Intro
Hi and welcome to the Leshin Tactics, an Old Stickfingers cEDH Primer. This is the first article I've written about a deck I believe has the potential to make a place for itself at the cEDH tables.
Combo Lines
Main Line (3GBB)
Our game plan is to cast Old Stickfingers for X of 3+ to reveal all the creatures in our deck and put them in our graveyard. We need at least 3 creatures for our infinite combo:
- Necrotic Ooze - Gains the activated abilities of the creatures in your grave
- Walking Ballista - Remove +1/+1 Counters to deal 1 damage to any target
- Phyrexian Devourer - Exile cards from your library to put +1/+1 counters equal to the cards CMC on itself
Casting Old Stickfingers from the Command zone for 3GB gets us all three of these into our graveyard and then we'll need to reanimate Necrotic Ooze (N'Ooze) with Reanimate. Once N'Ooze is on the battlefield, it will have the abilities of Ballista and Devourer. We start by exiling our deck to put large amounts of +1/+1 counters on N'Ooze using Devourer's ability, then remove them to deal 1 damage using Ballista's ability. Assuming we have more total Mana Value left in our deck than our opponents have life, this is lethal. This line requires 3GBB* and we can get this with as little as 5 cards potentially winning Turn 1 with the "Perfect Hand."
Built-in Protection Line (5GBB)
This line adds 2 more creatures to the Main line to offer more protection:
- Sylvan SafeKeeper - sacrifice a land to give target creature shroud
- Underrealm Lich - pay 4 life to give itself indestructible
This line adds guaranteed ways to defend your N'Ooze at the cost of 2 more colorless mana to combo off. Sylvan Safekeeper and Underrealm Lich both provide activated abilities that can let N'Ooze protect itself from 99% of removal. This also means we are not required to find our protection cards such as Heroic Intervention and hold up mana for them. The additional cards bring the total up to the same as casting Heroic Intervention but can provide safety nets for multiple turns and can be brought from the command zone rather than another card slot. It also means we can remove protection spells to free up card slots. The biggest downsides to this is that it lowers your Turn 1 "Perfect Hand" chances and changes the average turn at which you can combo off.
True Infinite line (6GBB)
The main line is fast due to only requiring 3 pieces but runs the risk of whiffing if we cannot go off until later or are being milled. Replace Phyrexian Devourer with the following.
- Devoted Druid - untap by placing -1/-1 counters on itself.
- Channeler Initiate - remove a -1/-1 counter to tap for mana of any color.
- Blighted Bat - enables haste for 1 colorless.
By replacing Phyrexian Devourer with a way to gain infinite mana, we can put unlimited +1/+1 counters on N'Ooze with Ballista's other ability and that guarantees a win. Unfortunately, this combo requires haste, 2 more card slots, and costs 6BBG+ but removes the risk of decking yourself out and issues when running into lifegain decks.
Why Stickfingers?
Old Stickfingers has the ability to assemble combo pieces for a reanimator deck from the command zone. Using it as your commander can let you set up combos similar to Heritage Druid.
Pros
Only need 4 card slots in the 99 for the combo. The rest are used for ramp, tutoring, interaction, etc.
Minimum mana cost of 3BBG to win. Typically we will leave mana open for interaction, but we can turn 1 with the right hand.
- Does not require haste. The main line wins with cast triggers and activated abilities that don't require tapping, letting us go off the turn we reanimate N'Oooze.
- Assemble the combo from the command zone. By playing around Stickfingers ability and only running a limited selection of creatures we can get all of the combo pieces into the graveyard with just our commander.
- Combo assembled from CAST trigger. Subtle but important. Stickfingers does not have to resolve for us to get creatures into our graveyard. The only time we have to worry about a counter-spell is when casting our reanimation spell.
Cons
- Requires cards in hand during the combo. We need to have a reanimation effect in-hand for N'Ooze which limits our potential to use LED and means we have to protect our hand from discard hate. Hermit Druid decks often run Dread Return which gets milled and allows them to bring back N'Ooze with only pieces in the graveyard.
- Color Identity. Stickfingers has to be GB and can have no other colors. While Hermit Druid decks can run additional colors with the right commander.
- Limited number of creatures cards. The more creatures we run, the more expensive a guaranteed win with Stickfingers is or we run the risk of not hitting all of the cards.
Weaknesses
- Instant Speed Grave hate. Anything that removes cards from our graveyard or prevents them from going there to begin with urts.
- Split second removal. Sudden Spoiling shuts us off for a turn.
- Specific Sacrifice spells. We can dodge effects like Sudden Edict by sacrificing Old Stickfingers, but cards like Soul Shatter we cannot.
- Activated ability stax. Example Cursed Totem and Dampening Matrix.
Assumptions
- list text hereAll of the combo lines above have the mana cost calculated using Reanimate to bring back N'Ooze. Using any other reanimation spell will increase the combo cost accordingly.
Specific Card choices
- Mox Amber: Casting Stickfingers is how we grab our combo pieces, it's expect that we will have our commander on the field and Mox Amber online. We can then use Mox Amber to cast Reanimate or hold up for our protection pieces.
- X-Creature card: Assembling our combo as fast as possible and as little mana as we can requires that we keep the number of creatures cards in the deck to a minimum. Unless any given creature is part of the combo, it won't have a spot in the deck.
Closing Thoughts
Old Stickfingers has a unique ability that will be much more powerful in EDH than I believe was intended. What appealed to me about this deck is having a very clean win-con assembled from the command zone. The combo itself doesn't require many pieces, meaning the majority of the deck is free for interaction and ramp.
Please leave your thoughts and suggestions below! I'd love to hear what you have to say about this list!
