cEDH Deck Tech: Tevesh, Doom of Fools & Kraum Ludevic's Opus Storm

This article features a Decklist of Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus. It's a cEDH list, without any limitations. This deck fits as a turbo / storm and unlike most turbo decks, it manages to migrate well to the mid / late game, as well as the blue farm.

This list was an adaptation of mine based on the list present in the database cEDH DDB made by the player themanaweb, but it used more wheels than mine. I think it's necessary, and I didn't use good cards for the mid/late game like Dauthi Voidwalker and Opposition Agent, some other changes were made by me to the list to fit it better to my tastes and what I knew I would face. It's a very consistent deck and gave me the victory in the cEDH Brazil tournament.

Before I start talking about each of the commanders, I'll talk about why I chose each one of them. Kraum is a great choice in this meta where it's rare that players don't cast two spells at least on their turn in addition to guaranteeing me two essential colors for the deck, red for its speed and storm tools, and blue for counterspells, card advantage engines, tutors and more storm engines. Tevesh Szat, on the other hand, grants me access to black where I get more rituals, tutors and pieces that hinder opponents, it also grants me plenty of draws in the command zone since he can sacrifice other creatures to make me draw cards.

A 5-cost planeswalker commander, having a higher cost than Tymna and one less color, Tevesh is an important tool for the deck, as we have a recurring card advantage engine that doesn't depend on hitting opponents, it is also harder to die for creating creatures to protect you and being able to keep upping its loyalty.

Another 5-cost commander who is important both as a source of card advantage, as well as a tool to reduce the life total of Ad Nauseam players, thus reducing the number of cards they will draw.

This deck is pretty fast, of all the games I've played with it, whether it's test or during tournament the wins have occurred until turn 4 and with one to two protections, showing how fast, consistent and resilient this deck can be. Most keepable hands have one or two lands, 1-2 counters/interactions, 2-3 ramps a tutor or wincon and a draw engine, or more ramp to play one of the commanders. In general, the deck wants to go down some card advantage engine on turns 1 or 2, to draw a lot and dig the wincon and go for the win in the next turn, if you need to stop the one player before, maybe postpone the win a little to find more protections.

This deck has 3 main wincons: Thassa Consult, Breach Freeze and Ad Nauseam.

Ad Nauseam

This is not exactly a way to win the game itself, but resolving it while you have a lot of life can put you in a win situation, normally this deck draws 18 to 22 cards without going for 10 or less life, and this usually grants you enough rituals, ramps, and tutors/winconditions to take the game some other way.

Thassa Consult

Combo Condition: Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact in hand, and enough mana to cast them.

1 — Cast Thassa's Oracle.

2 — Answer its ETB by casting the other spell from your hand, naming a card you don't have in your library, or exiling until the last card.

At Thassa's Oracle's ETB resolution, you win the game.

Breach Freeze

Condition for combo: Underworld Breach and Brain Freeze and a positive rock mana and Displacer Kitten or Lion's Eye Diamond. All permanents on the battlefield and Freeze in hand. At least 3 cards in the graveyard and two colored mana available.

Here we have different ways to follow the same wincon. With the kitten you don't discard your hand, but it has more difficulty to generate mana, and with the LED you won't have cards in your hand, both will work to guarantee mana for you. The kitten untaps the rocks with blink, or spawn multiple ETBs from Dockside Extortionist, while you cast freeze or other spells.

The idea is to cast Brain Freeze and generate mana, either with the LED or with the cat and ramps until your entire deck is in the graveyard and then, with a high storm count, freeze your opponents until they run out of deck, or cast Thassa's Oracle for the win.

Draw

Essential in almost every deck, card advantage tools are widely used in different formats, in this deck we use in addition to blue enchantments, and the commander's "baby Kraum", also known as Ledger Shredder that filters the cards from your hand in the same moment that Kraum would draw you a card, Skullclamp, which makes Tevesh not need to kill your creatures, and only generates them for you guaranteeing many draws, Dauthi Voidwalker that even though it is not a draw engine, disables opponents from using their graveyard while allowing you to use one of the exiled cards with it, without paying its cost, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer which steals opponents' top deck cards, excellent for disabling top deck tutors while it generates treasures, Birgi, God of Storytelling, which has its other side where it allows you to discard a card to exile 2 from the deck and cast this turn, in addition to the Ad Nauseam, mentioned earlier.

In this list, I removed Peer into the Abyss because it costs two more mana than Ad Nauseam and is a sorcery, even though most likely guarantees your victory.

Ramp

The deck is full of ramp, they make up more than 25% of the list, as commanders are needed and are essential for the deck to stay well and relevant in the game, all positive mana rocks are present, as well as black rituals and some red ones, this makes it easier for the deck to storm and be able to win early in the game in addition to making it possible to end a Nauseam with means to win the game.

Displacer Kitten has incredible potential in this deck, especially with Dockside Extortionist - every noncreature you cast you will generate another dockside ETB or untap your positive rocks, giving you even more available mana and making it possible that you continue to cast your spells. Birgi, God of Storytelling is a very relevant mana source as well, basically reducing the cost of all your spells by one and granting you a much better setup for storming.

Tutors

The deck has all the forbidden tutors to find wincons, in addition to the top deck tutors like Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, Lim-Dul's Vault and Mystical Tutor.

We also have Gamble as a tutor for the hand along with Demonic Tutor, Wishclaw Talisman and Diabolic Intent which is a Demonic Tutor who needs a sacrifice, easily provided by Tevesh. We also have Opposition Agent, to steal opponents' cards and Intuition, which tutors you 3 cards, and opponent chooses one to stay in your hand and the other goes to the graveyard.

Urza's Saga, is a land that spawns you a creature to sacrifice to a Culling the Weak or to Tevesh, and still allows you to search for positive mana rocks.

Interaction

Removals:

Interactions:

Removals and interactions are essential to remove threats and protect yourself, this deck has the most efficient removals and counters possible to maximize efficiency, stax pieces slow down the deck a lot, sometimes completely preventing it from playing for this reason the deck plays with Toxic Deluge, Cyclonic Rift and March of Swirling Mist to get rid of game-locking pieces and be able to combo on the same or next turn.

Strengths

Fast, consistent and fun deck, very well established value pieces and the deck manages to do very well against other turbo or midrange decks.

Weaknesses

The deck doesn't do well against Stax decks, as they slow it down enough for it to fall behind and get into trouble in the game.

I close this article here, stay tuned as we will soon have another cEDH deck guide with interesting differences!