Zegana Do Over: Speaking Primely

My raw excitement over Rivals of Ixalan remains unabated for a
third consecutive week as I charge into the next step of the
Do Over Project.
Strongly suggested by the great Merfolk and other green and blue cards in Rivals of Ixalan, it has to be the next 99 for Prime Speaker
Zegana. She’s a build-around commander that you can build around in
multiple different ways. What follows is the one I’ve chosen.

The original, listed below as this week’s Deck Without Comment, is all
about +1/+1 counters. It’s a theme that will continue in some measure with
the Do Over, since there are just good cards for it in the set. For the
most part, I’m going to concentrate on the tribal aspects as well as the
watery theme. Merfolk seem to have moved more into the rivers than the
ocean in Magic lore, but we’ll make this a kind of estuary, Ixalan
‘s Chesapeake Bay (although it needs more Crabs to steam), where they both
meet and are populated with many cool Merfolk.

Before we get too far, I’ll tell you that early days StarCityGames writer
and generally grand human being Anthony Alongi and I have
started a Commander podcast called

Elder Dragon Statesmen

. Our friends at

Legion Supplies

have agreed to host it for the time being. We’re just finding our feet; our
fourth episode should be available about the time you’re reading this.
Anthony and I are always happy to listen to feedback, suggestions, ideas
for future shows, and whatever else you might have to say.

Back to the Prime Speaker Zegana Do Over, it clearly needs some kind of
theme song. I’m thinking funky 70’s soundtrack, featuring something like Christopher Cross
if you want to be mellow, or some P-funk if
you don’t.

Zegana's Merfolk

Sheldon Menery

Test deck on 01-25-2018

Commander

Creatures (34)

Planeswalkers (2)

Lands (5)

Spells (59)

Why Play It?

The primary reason to play the deck is because you like Merfolk. It doesn’t
matter whether you like them thematically, strategically, or you’re just a
big old Mer-fan. It gets you playing quite a few new cards from Rivals of Ixalan, which is all upside as far as I’m concerned.

Another reason to play the deck is to set the pace of play in the early
game. You’ll be casting things on the early turns, hopefully settling into
a nice curve, while other players aren’t developing for another turn or
two. The deck is a refreshing change of pace, at least for us, of the three
turn draw-go, with the occasional ramp spell thrown in, before we really
get to significant action.

You’ll Like This Deck if…

You’ll like the deck if you like battling with buffed up smaller creatures
and then using bigger spells to support them. You’ll especially like this
deck if you want to islandwalk on people, because those Islands are getting
walked.

You’ll also like the deck if you enjoy a little tutoring. Forerunner of the
Heralds lets you tutor up any Merfolk you like. Even better, Seahunter,
although not a Merfolk himself, lets you search your library for any
Merfolk and put it right onto the battlefield. Unfortunately, there aren’t
any Merfolk Mystic Snakes, although I suppose you could blow out someone
who has tapped out by fetching Cursecatcher.

You will most definitely like the deck if you are fond of drawing cards
(English major note: fond used to mean “silly” as opposed to “having an
affection for;” any time you see it in Shakespeare, if has the earlier
meaning)[BOOM.–Ed.]. Anyway, this sea monster draws some cards,
from the enters-the-battlefield trigger of the commander to the trigger
from Seafloor Oracle drawing a card every time one of your Merfolk deals
combat damage to someone. Seafloor Oracle won’t keep people off of your
face like Edric, Spymaster of Trest does, but it also won’t let your
opponents draw cards.

You Won’t Like This Deck If…

You’re not going to be a fan of Zegana’s Merfolk if you like board control.
It has some counterspells, but for the most part, it’s not a control deck
of any kind. It’s all about the

offensive little guy

. Person. Merfolk.

If you’re the type who prefers to optimize your build, story or theme be
damned, this probably isn’t for you. There’s no real narrative besides the
tribe, but the tribe is enough to limit some other choices you might make.

What Does It Do?

The deck’s strategy is relatively straightforward. Play Merfolk on the
early turns, taking advantage of both dealing damage and the things the
Merfolk do. There’s a bit of ramp in the deck, but not so much as others
because it doesn’t seem necessary. The deck doesn’t really want to play the
big stuff until later; by the time it does, you should have the resources
to do so. The card draw should be enough to make sure that you hit a land
drop every turn, making the ramp a bit of a bonus.

In particular, it’s okay to cast Prime Speaker Zegana when you have only a
middling creature on the battlefield. Running it out there to draw four or
five cards is reasonable opportunity cost as opposed to waiting around for
something big and splashy.

As mentioned, it draws cards. My favorite way to draw cards is to use one
or more of the buffs, such as Lord of Atlantis, Merfolk Mistbinder, and
Vanquisher’s Banner, to make Cold-Eyed Selkie much larger than its original
1/1. I nearly included Spreading Seas just to make sure the Selkie could
get there, but there are honestly enough Islands floating around that I
think I don’t have to worry about it.

There are a few large-and-in-charge creatures there to occasionally making
recasting Prime Speaker Zegana well worth it as well as doing something
else. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre obviously nukes the permanent of your
choice. Breaching Leviathan taps down nonblue creatures and keeps them that
way. Stormtide Leviathan does triple duty. It keeps non-flyer and
-Islandwalkers from attacking you. It turns all lands into Islands so that
you can get in with the Merfolk-well, I was going to say swarm, but I
suppose it’s probably a school. Third, Stormtide Leviathan does some pretty
serious beating on its own.

One of the neat tricks the deck has is battling repeatedly with World
Shaper. When it attacks, you mill three cards. When it dies, you put all
the lands in your graveyard back onto the battlefield. Hopefully, those
will include some of the fetchlands (Myriad Landscape, Misty Rainforest,
Evolving Wilds, and Terramorphic Expanse) that you’ve already cracked.
Then, you can later play Praetor’s Counsel, putting everything else back
into your hand (and making it not have a maximum size for the rest of the
game).

What Doesn’t It Do?

The deck doesn’t kill stuff, but Simic rarely does. There is some bounce,
and the always-strong Cyclonic Rift, but for the most part it doesn’t have
too many ways to get rid of other creatures. The deck wants to set people
back on their heels and think about playing defense instead of offense.

While the deck can bounce some creatures, it doesn’t have big reset
buttons. The aforementioned Cyclonic Rift is there; after that, it’s pretty
much Kederekt Leviathan and The Great Aurora, unless you count Wave of
Vitriol.

The counterspell suite includes Exclude and Overwhelming Intellect, which
are creature-focused. Other than the wonderful Plasm Capture, Mystic
Confluence is the only thing which can counter everything, but that too is
somewhat conditional.

The two planeswalkers are all about getting those emblems. The deck can
function well enough early to build up counters on either of them and
protect them with a card like Tangle. Kiora, the Crashing Wave can protect
itself on an underdeveloped battlefield; I don’t think anyone is going out
of their way to battle it until it gets to six or seven loyalty counters.

How Does it Lose?

Even though there are a few counterspells, the deck probably can’t stand up
to dedicated combo. Each of us are the products of our local environments,
so since I rarely face the streamlined combo deck, I generally don’t have
any worries. This is one of those decks that flourishes in a friendlier
environment.

It will also lose to giant creatures. The Merfolk can get large when the
appropriate anthems are in place, but there might be times when the
creatures simply get outclassed. Evacuation is in the deck for just such an
instance, since the Merfolk will be cheaper to get back onto the
battlefield than the huge monsters.

It’s likely to struggle against a Wrath of God-heavy deck. It needs to go
wide with a number of creatures, although we can mitigate this weakness
with a card like Changeling Titan, which will bring back whatever you
championed with it. In the meantime, it provides a large enough threat of
its own accord.

Cards That Aren’t There

There are way too many cards which could go into a deck like this to make a
comprehensive list. One of the strategies I considered included being able
to tap stuff down and keep it tapped, like with Opposition, or maybe Frost
Titan-type effects, which is where Breaching Leviathan came from-it just
happened to stay around because it’s a large sea creature.

World Shaper certainly suggests some sort of dredge strategy, but to be
perfectly honest, dredge just doesn’t float my boat. Every time I see
someone else playing a dredge deck, they seem to take a disproportionate
amount of time taking their turns. I understand that it’s necessarily
time-consuming, but I’d rather spend my time with my head up on the
battlefield instead of down in my graveyard and hand. Your mileage is
certainly welcome to vary.

If it weren’t for Prime Speaker Zegana, Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, would be
the commander and the deck would take on a different flavor. Lullmage
Mentor already does a little of this, but with Kumena in charge, I’d pay
even more attention to getting more Merfolk onto the battlefield, perhaps
in token form.

I was a little tempted to run a sort of ramp curve (like Rampant Growth,
Kodama’s Reach, Skyshroud Claim), but it feels like getting one ramp spell
early is enough. What you’ll most want to do is get those Merfolk swimming
up the stream to your opponent’s faces.

Arcane Adaptation is inexpensive enough to cast to want to play around
with, especially in concert with Seahunter, allowing you to search for any
creature you like. I’ve already gone with a few creatures that have
changeling, like Chameleon Colossus and Shapesharer (in the running for
this week’s Hidden Gem), but the door is certainly open for more of them, a
whole domain of dopplegangers, if you will.

Summary

Far more than being one of the featured tribes of Ixalan and Rivals of
Ixalan, Merfolk are a featured tribe in Magic history. There was a time
when R&D started to move away from the tribe, but the outcry from the
fan base was sufficient to bring them back. They’re slightly different than
they were, although no less dangerous, devious, and deadly. Unlike a tribe
such as Goblins, Merfolk lend themselves to a great deal of interpretation
and flexibility. Blue and green are the best two colors in Commander
(regardless of which order you put them in), so it only follows that no
matter how deep you go, there will be Merfolk.

As mentioned, this week’s Deck Without Comment is

Zegana and a Dice Bag

.

Prime Speaker Zegana

Sheldon Menery

0th Place at Test deck on 02-17-2013

Commander

Creatures (47)

Lands (37)

Spells (16)

Check out our comprehensive Deck List Database for lists of all my decks:

SIGNATURE DECKS

Purple Hippos and Maro Sorcerers

;

Kresh Into the Red Zone

;

Halloween with Karador

;

Dreaming of Intet

;

You Did This to Yourself

.

THE CHROMATIC PROJECT

Mono-Color

Heliod, God of Enchantments

;

Thassa, God of Merfolk

;

Erebos and the Halls Of The Dead

;

Forge of Purphoros

;

Nylea of the Woodland Realm

;

Karn

Evil No. 9.

Guilds

Lavinia Blinks

;

Obzedat, Ghost Killer

;

Aurelia Goes to War

;

Trostani and Her Angels

;

Lazav, Shapeshifting Mastermind

;

Zegana and a Dice Bag

;

Rakdos Reimagined

;

Glissa, Glissa

;

Ruric Thar and His Beastly Fight Club

;

Gisa and Geralf Together Forever

.

Shards and Wedges

Adun’s Toolbox

;

Angry, Angry Dinos

;

Animar’s Swarm

;

Borrowing Stuff at Cutlass Point

;

Ikra and Kydele

;

Karrthus, Who Rains Fire From The Sky

;

Demons of Kaalia

;

Merieke’s Esper Dragons

;

Nath of the Value Leaf

;

Rith’s Tokens

;

The Mill-Meoplasm

;

The Altar of Thraximundar

;

The Threat of Yasova

;

Zombies of Tresserhorn

.

Four Color

Yidris: Money for Nothing, Cards for Free

;

Saskia Unyielding

;

Breya Reshaped

.

Five-Color

Children of a Greater God

Partners

Tana and Kydele

;

Kynaios and Tiro

;

Ikra and Kydele

.

THE DO-OVER PROJECT

Animar Do-Over

;

Glissa Do-Over

;

Karador Do-Over

;

Karador Version 3

;

Karrthus Do-Over

;

Kresh Do-Over

;

Steam-Powered Merieke

Do-Over;

Lord of Tresserhorn Do-Over

;

Mimeoplasm Do-Over

;

Phelddagrif Do-Over

;

Rith Do-Over

;

Ruhan Do-Over

.

If you’d like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a
campaign that’s been alive since 1987) which is just beginning the saga The Lost Cities of Nevinor, ask for an invitation to the Facebook
group “Sheldon Menery’s
Monday Night Gamers.”