Exploding Spirits - Sub $200 Kirin Stax

Commander / EDH Control Land Destruction Mono-White Pillow Fort Spirits Stax

AnonymousBadger

Creature (34)

• 1x Angel of Flight Alabaster
• 1x Bygone Bishop
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Eidolon of Obstruction
• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Eternal Dragon
• 1x Guardian of Faith
• 1x Hanged Executioner
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Kami of Ancient Law
• 1x Kami of False Hope
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kataki, War's Wage
• 1x Keeper of the Accord
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Leonin Arbiter
• 1x Mirror Entity
• 1x Myojin of Cleansing Fire
• 1x Nikko-Onna
• 1x Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens
• 1x Remorseful Cleric
• 1x Selfless Spirit
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Spirit of the Hearth
• 1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
• 1x Strict Proctor
• 1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1x Tithe Taker
• 1x Ugin's Conjurant
• 1x Wall of Reverence
• 1x Waxmane Baku
• 1x Windborn Muse
• 1x Yomiji, Who Bars the Way
• 1x Yosei, the Morning Star

Land (37)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Castle Ardenvale
• 1x Eiganjo Castle
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 26x Plains
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x War Room

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Gift of Estates
• 1x Hour of Revelation
• 1x Ravnica at War
• 1x Secret Rendezvous
• 1x Terashi's Grasp

Instant (6)

• 1x Blessed Breath
• 1x Crib Swap
• 1x Ethereal Haze
• 1x Faith's Reward
• 1x Mana Tithe
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Commander (1)

Artifact (11)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Damping Matrix
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Long-Forgotten Gohei
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Oketra's Monument
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Deafening Silence
• 1x Elspeth Conquers Death
• 1x Ghostly Prison

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So, uh, this one's pretty dang stupid.

Celestial Kirin has a weirdly unique ability: the ability to blow stuff up based on the CMC of the spells you cast is pretty powerful, and would honestly be absurd if it didn't restrict us to playing mono-white spirit tribal. I decided to take this in a more stax-y direction than just going hard on spirits: we're looking to keep the board long under control long enough to grind games out, basically.

Kirin requires us to run lots of different spirits and arcane spells with different converted mana cost, so this deck covers everything from 1 to 8. Some cards work quite well with Kirin: Nikko-Onna returns to our hand before it gets blown up when we play another 3-drop spirit, and Ugin's Conjurant is effectively an Armageddon, which can be a great way to close out games once we've established the most powerful board. Unfortunately not every card is such an all-star, because playing weird super-narrow commanders like this will necessitate that we play some stinkers. I've done everything I can to make sure that every janky spirit in this deck at least does something to help us out.

Some other cards of note: Strict Proctor lets us turn off our Kirin's triggered ability, but gives us the option to turn it back on at an additional cost: that's why it's in here over, say, Hushwing Gryff (other than the fact that it's a spirit I guess). Angel of Flight Alabaster lets us recur our spirits and get repeated value out of them. Yosei, the Morning Star is just rude. Skyclave Apparition will wipe all 3-drops while also getting rid of another thing. There are plenty of other fun and wonky interactions floating around here, I'm sure there are some cool lines of play I haven't found yet.

The rest of the deck is assorted stax pieces, ramp, and removal. We're gonna be trying our best to keep the whole table in check by playing at least one spirit each turn, but we'll need extra support to help stop strategies that don't leave tons of permanents on the board. We can also win with Approach of the Second Sun theoretically (and I especially like the combo with Emergence Zone and the Conjurant/Kirin strat to destroy all lands with Approach on the stack). Karmic Guide + Reveillark + Mirror Entity is also technically in here, but it doesn't actually win the game with anything lmao.

I'm not really sure about this deck's capacity to win, and I'm curious what other options might exist for actually ending the game. Still, I think it's an interesting way to utilize a really strange and unique commander. Your table might not like the constant wiping of their stuff, but they'll definitely appreciate the constant wiping of their opponents' stuff, so there's plenty of avenues for interesting politics and lines of play.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.10
Tokens	City's Blessing, Clue, Human 1/1 W, Illusion */* U, Shapeshifter 1/1 C, Soldier 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 WB, Spirit 3/3 W, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance