Foxy
- May 30, 2021
- 4 min read

Every Teacher Has a Favorite Student, and it's Zimone

By Jeremy Rose

“Who’s Your Favorite Student?”

My students ask this question a lot, usually multiple times a year from a variety of different kids. Most teachers give them the classic answer “I don’t have a favorite student,” but I do not believe in lying to my students. I absolutely have a favorite, and so does every other teacher, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell them who it is.

When it comes to Magic, specifically the students of Strixhaven, my favorite is Zimone. She’s a kid who is advanced well beyond her actual age and is performing at a high level among peers who are many years her elder. I’ve taught many students who are very similar to Zimone in this way and that sentimentality led me to building a Brawl deck around the Quandrix Prodigy.

It’s an Easy ‘A’

Contrary to Zimone’s character, her abilities, and the deckbuilding choices I made revolving around them, are not complex at all. Zimone plays extra lands and draws extra cards, that’s it. I built the deck with a few more cards that do those things as well and threw in some splashy spells and creatures to capitalize off of having more lands and cards than my opponent. This is largely a ramp deck and will spend the early game adding lands to the board and the late game throwing haymaker after haymaker.

The Big Fundamentals

This deck is chock full of ramp spells to power out the big baddies later in the game. We’re playing some land ramp like Cultivate, Roiling Regrowth, Emergent Sequence, Beanstalk Giant, and Migration Path to get us moving toward the eight lands that let Zimone draw extra cards. The deck is also running Eureka Moment and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath to get some card draw while also potentially putting more lands into play. Lotus Cobra will take advantage of playing multiple lands in a turn and snowball the deck’s ramp cards into other things.

In order to cast the expensive stuff later, the deck also plays Midnight Clock and Arcane Signet as additional sources of mana. Topping off the ramp package, this deck plays some mana dorks in the form of Gilded Goose, and Paradise Druid.

The Big Tickets

Ramping to the moon is only as good as the payoffs that come afterwards and this deck packs some serious punch. Kiora Bests the Sea God is such a neat Saga and a real pain for opponents to deal with, especially when it comes down early. After using the Adventure side of Beanstalk Giant (Fertile Footsteps), this deck is also well prepared to cast the creature side and have a huge beater ready to roll. Elder Gargaroth and Questing Beast are a little lower on the curve but are powerhouses at their respective mana values and will do some serious work on both offense and defense.

Speaking of defense, the deck puts a big focus on defensive spells to protect its most important assets and clear the way for victory. Sublime Epiphany does just about everything and absolutely finds a home in this deck. Negate and Neutralize are great counterspells in Brawl and Voracious Greatshark is a counterspell that leaves behind a very large shark for later use. The deck also runs a couple of bounce spells like Into the Roil and Brazen Borrower to help deal with things once they’re on the board.

Mamba Mentality

Every deck needs a way to win, and this deck closes out the game in a variety of ways, most of them value oriented. This deck’s end game is tough to beat and once it has the momentum heading into the later stages of the game, it’s going to try to close the door on the opponent. Teferi, Master of Time can drown opponents in value and possibly allow for some extra turns to finish the opponent with creatures. Alrund’s Epiphany is a great card and ensures that the deck has the time it needs to repeatedly attack and get the opponent to zero life while deploying more and more threats.

One of the best closers in the deck is the big snake, Koma, Cosmos Serpent. This card is extremely difficult to remove and will sit for multiple turns creating more things to clear the way for attackers and end the game. My personal favorite way I’ve won is by casting Echoing Equation (the back side of Augmenter Pugilist) and copying something like Koma or Uro with a bunch of Koma coils on the board. Generally speaking, attacking with 12 Uros will seal the deal in just about every game very quickly.

Keepin’ it Simple

While this may not be the flashiest or most interesting deck, it gets the job done and tends to be a blast to play. Sometimes, just playing good cards in Magic makes for a good deck and this is a prime example of that. When the deck goes off and casts its really good spells ahead of curve, its tough to beat and not difficult to maintain the board state from that point on. And if it ever feels like its slowing down a bit or not quite getting there, Zimone’s draw ability can help dig you out of a hole and back into the game. Enjoy drawing cards, playing lands, and casting some of the best spells in the format!

Deck List: