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A Song of Wind and Feather - Zuberi Griffin Tribal

Commander / EDH* Flying Griffin Mono-White

Arasdil

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Creature (26)

Enchantment (7)

Land (34)

Instant (10)

Planeswalker (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Zuberi, Golden Feather

Artifact (15)

Sorcery (6)

Maybeboard

Creature (13)

Instant (2)

Enchantment (10)

Planeswalker (2)

Sorcery (2)

Land (8)

Artifact (7)

Welcome to my Zuberi, Golden Feather Primer! I have been playing magic for some time now, and while this is not the strongest Commander for the tribe, it's the one I started my deck with. This primer is based upon how I think this deck will play the strongest while maintaining its core as griffin tribal. I'll be revising it in almost real-time as it is one of my favorite decks. The maybeboard presents all the cards I have already used at some point (before this prime even existed) but had it changed for another card that performed better. I find myself to be a competent player and deck-builder, and I'm pretty satisfied with my current list so far. Please, feel free to suggest any cards you like!

Added Custom files if you wish to see the utility of each individual card in the deck. Some of them are used for multiple purposes.

Power Level: 6

In order to understand how to properly build and play Zuberi, Golden Feather, we need to examine his cost, stats, and abilities. We'll start with his CMC and his ability, as these will tell us some key play elements that will drive our play.

To begin with, Zuberi costs [4W], has 3 power and 3 toughness, and gives the other griffin on the battlefield +1 power and +1 toughness. The Griffin piece (combined with the fact that he is a griffin and his ability care about griffins) points us towards a tribal approach. But as we can see, for a Lord he is over-costed, his stats are pretty mediocre and his effect is decent at best; which is also true for the majority of griffin cards. This has implications for both lines of play and how we think about ramp and other support pieces in this deck.

Let’s start on the premise that our creatures do not support our deck in any other way, except for being evasive creatures. We'll be happy to play explosive turn one/two plays that can boost our mana availability to help deploy our over-costed griffins the fastest. By this I have preferred mana-sources that can generate more than 1 mana, or that have another upside along with it. The fact that Zuberi is a anthem piece for griffins in the command-zone, also means that we always have access to some boost in our damage application. We'll mostly play griffins that cost between two and four mana, allowing us to play our commander on curve by turn five. That being said, while the tribe is populated with small two power griffins, because of our anthem effects they will often be quite large, and as such staple weenie white draw cards like Mentor of the Meek and Welcoming Vampire would be less good in this deck, forcing us to look to other cards or themes to give us a good drawn engine to sustain our engine and to avoid running out of gas.

Another consideration is the fact that we essentially are a Vorthos deck, so if you're looking for a strong white deck to crush your opponents with, I recommend you to look on another primer, but if you're looking for an optimized list for one of our most underrated tribe there is, feel free to join me!

Oftentimes when approaching a new deck archetype or tribe, there are multiple approaches that one can take, and it is useful to see the place a particular commander sits in in relation to that archetype or tribe.

The thing about griffins, however, is that they have never been supported by WOTC as they have been supporting tribes in the format. The partial reason is the fact that two of our most iconic supports, Griffin Canyon and Zuberi, the Golden Feather, stands in the reserved list.

Certainly more iconic commanders such as Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Crovax, Ascendant Hero would play equal, if not better than our own Zuberi as commander, but there isn't anything about them that pushes us to building griffins, since they "only" have generic anthem effects. The only truly griffins commander out there now has been Zeriam, Golden Wind, but while powerful he pushes us for a more Voltron/staxy play-style, since his token production usually discourage the use of other griffins, at least in the amount I would like for this Tribal Deck. He's also clearly one of the strongest cards on the battlefield to be left unchecked, making him a removal/counterspell bait, and making the play experience potentially undesirable.

All this is to say that I'm keeping Zuberi, Golden Feather as the go to OG griffins commander going forward. We'll play Zeriam as a powerful support nonetheless in the 99 where we will get great use out of him, but in Zuberi we have flavour. His place in the heavens is clear, we shall not undermine it out of "spikiness".

When I started playing with the early versions of the deck, it was noticeable how smooth the game-play was with a Sol Ring, I Was able to compete like the deck had a power level of 6/7; this was also true for Land Tax. By this, our game-plan for the early turns is fairly simple. Regardless of anything else, our focus will be to start playing as soon as turn one, and build from there, which guides our decisions around our opening hand. We'll ideally want to start the game with one of these eight cards if we wish to play against stronger foes.

• Mana Crypt: Fast Ramp, as good as Sol Ring, will make us start playing all our artifacts early on to help our griffins to thrive!

• Sol Ring: Fast Ramp, one of the best starts on EDH, and comes with the bonus of not bolting you every two turns.

• Land Tax: Ensures that we make everyone of our land drops, which can be as good in the mid-game as to having an explosive start.

• Weathered Wayfarer: Ensures my land drop while having the potential to ramp mid game or search for some sort of card draw/utility (in our mana base). Usualy, I'll search for Myriad Landscape or Windbrisk Heights, followed by Ancient Tomb, and then Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Then I can search for any utility land, or a cycling land, or Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, depending on the necessity.

• Ancient Tomb: A land that taps for 2 mana. Slightly worse than a sol ring (searchable by Weathered Wayfarer)

• Enlightened Tutor: Searches for a fast mana rock, Land Tax or Esper Sentinel early on, and any of our Artifact/Enchantments in the mid-late game. I'm found of searching for Mind's Eye late on if I have no other card-draw engine; or True Conviction as a way to end the game.

• Esper Sentinel: In early turns can be better than Ancestral Recall itself. Worthy to search for it with Enlightened Tutor if I know my opponents will play a lot of non-creatures early on.

• Gemstone Caverns: Ideally, a mox on turn 0; not worthy if not keeping a hand with seven cards. You would want to have some sort of card-draw engine and not to be playing Land Tax or Weathered Wayfarer in the actual game for it to be worth. Still trying it out

Feel free to keep a safe hand that has enough lands and a game-plan, even if it only has a play on turn-two/three, rather than "mulliganing" your hand into the oblivion.

Once we've kept a hand we'll play a one drop if we have it and then try to curve-out while making the most efficient plays. This deck rather ramp early on than draw, but since we are a mono-white deck, both of these must be taken on consideration, while maintaining the input of griffins onto the battlefield.

Once our key engines are in play, it's time to start building an army of griffins! The mid-game is all about building and protecting this army as much as possible, while also beginning to attack and chip away at our opponents' life totals.

While we'll obviously be casting any and all griffins in this phase, there is three engines which we will try to assemble if we can. In order of priority:

Firstly is to ramp with our package. Our engine consists of cards like Dowsing Dagger   and Sword of the Animist that give us land. Our best pieces are as always Pearl Medallion, Urza's Incubator and Oketra's Monument that can provide massive discounts to our griffin spells, and the former is even better as it provides us with tokens that can be either sacrificed to protect our griffins from Grave Pact effects or to be shapeshifted into griffins by Mirror Entity for a powerful attack.

Secondly, we'll want to establish a draw engine. We don't use card life gain or token generation as a focus on this deck, so we got to use what is provided to us. Weathered Wayfarer and Esper Sentinel will help us profoundly as they only costs one mana each, and Archivist of Oghma will make us benefit from all the tutor effects that our opponents might have. Mask of Memory and Sword of Forge and Frontier are great, since all of our creatures have evasion. We also use Mind's Eye, which can fill our hand in no time, provided we have the mana for it. Pursuit of Knowledge is a favorite of mine, while it may seem dificult to make it work, I have been impressed with its use alongside other draw engines. It works wonderfully from the Cycling lands or Roadside Reliquary, which can shorten our draw-skip by a couple of turns. Vanquisher's Banner and The Immortal Sun can provide us with the needed card draw, while also pumping our team. This lead us to:

Thirdly, we'll be playing our anthem effects alongside our griffin army. Using this type of effect is essential, since our creatures are known to have 2 power. Cards like Honor of the Pure, Shared Triumph, and Rally the Ranks are cheap and can be played alongside our other cards once we have a border presence. Heraldic Banner will act as a mana-source while buffing our creatures, Icon of Ancestry will be providing us with a mana sink to search for more griffins late-game, and Radiant Destiny will provide us with vigilance to help defend our life-points while maintaining our assault. While Marshal's Anthem has the lowest cost benefit for a anthem, it provides us to a way of getting back our fellow companions, which will help us to rebuild after a board-wipe.

Our opponents at this phase are also likely to get nervous, and to ponder putting us in our place with a board wipe, leading us to employ some measures to protect our board from tampering! Sephara, Sky's Blade is a powerful piece here, and we can usually cast her for by tapping four other griffins, at that point our whole board will be indestructible except for Sephara herself, which should give us room to move. We also have Flawless Maneuver as a free way to making all our creatures indestructible, being one of the best form of protection this deck has to offer. I'll see myself using Akroma's Will as a last resort protection for 4 mana if stranded.

Clever Concealment won't just save our griffins from destruction, but will phase them all out and then bring all back on our turn! What's more interesting with this card is that it can also protect all of our non-land permanents, while having the capacity of costing 0 mana, if we tap up to four of our creatures. It will save our permanents from practically anything, including the much vaunted Cyclonic Rift or other blue board wipes, being a worthy new inclusion.

One other key point here is that we have a lot of powerful recursion that can recover our key pieces if we lose them. Emeria, the Sky Ruin, and Emeria Shepherd, can recur pieces once per turn for no real cost, which will make it hard for our opponents to keep up with if not dealt with. Ascend from Avernus will bring all our griffins back after a board wipe, and Dusk / Dawn will bring practically all of our creatures back to our hand from the graveyard. Marshal's Anthem and Sevinne's Reclamation will provide us with a little more recursion if needed, the prior also serving to buff our board. All of these things help us to really pull ahead in the game.

Oftentimes when writing a primer the end-game is the most complicated part as I explain complicated combos and lines of play. Thankfully here its pretty straightforward. This is a midrange aggressive deck that is going to win by attacking with large flyers. At the end of the day, we are going to hit our opponents for lethal, and a large part of winning will be attributed to our success in defending our board state via measures mentioned in the previous section and sometimes using some effect that boosts our damage output.

That being said, aggro decks of any kind in commander often win via "nasty surprises" that mess up our opponents' math, allowing us to kill them when they thought they might live to fight another day. Which we do with cards like Mirror Entity, our honorary griffin; Akroma's Will, our white Overrun; and True Conviction. Those cards turns all of our griffins into serious threats out of nowhere since our creatures aren't already big and threatening, catching our opponents off guard.

That being said, while all of these cards can throw your opponents off and help you get through, none are strictly necessary. The key is to get a good board state and keep it until you win!

Updates

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  • Mind's Eye;
  • Plains (changing for Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire once I get one)

Out:

  • Plains x2;
  • Aven Mindcensor (Good, but too situational, changing for another protection spell);
  • Paladin Class (good, but too mana intensive)

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Out:

  • Smuggler's Share (Not worthy to play it in my playgroup; Less relevant than Sevvine's Reclamation when playtesting)

In:

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  • Crackdown (It was fun when it worked, may opt to use it again in the future)
  • Debt of Loyalty (Proved too inconsistent, even though it was nice when it worked)
  • Plains

In:

I'm trying a heavier focus on equipment, to see if it might be better than the white card draw alternatives

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Liked the heavier focus on equipment

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Finally with the list where I want it to be

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Primer inspired by [Primer] Helming the Host of Heaven *Update*

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99% Casual

Competitive

Date added 2 years
Last updated 2 months
Legality

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

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

41 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

15 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.94
Tokens Construct 0/0 C, Elephant 3/3 G, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Griffin 2/2 W, Plant 0/2 G, Soldier 1/1 W, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance
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