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Zirilan Mirrors

Commander / EDH Combo Dragons Mono-Red

magicfingers90

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Mana (16)

Stax (8)

Utility (8)

Interaction (14)

Dragons (8)

Tutor/Draw/Cantrip (8)

Commander (1)

Commander: Zirilan of the Claw

Lands (33)

Mirror (4)

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Other (13)

Zirilan of the Claw tutors Worldgorger Dragon to combo with a permanent in play that creates token copies (a "mirror") such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Minion Reflector, Flameshadow Conjuring, or Molten Echoes for infinite mana and/or ETB triggers, then use a payoff to win the game.

The name of this deck stems from its primary combo, which uses cards that I'm calling “mirrors” -- permanents with abilities that create token copies of creatures -- to create loops using Worldgorger Dragon. The mirrors include Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Minion Reflector, Flameshadow Conjuring, and Molten Echoes.

How it Works

As Worldgorger Dragon comes into play, use the activated/triggered ability of the mirror to make a token copy of it with the initial WGD trigger on the stack, then the copy enters and adds a duplicate trigger to the stack. The copy's trigger resolves first and exiles all of your other permanents, including the original WGD. Then, the original WGD trigger resolves and exiles the token copy which returns all of your permanents to the battlefield. Re-order ETB triggers, activate abilities, then make a new token copy of WGD to continue the loop, thus generating infinite mana and triggers.

The Commander

Zirilan of the Claw is a Viashino Shaman with text errata that reads: “1RR, T: Search your library for a Dragon permanent card and put that card onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library. That Dragon gains haste until end of turn. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.”

Why Zirilan?

Personally, because my two favorite things in Magic are playing mono-red and dragons, but also because Zirilan gives us instant-speed access to powerful creatures/effects, such as Worldgorger Dragon, to create threats, find answers, and ultimately win the game.

Midrange/Combo.

This deck looks to control the early game either with stax effects and removal or by ramping into Zirilan and using his activated ability to forward the gameplan and find answers. It typically assembles a win in turns 4-6.

Strengths

  • Mono-red advantages No need for mana-fixing, allowing for more utility lands, and high artifact synergy.

  • Toolbox commander Able to tutor up answers such as board wipes, card draw effects, ramp, or Worldgorger Dragon to combo at instant speed.

  • Adaptable With several potential combos available, the deck is typically able to adjust its strategy in response to effects in play or having certain pieces removed.

  • Compact Zirilan only needs a single mirror and a payoff in play in order to win the game. Also, because Zirilan puts the dragons into play directly without having to cast them, the combo is less susceptible to counter spells as long as Zirilan and the mirror make it onto the battlefield.

Weaknesses

  • Mono-red disadvantages Red struggles with enchantments, generating card advantage, and stack interaction, to an extent. There are attempts to remedy some of these shortcomings with cards such as Blast Zone and Chaos Warp to remove problem permanents, wheels via Dragon Mage or Wheel of Fortune to refill your hand, or situational responses like Pyroblast and Deflecting Swat to provide interaction.

  • Common stax effects The deck relies on its commander’s activated ability and uses several artifacts, making it extremely vulnerable to some very common stax pieces that prevent tutoring, activated abilities, and ETB effects. These include cards like Grafdigger's Cage, Cursed Totem, Null Rod, Torpor Orb, and other variations of these effects. Fortunately, many of these are artifacts, which red is capable of dealing with.

  • Heavy aggro The deck can have a hard time against aggressive strategies. It is not built for combat and can be easily overrun by token armies and/or large evasive creatures. Be careful about drawing attention early.

The early gameplan is simple: try to get Zirilan online as soon as possible. Once you have access to his ability, you will be in a much better position to control the game. Most often, you will want to pass the turn without activating Zirilan's ability. Even if you don't use it during your opponents' turns, you can always activate the ability during the end step of the opponent to your right to have a dragon available on your next turn. If you activate Zirilan's ability during the end step, the exile trigger will be delayed until the following turn's end step (Rule 513.2; see "Other Notes" below).

Once Zirilan is ready, the next step is to find a mirror. Use Zirilan's ability to tutor Dragon Mage or Hoarding Dragon to help you draw or search through your deck. If you're able to draw/tutor using something in hand (i.e. Wheel of Fortune, Memory Jar, Imperial Recruiter, etc.), save Zirilan to respond to the board. An early Thunder Dragon or Hellkite Tyrant can really put opponents behind or put you ahead. After you have either Flameshadow Conjuring, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Minion Reflector, or Molten Echoes in play, tutor for Worldgorger Dragon to start the loop and win through any number of various payoffs.

Ideally, you will incidentally find a payoff during your search for a mirror. Here's what to look for and how to use them with the mirror loop:

  • Bogardan Hellkite: Tutor it into play on the end step of the opponent's turn before you start the loop, or cast it from hand before/during the loop. Deals 5 damage split among your opponents on each entry.

  • Omen of the Forge: Deal 2 damage to an opponent on each entry.

  • Dragon's Hoard: Place a gold counter, tap, and remove to draw a card in response to each WGD entry. Draw deck and cast Omen of the Forge or Bogardan Hellkite into the loop to deal damage on each entry.

  • Staff of Domination: Use the infinite mana generated by the loop to draw through your deck...and gain infinite life...and tap all of your opponents' creatures...and untap all of yours. After drawing Omen of the Forge or Bogardan Hellkite, cast one into the loop to deal damage on each entry. (Note: If Staff of Domination is in your hand when you start the loop, you can technically end the loop, resulting in a board with only WGD and all of your other permanents exiled. With the infinite mana generated by the loop, cast Staff and draw your deck, then cast Reito Lantern to use Lightning Bolt infinite times, putting it back into your library from the graveyard with Reito and drawing it again with Staff.)

  • Codex Shredder: Activate on each entry to mill the top card of an opponent's deck and proceed to mill all opponents out.

  • Ashling's Prerogative: Give haste to Zirilan and tutor for Bogardan Hellkite in response to the WGD trigger.

  • Hanweir Battlements: Same as above.

  • Shivan Gorge: Using the infinite mana generated by the loop, activate its ability on each entry to ping all opponents to death.

  • Sunscorched Desert: Same as above, but without the activated ability.

  • Bonders' Enclave: Draw a card in response to each WGD trigger, proceed to draw deck, then ping opponents with Omen of the Forge or Bogardan Hellkite.

Alternate win conditions

There are other ways to create infinite mana besides the mirror loop. These include Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith or Metalworker + three or more artifacts in hand with Staff of Domination in play. Both cases use Staff of Domination as a mana outlet to draw the deck, although Sensei's Divining Top can be used as a substitute in the Rings + Basalt combo. Cast Mycosynth Lattice to filter the colorless mana into red mana and use the Reito Lantern / Staff of Domination / Lightning Bolt combo outlined above to eliminate opponents. To win with Sensei's Divining Top using Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith, tap Top to draw a card, then copy the ability with Rings. You will draw a card off the first activation and put Top on top of your library, then the second activation will resolve and you will draw the Top. Using the infinite mana generated by the combo, play Top, activate, copy, and continue to draw through your deck until you can win using the same Lattice/Lantern/Bolt plan.

  • Bogardan Hellkite: Deals damage to creatures or players; can be used as a payoff in the mirror loop to kill players with its triggered ability: tutor it into play in the end step of the turn before using the mirror loop, tutor it into play by activating Zirilan in response to a Worldgorger Dragon trigger with a haste enabler in play, or if it's in your hand, you can cast it in response to a Worldgorger Dragon trigger.

  • Changeling Berserker: Protects a creature from removal. Tutor it in response to a removal spell/trigger on the stack and when Changeling Berserker enters, exile the removal target with its Champion trigger. When Changeling Berserker leaves play for any reason, including being exiled at the end step by Zirilan's delayed ability trigger, the Championed creature will return to play.

  • Dragon Mage: One of the most valuable cards in the deck, Dragon Mage is usually the first card we tutor up with Zirilan's ability. It's ability to refill our hand and disrupt our opponents, with the added potential benefit of being used repeatedly with Tel-Jilad Stylus, makes it a better Wheel of Fortune.

  • Hellkite Tyrant: Steal all of an opponent's artifacts. This can provide a huge swing in your favor, not to mention the powerful synergy it has with Mycosynth Lattice.

  • Hoarding Dragon: An inefficient artifact tutor. The fact that it has to die in order to put the artifact into your hand means that having it exiled or bounced basically just exiles your artifact. Since Zirilan exiles it at the end step, you need it to die the turn you play it and most of the time, this is more trouble than it's worth. It is situational, but it's an instant-speed artifact tutor that helps you find a combo piece or payoff, so it's worth a spot.

  • Knollspine Dragon: Profit off of an opponent's pain. This has the potential to be a huge source of card draw, though don't be too conservative with it. You may not always have the opportunity to draw 10+ cards in a turn, so don't be too quick to pass up on 3-5 new cards when given the chance.

  • Thunder Dragon: Deals enough damage to wipe the board of smaller creatures and, conveniently, not Zirilan.

  • Worldgorger Dragon: It eats the world, and then barfs it back up. Primarily only used to combo, it can be used to save your board from a wipe in emergency situations. Mostly, it should be tutored for with Zirilan's ability, but you can cast it from your hand if necessary when you already have a mirror and a payoff in play.

  • Claws of Gix: A universal sacrifice outlet, great for disposing of Hoarding Dragon or moving artifacts to your graveyard for Goblin Welder/Goblin Engineer shenanigans.

  • Goblin Welder: Great for turning small artifacts on the battlefield into big artifacts in your graveyard. It's also a decent workaround for untapping rocks like Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, and Basalt Monolith if you have another artifact in your graveyard to cycle them in and out. In niche situations, you can use it on opponents' artifacts to replace something scary on their board with something less scary in their graveyard.

  • Reito Lantern: This card has a few uses: put cards from your graveyard back into your library or interrupt opponents' graveyard tricks, and in situations where you have infinite mana and have drawn your library, use it with Staff of Domination to loop spells.

  • Rings of Brighthearth: Another versatile card -- copy Zirilan's activated ability to grab a second dragon, or copy Basalt Monolith's untap ability to make infinite mana, or copy some other ability to do some other thing. So many possibilities!

  • Staff of Domination: A payoff for infinite mana, it can be useful in many scenarios: mirror loop, Basalt/Rings, or Metalworker with 3 artifacts in hand.

  • Sundial of the Infinite: Allows you to keep dragons in play tutored with Zirilan by activating its ability during your end step in response to the delayed exile trigger on the stack. It ends the turn and clears the stack, removing the delayed trigger that would otherwise exile the dragon (also works with Sneak Attack). Additionally, it can be used to stop any opponents' shenanigans in your end step, like activating it in response to an instant or fetchland.

  • Tel-Jilad Stylus: Put a tutored dragon back into your library, tutor it up again later. This is great for repeating effects like card draw from Dragon Mage and/or Knollspine Dragon, creature protection from Changeling Berserker, or damage from Bogardan Hellkite and/or Thunder Dragon.

  • Underworld Breach: Allows us to replay anything from our graveyard, granted we have at least three other cards to exile for its escape cost. Lion's Eye Diamond and Wheel of Fortune will draw your deck.

  • Daretti, Scrap Savant: Great for dumping cards you don't need in hopes of finding the ones you do. Combine the first ability with the second to put artifacts from your hand into your graveyard, then cheat them out onto the battlefield without paying mana.

  • Faithless Looting: Add two cards to your hand then add two to the graveyard. Let's you replace cards you don't need at the moment or set up graveyard artifact plays with Goblin Welder, Goblin Engineer, or Daretti, Scrap Savant.

  • Gamble: It tutors for anything at the low cost of coupled with the much higher cost of having to randomly discard a card. Try to cast it with a larger hand when possible to reduce the risk of discarding the thing you tutored for, but from my experience, you'll probably discard it anyway.

  • Goblin Engineer: It's like Gamble but only for artifacts and the thing you tutor for goes into your graveyard no matter what. That being said, at least this guy allows you to recover an artifact with CMC 3 or less by sacrificing another artifact in play, which comes in handy.

  • Goblin Matron: The deck has a suite of useful Goblins to tutor for, most notably Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

  • Imperial Recruiter: Go find Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and try to win. Otherwise, grab Metalworker if you have artifacts in hand or Treasonous Ogre if you have life to spare, or get Goblin Engineer or Goblin Welder if you need to dig up some artifacts from the graveyard.

  • Memory Jar: A wacky Wheel of Fortune; set aside your hand, draw seven cards, and at end of turn discard them and return to your previous hand. Helps you find what you're looking for and may throw opponents off for a turn.

  • Scroll Rack: Allows you to replace cards in your hand with cards from the top of your library. Useful if you have dragons in hand and want to put them back into your deck to cheat out with Zirilan, also a convenient way of cheating stuff out with Possibility Storm.

  • Sensei's Divining Top: Lets you reorder the top of your deck to help setup draws and plan for future turns. If you see a dragon in the three, you can prevent yourself from having to draw it by keeping it in the library.

  • Wheel of Fortune: Discard your hand, draw 7 cards. The best card draw available to red.

  • Abrade: Modal removal against creatures or artifacts.

  • Chaos Warp: Universal permanent removal; perfect for dealing with enchantments or planeswalkers, particularly stax pieces, that can't be dealt with any other way. May replace the permanent with something even scarier, but usually worth the risk.

  • Deflecting Swat: Great stack interaction, free with commander in play.

  • Gorilla Shaman: Repeatable artifact removal. 1 mana to destroy any 0-CMC artifacts. Great with Mycosynth Lattice to blow up lands.

  • Lightning Bolt: Good removal against single mana dorks and hatebears.

  • Omen of the Forge: Not as efficient removal as Lightning Bolt, but has the benefit of being a permanent so it can act as a payoff in mirror loops.

  • Pyroblast: Something to deal with those pesky blue mages.

  • Pyroclasm: Good removal against multiple mana dorks and hatebears.

  • Red Elemental Blast: Something else to deal with those pesky blue mages.

  • Vandalblast: Destroy a single artifact you don't control, or overload to destroy all artifacts you don't control. Great with Mycosynth Lattice to blow up all of your opponents' permanents.

  • Ashling's Prerogative: Choose "odd" basically every time, which means all even-CMC creatures enter tapped. Note: This turns on Zirilan of the Claw, Metalworker, and Goblin Welder, but turns off Goblin Engineer and Hellkite Tyrant.

  • Blood Moon: Although this disables all utility lands in the deck, it technically color fixes our mana base while possibly shutting down opponents' mana bases entirely.

  • Chalice of the Void: Good early game for 0 or 2 mana to shut off all 0 or 1 drops, preventing moxes/crypts or mana dorks, or 4 mana in the mid game to turn off 2-CMC spells which should help counter most removal/counterspells. Kind of a custom stax piece that lets you tailor its impact to the game state.

  • Codex Shredder: Gets rid of opponents' topdecks, making it a great counter to many tutors. Also used as a payoff in mirror loops -- tap it each time it enters the battlefield to mill out opponents' libraries.

  • Karn, the Great Creator: One-sided Null Rod. It has the bonus utility of being able to kill 0-CMC artifacts by turning them into 0/0 creatures and can recover any of our artifacts that get exiled.

  • Mycosynth Lattice: Turns everything in play into artifacts and everything not in play colorless. Strong synergy with Karn, the Great Creator, Hellkite Tyrant, Vandalblast, and Gorilla Shaman, to a lesser extent. Making all cards not in play colorless is also relevant, removing alternate casting options for the "Force" cycle (of Will, Negation, Vigor, et al.) and shutting down some color-specific staples such as Green Sun's Zenith, Merchant Scroll, and Summoner's Pact. Finally, its ability to filter mana is occasionally useful.

  • Possibility Storm: This thing is wacky -- it turns any spell into a different spell of that type, but there are ways to play around it. It only affects spells cast from hand so you can cast your commander freely as well as cards in the graveyard, and with the help of Scroll Rack and/or Sensei's Divining Top you can set yourself up to cheat things into play. Sometimes it works against you and an opponent's Llanowar Elves turns into a Rampaging Baloths, but most of the time it is a tricky obstacle for opponents to deal with.

  • Stranglehold: Shuts down all opponents' tutors and fetchlands, and the fact that it shuts down extra turns as well is just icing on the cake.

  • Arcane Signet: 2-CMC rock that adds 1 colored mana and doesn't ETB tapped. Solid.

  • Basalt Monolith: Goes off with Rings of Brighthearth and 2 spare mana to create infinite colorless mana.

  • Chrome Mox: 0-CMC rock that adds 1 colored mana, just need to exile a red card from hand when it ETBs. In mirror loops it returns as a new copy, so you would need to continue imprinting cards for it to produce mana, which isn't practical. Use it to ramp, but don't rely on it as a mana source during the loop to create extra mana or to maintain the loop as per Flameshadow Conjuring or Minion Reflector.

  • Dockside Extortionist: Huge ramp potential, scales with your opponents' boards, and even a couple of treasure tokens is usually worth it.

  • Dragon's Hoard: Although not the most efficient mana rock, it has extra appeal as a card draw source in mirror loops.

  • Grim Monolith: Unlike Basalt Monolith it doesn't combo with Rings of Brighthearth, but as a 2-CMC rock that creates 3 colorless mana, it is mana-positive.

  • Lion's Eye Diamond: 3 colored mana, discard your hand. No problem if you're spending that mana to activate Zirilan for a card draw effect or using it to combo off with Wheel of Fortune and Underworld Breach to draw your deck. It's kind of a last resort, but it can quickly accelerate you into a position to win the game.

  • Lotus Petal: A free extra mana.

  • Mana Crypt: Free Sol Ring that tries to Lightning Bolt you every turn.

  • Mana Vault: Turn one -- land, Mana Vault. Turn two -- land, Zirilan. Spends the rest of the game slowly killing you.

  • Metalworker: Two colorless mana per artifact in hand. Use it to cast the artifacts or keep them in hand to continue producing mana. With 3+ artifacts in hand and Staff of Domination in play, creates enough mana to go infinite.

  • Mox Opal: 0-CMC rock that adds a colored mana, only need 2 other artifacts in play. Usually pretty easy to get online.

  • Rite of Flame: Turns into . Good early game accelerant.

  • Seething Song: Like Rite of Flame on steroids, it's enough to power Zirilan or a mirror out.

  • Simian Spirit Guide: A free extra mana.

  • Sol Ring: Auto-include.

  • Treasonous Ogre: 3 life per ain't exactly cheap but it's worth it.

  • Voltaic Key: While it doesn't produce mana on its own, it has the potential to "unlock" other artifacts like Grim Monolith, Basalt Monolith, Mana Vault, etc. for extra mana activations.

In an opening hand, you typically want to see 1-3 lands, 1 or more ramp effects, and then some combination of combo/stax/interaction pieces. It is important to note, you do NOT want any dragons in your opener; the CMC is usually too high for a hard cast to be worth it early on and you want them in your library so they can be tutored for when needed with Zirilan’s ability, so try to avoid starting with any in your hand if possible.

You may want to mulligan any hand with two or more dragons and/or no ramp effects. If you have a ramp-heavy opener, it is typically a good strategy to dump the hand into a fast Zirilan, then use Dragon Mage to refill. Be aware, this does leave you vulnerable to interaction, so it is a high-risk/high-reward play. It sucks to empty your hand with fast mana and have Zirilan immediately removed/countered or Dragon Mage removed before it connects.

Sample Opening Hands:

  • According to Rule 513.2, any ability with a trigger that says “at end of turn” that occurs during the end step will apply to the following turn’s end step. This means that you are able to activate Zirilan’s ability at the end of an opponent’s turn to put a dragon into play and that dragon will not be exiled until the next end step. Use this to find dragons you need, such as Hoarding Dragon to sac for an artifact or Dragon Mage to wheel, and save a Zirilan activation on your turn.

  • Scroll Rack can put dragons from your hand back into your library to then be tutored into play, helping circumvent the high casting costs.

  • Zirilan, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Treasonous Ogre, and Gorilla Shaman all share the creature type “Shaman,” making this the best choice when using Cavern of Souls.

  • Possibility Storm is a powerful combo protection tool. Cast it after playing a mirror, even if it means waiting another turn to cast Zirilan, to prevent opponents from disrupting your win. Since Zirilan is cast from the command zone and not your hand, it is unaffected by the card’s ability.

  • To avoid losing dragons to Zirilan’s exile trigger, you can put them back into your library with Tel-Jilad Stylus or remove the trigger while it's on the stack with Sundial of the Infinite.

This is an incredibly fun, puzzling, versatile deck that I have thoroughly enjoyed playing over the years. It has seen several iterations in that time, but I believe this to be the strongest version yet. I am constantly finding new interactions and ways to win, and I enjoy the limitations of the deck as much as the advantages. If you enjoy complex lines of play along with the simple, focused strengths of a mono-colored deck, this one is for you.

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Casual

95% Competitive

Date added 8 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

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

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

38 - 0 Rares

19 - 0 Uncommons

12 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.71
Tokens Copy Clone, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Treasure
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