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Red Necro - Fast Zirilan Combo

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Infinite Combo Mono-Red

Greenpeas

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Commander: Zirilan of the Claw

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This is a consistent fast combo Zirilan list

This is a fun little glass cannon combo deck that fires off its combo turn 4 consistently while giving you some fun lines of play as you draw up your library. Along the way it drops some hate on creatures and artifacts. It is built with a competitive environment in mind.

And the last couple of years have been kind to this deck Jeweled Lotus Underworld Breach Valakut Awakening   Tibalt's Trickery Deflecting Swat Jeska's Will Bolt Bend Dockside Extortionist and even lil’ ol’ Arcane Signet.

Did anyone think we’d get a better Past in Flames ???

Sheesh.

I’ll take just a little time to decide what cuts to make, but the MTG gods have been smiling on us.

Why this deck? - This deck is a ton of fun to play. Drawing the whole library in 20 card chunks with multiple lines of play is a fun way to combo. The deck has other fun combo options as you’ll see below. - Zirilan is a tutor in the command zone, and so he is a one card combo, or some say zero card combo since he can directly tutor the win condition so you don’t actually have to randomly draw even a single card. That makes it worth working up a combo build.
- Zirilan only takes 5 mana to cast - 2 lands and 3 fast mana. Then zirilan only needs a base of 3 mana after that. This means that the deck is able to achieve its speed very consistently. A lot of decks can win this fast or faster, but it is hard to do that with this much consistency.
- Because the deck is built from a command zone tutor there is a ton of room for a big interaction package that you can tailor to your meta game.

This is a start, no doubt with suggestions it can get even better. The result of the core combo -Moltensteel Dragon & Knollspine Dragon is a bit of a red impersonation of The Skull-Necropotence, but this version gives you all your draw in the main phase, and on a stick, so it easy to come back for seconds, or more, over and over for a huge turn. I hear necro in the command zone is good. If you like red and you like the skull, this deck is a good bit of fun. It is also nice that after casting your commander, you do not need to cast combo pieces until you have a very large hand with lots of ways to interact with the stack.

The deck also has Worldgorger Dragon combo for real men, or ladies (or lady-men, et al).

Comments & suggestions are appreciated! There are some choices to make in the large removal/stax/interaction package. When all is going well, most of these cards will be dumped in your graveyard, so the current build has a focus on free-to-cast hate. An alternative approach (and probably better!) would be to focus on cards that give you a plan B to stall during those games when your Zirilan gets shot.

Combo #1, Red Skull: (~Necropotence in the command zone). Zirilan fetches Moltensteel dragon, eot before your turn. Because eot step has already started, and this is not a cleanup step trigger, your dragon gets to stay until end of next turn. Joy! Move to your turn and untap. Pay 32-36 life, Swing for 20-22 damage.

Raar. Take a moment to appreciate your awesome face-smashing dragon-ness.

Zirilan then fetches knollspine dragon - draw ~22 cards. Use these cards to get mana, draw lots more cards (Via ‘Winds’ or copying knollspine), then Win via one of the other combos in the deck you will draw in to. Past in Flames is ever your friend.

The deck is built to move from your first Knollspine dragon and your 20+ cards through to a win that is backed up with some counters. You have to make some choices and some gambles along the way, but you are red, and have dragons, so don’t live in your fears and have fun. Options:

  • copy knollspine to get 20+ more cards (twinflame/heat shimmer, or even Kiki-Jikki),
  • use a ‘Winds’for 20 more cards ; winds of change, shattered perception, or collective defiance, which allow you to redraw based on the number of cards in your hand.
  • Past in flames (Consider recoup, shreds of sanity)
  • Extra turn cards - final fortune, last chance (consider warrior’s oath) untap zirilan to use again (maybe because you have a combo piece for worldgorger or dualcaster, in which case you also want a new attack step, or you just want to reset your mana before comboing - Considering Fury of the Horde here)

note you are going to toss some of your combo cards in the graveyard! Some combo options will die by the wayside. Keep drawing and making good decisions and you will sort it out.

Combo #2: Worldgorger dragon + Kiki-Jiki or Flameshadow conjuring. This combo requires that you strap up, because if your dragon gets shot at the wrong time, you end up with no board. Ouch.

Zirilan fetches Worldgorger and there are 6 copies/tutors for the other combo pieces. If one of these 6 cards are in your hand or early draw, this is a good (and risky!) path to take.

With Kiki or Flameshadow in play, fetch Worldgorger, then copy Worldgorger in response to its etb trigger, adding an etb trigger to the stack before the original etb trigger, which you now let resolve. Your stuff is exiled.

Stop. Ponder dragon nihilism.

The real Worldgorger’s ltb trigger resolves. It tries to return your stuff, but can’t because the copy did the exiling. Now the real Worldgorger’s etb trigger resolves, exiling your stuff, (now just the copy). All of your stuff returns, including Worldgorger. It is now all untapped =}

Obtain arbitrarily large amounts of mana.

Stop. Debate with your playgroup whether this is actually infinite mana.

When you are ready to win, allow worldgorger to return and leave its trigger on the stack. With Flameshadow (or minion reflector) copy zirilan. Your Zirilan is offended by this copy, and returns to the command zone. Hasty Zirilan copy enters play. If using Kiki, use a haste enabler for Zirilan, such as Torch Courier, which goblin recruiter can get at the same time as Kiki. Now hasty Zirilan copy fetches Shivan Hellkite or Skarrgan Hellkite to burn your friends like the insignificant pieces of toast that they are. Take a moment to skoff at their puny lab man based ambitions.

Combo #3 Mopping up with Dualcaster + heat shimmer or twin flame This is usually a final thing to dig for after multiple rounds of draw 20+. Sometimes you’ll have twinflame or heat shimmer and a tutor in hand and you can just skip right to getting dual caster and do some wizard smash face (extra points for actual skipping). This combo uses purely utility cards. Both sorcs also copy knollspine to reload or can be used to copy zirilan, sac original and have a hasted zirilan token to fetch a finisher dragon.

Combo #4 All the Manas Reiterate + Inner fire Usually this sets up the win after multiple rounds of draw 20+. Again, this uses only utility cards. The wincon is casting one of the two hellkites and burning the table with it.

The objective is to get Zirilan out no later than t/2. This deck can do this very consistently, benefitting from high tolerance to mulligan to 6 given the hand refill from the primary combo.

NOTE This deck is using a lot of mountains. It wants to make its 1st 3 land drops. In order to manage a heavy early mana demand it has a slightly high land count for competitive. To use these extra lands and benefit from the consistent discard/refill of your hand, this deck includes several cards that enable discard/sacrifice of mountains (mox diamond, cave in, crash, flameshot). These cards can be cast for free once mana is pulled up for knollspine or as part of a 20+ card hand when mana is scarce but mountains are not.

We have 14 0-1cc potential t1 accel pieces: chrome /mox diamond/ rite/ petal /simian /jewel /sol /crypt /vault /tomb /city /vein /lions eye /opal

We have 2 2cc rituals that add 1 mana: desperate rit/pyretic rit

We have 4 2cc 1 mana rocks including the medallion (which is much better than a rock)

Other accel pieces include: seething song, basalt, vessel, stoker, monolith, ogre, gen servant, amber (mostly mid combo), inner fire (also mostly mid combo)

Here are the options (in progress):

  • T1 mana vault
  • T2 lions eye diamond
  • T1 grim monolith + 1 0-1cc accel piece (14 copies)
  • T1 sol ring + 1 t1/t2 1 mana accel piece or mana rock (19 copies)
  • T2 seething song + 1 mana accel (t1 or t2) (16 copies)
  • T1 mana crypt + 1 mana accel (t1, t2 or rock) or basalt, vessel, stoker, ogre, servant, inner fire (25 copies)
  • T1 vessel + 1 chrome/mox diamond/tomb/city/sol (1 of 5 or 2 of 16)
  • T1 chrome/mox diamond/tomb/city + 2 rock/accel pieces or rituals (2 of 20)
  • T1 basalt monolith + 2 0-1cc t1 accel pieces or 1 + desperate/pyretic (2 of 16 copies)
  • T1 gen servent + 2 0-1cc accel pieces or desperate/pyretic (2 of 16 copies)
  • T2 ogre (plus a wide range of options options for 4 mana turn 2) - best if you are set up with tutors or combo cards for the worldgorger line or one of the other combos
  • T2 Any 3 of the 18 1-2 mana accelerators

Some other examples from playtesting: - T1 seething song + tomb/city + petal/simian/chrome/mox - T1 stoker from tomb/city/vein chrome/mox diamond/sol

  • NOTE The dragons have been listed as casting cost 3 - they are almost universally fetched by Zirilan, and that is generally their cost.

Final thoughts Ok, I’ve changed a view here. Generally, I still think utility dragons are a bad idea. I am on board completely with Hellkite tyrant and should add it in. If you are behind, it is such a leveler to get the acceleration off of the player in the lead. It could have a place to remove hate pieces that would prevent your combo or to break some kind of stax after you already have Zirilan.

Only a few more seem potentially good enough: balefire dragon, (maybe thunder dragon) and Steel hellkite isn’t impossible to benefit from (because these would be good uncounterable removal). These last ones depend how many creatures are in your meta. Either way there is often a Tymna running around and maybe even a Tanna, Zur or Yisan. If anyone is stocking up on a few elves it is always good to shut that shaniz down in an uncounterable way.

I’ve been finding this deck fun. Hope you do too.
Finally, finally - check out Suljin’s excellent red-looking necro art here: https://i.redd.it/bec3ft6622by.jpg

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #33 position overall 5 years ago
Date added 5 years
Last updated 7 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

34 - 3 Rares

21 - 2 Uncommons

10 - 1 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 1.94
Tokens Copy Clone, Treasure
Folders edh decks, Follow, Red, This could be fun, decks I want to update, Cool
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