While it certainly has its fair share of staples, cEDH is a fairly dynamic format all things considered. New cards regularly make an impact there, with plenty of modern designs feeling custom-built for the format. This ever-changing nature means that we sometimes see unusual strategies do well in the format, too, as we did this week with Codie, Vociferous Codex. In a recent cEDH event, a Codie list piloted by Thomas Deer claimed the top spot. This bizarre strategy attacks the format from a novel angle, running a creature-light build capable of comboing off lightning fast.
Codie, Vociferous Codex In cEDH
As a cEDH Commander, Codie, Vociferous Codex has two big advantages. Firstly, it has a five-color identity, letting you run all of the most efficient combos in the format. You’ll find Demonic Consultation/Thassa’s Oracle in Thomas Deer’s event-topping list, as well as Underworld Breach/Brain Freeze. Throw in Witherbloom Apprentice/Chain of Smog, and the deck has a ton of ways to execute quick kills early in the game.
The other upside of running Codie in the command zone is that its activated ability can be a genuine win condition. Once activated, casting any one-mana spell will let you ‘Cascade’ into Profane Tutor, which can then grab Ad Nauseam. Using the mana from Codie’s ability, you can generally cast this right away, digging into a win or additional tutors.
By abusing this ability, Codie can end games incredibly quickly, often as early as turn three with fast mana support. This forces your opponents to find interaction early, or lose before they have the chance to. Even if they do have an answer, Codie’s deep interaction suite means it’s more than capable of winning a counter war. Thomas Deer runs all the typical free interaction here, from Force of Will to Fierce Guardianship, as well as anti-counter tech like Autumn’s Veil to protect your win.
While Codie’s ability cuts you off from playing permanent spells, the deck doesn’t really need to play any outside of its combo turn. You can drop all of your mana rocks early before Codie comes down, then get rid of Codie with something like Infernal Plunge to remove the restriction before you close things out. The other creatures in the deck, Elvish and Simian Spirit Guide, fulfill their functions fine even with Codie in play.
A Real Page-Turner?
While Codie, Vociferous Codex isn’t entirely new to cEDH, it is a very uncommon deck in the current metagame. According to MTGTop8 stats, only four players have placed in an event with the deck this year, Thomas Deer’s result included.
To an extent, this is down to Codie’s fragile nature as a strategy. If you can’t activate Codie early and get Ad Nauseam off, then the deck really struggles to generate card advantage. This also means you need to keep Codie around for a full turn before you can do much of anything, making the deck very vulnerable to removal.
That said, Codie still feels like it has more to do in cEDH than it’s doing right now. As a fully colorless one-card combo engine, it offers arguably the easiest route to victory available in the format. Other Turbo decks like Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy are more consistent, but they lack Codie’s capacity for instant wins independent of your starting hand.
While not being able to compete on board is a very real issue in drawn-out games, Codie can often close things out quickly enough that this isn’t a problem. Going forward, this explosive Strixhaven Book is one to watch, especially if cEDH continues on down the grindy Rhystic Study Clone path it’s currently on.
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