cEDH Deck Guide: Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper & Kraum, Ludevic's Opus

This list was created by me and is a turbo deck. However, it has tools to stay relevant in the late game, generating value, and can be faster or slower depending on the table you are at.

Both commanders are relevant and even though white is an extremely powerful and relevant color in cEDH, unless you intend to use stax pieces, you end up not losing much by not running this color.

Ikra & Kraum

Commander, FELIPE

17 commons, 18 uncommons, 61 rares and 4 mythics

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Land29

1

Rejuvenating Springs

248.8

1

Training Center

584.34

1

Undergrowth Stadium

540.71

1

Morphic Pool

835.66

1

Luxury Suite

694.36

1

Badlands

15654.13

1

Forbidden Orchard

344.04

1

Ancient Tomb

5222.6

1

Taiga

9748.61

1

Underground Sea

19379.8

1

Tropical Island

11554.46

1

City of Brass

1025.65

1

Bayou

9977.47

1

Volcanic Island

18350.2

1

Exotic Orchard

9.11

1

Marsh Flats

1316.86

1

Bloodstained Mire

625.94

1

Blood Crypt

888.2

1

Watery Grave

747.2

1

Polluted Delta

797.5

1

Mana Confluence

2450.82

1

Steam Vents

777.56

1

Command Tower

11.34

1

Flooded Strand

636.16

1

Wooded Foothills

689.81

1

Gemstone Caverns

2884.64

1

Verdant Catacombs

1168.07

1

Misty Rainforest

1335.08

1

Scalding Tarn

1356.23

Creature10

1

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

2006.47

1

Birds of Paradise

343.74

1

Dauthi Voidwalker

475.93

1

Thassa's Oracle

1433.06

1

Dockside Extortionist

1108.25

1

Dark Confidant

262.76

1

Opposition Agent

1301.07

1

Elvish Spirit Guide

96.87

1

Simian Spirit Guide

92.82

1

Grim Hireling

625.03

Artifact17

1

Jeweled Lotus

2722.08

1

Lion's Eye Diamond

30392.44

1

Chrome Mox

5307.22

1

Lotus Petal

1295.4

1

Mana Crypt

4259.6

1

Mox Diamond

42756.75

1

Mox Opal

7975.05

1

Sol Ring

78.04

1

Mana Vault

3870.31

1

Wishclaw Talisman

116.2

1

Arcane Signet

10.22

1

Grim Monolith

28672.12

1

Talisman of Indulgence

87.15

1

Talisman of Dominance

49.6

1

Grinding Station

911.58

1

Fellwar Stone

54.46

1

Bolas's Citadel

515.51

Enchantment5

1

Carpet of Flowers

131.08

1

Mystic Remora

506.2

1

Underworld Breach

392.73

1

Sylvan Library

1396.92

1

Rhystic Study

3136.07

Sorcery11

1

Gamble

369.85

1

Imperial Seal

5413.6

1

Gitaxian Probe

257.5

1

Demonic Tutor

2377.23

1

Diabolic Intent

568.24

1

Jeska's Will

1367.67

1

Wheel of Fortune

14658.24

1

Timetwister

51610.18

1

Windfall

133.91

1

Culling Ritual

36.44

1

Peer into the Abyss

209.22

Instant26

1

Miscast

96.26

1

Vampiric Tutor

2730.18

1

Flusterstorm

372.18

1

Demonic Consultation

1089.02

1

Dark Ritual

227.44

1

Pyroblast

344.55

1

Mystical Tutor

663.39

1

Red Elemental Blast

227.44

1

Nature's Claim

130.57

1

Chain of Vapor

626.55

1

Swan Song

616.83

1

Spell Pierce

6.28

1

Mental Misstep

429.47

1

Noxious Revival

343.74

1

Assassin's Trophy

341.51

1

Cabal Ritual

854.59

1

Abrupt Decay

55.57

1

Brain Freeze

683.53

1

Tainted Pact

969.68

1

Fierce Guardianship

2320.75

1

Deflecting Swat

2315.59

1

Force of Negation

2927.36

1

Fire Covenant

284.53

1

Deadly Rollick

1677.91

1

Force of Will

3166.23

1

Ad Nauseam

856.21

98 cards maindeck

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Certainly, one of the most beloved commanders of cEDH, its card advantage potential is insane, and so that it doesn't happen, your opponents can only cast one spell per turn. If Kraum is respected, you should get 0-3 cards per turn, if not at most it should reach 5, with the amount of ramps in the deck, it's not difficult to play him kn turn one and start filling the hand since early game.

Ikra is a controversial commander in cEDH, some like her, some hate her, I, personally, love her. She plays a key role in longer tables, granting you extra life for Ad Nauseam, even if losing life to opponents' attacks, card effects, having an Ikra on the field helps keep Ad Nauseam a possibility.

The fact that we have a commander who gains life when you attack with any creature and damages a player, in addition to being able to attack with a big flying threat, gives the possibility to pressure your opponents' life totals, while yours gets bigger.

This deck has two different combo lines, which are Thassa Consult and Breach.

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. Respond to her ETB by casting the other spell from your hand, naming a card you don't have in your library, exiling all cards from your library.

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

Breach

Here, we have two ways to proceed with the usual one which is Breach + Freeze + LED, and we can also go to Breach + Station + Rock.

Breach Freeze

Combo Condition: Underworld Breach in hand, Brain Freeze, and Lion's Eye Diamond in hand or graveyard, and at least 4 mana available, one blue and one red, the others two do not need to be colored.

1. Cast Underworld Breach;

2. Cast Brain Freeze, targeting you and milling at least 6 cards;

3. Cast Lion's Eye Diamond, discarding your hand and generating 3 blue mana;

4. Repeat step 3 until you have only 3 cards in the graveyard, in addition to the cards you intend to cast, then repeat from step 2 to this step;

5. When the Storm Count is high enough, target your opponents until they have no cards in their deck and pass the turn, so they lose the game.

Breach Station

Combo condition: Underworld Breach and Grinding Station + one mana rock from the ones below, all on the battlefield and untapped + at least 3 cards in the graveyard.

All of the above mana rocks generate enough mana to be cast and tapped repeatedly.

1. Tap the mana rock to generate mana;

2. Sacrifice the mana rock using Grinding Station and mill 3 cards from your own library;

3. Cast the mana rock for the escape cost, putting it into play, and untap Grinding Station.

Repeat the process until you have no cards in your deck, switching the mana rock to one that generates colored mana, then cast Thassa's Oracle and win the game.

Ramps

Speeding up available mana is indispensable: the more mana, the easier it is to cast multiple spells in the same turn.

For this, the deck has all the positive mana stones, the mox that make sense to be in the deck, rocks that generate colored mana, in addition to cards that generate mana only once like Elvish Spirit Guide. In addition to rituals like Culling the Weak, it also includes Grim Hireling, which generates treasures as you deal combat damage to your opponents.

Tutors

Tutors are the foundation of a deck's consistency, together with a good density of working copies, being able to find the card you need for a situation.

As we have black mana, which helps a lot with one or two mana tutors like Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Demonic Tutor and Diabolic Intent, in addition to Wishclaw Talisman, which is a reusable tutor if you have bounces to respond to its effect before it resolves.

It is critical to comment that even though red is not the color of tutors, it gives us a great one mana tutor, Gamble Red Entomb, being an optimized tutor good enough to be included in the list, mainly due to its low cost.

Card Draw

In addition to owning Kraum, this list also has other tools to guarantee you additional cards every turn, such as Dark Confidant, which is falling into disuse, but is still a very efficient card, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, which steals cards from the top of the opponent's deck and generates treasures (I promise this is the last time I speak well of this monkey), and that good old set present in basically every deck that can use them: Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora.

Windfall, Wheel of Fortune and Timetwister are simple ways for you to draw many cards after using up everything important in your hand.

Bolas's Citadel, Ad Nauseam and Peer Into the Abyss serve to gain access to a massive number of cards, losing life for it.

Interactions

Free counterspells, optimized removals, ways to stop an opponent even if he resolves a spell and serious hate: everything , or almost everything, that a deck needs to interact with its opponents.

We also have Fire Covenant which removes exactly the creatures that need to be eliminated, for a small amount of mana and life, Culling Ritual which, in addition to taking away every nonland permanent with mana value 2 or less, also gives you mana equal to the number of permanents it destroyed.

The counterspell package of this deck is a bit greater than the standard farm decks, just to be used in other occasions than protecting your game.

Strengths

- It's an extremely adaptive deck, being able to respond and deal with different deck types.

- It is possible to cast Kraum on turn 1.

- The deck can handle opponents attacking you well, not to mention that the commanders are tough enough to kill or withstand many creatures.

Weaknesses

- It's not as fast as other farm decks.

- At tables where your game plan will be faster, Ikra loses its usefulness on the battlefield.

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

Thanks for reading!