Commander Collection: Crystal Wing

Commander / EDH Bracket 4 Control Dragons Scry Top Deck Matters WU (Azorius)

Jurrane

Land (37)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Ancient Tomb PGC
• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Deserted Beach
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 12x Island
• 1x Kor Haven
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Nimbus Maze
• 8x Plains
• 1x Port Town
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Urza's Cave

Library Manipulation (6)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Brainsurge
• 1x Crystal Ball
• 1x Mystic Speculation
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top

Finishers (4)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Coat of Arms
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Mirror Entity

Tutors (3)

• 1x Enlightened TutorGC
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Personal Tutor

Dragons (14)

• 1x Ancient Gold Dragon
• 1x Ancient Silver Dragon
• 1x Archive Dragon
• 1x Draco
• 1x Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1x Hammerhead Tyrant
• 1x Iymrith, Desert Doom
• 1x Keiga, the Tide Star
• 1x Murktide Regent
• 1x Ojutai, Soul of Winter
• 1x Sapphire Dragon
• 1x Scalelord Reckoner
• 1x Scion of Draco
• 1x Steel Hellkite

Countermagic (7)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Fierce GuardianshipGC
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Silumgar's Scorn

Card Draw (4)

• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong
• 1x Rhystic Study PGC

Other Elminster Synergies (3)

• 1x Deification *f-etch*
• 1x Mystic Reflection
• 1x Oath of Teferi

Combo Pieces (2)

• 1x Astral Dragon
• 1x Machine God's Effigy

Commander (1)

Removal & Boardwipes (10)

• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Excise the Imperfect
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tragic Arrogance
• 1x Wrath of God

Ramp (6)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Pearl Medallion
• 1x Sapphire Medallion P
• 1x Smothering TitheGC
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Protection (3)

• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Teferi's ProtectionGC

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{W}{U} Introduction: The Scry’s the Limit {W}{U}

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Welcome to my primer for an Elminster EDH deck in Azorius colours, focusing on the scry and topdeck mechanics, and with a Dragons sub-theme.

A while back, I decided to build a new Azorius EDH deck but found myself underwhelmed by the choice of blue-white Commanders. As I already have a control deck, I wanted to do something a bit different. So I asked the nice folks at EDH Reddit and got a bunch of good suggestions. By far the one that stood out the most was an Elminster scry based deck.

The typical Elminster build involves lots of high mana value instants and sorceries that can be converted into Faerie Dragon 1/1 U tokens using his -3 ability. It occurred to me that this could be done with the dragons creature type instead of big splashy sorceries and instants. As many dragons have a high CMC, they’re perfect for this purpose, or they can be cast as big flying beaters for the more traditional blue-white skies strategy. Plus the opportunity to turn Draco and Scion of Draco into a great many Faerie Dragons seemed too good to turn down.

The result is a fun, highly interactive midrange deck that’s more than capable of hanging at most casual tables. After various iterations and the addition of some stronger cards, I’ve arrived at a version that’s been winning the majority of its games and is perfectly able to hold its own against other medium power decks.

Deck Design

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Like other Elminster decks, this one is designed to make the most of the scry mechanic. Scrying is helpful as it helps us find the right cards at the right time and, if Elminster is in play, we can use scry abilities to stack the top of our deck with high mana value cards that can be used to make Faerie Dragon 1/1 U tokens. We can then use Faerie Dragons as chump blockers to defend Elminster or as flying attackers that can be buffed using anthem effects like Mirror Entity, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Coat of Arms.

The deck is therefore built to include a good number of scry effects, allowing us to set up good cards to draw or to fuel Elminster’s -3 ability. We can manipulate our library using permanents such as Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack, Palantir of Orthanc, Crystal Ball or Elminster’s +2 ability. Or we can scry with cheap one-shot spells like Brainstorm, Brainsurge or Mystic Speculation (the latter doesn't need to be one-shot as it has buyback).

As we’re in Azorius colours, we’re a typically resilient midrange-control deck. We run a healthy dose of permission and removal cards that help us protect Elminster and control the board; and, when the time is right, we’re capable of going on the offensive with Elminster's beefy dragon friends.

Although the deck is intended to get the most from Elminster’s abilities, it’s capable of winning without its commander. The various win conditions we have are outlined below.

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.

Slightly unexpectedly, this deck currently has one of the highest win rates of all my Commander decks (71% overall, winning 5 of its 7 games so far ). Those games have proved it's highly resilient and able to pivot from control to attack with relative ease. As long as we can survive the early game, we're a better position with each passing turn and have the tools to close out the game against nearly all opponents.

Consequently, I would categorise this deck as one of my Tier 2 builds. It has become fairly high powered, has an excellent win rate and a variety of different ways to win, including an infinite creatures combo. Its one drawback - and the main reason it can't be considered a competitive or very high powered deck - is its lack of fast mana, but experience tells me it doesn't really need fast mana sources at most casual tables. But it's otherwise very resilient and packs some pretty serious game against mid to higher powered casual opponents.

In terms of WotC's new EDH power brackets, this is definitely a Bracket 4 deck. It runs seven different game changer cards (Ancient TombGC, Cyclonic RiftGC, Rhystic StudyGC, Fierce GuardianshipGC, Mystical TutorGC, Enlightened TutorGC and Smothering TitheGC) and offers a powerful, resilient control strategy. But it stops far short of a cEDH deck so Bracket 4 seems about right.

Budget

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The average price on Card Kingdom for this one is almost $600, so it can't really be called a budget deck. That said, it started life as a budget build and I've added the more expensive cards over time (Fierce GuardianshipGC, Cyclonic RiftGC, Mana Drain, Teferi's ProtectionGC and so on). If you're willing to forego these (and while they definitely improve performance, they're by no means manadatory), this is a really fun - and highly effective - deck to build on a budget. I'd be really happy to talk about my experiences on DM as this is easily one of my favourite decks.

Win Conditions

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One of the fun things about this deck is it can win in a number of different ways. This means we’re unlikely to be shut down by a single strategy and we can adapt to deal with most game states. Here are the main ways we can win:

Faerie Dragon Buffs
Thanks to our high mana value cards, we’re capable of generating large numbers of Faerie Dragon 1/1 U tokens. Even as 1/1 flying attackers, enough of these can make life miserable for our opponents. Any combination of Mirror Entity, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Coat of Arms means they go from annoying to potentially game-ending if they’re not answered immediately. If Coat of Arms is in play, we can often remove multiple opponents in a single attack phase.

Dragon Beatings
The classic blue white control style usually involves keeping the board clear of opposing threats until the time is right to cast haymakers of our own and attack our defenceless opponents. We have no shortage of large flying creatures that, if needed, can be hard cast instead of being used as Elminster fuel. Some of these card choices are explained later in this overview but our all-stars include Ancient Gold Dragon, Ancient Silver Dragon, Dragonlord Ojutai and Steel Hellkite.

Approach of the Second Sun
We’re the perfect deck to take advantage of Approach of the Second Sun’s instant win condition. Once we’ve cast it for the first time, it’s easy to use scry effects to stack our deck so we don’t have to wait multiple turns until we see it again. They’re not in the deck at the moment but an easy upgrade option would be to add tutors like Mystical TutorGC or Solve the Equation so we can find Approach for the first (or second) time.

Our Combo Finish
Finally we can combo off with Astral Dragon and Machine God's Effigy which combine to make an infinite number of other Astral Dragons to overwhelm everyone. Here’s how it works:

Prerequisites:

• Machine God's Effigy is on the board;
• Astral Dragon is in our hand;
• We have {6}{U}{U} available;

Steps:

1. Cast Astral Dragon by paying {6}{U}{U}
2. Astral Dragon enters the battlefield, targeting Machine God's Effigy
3. Use Machine God's Effigy's ability to have both tokens instead enter as noncreature artifact token copies of Astral Dragonwith “{T}: Add {U}”
4. Both Astral Dragon copies trigger
5. Repeat from step 2 any number of times, creating an additional Astral Dragon trigger on the stack each loop
6. Once we have infinite Astral Dragon triggers, resolve them all, creating infinite copies of all noncreature permanents that are 3/3 Dragon creatures in addition to their other types

Key Card Categories

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This is a highly synergistic list with a number of different card categories contributing to its gameplan. In this section, I'll outline each of those categories with the various card choices I've made.

Elminster Synergies
We can definitely win without Elminster but our Faerie Dragon win condition is based around his ability. He does everything: scrys to set up our draws, turns high cost cards into Faerie Dragons; and can reduce the casting cost of our instants and sorceries. To be honest, I often forget about that last static ability as his plus/minus loyalty point abilities are so important to this deck.

We run several other important cards to get the best out of Elminster. Oath of Teferi enables two Planeswalker activations each turn, which means we can draw a card and scry with his plus ability, and then use his minus ability to turn the (hopefully high mana value) top card from our library into lots of Faerie Dragons. Deification is an excellent way of protecting him as it gives him hexproof and ensure that his loyalty never drops below one when it's in play.

It's also worth mentioning Mystic Reflection as an amazing accompaniment to Elminster's minus ability. Cast it at the right time and watch each of our Faerie Dragons instead become a copy of the most powerful creature on the board when they ETB. This can be one of our own powerful dragons if we have it in play, or something nasty belonging to our opponents. Or we can use it defensively to turn a powerful creature from another player into something far less threatening, like a mana dork. Either way it's an incredible card in this list.

Scry & Topdeck Effects
We run various different scry or topdeck effects to ensure we're hitting something meaningful (ie. high mana value) with Elminster's minus ability. Elminster's plus ability helps a lot but we don't just rely on that: we have a package of other cards intended to manipulate our library and set up our draws. Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack are the strongest effects we have of this type because they're able to put high CMC cards from our hand back on top of our library if needed. Brainstorm and Brainsurge do a similar thing but they're single-use spells rather than repeatable abilities.

Our second tier of scry effects are Crystal Ball and Mystic Speculation, which can also be very useful. They're a bit more mana intensive but they'll still do the job and, like the cards mentioned above, we can activate them at instant speed if needed after our draw step, to set up Elminster's minus abilty. Or we can use them to dig for answers or to find Approach of the Second Sun if we're trying to cast it for the second time.

Dragons
Our Dragons are selected for two purposes: they have the highest CMC available in Azorius colours and/or they have game-breaking effects if we end up hard-casting them. Draco & Scion of Draco are absolutely hilarious to use with Elminster’s -3 ability. If we're actually casting either of these, we’re either doing something wrong or the game has taken an entirely unexpected turn.

Our second tier of Dragons are the Ancient Dragons: Ancient Gold Dragon and Ancient Silver Dragon. We don't mind turning either of these into Faerie Dragons if needed but they have powerful abilities if they end up on the battlefield and they connect in combat. Then we have the rest of our Dragons: Astral Dragon, Dragonlord Ojutai, Hammerhead Tyrant, Iymrith, Desert Doom, Keiga, the Tide Star, Murktide Regent, Ojutai, Soul of Winter, Sapphire Dragon, Scalelord Reckoner, Steel Hellkite and Archive Dragon. I particularly like Sapphhire Dragon because it’s a counterspell and flying threat in one, plus a good source of scrying; and Scalelord Reckoner because no-one ever wants to target it with removal.

Card Draw & Tutors
We have an excellent card draw and tutor package available to us. Mystical TutorGC and Personal Tutor both find Approach of the Second Sun if needed, and Enlightened TutorGC is primarily intended to search for Coat of Arms when needed. Or any of these can be used to find useful utility cards if required throughout the game.

Alongside our tutors, we run some of the best card draw options in Azorius colours: Mystic Remora, Rhystic StudyGC and Archmage Emeritus, as well as being able to rely on Elminster's card draw ability. Some of our Dragons are able to draw cards too, especially Ancient Silver Dragon if it connects in combat. Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong is an amazing new staple of this deck.

Removal & Boardwipes
Our removal suite offers both single-target options and boardwipes. Our single-target spells are generally selected for their versatility or efficiency: Generous Gift, Excise the Imperfect and Generous Gift hit pretty much any permanent on the board, while Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Pongify and Rapid Hybridization are all fantastic one-mana creature removal spells. As we're essentially a control deck, we run four different boardwipes: Day of Judgment, Wrath of God, Supreme Verdict and Wrath of God. Because we're quite slow in the early turns, we need to have ways of resetting the board when faster opponents pull ahead.

Countermagic
As with our removal cards, our counterspell package prioritises efficiency and versatility. We have "free" counterspells such as Fierce GuardianshipGC and Force of Negation, alongside mana-efficient options like An Offer You Can't Refuse, Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Silumgar's Scorn, Strix Serenade and Mana Drain. [

Ramp
As a control deck, we have be painfully slow and our high average mana value we need ways of ramping into our bigger spells. I've run a couple of mana rocks along with Pearl Medallion and Sapphire Medallion, and have also included Smothering TitheGC as one of the best ramp cards in EDH.

Gameplay

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Each game I’ve played with this deck has been a learning experience and I’ve picked up a few tips to help with gameplay. Here are some of the things I’ve learned:

We’re a control deck: Although we have a bunch of neat tricks that allow us to shift very quickly from defence to attack, this is a control deck at its heart. We’re slow to set up and tend to be quite vulnerable in the early game. Do want you can to stay on parity, whether that’s drawing extra cards, using removal, countering problematic threats or playing politics, all with an eye on the late game. Like other control decks, as a general rule the longer the game goes, more likely it is the scales are tipped in our favour.

Protecting Elminster: He’s not essential for victory but he’s the beating heart of this deck. It’s usually wise not to cast him until you’re able to protect him, either by using his -3 ability because you’ve scryed a high mana cost card to the top; or if you’ve got other creatures on the board as chump blockers. Opponents will target him if they’re smart because he means both business and trouble if he’s allowed to stick.

Setting up with scrying: This can be quite a complicated deck to play as it rewards us for knowing what the top few cards in our library are and what order they’re in. Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top and Mystic Speculation are our gold standards for this. When scrying or setting up our draw phase with cantrips, we have some variables to consider: how many cards are we drawing and when are we drawing them? Which cards need to be positioned where and for what purpose? Are other players likely to mill us?

Future Improvements

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Other than the possible addition of fast mana, I'm really happy with this deck and not looking to change a lot. Dragons are one of the most supported (and often the most pushed) creature types in Magic so it'll be interesting to see if any new UW dragons are printed in future sets, but I'm at the stage where making cuts to the deck is pretty hard, so any new cards would have to be pretty special to replace anything in my current list.

Many thanks for checking out my primer. I absolutely love this list so I hope it inspires your own Elminster deck.

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All My EDH Decks

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

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

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

{B} Ayara, First of Locthwain {B}
Black Diamond: Mono-Black Aristocrats Combo

{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 Land Sacrifice

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IVGC {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

{U}{B} Lord of the Nazgul {U}{B}
The Black Gate Opens: Dimir Spellslinger

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

{W}{G} Sigarda, Font of Blessings {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

{W}{B} Eriette of the Charmed Apple {W}{B}
Flight of the Wicked Witch: Orzhov Auras

{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} 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} Marchesa, the Black Rose {U}{B}{R}
Revenge of the Mummy: Grixis Dethrone/Combo

{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}{B}{G} Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant {W}{B}{G}
A Long-Expected Party: Abzan Lifegain/Combo

{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 Control

{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

{U}{R}{G} Eshki, Temur's Roar {U}{R}{G}
Thunder Striker: Temur Power Matters

Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 week
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.95
Tokens	Copy Clone, Elephant 3-3 G, Faerie Dragon 1/1 U, Foretell, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, On an Adventure, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Treasure