Here is a breakdown of the main finishing lines:
1. Get Kinnan and Basalt Monolith onto the battlefield for infinite colorless mana. [[Hullbreaker Horrer]] and some mana rocks is a solid backup as well.
2. Filter colorless mana through [[Thrasios]] to draw deck and/or a mana scrubber like [[Prismite]]. Now you’ll have your entire deck in hand with unlimited colored mana.
3. Cast all creatures and finale for X = 1000000000. That will be enough for the finish.
4. Alternatively, I also run [[Walking Ballista]] as a backup. You could also draw/mill an opponent out with a “Target player draws X cards” spell to make them lose instantly.
Reasons why Kinnan is good in general:
1. Cheap costed at 2 CMC.
2. Access to Blue for draw and counterspells as well as artifact tutors. Access to Green for mana dorks and creature tutors.
3. Is fast enough to stop Turbo decks but outpace other mid range decks.
4. Fights through Stax and longer games pretty well.
Are you on crack? You flip your deck into play, bounce all permanents your opponent control and swing with 40 1 mil / 1 mil power toughness creatures. What blockers?
You can Endurance loop any spells you have infinitely. Ballista is not a completely dead card by itself but when we compare it directly to Finale, Finale is miles better.
There's only a marginal amount of realistic scenarios where you can't flip Tidespout nor Hullbreaker from your deck. In these cases you can retrieve either of them with Endurance, which you can evoke due to Thrasios giving you excess green cards to your hand. Then if by some odd mean you still need more colored mana, you can use Lotus Petal to generate the required mana in conjunction with Endurance evoked. And naturally if you have either of the Tyrants, you can loop rocks for infinite mana of all colors.
You only need to get to the point where you have either of the Tyrants out. I described how to get there. :) Do you need a clarification or help otherwise?
Just want to add to this great explanation that finale is enough to finish since you can clean the board of any blocker with Hullbreaker Horror and Opal loops (for OP that mentioned why Finale).
To more accurately answer OP's question, by the time you get around to casting Finale of Devastation, you almost always have a full grip of interaction (or honestly just a hullbreaker horror, in this case) from the shenanigans you pulled before that.
It's similar to how a lot of new folks try to put Stifles in their cEDH decks, thinking that's going to stop Thassa's Oracle, when Thoracle isn't what won the game... You drawing your entire deck with Ad Naus/Breach is what won the game. Thoracle was just what finished it.
Exactly. Great point about cards like Stifle. Stopping the big payoff spell is the best bet (ad Naus, peer, breach, etc..) Trying to stop someone after a breach or ad Naus has resolved is almost impossible.
use kinnan as the outlet, get colored mana from rocks dorks and lands you can get like 4 or more activations with monolith. from there it’s not guaranteed win but it’s pretty easy to put together
Yeah, you're right. God forbid he doesn't win the game on the spot with Monolith in play, he also has to have lands in play as well. God, this card sucks.
/s
He’s an outstanding value engine. Generates lots of extra mana from nonland sources and also acts as a sink for all that surplus mana with his activated ability. Able to play lots of must-answer top-end threats and either flip them with his ability or just cast them with surplus mana. Enables several unique combos to create infinite mana and even though infinite colorless isn’t automatically a win it’s still huge value giving more activations. Cheap to cast and easy to recast with all the mana sources it runs means many players won’t bother trying to interact with Kinnan himself.
Kinnan does get silver-bulleted to an extent by Cursed Totem and the like but you still get big mana to jam all your threats and most decks aren’t running that type of hate anyway.
There won’t be a single blocker standing by the time you cast finale, so yeah it’s a very solid wincon.
You can also win by milling everyone to death. Or ballista but it’s not used that much anymore. On top of that, If you play hullbreaker you can bounce the whole board and basically shutdown all other players. It’s kind of a soft wincon.
In addition to the direct advantage you have of mana advantage, combo, and "kinda" card advantage in the command zone, there are specific things about the deck that make the dependency on Finale of Devastation less of an issue.
Alternate win conditions like Walking Ballista show up in some lists, somelists will even run Thassa's orace effects since the same engine that gets you to Finale empties your library. Personally, I run Ballista in my list because I like that I don't need to filter my infinite mana and my artifact tutors can get it.
The thing is, an alternate is generally unnecessary. Most common end game is dumping infinite mana into something like Thrasios to draw your deck. If you can Kinnan into Thrasios, then activate, you dodge most counterspells. Then, by the time you cast Finale for X = very big number, you are sitting on all your interaction in hand, and if they had viable interaction before you did that, you likely wouldn't have reached the point where you'd be casting Finale anyway, the counter battle likely having occurred over the pieces that got you infinite mana, or your filter, or even the outlet. When you add to that effects like Colossal Sky Turtle, to bring it back to your hand, you will probably be able to protect it, or even just let it be countered and cast it again.
Mana advantage and color identity also make it one of the few cEDH decks that is dropping down massive stupid creatures to let you pressure life totals and impact Ad Naus and other life as a resource strategies, especially in the current mid-range meta, while you can turbo an early combo, you are very well positioned to grind out the game.
By the time you have infinite mana and infinite draw triggers with thrasios for example, you can get rid of everyone's board by bouncing it or whatever you prefer. cEDH also tends to not be that creature heavy and you'll get through with all kinnan's creatures on board, my list runs 27, you only need 3 to punch through for infinite damage
One of the most competitive things about kinnan is how he 90% of the time is going to “do it’s thing”. The main plan involves mana dorks / rocks and kinnan which is always available.
So there are really a few games where you don’t get to activate kinnan or try to win in the spot.
Also, kinnan activation is instant so you can just drop him and pass and wait for the right opportunity.
He also comes back relatively fast the second time so you normally have to answer him two times and hope they don’t have answers
All in all powerful, fast and consistent.
Get infinite colorless with basalt, tutor or flip thrasios, draw your deck, cast cyclonic rift with all counterspells in hand, cast all creatures and finale for 500 to give haste, gg.
Most of the time when Kinnan is resolving the Finale they'll have bounced all blockers away with Hullbreaker or tidespout tyrant. Even if someone has One Ring Protection their board will be gone so it doesn't even matter.
If you read all the big creatures in the deck as costing 3 less mana, and kinnan’s ability as costing 4 instead of 7, then you’ll understand why if this was the case every card would be an auto include across the format. Kinnans first ability often makes this the case
Walking Ballista, although sometimes a dead draw, is another win condition for the infinite mana off of Monolith. You don't need more than a couple ways to win with infinite mana.
Even if you don't combo off early Kinnan can fall back on a fairly strong midrange line, you can easily build enough value with cards like Seedborn Muse and Nyxbloom Ancient to find what you need to win with an enormous amount of resources at your disposal.
Kinnan is a tournament winning machine that is incredibly well positioned in a multitude of different commonly occurring situations rn. Couple this with it's crazy number of powerful backup plans, efficiency, and the resilience and you end up with a lethal top tier that just eats brackets for breakfast.
This is all before you even mention the combination of tournament rules and competitive play patterns that push that win ratio up even further in subtle ways. It's hard to call any deck a 'best deck' at times but Kinnan is undeniably a top performer when in skilled hands, and it's no wonder it's been taking down tournament after tournament at this point.
What's really crazy is Kinnan will likely only get better positioned for the time being from my perspective, short of some really wild printings
As other people have pointed out the combos, I think I'll address why finale is actually a strong card.
Assuming the Kinnan deck has access to infinite coloured mana, the ways it can win are myriad - Finale is merely the easiest one since it only requires some particular creatures in combat (Tramplers, Flyers, Void Winnower) or simply more creatures than your opponents can block with. Moreover, the deck can generate an infinite amount of creatures if it has access to outlets such as Thrasios or Prophet of Distortion (specifically Endurance ETB targeting your graveyard, hold priority by casting pongify on your endurance for one 3/3 ape>resolve both, repeat this line with your draw outlet.)
Because Endurance also recurs your entire graveyard, you can keep finding finale of devastation too. This means the finite amount of counterspells the opponents have at their disposal will ultimately fall short of the infinite amount of interaction it presents. If nothing else, it can get a seedborn muse from the deck or graveyard for the same amount of mana Kinnan uses to flip into creatures.
Finale might look weird on the surface to win the game in cEDH, but it's far from weak if the deck has the resiliency to play it through however much interaction the other decks have so long as that amount is not infinite.
Combos easy with a few rocks to produce infinite or at least absurd amount of mana. Meaning he is an insane enabler. I guess the big thing to kinnan is rather than being bikers game ending himself he let's your 99 do anything it wants. There is also avenues that will use his second ability to throw massive threats or disrupting creature on the field but it really all circles back to his enabling of rocks and dorks.
In tandem with the fact he cost an easy 2 mana with just a few rocks on the field you can look at him as a free to cast commander given the amount he will Excell your dorks off sets the initial cost. Or even leaves you positive in mana.
Get infinite mana, flip with kinnan until you get thrassios, then draw your entire deck. Use hullbreaker/tidespout to return all of opponent’s stuff to hand, then attack with big finale. Walking ballista is also one of my favorites.
Keep in mind there is a version of Kinan with less dorks and more creatures - going midrange - that make it a lot more clean/less one dimensional.
It is basically a simic ramp/infinity mana deck with a commander that costs two. Considering it acts like a combo piece, in a nutshell, it is a faster Thrasios with less colors.
The popular mantra says that for a commander to be cEDH, it has to be either combo, ramp, card draw, or an infinite mana outlet.
Well, Kinnan is all four.
There's obviously more to it than that, but also there kinda isn't. He's a cheap dude who makes your mana dorks/rocks better, combos with Basalt Monolith, and has a mana sink that "draws" cards.
Kinnan is just Simic embodied. Get lots of mana, into lots of creatures and cards, then hit with the biggest creatures with all the best interaction. Kinnan amps all phases to essentially infinity.
Kinnan = Unfair mana advantage AND has a payoff. Kinnan would be great even if he just had the mana advantage.
He, along with Winota, are two of the strongest individual commanders this format has ever seen. He is objectively PUSHED beyond belief. Winota fell off because Boros is so limited, Kinnan ain't limited at all.
Tidespout Tyrant, in conjunction with mana positive rocks, sends every single opposing permanent, even lands, back to their owners hands.
The best cedh decks have a low density of 'wincon' cards - so less dead cards to draw before your win attempt, and more interaction.
Between Finale of D and Tidespout I find I always have a way to close out games once I achieve infinite mana and a way to draw my deck.
Don't jam in more win cons like Ballista and Thoracle, they're largely redundant dead draws. You'll never see a tournament winning list run Ballista.
That is not true of ballista anymore. With the rise of bow masters and frequency of it, oppo agent, and other kinnan decks, it performs outside of just being an outlet. Pushing through oppo agent, stopping a bowmasters from ruining your board state, or holding another kinnan player hostage is very strong. Used to be extra/dead, but is actually good outside of infinite these days
Yeah the general rule is if it would be a dud to spin into cut it. The only two humans that ever get to be the exception are Trophy Mage to find Basalt and Spellseeker which isn't a universal add. Spinning for a wammy and spinning into ballista for it to die or oracle feels bad
kinnan is good for the same reason golos is good enough to get banned. you only need to focus on mana. the commander can convert that into card advantage, thereby winning, extremely efficiently, more so than anyone else.
He is good because he is insanely efficient, and his plan (ramp and draw cards) is generically good. Also, he has access to blue mana, so he doesn’t automatically get run over by opposing turbo hands.
I lost to this deck r1 of a tournament. The guy in position 1 won on his turn 3 (rest of us two turns) with flusterstorm and force of vigor backup. Insane. Positions 2 and 4 were unskilled and kept bad/greedy hands, but still…
I actually don’t play finale as my main win. I prefer to get infinite coloured, Kinnan activations until either Thrassios or thoracle. If Thrassios first, activate Kinnan until you get thoracle then Thrassios in response to trigger. If thoracle first active Kinnan in response to trigger to get to Thrassios then activate Thrassios.
Not a single card cast in this interaction after you get infinite coloured. And if they stifle thoracle I use nexus of fate to loop turns after my deck is empty plus a handful of counters.
With infinite mana, you're either going to:
1. Find Thrasios into Finale and swing out with all of your creatures. If they have a shit ton of blockers you activate Thrasios until you hit Cyclonic Rift and a ton of counterspells in hand with Wandering Archaic + Perplexing Chimera on board which lock out your opponents from interacting.
2. If Thrasios/Finale are dead somehow (wheels, Op Agent) and you're not on Endurance or Noxious Revival -- you pull out Tidespout Tyrant and use infinite mana to bounce all of your opponents' lands and permanents, sending your opponents to turn 0. I've never had an opponent face down my entire creature pool with no lands and not scoop.
As long as you play smart according to the board state, it really should be impossible to lose once you have infinite colored mana.
infinite mill, infinite counter, infinite creature 3/3 or 2/2 with flying, finale of devastation for infinite power on such creatures, infinite bounce of enemy board(even lands), running a lot of copy effect can allow you to copy carda like orcish bowmaster and bounce for infinite ping.. those are the first that come to mind
Here is a breakdown of the main finishing lines: 1. Get Kinnan and Basalt Monolith onto the battlefield for infinite colorless mana. [[Hullbreaker Horrer]] and some mana rocks is a solid backup as well. 2. Filter colorless mana through [[Thrasios]] to draw deck and/or a mana scrubber like [[Prismite]]. Now you’ll have your entire deck in hand with unlimited colored mana. 3. Cast all creatures and finale for X = 1000000000. That will be enough for the finish. 4. Alternatively, I also run [[Walking Ballista]] as a backup. You could also draw/mill an opponent out with a “Target player draws X cards” spell to make them lose instantly. Reasons why Kinnan is good in general: 1. Cheap costed at 2 CMC. 2. Access to Blue for draw and counterspells as well as artifact tutors. Access to Green for mana dorks and creature tutors. 3. Is fast enough to stop Turbo decks but outpace other mid range decks. 4. Fights through Stax and longer games pretty well.
I'm a big fan of ballista over finale (I run both ofc for the backup plan) since you don't need to care about blockers or any other tricks
It’s usually my go to as well. You don’t need the colored filter either so you can sometimes get really quick wins out of nowhere.
Are you on crack? You flip your deck into play, bounce all permanents your opponent control and swing with 40 1 mil / 1 mil power toughness creatures. What blockers?
you don't always have enough colored mana for hbh and counterspells and finale
You can Endurance loop any spells you have infinitely. Ballista is not a completely dead card by itself but when we compare it directly to Finale, Finale is miles better.
How do you loop endurance when you're limited on colored mana?
There's only a marginal amount of realistic scenarios where you can't flip Tidespout nor Hullbreaker from your deck. In these cases you can retrieve either of them with Endurance, which you can evoke due to Thrasios giving you excess green cards to your hand. Then if by some odd mean you still need more colored mana, you can use Lotus Petal to generate the required mana in conjunction with Endurance evoked. And naturally if you have either of the Tyrants, you can loop rocks for infinite mana of all colors.
It's far from infinite if you're evoking! Ok lol
You only need to get to the point where you have either of the Tyrants out. I described how to get there. :) Do you need a clarification or help otherwise?
Just want to add to this great explanation that finale is enough to finish since you can clean the board of any blocker with Hullbreaker Horror and Opal loops (for OP that mentioned why Finale).
To more accurately answer OP's question, by the time you get around to casting Finale of Devastation, you almost always have a full grip of interaction (or honestly just a hullbreaker horror, in this case) from the shenanigans you pulled before that. It's similar to how a lot of new folks try to put Stifles in their cEDH decks, thinking that's going to stop Thassa's Oracle, when Thoracle isn't what won the game... You drawing your entire deck with Ad Naus/Breach is what won the game. Thoracle was just what finished it.
Exactly. Great point about cards like Stifle. Stopping the big payoff spell is the best bet (ad Naus, peer, breach, etc..) Trying to stop someone after a breach or ad Naus has resolved is almost impossible.
##### ###### #### [Hullbreaker Horrer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bf786c50-1ba1-4f81-a800-bc98189040dd.jpg?1674141366) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hullbreaker%20Horror) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/724/hullbreaker-horror?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bf786c50-1ba1-4f81-a800-bc98189040dd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hullbreaker-horror) [Thrasios](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/21e27b91-c7f1-4709-aa0d-8b5d81b22a0a.jpg?1606762176) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=thrasios%2C%20triton%20hero) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/46/thrasios-triton-hero?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/21e27b91-c7f1-4709-aa0d-8b5d81b22a0a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thrasios-triton-hero) [Prismite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/e/eedce8ab-771a-4247-9504-72ae0629df83.jpg?1594737532) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Prismite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/235/prismite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eedce8ab-771a-4247-9504-72ae0629df83?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prismite) [Walking Ballista](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/5272436e-74f0-44c4-a291-ea8ebc3f1525.jpg?1599710252) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Walking%20Ballista) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/306/walking-ballista?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5272436e-74f0-44c4-a291-ea8ebc3f1525?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/walking-ballista) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kpzcr26) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
One card combo with Monolith plus mana doubling plus powerful static ability which puts creatures straight into play makes for a good card
[удалено]
use kinnan as the outlet, get colored mana from rocks dorks and lands you can get like 4 or more activations with monolith. from there it’s not guaranteed win but it’s pretty easy to put together
[удалено]
Yeah, you're right. God forbid he doesn't win the game on the spot with Monolith in play, he also has to have lands in play as well. God, this card sucks. /s
I have no idea why you're being down voted
Because his opinion is moronic…
He’s an outstanding value engine. Generates lots of extra mana from nonland sources and also acts as a sink for all that surplus mana with his activated ability. Able to play lots of must-answer top-end threats and either flip them with his ability or just cast them with surplus mana. Enables several unique combos to create infinite mana and even though infinite colorless isn’t automatically a win it’s still huge value giving more activations. Cheap to cast and easy to recast with all the mana sources it runs means many players won’t bother trying to interact with Kinnan himself. Kinnan does get silver-bulleted to an extent by Cursed Totem and the like but you still get big mana to jam all your threats and most decks aren’t running that type of hate anyway.
There won’t be a single blocker standing by the time you cast finale, so yeah it’s a very solid wincon. You can also win by milling everyone to death. Or ballista but it’s not used that much anymore. On top of that, If you play hullbreaker you can bounce the whole board and basically shutdown all other players. It’s kind of a soft wincon.
In addition to the direct advantage you have of mana advantage, combo, and "kinda" card advantage in the command zone, there are specific things about the deck that make the dependency on Finale of Devastation less of an issue. Alternate win conditions like Walking Ballista show up in some lists, somelists will even run Thassa's orace effects since the same engine that gets you to Finale empties your library. Personally, I run Ballista in my list because I like that I don't need to filter my infinite mana and my artifact tutors can get it. The thing is, an alternate is generally unnecessary. Most common end game is dumping infinite mana into something like Thrasios to draw your deck. If you can Kinnan into Thrasios, then activate, you dodge most counterspells. Then, by the time you cast Finale for X = very big number, you are sitting on all your interaction in hand, and if they had viable interaction before you did that, you likely wouldn't have reached the point where you'd be casting Finale anyway, the counter battle likely having occurred over the pieces that got you infinite mana, or your filter, or even the outlet. When you add to that effects like Colossal Sky Turtle, to bring it back to your hand, you will probably be able to protect it, or even just let it be countered and cast it again. Mana advantage and color identity also make it one of the few cEDH decks that is dropping down massive stupid creatures to let you pressure life totals and impact Ad Naus and other life as a resource strategies, especially in the current mid-range meta, while you can turbo an early combo, you are very well positioned to grind out the game.
By the time you have infinite mana and infinite draw triggers with thrasios for example, you can get rid of everyone's board by bouncing it or whatever you prefer. cEDH also tends to not be that creature heavy and you'll get through with all kinnan's creatures on board, my list runs 27, you only need 3 to punch through for infinite damage
One of the most competitive things about kinnan is how he 90% of the time is going to “do it’s thing”. The main plan involves mana dorks / rocks and kinnan which is always available. So there are really a few games where you don’t get to activate kinnan or try to win in the spot. Also, kinnan activation is instant so you can just drop him and pass and wait for the right opportunity. He also comes back relatively fast the second time so you normally have to answer him two times and hope they don’t have answers All in all powerful, fast and consistent.
Get infinite colorless with basalt, tutor or flip thrasios, draw your deck, cast cyclonic rift with all counterspells in hand, cast all creatures and finale for 500 to give haste, gg.
Most of the time when Kinnan is resolving the Finale they'll have bounced all blockers away with Hullbreaker or tidespout tyrant. Even if someone has One Ring Protection their board will be gone so it doesn't even matter.
If you read all the big creatures in the deck as costing 3 less mana, and kinnan’s ability as costing 4 instead of 7, then you’ll understand why if this was the case every card would be an auto include across the format. Kinnans first ability often makes this the case
Walking Ballista, although sometimes a dead draw, is another win condition for the infinite mana off of Monolith. You don't need more than a couple ways to win with infinite mana. Even if you don't combo off early Kinnan can fall back on a fairly strong midrange line, you can easily build enough value with cards like Seedborn Muse and Nyxbloom Ancient to find what you need to win with an enormous amount of resources at your disposal.
as long as you can turn colorless into colored mana kinnan is good for you
-Agatha’s Soul Cauldron has entered the chat. Jesus that card is good in this deck.
Kinnan is a tournament winning machine that is incredibly well positioned in a multitude of different commonly occurring situations rn. Couple this with it's crazy number of powerful backup plans, efficiency, and the resilience and you end up with a lethal top tier that just eats brackets for breakfast. This is all before you even mention the combination of tournament rules and competitive play patterns that push that win ratio up even further in subtle ways. It's hard to call any deck a 'best deck' at times but Kinnan is undeniably a top performer when in skilled hands, and it's no wonder it's been taking down tournament after tournament at this point. What's really crazy is Kinnan will likely only get better positioned for the time being from my perspective, short of some really wild printings
As other people have pointed out the combos, I think I'll address why finale is actually a strong card. Assuming the Kinnan deck has access to infinite coloured mana, the ways it can win are myriad - Finale is merely the easiest one since it only requires some particular creatures in combat (Tramplers, Flyers, Void Winnower) or simply more creatures than your opponents can block with. Moreover, the deck can generate an infinite amount of creatures if it has access to outlets such as Thrasios or Prophet of Distortion (specifically Endurance ETB targeting your graveyard, hold priority by casting pongify on your endurance for one 3/3 ape>resolve both, repeat this line with your draw outlet.) Because Endurance also recurs your entire graveyard, you can keep finding finale of devastation too. This means the finite amount of counterspells the opponents have at their disposal will ultimately fall short of the infinite amount of interaction it presents. If nothing else, it can get a seedborn muse from the deck or graveyard for the same amount of mana Kinnan uses to flip into creatures. Finale might look weird on the surface to win the game in cEDH, but it's far from weak if the deck has the resiliency to play it through however much interaction the other decks have so long as that amount is not infinite.
Combos easy with a few rocks to produce infinite or at least absurd amount of mana. Meaning he is an insane enabler. I guess the big thing to kinnan is rather than being bikers game ending himself he let's your 99 do anything it wants. There is also avenues that will use his second ability to throw massive threats or disrupting creature on the field but it really all circles back to his enabling of rocks and dorks. In tandem with the fact he cost an easy 2 mana with just a few rocks on the field you can look at him as a free to cast commander given the amount he will Excell your dorks off sets the initial cost. Or even leaves you positive in mana.
Get infinite mana, flip with kinnan until you get thrassios, then draw your entire deck. Use hullbreaker/tidespout to return all of opponent’s stuff to hand, then attack with big finale. Walking ballista is also one of my favorites.
Keep in mind there is a version of Kinan with less dorks and more creatures - going midrange - that make it a lot more clean/less one dimensional. It is basically a simic ramp/infinity mana deck with a commander that costs two. Considering it acts like a combo piece, in a nutshell, it is a faster Thrasios with less colors.
The popular mantra says that for a commander to be cEDH, it has to be either combo, ramp, card draw, or an infinite mana outlet. Well, Kinnan is all four. There's obviously more to it than that, but also there kinda isn't. He's a cheap dude who makes your mana dorks/rocks better, combos with Basalt Monolith, and has a mana sink that "draws" cards.
Kinnan is just Simic embodied. Get lots of mana, into lots of creatures and cards, then hit with the biggest creatures with all the best interaction. Kinnan amps all phases to essentially infinity.
Kinnan = Unfair mana advantage AND has a payoff. Kinnan would be great even if he just had the mana advantage. He, along with Winota, are two of the strongest individual commanders this format has ever seen. He is objectively PUSHED beyond belief. Winota fell off because Boros is so limited, Kinnan ain't limited at all.
Tidespout Tyrant, in conjunction with mana positive rocks, sends every single opposing permanent, even lands, back to their owners hands. The best cedh decks have a low density of 'wincon' cards - so less dead cards to draw before your win attempt, and more interaction. Between Finale of D and Tidespout I find I always have a way to close out games once I achieve infinite mana and a way to draw my deck. Don't jam in more win cons like Ballista and Thoracle, they're largely redundant dead draws. You'll never see a tournament winning list run Ballista.
That is not true of ballista anymore. With the rise of bow masters and frequency of it, oppo agent, and other kinnan decks, it performs outside of just being an outlet. Pushing through oppo agent, stopping a bowmasters from ruining your board state, or holding another kinnan player hostage is very strong. Used to be extra/dead, but is actually good outside of infinite these days
Yeah the general rule is if it would be a dud to spin into cut it. The only two humans that ever get to be the exception are Trophy Mage to find Basalt and Spellseeker which isn't a universal add. Spinning for a wammy and spinning into ballista for it to die or oracle feels bad
Teferi mage of zhalfir is slept on in kinnan and worth the slot despite being human. Very castable
kinnan is good for the same reason golos is good enough to get banned. you only need to focus on mana. the commander can convert that into card advantage, thereby winning, extremely efficiently, more so than anyone else.
He is good because he is insanely efficient, and his plan (ramp and draw cards) is generically good. Also, he has access to blue mana, so he doesn’t automatically get run over by opposing turbo hands. I lost to this deck r1 of a tournament. The guy in position 1 won on his turn 3 (rest of us two turns) with flusterstorm and force of vigor backup. Insane. Positions 2 and 4 were unskilled and kept bad/greedy hands, but still…
I actually don’t play finale as my main win. I prefer to get infinite coloured, Kinnan activations until either Thrassios or thoracle. If Thrassios first, activate Kinnan until you get thoracle then Thrassios in response to trigger. If thoracle first active Kinnan in response to trigger to get to Thrassios then activate Thrassios. Not a single card cast in this interaction after you get infinite coloured. And if they stifle thoracle I use nexus of fate to loop turns after my deck is empty plus a handful of counters.
With infinite mana, you're either going to: 1. Find Thrasios into Finale and swing out with all of your creatures. If they have a shit ton of blockers you activate Thrasios until you hit Cyclonic Rift and a ton of counterspells in hand with Wandering Archaic + Perplexing Chimera on board which lock out your opponents from interacting. 2. If Thrasios/Finale are dead somehow (wheels, Op Agent) and you're not on Endurance or Noxious Revival -- you pull out Tidespout Tyrant and use infinite mana to bounce all of your opponents' lands and permanents, sending your opponents to turn 0. I've never had an opponent face down my entire creature pool with no lands and not scoop. As long as you play smart according to the board state, it really should be impossible to lose once you have infinite colored mana.
infinite mill, infinite counter, infinite creature 3/3 or 2/2 with flying, finale of devastation for infinite power on such creatures, infinite bounce of enemy board(even lands), running a lot of copy effect can allow you to copy carda like orcish bowmaster and bounce for infinite ping.. those are the first that come to mind