General Overview
This is a combo deck that focuses on winning with Food Chain, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Splinter Twin, and Palinchron/Peregrine Drake. Food Chain combos result in "free" cascades until I hit another combo piece. Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin combos end the game with infinite haste creatures. Palinchron/Peregrine Drake combos end the game with infinite mana. Once infinite mana is achieved, Reality Shift is used to exile all your opponents' decks. Beast Within is also used to destroy all your opponents' permanents. You need Deadeye Navigator to flicker an Eternal Witness to infinitely cast beast within or reality shift once you hit infinite mana.
The deck is light in interaction. The deck tries to race the opponent rather than control them. A lot of land ramp, mana rocks, and mana dorks are employed to diversify the ramp package. The deck's weaknesses are faster combo decks and stax/hatebear decks. Its strengths are not being heavily dependent on the graveyard, being able to win out of nowhere, and the raw card advantage of having Maelstrom Wanderer as your commander.
Combos:
1) Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Splinter Twin + Deceiver Exarch or Zealous Conscripts
Deal infinite damage with haste creatures. If you have a Food Chain out then you just make infinite mana for creatures and win with Maelstrom Wanderer cascading your deck.
2) Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Splinter Twin + Kiora's Follower + Food Chain
This combo is weird. Usually if you make infinite creatures with Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki you just win. However, these Kiora's Follower tokens are tapped so you need something extra. That's where food chain comes in. Make infinite creature mana and win with Maelstrom Wanderer cascading your deck.
3) Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin or Eternal Scourge
Make infinite creature mana and win with Maelstrom Wanderer cascading your deck.
4) Ghostly Flicker + Eternal Witness or Greenwarden of Murasa + Palinchron or Peregrine Drake
Make infinite mana. Now you can Ghostly Flicker Eternal Witness or Greenwarden of Murasa and any creature you want infinitely. For now I took this combo out, I might revisit it.
5) Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron or Peregrine Drake
Make infinite mana. Now you can flicker anything as much as you want.
6) Palinchron + Phantasmal Image + 7 lands
Make infinite mana.
7) Deadeye Navigator + Gilded Lotus + Deceiver Exarch, Pestermite, or Zealous Conscripts
Make infinite mana. Flicker anything as much as you want. For now I took this combo out, I might revisit it.
8) Deadeye Navigator + Gilded Lotus + Kiora's Follower + Maelstrom Wanderer
This works like combo #7, but you need Maelstrom Wanderer out to give Kiora's Follower haste. For now I took this combo out, I might revisit it.
Tutor Chains
1) Woodland Bellower tutoring for Fierce Empath tutoring for a 6 CMC or more creature.
This play is great when your hand needs refilled with Prime Speaker Zegana. Another good idea is to grab a combo piece like Deadeye Navigator or Palinchron.
2) Birthing Pod a 3 drop grabbing a Glen Elendra Archmage. Either use Voltaic Key or Kiora's Follower to untap birthing pod or wait until your next turn. Pod Glen for a Zealous Conscripts and use Zealous to untap birthing pod. Glen Elandra has persist so it's still on the field. Pod Glen for a Kiki-Jiki and win with combo #1.
3) Use Fauna Shaman or Survival of the Fittest to tutor for Drift of Phantasms to tutor for a splinter twin/Kiki-Jiki combo piece, Food Chain, or Ghostly Flicker (Combos #1, #3, and #4, respectively).
4) Woodland Bellower tutoring for Fauna Shaman to tutor for combo pieces.
5) Tezzeret the Seeker or Fabricate to tutor for birthing pod.
Change Log
4/11/17
-1 Solemn Simulacrum +1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
-1 Zealous Conscripts +1 Deceiver Exarch
-1 Conjurer's Closet +1 Eternal Scourge
-1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds +1
Orcish Lumberjack
-1 Greater Good +1 Fauna Shaman
4/22/17
-1 Temur Sabertooth +1 Clever Impersonator
-1 Recurring Insight +1 Splinter Twin
-1
Inferno Titan
+1 Bounding Krasis
4/23/17
-1 Clever Impersonator +1 Zealous Conscripts
4/27/17
-1 Gilded Lotus +1 Forest
-1 Thran Dynamo +1 Island
-1 Voltaic Key +1 Scroll Rack
I was missing too many land drops so I cut two slow pieces of ramp. Since I cut Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo, Voltaic Key lost a lot of potency so I cut it as well. With the extra lands added, I might flood out so I added scroll rack to mitigate the issue. On the plus side, scroll rack is generally useful with Maelstrom Wanderer and Rashmi. With this update I lose explosiveness, but gain consistency which I think is a fair trade.
5/2/17
-1
Bounding Krasis
+1 Pestermite
-1 Mystic Snake +1 Thran Dynamo
I was unimpressed with Bounding Krasis outside of the combos. He only untaps creatures, which I found to be too limited. I'll miss the interaction of finding him with Woodland Bellower, however. It was a hard decision, but I cut Mystic Snake because I don't like cascading into it. At least my other counters have a somewhat useful ability if I cascade into them. I have more ramp now, which is always nice.
5/3/17
-1 Arcane Denial +1 Gilded Lotus
I think I'm okay with just having Venser and Glen Elandra as my counterspells. My deck needs more speed.
5/4/17
-1 Crystal Shard +1Recurring Insight
-1
Orcish Lumberjack
+1 Forest
-1
Bloodbraid Elf
+1 Greater Good
I am trying to depend less on Maelstrom Wanderer cascades to find combo pieces. Crystal Shard is nice, but I don't think it's optimal. Cascading into random cards isn't near as good as drawing 7 cards and playing the ones that matter. I have been unimpressed with Lumberjack. Unfortunately, my mana base isn't the best so having a red source before turn 3 is a lot to ask for. I am just adding a forest to have more consistent land drops.
5/17/17
-1 Forest +1 Island
-1 Greater Good +1 Fact or Fiction.
Greater Good has been too slow for me. Fact or Fiction seems solid.
5/25/17
-1 Mountain +1 Explosive Vegetation
I am drawing more land than I can play each turn so this was necessary. Cutting a mountain was a hard choice, because now I only have one fetchable basic mountain. If this doesn't work, I will cut an island instead of a mountain. Explosive Vegetation is no Skyshroud Claim, but it is decent. I might experiment with running 35 land and exploration at some point. I hope to gain speed with this update.
5/26/17
-1 Prime Speaker Zegana
-1 Greenwarden of Murasa
-1 High Market
-1 Frontier Siege
-1 Gilded Lotus
-1 Explosive Vegetation
-1 Ghostly Flicker
-1 Pestermite
-1 Krosan Grip
-1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
+1 Mystic Snake
+1 Arcane Denial
+1 Rhystic Study
+1 Mystic Remora
+1 Island
+1 Rampant Growth
+1 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Nature's Claim
+1 Acidic Slime
+1 Joraga Treespeaker
After playing against several dedicated stax decks, I realized my curve is too damn high. So I lowered my avg cmc from 3.4 to 3.2. I added more counters, better draw, and good answers to stax decks.
5/27/17
-1 Acidic Slime +1 Vandalblast
-1 Joraga Treespeaker +1 Prime Speaker Zegana
-1 Recurring Insight +1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
-1 Oracle of Mul Daya +1 Elvish Mystic
-1 Fact or Fiction +1 Brainstorm
-1 Cinder Glade +1 Forest
-1 Somberwald Sage +1 Arbor Elf
I mostly lowered the curve here. I took Cinder Glade out because it enters tapped in the early turns when you need it. Oracle of Mul Daya was blanking too much since my land count is low and I thin the lands out of my deck with my search effects. I think I have enough shuffle effects to make full use of brainstorm, but I will still be evaluating it. While I dislike Prime Speaker Zegana in my list, it feels necessary.
Wishlist
Scalding Tarn
Wooded Foothills
Misty Rainforest
Flooded Grove
Fire-Lit Thicket
Cascade Bluffs
Taiga
Volcanic Island
Tropical Island
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Cryptic Command
Sensei's Divining Top
Consecrated Sphinx
Ancient Tomb
Exploration
