Commander Collection: Clone Zone

Commander / EDH Mono-Blue

Jurrane

Instant (30)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Cerulean Wisps
• 1x Clockspinning
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Defy Gravity
• 1x Dive Down
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flare of Denial
• 1x Force of Negation P
• 1x Get Out
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Glint
• 1x Leap
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mind Games
• 1x Mizzium Skin
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Sapphire Charm
• 1x Shadow Rift
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Stubborn Denial
• 1x Thermal Flux
• 1x Three Steps Ahead
• 1x Triton Tactics
• 1x Twiddle
• 1x Twitch
• 1x Whim of Volrath

Creature (19)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Artisan of Forms
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Clone
• 1x Cloudkin Seer
• 1x Gigantoplasm
• 1x Hullbreaker Horror
• 1x Mercurial Pretender
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Sower of Temptation
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Stunt Double
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1x Vizier of Many Faces
• 1x Wavebreak Hippocamp

Artifact (8)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Cloud Key
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Idol of Oblivion
• 1x Mana Vault P
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Ravenform
• 1x Slip Through Space

Commander (1)

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb P
• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Cavern of Souls P
• 1x Cloudpost
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Ipnu Rivulet
• 20x Island
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x War Room

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Mirrormade
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Vesuvan Duplimancy

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{U}{U}{U} Introduction: Copy That {U}{U}{U}

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Do you want to use your unwanted Copy tokens from all the Crimson Vow, Commander Legends, Zendikar Rising and Double Masters boosters you opened? Do you like decks that scale with the power of your opponents? Do you enjoy confusing game states?

In that case, I have the perfect EDH deck for you. This is “Clone Zone” a mono-blue Orvar, the All-Form Shapeshifter-themed creation that makes the most of Orvar’s triggered ability that says:

"Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, if it targets one or more other permanents you control, create a token that’s a copy of one of those permanents."

The basic premise of the deck is pretty simple: get Orvar, the All-Form (and/or Vesuvan Duplimancy) on the board, start playing our various Shapeshifter creatures (or other useful utility cards) and target them with cheap instant or sorcery spells to create copies of those cards as a result of Orvar’s triggered ability. This allows us to control the board while building towards our combo endgame.

What started as a fun, casual deck has evolved into a stronger, more competitive version after watching Rachel Weeks pull wins out of nowhere during early episodes of I Hate Your Deck. The main changes have been to add a series of infinite combo that, when assembled, enable the deck to win on the spot. These combos are testament to the raw power of Orvar and its ability to win on the spot with a myriad of token copies.

Broadly speaking, our strategy is to clone our opponents' best creatures using Shapeshifters and make multiple copies of them, ensuring parity of board position while assembling our combo pieces. Then we pull the trigger on our combo pieces, often at instant speed, either by making infinite mana to power a game-ending Stroke of Genius to deck opposing players, or generating infinite creatures to create an insurmountable board state.

Power Level

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I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

I would classify this as one of my Tier 2 decks. Add some fast mana and it's probably pushing Tier 1. Since building it a couple of years ago, it's become increasingly well tuned and has optimised card choices in most categories. Essentially it's much more of a combo deck than the Clones tribal build it started as, and has various tutors to find it combo pieces pretty easily. While it's unlikely to win in the early turns, it presents a high degree of inevitability, and is capable of winning consistently, often through disruption. Right now, its win rate is 60%.

Budget

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The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is over $500. It started life as a budget build but over time I've added some more expensive cards like Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, Cavern of Souls, and the free counterspells (Force of Negation, Fierce Guardianship). Other than those, the rest of the deck is relatively cheap so if you're on the lookout for a budget version, it's absolutely viable to build a strong Orvar deck at a relatively low cost.

Like many of my other decks, it would benefit from fast mana like Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault and some of the Moxes to push it closer to competitive territory, but I'm happy with its performance at the moment and probably won't add these any time soon.

Buying It Back

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The main way we'll go infinite is with Orvar, the All-Form or Vesuvan Duplimancy in play and casting either our buyback spells: Clockspinning or Whim of Volrath. We also run a third buyback card (Mind Games) but it doesn't work in quite the same way. Put simply, buyback is the mechanic that allows Orvar decks to do broken things.

Our goal when using Clockspinning or Mind Games is to have either Sapphire Medallion or Cloud Key on the board (the latter is to be added), along with Orvar, the All-Form. Because Sapphire Medallion or Cloud Key reduces the casting cost of our spells, they also reduce our buyback costs (you'll want to name instants with Cloud Key. By targetting eiher of these with Clockspinning or Whim of Volrath, you'll end up with multiple copies of either artifact, which will reduce buyback costs to zero. You can then return Clockspinning or Whim of Volrath to your hand over and over again, using it each time to copy an Island or other blue mana producing permanent, to make infinite blue mana.

Inexperienced players might be wondering if this works. Surely Whim of Volrath can only target cards that have a colour word or a basic land type? And can we only use Clockspinning to target permanents that already have time counters on them? The answer in each case is no: either card can target anything at all, even if they don't contain the appropriate keywords. Here are the relevant rulings:

Whim of Volrath "can target a card with no appropriate words on it, or even one with no words at all." (Gatherer, 4/10/2004)

For Clockspinning, "If the target is a permanent and it has no counter on it when Clockspinning resolves, nothing happens." (Gatherer, 25/9/2006)

This means we can target anything we want with Clockspinning and Whim of Volrath and we get the desired effect (ie. a copy of the targetted permanent if Orvar, the All-Form or Vesuvan Duplimancy is in play).

The other buyback card we have is Mind Games, which works a bit differently. Because the buyback cost is {2}{U}, we can't reduce the buyback to zero using Sapphire Medallion or Cloud Key. However, with just a single copy of either of those two artifacts, it goes infinite with Gilded Lotus, which is one of our other payoff cards mentioned in the next section.

Combo Outlets

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So what can we do with our buyback cards once we can go infinite? We have all sorts of outlets that, when copied an infinite number of times, allow us to do all sorts of degenerate things. Here are my favourites:

Cantrip Choices

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The Shapeshifters

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Other Useful Cards

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All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Talrand, Sky Summoner {U}
Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff

{B} Syr Konrad, the Grim {B}
Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IV {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Hallar, the Firefletcher {R}{G}
Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Heron's Grace {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Prime Speaker Zegana {U}{G}
Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Kess, Dissident Mage {U}{B}{R}
Mindbender: Grixis Discard

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Spirits Tribal

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 weeks
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 25 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.52
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 1/1 U, Boar 2/2 G, Copy Clone, Eldrazi 10/10 C, Foretell, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Vizier of Many Faces 0/0 W
Folders	mazzi