Overview

Ivy is suuuper fun to play and plays differently than almost any other deck. Has similarities to [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] and [[Feather, the Redeemed]].

Deck Building

Targets

The best cards for the deck (aside from auras and instants) are creatures that give you a benefit when you target them. Ivy wants you to target other creatures so she can copy those spells, so you might as well get double the benefit by choosing creatures that give you a benefit when they get targeted. [[Gnarlback Rhino]], [[Stormchaser Drake]], and [[Triton Fortune Hunter]] should be in every Ivy deck. Target the Drake with [[Cerulean Wisps]] when Ivy is on the board, and you have yourself an Ancestral Recall with other words on it. Heck, it’s even better than that, because an opponent can counter the Wisps, and you’ll still draw two cards (one for the Drake’s triggered ability and one for the copied Wisps targeting Ivy).

Mutate

Mutate creatures are great because they can be a creature on the board to receive auras that Ivy then copies, or they can be a spell that targets and buffs Ivy and friends. Plus, when a mutate creature is placed on top of Ivy, they replace her type, so she is no longer legendary and thus can be copied with the various copy spells in here.

If you’re new to Mutate, it’s super weird, but basically the mutate card works like an aura that merges with the target creature. Whichever one is on top is what the creature actually “is” in all respects (power, toughness, types, name, colors, etc) but then add all the text boxes of the creatures underneath it into its text box.

Note that unlike auras that can be targeted individually, the mutated creature is just one object on the board. You can’t individually target parts of the mutated creature.

Also note that “when this creature mutates” effects do occur the first time you cast a mutate spell on a non-mutated creature.

Finally, yes, Ivy’s combat damage still counts as commander damage even if she’s been mutated with another creature on top. As long as the physical piece of cardboard is in the mutate stack, it is commander damage.

Copying

Speaking of copying, the copy spells in the deck are some of the best ways to really multiply the power of your board state. Many of them produce non-legendary copies, but a few don’t. For the ones that don’t, you’ll need to mutate Ivy first, so she’s no longer legendary (putting the mutated creature on top of her, so it replaces her type line, thus not legendary). If desperate, and you already have some non-legendary copies of Ivy from the other copy spells, go ahead and use a copy spell to get copies of her non-legendary tokens, and the one targeting the original will just die, no big deal.

Note that copying a mutated creature also copies the mutations, but the “number of times this card has mutated” is reset to 0 for the copies.

Obviously, all the copies have her same ability, so targeting some other creature will copy to Ivy and all the Ivy copies.

Finally, [[Twinning Staff]] is really fun, because it duplicates each of your Ivy’s copy triggers, except the copies don’t have the same targeting restriction as Ivy’s (i.e. you target Llanowar Elves with an enchantment, Ivy copies it to herself, Twinning Staff makes another copy, which can target anything). And yes, if you have 3 copies of Ivy in play and the Twinning Staff, you get 3 Ivy copies plus 3 Twinning Staff copies. The Twinning Staff sees each of the Ivy triggers as an individual “make a copy” and so it makes an additional copy for that trigger.

Where Twinning Staff’s “one additional copy” is more restricted is in something like [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] where you’re making X copies all from one trigger. Then you’d only get X+1 copies. Sorry, Zada players.

Auras

Low mana value auras are your friend. [[Curiosity]], [[Combat Research]], [[Sixth Sense]], [[One With Nature]], [[Keen Sense]] - these are gold.

Auras that draw cards are also gold, because you’ll almost always get at least 2 cards out of them. [[Rune of Might]] and [[Shielding Plax]] are really good.

Along with shielding plax, other things that give hexproof are good, because Ivy is definitely going to draw some fire. [[Canopy Cover]] is another good one that also gives evasion (which is redundant for Ivy but maybe not for whatever else you target).

[[Vow of Wildness]] and [[Vow of Flight]] are fun because you can cast them on an opponent’s creature as a kind of removal, but then copy them to Ivy where they buff her.

Playing The Deck

Strategies

There are two main strategies to the deck - voltron Ivy to kill with commander damage, and copying Ivy to make a hoard of deadly fairies. You kinda never know which one is going to come out of the deck at any particular time, which is one of the reasons why it is so fun.

Don’t play Ivy first. It’s tempting, because she’s so cheap, but I think she makes too tempting a target when she comes down early, and she gets removed quickly. I prefer to play some mana dorks and hopefully at least one good target creature first. Then when I play Ivy, I can double spell (again because she’s cheap and most of the cards in here are cheap) and reap the rewards right away.

Take special note of the secondary effects of the mutate creatures, a couple of them are removal which will repeat every time you further mutate them. This becomes really effective if you have multiple copies of Ivy out and/or Twinning Staff.

Managing Tokens

So, clearly Ivy makes a lot of copies of enchantments and creatures. This can be annoying to keep track of on the board. What I have found works best is to use dry erase tokens and just make a list of the names of all the auras on Ivy. Don’t use one card per Aura, it’s too many and it’s too hard to manage. Don’t try to write out all the rules text, that takes too long. Just write the name. Most of the auras are very simple anyway.

I am considering printing out a bunch of copies of all the auras and mutate cards in the deck, as well as extra copies of Ivy, to use as easier-to read tokens. It’s probably worth it, I’ve just been lazy.

Things That Don’t Work

Clones

Note that “comes into play as a copy of…” does not trigger Ivy’s ability, since you’re not targeting something with a spell. To utilize Ivy’s triggered ability to make clones of her, you need instant & sorcery spells that make token copies of the creature it targets.

Poison

I tried a poison deck with Ivy, and it sorta works, but it’s only really gets nasty if you get [[Venerated Rot Priest]] out. The rest of cards that work with poison just do not synergize with Ivy at all. What can work is to throw the priest in the deck by itself and let it be an alternate wincon. If you get enough copying spells, the priest will kill everyone in a turn or two… but it also paints a gigantic target on you and itself.

Budget Cuts

Cut [[Berserk]], you don’t really need it. Replace with good old [[Giant Growth]]. Replace [[Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth]] replace with forest. Replace [[Birds of Paradise]] with a 2 mana dork. Now you’re significantly under $100.

Conclusion

I really like this deck. It’s so different than other decks. There are weird benefits you don’t think of immediately, like people can counter your spell, but Ivy will copy it anyway, so it doesn’t even really sting much when they do.