1. Howling mine and pals are a non-bo.
One of the first things people jump to with Zedruu is donating a howling mine. That’s certainly where I started, eyeballing viseling and sudden impact mechanics for the deck. The problem with this is Zedru’s only real advantage is giving you cards. If you’re giving everybody extra cards anyways, what’s the point in playing zedruu to draw even more cards? Unless you lean on crap like library of leng or spellbook you'll be limited by the 7 card hand size limit anyway - especially if you want mana available to donate.
2. Zedruu will die.
The biggest problem with most zedru strategies is the player tries to give away heaps of cards only to have their general wrathed away before they truly start to benefit from those donations. In the same vein she goes quite nicely with a retribution of the meek.
3. Donations will die.
You don't want to be starting over from scratch with the donations each time you play Zedruu. If you give away creatures, those get wrathed away at the same time zedruu does. Artifacts and enchantments are a safer investment, but lands are the safest donation by far. Ultimately though I would just avoid donating creatures.
4. Donating takes a lot of mana.
The cost of donating cards via zedruu is a known annoyance. Having to pay RWU specifically makes it very mana intensive, especially if you try to donate 2 things in a single turn and even more if you’re giving away lands/signets. Goblin Cadets, Rogue Skycaptain, Loxodon Peacekeeper and Vedalken Plotter are all huge cards to have down before you bring zedruu out as its a free swap. Puca’s mischief gets an outside nod as it costs the same as zed, and requires other cards to work.
A lot of 2-drop artifacts can help curve you into zedruu a turn faster and ensure you get all 3 colours to get her out in the first place. My favourites are pentad prism, sphere of the suns, and talisman of progress as they make for nice donate fodder once zedruu is out.
5. You need to do something when your plan works.
So you’ve donated 4 cards and kept zedruu on the table, way to go! Now what... my angle of choice are the various maro’s (kiyomaro, sturmgeist, etc) but those alone won’t get there. A certain number of slots probably have to be reserved for huge “gg” cards like akroma or magmatic force.
6. Donating doesn’t have to help anyone.
While lands are safest, the best donations are things like spellshock and tsabo’s web that are of no benefit whatsoever to the person receiving them. The nice thing about “damage” permanents like ankh of mishra and psychogenic probe are that zedruu’s minimal life gain ability actually helps take the edge off of these for you.
7. The white-ramp combo
Land tax, tithe, and gift of estates are all solid ways to make up for donating lands with zedruu and in most cases fill your hand (e.g. buff your maros). On the red side of things donating lands weakly combos with price of progress and acidic soil.
So that basically outlines where my current build is at. I’ve yet to play it though so cannot comment on its effectiveness, but at a minimum its a zedruu approach that isnt the tired pheldagriff-style “group hug” nuisance deck.
Macaroni or Cheese
Even on her worst day zedru cannot be considered cheesey, and it allows you to be as generous or sinister as you feel from game to game. You can also teach other players a lesson by giving them your “fun cards” so they can see what its like to play without a perma-fog combo or stasis lock (if such a player is permitted in your playgroup!)
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