Introduction
Throughout Magic: The Gathering's history, a few cards were created to break or go around traditional deckbuilding rules: Partners, Backgrounds, and any card that lets you use an unlimited number of copies in your deck, like Rat Colony, Shadowborn Apostle, and Persistent Petitioners.
As a fan of exotic cards, I consider these cards an opportunity to explore experimental ideas. For instance, I enjoy creating decks with many copies of a single card to improve these unusual mechanics and break the rule of "there can only be one" - one of Commander's most basic foundations.
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In this article, we'll explore Slime Against Humanity and see how it works in Commander. Furthermore, we'll go through a deck I created with it, explore its synergies and the potential it has for this format.
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About Slime Against Humanity
At a first glance, you'll probably think that a deck built around Slime Against Humanity is an Ooze deck. This is, of course, an interesting approach, considering Kindred decks in general are easier and more intuitive to build. However, I like to think that a card like this has potential for a less obvious strategy.
That is, you can even fill a few slots in your Ooze decks with a few copies of Slime Against Humanity, but certainly, your deck will not focus on it. After all, this sorcery only puts another Ooze in play. You'd rather add many other Oozes with relevant abilities to this deck.
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As I intend to keep this card at the forefront of this deck, I'll discard the alternative of a Kindred strategy. That being said, what we must consider first is using a reasonable number of Slime Against Humanity copies among our 99 cards. And when I say a "reasonable number", a refer to 20 or more, at the very least.
My previous experience with "same name" decks tells me a number above 20 tends to be ideal when we want to start with at least 1 copy of this card in our starting hand. It is also a reasonable number if you want to "storm" with Thrumming Stone.
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This artifact is one of the strongest cards around when the matter is decks with this theme. Once in play, you just need to play one Slime Against Humanity to get a swarm of them, while you reveal more copies from the top of your deck with its ripple ability. The copies you'll pull from your deck will also have ripple*, and reveal other 4 cards from the top of your deck. This will trigger a process that will potentially fill your board with multiple Ooze tokens, one stronger than the last. It is an interesting strategy, and, despite being far from sensational or different, it's a start.
Furthermore, we need to explore one detail from Slime Against Humanity a bit deeper. Its tokens are bigger according to how many copies of this sorcery are in your graveyard and also your exile. When I first saw this card, this didn't stand out to me. After all, it would be easy to explore a strategy that fills your graveyard with copies of Slime Against Humanity without necessarily playing them (with dredge, self-mill, and other effects).
As for exiling, it seemed less likely. Something like Selective Memory, maybe? Exiling ten copies or so (or any number of them you find interesting at that moment) from your graveyard, and carve a path to play beefy Oozes for just 3 mana?
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It is a somewhat plausible line, but it is not very impactful: it's also a bit counterproductive if we consider that removing so many copies of Slime Against Humanity purposefully would lower our chances of revealing them with Thrumming Stone in the future. In any case, counting exiled cards is also great, as this way our strategy is less vulnerable to graveyard removal. That is the only advantage of this detail, right?
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Well, not exactly.
Finding a Commander
Once we define how we want to explore Slime Against Humanity as much as we can, the next step would be to pick a color identity, a commander, and the other cards - not necessarily in this order. I tested a few variations to see what looks more interesting: Monogreen Storm with Aeve, Progenitor Ooze, RG Spellslingers with Wort, the Raidmother, or a list that focuses more on counters with Slurrk, All-Ingesting + Reyhan, Last of the Abzan (which I found particularly fun). But, curiously, I found the perfect commander for Slimes while playing another deck, in another format, when I wasn't even playing Slime Against Humanity anymore.
I was playing around in MTG Arena testing some new commander from MH3 in Brawl when I faced an opponent that was playing Illuna, Apex of Wishes. They started out by creating a few Goblin tokens and accelerating their mana with ramp spells, until they cast Illuna with Mutate and pulled an Omniscience… And, from then on, they didn't stop playing.
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They could have just gotten lucky; out of so many cards in their graveyard, they found precisely a very high-impact enchantment with their commander's ability. But it didn't look like that. They got over half of their deck out as if Omniscience were the only card they could pull from it. Then I understood what had happened: that deck didn't have any other permanents besides lands and Omniscience itself.
All other slots were instants or sorceries: card draw, mana acceleration, removals, everything! And, most importantly: the only creatures this deck played (and were important, as they were targets for their commander's mutate ability) were tokens created by their sorceries.
This means the goal behind this deck was to create tokens, mutate them with Illuna, Apex of Wishes, and always pull the same enchantment out of their deck. After that match was over, I was fascinated. I did some research later, and it didn't take me long to find out that type of deck, with Illuna, Apex of Wishes + Omniscience, wasn't anything new, and people had been playing it for a while. I just didn't know about it.
As a combo enthusiast, I didn't waste any time and built my own list, this time for Commander. This is what it looked like:
I played many MTGO matches with it and got familiar with its peculiarities. Among the many details that are worth commenting on (which we'll discuss later on), one of them stood out the most to me at a certain point: the cards we exile with Illuna's ability remain exiled. This was an issue in some cases, as sometimes Omniscience was very deep, so my commander's ability would exile nearly my entire deck, and almost made me lose through deck out.
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Unlike the graveyard, where you can return cards to your hand or reshuffle them, we can't do much with the exile. Then, I was thinking of ways to make Illuna exile less cards when I realized something. What if, instead of doing that, I tried to get something out of these exiled cards, somehow?
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The Slime idea then was back on the table!
About the Deck
Using Slime Against Humanity as the core of an Illuna + Omniscience deck made a lot of sense. This type of deck needs many creatures, both to mutate with our commander and to finish the game through combat damage. However, it can't play any actual creature cards.
This means we'll need to play cards that create tokens, more exclusively, lands (like Kher Keep), sorceries, and instants. I needed to adapt this deck with this idea in mind, and, initially, I replaced all cards that created tokens for copies of Slime Against Humanity.
Game Plan
Illuna Slimestorm is a midrange/combo deck that relies a bit on its commander. As we mentioned before, its main strategy involves successfully casting Illuna, Apex of Wishes for its Mutate cost to trigger its ability, getting Omniscience from your graveyard and putting it directly on the battlefield. Once you do that, your win conditions are basically one of the following alternatives:
- Creating as many creatures as you need to with Slime Against Humanity, giving them haste with First Day of Class, Song of Totentanz, or Insurrection, and attacking with all of them on the same turn (or on the following turn with Time Stretch).
- Casting as many consecutive spells as possible and resolving Temporal Fissure's Storm (you can also use other wincons this way, such as Ignite Memories, Grapeshot, or Volcanic Awakening).
- Creating a huge Ooze with Slime Against Humanity and resolving a Chandra's Ignition. You'll probably not win the game this way.
In many cases, the simple combination of Omniscience with several card draw effects (Petals of Insight, Time Reversal, Overflowing Insight, etc) and resolving big spells like Clone Legion, Ezuri's Predation, Insurrection, and Time Stretch is already enough to get a huge, often irreversible, advantage.
Another alternative line is to focus even more on Slime Against Humanity and Thrumming Stone. Yes… Omniscience isn't the only nonland permanent in our 99 cards. I decided not to give up this artifact, not only because of its incredible potential, which we mentioned early on, but because this way we'll have another combo alternative if we lose our enchantment somehow.
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Furthermore, in the many matches I played, even when Omniscience was already in play, I couldn't get a significant advantage because I didn't have any cards in hand and couldn't get anymore, as my deck was almost empty. With Thrumming Stone, we can swarm the Oozes we mentioned above without necessarily drawing more cards, and keep storming until it is convenient to stop.
Advantages and Disadvantages
After playing with it multiple times, and experimenting with multiple variations, I concluded that, ultimately, this strategy has multiple challenges.
The greatest are that it relies a lot on its commander and its combo is relatively fragile. There are many ways to answer Illuna, Apex of Wishes + Omniscience, particularly if your opponents know your deck.
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Removing Illuna doesn't prevent its ability from triggering, but removing the creature you targeted for its mutate while it is resolving does. Furthermore, if, at any point early on, you get unlucky and draw Omniscience before you can resolve your Illuna, you'll lose your best play. You'll have to find a way to return this enchantment to your graveyard, which can delay you quite a bit.
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In any case, Omniscience is vulnerable to any enchantment removal, and, if it is sent to your graveyard, you'll have to return it with Regrowth, Reclaim, or Bala Ged Recovery. If it is exiled, then… your deck will get drastically weaker. That's why it is so important to play Thrumming Stone as an alternative.
If you lose both of them, your deck will simply be useless.
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Another weakness is that its mana curve is relatively high and it lacks interaction. The number of slots we filled with Slime Against Humanity, recursion, and the card draw we needed limited our space for low-cost interactions. We just had to give up our spot removals and, most importantly, the counters that could protect our combos. I made this decision with a very heavy heart, so don't feel bad if you want to go the other way.
But, believe me: you will not enjoy bursting a Fiery Islet and drawing a Counterspell when you don't have any cards in hand and Omniscience is in play (which happened to me).
The good thing is that this deck is very simple and its "combo" is quite easy, which is uncommon in Storm decks. In the vast majority of the matches I played, the first few turns were relatively easy, and I managed to put Omniscience or Thrumming Stone in play on turn 4 or 5 without many issues. Of course, I must be honest and confess that all of these matches were casual games against opponents that didn't know me, and most times also didn't know my deck. More realistically, you can expect more resistance against opponents that know what you're doing.
In any case, Illuna Slimestorm isn't the type of deck that wins automatically when you play its main combo. There is a significant chance your combo fails, which puts this deck in a gray area with other decks that fit casual settings (with a power level between 6 and 7). I consider it an option for tables that aren't as competitive, but also welcome combos… even if it is this somewhat goofy combo.
Low-Budget Version
Considering the only cards that are truly a must for this strategy are Slime Against Humanity, Omniscience, and Thrumming Stone, you can, of course, build this list with any type of budget.
You can turn this deck into a more budget-friendly version by replacing a few of our most expensive lands and support cards for cheaper alternatives that work similarly. A few examples are:
- Winds of Change, Valakut Awakening, and Reforge the Soul for Game Plan, Temporal Cascade, and Windfall.
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- Insurrection for Mob Rule.
- Time Stretch for Part the Waterveil or even any type of sorcery that gives haste to your creatures, like Goblin War Party or Burst of Speed, considering the main reason we play an extra turn is to finish the game by attacking directly with the giant Oozes we just created after we played our combo. It is not the same, but it works.
- Dryad Arbor for any manland or land that creates tokens, like Treetop Village or Springjack Pasture.
Final Words
Illuna Slimestorm combines practicality and explosion by centering Slime Against Humanity, which gives it a different, fun game style. Despite its vulnerabilities, this deck is simple, and, at the same time, ideal for players who enjoy unusual strategies. Because of its impressive potential for wins by creating massive creatures with Omniscience or Thrumming Stone, it is perfect for anyone who wants to catch their opponents off-guard and bring something unexpected to the table.
What did you think of this deck? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!
Thank you for reading, and see you next time. May your matches always be epic!
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