Zesty the G.O.A.T. (also Kykar)

Commander / EDH Control Midrange Multiplayer RUW (Jeskai, America) Voltron

King_of_the_squirrel

Land (33)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Detection Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 4x Island
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Gate
• 4x Plains
• 1x Rainbow Vale
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Training Center

Creature (7)

• 1x Aurelia, the Warleader
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
• 1x Medomai the Ageless
• 1x Narset, Enlightened Master
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Stonehewer Giant

Artifact (22)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Batterskull
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Hammer of Nazahn
• 1x Helm of the Host
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Pentad Prism
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of the Suns
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Vedalken Orrery
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Enchantment (15)

• 1x Banishing Light
• 1x Cast Out
• 1x Darksteel Mutation
• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Journey to Nowhere
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Nevermore
• 1x Oblivion Ring SL
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sigarda's Aid
• 1x Spirit Mantle
• 1x Whirlwind of Thought

Commander (1)

Instant (16)

• 1x Absorb
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Double Negative
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Ionize
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Rout
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Thieves' Auction
• 1x Wrath of God

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4/14/21

Damn. It's been a minute. Trading out Batterskull and Chrome Mox for Codex Shredder and Elixir of Immortality. I put Thieves Auction for the lulz (and it's the best chaos card for Zedruu, just never select your own pieces). Fixed the Mana base a little bit. Got a few more foils.

AUGUST 7th 2019:

A few changes. Took out the mox for my Urza list. Also Started running Kykar as the commander and am having great results with that (I just swap Archive for a Skullclamp). Gonna get Talismans now that the cycle is complete. Added a bunch of counter spells and took out a bunch of "Air." I started running Frantic Search, Faithless Looting, cantrips, ect. to try and bank off of Archive and card selection, but even though it is extremely synergistic with Zedruu, I feel that the card is too much of a "win more" card. Sure it's good, but If I'm already drawing a bunch of cards off of Zedruu, I'm probably winning anyway (the lifegain is inconsequential). I still have to run a bunch of wipes because folks in my group love to go wide with Edgar. Lightmine Field might make it back into the deck, but I really got tired of running cards that just don't do anything in some matchups (but damn that foil is pretty).

Looking for room for a Boros Charm and possibly Divergent transformations if I stick with Kykar. Will probably remove Alhamerret's Archive.

April 26th: minus conditional cards, add draw.

Testing BSZ. I wanted to have it and Nexus of fate in there for their abilities to shuffle themselves back in the deck, but I've only drawn Blue Sun's Zenith in one game and it sat in my hand while I did other things. Right now it feels more like a placeholder for when I pick up a Nexus of fate after rotation.

Probably going to drop statecraft as well. I really like the card and it is a hold out from bad gifts zedruu. It has the ability to completely shut someone down, but donating it to someone invests seven total Mana and I could be doing other things with those resources.

I am most likely going to add boros charm to the slot where statecraft currently resides. I recently Boros charmed two people to death in the same game with my saskia the unyielding deck. Plus there is the added benefit of being able to get it from my deck with sunforger.

the deck is becoming a force to be reckoned with. I really need to start focusing on fixing my Mana base.

Feb 2 2019: minus oblation

Took out a couple lands, Chaos Warp , and Mission Briefing . Briefing was... alright, but finds more of a home in a graveyard focused deck, or one that shits out spells left and right. I figured I would go for a little more card-draw since I found I was leaning into "Jeskai goodstuff" and not enough Zest. Many games were... "Stoneforge Mystic, into helm, into hammer, into SoFaI, ect." That may still occur, as adding card draw will not alter my gooodstuff-to-zest ratio, but I will at least see a little more of my deck.

Dec. 25th:

Merry Christmas. Give the gift of Statecraft this year!

Took out most of the voltrony aura's at this point. Steel of the Godhead and Scourge of the Nobilis were pro, but don't do much on creatures other than Zedruu or Narset. This new Ravnica set gave us Mission Briefing . I dropped an equipment tutor for it and somehow also managed to fit Blasphemous Act and Rout . I forget entirely what I pulled to make 'em fit. At any rate, I put some more Board wipes in cause my meta is getting a little out of hand. Mission briefing is like Snapcaster Mage with a broken scry-esque mechanic stapled onto it. A 2/1 body doesn't do much, but scrying away a land from the top of your deck gives you proverbial "gas."

This deck would like to drop a rock on 1 or 2. equip on 3 or 4. Wipe on 5 or 6. Go ham with Zedruu Starting on 7 using spot removal to keep the board at bay and set up card draw with Zedruu's ability.

Obviously things don't always go as planned (unless you play against goldfish). Try to keep combo pieces off the board. Don't cast Zedruu until after people have exhausted some removal (in most cases). The deck is a pretty straight forward approach to playing Zedruu and is the least "cute" when it comes to using her ability. This isn't some frilly shit where you have a dead Steel Golem in hand because your opponent is playing Baral. The most traditional Zedruu card in the deck is Statecraft , which shuts aggro down completely. Waaaaaaaay better than hitting your opponent with a late game Aggressive Mining .... Pyromancer's Swath is pretty cool though... I just don't like that I have to donate it as soon as it hits the field.

If you don't want to use Stoneforge Mystic , you can put Torpor Orb in its place. Stoneforge is the sole reason that Torpor Orb is not in the deck. Torpor Orb is STRONG (and can be donated). Hell, If you drop the tutors, pop in Mystic Remora and rhystic study and a couple stax pieces. Lightmine Field is a beautiful foil that wrecks go-wide strategies (and can be donated)(and has awesome flavor text).

I am seriously considering dropping Sunforger out of the deck. It has, hands-down, won me games. No other card grinds out quite like this boros equipment. However, it is such a small part of the deck and I would much rather just see more of my spells in general. This is why I am considering a card draw package that would be a bit more "traditional."

Sunforger package: 6 cards. Sunforger . Oblation . Chaos Warp . Counterflux . Master Warcraft . Render Silent . It can hit more spells in the deck like Swords, Path, and Enlightened tutor, but those 6 are in there exclusively because of Sunforger.

The replacement cards I am looking at are Consecrated Sphinx , Rhystic Study , Sensei's Divining Top , Windfall , and Batterskull .... maybe Alhamerett's Archive, but my experience with that card has been fairly lackluster since I'm not super focused on generating the card draw/lifegain with Zedruu. It seem's like a card that would really help seal the deal after I got the set-up going, but it's literally just air without anything else around it. It generates no value by itself. Perhaps the inclusion of more card drawing cards will help it out a bit. I really just want to get one on the board with Consecrated Sphinx or a windfall in hand... I think I just talked myself into getting one... I'll drop a Plains and pop a Brainstorm in there for good measure.

On that note. Tapped out says "36 lands" for the deck rn. But it counts Maze of Ith ... Never count MoI towards your manabase. While speaking of Maze, I really want another Kor Haven . Good card.

December 13, 2018

Coming back with an update. Not exactly sure what all has been changed out recently. Take a gander at everything going on and see what's good. The short and sweet of it is that You donate aura's like Gift of Immortality , enchantments like Oblivion Ring / Nevermore , or targeted hate like Pithing Needle / Statecraft to generate card draw with Zedruu's ability.

Win the game with a Helm of the Host combo or flat out destroy people with commander damage.

Some suboptimal removal is used as part of a Sunforger package (I'm lookin at Oblation / Counterflux ), or because I truly believe Dissallow will be useful someday... Am I wrong? Is it shit? I hate running Trickbind and Stifle because I always end up wishing I had a counterspell instead. Lemme know what you think in the comments.

If you are piloting this deck, I would say that removing threats is priority over having Zedruu on the battlefield. Destroy all creatures when people start laying fatties, o-ring whatever is left in their hand, play Zedruu, Donate, Draw, Prosper.

If I get an equipment tutor, I am probably going for Hammer of Nazaan or Helm of the Host first. Depending on the situation. If it's Stoneforge getting it then Helm cause you'll just get more Stoneforges to get more pointy things from the deck... putting helm on pretty much any creature in this deck is brutal. Helm is fun.

August 24, 2018 --- what lands should I be running? No deck changes, but I took a bunch of words out of my description. I' ve really been liking where Zedruu is sitting right now. I may try and find room for Aurellia to have another creature that goes infinite with Helm. The extra Combat would help get commander damage through. Medomai the ageless is another consideration. It doesn't go infinite with helm, but two extra turns is nothing to sneeze at. And then you'd get a Medomai token for each of those combat phases, and one more at tbe begining of your next turn... So 5 extra turns on the next time they can attack. Batterskull is option 3. Open the Armory, 4. 5/6 are mana tithe/red elemental blast (narset and dareti are at my table a bunch)

I feel fine right now though. Like I said, the deck feels balanced. I REALLY like how it plays. I can start using utility lands now too now that I am upgrading the mana base. What lands do I need here?

Edit: July 13th, 2018 ---

Hey dudes and dudettes. I updated the deck a bit. Took out the nonbasic land hate and added some better lands to the base.

Replaced the three hate cards with Godo, glaring spotlight, and ixalans binding. (Binding will be replaced with Enlightened tutor when i can get a foil).

Alhammeretts archive was replaced with Helm of the Host.

Darksteel plate replaced with Hammer of Nazan

--- May 29, 2018 ---

Hey y'all. Newly updated decklist. Soon I will discuss why I chose some cards over more traditional choices.

-1 Angelic Arbiter (comes out too late) -1 Blazing Archon (Tends to get stolen or cloned) -1 Darksteel Plate (Swap with Hammer of Nazahn) -1 Elspeth (Planeswalkers won't survive in multiplayer, it's gotta enable something more broken than this) -1 Anything that tutors other than Sunforger -2 Pongify (Can't be tutored with Sunforger)

• A bunch of stuff to give flash
• non-basic land hate

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.01
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B
Folders	Interesting Decks (copied), Casual Goodstuff