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Motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!

Commander / EDH Bracket 4 RUG (Temur)

space4cat

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Land (38)

Sorcery (14)

Artifact (13)

Enchantment (9)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Xyris, the Writhing Storm

Creature (13)

Instant (12)

️ Xyris, the Writhing Storm – Lore of the Stormcoil Serpent “Its body is a stormfront. Its thoughts are thunder. Its will is chaos.”

Origin – Spawn of Skysnakes and Secrets Long ago, deep within the turbulent folds of the Iquatian Tempest, a plane where storms think and clouds whisper forgotten truths, the first mindstorm was born. This wasn’t a weather event. It was sentience made of squalls — a storm that learned to think.

From this psychic maelstrom slithered forth Xyris, a serpentine entity made not of flesh, but of lightning-threaded thought and fractal intelligence. Its scales shimmer with wild magic, and its eyes spiral with infinite knowledge... or madness.

Xyris is not born of a brood. It is written into the sky, a phenomenon mistaken for a god, feared like a force of nature.

Nature – The Storm That Thinks Xyris feeds not on flesh or fear, but on thought itself. It lives to unravel minds, to force creatures to think more, read more, remember everything. It winds through the subconscious of worlds, igniting chaotic insight wherever it coils.

Its magic manifests as a curse: the more you know, the more snakes appear—twisting your thoughts, embodying the overload of cognition. These are not ordinary snakes. They are serpents of synaptic surge, born of ideas forced too quickly, too violently.

Some say each snake is a thought made flesh, slithering with untold truths or impossible riddles. To be bitten is to remember something that never happened... or hasn't yet.

The Wheel Cult – Spinners of the Storm Among planeswalkers and fringe scholars, a mad cabal called the Spinners of the Wheel worship Xyris not as a god, but as a catalyst.

They believe:

“All knowledge must be shared—simultaneously and without mercy.”

They invoke Xyris through ritual wheels: scrolls burned in cyclones, libraries exploded into skyborn chaos. To them, a Wheel spell is not a card draw mechanic—it’s a brainquake that pleases the Stormcoil Serpent.

Wherever a Wheel of Fortune is cast, a part of Xyris awakens.

⚔️ Commanding the Chaos Xyris rarely speaks, but when it does, it murmurs in tongues of static and poetry:

“Draw, little minds. Drown in knowing. Birth the coil. Speak the flood.”

It doesn’t conquer through armies or force. It weaponizes cognition, creating battlegrounds of ideas, information, and overload. The more you understand, the more snakes come.

And when Xyris itself descends from the sky, wings unfurled like stormfronts, thought is no longer a refuge—it’s the battlefield.

Final Note – An Enigma Beyond Comprehension Some suspect Xyris isn’t from any one plane. It may be the thought of a plane—a psychic construct born of billions of minds thinking at once. Others say it’s a fragment of an elder truth, broken into serpent-form to protect the Multiverse from going mad.

Whatever the case...

If you see clouds spiral like a snake’s eye… draw carefully.

yxdriss is a powerlevel 7

How i rate my decks:

  • Jank (1): a slow, awkward, or unreliable deck, a deck where all creatures have hats on.
  • Casual (2-3): a deck not intended for sanctioned tournament use, commanderprecons.
  • Focussed (4-5): a fun deck for Friday night magic, your upgraded precon, deck with theme, budget.
  • Optimised (6-7): a good deck for Friday night magic, good synergy, you have a way to win, good interaction, good manabase.
  • High power (8-9): A very powerfull deck, you can win fast, you have almost all the good cards, no budget, your missing some cards to make it competitive, you can stop others from winning, powerfull synergy, almost perfect manabase.
  • Competetive (10): A deck to win as fast as possible and preventing other from winning, you play the best commanders, you have all the best cards for your deck, your still testing and researching to make your deck better then competitive (11)

Disclaimer: I don't like the bracket system of Wizards of the Coast, so I keep using mine because it gives a better idea of my deck's power. In my opinion, one or two cards cannot change the power level. You need a good pilot, a commander with potential, a strong card synergy, and a lot of testing. But more important is to communicate with your playgroup or the community at your local game store.

How to play and how to win?

With Xyris, the Writhing Storm at the helm, you're working with a Temur (RUG) wheel/token strategy that thrives on:

Core Strategy: "Draw = Snake" Xyris says: Whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in their draw step, you create a 1/1 green Snake creature token.

So the main game plan is:

Force opponents to draw lots of cards (via wheel effects and symmetrical draw).

Flood the board with Snakes.

Use those Snakes as a wincon — either by turning them sideways, or sacrificing them for value.

Key Wheel Effects (Draw & Disrupt): These make each opponent draw tons of cards and refill your hand too:

Wheel of Fortune-type effects:

Windfall, Whirlpool Warrior, Time Reversal, Echo of Eons, Reforge the Soul, Molten Psyche

Group draw cards:

Kami of the Crescent Moon, Faerie Mastermind, Jace’s Archivist, Magus of the Wheel

Each of these turns into mass Snake production when Xyris is on board.

Payoffs for Snake Swarms: Impact Tremors, Goblin Bombardment, Shared Animosity, The Reaver Cleaver — turn tokens into direct damage or mana.

Parallel Lives — doubles your Snakes.

Ashnod's Altar / Phyrexian Altar — turn Snakes into mana.

Earthcraft + lots of Snakes = infinite mana (especially with Squirrel Nest or Cryptolith Rite style effects).

Skullclamp = draw engine with disposable Snakes.

Protection & Utility: Heroic Intervention, Obscuring Haze, Deflecting Swat, Force of Negation, Cyclonic Rift — protect your board and disrupt threats.

Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study (if added), Spellseeker, Mystical Tutor — consistency and tutoring.

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Bloom Tender, Chromatic Lantern — smooth your mana for three-color plays.

Combos / Big Turn Synergies: Wheel + Xyris + Payoff Windfall or Time Reversal with Xyris = potentially 21+ Snakes.

Follow up with Impact Tremors = lethal damage.

Or The Reaver Cleaver on Xyris → attack → make tons of Treasure, then cast a wheel to go off again.

Jace’s Archivist + Xyris Tap Archivist every turn to force a wheel — low-cost, repeatable Snake engine.

Altar + Skullclamp Sack Snakes for mana → Clamp more Snakes → keep going.

With Parallel Lives, you might generate infinite draw/mana loops.

Molten Psyche + lots of Artifacts Late game, this can be a wincon when you have a bunch of mana rocks/treasures in play.

Other Ideas You Might Explore: Psychosis Crawler or Niv-Mizzet, Parun as alternative wincons through card draw.

Curiosity combo on Niv-Mizzet for infinite draw/damage loop.

Intruder Alarm + token generators for infinite combos.

These are the players I sit with most often at the table and the "typical" decks they play.

Player 1: Is a master of artifacts. He always builds decks revolving around artifacts, such as Saheeli and Breya. He also has a discard/sacrifice deck led by Tergrid, but he doesn't bring it out very often. His decks are well-built, and I definitely shouldn't underestimate him.

Player 2: This player has extensive knowledge of the game (ex-judge) and can pilot any deck well. He builds a lot of decks (with proxies) and always surprises us with something new. He sometimes netdecks, so there's no specific playstyle, although sacrifice strategies frequently appear.

Player 3: All of his decks are tribal. He has a Merfolk, Vampire, Spiders, and Faeries deck. He always ensures enough control in his decks to avoid board wipes.

Player 4:

Player 5: He's very good at building underdog decks. He often flies under the radar and wins out of nowhere with a combo or by stealing the win from someone who's put in a lot of effort. He enjoys playing with weenies, combos, and the graveyard.

Player 6: He plays on an extreme budget but can pilot a deck very well. He uses cheap and bizarre cards (you can't replicate his style) and always manages to snag a win. He enjoys playing luck-based decks, -1/-1 counters, enchantments, aggro, dragons, etc.

Players 7 and 8: Are new players who are currently using precons from Bloomburrow (Animated Army).

Player 9: He enjoys control and playing in the background. Oloro, Sen Triplets, and Grand Arbiter are decks he enjoys playing. In 1v1 or Two-Headed Giant, he often pulls out his cat deck, which is very strong. He also enjoys experimenting with the color black.

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Casual

97% Competitive