[Primer] The Locust God - Loot n' Shoot

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Primer UR (Izzet)

zrob

Instant (24)

• 1x Abrade
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Flame Sweep
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Whir of Invention
• 1x Winds of Rebuke

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Personal Tutor
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Transmute Artifact
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Winds of Change

Land (30)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 7x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (8)

• 1x Barrin, Master Wizard
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Sage of the Falls
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Treasonous Ogre
• 1x Trinket Mage

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Commander (1)

Artifact (18)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Copy Artifact
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Underworld Breach

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (3)

• 1x By Force
• 1x Rough / Tumble
• 1x Time Spiral

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Verity Circle

Instant (2)

• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Dack Fayden

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Welcome to my deck, here's some information on how to play it, and what I might be currently experimenting with.

This deck aims to be as competitive as possible, sitting at cEDH tables and performing well. I get a chance to play cEDH every week, so I'm always experimenting and finding out what else works, what I might need to include, and what needs to be taken out. Check back often to find out more information!

Onto the deck itself...

The Commander

He's izzet colors (my favorite!) and has a pretty unique ability. He also comes back pretty easily if he dies, due to his Godliness. Izzet usually has a spellslinger approach, but with TLG, you can generate some tokens, draw and loot cards with his effect, which is pretty good.

His ability loot is pretty relevant for this deck, as it's an outlet for infinite mana and such. The locusts he generates are also pretty good, and can enable some interesting things which we will go over shortly.

Game Plan

The main game plan is to get the Locust God out on the field, then use one of our several infinite win cons to end the game. We enable this with plenty of artifact ramp and several tutors for our win conditions, as well as a good suite of card draw and selection to help find answers and protect our board.

Unfortunately for us, the Locust God costs 6 mana, and our deck is generally a bit slower than many tier 1 cEDH lists. To augment our deck, we run a few stax pieces to help out, and run a plethora of counter magic to stop our opponents from winning. We slow the game down with some stax cards like Stranglehold, Blood Moon, and Back to Basics. We can also disrupt with our wheels. Slower games are nice if someone else is staxing out the board as well, since we can build up to our win easier.

Our ramp suite includes a plethora of fast mana and artifact mana, such as Mana Crypt, Mox Opal, Izzet Signet, and more. We also have things like Dockside Extortionist and Treasonous Ogre to power things out.

Stranglehold will prevent tutors from happening, and fringe cases vs Edric turns decks. We can attack our opponent's mana with the aforementioned Blood Moon and Back to Basics, which doesn't hit us that hard. We can wheel out opening hands with Winds of Change if we need to (though it's not great), and things like Narset, Parter of Veils is backbreacking with any of our wheel effects, as it will leave our opponents with no cards to play with.

We run a few wheels to generate locusts, but mainly to refill our hand if we need it. Again, they play well with Narset. Also, Skullclamp, even without its partner combo pieces, is quite good to just draw a lot of cards.

Let's go over our actual wincons next.

Win Cons and How to Get There

Ashnod's Altar / Phyrexian Altar + Skullclamp

This is a commander specific combo we can do. With the locust god and a locust out, Skullclamp reads: : "Draw 2 cards and make a locust." This is a pretty good effect on it's own, and should be used if you feel safe doing it. Combined with either of the altars, we can sacrifice a locust to pay the require mana cost to equip the Skullclamp, drawing more cards. Rinse and repeat to draw your whole deck, and do whatever you want.

To get to this combo, you can tutor for Skullclamp with Trinket Mage, and you can Fabricate for the any piece. Since there's two altars we have a higher chance of grabbing one of those. We can grab any of these pieces with Whir of Invention or Transmute Artifact (given you have an artifact to sacrifice to it), as well as Inventors' Fair.

What is nice about this combo is we don't care if there's something like Cursed Totem out, as we don't need to use the looting ability of our commander here.

Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter

This is a classic combo you see, where we imprint Dramatic Reversal onto Isochron Scepter. With from mana rocks, we can generate infinite colored mana. Something like Sol Ring + Mox Opal could do the trick, but basically mana rocks + Dramatic Scepter = good. With the infinite colored mana, we can then loot through our entire deck with our commander's ability and win the game like this.

A problem you might encounter is if there's some sort of Cursed Totem effect that is stopping us from being able to loot. A backup to this can be using Sensei's Divining Top to draw your entire deck instead. Just use use the Dramatic Reversal, then tap the top in response. Let the reversal resolve and tap the top again in response, and repeat this process to draw your whole deck and win with the infinite locusts. The best part is, the top doubles as good draw smoothing in the deck, so it's not a dead card otherwise.

Another backup with this if Sensei's Divining Top doesn't work for some reason is to Copy Artifact the scepter, imprinting Swan Song. This allows you to generate infinite swans by just targetting your own Swan Song over and over again, and untapping with the other scepter. I don't really recommend actively trying to go for this (it requires too many cards), and I've never really done it in a game, but it's there.

To grab Isochron Scepter, Fabricate can get it, as well as Whir of Invention or Transmute Artifact (though with the latter two, make sure you have Dramatic Reversal in hand). You can also grab it with Inventors' Fair. For Dramatic Reversal, we can use Spellseeker to search it out from our deck, as well as Merchant Scroll or Mystical Tutor. Muddle the Mixture grabs either of these cards, which is nice.

Sage of the Falls

This is a simple way to loot through your deck if you have your commander out. Once you play him, he triggers a draw, creating an insect, and the loop continues. His ability is also a "may" so you can stop whenever you want (so you don't deck yourself out). This way you can draw your deck and swing with locusts, or drop some of the above combos. You can search for Sage of the Falls using Imperial Recruiter, which is nice. It's a good two card combo that should win you the game.

Dockside Extortionist + Barrin, Master Wizard

This is a cool combo you can do with TLG out. Once you play Dockside Extortionist, you make a ton of treasures (hopefully), and then sacrifice a locust and bounce it with Barrin's ability. Then you replay him, making more, and hopefully generate infinite mana so you can loot through your deck with our commander. After that you can play some of the other combos we have, or just swing out with locusts as usual. You can search for both creatures with Imperial Recruiter, but I recommend finding Barrin, Master Wizard first, then bouncing Imperial Recruiter and replaying him to find Dockside Extortionist.

Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Wheel of Fortune / Windfall*

This is a combo that doesn't really need our commander. By itself, Underworld Breach is a nice card to get some value, but combined with the above two other cards, you can mill out the table/get your combo pieces into the yard and win from there.

How this combo works is that you want to loop LED and Wheel of Fortune over and over again, exiling 6 cards in the process. You net 1 extra card in the yard, so be sure to try and exile lands and non-interaction while you are doing this. Eventually you can pick up your other win cons and try to win from there, or if you somehow have more cards in your deck than everyone else, just win via milling them out.

This also works with Windfall instead of Wheel of Fortune, but someone needs to have 6+ cards in hand. With Locust God out, you will generate a ton of tokens and can probably swing out, too. This is a pretty flexible combo.

You can grab Lion's Eye Diamond with Fabricate, Inventors' Fair, Transmute Artifact, Whir of Invention, or Trinket Mage. You can grab Wheel of Fortune or Windfall with Personal Tutor or Mystical Tutor. You can get Underworld Breach with Muddle the Mixture.

Wheels

Any of the wheels in this deck can enable you to win or just bog the opponent's down super hard. A wheel with Narset, Parter of Veils will leave the opponents with almost nothing, reminscient of Leovold. A wheel after Cyclonic Rift will leave your opponents in disarray as well.

Cards Currently On Probation + Cards I'm Considering

Probation:

None at the moment.

Cards I Want to Add:

Time Spiral: This is a pretty good wheel. I may want to try it.

Rough: Another sweeper might be good for clearing out pesky dorks in my meta.

Verity Circle: A good card advantage engine vs mana dorks. With Opposition (which isn't in the deck right now), it get's quite good.

By Force: Artifact sweepers are good. I haven't needed this lately but it's always a consideration.

Budget Choices

Some of these cards are expensive ($100+). Let's do some budget picks.

Fetchlands: You can try more basics (tend towards islands), and lands like Sulfur Falls and Spirebluff Canal. Same replacements for Volcanic Island.

Timetwister: Try replacing with Time Spiral, which is also expensive. If that's too much try Reforge the Soul.

Lion's Eye Diamond: You won't be able to Underworld Breach combo without this, but breach is still good without it. You could try some gravehate like Relic of Progenitus or Soul-Guide Lantern.

Mana Crypt/Mox Diamond/Mox Opal/Grim Monolith: These are premium rocks so it hurts to lose them. You could try Coldsteel Heart, Mind Stone, Commander's Sphere, Thought Vessel, Darksteel Ingot.

Updates [Last Updated: 03/05/2020]

You can find all the changes I've made to the deck here.

03/05/2020

I've revamped the deck with some newer cards and combos. I've also updated the guide!

06/17/2019

Updated the mana base to what it actually is. I removed City of Brass for Fiery Islet. I also added a Prismatic Vista. I will leave this space to explain the mana base another time.

• -Coldsteel Heart
• +Talisman of Creativity

Coldsteel Heart comes in tapped, and now that we finally have enemy talismans, there's no reason not to run it over this. It produces both colors and isn't tapped, and is only 2 mana. Sign me up!

• -Izzet Charm
• +By Force

The charm just is not holding up. By Force in testing has been great, killing my opponents mana rocks, and getting rid of problematic stuff like Null Rod.

• -Time Spiral
• +Echo of Eons

Echo of Eons is more of what we want in this deck. Time Spiral was decent but having 6 mana to even do it is rough, while with echo, we can just wheel it away and then use it later or immediately after.

• -Metalworker
• +Tribute Mage

The Metalworker experiment is over, and it just did not hold up. Tribute Mage should slot nicely, giving us another way to get Isochron Scepter, or just some 2 mana rock if we need it.

We finally have

05/16/2019

• -Stifle
• +Pyroblast

Pyroblast is just the better card here, and has more uses outside of the Kindred Discovery combo.

If you liked this deck, please upvote!

+1 Upvote

Top Ranked	Achieved #24 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #8 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 4 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.01
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Insect 1/1 UR, Treasure
Folders	Decks I want, Reference Decks, New deck ideas, commander, Cool cEDH decks, cEDH Decks