Ephara - Eggs it back!

Commander / EDH Exile Sacrifice WU (Azorius)

hubatish

Creature (32)

• 1x Aboleth Spawn
• 1x Aethergeode Miner
• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Auriok Salvagers
• 1x Bounty Agent
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cloud of Faeries
• 1x Drift of Phantasms
• 1x Eldrazi Displacer
• 1x Faerie Artisans
• 1x Fblthp, the Lost
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Hunted Phantasm
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Looter il-Kor
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mirror Entity
• 1x Mnemonic Wall
• 1x Monastery Mentor
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Silumgar Sorcerer
• 1x Soulherder
• 1x Spellstutter Sprite
• 1x Stormscape Familiar
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Suture Priest
• 1x The Watcher in the Water
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Triskaidekaphile
• 1x Wall of Omens
• 1x Whitemane Lion

Land (37)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Aether Hub
• 1x Archaeological Dig
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 8x Island
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Mirrorpool
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Nimbus Maze
• 8x Plains
• 1x Port Town
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Temple of Enlightenment
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Instant (11)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Eerie Interlude
• 1x Ephemerate
• 1x Faith's Reward
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Remand
• 1x Scout's Warning
• 1x Second Sunrise
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Commander (1)

Artifact (15)

• 1x Aether Spellbomb
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chromatic Star
• 1x Claws of Gix
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Conjurer's Bauble
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mishra's Bauble
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Salvaging Station
• 1x Scrabbling Claws
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Zuran Orb

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Rout

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Maybeboard

Creature (12)

• 1x Argent Sphinx
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Bounty Agent
• 1x Felidar Cub
• 1x Giant Killer
• 1x Hunted Phantasm
• 1x Kor Sanctifiers
• 1x Soltari Visionary
• 1x Soul's Attendant
• 1x Spell Queller
• 1x Thalakos Seer
• 1x Watcher for Tomorrow

Instant (2)

• 1x Brought Back
• 1x Heliod's Intervention

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Baffling End

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Wrath of God

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Ephara, God of the Polis is a very safe general. She survives most board wipes, and her card draw keeps you digging through your deck for more creatures. I really enjoy the security that comes with playing some control and having 7 cards in hand. Fun police! She's also quite slow.. My usual play pattern is to play one small creature and hold up mana for interaction or additional Whitemane Lion Ephara triggers.

The deck I built this to originally replace was Draw Go EDH with Edric, Spymaster of Trest. I would usually have a similar play pattern in Edric - play one or two small creatures, then hold up Counterspell to stop board wipes. With the addition of white I could make board wipes one-sided with Eerie Interlude and Faith's Reward.

Then I realized I'm playing Faith's Reward in EDH and couldn't resist starting to play eggs. The combo is fairly ridiculous, but it's become the main win condition of the deck ~ Here goes the long list of pieces that need to come together:

1. Sacrifice as many permanents as possible to Claws of Gix, Mirror Entity, and most importantly all my lands to Zuran Orb.

2. Cast Faith's Reward or Second Sunrise to bring them back.

3. Recur Faith's Reward with Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, or Codex Shredder.

4. Repeat to trigger ETB effects and hopefully infinite mana (with one more land than needed to cast Faith's Reward - 4 lands at minimum).

5. Now I can draw the whole deck & have infinite mana! Winning from here is trivial, right? The err actual wincon is Suture Priest + Baffling End (sacrificed with Claws of Gix) to drain all my opponents to zero.

What I love about the combo though is how easy it is to not quite go off. Casting Faith's Reward just for value is a lot of fun. Brought Back and Eerie Interlude are some more semi-redundant but less powerful copies. Unfortunately this does lead to some tension between cards which ETB -> effect & cards which sacrifice -> effect; the latter are good with the return effects while the former are good with blink but need a sac outlet to return.

Why Zuran Orb and Claws of Gix? Being cheap & tutorable for by Trinket Mage is a great bonus - meaning drawing Second Sunrise and then recurring Trinket Mage just once or twice should get you to going off. They are very dead otherwise, and unfortunately the available sacrifice outlets in UW are also pretty bad..

Suggestions are welcome! Below are some guidelines for what I'm looking for.

Alternate win conditions are great! I'd love to be able to beat down my opponents - Cathars' Crusade might get there but hasn't really? Something friendly for new players would be great here.

Another combo or two are welcome. Likely I'll put in Peregrine Drake to go off with Eldrazi Displacer and make the main combo possible/easier without Zuran Orb.

Suggestions for cuts or explanations of cards also welcome. Likely there are too many 0-2 mana artifacts.

The easiest cards to add are creatures with converted mana cost 2 or less and/or flash. They're easy to trigger Ephara with and still do other things for the turn. Lands that ETB untapped and can produce blue & white are excellent. More interaction (again especially in the form of creatures) is excellent.

Interaction is also great, and I probably don't have enough. Currently looking at Giant Killer but just you know more counterspells would probably be good too.

Date added	9 years
Last updated	6 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 19 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.68
Tokens	Copy Clone, Goblin 1/1 R, Monk 1/1 W, Tentacle 1/1 U, Thopter 1/1 C
Folders	EDH