MTG Salvation

Questionable mulligans aside (why did you keep a 1-land hand in Commander?) that first game seems pretty solid and demonstrates a lot of the fun flexibility of the deck. But I would not want to play on MODO, that's true. IRL, it's less arduous. That's crazy how much you would've decked yourself, I find I can rarely keep an Archive/Reflection out long enough to threaten decking myself. People have a lot of respect for those cards here.

Against Ezuri and swarms in general, I really do like Curse of Swine and the instant sweepers (Star Storm, Fault Line, Magmaquake). Ezuri is incredibly powerful already so it takes a lot of resources to keep him in check.

I highly recommend as many solid mana rocks as you can muster, including Gilded Lotus and Hedron Archive. I would definitely be interested in Crush of Tentacles coming out in OGW.

Because my first hand was also 1 land and I already took a mulligan :s Also, I had Worn Powerstone and Mana Crypt. If I had another land it would be great, but I had to Day's Undoing for my second land.

21/12/15:


I didn't seem to have enough artifacts to make Shimmer Myr work, and Lab Man is easier on my poor fingers. The Puzzle Box wasn't holding up too well as a Arjun duplicate, being able to get a new hand only once a turn wasn't really enough. Im not too sure if I'll miss Boseiju, since I don't have too many clutch spells, but if I remove it, I might be able to fit in another utlity land like Tectonic Edge or something. Astral Cornucopia because it essentially cost 0 and can act as a free new hand with Arjun out.

Where would Teferi himself stand at this point? I feel like the flash effects are necessary enough, especially if you've taken out the Shimmer Myr.

Granted, I only use Vedalken Orrery and Leyline of Anticipation as my flash enablers, but still, more of that doesn't hurt!

~Lil Kalki

Actually, I only run 9 creatures including Arjun, 2 of which are artifacts. On the other hand, I run 21 artifacts (although about half of these are mana rocks). Therefore, if I had to add a 3rd flash enabler, I'd run Shimmer Myr over Teferi. However, once I have a flash enabler out, the 2nd and 3rd ones are essentially dead cards, so I didn't think it was necessary to include Shimmer Myr which is more restricted that the other 2.

If i'm not wrong, your list has way more creatures than I run, so Teferi might be more useful for you that it is for me.

OP updated with card choices!

So let's talk Oath and what cards are worth considering for Arjun:

Overwhelming Denial - A uncounterable counterspell and it can be cast cheap if you have already cast one spell, not a difficult task. I could see this if you need more counters.
Chandra, Flamecaller - This PW has a lot of potential. Specifically, her ability to wipe the board or one-sided Wheel+1 you. That <0> ability is pretty spicy.
Goblin Dark-Dwellers - Like Talent of the Telepath, Spelltwine, and Snapcaster Mage, this guy nets you multiple Arjun triggers off casting just one card. May be a little unweildy depending on the number of cheap instants and sorceries you have that are worth flashing back.
Jori En, Ruin Diver - A fine way to net extra cards but perhaps too slow. I'm not sure when this guy is better than a simple Compulsive Research and the like.

So nothing that immediately screams "Put me in Arjun!" the way Archive or Psychosis Crawler do, but some interesting food for thought.

I haven't noticed any discussion about Deep Analysis and Think Twice but I am a big fan of both of these, Deep especially. Both maintain card parity, Deep actually gives advantage, and both can be flashed back for a free 'moil.

Sorry, it's been a long while since I updated this... RL issues got in the way, and with the new colourless mana, MTGO now needs even more clicking. For those who don't play on MTGO, you now have to click to select what type of mana you would pay for generic mana costs. For example, previously, say you were casting Compulsive Research with 2 Islands and a Ghost Quarter. Previously, you could tap all your lands, then play the spell and it would immediately be cast, no questions asked. Now, you have to click to indicate you want to use the 1U produced by one Island and one Ghost Quarter to pay the 2 in the 2U mana cost of Compulsive Research. It's slowed down the game to the point I don't really feel like playing my more click-heavy decks anymore (I also have a Cloudstone Curio enchantress deck that I used to enjoy), and Arjun is easily the most click-heavy of them all ):

But yeah, OGW. Maybe Void Shatter for Hinder, since tuck rule is no more? Chandra, Flamecaller is decent too, but a 6 mana wheel +1 that requires me to have some form of protection for it is iffy. Oath of Jace might be nice if I didn't run zero PWs. I feel that Crush of Tentacles is a poor alternative to Cyclonic Rift or even Evacuation, because it returns everything and doesn't get rid of them, so there is no chance to break parity somewhat by playing less creatures, for example.

I agree, Crush is really the only card that interested me. It remains to be seen if it's worth it because it's not an instant. Oh well, hopefully goodies coming in SOI. Perhaps Pore over the Pages?
Pore Over the Pages
3UU
Sorcery
Draw three cards, untap up to two lands, then discard a card.

Good news - paying for mana costs on MTGO has been fixed to the way it was before, and to celebrate I took my "clickiest" decks out for a spin, including this one (: Was good. I'm quite happy with the mix of interaction and Arjun-centric enablers I have now, whether it was having enough sweepers to burn out a horde of Clerics from Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim tribal, or using Diviner's Wand to deal a "surprise!" 17 damage with Arjun in one turn.

Playing against Nekusar, the Mindrazer is bad for this deck, though. Really bad.

Some things from SoI:
Forgotten Creation: A wheel on legs. It's more expensive than Jace's Archivist, but it only affects me and has an extra point of toughness. Not sure what to cut for it, though...
Burn from Within is an interesting removal spell if more indestructible stuff shows up.
Highland Lake is a budget dual.

Since I don't run "no maximum hand size" effects and reply on discarding excess cards at the end of each turn to prevent self-decking, it should be pretty easy for me to turn on delirium - but I don't really see any effects worth using :s

Changelog 18/6/16:



The counterspells are power-level upgrade, nothing much to say here.
Crawlspace wasn't helping too much with little utility guys, so I found Breath of Darigaaz as a cheap sweeper (4 mana to deal 4 damage, whereas Magmaquake needs 6 for the same effect) which as a bonus, can also hit PWs. Other honorable mentions: Anger of the Gods, Sudden Demise. Highland Lake is an art choice, lol

Edit: forgot to report back on Forgotten Creation - I replaced Day's Undoing for it, but it wasn't doing enough (only one wheel effect on my turn, and not even refilling my hand), so in the end I cut it.

Updated with a strategy section.

I would say that I do benefit from not having a fixed playgroup and playing this on MTGO. Arjun leans quite heavily on a certain few cards, so I feel that if I were to play this deck with the same few guys week in, week out, then they would wise up as to when I'm going to "go off" pretty quickly and plan accordingly.

(Also, it would suck if someone in my playgroup happened to run Nekusar, the Mindrazer or Underworld Dreams - those things are PURE EVIL.)

Quick note for your intro: Arjun does not mean archer. Arjun is a figure from the Hindu Epic the Mahabharata who happened to be an archer (and an awesome one at that). The name Arjun actually means silver or shining.

Otherwise, I like the deck.

Thanks! Blame Wikipedia I do have a few friends IRL who are actually named Arjun, maybe should have checked with them first...

Eldritch Moon: no new must-includes, but some utility.

Nahiri's Wrath could be a cheaper Blasphemous Act, but it is best when I'm ahead on cards, and it doesn't help too much with token hordes which Arjun has difficulty dealing with. Maybe this is too win-more.

Imprisoned in the Moon is pretty good removal, but I need to decide what to cut for it. Maybe Magmaquake, or Breath of Darigaaz, since the function (creatures and planeswalkers) is the same. A pity it doesn't hit enchantments, though.

Geier Reach Sanitarium might be good for more draw power, but I don't like that it really is only good with a draw doubler out, unless my hand is full of lands (this deck doesn't really have a way to reliably get specific stuff back from the graveyard, and a lot of opponents can abuse the discard better).

Conspiracy 2: ewwwwwwww.

As if Nekusar wasn't enough, Wizards saw fit to print another direct hoser for Arjun: Leovold, Emissary of Trest. He would probably be a popular commander, seeing as he has a low mana cost, very pushed P/T and abilities, and comes in the 3 best colours in EDH. Not much else in the set to make up for it.

Happy to play on MTGO, for now! But if I played paper and there was a Leovold deck around, I would load up on instant answers such as Lightning Bolt. That, and reminding your playgroup that Teferi's Puzzle Box combined with Leovold can leave them handless by T4...

One change: Dissipate is back, replacing Void Shatter. Haven't seen Pyroblast much, and it's more important to be pitchable to Dream Halls.

Also, added in deck history and finished the strategy, and applying for primer!

How do you feel about the inclusion of a High Tide package? Being able to go through your deck multiple times seems good!

I'm not too familiar with what you mean by the High Tide "package", though.

If you mean just High Tide/Turnabout and other blue mana doublers, then yes, High Tide is a pretty good impression of a Caged Sun for 1 mana. Two reasons why I don't run it, though - firstly, Arjun is UR, not mono-blue and I feel I don't run enough basic Islands to make it really worthwhile (well, I do run Vedalken Shackles but that can do well against small utility creatures, I hardly manage to reliably steal things with more than 4-5 power). At least Caged Sun works with dual lands (including the crappy budget ones I run :p). Secondly, sometimes I need to spread my winning over a few turns. Maybe my wincon happens to be Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and the combined life total of all my opponents happens to be larger than the number of cards in my library, or maybe I'm running out of mana/cards in library, the new hand I have contains 2-3 counterspells and I want to end the turn with counter backup rather than hope to draw into one (especially if I have no flash enabler out). In this case artifact mana will stick around the next time I untap, but High Tide/Turnabout will end at EOT.

If you mean the whole blue combo package with DEN, Palinchron, High Tide, X draw spells as finisher - I've tried that initially with Arjun wheeling into combo pieces but it didn't work out. I feel I need too many combo pieces (in addition to Arjun) in play, and if I'm not actively making use of all the draw triggers, then I might as well play something like Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar which digs through the library quicker and with less mana investment compared to Arjun (and is mono-blue to abuse High Tide/mana doublers even more effectively) or splash black (Oona?) for tutors, since outside of instants/sorceries UR is not so good when it comes to tutoring.

Kaladesh!

Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Pretty decent mana rock with an ultimate that could be a wincon. But I can't justify forking over the tix for this just yet...

Fateful Showdown: Looks good, another Molten Psyche. I won't be using it though, as it only hits one player and by the time this become "worth it" (with a draw doubler out) I will probably deck myself from Arjun's draw trigger. To deal even 20 damage with this, I end up drawing 38 cards with a draw doubler out (and if I didn't have a draw doubler out, how did I get to 20 cards?) and that's not even counting the second part of the card. At lower (5-10) damages, it becomes a serviceable but probably slightly overcosted burn spell. It miiiight be decent single target removal though, but maybe Imprisoned in the Moon will have it beat for flexibility?

Saheeli Rai is decent card selection, but probably works better in an artifact focused build of Arjun.

Perpetual Timepiece: A slightly more expensive Elixir of Immortality might be usable if my opponent was playing Bribery.

Spirebluff Canal: decent UR land, I guess.

If you play Arjun as an artifacts-based commander, though, this set is full of goodies.

Now that Aether Revolt is out, let's talk about possible new additions.

Disallow seems an auto-include. It's just so versatile, a catch-all for any situation.
Baral, Chief of Compliance seems like he could be a solid addition to an instant/sorcery-focused build. In such a deck, he's just as good if not better than Sapphire Medallion.
Baral's Expertise falls into the same pool of cards like Spelltwine where you get multiple casts and therefore multiple Arjun triggers for the price of one card.

Obviously, Paradox Engine could be insane in a mana rock-filled deck. Especially great if you have an active Niv-Mizzet, the Fire-mind or similar effect. It all comes down to whether you want to be THAT GUY. Come on, it's Paradox Engine, it's only a few months before this gets banned, right?