Derevi's Committing Tax Evasion again! (a cEDH tempo deck)
i. Want to be a criminal like Derevi? (Character Introduction)
No taxation without reprentation!
Derevi Empyrial tactician is a legendary bird wizard from Bant, on Alara.
And she's had it with EDH! She was so determined after seeing her comrades fall that she learned to commit CoMManDeR tax evasion!
Her devoted followers consider Derevi the greatest commander the Shards of Alara have ever seen.
She may have the skill to dodge taxes, but her true skill lies in her ability to maneuver and manipulate the enemy.
She has lost many a battle, and some say her days are numbered.
For over 10 years, there has been no references to Derevi since her introduction. Now she's here for revenge.
As she avoiding her CoMManDeR tax, she fights the commanders that the corrupt WOTC and Hasbro family has created for Justice!
No one ever said it would be easy, your games will be slow, but the watchful eyes and cunning tactics of Derevi will outmaneuver all your enemies! Build your resources for the most devious strategy known to EDH: Prison and stax!
TRY KILLING DEREVI! JUST TRY! THERE'S NO COMMANDER TAX!!!
ii. Let's be serious. Why play Derevi?
Since her entry into cEDH on her release in Commander 2013, Derevi has won games by maintaining an infinite flicker combo. How it gets there has changed a lot over the years, and the ratio of engines and combo pieces has adjusted with the meta and ever widening pool of cards.
Derevi, at its core, is a tempo deck that's viable at every stage of the game. The deck rarely turbos out a win, is slow on card advantage/strength, but makes up for its faults with its ability to control and stax the game, using such cards as Collector Ouphe, Rule of Law, and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben effects.
Historically, Derevi uses a stax build, leveraging her ability to act under many stax pieces. The problem therein is that a purely stax based deck without a commander to leverage strength doesn't slow games enough. As cEDH evolves, games are faster. stax retains its seminal issue and isn't immune from removal. For this build, I thinned the stax pieces for proactive combos to close out games more consistently, particularly before fast decks can recover or remove aforementioned stax piecse.
Derevi has a lot of subtle nuance and different lines. In the first month I picked up the deck, I kept finding new lines.
And if it's not clear from the introduction, you almost never pay the commander tax :)
She's really been deserving to serve in prison with Yuriko and by extenion Hogaak and maybe Leisa, Oboro, Innala, Kasla or Bennie Bracks.
The deck essentially has three win lines: Spellseeker, Blood Pod, and Flicker, the latter of which has been a staple for years. I will describe these in more nuance later. Historically, the deck has also tried to abuse Derevi's commander tax for sacrifice fodder but lines have become more streamlined over the years.
Note the deck's worst matchup is against turbo decks (like Rograkh Silas, Jeska//Tevesh)
The deck dies to Containment Priest, Creature Stax like Linvala and Cursed Totem, and Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker.
Maybe consider other things if those are big in your meta.
iii. What does Derevi Do with the money she saved with Tax Evasion? (The Combo)
Nothing really.
Her activated ability is just extra value.
And Drannith Magistrate doesn't hold her back at all!
For what it's worth mentioning, you will/should almost never cast Derevi unless necessary to advance your game plan.
It's her first triggered ability that is actually really good, even enabling combos for decks such as Najeela or Sisay.
The combo generates generate infinite flickers, relying on an engine to create infinte mana and flickers.
From there, you soft lock your opponents on upkeep with Derevi or use a flicker effect to win.
Or make them draw themselves out with Faerie Mastermind and loop Green Sun's Zenith.
Detailed more in Part v. "What's Derevi's Plan",
"How Does This Deck Actually Win?" Subsection
The combo uses: Derevi + Big Mana + Flicker Engine + Maybe a mana Sink
Activate Flicker Engine targetting Derevi, Derevi enters the battlefield to untap Big Mana, Tap Big Mana, Repeat.
Get Infinite Mana and Infinite Untaps and Infinite ETB's.
Big Mana: Anything that taps for 4 or more mana or you have cost reduction in the form of Biomancer's Familiar/Training Grounds.
Gaea's Cradle // Growing Rites of Itlomic // Scorched Ruins // Bloom Tender // Faeburrow Elder // Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
Flicker Engine: Eldrazi Displacer or Emiel the Blessed or Deadeye Navigator
Deadeye Navigator is off curve, but there's an argument that decks are allowed to top off a curve.
It also only costs 2 and is decent by itself.
Infinite Mana Sink: Spectral Sailor or Faerie Mastermind or Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy or Walking Ballista
This is mostly if everything's gone to hell if softlocking opponents on upkeeps doesn't work (e.g. Grand Abolisher, Sythis Enchantress hexproof, Split Second cards, etc.)
Walking Ballista has been off the deck just because there's better options. Why bother with Ballista when you can draw with Spectral Sailor and trigger Derevi. But in the end, it can be tutored with Ranger Captain of Eos and can deal x/2 damage and that's still not bad.
iv. What Derevi's strategy to get revenge? (Lines + Engines)
Here's a sample of the lines and engines used to achieve the combo. Honestly, each time I pick up the deck there's new lines popping up so here's my best, from easiest to accomplish to least. Most can be made with a combo piece in play and/or a tutor in play.
Note that just because a line is easy does not mean it should be the one used depending on board state or will be the one you see often.
Most lines requires Derevi on Field or are bolstered by her.
Credit to lyson on Moxfield from the Spellpod Derevi cEDH lists for a lot of these.
See Credits for the decklist and link.
Spellseeker : One card combo that takes a turn to assemble, a creature to assemble, and dies to interaction :(
Play Spellseeker, tutor Ephemerate to hand
Cast Ephemerate on Spellseeker, getting Crop Rotation of Sylvan Scrying
Rebound Ephemerate getting Finale of Deveastation or some other creature tutor
Cast Crop Rotation getting Gaea's Cradle
Cast Finale getting Emiel the Blessed
6.Attack with Derevi, untapping Cradle
Birthing Pod
Sacrifice a 2cmc creature to get spellseeker for the above combo
Sacrifice Derevi to find Preston or Emiel to start lines the combos
Does softlock itself to Collector Ouphe though
Yisan
Lots of lines.
But honestly, you can't go wrong with just mana dork, bloom tender, 3cmc like Eldrazi Displacer, emiel.
Credit to lyson from the Spellpod cEDH list for this combo:
The cEDH Yisan has a line where you go: 1cmc gets getting Quirion Ranger, activate Quirion, untapping Yisan, 3.Activate Yisan, finding Biomancer's Familiar 4.Attack with Derevi, untapping Yisan twice
Find Spellseeker, sylvan Scrying // Crop Rotation
Combo off. This does require a lot of buildup and about 3+3+2 mana to pull off.
Captain Sisay:
FInds Gaea's Cradle, Derevi Combat to Untap, find emiel, do emiel Combo
It also finds all the other pieces of the puzzle, from Kinna Combo to get infinite mana, to Preston etc.
V. How do we pull of Derevi's Tax Evasion BattlePlan?
As usual in cEDH, a deck's gameplan is highly dependent on matchup and by extension one's opening hand, but certain remain the same.
Ramp // Stax
Get Derevi + Interaction
Setup for win
Attempt to combo
Try to Recover
How Does This Deck Actually Win?
It's simple! Just follow the 7-20 card combo!
As previously mentioned in the basic combo section, your goal is to flicker Derevi Infinite times, flicking Derevi to untap an big mana card, then tapping the big mana for infinite mana, after which you either sink the mana into something or just soft lock your opponents by tapping them down.
So the funny thing to do is to constantly tap and untap your opponent's City of Brass.
You could also possibly keep flicking Venser, Shaper Savant to truly softlock opponents.
It's a shame he's off curve though.
If you can't touch your opponents....
Like maybe you're facing Sythis and they've given everything control hexproof.
Or maybe they flash in containment priest on their upkeep.
No worries. This deck has outs.
If you've generated Infinite Mana...
You can use Faerie Mastermind to make everyone draw a bunch of cards.
You can find this with Spectral Sailor of Kinnan.
From this, you loop Green Sun's Zenith so you never draw from an empty library.
You can consider siding in Blind Obdeience to extort your opponents if this happens more often or hinders enough opponents.
If your opponents say they'll protect themselves...
Or just draw all your counterspells against the person who says they'll Teferi Protection.
If they complain again...
Just get better friends and players than the ones I have. There are people with a useless repository of knowledge who get a kick out of naming the out. I hate them. It's easier to name the out than see the out.
vi. Who's on Derevi's Crew? Who Didn't Make the Cut? (Notable Inclusions and Exclusion)
Notable Inclusions
Spectral Sailor
Mana sink, a flyer, and a flashed one drop for blue. Does more than ballista, can be found off a Ranger-Captain of Eos.
Consecrated Sphinx
Only there because the deck seriously struggles with card draw. One can consider replacing it with better tutors. On the other hand, why risk the chance when tou can draw more outs and engines?
Exclusions
Venser, Shaper Savant is just off curve and powercrept.
You can try him out a budget though.
Blind Obdeience
Meta call.
Used for the Green Sun's Zenith + Extort Loop.
But really only use it if decks in your meta have artifacts and creatures that need to enter untapped
e.g. Creatures that want haste like Winota, Kenrith, Sensei's Divining Top Combos, Underworld Breach LED/Lotus Petal combo.
Force of Negation
The deck is actually pretty fast.
I couldn't risk picthing a card.
A generic counterspell is in its place.
Maybe side it in against turbo decks.
Drannith Magistrate
Just not there out of principle.
Should be in the deck if you're playing in a tournament.
Should be in each cEDH deck until it gets rightfully banned....
Carpet of Flowers
Post-errata Carpet of Flowers isn't too good.
We're also past the days where blue is in almost every pod.
A stax piece or land can take its place.
Veil of Summer is also not in for the same reason.
1 Intuition
1 Sevinne's Reclamation // memory's jouney
This deck doesn't manipulate the graveyard much. They're off curve a bit and more convoluted than other lines. In the end, the deck is just more consistent without them.
vii. Final Words
Please make Derevi Fanart. She looks nice and I don't know how by 2024, she doesn't have much art. (I could only find less than 6 pictures)
I honestly want to run this deck at tournaments in the vain attempt to try to get people to make fanart of her.
Come on, she has those nice wide hips.
She's got a nice brain and good body.
viii. Credits and inspiration
4 years after I first played against her, I proxied my own deck and love it.
My favorite new deck of 2024.
This deck was inspired by the memories of facing this deck against an old friend Sam, whose last name I've left anonymous out of privacy.
I first faced Derevi when I got into cEDH in 2019. It was a wild ride and the deck brings back memories of a better time in cEDH with a wide meta and a better time for stax. I never saw him after Covid hit and I had to evacuate from my living space. Not sure if you'll reading this, but I hope your Master's in English went well.
I also kind of fell in love with Derevi after seeing her synergy in Najeela and with my 3 sisay deckbuilds.
She eventually worked herself to the helm as the commander itself after about 2 years wanting to do this.
Big Credit to lykos for their Spellpod Derevi as the base decklist.
I kind of used the decklist here and adapted to my own tempo and meta.
https://www. moxfield.com/decks/bowilU8pp0ehbGPapI6vpA
Last Updated February 2024, Accessed March 2024.
