cEDH Malcolm and Tana: Turbo Wins, Easy Wins

cEDH Malcolm and Tana is one of the strongest Turbo decks in the format. Bracket 5 is where the best of the best decks compete, so you have to bring some power. If you love the Temur color combination, Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and Tana, the Bloodsower are a great partner commander pairing. This deck is very much a Combo deck, so if you like fast decks that can win as early as turn 1, look no further.

If you’re newer to the world of cEDH and are just transitioning into the higher power levels, check out our guide on going from casual to competitive Commander here.

Why cEDH Malcolm and Tana?

There are a handful of options for Commanders in the Temur color pairing. Notably, Thrasios, Triton Hero is one of the partner options. That’s generally better for more Midrange strategies, which this very much isn’t. Instead, cEDH Malcolm and Tana leverages Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator‘s effect. This is a combo enabler that sits in the command zone, so you can wait to cast it until you’re ready to go for a win. And the best part? There are a lot of different creatures that can win you the game with Malcolm. Meanwhile, Tana, the Bloodsower… exists. Truth be told, you’re almost never going to cast it, and are instead playing it more for its colors. You’re never actually using it for its effect, and at most, using it to tutor up for a different creature. Having your game-ender in the command zone is great, as you don’t have to tutor for it and can go for the combo whenever you’re ready.

Creature Suite

The most important creature in the deck is Glint-Horn Buccaneer. This is your main combo piece, and with Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator on the battlefield, you can infinitely use its effect (we’ll get to that in the combo section). There are other cards that can deal damage to all opponents, and although they aren’t Pirates, there are ways to change them into Pirates. These are Weftstalker Ardent, Reckless Fireweaver, and Biotech Specialist. By making them into Pirates, they can deal infinite burn damage to everyone.

There are various utility creatures in the deck. For quick ramp, you have Elvish Spirit Guide, Simian Spirit Guide, and Tinder Wall. All of your mana dorks as especially useful (such as Birds of Paradise since you can use Birthing Pod to get to Corridor Monitor, which is a backup combo with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

There are various ways to make it harder for your opponents to interact with you. Allosaurus Shepherd prevents your Green spells from being countered, and Hexing Squelcher prevents all spells you control from being countered. To make it harder to target your creatures, Spellskite can redirect anything to itself, and Sylvan Safekeeper can use a land to give a creature shroud.

Tutor Suite

While you don’t get access to the Black tutors, thanks to Green, you have access to a ton of Green tutors that can put creatures onto the battlefield directly. You have a few that cost X to invest, including Invasion of Ikoria, Finale of Devastation, and Nature's Rhythm. The best is Chord of Calling since you can do it at instant speed to not worry about summoning sickness for Glint-Horn Buccaneer.

A handful of tutors put a creature directly into your hand. These include Worldly Tutor, Summoner's Pact, Archdruid's Charm, and Imperial Recruiter (the last of which only for 2 power creatures). There are a few cards where you discard a creature to trade it for another, such as Formidable Speaker and Survival of the Fittest.

Both Birthing Pod and Eldritch Evolution can sacrifice a creature for another from the library that costs more mana. These two help you find the last combo pieces you need. They offer a ton of consistency to make your combos easier to accomplish if one of them gets removed/coutnered.

Interaction

A good bit of the Blue in the deck are cards that can interact with your opponents. Since your combo is creature-reliant, you want a lot of ways to keep your creatures safe from any removal attempts. Both Deflecting Swat, Misdirection and Redirect Lightning can change a target from one creature to another. Or, you can give it hexproof with Legolas's Quick Reflexes, or use Veil of Summer to protect your spells from being countered and your permanents from being targeted by Blue or Black cards.

You have a handful of free counterspells, something you’ll need to win counter wars when you start to go for a win. These include Fierce Guardianship, Daze, Mental Misstep, and Pact of Negation. Mindbreak Trap can exile spells, which will counter spells that can’t be countered, essentially. Cheap counterspells are great too, such as An Offer You Can't Refuse, Flusterstorm, and Swan Song.

Type Changers

A key part of the deck are cards that can change a creature type. These are often “Plan B” if the Glint-Horn Buccaneer combo doesn’t pan out, such as if it gets exiled. The Plan B also helps to close out games where you can’t draw cards, be it because of certain permanents on the battlefield (like Orcish Bowmasters or because you’ll mill yourself out if you go for a full combo.

It can be tutored onto the battlefield with various spells, making Glamer Gifter one of the best choices. You can utilize Omni-Changeling with one of your “Plan B” cards, or even Glint-Horn Buccaneer for an extra failsafe in case one gets removed. It’s possible to gift all your creatures all types for free if you open with Leyline of Transformation in your hand. For some instant speed options, you have Artificial Evolution and Trickery Charm.

Utility Cards

The last cards we’ll go over are ones that don’t fit into a category, but are just generically good cards to run. For some card draw, you have the classic pairing of Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study. While you don’t want to get to a point where you aren’t turboing out a combo, it can still happen, and these help you survive in the Midrange game. Similarly, Sylvan Library helps you to dig through your deck quicker to get to your main combo pieces before anyone else can set up.

Since the deck is a Turbo deck, you want as much mana acceleration as possible. Rite of Flame nets you an extra mana for free, and Wild Growth lets a land tap for two mana. Your zero-cost mana rocks help too, such as Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is just a generically good card that ramps you with Treasure tokens and has the potential to exile a key piece of an opponent’s deck.

Combos

While the deck is a Turbo deck, there aren’t actually too many combos in the deck. Most are a variation of the main combo with Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator. The deck excels at pivoting to variations, which is what makes it so strong. Even if one combo gets stopped, you have plenty of others. And since Malcolm is your commander, this makes attempting a different combo route trivial. With all the tutoring in the deck, it’s very easy to get to your combos fast.

Glint-Horn Buccaneer and Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator

This is the bread and butter of cEDH Malcolm and Tana. All you need on the battlefield is Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator on the battlefield, Glint-Horn Buccaneer without summoning sickness, and two mana to pay for Glint-Horn Buccaneer‘s effect. Then, all you have to do is attack with Glint-Horn Buccaneer and then activate its effect. This will discard a card and draw a card, then trigger its effect to deal one damage to all your opponents. Since it’s a Pirate, this triggers Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator, which will create three Treasure tokens. This gives you two mana to activate Glint-Horn Buccaneer again. Simply keep looping until you’ve burnt everyone out of the game.

On top of burning everyone, you’ll also have one extra Treasure token each loop. This is great in case you need some excess mana for a counterspell. Technically, this isn’t infinite. You can only use its effect for as many cards as there are in your deck. Luckily, unless you have 40 or fewer cards in your deck, odds are, you’ll be just fine. However, this combo is very bad against Orcish Bowmasters. So, if that’s on the battlefield, you’ll want to pivot into an alternate strategy.

Malcolm Alternates

There are three substitutes for the Glint-Horn Buccaneer combo. These are Biotech Specialist, Reckless Fireweaver, and Weftstalker Ardent. To start, change their creature type into a Pirate with a card like Glamer Gifter. Then, for Reckless Fireweaver, have an artifact enter (this can be done by connecting with combat damage with Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator. This also works with Weftstalker Ardent, but you can have a creature enter as well. Biotech Specialist needs you to sacrifice an artifact, which can be a previously made Treasure token, or the Lander token it creates. All of these will burn all your opponents (or one in the case of Biotech Specialist) which then creates more Treasures. This will constantly trigger their effects for infinite burn damage. In Biotech Specialist‘s case, you need to sacrifice the Treasure token it makes constantly.

Weftstalker Ardent and Reckless Fireweaver are the better options, as they can play around popular Stax pieces like Collector Ouphe, something Biotech Specialist can’t play around.

Kiki-Jiki and Corridor Monitor

This combo is the “Plan C” of the deck. If for whatever reason the other combos failed, you have this one. The combo is very easy to pull off. All you need is Corridor Monitor and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on the battlefield. Simply tap Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to create a copy of Corridor Monitor. Then, when the token copy of Corridor Monitor enters the battlefield, use its effect to untap Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Rinse and repeat to make an infinite number of Corridor Monitor tokens with haste and simply swing for lethal damage.

This combo is easily accessible thanks to Birthing Pod, and the one situation where Tana, the Bloodsower can come up is when you can Pod Tana away to tutor for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker directly. Outside of this admittedly very niche situation, odds are you’ll never actually cast Tana. But, it may come up in a desperation play and if you have mana to spend. It’s just nice that Tana isn’t entirely useless, and has niche purposes.

Decklist and Notes

Here is the decklist for cEDH Malcolm and Tana. This Turbo Combo deck wins game very quickly, and with ideal opens, can win as early as the first turn of the game.

The deck can turbo out a ton of combos, and this is its greatest strength. It has a ton of consistency and failsafes if your combo ever gets stopped. If one win condition fails, you can always pivot into another one, with your Midrange cards helping you stay in the game until another opportunity comes along.

However, the deck can struggle against Stax pieces or anything that punishes card draws. In addition, it is a very tutor-reliant deck, so if you’re up against cards that can shut that down, you can find yourself in a jam unless you opened the nuts.

Luckily, thanks to the speed of the deck, you can usually set up your combos before your opponents get a chance to stop you. Even if a problem permanent comes along, you have cards like Sink into Stupor and Otawara, Soaring City to bounce them back to the hand before you start comboing off.

In Conclusion

cEDH Malcolm and Tana is one of the strongest decks in the format. It’s stood the test of time, lasting in the metagame in spite of various bans to staples of the format. If you like the Temur colors, cEDH Malcolm and Tana is a very good choice. It’s one that plays cards across all three colors equally, instead of Red only being used for a couple of cards, as a lot of other decks do.

The deck is incredibly speedy and can steal wins fast, even against other Turbo decks. Many of the alternates to the main combo can be done at instant speed, and it has more speed than many other top decks in the format. Love quick Turbo Combo decks, look no further than cEDH Malcolm and Tana.

If you still want to play a Temur deck but one that is more of a Midrange deck, Thrasios and Rograkh is another great option. And we have a guide for that deck too that you can check out here!