Azorius Clown Car or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Board Wipe
One of the greatest weaknesses of token-based strategies in EDH, in my experience, is their susceptibility to board wipes. Especially with the increasing prevalence of board wipes that can get around indestructible, investing heavily into a wide board state can be a very risky proposition. This deck aims to mend that weakness by focusing on and brewing around two cards that, unfortunately, cannot be in the command zone: Lumbering Battlement and Day of the Dragons.
The Commander
Azorius in EDH is home to a lot of mean, mean generals and Brago, King Eternal is no exception. As someone who has been on the receiving end of a Stonehorn Dignitary lock I wasn't super keen on including him myself. However, at the end of the day, at the very least he is a Flicker in the command zone and that's a fairly valuable effect for this deck.
The Actual Commanders
The heart and soul of this deck are its clown cars: Lumbering Battlement and Day of the Dragons. These cards are amazing. Lumbering Battlement can hide all non-token creatures from removal and, in conjunction with a variety of flicker effects, allow you to safely grow your token board while keeping your key pieces safely out of harm's way. Day of the Dragons goes one step further and hides all of your creatures while giving you a 5/5 flier for every creature you controlled when it came down. This solves two of the problems with token strategies in one by not only protecting your board from blowouts but also turning a wide strategy into a wide and tall strategy. Divine Visitation is a favorite card of token strategies because of its ability to turn your army of 0/1s and 1/1s into 4/4 flying vigilance angels and it only affects the tokens that you produce after it comes down. With a flicker effect, one can basically refill their board with an army of 5/5 dragons at will. Properly supported, I believe these two can allow for a viable token strategy in azorius without relying on the same tired token staples.
Card Draw and Tutors
One of the immediate weakness of this deck that I discovered during testing is the fact that the key cards in the deck aren't in the command zone. Without ways to consistently find and abuse the clown cars, the deck isn't that great. As a result a strong package of card draw and tutors is essential to the success of the deck.
Wall of Omens, Watcher for Tomorrow, Omen of the Sea, and Fblthp, the Lost are the all-stars of the draw package. In a flicker deck like this these repeatable cantrip effects can help refill the grip and look for the deck's key pieces. Dovin's Acuity and Sea Gate Oracle also help in this role in the three-drop slot. Additionally, Mystic Remora is just an excellent card that can either set opponents back or generate card advantage merely by your opponents playing the game of Magic.
Manifest is an especially powerful keyword with Brago as it can help me cheat the clown cars into play using effects like Cloudform, Lightform, and Scroll of Fate. Idyllic Tutor can also find Day of the Dragons while Long-Term Plans can put either of the clown cars closer to the top of the deck to be found and used sooner. Finally, Tribute Mage can go find nearly every rock in the deck and can in the quest to ramp out these relatively high-cmc cards.
The Ramp
The key cards of this deck (especially Day of the Dragons) cost a lot of mana to cast for a deck without access to green. As a result the ramp package of the deck is very important. Since I have chosen to include Tribute Mage, most of the mana ramp in the deck is via a variety of 2-drop mana rocks. In particular I have chosen to include Arcane Signet, Mind Stone, Fellwar Stone, Marble Diamond, Sky Diamond, Coldsteel Heart, Azorius Signet, Star Compass and Prismatic Lens. Solemn Simulacrum is especially powerful in this deck since looping his enter the battlefield effect allows for continuous land ramping in a deck without access to green. Also Sol Ring.
Recursion
Since the deck hinges on reusing the effects of a couple of key pieces, being able to get those cards back if they ever get destroyed is very important. To this end I have included Hall of Heliod's Generosity to put Day of the Dragons back on top of the library and Elspeth Conquers Death as a way to resurrect Lumbering Battlement
Additionally, since a lot of the flicker effects in the deck are on instants and sorceries, I've packed a few Archaeomancers in the deck to make sure I can always bring back those pieces when I need them. Archaeomancer is obviously the best of these effects but both Shipwreck Dowser and The Mirari Conjecture can do the job similarly well.
Flicker Effects
Since this deck needs to be able to flicker either Lumbering Battlement or Day of the Dragons, I've specifically chosen a package of flicker effects than can target either of them. Obviously I have include the original Flicker. Even though it can only be used at sorcery speed, it does its job. Flicker of Fate does the job very well since it can fast flicker either of the cars at instant speed. Teferi's Time Twist can also target either of them though it does slow flicker. Eerie Interlude was a must-include in the deck as it effectively a one-time clown car at instant speed. Last among the instants and sorceries is Release to the Wind which, while it is not exactly a flicker, can be used in lieu of flicker and has some additional interesting application which I felt made it a worthy include.
In addition to the spells, I have also include two very powerful flicker cards: Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and Identity Thief. These are both essentially Conjurer's Closets on sticks. Lastly, the addition of Yorion, Sky Nomad has finally allowed me to cut Oath of Teferi from the deck and functions as a beautiful one-time Brago trigger. It's a shame that the rules of commander prohibit me from making Yorion my companion, but it still nicely rounds out the flicker package.
The Part With Tokens
Obviously, since this a token strategy deck, I must have a set of creatures that create tokens when they enter the battlefield. To this end, I have picked the best of the best among enter-the-battlefield token generation abilities in terms of the number of creatures they generate per entrance.
Cloudgoat Ranger and Captain of the Watch make three tokens each when they enter.
Myr Battlesphere makes four tokens when it enters and can serve as a standalone threat in the deck.
Springjack Shepherd and Reverent Hoplite are essentially better versions of Evangel of Heliod making a number of tokens equal to my devotion to white.
Master of Waves does the same except with devotion to blue (though the tokens will die without an anthem to support them)
Lena, Selfless Champion makes a token for every other non-token creature she sees when she exits the clown car and can sacrifice herself to give the army indestructible should I so choose.
The Anthems
Obviously since the deck makes a lot of tokens I have included a few anthem effects to pump up the team. Thistledown Liege is a fantastic anthem. I love the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor lieges and Thistledown's ability to flash in and provide 3 devotion to both blue and white makes him an auto-include. Intangible Virtue is the best of the anthem effects in the deck since it pumps all of my tokens by +1/+1 and gives them vigilance for only 2 cmc. Spear of Heliod is an anthem that can double as creature removal and Marshal's Anthem is a slightly more expensive anthem that can be multikicked to recur creatures from the graveyard.
The Removal Suite
Azorius is a lovely color pair in that it has all of the spot removal of white combined with all of the counterspells of blue. I've chosen my favorites among the 2-drop counterspells I own: Dovin's Veto, Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Narset's Reversal, and Tale's End. In addition to these I have included Swords to Plowshares, Generous Gift, and Forsake the Worldly for flexible targeted removal. I have also included Chain of Vapor since its essentially a strictly-better Rescue for the deck. Not only can I use it to save one of my pieces if I need to, but it can also be used as a way to bounce one of my opponents problematic nonlands should the need arise. With the way its effect can be strung together, I could even do both for the kicker of sacrificing a land. It's just a very versatile card.
My Own Board Wipes
Since the strength of this deck is its resilience to board wipes, I have also included a small package of board wipes that work uniquely in this deck's advantage. Devastation Tide and Coastal Breach are both very strong in that they bounce everything off the board which, provided I have one of my clown cars in play, effectively bounces everything except my board. I don't own a Cyclonic Rift and honestly don't really need one in this brew. Hour of Reckoning also is pretty fun in the deck as, for instance, if my board is under the effect of Day of the Dragons, I essentially only have to pay three white mana and tap a few dragons for an asymmetric board wipe. That's good value! Ixidron serves as an interesting pseudo-board wipe effect for this deck that turns all non-token creatures into vanilla 2/2s. This is a difficult effect for other decks to deal with but easy with all of my access to flicker effects.
The One Cheeky Combo
When I first saw Thassa's Oracle I thought it was a super neat card. It later dawned on me exactly how grossly broken it can be but I still think its a really neat card and I own one and I want to be able to use it.
If Day of the Dragons enters the battlefield while Opalescence is active the triggered ability of the Day of the Dragons will see itself as a creature and exile itself. Since it leaves the battlefield when this happens, its leaves the battlefield trigger will occur returning itself and all the creatures/enchantments it exiled back to the battlefield. If I'm not careful since there are no may triggers involved in this this can cause the game to end in a draw but with the enter the battlefield triggers I have access to in the deck it is not too difficult to win the game via a combination of any one of the enter the battlefield cantrip effects listed above and Thassa's Oracle.
Opalescence + Day of the Dragons + Thassa's Oracle + Wall of Omens
It requires too many cards that cost too much mana and too many hoops to be jumped through to be consistent but, by Thassa, its a neat combo and I'll be glad if I ever make it happen.
