A Cirdan the Shipwright Double Feature

Posted on July 24, 2023

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a group hug player.

I used to find myself cutting cards for the sole reason that they help my tablemates. Helping others equated to hurting my own chances at winning the game, and it's hard enough to win games of multiplayer EDH already. Why go out of your way to make it harder?

Then I started playing Heartwood Storyteller. Heartwood Storyteller is a Treefolk with a great party trick. Whenever a player casts a noncreature spell, each of that player's opponents may draw a card. I put it in creature-heavy decks and soon found myself enjoying its effect on the game and on the moods of my tablemates.

I'd find myself saying "I'm here to help" a lot, even when someone drew into a wincon that hosed the rest of the table. Playing cards that help everyone means accepting that you will often help others to the detriment of your own chances at winning. Some "hug" players don't even try to win games, but the vast majority have some sort of gameplan that might end in a victory.

When I was reworking my Elven Council precon deck I wasn't very interested in all of the "voting" cards in the list, but after building last week's Elrond, Master of Healing deck, I found myself drawn back to one of them.

Cirdan the Shipwright is an Elf Noble with vigilance and his own cool party trick. Whenever he enters the battlefield or attacks, each player votes for a player and those votes are revealed at the same time. Each player draws a card for each vote they received and anyone who didn't get a vote may put a permanent card from their hand onto the battlefield.

This is a weird card, and how to best handle the voting process will be key to the deck playing well and being fun. It could hand someone the game, but playing any hug deck brings that kind of risk. I think the thing I like the most about Cirdan is that he's something of a puzzle to solve as a deck-builder. How do I make the most out of what he brings to the game?

The Machinery of Democracy

The official rulings on Cirdan the Shipwright say that each player writes down their chosen option without showing it to anyone else. Each player then keeps their vote secret until all players simultaneously reveal their votes.

I don't know about you, but I don't love the idea of having to make sure everyone at the table has a pen and paper for every game I ever play with this deck. If I find a way to force this vote dozens of times in a single game, that sounds like a bit of a headache. A minor headache that happens dozens of times can quickly turn into an unfun play pattern.

I think the solution for how to handle Cirdan's votes is much simpler than writing down your votes.

Every game has a player who goes first. You simply establish that player as player one, you count up around the table in order of play. There will always be six-sided dice around when you're playing Magic and Commander games rarely have more than six players. Sensible people usually cap games at five and many prefer pods of four.

To vote you simply have everyone cover a d6 with their hand, after putting it to the number of the player who they are voting for. Easy peasy. Just remind everyone of who is number one a few times and how the numbers go up around the table and you should be fine.

Now that this not-so-major issue has been taken care of, at least to my own satisfaction, let's take a look at what a Cirdan Group Hug deck might look like.

Group Hug Basics

One of the core concepts behind playing group hug in commander is that you want to help your tablemates draw more cards, play more lands, make more mana, and stay alive longer. Whether or not you have a wincon is up to the hug deck-builder, but along the way you are trying to help everyone, including yourself, be able to play their decks. You'll often play "table police" for the benefit of your tablemates, removing problematic cards and stopping anyone from winning too early.

There are a few cards in today's hug list that are common across nearly all group hug decks.

Temple Bell is an artifact that can tap to have each player draw a card. You can wait until the end step before your turn, but you might just tap it when the table needs to draw into an answer to something. Howling Mine and Dictate of Kruphix are a little less flexible, giving each player an extra draw at the beginning of their draw step. Horn of Greed will let players draw cards when they play lands. Cirdan is going to give everyone the chance to draw another card anyways, but extra cards are always good.

I decided not to run cards that give extra mana, as I'm hoping players will really want to get the chance to put a permanent on the battlefield. Most of the deck is built around trying to police the table, removing or taking anything that catches my eye but not trying to play high mana permanents out of my own hand.

How We Win

If this was more of a traditional hug deck I'd be playing ways for players to make extra mana, but I won't be able to keep up with everyone playing bombs every turn. This build is your basic hug deck focused on card draw and interaction. I'm running a few clone effects and ways to keep big threats at bay. There's no way to know if what I have will be enough at a given table, but it's better to run something.

Clever Impersonator, Clone, and Sakashima the Impostor are all ways to make copies of things my tablemates put into play. Clever Impersonator can enter as any nonland permanent. Clone can enter the battlefield as a copy of a creature. Sakashima the Impostor can enter as any creature in play and will gain the ability to bounce to my hand for four mana. That way I can recast him if a better target shows up.

Progenitor Mimic not only enters as a copy of any creature on the battlefield - it also lets me create a token of itself (as the creature it copied) at the beginning of my upkeep. I've also got Mimic Vat in the list as another way to make token copies of my opponents' creatures. All of these clones and copies should allow me to take advantage of any big creatures that my tablemates manage to get into play. I'll be scaling to the level of my tablemates, which is nice, but I likely won't have the kind of internal synergy that they have built into their decks.

For threats that I truly can't deal with, I run removal, but I'm also running Vow of Flight and Vow of Wildness. These auras will buff the enchanted creature and will prevent that creature from attacking me or planeswalkers I control. I've also got Propaganda, which taxes my opponents for attacking me, and Crawlspace, which limits my tablemates to attacking me with no more than two creatures each combat.

I am running one wincon that works really nicely with my commander. If I can draw into these cards, it will probably not be early. I don't mind a hug deck having a wincon, but if you're not giving other players a chance to enjoy what you're giving them, you're not really a hug deck.

If you want to win uninterrupted, make sure you have Conqueror's Flail on the field. If you really care about winning you'll want to load in Fabricate alongside tutors to go get other combo pieces, but this draft isn't that deck. When Conqueror's Flail is equipped to a creature, your opponents can't cast spells on your turn. Your opponents can still activate abilities, but in Simic () it's something we can do to protect the win. You could do more, like add in Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir or Tidal Barracuda, but I've got a healthy number of counterspells to try to stop my tablemates from messing with me.

Deadeye Navigator pairs with cards like Peregrine Drake, Great Whale, and Palinchron to generate infinite mana. You soulbond Navigator with one of them and flicker them to untap lands. If you tap those lands for mana you'll more than pay for Deadeye Navigator's activation cost. Once you've made your mana, you can flicker Deadeye Navigator and soulbond him to Cirdan the Shipwright. Each time you flicker Cirdan you'll trigger his ETB ability to let everyone choose a player and then vote to draw or put a permanent into play.

All you need to do to win is flicker Cirdan until you've drawn into Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and use those to win by drawing from an empty library. If you want you can run Thassa's Oracle as well, though some players frown on using it in casual games.

Sounds easy, right?

The "fun" comes in playing it out. Will someone find a way to win before you? They'll be drawing and/or playing permanents with every flicker too. You'll have mana and you'll likely draw into counterspells. Will they draw an answer before you draw into Conqueror's Flail? It might be fun to find out.

Deadeye Cirdan

Will this become the most nails-on-chalkboard, annoying way to wrap up a Deadeye Navigator combo win, or will it be an odd and entertaining way to try to get to the end? I genuinely don't know, and if you're playing against tablemates with loads of interaction you may get stopped or even hand someone else the win. You're a hug deck. What matters most is that the game is entertaining and I think this might be a weird, fun way to wrap things up.

Deadeye Cirdan | Commander | Stephen Johnson

Commander (1)
1 Cirdan the Shipwright

Planeswalkers (1)
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

As always, this is a starting point for you to work from. If you can't bear to not have early game blockers, load in some mana dorks - they'll help you get Cirdan out earlier. If you care about having a "story" for your deck, you can think of them as his crew.

This list has a few pretty good cards for you to drop into play. Consecrated Sphinx, Rampaging Baloths, and Avenger of Zendikar are all in the list, but you can and should swap in cards you have and enjoy playing with to carry with you as you sail the seas of Middle Earth, Dominaria, or wherever you think Cirdan is exploring. I've chosen to imagine that this shipwright is also going to captain his vessel, but I realize that's more than a bit delusional. My guess is that historically, most shipwrights likely weren't also captains.

Whether you choose to go more toward a hug game or load in tutors and try to see if my Deadeye Navigator combo wincon is as amusing to play out as I think it might be, Cirdan is a welcome addition to the list of commanders who can pilot a true "group hug" deck. He won't be replacing Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, but I think he'll pop up every now and then as a weird hug deck that may or may not have a way to actually win the game.

Hugs on a Budget

Some of the guys at the LGS I play at have been talking about building $30 (USD) decks recently, and I thought it might be fun to give it a try. My first thought was to build Zada, Hedron Grinder, and while I love Zada I love building new things even more. When I decided to write about Cirdan I decided I had to see if I could build a $30 list around him.

Most hug staples are just a little too expensive for me to run in a $30 list without seriously cutting into my budget. Even a dollar card is higher than my goal of around twenty-five cents per card. I was also building from cards I had lying around (I don't proxy) so my options were both limited by what I had available to me and what would fit into my budget. My logic was that if I aimed for a quarter dollar per card, I'd invariably go higher but would still end up well under my $30 limit and would probably have some wiggle room in case any card prices fluctuated.

Getting Through

In my first list I don't have any real plan for getting Cirdan through blockers. I mostly figured that I would promise to vote for whoever let me swing at them with my commander. I still plan to try to make that deal with this deck, but I've decided to also load in ways to make my commander unblockable.

Aqueous Form, Aether Tunnel, Cloak of Mists, Invisibility, Traveler's Cloak and Tricks of the Trade are all in this list as ways to get my commander through blockers. Access Tunnel and Rogue's Passage, lands that can make a creature unblockable, are also in the list. I'll likely still try to make a deal with someone before attacking and will promise to vote for them to draw a card.

While my first list didn't have any real theme and was largely just trying to hug my way through the early and mid game, this list is light on hug staples and heavy on theme.

Krakens and Cargo

I'm again going back to my story concept for this deck, but I'm doubling down on it for this budget list. If Cirdan the Shipwright not only built a ship but also decided to become its captain, it made sense to me to load the deck up with a bunch of sea monsters.

Reef Worm doesn't start out as a Kraken, but when this 0/1 Worm dies, it turns into a 3/3 Blue Fish creature token. When that dies, it turns into a 6/6 Blue Whale creature token and if your Whale dies you get a 9/9 Blue Kraken creature token. I'm also running Tromokratis, an 8/8 legendary Kraken which has hexproof unless it's attacking or blocking. It can't be blocked unless all creatures defending player controls block it. Trench Behemoth is a 7/7 Kraken with the ability to let me bounce a land to my hand to untap it and give it hexproof. Shipbreaker Kraken is also in the list, though as a Shipwright I expect it might make Cirdan just a little nervous.

My sea monsters theme also includes a Thought Sponge, a Colossal Whale and a handful of Leviathans. Pearl Lake Ancient, Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep and Stormtide Leviathan all fit in nicely as denizens of the deep that our intrepid Shipwright might find swimming alongside his shiny new boat.

I'm also running a number of creatures that I might imagine Cirdan has somehow loaded into his colossal ship's hull. I hesitate to call it an "ark" but when you look at the card's art it does seem like a boat that's big enough to carry some gigantic creatures. He might even do an homage to Lyle Lovett and bring a pony to ride along the decks.

Rampaging Baloths synergizes well with Trench Behemoth, as that Kraken allows you to bounce a land to your hand so you'll never miss a land drop. This deck isn't designed to generate a ton of landfall triggers, but even a few can represent some good value. Thunderfoot Baloth is also in the deck as a trample enabler. That second Baloth could have been a great excuse to build a "Noah" deck, with two of any creature type I chose to put into the list.

While I didn't build a "Noah" deck, I did throw in a few more decent Green creatures. End-Raze Forerunners is another trample enabler. It has vigilance, trample and haste and when it enters the battlefield other creatures I control get +2/+2, vigilance and trample until end of turn. I'll get more out of playing this from my hand than dropping it into play with a Cirdan trigger, but any deck with big creatures really wants ways to give them trample and this "baby Craterhoof" does that for me.

Treeshaker Chimera is an 8/5 that will force all creatures able to block it to do so. When it dies I'll draw three cards, but more importantly my other attackers should get through and hit whoever I'm swinging at. I'm also running Whiptongue Hydra as a way to clear the skies of flyers, Terastodon as a way to remove up to three problem noncreature permanents, and Moldgraf Monstrosity as a way to get a few creatures back from the graveyard.

I was surprised to find that Diluvan Primordial was in my budget so I added it in as a flyer with an interesting ETB trigger. When this Avatar enters the battlefield I may cast up to one target instant or sorcery out of each player's graveyard. I have no idea what I'll run into in a pod of $30 budget decks, but it'll be fun to find out.

My last sea creature is Brine Elemental. It's a morph creature that when turned face up will have each opponent skip their next untap step. I was again surprised to find that it and Vesuvan Shapeshifter were both within my budget. Shapeshifter is a morph creature that can become a copy of target creature when it enters the battlefield or is turned face up. This only lasts until it is turned face down, and it can be turned face down at the beginning of my upkeep. The cost to "morph" it is a mere 2 mana, one of which must be Blue.

The nasty trick you can do with these creatures is have Vesuvan Shapeshifter turn into Brine Elemental when it turns face up, allowing you to force your opponents to skip their untap steps every turn until they find a way to remove either of these creatures.

This is called the "pickles lock" and I'll likely run it until I hit it a few times and then swap these cards out for something else.

Budget Cirdan

This list is aiming to be a casual, fun deck. I've got some interaction but zero counterspells and I'm not that worried about winning games. If I can get some Cirdan triggers and maybe play some big creatures along the way I expect I'll be happy. I'm sure everyone will be trying to squeeze as much value and power out of their budget as possible. I even left between $5 and $10 on the table, coming in well under budget.

Budget Cirdan the Shipwright | Commander | Stephen Johnson

Commander (1)
1 Cirdan the Shipwright

I think the most interesting takeaway from this deck-building experiment is how easy it is to build a playable budget deck. You have to accept that you'll be paying more mana for some of your spells and you won't be leaning on format staples, but that doesn't mean you have to build a deck without draw, without removal or without threats. This list may well be underpowered for your average commander pod, but it's possible that I will be able to play it in low and mid powered games and not feel totally outclassed.

Final Thoughts

I'm not particularly interested in the Bible, but I still find myself drawn to the idea of building Cirdan as a "Noah" deck. Fun themes can really energize the deck-building process and digging up pairs of creature types to load into this deck would probably be a lot of fun.

I think if you're interested in building a group hug deck you'll be more likely to put Cirdan the Shipwright into a Phelddagrif or Kynaios and Tiro deck than to have him as your commander. Still, it can be fun to build around brand-new cards.

It remains to be seen whether the process of handling the voting process will be easy and seamless or annoying and a distraction to playing the game. If all goes well you'll be having the table vote a lot, but that's less of a problem when your vote is coming from the same card every time. It's just less confusing and you'll have fewer players asking just what they are voting for.

I expect to keep writing about Lord of the Rings cards for a few more weeks. It's been a great set for new builds and as a reprint set, Commander Masters is relatively light in new cards to build around.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!

TAGS articles, budget, casual, edh, commander, decklist, simic, stephen johnson, commanderruminations, blue-green, the lord of the rings, tales of middle-earth, the lord of the rings: tales of middle-earth, ltr, 07242023, cirdan the shipwright

A Cirdan the Shipwright Double Feature

The Machinery of Democracy

Group Hug Basics

How We Win

Deadeye Cirdan

Deadeye Cirdan | Commander | Stephen Johnson

Hugs on a Budget

Getting Through

Krakens and Cargo

Budget Cirdan

Budget Cirdan the Shipwright | Commander | Stephen Johnson

Final Thoughts

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