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This deck is my Brago, King Eternal EDH deck. The idea is to use Brago to bounce permanents, which has a variety of effects, mostly either untapping mana rocks, triggering ETB effects, re-using Planeswalkers, or resetting counters.
I have been working on this deck through various iterations for several months. It started as a curiosity, and has morphed into a deck of terrifying efficiency and consistency in 1v1. It tends to not do as well in larger groups, because it will draw aggro and build a large board state quickly, but often takes more than 1 turn to kill people. While it is resilient, it tends to be that kind of resilient that attracts attention more than anything else.
The trick to Brago, I have found, is to make all of your cards do as much as possible. There are enough strange, small ETB interactions that a well-crafted Brago deck can do a little bit of everything.
Card Highlights
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Hands down, my favorite card in the deck is
Meteorite
. It sounds weird for me to say that, but I've never had it as a dead draw; repeatable off-color colorless damage is really, really clutch, and it's a simple finisher for the common combo with Strionic Resonator. I also like to push it because it's a rare card for this build and is hilariously efficient.
Drowner of Hope
is a card that I think is underappreciated, especially since I find it amazingly useful. In one card, you have the ability to go wide, the ability to prevent enemy aggro, the ability to accelerate mana, and the ability to tap down opponents to attack through. I rarely find it as a dead draw.
Parallax Tide
seems like a very strange card to some, but works really well. With Brago on the field, it allows you to untap your own lands (at the risk of it being killed while the exile is on the stack and losing a land). If you have any of the bounce spells in your hand, it allows you to wipe a bunch of the opponent's lands, which is great. It's a bit awkward now that the deck has less bounce effects, but I still find it consistently useful and flexible.
Suture Priest is optional and can be replaced. I have included it for the match-up against decks that go wide, as there are several in my meta. Even if you think you don't need it, consider leaving it in, because it tends to fish for kill spells like a champ.
Consulate Surveillance
is a very tech card that I see people shy away from. Even by itself, it is powerful because it doesn't target, and it prevents damage through end of turn. This means that red combo damage is prevented, as is damage from commanders with protection and shroud (I've used it to lock down a Progenitus before).
Testing
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Cards that are currently under test include:
- Mystic Remora: A new addition, good card draw but I have more flexible engines (a strength of this deck)
- Heliod's Pilgrim: This card has been around a while, but I find myself not needing aura fetch much now .
- Disallow: Just a bit expensive ($$$) for a good counterspell. Trickbind does its job better, sometimes.
-
Tsabo's Web
: I find myself liking this card, but it's a bit awkward. Think the slot has better options.
Exclude List
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This deck tends to invite a lot of tech traps, where a card looks synergistic, and either doesn't do enough or winds up being too situational. Cards that I have tested and highly do not recommend because of this are:
- Mulldrifter: Too expensive and only card advantage, winds up being a dead draw a lot
- Peregrine Drake: Five lands is often too many, mana acceleration needs to be faster
- Lavinia of the Tenth: Powerfully disruptive, but the lock isn't solid. Draws attention without safety.
- Diluvian Primordial: Just slow and awkward. Often a dead draw because there are no good targets.
-
Duplicant
: Not very versatile, only exiles nontoken creatures. Wasteful if Brago isn't up.
- Frost Titan: Like Lavinia, draws a lot of attention and hate without locking board state. Too costly.
- Ichor Wellspring: There are much more flexible cards to give you draw; this one doesn't do a lot.
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As a final comment, I highly recommend against playing with Banishing Light/Journey to Nowhere/
Oblivion Ring
type cards. They trap you into a control-type playstyle that isn't very effective at winning, requires crazy board state, and is very difficult to combo with Brago.
My recommendation is to avoid going this route; there are much better generals to play strong control with (such as Grand Arbiter Augustin IV).
