Helicopter Tribal

Commander / EDH Combo GWU (Bant)

GoodLuckGuy

Land (34)

• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forest
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 3x Island
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 2x Plains
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Seachrome Coast
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Windswept Heath

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Fertile Ground
• 1x Aura Shards
• 1x Coastal Piracy
• 1x Market Festival
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Mirari's Wake
• 1x Mind Over Matter

Creature (22)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Mother of Runes
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Siren Stormtamer
• 1x Spectral Sailor
• 1x Wingcrafter
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Remorseful Cleric
• 1x River Hoopoe
• 1x Selfless Spirit
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Alms Collector
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty
• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Deadeye Navigator

Artifact (9)

• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Winter Orb
• 1x Bident of Thassa
• 1x Gilded Lotus

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Tamiyo, Field Researcher

Commander (1)

Instant (16)

• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Emergency Powers

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Wargate
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Time Reversal
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Expropriate

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Welcome to Flight School

Introduction

Do you want to learn how to operate spinning, aerial death? Do you want to force the laws of physics to bend to the will of technical wizardry and mechanical brute strength? Do you want to destroy the enemy base from the comfort of your hovering sky-fortress? Well you've come to the right place, MAGGOT! In this course you will learn the ins and outs, the dos and don'ts, of piloting these beautiful, rotary sky-beasts.

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• Helicopter Tribal is my attempt at making a fun, fast, and consistent Derevi deck. This is the final version of a physical deck of mine that I've been working on for a couple of years. The deck has gone through many changes in direction and has, at times, struggled to find focus in its archetypes. I've recently overhauled the design of this deck and I'm extremely happy with the results. This is a sub-competitive deck trying to go for a turn 5-7 combo win, and we have a few ways to get there. Thanks in advance for reading through my silly nonsense!

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Never Fly Alone (Fliers)

If there's anything I've learned in my 45 consecutive years of active service, it's that it takes a squad to get the job done right. You hear me? Never leave home without your wing-man, NEVER. You never know what might happen when you're apart, one day your buddy might decide to go for a midnight leisure flight, nothing wrong with that right? Until the geese showed up. He might have thought he had enough bullets for the whole flock, poor Ricky only had half enough... poor Ricky. Come back to me Ricky...

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• This is a Derevi deck, so at every stage of the game, we want to be hitting our opponents to get those untap triggers, so we run a lot of fliers to get triggers consistently. This deck doesn't win with damage over time, so you really only need one opponent to be open to fliers in order to get triggers, they might not like it, but that's how it goes.

• We have a mix of 1-4 mana fliers to get triggers off of. All of their abilities are useful, but you can play around with which ones you want to run in your build of this deck. There are plenty of cheap fliers that I could've run over the ones that made it into the final list, so go nuts.

• That being said, there are a couple of fliers that have abilities that are too important to leave out of any revision. Spectral Sailor and River Hoopoe are both mana syncs that can win us the game once the deck pops off. We most often win in this deck with infinite mana, so we'll need these to draw our deck late in the game.

• Certain configurations of lands along with Mind Over Matter and one of those two can be used to dig through the deck very quickly, or even infinitely. Get ready to see a lot more Mind Over Matter shenanigans throughout this tech, it's a super busted card.

Get Those Blades Spinning (Wheels)

What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a helicopter with wheels before? Anyway, that thing isn't gonna stay in the air if the rotor isn't spinning. Even if you run out of fuel, as long as those blades keep spinning, you'll keep yourself off the ground. No really, a true pilot will get on the roof of their vehicle and spin the rotor with their bare hands if they run out of fuel. Proper hand-to-blade technique is paramount to a successful flight, these things run out of fuel almost immediately after getting off the ground. I hope you already know how to hold your breath for extended periods of time, because those techniques are beyond the scope of this course.

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• At this point you may be wondering, why is it called "Helicopter Tribal?" Older versions of this deck used to have debilitating consistency and resiliency issues, so bad that a while ago I almost retired the deck. It was only after the printing of Echo of Eons that I realized what this deck was missing; Wheels. Helicopter Tribal is a Derevi wheel deck that utilizes early game ramp and low-drop fliers to get lots of mana in the early game to empty the hand, then uses wheels to refill the hand. So there it is, Helicopter Tribal, because we're flying and spinning.

• In this deck, we run 6 wheel effects. We can use them in a few different ways but their primary use is refilling our hand when we run out of useful cards. Derevi plays really well with wheels because we essentially get two uses of our mana base throughout our turn. We can wheel into a new hand on M1, untap mana during combat, then play out the new hand on M2. Under certain circumstances, it can even be worth it to wheel on M2 after untapping your mana base. Of course, with Jace's Archivist and Emergency Powers working at instant speed, it's often preferable to use them at the end of an opponent's turn.

• This deck runs 4 cards that have strong synergies with wheel effects, while these are out, it may be worth it to run out a wheel, even if you like your hand.

• First we have two cards that gas us up when we wheel: Smothering Tithe gives us a treasure for each card our opponents draw, so when we wheel we get tons of mana, and can often play out the whole hand we just got on the spot, and if we draw into another wheel, we just keep going. Consecrated Sphinx is already pretty busted on it's own, but when we wheel, we can draw over half of the deck. With both of these out, you get half your deck and tons of mana when you wheel, this will almost always result in an win.

• Next, we have two cards that destroy our opponents' hands when we wheel: Narset, Parter of Veils only allows your opponents to draw only 1 card when you wheel, if you wheel twice in one turn, they get no cards. Alms Collector works similarly, but instead of not letting them draw on the second wheel, you get to draw an extra card for each of your opponents. It is important to note that the synergies with Tithe and Sphinx will be severely nerfed while either of these are out.

• Mind Over Matter can also net us some extra value off a wheel, depending on what we have out. It will also give you all the mana you need after you wheel with Sphinx out, usually resulting in a win.

Where to Get Fuel (Mana)

Now that we've mastered the manual spinning techniques passed down by the ancient helicopter sages, we need to get these machines off the ground. You might notice that the fuel gauge currently reads empty on all of your practice vehicles. This is because in a real flight scenario, you won't always have gas on standby to feed to your metal baby, and let me tell you, that formula ain't cheap. In the world of helicopter flight, you have to scavenge for every drop of fuel you can get your hands on. That's right, I'm talking about siphoning gas from nearby cars and planes under cover of night. Make no mistake, by the end of this lesson you will all be ninja masters of the liquid huff-n-puff.

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• I mentioned mana before, and I want to talk about that a bit. We come at mana ramp from a few different angles in this deck, and it's important to recognize which types are most useful when.

• Fliers act like pseudo mana dorks throughout the game thanks to Derevi, but they are particularly important in the early game. Your sequencing between getting out cheap fliers and small mana rocks can be crucial in the first 3 turns, improper sequencing can slow you down by one or two turns in this deck. I'm not going to get spend a lot of time getting into the technical details of proper sequencing in this deck, but I would like to mention one thing.

• You should plan ahead in terms of how much mana you think you can have on turn 3, after playing Derevi. If you get a flier on turn 1 or 2, you can attack with it while Derevi is out on turn 3, using it to untap lands or rocks, and having more mana on M2, which can be used to play more rocks or fliers. You'll get a better feel for it the more you practice with the deck.

• Derevi can only untap so many permanents during combat, so you'll need to exercise some forethought in your M1 as to how much mana you can get back after combat in tandem with how much you need in M1 vs. M2 vs. other plays' turns. This means the cards that tap for the most mana are extra important, because you can use them twice. So you might want to favor putting cards like Fertile Ground and Market Festival onto the lands that already make the most mana, because you will always be able to untap at least 1 land per turn. And, of course, we can't forget Mind Over Matter, because while it's in play, each card in our hand can be used to make mana equal to our biggest mana source.

• You should always prioritize getting out permanents that will make at least 3 mana as soon as possible. Particularly if that permanent makes {U}{U}, because it can be used as a piece of the deck's primary wincon.

Using Every Part of the Helicopter (Draw Condition)

When soaring high in the air, wind in your maggot face, you must remember the mantra of the noble Native Airmericans, use every part of the sky-buffalo. These machines have so many buttons and knobs, it'll make your head spin. Do you know what any of these switches do? OF COURSE NOT! NOBODY DOES! But that doesn't mean we can't rip the buttons off the console and burn them for warmth. It's all about creativity at 12,000 feet up. They got these nifty little backpacks in the back compartment, if you pull the string on them, a giant, round sheet pops right out. Ain't that convenient? A pillow and blanket combo for those lonely, overnight flights. The helicopter truly is nature's most mysterious creature.

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• This may be a wheel deck, but we aren't entirely reliant on wheels to draw us cards, we have plenty of ways to fill our hand. A big part of the sequencing of this deck is knowing when to utilize draw condition vs. when to wheel. Traditional wheels will negate any draw condition used before them. Windfall-style wheels will essentially double any draw condition used immediately before them (assuming you have the largest hand).

• The hit-based draw condition should be pretty easy to parse. Bident of Thassa and Coastal Piracy are essentially the same card; you hit someone, you draw, very simple. Edric, Spymaster of Trest is of course a little more complicated, always analyze the board state to make sure you aren't handing someone the game by playing this. Always play Edric on M1, before you're about to hit someone, unless your opponents can't draw much off of Edric. When it comes to all of these, keep in mind that you're going to draw after M1, so if you're holding onto a wheel beforehand, you should consider whether or not you want to use it before or after you draw.

• We have 4 other creatures that draw us cards, we covered 2 of them already, so I'll go over the other 2. Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Arcanis the Omnipotent are pure draw condition; they do nothing but draw cards.

• Arcanis is very straightforward, if you don't have a wheel, most turns will probably start by activating him, then you can use Derevi triggers to untap him, and you can use as many as you like, so he can draw you A TON of cards. Expect the table to react to him hitting the board, try to hold up mana after playing him if you can.

• Azami is interesting for a number of reasons, we can use her the turn she comes out, and also untap her like Arcanis, but keep in mind that Derevi is a wizard, along with a few others. Untapping any wizard while Azami is out is as good as untapping Azami herself, so make use of that, and untap all of your other wizards before you untap Azami.

• There are a few X draw spells in this deck, they're super useful in a deck like this that can go big on mana. They are all at instant speed, but thanks to Derevi, tapping out to get a big draw on M1 is reasonable when you can expect to refill on mana on M2. Of course, it will usually be preferable to do this during an opponent's end step, but if you feel like you're closing in on a win, a big X draw can easily get you there.

• Our X draw spells can be particularly strong when Mind Over Matter is in play, because we can discard every other card in our hand to maximize the X value, then discard the chaffe to generate mana to cast the cards we actually want. It's not unheard to chain multiple X spells together with Mind Over Matter in play and draw your whole deck.

Remember Your Flight Plan (Combos and Winning the Game)

There comes a time in every pilot's life where they ask themself the question, "Where the hell am I going in this goddamn thing?" For me that's usually about an hour after takeoff, which brings us into our next lesson; always have a flight plan. If you takeoff without an idea about what you'll be doing up there, just about anything is liable to happen. Never take this for granted, we've lost too many good pilots to literal flights of fancy. That's how we lost Ricky. When coming up with a flight plan, always follow The Golden Rule, NEVER fly over my property! That air space is no fly, and I run a strict shoot first and ask questions later household.

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• Ok, so how do we win? This is a combo deck, so naturally, we have a couple of combos we rely on to finish the job. The combos can be assembled in a few different ways and can work with a few different payoffs, so this one might take a while.

• This deck primarily looks to win the game with Deadeye Navigator. We can use it along with Derevi's ETB trigger and a mana source that generates 3 mana, 2 of which is blue to generate infinite blue mana, which we can then use to make infinite other colors of mana, and have infinite tap and untap triggers.

• At this point, we'll need draw condition to finish the game, but without it, we can stall the game out in this lock until we find it. During each opponent's turn, you can tap all of their permanents on their upkeep, so they can only use what they can cast at instant speed, or what they can cast purely off of their land drops. This lock is extremely hard to interact with due to the nature of Deadeye Navigator, but it can be stopped with instant-speed board wipes.

• Once you have Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician with a three mana source and draw condition, you can draw and play the whole deck. But how do we kill our opponents? The quickest and safest way is to force each of your opponents to draw 101 cards using Blue Sun's Zenith. It goes back into your library when used so you can just draw it again after you kill someone. If for some reason, USZ is not available, maybe it's exiled, we can swing in with infinite damage thanks to Finale of Devastation, Shalai, Voice of Plenty can also do this.

• If we can't get Deadeye, we can combo off the hard way with Mind Over Matter (I told you I'd be mentioning it a lot). As mentioned before, we can use it in tandem with Spectral Sailor or River Hoopoe and a mana source of the right size to infinitely cycle through our deck, but what I didn't mention is that it's even more effective with Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Arcanis the Omnipotent. MOM goes infinite with both regardless of mana sources. With Azami, we cycle through the deck, same as the other combo. With Arcanis we net 2 cards on every activation making it significantly more potent. But where do we go from here?

• Once you have an infinite going with MOM, you can dig for X draw spells and wheels to get cards to pitch to net mana, then get more cards, get more mana, and when you run out of cards, reset the library with a wheel (remember that Echo of Eons goes to the graveyard which means you can use it again if you use a different wheel to shuffle it back in). Eventually you will have enough mana to draw your deck with an X spell, overload Rift, cast some creatures, then finish off your opponents with Finale of Devastation.

• I'd also like to reiterate that Consecrated Sphinx + Smothering Tithe + a wheel will get you the combo pieces you need to end the game every time. So you should also consider that to be a game winning combo.

• These three combos are the ones that you will most often look to end the game with, but sometimes you will find that Finale of Devastation finds its way into your hand at the right time, and you get a cheeky beat-down win.

• To some players that are unfamiliar with Derevi, they may find the inclusion of Winter Orb in this non-stax deck to be somewhat out of place. Unfortuately Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Winter Orb is too good of a combo to not run. It is almost completely lopsided, not only do we have plenty of non-land mana sources, but our commander can untap our lands during combat, so we are effected much less by Orb than our opponents. On top of all of this, if Derevi is in the command zone, you can activate her ability to play her at instant speed and tap Orb on an opponent's end step to untap all of your lands while your opponents stay locked.

• This last one is kind of lame, but Shalai's ability can cancel out the persist counters on Glen Elendra Archmage, allowing you to use her negate ability indefinitely.

Graduation

Congratulations!

You've completed flight school, Airwolf would be proud! You are now qualified to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women. You are now officially king of the skies! Your certificate is in the mail. (we promise!)

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• So that's it, that's the whole deck. Well, barring interaction and Expropriate, but I trust you can figure that stuff out for yourself.

• You'll enjoy playing this deck if you like shuffling the library, casting Mind Over Matter, or flipping cardboard sideways until your wrists break.

• You won't enjoy this deck if you don't play Magic the Gathering, hated my unfunny helicopter jokes, or have a crippling fear of our avian overlords.

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• Thanks again for taking a look at this deck, I've put a lot of work into it and I'm really proud of it. If you enjoyed this, I'd appreciate an upvote, and please leave your thoughts in the comment section. If you are thinking about playing this deck, please let me know. I've written out a commentated maybeboard that I hope you'll find useful.

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Maybeboard

• Dawn's Reflection - Functionally identical to Market Festival.
• Finale of Revelation - It might be worth adding more X draw spells like Stroke of Genius.
• Nature's Claim - Might be a better fit than Return to Dust, but it doesn't exile.
• Eldrazi Displacer - New combo piece but the land base would need a tweak and it's still worse than Deadeye.
• Shared Summons - Can help us fill out a combo or just get us back in the game.
• Birthing Pod - Can be used repeatedly with Derevi and she always costs 4 to 'recast'.
• Riftsweeper - Can recover crucial combo pieces, as well as wheels and Expropriate.
• Paradox Engine - Enables tons of bullshit and can open up the deck to new combos.
• Rhystic Study and Sylvan Library - Straightforward draw condition.
• Teferi, Time Raveler - Let's us cast wheels at instant speed and stop interaction.
• Tezzeret, Artifice Master - Fliers and draw condition with a game-winning ult.
• Mana Drain - Strict upgrade to Counterspell but I don't like including this card in techs.
• Timetwister - Strict upgrade to Time Reversal but I like to put power 9 in techs.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	1 year
Key combos	Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician Consecrated Sphinx + Smothering Tithe Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Winter Orb
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 51 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.00
Tokens	Elephant 3/3 G, Emblem Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Plant 0/2 G, Treasure