What Do You Do? - Generally Grinding Hedrons, You?

Commander / EDH Aggro Casual Combo Five Color Theme/Gimmick

NekoMachine

Lands (32)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enablers (7)

• 1x Cerulean Wisps
• 1x Crimson Wisps
• 1x Expedite
• 1x Refocus
• 1x Shadow Rift
• 1x Slip Through Space
• 1x Vanish into Memory

Mana (13)

• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Sol Ring

Interaction (11)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Negate
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Stony Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vandalblast

General (8)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

Combos (5)

• 1x Blades of Velis Vel
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Life and Limb
• 1x Part the Waterveil
• 1x Squirrel Nest

Commander (1)

Consistency (12)

• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sylvan Tutor
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Hatebears (9)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Gaddock Teeg
• 1x Hushwing Gryff
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

MVP (2)

• 1x Ink-Treader Nephilim
• 1x Zada, Hedron Grinder

---

Hi, finally, I've decided to put this deck together! It's been on my mind since the release of BFZ but I never got around to it until now!

This deck is based on Zada, Hedron Grinder. Let us take a moment to feast on her beauty!

I struggled for a little while trying to make her work as the Commander for the deck. In the end I think going the five colors route is much better. Thus, this General Tazri deck is born!

DISCLAIMER Show

This list is ONLY suited to work in conjunction with Zada and her pal from another world, Ink-Treader Nephilim. There are COUNTLESS optimization choices that can be made to this list if you're looking for a more well-rounded General Tazri deck, you have been warned! Make sure to check resources like Reddit and EDHREC for those types of lists.

Let's dive into the hows and ends!

Zada, our titular card, works best with spells that aren't Red, as such, to fully enforce her I decided to go for General Tazri to get her out of the deck as consistently as possible. The five colors give us plenty of options for spells that interact with Zada, and ways to prevent us from dying while we do our durddling!

As far as spells that target ONLY Zada, we have many options. I compiled a list of the ones I chose and their uses, refer to the Sideboard for alternatives.

• Expedite, Crimson Wisps. These are the bread and butter of the deck. You'll see many cheap spells that draw cards in this deck. Haste can come in pretty handy at times.

• Cerulean Wisps, Refocus. Again, drawing cards. Untapping your dorks to generate mana is gravy.

• Shadow Rift, Slip Through Space. Our deck is outrageously fair, sometimes getting in is the only path to victory. Eh, look at that, more card draw.

There you have it! The main engine being one-mana spells that interact with our board and draw us a bunch of cards. Although, this selection of card would not be complete without the biggest and baddest of them all:

• Vanish into Memory

With this unseemly trick, we can make our entire team dodge removal and draw TONS of cards. This card is near and dear to my heart, being one of the first foils I've ever owned, and is so stupid in this deck you could actually deck yourself out with it!!!

BASICS

Obviously I'm not over calling this decklist for what it truly is: a pile of jank. Although, I'm not really into playing underpowered decks, even to have fun in a Commander game. As long as your table isn't utterly cutthroat, you'll get your way. I've made sure to include as much redundancy, interaction and prison elements as possible so we don't get utterly destroyed by faster decks.

The main way we lose the game is by having too few creatures. I remedy that issue in a twofold way.

1. Creatures of Choice

When you go wide in Commander, you end up depleting your hand quickly, and beating down your opponents is only gonna get you so far. We need creatures that stop your opponents in their tracks, prolonging the game and making their presence on the field felt.

The usual misfits all make an appearance in this list. We want to prevent our opponents from getting out their hay-makers too fast with cards such as -

We also decided to include some other pieces of disruptions that generally appear in other shells. Taking advantage of all of our colors, we can really expend on the pillar that is oppression through creatures. For instance -

The main oppressive way to counteract grindy control strategies or blitz fast stormy decks!

A good catch-all that can cover many types of threats!

As long as you have sufficient control over the board state; bar a game-winning spell, a wrath effect is pretty much all you have to fear. Save those pieces of interaction for when you really get into a tough spot. Sometimes slow rolling your threats is gonna be the way to go, meanwhile you can sculpt your hand and prepare to react to your opponents' strategies.

2.Interaction

We have some precious pieces of disruption sprinkled in the list to maintain a pseudo-control role while we grow our army. By staying alert and aware of your opponents' goals, you get rewarded by stopping the really important threats.

• Abrupt Decay, Krosan Grip, Vandalblast, Pyroblast. These are best used as last resort when every word of their text matters. Think someone might have a counterspell to protect their Laboratory Maniac? Use Abrupt Decay! Is there a Jace, the Mind Sculptor running rampant? Use Pyroblast! Bottom line: use them sparingly and wisely.

• Negate, Swan Song. Sweet and impactful counterspells easy on the mana and the best way to interact with mass removal.

The Late Game

I purposely omitted combos that win the game right away. Mostly, this is so you can walk up to any table at LGS and enjoy a game regardless of personal outset on the format and how much importance you give to actually winning. This deck would work much better if these cards were a Food Chain package, but let's not digress.

THE EFFICIENT COMBO

Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest is a favorite in this deck. Both pieces work in our favor to assemble winning boards to target with Zada, Hedron Grinder or Card:Ink-Treader Nephilim. More creatures and more mana is always a good thing.

And when you put them together, you end up with an arbitrary amount of tapped Squirrels! You could go further than just creating the tokens though:

Cerulean Wisps OR Refocus

AND

Crimson Wisps OR Expedite

...Attack for a bunch! Generate tons of mana? The world is your oyster!

THE CRAZY COMBO

Now THIS is were all seriousness is left out the door!

Let us introduce the worst cards of the deck! Why do we play them, you ask? Well, when you put them together, something magical happens!

This card can be hard to understand at first, so let's break it down; Every Forest land will also be a 1/1 Saproling creature. Basics are still basics, non-basics are still non-basics. Creature have summoning sickness, and lands are not spells. So far so good?!

As expected, every Saproling creature will also be a Forest land. Forests tap for . If you cast a Saproling creature spell, it isn't a land on the stack.

With those mechanics layed out, let's introduce the card that makes Life and Limb matter in our deck -

When you copy this card with Zada/Nephilim, you end up with a team of changelings that are all creature types. INCLUDING Saproling. Wait! What?! Congratulations, you've made all of your creatures into Forest without removing their abilities!!!

Now for the payoff! -

With Zada/Nephilim being also a land, you now have access to the most powerful spell to abuse their effect. The Awaken ability makes this combination possible, growing your whole team to 6/6 hasters and giving you an extra turn FOR EACH CREATURE TARGETED! Aren't janky combos fun?!

QUICK NOTE: Your creatures "become" Elementals through Part the Waterveil awakened, which means they are no longer Saprolings, and therefore no longer Forests. This does not matter, as long as the targets are all lands before the spells resolve. Remember your layers though! You still get to apply the +2/+0 from Blades of Velis Vel even when your creatures' power are set to 0.

TL;DR Life and Limb + Blades of Velis Vel + Zada, Hedron Grinder + Part the Waterveil awakened. (Easy enough, he!)

...Profit?

To Tie it All Up

Isn't it a glorious time to play Magic? That I could in all seriousness present to you all this pile of cards and see just how much fun everyone can have with it if they dare.

If you would prefer a more midrange approach to the theme, try cutting down on a few of the redundant tutor effects in favor of hate-pieces that prove effective in your local meta, as well as your preferred tools of interaction. If I dare to repeat myself: the world is your oyster!

Make of this list what you will, please leave a vote if you like the deck!

Leave suggestions for what you think shoud be in there!

As always have a great day and I hope to see you in the comments!

Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Key combos	Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 58 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.97
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Spirit 1/1 C, Squirrel 1/1 G