Grandeur in EDH? I'm not the first! Shoutout to Baru and Linessa here for serving as inspiration.
The goal is to put your opponents in a soft lock by repeatedly/infinitely using Oriss' grandeur ability.
Using Grandeur
Step 1: Copy
Cloning a creature? In Mono White? It's more likely than you think.
To use grandeur, you obviously need a second copy of Oriss. A bit of an obstacle in a singleton format. Obviously, we need to copy Oriss and have the copy in our hand.
- Mirrorpool is the easy go-to here, doesn't require any set-up. Keep the copy and send Oriss to the graveyard.
- The spirit from
Soul Seperator
will do the same if Oriss is in the graveyard; send Oriss to the command zone on exile, then replay to let her go to the graveyard.
- Mirrorworks + Mycosynth Lattice
will let you copy Oriss on ETB for two extra mana. Additionally, Oriss becomes a viable choice for
Sculpting Steel
with the Lattice in play.
- Liquimetal Coating will also let Sculpting Steel clone Oriss
In all cases, you need to keep the copy/clone of Oriss in play and the actual card in your graveyard. Soul Seperator requires the extra step of replaying Oriss, but everything else will take care of itself with the legend rule.
Step 2: Return
Graveyard shenanigans? In Mono White? But they're the Good guys!
Next up, we need to put Oriss in our hand. Every time we do, we can use the copy's Grandeur ability. The slow way to do this is on each opponents' upkeep for that opponent, but we want to do one better: we want to lock all of the opponents on every upkeep. To do that, we need to be able to loop Oriss back into our hand whenever we want. There's two ways to accomplish this:
- The best way is Eldrazi Displacer and
Angel of Serenity
. The Angel targets creatures in the graveyard as well as in play, and importantly returns them to the owners' hands. By repeatedly flickering Angel of Serenity (who cares if she keeps getting tapped), you can repeatedly return Oriss to your hand and discard her to your Oriss-copy's grandeur ability. This is extremely mana-intensive. It will take six mana, at least two of which must be colorless, to Grandeur one opponent. With
Unwinding Clock
/Clock of Omens and the plethora of mana rocks (and/or Mycosynth Lattice), you ought to be able to keep it up with at least each opponent during their turn, and possibly one more (I suggest the blue player). With infinite mana, you can keep every opponent continually locked during every turn. Plus, this combo lets you exile other creatures as well, not just Oriss, so it doubles as removal!
- The other way is
Ashes of the Fallen
and Myr Reservoir. Ashes naming Myr, obviously, and you can freely use the Reservoir to return Oriss to your hand for a measly three mana. Unwinding Clock will let you reset and use on each opponent's upkeep, and Clock of Omens will let you repeat multiple times a turn.
Displacer + Angel is the far more resilient of the two methods, but also the more mana-intensive and dangerous. Ashes and Reservoir is much less likely to paint a target on your face, but slower and requires more cards to work properly. Once you've got either online, however, the soft lock has begun. If you manage to assemble infinite mana (or enough mana-per-turn to execute the combo for each opponent every turn), then your opponents will only ever be able to play things at instant speed during an upkeep.
Infinite mana, Tutors, draw
Infinite Mana:
Not many ways to execute this in Mono white!
- Sun Titan plus either Angelic Renewal or Gift of Immortality and Ashnod's Altar gives infinite colorless. You may want to include Phyrexian Altar for redundancy, but I left it out because you actually want colorless mana, and Mycosynth Lattice will not filter colored mana to colorless mana, but it will the other way around.
- Ashnod's Altar + reveilark + Karmic Guide gives infinite colorless and incidentally reanimates everything with power 2 or less in your graveyard (Not to worry about the combo though; the legend rule will keep sending Oriss to the graveyard).
- With two copies of Genesis Chamber out at the same time with Ashnod's Altar, you can infinitely execute the Eldrazi Displacer + Angel of Serenity combo, as each full iteration of the combo nets you four Myr tokens and 8 mana (2 tokens/4 mana per flicker). This will actually net you mana, but there's nothing else in the deck that cares about infinite mana.
Tutoring:
A noted weakness of white!
Card draw:
Better than tutoring, but still...
- There's a small Investigate theme running through the deck. Not only do the clues draw you cards, but you can use them with Clock of Omens to untap things. Bygone Bishop and Whitemane Lion lets you draw a card for 4 mana at instant speed, and if you happen to have infinite mana, you can draw the entire deck. Flickering Thraben Inspector with Eldrazi Displacer will do the same.
Expose Evil
is really only in the deck for Isochron Scepter and the possibility of repeatedly investigating, but it's an admittedly weak spot that could easily be cut. Magnifying Glass is in there for the same reason. All of this supports Tamiyo's Journal, but the journal can also be used to just draw if you really need it and can't wait three turns.
- Genesis Chamber and Myrsmith gives you fodder for Skullclamp
- Seer's Sundial. Not everything is fancy.
Protection and Recursion
Straight off, there's not much to protect you from straight exile. If your opponents know what you're doing and have instant-speed exiling removal, there's not much you can do about it. If the right pieces get exiled, the main plan sort of falls apart. You can still win, it'd just be harder. That being said!
Darksteel Forge
is surprisingly easy to get out, and Mycosynth Lattice will subsequently protect all of your permanents. Most graveyard hate actually targets players, so Leyline of Sanctity can keep your graveyard operating as intended. Maze of Ith keeps one creature off your back, and there are ways to untap it to use it repeatedly.
There's quite a bit of recursion here. Sun Titan can target every piece of the combo(s) except Angel of Serenity. Karmic Guide, reveilark, Ashes of the Fallen + Myr Reservoir
, Emeria, The Sky Ruin, and
Remember the Fallen
get creatures. Crucible of Words lets you recur Inventors' Fair, Mirrorpool, and Buried Ruin (and Strip Mine, because I'm an awful person sometimes). Artifacts can be brought back with
Open the Vaults
, Buried Ruin,
Junk Diver
, and
Remember the Fallen
.
Actually winning the game
If your opponents are gluttons for punishment (or are audacious enough to actually try to interact with you) and don't scoop to the soft lock, you can win the game!
Oriss is also not the only way to go! Isochron Scepter plus
Orim's Chant
does the same thing. Silence instead of the Chant will do a decent impression. Both of these, unlike Oriss, can come down quickly in the first couple of turns for another soft lock.
You can put your opponents in a hard lock by assembling Mycosynth Lattice,
Darksteel Forge
, and Nevinyrral's Disk, repeatedlly blowing up all of your opponents' permanents.
F.A.Q.
No.
