Hydrophobia: Fear of Water - pt 1

Tuition

Coinman1863

7 March 2016

2373 views

Hello all, welcome to the first article in a series written by your resident coin expert, Coinman1863. This article series is about the dark side of EDH; where infinite combos, stax, and Armageddons abound, where reanimation can mean turn 3 wins, and where high CMCs are practically taboo. This is competitive EDH (abbreviated here to cEDH).

cEDH is generally considered a place where all colors are overshadowed by the grand overlord of permission: Blue. But I think we can change that. There are ways to combat this menace and beat it down to the same level as the other colors, and in this multi-article series I’m here to tell you how. If you also have a severe phobia of the water-themed color then look no further for tips, tricks, and strategies for cEDH decks that specifically avoid and beat Blue which currently takes up about 70% of the meta.

Prossh is generally seen as the centerpiece of tokens decks alongside Doubling Season, Primal Vigor, and other similar effects. Underlying this is usually a sacrifice theme using Deathbringer Thoctar and Grave Pact effects. However, instead of forcing the game to go long, I want our win-condition to end the game as soon as it lands. Such is the nature of cEDH. So how do we do this you ask? With this magnificent card:

Enabling single turn wins with Food Chain is entirely due to rules 8 and 9 from the Rules Committee. These rules describe the commander tax (2 extra cost per death), and that when your commander is exiled you can return him/her/it to the command zone.

Let’s have a look at an example list first and then I can explain in more detail what we’re aiming to do.

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher makes Kobolds equal to the amount of mana you spent in casting him. Six with the first casting, eight with the second casting, and so on. Food Chain enables you to exile creatures for mana of any color equal to the CMC of the creature plus one. If you exile a token you produce one mana.

Now, let’s imagine you have Food Chain in play and you cast Prossh, Skyraider of Kher for the first time. You now have seven creatures. You exile Prossh to Food Chain generating 7 mana of one color, let’s choose black, and two other tokens to generate the other two colors of Jund (red and green). You now have 9 mana, (B/R/G plus 6 more), and 4 tokens in play. Next, you recast Prossh generating 8 tokens. Then you rinse and repeat the actions you just carried out an arbitrarily huge number of times and before you know it - infinite mana. This occurs because the mana you generate with Food Chain exiling creatures will always outpace the mana you need to cast Prossh, thus leaving you with infinite mana for creatures and Kobold Tokens. Take note that this is a 2-card infinite mana combo, and that one of the cards can never be removed because it’s a Commander.

Huzzah! We have the base of all our wincons assembled, so what do we do with all these tokens, and mana? We try to win of course!

Our main win conditions are Zulaport Cutthroat or Blood Artist. They both have the same functionality but sometimes someone has an Ivory Mask type effect which makes Blood Artist unable to hit them, whilst Zulaport Cutthroat can. You win by having one of these two cards in play and sacrificing all of your infinite tokens to Prossh thus creating infinite Cutthroat or Artist triggers, resulting in infinite life loss and killing everyone at the table. The reason why you have two of the same card is, just like in 60-card decks, it gives you a fallback if the first one gets countered or discarded, and it increases your likelihood of drawing into one.

Another way to win is by attacking with your 0/1 Kobolds. You can attack for either 5 times infinity, with Beastmaster’s Ascension, or infinity times infinity, with Shared Animosity. Alternatively you can use Goblin Bushwhacker or Reckless Bushwhacker which allows you to swing at everyone with your infinite tokens.

One last way to win is using the power of the gods…. well…… two of them. Purphuros, God of the Forge will trigger for 2 damage every time a creature enters the battlefield and therefore - every time we play Prossh, and Xenagos, God of Revels gives Prossh haste and doubles his power and toughness, which allows us to knock out one opponent by also sacrificing Kobolds to buff Prossh’s power.

There are a few main ways:

• Naturally draw into them. This is usually the way you get one, or both, of your combo pieces.

• Tutor for them. The best tutor you have is Tainted Pact. It’s instant speed tutor for whatever card you need, whether that be Food Chain, Zulaport Cutthroat, or Shared Animosity. Even though it has the drawback of exiling your deck up to the card you require, your wincon is more important than whatever is left in your deck because if you win the game, who cares about the cards you removed? It does limit the amount of basics you can play, as it checks the english name, but snow lands have different english names to regular basic lands so you play one of each and have Tainted Pact still work properly. The next best one is Vampiric Tutor as life is a huge resource in Magic, especially in a format where you start with 40. The others are Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Dimir Machinations (gets Food Chain, Eternal Witness and other cool stuff with the transmute cost), and the most all-in tutor Demonic Consultation. Though it is at instant speed, if you get the card you name in the first six cards, you lose the game as it decks you looking for the card you just exiled.

• Thirdly you can use either Skullmulcher or Smothering Abomination to draw your whole deck after getting your Prossh combo on. You can either devour a number of creatures equal to the size of your deck, or sacrifice a number of creatures equal to the size of your deck and draw to the wincon you need.

The answer: By playing your own counterspells!

“Wait, counterspells not in blue?”

Yep, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are there. And they're the only counterspells we get. They counter only blue spells, but who else’s spells do you care to counter if you only care about your spells resolving? They occasionally are used to kill a rampant Tezzeret the Seeker or Teferi, Temporal Archmage but usually they are needed to ensure that your spells resolve. The other way to prevent them from countering your spells is playing City of Solitude. If you can land it, then you can do as you please on your turn. It also prevents people from activating abilities on your turn. As an example, it stops an Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck from drawing a ton of cards by tapping Wizards at the end of someone’s turn.

To combat artifact decks, we play the effervescent Null Rod which doesn’t hit us a lot, as the artifacts I run are not lynchpins in the deck as they sometimes are in other competitive decks. We even run Krosan Grip as uncounterable artifact and enchantment hate because Winter Orb, Humility, and friends are quite painful when in play. Luckily for us, we even get to prey upon the lands they play via Carpet of Flowers. It’s mana ramp at the expense of your opponents which usually do not disappear. This allows us to power out cards early and discourages people from playing the blue duals in their deck as it gives you a mana advantage. Also, as a bonus, the first turn you play it, it activates in the second main phase because it has not seen the start of a main phase yet. Otherwise, it only activates on the pre-combat main phase.

We have one last bit of tech up our sleeve. This is Decree of Pain. Decree of Pain can be either cast regularly to draw a lot of cards, or, as it is usually used, to sweep the board by cycling. The cycle sweep is relevant because it is uncounterable. The only way to stop it is a Stifle or similar effect, but that rarely sees play.

I myself play more of a midrange Prossh, so it has more large creatures and alternative wincons than some Prossh lists. Below is an alternative Prossh list - angelforge’s "All-In Prossh". This means that it digs for the Prossh-Food Chain Combo or Bust.

And if these price Tags seem a bit high for you, here is a budget list that costs ~$300. It may not stack up well to the $1500+ decks, but it will perform well in a normal playgroup.

If you have any questions or comments, please write them in the comments below. Thanks for reading, and see you all in a couple weeks where we profile our next deck, Selvala, Explorer Returned.