My Favorite EDH Deck: Insidious Turbo Roots
- Leo De Jesus
- Sep 19, 2024
- 8 min read
Hey everyone!
Finally...
Article number two of 2024!
Apologies on the wait, but I can guarantee that this deck-tech and the news for the blog are worth it!
Intro
Starting with the news, I’m getting back into writing more consistently for the blog. I may not be writing/releasing articles once every week or every other week as advertised, but I will be posting more interesting content and aim for at least one post per month. Who would’ve guessed that being in school full-time and working full-time would mean having less time for writing about and playing Magic!
The Secret Commander: Insidious Roots
The reason I built this deck
With the announcements out of the way, I’m very excited to present this deck-tech for my newest and favorite commander deck that I call Insidious Turbo Roots! As the name loosely implies, the whole point of the deck is to get Insidious Roots out as fast as possible and to use and abuse it as much as possible. Insidious Roots is a two mana enchantment (mana value BG) that says "creature tokens you control have “tap: add one mana of any color.” " Right off the bat, having a Cryptolith Rite ability for your tokens is fantastic if you can guarantee you’re making a ton of tokens. Insidious Roots also has “Whenever one or more creature cards leave your graveyard, create a 0/1 green Plant creature token, then put a +1/+1 counter on each Plant you control.” This second ability is what the whole deck strives to use and abuse. We want to have creature cards leaving
the graveyard by any means necessary to amass an army of giant plant tokens to take everyone else out with combat damage. We’ll go over the most impactful cards by utility and finish off with the one infinite combo in the deck.
The Actual Commander
To both fill and empty the yard
Tayam, Luminous Enigma, is an excellent commander in its own right and a fantastic commander for what we need. For one colorless mana and one each of white, black, and green, Tayam is a 3/3 Nightmare Beast that reads "Each other creature you control enters the battlefield with an additional vigilance counter on it." As this deck is working to win with combat damage, giving your creatures vigilance is a huge upside and it helps fuel the second ability. For the cost of three colorless mana and removing three counters from among creatures you control, Tayam's activated ability reads, "Put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard, then return a permanent card with converted mana cost three or less from your graveyard to the battlefield." This ability lets us mill three and get something out of the bin (and we're allowed to pick one of the things we mill over.) This ability is incredible for finding our critical cards and keeping them out of the graveyard. Almost anything that gets milled over or destroyed can be brought right back for just three mana. The removing of three counters won't be a problem once Insidious Roots is out as you can easily just remove the counters from your smallest plant tokens.
Filling the Graveyard
Since we want creature cards leaving the graveyard we first need to get creature cards into the graveyard. For that we are running 35 creatures and a ton of ways to get them in the bin. Since Tayam gets permanents with MV three or less, a lot of the key pieces of the deck are very cheap to cast.
Satyr Wayfinder helps find lands and fills up the bin with up to four cards at once.
Milikin and Skull Prophet can both make mana and mill.
Dogged Detective surveils two cards on ETB to improve our draws, get some cards into the yard, and can trigger the roots if one of your opponents is drawing too many cards.
Wight of the Reliquary is a great sac outlet to put some of our recursive creatures back in the yard. The best target for Wight of the Reliquary being Bloodghast as the land coming in will bring the Bloodghast right back essentially getting a guaranteed additional land drop every turn.
Aftermath Analyst gets three cards in the bin on ETB and can bring back all of our milled lands back in.
Mulch, Unmarked Grave, Grapple with the Past, and Corpse Churn all fill the graveyard for less than three mana and help us trigger the roots and/or make some land drops. The most consistent graveyard filling comes from our enchantments since we can use them every turn.
Cemetery Tampering gets three cards every turn and Ripples of Undeath gets three and lets you save one every turn in case you mill something essential.
Last we have cards like Life from the Loam which have dredge. This can mill us a ton and also trigger the roots in the case of Shambling Shell, Golgari Thug, and Stinkweed Imp.
Emptying the Graveyard
Now that we know how to get stuff in the bin, this section will cover how to get creatures cards out.
Reassembling Skeleton is a staple in aristocrats and graveyard builds because it can get itself back for just two mana.
Skyclave Shade and Bloodghast can be returned from the graveyard with landfall triggers.
Tenacious Underdog can keep coming back with blitz and draw us cards too.
Eternal Witness can get any card out of the bin once which is great for getting back some removal when necessary or another creature when we have Insidious Roots out. We also run Eternal Witness’s cool new cousin, Evolution Witness, which can repeatedly get cards out of the bin for two mana since Tayam lets us remove counters from creatures.
Doomed Necromancer lets us get some of our big threats out of the bin and with a MV of three, we can recur it with Tayam.
Sun Titan is a classic graveyard payoff returning permanents that are MV three or less on ETB and each attack.
Honest Rutstein makes casting our creatures easier and gets us one out of the graveyard on ETB.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den can cast spells with MV two or less from the graveyard once per turn.
We also have a package of sorceries and instants that let us return things from the graveyard. Unearth, Urborg Repossession (triggers Insidious Roots twice when the kicker is paid,) Dryad’s Revival, Sevinne’s Reclamation, and Cosmic Rebirth all do a great job at getting back our creatures and utility pieces.
Utility Cards
While I wish I could run 30 lands and 69 synergistic combo pieces, this deck does need some utility/support cards to hold us over while we look for our most necessary cards. Having support effects on our returnable creatures really smooths out a lot of games.
Haywire Mite can keep the board clear of pesky enchantments and artifacts.
Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar makes attacking with our plant army into card draw.
We run one copy of Assassin’s Trophy because we need some catch all removal.
The group of Kami of False Hope, Spore Frog, and Selfless Spirit make our board very hard to interact with, especially with Tayam out to keep recurring them every turn for three mana.
One of my favorite utility cards is Rampant Rejuvenator. It normally comes down as a 2/2 that you can hold up as chump blocker and get two lands out of it. However, since it is also a plant creature, it grows with each of our Insidious Roots triggers, gets freakishly huge, and often empties our library of all the basic lands we have when we or one of our opponents deals with it.
C-C-C-COMBO CARDS!
The last section we’ll go over is the deck’s combo kill. It requires a few cards, but it can be pretty reliably assembled as we can get the pieces out of our graveyard with Tayam.
Necessary Prerequisites:
On the Battlefield
Insidious Roots
At least one creature in the graveyard
At least one creature in hand
Some amount of black mana available (preferably not from your tokens tapping)
Combo Steps:
Start by activating Tortured Existence to return a creature from your graveyard to your hand by discarding a creature and paying one black mana.
This triggers Insidious Roots so you get a token.
Due to Concordant Crossroads and/or Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler you can use that new token immediately to tap for black mana and activate Tortured Existence again.
Repeating these steps results in you generating infinite plant tokens that are all infinitely big(technically cascading in size but big enough to close out a game)
If you have any amount of plants that are untapped from the start of the loop you can swing in with massive plants on this same turn.
The next turn you'll untap with all of your infinite plants which can close out the game.
To Guarantee a Win in One Turn:
Gnarlid Colony and/or Abzan Falconer: These cards give all of our plants trample and/or flying respectively. If you start the combo loop with these already out and some untapped plants leftover, you can go for the kill the same turn you assemble the combo.
Greater Good / Disciple of Freyalise: While going through the loop without the pieces to go infinite, you can count the cards in your library and use one of these two cards to sacrifice the token that would make you draw all but one card. With your deck in your hand you should be able to find the creatures and enchantments you need to finish going infinite.
Three Tree City (Naming Plant) - No matter when in the game you get it, choose Plant. It helps with all the mana you’ll need to activate Tayam a bunch to find your combo pieces and get a ton of free activations of Tortured Existence.
Wrap Up & Final Deck List
And that’s the deck! The play style is super fun but it’s not without its drawbacks. It is a lot of maintenance and fiddly bits on the board as triggering the roots multiple times in a turn takes longer and longer as you create tokens, add the die, and uptick all the other die. You can’t condense the tokens because each plant came in at a different time and had different amounts of +1/+1 counters placed on them. You have to separate the summoning-sick from the not-summoning-sick tokens. Also, any graveyard deck can become difficult to pilot when the graveyard fills up as you have to be mentally aware of your hand and graveyard to find the optimal lines. I’ve minimized these drawbacks by testing/practicing with the deck a ton as well as being prepared with the tokens and dice I’ll be using. It might sound silly but you save a lot of time orienting your d6s a certain way on your tokens. In a deck where you uptick the amounts a ton, knowing where the next number is saves a lot of turn time when incrementing 20+ die. All to say that this deck is definitely one that functions better on MTGO/Arena as it does everything for you.
Despite the drawbacks listed above, this has become my favorite deck, hands down. It plays at a decent level (7-8) since there are some tutors but is easily tuned down for a more casual game. Every unique group I’ve played with has loved seeing it pop off even while they’re on the receiving end of it. All that is multiplied by the fact that it’s all built around one of my favorite cards ever printed. Full deck list below.
I hope you enjoyed the article! I always love hearing from folks to see what they’d change, upgrade, and try. (You could run this deck in sultai colors with Muldrotha at the helm) If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hi please leave it in the comments or send me a message by clicking here!
And as always, play nice & no shoving.
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