Introduction
Hi everyone! Youre here because you, like me, recognize the true power of the Maelstrom.
Ive been a Magic player since 1997; my very first starter deck was Mirage, and the very first rare I ever opened was Phyrexian Dreadnought. This monstrously big, unbelievably stupid powerful card would go on to pretty much encapsulate exactly how I like to play the game for the rest of my Magic career: play big, stupid creatures for as little mana as possible, damn the consequences.
I began playing EDH around 2012 or so, and it very quickly overtook every other format for me in terms of fun and complexity. I play exclusively EDH now, with the occasional delve into Legacy if the event feels right. And though in my heart I consider myself a G/B player, I am not above recognizing a powerful general wherever it may be, so my EDH lists are pretty varied.
History
Like most of you, I think, I began playing Maelstrom Wanderer because I wanted to cast a lot of big, stupid creatures for free, and smash my opponents for as much combat damage to the face as possible. I put in all the usual cards youll see in every other Wanderer deck; Avenger of Zendikar; Rite of Replication; Jokulhaups, Apocalypse,all the other mass destruction spells...and of course dragons, because why not? Add in as much artifact and land ramp as you can, and presto! Youve got yourself a bona fide Maelstrom Wanderer deck!
Except..I didnt like that. It was frustrating to be like every other Wanderer deck out there; it was frustrating to know that my opponents could destroy something like a Grim Monolith, and set me back from any meaningful game plan for several turns. Ramping to Wanderer was all there was, and if I didnt hit Wanderer early, I probably wasnt winning that game. And I certainly wasnt going to win any games against the truly competitive decks. I wasnt going to beat Prossh to Food Chain; I wasnt going to keep Zur off the field; I wasnt faster at ramping than Sidisi. To any Tier 2 competitive deck, Wanderer was a joke.
I wanted to change that.
Out game the big, splashy spells. Out came the dragons, the Jokulhaups, the Avenger. Out came all the time magic. In its place, I put in competitive EDHs best combos for the colors, and I shifted the focus of the deck from cast Wanderer to find the combo. My win rate skyrocketed. People who thought I was ramping to hit Wanderer as fast as possible were shocked when I hit their combos with Spell Pierces and Force of Wills, cards that are traditionally terrible in this deck. Casting cards like Foresight, making my opponents not just read the card, but actively confusing them as to my game plan. Keeping people on their toes and making them doubt what they knew about Wanderer made my games almost exceedingly simple.
So thats where I currently am. Combo Wanderer has become one of my best decks, and because people are always expecting a certain sort of playstyle from certain generals, I can win games that often times I had no business winning, even among the competitive generals.
Metagame
Currently, my metagame involves a healthy mix of midrange, stax and control strategies. There is very little, if any fast combo, and I still dont believe that Wanderer can defeat something like a highly tuned Gitrog deck, or Ad Naus Sidisi, without actively mulliganing to countermagic. That may change in the future as I experiment with different versions of the deck and what it can do, cutting chafe and so on..but right now, I feel confident that Wanderer can handle anything that doesnt intent to win by turn 3.
Why play this deck?
Likes and Dislikes
You may enjoy playing Combo Wanderer if you:
Like having a win condition safe and sound in the command zoneEnjoy interacting/reacting with your opponentsLike when a game ends the same way 90% of the time
You may NOT enjoy playing Combo Wanderer if you:
Actually enjoy the chaos brand of EDHLike winning with Commander damage or combat damage in generalWant to win the game on turn 2
Commander Comparisons
So who else compares to Wanderer?
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder: Yidris is also a Maelstrom general, and hes even a combo general, but his focus is much more on storm than anything else. Yidris rewards you for playing multiple spells in a turn, obviously from hand, and can quickly steamroll your opponents if given the chance to connect via combat damage. Wanderer doesnt care about combat damage, and in fact doesnt even really care about casting your commander at all unless it wins the game that turn. Yidris greatest asset is the addition of black in the commander cost; if Maelstrom Wanderer was exactly the same but had black in his cost, I truly believe this deck would be unstoppable.
Animar: Animar likes playing big dumb creatures. Animar also likes playing combo. Imperial Animar lists can be very strong and very fast, but based on the strategy theyre trying to push theres not a lot of room for actual control, and the deck frequently loses to any tier 1 strategy or well-placed removal on Animar himself.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant: Sidisi can arguably do what we do, only better; the reason for this is strictly due to the addition of black to her mana cost. Black gives access to the best tutors and removal in the entire game, and Sidisi herself serves as the combo in the command zone that allows the rest of the deck to do its thing. Sidisi is fast and resilient, but has one glaring weakness: its reliance on the graveyard. A well-timed Tormods Crypt, Leyline, or even a Bojuka Bog will stop the entire deck from not only functioning but removing all possible win conditions at the same time. The win conditions are the same as most other highly competitive decks: Necrotic Ooze Combo, Hermit Druid, and/or Laboratory Maniac. And while those combos are obviously very strong, their weakness cant be overstated enough. Wanderer does not have this weakness, and not only has multiple combos available to it, but the deck isnt reliant on 1 or 2 strategies to win the game. Wanderer can have several key cards removed (via Praetors Grasp, etc) and still win without a problem.
Decklist
Current decklist as follows:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/maelstrom-wanderer-combo-1/
Gameplay
So there are a few ways to win that were trying to go for at any given point. The first, and generally most reliable, disrupt-proof way of comboing off is with Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin/Eternal Scourge for infinite colored mana (creatures only!). This combo works by exiling the Griffin or Scourge to Food Chain for X+1 colored mana; you use X of that mana to re-cast from exile the Griffin/Scourge, netting a single mana. Repeat for infinite mana of all colors.
Our second combo functions in much the same way: the typical Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron infinite mana loop. Exiling Palinchron for 1U and returning it to play allows to you tap your lands for mana, Palichron then untaps them, allowing you blink it again.etc. etc. Infinite mana of all colors; notably, not just limited to creatures like Food Chains mana is.
Once we have infinite mana, we can then cast Maelstrom Wanderer an infinite amount of times, cascading through our entire library. If using DEN + Pali, you simple blink him and recast him from the command zone; if Food Chain, you exile it for mana, and again recast him from the command zone. Additionally, we can cascade in whatever order we want, as the cards we dont want to cast simply go on the bottom of the library, to be cascaded into again. This also means you can re-use certain cards if necessary - if theyre destroyed, countered, etc. - by cascading into Regrowth and similar cards to put them back in hand or into the library.
Once youve got infinite mana and youre cascading through your library, there are your actual win conditions:
Warstorm Surge/Purphoros, God of the Forge + Wanderer/Scourge/Misthollow Griffin: Basically any card that deals damage or does things when your creatures come into play. Re-cast Griffin or Wanderer to deal infinite damage to your opponents.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts: Kiki/Conscripts create infinite attacking tokens, swinging at each opponent simultaneously for infinite damage. I dislike this combo the most, as it dies hard to a lot of pillowfort strategies and instant-speed removal. Note that, depending on the actual card/s stopping you, you can still get around this: For instance, a player thinking theyre safe behind a Ghostly Prison will be very, very sad when you make infinite copies of Zealous Conscripts, using the last copy to steal their Prison until EOT and letting you attack for free.
Enablers: The single cards or strategies that can just auto-win the game. These are pretty typical, but for reference:
Tooth and Nail: If unanswered, will win you the game. Can fetch Purph+Griffin if you already have Food Chain; Kiki+Conscripts to just kill the table, DEN+Palinchron to get infinite mana, or can just search up things like Rec Sage and Glen Elendra Archmage to protect your game plan or destroy something thats stopping you from going off. 10/10, would run again.Defense of the Heart: In a truly competitive environment, this can ALMOST be considered a waste of mana, since your opponents will either never have more than 1 creatures (their commander) in play, or will destroy it before it triggers. However, the amount of free wins you can gain off this card is ridiculous and should not be discounted for just that reason. Future updates to my list may include ways to gift creatures to opponents with cards such as Forbidden Orchard, to maximize my ability to just go Oops, I win.Birthing Pod: An easy way to find any of the 4+ creatures you can combo off with, this will also directly just win you the game with Glen Elendra Archmage: Sacrifice the four-drop Archmage to find Zealous Conscripts; Archmage will persist back into play. Gain control of - and untap - Birthing Pod, sacrificing the Archmage for Kiki-Jiki this time. Tap Kiki to make a copy of Conscripts and go off. This will also lead to a fair number of oops, I win scenarios, but can also be led into with any of the numerous three drops.
Generally speaking, my game plan has always been to play the thorn in the foot, with multiple removal spells, counters and speedbumps, while simultaneously ramping until I can either drop a combo piece or come out of nowhere with the win. One of the strengths of Combo Wanderer is its ability to sit quietly, unassuming, stopping any majorly annoying plans from seeing fruition until you can pull the trigger on one of your own combos.
Game Progression
This is where this deck is vastly different than most Wanderer builds.
In most builds, your early plan for Wanderer consists of one thing: Ramp. Ramp hard. Drop everything and anything you can to increase your mana count, because your decks singular purpose in life is to drop Wanderer and pray.
This...is not that Wanderer. :)
Early Game: Yes, were still going to ramp. However, because our game plan is to throw wrenches into the works, it is completely acceptable to forego ramping on a turn if you can instead cause havoc for other players. We do this by utilizing the fair amount of destruction the deck packs with cards like Rec Sage, Hull Breach, Stomp and Howl, or Ancient Grudge - as well as counterspells. Counterspells in Maelstrom Wanderer are often extremely effective, because who the hell runs counterspells in a Wanderer deck?? These allow you to cause serious problems for players that otherwise thought they could proceed unimpeded. But really, your early game plan involves delaying people, blowing up particularly troublesome artifacts or enchantments, and otherwise tutoring for either lands or combo pieces. You can always play the more traditional Wanderer build and just ramp for the first few turns; that will still benefit you in the end.
The most important distinction, for our build of Wanderer however, is this: Were not actually trying to cast Wanderer! In our build its actually not beneficial at all to drop Wanderer as early as possible. You certainly CAN, if you have nothing else to do or want to get in some combat damage.but were not going to be cascading into anything dumb. Were not trying to abuse Wanderers ability to drop a Consecrated Sphinx and a Time Warp on the same turn. Wanderer is strictly a means to an end. That can be a pretty powerful jedi mind trick to opponents who dont know what were trying to do.
Mid Game: Tutors and removal. Drop roadblocks to discourage people from attacking you with things like Lotus Cobra, Glen Elendra Archmage, Wood Elves, etc. Youre not trying to make yourself impenetrable, youre just trying to gum up the works while ramping yourself. Tutoring for combo pieces at the same time will make it so that you can at some point just untap and win. With the ramping you did in the first few turns, its entirely possible to have a turn 5, 6 or 7 Oops! win and just drop a Birthing Pod into Conscripts into Kiki into win. Most of my wins come around this time frame. Often, if youve gotten to the late game, something has generally gone wrong.
Late Game: Again, if youve gotten to this stage, things have gone wrong. Maybe you dropped an early Food Chain that got exiled; maybe somebody hit you with Praetors Grasp and managed to get rid of Deadeye Navigator. Generally you should have enough answers and tutors to put together a general defense, and worse comes to worse, you always have Wanderer himself; a 7/5 can hold its own in combat most of the time, and all it takes is 3 hits.
We lack any real tutors because we dont have black; we also lack strong removal because were not black or white. So being creative with your card choices is paramount, as is getting as much bang for your buck for each card you use. Its for this reason I like cards like Hull Breach and Decimate, because it gives us the reach to hit multiple opponents simultaneously, shoring up some of the weakness of what is probably the second-worst color pairing (the first being red/white/black). If you hit late game, things have definitely gone awry, but that doesnt mean you cant come back from it.
Winning the Game
Synergies and Tactics
RUG generally speaking does not have the best tutors in the game, but what we do have, we can use in very creative ways to get what we need. The only way were going to win is by digging for combo pieces and creative use of tutors.
Sylvan Library, Frantic Search, and Brainstorm type cards all act to expose more of our library. We dont often need more than any one other particular card - well have Glen Elendra in play already, or Food Chain in hand, or Defense of the Heart in play, etc. Playing the best draw spells in our colors just opens our options, same as any other deck. Were also not super concerned with our life total; because were not running black, we dont run any self-harm effects such as Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, etc; no life payments for us to drop our own life totals precipitously. As such, dont feel bad about using Sylvan Library to full effect, drawing three cards a turn. Generally speaking youre only going to hit turn 8 or so, anyway, so the life loss is negligible.
Specific tutors can find you what you need, but of course have RUGs peculiar little twists with them: Bring To Light, Foresight/Manipulate Fate, Gamble, Selective Memory, Impulse, Intuition, Long-Term Plans and Worldly Tutor all either search for specific types of cards, OR have the very strong possibility of screwing you over when theyre supposed to help you. Gamble is the textbook example of this, and I will often not cast Gamble unless its in the first few turns of the game when my hand is 5+ cards. I certainly CAN recover from losing a tutored-for card, but its a huge liability and often not worth it. Intuition is essentially the same: Other decks that use Intuition, such as Mimeoplasm or Sidisi or Sharuum, truly dont care what hits the grave and what doesnt, because all three cards are beneficial no matter where they go. Whereas with our list, we are actively looking for one, specific card; meaning most of the time, our intuition piles are something like Food Chain, Regrowth, and Noxious Revival...and the opponent will under no circumstances give us Food Chain.
On the other hand, we also have tutors such as Manipulate Fate, which is perfect for our deck. You can cast it on turn 2 and immediately pull out Misthollow/Scourge and 1 or 2 other cards (usually Selective Memory and/or Foresight), drawing a card, and making sure the second piece of your combo is safe and sound in Exile until youre ready for it. With early versions of the deck that just had Misthollow, it was easy to just grab the Griffin, Foresight and Selective Memory, not only grabbing your combo piece but also making sure that extra copies of the same effect were now off the table - Selective Memory is pretty useless if Misthollow Griffin is already exiled. So being able to selectively thin your deck is pretty powerful. Selective Memory will also just grab excess lands or ramp spells at a certain point, making sure that all I can draw from that point on is gas or combo.
Card-by-Card:
Mystic Remora/Rhystic Study: The upkeep on Remora is not generally a big deal, though I will almost always let it die after about 2 turns around the table. Often it will have done its job already, and even 3 cards makes it more than worth the mana I spent to keep it up for a turn or so. Rhystic is the same, providing incremental card advantage over the course of the game - it will either draw you a metric ton of cards, or it slows down your more experienced players, who will wisely decide to pay the 1 instead of giving you the card. Its the most expensive card out of Prophecy for a reason.
Food Chain: The majority of the ramp in this deck is creature based to synergize with Food Chain. Youre not particularly ramping into anything - youre not trying to hit Wanderer mana as soon as possible - but the value it can give you if you start chaining dudes together is undeniable. Not only can you ramp into more land drops via Wood Elves and similar, but Food Chain actually enables you to cast Wanderer several times - upwards of 6 or 7 times - in a single turn, with just one or two creatures on the board. As an example, with both Eternal Witness and Farhaven Elf on the board already:
Sac Witness for UUUU. Sac Farhaven Elf for RRRR.Cast Wanderer (from lands only), double cascade. Sac Wanderer for GGGGGGGGG (9 green). You now have 17 mana in pool.Cast Wanderer for URGGGGGGGG. You have RRR, UUU and G (7 mana) in your pool. Double cascade.Sac Wanderer for GGGGGGGGG. You now have RRRUUUGGGGGGGGGG (16 mana) in pool.Cast Wanderer for RUGGGGGGGGGG. RRUU in pool. Double Cascade.Sac Wander the last time for GGGGGGGGG. you have RRUUGGGGGGGGG (13 mana) in pool. If you can get one more mana from somewhere or if any of your creatures costed more than three or you had more than two creatures....continue on.So you get at least 3 double cascades, 6 spells, with just that. If any of those additional cascades are additional creatures, you can continue on, exiling them for additional mana. You dont particularly care how many times you can do this, as long as you can hit your combo pieces while doing it, because when you combo off, Wanderer becomes free and you can cascade through everything.
So you can see how, even with nothing else going on with the board, if youve dropped a few dudes and Food Chain, you can generate some insane value and possibly just win from there.
Warstorm Surge/Purphoros: Ill generally drop Purphoros if I have nothing else to do, because hes indestructible, so I have little fear of anyone actually dealing with him. He wont do anything more than ping your opponents for 2-6 damage, but incremental damage is incremental damage.
Warstorm Surge on the other hand, will deal more damage overall, but is also more fragile and tends to draw a lot of hate (for obvious reasons). I will usually not drop Surge unless I have nothing else to do, because it telegraphs my game plan without an effective way to actually END the game. All it does it make me a target.
Imperial Recruiter: Finds all your utility critters as well as (as usual) half your Kiki/Conscripts combo. Finds Duplicant, Witness, mana elves, Archmage, Kiki-Jiki, Rec Sage, Ooze...plus any of a dozen others you could test out.
Consecrated Sphinx: The Sphinx is a good card to ramp into and drop early, if you have it. Its generally worth the investment, even tapping down on Mana Vault or Monolith, as the card advantage if it makes it around the table even once is worth it. It also draws a lot of hate, but you can usually get at least 2-4 cards out of it and it draws a removal spell, so thats something.
Cryptic Annelid: An unusual choice, for sure. Not only does it have a respectable body that will stop a fair amount of creatures from coming your way, its also 100% expendable past its ETB ability, which, if youre not hip on reading, will dig you six cards deep into your library if you need it to. Desperate for a land? There you go. Digging for Food Chain? Go for it. Just need that one artifact gone? See what removal you can dig for. It doesnt draw the card or otherwise get it into your hand, but the fact that it puts a bunch of unnecessary cards on the bottom and gets you that much closer to an actual win con is totally worth it.
Duplicant: The standard creature-based exile your dude answer. Again, were not running black or white; were not going to be hitting your Avacyn with Swords to Plowshares or giving anything -X/-X...so we need to dip into artifacts to find our answers. Duplicant is a bit expensive, but again, synergizes with Food Chain, gets rid of Eldrazi like a champ, and works well with the other creature-based strategies in the deck.
Gilded Drake: One of the more undervalued answers in blue, if you want my opinion. A second answer to indestructible or otherwise nigh-unbeatable creatures, we can just steal the ones that are a huge threat or otherwise stopping us from going off. Its a great answer to an early Zur, as well, since a subsequent swing will just so happen to find our Food Chain, which will then eat Zur to help us cast a super early Wanderer and combo out.
Regrowth/Noxious Revival/Natures Spiral/Eternal Witness/Skullwinder: Beyond the usual uses of being able to re-use ramp or removal, these cards also allow you to use things like Intuition to great effect, tutoring for one of your combo pieces and immediately pulling it back to your hand; they also allow you to cycle through multiples pieces of your deck as youre infinitely cascading, for instance using Hull Breach to annihilate an opponents entire board (necessary against a stax player) before being able to win.
Wood Elves: Permanent land-ramp is most important so were not impacted by early removal spells. Additionally, our land/artifact ramp comes into play untapped and ready to go, giving us greater ramping abilities, whereas mana dorks require a turn before theyre online. As such, we run a combination of tutor-based ramp and mana artifacts such as Sol Ring, Grim Monolith and the signets. Wood Elves, Farhaven Elf, Lotus Cobra, and Sakura-Tribe Elder all work towards that end as well, and gum up the battlefield with blockers in the mean time. They also, of course, work with Food Chain. Spell-wise, we of course run the best 2 mana ramp spells in Farseek, Natures Lore, Three Visits, and Skyshroud Claim. Eldritch Evolution: Again, using your creatures to their utmost. This has to be one of the best cards for the deck in the last year or two. Evolve one of your three drop land tutors into a Conscripts or a Kiki, evolve Wanderer himself into anything, etc. youre pretty much willing to sacrifice anything to get to one of your combo pieces. The only way this could be any better is if we had access to white for Academy Rector.
Long-Term Plans: Actually one of the best cards for Maelstrom Wanderer. Barring opponent shenanigans, an end-of-turn Long-Term Plans lets you set up your cascade perfectly, getting you any card you need to finish comboing off. For those unaware, youll draw your card for the turn, cast Wanderer, and since the card you tutored for is now two cards down, it will either be your first cascade (if the first revealed card is a land), or your second cascade (if the first card is another spell). Either way, youre casting whatever you tutored for. This card is incredible even in regular non-combo versions of Wanderer, casting such degenerately stupid cards as Apocalypse
The Counter suite: Mana Drain, Force of Will, Swan Song, Negate, et al. Because we are not a big dudes version of Wanderer, we can afford to run disruption, vastly improving our early game against other competitive decks. Current testing has dropped me to the minimum of Force of Will and Mana Drain (with the added bonus of ramping to Wanderer), but ultimately I think the correct number is somewhere around 4-6 counterspells.
Cut Cards:
In complete honesty, most big, flashy spells have been tested and cut. Current testing versions of this list are running both Time Warp and Capture of Jingzhou, just to give me a bit of extra reach and another turn to hit a combo; both may be cut for more actual control cards. Other time magic has been cut and I havent looked back since. Same with any other aggressive creatures, such as Avenger of Zendikar; there is no secondary plan of winning through big cascades and attacking. Go combo or go home.
As more testing and tweaks are made, Ill add additional cut cards here as well; for now, this is the most updated list I have.
Weaknesses:
Combo Wanderer has two immediate weaknesses that come to mind:
Fast combo/control: Zur, ANT Sidisi, Yisan, Tasigur...these decks can pretty much ignore what were doing as they either develop their own board, or just combo off without caring. For this reason, your initial mulligan is very important: generally speaking, you dont need to mull into ramp...youre going to find it, it will happen, dont worry. Youre not focused on casting Wanderer as fast as possible, youre worried about screwing up Zurs mana base. Mulligan to answers and counters, not ramp.Weak-as-balls tutors: Lets face it, RUG has probably the worst tutors in the game, short of Mystical and Worldly Tutor. Worldly Tutor and Eldritch Evolution are worth their weight in gold, but unfortunately, almost every card we can use to look for a combo piece, only looks for one other combo piece, or is restricted. Worldly Tutor will find any of our creatures, but we cant find Food Chain. Manipulate Fate can tutor for Misthollow Griffin/Eternal Scourge, but nothing else. Gamble can and will make you discard the card youre looking for. Long-Term Plans makes you wait 3 turns unless youve got some other manipulation going on like Senseis Divining Top. Intuition will always, without fail, end up with your tutored card in the graveyard, and youll have to work to get it out of there. Bring To Light will roundabout tutor for Misthollow (via Manipulate Fate), or one of your creature combos (via Fierce Empath/Imperial Recruiter), but again, no Food Chain.
For these reasons Im always on the lookout for better tutors, in particular cards that can search out Food Chain, among other cards. The faster we hit Food Chain, the more likely we are to win.
Matchup/Results:
Conclusion:
So thats it! I hope this has given you at least the beginnings of an idea on a different take on Maelstrom Wanderer; its actually a lot of fun to play, uses what I would consider the easier win conditions in competitive EDH, and can definitely give any deck not on its toes a good run for its money. Future tweaks to the decklist will be things like tightening up the mana base (seeing how low on lands I can actually go before impacting draws); improving the artifact mana base with things like Mana Crypt, and upping the amount of reactive spells like countermagic. This list has suffered in being sort of my back burner list, but its also been the deck Ive had put together the longest; probably more than a year at this point. Hopefully putting this primer out there will get some discussion going, and we can find the ultimate list for this build. :)
Thanks for reading!
