Welcome to Krark Squad!
This fun-to-play, fragile, yet semi-competitive deck is based on the interesting interaction between many cloned copies of Krark, the Thumbless which is made possible by our co-commander Sakashima of a Thousand Faces. When you have more than one Krark, the Thumbless in play, each winning flip creates a copy of your spell that goes on the stack regardless of whether you lose one. In fact, it is actually important to lose at least one flip so your original copy will return to your hand for further casting (and further copying)!
Now let's get our Krark squad going!!
First and foremost, we want to make more copies of Krark. We have a mixture of creature-based clones (Gigantoplasm, Glasspool Mimic
, Mirror Image, Phyrexian Metamorph, Stunt Double and spell-based clones (Cackling Counterpart, Fated Infatuation, Heat Shimmer, Kindred Charge, Quasiduplicate, Rite of Replication, Tempt with Reflections, Twinflame). In the early game when you have three or fewer krarks, it is usually best to cast the creature-based clones to avoid the chance of losing or winning all of the flips, which we don't want.Later in the game, we can cast spell-based clones which will be copied and create more clones, which gives you more copies, etc. (It's kinda exponential.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: When making clones, CLONE SAKASHIMA CLONING KRARK INSTEAD OF KRARK HIMSELF!!! Otherwise, someone can just remove your Sakashima, removing your legend rule immunity and then kiss the rest of your clones goodbye!
OK, Let's say we have a decent Krark Squad (4+) in play. What now?
There are multiple paths to victory here:
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Create semi-infinite (we'll explain this term later) or actually infinite creatures and kill with combat damage.
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Semi-infinite direct damage using spells such as Lightning Bolt.
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Create a board state in which opponents will concede. (i.e. bounce all permanents, counter all spells, etc.)
Let's take a look how to do each of these!
1. Create semi-infinite creatures and kill with combat damage.
The key for this, and the next win condition, is semi-infinite mana using our instant/sorcery ramp spells: (Battle Hymn, Brightstone Ritual (Krark is a Goblin!), Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Seething Song, Jeska's Will, Rite of Flame). You could also use Frantic Search as a mana source, or in some circumstances cast your spell-based cloning spells on our Dockside Extortionist. These all will be copied and the hope is that you will not win all flips. Winning all flips will cause the original copy to resolve, sending it to the graveyard and ending our mana production. This is where the term "semi-infinite" mana comes from. It is always possible to fail, but increasingly unlikely the larger your Krark Squad becomes.
The more mana you have, the more you can cast our haste-enabled Krark copy spells (Heat Shimmer, Kindred Charge (which copies all of our Krarks each time it resolves!), and Twinflame, the more clones you have, the less chance your mana copying fails, the more mana you have, etc. You end up with semi-infinite clones and attack ftw.
In Some situations, you might alternatively makes semi-infinite copies of Dockside Extortionist instead using himself as a mana source for your clone spells.
And of course the most obvious infinite creature combo is our good ol' Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame/Heat Shimmer/Kindred Charge.
2.Semi-infinite direct damage
For this wincon, we need are mana trick we learned above and one of our direct damage spells (Burst Lightning, Electrodominance, Galvanic Blast, Gut Shot, Lightning Bolt, Grapeshot, and Wizard's Lightning (Krark is a Wizard!). Use you semi-infinite red mana to cast these, which will make copies and with luck (remember, if all flips win the casting ends!) you will be doing semi-infinite direct damage to your opponents, their planeswalkers and their creatures.
3. gg Board State
While, if played out, these board states will eventually lead to one of the above wincons happening, I find opponents without any answers to these will just concede the games before I get to the wincons.
- No permanents/ only lands in play forever.
We have a nice removal suite in here that can easily clear the opponents' boards and keep them clear, especially if there are a ton of copies of them!: Boomerang, Chaos Warp, Cyclonic Rift, any of the direct damage spells
Sometimes you will find yourself with no wincon, but a good size squad with either a few counterspells (that go back to your hand when cast). This can be especially frustrating to opponents if you have Rewind, Fierce Guardianship, or our honorary red counterspell Deflecting Swat since they can be recast again and again.
Honorary mention wincons
While not designed to do this efficiently, we could use a creature-based clone to copy an opponent's big bad creature and use it against them.
It is also possible to win with a semi-infinitely large Gigantoplasm in some cases.
Obvious...and not-so-obvious tricks
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We have three cards that, in addition to their main effect, allow you to cast spells from your hand for free! Namely: Baral's Expertise, Kari Zev's Expertise, and Electrodominance. While decent cards unto themselves, with a squad out, they go absolutely bananas. That's because every copy of these spells allow you to CAST a spell from you hand, which also has the chance to be copied. Let's say you win 3 flips on baral's compliance, first of all we'll be bouncing up to 9 creatures/artifacts which is great, but we could cast...say...lightning bolt three times, flipping for copies each time. It can get kinda gross. Now imagine instead of lightning bolt it's one of our cloning spells. The first spell will create a few copies (maybe). The second will trigger the one's put into play by the first and the third will trigger the first's and seconds. It can be a huge boost to the squad!
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Have you notice all the card draw? (Frantic Search, Crimson Wisps, Expedite, Crash Through, Overmaster, and Warlord's Fury) I like cantrips as much as the next guy, but cantrips that you copy multiple times and get back to your hand are just broken! Why (mostly) red? Because our spell ramp is mostly red.
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Protecting your Squad is of the utmost importance. Remember in the beginning of the description when I said this deck is fragile? Well, if a board wipe resolves, our hopes for a win are pretty much gone. Also, we have to make sure we protect our original krark and original Sakashima until we get the squad really going. We do this with counterspells mostly. Admittedly, this is the major weakness of the deck.
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Have something in your graveyard you need out? Maybe an unlucky gamble or you won or your flips at some point? Never fear. Finale of Promise wil not only return your stuff to your hand (if you win at least one flip), but it will cast it with copies! Don't forget to cast it with big boy mana so you can get even more copies!
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We can dig for what we need with draw pretty well, but we can also search. Muddle the Mixture has a few nice targets in the deck including Krark's Thumb and Desperate Ritual.
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Epic Experiment is really epic in here, since once cast,those instants and sorceries may end up in your hand and copied!
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Ramp in the beginning of the game is very important. Having both commanders out by turn 3 helps out quite a bit. That's why we are using Simian Spirit Guide, Chrome Mox, Jeweled Lotus, Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Mox Diamond, Mox Amber, Sol Ring and Springleaf Drum.
Virtual coin flipping
If the deck runs smoothly, you're going to be flipping a ton of coins. You may want to use a virtual coin flipping website/app that you and your opponents agree upon. One where you can specify how many coins to flip and gives you a total number of heads and tails are best. This will drastically shorten the amount of time your turn takes.
So, what do you think? Please leave comments and constructive criticism below and don't forget to upvote!
