Blooming Onion － The Best Deck in EDH [Primer]

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive GWUB Infinite Combo Midrange Multiplayer

SynergyBuild

Land (30)

• 1x Bayou
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Squandered Resources
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Training Grounds
• 1x Wild Growth

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Instant (26)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Decisive Denial
• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Silence
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Summer Bloom

Artifact (5)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring

Commanders (2)

Creature (22)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Biomancer's Familiar
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Opposition Agent
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Thassa's Oracle

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Maybeboard

Instant (14)

• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mindbreak Trap
• 1x Mystical Dispute
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Reap
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Summoner's Pact

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Mystic Forge
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Windfall

Land (4)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Tarnished Citadel

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Compost
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Pemmin's Aura
• 1x Power Artifact
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Stony Silence
• 1x Verity Circle

Creature (8)

• 1x Araumi of the Dead Tide
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Galvanic Alchemist
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

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This is, perhaps, the most powerful deck in cEDH.

A complex mix of interactive, proactive, and synergistic effects layering Consult, with Medium Green, and Mystic Bloom engines, allowing for a powerful, blended strategy that can attack decks from all axis's, and can compete against any strategy. While the full description, a video, maybeboard, etc. needs to be worked on, this is a work-in-progress, and statistics still needs to be gained on this deck!

Ｗｈａｔ ｉｓ Ｂｌｏｏｍｉｎｇ Ｏｎｉｏｎ？

Blooming Onion is my term for the strategy "Green Bloom Consult", which is a group of three main substrategies this deck layers. As a Thrasios, Triton Hero and Tymna the Weaver deck, this strategy is based mostly on attempting to can an overwhelming advantage that we then convert into a win, through card quality, card and mana advantage, as well as synergy.

The parts of the deck are threefold, a Medium Green Core, a Consultation Win-Package, and a Mystic Bloom Backup Engine/Wincon. While all three are important to the deck, understand that a Slim Interaction Package, a strong manabase, and a common ramp, card draw, and tutor package all go into the deck, and fill out what makes this so powerful. Each part will be listed below in theory, and then as well in individual card discussions.

Ｍｅｄｉｕｍ Ｇｒｅｅｎ Ｃｏｒｅ

Medium Green is a term used often to describe the type of Thrasios, Triton Hero/Tymna the Weaver deck that utilizes both halves of the partner pairing and hates on artifact strategies and mana ramp. It uses Training Grounds, Biomancer's Familiar, and Seedborn Muse to abuse Thrasios, Trition Hero, runs many creatures, tons of mana dorks, creature tutors (often Summoner's Pact/Green Sun's Zenith, hence Medium Green), and anti-artifact cards, such as Collector Ouphe or Null Rod.

The reason this does so well, is that many decks are required to decide on a mix or all in on creature or artifact ramp, and because Tymna the Weaver turns dorks into card advantage, and we can leverage an advantage over artifact-reliant decks with Collector Ouphe style effects, as well as more consistently tutor them up, we have ourself a deck that can slow down opposing decks early game, as well as have some of the best, grindiest commanders and staxy pieces to take control of the table and be consistently powerful and relevant as the game goes on.

Some variants care a lot more about stax effects, some more about creatures, etc. Medium Green is a relatively vague term, and has been skewed a lot from what people assume it means, however this strategy is effectively the midrange, anti-artifact variant on Thrasios and Tymna.

Ｃｏｎｓｕｌｔａｔｉｏｎ Ｗｉｎ Ｐａｃｋａｇｅ

Consultation is a combo that is incredibly powerful, given the printing of Thassa's Oracle. The combo is a mix of up to 6 two card combos, being any mix of Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact as well as any Thassa's Oracle, Laboratory Maniac, or Jace, Wielder of Mystery effect. Simply, exiling your entire library with the 'forbidden tutor' effects, and then winning with the other half.

This list forgoes Laboratory Maniac, rather hitting the cards that don't require a separate card to draw, as well, Oracle and Jace do more work on their own, and as this combo is cheap to fit in the deck, it is easy to layer and is high-value, as well as being strong when looking to finish the game with a couple tutors or a big draw turn.

Ｍｙｓｔｉｃ Ｂｌｏｏｍ Ｅｎｇｉｎｅ

Mystic Bloom is the reference to the Summer Bloom combo backup this deck prefers over an Isochron Scepter+Dramatic Reversal, Freed from the Real/Pemmin's Aura+Bloom Tender/Faeburrow Elder or other alternate backup to the Demonic Consultation wincon.

It's the following collection of cards: Any land capable of tapping for without damaging you on entering, and can tap for mana without assuredly dealing damage to you. Forest, and Tarnished Citadel fit this, but City of Brass and Breeding Pool do not. You need 3 islands, other than Mystic Sanctuary, and a Mystic Sanctuary as well, along with any land that can sacrifice itself to draw, Horizon Canopy, Nurturing Peatland, Waterlogged Grove, and Silent Clearing are the ones we use. Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds, Squandered Resources and Summer Bloom is required as well.

Before I get on to why this combo is used, I first will explain the combo itself. Playing Summer Bloom, you get 3 additional land drops. Spending some on a fetchland a few times if you have a Crucible of Worlds effect is perfectly acceptable here to set up. The gist is, you play Mystic Sanctuary with a land drop, putting Summer Bloom back on the top of your library. Then tap and sacrifice Mystic Sanctuary for to Squandered Resources. Use one blue to sacrifice a horizon land, in this scenario, Horizon Canopy, drawing summer bloom. Tap and sacrifice the green-painless land, and get + mana of any color, paying the cost of the recently drawn Summer Bloom, you have gained one mana, and ended up where you started, with 3 additional land drops. This all together leads to infinite mana, which can be used to pay for the sacrifice of the Horizon Canopy-esque land, leaving you with a way to convert any color of mana to . Assuming the green land could take for a useful color, or even just painlessly green, make infinite or whatever color it could make.

Now you have infinite mana of and some other colors, most likely. If you have infinite mana, you can cast Summer Bloom infinitely, saving you the use of the green land, going up a land drop each loop. This in turn lets you sacrifice Mystic Sanctuary and Horizon Canopy and reactivate either infinite times, letting you draw your deck, play infinite lands from your hand or graveyard, sacrifice them for more value, recur any number of instants or sorceries to the top of your deck before drawing them, recasting them, etc.

With Thrasios, Triton Hero out or castable, you could reach a similar state even without infinite mana. Thassa's Oracle would win here, but so would recurring Assassin's Trophy infinite times before Swan Song as well to make infinite mana. Now we discuss why we want this combo in specific:

Because getting that many islands, a land tapping for that mana, and even Mystic Sanctuary itself are effectively free cards to get, as any fetchland and some time with Ramunap Excavator/Crucible of Worlds would do, I consider this a 3-4 card combo. That, in comparison to Isochron Scepter/Dramatic Reversal is much worse in terms of card count, but much better in another couple areas; Resiliency and Card Quality.

Card Quality is easy to explain. It's not a very difficult concept to see that Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter aren't cards that lists like this would run outside of the combo, however Ramunap Excavator is an easily tutorable card in a Medium Green list like this one, with Summoner's Pact, Green Sun's Zenith, etc. and getting many lands isn't hard for the archetype either. Additionally, this deck having an anti-stax piece that gets you even just a land a turn or a card a turn due to Fetchlands and the Horizon lands (Horizon Canopy, Waterlogged Grove, etc.) is really strong. It's not Dark Confidant, but it honestly isn't far from one, as even just having consistent shuffles and lands grinds really well, though isn't what you want while setting up for sure.

Summer Bloom and Squandered Resources look to be the weird cards of this deck, they don't generally fit in outside of The Gitrog Monster or Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder Ad Nauseam-style storm decks, however this deck can use them relatively similarly to Yidris, acting as a way to get quick mana on turns where we are going off with Thrasios, Triton Hero and can convert the already tapped lands to quick mana to end the game, or Summer Bloom to drop in a ton of lands that an actual Ad Nauseam drew for a big storm turn. They both are high-value ritual-like effects that combo nicely for a high-card-quality, difficult to disrupt, land based infinite combo.

Additionally, positioning our deck to be able to abuse lands is an incredibly useful objective, turning our land game fetchlands into Mystic Sanctuary seems sweet, because assuring you have a good draw is one of the most important factors when games go long. Horizon Canopy and the other similar lands are also redraws, again, helping in the later game, but also earlier where you just need to dig for an answer, they are there.

This is less a combo to look for early on, and more a bunch of value pieces, utility lands, and high-value rituals that happen to form a combo to get if you lost your main combo, and need to end the game. That's why I call it an engine, and not a combo in the header.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 years
Exclude colors	R
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 58 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.74
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Spirit 1/1 C
Folders	Good, Trasios, TappedOut, New deck ideas, Competitive EDH, Favourites, Check Later, maybe, To-Do