Commander
Deck list
View this Lonis, Cryptozoologist deck list in Archidekt!
About Lonis, Cryptozoologist
Lonis's ability creates Clue tokens when nontoken creatures enter your battlefield. The activated ability provides a Clue sack outlet and allows you to steal nonland permanents from your opponents.
Lonis, Cryptozoologist in EDHREC
In EDHREC Lonis, Cryptozoologist has over 1700 decks. Most of the decks are Clue token decks (+1100) with different kinds of strategies.
Possible themes for Lonis, Cryptozoologist
Lonis can be built very strongly and even a bit unfairly. The ability to steal nonland permanents can cause lots of irritation in your opponents so act accordingly and prepare to protect Lonis.
This specific deck tech is focusing on ETB triggers, providing value and stealing opponents permanents in a fair manner by sacrificing multiple Clue tokens and hoping to hit something useful.
Tucking and Stealing theme
Tucking effects means putting spell or permanent in to the owners library. With Lonis's ability to steal a nonland permanent from the top of you opponents library this kind of strategy is the most strongest. Tucking your opponents strongest creatures and artifacts on top of their library with cheap effects like Aether Gust and Anchor to the Aether provides massive value.
Knowing what is on top of opponents libraries is important and allows you to sac the right amount on clue tokens to steal the nonland permanent you want. If you don't have any insight of the nonland permanents on top of the library, you want to sac more than 4, as the chances you will get nothing useful is higher. Due to this I often sac 6 when I don't know the permanents on top of the library to increase my odds to get something useful.
Imagine you tuck your opponents big creature threat like Old Gnawbone or Craterhoof Behemoth with Aether Gust, activate Lonis and having the information of Gnawbone you will sac seven Clue tokens instead of usual 5 or 6, and then steal the just removed Old Gnawbone. You just netted most likely over 10 mana of value compared to just destroying the threat with a Pongify because you also stole the threat and most likely also got a new Clue token from the ETB effect.
With the full Tucking and Stealing theme you have to protect Lonis a lot since your opponents will most likely remove your commander a lot. If Lonis's costs more than 4 the benefit you gain from the steal effects starts to hinder your game and building your wincons completely around the commander is often very risky, and advisable only if you aim to win soon, like with Kaalia of the Vast or with Rionya, Fire dancer.
Value and creature fall effects with Artifacts
This Lonis deck focuses on ETB effects from creatures and aims to provide big amounts fo value by causing multiple ETB triggers in a turn and even copying those with Panharmonicon or replacing them with better effects like Esix, Fractal Bloom and Academy Manufactorer to get stupidly good ETB effects and value. Like always turning the big value into a great play is sometimes difficult with low cmc creatures but stealing your opponents permanents does help in the process.
The deck focuses on closing the game with value from artifacts with effects like Altar of the Brood, Rampage of the Clans and Rise and Shine to name a few.
Strategy
Early game and mulligans, < T3
Lonis is very cheap with only CMC 2 so being able to cast your commander on T2 is important. Getting your elf mana dorks like Llanowar Elves or Fyndhorn Elves on T1 is beneficial as you want to cast a new creature on every turn until T4.
Best plays in Early game: Altar of the Brood to give pressure to your opponents. This also often calls for attention so if played prepare to get swung by during the early game. Guest for Renewal and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy provides great mana ramping from the mana dorks and Tireless Tracker and Tireless Provider gives you great value from the lands.
I'd recommend to take mulligans until you have a one drop, at least two lands as the deck has only 32 lands. Prepare to sac the first few Clues to hit the land drops until T4.
Mid game
T4 to T6 are mid game where you start to build your Clue engine and creating value with card draw and mana from multiple mana dorks. Aim to create more Clue tokens and use them if necessary to avoid losing lots of damage and don't be shy with drawing cards with them as most of the card draw happens with the activated ability of the Clue tokens. Hopefully you find some of the engine pieces like Panharmonicon, Adrix and Nev, Twincasters or Beast Whisperer.
Great ETB creatures for mid game include: Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Elvish Rejuvenator, Farhaven Elf, Mulldrifter or Coiling Oracle.
Late game
T6+ are the late game and in late game you should have some value engine pieces on the table and interaction in hand for example Mystic Snake, Sidisi's Faithful or Man-o'-War. The whole late game is to set up the board for your wincons so aim to draw plenty of cards with cards like Thought Monitor, Shimmer Dragon or Shamanic Revelation.
The whole Clue token theme is a bit janky, so prepare to play the long game with making deals with opponents by removing answers with Lonis from opponent A and use the gained resources to opponent B to avoid being the target of both.
Winning the game
Winning the game in Simic value decks is often through combat with strong overrun effects from Craterhoof Behemoth or similar but this deck aims to make massive damage with the Clue tokens or creating massive amounts of token copies.
Winning through combat
Big artifact beater wincons are Rise and Shine to turn your clues into 4/4 beaters and the alternative is Rampage of the Clans to destroy artifacts and turning them into 3/3 Centaurs. The third combat wincon is with Beastmaster Ascension and doing the traditional full attack.
Winning with milling
Lonis creates massive amounts of Clue tokens in a game and great way to harness them for passive benefit is through milling with Altar of the Brood. Having enough cards in your hande and using Kodama of the East Tree can easily mill over 20 cards from every opponent when your engine is working properly. Strong non infinite combo is Kodama of the East Tree + Academy Manufactorer + Altar of the Brood with Lonis as you get to play every land from your hand and possibly netting enough mana to play new creatures and triggering Lonis and Academy Manufactorer to produce new Clues and card draw.
Winning with boring your opponents to death
I've had one game where I somehow was able to lock out all the opponents with Junk Wider and tapped every nonland permanent my opponents had. Junk Winder prevents them to untap during the next untap phase so being able to create enough tokens you can keep your opponents in bay easily and eat their health in every combat a bit by bit. I hope this never happens again.
Who is the deck for
Lonis, Cryptozoologist is very interesting commander as it actively uses Clue tokens which are often quite unusable if not in mono white. Having the ability to steal opponents permanent wincons is always fun and can lead to super fun situations when you control several planeswalkers or big value beaters.
I've enjoyed playing with Lonis deck as it does plenty of the stupid simic stuff but is able to actually close the game with explosive rounds in combat or creating so much value
I'd say the Power level is 7 with this build and using the Tuck and Steal builds you can turn it into lower cEDH levels. Turning it into a cEDH deck means having lots of fast mana and multiple interactions spells and using the combos with Deadeye Navigator, Peregrine Drake, Temur Sabertooth and Shrieking Drake with some wincon outlet like Altar of the Brood or Grinding Station.
Upgrade list and considerations
If you want to upgrade the list here is some recommendations to provide more power and consistency to the deck
Shrieking Drake allows you to create multiple ETB effects with only 1 mana. Also Combo piece.
Deadeye Navigator is the single upgrade you want if you want to build a stronger deck. This bad boy combos with almost anything and is a format staple.
Dream Stalker works as a bounce effect and allows you to play the same card multiple times. Weaker version of Shrieking Drake.
Ghostly Flicker works as a protection and ETB multiplier card. Highly recommendable.
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is great blink provider and allows you to increase your ETBs by one.
Peregrine Drake is format staple and is a combo piece in many decks causing infinite mana.
Manglehorn is a great ETB card with a useful tax effect for opponents. If you are not building elf-synergies this is an auto-include.
Eternal Witness is a staple card, regrowth with a body.
Wood Elves allows to build more with the elf synergies and more removal safe ramping.
Graf Mole can provide large amounts of life as you activate Lonis.
Frilled Mystic another counter spell with a body if you aim for the janky permanents-only-deck.
Confirm Suspicions is a bad counter spell creating many Clues. Flavour win!
