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Don't worry, they're just 2 power! An Ezuri Primer

Commander / EDH

ThallionDarkshine

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Lands (35)

Tutors (7)

Counters (4)

Finishers (3)

HasteEnablers (3)

SacOutlets (2)

Ramp (21)

Tokens (8)

Utility (6)

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Protection (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: Ezuri, Claw of Progress

Draw (10)

Removal (9)

Evasion (5)

Recursion (4)

Buffs (2)

Ezuri, Claw of Progress has been one of my favorite commanders for quite some time now, mostly because he has a clear focus for you to build around, but is open-ended enough where you can build pretty much anything. I have built several Ezuri lists over time, including a general list where I mess around with fun janky nonsense (We're Gonna Need a LOT of Dice), a faster and more combo-centric elfball list (Ezuri Elfball EDH), as well as several other lists that I haven't gotten around to writing up descriptions for. From all this time, I feel like I have gotten a pretty good feel for some of the staples for Ezuri, and some guidelines for whether a card would work. This decklist represents my ideal Ezuri list if I didn't have to work around a budget. In this description, I will go over various roles, such as ramp, draw, and interaction, and talk about some of the best cards for those roles, as well as some cards that are overrated, and actually aren't all that great in Ezuri decks.

Ezuri Deck Archetypes

As I mentioned earlier, Ezuri gives you a focus, but that focus is so wide that many different themes can be run alongside it. I have ended up theorycrafting up tons of lists for Ezuri, even going as far as to build an Ezuri fungus deck. In this section, I will be going over the actually viable Ezuri builds (sorry fungi), and talking about what important things running them with Ezuri as the commander brings to the table.

Elfball is a fairly well-known strategy, spamming out a huge volume of elves onto the table before ending the game with a Craterhoof Behemoth or similar card. Elves synergize very nicely with Ezuri, since most elves by default have a low power. In addition, running Ezuri in the command zone gives you access to some very powerful support cards for the strategy, as well as access to blue, which is pretty nice.

Firstly, you get to use four powerful mana dorks in a much more powerful way than usual: Devoted Druid, Gyre Sage, Viridian Joiner, and Marwyn, the Nurturer. Each of these can start producing massive amounts of mana once targeted by an Ezuri trigger. Secondly, you get to make use of several powerful anthem effects to pump your team for a lethal swing. Cultivator of Blades and Joraga Warcaller both can pump up your team immediately, while Master Biomancer and Bloodspore Thrinax pump each additional creature you make.

If you decide to build Ezuri with an elfball focus, you have to choose whether or not to build it as a combo deck. I like to build it with a combo focus, but it is certainly not the only way to go. The main thing to remember for both strategies is that you are a very fragile deck, easily shut down by counters or removal in the combo turn, or even just a board wipe. Because of this, make sure to include a healthy amount of counterspells so you don't get shut down so easily.

If you build it as a combo deck, prioritize massive draw spells and effects that let you draw off of the creatures you play to cycle through your deck. In addition, haste enablers are a must, allowing you to generate mana off of new mana creatures you draw during your combo turn.

On the other hand, if you don't want to build it as a combo deck, remember that elves are very fragile, and can easily be shut down by board wipes. Because of this, remember to include powerful global haste enablers, protection spells, and counterspells to make sure you can connect with your team.

The most common commander for morphs is probably Animar, Soul of Elements, who gives the archetype speed, letting you spam out a hand full of morphs for very little mana. On the other hand, Ezuri gives you some much-needed hitting power. Morphs in general are fairly weak creatures, so making them bigger actually gives you a way to close out games. In addition, morphs are very good for Ezuri, since they are creature-based ways to interact with your opponents, which Ezuri really likes.

Now, on to some of the powerful support cards that Ezuri morphs really likes. Whisperwood Elemental should be in pretty much every morph deck, letting you draw your morphs into play for free, as well as offering a bit of board-wipe protection. Ixidron is great with morphs, letting you reuse all their effects, and also synergizes very well with counters. Flipping the board face down makes all your opponent's creatures 2/2s, but yours have counters, so they are still very viable. Next, there are three morph creatures that I feel are especially good in this deck: Den Protector, Temur War Shaman, and Broodhatch Nantuko. Den Protector is great recursion that when pumped, can become basically unblockable, Temur War Shaman gives you some great creature removal, and Broodhatch Nantuko can block a fatty and then flip to give you a ton of tokens and experience counters.

Infect is a very powerful effect, letting you basically reduce the amount of damage needed to kill someone from 40 down to only 10. This drastically increases the power of Ezuri, since infect creatures basically get 4x the effect of power boosts. In addition, most of the powerful infect creatures have power 2 or less, making them synergize even better with Ezuri. However, infect is a very hard deck to build, since there are very few actually viable infect creatures out there. For this reason, make sure to run evasion and protection cards to make sure the few infect creatures you do have can connect for damage. One other way to make sure the poison counters you give people early remain relevant is to include a proliferate package.

Since there are so few infect creatures in Simic, there aren't really any standouts that I really want to talk about, because you basically just want to run all the ones with power 2 or less, and maybe even the rest as well. What I will talk about are the support cards that you should probably be running alongside an infect package. Thrummingbird, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, Inexorable Tide, and Plaguemaw Beast are all powerful ways to proliferate, buffing up your creatures while ticking up the poison counters on your opponents. In addition, you'll want Whirler Rogue and Herald of Secret Streams to push through your infect creatures.

There are tons of powerful commanders for token decks, and I don't think Ezuri is quite on the same level as them. However, he does give you access to a powerful buff effect, letting you transition from wide to tall, as well as enabling some powerful cards to close out games.

First off, he enables several very strong pump effects, letting you turn your army of derpy tokens into a force to be reckoned with. Cultivator of Blades not only makes tokens, but also pumps your entire team a ton with an Ezuri trigger. Meanwhile, Wild Beastmaster does the same thing, but without the token generation. Finally, you have Pathbreaker Ibex and Dragon Throne of Tarkir, which, while somewhat weaker, pump your team and give the all important trample. Finally, you can run Master Biomancer and Bloodspore Thrinax to make all future tokens you make incredibly large. Next, he gives you some powerful token generators in Mycoloth and Fungal Sprouting. Each of those lets you create a ton of tokens, and with them a bunch of experience counters.

Card Choices

At the moment, this section is in progress. I am currently working on enumerating all important cards that could fit into an Ezuri list. The next step will be going through each card, and giving them ratings for each major Ezuri archetype. Once that is done, I will begin adding some commentary on each set of cards, giving some of my reasoning behind the ratings, and why the card would be better in certain lists than others. Feel free to suggest any cards that you think have merit in Ezuri decklists that I have failed to include.

The format for card ratings is (General / Elfball / Morphs / Infect / Tokens). Note - If the rating for a particular archetype is not different from the general rating, I will not put an entry for the archetype.

  • 5: Staple, auto-include
  • 4: Great card, need a good reason not to run
  • 3: Strong card, might not quite make the cut
  • 2: Decent card, could find its way into a list
  • 1: Bad card, should not see play

For each new set that comes out, I will be reviewing the new cards from that set (no reprints) and talking a little bit about what cards I think are playable in Ezuri, and what kind of list they would be best in. These will reflect my initial impressions of the cards, and will not be updated if I get the chance to play with or against them. If I feel they are good enough, they will be in the appropriate part of the card choices section.

Tezzeret, Artifice Master (3)

This guy seems really sweet, giving you both card draw and tokens on a walker with fairly high starting loyalty. You don't even need to be building with an artifact focus: since he can enable the draw 2 on his own, and pretty much every deck will have a decent amount of mana rocks or other support artifacts. In addition, the fact that the tokens fly can be very relevant, especially if your playgroup likes dragons. The ultimate isn't really anything special as they go: pretty broken, but if you've managed to tick a walker to that point, you've probably won already. Since his abilities are fairly slow, I would suggest running him in slower decks, possibly with an artifact focus, that want another token generator.

Runic Armasaur (2)

I'm not sure exactly what to think of this card, since it's fairly meta dependent how many people will be using activated abilities. I like card draw that comes attached to a body that will trigger Ezuri, but for now, I'm going to say that it's probably slightly too narrow and slow to see play in most decks. However, if your playgroup loves messing around with activated abilities, maybe give this guy a try.

Colossal Majesty (3)

This card seems pretty strong, giving you a decent draw engine. However, getting a creature to 4 power can be a little harder than it sounds. Obviously, in the late game any creature you play alongside Ezuri will get you to that 4 power, but in the early game, you'll actually have to work for it. If your playgroup never lets your board stick around for a turn cycle, then this is probably not for you, but otherwise, I could see this slotting into some Ezuri lists.

Elvish Rejuvenator (3)

I actually like this card a lot more than some of the other 3-cmc ramp creatures, because it can find you one of your utility lands, a dual land, etc. It's an elf, and is Skullclamp-able, which are all relevant details. Other than that, it's not all that special, just another 3-cmc Rampant Growth on a stick.

Sai, Master Thopterist (1)

Not going to lie, in a standard Ezuri list this guy's pretty bad. However, if you have an artifact focus, generating tokens to trigger Ezuri and giving you an artifact sac-outlet that draws cards is pretty sweet. I actually just looked through EDHREC, and it looks like there are maybe 2 Ezuri decks with an artifact subtheme. So everyone else, this card isn't playable, but those two people are going to love this guy.

Vivien of the Arkbow (1)

Some mediocre creature removal and mecriocre counter generation... I'll pass on this one.

Dryad Greenseeker (2)

A 2-drop that helps you hit your land drops is pretty decent. I played Courser of Kruphix in my main Ezuri list for a while, but 3-cmc was way too late for the effect. I actually really want to try this out in my Ezuri list, maybe in place of Yavimaya Elder or something. Obviously, this guy is pretty bad if your meta is really fast, but if games are going long and you want to keep making your land drops, give it a try, maybe it will surprise you.

Most of the powerful card draw falls into one of three categories:
  1. One-Shot Draw (Rishkar's Expertise)
  2. Unrestricted Multi-Use (Zendikar Resurgent)
  3. Restricted Multi-Use (Rashmi, Eternities Crafter)
Power-Based Draw:

Power-Based Sacrifice to Draw:

Creature Count-Based Draw:

Conditional Creature Count-Based Draw

Static Size Draw:

Other:

Cast Creature to Draw:

Conditional Cast Creature to Draw:

Creature ETBs to Draw:

Conditional Creature ETBs to Draw:

  • Kindred Discovery (1 / 4)

Sacrifice to Draw:

Remove Counters to Draw:

Taxing Opponents:

I would classify ramp into three major categories:

  1. Mana Dorks
  2. Mana Rocks
  3. Land Ramp

Each of these types of ramp cards has its place in a good deck, but the balance between them depends on your meta and the deck archetype. Faster decks will prefer dorks and rocks for their speed, while slower decks will want land ramp for its reliability. In addition, skew your ramp package towards whatever is the least likely to be removed. If you have lots of creature wipes, don't play as many dorks. If there's lots of artifact wipes, cut back on rocks. If people play mass land destruction, make sure you have enough dorks and rocks to survive after one.

1-CMC Unconditional Dorks:

1-CMC Conditional Dorks:

2-CMC Unconditional Dorks:

2-CMC Conditional Dorks:

3-CMC Unconditional Dorks:

3-CMC Conditional Dorks:

4-CMC Unconditional Dorks:

Creatures tap for Mana:

Other:

Creature-Based One Land to Play:

Spell-Based One Land to Play:

Creature-Based Multiple Lands to Play:

Spell-Based Multiple Lands to Play:

Creature-Based Lands to Hand (and Play):

Spell-Based Lands to Hand (and Play):

Repeatable Lands to Play:

Repeatable Lands to Hand:

Temporary Extra Land Drops:

Extra Land Drops:

Play Lands from Hand:

Eldrazi Scions/Spawns:

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Date added 5 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

52 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

12 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.52
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Elf Druid 1/1 G, Experience Token, Manifest 2/2 C, Morph 2/2 C, Plant 0/1 G, Servo 1/1 C, Squid 1/1 U, Squirrel 1/1 G, Thopter 1/1 C
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