Ephara's Blink'n Value (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Ephara's Blink'n Value

Commander / EDH* WU (Azorius)

python2048

Creature (35)

Land (35)

Sorcery (2)

Instant (12)

Artifact (12)

Enchantment (4)

Choo choo... all aboard the value train! This deck does everything I want to do playing magic. Even though it wasn't my first deck, I started building it very shortly after I started playing the game about two and half years ago. It was originally built as a slower multiplayer deck that could stay under the radar until it had enough control over the board that it could emerge as a very hard to deal with threat. As the deck as evolved, this idea has continued to influence my card choices and has made this a very powerful deck, especially in the late game. The deck is fairly competitive and can hold it's own against cut-throat decks, but might be somewhat slow for a very competitive environment, especially when not playing multiplayer. In more casual environments, there is so much value, inevitability, and interaction, that it's very easy to lock the board down or combo off fairly quickly while still holding up enough interaction to protect your stuff.

Why Ephara?

There are a number of generals that excel in the blink deck. Brago, King Eternal and Roon of the Hidden Realm are probably the two most common, mostly because they blink things themselves. However, most of the time, these generals are either slow or unreliable, meaning you need to dedicate extra slots to redundant blink effects and cards that make the general work more effectively. Instead, I play Ephara. With her ability, I can reliably draw an extra card or two every turn and keep my hand at seven cards fairly consistently. I then use the slots I would normally reserve for card draw and play a solid blink package. This way, I have more space for things to abuse, making the deck much more consistent.

Playing the deck

The first thing this deck wants to do is get Ephara out on the field, preferably by turn 3 with a mana rock. The next couple of turns are spent putting a creatures out on the board and using Ephara's cantrips to dig for more creatures to abuse as well as some interaction or blink effects. The goal is to be able to play out a creature during your turn and hold up some form of cheap interaction to blink or bounce your creature in response to removal or combat. It doesn't always happen in the early turns, but it should be a priority once we have creatures that might seem threatening to our opponents. Soon, you'll be able to hold up multiple answers at a time and your opponents will slowly realize that your creatures are becoming increasingly harder to kill. And the best part is that any failed attempt to kill our stuff will usually results in a 3 for 1. People will be less and less able to interact with you and you will be able to set up a number of soft locks by abusing cards such as Duplicant, Ixidron, Cyclonic Rift, Knight-Captain of Eos, and Nevermaker before winning the game with an infinite combo or just beating down.

Winning and Combos

This deck is a combo control deck that usually wins by either comboing out or by locking your opponents out and swinging in with flyers. The deck has two main infinite, game winning combos. It can either combo out with some sort of infinite blink / draw combo (usually involving Peregrine Drake and some sort of Wall of Omens effect and drawing to either Venser, Shaper Savant or Knight-Captain of Eos) or with infinite turns (with Time Warp).

The following card combinations will give you infinite mana and blink. Combined with a Wall of Omens effect, they will allow you to draw through your deck and cast / blink a creature such as Venser, Shaper Savant and/or Knight-Captain of Eos infinite times.

Infinite turns can be achieved fairly easily. Archeomancer or Mnemonic Wall with Time Warp and a way to blink every turn. This is the easiest combo to tutor up with our one completely generic tutor, Long-Term Plans. You can tutor for a Archaeomancer, use it to get the tutor back, and then tutor again for Time Warp. Hopefully by that time you already have a way to blink every turn.

Card Choices

Creatures to abuse Show

Angel of Serenity: Does many things in this deck. Can be used to quickly clean up a board of creatures. Also works well against graveyard strategies and helps to recur your own creatures.

Archaeomancer: Stupidly good card for this deck. Lets us reuse all of our instants (and one sorcery) and is a combo piece in many of the combos for this deck. Can be gotten with Recruiter of the Guard.

Draining Whelk: Instant speed counterspell on a creature. Might be sort of suspicious to leave so much mana up, but in this deck, it does as much work countering spells while it's on the field as when it's in your hand.

Duplicant: Creature removal on an ETB. Great!

Glen Elendra Archmage: Shuts down many decks, especially when it can be protected or reset every turn.

Ixidron: One of the best way to deal with problematic commanders. A sort of one sided board wipe stapled to a creature. Extremely good in the deck.

Karmic Guide: Gets any creature back from the graveyard. Pretty obvious inclusion.

Knight-Captain of Eos: Completely hoses many green decks as they can be light on creature removal. Even with removal though, creatures can be hard to get rid of meaning that if the deck wins through creature damage, this can shut them off. Additionally, it acts as our primary payload for drawing through our deck and generating infinite mana and blink. Making infinite tokens and swinging will usually do the trick.

Kor Cartographer: Really just another copy of Solemn Simulacrum in this deck. Excellent ramp.

Lavinia of the Tenth: Tends to shut off a variety of strategies. Likely, many of the nonland permanents your opponents have will have a CMC of 4 or less and blinking this repeatedly could mean that they can't utilize a large part of their board (including their mana rocks). Depending on the matchup, I may even get this with Thalia's Lancers even before I get Brago, King Eternal.

Mnemonic Wall: Archaeomancer #2

Mulldrifter: The classic. If we ever get low on cards (maybe playing a bunch in a single turn or playing a bunch of artifacts), this will almost assuredly fill our hand back up in a hurry. Additionally, most of our combos need a draw creature of some sort to help us drill through the deck once we've gone infinite and this one's one of the easiest to get. We can cheat on the cost a little by evoking and then blinking in response to the evoke trigger.

Nevermaker: A really good pillowfort card that can easily lock people out of the game with repetitive blinking. The fact that this is an LTB and not an ETB really discourages people from attacking or interacting with it as they don't want to get something bounced and their next draw step blanked. By the time anyone gets around to dealing with it, it's too late.

Peregrine Drake: The center of many of our combos. The deck would definitely be able to function without this card and would still be pretty good, however, being able to combo off quickly makes it less miserable to play against. This card ups the number of infinite combos up by a ton. Unfortunately, it can't be tutored by anything except Long-Term Plans, so you'll have to naturally draw it most of the time.

Recruiter of the Guard: One of the best tutors in the deck. It gets so many relevant creatures including Archaeomancer, Glen Elendra Archmage, Venser, Shaper Savant, Solemn Simulacrum, Karmic Guide, and Mulldrifter (as well as so many more). Allows you to set up multiple control locks and then draw quickly into more gas if you can reliably blink it.

Reflector Mage: Great way to throw early game plays off balance while still getting value.

Reveillark: The majority of our creatures are two power or less, so this will usually have some good targets if anything was unfortunate enough to have died.

Scrivener: Archaeomancer #3. This one cannot recur Time Warp. However, that is the only sorcery in our deck.

Sea Gate Oracle: More ways to fill our hands even more. Also helps us combo off. Can be played the turn before Ephara comes down if we didn't get a ramp piece, so we have something to do during those turns.

Selfless Squire: A little harder to abuse since you have to blink him on your opponent's turn, but it's able to protect you from a larger variety of threats (such as Purphoros) than something like lavinia or knight-captain.

Solemn Simulacrum: Another classic. If played the turn after Ephara, you get a land and a cantrip. So much value. Allows us to ramp quickly because we need as much mana as we can get during the late game.

Sun Titan: Usually, the worse case scenario with this card is a six mana Solemn Simulacrum (using the fetchlands or something along those lines). However, there are many three mana or less cards that we would love to get back from our graveyard. Solid include.

Thalia's Lancers: A fairly spicy tutor. While it doesn't get a whole lot of stuff, the stuff that it does get is very high impact. Brago, King Eternal, Lavinia of the Tenth, and Venser, Shaper Savant are the most important targets for this card. In a pinch, you can also get one of our legendary lands if you are missing land drops or need to combo out with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

Trinket Mage: Works a little like another Solemn Simulacrum with more burst and less subsequent ramp power. Still extremely good as Sol Ring is a pretty powerful card even when it wasn't played on turn one. Also gets Everflowing Chalice and the two artifact lands.

Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign: Does a mini Fact or Fiction when he ETB's. What really nice touch is that he can be fetched up with Thalia's Lancers, which can be very useful when going infinite.

Venser, Shaper Savant: Very good control card. Lets us bounce any spell or permanent to their owners hands. Paired with something like Deadeye Navigator, it makes it really hard for your opponents spells to resolve or stick. Can be gotten with both Recruiter of the Guard and Thalia's Lancers.

Wall of Omens: Really good standard cantriping creature to give us action in the early turns when we aren't ramping, help us refill if we are low, and help us draw our deck when comboing off.

Instant speed blink or bounce enablers Show

Cloudshift: Part of my instant speed blink package. One mana to protect, reuse, and cantrip any of your creatures.

Crystal Shard: Does very well at protecting your own creatures as well as allowing them to be used again.

Deadeye Navigator: Automatic include in any ETB's deck. Instant speed blinking helps protect and reuse any of your creatures as many times as you want.

Displace: Blinks two creatures at instant speed. Great! Easily abused with an Archaeomancer effect.

Eerie Interlude: Blinks whatever you want at instant speed. Can save your board from a boardwipe. Easily abused with an Archaeomancer effect.

Eldrazi Displacer: Comparable to Deadeye Navigator. Harder on mana to activate, but doesn't have some of the same vulnerabilities to removal. Also much cheaper to cast.

Ghostly Flicker: A better Displace. This one can blink artifacts and lands, meaning you can get more value off of (or go infinite with) Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or even Gilded Lotus.

Ghostway: A slightly worse Eerie Interlude is still extremely good.

Illusionist's Stratagem: Another Displace effect. This one's especially good because the included draw means that Peregrine Drake and an Archaeomancer effect don't have to have another draw creature to truly go infinite.

Mistmeadow Witch: Threat of activation can cause many opponents to not interact with you. Although this effect is fairly expensive to activate, it can be activated as many times as you can pay for, can target any creature on the board, and really makes it hard for opponents to mess with you.

Momentary Blink: Similar to Cloudshift. Easy to hold up mana for. Has the added bonus of being able to be flashed back at anytime for even more value.

Stonecloaker: Another Whitemane Lion effect that helps with problematic graveyard cards.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir: Like playing creatures to draw cards? What about playing them on other peoples' turns? Also makes it almost impossible for your opponents to interact with you when you are going off. This card is one of the furthest from our central themes, but is such an obvious include that I have to have it here.

Whitemane Lion: An extremely cheap bit of instant speed interaction that can be searched up with Recruiter of the Guard. Good at protecting creatures, though not as good at reusing them. Can also be used to bounce itself when you have nothing else to do with the mana and want to draw an extra card off Ephara (assuming you haven't done anything else that turn).

Incremental blink enablers Show

Other instants and sorceries to abuse Show

Ramp Show

As Foretold: Not really ramp, but because this deck likes to play cards on both its main phase and on its opponents' turns, it is specially equipped to take advantage of this card. Played early, this enchantment can easily let us hold up instant speed interaction shortly after it comes down and can eventually save us twice the mana that's marked on it each turn. The only problem is that if drawn towards the mid or late game, it becomes worse than a signet as it doesn't provide any advantage until a few turns after it's played.

Azorius Signet: Exibit A in our ramp package. Gets Ephara out a turn earlier, fixes our mana, can be used the turn it comes in, and can even be untapped with Brago. Great card.

Coldsteel Heart: This one can tap for either color, but you must choose when it comes into play. Unlike many of the other artifact ramp cards, it comes into play tapped, meaning you can't abuse it with Brago and can't use it the turn it comes into play. However, being able to tap for both colors is really helpful.

Everflowing Chalice: This card was mostly added because of Trinket Mage. However, it is really good in the late game as you can play it for a large number and then still hold up quite a bit of interaction. Still allows for a turn 3 Ephara provided you have the other colors necessary. Also can't be abused with Brago.

Fellwar Stone: Color fixing ramp that gets us a turn 3 Ephara that enters untapped. Not much more to say.

Gilded Lotus: Not really part of my standard artifact ramp package as it doesn't get Ephara out any earlier. Rather, I like to think of it as another Solemn Simulacrum. Works really well with Brago, and in extremely rare cases, it can combo with Ghostly Flicker, Sapphire Medalion, and an Archaeomancer effect.

Sapphire Medallion: Another weird one. Like I mentioned, in rare cases it can go off with Ghostly Flicker, Gilded Lotus, and Archaeomancer. However, it just generally makes cards like Ghostly Flicker much better as you can cast more of them in a single turn. Also allows for a turn 3 Ephara.

Sol Ring: Don't really have to defend this choice. This is the only way we can have a turn 2 Ephara and is the entire reason we play Trinket Mage.

Talisman of Progress: Color fixing ramp that gets us a turn 3 Ephara that enters untapped. Not much more to say.

Thought Vessel: One of the two ways in the deck to have an infinite hand size. Also comes in untapped and gets a turn 3 Ephara. Great card.

Lands Show

Other cards to include (based on meta)

My meta has changed over the year of playing this deck and I've had to lower the average CMC of my creatures and spells to give me answers in the earlier parts of the game. This means that I've had to cut some very good cards that would come back depending on how the meta changed.

AEtherling: This is already such an amazing control card. In this deck though, it's even better as it can blink itself to draw extra cards on your opponents' turns. Not really a creature to abuse as much as a creature that abuses Ephara's ability.

Luminate Primordial: Removes a creature from each opponents' board. Real creature removal stapled to a creature in these colors is much more expensive than if I were running black, but it does the job well and can easily be abused to cause opponents to just stop playing creatures.

Parallax Wave: This card is insane. While there aren't many of them, getting this out with something that can reuse permanents a lot of times means blinking a large chunk of your board multiple times. It works well for protecting your board, messing with combat, and plain just exiling creatures permanently. This card works especially well with Nevermaker as you can use the LTB on Nevermaker to manipulate the timing of Parallax Wave leaving the battlefield in order to blink a large number of your creatures or permanently exiling a bunch of your opponents creatures. Combine them with Peregrine Drake and a draw creature such as Mulldrifter to make an infinite combo.

Saltskitter: This was actually a really effective creature for drawing many cards each round and I do miss it. However, I've found that having draw on an ETB helps us get our combos online much quicker. Same argument for Faerie Artisans, though Faerie Artisans might find its way back in at some point if I can find room.

Sunblast Angel: Potentially another one-sided boardwipe against more aggressive decks. Just be careful when using it with Eldrazi Displacer.

Questionable exclusions

Panharmonicon: Although I admittedly haven't test it as thoroughly as I would have liked, I also found that many of my creatures don't really benefit all that much from getting two ETB triggers. Drawing 5 cards off a muldrifter instead of 3 might be nice, but is not super relevant when you already have a full hand. While these four draw creatures, the two main ramp creatures, the few removal creatures, and some of our tutors get varying amounts of value with this card, It does nothing to increase the value of many of our other key blinkers including Lavinia of the Tenth, Draining Whelk, Nevermaker, and Glen Elendra Archmage. That and it doesn't get value the turn it comes into play (and I don't get to cantrip off it like I would with something like Conjurer's Closet).

Restoration Angel: Even though it's a sweet card in other constructed formats, I have found that I usually just end up using it like a four mana Cloudshift. The body isn't usually extremely relevant here. It was replaced by Illusionist's Stratagem (which is a combo piece).

Fiend Hunter: There's actually a lot that could be done with this card. It's a cheap way to get rid of a creature on a stick, can exile permanently given the right conditions, and works well with something like Crystal Shard to exile your own things get even easier ETB's. Recently though, the deck has moved more to focusing on protecting our own creatures and doing powerful things at instant speed rather than lightly interacting with our opponent at sorcery speed. Since the creature does come back when Fiend Hunter leaves the battlefield, I usually find myself looking for a different answer for problematic creatures and this gets stuck in my hand.

Sacred Mesa (and other token generators): Even though I use Ephara as a reliable draw engine, my mana is usually fairly tight in the early-mid game trying to establish a board presence with , , and mana creatures. I usually don't want to spend the extra mana to make a token every turn when I'm already cantripping off my other creatures and once I get to the point where I can afford to, I've likely got enough cards in my hand. Even if I didn't haven't to spend the mana, I'd usually rather have another Mulldrifter effect (same as with Saltskitter or Thraben Doomsayer).

Stonehorn Dignitary: This card would be great for metas that are more agressive and have more creature based decks. However, I'm playing in a meta that's more blue right now. Lavinia of the Tenth and Knight-Captain of Eos do similar things to this for most of where I play and both are more reliable and easier to tutor if needed in a pinch.

Moorland Haunt: I don't really have a good reason that this isn't in here other than I don't like exiling my own things in this deck when I could just dig up a Karmic Guide. The same reasoning applies to Snapcaster Mage and Torrential Gearhulk. While it's probably correct to play them, I don't think I could bring myself to.

Deputy of Acquittals: Since I'm playing Whitemane Lion and Stonecloaker, there may be a question on why not this card. Simply because of the word "another". Not being able to return itself is a real downside as that tends to be a lot of my use of Whitemane Lion (getting that extra card off of Ephara).

Cloudblazer: Was cut for Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign as it can be searched up with Thalia's Lancers and just haven't found the need for another card draw ETB creature. Perfectly reasonable creature though.

Familiar's Ruse: I like to have more control over when my creatures leave the battle field to go to my hand and I don't like getting trapped into situations where I would have to bounce a creature back to my hand that I really wanted to have on the battlefield. Typically blink is what is used in this deck to abuse ETB's because it's much cheaper than re-casting the creatures and bounce is reserved for protecting our creatures.

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Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.51
Tokens	Bird 1/1 W, Construct 0/0 C, Illusion / U, Manifest 2/2 C, Phyrexian 2/2 B, Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure
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Based on	Ephara's Blink'n Value - bigger python2048 EDH
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