MTG Salvation

If this deck had a face it would be Stinkweed Imp. You make yourself an unenjoyable target to attack and slowly mill yourself out, once that happens you proceed to win in whatever fashion strikes your fancy (most often the maniac).

The most common way for me to win is as follows. Spell Crumple someone's general. Cast Tunnel Vision, targeting myself, naming Spell Crumple. Unburial Rites on Laboratory Maniac. Flashback Think Twice.

Half the fun of this deck is just drawing the wrong cards at the wrong time. Slam that Laboratory Maniac turn 3! Enjoy that Archangel's Light in your opening hand! Oh yeah Rift Sweeper and Runic Repetition!


- Win-Cons -
I've found that winning with Laboratory Maniac in a 4+ person game feels anti-climatic if the game hasn't been going on for very long. Because of that I added Worm Harvest (preferably with Dakmor Salvage in hand) as a secondary way to kill people. Palinchron going infinite also usually results in me drawing/milling my deck and winning.

- Some Card Choices -
Savage Beating - Swinging for 40 with Projenitus is very enjoyable
Archangel's Light - Some games I don't feel like trying to win. So I added in the mini-game of seeing how many times I can mill myself out
Evangelize
Bringer of the Black Dawn - Since this is a combo deck, and I don't actually like comboing out quickly he is my only tutor. He also just wins if you search for beacon of tomorrows
Ravnica Bounce lands - Palinchron goes infinite with 7 in play

- Things that I need to Change -
Mana Flare - Never survives to my turn since my friends know I have palinchron. Boring way to combo anyway
Past in Flames - Always underwhelming, unless I'm infinite. Then its just unnecessary anyway
Proteus Staff - In to get rid of other generals, but it never really does much

I've just been going through and updating all my older commander decks that I've still got kicking around. It's fascinating to me to see how much has and has not changed. After seven years I still enjoy having Progenitus hand out Savage Beatings.

This deck is the first and only one of my EDH decks that I've basically fully foiled out now, which resulted in greatly slowing down changes to it. Here's the updated list.


My original decklist recorded here was 97 cards because I forgot to add in Dimir Aqueduct and I must have lost a card at some point.

The biggest change for me was running a huge swath of lands from From the Vault: Realms. I also removed the vast majority of the pillowfort cards in favor of just using politics to fly under everyone's radar.

My favorite play with this deck are still Spell Crumple someone's spell, untap Tunnel Vision myself naming Spell Crumple (the only non-foil card in the deck). Although, I'm also fond of turn 1 land. Turn 2, Ravnica Bounceland. Move to discard. Discard, dredge card.



With my extensive experience playing with this deck, I find it immensely enjoyable. This deck isn't about raw power, it's about subtlety. You don't win with an awe inspiring play that leaves your opponents shattered corpses lying before you. You win with nudges, with the gentlest of breezes. Your aim is to always appear to harmless (not vulnerable and weak mind you). Your battlefield is not full of giant monsters but instead full chumb blockers. Hardly worth the time to attack into and certainly not worth wasting removal on. This way your opponents resources are solely focused on crippling each other. All the while your land base slowly grows and your graveyard has more value slowly (ever so slowly!) trickle into it. You point out a threatening combo piece to the table here. Fog a Craterhoof Behemoth there. Then, after an hour of pitched warfare, the battlefield destroyed again and again. Everyone's hands are depleted. Generals have been slain multiple times. That's when your library is suddenly and surprisingly empty (when did that happen? There was so much else to worry about!) and Laboratory Maniac makes his appearance with a draw trigger on the stack. Not bringing with him glorious victory, but a peaceful end to a massive slugfest.

It's quite tough, commenting on a list like this. You've obviously had it together for ages, and every single card is here for some reason or other. I like executing game plans efficiently, and the most efficient way to do a five colour Lab Man win would be in the hilarious and original Hermit Druid shell. That's obviously not what you're looking for here though, so I'll try to keep my feedback within your vision of the deck.

• The flashback theme is pretty cool, as it gives you something to do with all the cardboard you grind into your bin. However, I'm really not sure if the Riftsweeper etc. are realistically worth slots in spite of that.
• Given your enjoyment of dredging, where's your Golgari Grave-Troll? You could slip in an Entomb to try to get the value engine going, plus a Tortured Existence to keep it online. The latter of those is not foil though. The former would also work ok with your flashback thing, but may be against the deck's theme to some extent.
• You seem to be relatively draw light on the whole. While you're running the standard ways to get Lab Man out after a self-mill, I'm not seeing all that many ways to proc the draw once you do so. By extension, Walking Atlas seems like a bit of a waste of a slot as you don't seem to reliably keep yourself topped up. An easy way to solve Lab Man proccing is to borrow the Angel of Glory's Rise + Azami, Lady of Scrolls setup from the actual Lab Man decks.
• I'm liking World Shaper given the copious self mill. You could extend that a bit, work in Ramunap Excavator/Crucible of Worlds. Azusa and Oracle certainly wouldn't mind.
• Fog Bank is a cheaper Guard Gomazoa.

In addition to my comments from the "Deck of the Day" thread (seen here):
Overall, I like the "feel" of the deck if that makes sense. It doesn't seem tuned to the point of being overpowered, but seemingly random pieces come together to give the deck its own identity. It is definitely unlike any other Progenitus deck I have seen (though I haven't seen a lot) and I can see where that would be appealing. As mentioned, I am not a fan of LabMan as a wincon, nor am I really a fan of the 2 I mentioned but, as you mentioned, the deck is more about surviving and then coming out of nowhere to win and that is one of the better ways to go about it.