Primer: Sensei‘s Citadel Dorkstorm

Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) Combo Competitive Primer Storm

schnernv

Land (28)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scrubland
• 2x Snow-Covered Forest
• 2x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x City of Solitude
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Squirrel Nest
• 1x Sylvan Library

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Cruel Tutor
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Sickening Dreams
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Creature (23)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Blood Pet
• 1x Captain Sisay
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Children of Korlis
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Devoted Druid
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mindblade Render
• 1x Priest of Gix
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Xantid Swarm

Artifact (16)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Defense Grid
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Jeweled Amulet
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring

Commanders (2)

Instant (17)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Insidious Dreams
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Reclaim
• 1x Silence
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Welcome to "Sensei's Citadel" which is a fairly fast storm/combo-deck build around Bolas's Citadel . While it is not the only way to win a game, it is the main differentiator to other decks. The fact, that we are screwed once we hit our second land each turn, leads to some unique deck-building restrictions. Our main combo which will probably end the game is Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top

The first draft (Abzan Citadel Dorkstorm) when the idea came up played a little different compared to this list, but this more or less final list seems more resilient, more efficient and it runs less dead cards.

Tymna & Ikra Shidiqi

We want Tymna the Weaver and Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper on the one hand for their colors. On the other hand Tymna will provide significant card advantage which can also be relevant in the turn we go off. She is a staple in cEDH and synergizes quite well with the amount of creatures we run. Ikra Shidiqi, at least for me was a love on second sight. I was pondering with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa in the first iteration of the build which was also ok, but after testing Ikra Shidiqi I found that I ended up casting her more often than Sidar Kondo. Obviously the lifegain contributes to the gameplan and on top of that, she is a great blocker. Maybe the combination is not the most efficient choice but I wanted to stick to Abzan-colors. While creating the deck I also tried a variant which involved blue using Tymna the Weaver and Thrasios, Triton Hero , but it felt clunky to get to the huge amount of black mana in four colors. On top of that, adding blue provides cantrips and some good other cards, but the power level will not really increase since we cannot run counterspells. For me I found that Abzan-colors is what I really needed but a four color build can also be viable.

win a game (and some single card discussion)

Plan A: Resolve Citadel and laser everyone

Our first objective is to get a Bolas's Citel into play which will win us the game in 9 out of 10 games the turn it comes down. Ideally it is protected by a City of Solitude -effect. In case we have a way to remove our lands from top of our library we just have to find Aetherflux Reservoir in order to laser everyone for 50. The amount of tutors and the presence of cards like Children of Korlis let us find the Reservoir before we are dead. Noteworthy cards on our way to victory are:

relevant cards Show

• Fetchlands in general: "Free" shuffling is great.
• Sensei's Divining Top : Lets us draw the top card of our library and can subsequently be cast for 1 life. Adds storm count while helping to get rid of lands or cards which would pressure our life total.
• Necropotence : Similar function as SDT. Does not add storm count but the value early game e.g. turn two is higher. Thus, increases the chance to go off turn 4-5.
• Azusa, Lost but Seeking : 2 more landdrops is usually enough to find a tutor, SDT, Necropotence or Reservoir. Also it is likely that some of the lands you find and ply from top of your library are fetchlands. Shuffling your library is great in this deck.
• Captain Sisay : First of all her purpose is to fetch Bolas's Citadel , maybe Gaea's Cradle or Azusa, Lost but Seeking in the early turns. But once we have Citadel online, she can shuffle our library for a tap. One or two shuffle effects is often all we need.
• Children of Korlis : As mentioned above great to refuel our life total.
• Crop Rotation : Can fetch for a fetchland and thus can provide 2 shuffle effects.
• Cruel Tutor : Not exactly a good magic card, but the ability to tutor to top deck instead of hand is huge in this deck.
• Insidious Dreams : If you can discard 3, it can set up a win. When we stumble into it while going off, we need less cards to discard.
• Noxious Revival : Can put a tutor on top. This usually wins the game.
• Viscera Seer : We run enough creatures to use her ability to scry away lands from top.
• Scroll Rack : Useful effect to manipulate the top of our library. Also there are cards like Demonic Tutor or Regrowth which might bring you useful cards to our hand. Putting them on top can win the game.

Plan B: The Ad Naus

Our second win-con is to draw our deck via Ad Nauseam + Angel's Grace . Can be more efficient than the citadel win depending on the situation. Our outlet is Sickening Dreams which unfortunately is sorcery speed. The downside is, that we have to cast Ad Nauseam main phase. But on the other hand we can have our combo protected by our Xantid Swarm or other similar effects.

Plan C: Squirrelcraft

Some games can get very grindy as we suffer a lot from an early Blood Moon or alike. But what is much worse than a Blood Moon are Rule of Law -effects. If we can predict an effect like that, it can be the right play to go for our third win condition: Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest

gameplan

Our gameplan is pretty much straight forward:

• Aggressively mulligan into Bolas's Citadel or Tutors. You also want to see some kind of card draw. Necropotence on it's own also makes a hand keepable. On top there should also be ramp, but it is very likely to have some in this build
• If we find one of the other combo-pieces of our secondary wins in our starting hand we will probably go for that plan
• We then want to slam a T3 or T4 Citadel for the win. If we anticipate a counter or instant speed artifact-removal it can be rewarding to slow roll and wait for protection

protect your gameplan

Unfortunately, while being quite fragile to counterspells, we cannot run them by ourselves. For that reason we run a protection suite which will keep our opponents from interacting with our gameplan. This is key to the decks resilience. We use Silence , Autumn's Veil , Defense Grid , Hope of Ghirapur , Grand Abolisher and City of Solitude . While this seems quite a lot, I see those cards as proactive counterspells. How many counterspells would you run in a blue deck?

why not...

... Soul Warden -like creatures: The first iteration used to run such cards, but there were almost no games where that lifegain mattered at all, although it was more creature heavy. While the removal of those cards shifted the deck away from the initial "Dorkstorm"-Idea of the deck, it is more resilient and more efficient.

... Doomsday : I tried it but it needed too much specific setup around it to make it work. Insidious Dreams is a strict upgrade in this specific build. A variant with access to blue would make Doomsday more efficient due to the access to catrips and Laboratory Maniac for the win.

... Wayward Swordtooth or in general more cards that can provide extra landdrops: While the dino is basically playable, I don't feel like I need those effects. It even gets worse with Oracle of Mul Daya since the CMC is a bit high for such a concept.

on a budget

This is very tricky. You could probably cut some expensive cards but in order to make it work you will need tutors and fetchlands. Nevertheless here are some Budget considerations:

Budget substitutions Show

• Dual Lands and Gaea's Cradle : For those lands there are plenty of alternatives. A good substitution for Cradle is a basic forest. Also running a few more basic swamps will not hurt in Blood Moon -matchups
• Imperial Seal: Got really expensive! There is not really a good substitution. Instead I would pobably run more removal especially to get rid of enchantments. But this is probably a meta choice
• Mox Diamond / Mox Opal / Mana Crypt : There are quite a lot mana rocks which would fulfil a similar purpose. Usually we ramp until we can play a turn 4 Citadel. That means, we also could get away with something like more signets Everflowing Chalice and alike. The chance to use the 0-mana rocks the turn we probably cast them off Citadel without paying life, makes them much stronger
• Earthcraft : You can probably get away without using the Squirrelcraft-combo at all but if there are a lot of Rule of Law -effects in your meta you probably want to keep it
• Dark Confidant : Phyrexian Arena will do the job
• Yawgmoth's Will : Just run another regrowth-effect. Reclaim even puts the card on top for citadel

Top Ranked	Achieved #9 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #6 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest Ad Nauseam + Angel's Grace Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.72
Tokens	Spirit 1/1 C, Squirrel 1/1 G, Treasure
Folders	interesting decks, cEDH, Competitive decks
Based on	Abzan Citadel Dorkstorm schnernv EDH