After a small hiatus from EDH, I started to look for a new deck to play and tune. I've gotten a little tired of my Rhys EDH deck, not having as much fun playing it as I used to. My favorite deck of all time is (still) my Endrek Sacrifice shenanigans deck (see sig), so natuRally I started to look in the direction of decks that had the same engine-y feel to it (see thread in strategy section).

After trying a slew of different suggested generals, and had fun, but nothing really clicked. Usually, if I don't like decks enough after a couple of games, I won't like them enough to keep around.

So, I started to look in a different direction: big, splashy effects. Maybe I just need a totally different style of deck to complement my Endrek deck.

Enter Wort, the Raidmother. After a bit of searching and tweaking, I ended up with this list:

General
1 Wort, the Raidmother

She looked fun, and I hadn't seen a lot of Wort decks around (even back when I used to play a lot of EDH), so that appealed to me. Second, she looks like she can do busted stuff.

Ramp
1 Nature's Lore
1 Rampant Growth
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Cultivate
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Boundless Realms
1 Animist's Awakening
1 Mana Geyser

1 Oracle of Mul Daya

Not only does Wort cost 6 mana to cast, I'm planning to cast big things so I need a lot of mana. Plus, these can put the game into 5th gear fast when copied with Wort. I started by including the most obvious early/midgame ones and ended with 3 cards that can potentially go nuts when copied. Also, some obvious standbys.

Draw
1 Harmonize
1 Shamanic Revelation
1 Collective Unconscious
1 Reforge the Soul

With all the ramp, I'm bound to empty my hand fast. Oh, did I mention I was going the token Route? When everything goes right, Revelations and CU should draw me enormous amounts of cards.

Recursion
1 Regrowth
1 Recollect
1 Restock
1 Volcanic Vision
1 Past in Flames

1 Eternal Witness
1 Sol Ring

The biggest problem I always had with playing big-spell, lotsa-token EDH decks in the past, is that a single counter spell can sometimes ruin your day. Or, when someone plays a Wrath to wipe the board before you can do something fun with it. So, I built in some recursion. Incidentally, most of these can be copied. I think I will replace the Witness with something spell-based as well, although sometimes she helps with Convoke.

Copy
1 Reiterate
1 Pyromancer's Goggles
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Howl of the Horde
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Mirari

What's better than having a big effect? Having more. Wort already does this well, these just make it ridiculous. With Wort out and one of these, a single big spell gets ridiculous.

Tokens
1 Goblin Offensive
1 Tempt with Vengeance
1 Sylvan Offering

1 Hordeling Outburst
1 Krenko's Command
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Goblin Rally
1 Empty the Warrens

1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Ant Queen
1 Dragon Broodmother
1 Dragonlair Spider

So I mentioned tokens. I meant it. The deck contains a lot of token makers. The one-shot Goblin makers become quite good with all the cards that do something with creatures, and they fuel Wort. I included a small Goblin package, because I can, and because Krenko is ridiculous anyway. The headliners are the 3 spells at the top. With some help, these make for the most busted game-ending plays the deck is capable of. I'm not really sure what Kiki-Jiki is doing in the deck, but I might as well eh?

Stuff to do with tokens
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Parallel Lives
1 Doubling Season
1 Mana Echoes
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Earthcraft
1 Skullclamp

We've all seen these before. Hey, I didn't say the deck was super original. No need to explain these cards, I think.

Other big stuff
1 Comet Storm
1 Banefire
1 Clan Defiance
1 Rude Awakening

With all the ramp and copying I will be doing, I need some more big spells. Some X-spells to either Remove pesky creatures, or just point at someones face. Or multiple faces when copied. Rude Awakening functions as a win condition on its own (it's not rare to have 30 lands in play), or as turbo ramp when copied.

Random removal
1 Beast Within
1 Hull Breach
1 Decimate
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Chaos Warp
1 Artifact Mutation

Since I'm a spell deck, some generic spells to Remove problematic permanents. Even big spell decks need some defenses. Artifact Mutation doubles as token maker, obviously.

Specialty lands
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Kher Keep
1 Khalni Garden

It always feels a bit weird to have Khalni Garden in the same category as Gaea's Cradle, but there you go. Kher Keep and Khalni Garden are in here because they make tokens to Convoke with. Kissing Wolf Run to have something to do with my mana when my big spells aren't there (and to potentially kill someone with general damage if needs be). Boseiju because, well, we're a spell deck. Cradle because.

Other lands
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Temple of Abandon
1 Command Tower
1 Gruul Turf
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
14 Mountain
11 Forest

I'm contemplating removing the duals because I geneRally don't have a problem finding my colors with this deck. I do run into running out of basics to fetch (happened a couple of times now).

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There's a couple of cards I'm not sure about. I might want to include one or 2 haste-givers and maybe some mana doubling while I'm at it. I'm a little sad that Warp World isn't really suited for a deck with that many spells, because it's one of my favorite cards. Maybe I should include it anyway, just to see if I can put my whole deck into play. I really want another big spell that's not a) mana, b) direct damage or c) tokens, but I haven't really found the right fit yet.

--

There you have it. I've thought this would be super janky (sometimes I'm naive like that), but it's not. It's been ridiculously explosive. Maybe a little too explosive for some games. It ramps like crazy and then finishes the game within a couple of big turns.

That last point might be a reason not to whip out the deck too often. I mean, I have a lot of fun making 60 tokens in a turn, getting 60*60 mana with Mana Echoes and draw 60 cards with Shamanic Revelations, but I'm not so sure if my opponents find it as entertaining as I do.

I though it wouldn't be too hard to Disrupt (a couple of well-timed removal pieces or Counterspells minimize the explosive potential), but so far nobody has been able to. The only game I lost was to another big G/R Elemental Omnath deck that killed me in one shot by having Gratuitous Violence and Perilous Forays with 10 mana up.

--

I'd love some input on this deck. Mainly:

- Does this deck strike you as too much of an obvious big-spell yawn fest, or does it look fun?
- What big mana spell would you have the most fun losing from? (either already in or not yet)
- Anything I missed that should definitely be included?

Hmm. Yeah, I think you need a few interesting "big" sorceries. Maybe the "epic" spells like endless swarm and undying flames, cause, if you copy them, you also copy the "epic" trigger. So if you copy it 3 times or 6 times, then for ever after you get 6 epic triggers on your upkeep. I feel like the green one would be weak w/o purphoros or impact tremors, or goblin bombardment... And the red one just looks a little weak, unless it's copied like 4 times. But, one guy in our group liked to win with eternal dominion, and it's the kind of play that usually people are pretty impressed with.

Oh, similarly, stuff like final fortune greatly impresses people, too. But, not much point in copying that one.

I dunno. I agree you can't use warp world cause of the low permanent count, and also my favorite Eureka seems bad for the same reason.

Oh, I strongly suggest dosan the falling leaf. That thing is great, and people like it, cause, it turns out, nobody really likes having their stuff countered.

The more I think about it, I think you should use the Epic spells. Both of them!

Dosan sounds kinda good, totally forgot about him. Makes the deck a little more resilient.

Agreed on the big sorceries part, but I don't think the epic spells are what I'm looking for. I want to cast spells! This deck isn't really suited to do stuff without playing stuff, as it's designed to do big things from hand. I guess having an Endless Swarm copied is kinda fun, but for the most part I'm afraid I would feel like I'm doing nothing the rest of the game. For me, Eternal Dominion, or the white epic spell, are a little different, because they at least let you make decisions and play 'new' cards in their way. That said, I can see people having fun losing to junk rares like that .

Final Fortune might actually not be too bad. Copying it obviously won't be useful, but it IS a faux-haste effect. Also makes it easier to tap out for tokens+Shamanic Revelation(+Final Fortune), untap and win next turn. Or not. Lol.

Other cards I found:

Genesis Wave - has the same problem as Warp World and friends. Sure it's good to get a big Wave, but I can't count on having 40 card Waves every game.
Firecat Blitz - hm. With enough mana, I can see this working.
Crush of Wurms - Fun, but I'd rather have more small creatures or something that's a different effect alltogether.
like Descent of Dragons or Hellion Eruption - lol. Not too good when copied either.
Nissa's Renewal - as a 2nd Boundless Realms.
Reversal of Fortune - Ooh. I remember playing this card in an early iteration of Ashling. Might be fun.
Verdant Confluence - This card looks quite nice for the deck. Wait. It only returns permanents. Boo. The versatility might make it better than Nissa's Renewal though.

Akroma's Memorial - I mentioned I wanted haste. this gives it and then some.
other haste-givers I like: Fires of Yavimaya, Urabrask the Hidden, Ogre Taskmaster, Into the Web of War.

Oh and what about Shaman of Forgotten Ways? With enough mana it can actually GAIN me a lot of life.

How hardcore do you want to go with this list? Like are you adverse to unlimited mana? Wort is kinda stupid in that it's easy to start doing crazy things with her. I just want to know how crazy you want to go.

Good question.

I want to go crazy without going infinite. Powerful effects and synergies are fine, broken combos are not. I realize that this is a matter of personal preference, and different people might call different things broken. Let's just say I draw the line at infinite anything.

At this point I'm mainly looking for ways to include some stuff in the deck that's still decently powerful, but also somewhat janky. The power level of the deck, or rather, the power level of the plays it's capable of is already at a point that I'm not sure if people enjoy losing to it. Myself, I can enjoy losing to a good finish as long as it's enough over the top, without infinite combos and when I know we've got ourselves to blame that we didn't blow that Doubling Season up (ex.). On the other hand, I've seen enough Purphorosses and Craterhoofs that I feel reaaaaaally indifferent about losing to them. Therefor I'd love to add something unexpected to the deck, but I'm not really sure what. Yet.

Of course, I'd love to hear your broken crazy ideas for the deck. Maybe there's still something I could use in this version, or maybe someday I'll try a version to see how far I can push it.

Small changes to try out:
- Kiki-Jiki, + Dosan, The Falling Leaf
- Eternal Witness + Akroma's Memorial

Sorry, meant to come back to this earlier.

Rude Awakening is infinite mana with Reiterate and stupid with Mana Reflection.

Decree of Savagery plus tokens = profit, or Vitalizing Wind.

Vicious Shadows basically kills people just by finding a way to sac tokens and punishes/discourages board wipes until dealt with.

Nostalgic Dreams when copied allows you regrowth for X, where X is your hand size, and then the copy resolves and you return your original hand back.

Mizzix's Mastery is going to be good copied or overloaded.

Thanks for the suggestions. I made the following swaps for now:

- Volcanic Awakening, + Nostalgic Dreams
- Empty the Warrens, + Mizzix's Mastery

Reiterate is not going in, because I don't want infinite mana. Just a lot.

Both Decree and Vitalizing Wind were on my radar, are a maybe. Pumping tokens is not something I feel I need more of atm.

Vicious Shadows is obviously good, but I want to see if I can do without. I have enough "obvious" win conditions already.

I just updated my Wort list.

One thing I found was I got bored with the big X-spells in general. I kept Comet Storm (it usually mops up a bunch of little dorks) and Banefire (it can force through counterspells), but the rest I cut. I also ran out of basics a lot, so now I run 34 (which incidentally makes Price of Progress pretty spectacular).

mob justice