Commander:
Kruphix, God of Horizons
is your commander. He's great at building up a huge reserve of resources - cards and mana. He's also damn hard to get rid of as an indestructible enchantment. This deck tries to capitalize on these abilities.
Low Devotion:
So long as you keep your devotion to blue and green seven or less, Kruphix stays an indestructible enchantment. There aren't many cards that can get rid of indestructible enchantments. So this deck tries to keep your devotion below seven a number of ways. First, many of the permanents are colorless (i.e.,
Steel Hellkite
). Second, there are a tad more instants and sorceries than there otherwise would be (i.e.,
Rite of Replication
). Third, there is an oversampling of token creatures (i.e.,
Gelatinous Genesis
). Fourth, there are a few ways to steal or copy your opponent's creatures, which likely won't contribute to your devotion to blue and green (i.e., use
Altered Ego
on a mono-red creature). Fifth, there are a lot of removal spells - rather than increase your own board presence (which likely also increases your devotion), decrease their board presence (i.e.,
Beast Within
). Finally, unless there's a good reason your permanents only increase your devotion one apiece. There are a few that increase your devotion two apiece, but those are almost all threats (i.e.,
Sturmgeist
). Three devotion permanents are VERY rare (i.e.,
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
and
Lorthos, the Tidemaker
).
Early Ramp:
The faster that you can get Kruphix into play, the better. So there are several early ramp cards, like
Coiling Oracle
,
Coral Atoll
,
Jungle Basin
,
Primal Druid
,
Ranging Raptors
,
Sakura-Tribe Elder
,
Viridian Emissary
,
Simic Growth Chamber
,
Wall of Roots
,
Wood Elves
,
Farhaven Elf
,
Veteran Explorer
, and, of course,
Sol Ring
. All of them cost three mana or less, so that you can play Kruphix on turn four or earlier. Other than
Wall of Roots
, none of the ramp creatures produce mana themselves, but instead bring lands into play. This way you can block and handle most board wipes without suffering any setbacks. More importantly, opponents won't attack you to cause those setbacks. In fact,
Primal Druid
,
Sakura-Tribe Elder
,
Ranging Raptors
, and
Viridian Emissary
all discourage attacks.
Wall of Roots
and
Victory Chimes
work great with Kruphix's floating mana pool because you can activate their abilities on each of your opponent's turns and get easy mana quickly.
Super Card Advantage Spells:
Kruphix likes having a huge hand. So this deck has
Blue Sun's Zenith
,
Braingeyser
,
Genesis Hydra
,
Mind Spring
,
Open Into Wonder
,
Prosperity
,
Pull from Tomorrow
,
Stroke of Genius
,
Tooth and Nail
, and
Uncage the Menagerie
. Many of these spells also benefit from Kruphix's ability to supercharge X-Cost spells. Some of them also give you the option to mill your opponent to death if you need it.
Uncage the Menagerie
impacts this deck's composition a lot. Because of it, this decklist includes at least five 4-CMC creatures and at least six 5-CMC creatures, many of which can protect
Seedborn Muse
. Generally, you should use
Uncage the Menagerie
and
Brutalizer Exarch
to tutor for
Seedborn Muse
.
Genesis Wave
is also here, because it also brings about card advantage and is awesome in general.
Flash:
Kruphix keeps your mana around indefinitely and flash lets you use it whenever you like. Also, since Kruphix eliminates your hand size, it's better to keep your threats hidden in your hand where your opponents are less likely to screw with them. Finally, Kruphix works great with counterspells (more on on this later) and flash helps you keep your mana open for counterspells without worrying about falling behind your opponents - just cast your stuff at the end of their turn. So this deck has
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
,
Yeva, Nature's Herald
,
Leyline of Anticipation
,
Flash
, and
Alchemist's Refuge
.
Massive Ramp:
Kruphix likes having a massive mana pool. And since he keeps your mana pool around indefinitely, adding to that mana pool on each of your opponent's turns is highly effective. So this deck has Awaken and
Seedborn Muse
. (RIP,
Prophet of Kruphix
.)
Doubling Cube
fulfills a similar, late-ramp function by other means. Once you have one of these in play, DO NOT play another one. It's better to keep one in reserve as a back-up, having two in play makes you a huge target, and having two in play makes keeping track of your mana pool WAY too confusing. Since this is an important part of the deck's strategy, there are a number of cards dedicated to keeping these cards around, including a
Temur Sabertooth
, some graveyard recursion, and a ton of counterspells.
Mana-Boosted Creatures:
This is what the deck is all about, really. Since Kruphix gets you a massive mana pool, you need creatures that can take advantage of that mana pool. X-Cost spells are a no-brainer, so this deck has
Altered Ego
,
Entrancing Melody
,
Gelatinous Genesis
,
Genesis Wave
,
Genesis Hydra
,
Lifeblood Hydra
,
Hangarback Walker
. High-cost and X-Cost abilities are great for the exact same reason, so there is
Crush of Wurms
,
Hydra Broodmaster
,
Lorthos, the Tidemaker
, and
Steel Hellkite
. Additional Costs like Kicker, Buyback, and Entwine also work well, so this deck has
Rite of Replication
, and
Territorial Allosaurus
. Finally, low-cost activated abilities that you can use repeatedly are an ingenious way to use your mana pool, so this deck has
Steel Hellkite
, and
Mindshrieker
.
Mana-Boosted Removal Spells:
Curse of Swine,
Capsize
, and
Entrancing Melody
are great removal spells given Kruphix's mana pool.
Hand Creatures:
Several creatures in this deck draw power from the fact that you're drawing lots of cards and have a large hand. Namely, they are
Psychosis Crawler
and
Sturmgeist
.
Buyback:
You do not need to worry about your hand limit with your deck. So Buyback spells that live in your hand indefinitely will not cause you to discard anything. While great in concept, I'm actually not a huge fan of nearly any of the Buyback spells out there. Therefore, this deck only has
Capsize
and
Forbid
, the latter of which unfortunately requires discard rather than mana to buyback, so it doesn't benefit from Kruphix's mana pool. However, it does benefit from the massive hand that Kruphix enables.
Counterspells:
There are a ton of counterspells in this deck, including
Commit / Memory
,
Mystic Confluence
,
Desertion
,
Disallow
,
Draining Whelk
,
Foil
,
Forbid
,
Thwart
,
Spell Swindle
,
Mystic Genesis
,
Plasm Capture
, and
Venser, Shaper Savant
. (I know that technically
Commit / Memory
and
Venser, Shaper Savant
are not counterspells.) This is because counterspells and Kruphix are besties. With Kruphix you can keep your mana open for a counterspell without losing it if you end up not needing it. He enables huge hands, so you're likely to often have a counterspell at your disposal. Finally, you are going to be casting high-cost spells and you need a way to defend those spells against counterspells. So you need counterspells of your own. My personal favorites are the alternative cost counterspells that do not require you to spend any mana so you can cast your high-cost spells sooner and bigger. So this deck has
Foil
and
Thwart
. And since you will eventually have more cards than you know what to do with, discarding cards is not as great a problem for
Foil
and
Thwart
.
Spell Swindle
and
Plasm Capture
are also great counterspells for Kruphix because there's no rush to use the mana you've stolen. You'll note that these counterspells are relatively high cost. This is because the lower cost counterspells often do little besides countering a single opponent's spell, so that opponent loses a card and some mana and you lose a card and some mana. The rest of your opponents benefit. So these counterspells and the rest of the deck's removal spells either hit multiple targets or additionally do something beneficial for you
Creature Tokens:
You may have noticed that a lot of these spells create a bunch of creature tokens rather than non-token creatures.
See
Crush of Wurms
,
Gelatinous Genesis
,
Hydra Broodmaster
, and
Rite of Replication
. This is not an accident. Non-token creatures often add to your Devotion, and Devotion makes Kruphix into a creature. It's much easier to remove creatures than it is to remove enchantments. So this deck tries to keep your Devotion as low as possible.
Graveyard Recursion:
There's not really much synergy between Kruphix and graveyard recursion. It's just a good idea to have some. So there is
Grapple with the Past
,
Nostalgic Dreams
, and
Wildest Dreams
.
Upgrades:
If your budget is not an issue, I suggest the following substitutions. Substitute
Mystic Confluence
with
Cryptic Command
. Substitute
Thwart
with
Force of Will
. Substitute
Spell Swindle
with
Mana Drain
. Substitute
Brutalizer Exarch
with
Tooth and Nail
. Substitute
Lignify
with
Song of the Dryads
. Substitute
Grapple with the Past
with
Genesis
. Substitute
Genesis Hydra
with
Hydroid Krasis
. Substitute
Flash
with
Vedalken Orrery
. Substitute
Hangarback Walker
with
Walking Ballista
. Substitute one
Island
with
Winding Canyons
. Substitute
Capsize
with
Cyclonic Rift
.
Cards that I Left Out Intentionally:
Helix Pinnacle
and
Laboratory Maniac
because I think alternate win conditions are lame.
Cultivate
and
Kodama's Reach
because they're not creatures.
Prophet of Kruphix
because it's banned.
