CAPTION

Sometimes I look at a card and my initial reaction is that I think it seems kind of boring. Maybe the creature type isn't that interesting to me. Maybe it doesn't have any abilities that get my creative juices flowing. Today's column is about the face card from the Modern Horizons 3 "Tricky Terrain" precon deck. This Shapeshifter Noble didn't initially spark my interest.

It doesn't do all that much, it just gives everything.

Omo, Queen of Vesuva is a one power, five toughness legendary creature who, contrary to what you might think, does not have all creature types. To have all creature types, this Shapeshifter would have the Changeling ability, which grants all creature types and only occurs on Shapeshifter creatures. Don't let that missing ability get you down because Omo has you covered.

Whenever Omo enters the battlefield or attacks, she'll have you put an everything counter on each of up to one target land and up to one target creature. When Omo is on the battlefield, each land with an everything counter on it has every land type in addition to its other types. Each nonland creature with an everything counter has every creature type.

Before we dive into building Omo, it's worth taking a step back to talk about Magic card supertypes, types and subtypes. In a card's type line you will see a card's supertype(s) and types followed by a dash and then its subtypes, so a snow-covered Mountain might have "Basic Snow Land - Mountain" to denote that the card has two supertypes (Basic and Snow), one type (Land) and one subtype (Mountain). Omo has a type line with one supertype (Legendary), one type (Creature) and two subtypes (Shapeshifter Noble).

From what I can tell, for the purposes of this card, type is shorthand for subtype and the two terms can be used interchangeably in this context. The only thing Omo won't give a creature or land with an everything counter are supertypes. She has to be on the field and the permanent has to have that everything counter.

Omo can give an everything land all land subtypes, so an everything counter would make a land be all of five the basic land types along with Cave, Desert, Gate, Lair, Locus, Mine, Power-Plant, Tower and Urza's. Snow is a supertype, so we don't have any reason to build Omo around cards that synergize with Snow-Covered lands.

Creatures with everything counters will get all creature subtypes, but it is worth noting that Omo specifies nonland creatures, so there's no incentive to get cute with lands that have activated abilities that turn them into creatures. I had initially started to explore a "man-land" build until I took a step back and realized those land creatures would not get any extra creature types from having an everything counter.

The Tricky Terrain precon could have been trickier, but it came with a lot of synergy and some pretty good cards. I really enjoy putting my own spin on a brew, so I scrapped it and started from scratch. I kept a few cards, but also added ones that I thought would be interesting. I decided not to load up with combos, though there are some that could work the deck I built. I'll dive into those towards the end, but first let's look at some of what I decided to include.

Low Hanging Fruit

There are always easy choices that can be thrown into a deck based upon what the commander is or does, and that's a fine place to start. I'm not talking about staples like Rhystic Study, which arguably could go into any deck in Blue. I'm talking about cards that synergize with the commander or work well with what you're going to be able to do with them.

The precon deck came with a few landfall creatures in Avenger of Zendikar, Scute Swarm, and Rampaging Baloths, so it was an easy call to throw in a few more. Guardian of Tazeem is a flying Sphinx with a landfall trigger that will let you tap down an opponent's creature and if the land was an island, also give it a stun counter so it doesn't untap on its next untap step. Lotus Cobra is another easy one, giving me one mana of any color when a land enters the battlefield under my control. I had recently taken apart a landfall deck and these were easy choices to throw into this list.

Cards that care about counters were worth looking at for Omo, but it doesn't help to have multiple everything counters on a creature or land. Goldberry, River-Daughter made the cut in this first draft because she can pull an everything counter onto herself from another creature and for a Blue mana she can move one or more counters from herself onto another target permanent I control. Both actions require her to tap, and when I use her to give a counter to another permanent I control I'll draw a card. I'm also running Mutational Advantage, a three-mana instant that will give my permanents with counters on them hexproof and indestructible and will prevent all damage done to them. It then has me proliferate, which may not help with everything counters, but it still should serve as something of a backup for Heroic Intervention.

I decided to drop out the Cave lands and most of the Locus lands, keeping only Cloudpost. I dropped the land count down to 40, which is still very high for me, and loaded in a Maze's End package. That just means every Gate I could run in Simic colors along with Maze's End, a card that can win you the game with 10 or more Gates in play. While Snow is a supertype, Gate is a land type so any land I control with an everything counter will contribute to that total number of Gates.

I don't love Maze's End as a wincon if it's your only goal, but as a backup I think it may work nicely. I'll be doing lots of other things, playing threats, trying to push life totals down, but I'll also be able to push for a Maze's End win if that's what my deck is giving me. A dedicated Maze's End deck runs tons of wraths and goes hard after that wincon, but it plays very much the same and the gameplay doesn't take long to feel stale.

I wanted to make sure I had some creatures that were potential threats. Creature type and land synergy is all well and good, but it's nice to have some big bodies in the mix. I thought about going with Dragons and using the two megamorph dragons that put +1/+1 counters on all of my other Dragons when they are turned face up, but both the Blue and Green ones are just 4/4s. I ended up going with sea monsters, as there was some pretty nice mass removal that wouldn't hit any of my creatures with everything counters on them.

Cresting Mosasaurus will return each non-Dinosaur creature to its owner's hand if it was cast. It has emerge, so I can cast it for a more modest amount by sacrificing a creature and paying the difference. Not to be outdone, Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep is an 8/8 Legendary Leviathan that will return all creatures except Merfolk, Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents to their owners' hands. To get that bounce trigger I'll have to pay an extra two mana kicker cost over and above his hefty 8 mana casting cost. I'm not running Cyclonic Rift, as I'm aiming for a lower power level, but I do have Whelming Wave, a sorcery that will return all creatures to their owners' hands except for Krakens, Levaithans, Octopuses, and Serpents.

This deck gives me an incentive to play cards that synergize with creature types and land types, but it also gives me a reason to look at cards that care about counters. It is remarkably easy to put everything counters on things, so Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood fits in nicely for both my sea monster theme and my counter theme. This Legendary Salamander Serpent has me put a flood counter on a land when it enters the battlefield or attacks, turning the land into an Island in addition to its other types. At the beginning of my end step, I'll untap each permanent I control with a counter on it. I don't mind playing staples, but I like cute synergy and Xolatoyac is nothing if not cute. Seedborn Muse may be better, but Smiley has a bigger body and might actually present a threat in a game of EDH.

With all of these sea monsters, you might think Kindred Summons is a great fit for this deck. It is, but not for the reason you think. If I've got a few creatures with all creature types, I can tutor up pretty much any card I want. Spawning Kraken is the only Kraken in my deck, but if I've got an open attack and a lot of creatures with all creature types, Spawning Kraken might be worth tutoring up with this seven mana tutor. Avenger of Zendikar is my only Elemental. Scute Swarm is my only Insect. I've got lots of interesting individual targets for Kindred Summons, but this card is really in the deck to let me try to tutor up a bunch of cards from my secret subtheme.

The Secret Sauce

There are few creature types as notorious or as dangerous in Magic as Slivers. They work together by sharing abilities, either with all other Slivers on the battlefield or just with other Slivers you control. In a tuned 5/c Sliver deck the goal is to establish a critical mass of Slivers with enough key creatures to make victory easy, if not inevitable. Omo puts me in two colors, but there are still a handful of good Slivers I can run that will help each other and any creature I have that has all creature types.

Gemhide Sliver and Manaweft Sliver will both let my Slivers tap for a mana of any color. Diffusion Sliver will tax my opponents 2 mana for targeting my Slivers with spells or abilities. Winged Sliver keeps things simple and just gives all slivers flying. These aren't particularly flashy abilities, but every little bit of mana, protection, or evasion helps.

A few of my slivers are more impactful. Scuttling Sliver gives each of my slivers a 2 mana activated ability that will let it untap. Megantic Sliver gives a hefty +3/+3 to my Slivers. Brood Sliver will give Slivers a combat damage trigger that will let the Sliver's controller create a 1/1 colorless Sliver creature token.

The goal isn't to win with just Slivers. They are here to help make my creatures with all creature types that much better. If I'm able to usse Kindred Summons to give a big beater +3/+3, flying and the equivalent of Ward 2, that may not win the game but it helps a lot.

Master of my Domain

One of the most fun things about Omo, Queen of Vesuva is how much you can lean on weird lords and cards that care about creature types and land types. There are a lot of lords and this deck could do well as a mix of a single creature type like Elves or Merfolk and an assortment of larger threats. I already leaned into Slivers so I didn't choose to go Lord shopping. What I did do is throw in a few cards that did seem to work well with my everything counters.

A one-mana spell that draws two cards isn't groundbreaking, but I couldn't resist throwing Of One Mind into the mix. I'll nearly always have a creature that isn't human and doesn't yet have an everything counter, and I'll also usually have a creature with all creature types. That means this Sorcery will usually cost one blue mana.

Land type synergy is also easy to find, and there's even a keyword you can look for: domain. Cards with domain care about how many basic land types there are among lands you control. A single land with five basic land types will max out (at 5) the bonus from any card with domain. Not all domain cards are worth playing, but I found two I wanted to try out.

Herd Migration costs 7 mana but if I have at least one land with an everything counter on it, I'll create five 3/3 green Beast creature tokens. All of these plans depend upon Omo being on the battlefield. If she's not around, those counters don't do much. If it's not looking like I'm going to get to seven mana, or I just need some play in the early game, I can pay one and a green to discard it, tutor a basic land to my hand, and gain 3 life.

My second domain card is Nael, Avizoa Aeronaut. This 2/4 Elf Scout with flying has a combat damage trigger that cares about land types. I'll look at the top X cards of my library, put one of them on top of my library, the rest on the bottom, and if I have five or more basic land types among lands I control I'll draw a card. While I'd love to give Nael double-strike, the prospect of drawing the best card out of the top 5 cards in my deck every combat seems pretty good.

This is a deck I'm building in paper, so there are glaring omissions that are easy to explain by the fact that I simply don't have the card in paper. A few other cards with domain would fit into this list quite nicely but I simply didn't have them available when I was building this first draft. For all these cards, X will represent the number of basic land types among lands I control.

Briar Hydra is a 6/6 Plant Hydra with trample that has a domain combat damage trigger. Whenever it deals combat damage to a player, I'll put X +1/+1 counters on target creature I control. Collective Restraint is a Propaganda style enchantment that taxes my tablemates for X mana for each attacking creature. Jodah's Codex is an artifact that lets me tap it and pay mana to draw a card, but that mana cost is 5 minus the number of basic land types among lands I control. A five-mana artifact that taps to draw a card isn't amazing, but it's OK and the synergy is cute enough to be worth considering for a lower-powered Omo list.

A lot of the domain cards are one-time effects or cost reducers and in EDH I prefer to run permanents that have a lasting effect. An example is Tromp the Domains, a sorcery that gives +X/+X and trample to my creatures. A +5/+5 boost and trample is significant if I've managed to go wide, but it costs six mana and for one mana less I could just run Overwhelming Stampede, which gives +X/+X where X is the greatest power among creatures I control.

There's nothing wrong with playing staples and aiming for a higher power level, but there's also nothing wrong with getting cute with your synergy and having what might be a lower powered deck. It's all about what you enjoy as a deckbuilder and player and what kinds of tables you'll be playing at.

Paths not Traveled

What I didn't do with this precon rebuild is lean heavily into combo, though after some games I'm genuinely not sure why. Ultimately the deck you play should be right for the table you are playing at, and finding a good matchup isn't always easy. Sometimes you think a game will be a little unbalanced but not that bad, only to get completely wrecked by one or two much more powerful or synergistic brew. It happens, and it even happened to me the first time I played this list.

The combos I was going to throw into this build aren't game-ending, but they're neat enough that I wanted to mention them. I did not want to run any combos that didn't work with my commander's ability, but I was able to find some that worked nicely with Omo.

The first one would involve playing the aforementioned Scuttling Sliver along with creature tutors and a slew of mana dorks that tap for at least three mana. I've got a Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss deck that has all of my big mana dorks, but if I pulled that apart I could rebuild Omo with this combo.

All you need to do is get one of those mana dorks out and put an everything counter on it so it's also a Sliver. Then if you can get Scuttling Sliver into play, you can tap it for three or more mana, untap it, and tap it again, netting at least one extra mana every time you do it. Infinite mana doesn't win games by itself, but there are lots of cards that could slot into the deck that do the trick. Helix Pinnacle and Genesis Wave both come to mind, and the latter is already in the deck.

The second combo I would consider is one that might work around Goldberry, River-Daughter. It's really more of a concept, but I think there's probably a way to make a Goldberry combo work.

She can tap to pull an everything counter onto her, and for a blue mana you can tap her to move that counter back off of her and draw a card. If I used Scuttling Sliver to give her an untap ability, I could pay two mana to do it again. I could also use the enchantment Pemmin's Aura or Freed From the Real, which let me pay a blue mana to untap enchanted creature. That would solve the untap problem and the Sliver option would use that everything counter.

I'd still need loads of mana to draw my deck, so it's clear that this isn't just a compact little wincon. A simpler approach might be to go after Dramatic Reversal / Isochron Scepter. Dramatic Scepter combo would take me away from being a lands deck and towards being an artifacts deck, which isn't great. Ultimately a Goldberry combo would be more cute than effective, but I've always had a weak spot for convoluted combos.

Looking back at how the mana dorks and the Goldberry idea could both use Scuttling Sliver and those everything counters, this might be the first upgrade I might make to this deck if it struggles to win games.

Long Live the Queen

This ended up being a relatively budget-friendly rebuild, but I'm aware that part of that is from leaving out a lot of staples I often lean on. I still ran a few cards that are always good in these colors. Beast Whisperer and The Great Henge will help me draw cards but Rhystic Study didn't make it into my first draft. I dropped my land count but it's still over 40, which feels high for me.

If you wanted to tune this up I think you'd load in a few more staples and probably lean towards that mana dork with all creature types / Scuttling Sliver combo plan. It's cute, it doesn't outright win the game, and it relies upon Omo being in play, which I like. I also think a build focused not on Slivers but on Lords (creatures that give a bonus to a specific type of creature) might be more powerful and could be just as fun.

Omo, Queen of Vesuva EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Omo, Queen of Vesuva

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Brood Sliver
• 1 Cresting Mosasaurus
• 1 Diffusion Sliver
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Gemhide Sliver
• 1 Goldberry, River-Daughter
• 1 Guardian of Tazeem
• 1 Hydroid Krasis
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Manaweft Sliver
• 1 Megantic Sliver
• 1 Nael, Avizoa Aeronaut
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Rampant Frogantua
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Scuttling Sliver
• 1 Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep
• 1 Spawning Kraken
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Tempered Sliver
• 1 Terastodon
• 1 Ulvenwald Hydra
• 1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• 1 Winged Sliver
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood

• Spells (21)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Growth Spiral
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Kindred Summons
• 1 Mutational Advantage
• 1 Animist's Awakening
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Finale of Revelation
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
• 1 Herd Migration
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Of One Mind
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Scapeshift
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Sylvan Scrying
• 1 Whelming Wave

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Multiclass Baldric
• 1 Stoneforge Masterwork
• 1 The Great Henge

• Lands (41)
• 7 Forest
• 7 Island
• 1 Baldur's Gate
• 1 Basilisk Gate
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Cloudpost
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dark Depths
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Field of the Dead
• 1 Gateway Plaza
• 1 Gond Gate
• 1 Heap Gate
• 1 Hidden Cataract
• 1 Hidden Nursery
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Manor Gate
• 1 Maze's End
• 1 Planar Nexus
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sea Gate
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Simic Guildgate
• 1 Talon Gates of Madara
• 1 Thespian's Stage
• 1 Urza's Mine
• 1 Urza's Power Plant
• 1 Urza's Tower
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Buy This Deck Export text

It's very possible that there are higher power builds out there or even a fringe cEDH list that I haven't come across yet. I generally don't do too much research as I like these lists to represent my own ideas as much as possible. I should note that Multiclass Baldric is a card I saw in online discussions about Omo, and also saw in person in an Omo deck.

The one card I dropped out of today's list that surprised me was Summary Dismissal. It's a four mana counterspell that exiles all other spells and counters all abilities. It seems good until you go to activate your Maze's End, someone casts a spell to remove your Omo, and you realize your only answer will take that Maze's End trigger and remove it from the stack. No bueno. I'm guessing this card is meant to be an answer to someone putting a zillion annihilator triggers on the stack, but it's not a great card to run with Maze's End also in your 99.

Early Results

I've played the Tricky Terrain deck once out of the box and it didn't give me a very good game.

I also played today's updated Omo list twice. In the first game, while I got to my Maze's End wincon, I only saw a few of the creatures in the deck. I had increased my creature count from 24 to 32 in an attempt to make sure I'd have bodies to put everything counters on, but that first game didn't fill me with hope. I was also up against some faster, highly synergistic value engines that left me feeling outclassed.

I then played the deck a second time in my online Tabletop Simulator group and got much better results. The table may not have been quite as high powered so there was more room and more time to try to get the deck to do something. I got out a few early Slivers and grew a decent boardstate with a Brood Sliver making tokens and another giving them flying. I didn't get too far, forcing my tablemates to intervene to slow my roll and keep me from getting up to too much nonsense.

In the late game I again found myself looking at a possible Maze's End win, and there was a window where I could have pulled it off but I didn't see it at the time. At one point I was able to make twenty mana and play a Hydroid Krasis to draw 9 cards and gain 9 life. I was later able to play a Genesis Wave for twenty with an Amulet of Vigor in play to put out seven lands and untap my lands. I had eleven Plant Tokens, an Avenger of Zendikar, a Lotus Cobra, and a Scute Swarm in play.

When the deck does stuff, it sure does stuff.

One thing I noticed is that Omo will get removed a lot, especially if the deck is cranking out value. That's no different than any other good EDH deck that has a lot of reliance upon the legendary creature it was built around.

The other thing I noticed is that I didn't get as many everything counters on my creatures as I would have liked. I still don't think Cresting Mosasaurus, Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep and Whelming Wave are bad cards, but with a ton of creatures in play, it also won't feel like a one-sided boardwipe. You'll usually be able to protect a few creatures, but you'll also be bouncing most of your own board when you play these answers.

Final Thoughts

I don't often buy and play unmodified precon decks, and these Modern Horizons 3 decks were the first time in a while that I decided I would do so.

After playing two of them, I'm increasingly of the opinion that precon decks aren't for everyone. I found it frustrating to not have control over what's in my deck and I'm never as familiar with a deck if I didn't build it myself. That doesn't mean my builds are always better than precons - sometimes they just aren't. Even when I'm on a low powered deck that I built, at least I usually know what its limitations are and what it's trying to do.

With a precon I usually am just shuffling up and hoping for the best. Hope for the best isn't a game plan that fills me with confidence.

That said, it's good to experience a range of power levels and having those games where I'm just hopelessly outclassed isn't the worst thing. It's frustrating, to be sure, but the kinds of higher synergy, higher power value engines I tend to see in gameplay at an LGS should have an easy time against a precon. Not everyone has a "weakest deck" that is actually on par with an out of the box precon and that's OK.

I'm glad I played that second game, as it gave me hope that this list will indeed give you a good game. At the right table, I think this is going to give you that, and is a good starting point from which to brew up your own Omo, Queen of Vesuva list. The precon is also a fine place to start from, but hopefully I've managed to get you a little further down the path towards having your own fairly well tuned Omo list.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!