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Ephara Do Stuff

Commander / EDH Combo Control Infinite Combo Multiplayer Tokens WU (Azorius)

Merricks

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Land (36)

Artifact (13)

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Commander: Ephara, God of the Polis

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Introduction

Ephara Do Stuff is a deck about interacting with things.

This deck is a response to a meta that was shifting in a more competitive direction. It attempts to recapture the feeling of playing cards because they are cool and fun, and it includes some of my favourite combos and interactions that had to be cut from other decks to make way for more linear strategies.

This deck could be considered to fall into the category of a 75% deck. But it was not designed as a 75% deck. It was built to be fun first, and then attempts have been made to optimise that fun.

This deck is for you if...

  • You already have a competitive deck and you want something fun to bring to casual tables.
  • You enjoy long convoluted combos.
  • You enjoy flexibility and finding varied routes to victory.
This is a preamble. To get to the meat of the deck, skip this section.

"An Aside on the Philosophy of Ephara Do Stuff". That is a long heading. We could simplify it to "An Aside on Ephara Do Stuff". The philosophy is implied and those are extraneous words. In fact, we could simplify it further. "An Aside." We know we are talking about Ephara Do Stuff because we're on the Ephara Do Stuff page.

This mentality of optimisation is something that we all want for our decks. We want them to be the best they can be at what they are trying to achieve. But that mentality feeds into a lot of homogenisation and meta power creep. It discourages using cool cards in favour of using optimal cards.

When my group of friends first started playing Magic, we had a poor collection of bad cards to play with. We filled our decks with too much STUFF. We didn't understand concepts of good deck construction and we played cards because they did cool things and not because they fueled a win-condition. This was the most fun I ever had playing Magic the Gathering.

Then we fell into a competitive hole. As our knowledge about the game grew, and as we became parts of Magic communities, our decks became more tuned, and the magic of discovering cool new synergies and interactions faded away. The chaff got cut. The game became all fast mana quick avenues to resilient win cons.

Around this time I built a Karador, Ghost Chieftain reanimator deck for myself. It was good. It evolved into a Boonweaver Giant combo deck that was better. It was fast and formidable. I played it for a long time and I thought it would be the deck that I would play forever. But it wasn't fun. I won a lot of games with that deck and I don't remember a single one of them.

The games that I do remember are the ones with janky wins, with interactions and hilarious board states, where lots of stuff happened and everybody said "this is nuts"!

The time I put Infinite Reflection on a Dungeon Geists to keep the board state tapped down while I beat down with 3/3's. My deck designed solely around blinking Stonehorn Dignitary to prevent anyone from having a combat step. (We weren't smart enough to know what infinite combos were back then, so the combat step really mattered). How about the first time I figured out an infinite combo for myself, cardSeanceing a token of Mirror-Mad Phantasm that milled my deck into a Laboratory Maniac win? These are the wins that I remember because they came at a time when I had a real sense of wonder about the game.

So that's what this deck is. A container for some of my favourite interactions in the game that got lost in the power creep. A deck that tries to do too much. A deck that attempts to pull off those stupid board states that make people say "Wait, what?"

This is a deck that aims to be interactive. It aims to keep the fun in the game (I intentionally avoided a lot of Stax, Hatebear, and Counterspell effects that are far too prevalent in decks I match up against). It aims to utilise some lesser seen cards and combos that are some of my personal favourite effects. And only after those goals are met does it attempt to optimise itself.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy.

The plan is simple.
  1. Generate value for yourself.
  2. Interact with your opponents boardstate.
  3. Win?

We generate value by flashing in creatures on our opponents turn to draw with Ephara. Blinking our creatures in our opponents turn for draw. Reusing ETB effects. Creating tokens for draw. Reusing and recurring cantrips. Some of our best value generators are:

We will also settle for:

We interact with our opponents board state by bouncing a lot of their stuff back to hand and generally disrupting their lines of play.

We win by either turning our cards sideways or comboing out.

Weaknesses: I first built this deck at a time when there was not a lot of hate for ETB effects, but cards like Torpor Orb and Containment Priest can really shut this deck down. This is why we pack a fair amount of utility for removing these effects. Always keep them in mind.

Infinite Mana is Great; What do I do with it?

If you are using the Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Peregrine Drake combo for example, then you can generate infinite mana and then switch from bouncing Peregrine Drake to any other ETB effect for some kind of value.

  1. AEther Adept or Reflector Mage - Clear the board.
  2. Glimmerpoint Stag - Pseudo-wipe. (See Sundial of the Infinite for abuse).
  3. Geist-Honored Monk - Infinite Tokens.
  4. Sea Gate Oracle - Draw all the cards.
  5. Venser, Shaper Savant - Bounce everything (including lands). Probably cause your opponents to scoop.

For other uses, see the "How to Win" section.

The deck only has one method of generating infinite turns. People don't generally like decks that take multiple turns without winning the game, so if you are going to take infinite turns either do it once for value and let the card slip away for a while, or take infinite turns and win.

Okay I get it. Sure we could just play Wrath of God, but there's no STYLE to that. Nobody is gonna turn their head for that one. A lot of these listed interactions will give you more value than your opponent, or are recurrable/repeatable.

A few combos and interactions that didn't fit into any other category:

  • Angel of Glory's Rise + Fiend Hunter + Blink Effect || This is where I reveal a secret. This deck is secretly a tribal humans deck. Using Fiend Hunter on Angel of Glory's Rise, then blinking Fiend Hunter will return all humans (which is most of the creatures in the deck) to the battlefield. Keeping the Angel under the Hunter will also protect your board state from wrath effects. You can keep blinking the Hunter onto the Angel to reanimate your graveyard and keep the engine going. This is a fragile but hilarious combo that falls apart if you lose either of the core pieces. Chump block liberally and attack freely. Added juice is re-triggering all of the ETB effects on reanimation.

  • Monastery Mentor + Isochron Scepter + Momentary Blink + Cloud of Faeries || This is a ridiculous/convoluted combo that creates infinite tokens, but the point is that it is made up of parts that are valuable to have on their own. Having a Monastery Mentor is valuable. Having an Isochron Scepter with Momentary Blink is valuable. If all the pieces just happen to come together then you also get infinite tokens.

  • Sudden Disappearance + Wrath of God || This is super expensive to cast, but if you have the mana and nothing else to do with it, it's worth it just to see the look on your opponents faces when you dodge a wrath, clear their board, and then a rain of ETB effects comes down.

  • Mastery of the Unseen + Sudden Disappearance || Manifest your cards face down in your opponents turn to trigger Ephara draws, then use Sudden Disappearance (or any other blink effect) to flicker them. They all return face up without having to pay their casting cost.

  • Isochron Scepter + Silence + Paradox Engine || This is really mean, but can close out a game or give you a huge lead. Leave up mana to cast Silence in the next player's upkeep. Paradox Engine untaps Isochron Scepter to recast Silence in the upkeep of the player after that. All of a sudden nobody else is playing the game. Technically this is not a win-con, but if you pull this off, you've probably won the game.

  • Mimic Vat + Sundial of the Infinite || Create a token of whatever creature is imprinted to Mimic Vat (in your turn). In your end step, when the exile trigger goes on the stack. Use Sundial to end the turn and keep the token.

A lot of the decks I face have very linear combo finishes that win on the spot. These combos generally have two parts; a generator and a finisher:

This deck does not win that way. Our wins will usually take an extra step, or an extra card, or involve moving between steps. This creates vulnerabilities and this is the weakness of this deck.

Remember as well that our game plan with this deck is to create value and interact with our opponents board state, and sometimes that can create a win for us without us ever resorting to a "win-con".

So let's talk about ways you can win:

Combat Damage

This deck can pump out a fair a number of tokens. And while it's no Craterhoof Behemoth, dropping an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and swinging for face can get the job done. Dropping infinite mana into your Sacred Mesa is your house card here. Infinite cantrips with Monastery Mentor can do it too. Infinite ETB's from Geist-Honored Monk... all avenues to flood the board with an amount of tokens that is difficult to deal with.

This deck can also pump out a fair amount of mana. Infinite mana and a Mirror Entity on a board of tokens can do it.

Problems with this strategy - Pillowfort decks. Our deck packs some artifact/enchantment removal that can get around this to some extent. Keeping Greater Auramancy off the board will prevent them from protecting their Sphere of Safety effects.

Infinite Turns

Using the Time Warp + Archaeomancer combo to take infinite turns will usually result in a win.

Helm of Obedience Clock

Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace

If you have Dramatic Reversal on Isochron Scepter then you can tap the Helm to mill out a player, then cast Dramatic Reversal to untap Isochron Scepter and Helm. Retap Helm to mill out the next player, then untap re-cast Dramatic Reversal etc.

If you DON'T have the Dramatic Reversal combo up, you can also do this with Paradox Engine and casting any spell.

If you don't have Dramatic Reversal combo OR Paradox Engine, this is still a 3 turn clock on the game unless your opponents can disrupt you. Obviously take out the strongest player first.

Combo

There are a lot of combos in this deck. I'm not going to repeat all the possibilities here. What I am instead going to do is simulate a line of thinking that you might have while playing this deck and trying to assemble a combo to win. So let's take a hypothetical board state.

(If you can flash in Kaho, Minamo Historian at the end of your opponents turn and untap with her, that is ideal. Otherwise she will have to survive a turn on the board. Here I will assume you have flashed her in.)

  • Cast Kaho, Minamo Historian exiling Brainstorm, Enlightened Tutor, and any card that can help you close out the game. Your choice here will depend on whether your opponents all have creatures in play or not. If they do, you could try tutoring for Reality Shift. If they don't, you will have to pick a different route like Momentary Blink. I'll example both of these paths here.

Some notes regarding this particular combo:

  • You are manifesting cards to the board and then exiling them, so no graveyard reshuffle effects like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth should trigger.
  • If your opponent pays the mana to turn a manifested card face up, it will not trigger ETB effects. So don't worry about a Slum Reaper effect sniping your Kaho. There are SOME cards that can turn face up and kill or remove Kaho however, so this is still a risky line of play.

If Kaho or Paradox Engine is under threat or the combo is about to be disrupted, hold priority and cast Brainstorm the exact number of times required to draw your deck. Once the stack resolves your entire deck will be in your hand. You will likely have the pieces required to either save Kaho/Paradox and continue the combo, or win through other means. Helm of Obedience, token swarm with Monastery Mentor, bouncing everything with Venser, Shaper Savant, or recurring Time Warp.

Drawing your entire deck is not a risky play at this point since you already have infinite mana. You can cast permanents and put them back into your library by recurring Unexpectedly Absent (Use an infinite Archaeomancer loop) to protect you from losing in your draw step if you need to pass the turn. You shouldn't have to pass more than one turn. For example, generate infinite tokens, cast Time Warp, move forward to your next turn so the tokens no longer have summoning sickness, then swing for the win.

This is one of many combo lines that can close out the game for you. This is here as an example of how you might be flexible in assembling a combo from the available pieces. The example here uses very few cards, only Paradox Engine, Kaho, Minamo Historian, and mana required. Other combos might require more digging or assembling over multiple turns.

There are better mana rocks, but this is a package that does what we need it to do without us having to remortgage our house. Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith will be your primary infinite mana combo piece, otherwise our combo engine will generally involve having more than one mana rock on the board.

For example, if you have Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal, you can tap Gilded Lotus for . Pay the for Isochron Scepter to cast Dramatic Reversal, untapping Isochron Scepter and Gilded Lotus with floating. Repeat this forever.

  • Archaeomancer || Combo piece for recurring valuable spells. Good utility even outside of combo.

  • Cloud of Faeries || This is a flexible card with mostly minor utility uses.
  • Deadeye Navigator || Trigger ETB effects. Protect important creatures. Combo.
  • Elite Arcanist, Kaho, Minamo Historian || Utility combo pieces that can replace Isochron Scepter.
  • Monastery Mentor || Great value token generator. Combine with any infinite spell loop for infinite tokens.
  • Peregrine Drake || Mana combo piece.
  • Recruiter of the Guard || Tutor. Grab Archaeomancer if you need spell recursion. Get Venser, Shaper Savant if you need a combo finisher. Pull Kaho, Minamo Historian if you need a combo starter. Grab a Mirror Entity if you already have a board state and want to swing for the win.
  • Sea Gate Oracle || Flicker draw. Drawing more cards is good.
  • Spellseeker || A human spell tutor that is also tutorable with Recruiter of the Guard.
  • Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir || Flash is about the best possible thing in this deck.
  • Time Warp || Combo piece, but let's not pretend you won't cast it outside of combos.
  • Brainstorm || Is this the best cantrip of the game? Beats out Ponder in this deck because of instant speed.
  • Dramatic Reversal || Combo Piece
  • Enlightened Tutor || Gets Paradox Engine, Isochron Scepter, and Basalt Monolith.
  • Mystical Tutor || Gets what you need.
  • Mimic Vat || Mimic Vat is a weird one. Its power is dependent on what you put on it, but it is abuseable with Sundial of the Infinite and fun enough to keep its place in the deck. Some choice Vat cards are your opponents Solemn Simulacrum, Acidic Slime, and Wurmcoil Engine, just to give you an idea of how silly this card can get.
  • Paradox Engine || Core combo piece.
  • Sundial of the Infinite || Looks useless at first glance, but this card is a real surprise beast. A lot of Sundial abuse is listed in the interaction section, for example mass land destruction with Glimmerpoint Stag. It can also serve as a protection piece. If you have a nice board state, swing for damage, and your opponent responds with a Cyclonic Rift, you can tap the Sundial to shut that right down. If you are comboing out on your turn and someone drops a Nature's Claim on your Paradox Engine that you can't otherwise deal with. Sundial it away.
  • Trading Post || This card does a lot. 90% of the time it will be triggering Ephara draw by making Goat tokens. It can also save Isochron Scepter and Paradox Engine from your graveyard.
  • Mastery of the Unseen || Triggers Ephara draw in opponent turns. Use your blink effects to turn manifested cards face up without paying their mana cost.
  • Rhystic Study || I don't know why nobody ever pays this, but you will draw so many cards.
  • Venser, the Sojourner || His +1 is good for triggering ETB effects, and his emblem is amazing removal if you can get it.
  • Teferi, Hero of Dominaria || Everything we want from a planeswalker in this deck. Draw and hold mana for interaction. Bounce protection and removal. Exile emblem.
    • Use bounce effects to remove threats, but also to protect your own valuable creatures and re-trigger ETB effects.
    • Play for a slower game. Don't Fragmentize your opponent's Sol Ring on turn 1. This isn't cEDH. You will run out of gas.
    • Don't hold back Isochron Scepter until you have the perfect combo card in hand. Play it with whatever you have. Generate value, then return it to hand later and recast it with your combo card.
    • Be wary of tunnel vision when trying to assemble a combo. Don't get so wrapped up in your own thing that you fail to prevent your opponent from winning.
    • Whatever cards you cut from this deck, don't touch Sundial of the Infinite.

    And one last thing that I want to say that I don't really have a place for. Be humble. Don't complain if someone kills your creature, or disrupts your combo, or counters your dude, or boardwipes the turn before you are about to win. Don't be that guy. Everyone at the table is trying to win the game, and I am baffled by the amount of times I see someone react in annoyance that someone disrupted their game plan. MTG is a competitive game. So show some sportsmanship and be happy when other people make cool plays and win games too. If you're going to lose, might as well do it with some dignity and grace you know?

    Aren't there better UW commanders? Yep. Brago or Taigam. If you want a super-tuned deck, play one of them.

    Aren't there better ways of playing Ephara? Yep. Play hatebear stax, but your friends won't enjoy playing with you and I doubt you'll have half as much fun.

    Will this deck win me lots of games? I doubt it. But it does win sometimes, and when it does it's fuing glorious.

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    Updates Add

    Changelog — June 26, 2018
    Edit

    Added

    • Irrigated Farmland
    • Prairie Stream
    • Island
    • Plains
    • Wrath of God
    • Mystic Confluence

    Removed

    • Cloud of Faeries
    • Aether Adept
    • Sunken Hope
    • Day of Judgment
    • Stony Silence
    • Elite Arcanist

    Maybeboard

    • Sentinel Tower
    • Approach of the Second Sun
    • Stony Silence
    • Taigam, Ojutai Master
    • Eerie Interlude
    • Call to Mind
    • Not Forgotten
    Image View Timeline
    Card Odds v1 Draw hand
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    Date added 9 years
    Last updated 6 years
    Legality

    This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    8 - 0 Mythic Rares

    42 - 0 Rares

    17 - 0 Uncommons

    11 - 0 Commons
    Cards 100
    Avg. CMC 3.23
    Tokens Copy Clone, Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Emblem Venser, the Sojourner, Goat 0/1 W, Manifest 2/2 C, Monk 1/1 W, Pegasus 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 W
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