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Derevi Prison Control

Overview

There are a bunch of different ways to build Derevi, from bird tribal to ramp to control. Her most competitive build, however, focuses around resource denial and control. As a card, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician fundamentally provides mana. This means that she breaks parity on mana denial pieces like Winter Orb and Static Orb—colloquially called stax pieces—and she can rapidly develop threats like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, which would otherwise be much too expensive for competitive games.

Historically, Derevi has had a lot of trouble closing out the games. She was a terror when she was released back in 2013, but eventually deckbuilding and win conditions got good enough that locking down the game and poking people to death with a random crew of utility creatures wasn't viable. She could win games, but much more often she would get out to an early lead, run out of steam, and eventually an opponent would draw into a win before Derevi could close out the game. For years, Derevi was a fringe deck, outdated and unable to keep up.

Then Derevi got a whole slew of win conditions in a short span of time. The first was Nexus of Fate in Core Set 2019. Since it was an instant, Derevi could fairly easy produce the mana to cast it during the combat step (pointing multiple untap triggers at a permanent like Sol Ring or Bloom Tender). Combined with Hermit Druid to make sure Nexus was the only card left in the library, Derevi could take infinite turns and poke people to death at her leisure. Nexus Derevi was short-lived, however, because in January 2020 Theros Beyond Death was released, bringing not one but two win conditions to Derevi: the first, Heliod, Sun-Crowned and the second Thassa's Oracle. Heliod was largely overlooked because Oracle was so much stronger. Ever since Protean Hulk was unbanned, Flash+Protean Hulk had been the bogeyman of the format. Derevi technically could use it, but the only pile in her colors was Ezuri, Claw of Progress, Sage of Hours, and 4 CMC-0 creatures. It was pretty terrible, more of a meme Hulk pile than a real win condition. With Oracle, Derevi suddenly had access to Thassa's Oracle, Nomads en-Kor, and Cephalid Illusionist, a much tighter Hulk pile and one that layered tolerably well with previous Nexus of Fate ideas.

Then, finally, Flash got banned. Manually assembling Oracle, Nomads, and Illusionist is a three card combo, and thus not really tenable in competitive commander. So where do we go from here? Back to Nexus of Fate? Or do we turn to Heliod, who goes infinite with Walking Ballista but has until now been overshadowed by Flash Hulk? This list is using Heliod, but I admit that that's in large part because I never really liked Nexus of Fate lines. It was too committal, too all-in for my tastes.

Derevi's most concrete win condition is Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista. All your creature tutors (except Green Sun's Zenith) as well as Enlightened Tutor find both pieces. Walking Ballista needs two +1/+1 counters on it, and you need . Activate Heliod to give Ballista lifelink, then remove a counter to deal 1 damage to an opponent. Heliod will trigger, putting a counter back on Ballista. Loop until all your opponents are dead.

A backup wincondition is Luminarch Ascension. If the game goes long and no one removes it, Luminarch Ascension will just win, especially since Derevi with an active Ascension means the angels can untap lands to make more angels. Expect people to remove Luminarch Ascension, though; it's strength is that it's such a low investment. It loses some of that strength if you have to protect it with counterspells. Between Abrupt Decay and simply needing to hold onto counterspells to stop people from winning, Luminarch Ascension is hardly reliable, but it is very powerful and very cheap.

Though we like to pretend combat damage doesn't matter in competitive commander, it's a realistic win condition for Derevi, especially when there are one or more other grindy, slow decks at the table, is simply combat damage. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Archon of Valor's Reach both add a pile of hard-to-block damage to the board, and having Sakashima the Impostor and Spark Double available to double down on them can close out a game quite quickly (naming Instant and Sorcery with a pair of Archons is very hard for most decks to beat).

I look for at least one piece of ramp, two or three lands—though I'll settle for one with enough other mana in the hand—and at least one card advantage engine. I don't tend to value interaction all that highly in my opener; a third of the deck is interaction, and I trust that I'll draw into it if I have a way to draw some cards and the mana to do so. Of course, interaction that's really good in the specific match-up will make hands better or worse (Rest in Peace is often such a card), and a hand that plays a very early card like Sphere of Resistance might be more appealing than it otherwise would, especially if I'm going first or second.

  • Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: We hardcast this guy. Jin Gitaxias has flash, for some reason, and Derevi happens to produce a lot of mana during the combat step by pointing all her untap triggers at whichever permanent gives the most mana. As a huge creature, Jin dodges a reasonable amount of removal and most counterspells, so you can sometimes deploy him without protection—and sometimes, your hand is such that you don't really have a choice—but he's worth waiting a turn if you're a little tight on mana but have the counterspells in hand (especially since having counterspells makes it more likely you'll live to next turn).
  • Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Gemstone Caverns: We don't run these. Derevi makes mana and desperately needs cards. These trade cards for mana. Not worth it for Derevi, 9 times out of 10. Yes, sometimes deploying a turn one stax piece is backbreaking, but that relies on both having these and such a stax piece (Trinisphere, for instance) in your opening hand and also going first. It happens, sure, but not often enough to justify how terrible it is to draw these cards in the midgame, especially once you've already developed some stax pieces. Drawing a Chrome Mox after you've played your Trinisphere or Rule of Law is just horrible. If you play in a metagame where people cast Timetwister all the time and never cast Null Rod, then these cards are a consideration, and Gemstone Caverns is definitely the most playable because your own stax doesn't really hit lands.
  • Sakashima the Impostor and Spark Double: I low-key think these are the best cards in the deck. I've won plenty of games on the back of a cloned Praetor or Derevi.
  • Knight of Autumn: A little better than Reclamation Sage in a meta where you can reasonably expect one or two opponents to be running Priest of Titania. The other modes on Knight aren't particularly relevant, but the in its casting cost isn't either; Derevi makes makes a lot of white mana, unlike a lot of competitive commander decks which only splash white. Manglehorn is the other consideration; it's better against artifact heavy decks like Urza, Lord High Artificer or Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, but unless you are specifically expecting those decks, being able to hit Rhystic Study, Carpet of Flowers and even Food Chain is very good.
  • Caustic Caterpillar and Qasali Pridemage: They don't kill Cursed Totem. They do add versatility to Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Birthing Pod/Neoform/etc. I don't run them, but they're reasonable.
  • Static Orb and Winter Orb: classic Derevi cards, but I haven't been particularly impressed. Winter Orb relies heavily on timing, and needs supplemental stax—Null Rod, Linvala, Keeper of Silence—to be really good. Static Orb is stronger, but also Derevi doesn't naturally break parity on it. Some cards that fit well in Derevi, like Sakashima the Impostor or Seedborn Muse, do, so it's a totally reasonable card to play, but I personally would rather run other cards.
  • Stasis and Seedborn Muse: Derevi doesn't break parity on Stasis. Way back when, jumping through hoops to get Stasis to work was worth it, because it just won you the game. In a world of 1-2 mana win conditions and removal spells, Stasis actually only buys you a few turns. The ways to break parity (Seedborn Muse, Sun Titan, the clones) are all playable cards, but it's still very clunky. If I were running Static Orb and Winter Orb, then I'd like Seedborn Muse more, and if I were already running Seedborn Muse, Stasis would look a little better—but I'm not.

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Casual

98% Competitive

Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

12 - 0 Mythic Rares

62 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

9 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.30
Tokens Angel 4/4 W, Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Plant 0/2 G, Treasure
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