My original intention today was to show off my new Wrexial list and let you compare side by side with that of 'Jazzhands' Palmer. Unfortunately, Todd is a chicken and so we're not going to be able to run a comparison. Instead of giving you two similar EDH lists today I'm going to give you my list and then a little bonus at the end of the article.

My last article set out in the firm direction of having mill be a viable secondary win condition and I'd like to continue in that direction. The mill aspect of Wrexial needs to be universally applicable so as not to single one person out. If one person is being a jerk then they certainly deserve to be the brunt of the mill, but otherwise I'd rather mix things up by spreading the mill around evenly.

I've separated my list into three aspects, mill, Layer 1/layer 2 components and cards that don't quite fit into either but are still important, the "Win cards." Let's begin our discussion with the mill cards.

Mill

[cardlist]1 Ambassador Laquatus

1 Balshan Beguiler

1 Bamboozle

1 Beacon of Unrest

1 Belltower Sphinx

1 Brain Freeze

1 Dampen Thought

1 Dreamborn Muse

1 Extractor Demon

1 Hedron Crab

1 Helm of Obedience

1 Induce Paranoia

1 Jace Beleren

1 Memory Erosion

1 Memory Sluice

1 Mesmeric Orb

1 Millstone

1 Mind Funeral

1 Nemesis of Reason

1 Psychic Drain

1 Szadek, Lord of Secrets

1 Telemin Performance

1 Thought Dissector

1 Tower of Murmers

1 Vedalken Entrancer

1 Whetstone

1 Worry Beads[/cardlist]

For the better part the miss cards are fairly self explanatory though I will say that you probably want to make sure you don't focus too much on one single person! Give everyone a chance to be milled and see what different decks have to offer. There's nothing quite as fun as plundering from people equally. Remember the rule, if you take something from a player you have to use it against them! It's the code of layer 1/layer 2.

Next we come to the aspects of layer 1/layer 2 which will make the cut in this deck. Note that there are a few cards listed above that are also in L1L2 but just seemed to fit better in the mill section.

Layer 1/Layer 2

[cardlist]1 Bribery

1 Treachery

1 Persuasion

1 Desertion

1 Mindslaver

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Personal Tutor

1 Scroll Rack

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Sol Ring

1 Vesuvan Doppleganger

1 Commandeer

1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter

1 Tezzeret the Seeker

1 Time Stop

1 Copy Enchantment

1 Spelljack

1 Acquire

1 Mana Crypt

1 Vedalken Shackles[/cardlist]

I don't think any explanation is necessary on this section as I've talked about all of these cards repeatedly before! One thing I will mention is that it's hilariously fun to have your clone effects copying Nemesis of Reason. There's nothing quite as enjoyable as attacking and milling approximately a million cards at a time! There is certainly an argument to be made for removing Vedalken Shackles but I think leaving it in right now is the correct call. There isn't a great substitute for stealing opponents' creatures other than Sower of Temptation and I think that Shackles are just a little harder to remove.

Now we come to the more complex area, the cards that don't fit into either section but are still fun to have in the deck. These cards are part of what make the deck unique and in most cases lots of fun to play. I call them the win cards.

Win cards

[cardlist]1 River Kelpie

1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Innocent Blood

1 Syphon Mind

1 Wheel and Deal

1 Tolarian Winds

1 Windfall

1 Damnation

1 Puppeteer Clique

1 Rise from the Grave

1 Sorin Markov

1 Withered Wretch

1 Oona's Grace

1 Undead Gladiator[/cardlist]

The win cards are, well, full of win! The obligatory tutor package rears its ugly head as does the classic removal package. The win cards also give us an excellent selection of misleading cards. Wheel and Deal and Windfall both get cards in opponent's graveyards while simultaneously milling them! And if we're fortunate opponents won't even see it coming because they think they're drawing cards!

Another great card which shows up in the Win cards section is River Kelpie. The Kelpie is a card I've borrowed from Jazzhands which is a great card advantage engine. Kelpie himself, Puppeteer Clique, Rise from the Grave, Beacon of Unrest, Oona's Grace all let us draw a card off River Kelpie in addition to their other effects. Additionally, Yawgmoth's Will, already known as 'Yawg Win' actually lets us draw cards in addition to everything else it does!

If you think that Vedalken Shackles doesn't quite fit, again an understandable concern, then my recommendation would be to cut the Shackles for Liliana Vess. Vess could easily go in the deck but I just didn't quite want to force her in the list. While on the subject of planeswalkers I would strongly recommend against using Sorin Markov's life setting ability. It's kind of a cheap shot to most players and unless it's being used to end the game it tends to ruin the atmosphere.

Finally, we have the land base, which is pretty self explanatory. My goal with every land base is to smooth things as much as possible while still throwing in some splashy type effects every now and then.

Land

[cardlist]1 Underground Sea

1 Watery Grave

1 Sunken RUins

1 Underground River

1 Polluted Delta

1 Flooded Strand

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Darkwater Catacombs

1 Duskmantle, House of Shadow

1 Salt Marsh

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Temple of the False God

1 Ancient Tomb

1 Academy Ruins

1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

10 Island

7 Swamp[/cardlist]

Well that's my list! I've played it a few times and it's great fun, especially in group games. Again my work schedule prevents me from test driving my deck in the league at Armada, but I think it would hold up fairly well there.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier I had not been able to show everyone Jazzhands' take on Wrexial. With any luck I'll be able to do so next week, but for now I have a bonus list of the sixty card variety. Every so often I will dabble in the lower formats (lower deck size) and this past Friday after "scrubbing out" of FNM I decided to sit down with one of the owners of Armada Games, Aaron Fortino and put together a firm list for a deck that had been floating around for a little while.

During lunch with Matt "soggy bottom" Williams and Todd we had discussed the propensity of decks in standard to be very good at dealing twenty damage quickly, but not quite as good at dealing thirty damage. Wizards of the Coast has been printing some aggressive lifegain for a while and we decided to see if there was enough in the format for a viable deck. When things were all said and done the deck put up some surprising numbers against a few of the better decks, enough that I plan on running it this Friday and will post how I did in next week's article.

For now here is the list we decided on:

[cardlist]4 Sunspring Expedition

4 Rest for the Weary

4 Day of Judgment

4 Kor Cartographer

4 Landbind Ritual

4 Oblivion Ring

2 Planar Cleansing

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

3 Felidar Sovereign

4 Path to Exile

2 Expedition Map

15 Plains

3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin

3 Marsh Flats

3 Arid Mesa[/cardlist]

The deck gains an absolutely absurd amount of life. As of right now there is a little discussion as to the best way to end games. If Iona resolves then the game is typically over, though it's clearly more difficult to do that without a card like Everflowing Chalice. Typically the games would go three or four turns of me gaining eight life per turn, then casting a Wrath type effect and then resetting my life total (or typically higher) with a Landbind Ritual. The most common path to victory was actually the triggered ability from Felidar Sovereign. Clearly the deck needs a little work and I'm going to tinker with it this week, but I just want to bring the rough shell to the table in place of a second Wrexial deck.

Well, that's it for this week, but hopefully next week I can show you Todd's take on Wrexial, update my list and let everyone know how dominating mono-white was at FNM! (Here's hoping.) Until then this is Benjamin McDole giving you a hundred reasons to play magic!