My Power Will Eat Your Face! *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Casual Multiplayer UR (Izzet)

NV_1980

Land (36)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Highland Lake
• 1x Homeward Path
• 6x Island
• 1x Izzet Guildgate
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 6x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Molten Psyche
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Time Reversal
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Winds of Change

Artifact (17)

• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Bident of Thassa
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Library of Leng
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Symmetry Matrix
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Throne of the God-Pharaoh

Instant (13)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Fierce GuardianshipGC
• 1x Keep Watch
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Rites of Initiation
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Tolarian Winds
• 1x Valakut Awakening  ^Flip

Commander (1)

Creature (14)

• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Faerie Mastermind
• 1x Forgotten Creation
• 1x Goblin Electromancer
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
• 1x Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1x Whirlpool Warrior
• 1x Windreader Sphinx
• 1x Witty Roastmaster

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Breath of Fury
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Impact Tremors
• 1x Kindred Discovery
• 1x Mana Echoes
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Opposition
• 1x Rhystic StudyGC
• 1x Shared Animosity

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Welcome to My Power Will Eat Your Face! {U}{R}

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of this Izzet draw-, wheel- and token deck; commanded by The Locust God. Charged with the defense of Amonkhet’s central city Naktamun, this over-being wielded enough power to shrug off all but the most potent attacks. Its limits were thoroughly tested though, when the elder dragon mage Nicol Bolas emerged to lay waste to the city; even going so far as to gain complete temporary control over some of its protective deities, including the Locust, that protected it. After the siege was over, as punishment for switching loyalties, The Locust God was banished to the deserts outside the city and for a time it refused to appear anywhere in Amonkhet; not even to its most devoted following that had kept the faith, even after ‘the turning’. Fortunately, when the Phyrexians decided to launch their invasion of Amonkhet, the Locust chose to reappear in a big way alongside Hazoret, to defend its city of origin once again. Its children proceeded to lay waste to the invaders and delayed them in such a way, that Hazoret was able to finish the job by igniting the Phyrexians’ glistering-oil blood with her flaming spear, thus ending the assault in one, decisive blow. As a result, The Locust God was reinstated as one of Naktamun’s patron deities. Today, it is your army that stands at its gates, coming to destroy or conquer the city our Locust protects. As your forces approach, a buzzing noise erupts just outside Naktamun’s Hekma and the sky turns black as a writhing mass of winged creatures appears on the horizon and heads towards you. Prepare yourself, as no amount of repellent will be enough to overcome a million hungry mandibles, eager to consume your flesh! This deck is meant to be played casually. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course anyone is welcome to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; hope you will enjoy it!

Why Locust God?

Drawing is quite a natural part of any MTG game and happens frequently. The amount of draw per turn can be increased easily. This makes the ability to generate a 1/1 flyer for every card drawn by its controller spectacularly strong. When generated, send the winged pests over to harass the opposition and watch it melt away. Or use the insects’ ETB to mess with opponents in some other way. Obviously, there are some downsides to using the Locust as well. He’s pretty expensive to cast (though one can choose to have him return to hand instead of the command-zone, which is a serious advantage in EDH), and his presence dictates the success of the deck in many ways, so resources had to be included to protect him.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The following parameters have been used to determine the strength of the deck. For each, a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad) has been allocated; when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck.

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates the measure in which the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 3

In a deck with this much (cheap) draw, one doesn’t need all that many mana-rocks or similar resources to obtain additional energy as land-drops each turn are just about guaranteed. Nevertheless, it still contains six mana rocks, a card that cheapens Izzet instant- and sorcery casting, one enchantment that grants mana upon creature ETB and two artifacts that produce mana when creatures are sacrificed to them.

Ramp: 1

No ramping options in this deck.

Card Advantage: 5

With lots of additional draw, comes the generation of lots of additional insects. So, it’s in the deck’s interest to include a lot of these options. In total, its CA-arsenal consists of fourteen direct draw cards, twelve soft- and hard wheel cards and two tutors. More than enough to create a whole swarm of flying critters to eat our opponents’ faces.

Overall speed: 3

Some very decent speed can be coaxed out of this beauty, considering the phenomenal amount of CA it contains, along with a good amount of mana resources and a very low average CMC (currently sitting at 2.57). With a bit of luck, it can also mess up the opponents’ speed as an early wheel can really screw up a carefully-selected starting hand.

Combo: 1

Sure, there are a couple of fun ones in here that can grant infinite draw (and thereby infinite generation of insect tokens, which in turn provides infinite ETB triggers) and in some cases infinite colorless mana or even infinite non-combat damage.

Army: 3

Unlike most Izzet decks, this one DOES care about its army of creatures, because it depends on them heavily for victory. Said army will only appear however, once The Locust appears and starts to summon hordes upon hordes of buzzing insects (based on copious amounts of draw). The remainder of creatures are the for support, mostly to generate as much card advantage as possible or to deal damage based on draw or casting.

Commander: 1

There’s not much point to this deck, without its commander being present (since he’s the one generating the insects). Counterspells have been included that are meant specifically to protect him, and there’s also some equipment that can be used towards this end. There are a few alternative win-conditions that can be applied (like ‘wheel’-ing the opposition to death), but these are much harder to achieve.

Interaction: 5

This is actually one of the deck’s major strengths, though this might not be very apparent on a cursory glance. Its biggest contributor in this are nine forced wheel abilities/spells, some of which can be repeated. Then there’s a nice set of five cards that deal non-combat damage and an additional five that handle spell countering. Some other interaction opportunities include a few bounce spells and some forced tapping.

Resilience: 4

Being dependent on one’s commander can be considered a weakness, but for this deck it’s also a strength. It doesn’t take much to have it stay afloat; just The Locust, some draw cards in hand and behold: an army will (re)appear. There’s not much in here to recuperate lost life points though, but it can counter a decent number of harmful spells when forced. It can also recycle cards quite well with four options included that enable this.

Spellpower: 5

The emphasis on this deck is definitely on the non-creature side of things, when it comes to spellcasting. Aside from no fewer than nine wheel spells, there’s also plenty of non-combat damage it can deal across the board through the use of enchantments and sorceries.

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Total power score: 31

Though the amount of strategic routes one can take to win with this deck are a bit limited, it is still a fairly balanced whole. Resourcing is good, CA is beyond excellent and it is really quite easy to use; just send that horde of insects into the enemy ranks and watch them devour stuff. The excessive wheeling opportunities contained within the deck can really mess up opposing plans, while it plays exactly to this deck’s strengths. If you enjoy the groans of opponents having to wheel again and again, this will certainly elicit a few guffaws.

General strategy

Winning with this deck means we will need to generate a huge insect army (based on our own draw) and either eat our opponents with it OR benefit from having its soldiers entering the battlefield in some other way. The most preferable way to trigger this, is using lots of wheel-like abilities and spells, as this will very likely lead to messing up opponents’ carefully laid plans. We also want to ensure that we can keep wheeling; preferably while our opponents’ opportunities for doing so diminish. This means deploying some ‘recycling’ cards that will help to keep our library filled. While doing all this, it’s essential that The Locust God is kept alive as he’s our only source of small, winged monstrosities. Any counterspells this deck contains need to be reserved to protect him from harm (this principle also applies to other protective spells/equipment).

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a cheap-to-cast rock like Arcane Signet, Izzet Signet, Fellwar Stone, Mox Opal, Sol Ring or Thought Vessel. It is highly recommended not to start a game without this hand (even if one has to mulligan down to three cards). An ideal hand would also contain some cheap draw cards (like Mystic Remora, Ponder or Preordain) or even an early ‘wheel’ (like Tolarian Winds or Winds of Change). Getting some early recycling on, in the form of Library of Leng, is especially useful.

Early game

The first thing that needs doing, is to gather enough resources to summon our lord and savior onto the battlefield asap. Only with him present, will the deck’s true power be able to manifest itself. Cast the stuff mentioned in the previous section first, or maybe Goblin Electromancer if he’s on hand. If none of that is available, consider casting other cheap CA, like Brainstorm, Faerie Mastermind, Rhystic Study or maybe a tutor like Fabricate or Mystical Tutor to find a key artifact or spell. Should none of this be available, an early wheel like Molten Psyche, Reforge the Soul or Windfall to increase the likelihood of said resources appearing would be helpful.

Remember to not use any of the deck’s counterspells lightly; try to save them for protecting the commander if possible (though obviously they should still be used if an opponent obtains too much of an advantage otherwise, or to help stop a winning play from occurring). This phase ends with his appearance; preferably with a protective bit of gear like Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots attached to him. If you can also get some sacrifice-fueled mana resources (like Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar) and/or ETB-fueled non-combat damage (like Impact Tremors, Purphoros, God of the Forge or Witty Roastmaster) going before he joins, all the better.

Mid-game

Now we come to the stage of bringing forth some tiny friends with large mandibles. Get some wheels up and running to keep a steady breeding/production of them going. Creatures like Forgotten Creation or Whirlpool Warrior can help in this regard, though some regular draw can be boosted too, through the use of Archmage Emeritus, Consecrated Sphinx and especially Kindred Discovery.

As the swarm forms, attack with it during every turn if possible. Try and pick off the weakest opponents first, with the least air-defenses. In case there’s a specifically anti-token deck amongst the opponents, try to take on that one first. Whichever you choose, try to make the choice based on the likelihood of maintaining and increasing the current size of your insect-swarm. Bident of Thassa and Windreader Sphinx are both excellent at making the swarm grow by actually attacking/dealing damage. Before/during an attack, it’s also possible to increase the swarm’s power by casting creatures/spells such as Rites of Initiation, Shared Animosity or Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. Also, don’t forget to add some other shenanigans to the mix (like Altar of the Brood or Opposition) to make life even more frustrating for your foes.

End-game

By now, opponents will have had their faces nibbled away at least partly by a bunch of locusts. It’s time to push on and finish the job. This can be done with a multitude of combos inherent to the deck, but there are other means too. With a large token army present, why not go for Throne of the God-Pharaoh and deal a large quantity of damage after attacks have taken place to everyone?! Have most cards been drawn by this deck? Then why not shuffle the graveyard into the library and start all spell-casting shenanigans anew with cards like Elixir of Immortality, Time Reversal or Time Spiral?!

Combos

There’s a couple of fun combinations one can try to close out games in a single turn:

• The Locust God + Symmetry Matrix + Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar: This combo starts with God, Matrix (with Insect having been chosen as creature type) and either Altar on the battlefield.
  1. God’s controller draws a card.
  2. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability.
  3. The ability resolves and the insect enters the battlefield.
  4. This puts Matrix’s triggered ability on top of the stack.
  5. Hold priority and sacrifice the insect to Altar (which, depending on the Altar, either generates one coloured mana or two colourless mana).
  6. Matrix’s ability resolves.
  7. Pay one of the generated mana to draw a card.
  Rinse and repeat to draw the deck and generate an insect for every card drawn. It also generates a high amount of colourless mana, in case it was Ashnod’s Altar being used in this combo.
• The Locust God + Symmetry Matrix + Mana Echoes: This combo starts with God, Matrix (with Insect having been chosen as creature type) and Echoes on the battlefield.
  1. God’s controller draws a card. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability.
  2. The ability resolves and the insect enters the battlefield. This puts Echoes and Matrix’s triggered abilities on the stack (choose for Echoes to be on top).
  3. Echoes’ ability resolves and generates at least one colourless mana.
  4. Matrix’s ability resolves.
  5. Pay one of the generated mana to draw a card.
  Rinse and repeat to draw the deck and generate an insect for every card drawn. It also generates a high amount of colourless mana, in case the combo started with insects already on the field.
• The Locust God + Skullclamp + Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar: This combo starts with God, Clamp and either of the Altar on the battlefield along with the ability to generate at least one colourless mana.
  1. God’s controller draws a card.
  2. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability.
  3. The ability resolves and the insect enters the battlefield.
  4. Pay one colourless mana to equip the insect with Clamp.
  5. The insect dies as a state-based action (because its toughness is reduced to 0 by Clamp).
  6. Clamp’s triggered ability lands on the stack and resolves; its controller draws two cards.
  7. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability (twice).
  8. The ability resolves and two insects enters the battlefield.
  9. Sacrifice one insect to Altar.
  10. Pay one mana to equip the second insect with Clamp.
  Rinse and repeat to draw the deck and generate an insect for every card drawn. It also generates a high amount of colourless mana, in case it was Ashnod’s Altar being used in this combo.
• The Locust God + Skullclamp + Mana Echoes: This combo starts with God, Clamp and Echoes on the battlefield.
  1. God’s controller draws a card. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability.
  2. The ability resolves and the insect enters the battlefield. This puts Echoes triggered ability on the stack.
  3. It resolves to generate at least one colourless.
  4. Pay one colourless mana to equip the insect with Clamp.
  5. The insect dies as a state-based action (because its toughness is reduced to 0 by Clamp).
  6. Clamp’s triggered ability lands on the stack and resolves; its controller draws two cards.
  7. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability (twice).
  8. The ability resolves and two insects enters the battlefield.
  9. Sacrifice one insect to Altar.
  10. Pay one mana to equip the second insect with Clamp.
  Rinse and repeat to draw the deck and generate an insect for every card drawn. It also generates a high amount of colourless mana.
• The Locust God + Kindred Discovery + Laboratory Maniac: This combo starts with at least God and Discovery on the battlefield and Maniac not in the graveyard/exiled and enough mana to cast Maniac.
  1. God’s controller draws a card. This triggers God’s locust-generation ability.
  2. The ability resolves and the insect enters the battlefield.
  3. This puts Discovery’s triggered ability on top of the stack.
  4. It resolves, and its controller draws a card.
  Rinse and repeat to draw the deck and generate an insect for every card drawn. Before the end of the turn, cast Maniac onto the battlefield. If Maniac survives until the next turn, win the game by not being able to draw from the library.
• The Locust God + Bident of Thassa/Windreader Sphinx + Breath of Fury: This combo starts with God and Bident/Sphinx on the battlefield along with two insects, one of which is equipped with Breath.
  1. Attack with both insects.
  2. Assuming they do both inflict combat damage to an opponent, this triggers Bident/Sphinx and Breath.
  3. Resolve Breath first.
  4. Sacrifice the insect to which it’s attached and attach it to the second insect (which untaps).
  5. Now resolve the Bident/Sphinx triggers and draw two cards.
  6. These draws trigger God, which generates two new insect creature tokens with haste.
  7. Now attack again.
  Rinse and repeat to draw your deck and obtain infinite attacks with an ever growing locust army.

Please note that any of the following can be added to the above combos to make them even more lethal:

1. Altar of the Brood: to add mill of every opposing library whenever an insect enters the battlefield.
2. Impact Tremors/Purphoros, God of the Forge/Witty Roastmaster: to add damage whenever an insect enters the battlefield.
3. Psychosis Crawler: to add damage to all opponents for every card drawn.

Then there’s also this synergy:

• Opposition + Throne of the God-Pharaoh + army of locusts: this is not an infinite combo, but just a great synergy. By tapping all locusts, to tap opposing creatures, at the end of the turn Throne deals the same damage to ALL opponents (while the tapping simultaneously knocks out someone’s possible defences) without ever needing to attack with the locusts.

Card Choices

Lands

Reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Arid Mesa/Bloodstained Mire/Flooded Strand/Misty Rainforest/Polluted Delta/Scalding Tarn/Wooded Bastion: the lands used to filter through the deck, which aids in finding cards that matter to the deck’s strategy quicker.
• Command Tower/Exotic Orchard/Mana Confluence/Reflecting Pool: great all-color mana lands that have very few disadvantages in their use.
• Cascade Bluffs/Highland Lake/Izzet Guildgate/Steam Vents/Sulfur Falls/Swiftwater Cliffs/Temple of Epiphany/Training Center: lands that provide Izzet mana, that depending in circumstances enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. The best MTG has to offer has been incorporated on this front, except for the original dual lands which are outside most players’ price-range.
• Geier Reach Sanitarium/Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: sometimes you get stuck … and then we might as well have everyone draw; it could be worth the gamble.
• Homeward Path: theft of our Locust is potentially a serious problem, hence the counterspells AND this particular card.

Mana and Ramp

The cards used to accelerate mana-availability:

• Arcane Signet: excellent multi-color mana provider, especially for its casting cost.
• Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar: great mana sources for a deck that thrives on the generation/presence of its own creature tokens.
• Fellwar Stone: very versatile rock that rarely fails to provide in the standard 4-player EDH-configuration.
• Goblin Electromancer: ensures that the casting of about a third of this deck’s spells is cheaper.
• Izzet Signet: a perfectly decent Izzet-mana source.
• Mana Echoes:
• Mox Opal: with all the artifacts in here, this will yield coloured mana for sure!
• Sol Ring: are there EDH decks without this card?
• Thought Vessel: not just a mana-rock, but allows for an unlimited hand-size!

Card Advantage

The mechanisms that provide card advantage:

• Archmage Emeritus: a third of this deck consists of non-permanents, so having this guy in it will yield additional draw for sure.
• Bident of Thassa: doesn’t just ensure opponents being damaged through combat will yield draw, but can also force others to attack us (preferably with vulnerable, yet high-yield creatures).
• Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain: for just a single mana, these are all excellent draw spells that will usually yield scrying in addition to draw.
• Consecrated Sphinx: few creatures are stronger draw-enablers than this beautiful sphinx, especially in a ‘normal’ EDH-playgroup of four players, the amount of advantage it potentially yields is astounding.
• Fabricate: so good for finding the artifacts key to the deck’s strategy.
• Faerie Mastermind: what opponents hoped to be card-advantage to them, actually turns into an advantage for you.
• Forgotten Creation: a beautiful, personal wheel-enabler whenever one chooses to employ it in this fashion.
• Jace's Archivist: what we’ve got here, is a repeatable ‘wheel’, which becomes an insanely powerful mill tool when combined with Library of Leng.
• Kindred Discovery: we choose ‘insect’, and we’ve got ourselves an infinite loop when combined with our esteemed commander.
• Keep Watch: when our swarm of locusts attacks, we cast this for some more CA and a wave of reinforcements for the locusts, in case their patron is around.
• Library of Leng: whatever wheel this deck casts, none of the discarded cards have to go into the graveyard with this thing around so the library remains nice and fat; very powerful!
• Molten Psyche: the prerequisites for dealing damage with this spell are easily met, and it’s another great wheel in the deck’s arsenal.
• Mystic Remora: very powerful in the early game because of the potential advantage it brings; especially when its controller isn’t in a hurry and has some mana to spare for the cumulative upkeep.
• Mystical Tutor: finds that perfect spell for the situation we’re (going to be) in.
• Reforge the Soul: potentially (and not by much), this card is a cheaper Wheel of Fortune, which makes one wonder why it’s not a whole lot more expensive.
• Rhystic Study: one of the most amazing card-draw enchantments ever created. No one likes to pay spell-tax, so this will often yield some more draw.
• Skullclamp: insects generated by this deck die instantly, when this is equipped to them (as a state-based effect), immediately yielding two more cards to draw, which is fun when he is around as this will spawn new insects.
• Symmetry Matrix: an ideal draw engine in a token-generation deck.
• Time Reversal/Time Spiral: with these cards around, one does not need to worry about running out of spells to cast any time soon.
• Tolarian Winds: cheap wheel that just applies to the caster, but with a potential to yield massive advantage (for its cost).
• Valakut Awakening  : ow wow, a wheel that can be cast at instant speed!
• Whirlpool Warrior: in- and potentially outgoing wheels with this creature.
• Windfall: slightly less powerful than the original ‘wheel’.
• Windreader Sphinx: our attacking insects are about to yield a lot of draw!
• Winds of Change: the cheapest wheel possible!

Counters, Destruction and Disruption

Opposing spells and permanents end here.

• card;Altar of the Brood: these insects don’t just eat your face, but specifically your brain as well.
• Arcane Denial: that spell? No bueno! Please, have another card. Or two.
• Blasphemous Act: when not even insect storms can stop an opposing army, this spell might.
• Chaos Warp: please, put that away! Play anything, but that!
• Cyclonic Rift: one of the best bounce spells ever; from the mid-game onwards it becomes truly devastating as it inherently wipes out so many permanents for good; especially tokens.
• Deflecting Swat: a potentially free redirection spell.
• Fierce Guardianship: a potentially free counterspell against non-creature spells.
• Goblin Bombardment: once insects are done, they can at least die for a good cause.
• Impact Tremors/Purphoros, God of the Forge/Witty Roastmaster: creature tokens are much more fun when their ETB hurts the opposition.
• Mana Drain: the perfect counterspell that generates mana for the next spell!
• Narset's Reversal: sort of semi-steals your instant/sorcery (don’t complain, you get to cast it again next turn).
• Opposition: quite a powerful disruptor in a token deck like this.
• Psychosis Crawler: the world is awesome when just drawing cards already hurts opponents.
• Swan Song: alright, you can have a swan; just NOT … THAT … SPELL!
• Throne of the God-Pharaoh: once our insects our done attacking this turn, there’s some more pain headed your way that’s somewhat … related.

Utility

Mostly stuff to make thefts permanent.

• Breath of Fury: with a whole army of insect tokens, this spell becomes incredibly powerful; especially when the opponent doesn’t have flyers to block the
• Elixir of Immortality: let’s recycle everything and start over!
• Laboratory Maniac: in the rare case that no-more cards can be drawn by this deck, it still wins!
• Lightning Greaves/Swiftfoot Boots: efficient protectors for any commander.
• Rites of Initiation: when a hand filled with cards, lots of flying bugs are at one’s disposal and this spell can cause a heck of a lot of trouble for players without air-cover.
• Shared Animosity: all the bugs are family, they support each other in difficult times; YOUR difficult times.
• card:Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugtive: our god’s minions can no longer be blocked!
• Torbran, Thane of Red Fell: in a red-token deck, this guy is insanely useful.

Notable exclusions

• Magus of the Wheel: a wheel with summoning sickness (unless he’s somehow given haste when he ETB’s). The SuSi is a problem, is that gives opponents ample time to kill him before he’s used.
• Niv-Mizzet, Parun: fantastic card but not in here because the deck’s focus is not ‘damaging through draw’ and it’s relatively expensive to cast.
• Teferi's Ageless Insight: a previous occupant of this deck. It works great and is not so much an exclusion as maybe part of the deck’s sideboard. Another card has currently replaced it, but it’s likely that this will find its way back into the deck at some point.

Thank you for reading!

Appreciate the time you took to read this primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.86
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Insect 1/1 UR
Folders	EDH, com