Shuffle and Lose! [PRIMER]

Commander / EDH* Casual Combo Control Investigate Jank Primer RUG (Temur) Tap/Untap Theme/Gimmick Tokens

ChaosJester

Artifact (19)

• 1x Aether Spellbomb
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Battlemage's Bracers
• 1x Clock of Omens
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Cranial Archive
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Lantern of Insight
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Magewright's Stone
• 1x Mystic Forge
• 1x Psychogenic Probe
• 1x Salvaging Station
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Tamiyo's Journal
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Thran Foundry
• 1x Trading Post
• 1x Urza's Bauble

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Fervor
• 1x Future Sight
• 1x March of the Machines
• 1x Mass Hysteria
• 1x Psychic Surgery
• 1x Quest for Renewal
• 1x Trail of Evidence
• 1x Ulvenwald Mysteries
• 1x Weirding Wood

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Portent
• 1x Rise and Shine
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Winds of Change

Creature (17)

• 1x Academy Manufactor
• 1x Aphetto Alchemist
• 1x Chakram Retriever
• 1x Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 1x Erdwal Illuminator
• 1x Fatestitcher
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Jori En, Ruin Diver
• 1x Kiora's Follower
• 1x Lonis, Cryptozoologist
• 1x Loyal Apprentice
• 1x Mirran Spy
• 1x Radiant Performer
• 1x Soldier of Fortune
• 1x The Reality Chip
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Willbreaker

Instant (14)

• 1x Audacious Swap
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Masterful Replication
• 1x Memory Lapse
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Natural Selection
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Opt
• 1x Radiate
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Test of Talents

Commanders (2)

Land (33)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 8x Forest
• 11x Island
• 11x Mountain

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

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You like pranks? - Then look no further. This deck gimmick deck tries to win by forcing opponents to shuffle multiple or infinite times and punishing them with the wincons Psychogenic Probe and Psychic Surgery.

Why Playing a Deck Based on a Shuffle Mechanic?

Let me start with the history of the shuffle archetype: When Soldier of Fortune saw his first tournament game plays, this permanent created some interesting cases because at that time you could make your opponent play unsleeved. This led to situations where you could "force an opponent to shuffle his deck unsleeved multiple times until he resigned rather than lose all value in his cards". This rule has changed over the time. Nowadays, playing this strategy would probably lead to a disqualification for "Slow Play" which means that "a player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit" in tournaments. With that in mind let me briefly explain in the following, why I built this deck.

Have you ever thought about the impact of shuffle effects of cards like Chaos Warp or any tutor spells? I have seen games where my opponent was land flooded after he shuffled his library and this ruined his whole game plan. So, this overseen and totally underestimated effect motivated me to build this janky deck around that mechanic. But it was also my intention to highlight the importance of shuffle effects and their impact to the course of games.

Playstyle

Obviously, the main strategy of this deck is to force your opponents to shuffle. Bjorna is a nice underplayed commander that provides some flexibility. We can goad problematic creatures proactively or for defensive purposes on each turn. Elmar supports the untap-effects in order to activate the abilities of Emry and Salvaging Station an additional time. He is also a bridge to our artifact tokens subtheme. Clues are here for Bjorna´s goad effect, but also for Salvaging Station´s triggers after we animate our token artifacts with March of the Machines. Clues support the shuffle mechanic with Masterful Replication by targeting Psychogenic Probe and dealing more damage.

Explanation Of The Wincons

Ghirapur AEther Grid: With the right amount of clues, this can be a ticking clock.

Psychogenic Probe and Psychic Surgery

Strengths and Weaknesses Of This Deck

The strength: Once you have your infinite mana and untap combo with Dramatic Scepter, Lantern of Insight and Soldier of Fortune, you can control the game very effectively. The Lantern allows you to see the top cards of each library. The Dramatic Scepter combo allows you to activate Soldier of Fortunes ability infinte times. So you can force your opponent to reshuffle his library until you see the card on top you want to see (usually a land). After he draw this land, you repeat this process until another land appears on top of the library and so on. This will lead to a situation where your opponent only draws lands instead of spells.

The main weakness of this deck is, that most of the wincon strategies require Psychogenic Probe or Psychic Surgery on the field. This means 1. we have to take some Mulligans until we start with a tutor or directly with a Probe or Surgery in our hand and 2. Our overall strategy is very dependent from those cards, which means we are vulnerable to counter spells and removals - especially to spells that exile our stuff. To mitigate this typical combo problem, we have some powerful reanimation spells to bring back at least the Probe. A further problem is, that this deck is relatively difficult to pilot in multiplayer games because sometimes you also have to play interactively while you need to complete your infinite combo as part of your wincon. And interaction means trolling in our case which can make you an archenemy. If you play this deck right, you can also use the shuffle effect as a political tool to get rid of Opponent A´s threats in favor of Opponent B.

You are awesome!

1. Achieved #4 position overall on 15.03.
2. Achieved #3 position in Commander / EDH on 15.03.
3. Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Control 1 week ago
4. Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Jank 1 week ago

Top Ranked	Achieved #4 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #3 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Control 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Jank 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	33 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.58
Tokens	Clue, Food, Goat 0/1 W, Golem 3/3 C, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Morph 2/2 C, Servo 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders	Good Ideas, Commander Deck Ideas, Zachs Casual, Interesting decks, EDH?, casul commander, Funny