A Boy and His Imagination 4.0

This deck was influenced by Vorel of the Hull Clade. It gravitates between 3 2 specific Themes: Super Friends, Counters, and Card Draw. It is the best things I could think of that just screams "Simic" and that is "Experimentation." What do I mean by that? well it is pretty simple. There is a lot going on in this deck, and I mean a lot. Different infinite combos, different synergies happening everywhere. It is a jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas that all just seem to work together and never really the same way twice. For it to feel at home for most players you need to kind of embrace that idea that Simic holds dear. To help further explain what I mean there I will say this, Jellyfish Hydra Beat, Fish Octopus Crab, Elf Crab Warrior, and Elf Ooze Wizard. If those creature Super, Sub and Mid Type do not help enlighten what is happening with this deck idea... then boy this is not the deck for you and I am sorry.

Additionally to what has been said above when I made this deck years ago, it was and is about experimentation. I have a slightly competitive play group and we rate between a 4 to a 9 on the commander deck power scale. I have found that the older combos and win conditions in here, though fun and quirky, were clunky and slow and just made the deck not really enjoyable. Winning with the Darksteel Reactor, a single time, was indeed fun and enjoyable; but I found as I played the deck I was interacting with myself and not the other players more and more. Thus I went in that direction, the deck evolved around the idea of just drawing cards... a lot of them. I have kept the old combos below, they are just struck though and easy enough to read, you can find the old versions of the deck in the versions list for them if you wish to make them. With the advent of Commander Legends and the other wildly pushed sets, the deck finally as of June 2021 got a face lift and some tweaking. There is still a lot going on inside this deck, but no where near as much as there was in 2018 when I first teched it and posted it here.

Some of the Win Conditions and Combos

1. There is Laboratory Maniac Thassa's Oracle / Jace, Wielder of Mysteries win condition. With Pir and Toothy and Deadeye Navigator and Five +1 / +1 counters on Toothy, Imaginary Friend you can flicker him for (1) and (U). Toothy leaves and comes back in, you draw 5 cards. Toothy sees the draw, Pir, Imaginative Rascal will double the counters toothy got. Toothy now has Ten +1 / +1 Counters; flicker again for 20; flicker again for 40; and flicker again for 80. In this you pay 8 mana, four Generic and four Blue, and draw 75 cards. Which by this point in the game you would certainly have below 75 cards in deck. (Note: this can be achieved with Toothy, Imaginary Friend and Hardened Scales as well.)

2. Simic Ascendancy is another one that can come out of no where. It is an Upkeep based win that say, "At the beginning of your upkeep, if Simic Ascendancy has twenty or more growth counters on it, you win the game." but with Leyline of Anticipation or Alchemist's Refuge or Emergence Zone you can easily sneak it out and pop off with Toothy, Imaginary Friend and some flicker ability. Doing this at an end step you can make it work with twenty +1 / +1 counters. This means you draw 20 cards, add twenty +1 / +1 counters and 20 growth counters. This can be simplified with more pieces to the puzzle. Adding in Pir, Imaginative Rascal will exponentially reduce the counters you need. With just seven +1 / +1 counters you will draw 7 cards, which adds fourteen +1 / +1 counters to Toothy, Imaginary Friend and thus 21 growth counters on Simic Ascendancy. Now I do understand how Pir is worded, "If one or more counters would be put on a permanent your team controls, that many plus one of each of those kinds of counters are put on that permanent instead." The reason this works is specifically how card draw works in MTG. Toothy says, "Whenever you draw a card, put a +1/+1 counter on Toothy, Imaginary Friend." additionally, "When Toothy leaves the battlefield, draw a card for each +1/+1 counter on it." So when Toothy leaves via Ghostly Flicker or Deadeye Navigator, you must resolve those effects before you resolve the effect of the Toothy draw. When you draw, you do not draw 7 cards, you draw 7 instances of 1. This means if you have seven +1 / +1 counters on Toothy, when he leaves and returns you will draw 1 card 7 times. This will create 7 individual instances of Toothy's first ability. Pir will see each instance of these, making double the +1 / +1 counters, essentially. This will then add 7 instances of two +1 / +1 counters seen by Simic Ascendancy, making it add 3 growth counters, 7 times. This can all be done for as little as four mana (1 green, 2 blue, and 1 generic w/ Leyline of Anticipation and Deadeye) or as much as 7 mana ( 2 green, 3 blue, 2 generic w/ Alchemist Refuge and Ghostly Flicker). Basically if you pull this off at an opponents end step and you cannot be countered or your opponents cannot destroy the Simic Ascendancy before your Upkeep places the trigger on the stack, you win. Even if they destroy the Simic Ascendancy in response to the trigger, it still must resolve and well, "If the last ability does trigger, but Simic Ascendancy leaves the battlefield, use the number of counters it had on it immediately before it left the battlefield to determine whether you win the game.(2019-01-25)" So there you have it.

3. Vorel of the Hull Clade + Freed From the Real + Crystalline Crawler + Hangarback Walker / Walking Ballista + Hardened Scales / Pir, Imaginative Rascal. Generates infinite mana with Pir / Hardened Scales, Freed From the Real, and Crystalline Crawler. Cast a big Walking Ballista and just win with infinite damage or you can drop a big Walker, sac it by some means which exists and have a lot of tokens, you can use the Zameck Guildmage in this fashion to have the token Thopters to enter with infinte counters. You could use Blue Sun's Zenith to draw your entire deck and cast everything; or you can use the lab maniac Thassa's Oracle / Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to win by deck out.

4. Treasure Token lock out. I went there, I am sorry. Hullbreacher + Teferi's Puzzle Box will allow you to soft lock out your opponents. This works similar to the way the old Leovold combo works. When your opponents reach their draw step, they will draw a card like normal, and then the puzzle box will make them place their hand on the bottom of their library. Then they will draw that many cards, but Hullbreacher prevents those additional draws however. Instead you will create that many Treasure Tokens. Pretty simple, it is a soft lock out that makes for a very difficult lock to get out of.

5. Psychosis Crawler has been added as a subtle way to wither down and kill your opponents. The massive card draw that Toothy, Imaginary Friend can generate makes this quite a viable condition to win by.

6. Psychic Corrosion; this was added as another win condition. Being able to flicker Toothy, Imaginary Friend and generate bonkers card draw and advantage as well as now using this to squander the resources of your opponents is quite powerful. The addition of Teferi's Ageless Insight also allows for increased milling potential. five +1 / +1 counters becomes 10 cards drawn which means 20 cards milled and ten +1 / +1 counters added to toothy. Mix in Pir, Imaginative Rascal or Branching Evolution, Hardened Scales, or Vorniclex, Monstrous Raider and it just gets out of control. The above example with just Pir or Hardened Scales alone turns into twenty +1 / +1 counters meaning Ghostly Flicker for 3 mana becomes devastating to all your opponents. For just 4 mana and Deadeye Navigator the previous example with twenty +1 / +1 counters on a second bounce becomes 40 cards drawn and opponents mill 80 cards and Toothy will get eighty +1 / +1 counters.

7. I have recently added Peregrine Drake to the mix as well. Combine the Drake with Deadeye Navigator and you have infinite mana. There is also a more simple combo for infinite mana. This utilizes either Hardened Scales or Pir, Imaginative Rascal (Both for Style Points) and Crystalline Crawler + Freed From the Real. This will net you infinite mana as well.

8. Darksteel reactor + any counter doubling (Vorel of the Hull Clade + Freed From the Real) and Crystalline Crawler with just 4 +1 / +1 counters and the mana to double once. This will net an infinite loop of colored mana from the Crawler, which you can feed into doubling the counters on the reactor. This is best used with either Leyline of Anticipation or Alchemist's Refuge. (out of date June 2021)

9. You can Go infinite with Tezzeret the Seeker and The Chain Veil. Then capitalize with Any of the Other Walkers to make infinite mana, card draw, or even get a Jace, the Mind Sculptor ultimate on your opponents. If you go this route with the deck it is advantageous to have Pir, Imaginative Rascal out. When Tezzeret enters he will add 4 + 1 Loyalty Counters to himself. With this you can -4 him for his second ability and find The Chain Veil. Now you just need the mana to activate it, preferably with an artifact (Astral Cornucopia). If you some how have Kiora, Master of the Depths out it can make the load of this easier to just needing Kiora's Follower or a Land and either Sol Ring and or Gilded Lotus. (out of date June 2021)

10. Just a simple over run tactic with either Chasm Skulker or Hangarback Walker. Just use the Sac outlet of Eldritch Evolution. (out of date June 2021)

Basically what I am saying is there are a few different cards in here that combo in an out with other cards and share a good deal of synergy to survive a wipe or losing some pieces of the combo for them. This is a Deck that can win from damage, it can win by making your opponents draw out a deck, you can win by drawing out your deck, it can overrun, it can left field with both Simic Ascendancy or DarkSteel Reactor.

This is not and was not designed to be Competitive or meant to just have a Hyper focused win con that you execute all the time every time. It is intended to be fun when either you are winning or when you lose, it is meant to be enjoyable. That is how I feel most commander decks should be created. (Ignore the Lavinia, Azrius Renegade deck I am working on in secrete...)# New Document

Please feel free to comment in the forum of the deck if you have any questions or suggestions I am open to hearing them. This deck can get a lot of support from a lot of cards. Thinks like Doubling Season, Bruvac the Grandiloquent, Tanazir Quandrix, Vorel of the Hull Clade, etc the list can go on and on. I feel like some more things in here could be replaced with more optimized cards, but that can be left up to you all to review and decide. This is just one path that you can take this Commander Partner deck.