In this experiment, we mimic Eldrazi, we dread nought, we gorge on souls, and we eat days.

Sometimes, Wizards gives us a freebie: low-hanging fruit when it comes to combos, but that just makes it harder to ignore.

Eldrazi Mimic is a cute Clone variant, but it only works with power and toughness, and it only works until the end of turn. Oh, and it only works with colorless creatures. And unlike Clone, we play the Mimic before the creature it’s going to end up copying, just like with Renegade Doppelganger. But Eldrazi Mimic is a 2/1 all on its own, and it’s restriction to colorless made me—and many other Magic players around the world—immediately think of one card in particular: Phyrexian Dreadnought.

So, the deal is we play a 2-drop, and when it’s off summoning sickness on our third turn, we pay 1 mana for a creature we immediately sacrifice, but then we have a 12/12 until end of turn.

If we can connect with an attack, that 1 mana we spent and one card (the Dreadnought) we essentially discarded will have been well worth it. So what’s the next step? Well, I’m sure there are plenty of directions we could take this, but a follow-up Fling seems perfect. It’s the third turn, so we could reasonably have 3 mana; after spending 1, just pay to deal the other 12 damage and close out the game.

More Mimics

Our concept is pretty heavily based on having an Eldrazi Mimic on the battlefield. (Of course, having two, both of which can trigger off one Dreadnought, would be great, too!) So what other cards can we have in our deck that will either help us find the Mimics or offer different lines of strategy?

Renegade Doppelganger — We already discussed how similar this is to Eldrazi Mimic. The main downside is that it can’t attack for 2 while waiting for a big friend to come by. One big advantage it has, however, is that it can copy key keywords like trample and flying.

Gamble — The classic mono-red tutor, Gamble will let us find any card for only 1 mana—with the only slight downside that we then have to discard a card at random afterward, introducing the possibility that we lose the card we just searched for. We’ll have a bit of redundancy with the Dreadnoughts later, so I’d recommending only Gambling for Mimics except in very specific scenarios.

Stifle — This is nothing like an Eldrazi Mimic except that it offers another way to attack with our 12/12. For a while, Phyrexian Dreadnought was errata’d to have a replacement effect that modified the way it entered the battlefield: Its controller had to sacrifice 12 power worth of creatures as the Dreadnought came into play or it would go straight to the graveyard. Wizards of the Coast no longer does functional errata, so the Dreadnought is back to its original intended functionality, meaning it will generate a triggered ability that can be countered with Stifle, leaving a player with a two-card, 2-mana 12/12. Vision Charm can stand in for Stifle if you’re willing to wait a turn (after phasing), though this won’t work with some cards later on.

Expedite and Crimson Wisps — If you do Stifle a Dreadnought, spend a third mana and give it haste to attack right away. Fortunately, these spells draw a card to replace themselves, so we don’t end up down even further in cards—not that it’s not worth it for creatures of such size. We’ll also have a couple more options later on that make good haste targets.

Not of This World and Sanctum of Ugin — These two comprise an interesting little combo on their own. Basically, Not of This World is around to protect our big creature. A clever opponent will kill a Mimic before its trigger has resolved after we cast a Dreadnought, so we won’t be able to protect it for 0 mana with the spell. But we can still use it to protect other big creatures or a Mimic against specific removal spells, such as Condemn, that won’t work when our opponent will most want it to. And if we have a Sanctum of Ugin around, which can be generating colorless mana for us in the meanwhile, we can then sacrifice the land after casting the 7-mana Not of This World (even though we will have paid nothing for it) in order to search for an Eldrazi Mimic or other creature we need. Now, this may be a win-more scenario, as the entire thing is predicated on the fact that we already had a big creature we were protecting, but maybe it’s worth trying out anyway in case we need just a bit more to close out the game.

More Dreadnoughts

Just as we don’t want to fully rely on Eldrazi Mimics, we don’t want to fully rely on Phyrexian Dreadnoughts either.

Phyrexian Soulgorger — Clocking in at 2 mana more expensive than Phyrexian Dreadnought, it still comes in on curve after a Mimic or Doppelganger. We won’t be able to Expedite the Soulgorger on curve, and 8/8 isn’t quite as big as 12/12 (and there’s no trample for the Doppelganger to copy), but we have to make sacrifices sometimes. This also has the flexibility over the Dreadnought that it can stick around to attack on later turns (or immediately with an Expedite or Crimson Wisps), though we’ll have to watch out for that cumulative upkeep. Paying it once might be within the realm of possibility sometimes, but paying it twice seems unduly extreme. However, Stifling the cumulative upkeep trigger with two age counters and then declining to pay on the subsequent turn with three age counters could be a decent line of play.

Eater of Days — Skipping two turns is perhaps the most extreme cost of the colorless monstrosities we’re toying with, though I suppose it depends on how you compare time to creatures. Theoretically, we’ll be trying to end the game before skipping turns becomes a real concern, though with the 4-mana cost on the Eater, it could be a bit late into the game for our tastes. Still, the combination of flying and trample (for being Expedited and/or for the Doppelganger to copy) is pretty compelling. It will, however, be tricky to find the mana to Fling this one unless we have six lands available. Another reasonable 6-mana turn would be to cast Eater of Days and then follow up with both Stifle and Expedite—though perhaps only the Expedite is necessary in that case.

Dread Mimic ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (18)
• 4 Eldrazi Mimic
• 4 Renegade Doppelganger
• 2 Eater of Days
• 4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
• 4 Phyrexian Soulgorger

• Spells (20)
• 2 Crimson Wisps
• 2 Stifle
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Expedite
• 4 Fling
• 2 Not of This World
• 2 Gamble

• Lands (22)
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 4 Sanctum of Ugin
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Steam Vents
• 4 Sulfur Falls

Buy This Deck

If you want to explore some other directions, cards to consider might be Varolz, the Scar-Striped, Mask of the Mimic, and Signal the Clans. But if you love Stiflenought, if you like exploring different benefits of copying (or mimicking power and toughness), or if you just love blending your Eldrazi with your Phyrexians, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com