Derevi - Ramp Combo

Commander / EDH GWU (Bant) Infinite Combo Primer Ramp

Skimm3r

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 3x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 4x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 2x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Selesnya Sanctuary
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Utility (6)

• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty

Ramp (19)

• 1x Argothian Elder
• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Dawn's Reflection
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Fertile Ground
• 1x Kiora's Follower
• 1x Krosan Restorer
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Market Festival
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Wild Growth

Draw (15)

• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Future Sight
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Verity Circle
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Disruption (16)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Knight of Autumn
• 1x Loaming Shaman
• 1x Memory Lapse
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1x Terminus

Tutor (7)

• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Mystical Tutor

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Introduction

This is a creature-based combo deck that is intended for somewhat competitive multiplayer pods. I have opted to use combos that consist of cards that have utility outside of going infinite. Any combo that we can use in this deck will also have a number of interchangeable pieces. This results in a deck that is flexible and resilient.

Although, this deck is probably not suited for brutally competitive EDH pods because it often lacks the speed that is necessary to keep up in this environment.

History

I have been playing {G}{W} decks almost since I started playing EDH. I made my first commander deck with Kemba, Kha Regent shortly after I started playing around Return to Ravnica. This quickly evolved into Sigarda, Host of Herons equipment voltron, which I played for a very long time.

Sometime on my adventures on youtube I saw a video about a 5 color combo deck with Progenitus (this video, if anybody is interested). This deck served as an inspiration for me to use the same creatures that untap lands in conjunction with an assortment of Wild Growth enchantments, but not in a combo deck. At first I just used these creatures and enchantments to make big mana in the Shalai, Voice of Plenty commander deck that my Sigarda, Host of Herons voltron deck had evolved into.

I played with Shalai, Voice of Plenty for some time, but my creature deck wasn't procuring much success. So, now we are at the present, and I am developing my {G}{W} creature deck into this flashy, big-mana combo deck. It's funny to think that my terrible Kemba, Kha Regent deck has, in a way, evolved all the way into this.

Note that I no longer play this deck, but I have preserved the decklist and primer because I still think that this deck and strategy are cool.

Primer

Making Infinite Mana Show

The goal of this deck is to assemble one of a variety of infinite mana combos to win.

Most of the ways we can produce infinite mana involve abusing a creature or land that produces 2 or more mana. Creatures that have the potential to do this include Bloom Tender and creatures that untap lands: Kiora's Follower, Krosan Restorer, and Argothian Elder. We have many lands that tap for 2 or more mana naturally: Simic Growth Chamber, Azorius Chancery, Selesnya Sanctuary, Ancient Tomb, and Gaea's Cradle. Fertile Ground, Wild Growth, Market Festival, and Dawn's Reflection also make any land tap for more mana.

There are too many ways to make infinite mana for me to just list them all out individually. But, every combo is enabled by one of four cards: Freed from the Real, Deadeye Navigator, Ghostly Flicker, or Maze of Ith. So, I'll explain the conditions that need to exist for you to be able to go infinite with each of these cards below.

As a general note, be aware of what colors of mana you can make infinitely when declaring a combo - for example, if you have Freed from the Real + Kiora's Follower + Simic Growth Chamber you will only be able to produce infinite {G}, but if you have an island enchanted with Fertile Ground you will be able to make infinite mana of any color. Some combos won't be able to make infinite mana of any color unless you use Fertile Ground, Market Festival, or Dawn's Reflection, so be aware of this.

Freed from the Real

Freed from the Real allows us to make infinite mana from any creature that can produce at least {1}{U}. Whatever mana you have leftover after spending a {U} to untap the creature is what you will have infinite of. Fertile Ground will ensure that this is mana of any color most of the time, and Market Festival and Dawn's Reflection will always ensure that you have infinite mana of any color.

Deadeye Navigator

Deadeye Navigator is the best combo card in the entire deck: he is a creature, meaning he is the easiest card type for us to tutor for; he enables the most infinite mana combos; he has excellent utility outside of combos; and he has the potential to win us the game even if we don't have a way to immediately abuse infinite mana.

Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician produces infinite mana if we control any permanent that produces at least {2}{U}. Like with combos that involve Freed from the Real, whatever mana you have left over after paying {1}{U} to activate the navigator's ability will be what you have infinite of. Market Festival and Dawn's Reflection will ensure that this is always infinite mana of any color.

Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake is another classic infinite mana combo that will almost always allow us to make infinite mana of any color.

Lastly, a weird combo that I've encountered in testing is Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness + Frantic Search if you have three lands that can produce at least {4}{U}. This combo doesn't produce infinite mana, but it does allow us to cast Frantic Search as many times as we like, at which point we can filter through our deck until we find Peregrine Drake and then combo out normally.

Maze of Ith

Argothian Elder + Maze of Ith and Krosan Restorer + Maze of Ith + threshold allow us to produce infinite mana of any color and use our utility lands as many times as we want. However, you must enter combat with Argothian Elder or Krosan Restorer for this combo to work, so we have to use the mana during combat. It is possible to win at instant speed with Blue Sun's Zenith before the mana drains from our mana pool - I detail how to do this in the section on how to play the deck.

Ghostly Flicker

Eternal Witness + Ghostly Flicker + Peregrine Drake makes infinite mana of any color. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Eternal Witness + Ghostly Flicker can do the same thing if we have any creature or land that produces at least {3}{U}. Once again, be aware of if you can make infinite mana of any color with this latter combo.

Winning with Infinite Mana Show

As cool as it is, making infinite mana doesn't win us the game on it's own. We can defeat our opponents by decking them, pumping our creatures infinitely, or by locking everybody out of the game.

Drawing our deck is the best way to win because it will give us all the resources we need to deal with any situation, but the option of winning in an alternate way is there if you can't find a way to draw your deck.

Drawing the Rest of your Deck and Winning with Blue-Sun's Zenith

The main goal of producing infinite mana is to use it to draw the rest of your deck with Blue Sun's Zenith. Fortunately, if you can't find Blue Sun's Zenith there are many more ways to accomplish this.

Future Sight + Sensei's Divining Top is a very strong synergy on its own, but if you have infinite mana you can just draw the rest of your deck.

If you have infinite mana and Deadeye Navigator there are a few ways to draw the rest of your library: Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness with any draw spell in our graveyard, Deadeye Navigator + Dryad Arbor + Tireless Tracker , Coiling Oracle + Deadeye Navigator , or Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Sensei's Divining Top .

After casting Blue Sun's Zenith to draw the rest of your library or casting it on an opponent after drawing your library some other way, it will shuffle itself back in and be the last card left in your library. Because of this, we can repeatedly cast it with Future Sight for X=1000000000 to kill our opponents.

Killing with Combat Damage

Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Gavony Township allow us to pump all of our creatures infinitely. Note that you can only do this with Gavony Township if you combo with a creature that can untap your lands.

Then you can remove blockers with Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician , Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness and a removal spell, or Cyclonic Rift and get in for lethal.

Killing with Frustration

Making infinite mana with Deadeye Navigator or Ghostly Flicker allows you to execute a lock on your opponents using Derevi, Empyrial Tactician by flickering her to tap all of your opponents' permanents during their upkeeps. If anybody tries to cast removal on any of your creatures while Deadeye Navigator is soulbound to something you can flicker it in response, but they will have an opportunity to cast creature removal right after you activate his ability since you have to re-soulbind him as a triggered ability.

Once you've locked down the board you can slowly kill people with whatever creatures you have. Since this lock is escape-able, use player removal on any opponents you suspect are more likely to have removal that will stop you from doing your infinite loop first.

Playing Around Disruption Show

Once we are at the stage where we are killing our opponents, it is good to go through some motions to prevent them from disrupting us wherever possible. Cast Grand Abolisher or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, execute the Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician lock, and let any mana they floated drain from their mana pool if possible.

If you have drawn your deck and are trying to kill with Blue Sun's Zenith, you will have access to every spell in your library to stop your opponent's from disrupting you. But, if you need to use any spell more than once you can do so with Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness .

The main thing to be weary of while going for the kill with Blue Sun's Zenith after drawing your library is an opponent either forcing you to loose by drawing cards or cheating out a Laboratory Maniac in response to your Blue Sun's Zenith. But, you will have every card in your library at your disposal, so this shouldn't be much of a problem.

Playing the Deck Show

I will add to this section of the primer as I become more familiar with playing this deck and come up with more specific advice.

Using Card Filtering Effectively

There are a lot of effects that deal with the top of the library in this deck: Future Sight, Oracle of Mul Daya, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, etc. Using these cards with shuffle effects is a great way to get card advantage through filtering.

When manipulating the top of your library you have to be familiar with your deck so you know what to leave on top and what to shuffle away. In this deck, that means being familiar with all the different ways you can combo at a given time and knowing what cards will find those combos best.

Since there are so many ways to get value by using shuffle effects after manipulating your library in this deck, always hold fetchlands, tutors, or any other cards that shuffle for as long as possible before you have to use them.

Consistent Ways to Assemble a Combo

If you have Eladamri's Call or Chord of Calling and some time, you will be able to assemble the Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake combo. To do this, first tutor for Eternal Witness, get back your tutor, tutor for Deadeye Navigator, flicker Eternal Witness, get back your tutor, and finally tutor for Peregrine Drake. Now you'll be able to tutor for every creature in your deck and win from there since you'll have Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness .

Using Derevi, Empyrial Tactician's untap triggers on Birthing Pod is a way to very quickly assemble an infinite combo. This is an example of how you might do this: pod Derevi into Glen Elendra Archmage, replay Derevi to untap pod, pod Glen Elendra Archmage into Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, hit a player with another creature to untap pod, pod Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir into Deadeye Navigator, souldbond Deadeye Navigator to Derevi and flicker her to untap pod, pod the persisted Glen Elendra Archmage into Peregrine Drake and win from there.

Using Derevi

I use almost every trigger from my commander to untap lands or mana creatures. Assembling and playing our combos requires a lot of mana, so attacking with creatures to untap lands for the second main phase is very important for us to be able to cast our spells quickly.

If you can't use Derevi to untap lands and speed up your curve, feel free to leave her in the command zone and flash her out if you need to tap a opponent's creature or mana rock. Derevi will always be affordable to cast, so use her to chump block often if you are taking a lot of damage.

If you are about to go for a combo, always use spare Derevi triggers to tap down the lands of any opponents that are threatening disruption.

Lastly, you can use Derevi's untap triggers to fix your mana or generate lots of mana while you are in combat. For example, if you want to cast a Blue Sun's Zenith but you don't have enough {U}, you can utap your {U} source multiple times in combat so you can cast it. Additionally, if you have a big-mana land like Gaea's Cradle, you can also untap it multiple times in combat to generate lots of mana and cast a big Blue Sun's Zenith or multiple instants during combat.

Winning at Instant Speed

Winning at instant speed can be very good if you are weary of disruption. For example, if you have a way to go infinite but you think one of your opponents has a counterspell for your Chord of Calling or whatever else you need to cast, you can just wait until somebody tries to win. Now lets say somebody casts a Craterhoof Behemoth or something that will kill the board - if it resolves, you know the coast is clear for you to win in response, and if your opponents spend resources to stop them you are more likely to resolve your combo.

To win at instant speed we just draw our deck like normal - in the situation above, I would cast Chord of Calling for Deadeye Navigator and make infinite mana somehow, then Blue Sun's Zenith to draw my deck. Now cast Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Coiling Oracle so you can use Coiling Oracle + Deadeye Navigator to cast Blue Sun's Zenith infinitely.

Tricks

This section is for smaller, helpful tricks you can use that don't deserve a whole section for themselves.

If you have Sensei's Divining Top and Terminus in the top 3 cards of your library, you can activate the top's draw ability to miracle Terminus at instant speed.

If you get Grand Abolisher or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir with Eldritch Evolution or Chord of Calling, your opponents will not have an opportunity to cast anything after they let the tutor spell resolve since they go strait to the battlefield. This is an amazing way to try to force out a combo if you have the pieces ready in hand: your opponents have to counter your tutor if they know what you're up to, and they can't do anything if they don't expect it.

Possible Changes Show

+Consecrated Sphinx: This card is very good, but I decided not to include it in the first decklist because I wanted more draw spells that provide more immediate payoff. Rhystic Study doesn't provide immediate payoff, but it costs half as much as the sphinx so we're more likely to play it while we're setting up a combo and not while we're in the process of executing it. If I get one I will try it out, but I expect to stick with draw spells like Windfall and Brainstorm.

+Scroll Rack: It seems very good since we already have a lot of library manipulation and shuffle effects. It's also possible to abuse it with Derevi's untap triggers. I just don't have it in the decklist because I don't own one, but when I get one I will definitely try it out.

+Concordant Crossroads/Thousand-Year Elixir: I often feel neutered by the fact that I can only combo with a mana dork the turn after I play it, which is an ailment that would be amended by either of the above cards.

+Laboratory Maniac: I have considered adding him as a win condition, but I have opted not to because he does nothing when we aren't comboing off. My other win conditions have utility outside of combos.

+Force of Will/Force of Negation/Misdirection: I like all of these effects, but the deck is mostly green so I'm not sure if I can support them. They also force card disadvantage, and this deck's card draw is weaker than its disruption at the moment.

+Edric, Spymaster of Trest: I love this card. Sometimes it is powerful, one-sided draw, but others times it gives my opponents more value than it gives me. It seems like a meta-call card and I'm not sure it would be great in mine since there are plenty of creature decks like Edgar Markov.

+Pact of Negation: We are a combo deck, and this card is excellent for protecting a combo, but it's steep if we're using it for any other purpose. If I get one I will test it out and see what I think.

+Tooth and Nail: get Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake gg. I think I can set up combos well enough without an effect that costs this much mana, but if I find myself wanting a card that can single-handedly set up a win I will add this one.

+Mana Drain: The reason this is not in the deck is because I don't own one. When I get one it will replace Counterspell or Memory Lapse.

+Prime Speaker Vannifar: Birthing Pod is super good in this deck, but this one can't be activated the turn it comes out. But, if I want to lean into the Birthing Pod strat more redundancy would be a good thing.

+Quirion Ranger: This is a personal favorite card of mine. It allows some crazy fast ramp with other mana dorks, and it allows us to abuse landfall effects. It seems too situational a lot of the time though.

+Bring to Light: The list that I play with isn't exactly the same as this one because I am missing a small number of cards. This is one of my placeholders, but it does work so it might find a home in the final decklist.

-Freed from the Real: This is one of my main combo cards, but I find I go off with this one far less frequently than with my other combo cards. When I combo with Deadeye Navigator or Ghostly Flicker I also get to lock my opponents out of the game even if I can't win on the spot. Lastly, Freed from the Real can tap down opponents creatures if I need a psuedo-removal spell, but it has very little utility outside of combos compared to Deadeye Navigator, Ghostly Flicker, and Maze of Ith. Removing Freed from the Real would require no other changes to the deck, and wouldn't affect our capacity to combo that much, so I am considering replacing it with more card draw or utility.

-Azorius Chancery, Simic Growth Chamber, Selesnya Sanctuary: These lands let our ramp creatures that untap lands produce more mana, generate more landfall triggers, and make it generally easier for me to combo off with Deadeye Navigator and Freed from the Real. But, when not doing these things they can be very clunky. I would probably replace them with Sunpetal Grove, Hinterland Harbor, and Glacial Fortress if I did make the cut.

Please leave any suggestions for how to improve the deck or the primer, and thanks in advance for all advice!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Key combos	Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake Argothian Elder + Maze of Ith Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician Future Sight + Sensei's Divining Top Eternal Witness + Ghostly Flicker + Peregrine Drake Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness Coiling Oracle + Deadeye Navigator Krosan Restorer + Maze of Ith Freed from the Real + Kiora's Follower + Simic Growth Chamber Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Eternal Witness + Ghostly Flicker Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness + Frantic Search Deadeye Navigator + Derevi, Empyrial Tactician + Sensei's Divining Top Deadeye Navigator + Dryad Arbor + Tireless Tracker
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.59
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Clue