Crow Storm?

I don't want to use any un-cards, since that opens up a major rabbithole.

Crow storm is pretty funny though and might even be decent (although I feel it would not be good enough).

Update(23-01-18) (actually done earlier, but I only started to track it since now):

In: Merchant scroll, Opt

Out: Regrowth, Serum visions

Regrowth didn't do anything for me most of the time, even though it's really good in theory, wanted to try out merchant scroll even though I feel it's very narrow.

Trying opt over serum visions since I feel the instant speed might help me combo with paradox engine more often or let me be able to leave mana open for counters, and scrying before you draw is often more relevant in a generic game. Still, the scry 2 is relevant when cascading with Yidris sometimes, so I might put serum visions back in some day.

Update (27-01-18):

In: Birds of paradise, Abrupt decay

Out: Izzet signet, opt

Opt isn't that exciting either. I'd rather run a piece of removal and be a little bit slower in that way, than run a mediocre card. Birds of paradise was in before, changed to a signet to help with metalcraft and not needing green on turn one, but it's a lot better than a signet.

I really like this build and will look into using a couple of your card choices. How does this work vs other top tier decks and how have you felt about waste not ?

This deck has really explosive early turns because it plays very little dead cards, but in comparison to some other (storm) decks, the amount of counterspell-interaction is a little low.

Because the card quality is pretty high, you can usually still come back if you get stopped in the early game and need to go to the mid or late game, especially compared to other Yidris decks that play more creatures and have even more explosive turns, but therefore also play cards that are less good standalone.

I like waste not, it can be a wincon in itself and might be as good as notion thief + wheel, but costs 2 less mana overall. It's on my watchlist as one of the weaker cards in the deck because it only interacts with very specific cards, but it's stronger than you'd expect if you also play the good targeted discard.

After reviewing all of the talk on cEDH Redbit, this is what I've put together so far. I would like to know what you think.

The Inevitable Storm

Commander / EDH Shane.Allen

SCORE: 2 | 4 COMMENTS | 189 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Thanks for the comments! This list is nice.

I was interested in Idris, so I will ask you if there is anything I don't understand when I build it. (I am sorry if my English is strange because I am Japanese.)

Hey, no problem! Glad you like the list.

Feel free to ask if there's anything you don't understand. As a start you could read through the how to play section. Going through the changelog could also help you get a good feeling of the deck. Anything else: just ask!

And your English is fine, don't worry about it. :)

Thank you ＼(^o^)／

Hey, I noticed you are running Arbor Elf , but you literally only have 2 forests lol. Don't you think one of the mono-green elves would be better?

I have a fairly budget (~$400) version of this deck that I'm wanting to build if anyone is curious. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I'm very new to cEDH, but I hold my own against my meta's Paradox Scepter Thasios, Splinter Twin Kess, and Najeela Infinite Combats.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/24-05-19-yidris-mael-storm-wielder/

Hey Whoa,

That's correct. I just put that in the deck really recently (5 days ago) and am still playtesting it. Even though I have just two forest, I have nine lands in total that work well with Arbor Elf (3 green fetches, 3 blue fetches, one blue-green fetch and the shock and dual land). Aside from that I have a lot of draw and wheels, which increase the chance of drawing one of these pieces. All in all I think that might be enough to be worth the inclusion. Arbor Elf has the benefit of "tapping for blue", which is the colour I need the most of. This is a downside of the elves that tap for green. Usually when I have a green mana, especially in the early game, I don't need any more green. This is especially true if you go for the early-Yidris plan. The elf Untapping a land can also be beneficial with High Tide , making the elf tap for more than 1 mana.

Time will tell whether it's actually good enough. It will be reflected in the changelog, with reasoning, if I do decide to remove it again. Thanks for the question!

In case you are interested FurFur has a really nice version listed on this site and it's definitely one you should take a look at to help optimize what the deck wants to do. I've got a version that's tuned to getting Yidris down on turn 2 95% of the time and going off on turn 3 essentially every game. Maybe 1 in 10 you fizzle with the manual cascade, but with proper sequencing this is pretty rare. Have a look here Yidris Wheel if you're looking to tune yours for speed and consistency. Paradox Engine being banned is an issue, but I'll probably just replace it with Turnabout or maybe Benefactor's Draught if I find a way to re tune the mana dork set up. Wheel of Fate is a must run in this deck, fyi.

Hello there yay,

I have seen FurFur's list before. I don't agree that it's an optimisation of this deck, but rather a deck that plays the same commander with a different goal. The goal of his deck it to mill himself and win through an empty library, rather than storm off. This is reflected in some of the card choices, which do not fit this specific style of deck.

The goal of your deck does seem to storm off, although I must admit I fail to see the actual wincon in your deck. I agree with the fact that your deck is faster on average, but not with the fact that it's more consistent. Your deck seems to rely solely on getting your commander out as fast as possible, then win through its ability. If he's ever stopped, there are a lot of cards in your deck that do nothing, while one of the strengths of this deck is that there are very few dead cards. Because of this, I feel the consistency of your deck is lower rather than higher. If, in your meta, Yidris always connects I can see why you would say it's more consistent. Speaking of dead cards outside of cascade turns, Wheel of Fate is one of those cards. I used to play it, but it was often not needed in the cascade turns and absolutely horrible outside of it. Paying two mana and waiting four turns allows your opponents to prepare for it way too well, by countering it or emptying their own hands...if you're not dead before it's being cast. Lotus Bloom and Ancestral Vision at least have lower costs and/or take less long to suspend, as well as providing value only to yourself.

Thanks for the comment and suggestions. If you feel like my assessment is wrong, please correct me. One other thing I'm wondering is whether you ever have problems with your manabase. Your deck seems pretty evenly split among four colours, which seems hard on the manabase. I don't have experience with this, however, so please let me know.

@ Natux Hey there! FurFur does indeed opt into the storm route and his version and the Melt Banana version are both very optimized toward the overall meta and have been consistently potent performers over many hundreds of games. I tend to agree that I think a bit more tuning could get the deck to do what it does even more consistently which is how I wound up with my variant on it.

In high level cEDH win cons like Laboratory Maniac and Aetherflux Reservoir , while commonly used, are generally considered poor win conditions as they add dead card draws to the deck and running as many "live" cards as possible tends to result in more wins per 100 games played. It's why I rarely ever run those types of win cons in any deck I play for competitive purposes and instead usually just rely on reaching an infinite position before looping interaction or utility pieces I would already otherwise be running as the win conditions. In my variant I simply loop cards like Windfall , Wheel of Fate , Wheel of Fortune , and Praetor's Grasp infinitely to deck opponents. No "dead card" win condition slots that way and the consistency is markedly improved because of it. It's still a deck with dramatically more cards that are bad in opening hands than typical Sultai PS shell lists, but when compared to other fast, aggressive combo decks it had slightly less.

In the cEDH meta most of the fast combo decks that can reliably win by turn 3 aren't actually very good at being able to manage top level win rates. The more card slot efficient Sultai PS shells are simply too capable of preventing that type of strategy with access to the highest quality cheap interaction spells around. This kind of pushes decks like DD/Shimmer Zur, Flash Hulk, and certainly Yidris into a meta space where these decks rather have to go all in and hope the superior opposing decks don't have an answer and that's why my list is tuned to do precisely that. It goes big, or it goes home, and in a few hundred some odd games it's managed a fairly nice 27-28% win rate. Right on par with the other fast combo decks that generally win in the 25-29% range, but definitely less eye popping than the 35%+ some of the Sultai PS shells pull off. There really isn't a point to trying to play a Yidris deck in any fashion except as an all in combo race deck, other decks do the Mid Range Control or Stax Control styles much better and you'd be better off playing one of them if you were looking to win after turn 3. It certainly sucks to see Yidris get Swords'ed and know you're essentially a spectator in the match, but that's kinda the price you pay when you bring Yidris to a table. It's all about being as consistently fast as possible to combo off before any one has a chance to acquire answers or combo off themselves.

As far as Wheel of Fate goes this card is an absolute must run for an optimized Yidris list. It's simply too good at what it does and proper sequencing of cascade triggers and spell casts can usually mean it's cast-able on demand after you cycle out all the 0 cmc spells in the deck when cascade chaining. This is also why my list is running more than a few ways to stick it back into the deck. The ability to gas back up on demand and generate net mana positive cascade loop cycles is what allows the deck to storm off in the first place. Granted this was much easier in my variant with PE, so the banning of that card is going to require some fine tuning to make the list fully functional again. No matter what, that list lost a significant amount of consistency in it's cascade chain cycling due to the PE ban. I'm unlikely to run that deck for a while until I figure out some way to solve the issue in testing.

When it comes to the mana base for that list it was pretty difficult to tune it and it took a lot of time tweaking what dorks were being run in combination with what lands and what mana fixers to make it not only super consistent about getting Yidris down on turn 2, but also be able to function during the cascade chaining portion. In the end I realized that getting Yidris down was a lot more important as most mana issues after starting the cascade chain get solved by the very process of cascade chaining and pulling all those 0 cmc mana rocks out of the deck, so the mana base and dorks were eventually tuned to be as consistent as possible about getting Yidris down turn 2 which resulted in a fairly even split. Most 4 and 5 color decks are actually super consistent though because of all the fetch and duals they run. Typically about 15 or more lands that wind up being run count as "comes into play untapped for any color" lands in terms of functionality and this means the odds of having one in your opening hand are right on the money at 1/6. Never really have issues on that note in most 4+ color decks for cEDH. Fetch lands are OP. Just make sure to always run at least 28 lands for competitive play (and this is usually paired with a dork/rock count of 16 for 44 total mana sources and a high degree of consistency).

As far as your list is concerned, its pretty nifty, but from a competitive veiwpoint it has some issues that will cause it problems. It's too slow to be able to race against other race decks despite running the most all in race commander in the entire format, and yet lacks the card quality and grind ability to stick it out in longer matches with control decks. It's kind of in this middle zone where it doesn't quite do any of the things it's trying to do well enough to win against top tier cEDH meta decks at a much better than 20-22% rate, and that might be a generous estimate. It'd likely be best to tune it to do it's thing as fast as possible and eschew pieces that don't jive with that game plan, or transfer the shell to a different commander and tune it to a more Mid Rangy type of gameplan.

@yaymc1130

Thanks for the quick and lengthy response and for the information on the landbase, I forgot your list isn't running High Tide . That frees up a severe restraint on the manabase.

First of all, your tone seems to indicate that you think either this list is new or I as a player am new to cEDH. I've also played this deck several hundreds of games (Paper/Discord/Cockatrice) and I have never experienced the problems you mention are so prevalent for this deck. I've also played against Jim (creator of melt Banana) a few times, and this deck usually performed at least as well. Sadly, I cannot back this claim up with specific win-percentages as I haven't tracked those. I do wonder where you get the percentages of those other decks from.

This deck is also perfectly capable of either winning or stopping someone from winning on at least turn three. The way this is achieved is usually through manual storm, rather than going all-in on the commander. This, once again, ensures that sub-optimal cards can be kept to a minimum. The reason why Yidris is chosen as a commander is because it provides a very solid backup plan to a storm deck that also provides you with 4 colours. Other commanders either don't provide a solid-backup for a storm shell or are less colours, which decreases the general powerlevel of the cards.

The other points you make about needing to play at least 28 lands, this deck being too slow to race or lacking card quality all seem contradicted by the fact that this deck simply has been performing well over the past few years in different metas. If you have any specific arguments on what cards are suboptimal and why, why 28 lands would be statistically better than 27 or show that the average winning turn of this deck is later than other cEDH decks, I'll gladly hear them. For now, your arguments seem to be based off personal preference and experience. That doesn't decrease the value of the insights they give, but also isn't too helpful if the decks differ in what they do (All-in commander vs. Back-up plan for storm). My comments also aren't meant in a way as to make your style seem necessarily weaker, but rather as a way to acknowledge the downsides to the strategy you are suggesting.

@ Natux No offense taken mate, respectful discussion is how people learn, grow and come to understand new ideas. I'm definitely not the world's greatest gift to cEDH and I'm constantly striving to pick up information where I can from whomever I can.

I, by no means, assumed you were a new to cEDH player. Those players tend not to have well crafted lists and solid understandings of the meta and you clearly do. I did rather assume that the quality of competition you face in terms of players and decks is liable to be less than the quality of competition I tend to play with, but this is generally true considering my playgroup consists of 4 regulars who've all played for nearly 25 years and who all (minus myself) have achieved success at the professional level of play (I'm legit the only one in the play group without a single life time pro point, sad face), both at Pro Tours and GPs. The percentages I'm using come directly from our tracked data of games played. There's all sorts of info out there for Modern, Standard, Legacy and what not, but there is very little meta information collected when it comes to EDH so we started tracking our own when I first got really into EDH about 2 and a half years back. The program has about 8000 games worth of data at this point and is a nifty resource, I absolutely recommend using Excel to start tracking your own data.

I also don't want to give the impression that I don't comprehend your decks intended game plan, that much seemed pretty clear. It's just that using Yidris as a back up plan for a storm concept probably isn't ideal use of either Yidris or the storm archetype. Consultation Kess has a similar game plan and is significantly better at executing it, both because of the enhancement that game plan gets from the command zone and because of the card selection typical of those decks. Granted it isn't exactly the most potent gameplan in the meta, but I'm just using it as an example. It's not that you can't use Yidris as a back up, it's just that this isn't the most ideal use of Yidris. You might as well be all in on the ultra fast combo approach or opt into a different commander that better executes that style of gameplan, or even opt into a superior gameplan in the same colors and simply run the Sultai PS shell of Thrasios/Smasher. If it's going to be Yidris, might as well do Yidris things the Yidris way. Again, it's not that Yidris can't perform in a different fashion, it's just that there are better options generally for that style.

Land count isn't an exact thing, but there are some pretty common understandings in terms of the math. 44 out of 99 is a solid percentage, it generally means you'll be seeing the proper amount of mana sources in opening hands to facilitate your game plan. This means less mulligans and greater consistency which translates into more wins per 100 games played. That ratio (with the sub ratio of 28/16) means the odds for a typical opening hand will have that hand consist of 2 lands and one ramp piece. Your deck is a bit shy of that at 27/15 and 2 of those rocks are Lotus Bloom and Lion's Eye Diamond which aren't really effective ramp pieces. You'll probably have to mulligan 7-10% more often than you otherwise would per 100 games played just because of that mana source count, just something for you to consider.

I think what you're really looking for is something specific though, so let me see if I can provide an example of a specific change that would improve the deck. You're currently running Goblin Electromancer , primarily in a cost reduction role. This isn't an awful card, but the function it serves is pretty limited. It's only reducing Sorceries and Instants, and you have Baral to supplement that. If both are out on the field at the same time, very little of your deck is going to benefit from them both being out, it's just your wheel effects, Yawg Will, Force of Will, and Ad Naus. You could instead replace that card with Helm of Awakening and now all those cards would still benefit, but so would some of your enchantments, all your artifacts, and some of your creatures, significantly improving the quality of your storm turns when you go off. The draw back is negligible when you're storming off as you already are in a position where opponents couldn't stop you from comboing, so they likely can't even make use of it the overwhelming majority of games. In addition, your mana base is much less strained as the cmc is the same compared to the Electromancer, but the lack of color requirement makes casting it significantly easier. Just changing this one card would be an improvement that probably accounts for 1 or 2 more wins per 100 games played with your deck than it currently will achieve.

As for the average winning turn, that kind of stuff rather depends on the matches that get played and the decks included in it, but a useful indicator of relative speed, barring interaction, is the goldfish test. If you goldfish your list 100 times (taking into account mulligan rules in the event these are needed based on opening hands) it's going to average a gold fish win somewhere between turns 4-5. Probably close to 4.3 or 4.4 is my guess (haven't done this with your deck so it's purely an estimation, but I am pretty okay at that). By comparison the average goldfish win turn for my list is in the low 3s, almost a whole turn better. Now this data doesn't actually mean all that much in the grand scheme of things because real games aren't solitaire, but this information can be a useful indicator for relative speed of a deck.

Hopefully all this is a bit more informative, sorry if the first set of responses was a bit more ambiguous.

@jaymc1130

Certainly agreed. Thanks for the, once more, in depth reply.

Nice that you're tracking data so extensively. I should strive to track my own games as well.

While I can see that a commander such as Kess has a better gameplan with fewer dead cards, I also often feel that those decks stray from the traditional storm route in favour of a different and/or more compact wincon. Just regarding storm commanders, I still feel like Yidris is one of the better options simply because it does provide a 4th colour while being relevant to your primary gameplan. It might be possible that traditional storm isn't as strong as it once was, now that several decks have access to really strong and compact wincons. This is something I've been wondering lately and is something I'll have to think about. If I want to hold on to traditional storm, I still feel like Yidris is one of the better, if not the best option.

The math on the land count is interesting. I took the current amount of lands and permanent-based ramp following calculations from Frank Karsten on 60 card decks. 27 lands seemed to be the most beneficial following those calculations, but I concede the fact that I could run one or two more permanent-based ramp pieces. I suspect it's highly dependant on what is all considered in the calculation, as carddraw and non-permanent based ramp also allows you to hit your landdrops and cast your spells. I am always keeping an eye out on the fact that I run a low amount of mana, so it's good to be reminded of this once again.

I can see why you think Goblin Electromancer would not fit the list, and I agree with practically every point you're making. I specifically included that one because my current meta consists of a lot of creature based decks. The reason why it's included is more the fact that it can block Tymna's and Najeela's than that I'm in love with the creature itself. The cost reduction is a nice bonus, and I believe it's the best blocker that is also relevant for the general gameplan of the deck. Because of this specific meta, electromancer will likely provide me with a few more percentage points towards a win, but only because it's a meta call. I had also written this down in the changelog, in case other players might be wondering why that card is in here.

Lastly, I can also see why this deck would be a little slower than yours when goldfishing. On the other hand, this deck is likely a bit better at getting back in the game if your commander gets removed as well as being a bit better at manual storm. This is a tradeoff to make, and I don't have the exact answer or solution here, I've always preferred the safer version a bit more. The most important takeaway for me, I think, is to consider whether manual storm is still preferable over other compact wincons.

@ Natux I think most Kess decks these days tend to go for the Consultation win lines over the storm ones when an opening occurs in match, it's pretty easy to use one forbidden tutor into the Lab Man into the other tutor. I never liked these lines because they are such a huge risk, even if the reward is winning the game. Me, personally, I don't ever like taking the chance I'll exile my win condition when I attempt to go for the win so I stick with more conservative game styles for competitive play for the most part. Plus, storming off is fun, particularly with manual cascade Yidris. It's like solving a really complex puzzle making sure each piece is put in place in the proper order. I don't think there's any question that Storm archetypes, DD archetypes, Flash Hulk archetypes, even Gitrog's Dredge archetype, are a lot less effective than these strategies used to be. The meta is always evolving, people are always finding new solutions to problems, and the Sultai PS shells completely crushing all competitors using extreme card slot efficiency and looped win conditions kind of warped the meta. PE got banned and the truth is that those decks were the least affected of all the decks that made use of PE! I feel really bad for Sisay and Arcum players. There's really no question that Yidris is one of the best storm options out there (and I really enjoy that Storm archetypes actually have sub genres as well), but I certainly do feel like it's a strategy that is more limited in it's effectiveness these days.

Mana bases are hard in cEDH. Decks have to be fast enough to compete with the ever present ultra fast boogey men of the format, have to run enough lands to be able to play effectively without killing opening hand consistency or missing critical land drops, but not run so many that they draw lands when they really need gas. It's a really fine line and there really isn't a specific number that leads to success as deck, commander, meta, and archetype all make a difference. Some decks like Gitrog run 35ish, while a deck like Urza that's running 6 bajillion artifacts might barely want to run 28. I always find that the best way to find out is just playtesting. Get in 30 or 40 games and see if your initial thoughts are working out in the way you intend and adjust accordingly. I almost always start with 44 total sources and then mess with it as I accumulate results, tweaking the color availability and number as needed.

Some metas call for odd choices. Right around a year ago my group all started to realize a common issue many meta decks had: a single point of failure, one card that, if removed from an opposing deck, meant the deck couldn't ever actually go off. Food Chain, or Lab Man, or whatever it might have been was the only way for a deck to operate or win. My entire playgroup started to run Extract in literally every deck that ran blue and Praetor's Grasp in every deck that ran black. Most decks had both of these colors. If the deck had access to Mardu colors Hide also creeped in. It suddenly became a requirement to run not just a win condition, or an engine, but triple redundancy of absolutely everything your deck wanted to do or it just wouldn't be allowed to compete. If you played a deck our group knew didn't contain triplicate redundancy, you were first target and before turn 2 or 3 ended all your ways to win would be exiled. Naturally this evolved into every deck running Riftsweeper or Pull from Eternity style responses. It was a damn arms race and a radically informative period for us all. Then Ashiok, Dream Render got printed... A lot of our games wind up with a third of everyone's deck in exile these days and I'm still surprised at just how slow the cEDH community is to catch on to the power of these pieces. Sometimes I'm even laughed at for discussing the ways in which they can be employed by players who have never, and will never, win a profession level event. Meta calls can certainly be important.

No question about it, my Yidris list is NOT going to recover. It's not designed to, it doesn't intend to. It's kind of a stat check deck. "Does any one have an immediate answer on turn 2? No? Ok, I win." I'm definitely a player that prefers more conservative style decks, but you can't always play just one thing and one style. It's fun to mix it up and when I'm going for a more all in style I'm going 100% all in on whatever it is the deck is supposed to do and I'm going to do it as fast as it's possible to do and damn the consequences. You either got an answer, or ya don't. The hilarious thing about that list is that it generally takes 3 working together to stop it. It's a threat to win every single turn the second it untaps and if people ran out of resources without winning themselves than it just means the umpteenth attempt is the charm. All it needs is a Yidris swing and a single spell that's usually 1 cmc.

@ Natux I think most Kess decks these days tend to go for the Consultation win lines over the storm ones when an opening occurs in match, it's pretty easy to use one forbidden tutor into the Lab Man into the other tutor. I never liked these lines because they are such a huge risk, even if the reward is winning the game. Me, personally, I don't ever like taking the chance I'll exile my win condition when I attempt to go for the win so I stick with more conservative game styles for competitive play for the most part. Plus, storming off is fun, particularly with manual cascade Yidris. It's like solving a really complex puzzle making sure each piece is put in place in the proper order. I don't think there's any question that Storm archetypes, DD archetypes, Flash Hulk archetypes, even Gitrog's Dredge archetype, are a lot less effective than these strategies used to be. The meta is always evolving, people are always finding new solutions to problems, and the Sultai PS shells completely crushing all competitors using extreme card slot efficiency and looped win conditions kind of warped the meta. PE got banned and the truth is that those decks were the least affected of all the decks that made use of PE! I feel really bad for Sisay and Arcum players. There's really no question that Yidris is one of the best storm options out there (and I really enjoy that Storm archetypes actually have sub genres as well), but I certainly do feel like it's a strategy that is more limited in it's effectiveness these days.

Mana bases are hard in cEDH. Decks have to be fast enough to compete with the ever present ultra fast boogey men of the format, have to run enough lands to be able to play effectively without killing opening hand consistency or missing critical land drops, but not run so many that they draw lands when they really need gas. It's a really fine line and there really isn't a specific number that leads to success as deck, commander, meta, and archetype all make a difference. Some decks like Gitrog run 35ish, while a deck like Urza that's running 6 bajillion artifacts might barely want to run 28. I always find that the best way to find out is just playtesting. Get in 30 or 40 games and see if your initial thoughts are working out in the way you intend and adjust accordingly. I almost always start with 44 total sources and then mess with it as I accumulate results, tweaking the color availability and number as needed.

Some metas call for odd choices. Right around a year ago my group all started to realize a common issue many meta decks had: a single point of failure, one card that, if removed from an opposing deck, meant the deck couldn't ever actually go off. Food Chain, or Lab Man, or whatever it might have been was the only way for a deck to operate or win. My entire playgroup started to run Extract in literally every deck that ran blue and Praetor's Grasp in every deck that ran black. Most decks had both of these colors. If the deck had access to Mardu colors Hide also creeped in. It suddenly became a requirement to run not just a win condition, or an engine, but triple redundancy of absolutely everything your deck wanted to do or it just wouldn't be allowed to compete. If you played a deck our group knew didn't contain triplicate redundancy, you were first target and before turn 2 or 3 ended all your ways to win would be exiled. Naturally this evolved into every deck running Riftsweeper or Pull from Eternity style responses. It was a damn arms race and a radically informative period for us all. Then Ashiok, Dream Render got printed... A lot of our games wind up with a third of everyone's deck in exile these days and I'm still surprised at just how slow the cEDH community is to catch on to the power of these pieces. Sometimes I'm even laughed at for discussing the ways in which they can be employed by players who have never, and will never, win a profession level event. Meta calls can certainly be important.

No question about it, my Yidris list is NOT going to recover. It's not designed to, it doesn't intend to. It's kind of a stat check deck. "Does any one have an immediate answer on turn 2? No? Ok, I win." I'm definitely a player that prefers more conservative style decks, but you can't always play just one thing and one style. It's fun to mix it up and when I'm going for a more all in style I'm going 100% all in on whatever it is the deck is supposed to do and I'm going to do it as fast as it's possible to do and damn the consequences. You either got an answer, or ya don't. The hilarious thing about that list is that it generally takes 3 working together to stop it. It's a threat to win every single turn the second it untaps and if people ran out of resources without winning themselves than it just means the umpteenth attempt is the charm. All it needs is a Yidris swing and a single spell that's usually 1 cmc.

Hi, I saw this deck and had literally every card in it, so I said what the hell, and built it. After a few games I decided to make a few changes, and i'd like to know what you think about them (You know the deck better than me). 1st off, I took out a few of the wheels (timetwister, Wheel of Fortune) timetwister b/c I didn't like how often i would cast it and immediately draw a yawgmoth's will. Wheel b/c i don't like giving my opponents a full 7, especially as often i'm fueling a hand full of counter-spells. I find 3 or 4 cards off a windfall plenty to continue storming. I also therefore cut waste not and notion thief. I replaced these cards with a necropotence (felt like having a few more "i win the game" cards would help out) a isochron scepter (found that it gave me a much easier to explain win con, usually also helped against slow play warnings xD, also because having an isocrhon scepter with an assasins trophy under it can pretty much lock at least one person out of the game) and a thousand year storm (clunky with ad nasueum, but gives me an almost instant win the turn I cast it). Also swapped up the mana base a little, cut basics down to 1x island and 1x swamp (nobody in my playgroup plays back to basics) threw in the rest of the duels, cut exotic orchard for reflecting pool, and a couple other minor changes (did this b/c I found i was having to mulligan more hands than I would like b/c I couldn't cast any of the spells). Also cut rolling earthquake b/c i just found infinite mana, narset's reversal, lightning bolt to be just as easy to pull off, if not easier, and bolt kills about 2/3 of relevant creatures. I, as a player, just would like to know your opinion on these changes, as i value you're knowledge of the deck more so than my own. Thanks!

Hey there wookie13, (there's a tl;dr at the bottom)

What you're suggesting in short is:

Remove:

• Timetwister

• Wheel of fortune

• Waste not

• Notion thief

• Rolling earthquake

Add:

• Necropotence

• Isochron scepter

• Thousand year storm

• Two other cards

As well as a few changes to the manabase, mainly changing basic lands to nonbasic lands.

Starting with the wheels, I can see the desire of cutting them since they give your opponents resources as well. The point of these cards is, however, to quickly dump your hand and then continue to storm or at least refill your hand. You cannot find 3 mana draw 6-7 cards anywhere else, and it would be hard for me to suggest cutting these cards. If your opponents usually benefit off of it more than you do you're either playing the deck wrong, or the meta you're playing is just isn't suitable for running wheels. I would remove Windfall way before cutting either twister or wheel of fortune, simply because of the raw number of cards they provide. Removing timetwister also means removing your most consistent back-up wincon, looping through the deck infinitely. By removing timetwister, you're making it really hard on yourself to still win if someone exiles your aetherflux. It's still possible, but significantly harder. Speaking of back-up wincons. Notion Thief with any of the wheels doesn't outright win you the game, but is often enough to completely stop your opponents. This could be considered a win as well, which you're then also removing. I can see you cutting waste not. I haven't liked it myself too much lately either. It's good if other people in your meta run discard or wheels, and less so if they don't. Rolling earthquake is also mostly a meta call. If you don't need it against creature decks, I can see you cutting it.

If you don't run into any nonbasic land hate, I think changing those to different duals is a good idea. Do remember that High Tide is a bit weaker because of the cut islands, but it shouldn't matter much. I would still run one basic island and one snow-covered island, but again, it doesn't matter much if you never run into non-basic land hate. I don't really like cutting exotic orchard for reflecting pool though, since the deck usually wants access to as many of its colours as soon as possible, rather than multiples of the same colour. It does make the BBB of necro easier though.

And that leads me to necropotence. I believe it is an incredibly strong card, and if your mana base supports being able to cast it early for BBB then I would go for it. Because of the way my manabase is set up, I couldn't realistically hit that early. I also didn't like that the discard to exile made my backup wincon impossible or significantly harder to achieve. This is less relevant if you do decide to cut these cards, but once again: I wouldn't recommend it. Isochron sceptre is strong, but in my taste way too easy to deal with. You're paying an additional two mana to be able to go infinite, but exile an imporant card in your deck. If you can play and protect the icochron combo, you could consider it, but do keep in mind that Yidris is not an infinite mana dump and that an artifact with an activated ability is really easy to deal with. Thousand year storm I would simply not play. There are some sweet lines with it, but it's a 6 mana enchantment that's incredibly easy to interact with. If it ever sticks you will likely win, but that's the case with more 6 mana cards. I am not sure what the other two cards you added were, so I cannot comment on those. I do feel that the cards you're suggesting to include (and exclude) would make the deck siginifantly more all-in, and less consistent overall.

tl;dr: I would not cut the wheels and/or notion thief, they are too important for consistency and are needed as backup. If cutting one, windfall is a worse card. Waste not and rolling earthquake seem fine to cut if your meta calls for it. The land changes seem fine if you don't run into non-basic land hate, except that I would not cut exotic orchard. The cards you are suggesting are good cards, and necropotence I would include if your mana base handles it well. The other two are too clunky to use and are simply not needed when storming off.

This is wookie13, I’m dumb and lost my other acct. after seeing your comments, I have rearranged some of my changes. I still stuck with the nonbasic lands, but fixed them up to include a few more islands. My meta right now has a huge control push, hence why I decided to build this deck other than something like a breakfast hulk, I didn’t want to be useless if my main combo got countered. Kept in isochron scepter because it does give some free wins and opens up a bunch of new combos, plus I have burned more than one person out with a scepter on a mana drain or lighting bolt. Did cut the thousand year storm as, though it did give free wins, it was usually stopped before it could do anything. Added in a minds desire (only because it can’t be stopped with only one counter spell) and also added a bit more countermagic (trying to protect the pieces. I still oof against the wheels in my meta, as I would always just fill opponents hands with counterspells. (Btw, my meta has 2 grand arbiter, 2 tasigur decks, and some odd pile of zur/ sisay stax ). Did replace windfall with wheel. Timetwister I can’t really find a spot for yet, running yawgmoth’s will, kinda desire, and regrowth. It will also probably be added in however.

Hey Wookie/Bantha,

After your comment I've reconsidered my own lands as well, and I think I will be running a few more nonbasic lands. I'm currently testing the changes.

Your deck should always be built with your playstyle and meta in mind. Glad you thought about the changes and still changed the deck to suit these elements. I'm sure you'll find a spot for twister, if you do like the card in testing.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! Likewise, I'm also always curious about any insights you may have. Different players always see more, and I'm always ready to learn.