Turn one: Cloudpost, go.
Turn two: Island. Go.
Turn three: Island. Go.
Turn four: Island. Orvar. Go.
Turn five: Island, cantrip, win.
What is this deck, and why is the mana curve so cursed?
This is an Orvar, the All-Form storm/combo deck. It utilizes Orvar's ability to make a ludicrous number of copies of our creatures, lands, and artifacts. As such, it runs a metric tonne of cantrips that have arbitrary effects, but that target our permanents so Orvar can copy them. Once we get our engine running, our opponents will have no chance of catching up to our collection of Coveted Jewels.
What are some notable cards in the 99?
Most of the cantrips in the 99 are interchangable and not worth mentioning. However, Hidden Strings can copy our two best permanents, making it worthy of note. March of Swirling Mist and Open Into Wonder can hit our entire board but fall flat for artifacts and lands. Clara Oswald, Spark Double, and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces all double up Orvar's abilities. Sakashima and Spark Double also have the advantage of letting us create nonlegendary copies of Orvar with its own ability.
Moving on to good targets for our cantrips, Agent of Treachery and Caged Sun seem obvious. Perhaps less obvious are Spellseeker, Micromancer, and Archaeomancer, which allow us to loop and recur our cantrips for maximum value, which can often end up going infinite. I love it when a deck works like this, because you're looking for the best lines of play and all of a sudden you just created an army of wizards and have a storm count in the thousands with your entire library in your hand.
Other useful copy targets in the deck include Cloudpost for ProtoTron (TM) or Urza's Workshop for Meta-ProtoTron (Patent Pending). Both of these gameplans are somehow even more obnoxious than normal Tron (you know, the perfectly balanced version), as their mana production increases exponentially. Using cantrips to copy Gilded Lotus, Peregrine Drake, or Chromatic Orrery generates a huge amount of mana, but the Most Ridiculous Artifact to Copy award goes straight to Coveted Jewel. Once you play it, we can tap it and cantrip to copy it, gaining additional mana and drawing three more cards. With decent luck, we can storm off and win out of nowhere after playing the jewel.
What are our wincons?
Storming off with cantrips is fun and all, but we need a way to win the game. One way we can do this is with commander staple Aetherflux Reservoir. This card rewards us for storming off by gaining us life, then lets us pay that life to send a Nuclear Death Laser (Patent Pending) at our opponents.
We can also win with the copies of our creatures. A couple of Agents of Treachery or Sowers of Temptation will put in some serious work. But while theft is fun (I literally built an entire theft deck, Memnarchs-eleven|maybe check it out?), the real party stars when we loop Archaeomancer effects. We can build a huge, sometimes even infinite, army of wizards! A couple of copies of this one Deep One I found or nonlegendary Father Dagon should also do the trick.
I think it's impossible to overstate how quickly this deck can get out of hand. One turn you're just playing your commander, the next you have your entire deck in hand and have Peregrine Drake generating you infinite mana with your Cloudpost clones. The real lesson is that every lame cantrip in the deck is a potential wincon if you can find the right lines.
Alright, but should I play this deck?
Normally I'd write at least a paragraph here, but I can finish this section of my description with a single question.
Do you like playing solitaire?
So, there you have it! My take on Orvar combo/storm for EDH. Please comment any suggestions you may have, leave an upvote if you enjoyed, check out my other decks, and have a great day!
