For Chubbs Peterson, you died too young. This one's for you, for all the hands you've lent us.
Greetings all!
Welcome to my take on a Yidris deck. First of all, this isn't your typical Yidris deck. I find that the majority of Yidris deck's either go for some storm variant of spell-slinging, or dropping heavy CMC bombs (e.g. Curtains' Call, Dig Through Time, Army of the Damned, etc.) in hopes of cascading into further large spells. Both these strategies, and the majority of Yidris decks I've seen and played against, employ heavy amounts of wheeling affects, allowing the player to cycle through their deck constantly while disrupting everyone else's hands.
While this is certainly effective, I decided to go a different route. Rather than drop large CMC spells, instead I went with small CMC spells. Because Yidris gives all of your spells (this turn) cascade after dealing damage, I decided to try and make it so I cascade more often. Leaving mana open after the combat phase often means you can cascade at least 2 spells each turn, permitting Yidris effectively dealt damage. This allows for better and faster thinning of the deck as well as tighter control on what you will cascade into. Many a time have I seen my fellow Yidris players swing in, get their prerequisite damage, drop a large 6CMC spell (such as Curtains' Call) only to cascade into an Evacuation, causing the rest of us to laugh and watch the Maelstrom Weilder frown in dissapointment.
Wither lower CMC spells you get a much better sense of what spells will come out of the cascade. For instance, if I cast a 3CMC spell (e.g. Freed from the Real) I know for a fact that I am going to cascade into either 1 of 7 creatures with <3CMC (e.g. Kiora's Follower), one of 7 enchantments with <3CMC (e.g.
Curse of Bounty
), one of 8 spells ((e.g.
Benefactor's Draught
), or one of 5 artifacts <3cmc (e.g. Fellwar Stone). So when I go to cascade a 3CMC spell, I either get to get a free permanent onto the battlefield (whether it be a creature, enchantment, or manarock/equipment) or cast a spell whose effects are all similar (namely tapping/untapping, which we will get to next) and thereby avoid any potential for too much chaos or self-disruption.
Just taaaaaappp it in!
As you can see from the decklist of creatures and spells, this is a very peculiar deck, which brings me to the next thing that differs this deck from most (any?) other Yidris deck. This is a Tim deck. This deck was inspired by fusing JLK's hilarious and amazing JLK's "Tim" Deck with a Reddit Post (https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/6w4v6d/expanding_c17_wizards_to_4_colors_wizards_with/) I read right around the release of C17. Unfortunate for the OP, he was nearly torn to shred's by suggesting a Wizard themed tribal deck with Yidris at the helm. Many a commenter said something along the lines of "Wizards and Yidris are trying to do two different things. Yidris wants to prioritize combat and either storm/wheel/big CMC spells while Wizards avoid combat and instead prioritize ETB triggers, bouncing enemy permanent's, etc."
While these comments weren't necessarily wrong, I would also argue that they simply might not have been thinking of the right Wizards that pair with Yidris. Correct, Wizards do not tend to prioritize combat, but that doesn't mean they don't have synergistic effects. Wizards are one of the oldest tribes in magic, it's in fact a wonder that
Prodigal Sorcerer
, a BLUE Wizard, was the first ping-er (aka Tim). As you can gather from the deck list and Instants/Sorceries, this is a deck that is all about tapping and un-tapping. If a Johnny play style isn't for you, you may leave now.
"Why Wizards? R U Bad Tho M8?"
While it is not necessary to run tribal Wizards (e.g.
Cunning Sparkmage
is arguably a better card than some of the one's listed here), the sub-theme makes it so I can take advantage of the primary goal of this deck which is tapping and un-tapping. Azami, Lady of Scrolls is incredibly powerful in this regard. Further support can be found in the new C17 block that can be imported, with cards like Path of Ancestry which allows for good filtering as nearly every creature helps to scry in this deck. There is also advantage to retaining a tribal (sub)theme with older cards, particularly
Faces of the Past
, which is honestly a 3-for-1 given its ability to 1) untap your wizards if ones dies (and yes, self-pinging one of your own creatures is one nice way to immediately untap the rest of your board if need be), 2) tap down enemy boards (I'm looking at you swarmy/stompy C17 Edgar Markov deck that's in my playgroup), and 3) God forbid you have
Faces of the Past
paired with Dismiss into Dream, you can asymmetrically wipe all opponent's creatures. Finally, cards like Mirror of the Forebears also aid in tribal support, because who doesn't want another Fatestitcher on a stick? Further, because the mirror resets at the end of your turn, you can get a lot of mileage out of another copy of a tap/untapper before the end of turn.
As noted above, the cascade mechanic is important to this deck, but only to really get it rolling and establish a board presence. Yidris is great in the early-to-mid game, but I've found he has some issue getting through in the late game unless a lot of resources in the deck are dedicated to giving him either unblockable, menace, equipment, deathtouch, etc. As such, I use Yidris more to establish the early-mid game and potentially get in for some cascades, which is all the more reason to get more cascades out of one turn when you do deal damage rather than trying to count on cascading each turn (though there is the option in this deck to often tap down the opponent's board to get in with Yidris). The goal is to win with one of the many Tims in the 99, Yidris is just there as a fellow Wizard to help his buds out.
Rather than explain the intricacies of a Tim deck, I suggest viewing JLK's "Tim" Deck as well as watch the video of the deck. I could never do the explanation justice, and JLK and Jimmy are just awesome, so go support them!
Mundungu
, Breaker of the Stack and rightful heir to the Counterthrone, taken by the usurper Baral, Chief of Compliance
However, I do want to re-emphasize why I felt it was important to run very little counterspells, or little spells for that matter other than either ramp spells or tap/untap spells. For the most part, the Tims (esp. with a Gorgon's Head) or even a Royal Assassin can handle a majority of removal needed. As for counterspells, Disruptive Student and my personal favorite
Mundungu
act as incredibly powerful counterspellers. Because their tax is only to pay, most players do not see them as a threat as they drop a spell, they're often happy to pay the . However, what they don't often realize is that you can untap them say with Fatestitcher and immediately tap them again all at instant speed to then repeat the process. Before they know it, your opponent now has to 1-by-1 continue to pay the tax before the card ever even hits the board. In the best case scenario, you tap them out completely to the point where they can't pay the tax further, and the spell gets countered (a two-for-one deal!). Worst case, you make them tap out mana they didn't anticipate having to pay, and the spell resolves but with the cost of no more spells for the turn. The mind game potential is strong with these creatures, so once again, shout out to
Mundungu
! Finally, the spells in this deck revolve around tapping/and untapping, whose importance goes without saying given this is a Tim deck, but once again goes back to the importance of calculating your Cascade potential. Playing a 2CMC spell that cascades means you will hopefully get
Vitalize
or
Mobilize
in the best case, a Sol Ring or
Twiddle
in the worst case scenarios, neither of which are terrible whatsoever!
Finally, I am not 100% sure if this works given rulings with how cascade works and speed, but one idea for a jank win-con I had was if you have Laboratory Maniac+Yidris+Azami, Lady of Scrolls or any other draw effect and you cast a 1CMC spell after Yidris deals damage, you can win on the spot. The 1CMC cascade will exile your library temporarily in search for something lower CMC (i.e. 0). Given that there are no Mox anything (#collegelyfe) or any other 0CMC spells, your entire library get's temporarily exiled, and you just need to draw a card on the spot with say Azami, Lady of Scrolls! Again, I'm not sure if you can draw in the "middle" of a cascade, but if so, then it would work. Worst comes to worst, I've found Laboratory Maniac at least baits out a lot of good removal, as most people are scared when he comes out (particularly with Yidris given his frequent pairing with Laboratory Maniac and
Doomsday
), and sometimes I will play him just for mind games to bait people's removal. Hell, sometimes I can even get effects out of him like with Azami, Lady of Scrolls, or
Aphetto Grifter
.
Obvious issues
Tim decks generally are weak to boardwipes, it's the nature of the style of the deck. Though most of my decks are similarly weak to them, so at some point you kind of either have to deal with it, or hopefully lean on trusty
Mundungu
once again.
Further, this is a budget deck. Most of this deck was constructed with cards I had already had while splashing in a couple things. The land base could of course use improvement, but I simply have too many other decks with my better lands and don't entirely want to switch them constantly. Obviously a
Chromatic Lantern
would make this loads better, but I decided to settle with a Realmwright and Cryptolith Rite instead. If you have the means to upgrade, go nuts. I'm happy where it's at for my playgroup.
I welcome any comments, suggestions, etc.
Thanks again all, and bye for now!
