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Thrasios & Vial Smasher - Ancestral Curiosity

Commander / EDH

LabManiac_cobblepott

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Land (28)

Creature (11)

Instant (24)

Sorcery (13)

Commanders (2)

Commander: Thrasios, Triton Hero
Commander: Vial Smasher the Fierce

Artifact (13)

Enchantment (9)

Maybeboard

Creature (5)

Artifact (1)

Enchantment (3)

Sorcery (2)

Instant (3)

This list is deprecated.

Continued refinement of the design is happening in a Nekusar shell.

Game plan is straight forward. Charge forward with typical Ad Nauseam lines, generating large amounts of mana, draw lots of cards (off Thrasios if necessary), and kill opponents off of cumulative ping effects. Don't worry, I'll explain in a moment.

A refinement of the broader plan above is the idea of composing events that occur very frequently with effects that exploit those events taking place. The glue that holds this together is the 'deals damage' trigger.

Damage Dealers

Damage Exploiters

So for example, suppose you get Guttersnipe + Curiosity on the board. Every instant or sorcery you cast will deal damage to each opponent. Assuming a typical 4-pod, that's an Ancestral Recall every time you cast a spell. It doesn't take much imagination to realize how quickly that produces a win.

Or maybe you assemble Kederekt Parasite + Sigil of Sleep . Add an asymmetric board wipe to all your wheels? Seems good.

Reckless Fireweaver does well with Curiosity effects too. Lots of people really wanted Paradoxical Outcome to be good. To be honest, Hurkyl's Recall on yourself and then recasting all your artifacts for net positive mana and draw 3 for each one feels better on some level.

Or perhaps Tunneling Geopede + Keen Sense. Again, Ancestral Recall every time a land enters the battlefield under your control (fetches trigger twice of course). Burgeoning and friends allow for meaningful exploitation of this. It stands to reason your likelihood of having lands to drop as the turns pass around the table goes up if every land you drop draws three cards. Many of those cards will be ready for casting since they come off the backs of untapped lands entering play. Lotus Cobra makes life even easier if you're mana hungry somehow.

You get the idea. Take an event that occurs a lot (casting spells, playing lands, casting artifacts, opponents drawing cards, etc) and bind a beneficial response to that event taking place. And don't forget, the reason all those things are taking place is because opponents are taking damage. Thus by simply chaining along, your opponents will die.

How do we ensure perpetuation of the chain? Well, we've got the card draw part of the equation covered. Now for mana.

There are myriad land drop augmenters in Summer Bloom , Burgeoning, Exploration, Thrasios, Triton Hero , etc. Couple those with untap effects (Paradox Engine, Frantic Search, Turnabout, etc) and Regrowth / Timetwister effects, you'll be able to storm along for an arbitrary amount of time.

A satisfying nuance of this architecture is that the engine pieces compose without loss of functionality. There are many types of combos in the meta where redundant pieces yield either diminished or no return. Not so here. Did you suit up your Thermo-Alchemist with three Curiosity effects and Sigil of Sleep ? That's fine. You'll bounce creatures and draw 9 every time you cast a spell.

That's a whole lot of draw. Make sure you plan out a Timetwister loop or bounce/kill your draw engines when you've reached critical mass.

By the way, having a spread of triggering events is useful. If you're playing against stax/prison, casting instants and sorceries may be lots of work. In that case bind to lands entering or your opponents drawing cards. Play to the texture of the board.

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