Digital Commander deck, to be played casually.
Introduction
This deck relies on using Jalira's ability to exchange small tokens for the deck's various large creatures. There are 18 targets for this ability and none that are harmed by being brought onto the field that way instead of from the hand. In an ideal game, you would never need to play any creatures from your hand at all.
Now this deck is also a theme/fun/flavor/whatever you want to call it deck. Other than the tokens from
Spawning Bed
there are no Eldrazi in this deck at all. They're off-theme, so they're right out. I allowed some of the less-omnipresent artifact creatures in, but not the profoundly boring Blightsteel Colossus, for example. Most of these creatures are blue, and I think that the ultimate expression of this deck's theme is turning a 0/1 Goat into a 7/11 Inkwell Leviathan.
As such this deck is not fully "optimized". I find that approach to playing this game to be rather dull. Any suggestions should try to stay on-theme though I'll certainly consider just about anything. One of the goals here, mind you, was to create a mono-blue Commander deck that wouldn't make your MTG friends want to dropkick you off of a bridge.
So, onto the deck itself:
Creatures
Unlike many blue decks, the meat of this particular deck is here. This deck has 18 creatures (19 if you include our commander), and all of them make great targets for our commander's ability. Most of these are pretty self-explanatory, why wouldn't you want a big creature on the field? (Can you tell that Green is one of my favorite colors?) But some warrant further elaboration:
- Arcanis the Omnipotent: This guy is one of a couple creatures in here more for their utility than their stats. Tap for three cards? Yes please, thank you.
- Archaeomancer and Snapcaster Mage: Here for the same reason, to get a little extra use out of your spells. Archaeomancer is the more useful of the two here, since you can recycle a Counterspell, Swan Song, or such in order to get a little extra use out of them.
- Phyrexian Ingester: It's probably obvious that getting some removal along with your big creature is good, but if it's not, let the record show that I said it is.
- Phyrexian Metamorph: Clones are fun. Clones that are also artifacts (see below) even moreso. Plus, you can clone an artifact if you need to, instead of getting another creature.
- Reef Worm, Chasm Skulker and Wurmcoil Engine: Useful for the same reason. They create tokens when they die, meaning you can sac them with Jalira's ability again and draw out another creature, while still keeping their tokens on the board. You can do this multiple times with Reef Worm's tokens.
- Scourge of Fleets: Not quite Cyclonic Rift on a stick but pretty close.
- Wonder: Wonder is a near-ideal sac target, since it being in the graveyard makes all of your other creatures much better.
- Lorthos, the Tidemaker: This one is obvious. I just want to say that there should be more octopodes in Magic.
I'd be willing to replace the artifact creatures with other Blue creatures but I could not think of many that seemed interesting. Suggestions appreciated!
Sorceries
There're 8 sorceries here. Most are pretty straightforward.
- Curse of the Swine,
Mass Polymorph
, and Polymorph all tie in thematically with our commander, and all serve the same function. Blue is not great at actually killing creatures without giving their owners recompense, but by polymorphing them into something less threatening one can neatly sidestep the problem.
- Fabricate is an artifact tutor. Very straightforward.
- Preordain and Ponder serve the same role, letting you draw a card you need while also setting up targets for Jalira's ability by putting creatures below other cards.
- Rite of Replication will clone a powerful creature. It can clone several if cast with its kicker, but I think that in this particular deck its non-kicked function will be more often used.
- Treasure Cruise: Did you know this is still legal in EDH? What a fun format!
Planeswalker
There's just one Planeswalker here. Tezzeret the Seeker is used to use artifacts multiple times per turn primarily. Most of the artifacts in this deck aren't quite worth using his -X to fish for, but his -5 can be useful as well given the _amount _of artifacts present here, several of which are quite cheap. There is no reason you should not attempt to finish every game by killing your opponent with a 5/5 Trading Post.
Admittedly I have some misgivings about the artifact subtheme. So feedback on that entire subject would be appreciated.
Insants
We have quite a few of these, at 17. Of course blue decks tend to rely on these, so that's not a surprise.
- Blue Sun's Zenith, Brainstorm, and Dig Through Time are our draw insants, all mostly serving slightly different variations on the same purpose. You could probably use Zenith to deck your opponent out if a match was really starting to drag on, but I can't imagine it coming up that often.
- There is of course countermagic. I've always been a proponent of using it sparingly, both since countering everything is just a bad tactic, and because overusing it will get you targeted. Swan Song is worth noting specifically just because it ties into the polymorph theme. Turn a spell into a bird. Just do it.
- Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Turn to Frog, and Polymorphist's Jest all do effectively the same thing. Neutering powerful creatures by turning them into something else. They do this in slightly different ways but the purpose is the same. This of course, keeps in line with our polymorphing theme as well.
-
Polymorphous Rush
does too, but its purpose is different. Why have one Stormtide Leviathan when you could have 5 or 6? Good for finishing off opponents.
Enchantments
There are just 3 enchantments in this deck, but they're all important.
-
Skywise Teachings
and Thopter Spy Network give us tokens. Useful on their own, but even more so as sacrifices for Jalira's ability.
- Control Magic is for taking out the worst of the worst by switching them to your side. This + Sac'ing the creature works too, but is rather wasteful most of the time, plus then you don't get to kill someone with their own creature!
Artifacts
Quite a few of these at 17, mostly mana rocks of various sorts.
- Caged Sun's color buff is interesting. Probably not a game-winner on its own but worth having. The mana double-up is much more interesting. It's not as crucial here as it can be, but it's definitely an asset.
- Gilded Lotus: "Add to your mana pool" is good.
- Sky Diamond and Sol Ring are early game 'pure' mana rocks with no other use. Useful at other times too, but certainly best early on.
- Mind Stone and Hedron Archive are both rocks that can be sacrificed later on for card draw when the mana they add is no longer necessary.
- Thought Vessel breaks the hand size limit, making it useful in certain situations where you might want to draw a bunch of cards but not necessarily use them right away.
- Wayfarer's Bauble: Land tutor, very simple. Not 100% on this one since I have so many mana sources already. Something to think about further.
-
Nuisance Engine
is a token generator.
- Trading Post is our do-anything card. Multiple uses, all very good for this deck (except maybe the lifegain, and even that is situationally useful).
- Mimic Vat: Since we lack ways to properly revive creatures. Mimic Vat lets us get further use out of dead ones by cloning them. It should go without saying by now that these clones (which die at the end of the turn anyway) can also be sac'd by Jalira.
- Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are the standard Useful Shoes equip artifacts. I'm open to replacing these with something a little more on-theme, but I can't think of anything offhand.
- Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top let us mess with our library in order to set up Jalira uses. Probably don't use these every turn, it's annoying if you do that.
- Proteus Staff: Another polymorphing tool to get annoying creatures off of the field. Like Polymorph proper, it can backfire, so I recommend using it only when you absolutely need something gone and have no other option.
- Voltaic Key: Using artifacts more than once per turn is hilariously busted. This deck isn't built to exploit that fully but even here you can use this to get six blue mana from Gilded Lotus if you so desire, just as an example.
Land
Most of the land here is standard Islands, the rest are various utility lands. There's no need for multicolors since this is a mono-blue deck.
- Academy Ruins: We have enough artifacts that this is useful.
- Arcane Lighthouse: For when you really, really need to turn something into a monkey.
- Blighted Cataract: Can be (expensively) converted into card draw late in the game if it's no longer being useful as a mana source. Same purpose Hedron Archive and Mind Stone serve.
- Halimar Depths is essentially an Island that also gives us the equivalent of a free Sensei's Divining Top use when it hits the field. Its only downside is coming into play tapped.
- Lonely Sandbar and
Remote Isle
can be cycled if the mana source they offer isn't necessary when they're drawn.
- Minamo, School at Water's Edge lets us get extra uses out of both our commander and Arcanis the Omnipotent. That's six cards in one turn for one blue mana!
- Mirrorpool Spell and creature cloning are both very useful in a variety of situations.
- Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is tied with Caged Sun for the biggest mana jumps we can make with this deck. Useful if you happen to draw one of the big creatures here the normal way instead of getting them with Jalira's ability.
- Reliquary Tower is another card that lets us remove the hand size limit. As seen above with our "six cards per turn" trick, this can be quite handy.
- Rogue's Passage makes a creature unblockable, the merits of which are obvious.
-
Urza's Factory
: There are rare situations in which paying 7 mana for a 2/2 is worth it, but in those situations, this card is here for you.
Final Comments
All in all I think I did well, but obviously any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Why is this deck called "Alien Ant Farm"?
I couldn't think of a good name for this one shut up
