Hello, first I wanna thank you for making this post, because it gives great ideas about this deck, also i want to tell you that im making a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir EDH deck, with a different approach, maybe you can find some interesting ideas in here.
There's no doubt that Teferi is an incredibly powerful commander, and it's refreshing to see an ACTUALLY competitive deck built around him. I would enjoy seeing the sparks fly if our decks clashed (fortunately, being in red, I have access to some of the best blue hate cards out there :P)
Um, there's not a whole lot I would suggest (your list is near perfect already IMO)
Maybe Intuition if you have $$ Combos with Snapcaster and Archaeomancer
Future Sight is quite a powerful card and will probably win you the game if you have the Top in play also.
Twincast might grant you some nice utility - it's good with Recurring Insight and extra turn effects - doubles as an anti counter.
You should be able to make use of Gush quite well - it has some crazy utility.
Foil and Mindbreak Trap are the other 2 "free" counters I would suggest - good for those turn 1-3 win attempts.
Hurkyl's Recall lets you reset Sculpting Steel and Metamorph as well as get rid of Mana Vault or Mana Crypt if you need to (or cast them again to profit mana) - it saves your stuff from removal and hoses other decks that rely on artifacts.
Turnabout should be amazing with High Tide and doubles as protection from creatures for a turn. I find it incredibly useful lategame to untap all my artifact ramp - enabling basically another turn.
Consider trying out Call to Mind. I've really enjoyed this simple effect.
I guess that's it.
Hi there!
Thanks for the suggestions, although I must say I did try a ton of these already.
Out of all of those, which would you say are the most important cards to consider? Which ones from my current list would you replace? Why?
Obviously, you know the deck better than I do because I haven't played it. I'd be reluctant to offer any specific swaps because I don't have the personal experience with the deck that you do. I'd say out of the cards I suggested, Omniscience, Future Sight, and Intuition are the most likely to be good. I think Intuition is a lot better than Long-Term Plans because you have access to what you tutored for immediately and isn't vulnerable to getting reshuffled in. Omniscience and Future Sight should go a long way toward helping you win more often.
I'm surprised that you decided to trade Consecrated Sphinx for Recurring Insight. Sphinx is just broken in this format and should be a game winner if you can protect it. Not only does it draw you an insane amount of cards for the mana, it keeps your opponents from drawing cards because they know you'll be drawing twice as many. Combo it with Time Spiral, Time Reversal, Timetwister, or Windfall and you have one of the most ridiculous draw engines in the game. I am a huge fan of these handcycling effects and while they are certainly more synergistic with my deck (Niv-Mizzet), I believe they are powerful in any deck for reasons discussed in my primer. Now, I would still run Recurring Insight because it's also a great draw spell (and better with Leyline of Anticipation). If you can Twincast it you probably will pull of a win pretty easily. I'm convinced that overwhelming card advantage is the most reliable path to victory and it doesn't hurt to go heavy on card draw in any deck.
Crystal Shard pops out at me as being a bit too clunky and narrow for more competitive games but then again I'm partial to instant/sorcery based effects. I'd probably be using something like Boomerang or even Tidespout Tyrant instead. However, TBH, I've never played with the shard so feel free to completely ignore me.
Phantasmal Image, Copy Artifact, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Sculpting Steel. There's a lot of redundancy here which may or may not be necessary. I ended up swapping out these cards in my own deck for other things because while they often did find good targets (but sometimes not - being dead draws), they didn't bring me exponentially closer to winning. There were simply better options available for what I was trying to do (draw a crap ton of cards). With the fairly recent change in how legends work, these cards can't be used to kill your opponents' commanders anymore so that limits their use a bit more. However, I see that you do run A LOT more artifacts and creatures than I do, some of which are win conditions so feel free to ignore me here as well
Bribery is definitely good and I see it grabbing a Consecrated Sphinx 90% of the of time, HOWEVER, I think you can better streamline the deck by swapping it out for more redundancy elsewhere - tutors, control, removal, ramp that isn't dependent on another deck to be effective.
Out of all the cards you suggested, Intuition is the strongest. I found out early through playtesting that dumping win-conditions with this deck is the best way to lose quickly. Afterall, this deck can play a longer game if it needs to. While Long-term Plans is not the fastest card, it is more precise and doesn't dump cards. This is the reason why I feel that Fact or Fiction is a poor choice too. This isn't a multi-color combo deck that wins through just about any color combination.
As for Consecrated Sphinx vs. Recurring Insight, I playtested both very heavily. In short, Consecrated Sphinx is a bigger target and there's a lot of nukes out there, including creature hate. Recurring Insight doesn't suffer from the same cards that hit creatures and acts as a bomb that triggers twice, both of which are spell casts. In essence, it should net the same amount of cards over 2 full turns, but with less risk involved. I might try both and find something to cut, but I need to decide what I want to drop first.
On the subject of Artifacts, yes, I run a lot. You need to be able to explode and curve into something quick, hence why this deck is designed with that in mind.
Hey, I built this deck a little while ago (though I haven't had an opportunity to play it much) and finally picked up some of the more expensive pieces (mana drain, mana crypt, temporal manipulation) this past week. The only thing I'm missing now is the Capture of Jingzhou that I'm currently supplementing with Rite of Replication (I just like the card and know it's not ideal).
I'm trying to evaluate some of the newer cards that have come out since your last update. Dig Through Time seems like a no brainer, and Clever Impersonator and Aetherspouts are cards I'm looking to find room for. What do you think of those cards, and what do you find to be the weakest pieces of the deck currently (as far as making cuts)? In my own evalution, it seems like Dig Through Time may be better/sidegrade to something like Brainstorm (though it isn't as cheap); Aetherspouts could just replace Rite of Replication; and Clever Impersonator could replace Phantasmal Image (though it ups the curve) or Negate/Stifle (to put a higher emphasis on clone effects, esp as Metamorph #2). I think my general inexperience in EDH may be causing me to undervalue a card like Stifle, but it feels like an easy cut atm.
Another card I was curious about that I haven't seen mentioned is Tezzeret the Seeker. He interests me as an additional tutor and a psuedo ramp spell. If I do end up adding him, I'll also swap out a land for Seat of the Synod.
It may be notable that when I play it's with the same group of friends so, although I like the option to, I'm not typically trying to go full steam towards comobing out.
Edit: For the time being I cut Negate and Fellwar Stone for Clever Impersonator and Dig Through Time. I also tossed in a couple of fetches that I had extra of to grant shuffle effects for some of the deck manipulation pieces.
I'm missing something. Can someone explain in greater detail how to make infinite mana with Palinchron + Phantasmal Image/Phyrexian Metamorph + 7/8 Lands = Infinite Mana please! Don't you need to have 6 lands able to produce at least 12 in order to go infinite?
Thank you for the explanation, I understand now! With that being said, I don't see how you can make infinite mana with Palinchron + Phyrexian Metamorph + 8 lands. Are you paying 3 and paying 2 life instead of paying the full 3U (4 CMC)?
Unless I am mistaken:
>Float 8 mana
>Spend 4 to cast Phyrexian Metamorph down to 4 floating
>Untap 7 lands, tap those lands, floating 11
>Spend 4 to bounce, 4 to recast Metamorph, down to 3 floating
>Untap 7 lands, tap 7 lands, floating 10
>Cast Metamorph, floating 6
>Untap 7 lands, tap 7 lands, floating 13
>Bounce and recast Metamorph, floating 5
>Untap 7 lands, tap 7 lands, floating 12
>Bounce and recast, floating 4
>untap and retap 7 lands, floating 11
>Bounce and recast, floating 3
>untap and retap 7 lands, floating 10
>bounce and recast, floating 2
>untap and retap lands, floating 9
>bounce and recast, floating 1
>untap and retap lands, floating 8
>bounce and recast, floating 0
>untap and retap 7 lands, floating 7
>no longer enough mana to continue the combo
HERO, Just wanted to stop in and say thanks for the amazing deck idea. I am just getting into EDH and this deck is a great way for me to play the style I love to play (combo/control) with some amount of consistency, but not so much as to draw 100% of the aggro to myself in a 4-player game. I do not have all of the most expensive pieces, but I do have many of them and the deck really hums along great. My list, for reference: http://deckbox.org/sets/862971
I have added all the available ZEN/ONS fetches to fuel Dig Through Time and to reset my deck off of Scroll Rack/SDT. I can't recommend DTT enough to anyone who is still building this deck. When timed well, it is usually GG in my group. I ended up cutting Mana Leak from the deck because my play group is not heavy into fast combo, so the need for early counters is outweighed by the frequent inability to counter late-game bombs. There were many games where I was sitting with Mana Leak in hand around Turn 10 or so. If it had been any hard counter, even Delay, I would have been able to win the next turn. As it was it just rotted in my hand and the game dragged on longer than I would have liked. After a few games of this, it had to go. HERO, Is there a specific reason you run it in your list that I may be missing?
I am also running Clever Impersonator since I do not have a Temporal Manipulation right now. It is as amazing as you may have been able to guess by reading the card. It has been a Caged Sun or a Gauntlet of Power most of the time, but that is still great value. Clever Impersonator + DEN has lead to many fun moments
Again, thanks for the deck idea. Any input on my list would be appreciated.
Loving this deck! However, I am curious about some interactions under the Teferi + Knowledge pool lock
If you have Knowledge Pool in play, how can you win with infinite Blue Sun's Zenith? If you cast it, it gets exiled and you play something else. Than you play whichever spell you like to cast the infinite draw, but... you can't pay mana for it, so X = 0! D:
Also, knowledge pool locks our own hands if they get full of counter magic (as they probably will, because under the Pool Lock you have no more reason to cast them). Counterspells need a target to be cast, so if you have only counterspells in hand, you basically can't play anything from the pool...
Also, the main piece for the combo (Palinchron) is quite hard to tutor: how can you play around that?
If the owner of this primer is not active anymore, I'll be also glad if anyone else could reply
I believe he's left mtgsalvation, unforunately.
I wish to ask him questions as well...
Hakkai, you bring up some good points. Under a Knowledge Pool, counterspells are definitely not good for the reasons that you state above. Honestly, I don't particularly prefer this particular lock because it makes the game drag on for what feels like forever. Once the Knowledge Pool + Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir lock is achieved, the best thing to do is to turn Teferi sideways. Yup. Takes freaking forever, because you basically have to rely on what your opponents put under the Pool. Which is never a good idea. I think the goal of this deck is to keep the field clear of things bigger than Teferi and than beat them with his wooden, curvy staff.
Palinchron is devilishly hard to tutor for in mono-Blue. That is why card selection and card draw are so important for mono-Blue. You can't selectively find a silver bullet as easily as black allows (except for artifacts), so you need to rely on draw density to get into a combo. It becomes a lot easier when you are drawing 2+ cards per turn and controlling the board to execute the combo with minimal pieces.
I personally have been testing a Teferi, Temporal Archmage list for my Memnarch deck because Blue can find artifacts so easily and a particular one goes infinite with only a few artifacts ramp pieces, sometimes only one. It's been incredibly consistent and still features Memnarch as the kill condition. I'm going to add a section dedicated to it in my Primer in the second post, once internet is finally installed at my new house.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/556671-teferi-mage-of-zhalfir-mage-of-control-magic
My approach is les combo based and more controlish. I hope it can hel, and also I would like to read some suggestions, thanks.
Hi there!
Thanks for the suggestions, although I must say I did try a ton of these already.
Out of all of those, which would you say are the most important cards to consider? Which ones from my current list would you replace? Why?
EDH: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
I'm surprised that you decided to trade Consecrated Sphinx for Recurring Insight. Sphinx is just broken in this format and should be a game winner if you can protect it. Not only does it draw you an insane amount of cards for the mana, it keeps your opponents from drawing cards because they know you'll be drawing twice as many. Combo it with Time Spiral, Time Reversal, Timetwister, or Windfall and you have one of the most ridiculous draw engines in the game. I am a huge fan of these handcycling effects and while they are certainly more synergistic with my deck (Niv-Mizzet), I believe they are powerful in any deck for reasons discussed in my primer. Now, I would still run Recurring Insight because it's also a great draw spell (and better with Leyline of Anticipation). If you can Twincast it you probably will pull of a win pretty easily. I'm convinced that overwhelming card advantage is the most reliable path to victory and it doesn't hurt to go heavy on card draw in any deck.
Crystal Shard pops out at me as being a bit too clunky and narrow for more competitive games but then again I'm partial to instant/sorcery based effects. I'd probably be using something like Boomerang or even Tidespout Tyrant instead. However, TBH, I've never played with the shard so feel free to completely ignore me.
Phantasmal Image, Copy Artifact, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Sculpting Steel. There's a lot of redundancy here which may or may not be necessary. I ended up swapping out these cards in my own deck for other things because while they often did find good targets (but sometimes not - being dead draws), they didn't bring me exponentially closer to winning. There were simply better options available for what I was trying to do (draw a crap ton of cards). With the fairly recent change in how legends work, these cards can't be used to kill your opponents' commanders anymore so that limits their use a bit more. However, I see that you do run A LOT more artifacts and creatures than I do, some of which are win conditions so feel free to ignore me here as well
Bribery is definitely good and I see it grabbing a Consecrated Sphinx 90% of the of time, HOWEVER, I think you can better streamline the deck by swapping it out for more redundancy elsewhere - tutors, control, removal, ramp that isn't dependent on another deck to be effective.
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
Crystal Shard I recently dropped for Fellwar Stone. I should probably update that.
As for Consecrated Sphinx vs. Recurring Insight, I playtested both very heavily. In short, Consecrated Sphinx is a bigger target and there's a lot of nukes out there, including creature hate. Recurring Insight doesn't suffer from the same cards that hit creatures and acts as a bomb that triggers twice, both of which are spell casts. In essence, it should net the same amount of cards over 2 full turns, but with less risk involved. I might try both and find something to cut, but I need to decide what I want to drop first.
Bribery hits more than just Consecrated Sphinx in my meta, as I would consider Iona, Shield of Emeria much quicker than another Sphinx.
On the subject of Artifacts, yes, I run a lot. You need to be able to explode and curve into something quick, hence why this deck is designed with that in mind.
EDH: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
I'm trying to evaluate some of the newer cards that have come out since your last update. Dig Through Time seems like a no brainer, and Clever Impersonator and Aetherspouts are cards I'm looking to find room for. What do you think of those cards, and what do you find to be the weakest pieces of the deck currently (as far as making cuts)? In my own evalution, it seems like Dig Through Time may be better/sidegrade to something like Brainstorm (though it isn't as cheap); Aetherspouts could just replace Rite of Replication; and Clever Impersonator could replace Phantasmal Image (though it ups the curve) or Negate/Stifle (to put a higher emphasis on clone effects, esp as Metamorph #2). I think my general inexperience in EDH may be causing me to undervalue a card like Stifle, but it feels like an easy cut atm.
Another card I was curious about that I haven't seen mentioned is Tezzeret the Seeker. He interests me as an additional tutor and a psuedo ramp spell. If I do end up adding him, I'll also swap out a land for Seat of the Synod.
It may be notable that when I play it's with the same group of friends so, although I like the option to, I'm not typically trying to go full steam towards comobing out.
Edit: For the time being I cut Negate and Fellwar Stone for Clever Impersonator and Dig Through Time. I also tossed in a couple of fetches that I had extra of to grant shuffle effects for some of the deck manipulation pieces.
Unless I am mistaken:
>Float 8 mana
>Spend 4 to cast Phyrexian Metamorph down to 4 floating
>Untap 7 lands, tap those lands, floating 11
>Spend 4 to bounce, 4 to recast Metamorph, down to 3 floating
>Untap 7 lands, tap 7 lands, floating 10
>Cast Metamorph, floating 6
>Untap 7 lands, tap 7 lands, floating 13
>Bounce and recast Metamorph, floating 5
>Untap 7 lands, tap 7 lands, floating 12
>Bounce and recast, floating 4
>untap and retap 7 lands, floating 11
>Bounce and recast, floating 3
>untap and retap 7 lands, floating 10
>bounce and recast, floating 2
>untap and retap lands, floating 9
>bounce and recast, floating 1
>untap and retap lands, floating 8
>bounce and recast, floating 0
>untap and retap 7 lands, floating 7
>no longer enough mana to continue the combo
I have added all the available ZEN/ONS fetches to fuel Dig Through Time and to reset my deck off of Scroll Rack/SDT. I can't recommend DTT enough to anyone who is still building this deck. When timed well, it is usually GG in my group. I ended up cutting Mana Leak from the deck because my play group is not heavy into fast combo, so the need for early counters is outweighed by the frequent inability to counter late-game bombs. There were many games where I was sitting with Mana Leak in hand around Turn 10 or so. If it had been any hard counter, even Delay, I would have been able to win the next turn. As it was it just rotted in my hand and the game dragged on longer than I would have liked. After a few games of this, it had to go. HERO, Is there a specific reason you run it in your list that I may be missing?
I am also running Clever Impersonator since I do not have a Temporal Manipulation right now. It is as amazing as you may have been able to guess by reading the card. It has been a Caged Sun or a Gauntlet of Power most of the time, but that is still great value. Clever Impersonator + DEN has lead to many fun moments
Again, thanks for the deck idea. Any input on my list would be appreciated.
I believe he's left mtgsalvation, unforunately.
I wish to ask him questions as well...
Palinchron is devilishly hard to tutor for in mono-Blue. That is why card selection and card draw are so important for mono-Blue. You can't selectively find a silver bullet as easily as black allows (except for artifacts), so you need to rely on draw density to get into a combo. It becomes a lot easier when you are drawing 2+ cards per turn and controlling the board to execute the combo with minimal pieces.
I personally have been testing a Teferi, Temporal Archmage list for my Memnarch deck because Blue can find artifacts so easily and a particular one goes infinite with only a few artifacts ramp pieces, sometimes only one. It's been incredibly consistent and still features Memnarch as the kill condition. I'm going to add a section dedicated to it in my Primer in the second post, once internet is finally installed at my new house.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager