Vorel - The Dice Whore

Hey Mr. Brendan!

Oh hey there Jimmy what's up this time?

Well I've been playing Kresh but I'm not sure I like him that much.

Oh why not Jimmy?

I keep losing.

Oh...how did you build your deck there Jimmy?

Well...I used something cool I learned about. "Milling."

...Jimmy did you listen to anything I told you last time.

Yeah! You said to use graveyards! 

...damnit Jimmy, you are the worst.

Anyway Mr. Brendan I keep getting killed by big guys and scary combos. I wanna kill people like that too! How do I do it?!!

Well luckily for you Jimmy I have been working on a deck I think you may like. The general is called "Vorel of the Hull Clade".

But Mr. Brendan...isn't he a guild champion? Don't they suck?

Yeah for the most part Jimmy. But this one is pretty fun to play, so I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it. Anyway my list is here. But allow me to explain some of the key cards in the deck.

First we have Vorel.

There is something fishy about this guy...

As with all generals I like to looks at 4 things. Abilities, CMC, Creature Type, and Power and Toughness in that order. So first off let's talk about the less important things. He has a respectable toughness of 4, meaning he can chump tokens like a boss. He has a fairly weak power of one.

He really isn't that much of a big creature...is he Mr. Brendan.

Hold on there Jimmy. Don't be a Timmy. In the long scheme of things the starting power and toughness of a general doesn't really mean to much. It's nice if they are super strong but that doesn't mean we can't love this guy. Next let's look at his creature type. He is a Human Merfolk.

Wait what? What the hell is a Human Merfolk?

Yeah...the designers were on drugs when they made the Simic this time around.  Now for this deck his creature type really doesn't matter too much. There are a couple Merfolk lords you can include in the deck with the strongest probably being Merfolk Sovereign. In my deck I chose not to go down that road.

So far he isn't sounding that useful Mr. Brendan.

Shut up Jimmy. We are starting to get to the best part. Next let's look at the CMC. His is 3 which is usually pretty darn good in EDH. He also is blue and green which are the two strongest colors in EDH (in my opinion with black being pretty darn close).

Well that's cool I guess. 

It is Jimmy. But let's talk about what you are going to be building your deck around. His ability costs a blue mana, a green mana, and tapping for "for each counter on target artifact, creature, or land, put another of those counters on that permanent."

That wording is a bit confusing to my brain...

Well Jimmy to simplify, you put double the counters on target creature, land, or artifact.

That sounds amazing! What about enchantments and planeswalkers? Why can't he target them?
Well to be honest Jimmy, planeswalkers are a bit broken with being able to repeatably double the counters, even though it would be hella fun for us playing the deck. Also fading enchantments can be pretty darn stupid and mean with Vorel and I think they wanted to keep him a fun casual general. But Jimmy you can get Vorel to be able to target both of those...through shenanigans which we will talk about later.

Okay but what can you use his ability with?!!

Well Jimmy there are quite a few things you can use it with. First you mentioned that you keep getting killed by big monsters?

Yes they are super tough and make me cry every night.

Well Jimmy I got the perfect creature to stomp their faces with...

He effectively does Vorel's ability to himself every turn. Meaning when use with Vorel he effectively can quadruple in size every turn.

WOAH!!!!

I know...crazy right? Another creature you can punch people in the face with is...

She effectively gives your creatures psedo unblockableness which comes awesome with a certain token generator we have. But let's look at another awesome creature we have...

Mr. Ancient here is awesome because he is a constant stream of +1/+1 counters. His ability reads...whenever a "player" casts a spell. This means he can get really big really quickly! What is great is you can then move the counters over to another creature...like this one for instance!

Whoa!

Indeed Jimmy. Master Biomancer is the perfect card for this deck as he gives all your creatures at the very least 2 +1/+1 counters which can be used by our lovely general.

Okay but you mentioned combos Mr. Brendan?

Of course Jimmy! What would a Simic deck be without a bunch of convoluted combos?

Um...a normal deck?

Exactly Jimmy. Now doesn't that sound boring?

I guess...

Well Jimmy sit down and I'll teach you some of the combos I have found in the deck.

 

I don't get it Mr. Brendan. They just make mana.

No Jimmy. They make infinite mana!

Wait what?

You see Jimmy once these artifacts have 6 counters on them you can potentially make infinite mana with them. You do need a couple more things though. 

 

Wait wasn't the Staff banned? And how does the combo work?

Wow Jimmy I am genuinely surprised you knew that. However, the Staff has been unbanned as of April 22, 2013. The combo works with having either of the artifacts above with 6 counters. Activate his ability with other mana and you should be golden to have infinite mana. Since the counters on the artifacts doubles to 12 and you have to pay either 3 or 4 to untap (depending on what you use) you are always making more mana than you are losing! Even better with the Staff you have infinite card draw and life!

Woah!

Indeed Jimmy but I'm not done yet. I have another one for you.

 

These two cards will allow you to take infinite turns as long as Coretapper does not have summoning sickness. With Coretapper you can tap to add a counter on the Scepter and then sac him to put a whopping three counters on the Scepter. Then with your general you can double the counters on the scepter to give you infinite turns.

Woah! Then I defiantly can win!

Indeed Jimmy. Indeed.

Any other cool combos?

Well I have one more but you may run it by your playgroup because it's kind of a dick move Jim.

Hey! Is that the fading mechanic you were talking about? I don't get it.

Well Jim the combo is basically a locklock down. You use Vorel to add fading counters onto Tangle Wire. This keeps your opponent's from being able to do much besides cast instants. Then you use cards like Darksteel Reactor and Helix Pinnacle to win. You can also use Alchemist's Refuge to flash in other spells and start beating face.

Sounds pretty nasty.

It is Jim. Just be careful because it can be stopped with an instant speed artifact kill spell. 

The deck looks pretty cool. Any thing else I should know?

Why of course Jim! While not exactly combos Vorel interacts really good with other things. You remember me mentioning token creation?

Yeah...

Seems a bit expensive.

It can be...at first. But with Vorel, this baby can be pumping out 20 snakes...at instant speed.

That's a whole lot of snakes.

Indeed it isssss...

...stop it.

Alrightsssssss. We also want to use Vorel's ability as much as possible so be sure to include the following.

  

These guys will allow you to copy Vorel's ability till the sun don't shine.

You said you can use Enchantments and Planeswalkers too?

Yes you can! You can use cards that make permanents artifacts. The two best ones for this are:

 

I personally use just Memnarch but a lot of people don't like him for very just reasons. If you don't want to use him the Coating is a good back up. Memnarch has the potential to do a lot of things (like steal everyone's permanent with inf mana). Now just relying on these to do boost Enchantments or Planeswalkers is pretty silly since they are pretty easy to remove. That's why I prefer to use walkers that are useful besides their ultimates. The walkers I use are Tezzy the Seeker, Tamiyo, and Garruk Wildspeaker. Wildspeaker is particularly useful because of the storage lands that I use such as...

That land looks like it sucks.

In most decks you would be right Jimmy. However since we can abuse proliferation and doubling counters, lands like this are actually really...really good.

What's proliferation? 

Cards like these...

 

Since a majority of our cards use counters in some way we can use these to boost their strength. We can also give counters away with a couple of our cards such as...

With Zameck if you have persist creatures you can also combo with sacing persist creatures over and over. I chose not to go that route in this deck but it is definitely viable.

Anything else that's cool?

Woah! Does that mean I double my life total everytime I play a land?!!!

Basically Jim. Basically. Also for economic reasons I should say that I do not currently have Seedborn Muse or Doubling Season in the deck. If you have the funds or just have them...they are absolutely amazing in the deck and I'd recommend throwing them in!

Wow thanks Mr. Brendan! I think I am ready to try this deck!

No problem Jim. No problem. Just don't fuck it up like last time.