Grip of Chaos protects you, your permanents, and your spells by making anything hard to target. You could get more Zedruu triggers using Scrambleverse or Thieves' Auction, but you might also just be able to defuse a dangerous player by allowing the table to spread their permanents around. Another way to survive longer is with "Shield" effects, such as Solitary Confinement, Mystic Barrier, or any of the Circles.

In this list, a great gift is a permanent that you either want to give away, or that gives away itself.

A generic gift is a permanent that will have the same effect regardless of it's controller, which means that you can give it away to draw more cards without any nasty side effects.

A bad gift is a permanent that will give your opponent an advantage, or would better serve you. You do not want to give these permanents away, but you can if you want to use them as a bribe, or you desperately need the extra life.

Good stuff are permanents that you do not give away. These permanents will either hurt your game plan, or are things that will serve you infinitely better.

Combos

The standard Zedruu combo Bazaar Trader + Dominus of Fealty . You steal an artifact, creature or land with Dominus and then give yourself permanent control using Bazaar trader. Most Zedruu decks run this combo because they're playing Bazaar trader anyways.
A slightly less powerful version of this combo uses Zedruu in place of Bazaar Trader. You can steal any permanent using Zedruu, but it has to go to an opponent. Useful if someone has become to powerful and they need to lose their advantage.

Destroy everyone's land but yours with Impending Disaster + Sacred Ground . Give away the Impending Disaster to the next player in terms of turn order and have all your lands re-enter while everyone else's leave.

Alhammarret's Archive + Zedruu the Greathearted has excellent synergy.

Solitary Confinement keeps you safe from most things, and if you have a reccurring draw effect, like Zedruu the Greathearted, you become essentially untouchable.

Neat tricks and things to watch for

Here are some insights I've had since I've started playing this deck. I'll add to this list as I (Or anyone else) finds them, and cares to share them to me.

Grip of Chaos randomly reselects a target, if there's only one target. This occurs after a spell is put on a stack, and the effect is a triggered ability. This means a couple of things. Zedruu's activated ability is not affected by Grip of Chaos, as it has two targets, a player and a permanent. This also means that any counterspell that only targets a single spell, could be changed to target any spell on the stack, including itself.

Bazaar Trader + Dominus of Fealty does not work on Enchantments.

If you're going to lose the game by running out of cards in your library, there a couple of ways around that.
Solitary Confinement skips your draw step, so you can just give Zedruu away with his own ability to prevent yourself from losing.
Pursuit of Knowledge isn't capped at 3 counters, so you can just keep activating it's ability to never draw a card.

When you play Form of the Dragon you'll want to give away immediately, so your life total doesn't become 5. Humourously, if you have hexproof, and there are no other targets, your opponent has to kill themself using Form of the Dragon's upkeep trigger.

To-Do List

Suggestions

Updates Add

Cut: Cops x 5 Cryptic Command Island x 2 Mountain x 3 Kozilek

Added: Boseiju, Who Shelters All Temple of the False God Mystifying Maze Deserted Temple Strip Mine Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre Noetic Scales Harmless Offering Delaying Shield Test of Endurance Story Circle Teferi's Puzzle Box

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Date added 8 years
Last updated 7 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

61 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

7 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.88
Tokens Copy Clone, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders Commander
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