"To each opponent."

We often say that "draw a card" are the three most powerful words in Magic, but the phrase "to each opponent" is a close second for me. Any powerful commander with an ability that affects each of your opponents would be a fraction as intimidating if it only affected or cared about one opponent at a time.

Today's column is about a really exciting new Bloomburrow legendary creature that has a high enough ceiling that it might even find its way into cEDH. I'm not building a deck intended to play at that level, but there will surely be deckbuilders experimenting with fully optimized builds that are meant to close out games in a shockingly short number of turns.

Before we dive into the different approaches one might take when building today's commander, let's take a look at this spicy new card.

This Rat Warlock has a two power, four-toughness body, no keywords, and a really cool party trick. Whenever Wick or another Rat I control enters, I'll create a 1/1 Black Snail creature token if I don't already control a Snail. If I do control a Snail I'll put a +1/+1 counter on it. The chances that I control another Snail are slim, as there is only one in all of Magic's history (I'm looking at you, Skullcap Snail).

The exciting part comes when we look at Wick, the Whorled Mind's activated ability. For Grixis mana, and at the cost of sacrificing a Snail, Wick will deal damage equal to the sacrificed creature's power to each opponent. Then I'll draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power.

Draw cards???

Yes, Wick not only lets me push damage out to all of my opponents at once, but he also gives me card draw as part of the thing he was born to do! This is the best of both worlds, and is a huge part of why I'm so excited to brew up this Rat Warlock and see if I can get him to do his thing.

Escargot for One

Keeping Wick off the board is obviously an easy way for my opponents to keep my deck offline, but that's true for most powerful EDH decks. In many casual circles there is an implicit understanding that for the most part the goal isn't to keep each other from having fun, and we aren't trying to win our games at any cost. Even if you are in a cutthroat Commander playgroup where removal is constantly keeping you off your gameplan, it's still hard to always keep a deck from doing its thing. Eventually you'll find a window and have a game where your deck gets going and maybe you even sneak in a win.

This deck has an obvious weak spot that has to be acknowledged. Wick will only push out damage and draw those extra cards if you sacrifice a Snail.

The sacrifice is part of the payment for the ability, so it can't be responded to, but if you do something to try to make your snail bigger, your opponents can certainly respond to that. As an example, if you were to try to equip Kaldra Compleat to your Snail to give it +5/+5 and a bunch of keywords, your opponents could kill it in response to the equip so you can't deal that extra 5 damage and draw an extra five cards.

Wick has you create a Snail when he or another Rat you control enters the battlefield. This deck clearly wants to make Snail tokens so you can sacrifice them to push out damage and draw cards. From where I sit, that gives me three possible build paths.

The first, and most obvious, is to build around Rats. Whether you run an assortment of Rat cards, or you build a Thrumming Stone deck around Relentless Rats or Rat Colony, it's hard not to see this plan working. Thrumming Stone gives your spells Ripple 4, which means that when you cast a spell you'll reveal the top 4 cards of your deck and you can cast spells from among them that have the same name as the original spell without paying their mana costs. You'll likely dump a ton of Rats onto the field, make a huge Snail, and then sacrifice it to draw a ton of cards. You might even be able to finish the table off with your swarm of Rats.

Another approach to Wick might involve building around flicker effects. Displacer Kitten, Ghostly Flicker, Deadeye Navigator, and other cards that can make Wick leave play and then come right back could let you build up a big Snail. Deadeye combo would just win you the game, as you'd make a huge amount of mana and then flicker Wick to make Snail tokens to sacrifice. Without a combo finish it's probably not as effective as just building around Rats, but you'll free up a ton of space in your deck for more interesting cards that can make the deck more fun to play.

I ended up deciding to build my Wick deck in a totally different way. I decided to build around shapeshifters. These odd creatures have the Changeling ability, which gives them all creature types. That means that a shapeshifter is a Rat, but it's also a Snail, a Dragon, a Cephalid, a Beeble, and every other creature type! That means that as long as you have a Changeling on the field you'll have a Snail to sacrifice.

Shapeshifter Shenanigans

I've very much got a love / hate relationship with Changelings in Magic. Back before Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, I had a Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow ninjas deck that used a ton of Changelings to help fill out my ranks of Ninjas. I was very happy to pivot to using actual Ninjas when Neon Dynasty gave us a ton of creatures with that creature type. I never loved the feel of using Changelings to fill out any deck that was built around an odd creature type, but it was better than nothing.

What I love about Changelings is that there are a lot of them, they have plenty of interesting abilities, and in the right deck they can very much pull their own weight. Check out the small sampling below.

If I've got a big creature that isn't a Snail and Amoeboid Changeling on the battlefield, I can tap it to give target creature all creature types until end of turn. That might not seem like a big deal but with the right build of Wick it could be game-breaking. Wick is in Red, so I could easily slot in Malignus, which has a power and toughness equal to half the greatest life total among my opponents (rounded up). Turning Malignus and other big creatures into Snails could help me push out a lot of damage and draw a lot of cards.

Taurean Mauler is a 3/3 that gets a +1/+1 counter every time an opponent casts a spell. He might look like a bull, but don't let that fool you - he's got the heart of a Snail. Many of my Changelings will need equipment to get big enough to sacrifice and make an impact, but Taurean Mauler can just hang out and grow in size as players play the game.

Lots of other shapeshifters have less impressive abilities. Some can get flying, first strike, or deathtouch, or even swap their power and toughness. Graveshifter is especially good in this list because it can get one of my sacrificed Changelings back to my hand from the graveyard. I know I'll be sacrificing creatures so having a way to get one back could be very helpful.

My favorite thing about playing a deck with Changelings is that I get to include all manner of weird cards that you might not think of for a Rats deck. There are surely more cool cards I didn't think of, but here are some that I threw into the mix.

Any deck built around sacrificing its own creatures and pushing out boatloads of damage is going to have to deal with getting ganged up on. I won't try to draw attention to myself, but having extra blockers to leave up will help a lot. With Rohgahh, Kher Keep Overlord in play, my Changelings will get a +2/+2 boost because they're also Kobolds. Whenever I cast a Kobold spell, which all of my Changelings are, I'll be able to pay 2 mana to create a 4/4 Red Dragon creature token. Even if I don't have extra mana available, I'll be able to create a 0/1 Red Kobold creature token named Kobolds of Kher Keep because my Changeling spells are also Dragons in addition to being Kobolds, Snails, Rats, and everything else.

Obsidian Battle-Axe I first stumbled upon when playing Zurgo Helmsmasher. This equipment only gives +2/+1 but I can equip it automatically whenever a Warrior creature enters the battlefield. Paying equip costs may prove to be a real challenge for this deck, so I love equipment that gives me a cheap and repeatable way to pump up my creatures so I can sacrifice them for greater effect.

One bit of tech that I won't have to equip is Coat of Arms. If I'm lucky enough to have an opponent who has a ridiculous number of creatures, a single Shapeshifter might be enough to kill the table. It will get a +1/+1 for every creature in play, as it has all creature types and will therefore share a creature type with all of them.

Coat of Arms is worth a warning. It will pump everyone's creatures, and my Changelings will pump up all of my tablemates' creatures, so I just need to be careful when I play it. You can easily hand another player the game if you play it at the wrong time, or your plans get thwarted and it sticks around for other players' turns.

More Wick Tech

Not all of my neat ideas revolve around having creatures with every creature type. There are a few cards that fit in perfectly with what I'm trying to do.

If I'm down to my last Changeling and I have Ogre Slumlord in play, I'll be able to sacrifice the Changeling to Wick, trigger Ogre Slumlord, create a 1/1 Black Rat creature token, and then have Wick create a Snail. Wick doesn't care if it's a token or nontoken Rat that dies and there will be times where that extra Snail could make a huge difference by giving me one more creature to sacrifice to keep digging for what I need to close out the game.

Lifelink is going to play a role in this deck being able to survive the kind of aggro it might draw. Wick deals damage, so any way I can give him lifelink should help me get a bit of a buffer with my life total. Basilisk Collar and Loxodon Warhammer are both in the list, but Whip of Erebos might be my best option. Not only does it not need to be equipped, it also lets me bring a creature back from the graveyard for a turn.

Mana might be a real issue for this deck. Wick's activations cost three mana and those equip costs will absolutely pile up. Colossus Hammer might give +10/+10, but it has an equip cost of 8 mana. Neheb, the Eternal might be able to help me with mana. At the start of my postcombat main phase he'll give me one mana for each 1 life my opponents have lost this turn. At a four-player table, a meager 5 damage (and 5 cards drawn) will turn into 15 mana, letting me play out some of what I drew, or maybe paying for some equip costs and the Red mana for another Wick activation.

Another place to put a bunch of mana could be Demonspine Whip, a Rakdos equipment that gives equipped creature firebreathing. I can pay X mana and give equipped creature +X/+0 until end of turn. A classic way to pump a creature up is the Black spell Hatred, which lets me pay X life to give target creature +X/+0. If I've been gaining life, that might just be enough to kill the table. I could always take the easy route and use a card like Tainted Strike to give Wick infect. That turns his damage into poison counters, and I'll only need to sacrifice 10 power worth of Snails to kill the table.

Paths not Traveled

It's worth taking a moment to look at some Wick tech that didn't make it into my list. My games tend to be at mid powered tables and if I bring a high-powered deck I'll risk pubstomping a pod that isn't ready for it. I'm not suggesting I'm always playing against precons - far from it - but there is a big gap between precons and high powered EDH.

The one card I didn't run is absolutely worth looking at for a high-powered Wick deck.

Conspiracy will let me pick a creature type and all my creature cards (and tokens) in all zones will be only that creature type. For Wick I would choose Rat and when I play a Rat I'll make a Snail, which will be a Rat thanks to Conspiracy. That Rat will trigger Wick to create another Snail, which will really be a Rat, and so on, and so on. This will lock the game if I'm not able to remove Wick or remove Conspiracy at some point during the loop.

If you want to win games this is a fine way to do so. There are tons of ways you can leverage this combo to kill the table, beyond just going to combat and swinging for the win. You could use Mana Echoes to make mana to put into a table-killing Comet Storm. You could turn all those creature ETBs into damage with Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge.

I didn't include Conspiracy because I've done the 2-card combo thing and I don't find it all that interesting or fulfilling. It's perfectly legal, but it feels like cheating and I'd rather win games in a more interesting way that provides more of an opportunity for the kinds of back-and-forth struggle that results in an EDH game that everyone hopefully enjoyed.

In a nutshell - it's a power level thing. Build Wick Conspiracy combo if you're playing high powered EDH or you're trying to push into cEDH. Don't if you are likely to play at low to mid powered tables and that kind of compact combo win will feel out of place and inappropriate.

One thing I've learned about high power and cEDH deckbuilding, it's that you generally want to cut away the silly stuff and really focus on hitting your wincon(s) as quickly and efficiently as possible. That wincon probably should be Conspiracy combo, though there are other ways to win with Wick that are compact and efficient. Hatred and Tainted Strike should also give you a relatively easy path to victory and you're in Blue so you can protect it. I haven't loaded this list up with fast mana, tutors, and all the best stack interaction, but I do think an optimized Wick deck could play well at high powered tables.

If you wanted to tune this list down, you'd probably want to drop out Tainted Strike, but today's list is already built for more of a mid-powered, longer game. I generally try to find a sweet spot in the middle for my columns and then encourage you to move your own list up or down in power to match your playgroup and play style. As a game goes on, the chances will grow that you'll get what you need to have a big Wick activation and start putting pressure on the table to find an answer to what you're doing. I'm not yet sure if there's an inevitability about this deck, but I do think your chances will go up a lot the longer the game goes on.

Wick, the Whorled Mind EDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Wick, the Whorled Mind

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Amoeboid Changeling
• 1 Barkform Harvester
• 1 Body of Knowledge
• 1 Changeling Berserker
• 1 Changeling Outcast
• 1 Fire-Belly Changeling
• 1 Ghostly Changeling
• 1 Graveshifter
• 1 Littjara Kinseekers
• 1 Metallic Mimic
• 1 Moonglove Changeling
• 1 Mothdust Changeling
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Neheb, the Eternal
• 1 Ogre Slumlord
• 1 Rohgahh, Kher Keep Overlord
• 1 Skeletal Changeling
• 1 Tandem Lookout
• 1 Taurean Mauler
• 1 Thought Sponge
• 1 Triskaidekaphile
• 1 Turtleshell Changeling
• 1 Venomous Changeling
• 1 War-Spike Changeling

• Instants (9)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Fierce Guardianship
• 1 Hatred
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Tainted Strike

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Blasphemous Act

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Curiosity
• 1 Propaganda

• Artifacts (26)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Coat of Arms
• 1 Colossus Hammer
• 1 Cranial Plating
• 1 Cranial Ram
• 1 Crawlspace
• 1 Demonspine Whip
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Hand of Vecna
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 1 Obsidian Battle-Axe
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Rings of Brighthearth
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Stoneforge Masterwork
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Trepanation Blade
• 1 Two-Handed Axe
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (37)
• 7 Island
• 7 Mountain
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Choked Estuary
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Frostboil Snarl
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Unclaimed Territory
• 1 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck Export text

One of the things I like about Wick is that you can keep three mana up and play the deck fairly straight in terms of going to combat and attacking with a big Changeling. You often just wait until the end step of the player before you to activate and draw a mess of cards. With any luck you'll draw enough to be able to play out more stuff and keep another three mana up.

I suspect I'll need to play this deck a few times to get a feel for how I'm going to need to tweak it. I definitely think it will need a bit of work and I've been unable to get any games in, thanks to my recent bout with COVID.

Final Thoughts

Decks that push out damage or life loss will occasionally find themselves in a bit of a pickle. If you have an opponent who is way out in front and you need everyone else's help to try to take them down, you may be tempted to hold back and not do too many Wick activations. With other decks that can make sense, but with Wick you'll be drawing cards so even if you have some collateral damage it's probably still worth it for that precious card draw. An opponent at a zillion life will still die to infect, so trying to pull into that Tainted Strike could be worth murdering a few bystanders.

There are a bunch of cards that missed my final cut. I left out Grafted Exoskeleton and Corrupted Conscience, Phyresis, and Glistening Oil, but if you were keen on hitting that 10 poison counter table kill you should probably include more than just Tainted Strike. I also left out Black Market Connections, though that card is a decent source of Shapeshifter tokens with Changeling. I had a copy of that enchantment in the mail as I started writing this column and I'll be adding it into my deck shortly.

One of my favorite things about Wick, the Whorled Mind is that there isn't just one way to build him in EDH. My brew leaned into Changelings, but a Thrumming Stone deck built around Rat Colony would feel and play very differently. A deck built around stealing creatures and turning them into Snails would be a whole different experience for you and for the table, and any cEDH build would probably be leaning into that compact Conspiracy combo.

I hope that whatever version of Wick piques your interest, you put some thought into building to match your playgroup's power level. Games are always more fun when someone isn't so far beyond everyone else that it has to be a game of archenemy every time.

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