Matt Capra

[Bracket 5] Stella Lee, Wild Card

Decklist

https://moxfield.com/decks/g5kk9go2HEWXoSgLAfIU-w

Credit: FreedomWaffle

Primer

https://moxfield.com/decks/x5iDbb-n9UCrYAh5PIdtbg/primer

Overview

Stella Lee, Wild Card is a deck that utilizes redundant 1 card win cons to consistently present early wins with a storm backup plan. We aim to get Stella out as early as possible then wait for our window to go off. Most of our combos work at instant speed, so we can wait for the perfect moment before presenting win.

Pros 👍

  • Multiple 1 card win conditions help present early wins
  • Very interactive
  • Access to Underworld Breach, Rhystic Study, and Mystic Remora

Cons 👎

  • Commander centric game plan
  • Weak to stax and removal
  • Only 2 colors

How Do We Win?

We can win the game by infinitely copying Twisted Fealty with Stella Lee, Wild Card to replace the Wicked Role tokens and drain our opponents for infinite life. We can also use Brain Freeze and Underworld Breach to mill out our opponents and wheel. Timetwister allows us to recur these 2 win conditions.

What Are Our 1 Card Combos?

After casting 3 spells we can draw our deck with Cerulean Wisps, Refocus, and Twitch by infinitely tapping Stella to copy the untap spell. We can also use Twisted Fealty to drain our opponents for infinite life by replacing the Wicked Role token each time.

How Do We Win Through One Ring Protection?

The Twisted Fealty combo drains our opponents for infinite life without targeting, meaning we can win through The One Ring protection.

Why Not Run More Untappers?

Dramatic Reversal and Hidden Strings both make infinite mana with Stella Lee, Wild Card but do not win the game on their own. While infinite mana can help us find another win, we are often low on cards in hand and may not be able to dig for another payoff. Furthermore, card quality is very important when we have to run a variety of sub par cards already to fuel our commander’s gameplan.

How To Play

We want to get Stella Lee, Wild Card out as soon as possible unless we can find an early Mystic Remora or Rhystic Study. Stella acts as card advantage as well as enabling early win attempts.

Holding up interaction is especially good with Stella because counterspells turn on Stella’s second ability, allowing us to win at instant speed. Furthermore, if we cast 2 pieces of interaction, we’ll trigger Stella’s first ability to gain card advantage for our next turn.

Strategy

Mulligan aggressively for a turn 1 or 2 Stella Lee, Wild Card or card advantage engine. We need to get setup as soon as possible to start triggering Stella or producing enough mana to push for a win. While we are happy to sit back and wait, we’ll often find a moment to present an early win attempt and should be ready.

Stella is a magnet for removal, so try and save your interaction to protect her. Developing Spellskite or holding up a counterspell might be important before casting Stella depending on your pod.

Combos & Wincons

List of Combos

  • Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze + Lion’s Eye Diamond or Lotus Petal = Mill your deck (and your opponents’ decks) to play any number of other combos
  • Stella Lee, Wild Card + Twisted Fealty after casting 2 spells = Infinite life loss for your opponents
  • Stella Lee, Wild Card + Cerulean Wisps or Refocus or Twitch after casting 2 spells = Draw your deck

Win Conditions

  • Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze + Lion’s Eye Diamond or Lotus Petal = Mill most of your deck, then mill your opponents’ decks and cast Wheel of Fortune or pass the turn
  • Stella Lee, Wild Card + Twisted Fealty after casting 2 spells = Infinite life loss for your opponents
  • Stella Lee, Wild Card + Cerulean Wisps or Refocus or Twitch + Timetwister + Lightning Bolt + Shore Up = Infinite damage (see Timetwister Loops below)

Combo Lines

Wisps Untap Loop

Requirements: Stella Lee, Wild Card untapped without summoning sickness, U, and 2+ other spells cast this turn. Note: Using Refocus or Twitch instead of Cerulean Wisps will cost an additional 1 or 2 respectively.

  1. Cast Cerulean Wisps targeting Stella Lee, Wild Card and hold priority.
  2. Activate Stella Lee, Wild Card targeting Cerulean Wisps.
  3. Let Cerulean Wisps resolve to untap Stella Lee, Wild Card and draw a card.
  4. Repeat steps 2 - 3 to draw your deck.

Once you have drawn your deck you can kill your opponents with Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze, Twisted Fealty, or a Timetwister loop (see lines below).

Note: You can respond to any Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora triggers on the cast of Cerulean Wisps by activating Stella Lee, Wild Card and starting the loop.

Twisted Fealty Loop

Requirements: Stella Lee, Wild Card untapped without summoning sickness, 2UR , and the ability to cast 1 other spell. Note: You can use Mystical Tutor instead to execute this line at instant speed with Cerulean Wisps, Refocus, or Twitch.

  1. Cast Personal Tutor as your first spell for the turn, putting Twisted Fealty on top. Mana Available: 2R
  2. Cast any spell to trigger Stella Lee, Wild Card’s 1st ability, exiling Twisted Fealty. Mana Available: 2R
  3. Cast Twisted Fealty targeting Stella Lee, Wild Card and hold priority. Mana Available: 0
  4. Activate Stella Lee, Wild Card targeting Twisted Fealty.
  5. Let Twisted Fealty resolve to untap Stella Lee, Wild Card and created a Wicked Role token.
  6. Repeat steps 3 - 5 to infinitely replace the Wicked Role token, draining your opponents for 1 life each time. Note: You may need additional mana depending how much mana your second spell for turn costs.

Underworld Breach Combo

Requirements: 1R, 6+ other cards in your graveyard and/or hand.

  1. Cast Underworld Breach. Mana Available: 0
  2. Cast Lion’s Eye Diamond. Mana Available: 0
  3. Activate Lion’s Eye Diamond adding RRR and discarding your hand. Mana Available: RRR
  4. Cast Wheel of Fortune from your graveyard using it’s escape cost and exiling 3 cards. Mana Available: 0
  5. Cast Lion’s Eye Diamond from your graveyard using it’s escape cost and exiling 3 cards. Mana Available: 0
  6. Repeat steps 3 - 5 to find Brain Freeze, Mnemonic Betrayal, or Thassa’s Oracle.

Note: it is highly advised to have a silence effect before going for this line.

Snap Minamo Combo

Requirements: Stella Lee, Wild Card untapped without summoning sickness, 1UU, Minamo, School at Water’s Edge in play untapped, and 2+ other spells cast this turn. Return any number of creatures to their owners’ hands.

  1. Cast Snap targeting a creature and hold priority. Mana Available: U
  2. Activate Stella Lee, Wild Card targeting Snap and hold priority. Mana Available: U
  3. Activate Minamo, School at Water’s Edge targeting Stella Lee, Wild Card to untap her. Mana Available: 0
  4. Let the copy of Snap resolve and untap Minamo, School at Water’s Edge and another land that taps for U. Mana Available: U
  5. Repeat steps 2 - 4 to return any number of creatures to their owners’ hands.

Card Choices

Draw

  • Engines: Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, The One Ring
    • If we cannot cast T1 or T2 Stella Lee, Wild Card we’ll want to be casting one of these.
  • Payoffs: Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, Jeska’s Will
    • Because we don’t have much card advantage in the command zone these effects can quickly refill us and find a win.

Combos

  • Win Cons: Brain Freeze, Twisted Fealty, Lightning Bolt
    • Loop Lighting Bolt with a Timetwister loop (see Timetwister loops above).
  • Draw Your Deck: Cerulean Wisps, Refocus, Twitch

Tutors

  • Into Hand Tutors: Gamble, Merchant Scroll, Solve the Equation, Muddle the Mixture, Spellseeker
    • We have tons of ways to easily find a combo with our commander.
  • Top Deck Tutors: Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor
    • These are fantastic as our first spell so we can use Stella Lee, Wild Card’s ability to exile the card tutored.

Ramp

  • Fast Mana: Chrome Mox, Jeweled Lotus, Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, Mox Amber, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Mana Vault, Sol Ring
    • You should always be looking for turn 1 or 2 Stella Lee, Wild Card
  • Mana Engines: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
    • Ragavan is a red mana dork that saves mana for a combo turn.
  • Rituals: Rite of Flame, Simian Spirit Guide, Dockside Extortionist
    • We don’t rely as much on Dockside Extortionist as other decks, but it can allow us to easy push for win with counter backup.
  • 2 Mana Rocks: Arcane Signet, Fellwar Stone, Talisman of Creativity
    • These are great with Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt for early development.

Interaction

  • Bounce & Removal: Chain of Vapor, Cyclonic Rift, Snap, Otawara, Soaring City, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast
  • On the Stack Interaction: Pact of Negation, Dispell, Flusterstorm, Mental Misstep, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, Swan Song, Deflecting Swat, Fierce Guardianship, Force of Negation, Mindbreak Trap, Force of Will
    • We love to see interaction after we have a draw engine down to stop opponents’ win attempts and protect our own.
  • Other Protection: Defense Grid
    • A pseudo silence effect that can protect our sorcery speed wins.

Miscellaneous Effects

  • Extra Turn: Final Fortune
    • Steal an opponent’s turn after a counter war or push through your win with this instant speed extra turn effect.
  • Flash Enabler: Borne Upon a Wind
    • A powerful effect that can allow us to wait for the perfect moment to win the game.
  • Copy Effects: Phantasmal Image, Phyrexian Metamorph
    • Obviously copying Dockside Extortionist is the best case scenario, but we can use these to copy all kinds of utility creatures depending on the board state.
  • Recursion: Underworld Breach, Timetwister
    • Both of these allow for addition win conditions.

Flex Slots

  • Wheel of Fortune: Having 2 wheels reduces card quality (you don’t always want to wheel), but this effect is very powerful with Underworld Breach and can refill your hand.
  • Misdirection: An extra piece of free interaction that is good protection on your turn or can backup someone else countering a win attempt. Because we don’t have good card advantage adding another pitch-cast card can be a big ask.
  • Shore Up: A fantastic protection piece (and combo piece to deal infinite damage to a player without blockers). However, Shore Up is not necessary and could be replaced.
  • Spellskite: Great protection for Stella Lee, Wild Card, but can slow us down.
  • Ponder: While one of the best cantrips, we prefer them to be instants so we can easily combo on top of other player’s win attempts.

Considering

  • Dramatic Reversal and Hidden Strings: These combo with Stella Lee, Wild Card to create infinite mana, but we do not have an easy way to win the game with infinite mana.
  • Imperial Recruiter: This can of course grab Dockside Extortionist if we need mana, but also can get Spellseeker as a 1 card win the game combo for .
  • Frantic Search: You can cycle through your deck infinite with Stella Lee, Wild Card and Minamo, School at Water’s Edge, but it is card selection not card advantage.
  • Last Chance and Warrior’s Oath: These effects can help us push for more early wins but reduce card quality.
  • Blasphemous Act: A board wipe that is easily tutorable and allows us to equalize the board after Stella Lee, Wild Card has been removed. Best in staxy metas.