Tournament Riku EDH

Tournament Riku EDH 100 cards, 0 sideboard 1 Riku of Two Reflections 1 Command Tower✨ DCI judge 1 Reflecting Pool✨ 1 Exotic Orchard✨ 1 Forbidden Orchard✨ 1 Taiga 1 Tropical Island 1 Volcanic Island 1 Stomping Ground✨ 1 Breeding Pool✨ 1 Steam Vents✨ 1 Rootbound Crag✨ 1 Hinterland Harbor✨ 1 Sulfur Falls✨ 1 Flooded Grove✨ 1 Cascade Bluffs✨ 1 Gaea's Cradle 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge✨ 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds 1 Reliquary Tower✨ FNM 1 Yavimaya Hollow✨ 1 High Market✨ 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All✨ 5 Forest✨ 3 Island✨ 3 Mountain✨ 33 lands Creatures (in CMC order) : 1 Vexing Shusher✨ Promo 1 Bloom Tender✨ 1 Wood Elves✨ 1 Pestermite✨ 1 Yavimaya Dryad✨ 1 Eternal Witness✨ 1 Glen Elendra Archmage✨ 1 Sower of Temptation 1 Archaeomancer✨ 1 Mystic Snake 1 Urabrask the Hidden✨ 1 Phyrexian Metamorph✨ Promo 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker✨ 1 Mulldrifter✨ FNM 1 Acidic Slime✨ FNM 1 Seedborn Muse 1 Prophet of Kruphix✨ 1 Arcanis the Omnipotent 1 Worldgorger Dragon 1 Deadeye Navigator✨ 1 Inferno Titan✨ XBOX 1 Consecrated Sphinx✨ 1 Palinchron 1 Avenger of Zendikar✨ 1 Tidespout Tyrant 1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger 1 Craterhoof Behemoth✨✒️ 27 creatures Instants (in CMC order) : 1 Pact of Negation✨ 1 Worldly Tutor 1 Mystical Tutor 1 Arcane Denial 1 Spell Crumple 1 Hinder Full art players reward 1 Cyclonic Rift✨ 1 Blue Sun's Zenith✨ 1 Comet Storm✨ Promo Sorceries (in CMC order) : 1 Regrowth 1 Fabricate✨ 1 Cultivate✨ FNM 1 Kodama's Reach✨ 1 Skyshroud Claim✨ 1 Explosive Vegetation 1 Rite of Replication✨ 1 Bribery✨ 1 Time Warp✨ DCI Judge 1 Tooth and Nail✨ 1 Temporal Mastery✨ 1 Time Stretch✨ 1 Genesis Wave✨ Planeswalkers (in CMC order) : 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage✨ 1 Tezzeret the Seeker✨ Artifacts (in CMC order) : 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Sol Ring✒️ 1 Mana Vault✒️ 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Mimic Vat✨ 1 Crystal Shard✨ 1 Birthing Pod✨ Enchantments (in CMC order) : 1 Sylvan Library 1 Survival of the Fittest 1 Leyline of Anticipation✨ 1 Sneak Attack 1 Defense of the Heart 1 Doubling Season✨ 1 Mana Reflection✨ 39 other spells Sideboard

✨= foil
✒️= signed

Arcane denial will eventually be a mana drain - any one have one for trade? Haha, seriously.

This is my current tournament EDH deck. It is extremely fast, developing a board state that results in explosive victories.  It seeks to get out of stage one as soon as possible, quickly moving to late game plays before our opponents, catching them unaware and quickly outgunned.

There are many ways this deck can win and I will highlight some of the interactions at a later time.

 Any suggestions or questions ? C'mon IMTG
  Ashnod's Coupon ---> for someone who makes a suggestion of both a +\- that I immediately sleeve!

Load & View in Deck Builder (Beta)

Riku of Two Reflections
"Riku of Two Reflections had two passions: the study of spellcraft and the study of life. The mage could never choose, but had no time to master both. Through an ancient illusionist's spell, he found the solution: he secretly split himself into two reflections, and each Riku trained and studied for years in its chosen field. Today Riku is hailed as a master of both disciplines, and few know his secrets. The reflections never stray far from each other, and when danger threatens, enemies face the power of both Rikus." 
www.wizards......aily/stf/148

Value
5 mana is a good spot for a commander like Riku. It is not too high, so he can be recast if necessary. At the same time, 5 mana is a lot to spend on a guy with no protection, so you will have to be wary of casting him against control players and have a backup plan if he dies. If he draws removal so you can play your 6-drop, it wasn’t too bad for you .

The most important thing to remember about Riku is what his role is in your deck: an investment in your spells. The payoff may be a little, or it may be great. But Riku represents an investment. He costs you 5 mana and probably an entire turn, for a 2/2 that doesn’t affect the board in exchange for added value for your spells down the road. A question I will ask frequently as we consider other “investment” cards, like Mana Reflection: “Doesn’t Riku already do this?” If you jam your deck full of cards that do what he does, in some form or another, you will have a hand full of dead cards and no threats to multiply.

Now for the colors. Access to blue, green and red, arguably  the best, second best and worst colors for EDH, in that order. Together, however, they are full of powerful and synergistic effects and allow the pilot to play pretty much whatever style they want.

Blue gives access to card draw, bounce, control magic effects, extra turn effects and counters. And fatties.
Green gives access to ramp, graveyard recursion and noncreature destruction. And fatties.
Red gives access to removal, sweeps, land destruction and copy and redirect effects. And yes, more fatties.

Extra Value
Ability 1: “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay . If you do, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.”
A Fork on legs. With the important limitation that it can only copy your own spells. Anyway, that’s some sweet card advantage there. You can copy tutors, ramp spells like Skyshroud Claim, extra turn spells like Time Warp, and even game-ending haymakers like Rite of Replication or Genesis Wave. Copying the right spell at the right time can surely win you the game. 2 extra colored mana is no joke though, so you will find color-fixing is even more important to Riku than to other commanders.

Ability 2: “Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay . If you do, put a token that's a copy of that creature onto the battlefield.”
Of course it gets better. Now he gives you free clones. Incredible. Copying guys with “enters the battlefield” effects (henceforth referred to as “ETB” effects) are the most efficient and powerful way to abuse this ability, since even if the next player casts a sweeper, you will have already attained incredible value for your one card. Creatures like Archaeomancer, Sower of temptation and Deadeye Navigator are the kinds of spells you want to be casting to maximize this particular effect, though there are plenty of less expensive creature spells that love this treatment.

Bonus time!: Using both abilities at once
The most versatile and potentially powerful way of using these abilities is to get them both on the stack. Instants and sorceries which cause non-token creatures to enter the battlefield under your control are at a premium here because Riku can copy the spell on the stack and copy each non-token creature that enters the battlefield when the spell resolves, provided you have the mana and he isn’t removed in response to the original casting. Tooth and Nail or Bribery are good examples of these kinds of spells. When you have all that mana late game and nothing to do with it, this is how you will break through board stalls and take home the win.


Okay so to start this off, the key word of this deck is VALUE.

With these two extremely relevant abilities  Riku of Two Reflections screams value.


Thoughts?

I think the best Riku decks play reactively. Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalken Orrery are my suggestions.

I think the best Riku decks play reactively. Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalken Orrery are my suggestions.

Leyline is in the deck, redundancy in the orrery could be nice, as there are several extra tutors for it, but usually I would rather go after something else, preferably a creature, as this is primarily creature based.
 
So as far as being reactive via creatures, both seedborn muse and prophet of kruphix are along for the ride allowing for extreme flexibility and explosiveness.

Also this deck can be extremely reactive, acting as a toolbox with the right tool for every job. This deck can be piloted in so many ways depending on the meta and other decks involved, going defensive or aggro without changing the deck at all.



Also, I talked about listing some of the interactions, so here we go...

Combo, oops I win

Tooth and Nail, or defense of the heart, fetching:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Pestermite = Infinite hasty attackers. Like any combat wincons, you are cold to fogs like Spike Weaver and Knight-Captain of Eos.
Riku + Palinchron: Infinite mana, infinite Palinchrons. Seems good for a two-card combo with your general. Finish with Genesis Wave, Comet Storm or Blue Sun Zenith
Riku + Worldgorger Dragon: Stack the triggers right for infinite mana and infinite creature ETB triggers. Win with Comet Storm, Genesis wave Blue sun zenith.
Time Warp + Eternal Witness/Archaeomancer + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Crystal Shard/Mimic Vat: Infinite turns.

These are just a few of the combo interactions in the deck... More to come

Ah, apologies on not spotting the leyline. Singleton decks are a bit more difficult to pick through. Also, I find that T2-4 Orrery is one of the best plays my Azami deck can make.  The redundancy (or you could call it consistency) is very welcome. I often use Fabricate to fetch for it.

Ah, apologies on not spotting the leyline. Singleton decks are a bit more difficult to pick through. Also, I find that T2-4 Orrery is one of the best plays my Azami deck can make.  The redundancy (or you could call it consistency) is very welcome. I often use Fabricate to fetch for it.

Fabricate in this deck can usually go after two artifacts thanks to riku, and  Birthing Pod or  Sword of Feast and Famine or crystal shard, or any of the other fine artifacts, but pod and the sword or the pod and the crystal shard are usually my favorite. It allows for insane plays.

Riku copies your creatures, pod the copy - the riku token has the same cmc as the original and move up the chain, and copy that one as it etb as well...

Pod your 3 drop wood elves into sower of temptation, high market their creature away, crystal shard the sower back to hand... Sneak attack makes this even easier, and that's just one small possible interaction...

Seriously, I have had games go like this.
Turn 1. Land + sol ring into mana vault
Turn 2. Second land , into mana reflection
Turn 3. Third land, sneak attack,
Turn 4. Sneak attack palinchron into play, blue suns zenith, draw my entire deck... Play entire deck just for fun... Only then continue to comet storm all opponents for infinite, using boseiju to prevent being countered...

this deck is really awesome

this deck is really awesome

Thanks sorry i pressed don't when I tried to quote, so I also + 1'd to make up the difference

Nice list, thanks for including what foils and signed cards you have! Makes it way more interesting. 2 seggestions right off the bat are Manq Crpyt and Phantasmal Image.

Mana Crypt is arguably the best mana rock in EDH. I think it's almost tied with sol ring, but a little better since you don't have to pay for it. Turn 1 Cultivate is extremely explosive. Even if you draw it later, 2 free mana that is reusable is always useful.

Phantasmal Image is useful in several ways. Firstly, it copies any useful creatures you have like Consecrated Sphinx or Sylvan Primordial. Secondly, it goes infinite with Palinchron. That way even if you don't have vorinclex, you can go infinite for a mere 2 mana. Image is good because a lot of times, riku will be a 1 shot effect. You cast him, copy something, then he dies. Phantasmal Image lets you use riku's second ability without casting him. This is good because you won't always have the mana for riku.

Good luck pimping out your deck and thanks for sharing it!

Absolutely agree with you 100%

1. Mana crypt - for me it's just availability... If I could find one, I would play it

2. Phantasmal image : I have played with it and played without it, and right now it's just hard to know what to cut for it... Thoughts?

i have this problem alot my solution is to just drop some of my basic land so i only use 30 land and then i get the most space for the good cards
i would also look at the non basics and if they dont have an ability that makes a differenc take those out to for example Oboro, Palace in the Clouds i never understood what the purpose of this card was unless u have a card that has an effect that trigers any time u play a legendary or to save it from a land destruction deck it seems like a less affective land to use

i have this problem alot my solution is to just drop some of my basic land so i only use 30 land and then i get the most space for the good cards
i would also look at the non basics and if they dont have an ability that makes a differenc take those out to for example Oboro, Palace in the Clouds i never understood what the purpose of this card was unless u have a card that has an effect that trigers any time u play a legendary or to save it from a land destruction deck it seems like a less affective land to use

 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds is just as good, if not better than a basic island.  It allows for a guaranteed 'landfall' ability, which for, Avenger of zendikar, is never a bad thing. Also, it comes into play untapped.

The mana base is extremely solid. The only thing I have debated is adding the third filter-land for red/green.

I need those basic lands for cultivate and explosive vegetation. Sometimes I need them by the time sylvan primordial etb, having already played most of the other 'forests' with skyshroud claim or wood elves or yavimaya dryad.

I wouldn't advise going too low on land, it is the wind in the decks sails so to speak

I actually was thinking you don't run enough lands ... 33 seems a little low. 

Do you just mulligan often?

I actually was thinking you don't run enough lands ... 33 seems a little low. 

Do you just mulligan often?

I can understand how it might look that way just looking at the list, however there are many ways that the deck works with this.

First off, 33 lands in a 99 card deck means that 1/3 cards is a land card.

Out of the 66 other cards in the deck:

1 Bloom Tender✨ can tap for 3 colored mana
1 Wood Elves✨ tutors up a forest (usually a dual of some type)
1 Pestermite✨ can be used to untap gaea's cradle, or minamo, to untap Armani's to draw a total of 9 cards with him in a turn
1 Yavimaya Dryad✨see wood elves
1 Eternal Witness✨ can snag back a ramp spell (and something else, usually copied for value)
1 Archaeomancer✨ see eternal witness
1 Phyrexian Metamorph✨ Becomes whatever I need, sometimes a second birthing pod, sometimes a sol ring...
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker it's like a little mini goblin riku... No joke sometimes just making a copy of wood elves is enough, sometimes it's sylvan primordial ... Or Pestermite
1 Acidic Slime✨ FNM can be soul bonded with deadeye to machine gun lands)
1 Seedborn Muse untap during opponents turn
1 Prophet of Kruphix same as muse, and a creature flash enabler
1 Worldgorger Dragon can potentially be used for infinite mana
1 Deadeye Navigator a synergistic engine if there ever was one, I like having one for all of my creatures, even the original
1 Palinchron again ... Infinite mana
1 Avenger of Zendikar okay a bit of a stretch .. But saps = to the number of lands is close
1 Sylvan Primordial✨ blows stuff up! gets forests
1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger adds 1 for lands and slows the opponent

17 creatures interact with land in some way

 2 Instants:

1 Worldly Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

Have the ability to look for mana ramp in either spell or creature form, but usually will be reserved for a game winning piece.

12 Sorceries

1 Regrowth
1 Fabricate✨
1 Cultivate✨ FNM
1 Kodama's Reach✨
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Rite of Replication✨ ( sylvan primordial loves having 5 -10 more buddies around) (so does bloom tender with urabrask on the board)
1 Bribery (I am not above playing cornflakes, so why would I be above stealing him out of an opponents deck
1 Time Warp✨ DCI Judge
1 Temporal Mastery✨
1 Time Stretch.     Extra turns = extra turns .... What more can I say ... Extra untap upkeep draw land drop...
1 Genesis Wave✨ by this point I have already own, but it still interacts with lands

3 Planeswalkers

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Tezzeret the Seeker✨ al three of these walkers can help my mana base albeit In different ways, tez interacts with the rocks in the deck and tamiyo and jace draw and scry, or potentially time walk an opponent if timed correctly, which is like boosting my land

7 Artifacts

1 Sensei's Divining Top dig and find what I need
1 Sol Ring✒️
1 Mana Vault✒️
1 Sword of Feast and Famine untap all lands
1 Mimic Vat✨ stick a wood elves on it
1 Crystal Shard bounce a yavimaya dryad and recast her (copied this time) or hit Archaeomancer to recast and snag 2 instants or sorcerers from the                         graveyard
1 Birthing Pod it's like Christmas morning when I get this online and running for more than a single turn lol, y meta has learned to respect the pod

6 Enchantments

1 Sylvan Library helps you dig and is free in activation and you can even get greedy!
1 Survival of the Fittest creature tutor so you are always on curve
1 Leyline of Anticipation✨ because cultivate is best at the end of your opponents turn right before yours
1 Sneak Attack because playing a creature for (R) and copying it with riku is called extra value (especially if you pod off the original before it would be sac'd
1 Defense of the Heart like tooth and nail. It controls how the opponents play, especially if they know the deck
1 Mana Reflection doubles all mana producers!


So 47/66 cards that aren't land interact with it in some way... That is roughly 71% of the deck that isn't land...

So no, I guess the answer is I don't ever really have problems with land. I don't find myself having to mulligan very often.

My meta kinda jokes about this deck just vomiting land onto the battefield... And it does... Then it uses that land to make insane plays

I just was asking cause I was play testing it on the app, and I don't seem to have the same results.

Maybe it is just bad luck.