Yidris, Maelstrom WielderYidris, Maelstrom Wielder | Art by Karl Kopinski

Welcome to the finale of Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it's going to tell one kind of story, only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game. That's right, Plot Twist #50 will be the last in the series (for now anyways). After a fantastic three years of writing with/for Space Cow Media, I'm taking a break to dedicate more to personal projects.

Before we dive into this week's deck list, I want to thank all of you for taking the time to read this. With every edition of Plot Twist, you had great suggestions for how to push a particular brew in a new, weird, interesting direction. I'd also like to thank the editors and writers at EDHREC for their support and inspiration as well. Having a community of other writers who inspire you and push you to be your best is a rare treat, and the EDHREC staff did just that for me.

Anyway, with all that nostalgia and sappiness aside, let's dive into this week's article:

Last time, we built an enchantress-Pod mashup deck helmed by Prime Speaker VannifarPrime Speaker Vannifar that was a bit of a love letter to Birthing PodBirthing Pod, one of my favorite cards of all time. The pool of enchantment creatures has gotten surprisingly deep thanks to sets like Final Fantasy and Duskmourn, so this deck was full of strange interactions and toolbox pieces.

For the finale of Plot Twist, we're building a deck that I've been toying with off and on for almost two years now built around Yidris, Maelstrom WielderYidris, Maelstrom Wielder. It's a Reanimator deck that cares about cascading into Living EndLiving End, much like the Modern archetype. But, of course this wouldn't be Plot Twist if that was the only thing we were up to, would it?

We've built plenty of weird reanimator and cycling decks before, but never a cascade deck. Let's see what sort of twists we can get up to!

How Does Yidris, Maelstrom WielderYidris, Maelstrom Wielder Work?

Yidris seems relatively straightforward as a four-mana 5/4 with trample that has a second ability that triggers whenever Yidris deals combat damage to an opponent. That trigger gives any subsequent spells we cast from our hand this turn cascade. Cascade reads: "When you cast the spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order."

Yidris used to see a lot more play because granting cascade to every spell we cast after connecting with our commander is extremely powerful. However, in 2026 Commander, a four-mana 5/4 that doesn't have haste is going to struggle to connect with our opponents, if it even survives till we can attack with it. But the idea of cascading into a lot of extra value? That we can work with!

Cascade is a lot like the discover mechanic from Lost Caverns of Ixalan, but with the key difference that if we don't cast a spell with discover, it gets put back on the bottom of our library. With cascade, if we don't cast the spell we cascaded into, it'll stay in exile. Cascade is a notoriously busted ability that loves to pop up in Modern, Legacy, and most other formats it's legal in, especially in combination with cards like Living EndLiving End.

The key to a good cascade deck revolves around having only a handful of spells (or just one) like Living End that cost less than our "cascaders," ensuring we can reliably hit them every time we cascade. By quickly filling up our graveyard through any number of means and then cascading just once, we can reanimate a bunch of big, beefy creatures to attack our opponents with.

In looking at Yidris' EDHREC page, we can see that 1.2k brewers have already leaned into this archetype, but *gasp* Living End doesn't appear in the average Yidris deck!? And while cascaders like Aurora PhoenixAurora Phoenix, Shardless AgentShardless Agent, and Etherium-Horn SorcererEtherium-Horn Sorcerer do show up in a ton of decks, the overall gameplan seems to be cascading for value.

And while we love value on Plot Twist, we also love doing something nontraditional with our brews.

Doing the Twist with Yidris

That's right, we're building a Living EndLiving End list for Commander. What is this 60 to 100? I'd be flattered if it was!

We'll start by taking a page out of lists of old and running lots of cheap, easy-to-cycle creatures, like Deadshot MinotaurDeadshot Minotaur and Generous EntGenerous Ent. While it feels we're to spend our early turns cycling and passing, they'll help us quickly churn through our list, hit our land drops, and fill up our graveyard for an explosive turn later on.

Once our graveyard is nice and stocked, we'll want to cast a cascader, like Bloodbraid ElfBloodbraid Elf or Shardless AgentShardless Agent. We're running seven of these effects in addition to our commander, so we should be able to reliably find one. Ideally, we'll hit Glimpse of TomorrowGlimpse of Tomorrow, HypergenesisHypergenesis, or Living EndLiving End so that we can immediately start putting a bunch of huge creatures into play for free.

Sometimes, we'll hit an Ancestral VisionAncestral Vision, Sol TalismanSol Talisman, or Wheel of FateWheel of Fate instead. While those are less than ideal hits, they keep the deck from playing out the same game after game and help shore up some of the deck's other weaknesses. That's Magic, baby!

Rounding everything out is a suite of cards that have cycling and fill some other vital role too. Need to ramp ahead? Drownyard LurkerDrownyard Lurker, Greater TanukiGreater Tanuki, and friends have got you! Looking to interact? Look no further than Archfiend of IfnirArchfiend of Ifnir and Rampaging War MammothRampaging War Mammoth! Need to exile a card from a graveyard? Wreck RemoverWreck Remover to the rescue!

This deck is weird and an absolute blast to play. The perfect sendoff for Plot Twist!

Yo, Jeff, What's With 22 Lands?

If you're a fan of Plot Twist, then you know we love doing weird things with lands. Even cEDH players will tell you that 22 lands is too few, but I'm going to ask you to trust me on this one. I run a whopping 20 lands in my Karador Cycling deck, which shares a lot in common with our brew this week, and that deck hits its land drops just fine.

The key is that 20 creatures in this week's brew have some form of land cycling, meaning for one to two mana we can use them to find an IslandIsland, SwampSwamp, MountainMountain, or ForestForest from our deck and put it into our hand. While land cycling is normally a Limited mechanic, it puts in serious work in our brew this week since they also put a creature directly into our graveyard.

The best of the bunch are Generous EntGenerous Ent, OliphauntOliphaunt, and Troll of Khazad-dûmTroll of Khazad-dûm since they all cycle for only , allowing us to keep one-land hands regularly. Cycling one of them on turn one, or even turn two, lets us hit our second land drop, and from there we're off to the races! Once we've hit our second land drop, we can continue to cycle to hit our lands while also putting creatures into our graveyard.

Being able to pick up Ketria TriomeKetria Triome and Ziatora's Proving GroundZiatora's Proving Ground can help us easily fix our colored mana, while surveil lands, like Thundering FallsThundering Falls and Underground MortuaryUnderground Mortuary, help us put even more creatures into our graveyard. You'll be shocked by how consistent this deck's mana base can be even with only 22 lands.

If you're interested in tinkering with your land count, a hypergeometric calculator like this one can be really helpful when trying to calculate the probability of drawing a certain number of lands or type of card in your Commander deck. Pushing the boundaries of what a Commander deck can/should do is something I've always found fascinating.

Cycling Our Way Through

Once we've hit our second land drop, this deck wants to start cycling and getting creatures into its graveyard as quickly as possible. FluctuatorFluctuator is one of the rare cards under three mana that made our list precisely because it's so powerful when we draw it. Being able to cycle cards for two less means that we can cycle about two-thirds of our cycling creatures for free, and Fluctuator lets us do this as many times we want per turn!

New PerspectivesNew Perspectives is functionally a second copy of Fluctuator in our list, except it will let us cycle any card for free as long as we have seven or more cards in our hand. Thankfully it draws us three cards when it enters, too. Combine that with effects like Wheel of FateWheel of Fate and Monument to EnduranceMonument to Endurance and we should reliably be able to keep our hand full and our graveyard stocked with creatures, too.

Surly BadgersaurSurly Badgersaur and Monument to EnduranceMonument to Endurance don't say cycling on them, but they're two cards we're happy to draw every game. Both allow us to ramp via Treasures and potentially start pinging our opponents or their creatures. These cards will fly under the radar the first time you play them (hopefully), but savvy opponents will quickly see how much extra value they generate us as we cycle cards turn after turn.

Bone MiserBone Miser does a similar thing, but might be the strongest version of all these types of effects. It'll net us a 2/2 Zombie every time we cycle a creature, when we cycle a land (great for paying for more cycling costs!), and a card whenever we cycle a noncreature, nonland card. This would 100% go in my Karador deck if I owned one and would easily be one of the top five cards in the list. Don't sleep on Bone Miser!

Cascading Into a Winning Position

Once we've cycled to our heart's content and filled up our graveyard, we're ready to start cascading. Thankfully, we'll always have access to this effect via our commander, Yidris, Maelstrom WielderYidris, Maelstrom Wielder, but the downside of relying on Yidris is that we have to cast our commander and then connect with Yidris. It's a slow, obvious gameplan that we can't always rely on executing.

Fortunately, with the sheer number of cards we're able to see through cycling and card draw, we'll have a good chance of drawing one of the other cascade cards in the list:

Classics like Bloodbraid ElfBloodbraid Elf, Demonic DreadDemonic Dread, Shardless AgentShardless Agent, and Violent OutburstViolent Outburst all made the list, of course. They're all really strong since they'll either cascade into the best cards in our deck or into another cascade card allowing us to continue along. Notably Violent Outburst is an instant, so we can cast it on an opponent's turn to try and pull off a surprise Living EndLiving End.

Throes of ChaosThroes of Chaos deserves a special callout as well since it also has retrace, allowing us to recast it from our graveyard by discarding a land in addition to paying its mana cost. This is great in case we whiff on our first cascade of the game and need another go. Plus, it gives us something to do with any extra lands that end up in our hand later in the game.

Maelstrom WandererMaelstrom Wanderer has cascade, cascade (yes, that means we get to cascade twice back-to-back) AND notably gives our creatures haste. Giving our whole team haste after we cast Living EndLiving End is crucial so that we can actually close out games and not just pass with a board full of summoning sick Deadshot MinotaurDeadshot Minotaurs and Monstrous CarabidMonstrous Carabids.

Realistically, we only need one cascade effect to get things started, since most of the things we can hit off of cascade will help us take control of the game.

What We're Hoping to Hit Off of Our Cascaders

You've probably noticed that we're not running Sol RingSol Ring, Arcane SignetArcane Signet, or a slew of other "staple" cards that cost less than three mana in our list this week, and that's with good reason: they're great in the early game but we don't want to cascade into them if we can help it.

Instead, we're looking to hit cards like FluctuatorFluctuator (see above), Ancestral VisionAncestral Vision, Glimpse of TomorrowGlimpse of Tomorrow, and Living EndLiving End, each of which will help us catapult ourselves into a winning position if not win the game outright.

Ancestral VisionAncestral Vision is perhaps the least impactful of these if we hit it, but drawing three extra cards should help set us up for another attempt to cascade into a winning position. At the very least, it'll put a bunch more cards with cycling into our hand that we can use to continue to fill our graveyard and churn through our deck.

HypergenesisHypergenesis is another excellent card for us to cascade into, provided we have a handful of creatures for us to cast with it. Being able to cast Agonasaur RexAgonasaur Rex, Eldrazi RavagerEldrazi Ravager, and Yidaro, Wandering MonsterYidaro, Wandering Monster for free should be better than most of what our opponents are doing off of Hypergenesis, especially if we can finish by casting Maelstrom WandererMaelstrom Wanderer to give them all haste.

tl;dr, we're pretty happy to cascade into anything that costs two or less in this week's list.

Winning the Game with Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder

Our main way to win games is creating an overwhelming board state by cascading into something like Glimpse of TomorrowGlimpse of Tomorrow, HypergenesisHypergenesis, or Living EndLiving End. Hitting any of these should help us quickly fill our board with huge creatures with cycling stapled on to them. While a handful of our cyclers have haste and will be immediately able to attack, this gameplan will often require us to pass the turn before we can attack.

Twilight's CallTwilight's Call does allow us to reanimate all of our creatures at instant speed for , which is almost always going to be our preferred way to cast it. Being able to return all of our creatures on the end step of an opponent's turn, untap, and immediately attack with them is a much better way to play this effect.

We can do something similar if we use Violent OutburstViolent Outburst to cascade into Living EndLiving End, a staple combo of Modern Living end lists, since cascade allows us to cast Living End while ignoring timing restrictions. Given we have almost ten spells that Violent Outburst could cascade into, we shouldn't bank on reliably being able to do so, though.

Rise of the Dark RealmsRise of the Dark Realms will let us get all creatures back from all graveyards if we want to paint an even bigger target on our back. It's fantastic if we can get something like a Terror of the PeaksTerror of the Peaks or Craterhoof BehemothCraterhoof Behemoth from an opponent. While we can't bank on accidentally winning off of Rise of the Dark Realms, getting every creature back from all graveyards is often a backbreaking effect that will end the game.

Living DeathLiving Death can end up creating a game-winning loop for us in combination with cards like Eternal WitnessEternal Witness and Wreck RemoverWreck Remover. When the Eternal Witness enters, we can use it to return Living Death to our hand to cast on a future turn. Meanwhile, Wreck Remover will slowly whittle down the number of creatures our opponents get back. Neat!

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

In case you didn't know already, the hallmark of a Plot Twist deck has always been the weird cards that really make it hum and/or we uncover via Scryfall search along the way.

This week's list has no shortage of them, starting with Unpredictable CycloneUnpredictable Cyclone, which perfectly marries the deck's cycling and cascade theme. The Cyclone lets us essentially cascade into a card that shares a card type whenever we cycle a card. Most of the time, we'll cycle something like Street WraithStreet Wraith and end up with a free Yidaro, Wandering MonsterYidaro, Wandering Monster.

It's worth noting that casting a card with Unpredictable Cyclone lets us ignore timing restrictions, so we can cycle our way into a timely blocker or other effect. I also want to call out Ancient ExcavationAncient Excavation, which can only hit either Insidious DreamsInsidious Dreams or Violent OutburstViolent Outburst when we cycle it with Unpredictable Cyclone, as a particularly effective card to cycle. Same goes for Lorien Revealed as our only sorcery that we can cycle, but there are 11 pretty gnarly cards it can hit off of a Cyclone trigger

Ancient ExcavationAncient Excavation merits further consideration on its own as well since it lets us essentially double the size of our hand and then discard a bunch of creatures to reanimate later. Cards like Ancient Excavation are fantastic in any deck that cards about filling its graveyard since it allows us to quickly churn through our library and find reanimation spells too.

Archfiend of IfnirArchfiend of Ifnir is an extremely powerful "removal spell" in a cycling deck since even one trigger will leave our opponents with bad blocks. If we're able to cycle a few cards, for example via FluctuatorFluctuator, then our opponents are going to struggle to keep creatures on the battlefield for the rest of the game. It will very quickly remove blockers so we can end the game with our host of draft chaff attackers.

Halo Forger serves a rather unique role in the deck since it can let us recast Glimpse of TomorrowGlimpse of Tomorrow, HypergenesisHypergenesis, and Living EndLiving End from our graveyard, for free. Since Halo Forager casts the spell "without paying its mana cost," we're able to pay zero to target these free spells and then cast them. A very powerful application for an otherwise underwhelming card!

Last but not least, The Balrog of MoriaThe Balrog of Moria is both an amazing card and piece of Lord of the Rings lore. Being able to net two Treasures off of cycling Balrog of Moria can let us untap and cast a Rise of the Dark RealmsRise of the Dark Realms two turns ahead of schedule. It can also exile each opponent's best creature when it dies, too, in case you want even more reasons to be running it.

Yidris, Maestrom Wielder Commander Deck List

Here's the full deck list for you to peruse:

Roll the Credits (for Now, at Least)

I hope you enjoyed reading the final edition of Plot Twist featuring Yidris, Maelstrom WielderYidris, Maelstrom Wielder. If there's one thing you take away from Plot Twist, let it be this: if you build a deck that's fun to play and does a "thing" you find interesting, you'll always win no matter what the final outcome of the game is.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck, the series as a whole, and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my deck lists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final list.

You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I'll always be tinkering with my lists and adding new cards, so if you want to see what I'm up to, Archidekt is a great place to start.

I can't express how much it means to me that you took the time to read my words, build these lists, and play games. Thank you.