Verazol, the Kicker Meme

Commander / EDH* Counters GU (Simic) Kicker Multikicker

TehLaggy

Sorcery (20)

• 1x Abundant Harvest
• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Field Research
• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Grow from the Ashes
• 1x Inscription of Insight
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Nissa's Pilgrimage
• 1x Oversimplify
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Primal Growth
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Three Visits

Instant (14)

• 1x Anticipate
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Blink of an Eye
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Delay
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Inscription of Abundance
• 1x Into the Roil
• 1x Negate
• 1x Remand
• 1x Swan Song

Land (35)

• 1x Barkchannel Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Castle Garenbrig
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Mouth of Ronom
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 7x Snow-Covered Forest
• 10x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Throne of Makindi
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Bubble Snare
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Hadana's Climb  ^Flip
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Ordeal of Nylea
• 1x Roost of Drakes

Artifact (3)

• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Skyclave Relic
• 1x Twinning Staff

Commander (1)

Creature (17)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Forgotten Ancient
• 1x Ice-Fang Coatl
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Kavu Titan
• 1x Koma, Cosmos Serpent
• 1x Mold Shambler
• 1x Murasa Sproutling
• 1x Prime Speaker Zegana
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sphinx of Lost Truths
• 1x Thassa, God of the Sea
• 1x Thieving Skydiver
• 1x Untamed Kavu
• 1x Wolfbriar Elemental

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns
• 1x Teferi, Master of Time

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Last updated 6-7-2021 (latest expansion: Strixhaven)

Deck Premise

Ramp up to flashy kickers and cast them twice (or more) because it's fun.

Disclaimer: Verazol, the Split Current is not a cEDH commander and never will be. This deck is for a casual EDH format that eschews tutor effects and encourages a slower game that gives time to ramp to the minimum 6-9 mana needed to make big kickers go off.

The list would be completely different if these assumptions aren't in place (and also plummets even more in competitive viability), so we're not going to try to make it work in such an environment.

My pod bans Sol Ring . If yours doesn't, replace a Snow-Covered Forest with it.

This list isn't exactly cheap, especially for a casual EDH deck, but it is somewhat budget-conscious as I own this in paper. A section for price considerations is included at the end. Most cards don't exceed $20, but there are a lot of $5-10 cards (mainly the land base) because they're the best at what they do. More expensive ($30+) cards that would be the usual auto-includes ( Cyclonic Rift , Sylvan Library , Ancient Tomb and so forth) don't show up here; this helps keep the deck in-line with a more casual meta.

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So we need lots of mana to cast our kickers, and we need to find them. Kicker isn't really a supported archetype, so we have to dig. Fortunately, we're simic, so we have access to ramp and draw - but we need a lot of it, as our commander doesn't do these aspects himself (unlike actual good simic commanders ) and as such a massive portion of the deck is dedicated to said ramp and draw. They're unexciting, but they're necessary. Because what's the point of playing Verazol if you can't cast kickers and/or find them?

 

Verazol himself has in his casting cost and scales with all mana used to cast him. As such, he's more amiable to being hit by commander tax than most since we get a naturally bigger body (and more counters to copy your kickers). He also curves out nicely as a nearly guaranteed turn 2 play.

Obviously it's preferable to have flexibility to make Verazol as small or big as we want, and him getting removed is a hindrance to our plans, but he should be relatively low on the threat scale of any given board.

In general (especially early on) we'll want to make him an even-numbered P/T so we can reliably remove him (and thus be able to recast him). Having a 1/1 Verazol is awkward and can cost us tempo.

 

How does kicker win? On paper, it's about having both power and flexibility. The latter lets us dump stuff out on curve when it's the right play - sometimes it's just correct to play Kavu Titan as a bear to set up Primal Growth , or to play Field Research as a vanilla draw 2 effect.

But to make dominating plays we want crazy value. We're trying to go off with cards like Inscription of Insight and Rite of Replication at double effect to really make a splash. Kicker ramp like Skyclave Relic and Grow from the Ashes are dramatically better when kicked and copied by our commander.

 

If we don't luck out on assembling the pieces for your kicker value nuke, finding a viable wincon can be a concern. Since this is a tutor-less format, most combo options are out. Because Verazol is flexible to cast and can become big later on in the game, swinging for commander damage is doable and will often be our recourse.

Other cards like Kalonian Hydra and fellow serpent Koma, Cosmos Serpent are bombs that take advantage of our commander and ramp, and can help us close out the game.

 

Finally, we need answers (I hear board interaction is all the rage nowadays.)

In , running a counterspell suite is obvious. However, the deck is very mana hungry and does not support a draw-go playstyle, so going above 2 CMC is ill advised.

In , staples like Beast Within and Force of Vigor are solid includes.

Most pleasantly surprisingly, there are a lot of good kicker spells in this category. Cards like Blink of an Eye and Mold Shambler get much better when we can copy them with Verazol.

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In-depth Card Analysis

Ramp (13 Cards)

• At , we have Birds of Paradise . Llanowar Elves and friends are possible inclusions, but since Verazol is a reliable turn 2 play on curve it isn't that vital and dorks are more vulnerable than other mana sources; plus we need to aim big due to our high mana needs. Birds are too good though.
• At , we have Nature's Lore and Three Visits , plus Sakura-Tribe Elder and Verazol-special Ordeal of Nylea . For the first two, fetching untapped lands is great, and they can grab Breeding Pool . Steve is a body when we don't need the immediate ramp. Verazol makes Ordeal a reliable trigger, letting us pay 2 for what's usually a 4 mana effect.
• At , we have Cultivate and Kodama's Reach , plus Nissa's Pilgrimage . These thin out the deck, give a land drop for the turn or the next should we need it, and with the number of cantrips we run getting the extra land off Pilgrimage is reasonably likely.
• At , we have Skyshroud Claim , indisputably the best one at this level (again getting untapped lands owns). We can tap out, fetch Breeding Pool , and have counterspell mana ready.
• For kicker ramp, we have Everflowing Chalice , Grow from the Ashes , Primal Growth , and Skyclave Relic . These can be played sans kicker, but ideally we copy them with Verazol as the returns are insanely good (paying 6 to get 6, or paying 5 or 4+sac creature for 4 untapped lands is absurd).

As far as other ramp options go, Rampant Growth is generally worse than running 2 CMC mana rocks, which we already don't run (if you want more ramp at this level, put in Arcane Signet and its other friends first unless your pod is Vandalblast heavy.)

Although we want lots of mana, we don't have any landfall synergy so Explosive Vegetation and its slightly better variants are excessive; we'd much rather get one of our huge kicker ramps off instead.

 

Draw (14 Cards)

• For cantrips, Gitaxian Probe , Preordain , Ponder , and Brainstorm are banned in other formats (for good reason, because you should run them always.)
• Abundant Harvest is excellent and guarantees land drops.
• Serum Visions , Impulse and Anticipate are also very good, as we need to dig a lot.
• Greater Good is an incredible card, provides us insurance against removal/board clears, and has lots of good targets including Verazol.
• Teferi, Master of Time shines in EDH for obvious reasons, and can protect himself to a degree if needed.
• Prime Speaker Zegana is going to draw many cards with Verazol's scaling P/T, often 5-7.
• Consecrated Sphinx is very flashy and a magnet for hate, but also fun. Replace with Recurring Insight if you prefer a safer option.
• Our kicker draws are Field Research and Sphinx of Lost Truths . The former should usually be kicked (6 for draw 6 is much better than 3 for draw 2), but the latter was tournament-worthy in standard with zero kicker synergy, which should clue in how good it is.

In general, you can never go wrong with more card draw, as the deck is starved for it due to both the need to get our best cards and make our land drops. And in particular it's impossible to have too many cantrips, so mix in cards like Opt or Shimmer of Possibility to your heart's content.

Blue options are going to win out over green ones here, since we don't have the creature count to support the latter.

 

Kicker Value/Wincon (10 Cards)

• The default plan is to snowball with kicker value. Roost of Drakes , Inscription of Insight and Rite of Replication are the best cards to achieve this (note we'll often be using Rite on an opponent's creature as we tend to lack sufficient enticing targets.)
• Supporting this are Twinning Staff and Doubling Season , which give an incredible amount of value. Remember that Verazol's copied permanents are tokens!
• The fallback is to go face with commander damage. Hadana's Climb   is tailor-built to work with Verazol (a 3 CMC ramp land which opens up big swings in the air.) Thassa, God of the Sea is good for scry alone - adding in a backdoor for Verazol is even better. Rogue's Passage is one of the few utility lands we include to enable Verazol getting through.
• Kalonian Hydra synergizes wonderfully with Verazol, and several others in the deck ( Kavu Titan , Untamed Kavu , Forgotten Ancient and Prime Speaker Zegana .)
• Koma, Cosmos Serpent is a huge threat if unanswered, and one of his glaring holes - being removed immediately - can be covered with our commander.
• Sea Gate Restoration   and Finale of Revelation are big draws that will put us far ahead in the game.

This is probably the hardest part of the deck to fill out. There are lesser versions of Doubling Season like Branching Evolution but are at risk of being too low impact. Don't run The Ozolith - Verazol has to remove counters to function and your plan shouldn't involve otherwise actively getting him killed. Simic Ascendancy can work but tends to be too slow.

More big draw X spells is likely the best recourse, but remember we aren't control so we don't care too much about them being instants; as such look for maximum value (ergo, Finale of Revelation being the pick over candidates like Blue Sun's Zenith .)

You could throw in expensive eldrazi , combo with Enter the Infinite or whatever but realize then you're just playing generic ramp wincons that, frankly, can be done better with other commanders instead than sticking on theme.

 

Answers (17 Cards)

• 2 mana counterspells, which include Remand , the eponymous Counterspell , Negate , Arcane Denial , and Delay , listed from best to worst (in my opinion.)
• Swan Song , an EDH staple that basically goes in any deck running counterspells.
• Beast Within and Force of Vigor because we're in green, and the underrated Kenrith's Transformation which deals with enemy commanders nicely and replenishes itself.
• Oversimplify because simic getting wrath totally makes sense.
• Ice-Fang Coatl and Mouth of Ronom thanks to snow.
• Oko, Thief of Crowns , responsible for turning Magic the Gathering into a 3/3 Elk.
• Kicker answers? You bet! Bubble Snare is a cheap 2-for-1 under Verazol's influence. Blink of an Eye and Into the Roil are 4 CMC bounce two + draw 2, which is fantastic value. Inscription of Abundance can be a bit unwieldy, but is removal with life gain attached and generally fine with Verazol out. And Mold Shambler blows up two (noncreature) permanents for 6 mana with bodies attached.

This is the most open-to-change part of the decklist, and in simic you have a bazillion options you should tailor to your particular taste. Want mass board bounces? Throw in Wash Out or even Whelming Wave (Verazol/Koma synergy!) Partial to cheap creature or enchantment/artifact removal? Knock yourself out. Is your meta much more about counter wars? Flusterstorm is there for you.

That said, I strongly recommend using the kickers; the ones listed are good value and keep in the spirit of the deck.

 

Generic Goodstuff (10 Cards)

• Eternal Witness and Bala Ged Recovery  
• Thassa, God of the Sea
• Narset, Parter of Veils
• Forgotten Ancient can also fix Verazol's counters in a pinch.

Kickers:

• Kavu Titan , Untamed Kavu , and Wolfbriar Elemental are big, flexible kicker fatties.
• Murasa Sproutling can retrieve our big value kickers if they got countered or board wiped in response.
• Thieving Skydiver is deceptively good value; at worst we pay 3 mana for two flying 2/1's and you can make some outrageous plays like stealing Sol Ring or other mana rocks.

 

Lands (35 Cards) (plus Bala Ged Sanctuary   and Sea Gate, Reborn  )

• Breeding Pool is the most important land in the deck as we can grab it with Forest fetches.
• Lands that produce both and and come into play untapped: Barkchannel Pathway  , Command Tower , Flooded Grove , Hinterland Harbor , Rejuvenating Springs , Waterlogged Grove , and Yavimaya Coast .
• Untapped utility lands: Mouth of Ronom as uncounterable removal, Opal Palace because we'll cast Verazol multiple times and he likes the extra counters, Rogue's Passage for commander lethal, and Throne of Makindi to charge up for big kickers if we have spare mana.
• Castle Garenbrig as it's one extra mana that we can easily dump into Verazol worst-case.
• Mystic Sanctuary isn't great in the opening hand, but is reasonable to meet after a ramp spell (of which we have many) and getting a spell back can be game-changing.
• Simic Growth Chamber helps with land drops, as karoos do.
• Mosswort Bridge 's dig 4 is good even as a tapland and restrictions (Verazol's scaling P/T helps with satisfying it.)
• Temple of Mystery because scry is the cutoff for an effect a tapland is tolerable for.
• Path of Ancestry matches Temple of Mystery with just a single commander cast, and can go off more (including with Koma, Cosmos Serpent .)

In general, avoid taplands unless you really want the effect; the tempo loss significantly hurts, as does strangling your mana for counterspells.

Other dual lands that didn't make the cut were Botanical Sanctum and Vineglimmer Snarl , as they have more stringent conditions.

Yes there's Reliquary Tower or Temple of the False God if that's your thing, but be warned - they aren't actually good in most decks, including this one.

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Other Kickers to Consider

The sad truth is that there aren't many good kicker cards, and a lot of the leftovers only look good (or at least cool) but frankly aren't. The 19 included in this decklist survived multiple passes of pruning and playtesting. If you are dead set on trying to include more, here are some that didn't make the cut but are worth looking at if your goal is to maximize the kicker theme.

For reference, the ones included in the deck are:

Creatures (7): Kavu Titan - Mold Shambler - Murasa Sproutling - Sphinx of Lost Truths - Thieving Skydiver - Untamed Kavu - Wolfbriar Elemental

Artifacts (2): Everflowing Chalice - Skyclave Relic

Enchantments (2): Bubble Snare - Roost of Drakes

Sorceries (5): Field Research - Grow from the Ashes - Inscription of Insight - Primal Growth - Rite of Replication

Instants (3): Blink of an Eye - Inscription of Abundance - Into the Roil

The honorable mentions list:

• Coralhelm Chronicler : Not strictly a kicker card, but support for the archetype. Good on paper but doomed by dig 5 just not cutting it in a deck with 19 targets. If you include more kickers, consider adding this in.
• Rushing River : Bounce 4 for 3 mana is pretty nutty and can set up for game-winning swings or equalize lopsided boards. The problem is that saccing a land is often not an acceptable tempo loss, so it's a dead card early and painful in the midgame despite its low mana cost.
• Territorial Allosaurus : This made it in and out of my deck several times. However, more often than not it felt correct to just play him as a 5/5 on curve, which isn't good enough. 7 mana is a lot for two 5/5's, even if they fight, and 5 P/T often misses the mark on big threats in EDH (you can kill utility weenies, but is that really the casting cost?)
• Myriad Construct : So this is really big in an average EDH game - like double digits P/T big and you get two; sounds great. However, they can be chump blocked, and more often than not they'll draw a board wipe; at which point paying 7 mana for a non-ETB creature is pretty bad. An upside is that single-target removal arguably makes them better (going wide is usually harder to stop), but it still delays swinging for a turn - another turn for the board to find an answer.
• Citanul Woodreaders : Pay 6 to draw 4 and get two 1/4 bodies. Unplayable without kicker. Getting two mediocre blockers doesn't push this card above just getting more cards via blue draw spells like Recurring Insight . But it does have kicker on it and those spells don't.
• Gnarlid Colony : Almost always a worse Kavu Titan ; the difference between 4 and 5 P/T is pretty noticeable. But it's not unplayable, and gives Verazol trample (note you don't generally want Verazol dying to blockers, so this is not as good as giving flying/unblockable.)
• Strength of the Tajuru : This can work as a late game spike, where you mega pump Verazol and something else (multikick it once to make it eligible for copy, and dump everything else into the ) and take out someone immediately. As an instant it can catch people unaware, but still requires a favorable board state.
• Jace, Mirror Mage : The novelty of being a kicker planeswalker doesn't make up for the card just being mediocre. The original doesn't last since it's legendary, so you get a 4 loyalty copy and two 1 loyalty tokens. Paying 5 for draw 3 or scry 2 draw 2 isn't the worst, but it's not good (although if they somehow survive you could get more value out of them.)

I do not recommend the following:

• Verdeloth the Ancient : He looks great, but he's a legendary, so Verazol's copy buries the original. As such he's too big of a mana sink for not enough value (you do get double the saprolings, but it's not efficient.)
• Thicket Elemental : A good card normally, but playing creatures straight out of our deck is actually anti-synergy because we can't pay kickers if we do that.
• Tazeem Roilmage : Kicker 4 is just too much and you might not even be able or want to reanimate two spells. Run Regrowth instead.
• Arctic Merfolk : There is some edge case for using this to bounce your own ETB/kickers back for value, but the body is worthless and it's a dead card when that isn't an option.
• Oran-Rief Recluse : If somehow you play in a pod where you're going to always have two meaningful flying targets to kill and doing it on your main phase is fast enough, sure, but that's not usually the case.
• Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep : Paying 5 more mana than Evacuation just to get 8/8 bodies with your mass bounce isn't worth it.
• Cragplate Baloth : Don't be tempted into thinking it's a good finisher, because it's 10 mana to get owned by chump blockers from lack of trample.
• Vines of Vastwood : Unlike Strength of the Tajuru , these aren't +1/+1 counters that persist and it's not enough impact to be worth it (something like Inspiring Call is better and arguably still not good enough.)
• Vastwood Surge : This is just Explosive Vegetation with an irrelevant kicker attached. Sure, include it in over Explosive Vegetation if you want to run that, but it doesn't particularly do much and is worse than Migration Path .
• Krosan Druid : Something has gone pretty wrong if you're in a situation where you both want and can afford to pay 8 mana for life gain, even 20 life.
• Sea Gate Stormcaller : We do ramp a ton, but the amount of mana this card asks for to be meaningful is really absurd.
• Pouncing Wurm : If they had trample, then maybe, but they don't. Compare with Myriad Construct which, even without haste, is just so much bigger.
• Gnarlid Pack : A 2 mana for 1 P/T ratio is bad even with Verazol copying it (compare to the multikicker that actually gets run, Wolfbriar Elemental .)
• Merfolk Falconer : Does nothing on entry and costs too much for what it does, plus there aren't enough good kickers.
• Vine Gecko : This is worse than a 1 CMC mana dork . Just don't.
• Elfhame Druid : This is barely better than Vine Gecko but again way worse than Llanowar Elves .
• Lullmage's Familiar : Gaining 2 life on kicked spells is not enough to run this over a 3 CMC rock , let alone the 2 CMC rocks you could add.
• Grunn, the Lonely King : Like Verdeloth, being a legendary kills the copy... but even if it didn't, he has anti-synergy with himself! So it's extra bad.

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Budget Changes

If you're looking to cut some of the more pricy cards here are my recommendations.

• Doubling Season : So when I bought this it was much cheaper than it is now. It is extremely good in the deck, but not irreplaceable by any means. You can replace it with another value engine like God-Eternal Kefnet , or basically anything you prefer from a cantrip to removal to your favorite utility .
• Consecrated Sphinx : As mentioned previously, Recurring Insight works in a pinch. If you prefer a slower but bigger investment, consider Mind Unbound .
• Kalonian Hydra : I love this card to death, but it is on the pricier side of things. The deck does lack in reliable wincon cards that aren't kicker reliant, so you'll want to look for something in that realm. Avenger of Zendikar or other armies-in-a-can are acceptable.
• Swan Song : You're paying for the 1 CMC, but it isn't vital in this deck. Numerous other counterspells like Mana Leak , Disdainful Stroke or Decisive Denial work.
• Koma, Cosmos Serpent : Serpent synergy memes aside, he's a flashy simic wincon (in a deck hard up for them) that isn't combo, so I'm really partial to him. But you can add draw acceleration to other wincons instead.
• Thassa, God of the Sea : She're mainly scry value and isn't an essential components of the deck. Search for Azcanta   is similar and a little cheaper, or you could go with more dig .
• Oko, Thief of Crowns : Oko is really good and cannot be replaced with any comparable card. If you cut him, put in whatever you feel like; if you specifically want the polymorph effect, consider Imprisoned in the Moon .
• Teferi, Master of Time : He, on the other hand, can be substituted with a similar midrange blue draw spell or enchantment .
• Sea Gate Restoration  : It's hard to pass up on an untapped land that can also win you the game sometimes, but if you can deal, replace with a Snow-Covered Island .
• Force of Vigor : The budget replacement is a Krosan Grip but you can also basically slot any answer of your choice.
• Nature's Lore and Three Visits : These can be replaced with the usual mana rocks ( Arcane Signet , Talisman of Curiosity or Simic Signet ) with minimal impact.
• Lands in the $5-20 range: There's plenty of dirt-cheap taplands you can throw in, but it comes at a noticeable cost to power. The deck cares about access to colored mana, so it's risky to put in more basics or colorless. Cut Castle Garenbrig first before duals. You can also forgo the snow subtheme (cutting Ice-Fang Coatl , Mouth of Ronom and replacing the snow basics.)

If you're just looking to play Verazol on the cheap and your pod is budget/casual, I compiled a list here that's less than $100.

On the other hand, if you're willing to pay more (I don't recommend this... Verazol is decisively casual and thus should be playing in casual metas), there are some obvious inclusions:

• Expensive generic goodstuff: Cyclonic Rift , Rhystic Study , Jace, the Mind Sculptor , Fierce Guardianship , Mana Drain , Sylvan Library , Mirri's Guile , Ancient Tomb , Sensei's Divining Top , Mana Vault , Chrome Mox
• Fetchlands that color fix and thin out your deck: Prismatic Vista , Misty Rainforest and the other Forest/Island fetch variants
• The usual $100+ cards everyone knows are brokenly good

Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 27 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.80
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Drake 2/2 U, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Fractal 0/0 GU, Illusion */* U, Koma's Coil 3/3 U, Wolf 2/2 G