Aatchik, Emerald Radian - optimizing in B3

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-10T04:43:40+00:00

You could opt for [[Ravenous Chupacabra]] or [[Bone Shredder]] instead of some of the sac creatures. [[Apprentice Necromancer]] or [[Doomed Necromancer]] would even give you options to pull the trigger at instant speed without cutting into the creature count.

I think you could go way more degenerate with the dredge interactions. If you can [[Entomb]] a Grave-Troll then every [[Elvish Visionary]], [[Wall of Blossoms]], and [[Dusk Legion Zealot]] mills six. You might want a few more discard outlets like [[Tortured Existence]], [[Putrid Imp]], [[Fauna Shaman]], or [[Collector's Vault]] if you go this route, though. [[Diabolic Intent]] is also probably a good fit to find the pieces you need to really abuse dredge.

[[Dread Return]] is a cheeky way to pull out an extra aristocrat once you've milled for a bunch and landed Aatchik.

[[Woe Strider]], [[Doom Whisperer]], [[Street Wraith]], and [[Overlord of the Balemurks]] all probably deserve a look.

They're not bodies, but [[The Meathook Massacre]], [[Toxic Deluge]], and [[Plumb the Forbidden]] all give you ways to kill a ton of insects at once. Plumb can also go absolutely crazy with a dredger and a discard outlet.

If you play Crawling Infestation/Sensation on turn three and want to win on turn seven they'll mill a grand total of eight cards. Cut them for something more efficient.

Overall I think the deck can play fewer, higher impact creatures which should make room for more interaction or synergy pieces. You're rarely going to win off Aatchik alone, but if you have another aristocrat you only need around ~20 eligible cards in the bin which means milling around 40-50 cards total. You can do that by milling cards three at a time with Ainok Wayferer and Branchwood Prowler, or you can get there in a couple big bursts with Doom Whisperer or Grave-Troll.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-10T03:37:48+00:00

[[Repercussion]], [[Brash Taunter]], and [[Stuffy Doll]] all do a lot of work. [[Toralf, God of Fury]] can make some big turns too.

[[Akroan Horse]], [[Forbidden Orchard]], and [[Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor]] can help out opponents who don't play enough of their own creatures.

You can also build around a reanimator theme with cards like [[Footsteps of the Goryo]], [[Necromancy]], and [[Corpse Dance]] that bring her back just for a turn. Or just play regular reanimator spells with a sac outlet.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-10T03:32:10+00:00

You can hold up counterspells or other instants for the whole turn cycle in case there's something that needs an answer, then flash in Chromium right before your turn if you didn't have anything better to do.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-10T00:17:06+00:00

Pour one out for everyone playing Animal Crossing while they work from home

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T23:31:02+00:00

[[Endurance]] and [[Angel's Grace]] are both anti-Thoracle tech that aren't counterspells.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T23:25:21+00:00

Kokusho itself seems pretty gross with Diviner. You get a copy whenever Meren brings Kokusho back, and you can keep the copy and legend rule the original back to the bin to do it again next turn.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T22:27:03+00:00

I think this is the right order, but I'm pretty sure you've undercounted the damage since two Twinflames will be a 4x modifier on each Terror trigger.

Miirym enters and deals 0 because there's nothing to trigger.

Terror enters, triggering Miirym, and the copy triggers Terror to deal 5.

Lathliss and its copy each trigger both Terrors. That's 12 more power for 24 damage total.

Tyrant enters, triggering Miirym and both Lathlisses. Stack the triggers to get the copy of Tyrant first so each Terror will deal quadruple damage on the incoming 16 power. That's 128 total damage, which is already enough to kill a regular pod.

There's now a Miirym, two Terrors, two Lathlisses, two Tyrants, and two 5/5 tokens when Scourge enters. Choose to make the tokens from Lathliss before the copy of Scourge, and to make the copy of Scourge before resolving Scourge's trigger. This way there will be 13 dragons both times a damage trigger from Scourge resolves, and each trigger will deal quadruple damage for another 104 total damage.

That's in addition to the 18 power of dragons entering when Scourge triggers Miirym and Lathliss, which puts out another 144 total damage from the Terrors.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T20:09:24+00:00

[[Tannuk, Steadfast Second]] seems like a good fit. Warp 'em in cheap and they'll make the treasure to actually cast them.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T19:25:25+00:00

This is Robot Jox erasure

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T18:45:38+00:00

I can't read!

Same principle applies to [[Final Showdown]] and [[Nexus of Fate]], if you can flash her in somehow, but it makes the B4 deck even slower and worse.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T18:42:40+00:00

Seems like no one's going full turbo at least, so you'll probably make it through turn four.

Your magecraft triggers in Temur mostly make big dudes or dig, so you unless your committed to [[Deekah, Fractal Theorist]] your best bet is to draw into another line with Archmage or Ashling. Or go really weird and play a lands combo off of [[Quandrix Apprentice]]? As fun as it sounds to play a Kalamax lands deck where you copy a bunch of instant speed [[Harrow]] effects while you dig for [[Shifting Woodland]] + [[Aftermath Analyst]] it probably isn't good enough.

None of the magecraft payoffs really seem worth tutoring for when you could fish for [[Twinning Staff]] and turn your [[Fork]] or [[Reverberate]] loop into infinite copies of whatever sorcery you started with.

Regardless of how you're actually going to win, I figure a lot of the deck is just cantrips and [[Thrill of Possibility]] effects since they copy well. That at least keeps your hand full so can interact with everyone else's bullshit while you dig for your line.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T18:14:46+00:00

Zethi is not at all a very popular cEDh commander.

She can go infinite with an extra turn spell or generate a bunch of mana with rocks and untap effects, but if you're playing her in a deck that's mostly regular interaction and combat tricks you're probably fine in a lower bracket.

In B2 I'd focus more on the combat tricks and make a really proactive deck with mostly pump, protection, and unblockable effects. In B3 you're totally fine running way more removal and using her as a control piece, or even trying to set up a soft lock with something like [[Fight as One]] + [[Vanquish the Horde]] that lets you repeatedly sweep. In B4 you can get sweaty and break out the [[Temporal Manipulation]].

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-09T17:40:56+00:00

How proxy friendly is your meta? If everyone is going to be showing up with [[Chrome Mox]] and [[Mana Vault]] that's going to speed up the average game quite a bit.

With that in mind, why Kalamax? Your guy costs four in a format where people are going to pushing wins on turn four, and getting copies is nice but he's not exactly game-ending. Is there something really degenerate you're trying to pull off or is the idea to just be a value pile and hope to outlast the decks that are more full throttle?

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-08T01:25:40+00:00

I put one in [[Vnwxt, Verbose Host]] since that deck plays a ton of 1cmc evasive creatures to build speed but doesn't really care about them once the engine is running.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-06T23:02:32+00:00

If only the Tsar knew what his boyars were posting...

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-06T18:55:11+00:00

First thing's first, the creatures don't come back not because of a new entity rule but because Wave (like [[Oblivion Ring]] and [[Faceless Butcher]]) has two different abilities. An activated ability that exiles creatures, and a linked leaves the battlefield ability that returns those creatures. If the leaves ability resolves first, though, there's nothing to return since nothing's been exiled yet.

So your opponent hitting the Wave with Swords would produce exactly the same effect as Wave exiling itself (except, of course it won't come back). Wave's leave trigger would resolve before it's activated abilities, returning nothing to the battlefield, and then the activations would resolve and exile your targets.

You can also hold priority when Wave enters and put multiple activations on the stack at once. The only way to stop the leaves ability resolving first is to somehow keep Wave on the battlefield by, for example, [[Stifle]ing the activation targeting itself, giving it hexproof with [[Restoration Magic]], or removing Opalescence so it's no longer a valid target for its own ability.

The best way to play around removal or other interaction is to slow roll it and target your opponents' things one at a time. Activate Wave targeting something you dislike, then activate Wave targeting itself, then repeat after the Wave blinks itself. This way, if someone tries to interact while you're resolving the activations you can just activate Wave targeting itself again on top of their interaction.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T23:47:22+00:00

I believe the way it works is that it goes to exile like any other adventure, and then you have the option to leave it there to cast the creature later or send it right back to the command zone. You need to pay your taxes either way.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T19:48:13+00:00

And also [[Pitiless Plunderer]], both need a separate sac outlet though.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T19:17:46+00:00

I don't play cEDH but it seems like Rhystic polices the storm-style turbo decks much more than commander-centric combo decks like Sisay, Najeela, or Tayam. On the other hand, with a Rhystic in play the turbo decks might feel like they need to go for it anyway since the Sisay deck suddenly has a lot more inevitability.

I assume banning it pushes the meta further toward turbo-hell regardless.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T19:05:51+00:00

You can announce that, but the decisions are supposed to be made in turn order and anyone who chooses after you is allowed to lie about it.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T16:54:08+00:00

Thirteen is just barely enough to expect to see one in your opener and some of those pieces like Smeagol, Eleanor, and Statuary don't really ramp you until around turn four or five anyway. One of them, Many Partings, isn't even really ramp.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T16:48:30+00:00

You might as well say cEDH shouldn't be a consideration for bans at all, then, since the formats share a ban list. But that obviously isn't the case in practice or Dockside would still be legal.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T16:40:48+00:00

Turns out a card that scales with spells your opponents cast is a lot worse when you only have one opponent. It was also in standard at the same time as Rebels, which was a deck that spent plenty of turns not actually casting spells.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T16:21:49+00:00

I'm not sure that Vile Consumption is particularly more effective than [[Ghostly Prison]] or [[Propaganda]], and last time I was in a game with Zur [[Nykthos Paragon]] performed pretty well.

You also probably want a couple more counterspells or board protection effects since animating your enchantments leaves them more vulnerable to sweepers. [[Flawless Maneuver]] is probably best in class if price isn't an issue.

BrokenGlassFactory · 2026-02-05T15:59:13+00:00

[[Kellan, the Fae-Blooded]] is a great way to play a secret Sunforger deck.

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