Why Azami?
Everybody knows Azami is busted. I have had her since Kamigawa was fresh off the press. I saw her in a folder at my local LGS and thought she was cool. I wanted to find a way to make an Azami deck without being a dick. On Reddit a little while ago I came across a post about sub $50 decks. I figured this would be an interesting build project and a way to make Azami less oppressive.
How does it work?
Win cons
Cryptic Gateway + Intruder Alarm
. Draw your entire deck. Win with
Laboratory Maniac
or
Psychosis Crawler
.
Sigil Tracer + Turnabout
+ 3 wizards and six lands. If you haven't heard of this combo it goes like this:
- You start with six untapped lands, four untapped wizards (one of which is Sigil Tracer), and you proceed to cast Turnabout. You now have two untapped lands and four untapped wizards and the spell Turnabout on top of the stack. (Do note that the spell isn't targeting anything. The choice what to untap is made on resolution.)
- You activate Sigil Tracer's ability, tapping the remaining two lands and two wizards. When the ability resolves, it creates a copy of Turnabout above the original, and we still have two untapped wizards.
- Now we let the copy of Turnabout resolve, choosing to untap the six lands. We now have still a Turnabout on the stack, six untapped lands and two untapped wizards.
- We activate Sigil Tracer again. Turnabout copy is created on the stack, we have four untapped lands, and all wizards are tapped.
- We let the Turnabout copy resolve, untapping the wizards. Now we have four untapped lands and four untapped wizards (and still the original Turnabout on the stack).
- We can now activate Sigil Tracer's ability twice, choosing once lands and once creatures when the copies resolve. This leaves us with six untapped lands and four untapped wizards (and the original Turnabout on the stack).
- Now we can draw two mana into the pool and go back to step 5. as often as we like.
This combo allows for infinite mana. Once you have mana, you can put copies of Turnabout on the stack targeting your wizards to draw your entire deck.
The third win con is
Diviner's Wand
. This allows you to deal lethal commander damage and gives you flying too. The wand can actually be tapped to draw a card as it's a wizard. Diviner's Wand can also be used with
Psychosis Crawler
to deal big damage as each card draw is essentially worth three damage - the card in the hand which increases Crawler's P/T, the +1/+1 from the wand, and the loss of life from Crawler. This means generally 14 draw triggers is the maximum you need to kill an opponent not including cards already in your hand.
Cephalid Constable
combos with Diviner's Wand to bounce someone's entire board.
Psychosis Crawler
can also win by drawing massive amounts of cards with
Jushi Apprentice
,
Tolarian Winds
,
Jace's Archivist
,
Flux
,
Laquatus's Creativity
or
Windfall
after loading up your hand with Azami.
Sigil Tracer
plus the above discard/draw spells can be used for massive draw or to deck yourself if you've got one of the win cards (
Psychosis Crawler
,
Diviner's Wand
or
Laboratory Maniac
).
Notable Combos
High Tide + Turnabout
. Cast High Tide, then Turnabout. Generate loads of mana.
Captain of the Mists
+
Cryptic Gateway
. Most of the wizards are also humans, including the old ones like
Apprentice Wizard
and
Magus of the Unseen
. When you put a creature into play with Cryptic Gateway, CoTM will untap if that creature is a human. You now have CoTM and the new creature to tap to play the next creature, and can continue on until you run out of human wizards.
Flash of Insight
+
Windfall
or any of the other windfall effects. Cast Windfall discarding Flash of Insight and then exile the blue cards now in your graveyard to dig for what you want. Seeing as Windfall and friends already dig for you, this combo allows for serious velocity.
Mana Acceleration
Apprentice Wizard
,
Fatestitcher
,
Sea Scryer
,
Stonybrook Banneret
,
High Tide
,
Sapphire Medallion
,
Sky Diamond
,
Sol Ring
,
Thought Vessel
.
Control
Sweepers:
AEtherize
,
AEtherspouts
,
Wash Out
,
Turbulent Dreams
,
Inundate
,
Curse of the Swine
.
Counters:
Daring Apprentice
,
Martyr of Frost
,
Voidmage Prodigy
,
Voidmage Husher
,
Counterspell
,
Dissipate
,
Dream Fracture
,
Faerie Trickery
,
Foil
,
Cancel
,
Rewind
.
Spot Removal:
Temporal Adept
,
Surgespanner
,
Vodalian Illusionist
.
Protecting Azami: other than the counterspells,
Neurok Stealthsuit
,
Mizzium Meddler
,
Swiftfoot Boots
,
Vedalken Mastermind
,
Vodalian Illusionist
.
Thanks for taking a look. Any suggestion welcome, but remember they have to be CHEAP!
