Invest In LonisCoin - Sub $200 Cryptozoology

Commander / EDH Casual Combo GU (Simic) Infinite Combo Tokens Tokens Value Engine

AnonymousBadger

Creature (33)

• 1x Academy Manufactor
• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Briarbridge Patrol
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Dream Stalker
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Erdwal Illuminator
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Floodhound
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Junk Winder
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Llanowar Visionary
• 1x Memnarch
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Mystic Snake
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Roaring Primadox
• 1x Sage of Hours
• 1x Sandsteppe Mastodon
• 1x Shimmer Dragon
• 1x Shrieking Drake
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Thought Monitor
• 1x Timeless Witness
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Trusted Advisor
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1x Wavesifter

Land (37)

• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 11x Forest
• 12x Island
• 1x Lumbering Falls
• 1x Quandrix Campus
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 1x Simic Guildgate
• 1x Tanglepool Bridge
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Thornwood Falls
• 1x Woodland Stream
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Fae Offering
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Lignify
• 1x Mechanized Production
• 1x Ongoing Investigation
• 1x The Antiquities War
• 1x Ulvenwald Mysteries
• 1x Weirding Wood
• 1x Wilderness Reclamation

Instant (3)

• 1x Confirm Suspicions
• 1x Early Harvest
• 1x Growth Spiral

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Idol of Oblivion
• 1x Inspiring Statuary
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Magnifying Glass
• 1x Minion Reflector
• 1x Nettlecyst
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Curiosity
• 1x Tamiyo's Journal
• 1x Thought Vessel

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Rise and Shine
• 1x Thoughtcast

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Ever since I first saw Lonis, Cryptozoologist, I knew I had to build a deck around it. This version of the deck isn't really focused on being competitive: I kept it under 200 bucks, and while it is a combo deck, it's not the kind that will power out combos at insane speeds and make your friend group dislike you. Instead this is more a deck about generating a big value engine, and combo is just how we happen to win once we're able to get going. It's a deck that's fun to play because there are a lot of sequencing and mana-economy decisions to make, and despite being a combo deck, it doesn't tend to run the same way twice. Here's a quick run-down of how it works.

Value to the Moon Show

Ok, so the plan is obviously to make a crap-ton of clues, and we've got some fun ways of doing that. Erdwal Illuminator will speed up our production by quite a bit, and we'll play card-draw dorks like Mulldrifter, Thought Monitor, or Elvish Visionary to draw us into more cards while making clues with Lonis's trigger. Wavesifter becomes even more potent, and don't discount Floodhound as a mana sink if we're stalling out early.

Inspiring Statuary is a fantastic option as it'll help us power stuff out really quickly by tapping our clues, and Academy Manufactor generates quite a bit of value as well. One of our most potent plays is Shimmer Dragon, as it's hard to remove and we can generate card draw from our clues before we even sacrifice them. I also like Wilderness Reclamation because if we're trying to dig, it gives us the mana to sacrifice more clues on opponents' turns. We can also cut the middleman and use Tamiyo's Journal to just search for answers/combo pieces straight-up.

Our most explosive options for clue generation are Shrieking Drake and Dream Stalker. With Lonis out we can simply use their ETB triggers on themselves to bounce them back to our hand, meaning we can as many clue tokens as we have U or 1U respectively. This can get out of hand pretty quickly.

How Our Investments Pay Off Show

Once we've drawn a bunch of cards, we're gonna try and find one of our combos so we can actually win. We've got a few different combinations we can use to end the game, but also a few non-combo options: Mechanized Production can sneak in wins, although you do have to make it around an entire turn cycle with everyone focused on trying to get rid of it (or just kill you straight-up), and Rise and Shine can give us an army out of nowhere.

Deadeye Navigator is our most powerful combo piece. It can Soulbind to something like Thought Monitor to help us draw through our deck at frankly ridiculous speeds to try and find our combo pieces. The easiest combo here is Peregrine Drake, you just pair it with your Navigator, then keep tapping five lands and using 2 of that mana to blink the Drake and make a billion mana. You also get infinite enter-the-battlefield triggers, which translates into infinite clues if Lonis is out (and Lonis should always be out since you'll have infinite mana to cast it with).

You can also use Peregrine Drake to combo off another way: use it with Panharmonicon and either Shrieking Drake, Venser, Shaper Savant, or Dream Stalker. Panharmonicon doubles the bouncer's ETB trigger, meaning you can use it to bounce both itself and the Drake. Each time you play Peregrine Drake you can use it to untap ten lands, so you can just play it, use Shrieking Drake/Stalker to bounce it, play it again, repeat. Infinite mana, infinite clues with Lonis.

My personal favorite combo here is Deadeye Navigator + Sandsteppe Mastodon + Sage of Hours. You need all three on the battlefield with Navigator paired with the Mastodon. Simply blink the Mastodon, use its ETB ability to put 5 (actually 6 because of Heroic) +1/+1 counters on Sage of Hours, and then remove the counters to get an extra turn. During your extra turn, just make sure to keep 2 mana open to blink the Mastodon again, and then you'll get infinite turns. This combo also works with Roaring Primadox instead of Navigator, so you get the Mastodon back to your hand, recast it for 7, bolster the Sage, and take infinite turns that way. I suppose you can also use Panharmonicon and Shrieking Drake or Venser, Shaper Savant or Dream Stalker to bounce the Mastodon and get your infinite turns that way.

This also works with Minion Reflector instead of Panharmonicon, but if one of the lands you're untapping isn't a Temple of the False God or Simic Growth Chamber, we'll end up with only infinite ETB triggers (aka infinite clues from Lonis) rather than also getting infinite mana.

There's also Early Harvest + Eternal Witness + Temur Sabertooth, which is a cool way to get infinite mana, but it also requires you to have NINE basic lands (or ten with Timeless Witness), so it's actually pretty bad and only really works if the game gets super long and grindy. You can also do this with 8 basics to get infinite clues with Lonis, but you won't be getting infinite mana. More often than not, you'll just end up casting Early Harvest to help power stuff out a bit faster.

So what do we do once our combo has gone off? Well, the easiest way to win is to just put our infinite mana into our infinite clues to draw our entire deck, then cast Laboratory Maniac, crack another clue, and win the game. Venser, Shaper Savant can infinitely bounce stuff so we can get rid of any problem permanents like a Platinum Angel or something like that. If we don't have infinite clues or can't use Lab Maniac for some reason, we can also use Memnarch to take control of the entire board, or use Venser to bounce everything.

If we just have infinite clues and no infinite mana, we can deck a player with Lonis's activated ability and try to win off of their best card, or win with Mechanized Production or Rise and Shine, although these are obviously disrupt-able. If we have Shimmer Dragon, we can use our infinite clues to draw our deck and win with Lab Maniac like usual. It's pretty adaptable based on what the situation is. Either way, even if we can't win, we'll get something cool out of it, which is the fun part anyways in my opinion.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 27 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.38
Tokens	Boar 2/2 G, Clue, Copy Clone, Eldrazi 10/10 C, Food, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Timeless Witness 4/4 B, Treasure