Zedruu the Zedruu deck

Commander / EDH* RUW (Jeskai, America)

.Eclipse06

Creature (20)

• 1x Akroan Horse
• 1x Angel of Destiny
• 1x Bazaar Trader
• 1x Body of Knowledge
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Chromeshell Crab
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Goblin Cadets
• 1x Grid Monitor
• 1x Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1x Humble Defector
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
• 1x Perplexing Chimera
• 1x Pramikon, Sky Rampart
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Steel Golem
• 1x The Locust God
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Vedalken Plotter
• 1x Wall of Omens

Instant (8)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Sudden Substitution
• 1x Wild Ricochet
• 1x Wrong Turn

Artifact (17)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Crown of Doom
• 1x Ichor Wellspring
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Jeskai Banner
• 1x Pendant of Prosperity
• 1x Pentad Prism
• 1x Raugrin Crystal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of the Suns
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Transmogrifying Wand

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Aggressive Mining
• 1x Assemble the Legion
• 1x Banishing Light
• 1x Cast Out
• 1x Delaying Shield
• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Nine Lives
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Paradox Haze
• 1x Puca's Mischief
• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight

Commander (1)

Land (37)

• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 9x Island
• 9x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Monastery
• 9x Plains
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Thriving Bluff
• 1x Thriving Heath
• 1x Thriving Isle

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Open the Armory
• 1x Role Reversal
• 1x Slaughter the Strong
• 1x Tragic Arrogance

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This is a remake of a Zedruu deck I designed years ago. The last deck was bad because it focused on stalling and drawing cards with Zedruu and then building up tokens in the stall time. This new deck stays more true to Zedruu.

Making a King

Politically, the goal of this deck is to designate someone King, form an alliance with that person in return for your patronage, and then stab them in the back.

There are a lot of ways to group-hug with this deck. Zedruu allows you to give anyone any card that you have at instant speed. This is a super interesting mechanic and it means that you can help other people deal with threats. For instance, if someone needs one more mana to deal with a threat you can offer to gift them the land. Outwardly this might seem bad, but gifting someone a land is a permanent trigger for Zedruu, lands become more plentiful as the game goes on anyways, and if you are making an alliance with someone anyways you may never have to deal with the consequences of your actions anyways.

There are also a bunch of odd cards in this deck that are specifically designed to be neutral targets to give as Zedruu's gift. These are cards like Pentad Prism , Ichor Wellspring , Cast Out (And other cast out type cards that you can give to someone after you have used their effect), and Transmogrifying Wand (After you have used all its charges, obviously). Assuming that you expect your chosen king to actually wipe out the other two competitors, you should give these neutral cards to them so that you can maintain your Zedruu triggers in the one vs one.

Threats and Greek Gifts

It wouldn't be Christmas if everyone got what they want. This deck has a bunch of the classic Greek Gifts of Zedruu. Things like Steel Golem and Grid Monitor . There are also bigger threats when it comes to Zedruu, for instance Nine Lives which can be used to give you 8 lives and an opponent of your choice 1. Of course, with cards like The Locust God or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind working in conjunction with Zedruu triggers, then 9 lives seem far easier to cut through.

Cards like Approach of the Second Sun , Psychosis Crawler , Angel of Destiny , etc. are all additional threats that can be raised.

Moreover, your value cards like Paradox Haze and Teferi's Ageless Insight threaten to draw you enough cards to be a massive threat just through the amount of value they generate and how quickly they get you to your other threats.

Other Notes

Some other notes about the deck. There are some counterspells in the deck. Ideally, they are used sparingly. Things like making sure your threats go off, protecting Zedruu, etc. Use your board clears or detention cards in order to deal with your opponent's threats rather than your counterspells if you can.

There are also a lot of "Swap control" cards, which let you take your opponent's threats. Cards like Chromeshell Crab , Puca's Mischief , Wrong Turn , etc. These are great if your opponent has big stuff. If your opponent spams tokens you are going to need your board clears, particularly Tragic Arrogance is very good when you get to choose all of your gifts for them to keep.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 30 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.29
Tokens	Insect 1/1 UR, Morph 2/2 C, Ox 2/4 W, Soldier 1/1 RW, Soldier 1/1 W