Deck Name: Yusri Self-Wheel
Commander: Yusri Fortune's Flame
Draw cards, self-wheel and assemble a curiosity combo.
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Yusri Self-Wheel is a Niv-Mizzet, Parun deck in disguise. The goal is to stick a draw or discard triggering damage creature on the board with a Curiosity effect to win the game. finding a combo is less reliant on tutors and more so luck as the deck is packed with self-wheeling options. Wheeling for a win normally wouldn't be a reliable strategy, but if omniscience is obtained the lines become numerous while remaining manageable.
Yusri, Fortune's Flame can move faster than Niv as the command zone and still provides card advantage. Although not consistent, Yusri will on average draw 2.5 cards for 5 life. Yusri also provides mana advantage if all his flips are won via reducing spells cast from hand to . The odds of this are low, even with Krark's Thumb, but the deck is designed to provide a very high likelihood to win when that happens.
All the wincons in the deck are simple A+B combos commonly found in Niv lists.
Simply have a permanent from section A and one from section B on the field at the same time, start the chain and end the match.
"A" Combo List
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Glint-Horn Buccaneer
Brallin, Skyshark RiderPlus
"B" Combo List
Curiosity
Ophidian Eye
Tandem LookoutCombos Explained: The A category all have triggers dealing with drawing or discarding cards to deal damage. The B category all have triggers that draw cards on damage. Deal damage to draw cards that deals damage that draws cards, etc, forever until all opponents are reduced to 0 life.
Breaking down each options of the "A" part of the combo from most favorable to least is as follows:
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Firstly, this Niv can't be countered which removes a huge amount of stack interaction to help him stick on the board. Secondly, this option provides card advantage whenever any player casts an instant or sorcery - the biggest benefit being that the Curiosity combo can be started very easily. This is the ideal option for "A."
Glint-Horn Buccaneer
This pirate is the main reason this deck lacks "no maximum hand size" options as the cleanup step is vital! What happens here is that if the pilot's hand is over the maximum allowed size, let's say eight, the game will force the player to discard a card. When this happens the Glint-Horn trigger will go off, dealing a damage to each opponent and drawing three cards. The game then has an additional cleanup step and says "Hey, you have too many cards in hand, discard to seven." When this is done the Glint-Horn trigger will go off, dealing three damage to each opponent, drawing nine cards and going to cleanup and doing it all again.
"Wouldn't the pilot deck themselves if an opponent had more life than they had cards? Where is Thassa's Oracle?" Ah yes, great question! Thoracle is not in the deck because it's literally too risky and it involves stopping the chain, putting on the stack, and starting the chain again. Instead, because the pilot can control which cards are being discarded, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth can be used to draw infinite cards by shuffling itself and the graveyard back into the library. The may condition of Curiosity and Ophidian Eye ensures that if Kozilek happens to be the last card in the library it can still be discarded.
An additional advantage of Glint-Horn is that the activated ability provides card advantage, turning one discarded card into three draws. In the situation the pilot has 1 card in hand after resolving Glint-Horn and a Curiosity effect, they can pay essentially 8 mana (4 and 4 red) to get to eight cards before the end step, and that's a worst case situation. This is the second best option.
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
The problem with this Niv is that it can be countered and cannot start the combo itself unless a whole round has finished, and even then only before the draw step, which would start it anyway.
Brallin, Skyshark Rider
Same result as Glint-Horn but without the ability to gain cards in hand the turn it's played. The +1/+1 counters and the activated ability to gain trample have no meaningful impact on the gameplan.
Please note that Tandem Lookout is not a may so the ability to control the combo is much less.
Enable Yusri with Krark's Thumb and wheel-out.
"Wheeling is wheelie *** awful" - PWP
True wheels involve a high amount of risk due to the fact the opponents, counted together, get 3x more options in-hand than the player and discards the other cards which could fuel another player. This isn't ideal so this deck avoids that if possible.
The thing is that if Yusri does hit all wins with his flips, wheeling can lead to more wheeling until the combo is met and wheels on their own cause all the draw triggers this deck needs.
Let me introduce what I call "Whirling" aka self-wheeling. This term comes from all the whirlpool creatures that allow a pilot to shuffle their hand into their library and draw that many. If Yusri hits all wins on the flips, wheel and cast the wincons to close the game. Building the deck in this way gives Yusri card advantage, mana advantage and a reliable wincon tutor.
That's the gameplan: whirl, whirl, ..., whirl, combo, win.
The whirling cards include:
Whirlpool Drake (twice if it dies).
Whirlpool Warrior (also a true wheel for at instant speed).
Whirlpool Rider
Into the Fire (option of being a low toughness sweeper).
Valakut Awakening
Credit Voucher Can be dropped on-curve and sat on.
Midnight Clock Mi-night take a while to pull off.There are not enough whirl options to make it a consistently-drawn effect. Due to this, the following wheels are also included:
Windfall
Winds of Change