The XMen - New Mutants (Otrimi Mutate Primer)

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Casual Primer Theme/Gimmick Voltron

supa_tim

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 8x Forest
• 5x Island
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Coast
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Countermagic (9)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Delay
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Essence Scatter
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Negate
• 1x Remove Soul

BoardWipe (3)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Find / Finality
• 1x Gaze of Granite

Mutate (16)

• 1x Boneyard Lurker
• 1x Cavern Whisperer
• 1x Chittering Harvester
• 1x Dirge Bat
• 1x Dreamtail Heron
• 1x Gemrazer
• 1x Glowstone Recluse
• 1x Insatiable Hemophage
• 1x Migratory Greathorn
• 1x Mindleecher
• 1x Parcelbeast
• 1x Pouncing Shoreshark
• 1x Sawtusk Demolisher
• 1x Sea-Dasher Octopus
• 1x Souvenir Snatcher
• 1x Trumpeting Gnarr

Base Creature (10)

• 1x Butcher Ghoul
• 1x Cold-Eyed Selkie
• 1x Elusive Tormentor  ^Flip
• 1x Predator Ooze
• 1x Silhana Ledgewalker
• 1x Slippery Bogle
• 1x Strangleroot Geist
• 1x Troll Ascetic
• 1x Trygon Predator
• 1x Venomthrope

DrawTutor (5)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Pollywog Symbiote
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Commander (1)

Ramp (11)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Urborg Elf
• 1x Yavimaya Dryad

Utility (9)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Clutch of the Undercity
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Leadership Vacuum
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Shred Memory

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Maybeboard

Base Creature (5)

• 1x Cephalid Constable
• 1x Lumberknot
• 1x Needle Specter
• 1x Vampire Nighthawk
• 1x Young Wolf

Countermagic (3)

• 1x Keep Safe
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Swan Song

Utility (1)

• 1x Into the Roil

BoardWipe (1)

• 1x Deadly Tempest

Ramp (1)

• 1x Arcane Signet

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Intro:

Although all very different, the New Mutants (a young team of the X-Men) work together as singular force to take down their foes. That's why training in the Danger Room is so important: they must learn to work together if they are to win. So with that, here's the New Mutants, Otrimi, the Ever-Playful Mutate Primer:

This primer will hopefully explain the card choices and give you a good sense of how the deck plays, along with some tips if you plan on picking it up.

Let's start with this: the Mutate mechanic seems bad. It encourages a "all eggs in one basket" strategy and there is a strong temptation to overextend. Even when overextended you don't get the same value as a typical aggro deck, because you only have the power of the creature on top of your mutate stack. Now, that creature is often your commander, so you only need 21 combat damage, but nevertheless, it is easy to set the deck back with removal. However, it is incredibly fun to stack mutate triggers and overwhelm your opponents with value.

If you wanted to run a Sultai goodstuffs deck with mutate, Brokkos, Apex of Forever would be much better at that. He's a great commander to play that will win you the game with commander damage and you can just use the rest of the deck to set up and protect. There is no need to run more mutate cards with Brokkos (although you might still want to).

But dang if it isn't incredibly fun mutate up a stack of cards and bury your opponents with silly value.

So, given that the mechanic seems bad, but we're going to use it anyway, how do we optimize the deck? We have to find the sweet spot between mutate creatures, base creatures, protection, and interaction. This is never going to be a competitive EDH deck, but it can be a powerful and viable deck.

My current list is still a work in progress and is still young and being tested. I am currently building as an aggro deck that tries to get Otrimi out as fast as possible, but it might be better if I slowed it down a bit and added some resilience. I would love any feedback.

Mana

The deck should run between 48-50 lands and ramp, depending on budget. The deck is really mana hungry, especially when Otrimi starts to get removed. Sure, you can and often do, get a decent base creature with Otrimi mutated onto it by turn 4. But the deck still wants mana up every turn to mutate and/or interact. One thing I've noticed in testing is that Otrimi still dies. You might have mutated onto a hexproof creature, but someone plays a boardwipe and you don't have a counterspell. Or you mutated on an indestructible creature and someone swords'd Otrimi. In any event, you often have to recast Otrimi 2 maybe 3 times, which means you want a lot of mana.

You ideally want to play a mana dork turn 1 as often as possible, followed up with a base creature on turn 2 and Otrimi on turn 3. So you don't want to miss land drops. This won't always happen, but it puts opponents on their heels.

With Migratory Greathorn the deck can ramp consistently, but since you won't always draw it early, the deck runs a fairly significant amount of other land fetches. My favorite piece of ramp is actually Yavimaya Dryad as it can get any of the green dual lands or Zagoth Triome (and the downside is negligible), and it has forestwalk, which can be very useful (green is the most common color in EDH because of ramp and mana fixing). I've taken out all other 3CMC ramp (outside greathorn and dryad) so that the deck curves a bit better. You usually want to cast a creature on turn 3, not a ramp spell, especially if you didn't land a mana dork. So, Farseek goes in for cultivate (and can fetch the dual lands).

Pollywog Symbiote provides both help with ramp (cost reduction) and a draw/card selection engine. I've noticed people will use a removal on pollywog which I'm typically totally fine with. I'd rather have them remove pollywog than Otrimi, but if pollywog stays in play he can provide tremendous value.

I have an expensive manabase which helps getting the right colors. There are several budget alternative that will slow you down but are still passable. Some base creatures, like Predator Ooze might not be viable on a budget because it is harder to get 3 green mana on turn 3.

Winning

This deck wants to win with commander damage. It doesn't consistently have the longevity to grind out 40 life for each opponent, so connecting with Otrimi is incredibly important. Therefore, having the right base creatures is key. You'll want creatures with hexproof, first and foremost, followed by indestructible or undying, then look for evasive abilities and then things like deathtouch and lifelink.

The good thing about the base creatures is that you can cast them early to quickly get Otrimi on the table. The problem with the base creatures is that they tend to be small and insignificant by themselves. You don't want too many base creatures or you'll draw a weenie when you need an answer. But you'll typically want at least two per game.

I currently have 10 base creatures, which I feel that's the right amount. I'm not sure I have the best combination, but I do think I have a good mix of sturdiness and evasiveness. I am missing some staples that have been identified, most obviously Cephalid Constable which can shut down one opponent on turn 4 (and they may never recover). At this point I'm probably not going to pick one up as it isn't quite what works in my pod (it is very powerful though and absolute deserves a place in the deck). Nevertheless, a Silhana Ledgewalker will get the job done quite well (I honestly think it is the best early mutate base). So far Cold-Eyed Selkie is also an MVP.

Now that I've tested Elusive Tormentor   I can say it is incredibly powerful. It is slower than other base creatures, so you don't want to start with her, but when you flip her she's everything you'll need. It is perhaps the best base creature after a wipe when resources have been expended.

If the game goes long, don't be afraid to mutate Otrimi onto a mana dork or even straight-cast a mutate card just to have something for Otrimi to mutate onto. I've found that you'll get several hits in with Otrimi before someone finds appropriate removal, so you may need to just recast on a less-than-ideal creature to finish the job. But don't get too narrow-minded about Otrimi. Even though winning through commander damage is ideal (and your primary strategy), sometimes you just need to push through some damage and a buffed Glowstone Recluse with 2-3 other mutated creatures can go the distance (and you can mutate Otrimi on later if you need).

The one thing I'm still waffling about is the evasive VS sturdy creatures. I've won games because I had a sturdy creature on the board that my opponent's couldn't get rid of fast enough. I've won games where I drew into a flying creature when trample alone wouldn't get me there. I might have the right combination (for my metagame), but I'm keeping an eye on it.

The creature that had been underperforming was Vampire Nighthawk. I put it in for flying, deathtouch, and lifelink, which sounds awesome in theory. But not having any sturdiness is a huge drawback and makes it a bad creature to mutate Otrimi onto. At least with Trygon Predator he can just swing over and do his job on his own (and he can pitch to FoW). I have very rarely been in a position where I wanted to cast Nighthawk, and with the printing of the Warhammer 40k set, we got Venomthrope which fits perfectly - evasive, deathtouch, and sturdy (hexproof). I'm excited to test it out.

Protection

Right now the protection package is the most "up in the air." Combo has been getting a bit more prevalent in my meta, so I wanted a few ways to throw a wrench in their plans. But since the deck goes all in with the mutate, I also wanted a way to stop board wipes or other shenanigans. Eight counterspells seems light and I'd love to fit 2 to 4 more in. But the deck seems really tight already and I'm just not sure what to take out. I'm currently trying to fit in Muddle the Mixture and Swan Song.

(Note: In my metagame Commanders tend to be really crucial to player's strategy. Avacyn, Meren, Kadena, Purphoros, Talrand, Sisay, etc. Many struggle to win or get traction without their commander. Therefore I'm testing both Essence Scatter and Remove Soul to interact with these commanders before they have a chance to go off. In other metagames, these might be bad choices.)

Unlikely Aid used to have a spot in the protection, as hexproof is best, but it still leaves you open to board wipes. Either counter the wipe or giving your creature indestructible is the best way to fight against them. So when I was able to get Fierce Guardianship, it replaced unlikely aid as it is more versatile. You could still put in indestructible cards like unlikely aid and Withstand Death as budget alternatives.

Removal

The deck runs a significant amount of ways to interact with your opponents outside of the countermagic suite. Beast Within, Putrefy, Deadly Rollick(!!), and Reality Shift are all great ways to take out singular threats. The Sawtusk Demolisher is one of the most powerful cards in the deck as it provides a large body with trample and repeatable non-creature removal. I noticed that I needed more ways to interact with things like planeswalkers so I added more bounce: Clutch of the Undercity might seem like a strange choice, as there are better bounce spells, but it doubles as a tutor spell for something like deadly rollick or dirge bat. Flexibility is important. As I noted previously, my metagame is filled with decks that rely on their commander sticking, so Leadership Vacuum really shines. It might be better as another counterspell or bounce/removal in your pod.

I have what amounts to 3 board wipes of various levels. Gaze of Granite can remove every pesky thing on the battlefield, and since Otrimi has 6CMC, sometimes making x=5 is the way to go (although you can see why so much mana is needed). Find / Finality is very versatile, but I really appreciate finality. Buffing Otrimi then wiping most of the rest of the board is very powerful. Finally, Cyclonic Rift is amazing and has saved me many times. I've been tempted to put one more boardwipe in, but space is tight and I like the one-sidedness of my current choices.

Other Utility

Meren is a huge threat in my metagame, so I have 4 ways to attack graveyards. Shred Memory also tutors for a counterpsell or Survival of the Fittest. Feel free to adjust the numbers on that.

Many of the mutate creatures provide the utility (as they ARE the X-Men):

• Gemrazer adds some reusable artifact and enchantment removal.
• Boneyard Lurker provides some graveyard recursion (in addition to Otrimi);
• Cavern Whisperer can disrupt opponent's hands (which seems to be effective later in the game when people are holding onto that one bomb);
• Chittering Harvester I've found to be incredibly powerful after a boardwipe.
• Dirge Bat is reusable removal, although expensive to initially mutate.
• Pouncing Shoreshark is reusable bounce;
• Migratory Greathorn is reusable ramp;
• Dreamtail Heron, Parcelbeast (which you should mutate onto something other than Otrimi) and Sea-Dasher Octopus are card advantage engines (especially parcelbeast, it provides so much value). Testing these and seeing them in action (along with Cold-Eyed Selkie ) caused me to drop my blue card filter cantrips.
• Glowstone Recluse is another MVP that can quickly speed up your clock on your opponents. I totally underrated this card at first, but it does work.

One card that is on the hotseat is Trumpeting Gnarr. I have rarely cast it because the mutate cost is kinda high for the payoff. It does pitch to Force of Will, so it stays in for now.

Gameplay Tips

As mentioned, ideally you want to get a base creature out no later than turn 3 and Otrimi on turn 4. You may have to mulligan a bit aggressively, as you might get hands with interaction but no base creatures or no ramp, which seem tempting but don't do it. The deck is mana hungry, so you want to be confident in not missing your first 4 land drops (at the very least having 4 mana on turn 4).

In my meta, which isn't competitive but is fairly high power, it takes people a few turns to develop their board. Ideally you're attacking for 6 Commander damage on turn 3. That's pretty scary. Once you have Otrimi out, don't go crazy with mutating things onto him if you can avoid it. Hold your mana for counterspells and interaction to protect him and disrupt game-ending strategies. It can be tempting to do cool things with mutate, but since you get a lot of utility from them, save them for when your opponents start to develop. For example, you may want to mutate dirge bat as soon as you have him because he gives flying and is spot removal. But if Otrimi can keep connecting without flying and all your opponents have on their board are some mana dorks or small utility creatures, save dirge bat for something a bit scarier.

If you are ahead, tutor for things like Chittering Harvester, Dirge bat, and shoreshark, as these will slow your opponents' development. You will often have little defense in terms of blockers, so you'll want to assess threats and remove only the ones that can end you quickly. If you've got an opponent on their heels with a fast Otrimi you'll want to keep pressing your advantage on them while trying to mitigate threats from others with spot removal.

If you are playing from behind (after a wipe or if Otrimi gets removed), you'll want to find a board wipe (to stall development) or removal spell for a key piece of your opponent's plan. This is, again, why mana is so important. You'll want to get Otrimi down as soon as possible to start recurring mutates, which can be mana intensive. Survival of the Fittest can really shine here as it will get you all sorts of utility mutates, and if you use a mutate to activate it, Otrimi gets it back for you. I've noticed that Cyclonic Rift has been the most effective way to stall everyone else when playing from behind. It's saved me several times and allowed a come-back victory.

One thing that is a bit tricky is figuring out when to play conservative and when to be aggressive. The deck can take out a single opponent fairly quickly, but that often leaves other opponents with time to develop. Don't overextend with mutates until the table starts to dwindle. I've found that once there are fewer players you can be more aggressive with the mutates. So the flow of the game is often: be aggressive to take one person out, slow down and re-assess in the midgame, be aggressive to finish off the table in the late game.

Budgeting

There are quite a few money cards in this deck, primarily in the manabase and tutor package. You can remove almost $2000 worth of cards by trading out the expensive lands and tutors (and Force of Will and Cyclonic Rift) for budget alternatives.

The normal budget fetches (Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse) and duals (anything from the temple cycle to the shocklands, depending on budget) will help you get the colors you need. The shocklands are a good investment for EDH, so if you have the money I'd highly recommend getting those first.

As for the tutors, Diabolic Tutor is an obvious inclusion. Beseech the Queen and Lim-Dul's Vault are fairly cheap and still effective. You may also want to consider card draw over tutors if you can't acquire them, like Return of the Wildspeaker.

You'll lose the ability to randomly tap out and still counter something, but you can put in any counterspell in place of Force of Will and Fierce Guardianship. This might be a place of Muddle the Mixture as it can still tutor if necessary. If you have some of the other free counters already, feel free to include those. As mentioned above, some of the cards that grant indestructible could be used as budget alternatives as well.

Some budget alternatives for Cyclonic Rift could be other board wipes, like Deadly Tempest or AEtherize. If you were to buy one money card for the deck I'd get Cyclonic Rift. It has saved me so many times and is an incredibly flexible piece of removal. If you can't get it, you can also add targeted removal/bounce or another counterspell.

Just for Fun: the New Mutants

This is a work in progress.

So I had initially named this primer "The X-Men" because that's where everyone's brain went when they heard about the Mutate mechanic (The Command Zone even "sang" the theme song from the 90's cartoon). But after I put the deck together and started to work on this section (the "which creature is which X-Man") I realized that they don't fit very well. Cable's more militaristic X-Force group seemed like a better place to start, and since X-Force started with The New Mutants series I began to look at those characters to see which ones lined up with these mutate creatures. Not all of them are super obvious (hey, it's hard to match nightmares to Marvel's mutants), but here's what I came up with:

1. Boneyard Lurker - Warlock - the alien who infects things and sucks their life force. His attempt to resurrect his friend, Cypher, seems to fit with Boneyard Lurker's ability.
2. Cavern Whisperer - Mirage - her ability to create illusions can make her menacing...hence Cavern Whisperer, who has menace.
3. Chittering Harvester - Magma - this one is a bit of a stretch, but Magma can blow stuff up with lava...Chittering harvester forces opponents to blow stuff up.
4. Dirge Bat - Cannonball - I actually like this one. Cannonball was one of the leaders and Dirge Bat is one of the more powerful cards in the deck (a sort of leader). Both fly.
5. Dreamtail Heron - Magik - Magik can teleport, which gives her a sort of evasion...like flying. She's also one of the more powerful members of the New Mutants, and Dreamtail Heron can be a powerful draw engine at times.
6. Gemrazer - Rictor - Rictor makes sonic waves that can blow stuff up. Gemrazer looks like he is blowing stuff up. It seems to fit. (as an aside, Rictor is one of my favorite X-Men and Gemrazer is one of my favorite mutators, so it lines up nicely in my head)
7. Glowstone Recluse - Not sure.
8. Insatiable Hemophage - Wolfsbane - I always thought Wolfsbane was a little wild and blood hungry...so Insatiable Hemophage seems to fit.
9. Migratory Greathorn - Warpath - Warpath has super strength and speed and I picked the Greathorn simply because of the alternate art picture.
10. Mindleecher - Not sure.
11. Parcelbeast - Cypher - Cypher can learn things really fast. Parcebeast grants a ton of card advantage. Knowledge is power.
12. Pouncing Shoreshark - Domino/Copycat - another stretch. Domino's history with the team started with Cable taking over the team and it is complicated (was it Domino or Copycat?). Assuming Copycat was actually impersonating Domino, and Copycat can impersonate any animal, she can turn into a shark...see? It makes sense...
13. Sawtusk Demolisher - Sunspot - Sunspot is super powerful, as is Sawtusk Demolisher. This just goes into the theme of "Mutants who can blow stuff up."
14. Sea-Dasher Octopus - Not sure.
15. Souvenir Snatcher - Bird-Brain - Bird-Brain was a short lived member of the New Mutants that was actually an "ani-mate." But he was a bird person and Souvenir Snatcher is a bird...so...
16. Trumpeting Gnarr - Not sure.

I hope you enjoyed nerding out with me. Let me know if you have any suggestions, as there are several members of the team that I didn't include.

In conclusion, I've found the mutate mechanic to have much more potential than I initially thought. It requires a very specific gameplan and protection, and isn't super easy to play (lots of in-game decision), but I've had some great success with it.

I will be updating as I do more testing. What are you looking for in this primer? I welcome any feedback.

If you liked this primer, please consider upvoting. Thank you! Upvote

Top Ranked	Achieved #42 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #30 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Casual 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.94
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C
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