(Wydwen, the Biting Gale by Matt Cavotta)

Hello ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary card sharks. Before getting into the meat and potatoes of Dimir Voltron Kinda-Combo, I want to quickly clear up what this series is about for any new readers and also that one guy who left a mean comment. You know who you are.

You know how budget deck techs take a strong commander and try to help you pilot them without breaking the bank?

This is the opposite.

Here we take objectively bad or otherwise underwhelming commanders that are outclassed by others in nearly every way and see if they have any potential by dumping garbage loads of dollarydos on top of them.

What we aren't doing is taking completely useless commanders and spending $30,000 on them for the meme. You aren't gonna see any vanilla Legends losers or Portal Three Kingdoms historical reenactment enthusiasts at the helm, we want them to have some sort of compelling mechanical hook.

We also don't just include expensive cards for absolutely no reason. There doesn't need to be a good reason for a single, just some sort of justification. So I'll run a copy of The Abyss in my Tetzimoc, Primal Death Stax deck because it fits the theme, but I won't jam The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale into my Rakdos, the Defiler token deck (coming soon™) just because it would raise the price.

One last note: I tend to put stupid combos in my decks because I love that jank. My first deck that wasn't a flimsy trench coat full of Llanowar Elves was an absurd infinite Ornithopter deck with Parallel Lives + Prototype Portal + Clock of Omens + Beastmaster Ascension. I could've just ran a Presence of Gond + Village Bell-Ringer combo, or even just switched to Memnite and cut out the enchantment, but making the sky dark with Ornithopters is the beauty of Magic to me. If you disagree and want to trim the lists for more consistency, go for it.

Spending Way Too Much on Wydwen, the Biting Gale EDH

With that all out of the way, we're gonna take that $13,000 bus crash settlement and use it to fuel Wydwen, the Biting Gale, because c'mon Dimir's perfect for voltron one-shotting. You've got artifact tutors... and... uh....

ahem

Anyways, Wydwen is hot stuff because you can flash her out and back into your hand on a dime, which lets you drop her right after a board wipe and piss in your opponents' mouths with commander damage while keeping her safe, sterile, and available at all times.

Now high-budget Dimir Faerie Voltron is all well and good, but let's say you want to get really stupid with it.

May I introduce, your new gods.

1. Leyline of Anticipation, Vedalken Orrery, Shimmer Myr

You drop one of these bad persons and your opponents probably won't quite catch onto your plans right away. The first two are pretty commonplace, Shimmer Myr's a little weird but whatever it must be some kind of artifact combo deck.

2. Brass Squire

In the words of a famous union-busting rat, It's a surprise tool that'll help us later!

3. Clock of Omens

Wait what

4. Horizon Stone, Doubling Cube

Aight, this is where it gets stupid.

The grand plan (that isn't technically a combo kill since we're not just generating infinite mana and playing Exsanguinate like a nerd) is to drop something that lets you play everything at instant speed, keep the board under control while saving up mana with not-Kruphix and Doubling Cube, and drop about 20 swords and Wydwen into play when the opportunity presents itself. I'm running Clock of Omens because it's a pet card I played in the aforementioned Ornithopter deck and because it's very efficient at turning our Equipment into mana generators and Brass Squire Gatorade.

Oh also I wrote all of that before remembering that Hammer of Nazahn exists... so yeah use that too.

Highlights

Taking a moment to gush about one of my favorite cards, Midnight Clock is a jam. It's a mana rock that turns into a Timetwister in a few turns, and I love it for that. We're also running the usual Timetwister but come on that doesn't even tap for mana, what an awful card.

I love Force of Despair. Having an instant one-sided board wipe for potentially zero mana is ridiculous if you can time it properly. It shuts down mass resurrection, token generation, and it's especially nice here because we have so many blue sanitary wipes that bounce creatures to hand. It's also never really a bad card to have. At worst it's a Murder with slightly trickier timing and at best it's an instant speed Plague Wind for three mana.

Eon Frolicker is a very silly card that I'm testing out in a load of decks. Its purpose in this giant pile of flaming cash is to stir up some chaos and refocus your opponents' aggro for a moment. It also gives you some nice padding against combo kills since you have protection from that player during their extra turn and their regular turn. If nothing else, it's a cute card that helps you play Kingmaker after Bailey makes you discard your hand you stupid son of a...

Wincons

The main way you win without Horizon Stone shenanigans is by wiping the board on your turn, flashing in Wydwen with some equipment, and playing Sunder so everyone scoops. I know mass land dickery is frowned upon, and when you're not doing anything afterwards I agree. However, if it sets you up for winning the game I have no problem with it. Sometimes you gotta pave paradise to put up some parking lots.

Zur's Weirding is the first and only card I've ever taken out of a deck because it was too powerful and annoying. If this thing sticks at the right time, you can just stop your opponents from playing the game. It also affects you, but ideally this is after some boardwipe/Sunder shenanigans when you have an anime Fairy with five swords and an angsty backstory out and about.

I do want to make a note about extra turn spells in EDH. I don't like 'em. I've sat through so many games at my LGS where someone takes 10 extra turns and goes as aggravatingly slow as possible without actually killing anyone. I've also been that dickhead trying to piece together a win in an Izzet combo deck and drawing the game out for 20 minutes as I copy Time Warp five times. This deck would probably be stronger with a Temporal Trespass or Notorious Throng, but I'm excluding them purely because of Narset, Enlightened Master PTSD. If you want to run 'em, knock yourself out.

Weaknesses

Honestly this list is pretty strong and functions much more consistently than either of my previous builds (linked here cough cough). It's half of your standard Dimir flash/control and half equipment/voltron, with a little bit of Naomi combo stupidity thrown in for fun. I would like to point out that the deck lacks targeted removal with all of the board wipes, and it can be a little slow to get going without drawing the Mana Crew, but otherwise it's a nice lil' stabby countery deck.

Go forth my children, bounce thine lands and sew thy discord. Also seriously try out Eon Frolicker and get back to me I can't decide if its great or horrible.