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Breaking Rules and Grinding Fools

Commander / EDH* Mono-Red

HeyMrWonderful


Little Goblin, Big Dreams

Zada of Slab Haven is my absolute favorite legend in the game. Her lore, her abilities, down to her art I adore her and her little tribe of green idiots. By the end of this primer I hope I can convince you to love them too. She's been a slow project I put together over time and she's the culmination of 5 years of love and tuning. Without further delay, let's get started.

Why Are We Here?

To put it succinctly: this is a mean psuedo-combo deck revolving around Zada, having as many bodies on the table as possible, and Cantrips targeting Zada for a value fiesta.

Do we need Zada?

Yes we do. Zada has a very unique and strong ability. Without her this deck doesn't work.

What does the ability do?

When you cast a spell that targets ONLY Zada, that spell gets copied onto each creature you control. This super unique ability lets you turn one-shot combat tricks into board-wide buffs for a turn. It let's you draw multiple cards in red, which isn't ordinarily possible, and it let's you play freaking mono-red storm in edh.

Reasons to love this deck

Ordinarily red has trash draw power and small dudes. Zada takes these limitations and hits them with a big ol' rock. Before this is over you'll have goblins with 30 Power and drawing half your deck for the same cost as a Lightning Bolt.
If you've ever wanted a token deck, boy howdy do I have news for you. This decks bread and low fat butter is tokens. You'll be grinding fools to dust under your army of 10^10 goblins in no time. Even if they aren't big, you'll have enough to block out the Sun.
Despite my version of the deck on display being a hefty chunk of cash, Zada is a cheap date. You can have a good time with her for as little as 25-50$.

Budgetized list here: Breaking Rules and Grinding Fools For Hurt Wallets

This is a storm deck where we have to keep track of tons of spells and mana. Sometimes this causes headaches, but you don't mind so its okay.

Reasons to Probably Not Play Zada

As much as I adore this deck I also have to admit she can be pretty glass canon. Sometimes you draw your boys, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you draw cantrips, sometimes you don't. And sometimes you just can't win for losing.
Mono color decks are at a bit of a disadvantage in EDH, especially when you're vs 2-4 color bullcrap that can just outvalue you. You playing mono-red puts you at even further of a disadvantage because you cant fool with the stack too terribly much and one wayward boardwipe makes you want to stop being alive.
So in EDH some decks don't rely on the commander too hard. Some decks the commander is just a way to get extra value out of the deck, or to help push it just a little further. This is not one of those decks. Zada has a unique ability and without her you are quite assuredly boned. Your deck devolves into junk cantrips and goblins. Still neat, but not nearly as effective.
This is a storm deck where we have to keep track of tons of spells and mana. Sometimes this causes headaches. You dont like headaches.

So What About Card Selection

A good Zada deck needs dudes. Any dude of any race or creed will do, Zada isn't picky. Goblins, elementals, humans, she loves all kinds. Cheap goblin producing creatures like Legion Warboss, Hanweir Garrison, and Young Pyromancer help alot. Sorceries that make dudes are even better because there are ways to reuse them. The best examples are Hordeling Outburst, Dragon Fodder, and Empty the Warrens are absolutely vital.
Cantrips are pure unadulterated fire in this deck. Casting a cantrip on Zada copies it to all other creatures you control. So lets say you have 10 Goblin tokens and Zada. You cast Expedite on Zada, so that card gets copied 10 times. you just paid R to draw 11. Eat your heart out blue players. Choosing the right cantrips and the right amount of them is a little hard. Too few and you can't chain a bunch and draw your free mana and other pieces. If you put in too many you lose space for other vital cards. You also want to pick cantrips that draw cards THIS turn, not later on someone else's turn. We want to win in one big bang and not give them a chance to prepare for the storm. The very best ones are Expedite, Crimson Wisps, and Fists of Flame.
Okay so you have dudes, and you have cantrips. You just drew 10 cards, now what? You need GAS my dude. This is where free mana comes in. You need a few cards that help keep fueling the fire. Commonly known as rituals, cards like Inner Fire, Brightstone Ritual, and Battle Hymn give you mana to keep casting spells. You also have cards that turn other resources into mana. Treasonous Ogre by itself has propelled me into winning territory so many times I have lost count. Who needs hp? As long as your life is above 0 you ain't dead. Runaway Steam-Kin also turns spells into free mana since so much of the deck is cheap. Cheap mana rocks like Chrome Mox and Mana Vault are soo freaking good.
Alright we got dudes, draw, and mana. Whats left? COMBO PIECES. These will be explained in the next portion in great detail

Bring It On Home

So how exactly do we win? Easy, there are two main ways to win with a Zada Deck. And fortunately for both of us, I remember both of them. Combat and Non-Combat

You've done it. You managed to put a large number of bodies on the field, you've got a hand fatter than me after my wife makes tacos, and you have an arbitrarily large amount of mana. Congrats! Now, use some of those targeted buffs on Zada to balloon your board into the sky. Cast Screaming Fury, Titan's Strength, Brute Force or my personal favorite Haze of Rage and show them that red kicks ass in edh.
You've done it. You managed to put a large number of bodies on the field, you've got a hand fatter than me after my wife makes tacos, and you have an arbitrarily large amount of mana. Congrats! You also apparently love storm and don't trust the combat step. Welp, now how do we win? I gotchu homie!

You can easily generate infinite mana using Reiterate. Use Reiterate to copy a big ritual, like Mana Geyser, and pay its buyback cost. If you do that, Reiterate will go back to hand when it resolves. If you generated more than 6 mana, you can cast it again on the Mana Geyser since its still on the stack. Do so a few hundred-million times and boom, you have infinite mana. Now you can use Reiterate to get unlimited copies of any instant or sorcery. Give 'em the ol' Grapeshot for 12 Quintillion.

Additionally, if you naturally generated alot of dudes and didnt go infinite, you can win off what is possibly my favorite card in the deck besides Zada: Fiery Gambit. Sometimes you gotta use Gambit as a Hail Mary, but if you have like 10 dudes on the table and Zada its almost a guarantee you'll hit 3 consecutive flips. Wanna get dumb with it? If you have a few dozen dudes on the table, you can just try to burn out enemies by getting two consecutive flips. Wanna get completely asinine with it? If you have infinite dudes on the table, cast this on Zada and flip coins until the end of time and the inevitable heat death of the universe. It's Schrodinger's Win! Eventually you will guarantee win enough flips to kill the table. but they have to sit there until you do.

Cards for People Who Have More Money Than Me

This is a list of spicy hi-dollar cards that would be nice for Zada if they didn't leave my wallet bleeding on the floor

Rich Boy/Girl Cards Show

Cards I Excluded For a reason

I Chose Not to Use These for X Reason Show

Questions You May Have

What Are My Lines of Play?

Generally speaking you want to stack bodies, draw cantrips, draw into gas and smash. Easy. Remember though, the longer the game goes on the harder it is to win.

Velocitas Eradico!! (That's Latin for "kill them really f@#$ing fast or you can't, and will therefore lose")

What Should My Opening Hand Look Like?

Your opening 7 should ideally have 2-3 sources of mana, 2-3 dudes or ways to make dudes, and a cantrip. Play your sources and dudes on curve, cantrip and see if you can't storm off! The easiest way to learn is by playing. You'll eventually learn your deck well enough to play-test in your sleep.*

*Statistically this should happen at least once

When do I play Zada?

Do not, under any circumstances, play Zada if you can't play a cantrip after you play her. If she dies once it's a crippling setback. Dream big, play smart! Even better, only play her once you have mana to play with so you can blow up on the same turn. Playtest, playtest. playtest.

And That's All She Wrote

Now you have been groomed on how to play the meanest, greenest goblin out there!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I always check and recheck my list to update it.

Go and wreak havoc with a big army of gobs. Tell your friends, tell your family, and never forget this: sometimes you just don't win. Don't take a loss to heart, just shuffle up and play again.

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

2 - 0 Mythic Rares

20 - 0 Rares

14 - 0 Uncommons

34 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.09
Tokens Copy Clone, Elemental 1/1 R, Elemental 1/1 R w/ Haste, Goblin 1/1 R, Human 1/1 R
Folders Good Ideas, Cool Decks, Deck Inspiration, Cool Decks, Commander decks, Fudge cause funny, Zada Potentials
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