[Primer] Kykar, Divergent Control

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Control Infinite Combo Midrange RUW (Jeskai, America)

Apotheosis616

Instant (26)

Enchantment (12)

Land (28)

Sorcery (13)

Commander (1)

Artifact (16)

Creature (2)

Planeswalker (2)

Sideboard

Planeswalker (1)

1x Teferi, Master of Time

Maybeboard

Instant (4)

Sorcery (2)

Enchantment (1)

1x Kindred Discovery

“By the time your knees have worn through your robe, you may have begun to learn your place”

Introduction

Kykar, Wind's Fury is a deck focused around a powerful mid-game combo protected by a control shell. Kykar, Wind's Fury's ability to create tokens by casting non-creature spells helps you ramp super hard allowing you to chain more spells together. This deck is focused on card quality over unnecessary combo pieces. We want to control the board and stop the fast combo decks from winning the game early on. Holding up interaction is a must in this deck. It is almost never a good idea to tap out completely.

Kykar is a deck built around incremental mana advantage. The strategy is to slow the game down by stopping other decks from building advantageous board states for themselves or by countering their win attempts. The commander allows the pilot to cast more spells and dig deep into the deck to respond to any threat. We then proceed to win at instant speed, potentially above other cards on the stack, with a Divergent transformation's combo. Divergent Transformations acts as a one card win condition in the deck. It is the card we are quickly trying to search for.

The deck is very resilient and able to win with several interchangeable pieces for the combo. Furthermore, you can never count the deck out of the game, it has one way to get back any exiled cards we need in order to win. The deck is suited for all kinds of metas, with several flexible slots in the deck it can be altered to your specific meta if need be. With all these slots we can adapt this deck to specifically counter a certain meta by changing the type of midrange stax to specifically lay waste to your opponent’s win attempts more effectively.

Kykar enables a diverse playstyle with often several complex key decisions points during the game. This means Kykar may be hard to learn and play correctly at first, but once you learn how other decks operate and how to best pilot your own deck, you have a very high ceiling of success. If you like playing Jeskai colors, I highly recommend giving this deck a try since it really allows you to generate tons of value from your commander and play that fun mid-range game. However, if you do not like playing reactively and if you do not like playing stax, this deck may not be for you.

The Combo

In order to perform this combo, in its most optimal form, you need to have Kykar, Wind's Fury and two spirits on the battlefield. With this set up you can cast Divergent Transformations, most likely for 4 mana, targeting the two spirits that are already on the battlefield. When this resolves, the two spirits are exiled and you search for Leveler and Thassa's Oracle. It does not matter which order they enter, even though they enter sequentially, they are placed onto the battlefield by the same affect. Since you own both of the permanents, you are able to stack the ETB (enter the battlefield) affects whichever way you want. Put the Thassa's Oracle etb on the stack first (meaning it will resolve last) and then put Leveler's etb on the stack last (Meaning it will resolve first). This way, when they resolve, Leveler will resolve first exiling your entire library and then Thassa's Oracle's etb will resolve allowing you to the game.

Breach Combos

Set up: Kykar, Wind's Fury in play; 5 mana available; Wheel of Fortune, Underworld Breach and Lotus Petal in hand; With at least 3 other cards in hand; and at least 1 card in your graveyard. This is pretty much bare minimum. The combo becomes easier as these different conditions increase (for example having more mana, having more cards in the graveyard, etc.) Note: If possible, try not to exile countermagic and Thassa's Oracle.

Cast Lotus Petal, creating a spirit token
Cast Underworld Breach, creating a spirit token
Cast Wheel of Fortune, creating a spirit token
If able, cast 1 thing that can generate mana, or get another card in the graveyard etc. (In this instance I cast git probe creating a token, drawing a card, and Git probe went to the graveyard). Throughout the rest of this combo, when you can, try to cast something from your hand that will generate mana or cycle through more cards.
Now, Exile 3 cards, sac 3 spirits, and cast Wheel of Fortune.
Sac Lotus Petal for a red, sac 2 spirits, exile 3 cards from the yard and cast Wheel of Fortune again.
Now, since we no longer have any mana up, exile 3 cards, cast Lotus Petal creating a spirit token.
Sac Lotus Petal for a red, allowing it to return to your graveyard.
Exile 3 cards, and cast Lotus Petal once again, creating another spirit token.
Sac two spirits, use the red floating, and exile 3 more cards to cast Wheel of Fortune, Creating a spirit token
Repeat this cycle trying to cast cards from your hand, or even from your graveyard if you have enough cards there, to produce more mana throughout the combo.
When possible try to cast Smothering Tithe it will make the combo easier, but it is not necessary. Also try to cast Narset, Parter of Veils whenever you can, this way you greatly limit the possibility of people gaining counter magic to hurt you. If this ever becomes a problem remember, you can cast your counter spells from your graveyard as well.
Continue this process until you either run into one of your combos or until you can’t cast Wheel of Fortune again (if you do it again you lose the game sine you can’t draw from an empty library).

If for some reason you had to exile all your other win-conditions, you still have oracle left and can win the following way:

Cast Blue permanent cards to make Thassa's Oracle’s etb trigger be greater than or equal to the number of cards left in your library. You win the game.
If the above option can’t work try to cast Future Sight, play the top cards of your library until you can cast Thassa's Oracle. If there are counterspells on top of your library, cast a spell, and use the counter spell on top of your library to counter it. repeat as necessary. If there are lands on top of your library, you will need to cast some sort of draw spell t get around it.
If you can’t cast future sight, use some of your card draw spells to make your library small enough to win with Thassa's Oracle
If you don’t have any card draw spells you can use a tutor to look at what cards are left and grab something, also this will give you a shuffle for future sight.

The only way this combo should fail is if you start facing a ton of countermagic. There are so many ways to abuse Underworld Breach if you are creative enough.

Strategy

Understanding how to win is a fundamental part of each and every competitive deck and can usually be easily memorized, but understanding how to reach the point where you can win, is not so easy. The strategy of this deck is focused on slowing the game plan of others down, while we set up a powerful engine on the board that will carry us through the mid-game. You have entered the mid-game when several of your opponents have tried to win the game but got stopped. This is the point our deck is trying to reach, but how do we get there?

Entering the mid-game is a privilege awarded to the players who have successfully stopped others from winning early on. In order to reach this point, we must blend hard hate pieces with counterspells. Counterspells give us the flexibility to stop whatever we deem too threatening. For example, a fast combo in black will most likely be shooting for something along the line of an early Ad Nauseam, or potentially their win condition. Your only real option is to understand that you are not here to race your opponents. You are trying to prevent them from winning the game early on. For this reason, it is okay to get behind early in the game when you are holding up countermagic.

Determining the appropriate time to hold up countermagic or progress your own game plan is something that is learned by playing the deck and knowing the decks you are playing against. The more you play the deck the more you understand how your deck can interact with your opponent's deck. For example, when playing against a deck like The Gitrog Monster I know that once I throw down a Rest in Peace they will be hurting. Furthermore, I know that they will be doing everything in their power to remove it. It is paramount for the pilot of this deck to understand which Stax pieces they should fight for.

This is further complicated when you are also trying to win the game. Using the same example as before, the gitrog player is trying to remove the Rest in Piece and you have divergent transformations with enough mana and spirits for several other spells to be cast that turn. The Gitrog Monster player is acting on their own turn and you are right after them. You have several counterspells in your hand and you now have to decide whether or not you should protect the Stax piece or save up counter magic to protect your own game plan. The reason this becomes very complicated is that it all depends on who is at your table and what they can provide when it comes to instant speed responses. If the Rest in Piece is hurting multiple players you need to be aware that this other person might try to counter or respond to whatever you may cast. The kind of interaction they have is important though, are they more likely to use a counterspell to counter your own counterspell? Or, are they more likely to have more hate in the form of artifact and or enchantment removal or, are they equally likely to have a bounce spell? Determining the different types of interaction you will be facing is an important part of mastering any mid-rangy deck. It enables you to think ahead of your opponent and think beyond just protecting your own assets and game plan but allowing you to analyze the board state and make predictions about your opponents.

Now Back to the earlier example, If the Stax piece (Rest in Peace is the only thing stopping the gitrog player from winning the game, then you need to spend all your available resources to prevent that from happening. If you know the person or people want to remove the card just because they want to start generating value, this is where you determine whether or not you should save your countermagic or use it. Take a look at the board state and determine how much mana and the color of mana each opponent has access to. This may help you decide what kind of interaction they have. Furthermore, check their hand size. If an opponent has loads of mana and a full hand you need to be very wary. If they have either a low hand count or little to no mana saving your countermagic for your own win condition may be a good idea. It is examples like these that make this deck hard to play for newer players but very rewarding for more experienced players.

Generally speaking, I have tried to include Stax pieces that do not hurt our own deck. But what do you do when you need to play the Stax pieces that might hurt us such as Back to Basics and Blood Moon? First, let's go over these two cards. These two cards are used to slow down and stop decks that use greedy nonbasic mana bases (like most comp lists do). Although, you may be thinking, why would I use these cards because they hurt me too?? The reason these cards are in this list is that the vast majority of the deck is blue. Which means, I really only need to have access to one color to cast the majority of the decks spells. This is further aided if you have Kykar, Wind's Fury already on the battlefield, as casting spells will generate you red mana as well.

There are currently 18 ways to get basics in this deck. We run a large package of basic islands that enable us to gain some serious advantage if we were to play Back to Basics or Blood Moon. The main point of contention people have with running these cards is that they may feel dead when you draw them in the middle of the game. This should never be the case. Good pilots understand how to play around these cards knowing they are in the deck and might surface at some point in the game. Drawing this card in the middle of the game should not feel like a bad thing. Although I will admit, it may not always be the card we are looking for but it should never be the card we feel like we cannot play.

The best way to avoid this feeling is by being proactive in your thinking of fetch-able targets. For example, you start the game with a basic Island, Command Tower, and a fetch. You also have Back to Basics, Sol Ring and some countermagic. Not the best hand but pretty decent. In this scenario we know Back to Basics is going to be coming down early. Thus, our fetch target should be either a basic Mountain or a Plains depending on the cards you have in your hand unless you really really need that extra blue for countermagic. The reason for this is because with Command Tower we can produce whatever color we need one time, this should be used to cast Kykar, Winds of Fury, which, keep in mind, will grant you spirits that produce red mana. This was an easy example of how to play around the card Back to Basics, but how do you play around this card when it is not in your opening hand?

When Back to Basics and Blood Moon are not in your starting hand do not fret when your opening hand consists largely of nonbasic lands. This can easily be remedied throughout the game. If the deck is working properly you will be able to draw into more cards which increases the chances of you getting either fetches or basic lands. What is important to learn here is that once you already have a couple of rainbow lands, you should start using your fetches to grab basics. This should be done when you feel comfortable with the mana you have available to cast the spells in your hand. This type of action will greatly increase the lead you will gain once you place a Blood Moon or Back to Basics into play. Like I have mentioned before, these cards have the ability to completely stop decks from playing the game. Especially if your meta/pod consists of decks using Tainted Pact win lines. These decks specifically get ruined because they run little to no basic lands. Making these cards a must include when playing in this type of meta.

The main strategy of this deck may require you to sacrifice building up your board state to hold up countermagic. We are not here to race other decks, this deck simply does not have the tools required to speed past a fast combo deck (we do not have black). Instead we are trying to focus on slowing the game state down, even if for a while, we are also slowing our game down as well. As long as we are slowing the opponents down more, we are gaining the advantage.

More to come!

Tips and Tricks

Force of Will, Pact of Negation, Force of Negation, and mental mistep are all "free" spells that can generate mana when kykar is out. Use this to trick your opponents into thinking you may not have enough mana to make plays on their turn. By casting one of these free spell you generate a spirit which you can sac and then use the mana to cast another spell, most notably a Pyroblast or Red Elemental Blast.
Don't forget to attack with your spirits. The constant pressure on life totals can make casting cards like Ad Nauseam a non-option for some decks.

More to come!

Card Choices

Notable Exclusions

Outdated Combo: How to win without Paradox Engine and with Isochron scepter exiled.

The setup: You have kykar on the battlefield and you have cast Divergent Transformations and have placed Spellseeker and Elsha of the Infinite

. You tutored for Enlightened Tutor and played it, putting Sensei's Divining Top on top of your library. Cast Sensei's Divining Top from the top of your library.

You now have Sensei's Divining Top on the field, Elsha of the Infinite, and at least one spirit token.

With this, you draw cards until you hit False Dawn. You draw all but 5 cards in your library. You then cast all your mana producing rocks such as Mana Crypt, Mox Diamond, Mana Vault, Chrome Mox, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, and Mox Opal. Let’s say you have already played two this game, you cast the rest generating 5 spirits and at least 5 more mana. Now cast False Dawn (generating a token) using the mana from your mana rocks. Draw the rest of your deck. Now play all your mana neutral rocks.

Sac two sprits, giving you two white that can be used as blue mana and cast Dramatic Reversal (gaining a spirit). In response tap all your mana. All your rocks will untap. Now use your mana rocks to cast Timetwister(gaining a spirit) and hold priority and cast Narset's Reversal targeting Timetwister (gaining another spirit). Narset's Reversal will resolve and return Timetwister to your hand and then copy Timetwister shuffling your hand and graveyard back into your library. With Sensei's Divining Top still on the battlefield draw your deck. You can repeat this process to gain infinite mana and infinite spirits. Cast Goblin Bombardment and sac your spirits to ping everyone for damage and win the game.

Outdated Combo: How to win Without Dramatic Reversal

The setup: The exact same as previously mentioned above.

With this, you draw cards until you hit false dawn. You draw all but 5 cards in your library. You then cast all your mana producing rocks such as Mana Crypt, Mox Diamond, Mana Vault, Chrome Mox, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, and Mox Opal. Let’s say you have already played two this game, you cast the rest generating 5 spirits and at least 5 more mana. Now cast False Dawn (generating a token) using the mana from your mana rocks. Draw the rest of your deck. Now play all your mana neutral rocks.

Use your mana and cast Frantic Search (get a spirit), cast Pact of Negation targeting Frantic Search (get a spirit), cast Pyroblast targeting Pact of Negation (get a spirit). Now Frantic Search will resolve and you can untap 3 lands. Now cast Lotus Petal (getting a spirit). This generates 7 mana. You can now do the Timetwister loop and generate infinite mana. Killing everyone with goblin bombardment.

Outdated Combo: How to win without Goblin Bombardment

Obviously, there is a short answer to this question: Generate infinite mana and spirits with isocrhon scepter and Dramatic Reversal, then sculpt your hand with top and magus, pass the turn. While this totally works, passing the turn is pretty scary as even though you have a massive advantage and have most likely sculpted your hand you don't know if you can stop everyone from winning.

with this in mind, here is a fun combo to win the same turn you go off.

As per usual, the setup is as follows: you have Kykar, Wind's Fury on the battlefield and you have casted Divergent Transformations and have placed Spellseeker and Elsha of the Infinite on the battlefield. You tutored for Enlightened Tutor and played it, putting Sensei's Divining Top on top of your library, which you can now cast. You now have Sensei's Divining Top on the field, Spellseeker, Elsha of the Infinite, and a spirit token.

From here you can use any loop that generates infinite mana and infinite spirits. Lets say for example we use this one: Use your mana and cast Frantic Search (get a spirit), cast Pact of Negation targeting Frantic Search (get a spirit), cast Pyroblast targeting Pact of Negation (get a spirit). Now Frantic Search will resolve and you can untap 3 lands. Now cast Lotus Petal (getting a spirit). After performing the loop once, cast Swords to Plowshares (getting you a spirit) targeting one of your spirits. The spirit will get exiled netting you one life. Now repeat this loop to generate infinite mana, infinite spirit tokens and infinite life. then cast a massive Earthquake to kill everyone at the table

Outdated Combo: How to win at Instant Speed with Elsha and SS

Winning at instant speed is an amazing advantage if a deck can pull it off easily. Luckily, Kykar's main wincon can primarily be used to win at instant speed.

This method of winning follows the same patterns as the sorcery speed win condition except now you need to utilize the top card of your library effectively while drawing cards with Sensei's Divining Top. The setup is as follows, you have successfully casted divergent transformation and placed Sensei's Divining Top on the top of your library. You have 1 spirit, an untapped artifact, and an untapped land. You begin the process of tapping Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card and then recasting it from the top of your library. However, each time you cast Sensei's Divining Top, look at the top card of your library and see if you can cast an artifact to help you ramp. If you can, play the artifact off the top of your library, most of the artifacts in this deck will either be mana positive or mana neutral (since some of the artifacts produce one mana and they also create a spirit token when you cast it from the top of your library, this nets you 2 mana, the same amount you casted it for). For this reason you should try to cast cards like felwar stone and Talisman of Creativity just be careful to not use all your blue mana while doing so.

As you continue going through your deck with Sensei's Divining Top you will either draw into Isochron Scepter or Dramatic Reversal. If you look at the top card of your library and you hit an Isochron Scepter first, cast the card and hold priority, using Sensei's Divining Top you can draw your deck until you draw Dramatic Reversal. Then when Isochron Scepter enters the battlefield you can exile dramatic reversal. You now have Dramatic Reversal on the Isochron Scepter and can most likely generate infinite mana, if you can't yet, then repeat the earlier steps to cast more artifacts from the top of your library.

If you have not yet reached Goblin Bombardment then draw cards with Sensei's Divining Top until you see Goblin Bombardment on the top of your library, then cast it at instant speed using Elsha of the Infinite's ability. You can now proceed to win the game by sacrificing all your infinite spirit tokens to ping everyone to death.

However, if you already have drawn into Goblin Bombardment you can simply cast Brainstorm or Scroll Rack to place it on top of your library so that you can cast it at instant speed. Remember, Scroll Rack is not a draw ability so you will not lose the game if you have your entire library in your hand.

If for whatever you reason, you are not able to win the turn you cast Divergent Transformations you can wait until your turn with a full hand of counter magic and infinite mana. At instant speed you can cast an overloaded Cyclonic Rift to set all your opponents back to the dark ages. Since this deck runs so many counter spells, you should have no worries about being able to win a counter war. Then, once your turn arrives you cast whatever sorcery spell that can win you the game but couldn't cast at instant speed. For example, if you could not get Goblin Bombardment out at instant speed but had it in your hand, you can now cast the card and win the game.

Come Join the Kykar Discord to discuss new cards and overall deck strategy. Kykar Discord

If you Enjoyed this primer and found it helpful, please hit that upvote!

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Updates Add

Switched from Elsha and SS to Leveler and Oracle — Feb. 8, 2020

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Since the release of Thassa's Oracle decks have been abusing the card's powerful ETB ability. After extensive playtesting, I have come to the conclusion that this combo is better than using Elsha + SS.

Updated Primer to Include Breach Combos — Jan. 22, 2020

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Revision 19 See all

(4 years ago)

Teferi, Master of Time

side

Top Ranked	Achieved #33 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #27 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Control 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Midrange 4 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 1 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.17
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders	cEDH, cEDH Primers, Kykar, Interesting Decks, cEDH, CEDH, Competitive EDH, commander, EDH, Commanders
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