Zada Storm

Commander / EDH* Goblins Mono-Red Storm

thegigibeast

Artifact (11)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Ruby Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring

Land (4)

• 1x Blinkmoth Nexus
• 1x Inkmoth Nexus
• 1x Mishra's Factory
• 1x Mutavault

Instant (8)

• 1x Accelerate
• 1x Boiling Blood
• 1x Crimson Wisps
• 1x Desperate Ritual
• 1x Expedite
• 1x Pyretic Ritual
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Stun

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Gamble
• 1x Heat Shimmer
• 1x Renegade Tactics
• 1x Rite of Flame
• 1x Twinflame

Commander (1)

Creature (1)

• 1x Dualcaster Mage

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Maybeboard

Instant (1)

• 1x Reiterate

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The Primer

Introduction

Archetype - Storm

Generally, a storm deck is a deck that plays a lot of cheap, self replacing cards (cantrips) to dig through the deck and mana positive generating spells (rituals) to produce mana to keep on playing cards. This way, the deck will build a "storm count" (the amount of spells casted in the turn) that will be used by the finisher of the deck. In commander, because of the deckbuilding restrictions, the deck tries to run another finisher, often a combo finisher, to be able to have another win line possible if the main one ever gets shut down.

This storm deck is particular, because it heavily relies on it's commander to be able to draw a lot of cards by targetting it with a cantrip, which will then be copied for all other creatures we control. Also, in mono-red, the only good storm finisher in cEDH is Aetherflux Reservoir, so it will obviously be the main win condition of the deck. The backup win condition in the deck will be a Dualcaster Magecombo, since all the parts are good by themselves in our deck. This will be discussed later in the primer.

Card Choices

Cantrips

Those cards are the main reason why we run Zada, Hedron Grinder as our commander. Those are all cantrips that need to target a creature, so when we target our commander, they will be copied for each other creature we control, allowing us to draw many, many cards for only one or two mana. This is what makes this deck particular: the mainb draw sources are cantrips, and we need many creatures on the battlefield to be able to draw a lot from them.

I really like to include what I call "Immediate/Non-Restrictive/Non-Destructive Cantrips", or cantrips that will draw us cards when they resolve, without any restriction on when we can cast them and without damaging or getting rid of our creatures, since we need creatures to continue drawing a lot from our cantrips. A cantrip that would not follow those rules as great chances to be excluded from the deck (see the notable exclusions section for more on this).

• Crimson Wisps, Expedite, Renegade Tactics, Accelerate, Stunand Boiling Bloodare all what I call "Immediate/Non-Restrictive/Non-Destructive Cantrips" and are the main ways to draw a lot of cards for cheap with a lot of creatures on the battlefield by targetting Zada, Hedron Grinderfirst.

Lands

It may not seem like it matters, but even in a mono-red deck, especially in this one, the landbase can make a huge difference. For sure, most of it will be composed of basic Mountains, but there are some spciy additions that can help you in specific aspects of the deck.

First of all, I really like to include manlands in the deck, but only manlands that can turn themselves into creatures, with the mana they generate. Many cool tricks can be done with those manlands, such as cloning them with Twinflame or Heat Shimmerto generate more mana and get more creatures on the battlefield at the same time.

• Blinkmoth Nexus, Inkmoth Nexus, Mishra's Factoryand Mutavaultare all manlands that can turn themselves into creatures with the mana they generate. An important thing to note is that they do not come into play tapped, which makes a huge difference, otherwise they would not be played. Also, don't forget to count Mutavault as a goblin when resolving some cards that take in account the number of goblins on the battlefield.

Rituals

In a storm deck, rituals are used to generate mana while also upping storm count. We already draw a lot of cards, but we need to be able to generate a lot of mana to cast all those cards. In this deck, I like to start by slotting in all the "Non-Conditional/Non-Destructive Rituals". By that I mean rituals that will always give me the same amount of mana that can be used to cast anything (not depending on the boardstate for exemple and not restricting me to use the mana only for creatures or artifacts) and that will not require me to do some sort of sacrifice. Remember, I don't really like to sacrifice my creatures, even if it is to generate mana, because we need a lot of creatures on the battlefield to draw cards.

Rite of Flame, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritualand Seething Song are what I call "Non-Conditional/Non-Destructive Rituals". They are used to keep on generating mana during my combo turns and get my storm count up or they can also be used earlier in the game to cast a bigger spell that will accelerate my plan.

Rocks

Since this is a storm deck, another type of cards we want to include are mana rocks, especially what I call "Mana Positive Rocks", since they can act like rituals: they are good to accelerate me on turns before my combo, and they are good to continue generating mana and adding to the storm count on the combo turn. All the artifacts that can generate more mana than their cost, even if they need to be sacrificed to do so, are considered mana positive and will be auto included in this deck.

Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal and Lotus Petal are all "Mana Positive Rocks" that can help me accelerate my early turns or generate storm count while also netting me mana.

There is another type of rocks that I really like to include in my storm decks, and I call them "Cost Reducing Rocks", because they help me reduce the cost of the cards I play. They don't net mana by tapping, and they require me to play lots of spells to make them "positive", but they are not only used for that purpose. I also play them because they help me fight the worst matchup of this deck, stax. Let's say an opponent plays Sphere of Resistence. It would make it really harder for us to storm, because now all of our cards would cost 1 more. Thanks to the cast reducers, I can kind of negate those negative effects to storm easier through a stax piece. This means that all the REASONABLY costed reducers will be included in the deck to help me in my gameplan and against a stax deck.

• Helm of Awakeningand Ruby Medallionare two really great cost reducers that can help me in my gameplan and against a stax deck.

Tutoring and card quality

Red does not have access to a lot of good tutors, unfortunately, which makes this deck inconsistent at times. Luckily for us, since we play a creature based storm deck, we can still have some good cards to add to our arsenal which can help us tutor other creatures that could win us the game. Here are all the good enough tutors that I decided to include in the deck:

Gamble is the best tutor red has access to. It is, in fact, the only omni-tutor (by that I mean a tutor that can grab anything) in red's aresenal, so it is pretty much an auto-include in every mono-red cEDH deck. Sure, the drawback can sometimes be annoying, but in this deck, with the graveyard recursion and spell casting from graveyard we have access to, it can be played around.

Win Conditions

Those are the cards, or combination of cards, that I will try to get or assemble to end the game.

Aetherflux Reservoir has become the main win condition in all cEDH storm decks since it's printing, so there was no reason to try and reinvent the wheel here, this was an auto include. The idea of the deck is to generate an high storm count to gain a bunch of life with Aetherflux Reservoirand then ping all the other players.

Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame/Heat Shimmer is my backup win condition. I have chosen it because all the pieces are useful even outside of combo. Dualcaster Magecan be used to copy any spellsuch as our own draw spells/cantrips/rituals, or even a counterspell to protect our combo turn. Twinflame/Heat Shimmer can both be used to generate a lot of tokens to draw even more cards from our cantrips (remember this is a creature dependant storm deck). Togheter, Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame/Heat Shimmerallow me top generate an infinite amount of hasty creatures. We then need to proceed to combat phase and kill the other players. Note: Remember to always cast Twinflame/Heat Shimmer first, then Dualcaster Mage, so it will go above in the stack, copy the sorcery under itself in the stack, put the copied spell above the original on the stack, copy Dualcaster Magewith the copied spell (ad infinitum).

Date added	6 years
Last updated	6 years
Exclude colors	WUBG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 11 - 0 Rares 5 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	30
Avg. CMC	1.65
Tokens	Copy Clone