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Crouching Riku, Hidden Norin

Commander / EDH* Casual Primer RUG (Temur)

Philoctetes

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Commander: Riku of Two Reflections

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Crouching Riku, Hidden Norin

Last Updated 1/15/2019 for Creation of List

Hello Dear Reader! Welcome to my latest update on a deck slot in my collection that I have for my best dude Norin the Wary ! Norin has been a pet card of mine from the moment I laid eyes on him, initially playing him in a doofy casual soul sisters/ Golden Wish toolbox deck that pissed everyone off to no end. Once I started playing EDH, I knew he had to be one of my first builds.

This deck started my love affair with Mono-Red, to the point that I built over the years a Zada, Hedron Grinder deck as a secondary mono-red build. This deck then morphed into a big mana Grenzo, Havoc Raiser deck, which eventually became my beloved Neheb, the Eternal deck which can be found here Neheb, Summoner of Comets. Recently, I came to the conclusion that I would rather have a wider variety of color pie decks. Every time I reached for a mono-red deck, Neheb was inevitably my choice because it just felt like the more fun and effective mono-red build. I also began feeling that Chaos was a flawed archetype for EDH because… Well, most people don’t have fun with chaos. It drags games out and makes everything feel tedious for a lot of people. EDH to me is about having fun and interaction with the table, so logically Norin had to change.

I’ve always wanted to make a “Hidden” commander deck - a deck where the real build around is not the commander in the command zone, but the commander in the deck. Norin is the perfect candidate for such a deck, because he is incredibly difficult to remove once he hits the table! We can reliably find him, cast him, and keep him alive by virtue of his Wary ways!

TL;DR - I love Norin the Wary , but never played him. This build seems awesome and fun and unique!

Riku is a commander I’ve always felt interested in, but never truly wanted to commit a build to. But in all honesty, he is the perfect compliment to the Norin gameplan! He allows us extra ETB shenanigans, he can double up on Norin every ETB trigger if we elect to spend our mana that way, and he just feels so… Norin-y! As I flesh out this Primer, hopefully it becomes more and more clear why he is the choice.

The other reason for Riku as the commander is his colors. The primary consideration for this hidden Norin build is Tutors. Black is the obvious king here, but Green is not far off when we’re talking creatures, and in some ways could be considered superior. Green also has insanely powerful ETB abilities to abuse along with the usual suspects in Red. Green also offers us some of the best ETB enchantments for card draw, notably Path of Discovery , the new Guardian Project , and Cream of the Crop . The cherry on top is the excellent bombs, cards like Hornet Queen and Avenger of Zendikar get to replace Siege-Gang Commander and Beetleback Chief in clear upgrades.

Blue offers us something a bit different than Green to the equation. I was pretty sold on Green/Red, so the third color came down to specific commanders and tertiary color identity. Blue therefore offers us 1) Riku himself, which is worth it on it’s own; 2) Blink Synergies like Deadeye Navigator ; and 3) Countermagic. It cannot be overstated enough how critical item 3 is - protecting our Norin from the rare effect that can get through his natural defenses is key, and with this deck the absolutely vital turn is the turn we intend to cast Norin. Having counter backup helps enact a slightly fragile gameplan.

The following accordion is a list of the cards in the deck as of creation of the list. I intend to flesh this section out over the next few months as I learn and update the deck, but for now it is a categorized list!

To note – many of these cards appear in multiple sections.

As a heuristic I try to include 10 Card Draw spells in all my decks. This deck is no exception to that rule. As a side note, this deck 100% operates as a “75%” deck, in that I am not trying to tune the crap out of this list. This is a fun list to play in casual to casual-competitive pods.

In general, I like to include about ten ramp spells, but this deck is incredibly mana hungry, like any blink deck. Riku of Two Reflections is an inherently hungry commander, turning mana into card advantage, so this deck gets the nod with 12 sources of ramp.

The absolute most important part of this deck is getting Norin the Wary online. It can function without him, but it much prefers him on the field. As such, Tutors are at a premium. If you don’t like tutoring, you will NOT enjoy this deck! My goal was 10 Norin tutor effects to hit one basically every game as early as possible. Here we have 10 + 1 non-Norin tutor..
These effects augment the Blink Synergies card category, either by making Norin larger ( Ogre Battledriver , Master Biomancer ) or by offering extra blink triggers ( Deadeye Navigator , Panharmonicon ) or by virtue of being excellent blink targets ( Avenger of Zendikar , Hornet Queen ). Note that basically every creature in this deck is a reasonable blink target for value, but specifically I wanted to mention big threats here.
Gotta have removal to compete in EDH. People don't like to play by your rules. Removal can be meta-dependent, and also preference dependant, so take this with a grain of salt. This deck aims for removal in the form of creatures for Blink synergies.
A small but critical category. I don’t want to overload on this, but these are important to have access to.
These are anything that is difficult to categorize. There is a small sub-category here, which is Clones. Clones just feel very flavorful for a Riku deck, plus they can copy combo pieces which is huge. Plus basically every Tutor is a utility piece to some extent

I hope you enjoyed my deck! Leave a comment if you want to discuss, I think this should be a fun one to follow as it morphs!

One rule I try to consider whenever I evaluate a potential inclusion for any of my decks is "Commander Quadrant Theory". Anyone who listens to the Limited Resources podcast knows about Quadrant Theory from Marshall Sutcliffe - the idea that a full evaluation of a card requires you to consider it's value During the early game, From behind, At parity, and While ahead. Typically this means I prioritize more stable and reliable effects that can help me even when things aren't going so well. I also highly prioritize a strong early game plan, and most of my decks have a curve heavy on 2's and 3's to reflect that. This being a ramp deck means that the curve is slightly higher than normal. Also under this scheme, cards I consider win-more will never receive much attention. I prefer effects good While behind and At parity the most.

I strongly believe that Cantrips are an underplayed card type in commander. The casual format is slow enough that paying an extra mana to cycle a card for a medium effect is quite powerful. A reasonable list of cantrips you should be considering:
Card draw and ramp: the two most critical elements for any commander deck Easy rule of thumb – play 10 of each. But don’t let that limit your imagination. Often, it is best to play more, and in some rare cases less, usually of ramp. Card draw is NOT something to be skipped out on.
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Crouching Riku, Hidden Norin

Commander / EDH* Philoctetes

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Date added 5 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

46 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

13 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.52
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Elephant 3-3 G, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Myr 1/1 C, Plant 0/1 G
Folders Commander Decks
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