cEDH River Song Control, Top 4 Tournament Report, Deck Tech - Control Winter - Magic the Gathering

[@089Memo90]

I can confirm that your deck didn’t do shit in the prep games we played together 😂 But who cares, you nailed it on Saturday! Congrats on a stellar performance! 🎉

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I was so unconfident going into this event. It’s wild that after this tournament run my winrate with it is still below 25% 😂

[@RhythmBeast360]

I'm so happy to see this. When I saw River Song, I knew there had to be an interesting build that would be cEDH viable. Thanks for showing some of the possibilities with this card.

[@TForgery]

Oh that's super cool! I've been wondering how to build River since she got spoiled, but playing her in cEDH makes a ton of sense

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Honestly I think there is way more fun stuff to do with her in casual

[@Teknomahge]

Great performance, I love what you did with one of my favorite Dr. Who characters.

[@sushimahjongfc]

I was building this and this video helps me so much. Ty. Also I resolved an intuition pile with breach, a bait and transplant to later on win with dockside and a ton of treasures. the transplant let me peer to my deck until I found Barrin. Transplant it’s a great card. Hope you revisit this deck!

[@ngbrother]

Great coverage - earned my sub. Excited about River Song. #controlwinter

[@FettNotch]

Wow I’ve been thinking about this deck idea since the spoilers came out, mostly thinking about a blood moon/back to basics variant, now I definitely need to build that!

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I don’t think Moon is very good right now with how strong Dockside is but back to basics would be devastating in here for sure.

[@Gay4MapleSyrup]

I built riversong with the goal to just make people search/scry or give them the option to and going “you MAY scry if you want” or destroy a land and the opponent may search and just be like “here’s value, and damage”

[@GojiDemon]

Do you got a deck list?

[@KOKO-27]

Congrats on getting Top 4! My friend who's a huge Doctor Who's fan was happy to hear River Song is putting in work! Guild Gang! Will you be continuing to play River Song in other tournaments?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I might come back to her later but for now I am gonna look at some other decks. River will probably be what I play when I guest on streams and such for a bit though.

[@morganelliott3145]

Congrats

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Thank you I am hella proud :D

[@morganelliott3145]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander hell yeah. As you should be, happy to see you get your first top 4

[@ZhippyMTG]

Pleasure getting to play those final two games (or at least final two for me). Quick question for you, is there a reason you are on Phimage over the new Flesh Duplicate and and also Dack Fayden vs Thada Adel (assuming Dack is in there to steal the one ring)?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I am probably going to end up on both since clones were so strong in that event, but my reasoning was based purely on 1U vs UU casting cost. Dack is there to steal on board artifacts like mana rocks to set people back more so than the one ring but he is probably getting cut for the flesh duplicate. Also it was great playing with you! The fetchland play to kill the Atraxa player was the coolest moment of the whole tournament for me, i was happy it paid off for both of us.

[@nilescobb2466]

great vid. love form deck vids like this #cedh #mtg #controlwinter #edh #EDH

[@FizzarolliJ]

Ledger Shredder is in the deck. Good deck!!!

[@IssacThorne]

This was great!

[@accoyed]

Was wondering if you have tried out magda as an alternative way to tutor out Niv. Running dockside and ragavan plus clone effects.

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Haven’t really looked into her but I can see her being good at finding Transplant Theorist too

[@thomas_was_taken]

That was a great breakdown! Is Punt Pal's coming back?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Punt Pals never left we just took a little break!

[@andrewfornes5320]

I know this is an older video & what I'm about to suggest isn't too Cedh but if you searched her name, you probably want to build her. Arcum Daggson in the 99 is funny as hell. You use Liquimetal Torque (the mana rock) to turn anyone's creature into an artifact creature... then Arcum Daggaon taps and forces them to swap the creature for a noncreature artifact & forces them to shuffle...which triggers River.

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Lmfao that’s hilarious. Definitely not cEDH but amazing nonetheless

[@Absolute76]

My first game since Post Ban I did use Knowledge Exploitation against a player, stole their Peer into the Abyss and won the game. I can't cut it now lol

[@krenarspahiu4261]

I actually wanted to build River when she got spoiled. lol It may not be top-tier but I am definitely looking forward to playing her & messing with some Sisay & thrasios players. lol. Quick question, assuming you have a t1 river but no card draw, would you mulligan this away for something that offers card draw?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Yes I would

[@krenarspahiu4261]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander Thanks for the reply. 🙂

[@cannonballkuriboh]

I've got a 2K coming up, and I'm interested in this list. Do you have any updates you would recommend?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Been playing and updating the list still so you can check the history tab on Moxfield. Really been loving Slicer in the 99. So good with curiosity.

[@jkevinAH]

what would be a good replacement for timetwister in this list? I want to try this with my playgroup but they we are currently on a no-proxy ruling (sucks, i know haha) i think i have most of the cards in my collection. also just wanted to ask where i could watch the stream/recording of the event?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

The stream vod is on xcceptedMTG’s twitch channel. Echo of Eons is a suitable replacement or any other draw 7 graveyard shuffler

[@Absolute76]

Hello! I've been trying a River Song in cEDH since the post ban. Wonder what you were thinking about the deck without Dockside? Thanks!

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

At first I thought it was dead but now I think it’s better off

[@Absolute76]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander I have had fun playing her. I may be changing her slightly to more stax/control deck.

[@takeru1345]

is seal of fire better as compared to bolt? just curious

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I run both. I think overall Bolt is better but if your deck is worried about the flash hatebears like Orcish Bowmasters, Containment Priest, or Opposition Agent it’s the best tool out there right now for dealing with them. If you play it and one gets cast just crack it and kill it instantly. It being on the field also makes people less likely to cast flash hatebears into it.

[@takeru1345]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander oh. Meaning the interaction of bolt seal is dif? Seal can do with Flash but bolt cant due to the trigger? sorry, am not a really good player so just want to understand abit more on the interaction diff.

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

@takeru1345 seal you can cast on a prior turn and leave around for when you need it so it’s “free” and easy to use on another player’s turn.

[@seldomplaystcg]

FIRST! also I love your bed head lmao

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I was gonna fix it before I recorded but then I realized I love it too

[@ZombieKaktus]

Have you thought about Blood Moon/Back to Basic seems like you could afford it.

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Back to Basics could definitely work but Blood Moon turns off fetchlands which I don’t like

[@B1gLupu]

Is there a reason you are not playing Scroll Rack? It seems pretty good considering you often draw from the bottom and it puts cards on top.

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Just didn’t want to run it over the other 99 cards. It’s great but a bit slow for just card selection IMO.

[@therealmerf]

I don't understand the all kinnan rearrange top library from bottom. It's confusing.

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

It also confused me that’s why we called the judge. Basically he wants to find Boseju, so let’s say there are 25 cards in our deck. We activate Kinnan and don’t put anything into play until we see Boseju. Let’s say in our 25 card deck we see it on the 3rd activation. So we put Boseju at the bottom and now since we know it’s in the bottom five cards we activate Kinnan 4 times to remove our top 20 cards. Now Boseju is somewhere in that top 5 and we can hope to draw it.

[@therealmerf]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander lol that is very vicious love it.

[@alvirvillanueva1158]

What cards are you choosing for intuition?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Either the 3 Curiosity effects (Curiosity, Tandem, Ophidian Eye), free interaction brain freeze and LED to stop a win and set up for breach, or 2 clones and a Heat Shimmer to copy a dockside.

[@stiggyla]

do you plan to update your primer with the combo lines?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

No just because they are all super common Izzet combo lines. The one weird one with Transplant Theorist is already in there

[@stiggyla]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander Fair! im fairly new to cEDH saw River song and was like this has to have potential then stumbled onto your list on mox then this video! congrats on top4

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

Thanks! If you have any questions about the list feel free to ask.

[@stiggyla]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander Hi! back again, Im looking to run riversong (98% your list) in my first local cEDH tourney any extra advise or changes you have thought about?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

@stiggyla I think the deck is still solid as is. Been considering either Consecrated Sphinx or Imposter Mech but that’s it. Good luck on your event! Remember to relax and take the game slow. :)

[@braveblade]

pog

[@Jose-wq4zr]

Bruh I know data lol she's pretty cool

[@sojovlogs2394]

ay nice tokens

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

They are made by our sponsor Original Print Proxies! You can find the link to get your own in the video description.

[@mondoeamon360]

No "From the ashes"?

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

It’s a consideration but the lands entering untapped and it being four mana are real downsides

[@mondoeamon360]

@@ElderDrunkenHighlander testing out your list with my pod this weekend, only previous cedh list is niv mizzet, so should be a nice little change

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

@mondoeamon360 good luck! I love this list :)

[@DutchPenquin]

Forty minutes? That is how I know you are jumping through hoops! Just kidding, amazing performance!

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY

[@eon2330]

Oh... sweetie... You are letting them draw "new" cards? That may be the issue. Try to keep putting their lands and permanents back on top. That removes that.

[@samanthacrona]

😩 Promo*SM

[@Teknomahge]

The commentary for the top 4 was so caustic against Ashanti that i couldn't watch you play

[@ElderDrunkenHighlander]

I obviously couldn’t hear it but I know the commentators are all friends of his so I’m sure it was just teasing/ribbing. Lately there’s been fake beef about control winter so they were probably playing into that.