Tanazir, Quandrix Conundrum *Primer*

Commander / EDH Combo Counters GU (Simic) Landfall Midrange Ramp Tokens

Wolffang988

Creature (30)

• 1x Biovisionary
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Boreal Outrider
• 1x Deepglow Skate
• 1x Duskshell Crawler
• 1x Forgotten Ancient
• 1x Guardian Augmenter
• 1x Herald of Secret Streams
• 1x Hydroid Krasis *f-pre*
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Llanowar Scout
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Loyal Guardian
• 1x Managorger Hydra
• 1x Master Biomancer
• 1x Plaxcaster Frogling
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Steelbane Hydra
• 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1x Tendershoot Dryad
• 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1x Volo, Guide to Monsters
• 1x Vorel of the Hull Clade
• 1x Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
• 1x Zameck Guildmage

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Land (35)

• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dark Depths
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Nephalia Academy
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 11x Snow-Covered Forest
• 9x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Tyrite Sanctum
• 1x Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Artifact (8)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Empowered Autogenerator
• 1x Replicating Ring
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x The Ozolith
• 1x Winged Boots

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Body of Research
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Echoing Equation  ^Flip
• 1x Increasing Savagery
• 1x Oversimplify
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Tempt with Discovery

Commander (1)

Instant (11)

• 1x Bioshift
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Commander's Insight
• 1x Decisive Denial
• 1x Dissipate
• 1x Double Major
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Quandrix Command
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Ride the Avalanche
• 1x Snakeskin Veil

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Asceticism
• 1x Branching Evolution
• 1x Defense of the Heart
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Hydra's Growth
• 1x Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1x Unbound Flourishing

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Death's Presence
• 1x Simic Ascendancy

Instant (1)

• 1x Inspiring Call

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Tezzeret's Gambit

Artifact (2)

• 1x Contagion Clasp
• 1x Contagion Engine

Creature (1)

• 1x Gyre Sage

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Updates

11/14/21 Surprise! Show

I'd been keeping this one under wraps, but now it's finally revealed! The 4th creation in my Strixhaven elder series and one I initially said I wouldn't build, but when inspiration strikes all you can do is roll with it! This is a bit different than my usual decklists in that it's releasing with the primer already typed up, but I hope you enjoy it!

An Introduction to Contemporary Quandrix

I said I wasn’t going to build this one.

But the call had to be answered!

The 4th of my Strixhaven elder dragon decks, Tanazir Quandrix was an interesting one to build. I already had two Simic decks between Koma and Kruphix, and I had experience with building around +1/+1 counter strategies back when I made a brief build of a Zaxara, the Exemplary deck (now retired). I wanted this deck to be a bit different than my other 2 Simic decks and fresh to play, so I rolled with a blend of classic Simic strategy while producing as much +1/+1 synergy as possible! As always I accept all suggestions and recommendations, and without further ado we’ll jump into the key bits!

Why would you run Tanazir Quandrix as your commander?

-Simic colors are a pretty fun and strong combination, and Tanazir plays to some common strengths

-Tanazir’s abilities can offer some interesting win conditions, and is a more recent commander coming from the Strixhaven set

-And as highlighted in the rest of my Strixhaven series decks, Tanazir is an Elder Dragon! A perfect fit for EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander)

Dismantling the Enemy Equation (Core Strategy and Combos)

This section lays out the main goals of the deck and some strong combos to set up, aimed towards guiding you to victory! This deck’s main focus is producing creatures with +1/+1 counters on them and then proceeding to overwhelm the opponent! There is a good deal of flexibility, with options allowing you to go wide or tall (swinging many creatures for spread damage or stacking your resources on a single or small group of creatures), and the deck also features alternative win cons for situations where our main goals become blocked or if you happen to get that perfect draw!

Math is Magic (+1/+1 counter synergy) Show

Tanazir Quandrix loves creatures that have +1/+1 counters on them, so here we focus on giving him something to work with! In the deck there are high impact hydras such as Primordial Hydra and Steelbane Hydra, creatures that give counters like other creatures such as Forgotten Ancient and Master Biomancer, and some that just increase the amount of counters already on creatures, like Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, Deepglow Skate and Vorel of the Hull Clade!

Aside from Creature based sources, there’s also a few key enchantments and artifacts that help boost the number of +1/+1 counters we’re gaining or putting on our permanents, listed below:

Unbound Flourishing- doubles the X value of our hydras, and flatout copies our X cost spells! This one has a pretty interesting interaction with one of our player-killing combos, letting us take out two players for the price of one!

Branching Evolution- Pretty straightforward, doubles the number of +1/+1 counters placed on our creatures. This works with just about everything we do, increasing the size of the hydra’s on entry and producing the production value on cards like Master Biomancer or Loyal Guardian. It can also break The Ozolith a little bit, doubling the number of counters when you move any from The Ozolith to a creature. This also has the same doubling effect with counters moved from Forgotten Ancient!

The Ozolith- Our “Save file” for +1/+1 counters, allowing us to keep the counters of creatures that die or become exiled and place them on another creature at the beginning of our next combat. This can be an incredibly helpful piece on the board, allowing you to redistribute your counters to another creature, or even pile them all on Tanazir Quandrix, creating a very threatening commander while also increasing the power of his second ability, letting you have your creatures base power mirror Tanazir’s power and toughness when he attacks!

Divide By Zero (Infinite Combos and Player Removal) Show

You read that right, infinite combos. Infinite combos may exclude this type of deck from lower intensity play groups by default, but there’s no infinite turn combos or anything that stalls out the game here! Our infinite’s in this deck mainly focus on card draw/life gain as a technical infinite (as you can only loop it until you run the risk of drawing yourself at maximum) and then a few ways to achieve infinite mana, which you utilize for huge hydras or to completely beam a player out of the game with Blue Sun's Zenith or Commander's Insight. The combos below fall mostly under “alternative win cons” as they dont require our commander to function and instead primarily take advantage of our color identity.

Llanowar Scout + Retreat to Coralhelm + Simic Growth Chamber - this combo results in infinite landfall/ land entering the battlefield triggers, as you would play Simic Growth Chamber, return it to your hand with its own ability then use Llanowar Scout’s ability to put it back into play, and use the trigger from Retreat to Coralhelm to untap Llanowar Scout and return Simic Growth Chamber to your hand with it’s own ability again, repeating this loop as many times as you desire or require! This combo pairs well with Tatyova, Benthic Druid for unlimited card draw and life gain, or Lotus Cobra for infinite mana in any combination of colors from its landfall ability. Additionally, you can pull off the same process with Retreat to Coralhelm + Sakura-Tribe Scout + Simic Growth Chamber .

Bloom Tender + Freed from the Real - Infinite green mana made easy! Simply enchant Bloom Tender with Freed from the Real and at minimum you can tap Bloom Tender for 2 mana (1 from the green mana in Bloom Tender’s mana cost and 1 from the blue man in Freed from the Real’s mana cost), then you use the blue mana to pay the untap cost for Freed from the Real, letting you untap Bloom Tender and repeat the cycle again. You will continue to produce an extra green mana each time you repeat the process, netting you unlimited mana to pump into a hydra for an infinitely massive creature or toss it all into one of our draw X spells, letting you target an opponent and force them to draw 500 cards to eliminate them from the game! To an extent this combo also functions with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds with the pairing of Freed from the Real + Selvala, Heart of the Wilds , but for infinite mana in that combo you would need to have at least one creature with 3 power or greater so that Selvala, Heart of the Wilds could produce enough mana to pay the 1 blue to untap with Freed from the Real and then pay the 1 green to tap again with her own ability. As long as you have a creature with power 3 or greater you would produce at least 1 additional mana per activation.

Biovisionary + Rite of Replication - Win the game. In all seriousness, this one can be pretty hard to answer, as casting a kicked Rite of Replication on Biovisionary puts you at Biovisionary’s win threshold with 2 copies to spare, giving your opponents only until your end step to solve the problem.

Unexpected Results (Additional Plays) Show

After the core strategy and combos we have a few more fun options to work with, functioning well either solo or in tandem with other strong cards in the deck:

Echoing Equation- A strong card capable of sweeping your opponent away in one turn, casting Echoing Equation on a huge impact creature such as Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger while you have a fair number of small creatures on the field can allow you to swing for huge damage while also obliterating the defending player’s library from your now several Ulamog attack triggers! Also works devastatingly well with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth for stacking a ton of Annihilator triggers on an opponent to completely devastate their board.

Body of Research- Does exactly as advertised, creates a huge fractal creature with power and toughness equal to the number of cards in your library. (these counters can also be doubled by Branching Evolution or Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider). The sudden appearance of this huge creature can spell doom for your opponent if they can’t respond to it by the time it swings, especially if you have another effect to make sure the damage gets through such as Herald of Secret Streams or Duskshell Crawler!

Dark Depths- Is that a Marit Lage? An INSTANT Marit Lage?? It certainly is! With the combination of Thespian's Stage and Dark Depths you can have Thespian's Stage become a copy of Dark Depths, which would be a copy with no counters on it that you could instantly sacrifice and bring Marit Lage to the field! (You sacrifice the original Dark Depths to the legend rule)

Concluding the Lesson

To sum things up, this is a deck that can be a lot of fun and thought-provoking, while keeping some strong game-ending options in reserve for any sticky situations you may find yourself in. I really enjoyed building this one, and the early games I've played with it have yielded positive results! As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this primer and like the deck, and if so feel free to leave an upvote and/or comment! You can find the other 3 decks in my Strixhaven series below if you would also like to check them out!

Shadrix, Ambassador of Ultimatums *Primer*: A deck themed around politics, lifegain, and building an army! Shadrix Silverquill leads this deck filled with fun synergy, life manipulation and strong combos. Full primer!

Velomachus, Air Raid Bomber *Primer*: A deck more balanced between competitive and casual, built for getting Velomachus Lorehold onto the field quickly and utilizing his ability to drop everything from removal spells to big boardwipes! As the name suggests, this deck’s playstyle is all about clearing the board and dealing heavy commander damage to your opponents! Full primer!

Galazeth, Magitech Beam Cannon *Primer*: A fun deck focused on playing to Galazeth Prismari’s ability to tap artifacts for mana to cast huge X spells and deal massive amounts of damage! Features a full primer with combos and synergies, breaking down the playstyle and goals of the deck!

Top Ranked	Achieved #7 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #4 position in Commander / EDH 2 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Combo 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Counters 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Key combos	Biovisionary + Rite of Replication Bloom Tender + Freed from the Real Llanowar Scout + Retreat to Coralhelm + Simic Growth Chamber Freed from the Real + Selvala, Heart of the Wilds Retreat to Coralhelm + Sakura-Tribe Scout + Simic Growth Chamber
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.29
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Fractal 0/0 GU, Manifest 2/2 C, Marit Lage, Replicated Ring, Saproling 1/1 G
Folders	Strixhaven Series, decks I like hehe, Decks