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The Iron Feather - Updated Primer

Commander / EDH* Aggro Burn RW (Boros) Voltron

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Land (32)

Removal / Interaction (10)

Tutor (4)

Ramp (14)

Protection (12)

Voltron (5)

Utility (2)

Commander (1)

Commander: Feather, the Redeemed

Draw (12)

Burn (6)

Recursion (2)

Maybeboard

Removal / Burn (22)

Utility (6)

Burn (4)

Tutor (3)

Ramp (15)

Less Friendly Options (7)

Want To Add (6)

Draw (3)

Storm Pay Off (2)

Voltron (11)

Protection (8)

Blink Options (6)

Go Wide (5)

Infinite Combat (1)

Infinite Guardians (1)

Main

Over the last 9 months Feather has been my number 1 most used and most enjoyable deck to play, This primer has been updated to reflect the things ive learnt, the changes I've made, and with in reason the reason behind the changes. If you have any suggestions or queries then leave a comment below.

  1. The main idea is to use Feather, the Redeemed to transform our one time instants into reusable value and be able to out sustain our opponents.
  2. during the early to mid game We're looking to stay alive and keep the boards at bay until we explode for the win late game.
  3. This feather deck has refined what most are trying to do and sits nicely on top of most refined metas, however this deck is not meant to be played in a cEDH game. I've built in some defensive plays for when a tough deck is brought in to the game but if cEDH is your speed then may I suggest taking a look at the alternative options section.
  4. This is a High Synergy, highly situational but non infinite Feather Brew. If infinite combo's are your thing, this isn't the brew for you.

Deck stats

  • Draw - 13 Total, 10 of which are repeatable with the help of feather.

  • Removal - 16 - One of the biggest changes over the last few months has been the removal/interaction package. With a lower focus on needing feather and a higher focus on having a wider variety of answers.

  • Protection - 11 - Low cmc, instant speed, re-use and abuse with Feather.

  • Ramp - 14 - the deck has 14 listed, 12 are going to be real ramp for 2cmc less.

  • Big finishers - 3 to maybe 4 - Have a look at the winning section, We are going to win via slow storm or a a few compact combo's

  • Average CMC - 2.11 - We run low to the ground so we can push the value


Purpose This deck is sorted via purpose of the card as I strongly believe that the best way to see the core and dynamics of a deck is to see the purposes of each card. We currently have the following Piles;

  • Ramp/Land Drops - Making sure we get a constant stream of ramping and land drops, feather only gets better with more mana.

  • Removal/Burn - This is our interaction pile, This is a combination of cards that will keep the board the under control during the early to mid game.

  • Draw - Don't really need to explain this one.

  • Tutor - Although a Boros deck, We have 8 potential tutors

  • Protection - The most important part of the deck, We need to keep feather alive in order to win.

Style This is the most interactive and responsive Boros deck I've ever played. Most of our turns involve keeping our mana open, passing to our opponents and responding to their turns.

  • Are our opponents trying to remove feather? well we play Gods Willing, Sheltering Light, or even better Shelter these are repeatable effects, that takes a card out of our opponents hands and we get some added value, a Scry or some draw.

  • Did our opponents leave us alone this round? well, we can sink our mana into Expedite, Defiant Strike

  • While this is happening we have built in synergies that love our instants, Aria of Flame is being pumped, lots and lots..see the big finishers/winning section

The brilliance of feather is there isn't a single line that we follow to try and win, it all depends on what our opponents are doing.


Tips

  • The Number 1 Golden Feather rule - Always keep protection up and ready, unless you are forced do not tap out. Players are waiting and hoping you tap out. after they see the protection they will wait and pick the right moment. Do not tap out and go shields down if you can help it

  • Cards are returned at the beginning of end steps so its important to use them after our opponents have passed priority on their 2nd main phase but before the start of the end step.

  • If you've been looking around for feather brews you may have noticed this mention but that feather has the ability to dodge hand size to a small extent, like I said you need to cast your spells before the end step as the cards are returned at the beginning of the end step. So if we wait till the beginning they won't return till the next end step so we won't actually be holding them during our clean up phase.

  • Due to the nature of the way feather plays we will do lots of little things so we need to be careful about not becoming the table arch enemy, this is harder to explain but using some instincts on how and when to be aggressive vs how and when to build up a foundation will go a long way in a feather deck.

Feather is a late game master so the aim of the early game is to ramp and stay alive

  • We have split our focus between some ramp and making sure hit our land drops late into the game; By far the best ramp options we have are Smothering Tithe, & Dockside Extortionist both of these provide game winning value when left unchecked.

  • Weathered Wayfarer is also a great option as it allows us to find any land, If the situation requires this could be used on Arcane Lighthouse or even something like Reliquary Tower/Mistveil Plains

  • Smothering Tithe - Mentioned before but one of the strongest single cards in the deck. Academy Rector is a classic option thats on the sideboard. we have 2 Wheels in the deck currently Wheel of Fortune & Reforge the Soul just getting a wheel off with somthering in play is probably going to let us win but we do also have an infinite combo with Underworld Breach + Smothering Tithe + a wheel. See the winning section for more information.

  • Within the deck there are several blink options such as Cloudshift these serve to protect feather from targeted removal but also double to allow for multiple ETB's from our very valuable Dockside Extortionist

  • Lastly within our 14 piece ramp package, we have 12 pieces that will ramp us for 2cmc or less.


There are many options that can be selected based on what you like and what the meta you play in allows, I've Opted for a more all round package. This has also been balanced by opting for things that can be used with Sunforger.

  • With Feather in play Reckless Rage becomes a pretty good single target creature removal, which can be used every turn for just 1 cmc,
  • Arcbond a little situational but can work as a creature bases board wipe and ticks a few boxes in that it can be reused with feather and is able to be found using sunforger.
  • Duergar Hedge-Mage - Works well with the blinks package to give us repeatable removal.
  • Ruination is a very meta dependant card..but We're in Boros and there's a few too many 5 color decks in my meta so I've changed my mana base to find mostly basics and have this as an option. this also works with Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon
  • Dire Fleet Daredevil is a new addition, it's listed as interaction as it exiles a card when it ETB's using the combination of flicker effects and feather this can be ramp or anything...its a trickier fork. that we can use with out blink effects
  • Heliod's Intervention - good for artifact and enchantment removal but can also work with Aetherflux Reservoir
  • The deck is also running the more standard Boros removal options like Blasphemous Act, Vandal blast, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Aura of Silence, Wear / Tear, and Chaos Warp


Sideboard options There are tons of options depending on what you like and the way you want to build.

  • Soul's Fire is 3cmc option but has a much wider utility..3 cmc is a biut high for my deck but it's a sideboard option for your consideration.
  • Slightly more expensive cmc but Aurelia's Fury can be used to really slow down certain boards, and again with feather is reusable
  • Can anyone anyone say repeatable artifact and enchantment removal? well Orim's Thunder can.


we also have the more traditional board wipes of;

  • Chandra's Ignition - Repeatable with feather out.
  • Akroma's Vengeance - Really hits hard
  • Austere Command - Same again this was cut from the main deck recently as I was finding is easier to stick to faster lower removal
  • Chandra's Ignition - Hits creatures and players, but can be used over and over with feather. I go back and forth on this...probably a personal play and meta thing.


The most important aspect and from what I've seen other feather decks undervalue is protecting feather. Simply put our deck needs feather to operate. Its the biggest weakness of this style deck, and as such we have put a good high synergy package in to help keep feather online.

  • Once we start doing feather things we will draw a lot of attention, so it's important to keep the cmc of our protection spells down as will we need to defend against multiple opponents in a rotation before we untap. if a card is above 2cmc there needs to be a good reason why it's in.

1 CMC

2 CMC

3 CMC

  • Deflecting Swat - New addition, Just an awesome free (most of the time) 2 for 1 in our advantage.
  • Eerie Interlude - Doubles as evasion and multiple ETB's


As we enter the mid game there's a good number of ways to create value, These options tend to build upon themselves and snowball pretty fast. They can be mana intensive so learning how and when to push the plays is going to make a big difference in the long term. for example;

  • Sword of Feast and Famine listed under ramp as it will let us untap all our lands and given the number of protection spells we can almost always find a target, but also have built in protection and will make our opponents discard. We're also running Sword of the Animist which is good ramp on its own and even better with Feast.

  • One of the biggest changes to the deck was the banning of Paradox Engine, it worked so well with our artifact ramp and storm aspect that Feather took a hit when that was announced, One of the ways this deck has adapted was with the creation of Dockside Extortionist with this added it became the tipping point for a blink sub theme and as such we currently have a few options to blink our creatures (great for tricky situations) but we have found a few creatures that work well with feather and have some strong ETB'S.

Currently 6 repeatable bounce options in the deck

To take full advantage of the blink options we have included some tricky ETB creature's

One of the areas that Feather lost with paradox engine was explosiveness, Creating value has always been easy but being able to explode forward in a single turn became much harder. Although not paradox strong Dockside Extortionist is a very explosive card. Turn 4 was early but if its turn 6 or 7 then having 10 artifacts and enchantments on the field seems pretty common.


Sunforgerin my mind Sunforger is more of a tutor/card advantage piece than game winner in this brew.

Currently the deck has 28 potential targets for Sunforger.. The value that Sunforger provides during the mid game phase can not be understated..but if you're here reading this you probably know this.


In the last 9 months, I've continually increased the number of draw spells in the deck. One thing I've learnt is that if we have too many draw spells it has no negative impact really as once we start to draw its hard to stop us, But if we don't have enough draw we stall out pretty hard and we are more or less a fish on land just floundering around.

of the 13 draw sources in the deck, 10 provide reusable value with feather

We have 5 1cmc, instant can trips that can be reused with feather. Some of these provide good value. while all help in our storm like aspect.

Two alternative options - Heal - Panic

These make a lot of feather decks and for a long time we're in mine, but the delay in drawing a card was just a bit too slow, so they were cut. If you're desperate for more draw then they are decent options.

we have 5 draw sources that are higher than 1cmc are;

  • Psychotic Fury - This also provides double strike which with our mini Voltron style can be very relevant
  • Shelter - Can anyone say gives protection, and draws a card? excellent 2cmc spell
  • Fists of Flame - New addition to the deck, 2 cmc but also works well with out volton aspect. can get people out of nowhere
  • Humble Defector - Been added for testing, Not strictly an ETB however will be treated as such...he will be blinked before activating so I can draw 2 and not give him up.
  • Wall of Omens Turns our blink spells into draw spells

Lastly, 3 non feather options


We have 3 paths to Victory in the deck

Over the last few months I've worked on making the deck stronger, this meant dropping back on how heavily the deck relies on Voltron for a win and pushing back into Storm and Combo.

As the deck currently stands the 3 ways to win are;


1 - Slow Storm with so many 1 or 2cmc instants it's not hard to get a spell count up each turn. the 2 outlets for these slower storm counts are Aetherflux Reservoir and oddly Monastery Mentor For a while I had tested Aria of Flame and am still 50/50 on this. its currently in the sideboard but may make a comeback.

Using Monastery Mentor if we cast 6 or 7 spells in the rotation before our turn we will untap with around 8 monks all with prowess this should be enough that we can have lethal on 1 or maybe 2 players in the game with good old fashioned damage. as a side note Monastery Mentor + Path to Exile + Feather is a nice little way to get a land into play for 1cmc

If we can have Feather + Aetherflux Reservoir it only takes 4 can trips in our hand to play 8 spells, 4 during the main phase and 4 during the end step when theyre returned...8 spells and nothing else is 36 life...so this should be enough to have a constant threat of removing anyone who messes with you.


2 - Combo

There is currently 2 different combo's that will allow us to win in the deck.

  • 1 Underworld Breach + Smothering Tithe/Lion's Eye Diamond + Wheel of Fortune/Reforge the Soul depending on which version you get will create and infinite loop.

  • With Underworld Breach + Smothering Tithe on the field we play a wheel discarding our hand and creating 7 or more treasures, Underworld Breach allows us then cast anything from our graveyard by paying its mana cost and exiling 3 cards....so we exile 3 cards that we just discarded from the wheel and use the treasure to pay and cast a wheel again.

  • Each time we do this we are milling our opponents, creating mana and adding to our storm count....as your milling through the deck Angel's Grace will be drawn, playing it will allow us to mill the table with our library empty and not lose.

  • In this version we will effectively have infinite mana to use and cast Aetherflux Reservoir so we will also have infinite life and be able to use Aetherflux Reservoir to deal out a large number of 50 damage triggers.

  • The faster more compact version is to replace smothering tithe with Lion's Eye Diamond and use Wheel of Fortune this will allow us to mill as long as we have cards in the library, so we need at least 1 spare mana to cast Angel's Grace


3 - a mini volton Some of the Voltron pieces in the deck include;

Voltron is probably the slowest and easiest to stop path to victory in the deck...all of these pieces provide good utility to the other synergies and as such don't weigh the deck down.

With Sunforger equipped finding the pieces needed to win is possible just mana intensive. It can tutor for Fists of Flame, Boros Charm this is very close to 21 commander damage....maybe tac on a can trip or 2...or maybe we already had Sword of Feast and Famine equipped.


This section is dedicated to some of card choices that didn't make the list, some of these i feel aren't vital and some were cut for space.

Top Contenders

Control Options

More Removal

Solid value

If you want to lean into the token aspect a little harder then these are some of the options for you, there's more so if this is your speed have a look at the alternative options below

For anyone whos been thinking about and looking at feather builds there are a few ways to go. The Sideboard of this deck are options that could be added to this brew without changing the core structure of the deck.

There are many ways to build feather depending on what you enjoy and what your meta is

9 Months since Feather's release

This deck has changed a lot and over the last 9 months all the changes were kept here, but as this primer has been completely updated I've removed all the previous changes and as such the additions section has been cleared. As the deck changes over the next few months (lets say another 6) will keep a list of the changes here.

There are a few goals for the deck that I will be working on over the next bit of time;

  • Improving the storm aspect, Feather took a hit when we lost paradox engine, We've made some of the ground back but still have a way to go.

  • Currently the deck is dead without feather, I'm looking for options that can add value to feather but also jump in for some voltron styled offense Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder is looking like a good option. gives double strike and life link.

  • Thanks to KayneMarco for the suggestion on Aria of Flame in the first few games since I started testing it I drew it twice and it was a fantastic option. Completely won the game in one of the matches.


Similar to the additions section above, this has been cleared and the will again be added to as the next 6 months of the deck rolls on.

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July 30, 2019
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Revision 50 See all

(3 years ago)

+1 Acrobatic Maneuver main
+1 Bloodstained Mire main
+1 Flooded Strand main
-1 Heal maybe
-1 Humble Defector main
+1 Jeska, Thrice Reborn main
+1 Marsh Flats main
-4 Mountain main
-4 Plains main
+1 Scalding Tarn main
+1 Sejiri Shelter  Flip main
+1 Shatterskull Smashing  Flip main
+1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell maybe
-1 Wall of Omens main
+1 Windswept Heath main
+1 Wooded Foothills main
Top Ranked
Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

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

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

36 - 0 Rares

21 - 0 Uncommons

19 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.21
Tokens Plant 0/2 G, Treasure
Folders 2019 - Non Combo Can Hang with the Big Boys - My current Favourite Decks, EDH, best primers, semi cEDH decks, EDH Decks
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