Raff's Approach of the Superfriends

Commander / EDH Control Superfriends WU (Azorius)

NickyBolas

Other (37)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Ancient Den
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Irrigated Farmland
• 9x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Mystic Gate
• 4x Plains
• 1x Port Town
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Tundra

Planeswalker Synergy (5)

• 1x Artificer's Assistant
• 1x Djeru, With Eyes Open
• 1x Jhoira's Familiar
• 1x Karn's Temporal Sundering
• 1x Oath of Teferi

Blocker (3)

• 1x Baird, Steward of Argive
• 1x Heart of Kiran
• 1x Oath of Gideon

Draw Engine (15)

• 1x Azor's Gateway  ^Flip
• 1x Dovin Baan
• 1x Jace, Architect of Thought
• 1x Jace Beleren
• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Narset Transcendent
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip
• 1x Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
• 1x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 1x Teferi, Temporal Archmage
• 1x Tezzeret, Artifice Master
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip
• 1x Will Kenrith

Removal Defensive (10)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Settle the Wreckage
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Unwind
• 1x Urza's Ruinous Blast
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant

Removal Offensive (8)

• 1x Crush Contraband
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1x Forsake the Worldly
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Commander (1)

Ramp (15)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Pilgrim's Eye
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Draw (4)

• 1x Chemister's Insight
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Oath of Jace

The Win (2)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Mystical Tutor

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Title

Concept

Part of the 32 Superfriends challenge (Build a Superfriends deck with every color combo), this list mimics draw-go style control decks by playing loads of removal, while replacing instant-speed draw spells by flashing in planeswalkers. The spice in this deck is leveraging the sheer amount of digging, looting, and scrying afforded to us by Azorius-colored walkers, to hit our Approach of the Second Sun two turns in a row. In the interest of keeping the 32 decks as diverse as possible, I eschewed The Chain Veil and MLD-centric builds.

How It Wins

Approach of the Second Sun is the primary win condition. The deck is built around finding Approach, casting it, and then surviving the following turn to dig through the top 7 to recast it, with counter-magic on backup.

Card Selection

Spice

Approach of the Second Sun is our primary win condition. In addition to all the scrying, drawing, and digging, we also run Mystical Tutor to seek out our win condition at instant speed.

• Swan Song and Arcane Denial protect our casts without requiring too much extra mana.
• Pact of Negation was a consideration, but having to protect the initial cast of Approach means that we will have to pay the on our upkeep, making it very difficult to then recast our Approach.

Superfriends

Draw Power

We can use planeswalkers as instant-speed draw power by flashing them in at the end of turn, when we aren't required to react to any of our opponents plays. This way they're ready to draw us cards on our turn without requiring any mana.

• Jace, Architect of Thought
• Jace Beleren
• Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  
• Dovin Baan
• Narset Transcendent
• Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• Tezzeret, Artifice Master

Removal

Some planeswalkers can pull double-duty as removal spells, removing threats and slowing our opponents down

• Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

Historic Enablers

- Artificer's Assistant - Jhoira's Familiar discounts both our artifacts and our planeswalkers (as well as a few Legendary Sorceries).

Planeswalker Synergies

Cards that protect planeswalkers and boost planeswalker abilities.

• Baird, Steward of Argive
• Djeru, With Eyes Open
• Heart of Kiran
• Karn's Temporal Sundering
• Oath of Gideon
• Oath of Jace
• Oath of Teferi
• Nexus of Fate was a consideration, but effects that cause us to shuffle are dangerous and nombo with Approach. We can't cast it inbetween the 1st and 2nd Approaches, as a way to dig through the 6 cards that separate the two, since it would shuffle Approach away. The deck consistently scrys cards to the bottom of the library to naturally bubble Approach to the top, but shuffling undoes that effect.

Ramp

Raff granting Mana Rocks flash allows us to play more, larger ramping artifacts since we won't go shields-down to cast them.

• Mana Vault , Mana Crypt , and Sol Ring are our fast mana production
• Azorius Signet , Talisman of Progress , Pilgrim's Eye , Mox Amber , and Commander's Sphere are our early color fixing
• Everflowing Chalice , Worn Powerstone , and supplement the usual cards due to their ability to be flashed-in.

Removal

• Swords to Plowshares , Forsake the Worldly , Crush Contraband , and Cyclonic Rift give us options to deal with combo decks not centered around attacks.
• Settle the Wreckage , Evacuation , and Supreme Verdict deal with creature-heavy boards.

Draw

Some additional draw/filter cards that help us dig deep for that Approach without requiring

• Impulse
• Frantic Search
• Chemister's Insight

Postmortem

Because the deck uses a singular win condition with few tutors, combined with snow-balling board-state, this deck very frequently ends up in Archenemy situations where the entire pod is focusing on us. Even with draw-go control, it is difficult to manage the attacks and effects of 3 opponents at once. Against good-stuff decks that run high-efficiency creatures and lots of removal, it would be extremely difficult to protect our planeswalkers long enough for them to become mana efficient draw spells. Because of this, I've relegated the deck to the "Focused" category even though, on paper, it feels closer to "Optimized".

Competitive

Optimized

>Focused<

Casual

Jank

Gameplay

N/A

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.22
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Dovin Baan, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Emblem Narset Transcendent, Emblem Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Emblem Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Emblem Tezzeret, Artifice Master, Emblem Will Kenrith, Kor Ally 1/1 W, Manifest 2/2 C, Soldier 1/1 W, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders	Superfriends Challenge