Curious Shark Bird (cEDH)

Commander / EDH* RUW (Jeskai, America)

Silance00

Instant (24)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Wear / Tear

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Curiosity
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Ophidian Eye
• 1x Rest in Peace
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Steal Enchantment
• 1x Underworld Breach
• 1x Verity Circle

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Land (30)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 7x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 2x Mountain
• 3x Plains
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Burning Inquiry
• 1x Careful Study
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Pyroclasm
• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

Creature (6)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Tandem Lookout

Commanders (2)

 ^Flip

 ^Flip

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Progress

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Maybeboard

Instant (4)

• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Silence
• 1x Stifle
• 1x Tale's End

Artifact (2)

• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Grim Monolith

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Karn, the Great Creator

Creature (1)

• 1x Containment Priest

Land (1)

• 1x Ancient Tomb

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Introduction

Welcome to my Primer of Brallin, Skyshard Rider and Shabraz, the Skyshark

This deck is an interactive stax deck with access to a compact combo that allows us to run little to no dead cards in our list.

Why Play This Deck?

• you enjoy controlling the board and slowing down your opponents
• Shark Bird
• you want to play an unconventional deck
• you play in a stax heavy meta that this deck can combo through
• Shark Bird
• You like playing a deck without dead cards in it
• you like compact win conditions
• SHARK BIRD!

Gameplan

The main goal of this deck is to slow down and control the game with a variety of stax and hate pieces until you can assemble Curiosity combo (more information in combos section).

Due to the color restrictions and nature of the deck, it is better to aim to slow down and control the game before going for a win. We are usually not the fastest deck at the table, and much of our strength comes from being able to combo through most conventional stax pieces that other decks have trouble dealing with.

If all else fails and we are unable to combo off, Shabraz, the Skyshark works as a good beater to threaten opponents and gain us life to keep us in the game.

Combos

Curiosity

The main combo that you should aim to assemble is: Brallin, Skyshard Rider with either Curiosity, Ophidian Eye, or Tandem Lookout.

Discarding a card will trigger Brallin, Skyshark Rider  's ability to deal 1 damage to each opponent. This then triggers your Curiosity effect for each opponent, drawing 1 card for each opponent for every card discarded. If we are able to get above 7 cards in hand with this combo, we can use the cleanup step as a discard outlet to draw and discard our entire deck, all while pinging our opponents to death.

As it may be difficult to get to 8 cards in hand, many of our cards are slightly unconventional in order to facilitate discarding to get to that magic number such as Ash Barrens and Careful Study.

1. Cast a Curiosity effect on Brallin, Skyshark Rider  
2. Get to 8 cards in hand
3. Go to cleanup step
4. Discard down to hand size, triggering Brallin, Skyshark Rider  
5. Curiosity draws you 1 card for each opponent, putting you above max hand size
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5

LED + Wheel + Breach

As a backup plan, we have an Underworld Breach combo in case we cannot cast Brallin, Skyshark Rider   for whatever reason. This combo works in the following way:

1. cast Underworld Breach
2. cast Lion's Eye Diamond
3. cast Wheel of Fortune, hold priority, and crack Lion's Eye Diamond for
4. repeat steps 2 and 3, using the cards you discarded from Wheel of Fortune to fuel your escape cost
5. eventually your library will get low, and you may need to cast Angel's Grace in order to not mill out before your opponents

Alternatively, this generates insane value off of Brallin, Skyshark Rider   and Shabraz, the Skyshark in case this combo doesn't kill an opponent if they happen to have an eldrazi titan or something else to prevent the combo.

Single Card Discussion

Interaction

• Chain of Vapor: one mana bounce spell to stop combos and remove stax pieces preventing you from comboing
• Pyroclasm: very useful in creature heavy metas, I have found this very useful in my current meta

Stax

• Blood Moon / Magus of the Moon / Back to Basics: Some of the most powerful stax effects in the game. Especially good in metas without many mono-colored decks
• Cursed Totem: very good in creature heavy metas to shut off ramp and stop combos
• Drannith Magistrate: A new addition to the game, very good at stopping decks that rely on commanders to win, and shuts down many other strategies
• Rest in Peace: Insane against graveyard strategies
• Narset, Parter of Veils: hard to protect, but can also be game-ending with wheels. At the least it will act as an expensive impulse

Draw

• Frantic Search: a free spell to dig further for interaction or combo pieces. Technically card disadvantage, but also helps combo off by discarding 2 cards to get above 8 cards in hand
• Burning Inquiry: good hand disruption, and also works as a combo piece by discarding cards
• Careful Study / Faithless Looting: card disadvantage, but good filtering and helps combo off too
• Verity Circle: good in metas with a lot of dorks, can also be used to stop decks that rely on tapping their creatures to combo Ash Barrens: helps get all of our basics for Blood Moon and cycling lets us get to 8 cards in hand without worrying about counter magic Cephalid Coliseum: helps us combo and also loot through our deck. Can be a nonbo with Blood Moon, but worth the downside

Tutors

Gamble: tutors for any card you need, and has the benefit of discarding a card to help you combo off with Curiosity Intuition: the most difficult to use tutor in this deck. Can be used to grab all 3 Curiosity effects, or can grab Sevinne's Reclamation with Blood Moon + Magus of the Moon or Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond with a wheel in the yard. Can also grab two stax pieces that shut off a deck and the card you need to force a decision you want from them. Very high skill ceiling

Weaknesses

The main way to stop this deck from comboing off is through cards such as Notion Thief and Narset, Parter of Veils that prevent you from drawing multiple cards a turn

Sometimes, it is difficult to reach 8 cards in hand to combo off, meaning this deck sometimes has difficulty going off when you want

The lack of green and black means we don't have access to other powerful ramp and tutors that many other decks use, hence the reason we are going for a stax focused build to slow these decks down.

This deck also combos off slower than many other decks on average, meaning we need to focus on holding up interaction, rather than trying to go all in on assembling a combo

Potential Includes

• Containment Priest: cut due to meta, dead card in my playgroup
• Grafdigger's Cage: dependent on meta
• Grim Monolith: the extra mana it provides can be useful, but colorless mana isn't very needed in this deck, and I would rather run a higher density of interaction
• Karn, the Great Creator: very powerful, but hard to protect
• Pyroblast: very good in a meta of blue decks, espescially if you're facing decks that run Notion Thief and Narset, Parter of Veils
• Ancient Tomb: can enable quick starts, but also doesn't work well with Blood Moon and Back to Basics
• Stifle: meta dependent, my meta doesn't run flash hulk
• Tale's End: an alternative to stifle, one more mana for more versatility
• Silence: As powerful as this card is normally, it is much worse in this deck. This is because we use the cleanup step to combo off, meaning that when we're trying to win, the silence effect will have worn off, leaving us open to interaction again

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.91
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Treasure