Dr. Zedruu, Or: How I Learned to Love the Chaos

Commander / EDH Aikido Enchantment Hive Mind Multiplayer Primer RUW (Jeskai, America)

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Dr. Zedruu, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chaos.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Goat Show

This is my favorite deck. Should you play this deck?

No.

This is an aggressively insane deck for Dr. Zedruu, the Goathearted. It's reasonably well-tuned, it's running top-end cards like Rhystic Study, and it doesn't do anything simple like win games. In a 1v1, you will not win unless your opponent actively attempts to throw the game to you. Look at the mana curve, look at the meager win conditions, and convince yourself that this deck is not trying to efficiently win the game. Got it?

Zedruu is quite a popular commander for strategies involving stax, pillowfort, and control. For most decks, the game plan goes something like this: Lock down the battlefield via powerful effects like Winter Orb and Trinisphere. Play Zedruu. Donate some stuff to people you don't like, preferably nasty stuff like Thought Lash or Pyromancer's Swath. Protect Zedruu. Get a huge advantage on life and cards and win as simply as possible. Boooooooooring.

Forget about pillowfort and "gift" cards; this deck is about chaos, plain and simple. We don't protect Zedruu, we just play her when needed to refill our hand; and instead of using her ability to donate permanents, we give away cards by scrambling the battlefield. Everybody gets some of our stuff; in fact, everybody gets some of everybody's stuff; and that suits Zedruu just fine. After all, our opponents' decks are guaranteed to be better than ours, right?

To those who enjoy theorycrafting, the basic essence of a chaos deck is actually a stax deck, but one that operates on players' resources in the exact opposite direction as a taxes deck like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. The easiest breakdown of all the resources you need to win in commander categorizes them into means (raw amount of actions you can take: mana pool, total playable cards in hand, available combat damage) and agency (number of available choices: choosing between cards with different effects and purposes, holding open mana on opponents' turns, having activated abilities or removal for threats). Standard stax decks play to remove all their opponents' means to cast spells and win, perhaps by removing all their mana or all their cards in hand, then attempt to become the only deck with the agency to choose which cards are allowed to operate properly. On the other hand, chaos decks like this do the exact opposite: they remove all of their opponents' agency to cast spells, perhaps by scrambling the effects of said spells, then give everybody huge amounts of means and attempt to be the only deck that can take advantage of that fact.

Our goal is not simply to win, our goal is to have fun! And Zedruu EXCELS at having fun.

You should play this deck if:

-You like hours-long games where things actually happen.

-You like to fight control decks with politics and group-hug and chaotic spells.

-You like to win accidentally or in a highly amusing fashion.

-You don't mind your opponents complaining about your deck or specific cards within, or the lack thereof.

-You think it's utterly hilarious when you win by default because all your opponents give up and forfeit rather than figuring out how to resolve the stack. (Unfortunately, that seem to happen to me alarmingly often.)

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room! Show

As much as I'd love to design a Zedruu deck with only fun group-hug cards, that isn't really going to work here. Our power chaos cards generally cost five or more mana, so we need to to slow down the game and stall for time. We want to sit at tables with decks that cost more money, play more aggressively, and generally dislike our face... and we still want to ramp up and take over the game. Mandatory FUN.

Therefore, as a small concession to sanity, this deck runs a somewhat generic control package. Emphasis on the somewhat. The key design concept is that we don't want to play any cards that our opponents can use against us to dismantle our chaos engines, so no enchantment/artifact destruction and minimal countermagic, none if possible (but we all know it really isn't.) We don't really need our creatures for anything, though, so we can load up with Wraths:

Swords to Plowshares

Path to Exile

Chaos Warp Sure, use Warp to tuck my permanents. I can always draw or tutor them back out, and I can't guarantee I won't flip over an Omniscience.

Oblation See Chaos Warp

Blasphemous Act

Shatter the Sky Do we have 4-power creatures? Ummm... Platinum Angel. Whatever, it's still more fun than Wrath of God.

Supreme Verdict Lotsa wraths because we don't really need creatures whatsoever, so neither do our opponents. This also frees the deck up to run lots of "dangerous" cards that give out free creatures, like Braids, Conjurer Adept.

Cyclonic Rift Rarely are our opponents in a position to overload this sucker, so we don't risk much by running it. Much better than a card like Devastation Tide, for example.

Sudden Substitution does everything we would want a counterspell in our deck to do. It's got split second, it negates opposing win conditions, and it lets us Donate creatures around to mess with people. I have indeed traded one opponent's Expropriate for another opponent's Bitterblossom token before.

Unsubstantiate is vaguely a counterspell but can also target creatures, so it's not a dead card if we randomly cast it. You could also run Venser, Shaper Savant for more ways to fight the stack.

Perplexing Chimera should be in every Zedruu deck ever. Heck, Chimera should just be in every blue deck ever. It's so funny to watch opponents stare at their hands, smoke curling out of their ears as they try to judge which cards we might think are too worthless to steal. I designate Chimera as the most powerful bit of countermagic in the deck, and its best attribute is that it's a permanent. Fight me.

Additionally, we're running a few generic Zedruu-esque stax pieces with the same goal in mind - slowing down the early game to live until the mid-late game:

Plus some early draw power to keep up on lands and whatnot, and to feed off opponents doing crazy chaos stuff later in the game:

Mystic Remora

Rhystic Study

In case of emergencies, break the glass on the vending machine and pull out all the change, specifically the changes to how the game works and is lost/won. We've got a few true pillowfort bombs, and boy are they haymakers:

Solitary Confinement If nothing else, Zedruu can give us the spare card draw each turn to keep powering Solitary indefinitely.

Glacial Chasm Because Solitary just isn't hard enough to interact with, so let's put it onto a land. Sure. Also note the interaction between Zedruu's donate and the "creatures can't attack" clause; it's occasionally relevant to screw over attack triggers, e.g. Kaalia of the Vast.

Platinum Angel Big, dumb hockey puck for opponents to fight over. 'Nuff said.

Today, war is too important to be left to the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. Show

And here come the bombs. Our main goals are as follows: Scramble the board state to mess with our enemies and get card advantage, then generate lots of free spells to cheat out bigger, more mana-intensive chaos cards. The optimal reaction from our opponents goes something like this: "Hang on a second. What does that card do again? Let me read that... Ugh. Please tell me you're not trying to hard-lock the game with (insert notorious stax card here). No? Then why the hell are you playing that??!?"

We've got a few basic chaos packages, some of which make the game more fun, some less, but none of which make the game agonizing or unplayable. I've had players complain about various cards like Scrambleverse, Confusion in the Ranks, and Timesifter, and all those cards have been cut for more entertaining strategies. As follows:

PACKAGE: WHO KNOWS WHAT'S IN YOUR HAND

The purpose of these cards is to scramble everybody's hand every turn so nobody can plan what they're playing next.

Teferi's Puzzle Box because as far as we're concerned, control players can go tuck themselves. Or at least their hand of cards. Every turn. Don't even talk to me about Female Leovold, the Ruskie Planeswalker.

Windfall More hand wheel.

Wheel of Fate Yet more hand wheel.

Reforge the Soul Hand wheel intensifies.

Echo of Eons Did somebody say hand wheels? Also an important piece of the deck's recursion package, since Echo gives us the opportunity to shuffle our graveyard back in once or twice. This card has saved me from milling out multiple times.

Payload for the hand-wheel package: Smothering Tithe Now we're stinking RICH. A couple turns of wheels and Smothering Tithe poops out dozens of treasures, and we end up with an effective Omniscience. Which ties into the whole Big Mana strategy delightfully well.

PACKAGE: BIG MANA/FREE SPELLS

The purpose of these cards is to break up the timing of the game by letting players cast expensive spells much earlier into the game.

Mana Flare Suddenly mana! Mana everywhere! Everybody play every card you have in your hand! There's no way this could possibly go wrong...

Dockside Extortionist Massive quantities of treasure, nuff said.

Smothering Tithe I already mentioned Smothering Tithe but I'll mention it again, because MANA.

Wild Evocation may look like a pure group hug card (free spells yay), but keep in mind that casting the revealed spell isn't optional. I've watched my opponents Wrath their own creatures too many times to count.

Braids, Conjurer Adept On the other hand, Braids is literally just a group hug card. Free Blightsteel Colossus on turn 4 is probably not a problem.

Omniscience Did someone say free spells? I think someone said something about free spells. Free spells are great!

Pyxis of Pandemonium Use Zedruu to donate Pyxis to whoever hits 7 mana first. No, seriously. They'll usually crack it out of curiosity just to see what free stuff they get.

Payloads for the free spells package: Warp World is a great bomb to drop after everybody's flooded the board with powerful permanents, scrambling them into different, probably equally powerful permanents. Warp World essentially says, "Hey, want to flip a coin to see who wins?" Another good plan is simply to use Rite of Replication and Clever Impersonator to clone whatever powerful stuff our opponents just played.

PACKAGE: WE'RE PLAYING EACH OTHER'S DECKS NOW

The purpose of these cards is to ensure each player's deck has the best and most entertaining cards taken out and played against them, prolonging the game.

Shared Fate Read it carefully, then read it again. As far as I'm aware, this is as close as any effect in Magic gets to putting opponents' cards into your hand, save for Un-cards. Very few players I've met knew that Shared Fate existed before I showed it to them. Excellent enchantment. Keep in mind that it turns off a variety of other effects, though, like Teferi's Puzzle Box and Knowledge Pool.

Knowledge Pool Everybody gets to see everybody's hand, because it really doesn't matter, because it's sitting on the table face-up in exile! Yay. Imma cast your Cultivate now.

Fractured Identity And you get an Omniscience, and YOU get an Omniscience...

Coveted Jewel Because who doesn't love drawing cards, untapping mana, and punching each other in the face?

Sudden Substitution Split-second Donate is fine.

Perplexing Chimera Now you have a chimera, now YOU have a chimera... Everyone should really have a chimera. In every blue deck ever.

Bribery This card is hilarious to play, AND hilarious on the surprisingly common occasions when it's played against us. Take a look at this deck's creature package. We've got tons of utility, from Tidal Barracuda to Clever Impersonator to Dockside Extortionist, but the closest thing to an actual wincon is Platinum Angel, the game-delaying hockey puck. Now gimme your Eldrazi.

Payloads for the deck-swapping package: Oh come on, this one is obvious. Dr. Zedruu, the Goathearted gives us buttloads of value, then we get to play our opponents' wincons. Durr.

PACKAGE: STORM AND UNEXPECTED RESULTS

The purpose of these cards is to prevent players from making informed decisions about their spell casts by making the stack complicated and grafting tons of extra effects onto those spells.

Warp World I mean hey, you have permanents, yeah? And they came out of your deck, yeah? What's the problem?

Grip of Chaos is equally effective to - yet far more entertaining than - normal hexproof effects. Worth noting, Zedruu's ability has two targets: a permanent and an opponent. Sneaky little loophole there.

Hive Mind For obvious reasons, you might also consider playing cards like Pact of Negation, but I wouldn't advise it. That sounds too much like an effective win condition. No thanks, keep that away from me, Zedruu is allergic to wincons. AH-CHOO!

Possibility Storm Zedruu and your opponents' commanders won't trigger this when cast, thankfully. Do your utmost to make sure your opponents don't get to resolve a card like Eidolon of Rhetoric, since that effect will suddenly hardlock everybody off from being able to cast spells. What a Ruskie card!

Knowledge Pool Commanders also don't trigger this. Similar text to Possibility Storm, similar doubling of the storm count. Great card for giving away our permanents too.

Eye of the Storm Potentially hilarious when combined with cards like Reverse the Sands, Bribery and Reforge the Soul. Keep in mind that the Eye genuinely casts the cards underneath it (albeit as copies) so it rapidly builds storm count.

Payloads for the unexpected storm package: Aetherflux Reservoir and Mind's Desire both do an excellent job of abusing the way many of these cards double and triple up on storm count. The interaction between Eye of the Storm and Mind's Desire is particularly intense - an exiled Mind's Desire can trigger its storm from underneath the Eye, casting more instants and sorceries out of your deck, casting another Mind's Desire, triggering storm... and any opponent can steal the whole combo with any instant spell! It's beautiful... by which I mean it's a pathological monstrosity to resolve.

With so many double-edged swords and ticking time bombs, it's extremely difficult for your opponents to keep from blowing themselves to smithereens. Once we're secure in the knowledge that nobody understands what's going on or how to possibly win, we play Dr. Strangelove and ask her for help amassing enough value to survive the nuclear holocaust.

Of course, the whole point of the Doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret. Show

So you may be asking, can this deck possibly win? Heck, can this deck even give away win conditions and cause other players to win incidentally? The answer is yes... technically. Besides slapping each opponent 11 times with a gorgeous goat lady, there are currently TWO other ways to win:

Approach of the Second Sun

Aetherflux Reservoir

Your average Ruskie doesn't take a dump without a plan. Unfortunately, just last week I Aetherflux'd myself in the face because of Grip of Chaos, which was rather humbling. And don't get me started about all the different ways the deck can keep shuffling Approach back in without ever getting to actually cast it from hand and resolve it.

Remember, the entire plan is for our opponents to play some of our cards against us. An actual useful win condition like Laboratory Maniac or Felidar Sovereign or Purphoros, God of the Forge could just as easily be used by our enemies. The main logic behind Approach is that it's impossible for opponents to trigger the win, and the main logic behind Reservoir is that we can quickly reach 50 life with Zedruu and/or storm. Plus, Reservoir is a good political tool: "Here, kill Joey for me. Thanks. Now you're on 2 life, dummy."

Sometimes, our jank wincon cards help us win; sometimes, the Reservoir unintentionally causes opponents to win, which is even funnier; but they always create panic when they hit the battlefield, which is the actual goal of playing them. The same goes for cards like Platinum Angel and Omniscience, cards that look big and scary but genuinely suck at ending the game (at least with this deck.)

The real strategy to win is to use your opponents' cards against them. Think creatively! This deck doesn't run Eye of the Storm and Bribery for nothing.

To bring this primer to a conclusion - or rather because I don't have anywhere logical to put the remaining cards - here's the rest of the deck's surivival kit, including one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible, one hundred dollars in gold, nine packs of chewing gum, one issue of prophylactics, three lipsticks, and three pairs of nylon stockings. (Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.)

Gamble because inconsistency is the name of the game here. Also fits nicely with the Vegas line I just quoted.

Enlightened Tutor is as overpowered as you would expect it to be. It'll fetch mana rocks or chaos stax as needed, preferably the latter.

Idyllic Tutor Everybody's second copy of Smothering Tithe since 2019. Although this deck tend to grab Possibility Storm instead.

Noble Benefactor If I read Benefactor correctly... let's see here... Yes, that's a cross between Veteran Explorer and Demonic Tutor. Not that it matters, since we're playing each other's stuff anyway, but sometimes you really just want that Glacial Chasm in hand, you know?

Tidal Barracuda because flash makes everything better, or at least sillier, especially when everyone has it.

Clever Impersonator because sometimes, one copy of Omniscience just isn't enough.

Open the Vaults gives destroyed chaos stax a second shot at life. Same goes for Hall of Heliod's Generosity.

Archaeomancer acts as emergency recursion for instants & sorceries, since we have some spicy ones. Every time I think about removing this card it grabs back a last-ditch Reverse the Sands in the next game I play.

I won't insult your intelligence by listing off all the mana rocks (there's a lot) and lands (also a lot), but I'd like to draw attention to Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower as being particularly important. Also, hold open Field of Ruin specifically for Homeward Path. For some reason, our opponents like to fetch out Homeward Path against this deck. Can't imagine why.

Setting: Interior bedroom, late evening Show

Skip this. No really, you can skip it, I wrote it a long time ago trying to capture the flavor of Dr. Zedruulove.

Bad fanfiction or something...?

My goat girlfriend burst into the room, fur matted, dress askew. "Are you all right, honey?" I asked, alarmed.

"A profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness..." She swooned in my arms, nearly poking my eye out with a horn. "What if it's true? What if Nicol Bolas is sapping and impurifying all of our precious bodily fluids?"

"Bolas? What?"

She pressed against me, giving me a sultry look. Her fur smelled of flowers and perfume. "Oh, I sense your power! I seek your essence! Take me, feed me your life essence!" Her long tongue flicked out and slowly licked my ear in a way that I assumed she meant to be sexy. It wasn't.

"I mean..." I hesitated. "Are you quoting things at me again, Dru?"

"URK!" She twitched and shoved me away. "That's the whole idea of this machine, you know..."

I landed rather heavily on my rear. "Yep, she's quoting things again," I muttered, picking myself up off the floor.

She ignored me, monologuing at thin air. "Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack." She snapped her fingers and produced a mangled clockwork thopter from somewhere within her dress. "And so, the Doomsday machine is terrifying and simple to understand, and completely credible and convincing."

"But why are you telling me about this?" I said.

She looked at me askance, winding up the thopter. Its wings flopped around weakly. "Of course, the whole point of the Doomsday machine is lost, if you keep it a secret."

"Oh, I get it!" I exclaimed. "You're Dr. Strangelove. And the thopter is a nuclear bomb. Classic."

"URK!" She twitched again and dropped the thopter to the floor. CRUNCH. "Wheeee! I'm a unicorn! I can fly!" Without any warning, she charged across the room and jumped head-first through the window. Glass flew everywhere.

I sighed. This, unfortunately, was practically normal behavior for Zedruu. "Are you all right, honey?" I called.

"Fine!" Her voice was muffled and faint. "I landed in the rose bushes... Unicorns don't have wings, do they?"

"No, Dru, they don't."

Quiet crunching from out in the darkness. "Mmm, these are delicious!"

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93% Casual

Competitive

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.89
Tokens	Copy Clone, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders	Yeet EDH, Commander Decks, Edh, Cmdr
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