5HeadDamon (aka: Damon plays your deck!)

Commander / EDH

jaymc1130

Land (Mana/Utility) (21)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave

Sorcery (Tutor/Cantrip/Utility) (7)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Vandalblast

Wheel Thief Combo Components (7)

• 1x Hullbreacher
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Wheel of Misfortune
• 1x Windfall

Instant (Tutor/Draw) (5)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Artifact (Mana Rock) (15)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Progress

Instant (Interaction) (15)

• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Starstorm
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Breach Combo Components (5)

• 1x Brain Freeze
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1x Thassa's Oracle
• 1x Underworld Breach

Knowledge Pool Combo Components (5)

• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Knowledge Pool
• 1x Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler

Commanders (2)

Land (Fetch) (9)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Birgi Combo Components (6)

• 1x Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flip
• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Crimson Kobolds
• 1x Crookshank Kobolds
• 1x Kobolds of Kher Keep
• 1x Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh

Artifact (Utility) (2)

• 1x Mishra's Bauble
• 1x Urza's Bauble

FISHY!!! :D (1)

• 1x Mystic Remora

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Maybeboard

Generic Alternative Options (15)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Jeska's Will
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Reshape
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Whir of Invention
• 1x Winds of Abandon

Silver Bullets (8)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Silence
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Tormod's Crypt
• 1x Trickbind

Mystic Top Combo (6)

• 1x Counterbalance
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Mystic Forge
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top

Lands (7)

• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Maralen Agent Combo (3)

• 1x Maralen of the Mornsong
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Opposition Agent

Forbidden Tutors (2)

• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Tainted Pact

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A Damon specific deck with a Damon specific primer. Time to play everyone else's decks for them!

The Basic Gameplan(s)

So the idea here was to take the Knowledge Pool concept and tune it to maximal efficiency for competitive settings and what I think this rough draft of a list has is a KP lock out heart and soul with a couple of side line combos that have some nice synergy with the main plan: Resolve a Knowledge Pool and start casting everyone's everything on the cheap.

The primary thing the deck kind of wants to do is get that KP in place and find a lock piece to pair with it ( Lavinia, Azorius Renegade / Teferi, Time Raveler / Drannith Magistrate ) in order to cause everyone to cast a spell, exile it with the KP, attempt to cast something else from the KP, then ultimately have this new spell fizzle due to things preventing it from being cast. This lock won't win the game, so the deck will still need ways to win (although you'll be able to piece together wins from your opponent's cards as well as your own). This isn't the fastest game plan in the world so the deck will want to lean toward the control role in the pod for the first couple of turns to set things up.

The next layer of the game plan is to have at least a couple options for lines of play that are faster when RNGesus smiles upon the opening hand and grants something spicy plus provide at least one legitimate way the deck can win without relying exclusively on using opponents resources against them (since killing people or folks who quit/scoop early cause some things to disappear). It'd be nice if these lines of play also offered some help in the deck performance consistency department. The easiest 2 competitive lines of play in these colors are what we talked about over discord: the Wheel Thief archetype, and the LED Breach combo. These card packages are card slot efficient enough and use pieces that are independently strong in and of themselves (aside from Brain Freeze which is pretty narrow). Additionally, the Birgi Curio combo set up plays very nicely with the KP lines of play (casting 0 CMC Kobolds to play everyone else's stuff even without a KP lock out component in play is still pretty strong) as well as providing some useful ramp at times (which should make casting an important 6 cmc artifact more consistent).

Most of the rest of the card slots are going to be devoted to the tutors and card draw required to enact these game plans consistently and quickly, ramp rocks to get the pieces out on time with tempo, and flexible/efficient interaction that's effective against the widest possible range of strategies that might be faced. Ideally these cards should be as low a cmc as they can to really enable the deck to easily break parity with a lock-less KP in play as well. If it's tuned just right this ought to result in a very flexible approach that will allow you to effortlessly switch between playing control/stax/aggro modes of play at a moment's notice depending on what the game calls for. The commanders could just as easily be the original Vial Smasher the Fierce and Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker as this is the same color combination, or even potentially Breya, Etherium Shaper which would free up one additional card slot. I've merely slotted in Tymna the Weaver and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus because they're card draw value engines that do a ton to help provide consistency.

About the Knowledge Pool Combo

KP is a weird and wonderful card. It's rare enough in EDH in general and in cEDH for certain that you're going to have to take charge of informing people how it's interacting with what's going on. Some important technical rules implications need to be understood by all parties for them to make good decisions. It's convenient to have the oracle text handy via the link: Knowledge Pool. Be sure to be familiar with it yourself. You may have to explain, for example, that with KP and Teferi on the board that it's Teferi's ability that prevents opponents from casting anything at instant speed and the resolution of KP's second ability allows for only a potential instant speed spell cast without paying mana costs that prevents opponents from playing anything at all that's been exiled with KP (which would cause any original spell exiled by KP to remain exiled for naught). The interactions with Drannith Magistrate are much more straight forward by comparison, while Lavinia, Azorius Renegade has a handful of odd interactions as she causes spells that are cast without any mana payment to be countered. An opponent choosing to cast an exiled Abrupt Decay from the KP would, in fact, be able to resolve the Abrupt Decay through Lavinia (which would likely be targeting the poor Lavinia herself). If a Trinisphere or Sphere of Resistance is on the battlefield then those KP exiled spells would technically be cast WITH a mana payment if the opponent is able to pay the tax and they would get right past Lavinia's lock out.

As a last note, Leyline of Anticipation is in here exclusively as something I thought you might appreciate. If the deck can cast all of it's things (particularly silly nonsense like 0 cmc Kobolds or Baubles) at instant speed it can really abuse the innate ability of KP's exiled card pool being free from normal timing restrictions to cast sorceries, creatures, enchantments and what not at instant speed on opposing end steps or as a means of trumping an opponent who casts a spell with a clear intention to cast a specific exiled KP card to cast it with their KP trigger on the stack before they even have a chance to resolve the trigger and get to the spell (since you'll cast it first and put it on the battlefield or into a graveyard). Teferi can do a similar impression of the ability, but only with sorceries when you plus him.

About Wheeling and Dealing

As you're very aware, wheels can be an extremely powerful and potent line of play in EDH. Draw 7s are some of the most powerful things that can be done in magic in general which is why there's so much of it in cEDH play. Being able to both leverage this toward your own ends as well as deploy cards like Narset, Parter of Veils / Notion Thief / Hullbreacher to prevent opponents from doing likewise is going to be a huge boon. Particularly since one of the best ways to ensure consistent deck performance is to utilize lines of play that simultaneously develop your board state rapidly (dropping a couple mana rocks and maybe a random bauble or Kobold) while gassing back up to be ready with a plethora of tools for the coming turns. Any opening hand that represents a turn 2 wheel should be an opening hand you strongly consider keeping to outpace opposing development tempo, with less of a priority on that line of play when going last and a very high priority on this line of play when going first while the line is most disruptive to opposing game plans.

Outside of these instances you're mostly going to be looking to wheel when you absolutely must to rid opposing hands of critical tutored cards that have yet to be deployed, when you can pair the wheel effect with a theft effect from one of the synergistic lock pieces previously mentioned, or when you need to reload because your first attempts to try to combo off or develop were stuffed by opposing interaction (and this last one try to do, if at all possible, when the person untapping AFTER the turn you wheel is unlikely to win on the spot and will be able to interact with the other opponent's potential plays for the remainder of the turn cycle while you're mana resources are still depleted or even tapped out). When it comes to Wheel of Misfortune specifically you're always going to want to make sure you get the draw 7 effect, it's going to be okay to bid high and take damage just to be sure you're going to get the benefit of gassing up. While Wheel Thief lines of play aren't assured wins, they can be extremely strong plays that set you up for the win to come at the very least.

About the LED Breach Combo

The basic idea behind what makes this combo so effective in competitive play is that it's a psuedo "two card combo" that isn't very mana intensive while utilizing flexible components that are effective even when just used for value. If any one of the 4 main pieces ( Brain Freeze / Lion's Eye Diamond / Underworld Breach / Sevinne's Reclamation ) is in hand at the same time as Intuition then you'll be able to tutor for all the remaining pieces of the combo at instant speed on an end step and deploy the combo on your turn for a minimal initial mana investment. Be sure to calculate not just the mana cost, but cards you'll need to exile from your graveyard "cost" for each potential option the chosen opponent might decide to put in your hand with the Intuition tutor. Once the first Brain Freeze resolves on yourself you should be fine, but as you've seen this combo is intricate and has a number of vulnerable points in it's sequencing so be very careful with the exile targets whenever this is at all possible.

Should the initial Brain Freeze and it's storm copies resolve without your combo set up being disrupted it should be relatively easy and you'll have both the option to attempt to mill each other opponent out (in which case you'll need to be on point about tracking storm count) as well as mill yourself out and just go for the easier Thassa's Oracle cast with an empty or nearly empty library. You can still perform this combo through your own KP, but it will become extremely complicated so be sure to calculate that line very carefully before even attempting it and assume that if opponents can react at instant speed to mess with it while the LED portion of the combo is exiled by KP and they can steal it that they will do just that.

About the Birgi Combo

Don't think this requires much in the way of explanation, at least in terms of how it functions as a combo. Rather, this is going to be more about how this combo has some excellent synergy with Knowledge Pool in play. It can be an incredibly strong play to start exchanging your Kobolds and 0 cmc trinkets for cards exiled by the KP, you'll use useful spells from your opponents to do useful things and leave them with a couple of 0/1 dorks and less useful trinkets to play from the exile pool. And since you'll be casting spells without paying mana costs on both ends (the original spells as they move to exile into the KP pool and from exile as they exit) it can radically break parity on the KP exile effect in your favor. It'll be very easy to continue generating red mana and there are a number of silly things you'll be able to pull off with a Cloudstone Curio in play even without Birig being present. If you play Birgi on her backside and discard a card to play the two off the top of the library from exile, those spells won't be cast from hand and won't have to bother filtering through the KP since it only exiles on casts from player's hands.

It can be quite useful to sandbag a couple of 0 cmc spells when you're preparing to go for a KP drop or a Birgi drop in order to prepare to make the best use of either as soon as it hits play for an explosive turn. And don't forget that if you can ever loop infinite Kobold casts for infinite storm count all that's needed is a Brain Freeze to mill out the table.

Special Notes

This deck looks like an absolute blast to play and I can't wait to see you pilot it. I know I'm going to have to give it a shot because it just looks like that much fun. Thanks so much for coming up with such a sweet idea to build a deck around! This list is way outside of a paper budget, but there's a lot that can be done to bring the cost down using similar (less expensive) effective replacement cards if the goals is to eventually assemble it IRL. For Untap purposes, obviously, this won't matter, and this rough draft is a good place to start fine tuning and tweaking specific card slot choices. I've got a handful of potential alternatives listed just as some examples of the types of cards that can slot into this deck just fine and dandy as well. Hit me up when you see me if you've got any questions at all and thanks again for coming up with such a cool idea!

Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.71
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Treasure