Intro.
I wanted to share this deck I brewed up after I drafted the core of it in an EDH Cube. Obviously, everyone knows that Thousand-Year Storm is a stupid, broken card. I'm not breaking any new ground on that here. But I wanted to share my build of it and why I think Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis is a great commander, despite the boys taking a lot of heat for being to enabling to your opponents at times. First, the build:
Section 1: Building a Board
1A. Deckbuilding
The first thing that I try to do is vomit out as many lands as possible. The first place that this starts is in deckbuilding. I run 40 lands in this deck, and at times I want to even add another couple. Maximizing your land count with Kyraios and Tiro is crucial, because if you aren't drawing a card AND making a land drop every turn, you're enabling your opponents without pulling ahead of them. However, the deck also has some built in plans to address this.
1B. Bouncelands/Cultivate/Kodama's Reach
Bouncelands are extremely important to a successful Kyraios and Tiro deck, because they ensure that you get extra lands to hand. Playing the Greek boys gives you access to all of the nonblack Ravnica bouncelands and I strongly recommend running all of them. Yes, they are extremely vulnerable to land destruction, but they make your extra land drop at end of turn a ramp spell. These also combo very nicely with Mind Over Matter which generates 2 mana on discard, often being the fuel that you need to go off. Cultivate and Reach are auto-includes in many builds of green-based decks, as ramp and fixing is always welcome at the table. It is even more important with Kynaios and Tiro because it increases the likelihood of the additional land drop.
1C. Artifact Mana
The artifact mana in this build has to hit 2 of 3 categories. First, it must produce U or R (preferably both!). Second, it must cost 2 mana or less. Third, it must provide an extra benefit outside of mana. The only exception is Sol Ring because... yeah. You'll notice that I'm not playing all the signets that I could, and that is because W is the least desireable color in the deck, and so I am not playing any of the W producing signets. The card off Commander's Sphere is more valuable to me.
1D. Ramp spells
Aside from the 3cmc spells that provide ramp, I also play several 2cmc ramp spells. This is to maximize the chances of a turn 3 commander. It's also nice when the ramp comes with an effect, even it's minor like on Broken Bond or Growth Spiral. Both of those are also nice in that, like Nature's Lore, they also put the land into play untapped. This can be exceptional mana generation when cast along with Thousand-Year Storm or Eye of the Storm triggers.
1E. Card Draw and Hand Sculpting
We run tons of card draw effects, and we want them to be cheap. Ideally, they are either 1 or 2 mana, or mana neutral. These effects are so plentiful that you don't really need to be too judicious with them. Fire them off as needed to dig to additional land drops and artifact mana. We have a plethora of ways to recast these spells from the graveyard or return them to our hands when going off, so don't be afraid to tap mana or discard good spells to Faithless Looting or Frantic Search.
1F. Standard Opening (sans Sol Ring)
Turn 1 - Land drop (end with 1 mana)
Turn 2 - Land drop, ramp spell/2 cmc artifact mana (end with 3 mana)
Turn 3 - Land drop, K&T, additional land drop (end with 5 mana)
Turn 4 - Land drop, ramp spell/artifact mana, ramp spell/artifact mana or card draw spell, K&T landrop (end with 8-9 mana)
Turn 5 - Transition to the mid-game
Basically any hand with 3-4 lands and a 2 mana way to ramp is a snap keep. Due to redundancy in our deck and our 40 lands, this is a fairly regular line of play. As you can see, this requires 6 lands to be drawn to maximize the effect, which is where bouncelands and the ramp/search spells become so crucial. Obviously, a turn 1 Sol Ring or Mox Diamond can explode you even faster (with the Mox being the only way to cast our boys on Turn 2).
Section 2: The Mid-Game
2A. More of the Same
By turn 5 or 6, you should be flush with mana. However, we're going to need a lot of mana to ignite our engine, and so we need to keep ramping up and keep filtering cards until we have a win condition in hand. Savvy players will recognize that you are a threat, but if you can play politically, you should be able to continue building in relative peace. Ideally, you can find the player who is stumbling on mana or board presence and remind them that you are there for them, providing them cards to help draw them out of whatever issue they are having. Meanwhile, build up as much mana as you can, with an extreme emphasis on U and R, with G being secondary, and W not exceeding more than 2-3 sources. You really won't need much white outside of casting SUPREmEVERdiCt.
2B. Interaction
Unfortunately, Kynaios and Tiro are very inclusive of our opponents and so we need to consider that now would be a great time to interact with our opponents. However, we want to do what we can to ensure that our interactive spells also work well within the rest of what our deck is trying to do, which is go off with one of our Storms. Therefore, it's ideal if these interactive spells can also help us combo off. Swords to Plowshares is the OG removal spell, and it costing just a single W makes for a perfect fit. Lightning Bolt isn't nearly as effective with bigger threats, but if we can stick it onto an Eye of the Storm or copy it 10 times with Thousand-Year Storm, we can do some really damage, potentially even eliminate a player or multiple players. Banefire and Explosion are both begging to be copied by TYS, and can end games if they are, but also they can be pretty effective removal with all the mana we vomit onto the table. Electrodominance pulls triple duty as a way to interact with a creature, combo someone out with a giant X spell copied and as a way to sneak one of our win conditions onto the battlefield. Blasphemous Act can usually do the job of wiping the board, and often only costs one R, letting use that as a way to jump start our engine, while Supreme Verdict loses points for it's difficult mana cost, but it rarely has a problem wiping the board when the board really needs wiping. Also, Thing in the Ice can pretty easily flip the turn that you play him, or even when you want on an opponents turn by hanging on to an instant to make sure you don't die to combat if you need one more turn to go off. Some more targeted options like Broken Bond and Vandalblast can get rid of problem permanents, while also being efficient at helping us go off if we need them to. Oh and we are also running Cyclonic Rift as catch all permanent removal and a cheap way to interact while comboing off.
2B. Disruption
One of the best ways to really screw with the opponents that we have helped ramp and draw is to make the cards the play extremely awkward and complicate the timing. Enter Possibility Storm and Knowledge Pool. These effects can be very easily exploited by this deck, while amplifying what we're trying to do. You'll notice that we run only 4 enchantments and 5 creatures. This makes playing these under a Possibility Storm a very likely to hit tutor. This is especially true for the enchantments, because nearly all of them will win the game if unanswered with just a little fuel from our spells. Knowledge Pool is exploited by the fact that we run very few big spells. In fact, we run 44 spells that cost 3cmc or less, plus a few others like Blasphemous Act and Treasure Cruise that can cost us less when we cast. So generally we add very little of substance to the pool of knowledge at the table, but we can profit from it greatly.
I also want to mention here that these effects work amazingly well together. When you control both pieces at the same time, you can effectively lock all other players out from the Knowledge Pool. You control the order of the triggers for all players since they are your effects. Since the rules text on the Pool references "if the player does," then if that spell goes to the bottom of the caster's library through Possibility Storm, they do not get to cast spells from KP.
Additionally, these spells are bonkers with Thousand-Year Storm, as you get the copies of the spell no matter how you cast them, so PS will net you 2 spells for everyone one that you pay for, and their corresponding copies. KP will give you double spell triggers if you cast an instant or sorcery from the pool, but can also let you grab something else if you want to. Things also works similarly with Eye of the Storm, triggering PS while also exiling the spell under EotS and giving you a copy. Unfortunately, that interaction also works for our opponents, but you still can lock opponents out of the Knowledge Pool with an active EotS.
2C. Setting up a Win
As your mana develops and you're interacting and disrupting as necessary, you should be cycling through your deck to a win condition. Along the way, you'll encounter some very useful cards that can help ensure that you do exactly what you need to do when you go off. Primal Amulet is a great piece to have right before going off as you can save some mana and copy a spell. Simiarly, Baral, Chief of Compliance can provide the mana savings you need as well, though his second ability is sadly not used. Alhammarret's Archive basically ensures that you're going to draw you deck. Academy Rector and Enlightened Tutor help find your win condition. Wheel of Fortune and Windfall can also be excellent, as the nature of our deck is to trade cards for land drops and mana, so we generally get to a very small hand size. Time Spiral is better when going off, but can also be used as early as turn 4 if necessary. As a side note, there is such a good feeling when you use that card to untap multiple bouncelands.
Section 3: Winning the Game
3A. Winning with Mind Over Matter
This card is simply absurd in this deck. It can do many, many things, but let's talk about how it can win the game, as it's probably the easiest to navigate, and can demonstrate an infinite loop the fastest. With MOM in play, you're looking for a few cards that combine together to form this equation: 3 + Mikokoro, Center of the Sea = 2 cards. The easiest way to do this is with Gilded Lotus and Alhammarret's Archive. Lotus pays for the Mikokoro activation, Archive gives you 2 cards instead of one, and those two cards give you the untaps required to draw your deck. Once you get going, you'll find a way to generate more mana and draw more cards so that you should end up with enough cards in hand to tap out your opponents lands, proceed to your second main phase and then cast Laboratory Maniac and proceed to draw out your library. Usually, your opponents will be tapping all their mana on their turn because you've given them so many things to do, plus if you have a disruption effect on the field, it makes it very difficult for them to do anything to stop you unless they get a little lucky. Once Lab Man resolves, you should be pretty safe, as long as you have a couple extra cards to continue the loop in response to interaction.
Don't forget that MOM also works very favorably with your bouncelands, so you can float a ton of mana and then cast a Draw 7 effect.
3B. Winning with Thousand-Year Storm
It is highly advised that you attempt to win on the turn that you cast Thousand-Year Storm, as if a player can interact with it before you go off, they most certainly will. That's why land drops are so incredibly important both early and during the midgame, as you'll probably need between 12-14 mana to reliably win. Cost reduction of spells or playing the enchantment at the end of your opponent's turn via Electrodominance change the math a bit, but essentially you'll want access to at least 6 mana once TYS hits the battlefield. The big picture "how" to kill with this is quite easy. You cast a bunch of spells which explode out of control. The sequencing of this is quite a bit more involved, but essentially you want to cast 1 and 2 mana spells until you're running low on mana, and they cast a mana-generating spell. The major spells to look for are Frantic Search, Growth Spiral, Manamorphose, Nature's Lore, Pirate's Pillage and Time Spiral. Broken Bond also works in theory, but only for as many targets as their are on the battlefield, though if their are only a few aiming them all at a Darksteel Ingot will do the trick. You can supplement these by having a lot of cards and Mind over Matter in play, again enhanced greatly by bouncelands. To ensure that you don't fizzle, mix in Regrowth, Recoup, Past in Flames, and Mission Briefing, all of which can basically slam the door when cast. Most people concede to these effects once you've generated 10+ spells. If they don't, eventually you'll build up enough spells where you can cast Banefire, Explosion, Blue Sun's Zenith, Electrodominance or even a Lightning Bolt at the table for lethal. One thing to be aware of is if you have Alhammarret's Archive out while trying to win through a TYS kill. It is quite easy to deck yourself this way, so I suggest generating a ton of mana and switching to the Mind Over Matter + Laboratory Maniac kill. You can technically also win via Lab Man while going off with TYS, but without MOM, you are much more vulnerable to interaction and you'll have plenty of cards to tap everyone out if you just switch over.
3C. Winning with Eye of the Storm
This is the most dangerous way to win as the spells you store in this Storm are fair game for anyone to use if they can trigger it. Our spells are generally pretty low impact individually, but once even a couple get stacked under the storm, it becomes less and less likely we can lose if left unchecked. Like Thousand-Year Storm, it is highly advised that you win on the turn you play Eye of the Storm. Unlike TYS, you want to frontload all of your mana generating spells so that they are cast as often as possible to maximize triggers. You specifically want to lead with Nature's Lore if possible to grab all the Forests out of your deck before you start drawing them all. Also note that all of our X spells are functionally useless under an EotS, so you'll want to use the Eye to generate cards and mana before switching over to one of the other 2 win conditions. The other was to win is through Mind's Desire, which interacts pretty favorably with Eye of the Storm. Say you have exactly 13 mana and cast Eye into Desire. Your initial Desire will trigger Eye and add 2 copies of Mind's Desire to the stack. On top of that, you resolve the Eye effect and cast Mind's Desire again, which also gives you 2 copies of Desire. If we hit one of our 38 instant or sorcery spells in the top 4 cards of our library, then we cast it of Desire, which triggers Eye and we can cast it again as a copy. This also let's us cast Desire again, but this time the storm count is 4, so we'll add a total of 5 copies of Desire to the stack. Obviously this is increased by any nonland cards that we hit in the top 4 and eventually we get to a point we where will almost assuredly cast our entire deck. Again, I recommend switching to a safer kill as this can easily draw us out, though if you actually get to the point where you've Desired out your deck, it's unlikely that your opponents have a way to interact or they would have already.
Section 4: Card Selections
4A. Why Kynaios and Tiro
It may seem odd that I'm running a 4-color commander that plays win conditions that are limited to Izzet colors. I've also spent a significant number of keystrokes noting that white mana isn't actually all that desirable in this deck, and green doesn't seem all that good in spell-based deck. The global reason that these are really useful is how important the bouncelands are to the deck. I cannot stress enough how useful they are in making the engine hum, and playing 4 colors gives us access to 6 of them.
White only brings Supreme Verdict, Swords to Plowshares,Enlightened Tutor and Academy Rector. However, both Verdict and Swords are the absolute best versions of those effects, and the other two cards are extra copies of our win conditions. Overall, white brings a small amount of consistency to the deck that is increased by the fact that it doubles our bounceland count.
Green really unlocks the ramp potential by providing spell-based ramp, often on turn 2. The combos in this deck need a serious mana investment before they can really take off, and without the green spells powering out additional mana, this deck would just be too slow to play at a competitive table. Additionally, it brings a couple spells that really grease the tracks on our way to victory. Manamorphose is absolutely the card you want to draw while comboing off with a Thousand-Year Storm. Paying 2 mana for 12 and drawing 6 cards might very well end the game. Additionally, Regrowth is pretty spectacular in this deck, ensuring that cards that went to your graveyard are ready to come back. Along with Mission Briefing, it's basically a fizzle-stopper when cast while going off.
Beyond the color identity, the ability text on Kynaios and Tiro is deceptively powerful when a deck is built to always get both an extra card and land drop. Cards like Exploration are fine early plays, but can run you out of cards quickly. A Howling Mine is a fine enough way to keep your hand full. These two effects together are extremely potent, with the draw fueling the land drops and the land drops fueling the spells you draw. Our lovely lads are both effects in the command zone at once, with the minor downside of giving our opponents half a card and half a land drop every turn it's in play.
All of these factors add up to form a synergistic base from which to build out and execute a master plan, just like the lore of Kynaios and Tiro. Something about everything just kind of falling into place brings a real sense of completeness to the deck. I can't explain it any better than that.
4B. Landbase
I aspire to own this deck in real life, so that is why you won't see any Revised duals in here, but you could certainly add them to streamline the deck even more. I run a pretty high count of basics because the deck does a lot of land searching and so land-type is a very real consideration when adding these. Aside from fetches and bouncelands, the deck only runs 2 lands which cannot be found by a ramp spell, and I think that's very important to ensure consistency. I'm also not running any fetchlands touching black as I'll often be needing to get a specific color and I don't want a Verdant Catacombs lock me out of U mana because I already have my Breeding Pool in play. As an aside, it is kind of annoying that there is so much support for allied-colored fetchable lands but not for the enemy-colored. I'm not sure I completely understand why there are twice as many Swamp/Island combinations as there are Mountain/Island combinations.
4C. What's not in the deck
Despite all the spells I'm casting, I don't have room for Grapeshot. Lightning Bolt is just significantly better with Thousand-Year Storm, and while Grapeshot does interact a bit more favorably with Eye of the Storm (see: previous section on Mind's Desire), Bolt is just a way more efficient removal spell, which may be necessary before you can go off. And at one mana, Bolt is a much better combo starter to be played before a Frantic Search or Manamorphose. Brain Freeze is just too unreliable with Eldrazi running around, and don't even get me started on Empty the Warrens. Though you could run Tempt with Vengeance if you're desperate to win through the combat step.
Another seemingly obvious inclusion into many of these "copy spell" decks are extra turn cards. There is certainly a build like this deck that would want to play multiple extra turn cards, however, I am choosing not to play any beyond Temporal Trespass. First, their converted mana cost is always at least 5 mana (OK, except for one... keep reading), and while the effect is hugely powerful, that cost will make going off difficult if I'm not already very likely to win through other means. Second, they are extremely dangerous to tuck into Eye of the Storm, as any player with an instant on my end of turn step can take over the game before I can go infinite with turns. However, since Trespass is pretty darn efficient at UUU, it's worth the risk.
Another intentional non-inlcusion are ritual effects like Desperate Ritual. As fantastic as these cards are at making obscene amounts of mana while comboing off, they don't provide anything else, and I'm really asking my mana generators to pull double duty. Frantic Search, Growth Spiral, Manamorphose, Nature's Lore, Pirate's Pillage and Broken Bond all add at least one mana (in most circumstances, and when comboing off generally they allow us to add several different colors of mana so we don't become locked with tons of useless R in our pool. And other than Nature's Lore, they either draw us a card or affect the board.
I also don't have any room for standard utility lands like Wasteland or Desolate Lighthouse. The deck is very color hungry, with most spells requiring only 1-2 non-specific colors of mana, and we already run 2 ways of cost reduction. However, I am toying with the idea of cutting a few redundant spells to play a couple utility lands with a Crop Rotation tutor package. It seems a bit too cute, but it could be the next evolution of the deck.
Section 5: Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed the read, and give the deck a playtest or three. I'm eager for some discussion on the deck in hopes of making it better and more resilient, both through improved card quality and newly discovered play patterns and game navigation. I also need to give a special shoutout to tStorm and his Zedruu primer which has formed the basis of my knowledge on some of the card interactions, and helped inspire my creativity in EDH in general. I encourage you to check that epic deck out as well.
I wanted to share this deck I brewed up after I drafted the core of it in an EDH Cube. Obviously, everyone knows that Thousand-Year Storm is a stupid, broken card. I'm not breaking any new ground on that here. But I wanted to share my build of it and why I think Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis is a great commander, despite the boys taking a lot of heat for being to enabling to your opponents at times. First, the build:
1x Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis
Enchantments
1x Eye of the Storm
1x Mind Over Matter
1x Possibility Storm
1x Thousand-Year Storm
Creatures
1x Academy Rector
1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Thing in the Ice
Artifacts
1x Alhammarret's Archive
1x Chromatic Lantern
1x Commander's Sphere
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Gruul Signet
1x Izzet Signet
1x Knowledge Pool
1x Mox Diamond
1x Primal Amulet
1x Simic Signet
1x Sol Ring
Sorcery
1x Banefire
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Broken Bond
1x Cathartic Reunion
1x Chart a Course
1x Cultivate
1x Faithless Looting
1x Farseek
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Mind's Desire
1x Nature's Lore
1x Past in Flame
1x Pirate's Pillage
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Rampant Growth
1x Recoup
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Temporal Trespass
1x Time Spiral
1x Tormenting Voice
1x Treasure Cruise
1x Vandalblast
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Windfall
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Brainstorm
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Electrodominance
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Expansion // Explosion
1x Frantic Search
1x Growth Spiral
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Manamorphose
1x Mission Briefing
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Turnabout
Lands
1x Arid Mesa
1x Azorius Chancery
1x Boros Garrison
1x Breeding Pool
1x Canopy Vista
1x Flooded Strand
4x Forest
1x Gruul Turf
1x Hallowed Fountain
6x Island
1x Izzet Boilerworks
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1x Misty Rainforest
7x Mountain
2x Plains
1x Prairie Stream
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Selesnya Sanctuary
1x Simic Growth Chamber
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
1x Thawing Glaciers
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
Section 1: Building a Board
1A. Deckbuilding
The first thing that I try to do is vomit out as many lands as possible. The first place that this starts is in deckbuilding. I run 40 lands in this deck, and at times I want to even add another couple. Maximizing your land count with Kyraios and Tiro is crucial, because if you aren't drawing a card AND making a land drop every turn, you're enabling your opponents without pulling ahead of them. However, the deck also has some built in plans to address this.
1B. Bouncelands/Cultivate/Kodama's Reach
Bouncelands are extremely important to a successful Kyraios and Tiro deck, because they ensure that you get extra lands to hand. Playing the Greek boys gives you access to all of the nonblack Ravnica bouncelands and I strongly recommend running all of them. Yes, they are extremely vulnerable to land destruction, but they make your extra land drop at end of turn a ramp spell. These also combo very nicely with Mind Over Matter which generates 2 mana on discard, often being the fuel that you need to go off. Cultivate and Reach are auto-includes in many builds of green-based decks, as ramp and fixing is always welcome at the table. It is even more important with Kynaios and Tiro because it increases the likelihood of the additional land drop.
1C. Artifact Mana
The artifact mana in this build has to hit 2 of 3 categories. First, it must produce U or R (preferably both!). Second, it must cost 2 mana or less. Third, it must provide an extra benefit outside of mana. The only exception is Sol Ring because... yeah. You'll notice that I'm not playing all the signets that I could, and that is because W is the least desireable color in the deck, and so I am not playing any of the W producing signets. The card off Commander's Sphere is more valuable to me.
1D. Ramp spells
Aside from the 3cmc spells that provide ramp, I also play several 2cmc ramp spells. This is to maximize the chances of a turn 3 commander. It's also nice when the ramp comes with an effect, even it's minor like on Broken Bond or Growth Spiral. Both of those are also nice in that, like Nature's Lore, they also put the land into play untapped. This can be exceptional mana generation when cast along with Thousand-Year Storm or Eye of the Storm triggers.
1E. Card Draw and Hand Sculpting
We run tons of card draw effects, and we want them to be cheap. Ideally, they are either 1 or 2 mana, or mana neutral. These effects are so plentiful that you don't really need to be too judicious with them. Fire them off as needed to dig to additional land drops and artifact mana. We have a plethora of ways to recast these spells from the graveyard or return them to our hands when going off, so don't be afraid to tap mana or discard good spells to Faithless Looting or Frantic Search.
1F. Standard Opening (sans Sol Ring)
Turn 1 - Land drop (end with 1 mana)
Turn 2 - Land drop, ramp spell/2 cmc artifact mana (end with 3 mana)
Turn 3 - Land drop, K&T, additional land drop (end with 5 mana)
Turn 4 - Land drop, ramp spell/artifact mana, ramp spell/artifact mana or card draw spell, K&T landrop (end with 8-9 mana)
Turn 5 - Transition to the mid-game
Basically any hand with 3-4 lands and a 2 mana way to ramp is a snap keep. Due to redundancy in our deck and our 40 lands, this is a fairly regular line of play. As you can see, this requires 6 lands to be drawn to maximize the effect, which is where bouncelands and the ramp/search spells become so crucial. Obviously, a turn 1 Sol Ring or Mox Diamond can explode you even faster (with the Mox being the only way to cast our boys on Turn 2).
Section 2: The Mid-Game
2A. More of the Same
By turn 5 or 6, you should be flush with mana. However, we're going to need a lot of mana to ignite our engine, and so we need to keep ramping up and keep filtering cards until we have a win condition in hand. Savvy players will recognize that you are a threat, but if you can play politically, you should be able to continue building in relative peace. Ideally, you can find the player who is stumbling on mana or board presence and remind them that you are there for them, providing them cards to help draw them out of whatever issue they are having. Meanwhile, build up as much mana as you can, with an extreme emphasis on U and R, with G being secondary, and W not exceeding more than 2-3 sources. You really won't need much white outside of casting SUPREmEVERdiCt.
2B. Interaction
Unfortunately, Kynaios and Tiro are very inclusive of our opponents and so we need to consider that now would be a great time to interact with our opponents. However, we want to do what we can to ensure that our interactive spells also work well within the rest of what our deck is trying to do, which is go off with one of our Storms. Therefore, it's ideal if these interactive spells can also help us combo off. Swords to Plowshares is the OG removal spell, and it costing just a single W makes for a perfect fit. Lightning Bolt isn't nearly as effective with bigger threats, but if we can stick it onto an Eye of the Storm or copy it 10 times with Thousand-Year Storm, we can do some really damage, potentially even eliminate a player or multiple players. Banefire and Explosion are both begging to be copied by TYS, and can end games if they are, but also they can be pretty effective removal with all the mana we vomit onto the table. Electrodominance pulls triple duty as a way to interact with a creature, combo someone out with a giant X spell copied and as a way to sneak one of our win conditions onto the battlefield. Blasphemous Act can usually do the job of wiping the board, and often only costs one R, letting use that as a way to jump start our engine, while Supreme Verdict loses points for it's difficult mana cost, but it rarely has a problem wiping the board when the board really needs wiping. Also, Thing in the Ice can pretty easily flip the turn that you play him, or even when you want on an opponents turn by hanging on to an instant to make sure you don't die to combat if you need one more turn to go off. Some more targeted options like Broken Bond and Vandalblast can get rid of problem permanents, while also being efficient at helping us go off if we need them to. Oh and we are also running Cyclonic Rift as catch all permanent removal and a cheap way to interact while comboing off.
2B. Disruption
One of the best ways to really screw with the opponents that we have helped ramp and draw is to make the cards the play extremely awkward and complicate the timing. Enter Possibility Storm and Knowledge Pool. These effects can be very easily exploited by this deck, while amplifying what we're trying to do. You'll notice that we run only 4 enchantments and 5 creatures. This makes playing these under a Possibility Storm a very likely to hit tutor. This is especially true for the enchantments, because nearly all of them will win the game if unanswered with just a little fuel from our spells. Knowledge Pool is exploited by the fact that we run very few big spells. In fact, we run 44 spells that cost 3cmc or less, plus a few others like Blasphemous Act and Treasure Cruise that can cost us less when we cast. So generally we add very little of substance to the pool of knowledge at the table, but we can profit from it greatly.
I also want to mention here that these effects work amazingly well together. When you control both pieces at the same time, you can effectively lock all other players out from the Knowledge Pool. You control the order of the triggers for all players since they are your effects. Since the rules text on the Pool references "if the player does," then if that spell goes to the bottom of the caster's library through Possibility Storm, they do not get to cast spells from KP.
Additionally, these spells are bonkers with Thousand-Year Storm, as you get the copies of the spell no matter how you cast them, so PS will net you 2 spells for everyone one that you pay for, and their corresponding copies. KP will give you double spell triggers if you cast an instant or sorcery from the pool, but can also let you grab something else if you want to. Things also works similarly with Eye of the Storm, triggering PS while also exiling the spell under EotS and giving you a copy. Unfortunately, that interaction also works for our opponents, but you still can lock opponents out of the Knowledge Pool with an active EotS.
2C. Setting up a Win
As your mana develops and you're interacting and disrupting as necessary, you should be cycling through your deck to a win condition. Along the way, you'll encounter some very useful cards that can help ensure that you do exactly what you need to do when you go off. Primal Amulet is a great piece to have right before going off as you can save some mana and copy a spell. Simiarly, Baral, Chief of Compliance can provide the mana savings you need as well, though his second ability is sadly not used. Alhammarret's Archive basically ensures that you're going to draw you deck. Academy Rector and Enlightened Tutor help find your win condition. Wheel of Fortune and Windfall can also be excellent, as the nature of our deck is to trade cards for land drops and mana, so we generally get to a very small hand size. Time Spiral is better when going off, but can also be used as early as turn 4 if necessary. As a side note, there is such a good feeling when you use that card to untap multiple bouncelands.
Section 3: Winning the Game
3A. Winning with Mind Over Matter
This card is simply absurd in this deck. It can do many, many things, but let's talk about how it can win the game, as it's probably the easiest to navigate, and can demonstrate an infinite loop the fastest. With MOM in play, you're looking for a few cards that combine together to form this equation: 3 + Mikokoro, Center of the Sea = 2 cards. The easiest way to do this is with Gilded Lotus and Alhammarret's Archive. Lotus pays for the Mikokoro activation, Archive gives you 2 cards instead of one, and those two cards give you the untaps required to draw your deck. Once you get going, you'll find a way to generate more mana and draw more cards so that you should end up with enough cards in hand to tap out your opponents lands, proceed to your second main phase and then cast Laboratory Maniac and proceed to draw out your library. Usually, your opponents will be tapping all their mana on their turn because you've given them so many things to do, plus if you have a disruption effect on the field, it makes it very difficult for them to do anything to stop you unless they get a little lucky. Once Lab Man resolves, you should be pretty safe, as long as you have a couple extra cards to continue the loop in response to interaction.
Don't forget that MOM also works very favorably with your bouncelands, so you can float a ton of mana and then cast a Draw 7 effect.
3B. Winning with Thousand-Year Storm
It is highly advised that you attempt to win on the turn that you cast Thousand-Year Storm, as if a player can interact with it before you go off, they most certainly will. That's why land drops are so incredibly important both early and during the midgame, as you'll probably need between 12-14 mana to reliably win. Cost reduction of spells or playing the enchantment at the end of your opponent's turn via Electrodominance change the math a bit, but essentially you'll want access to at least 6 mana once TYS hits the battlefield. The big picture "how" to kill with this is quite easy. You cast a bunch of spells which explode out of control. The sequencing of this is quite a bit more involved, but essentially you want to cast 1 and 2 mana spells until you're running low on mana, and they cast a mana-generating spell. The major spells to look for are Frantic Search, Growth Spiral, Manamorphose, Nature's Lore, Pirate's Pillage and Time Spiral. Broken Bond also works in theory, but only for as many targets as their are on the battlefield, though if their are only a few aiming them all at a Darksteel Ingot will do the trick. You can supplement these by having a lot of cards and Mind over Matter in play, again enhanced greatly by bouncelands. To ensure that you don't fizzle, mix in Regrowth, Recoup, Past in Flames, and Mission Briefing, all of which can basically slam the door when cast. Most people concede to these effects once you've generated 10+ spells. If they don't, eventually you'll build up enough spells where you can cast Banefire, Explosion, Blue Sun's Zenith, Electrodominance or even a Lightning Bolt at the table for lethal. One thing to be aware of is if you have Alhammarret's Archive out while trying to win through a TYS kill. It is quite easy to deck yourself this way, so I suggest generating a ton of mana and switching to the Mind Over Matter + Laboratory Maniac kill. You can technically also win via Lab Man while going off with TYS, but without MOM, you are much more vulnerable to interaction and you'll have plenty of cards to tap everyone out if you just switch over.
3C. Winning with Eye of the Storm
This is the most dangerous way to win as the spells you store in this Storm are fair game for anyone to use if they can trigger it. Our spells are generally pretty low impact individually, but once even a couple get stacked under the storm, it becomes less and less likely we can lose if left unchecked. Like Thousand-Year Storm, it is highly advised that you win on the turn you play Eye of the Storm. Unlike TYS, you want to frontload all of your mana generating spells so that they are cast as often as possible to maximize triggers. You specifically want to lead with Nature's Lore if possible to grab all the Forests out of your deck before you start drawing them all. Also note that all of our X spells are functionally useless under an EotS, so you'll want to use the Eye to generate cards and mana before switching over to one of the other 2 win conditions. The other was to win is through Mind's Desire, which interacts pretty favorably with Eye of the Storm. Say you have exactly 13 mana and cast Eye into Desire. Your initial Desire will trigger Eye and add 2 copies of Mind's Desire to the stack. On top of that, you resolve the Eye effect and cast Mind's Desire again, which also gives you 2 copies of Desire. If we hit one of our 38 instant or sorcery spells in the top 4 cards of our library, then we cast it of Desire, which triggers Eye and we can cast it again as a copy. This also let's us cast Desire again, but this time the storm count is 4, so we'll add a total of 5 copies of Desire to the stack. Obviously this is increased by any nonland cards that we hit in the top 4 and eventually we get to a point we where will almost assuredly cast our entire deck. Again, I recommend switching to a safer kill as this can easily draw us out, though if you actually get to the point where you've Desired out your deck, it's unlikely that your opponents have a way to interact or they would have already.
Section 4: Card Selections
4A. Why Kynaios and Tiro
It may seem odd that I'm running a 4-color commander that plays win conditions that are limited to Izzet colors. I've also spent a significant number of keystrokes noting that white mana isn't actually all that desirable in this deck, and green doesn't seem all that good in spell-based deck. The global reason that these are really useful is how important the bouncelands are to the deck. I cannot stress enough how useful they are in making the engine hum, and playing 4 colors gives us access to 6 of them.
White only brings Supreme Verdict, Swords to Plowshares,Enlightened Tutor and Academy Rector. However, both Verdict and Swords are the absolute best versions of those effects, and the other two cards are extra copies of our win conditions. Overall, white brings a small amount of consistency to the deck that is increased by the fact that it doubles our bounceland count.
Green really unlocks the ramp potential by providing spell-based ramp, often on turn 2. The combos in this deck need a serious mana investment before they can really take off, and without the green spells powering out additional mana, this deck would just be too slow to play at a competitive table. Additionally, it brings a couple spells that really grease the tracks on our way to victory. Manamorphose is absolutely the card you want to draw while comboing off with a Thousand-Year Storm. Paying 2 mana for 12 and drawing 6 cards might very well end the game. Additionally, Regrowth is pretty spectacular in this deck, ensuring that cards that went to your graveyard are ready to come back. Along with Mission Briefing, it's basically a fizzle-stopper when cast while going off.
Beyond the color identity, the ability text on Kynaios and Tiro is deceptively powerful when a deck is built to always get both an extra card and land drop. Cards like Exploration are fine early plays, but can run you out of cards quickly. A Howling Mine is a fine enough way to keep your hand full. These two effects together are extremely potent, with the draw fueling the land drops and the land drops fueling the spells you draw. Our lovely lads are both effects in the command zone at once, with the minor downside of giving our opponents half a card and half a land drop every turn it's in play.
All of these factors add up to form a synergistic base from which to build out and execute a master plan, just like the lore of Kynaios and Tiro. Something about everything just kind of falling into place brings a real sense of completeness to the deck. I can't explain it any better than that.
4B. Landbase
I aspire to own this deck in real life, so that is why you won't see any Revised duals in here, but you could certainly add them to streamline the deck even more. I run a pretty high count of basics because the deck does a lot of land searching and so land-type is a very real consideration when adding these. Aside from fetches and bouncelands, the deck only runs 2 lands which cannot be found by a ramp spell, and I think that's very important to ensure consistency. I'm also not running any fetchlands touching black as I'll often be needing to get a specific color and I don't want a Verdant Catacombs lock me out of U mana because I already have my Breeding Pool in play. As an aside, it is kind of annoying that there is so much support for allied-colored fetchable lands but not for the enemy-colored. I'm not sure I completely understand why there are twice as many Swamp/Island combinations as there are Mountain/Island combinations.
4C. What's not in the deck
Despite all the spells I'm casting, I don't have room for Grapeshot. Lightning Bolt is just significantly better with Thousand-Year Storm, and while Grapeshot does interact a bit more favorably with Eye of the Storm (see: previous section on Mind's Desire), Bolt is just a way more efficient removal spell, which may be necessary before you can go off. And at one mana, Bolt is a much better combo starter to be played before a Frantic Search or Manamorphose. Brain Freeze is just too unreliable with Eldrazi running around, and don't even get me started on Empty the Warrens. Though you could run Tempt with Vengeance if you're desperate to win through the combat step.
Another seemingly obvious inclusion into many of these "copy spell" decks are extra turn cards. There is certainly a build like this deck that would want to play multiple extra turn cards, however, I am choosing not to play any beyond Temporal Trespass. First, their converted mana cost is always at least 5 mana (OK, except for one... keep reading), and while the effect is hugely powerful, that cost will make going off difficult if I'm not already very likely to win through other means. Second, they are extremely dangerous to tuck into Eye of the Storm, as any player with an instant on my end of turn step can take over the game before I can go infinite with turns. However, since Trespass is pretty darn efficient at UUU, it's worth the risk.
Another intentional non-inlcusion are ritual effects like Desperate Ritual. As fantastic as these cards are at making obscene amounts of mana while comboing off, they don't provide anything else, and I'm really asking my mana generators to pull double duty. Frantic Search, Growth Spiral, Manamorphose, Nature's Lore, Pirate's Pillage and Broken Bond all add at least one mana (in most circumstances, and when comboing off generally they allow us to add several different colors of mana so we don't become locked with tons of useless R in our pool. And other than Nature's Lore, they either draw us a card or affect the board.
I also don't have any room for standard utility lands like Wasteland or Desolate Lighthouse. The deck is very color hungry, with most spells requiring only 1-2 non-specific colors of mana, and we already run 2 ways of cost reduction. However, I am toying with the idea of cutting a few redundant spells to play a couple utility lands with a Crop Rotation tutor package. It seems a bit too cute, but it could be the next evolution of the deck.
Section 5: Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed the read, and give the deck a playtest or three. I'm eager for some discussion on the deck in hopes of making it better and more resilient, both through improved card quality and newly discovered play patterns and game navigation. I also need to give a special shoutout to tStorm and his Zedruu primer which has formed the basis of my knowledge on some of the card interactions, and helped inspire my creativity in EDH in general. I encourage you to check that epic deck out as well.
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UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Appreciate the kind words. Was able to Explosion the table last night with 9 copies of X=19. Didn’t you guys want cards?
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Indeed! I was missing Turnabout.
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