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Black Magic - Breaking Azami in EDHby Sam Black
In his recent mail column, Patrick Chapin said he'd like to see my take on Azami, Lady of Scrolls in EDH. I haven't written or played Constructed seriously in awhile due to an inability to resist clicking the SOM Draft 8-4 button whenever I'm not already in such a draft. That said, I enjoy talking, writing, and thinking about EDH, so this was a request I was happy to grant. Must be nice to always get what you want. I haven't played Azami, but the theory is very clearwait, don't leave yet, unless you're not interested in EDH, in which case you'll really want to stop reading. The fact that I haven't built or played Azami yet is intended to be something of a feature, as it provides me with an excellent opportunity to show my thought process on EDH deckbuilding.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls is like Azusa, Lost but Seeking's other half. Azusa allows you to play cards faster, so she clearly needs you to find a way to draw more cards, Azami allows you to draw a lot more cards, so you need to find a way to play them faster. Of course, each card is in the color that's good at doing their effect, which means both are going to rely heavily on artifacts for the other half. Azami also needs Wizards, where Azusa needs lands, but that's a minor detail.
Seriously though, we're going to need some Wizards. Yes, you could just play Azami as a Honden of Seeing Winds, but that really doesn't seem like the best use of a general and certainly isn't how Azami herself wants to be built (see my previous article on building EDH and my desire to build decks around a general as if the general were building the deck).
Azami gives Wizards a tap ability, which means Wizards that have their own tap abilities will be somewhat less appealing; similarly, if you somehow find a blue Wizard with stats for attacking, that's also not what you're looking for. That means we're going to be looking primarily at static and triggered abilities, "enters the battlefield" abilities, and sacrifice abilities (although those aren't as good because we want our Wizards in play). Also, we're going to want our Wizards to be cheap so that we can have plenty in play early, so that they're generally less threatening, and because we're going to want all our spells to be cheap, so that we can cast more of them to take advantage of all the cards we'll be drawing.
A list of interesting Wizards, by casting cost:
1:Cursecatcher Enclave Cryptologist Martyr of Frost Sage of Epityr Vedalken Certarch Sphinx's Herald
These options are pretty weak. Cursecatcher and Martyr of Frost sacrifice, which is a strike against them, but at one mana, we really can't expect too much. Enclave Cryptologist and Vedalken Certarch have tap abilities, and Enclave Cryptologist's is particularly redundant, while Vedalken Certarch's may not even come up, depending on how our deck turns out. Sage of Epityr is the kind of card we're looking for, but his effect is really weak. Sphinx's Herald is mentioned just because it's an artifact, which may be relevant for things like Vedalken Certarch or Trinket Mage. It's something unique at least. Hapless Researcher is probably the next best option.
2:Aphetto Alchemist Cephalid Illusionist Jushi Apprentice Lighthouse Chronologist Minamo Scrollkeeper Rimewind Taskmage Ringskipper Sea Scryer Silvergill Adept Spellstutter Sprite Stern Proctor Stonybrook Banneret Thalakos Seer Vedalken Aethermage Vedalken Mastermind Voidmage Prodigy Willbender
We have much better offerings here. Cephalid Illusionist is there to note in case we find something unfair to do with it, but I doubt that's the direction I'll be going. Jushi Apprentice is another card that's awkwardly redundant, but here, I think it plays so well with how the rest of the deck wants to be built, and it's so good against blue that I think it will probably be worth including. Lighthouse Chronologist is exactly the kind of thing we're looking for: a good triggered ability. Minamo Scrollkeeper isn't a very powerful card, but it does do something that is particularly useful here. I suspect its low power level will be something of a sticking point, but we'll see. Sea Scryer is exciting, since I expect our mana to be very tight. Silvergill Adept will be awesome if we have enough Merfolk, but I don't think that will happen. Spellstutter Sprite is just the greatest. Stonybrook Banneret is ideal, as are Willbender and Voidmage Prodigy.
3: Ambassador Laquatus Aphetto Grifter Apprentice Wizard Aether Adept Echo Mage Fatespinner Graceful Adept Neurok Replica Patron Wizard Rayne, Academy Chancellor Sea Gate Oracle Spawnbroker Trinket Mage Vedalken Plotter Vendilion Clique Vigean Graftmage Wizard Replica
Ambassador Laquatus is there in case we're looking for a way to kill someone once we have infinite mana, but the popularity of Emrakul and friends makes him less suited to the role than he would otherwise be. Aether Adept is the exact kind of card I'd like, but it's a very weak effect in multiplayer. Fatespinner seems sweet, but it has the disadvantage that I think someone will kill it a lot of the time, and it's just too likely to annoy people more than it actually helps you, which might make them attack you when they wouldn't otherwise. It's a bad political card. Rayne, on the other hand, is an awesome political card. Sea Gate Oracle, Vendilion Clique, and Trinket Mage are the three I'm sure I'll want to play. Spawnbroker is mostly included in this list just so I can point out how insane it is against Azusa.
4:Faerie Harbinger Fatestitcher Glen Elendra Archmage Inspired Sprite Merrow Levitator Sower of Temptation Surgespanner Venser, Shaper Savant
Venser, Glen Elendra Archmage, Merrow Levitator, and Sower of Temptation are the most likely.
5:Magus of the Future Scrivener Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
The bar is set extremely high for five drops, since they're competing with Azami herself.
6:Uyo, the Silent Prophet
I'm only considering her because of how good Time Warp effects are in this deck.
Memnarch is a way to win the game with infinite mana, but I think we can do much better.
That list was going to have to come together at some point in this deck construction process, but for the moment we can table it while we figure out how many Wizards we want and what the deck is trying to do.
Choosing a DirectionEDH, as has been widely discussed, is a format that can mean a lot of different things to different people, and it's extremely important to understand what kind of deck you're looking for. I think there are two very relevant metrics: competitiveness and interactivity. I like to have a lot of both, but in this format, more competitive often means less interactive. Finding a combo and suddenly winning isn't very interactive, but it's also by far the best way to win a multiplayer game. For me, the more casual and interactive I'm going for, the more Wizards I'm going to try to play, but if I just want to create an unfair deck, I'm going to try to do something like draw my deck with Mind Over Matter as consistently as possible.
An even more fundamental decision is whether you're building for two player or multiplayer. I respect two-player EDH as a format, unlike some, but I stand by my opinion that it should be played between decks that are built honestly for multiplayer. This puts something of a realistic cap on the number of counterspells you probably want to play, although this depends somewhat on another question of the dynamics of your game, which is how political it is. When I played Magic in high school, the group I played with played with a house rule that all agreements were binding, which made counterspells a lot better ("I won't counter that creature, but it can never attack or block without my permission"). I don't know of any other groups that play this way, but that kind of thing is important to keep in mind.
The easiest target for me to build for is the four-player EDH tournaments that have been showing up as side events at StarCityGames.com Opens and various GPs. This means I'm looking for competitive, but at a very low level, so it's okay to try to have some fun, but the goal is definitely to win.
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Back to building:
As I mentioned, this deck is going to need to focus on developing its mana, since that's the best way to really maximize all the extra cards we plan to draw, so the next step is to look at ways to do that. Sol Ring, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mana Vault, and Grim Monolith are given. Everflowing Chalice is almost certainly appropriate. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are reasonable, but they don't accelerate Azami. Worn Powerstone is probably better. Sapphire Medallion seems awesome, since we plan to cast a lot of spells, Cloud Key has a similar function, but it's much worse. Helm of Awakening is a little dangerous, but almost certainly correct. Aether Vial is very similar to mana. Walking Atlas and Terrain Generator are both fairly weak cards that could be very well suited to this deck. High Tide seems likely to be one of the best cards in the deck. I guess Gauntlet of Power and Extraplanar Lens are like weak High Tides. If we want more from there we have to start looking at cards like Silver Myr, Palladium Myr, and Sky Diamond.
Drawing cards and playing accelerators is pretty sweet, but while it's basically enough to win a game against one opponent, we're going to need a better plan than that against a table. It's easy to outdraw one player, but when the table as a whole takes three draw steps and three untap steps for each of yours, it takes a lot more to get ahead. This means we need to envision an endgame, and we need to be working to it quickly. Azusa does this with Eldrazi. Sek'Kuar does this through combos that make a lot of tokens. Azami needs to do something unfair beyond drawing cards.
There's no way you should be planning to win in combat, so there's basically no avoiding the fact that you're playing a combo deck. The card draw is just there to find and protect whatever your real plan is. Likely plans include Palinchron+High Tide, Grim Monolith+Power Artifact, Mind Over Matter+Azami (which only lets you assemble the perfect hand, from there, you'll probably want another combo), Sensei's Divining Top+Helm of Awakening+Magus of the Future/Future Sight.
You may notice that none of these plans actually win the game. They all just draw cards or make mana. Turning that into a win is actually somewhat awkward. Crystal Shard+Mnemonic Wall+Time Warp isn't the greatest combo, but it might be good enough. Maybe it's easier to just draw the entire deck and then cast Beacon of Tomorrows until the game's over. Mindslaver+Academy Ruins is also realistic. It's not the hard lock it is in a two-player game, but when you control whoever's winning and use them to attack the next strongest player, you can probably manage to win.
As I said earlier, Time Warp effects are awesome in this deck. They'll let you play additional lands and draw several extra cards by tapping your Wizards, even Savor the Moment is likely worth playing as a bad Explore.
The best reason to play this deck over other explosive decks like Azusa is access to countermagic so that you can stop other people from going off first. This means you're going to have to actually put some counterspells in your deck even though it's multiplayer. You don't need very many though, because you're only trying to counter spells that win the game or significantly disrupt your plan. You don't need to counter every bear your opponent plays; you're not that kind of blue deck.
With this deck, it's all about mana efficiency. Dismiss is not the card you're looking for. Force of Will, Misdirection, Spell Pierce, Force Spike, Counterspell, Mana Leak, Negate, Muddle the Mixturethose are the kinds of counters you want to be playing. Hinder might be worth it just because it's so powerful in EDH. Cryptic Command is another card that, while it's not exactly the kind of thing you're looking for, it's just inherently powerful enough to deserve consideration.
There are some non-Wizards that are worth considering. Grand Architect is an amazing mana source if we're playing enough artifacts. On a related note, Molten-Tail Masticore might be a reasonable win condition as a way to spend large amounts of mana or deal with specific threats. Duplicant is another card that most decks should consider, just because it provides a good answer to things that can be difficult to answer; although I try not to be that paranoid. Remember that Mulldrifter is not the kind of effect we're interested in.
Okay, now I know enough of what I'm trying to do that it's time to throw together an initial list and see how many spaces I have for various effects.
Sorceries: 6
Beacon of Tomorrows Capture of Jingzhou Savor the Moment Temporal Manipulation Time Warp Walk the Aeons
Instants: 9
High Tide Counterspell Spell Pierce Force Spike Mana Leak Negate Force of Will Muddle the Mixture Hinder
Artifacts: 13
Sol Ring Chrome Mox Mox Diamond Mana Vault Mana Crypt Grim Monolith Worn Powerstone Sapphire Medallion Helm of Awakening Crystal Shard Sensei's Divining Top Mindslaver Walking Atlas
Enchantments: 3
Power Artifact Mind of Matter Future Sight
Creatures: 30
Cursecatcher Enclave Cryptologist Martyr of Frost Sage of Epityr Jushi Apprentice Lighthouse Chronologist Minamo Scrollkeeper Sea Scryer Spellstutter Sprite Stonybrook Banneret Vedalken Aethermage Vedalken Mastermind Voidmage Prodigy Willbender Apprentice Wizard Aether Adept Patron Wizard Rayne, Academy Chancellor Sea Gate Oracle Trinket Mage Vedalken Plotter Vendilion Clique Glen Elendra Archmage Inspired Sprite Merrow Levitator Sower of Temptation Venser, Shaper Savant Magus of the Future Scrivener Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Lands: 39
Ancient Tomb Minamo, School at Water's Edge Mutavault Reliquary Tower Riptide Laboratory Temple of the False God Terrain Generator 32 (Snow-Covered) Island
That was actually easier than I thought. That's my initial list of all the cards I wanted to play off the top of my head, which happened to come out to exactly 100. I might like two more lands, and I might like either Ulamog, Emrakul, or Elixir of Immortality. There are a number of other spells that would be awesome, like Erayo, Soratami Ascendant, Cryptic Command or Spin into Myth. So this is still the rough draft. It's a rough draft that I'm reasonably happy with, but it's not done. The next step is to see what other people have done to see what I've forgotten about. The place to start, of course, is Patrick Chapin's list from his article "Sixty" which I haven't referenced yet.
Looking at his deck, it's clearly designed with two-player in mind and built somewhat differently because of it; that said, as expected, it pointed out some oversights in mine. First of all, Mana Drain is a card I was reeling over the absurdity of in EDH last night. It's a card I often forget about these days, as it and Time Vault are basically the only really good old cards I don't own at the moment, and I often forget when casual formats allow it. Anyway, it should clearly be in this deck. Next, Forbid makes a lot of sense as one of the most desirable counterspells.
His deck has more card draw and library manipulation than mine. Partially, this is because I don't want to spend mana doing that compared to doing other things; partially, it's just because it's not what I have fun doing in casual games. Preordain is the card along those lines I'd be most likely to play.
Planeswalkers are too slow and don't add enough, as they're basically more card draw.
Turnabout is an interesting ritual, but I suspect part of what makes cards like that and Frantic Search (another card that should probably be played) better in his deck is that Tolarian Academy either hadn't been banned yet or he missed its banning. Time Stop is an amazing Time Warp in two-player but less exciting in multiplayer. It still might be necessary as a perfect answer to Eldrazi (I'm pretty sure I wish it had been reprinted over Time Reversal in M11 so that we could have that interaction in Standard).
Mind's Desire seems awesome and should probably be played, which pushes the deck toward one-mana cantrips. Once you're going in that direction, you probably want Erayo.
Coalition Relic is an ideal accelerator that I blanked on, but I don't know if I agree with playing it over Worn Powerstone. I forgot about Gauntlet of Power despite writing about it earlierI'm just biased against that card irrationally to be honest.
Briberyif it's good enough to make me not play Emrakul, it's probably good enough that I should play it, but I'm not entirely sure that's true.
My deck has 40 lands to his 33. It's possible that some of those should become one-mana cantrips, particularly to enable Mind's Desire, but I don't want to miss a land drop. Honestly, the correct number depends on which mulligan rules you're using. If you're using big-deck mulligans (one free), followed by regular Paris, you can go a little lower if you want. If you're using the bizarre EDH mulligan that allows you to put any number of cards on the bottom and draw that many cards, you want enough lands that you can always keep any powerful accelerator and put everything else on the bottom to maximize your chances of starting with Sol Ring/Mox/Mana Vault/Mana Crypt (this is why I think this is a terrible mulligan rule).
He's also playing far more nonbasics. If you're building for one-on-one, you absolutely have to play Strip Mine and Wasteland, since they win you some games, and they're important against cards like Boseiju or Gaea's Cradle. If you're building for Multiplayer, it's much less likely that you'll want to use them. In general, I wanted to try as hard as possible to maximize High Tide. Fetchlands are probably worth it, since one life really isn't a cost, but I had almost no cards that carebasically just Top and Sage, but that's easily enough.
Extract is another card I'd want if I'm building for one-on-one, just because it can be surprisingly crippling for some decks (like Azusa) to lose their Emrakul.
Oh, also, I should probably actually include Azami in my 100 cards.
I guess just for the sake of completion, I'll show where that would leave me at the moment:
Sorceries: 9
Preordain Ponder Mind's Desire Beacon of Tomorrows Capture of Jingzhou Savor the Moment Temporal Manipulation Time Warp Walk the Aeons
Instants: 13
High Tide Counterspell Spell Pierce Force Spike Mana Leak Negate Force of Will Muddle the Mixture Hinder Forbid Time Stop Mana Drain Turnabout
Artifacts: 15
Sol Ring Chrome Mox Mox Diamond Mana Vault Mana Crypt Grim Monolith Worn Powerstone Sapphire Medallion Helm of Awakening Crystal Shard Sensei's Divining Top Mindslaver Walking Atlas Coalition Relic Gauntlet of Power
Enchantments: 3
Power Artifact Mind of Matter Future Sight
Creatures: 25
Cursecatcher Enclave Cryptologist Martyr of Frost Jushi Apprentice Lighthouse Chronologist Sea Scryer Spellstutter Sprite Stonybrook Banneret Vedalken Mastermind Voidmage Prodigy Willbender Patron Wizard Rayne, Academy Chancellor Sea Gate Oracle Trinket Mage Vendilion Clique Glen Elendra Archmage Merrow Levitator Sower of Temptation Venser, Shaper Savant Azami, Lady of Scrolls Magus of the Future Scrivener Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Lands: 35
Academy Ruins Ancient Tomb Minamo, School at Water's Edge Mutavault Reliquary Tower Riptide Laboratory Temple of the False God Terrain Generator Misty Rainforest Flooded Strand Scalding Tarn Polluted Delta 22 (Snow-Covered) Island
From here, I'd like to talk about other approaches to building the deck, like how to go more casual, but I just don't really know how I'd do it. As I said above, you can't really win without comboing with a deck like this. So I'll just have to leave it at this. I think some of the combos can easily be cut for more card selection or creatures, and there's a lot of fine-tuning on the exact creature base and land count, but the general direction the deck has to take is pretty clear.
Join me next time when I talk about a real format.
Thanks for reading, Sam
