Tymna & Thrasios Midrange: A Post-Ban Primer

Nearing the end of the calendar year, the cEDH meta has gone through some turbulence over the course of the most significant changes to the banned list the format has seen since the ban of Flash alongside changes to the governance of the format itself.

Despite this, competitive play trudges onward with major events like The Boil 2 (320 players), the cEDH European Championship (277 entrants), The Second Annual Festival of Knights (72 entrants), and The First Annual Baked Ziti Open (94 entrants) among many others shaping this new cEDH landscape. Several decks (both new and old) have found their place solidly in this new post-Dockside, post-Jeweled Lotus, post-Mana Crypt, and post-Nadu meta. 

Among these decks is the partner pairing of Tymna the Weaver, and Thrasios, Triton Hero (known also as T&T, and previously known as Medium Green), which took first overall at both The Boil 2 (credit to Jordan Drake), and The Second Annual Festival of Knights (credit to Max Pfeferman). According to EDHTop16, over the past month T&T has the sixth highest conversion rate in tournaments of sixty or more entrants at around 31% with 83 total top cuts (the highest among qualified decks).

Going by popularity over the same time period, there have been 268 total tournament entries, which is the highest of any qualified deck. With this surge in popularity, you may be asking yourself as a new cEDH player, or perhaps even a relatively entrenched player, "Should I play T&T at my next event?" Hopefully this primer, specifically on the midrange version of T&T, will help you make that decision with as much information and clarity as possible!

For reference purposes throughout this primer, below is my personal deck list, which recently managed to land a Top 16 spot at The Baked Ziti Open: 

Why Play T&T?

Let's start with the meta-specific reasons to play this deck, the first of which being the banning of Dockside Extortionist. Dockside was a creature that characteristically preyed on decks that leaned into both artifact-based mana acceleration and enchantment-based advantage engines. T&T leans into both these strategies fairly heavily.

As we will discuss, the most popular and effective variation on T&T is the midrange variation, which requires time to set up. In the pre-ban meta, this was punished heavily by Dockside Extortionist.

Furthermore, pre-ban, the setup time T&T needed to establish a win line was a little too slow relative to RogSi, Blue Farm, Nadu, Magda, and other explosive decks that really cut through the competitive landscape. Post-ban, the meta as a whole has slowed down significantly, while T&T has been minimally affected by the bans, especially as a sans red deck, thereby allowing its play patterns to match the speed of the decks from the pre-ban meta (and in some cases, maybe even play faster).

The second meta-specific reason to play T&T is that we now have access to Hazel's Brewmaster, which provides us with another Devoted Druid line from which infinite mana can be generated, and dumped into Thrasios's activated ability, thereby allowing us to draw our entire deck and win the game (usually) with Thassa's Oracle.

Because of Brewmaster, Survival of the Fittest has become a one-card combo: if you have one creature in your hand, you can simply activate Survival, discard it, search out Devoted Druid, activate Survival again, discard Druid, and search out Brewmaster, which exiles Druid from your graveyard as it enters making a Food token with Druid's activated ability allowing you to make infinite green mana.

In essence, Survival of the Fittest, purely because of Devoted Druid, is like T&T's version of Underworld Breach, where simply resolving this card can present a win the turn it's cast with minimal telegraphy. 

Beyond these meta-specific factors, the objective card quality in T&T is superior to the vast majority of decks in the meta-right up there with Blue Farm. Unlike Blue Farm, however, T&T also has the ability to generate considerable mana acceleration from creatures like Bloomtender, Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, and Delighted Halfling among other options (which more than makes up for the absence of Mana Crypt).

Having Tymna in the command zone gives you access to a reliable draw engine, while Thrasios offers you an outlet for your infinite mana lines, while providing incidental value through its activated ability all for two mana. 

Adding green over red also gives you access to the premier creature tutors in the format, including Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, Eldritch Evolution, and Neoform. Because you are in blue, black, and white, you still have access to the best black tutors, the best white Silence effects, and the best blue interaction. Ultimately, in a meta without Dockside, T&T almost objectively gets to play with the best cards from the arguably four best colors in the current format.

The big opportunity costs associated with forgoing red are mainly losing access to Underworld Breach, Deflecting Swat, Gamble, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, and Final Fortune. With these broader factors in mind for why one might want to play T&T, let's discuss its core strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

Put plainly, the two major strengths of this deck are its objective card quality and compact win lines. We play the most efficient, and effective forms of mana acceleration in both our artifact base, and creature base, and lean into the best draw engines the format has to offer, along with the best tutors available to us in the meta. What more could one want? I know: straightforward, compact win conditions. 

As we will discuss, this deck is fundamentally a Thassa's Oracle deck with some nifty backup win conditions. Our goal is find the easiest way to resolve Thassa's Oracle and/or put its trigger on the stack, and win, and the parts of the color pie we occupy allow us to have access to some the most efficient, and easy to assemble forms of infinite mana generation at minimal cost to overall card quality, which ultimately can be dumped into Thrasios to draw our entire deck and cast Thoracle (or draw our entire deck in response to Thoracle's ETB). 

Weaknesses

Aside from the opportunity costs of not playing the red part of the color pie (which is really mainly foregoing Underworld Breach lines), there are a few reasons one might shy away from this deck. Firstly, it has skyrocketed its way to the top of the meta in such a short period of time, and has in some ways put a target on its back.

Players are wising up to its play patterns and in some ways building or playing in such a way to specifically deal with T&T. As such, you might find yourself playing in pods where you are over-assessed as the threat at the table, which can lead to frustrating game outcomes, and suboptimal tournament experiences. Secondly, our win conditions are fairly compact, which while a strength can also manifest itself as a weakness.

For starters, a Praetor's Grasp grabbing our Thoracle sets us back immensely; don't get me wrong, the deck can still win without Thassa's Oracle, but it's like losing your first-string quarterback. Secondly, such compact win lines mean that playing even one "A" piece in an "A + B" combo in our 98-card deck can heavily telegraph that we are primed to win the game, putting a target on your back that doesn't need to be there otherwise. 

For example, it might seem efficient to play Kinnan (even if you don't have access to Basalt Monolith yet) simply for mana advantage, or it might be on-curve to play Survival of the Fittest even if you don't yet have a creature to discard to its activated ability and then pass the turn. Taking these actions, while efficient insofar as developing our board state is concerned, can heavily signal to opponents that we are primed to win the game, thereby putting the rest of the pod on high alert.

Because our win conditions lean into permanents, rather than nonpermanent spells, we have to resolve multiple game pieces sequentially, and usually at sorcery speed to start winning the game, which gives opponents more opportunities to interact, especially if our "A + B" combo pieces are resolved one turn before the other, rather than within the same turn. 

Finally, as with most "meta" decks that seek to maximize card quality, there aren't as many slots in your deck to use "pet" cards or tinker with, and doing so may negatively impact the functionality of your deck. While T&T isn't "solved" in the sense that there are many different variations of it (Midrange, Razaketh, and Breakfast among others), each specific variation on T&T is relatively "solved."

Effectively, once you have settled on which "lane" of T&T you want to drive in, there aren't many detours you can take, which for more crafty brewers or those seeking a non-traditionalist or non-meta approach to deckbuilding may be a turn-off. This may not be a weakness per se, but it may be a subsequent factor influencing your choice of this deck within a tournament landscape. 

How Do We Win the Game?

Fundamentally, we are a Thassa's Oracle (Thoracle) deck. How we get to a Thoracle win can take on my different shapes. Simply Thoracle + Demonic Consultation (or Tainted Pact) allows us to exile our entire library with Thoracle's ETB trigger on the stack allowing us to win the game via said ETB with an empty library.

Outside of that obvious A + B combo that every deck with blue and black in their commander's color identity runs, there are a few other ways to empty our entire library and play Thoracle, namely involving Thrasios (which we can cast from the command zone) as an outlet for dumping infinite mana, thereby allowing us to effectively put our entire deck in our hand and win the game with Thoracle or Finale of Devastation (usually Thoracle). So how do we generate infinite mana?

The first way is using Hidden Kinnan lines. Since we're in Simic colors, it's very low-cost to run both Kinnan and Basalt Monolith in our deck, which produces infinite mana as Basalt becomes mana-positive with Kinnan in play allowing us to tap and untap Basalt to generate infinite colorless and then dump all that mana into Thrasios. 

More interestingly, however, we can generate infinite mana through means other than Kinnan/Basalt. The best way to do so in this deck is by using Devoted Druid lines, which involve making Devoted Druid something other than a creature so it can infinitely tap and untap itself by adding -1/-1 counters to it (without dying) after tapping for green (and in one case, blue) mana. So how do we make Devoted Druid a noncreature?

Swift Reconfiguration

For one white mana, this flashable enchantment makes Devoted Druid an artifact Vehicle that retains its abilities. A Vehicle is not a creature, which allows Devoted Druid to infinitely tap and untap itself for infinite green mana. This is the most efficient way to achieve this end, as it only costs one white mana. 

Hazel's Brewmaster

Hazel's Brewmaster is, as mentioned, one of the critical recent entries in this deck that has pushed its presence in the meta considerably. On ETB, Hazel's Brewmaster exiles a card from any graveyard and creates a Food token. That Food token then retains the activated abilities of all activated abilities of specifically creatures exiled by Brewmaster.

So, if you can get Devoted Druid in your graveyard, and resolve Brewmaster, you'll get a noncreature Food token that can infinitely tap and untap to produce infinite green mana. The reason this card is so integral is that it makes Survival of the Fittest arguably the best card in your deck. If Survival Resolves, and you have a creature in your hand, you pay one green, cycle said creature with Survival and find Devoted Druid, and then for another green mana, you cycle Devoted Druid, and find Brewmaster.

For four total mana, you have both planted Druid in your graveyard and put Brewmaster in your hand setting you up for infinite mana potential. Additionally, you can simply cast Devoted Druid, and then utilize Eldritch Evolution allowing you to sacrifice Druid as part of the cost, and then find and put into play Brewmaster from your deck, which on ETB will exile the Druid you sacrificed, thus making a Food token, and generating infinite mana, et cetera. 

Machine God's Effigy

Machine God's Effigy (MGE) is the least-efficient means for us to magically make Devoted Druid not a creature or emulate Devoted Druid's text infinitely. Unlike Swift Reconfiguration, it's quite expensive, and unlike Brewmaster, it's hard to search for and set up. MGE is fundamentally an artifact that clones a creature in play, while still remaining a noncreature artifact that can also add for blue mana. If Druid is in play and MGE resolves, MGE becomes a noncreature copy of Druid allowing you to generate infinite mana that is both blue and green.

This is the one advantage that MGE offers. You can set it up without Thrasios in play and play Thrasios after you've generated infinite mana with said infinite mana you generated. The other Druid lines only produce infinite green mana meaning that if Thrasios isn't in play and you don't have access to a spare blue mana that you cannot win the turn you put your infinite mana online.

It's worth noting that while you can use MGE, it's usually absent across many lists (including my own) due to its relatively expensive mana cost, and simply the availability of better lines (Brewmaster).

Outside of Devoted Druid lines, and Kinnan, there is one other way for us to conveniently generate infinite mana: Valley Floodcaller (without summoning sickness) + Banishing Knack (or Retraction Helix) + one mana-positive rock. If Floodcaller is in play and is not summoning sick (or if you have a Bird, Rat, Frog, or Otter that isn't summoning sick, like Birds of Paradise or Pollywog Prodigy), you cast Banishing Knack (or Retraction Helix-same thing) targeting Valley Floodcaller, allowing it to tap to return a permanent in play to its owner's hand.

If you have a mana-positive rock in play, like Mox Amber, Sol Ring, or Mana Vault, you can tap Floodcaller to return said rock to your hand. You then cast said mana rock, which triggers Floodcaller, untapping it and giving it +1/+1. Once said mana rock resolves, you tap it for more mana than it costs to recast it, and use your now untapped Floodcaller to return said rock to your hand with the mana floating. You then replay said rock, triggering Floodcaller, tap said rock for excess mana again, and rinse and repeat.

This generates infinite colorless mana in the case of Sol Ring and Mana Vault, or infinite mana of colors associated with the colors of legendary creatures or planeswalkers you control in the case of Mox Amber, which can be dumped into Thrasios. 

This line is a little more resource intensive as it's an A + B + C combo line, but very often, we have at least one mana-positive rock in play over the course of the game and can easily tutor out and put into play or flash out Floodcaller making the least reliable piece of this combo Banishing Knack. Banishing Knack is also an easily counterable piece of the combo as it's only one mana, meaning almost all interaction spells hit it.

Having to recast the mana-positive rock over and over again also feeds Mystic Remora and potentially Rhystic Study making the line untenable under certain boardstates. That being said, we are running Floodcaller and plenty of efficient mana rocks, so using one spot in our 98 for a Chain of Vapor-like effect that also feeds into an infinite combo line isn't much more to invest. 

Other Ways to Win

Outside of the primary win conditions described above, we can also win by dumping infinite mana into Finale of Devastation after activated Thrasios to make our creatures infinitely large, and swing at our opponents for lethal amounts of damage.

If we don't have access to either Finale of Devastation, nor Thassa's Oracle, we can always turn to Mnemonic Betrayal to piece together win conditions using our opponents' graveyards, which late into the game after many failed win attempts can contain enough critical game pieces that in combination can create a win condition from scratch. These are really our main win conditions. They are compact by design. While it's not out of the realm of possibilities that we could lose access to these lines, it has yet to happen to me.

In theory, in a deck that can generate infinite mana that runs both Bowmasters and Faerie Mastermind, there are ways to use Bowmasters and infinite table-wide card draw to ping the entire table to death with Bowmasters triggers-although, this heavily dependent on how many cards are left in your library.

The Most Important Cards in Our Deck

To be brief, the most important cards in our deck based on our primary win conditions are Thassa's Oracle, Devoted Druid, and Finale of Devastation. Without Thoracle, Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact are useless, but the infinite we could generate to dig out Thoracle can still be diverted towards Finale of Devastation. Without Devoted Druid, Hazel's Brewmaster, and Swift Reconfiguration become relatively useless, and Survival of the Fittest loses considerable potency.

Kinnan and Basalt are important, too, obviously, but Druid lines for infinite mana should be prioritized over Kinnan and Basalt lines, as they are way more efficient to assemble, and less telegraphed. Without detailing every card in my personal deck list, here are some overperformers based on my testing, and some underperformers that might be worth thinking about for concocting your own brews!

Overperformers

In my play experience, there have been a few surprising overperformers in this deck that consistently end up advancing our game plan, and putting in more work than at face value one would expect:

Tymna the Weaver

I'm never not impressed by how many cards this little Halfling draws me. No matter where the game may be-early, mid, or long-Oghma puts in work. Players are always fetching, and always tutoring, especially in a meta where Sisay is one of the top decks in the meta, and especially in a meta where green is more popular overall increasing the density of Neoform, Eldritch Evolution, and Chord of Calling that will be seen round after round.

He's also a 2/2 meaning he doesn't die to a single Orchish Bowmasters trigger, unlike Esper Sentinel, which is almost always the first target on an opponent's Bowmasters trigger. 

Delney, Streetwise Lookout

This is a recent addition to my build. Critics of this card cite it as being a "win more" card. I would disagree. Delney is an amplifier and accelerator. She amplifies the triggered abilities of some of the best creatures in your deck and accelerates your game plan by doing so.

Delney allows you to draw twice as many cards of Tymna Triggers, deal two damage off of every Orcish Bowmasters trigger, draw two cards off of every Archivist of Oghma, Esper Sentinel and Faerie Mastermind trigger, and doubles the additional mana you would add from non-land permanents with Kinnan in play. Delney makes it so that "less" can be "twice as much" for many of the best creatures in our deck.

Even just Delney and Tymna alone in play is invaluable. In late stages of the game where Tymna attacks become less reliable forms of card draw, Delney allows some of your creatures to sneak in for damage under larger-power creatures on your opponents' boards allowing Tymna draws to stay viable for longer than they ordinarily would. 

Faerie Mastermind

I had this little gem in my original list and then cut it to test Pollywog Prodigy (more on that later), then swapped back for Faerie Mastermind. Faerie Mastermind is like a miniature Kraum in terms of how common it ends up drawing you an additional card. In a meta shaped by players trying to jam many efficient draw engines early and often, Faerie Mastermind rather parasitically preys on the entire table's incentives to draw cards.

Much like Oghma, Mastermind always ends up drawing more cards than you think it would at surface level. While it is more vulnerable to Bowmasters pings, it does have flying, which effectively means it will always be able to land damage on an opponent through combat damage, thereby enabling Tymna draws. At flash speed, it also can be played with minimal telegraphy much like Oghma, and possesses a very interesting activated ability that enables the entire table to draw cards.

While you won't actively want to use this ability, it does threaten to squash Thassa's Oracle Win attempts by forcing the player who jams a Thoracle win attempt to draw from an empty library if they play too recklessly. Mastermind simply being in play forces opponents on Thoracle win lines to be careful about when they go for it or deal with Mastermind first. No other card in the deck by simply being in play acts as a Thoracle deterrent better than Mastermind. Would highly recommend that prospective players test this guy out.

Culling Ritual

I was very hesitant to run this card at all when I first assembled my T&T list. The idea of destroying my own permanents really turned me off to this card. Then I started resolving it successfully and realized that the collective damage it does to your opponents and subsequent ramp it provides is usually enough to set your opponents farther back than you, while possibly giving you a burst of mana to win the game, which happens more often than not.

On average, Culling Ritual usually nets me 7-10 mana on turns three or four if it resolves, which can be dumped into multiple tutors or key cards in hand that can outright win you the game. Not much more needed to be said. Run this card. You don't care (usually) about your permanents that are hit by this as they are usually just mana dorks or mana rocks. 

Underperformers

With the disclaimer that this commentary is based on my own testing and play experiences, I have cut the following cards usually for issues in underperformance that I feel are worth some discussion; this isn't to say that these cards are "bad" by any means, but perhaps are either easier to cut than one might assess or are otherwise lackluster given the deck's play patterns:

Pollywog Prodigy

Being a previous Nadu pilot, I loved Pollywog. It was often very easy to enable its evolve trigger multiple times throughout the game allowing you to accrue massive card advantage. Naturally, when I shifted to T&T, I assumed this card would put in similar work.

Personally, I have felt Pollywog is considerably weaker post-ban. Turn one, unevolved Pollywogs no longer being able to prey on opponents' Mana Crypts and Jeweled Lotuses is a surprisingly massive hit in its overall efficacy within the game. Beyond this, it's much more difficult to evolve Pollywog prodigy beyond a single instance.

Our creature base while wide is comprised mainly of smaller-stature creatures that won't trigger evolve or creatures we would rather be playing instead of Pollywog on-curve (Bloomtender, Archivist of Oghma, Faerie Mastermind, Kinnan, Lotho, Bowmasters, etc.). Unlike Blue Farm and Kinnan decks which don't face as high of an opportunity cost in terms of creatures they would rather be playing out instead of Pollywog, our deck has many other actions that all feel more worthwhile in terms of mana investment than Pollywog.

Going farther, Pollywog offers very little in terms of overall utility in the late game, especially if you lack a means to evolve it efficiently. It felt weird cutting this guy, but I haven't missed it yet. 

Wishclaw Talisman

 Another card that I included outright in my earlier lists simply because on paper it seemed like a high-quality tutor. There are a few issues with this I've encountered after playtesting. Firstly, imagine we are using this card to its maximum effectiveness by casting it and tutoring within the same turn to find a piece necessary for us to win the game and then attempt to do so... The end result is we have effectively Grim Tutored and given one of our opponents what will be a one-mana Demonic Tutor.

If we can't win the game or our win attempt is stopped, Wishclaw can end up handing the game to an opponent even if we otherwise assessed them to be the safest target to pass Wishclaw to. Consider a second scenario: we cast Wishclaw, and pass the turn. Effectively, we are signaling to our opponents that we are going to tutor on a future turn for a key piece that may enable us to win the game, which regardless of whether we communicate that as not being our intention, will still put opponents on high alert.

Oftentimes, I see opponents play more conservatively if I pass with a Wishclaw in play making my windows to win in subsequent turns more cumbersome. Overall, the variance of play quality with Wishclaw has been simply too volatile for my liking. I've instead opted to put Imperial Seal back in the deck, which has yielded lower volatility, and higher quality outcomes for me personally.

Obviously, Wishclaw is also a tool for politicking, but that is a secondary usage in my opinion that doesn't outweigh the volatile play experiences within its primary use.

Training Grounds

I originally had this card in my deck for a long time. After all, we have Thrasios in the command zone and Seedborn Muse in the 98, so why not? Well, a couple reasons: firstly, we are not a turbo deck at our core, and while we can win quickly, Training Grounds is often more impactful in the core of decks like Rog/Thras, where it leans into Thrasios heavily for generating card advantage.

Our deck does not rely or lean on Thrasios during the normal course of the game. We treat the "value" we generate of Thrasios as mostly incidental. It's not our goal to lean into Thrasios's activated ability when we aren't trying to use him as an infinite mana outlet. If anything, I would argue our deck leans more into Tymna than Thrasios, unless we are gunning to win the game.

I've actually had a fair amount of positive experiences with Training Grounds, especially if it's in your opening hand, however, much like Pollywog Prodigy, in the late game, this card is a relatively dead draw, and doesn't generate as much value as you would think making it a relatively easy cut for simply higher quality cards that retain their utility at all stages in the game like Delney, Faerie Mastermind, Eternal Witness, and so forth. 

Drannith Magistrate

A classic stax piece that usually sees itself in almost any list utilizing white. Pros: early on, it shuts down folks from playing their commanders, and throughout the game it turns off opponents' Underworld Breaches, and Mnemonic Betrayals; as a 1/3 creature, it also is a relatively reliable attacker to enable Tymna triggers post-combat. Cons: commanders in the current meta are so low to the ground that even an early Drannith Magistrate doesn't stop opponents from playing their Rograkh, Thrasios, Kinnan, Magda, or other low mana-value commanders.

Even though it statically shuts down Underworld Breach, or Mnemonic Betrayal, it is just as easy to remove from play with a Deadly Rollick or Into the Flood Maw when Breach players are ready to win. I've also found that there are simply other, higher-quality two-mana permanents I would rather be playing on-curve than Drannith: Archivist of Oghma, Faerie Mastermind, Bloomtender, and even Thrasios.

Again, this isn't to say Drannith is "bad" because it certainly isn't, but it is performatively lower in quality in my experience relative to cards that could occupy that slot. Simply put, Drannith doesn't actively advance our game play, while all the aforementioned cards that can be played over it do so. 

Grim Monolith

Grim Monolith is probably the most "controversial" pick among underperformers, but the appeal of this mana rock lowered with each game I saw it in. Yes, the burst of three mana to feed a Chord of Calling or accelerate a Smothering Tithe, or The One Ring into play is terrific, but it's less efficient than Mana Vault and has always thrown off the tempo of the deck for me in early turns.

A Grim Monolith in my opening hand without Tithe or The One Ring never felt "great," while a Mana Vault always felt fine in the exact same hand otherwise. A turn one Mana Vault and turn two Bloom Tender or mana up for Archivist of Oghma or Orcish Bowmasters feels good and actively advances the board at minimal opportunity cost of how I could have otherwise utilized the mana.

A turn two Grim or even a turn one Grim (requiring extra resources of some variety) felt really costly for a one-time burst of three colorless mana. This isn't to say that Grim doesn't synergize with other lines in the deck-it does between Delney + Kinnan to make a "quasi" Basalt Monolith, and Floodcaller + Banishing Knack as it is a mana-positive rock-but fundamentally, the opportunity cost associated with Grim Monolith early-to-mid game has felt really high comparatively.

Late game, with Seedborn Muse, Grim is terrific, but Mana Vault is equally terrific for that instance as well. Simply put, Grim is good, but it's not great, which makes it easily cuttable for strictly higher quality cards. 

General Gameplan 

In the first few turns of the game, we really want to play out a combination of nonland permanents that both generate mana and draw us cards. An ideal opening hand is one that has a couple lands, a mana rock, a mana-producing creature, an interaction spell, and either a tutor or a way to draw cards. 

By turns three or four assuming we've established our draw engines and some mana acceleration, we want to start planning out which win-line is most efficient to pursue. After drawing a plethora of cards through Tymna, Rhystic Study, Remora, Oghma, Mastermind, or one of our many draw engines, it will become very apparent to us what lines are going to be the easiest to assemble.

If we've drawn into Survival of the Fittest, we want to start angling towards a Hazel's Brewmaster Devoted Druid line. If we draw Basalt Monolith and have access to a tutor, we want to start leaning into a Kinnan + Basalt Monolith infinite mana line. If we have drawn into Thoracle, we want to perhaps explore finding Demonic Consultation or Tainted pact, likely with a tutor. 

Between turns four and six, we want to start looking for windows to win the game. Typically, it's easiest to win over our opponents using Valley Floodcaller, Borne Upon a Wind or Emergence Zone, or win under a Silence effect with, well, Silence, and also Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar, Grand Abolisher or Veil of Summer (which is effectively like a Silence effect).

I would say most cEDH games that I've experienced post-ban are going longer than five turns, as the meta has slowed down, so we have the breathing room to really set up our draw engines, play slowly, and let our deck show us the best line to win the game, again, usually with Thassa's Oracle. 

While this sounds simple, that's kind of the point. We have a lot of mana acceleration, really high-quality cards, a myriad of draw engines, and compact win conditions, so we just need the game to go long enough to draw a critical mass of cards, and accelerate the mana available to us, which will inevitably put us in a position where we can start jamming win attempts.

I joke that this deck is "Draw Engine Kindred," but leaning into your draw engines (Tymna, Mastermind, The One Ring, Oghma, Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora) and tutoring for our draw engines early usually rewards us over the course of the game much more so than tutoring for a piece of our win condition early on will do for us.

Unlike Blue Farm, which forgoes green, all the cards we draw can readily be played to amass a large board presence that in and of itself is difficult to overcome on top of the raw card advantage we are naturally accruing. 

Mulligans & General Tips for Piloting

Mulliganing is one of the hardest parts of this deck. There are a lot of opening hands that are Potemkin Villages in this deck, which is to say they look really appealing at the surface level, but aren't really doing anything to progress our game meaningfully. For example, consider the following potential opening hand:

At surface level, this hand seems really nice. We have two lands, two one-mana mana dorks, a board wipe in Culling Ritual, an Eternal Witness, and Mnemonic Betrayal. Turn one could be a fetch, and cast Delighted Halfling, followed by a turn two Tymna, and that's about it.

By the time we starting threatening to attack with Tymna it's turn three, and we don't really know how we are going to win the game the yet, nor do we have any meaningful way to interact with our opponents other than Culling Ritual, which given our opening hand seems really bad to jam given how we are really leaning into Noble Hierarch and Halfling. A Mnemonic Betrayal in the opening hand isn't great either.

As a card that gets better as the game slogs on, Mnemonic Betrayal is relatively useless until graveyards start to amass potential tutors to recycle or pieces of compatible win conditions to reuse. In theory, Culling Ritual could do some of this work for us, but to rely on both of these resolving with no way to back them up with our own counterspells or interaction pieces is a tall order. Again, at surface level, this looks like a nice hand, but really is not worth keeping, especially with no meaningful interaction at all. Now consider instead the following hand: 

This hand is actually pretty solid. Maybe not a snap keep, as factors like where I'm seated in turn order as well as the other decks at the table would influence my decision to keep this hand, but I would personally be leaning towards keeping. Boseiju and Swords are meaningful pieces of interaction, which is important to have. We have Noble Hierarch as an obvious turn one play.

Turn two, we can play Grand Abolisher, and leave mana up to Swords a threat if needed, and then turn three, we can jam an uncounterable The One Ring if our Grand Abolisher is alive, get protection, and start drawing cards, and as each turn passes, The One Ring draws us more and more cards making it very easy by turns four and five to accumulate potential pieces of interaction, additional mana acceleration, and pieces of win conditions that make more clear how we should start to close the game out.

The key difference between these two hands is the ability for us to progress our gameplan, which revolves around accumulating card advantage at an exponential pace over the course of the game. The first opening hand does not do this particularly efficiently, nor does it have any means to slow down our opponents. The second has both a piece of mana acceleration, a Silence effect, and one of the most potent draw engines in the game that we can land on turn three, while possessing meaningful forms of interaction. 

Given that one of the weaknesses of this deck is its ability to easily "tip" its position to opposing players, I would recommend making a conscious effort to play conservatively, and patiently. Sometimes, passing with mana up is better than using that mana to cast a premature Devoted Druid that will likely eat a removal spell or warp your opponents to hold up interaction for your next turn.

Because this deck generates so much mana and card advantage, it can be tempting to play it very greedily, which will likely be met with punishment. You do not want to appear as a threat to the degree that you can avoid it. 

Quietly draw your cards bit by bit, and accelerate your access to mana, and when you have the density of resources you need, and the win line identified, then start thinking about how to go for a win in one fell swoop, rather than through piecewise accumulation turn after turn. T&T is at its best when the game reaches a midrange state.

You naturally want the game to progress into a grindy state, where your value engines are in full-throttle, and your mana acceleration is leagues beyond your opponents. As cliche as it sounds, let your deck do the work for you, rather than you trying to work the deck into a premature win attempt.

Coming from a pre-ban meta that was really turbo-leaning, this play pattern was actually really difficult for me to adapt to (made more difficult as a former Nadu pilot, which wanted to do the exact opposite), and will likely be a learning curve unto itself that prospective pilots will have to be comfortable with.

Concluding Thoughts

This was as exhaustive of a primer as I could justify for online syndication, so if you read through this, then thank you! I hope it's provided a solid foundation for approaching Tymna and Thrasios as a potential option to fit your cEDH needs. The midrange variation, while being the most popular version, is not the only way to play this shell. As you get more comfortable with the partner pairing, you can really explore the brewing space to lean into Thrasios more than Tymna, lead into different engines, and so forth.

The sky is really the limit for this sans red color combination, so get cracking, and try your hand with T&T on Spelltable, with your friends, or at your next tournament event!