[cEDH] Kykar Underworld Storm [Primer]

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Infinite Combo RUW (Jeskai, America) Storm

Magorian

Instant (28)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Brain Freeze
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Seething Song
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Copy Artifact
• 1x Impact Tremors
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Underworld Breach

Land (30)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 6x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (14)

• 1x Burning Inquiry
• 1x False Dawn
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Grapeshot
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Artifact (17)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Progress

Creature (3)

• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Elsha of the Infinite
• 1x Gilded Drake

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

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Maybeboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Battle Hymn
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Pull from Eternity
• 1x Pyretic Ritual

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Insight
• 1x Psychic Possession
• 1x Verity Circle

Creature (1)

• 1x Alms Collector

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler

Land (1)

• 1x Cascade Bluffs

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This primer will be maintained on moxfield! Future updates can be found here: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Ogv9GYu6sUKfZeGvF8UIHA

Ever since Underworld Breach was spoiled people have been looking for the best way to break it. I think Kykar is one of those places, and that Underworld Breach elevates Kykar as a commander tremendously. This is my take on this awesome commander!

Why play Kykar?

Kykar is a deck that utilizes very high overall card quality, and has extremely explosive turns. If you like a deck that allows you to interact with the table and win out of nowhere, this is likely a good deck for you.

This deck is capable of winning on turn 0 with the appropriate nut draw, but is much more likely to rely on its interaction to buy time as it assembles a more protected combo, which I can usually goldfish to on turns 3-5. I say the deck is versatile, because it has many iterations of combos, with many interchangeable cards, so if your first plan is foiled you have many other compact combos to fall back on. I expect this to be a combo deck that puts regular pressure on the table to stop it from going off.

Combos

This deck features a large number of compact combos that funnel into a few different win conditions. I'll do my best to list them all here, but keep in mind that many share cards, giving the deck a bit of a toolbox, build your own combo feel. Keep the various lines in mind as you look at your opening hand, as it will give you clues about your upcoming options.

• Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Wheel of Fortune will mill out the entire table. This is the combo that can be executed on turn 0, as long as you have enough mana acceleration to cast Underworld Breach and Wheel of Fortune. Be sure to cast the rest of your fast mana from each of your new hands, and eventually Angel's Grace to close out the game. Windfall Also works here, as long as any player has 6+ cards in hand.

• Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Timetwister will function in a similar fashion to the combo above, but rather than milling out the table will allow you to thin your deck to craft a perfect hand with a game ending combo. You have to be careful with your sequencing. Cast LED, sacrifice LED to discard your hand. Exile three cards to recast LED. Then, with LED back on the field, exile three cards to cast Timetwister. You can cast one card from each new hand (usually your fast mana), as you'll need the other 6 to recast LED and Timetwister. If you come across a piece from the combo you want to use to end the game, make sure it is the one card to get shuffled back into your deck. Eventually, you will have exiled every card in your deck except for your combo pieces and fast mana, and you should be able to end the game from there.

• Underworld Breach + Kykar, Wind's Fury + Burning Inquiry will also mill out the entire table, but is a little less secure than the combo listed above because your discard is random, and you have to exile as many cards as you discard to keep the cycle going. I would try to execute this combo when you have a few cards in your graveyard, so you can cast Angel's Grace from the bin if necessary.

• Underworld Breach + Kykar, Wind's Fury + Lotus Petal + Brain Freeze can fuel either a self mill or full table mill plan. Cast the Petal, create a spirit, sack the petal for blue and the spirit for red to cast Brain Freeze, rinse and repeat. You will need to target yourself for a few iterations in order to build your storm count and put enough cards in the bin to feed the Breach, but after just a few runs you should be able to start pointing copies of Brain Freeze at your opponents if you choose. If you're milling yourself in this plan, it's usually to dig for Grapeshot or Aetherflux Reservoir, though with your library in your graveyard you can cast your fast mana to bring up Dramatic Scepter, or any other tool you need to finish the game.

• Underworld Breach + Pyretic Ritual + Lotus Petal + Brain Freeze is identical to the combo above, but can be executed if Kykar has been removed. Seething Song can fill the same void.

• Underworld Breach + Seething Song + False Dawn + Brain Freeze again follows the same pattern, but you will only need to cast False Dawn once in order to provide the color fixing to cover the combo. From there, Seething song will produce enough mana to recast itself and Brain Freeze repeatedly.

• Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal. This good old classic is well supported here, and in addition to producing infinite mana will produce an infinitely large storm count. You can pick your favorite outlet from there, be it Aetherflux Reservoir, building up your Grapeshot or Brain Freeze, or let Kykar's spirit creation finish the table through Impact Tremors.

• Elsha of the Infinite + Sensei's Divining Top + Kykar, Wind's Fury will draw your entire deck and build a massive storm count.

• Copy Artifact opens the door for a number of double Isochron Scepter wins, my favorite of which is with Swan Song. My playgroup is dubbed "Aggressive Bird Tokens", thanks to Swan Song, so this win gets extra style points.

Tutors

Finding Breach is priority number one, which is why Idyllic Tutor makes the cut, even at 3CMC and sorcery speed. Don't be afraid to chain tutors when necessary to find Idyllic or Enlightened Tutor to find Breach.

Gamble is uniquely powerful in this deck. Not only are its downsides reduced when you plan to cast cards from your graveyard anyway, but Gamble can allow you to win out of nowhere even if your only combo piece is Breach. With Kykar on the field, Gamble can be cast essentially for free as many times as you have cards to exile to Breach. Tutor any card that will help stock your graveyard, and then go to town tutoring out anything else you want.

Intuition may be a strong include. I'll be testing it in the near future.

Ramp

Ramp in these colors has always been difficult, but the advent of Dockside Extortionist and Smothering Tithe could be enough to help Jeskai keep up. This is a deck that benefits most from an quick explosion of mana to set off a combo early, and that's exactly what Treasures are good for. High Tide of course fills the same role, giving you extra mana when you need it. Do remember that on Breach turns, when necessary, you can recast High Tide multiple times from the bin as a sort of super ritual.

Interaction

You will do most of your fighting on the stack, thanks to a bevy of counterspells, but I have also included Heliod's Intervention as an attempted catchall for any stax matchups that you find. Being able to take down multiple stax pieces at instant speed seems like a good thing for any combo deck.

The other notable inclusion is Gilded Drake, not usually seen in Kykar lists because of Divergent Transformations.

Special Considerations

Underworld Breach provides some unique advantages and disadvantages as a combo piece. So long as your graveyard is full, your combo becomes highly resistant to counter magic. You can allow your opponent's counterspells to resolve, and your own spell will simply return to your graveyard to be cast again through the Breach.

The more dangerous forms of interaction are exile effects, like Faerie Macabre or Force of Negation. Even then, so long as your graveyard is full, you may have some protection as your graveyard will likely contain answers of your own that you can cast. However, if these kinds of effects are prevalent in your specific meta, you may consider running a copy of Pull from Eternity as insurance. Barring that, you do have backup plans in IsoRev and Sensei's Divining Top combos, as well as Hall of Heliod's Generosity which I'm testing in place of Cascade Bluffs to serve as the emergency button should you get shut down and be forced to sacrifice Breach.

Where Underworld Breach is weak is when your graveyard is not yet full. This is especially true of the combos that rely on wheels instead of Brain Freeze, as you will be helping your opponents to draw into their interaction. This may be an argument to include Narset, Parter of Veils or Teferi, Time Raveler. Wheel of Fortune and usually Windfall will stock the graveyard over time, so they are at their most vulnerable early on but protect themselves as time goes on. Timetwister is the most vulnerable variation. You'll be drawing into your own interaction as well, but you have to balance casting it with ensuring you have enough cards to exile to the Breach. The one saving grace is that the wheel combos are those that can be executed the earliest, when resources are low and your opponents will hopefully be restricted to their "free" interaction. Pick your spots carefully!

That's all I have for now, but expect updates as suggestions come in and playtesting occurs. Remember to upvote if you appreciate this deck!

Big thanks to the inimitable ShaperSavant for his suggestions! Can't wait to test out the changes.

Budget lists under construction!

Top Ranked	Achieved #14 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #8 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Combo 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Competitive 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 51 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 19 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.86
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Spirit 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders	Virtual Memory, edh, Competitive, Cedh, Competitive EDH, Cedh decks, CEDH Primers, EDH, Commander Decks, Combo Deck