Mad Science

Commander / EDH Counters RUG (Temur) Theme/Gimmick Tokens

Klazen

Land (37)

• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desert of the Fervent
• 1x Desert of the Indomitable
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 4x Forest
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 1x Fungal Reaches
• 1x Game Trail
• 1x Gruul Turf
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 6x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Llanowar Reborn
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Novijen, Heart of Progress
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Ramunap Ruins
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rupture Spire
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 1x Spire of Industry
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Thespian's Stage

Anthem (3)

• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Skatewing Spy
• 1x Zegana, Utopian Speaker

Protection (3)

• 1x Plaxcaster Frogling
• 1x Shielding Plax
• 1x Sporeback Troll

AltWinCon (2)

• 1x Biovisionary
• 1x Simic Ascendancy

TargetedRemoval (2)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Lux Cannon

Clone (16)

• 1x Altered Ego
• 1x Body Double
• 1x Cackling Counterpart
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Dack's Duplicate
• 1x Experiment Kraj
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Progenitor Mimic
• 1x Quasiduplicate
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Saheeli's Artistry
• 1x Spitting Image
• 1x Supplant Form
• 1x Tempt with Reflections
• 1x Twincast

Ramp (10)

• 1x Collective Voyage
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Hour of Promise
• 1x Incubation Druid
• 1x Map the Wastes
• 1x Marwyn, the Nurturer
• 1x Sylvan Scrying
• 1x Unexpected Results

TokenGenerator (4)

• 1x Biogenic Ooze
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Helm of the Host
• 1x Riku of Two Reflections

Steal (3)

• 1x Cytoplast Manipulator
• 1x Simic Manipulator
• 1x Stolen Strategy

BoardWipe (2)

• 1x Indomitable Creativity
• 1x The Great Aurora

SecretCommander (1)

• 1x Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Commanders (2)

CardDraw (5)

• 1x Bred for the Hunt
• 1x Fathom Mage
• 1x Shapers of Nature
• 1x Toothy, Imaginary Friend
• 1x Zameck Guildmage

CounterCreation (4)

• 1x Master Biomancer
• 1x Pir, Imaginative Rascal
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Thrummingbird

CounterMover (3)

• 1x Forgotten Ancient
• 1x Simic Fluxmage
• 1x Simic Guildmage

Tutor (3)

• 1x Brutalizer Exarch
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Whir of Invention

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Maybeboard

Other (23)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Ashling the Pilgrim
• 1x Bonds of Mortality
• 1x Death's Presence
• 1x Dragon Throne of Tarkir
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Followed Footsteps
• 1x Forge of Heroes
• 1x Giant Adephage
• 1x Gigantoplasm
• 1x Gilder Bairn
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Hashep Oasis
• 1x Ipnu Rivulet
• 1x Karametra's Favor
• 1x Karn's Bastion
• 1x Mirror Gallery
• 1x Mycoloth
• 1x Ooze Flux
• 1x Presence of Gond
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Vedalken Orrery
• 1x Vivien, Champion of the Wilds

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Ludevic and Tana, a Fusion of Science and Nature

What Kind of a Laboratory is this?!

When putting this deck together, I was having a mind-love affair with the Simic cards of Ravnica. I wanted to create a deck that had the spirit of those cards, but expanded upon it. What I wanted was a deck that took the bio-engineering ideas of Momir Vig, Simic Visionary to the extreme, and possibly adding in some engineering elements from Izzet into the mix. What I came up with is a deck based on copying your opponents strategies and value engines, but with the possibility of doing it even better than they can. It's got a focus on counters in order to improve your creatures (and possibly artifacts and enchantments) beyond the power of their original copies. It's got oozes, mutants, natural phenomena, cloning, engineering, a death ray, and it's headed by a mad scientist and his blood druid counterpart.

Odd Couple

An odd commander deck requires an odd commander choice. I bounced around for a long time deciding who would command this deck. The original idea of the deck being a Simic EDH deck led me to begin with Experiment Kraj and then Pir, Imaginative Rascal and his friend Toothy . I even briefly alighted upon The Maddest Scientist himself, but didn't like the idea of tutoring for whatever I wanted basically every time I cast a spell. That would be boring and tedious to me; far too predictable. I then moved on to The Mimeoplasm because I liked spells like Evil Twin for this deck, and I like The Mimeoplasm itself. I even built the deck out, but seeing the cards, I realized how bleak the colors were. The black caused my deck to look washed out and aesthetically displeasing. I didn't realize it until then, but I didn't just want this deck to be colorful in gameplay, but also in literal color. In the end, I alighted upon an odd couple, which perhaps means a perfect couple, Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist and Tana, the Bloodsower . One a mad scientist, the other a... blood druid? I guess. A crusty old scholar and a feral young woman. Just crazy enough, they may work! The commanders of this deck have a lot of synergy with the deck, in that Ludevic can draw you cards and buy you time, and Tana can create tokens, making your board wider as she gets taller with counters, and does the damage required to draw you the cards with Ludevic. The card draw from Ludevic is important because drawing cards helps you get more options to play (though not card advantage, in this case), and the tokens are important as chump blockers early, and can become terrifying monsters later (and are card advantage, if a bit of a weak form of it, at first).

I could simply run Riku of Two Reflections as commander instead, as he's in the deck and is a powerful commander. He's got a lot of synergy with the deck, and is arguably the better option. The problem with him is that he's not as on theme, and of course, being on theme means style wins every game. I also don't have a ton of card draw in this deck, so taking Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist out would force me to add a lot more of it in, and cause me to remove a lot of cards I really like in here. The deck is designed to run slightly slower than most other decks, as well, (after all, you need to have a target to copy before you can copy it) so Ludevic can be a nice deterrent against people attacking you early, as he can draw everyone cards, which benefits them, but not for attacking you specifically. You can also throw out the old "If you attack me, Ludevic goes away" line, too.

The Secret Weapon!

I've set the commanders as I have because they're not overly intimidating right away, they have synergy with the entire deck, and people can be left wondering what exactly your deck does. But there is a commander in EDH that I've always loved and wanted to build around, and I've included him in here as a secret commander. He couldn't be the commander of the deck due to color restrictions, but I've set up the deck so that he is able to come out pretty regularly in the deck as he's got three tutors so that you can find him (thanks to him being an artifact and a creature) and, being a 6CMC cost, he's highly likely to enter onto a board full of tokens, which means he can impact them immediately and take your opponents by surprise if they don't expect him. The secret commander, secret weapon is Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer . Say you see that someone has a Grave Titan , and you cast Spitting Image on it. Now attack with Tana, the Bloodsower , and bonus points if you've got +1/+1 counters on her (not too hard to do in this deck). Next turn drop Brudiclad, and turn all of those plant tokens you've (probably) got with Tana into Grave Titans. Now the Grave Titans will create a bunch of zombie tokens, and you can turn those tokens into more Grave Titans. Oh, and Brudiclad made a Myr token that you also just turned into a hasted Grave Titan, getting you more zombie tokens when it attacked. I don't know what kind of a jerk would play a Grave Titan, but I'm sure glad I only played a Spitting Image or people would hate me! And this isn't even the most broken way to play the situation out. It doesn't always work out that well, and choosing Grave Titan for the example is cherry picking a bit, but there are plenty of cards you'll want to turn all of your tokens into, and plenty of cards that will make you public enemy #1 the moment you do.

A Stunning Hypothesis, and a Radical Solution!

This deck is going to have trouble winning against some decks. Tribal decks will always be better at their thing than you can be at their thing because every single card in a tribal deck has synergies with each other, as long as it's well built, and those synergies are very specific. You can't copy literally everything. There aren't enough copy cards in MTG to make that happen! This deck also lacks in the form of single target removal. This isn't a control deck, so if someone gets out of hand, you're probably going to need someone else to have the answers. You can enhance those answers using fork spells like Twincast and Reverberate , making them even better, or you can clone a sacrifice outlet like Grave Pact with Clever Impersonator , but you don't have much in the way of straight removal spells. I count two total: Acidic Slime and Lux Cannon , both of which can be tutored for in this deck, Lux Cannon a little more easily. You could possibly argue for Brutalizer Exarch to be included as one, but it's a soft one, and that's not his primary purpose in the deck.

So how can you beat those decks? The most obvious way, and a way that all long-time commander players are used to, is table politics. There are lots of interesting things outside of removal that you can do, and they'll depend on the state of the table. Some things you copy can benefit or hurt some opponents more than others, and it's a good idea to talk to the table and make friends or allies when needed. Another option is simply to bide your time with chump blocks until you can get a really nice token onto the field, and drop Brudiclad. That's not always a possibility, but it is the primary built in win condition in this deck, and it's possible that you can just overtake someone who thought they had the game in hand if they haven't focused on you. Finally, there are two alternate win conditions in this deck, because I realized that they may end up being necessary, and because they're fun!

The first is Simic Ascendancy . The card is in the deck primarily because it creates +1/+1 counters out of three mana and thin air, and often times getting the first +1/+1 counter on a creature is the hardest part of counter building. The win condition is the second and third abilities, though. Each time you put a counter on a creature, you'll put one growth counter on Simic Ascendancy. Now, imagine you've got Pir, Imaginative Rascal out while you're putting counters on things. You pay three mana to put a counter on a creature, and Pir puts a second one on it as well. That means you put one growth counter on Simic Ascendancy for each of those two +1/+1 counters, but Pir puts an additional growth counter on Simic Ascendancy for each of those two +1/+1 counters. This means you paid for one +1/+1 counter, but got to create two of them, and Simic Ascendancy's growth counter count went up by four because Pir created an extra one per +1/+1 counter! It will only take adding (or simply moving) five +1/+1 counters on creatures before you win the game at that rate. Someone has to remove Simic Ascendancy or you're going to win in short order. If you have Gilder Bairn , Master Biomancer or add in a different token-doubler like Kalonian Hydra or Doubling Season into your deck, that token count to 20 could be twice as quick, or, especially with Kalonian Hydra or Master Biomancer, an instant win. It can be as simple as casting Simic Ascendancy in your first main phase, swinging with the Hydra in combat, and winning. Or simply casting a creature spell or two with Master Biomancer on the board.

The second alternate win condition is a bit harder to complete, but certainly more possible in this deck than most others. Biovisionary wins you the game if you control four or more creatures named "Biovisionary" at the beginning of your end step. With how many ways there are to clone him in this deck, it's certainly possible to pull off, but he's not especially subtle. He's a 2/3 for 3 mana, which is mediocre, so the only reason for him to obviously be in this deck is for his ability, and your opponents will know that. You won't be attacking or blocking with him unless you're sure he'll be safe, so he'll be conspicuous for that reason, too. But, you can copy him, and you should. The ideal play would be to cast Biovisionary, and follow it up with a Rite of Replication kicked, and win the game outright. That may not always be possible, so it's a good idea to try to get a token copy of him onto the board using something like Spitting Image , Cackling Counterpart or Progenitor Mimic (which will instantly start a 2 turn timer of its own on your win condition). If you do get a token version of Biovisionary out, you can drop Brudiclad and turn all of your tokens into him and get the win that way, as soon as you go to combat on your turn. The final scenerio, and least favorable, is to simply clone him over and over using your expensive 4 mana clone spells. It's slow, and broadcasts to the table how far you are from winning, so you'll be very open to removal during the process. It's a huge target that you don't want painted on you, so it's best to try the strategy in a quicker way, if possible.

These lands are slow lands.

Yes, yes they are. I don't tend to go above spending $200 when making a deck, and where I usually find I can cut costs easiest is in the manabase. In most of my decks, that's not a big deal because I run a lot of mono and two colored EDH decks. In this deck it would suck, except that I actually built this deck to run purposely slower than the other decks on the table. I've mentioned it already, but if you want to copy a lot of things, you need to wait and let a lot of things enter the battlefield. Why not save money while you wait?

The result is that the lands run a bit slower, and I use all three bounce lands, as well, to maintain card advantage. That said, with the slowness comes lots of color fixing. I've only rarely found being "color screwed" to be a problem. If it does turn out to be a problem, worry not, as most of the ramp in the deck fetches land, and sometimes non-basic land. Ramping ahead in lands in the early-mid game often means your deck ends up outpacing everyone late game.

One more thing to note is that I've included land and mana rocks that can take on colors outside the commander identity, namely Fellwar Stone , Gilded Lotus , Exotic Orchard , Rupture Spire , and Spire of Industry . If we clone something that has an activated ability requiring a mana cost, we're going to want to actually be able to use that ability, and these lands and stones will give us the colors to be able to do that.

Finally, I'll note Thespian's Stage . Normally I just copy Rupture Spire or another land that can give me any mana color, but now and then someone puts a land down that does neat things that I also want to do. Thespian's Stage is basically a clone land, and therefore fits nicely in a deck that likes to clone as much as possible. I've never got the chance to clone a Gaea's Cradle , but if I ever did get the chance, I would have to. Nothing like turning a $3 card into a $300 one.

More Thoughts...

My greatest regret in building this was that not all the cards could be on theme, but the ones that aren't on theme make the deck run better, or are too much fun not to include. If you're reading this, I hope you enjoy the deck. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts on the deck, whether ideas for it, cards you'd swap in or out, or anything else.

Worth noting is that the maybe board is a conglomeration of cards I own that just missed the cut, but still may get back in after play testing, and cards I don't own but wish were in this deck ( Doubling Season anyone?). I should also note that this is a deck I'm planning on running in my casual playgroup. Our decks tend to be worth anywhere from $40 to $250. They really don't go beyond that much. That said, I'd like to be able to bring this deck to my LGS and enjoy it there, too. I feel that, with it's ability to play off of the other decks at the table, it would fare well in most settings, not being too powerful or too weak, but always fun.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.81
Tokens	Copy Clone, Ooze 2/2 G, Myr 2/1 U, Saproling 1/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B