I’ve got a Crush on you…
Would you like to crush your opponents with an octopus? Sounds good, right? Try this deck on for size.
Simic Crush is essentially a control deck, but not in the 26 lands, 34 spells, and ride your Celestial Colonnade to victory kind of way. We want to get into the mid to late game where we have six and then eight mana available and beat our opponent down with an 8/8 octopus token. Let’s look at how the deck works.
Crush of Tentacles bounces all non-land permanents, and if the Surge cost was paid, we get an 8/8. To enable Surge, you have to cast a spell before it in the turn. The Surge cost is also cheaper than the normal casting cost of the card by one generic mana. We have a couple ways to make this work in our favor.
First, we can cast either Traverse the Ulvenwald, or Oath of Nissa. They both have a CMC of one, so you need six mana in the turn you cast this to follow it up with Crush. If you have Traverse, you can cast it to go get your sixth land, play it, and Crush. If you have an Oath of Nissa, you then pick it back up and get to cast it again later to trigger Surge again.
Once we hit eight mana, we can cast Eternal Witness to get Crush back from the graveyard, cast it again to bounce the Witness and get our 8/8. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Once you can bounce all permanents and get an 8/8 basically every turn, winning should be pretty straightforward against most decks.
So we need to get to six mana, and then eight mana. We have a few tricks up our sleeve to get there. Traverse and Oath tutor for lands, so we have a eight turn one plays to help make sure we hit our land drops.
We run a set of Coiling Oracle, which is better than Elvish Visionary in this deck because it either draws us a card or ramps us by putting a land onto the battlefield. We still run three Visionary, because it’s another ETB effect that draws us a card. If bounce them with Crush, we can cast them again and get more value.
We also run a set of Remand, which is the classic tempo counterspell, drawing us a card and causing your opponent to stumble for a turn. They can also be used later in the game to help keep the board clear once you have your 8/8. We also run a set of Cryptic Command, since it hard counters things, draws us cards, and later in the game taps down any attackers, clearing the way for our 8/8.
There’s a weird spot after the first casting of crush where you can’t get it back with Witness and cast it immediately, but you still have a decent amount of mana. You might just recast an Oracle, and then hold up Remand or Cryptic Command. Holding up Snapcaster to flashback Cryptic is also great.
I mentioned Snapcaster Mage, and we run three, because he’s inexpensive to cast, and gets value from ETB, so we get extra value when we bounce him with Crush. Even flashing back a Traverse is good stuff.
We run a single Nissa, Vastwood Seer because she pulls basic Forests out of our deck as an ETB. If she flips, she does a good Coiling Oracle impression, makes a 4/4, and eventually just wins the game. She does get bounced by Crush, but sometimes you just need a 4/4 and a planeswalker. Casting Crush isn’t always the answer, and Nissa helps with those situations.
I also jammed in an Ishkanah, Grafwidow. She provides a bunch of bodies with reach, and with the couple lands that produce black, she could just drain your opponent out. Her ability is also an ETB, and though we don’t get more value since her tokens get bounced too, she still dumps a bunch of power and toughness on the board. Once you have Delirium to enable it, it should just be on, so she’s fairly reliable that way. She could be dropped for a fourth Visionary, thought she’s a good thing to dump out on T5 to stall before Crushing, or on T7 after you Crushed on T6 and need to buy more time before you can start looping with Witness.
The land is nothing special. Some variety of blue and green duals, creature lands, and basics. A set of Misty Rainforest is there, but I don’t think they are required. You need to hit your land drops, but running only 24 lands is fine given the card draw and tutoring you have.
So, now what do we do? We cast our Coiling Oracle (and maybe Elvish Visionary) early, and throw them under the bus blocking larger things. They did their job when they entered the battlefield.
Remand problematic things to push them off for a turn (Remanding delve spells is fun). Cast Traverse to get your basics, and cast Oath to find another cheaper creature or a land to keep those land drops coming. Once you get to turn five or six, get ready to Crush. You really want to Crush on T6, or even earlier if you ramped with Oracle. Your creatures won’t win in combat, so you need to flip the table at the earliest available time. Either Traverse or Oath will work to trigger Surge, Oath would probably be preferred, but pay attention to hand size. Discarding isn’t the most fun you’ll have. You might be able to cast Traverse, get your land and play it for your turn, then Crush and get your 8/8. Next turn you can hopefully attack with your token and play some other cheap creature to keep on blocking duty. Either that or keep a Cryptic up, or Snapcaster ready to flashback Remand or something. If you really have nothing exciting to do, Snapcaster flashing back Traverse is perfectly fine. Just accept you might have to throw Snappy under the bus to preserve your life total, but he did his job.
It’s not super competitive, but it’s fun. Get out there and CRUSH!
