Why are these two cards not being played together more often??
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Oct. 27, 2020, 9:45 p.m. by Gontilordofmtg
Am I the only one who sees the potential of Zirda, the Dawnwaker + Dark Depths? I was brainstorming a Kenrith, the Returned King deck with Zirda, the Dawnwaker as a companion and one of the first cards that came to mind for me was Dark Depths. Zirda's ability to make activated abilities cost two less to cast changes dark depths from a mostly jank card into a powerhouse. Only needing to invest 10 mana over time to get a 20/20 flying indestructible creature seems pretty strong to me, and with the right cards, you could easily achieve this in one turn. Comment what you think and/or any other cards that become absolutely broken when paired with zirda.
Gidgetimer says... #3
They aren't played together more because people who want to abuse Dark Depths are using Thespian's Stage, Vampire Hexmage, or other guaranteed ways to do the combo in one turn.
October 27, 2020 10:01 p.m.
VampDemigod says... #4
Fair.
I still like Zirda as a commander because she makes it really easy to get infinite mana, but yeah, DD is pretty breakable as-is.
October 27, 2020 10:10 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #5
Oh yeah for sure. I am not taking anything away from Zirda, the Dawnwaker. I am just answering the question posed in the thread title.
October 27, 2020 10:16 p.m.
Seconding what Gidgetimer said--no need to play around with Zirda and Depths. There are enough redundancies on cheating Dark Depths in an instant that paying just does not seem all that exciting.
With regards to the Zirda generally conversation
I think most people know that companions can be used without restriction in the Command Zone.
Zirda has a much worse problem than ignorance--she is Boros. This means she lacks Power Artifact, which would provide much-needed redundancy to her key combos. She has mediocre tutor options to find said combos, so your single copy of Enlightened Tutor has to do a lot of heavy lifting. Finally, White and Red's counterspell options are a tad mediocre, making it a bit hard to protect your combos.
She has decent Stax options going for her, but the rest of her flaws are extremely hard to overcome.
October 27, 2020 10:19 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #8
Did... did you just call Dark Depths jank?
Buddy that's not fair
October 27, 2020 10:21 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life: Dark Depths is pretty jank. I mean it's a single token which doesn't one shot players. It's ok and all and fits into a lands deck easily enough, but at the end of the day there is sooo much you can do to stop it.
Don't get me wrong, the "dies to removal" argument is not a great one, but DD just creates a big vanilla beater (yes, I know flying and indestructible - these are pretty vanilla effects though). And in the scenario described by OP, you're still paying 10 mana (albeit not all at once) to get said vanilla beater.
October 27, 2020 10:47 p.m.
VampDemigod says... #11
Caerwyn while I don’t disagree with your points, cards like this are WotC’s way of making Boros better. My dream deck, that I want to build at some point, is a Zirda cycling deck. Please don’t ruin my dreams.
That said, yeah Boros is bad. That doesn’t mean Zirda isn’t cool.
October 27, 2020 10:48 p.m.
Don’t get me wrong - I really wanted Zirda to work, playing around with her design and doing a fair bit of play testing. One day she might be more competitive, but she’s going to need a lot more support than Wizards is currently giving her.
October 27, 2020 10:51 p.m.
VampDemigod says... #13
Fair. But also, I’m covering my ears (IDK why, visual medium), so my dreams can be dreams.
October 27, 2020 10:54 p.m.
Destroyerbirb says... #14
I never saw that combo! Thanks for pointing it out!
VampDemigod says... #2
Both Basalt Monolith and Grim Monolith make infinite mana with her. I think Zirda’s underrated because of all the chaos with companion mechanics, plus some people don’t seem to understand that you can run the companions as your commander or in your 99 WITHOUT MEETING THE COMPAINION QUALIFICATIONS. GASP!
October 27, 2020 9:57 p.m.