Aang, at the CrossroadsAang, at the Crossroads | Illustrated by Evan Shipard

It's been a while since clones last fell particularly good in cEDH. Not since the days of Dockside ExtortionistDockside Extortionist have blue players rounded out their creature toolboxes with reliably ways to copy creatures. Well, folks, today I present to you a cEDH deck that wants to run all the clones. Really, I'm not kidding: as you'll see with the decklist below, we're talking about a cEDH deck that's playing fifteen creatures that all want to be anything but themselves. So, what commander could possible make that much use out of doubling up on creatures? Let's talk about Aang, at the CrossroadsAang, at the Crossroads, a Bant cEDH deck that goes all-in on making that enters trigger happen as many times as possible.

What Does Aang, at the CrossroadsAang, at the Crossroads Do?

Starting with the front face of the card (the side that matters most for this deck), Aang at the Crossroads is a legendary 3/3 Human Avatar Ally creature for with flying and a crazy triggered ability. When Aang enters, you'll get to look at the top five cards of your library, choose up to one creature card with mana value four or less from among them to put onto the battlefield, then put the rest of those cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. Aang also has "When another creature you control leaves the battlefield, transform Aang at the beginning of the next upkeep."

Once transformed, Aang becomes Aang, Destined SaviorAang, Destined Savior, a colorless 4/4 legendary Avatar Ally creature with flying that grants land creatures you control vigilance, as well as causes you to earthbend 2 at the beginning of your combat step. (To earthbend, choose a land you control. That land becomes a 0/0 creature with haste that's still a land. Put a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the earthbend number. When that land creature dies or is exiled, return it to the battlefield tapped.)

Now that we know both parts of this card, what does it really do from a cEDH perspective? The backside is essentially useless: we aren't building around land creatures, and the time it takes to actually flip Aang is prohibitively long for such a lackluster payoff. But the front side, ooh boy, now that's a triggered ability that can lead to some shenanigans. It's not hard to imagine repeating this enough times to pull just about every creature from a deck into play; flicker Aang, clone Aang, the list goes on. All we need is for the efficiency of those repeat triggers to hit a competitive level. Now, let's look at how we can make that reliable.

Key Cards for Aang, at the CrossroadsAang, at the Crossroads

Clones

Kicking off with the core of the deck, it's time for clones to shine in cEDH. By filling the deck with as many clones as possible (provided that those clones can clone Aang), we are reliably creating a scenario where a single resolution of Aang's triggered ability will win the game. Cast Aang, have the triggered ability resolve, find a clone in the top five cards, put the clone into play copying Aang, then rinse and repeat. Remember, Aang's enters-trigger allows for us to look at five cards, and with fifteen clones in the deck, that means that each Aang trigger represents a greater-than-75% chance of continuing the chain.

Importantly, this deck doesn't run clones just because having a bunch of Aangs out is good. Most of the clones we run will actually wind up being sacrificed to the legend rule, since they neither keep their old name nor expressly create a nonlegendary clone of whatever they're copying. Rather, the density of clones exists purely as a deck-thinning exercise as we piece together the real combo that closes out the game.

Trigger Doublers

If one snowballing trigger for Aang was already pretty good, then why not two? Trigger-doublers, when layered with clones, take that 75% number I mentioned earlier and laugh, boosting it so significantly that it essentially guarantees we'll hit the creatures we need. Aang will enter, get two triggers, and before you know it things will grow exponentially. Those two triggers will (probably) grab two clones, which will each have two triggers, grabbing four more, etc.

How Does Aang, at the CrossroadsAang, at the Crossroads Win?

Food Chain Combo

Starting off with the titular card, Food ChainFood Chain costs for an enchantment with the activated ability "Exile a creature you control: Add X mana of any one color, where X is one plus the exiled creature's mana value. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells." Couple this with a creature that you can cast from exile, like Misthollow GriffinMisthollow Griffin, and now you have a way to have infinite creature-spell mana. Sink that mana into Walking BallistaWalking Ballista and voila! Infinite damage to your opponents.

Despite requiring three cards, Food ChainFood Chain is actually far more compact in this deck, as it requires only that Food Chain be in play by the time you cast Aang, and that you wind up not terribly unlucky when resolving your Aang triggers. Just cast Aang, resolve the enters trigger, churn through clones until you hit Misthollow Griffin, make infinite mana, and then start looping Aang by exiling him with Food Chain. As you loop Aang the second time (the first one was the clone snowball), you'll eventually find Walking Ballista. Walking Ballista will enter with zero counters on it and die, but that's actually what we want to happen. Keep looping Aang, and eventually you'll find Eternal WitnessEternal Witness. Eternal Witness will enter and return Walking Ballista to your hand, at which point you can sink your infinite creature-spell mana into an arbitrarily large creature.

Blink Combo

This deck's other out for closing the game is a bit more convoluted and requires a few more creatures, but - as we saw with looping Aang through Food Chain - is still deceptively easy to achieve.

The core of this combo is Preston, the VanisherPreston, the Vanisher, Felidar GuardianFelidar Guardian, and Supportive ParentsSupportive Parents. Preston, the Vanisher needs to already be in play, and Felidar Guardian needs to be put onto the battlefield - not cast. Once Felidar Guardian resolves, you'll have two triggers: one, the initial Felidar Guardian trigger (which attempts to flicker something), and two, Preston's trigger, which will create a 0/1 copy of Felidar Guardian. The initial Felidar Guardian trigger will resolve targeting anything but itself (probably Preston, so as to uncomplicate things), then Preston's copy trigger will resolve. That 0/1 illusion copy of Felidar Guardian will have its own flicker trigger, which will target the original Felidar Guardian. This will result in a loop which creatures infinite 0/1 copies of Felidar Guardian.

Supportive Parents enters the fray because now we can turn those infinite creatures into infinite mana, which we can sink into either of two different infinite mana outlets: Finale of DevastationFinale of Devastation or Walking Ballista. Additionally, since we have an arbitrarily large number of Illusions created by Preston, we can sacrifice them in increments of five in order to exile any nonland permanent we need to (to send Aang back to the command zone, perhaps).

Aang, at the CrossroadsAang, at the Crossroads cEDH Decklist

Wrap Up

Aang, at the Crossroads is a fresh take on Bant that brings with it a win condition pretty much right out of the command zone. Count to five mana, cast Aang, then sit back and pick up your deck in increments of five as you pull out all the creatures and assemble a janky infinite mana combo that would make a classic Bant player blush. Whether Aang is a flash in the pan or a long-term meta staple remains to be seen, but one thing's for certain: a commander this potent needs to be taken seriously.