I feel like the way I want to take advantage of being able to cast spells and make them cascade is to play a lot of delve cards if I can. This lets me cast them for cheaper and play more spells in a turn where I managed to hit them with Yidris and lets me pay 1 mana for Treasure Cruise that can cascade into a Maelstrom Wanderer. That’s what I call living the dream. However, I’m going to try to avoid building the typical, basic Yidris builds I keep seeing which use wheel effects to keep your Graveyard full. Instead, I’m going to try and use spells that steal their stuff which in turn will hopefully cascade into more ways to steal their stuff. All of a sudden Enslave doesn’t look like a bad deal if you can cascade into a Treachery. We’ll want to hit them often because when we do that, we can get multiple cascades from the same spell because his ability stacks if you use Grappling Hook or Relentless Assault. Add in a few ways to make sure Yidris connects and you got a stew, baby! How is our deck going to look when we build hoping that the act of randomly cascading into spells can give us advantage without the appearance that we’re anything but lucky?

Better lucky and good than just good ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bloodbraid Elf
• 1 Coiling Oracle
• 1 Dragonlord Atarka
• 1 Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
• 1 Greenwarden of Murasa
• 1 Grinning Ignus
• 1 Inferno Titan
• 1 Kaseto, Orochi Archmage
• 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1 Maelstrom Wanderer
• 1 Marchesa's Smuggler
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
• 1 Siege Behemoth
• 1 Stonehoof Chieftain
• 1 Sylvan Caryatid
• 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1 Utopia Tree
• 1 World Breaker

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

• Spells (35)
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Bribery
• 1 Decimate
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Recurring Insight
• 1 Rude Awakening
• 1 Seasons Past
• 1 Treasure Cruise
• 1 Volcanic Vision
• 1 Aggravated Assault
• 1 Bear Umbra
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Enslave
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Nature's Will
• 1 Rage Reflection
• 1 Temur Ascendancy
• 1 Treachery
• 1 Zendikar Resurgent
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Fireshrieker
• 1 Grappling Hook
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Temur Banner
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (39)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 2 Island
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Frontier Bivouac
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rupture Spire
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck

This ended up pretty dissimilar from a lot of stock lists and I’m reasonably happy with that. I didn’t add Wheel of Fortune effects because while they made my few spells with Delve better, it wasn’t worth it and I didn’t have enough anyway. I initially set out to run lots of delve and flashback spells but I ended up not having room. I wanted to run Worm Harvest and Call the Skybreaker, also, but they didn’t really synergize that well with anything. I’m not going to be dumping that much in the yard, anyway, and paying a lot of mana for a spell that doesn’t trigger cascade didn’t seem worth it.

I saw a lot of obvious combo potential and eschewed most of it. If you play this deck and find it could use a little juice to win, it’s worth knowing about some of the stuff I cut so you can add it back in. I left in Treachery and Peregrine Drake because they synergize nicely with Gruul Turf lands, but cut out Palinchron. You can get pretty degenerate with that combo, allowing you to pay 4 mana to cascade as often as you can cough up the mana, and perhaps go infinite with enough lands that produce more than 1 mana. If you need that much power, know it’s there, but I think you shouldn’t need that to win 1/x games (where x is the number of players) like we strive for in a 75% build. One combo I did include was Grinning Ignus. Since Ingus has a low cost, you’ll be cascading into mana creatures and mana rocks and this is an excellent way to thin your deck out and make your later cascades better without doing anything truly degenerate and painting a target on your back. Do it as much as you can to get a pile of Signets and mana dorks that make your later spells easier to cast.

I cut Godo, Bandit Warlord because even though he’s a pretty benign tutor, I felt like I didn’t have room. I had to make about 15 cuts to this deck which is more than normal and I cut deep. Godo would be a good guy to add back in if you find some room. I cut Darksteel Plate, also (I like Stonehoof Chieftain better) but Godo can find Grappling Hook or Swiftfoot Boots. However, this isn’t a Voltron deck so I decided not to have too many cards just serve the commander. However, if you find you’re having too much trouble keeping Yidris alive, look at Darksteel Plate as a possibility, and if you’re not connecting as often as you like, give Key to the City a try. That fills your yard and lets you connect and it’s almost perfect for the deck.

All in all I am happy with this first draft of the deck. You can customize this to make it yours, but just know that it’s more fun to build a version of Yidris that doesn’t look exactly like everyone else’s, and as long as you’re cascading semi-randomly (with the exception of our Grinning Ignushenanigans, which I fully endorse), you’re going to end up with fun situations that are not your fault and shouldn’t get you dogpiled by opponents. They don’t have to know your deck is full of gas and any card you cascade into is going to be a real beating. Just remember to hit them early and often with Yidris and let your deck do the rest. I’ll be back in a week’s time with more shenanigans but feel free to tide yourself over by commenting on, liking and sharing this article. Until next week!