Talrand, The Master Polymorphist

Commander / EDH Budget Casual Combo Control Mono-Blue Tokens

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Draw (11)

• 1x Amass the Components
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Dream Cache
• 1x Keep Watch
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Rush of Knowledge
• 1x See Beyond
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Think Twice

Utility (7)

• 1x Commit / Memory
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Open Into Wonder
• 1x Polymorphist's Jest
• 1x Reins of Power
• 1x Runechanter's Pike
• 1x Turnabout

Removal (5)

• 1x Aetherspouts
• 1x Blink of an Eye
• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Wash Out

Polymorph (2)

• 1x Mass Polymorph
• 1x Synthetic Destiny

Flicker (1)

• 1x Essence Flux

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Teferi, Temporal Archmage

Counter (8)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Desertion
• 1x Dream Fracture
• 1x Memory Lapse
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Negate
• 1x Swan Song

Ramp (8)

• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sky Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Lands (38)

• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 33x Island
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Temple of the False God

Tutor (4)

• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Personal Tutor

Commander (1)

Tokens (7)

• 1x Clone Legion
• 1x Metallurgic Summonings
• 1x Rise from the Tides
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Shark Typhoon
• 1x Stolen by the Fae
• 1x Talrand's Invocation

Fatties (5)

• 1x Great Whale
• 1x Grozoth
• 1x Lorthos, the Tidemaker
• 1x Scourge of Fleets
• 1x Trench Gorger

Recursion (2)

• 1x Call to Mind
• 1x Pull from the Deep

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Maybeboard

Other (8)

• 1x Boompile
• 1x Gifts Ungiven
• 1x Hour of Need
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Reweave
• 1x Strata Scythe
• 1x Telemin Performance

Removal (4)

• 1x Call to Heel
• 1x Dominate
• 1x Into the Roil
• 1x Quiet Contemplation

Utility (1)

• 1x Polymorphous Rush

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A combo-oriented casual Talrand deck. It works best with small play groups. It wants to win but can easily be played in more casual play groups. I have not filled the deck with counter spells instead I use token generation, such as Metallurgic Summonings and Rise from the Tides, to replace Talrand – if he gets hated.

The main win condition is having 5 tokens/creatures and use one of the Mass Polymorph effects to cheat in the 5 fatties all at once. If no one intervenes it will often be around turn 7. Each fatty has been carefully selected to have a purpose that will lead you to victory.

Fatties

I Believe this is the final iteration of fatties. Earlier I had infinite combos with Deadeye Navigator but I have decided that was a bit too boring and instead created a lethal cocktail of sea monsters.
When all 5 sea monsters gets resolved they will wipe the board for other creatures, tutor an extra turn spell, untap your mana, provide you a 30/30 trampler and make it possible to keep your opponents key cards tapped. All that for just 6 mana - Mass Polymorph! To get the full effect i recommend waiting until you have 8 lands, see more in the in depth description below

In depth example of how the fatties get resolved

Before you combo - You need to control 5+ cratures and 8+ lands (or less if you have cards like High Tide).

Let's say you have 8 lands. You tap all your lands and have 8 mana in your mana pool. You have 5 creatures on the board when Mass Polymorph has been cast, it only costs you 6 mana so you still have 2 mana in excess.
You fetch the 5 fatties from the deck while calming your playgroup, telling them that; what you fetch from your deck is just some random creatures from the sea and they don't have to fear your flying tokens anymore:
1. First Great Whale will make you untap 7 lands. You do that, and tap them again, remember that you had 2 mana in the mana pool already, so now you have 9 mana in the mana pool
2. Grozoth tutors Expropriate & Clone Legion. With 9 mana in your mana pool you can now cast Expropriate. You vote for a turn and you get control of permanents Scourge of Fleets cannot remove.
3. Scourge of Fleets will remove most (hopefully all) of the opponents creatures
4. With Trench Gorger you empty the deck of lands and will have a 30/30ish trampler and the deck now only have useful cards left!
5. Lorthos, the Tidemaker will become relevant in the subsequent turns to control the opponents you were not able to kill from the turn Expropriate gave you

This was one example of how to go off. Using Synthetic Destiny in an opponents end-step can be even more potent. All the fatties will be ready to fight when it is your turn, and you can use Expropriate to get one or more extra turns.

The combination of fatties are strong and can close many games when they resolve. But they are not perfect and a single removal spell on e.g. Trench Gorger will keep your opponents in the game. You can save a counter spell or something like that. But for a casual game, i like that my opponents has a fair chance to stop the fatties. If fairness is not your game - You can take a look in the hall of fatties to find other combinations that can be much harder to deal with.

Tips & Tricks

- If you have Talrand out it will be enough with 4 creatures to create the Mass Polymorph combo
- Synthetic Destiny should be used in the opponents end step, just before your turn
- The creatures resolved from Mass Polymorph or Synthetic Destiny will all enter the battlefield at the same time, and you get to put all the enter battlefield triggers on the stack in what ever order you like. And then your opponents can respond. Because the stack resolves in reverse order this means your opponents can kill your Trench Gorger with Murder before your Great Whale trigger happens. So if you want to be able to defend, you need to reserve extra mana before you e.g. Mass Polymorph.
- Mass Polymorph cast in your turn is also strong because of Great Whale + Grozoth + Expropriate can make you take an extra turn if you have the mana for it
- Commit / Memory get the fatties back from the graveyard into your deck
- Amass the Components, Dream Cache, See Beyond and Brainstorm help you create tokens, draw and put fatties from your hand back into the deck
- Synthetic Destiny's delayed trigger and casting it on other players turns means that you can't use Great Whale to cast sorceries but it works really great with cards like Dig Through Time
- The purpose of the tutors is to get you one of the Mass Polymorph spells. Sometimes I also use Muddle the Mixture to tutor for another tutor to then get the Mass Polymorph
- In general, the deck goes off at turn 7. But things can get crazy earlier if you get one of these High Tide, Turnabout, Extraplanar Lens or Teferi, Temporal Archmage.
- After casting Synthetic Destiny or Mass Polymorph. If you don't manage to kill all your opponents and they boardwipe you. Don't sweat it. Your deck now has no lands because you emptied your deck with Trench Gorger. And this is perfect! Every card draw from now will be relevant and you should be able to outvalue your opponents. See the alternative win conditions section for how to finish the game

Alternative win conditions

- Shark Typhoon Amazing card that can be cycled with 3 mana in early game to create a flyer for mass polymorph. For later game it can be cast as enchanment to work as a Talrand replacement to create tokens for either mass polymorph or just win with e.g. draw spells with X in mana cost
- Metallurgic Summonings with the big mana spells at instant speed (e.g. Pull from Tomorrow) can do wonders. The only issue is that the construct tokens don't have evasion, but Open Into Wonder can resolve that! After you have played the mass polymorph combo with Trench Gorger you should only have a maximum of 10 cards in the deck that will not trigger Metallurgic Summonings
- Reins of Power is a classic way to win the game
- Rite of Replication
- A Rise from the Tides in the late game (45+ instants and sorceries in the deck). Maybe a quick Turnabout for the suprise
- Voltron win could be feasable by slapping a Runechanter's Pike on Talrand, Sky Summoner in the late game
- Talrand, Sky Summoner can produce enough drakes to slowly win. I have wins just by doing that, eventhough that is not the intention of the deck!
- Or Clone Legion

Other ideas for alternative win conditions from my maybe board are:
Strata Scythe or Hour of Need

Hall of Fatties

This section is reserved for ideas and suggestions for other combinations of fatties.

- Deadeye Navigator, Peregrine Drake & Frost Titan You get infinite mana from Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake and infinite tap everything (also lands) Frost Titan + Deadeye Navigator. Very hard for opponents to deal with as they have to board wipe at instant speed because you can use Deadeye Navigator to avoid targeted spells. In your next turn (all your opponents likely pass as everything is tapped) you attack with Deadeye Navigator, Peregrine Drake & Frost Titan for 13 damage and then in your 2nd main phase do the infinite mana and infinite tap everything again. Continue untill you have won or your opponents scoop
- Ixidron + Void Winnower: A lock where half of your opponent’s spells can’t be cast. You can safely attack and they have a hard time getting their commanders back. Steel Hellkite with 0 in x would kill all the turned cards. When Ixidron enters the battlefield other creatures you fetched with Mass Polymorph will not get turned. Only creatures that was on the battlefield before casting Mass Polymorph will get turned.
- Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Laboratory Maniac, Leveler and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Instant win where the opponents cannot respond. Seen in Talrand Mass Polymorph Combo
- Scourge of Fleets + Phyrexian Ingester with repeatable enter battlefield from Deadeye Navigator you can remove every creature
- Diluvian Primordial, Jace's Mindseeker, Chancellor of the Spires & Torrential Gearhulk to create synergistic effects with Talrand, Sky Summoner & Metallurgic Summonings. Replace the mass token generation effects with Proteus Staff & Polymorph and consider using Deadeye Navigator. The deck would be more multiplayer and casual oriented. Thanks to Force_of_Willb for suggesting this.

Notable omissions

- Polymorph really fits well into the deck but I just couldn’t find a good card to replace for it
- Thopter Spy Network I don't run enough artifacts and I find the Thopter is slow and the draw ability makes my tokens a larger threat, which I don’t want.
- Opposition Could be a good card for an alternative win condition. But this makes my tokens much more dangerous to my opponents.
- Hour of Need Could be replaced by one of the alternative win conditions
- Bident of Thassa and Coastal Piracy are good cards. For now, I have omitted them because they make my tokens a big threat and they feel slow. Instead I have Open Into Wonder which both can be used on tokens, if I need more draw (and my tokens won’t die due to block!) also it can help my fatties come through
- Windreader Sphinx is good for the token strategy. But I want my fatties to be from the sea.
- Proteus Staff is good both for removal and cheat in fatties. It doesn't fit well into the deck in its current state, because i want to cheat in all the fatties at once

Any feedback and ideas are much appriciated!

Top Ranked	Achieved #37 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	WBRG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.74
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Boar 2/2 G, Construct */* C, Copy Clone, Drake 2/2 U, Emblem Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Faerie 1/1 U, Shark X/X U, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	want decks, budget, Mono Blue (Talrand), Awesome Decks, EDH Ideas, Favs, monoblue, EDH