Kami of the Thoughtless Mind (EDH / Commander)

Meet Kami. Kami is the first "unique" deck I feel I ever built, and it has proved to be a very consistent and reliable powerhouse both in 1v1 and multiplayer EDH games. He's home to some of my spiciest and most powerful cards, simply because he's earned them over and over again. Let me explain.

Kami utilizes a strategy found in EDH and no other format: actively aiding your opponents. This strikes novice players of our format as a scary thing to do, because one of the keys to winning in most formats is restricting your opponent's resources, either by eliminating them or forcing your opponents to utilize those resources to deal with your threat.

However, in EDH we have access to a resource we don’t have in other formats: our fellow players. Because of these “hidden” resources unique to our format, the focus of our deck doesn’t necessarily have to be in putting pressure on our opponents ourselves, but instead can be concentrated on deterring our opponents from pressuring us. This means that due to the card draw you’ll be providing via Kami, Howling Mine, Well of Ideas, Font of Mythos etc., the other players will have a plethora of resources to throw at one another while you’re mostly left alone. Get ready to see some real fireworks now that players have consistent land drops and spells, and be sure to manage your counters and mana in a way that allows you to prevent infinite combos from losing you the game all at once. If all goes well, you’re going to force them to hold their entire deck in hand over the course of the game and still find it inadequate to overcome you.

The strategy I follow here has a simple foundation: laying low until you can make your play for the win. During the early turns, I run out Kami plus any other ramp and group draw spells I have in hand, which will allow us to find our infinite hand size effects and hold onto our cards as the rest discard. Again, it’s important to gauge the table; I generally don’t find myself needing to hold up counters during the early turns, but be situationally aware around dangerous commanders/players. One of the things we want to do early is create goodwill, so wait as long as possible before getting too control-ey.

One of the really great parts of Kami is how few tutors you end up needing to run; you generally draw into the pieces you need to sneak in a win during the process of setting up the table’s draw engine. And again, it’s important to play in a way as to encourage the other players to eliminate one another for you. Let them do as much work as possible before presenting yourself as the threat.

Now, there’s a few pieces I like to have in hand when it’s time to make my play for the victory, and I try to get them down in this order. You’ll want a piece or even two of mono-centric ramp, and for this I’m running Caged Sun and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, paired with Treasure Mage and Expedition Map respectively to make the deck a bit more consistent. As soon as CS hits the table you’ll be a target, so you need to make sure you can protect it, or just make your move as soon as it comes down. At this point, you’re going to need a few of the most swingy mill cards in the deck, Psychic Spiral and Keening Stone being my favorites. Keening Stone is great now that your opponents have been drawing and discarding 4-5 cards per turn, and works wonderfully in combination with Expropriate and other extra turn spells as you can usually kill the board with 2-3 activations.

I’d like to add a warning: I don’t play this deck much now because I can’t remember the last time I lost with it. I know I haven’t ever lost a multiplayer game with it, and losing to mill is a feel bad for a lot of people, especially since it can take a while before it’s safe to attempt combing off and winning. Enjoy the list and feel free to comment with suggestions, I thought of a few tweaks I’d like to make (Fleet Swallower!!!!) while I was making the list. I need to add a Tormod’s Crypt type effect to prevent automatic shuffle triggers like Ulamog and Vigor, for example.