Hello, my name is Brian. I have been playing commander since 2010 and my experience with deckbuilding varies over a lot of builds and commanders probably somewhere in the 50+ commanders and decks at this point. As a player and meta, we try to not play mass land destruction, infinite combos, and in general we try to usually have fun with what we are doing. I do build good decks and usually I like having unique spins and or flavor to decks over playing goodstuff.
This thread will hopefully give you an in depth guide to playing Kozilek, the Great Distortion. I started playing Kozilek right when he was released. What first attracted me to Kozilek was a combination of the fact that I could play a tempo ramp strategy with a commander who refills my hand, is my wincon, and acts as a control mechanism. I never really felt the want to build the original Kozilek as I felt that his annihilate was a little rough and unfriendly. Kozilek could still kill people in two hits but I felt like I could play more of a control strategy with the natural build in counterspells of Kozilek rather than a somewhat stax feel that the original Kozilek has. Drawing up to 7 cards also rewards blowing your entire hand before dropping your commander so it was interesting to me to be able to play even more ramp which can then later be used as counterspells so I definitely had some interest in the speed reward difference of the new Kozilek.
I will try to walk you through my design decisions of why I chose Kozilek 2.0 as my commander and some different options you have when considering what eldrazi overloard to serve
Why Play Kozilek 2.0:
Pros:
Commander has great stats
Commander has built in draw
Commander has built in protection
Commander has built in evasion
Commander is fairly good against removal (draw is on cast)
Cons:
Commander is expensive to cast
Colorless is rough
Vulnerable to artifact sweepers
Token decks can be tricky to attack into or defend from
Theft can be rough
Colorless is the absolute most brutal color identity in existence so your choices in the actual deck are going to be somewhat limited. Because colorless is so brutal you really have to have a high impact commander to carry you through the brutality of the smallest card selection out there. The reason to select Kozilek as a commander in my mind comes down to the number of tools he gives you in the command zone. With Kozilek you have your wincon, draw, and control elements all in one in your command zone.
Deck History
I have been playing commander since 2010 and I guess relevant to the deck at hand, I once piloted a Emrakul, the Aeons Torn deck back when she was legal. I have also played artifact strategies such as Daretti, Scrap Savant in the past. In part because I have piloted an edrazi as my commander before I was a little turned off by the idea of Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as my commander just because of the impact of annihilate on a commander. When Kozilek, the Great Distortion was first spoiled I actually was not that interested in it. When the rest of the set was spoiled though and I started thinking to myself how viable Wastes would make colorless (which I over estimated to be honest lol) be I was more excited for colorless. I put together my first rendition of Kozilek, the Great Distortion shortly before it was released and I had a foil copy pre ordered from the start at what I felt was a good price of $60 (that didn't hold up lol).
Overall, the list hasn't changed a ton since I created it. I guess I found that early ramp and a heavier ramp package was more important than I had first given it credit. I am running less creatures and relying on my commander more than I had originally expected.
Alternative Commander Options
My objective is obviously to convince you to play Kozilek, the Great Distortion with this primer but I also feel inclined to inform you of some of the other options that may be similar but different assuming this is not quite your speed.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth many consider original Kozilek the strongest of the colorless options out there but I think its open for debate. The original Kozilek has the benefit that it always has a hard draw 4 cards so there is never a bad time to cast him and he has a very strong on attack trigger but on the flip side Kozilek, the Great Distortion has a very big unknown factor to him from the perspective of our opponents in that we have responses and they have no idea what we have because we have countermagic that is not tied to our mana availability. In this way Kozilek, the Great Distortion plays some head games with our opponents and can surgically stop things that would undo Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. The evasion of menace on Kozilek, the Great Distortion is without a doubt weaker than the annihilate of Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. When you build around Kozilek, the Great Distortion and focus more on cheaper cards and a heavier ramp package you can net draw heavier with Kozilek, the Great Distortion but it requires more focus in the build to do so where as Kozilek, Butcher of Truth always has his hard draw count. Personally I feel that the difference of the two is more of a question between annihilate vs counter magic. I like the slightly heavier draw of Kozilek, the Great Distortion but I also had to build very specifically to take advantage of that and the unknown factor of my counter magic. I think both of them are very strong and they clearly both have their pros and cons. With Kozilek, Butcher of Truth you can abuse triggers with something like Strionic Resonator and move to draw 8 cards or annihilate for 8 which is strong. I do feel that I can justify a bigger ramp package though with Kozilek, the Great Distortion which can and does result in faster commander plays.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger / Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - I will group these two together as they in a lot of ways have the same challenges. These two are both very big impact but they will suffer from lack of card draw in colorless as well as the weakness vs sweepers. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is probably superior of these two as a commander given the annihilate being stronger as a continuous effect than the difference between destroy one and exile two on cast.
Emrakul, the Promised End - I ran the original Emrakul as a commander early on before it was banned and I have played this version in my Gisela, the Broken Blade deck. I think this is a cool legend and while the on cast is powerful, I worry that it may fall into the same issues as with the Ulamogs where colorless decks are draw light and have issues with sweepers. Its a strong ability that she has but being colorless is tricky and knowing that this effect is in the command zone may force opponents to play differently against you. Nobody likes mindslaver effects so they tend to work better when they are a surprise rather than foretold as your commander.
Karn, Silver Golem - Karn is a bit of a combo oriented commander. The problem has always been that you are playing combo but in the smallest and weakest card pool. One of his default combos is to utilize Mycosynth Lattice with your commander to animate and kill your opponents landbase (they become 0/0 artifact creatures and die). I think Karn is very cool and he is the original legendary artifact commander but all of this said, I feel that the weakness that the color identity of colorless demands a strong presence from the command zone and while Karn is cool in every way I personally find what he brings as a commander a little low for the trade-off of colorless identity.
Overall, the two Kozilek options are the most viable of the colorless legends which most people who have played colorless will agree with. Having a commander who is both a wincon and a source of card draw is really a big deal for colorless. You need your commander to be very impactful when in such a limited card pool. I personally really like Kozilek 2.0 over 1.0 in large because I feel that Kozilek, the Great Distortion gets into play consistently faster as well as just the unpredictability of the counter magic he gives.
Hangarback Walker I like that I can play it early in the game or late and still have fairly good results with it. This deck generates a lot of mana so even later in the game you can drop it as a 5/5 or bigger or you can chunk it from your hand as needed. The fact that it gives flying blockers is nice but it does need to die first which can be tricky. Still, I like that it can give something post wrath to push around.
Walking Ballista Similarly to Hangarback Walker, it can be scaled based on where the game is. I normally have some issues getting past token defenses so this can push through blockers for Kozilek or defend me from tokens nicely. I like that its a decent mana sink as well and it doesn't get stuck in hand.
Walking Atlas this is sort of like a mana dork but it helps us empty our hand which is great. Getting stuck with multiple lands in hand can happen occasionally with Kozilek. The more we can empty our hand before we cast Kozilek the more cards I can draw afterwards. Lands also usually do not go with artifact sweepers so it keeps some ramp in play which is nice.
Burnished Hart its a little awkward in that it costs 6 to ramp 2 as thats actually a little inefficient as far as ramp goes for this deck but leaving lands in play means less being swept by an artifact sweeper so I forgive it being a little slow for being a little more robust ramp.
Metalworker this is one of the biggest single sources of ramp for this deck. It potentially dumps a lot of ramp for the deck but its tricky in that if you ramp into it you ramp less later. It has huge potential for ramp but its a little slow considering its a on tap creature ability and it costs 3 to drop. Other than that, huge mana here.
Palladium Myr I run this just because there are not that many 3 mana ramp that provide 2 mana. It is a liability that it is a creature but its summoning sickness is otherwise no worse than Worn Powerstone. Its slightly worse than Worn Powerstone considering its easier to kill but honestly a little worse than Worn Powerstone is still a fairly good mana stone in the scope of things.
Silent Arbiter he cripples swarm tactics and he makes our commander UNBLOCKABLE considering it takes two blockers to block Kozilek. Great evasion and some defense added in. I wish there were more than one of these guys out there.
Solemn Simulacrum just kind of a value ramp. Its a little slow as far as ramp goes but it comes with a chump blocker and a later card draw. Its not great but ramping land is a little more robust.
Endbringer somewhat of a multi role creature. It can gun down tokens, attack while defending, disable attackers, or draw cards for us. I like the things he can potentially do.
Oblivion Sower usually speaking this is just a 6 drop that probably fetches you a single land. I have however had some really busted amazing results in the past though occasionally when you get half of your mana back from its on cast. I think the best situation I ever had I got something like 5 lands back. It does get better with the more graveyard hate you run especially with the artifacts that tap to exile a card of its owners type from graveyard as lands usually seem to go early with those. Its not super powerful ramp on average but ramping lands is a good thing to do.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger The exile two is strong. His body and damage are rarely relevant but its a big indestructible body which is not too shabby.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre The destroy one is fairly good. The annihilate + hard to remove body is great too. I run it more for the on cast trigger though.
~~~ARTIFACTS~~~
Everflowing Chalice its a versatile mana stone that soaks up other ramp nicely into a ramp snowball sort of card. I love its versatility as I have played it at all sort of different times. I often try to play other ramp over it and save it for soaking up more mana but if I can use this into a 4 mana play the next turn I will totally curve it.
Lion's Eye Diamond this card is AMAZING in that it gives a big ramp boost and it cycles our hand. Keep it in hand generally speaking until that +3 mana would let you play your commander so you can surprise play him earlier than opponents think you will.
Lotus Petal this one is a tough one to really assess. It potentially moves your ramp game up a turn though which can speed up playing Kozilek by a turn. You really have to assess between if its to be used for your early ramp or used to play Kozilek. As with most of the zero mana stones try to keep it in hand until you are ready to use them.
Mana Crypt two mana produced and it costs zero mana to play. Its reusable and the downside of damage is mostly not relevant because this deck moves fast. Its one of the strongest early mana ramp cards out there.
Mox Diamond another zero drop mana stone. It can speed up turns which is very relevant with this deck. Get the ramp game going faster and keep going. Discarding a land is not so bad as often we will get some lands stuck in hand given the speed the deck goes so it essentially tempos that land drop.
Avarice Totem its cheap to drop which gets it out of hand and its great with big mana. People really panic as this can double steal for 10 mana you can trade them like a two mana stone for something big and important of theirs. It is mostly a tool to make people keep their mana in check and keep resources up as if you tap out they can get really screwed by this.
Brittle Effigy again, its mostly removal for later but given that something like Duplicant has to sit in hand until its ready to be used it keeps you from moving cards with Kozilek so this lets you cheaply set up for removal later and it gives you instant speed removal instead of sorcery speed.
Expedition Map It can ramp you mana as there are several lands that produce more than one mana. We also have one of the biggest array of utility lands out there so you can really turn this into whatever you want such as a Strip Mine to get through a maze effect or a Homeward Path to deter or recover from theft. There are so many options to go with this and it can always function as ramp so its really rarely a bad draw.
Mana Vault it only costs one mana and it gives us three. You really borrow form other turns if you are using it naturally but with this deck it tends to be more about burst mana than continuous mana. Using this you can get a bigger mana stone in play sooner which you can then go back and untap this and still net more mana sooner. On top of that there are a few means of untapping artifacts in the deck.
Phyrexian Furnace its the worst of the grave hate I run but it still is cheap to drop and cheap to cycle if need be.
Relic of Progenitus The best of the one mana grave hate effects. It has the most wide sweeping grave hate effect and it still draws a card.
Scrabbling Claws This is the second best of the grave hate effects. Its tap ability is better than Phyrexian Furnace because the player you chose exiles the card which means it can deprive opponents from using rez on other players.
Sensei's Divining Top top is a little tricky here but when you have extra mana its not bad. It can also be used with Rings of Brighthearth to draw cards at the cost of 3 mana per card drawn (1 to replay top and 2 to copy the draw). You can also use artifact untap effects as another way to use it to draw additional cards as the cost to draw with top is just to tap it so if you can stack untaps on top of its ability you can multi draw with it. Keep in mind as well that you can peak at the top 3 cards and draw one of them in response to a spell being cast so you get a little more access to counterspells as needed with top.
Triangle of War it acts as a removal tool that you can use on demand at a later point in time. Unfortunately its mostly reliant on Kozilek being in play but given that we ramp so hard its not too hard to achieve. Its cheap to drop so it can be pushed out of hand quickly to allow more draw to come in.
Universal Solvent Cheap to drop removal that can be used later. Its sort of similar to Unstable Obelisk in that Unstable Obelisk is not great ramp and their abilities are the same so for less mana you dont get the ramp but the ramp is kind of bad on Unstable Obelisk anyways.
Voltaic Key its strong in that there are a lot of mana stones that tap for 3 mana so it is a little reliant on a good mana stone but it often serves as another 2 mana stone. Its biggest drawback is that its reliant on having a good mana stone but we run so many good stones that its not that hard to achieve.
Wayfarer's Bauble its cheap ramp and it ramps lands. Its not super efficient given that in all it can cost 3 mana but if you curve it its not bad and ramping land is usually more robust in the long run.
Grim Monolith good ramp in that its cheap to cast and produces more mana than it costs. Its stronger than Mana Vault in that it can be untapped whenever and costs no life if you leave it tapped but its also a little slower as far as temp ramp goes. It might be slightly worse than Mana Vault given this deck cares quite a bit about its tempo but even that said this is an incredibly good stone.
Lightning Greaves it lets us come out swinging with Kozilek as well as avoid mazes. It gives us a little tempo as well as some slight protections.
Mind Stone its an ok mana stone with good versatility. It doesn't ramp a ton and its not excessively cheap. Its a little slow as far as this deck goes but it can still cycle itself if its going or not relevant.
Ratchet Bomb it is great in that it gives us a sweeper for tokens or it can be pushed up to take down something else. Its somewhat nice to have the untap effects as well if you are pushing it up.
Scroll Rack It can push situational cards that are not needed away and it can also be used to dig for a second shot at counterspells.
Basalt Monolith its a little slow for a stone that doesnt naturally untap but it produces as much mana as it costs. It gets better with untap effects as well. There are infinite mana options if you have Rings of Brighhearth for those interested in combo interactions as it only costs 5 mana to untap it twice and it produces 6 mana in two taps.
Inspiring Statuary it turns a lot of the other utility and removal based artifacts that we run into one mana stones for Kozilek. The downside is that they cant be used for much outside of Kozilek but it would be very stealthy to use this to keep mana up for Warping Wail.
Loxodon Warhammer it gives evasion and lifegain. It makes it more or less impossible to chump block our commander and the lifegain lets us trade hits against the few decks that might be able to keep up with our speed.
Rings of Brighthearth given that we have so many utility lands this really adds a little more to this deck. It cant be used with most of the mana stones but a lot of our activated abilities (which we have a lot of) can be doubled down on which is really nice.
Sculpting Steel given the number of mana stones and artifacts we have in here we have plenty of targets for this to become something useful.
Tangle Wire its a strong tempo card. It will often just choke other players and if you can get Kozilek in before this you usually have a few turns open to just swing in. I normally feel kind of bad using these sort of tactics but given this one naturally goes away I feel less bad about this.
Unstable Obelisk its kind of a bad mana stone but its also removal later if need be. I like getting my spot removal out of my hand early so I dont have it stuck in hand when it comes to my commander drawing me more cards.
Worn Powerstone efficient mana stone. Its not top notch but its not bad either.
Clock of Omens this is a great enabler to use the cheap utility artifacts with to turn most of your artifacts into mana stones.
Hedron Archive this is kind of not great ramp or draw but considering the number of ramp effects I push for I run some lesser ones too.
Icy Manipulator this is a nice multi function effect. This can tap down mazes, remove blockers, keep attackers away. It really is a nice multi function card.
Thran Dynamo Its good in that it gives good mana for its cost. It has no real downsides and its a strong bit of mana for its cost. Its powerful in that it has no drawbacks and taps for as much as it does and only negative nets you one mana in the turn it drops.
Unwinding Clock its nice with the artifacts that dont naturally untap each turn. A few artifact creatures have tap activate abilities too which its nice to just milk some value from. It can be a little tricky though as when its at its best is when you have mana sinks and or mana stones that dont naturally untap.
Ur-Golem's Eye its really kind of a bad mana stone. I have exhausted the options I want to run though.
Vedalken Orrery it can give additional control of what you want to do. It makes it much harder for opponents to do things and it keeps your counterspell options up a lot more. I find it a lot more fun when Kozilek is not in play because it lets you play arround sweepers really nicely between playing things from hand or Kozilek not to mention Kozilek into a counterspell you have in hand already.
Gilded Lotus its a decent mana stone. We dont need colored mana so its worse than Thran Dynamo but honestly there are only a few mana stones better than or on par with Thran Dynamo Its a good bit of mana and its only a little bit of negative tempo the turn it drops.
Memory Jar this deck is very good at being able to fire off a whole hand of cards so this can be a lot of extra resource. If something is REALLY key to not happen you can also pop it and look for a counterspell which is nice. This deck has enough ramp though that generally it can take a hand of 7 cards and play most of them.
Mind's Eye its decent repeatable draw. I find sometimes its useful having some consistant draw for when Kozilek stays in play for a while as it can be easy to exhaust your hand then.
Dreamstone Hedron its not great ramp or draw but its also not as bad as most of the other remaining options.
Planar Bridge its a great mana sink and considering it can tutor a lot of really big impact cards directly into play at instant speed I would say its fairly good. I did consider things like Ring of Three Wishes and a few other tutors but most of them had issues of their cost but considering this puts the card directly into play at instant speed its very useful for a deck like this.
Staff of Nin consistent draw as well as removal for chump blockers / tokens. When Kozilek stays in play for a while I like having some pickup draw.
Spine of Ish Sah It was getting less good but then when I added Planar Bridge I found myself wanting to have a target like this. Its not an amazing card given that it can get stuck in hand but its also kind of nice having an artifact wrath deterrent. Planar Bridge also offers us an instant speed target spot removal.
~~~INSTANTS~~~
Warping Wail this is mostly here for artifact sweepers. Sometimes its hard to have all of the right mana costs to keep up defense from these considering they seem to vary wildly depending on your opposition but a LOT of the mass artifact removals are sorceries so this can be nice to have.
Scour from Existence I like that its an instant speed surprise spot removal. It can get stuck in hand but its nice to have removal for anything especially considering this is exile removal at instant speed.
~~~SORCERIES~~~
All Is Dust this card absolutely wrecks opponents. It doesnt touch this deck and it often strips out attackers, defenders, card advantage. It often resets opponents back to lands and a few mana stones leaving them wide open to just a beat down. All is Dust and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon are by far two of the biggest blowout cards in this deck.
~~~PLANESWALKERS~~~
Karn Liberated Exile removal isnt very common for colorless. Normally speaking he will die soon after but being how aggressive this deck is normally he will blast a hole in a defense and the counter magic from Kozilek can backup spot removal on him. People are also often trying to keep defenders to keep from being attacked from Kozilek so it also can make attacking him a little awkward for opponents.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon between Ugin and All is Dust, they form the core of our mass sweepers. Ugin is such a powerful effect and often you can sweep your opponents without killing Ugin which means opponents still have to get something in to finish him plus you clear a path for Kozilek to wreck some face.
~~~LANDS~~~
Ancient Tomb the speed advantage of a land that always taps for 2 mana is strong. It means hitting bigger mana stones sooner which turns into faster Kozilek and dumping our hand. If there were more options like this I would run them all. Of the 2 mana producing lands this is probably THE strongest we have access to because it gives us an unconditional 2 mana with the downside only being a small bit of life. By the time the 2 life matters you are already finished so in almost every situation this land is amazing.
Arcane Lighthouse this land is a little more optional. I run a good bit of spot removal in my build. The worst case scenario I can think of would be if someone stole Kozilek and then gave him Shroud / Hexproof so this makes me feel slightly less concerned. Yes Homeward Path is also for those situations but I cant run two of them lol.
Bazaar of Baghdad If you get to this card and then see the price tag I am going to quickly shift you to looking at Geier Reach Sanitarium. To be totally honest, these effects are not at all manditory but keep in mind that you can take expensive cards and ship them off. If you end up getting a hand full of lands, you can weed them out which means that Kozilek can then turn them over. Anytime you get too many expensive cards or too many lands at one time it can slow down your deck. Turning them over with effects like this can pick you up cheaper and faster cards to play. I like the Bazaar because you draw first and then discard. Anytime I have at least 1 card that I want discarded its useful because I am bringing down my hand size which helps when I play Kozilek.
Buried Ruin this is a deck of a lot of artifacts so a land that comes in untapped and has a triggered ability that targets almost all of our non lands in deck is really good.
Cavern of Souls it makes Kozilek uncounterable. Its not at all necessary if you are trying to build on a budget but when looking towards what is ideal it seems good.
Cloudpost when it comes down to the fact that this comes in tapped and gives one mana by default with no utility, its a little underwhelming. What is importnat is that there are two clones with Vesuva and Thespian's Stage not to mention the option of getting Glimmerpost which is a no downside land that has a small bonus that also has synergy with this. I know the chances are low but I have in fact had 3+ mana flowing from this land before in the past and the overall downside of ETB lands is not so bad so long as you keep their use in check.
Dust Bowl it gives you repeat access to targeted land destruction. This is useful for those who use too many utility lands especially in the realm of mazes. Maze lands are a real problem for Kozilek and popular in my meta which is why I make sure to be vigilant in use of my strip mines.
Eldrazi Temple its a no drawback land with an upside as things spin up. Its a strong tool to have to bring your midgame up to late game.
Eye of Ugin its a land with both pros and cons. It doesn't directly tap for mana so it can cause you to stumble on mana possibly in the early to mid game but it can also be used with things like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Chromatic Lantern if you run it to potentially net three mana to cast eldrazi. Given how strong Silent Arbiter is its not a bad tool to have.
Gemstone Caverns I usually have something slower that is not ramp in my opener that this could use. Its fast ramp and its a land that has no downsides for this deck. Lowering hand count plus ramp together are very strong for Kozilek.
Glimmerpost It has no downsides with a small upside plus interaction with Cloudpost. Dont run it unless you are also running Cloudpost but it is probably also neccessary to run Cloudpost.
High Market overall the utility of High Market is not huge. It has no real drawbacks other than perhaps if someone Mindslavers you but it gives you the option to sacrifice eldrazi in response to theft in a pinch. I dont think its huge and if on a budget its definitely one you can omit in a pinch. It is worth mentioning that it could be worth sacrificing Kozilek to recast him for more draw but its not something I would try to proactively do unless its do or die time.
Homeward Path The best answer to theft. I would say that outside of the ramp elements of the landbase, this would be my first stop if there is really any thought that your commander might be stolen.
Inventors' Fair its a land with no downside and a small upside per turn but more importantly it gives us a very important tutor option that we dont have access to much of.
Miren, the Moaning Well This to me is less of a sacrifice outlet and more of a lifegain option. Its unlikely you are just casually keeping 5 mana up in case of theft but if you encounter a deck that is attacking your life total its a strong life swing to gain 12 and then move to recast Kozilek for more draw.
Mystifying Maze its a land with no drawback with optional protection. A flying commander is usually slower than us but having a maze on hand gives you some options of if someone else needs to be first.
Petrified Field It can recover other lands. It depends on how important your other lands are but given how strong some of them are it can be useful to have this option. Its kind of a responsive late game utility land but it has no downsides.
Rogue's Passage It gives an option to just go ham on someone's face. Tokens can be a huge problem so its nice to have an option to just cut through them and it comes at no real cost given the land has no downsides.
Sanctum of Ugin It gives you an option to go get any of the colorless creatures you run. The more of a toolbox of those you have the better it is but its kind of a bummer that it comes with a sacrifice trigger.
Strip Mine more options vs utility lands and mazes. Its the best of the these type of lands.
Tectonic Edge another strip mine option. I would say this one is low on the totem pole as far as how good it is but it makes up with the fact that its cheap to buy. I would say of the 4 I run this is probably the last one I would run assuming budget is not an issue but I want and like having all 4 of them myself.
Temple of the False God its a land that is a liability early on but pays for itself in the mid to late game. So long as you have other lands to play before it is active it can be managed. Its important to pick up the extra ramp to get to Kozilek before just playing a full 10 lands out.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale this card is very good vs token and swarm strategies assuming you have access to one. I have one so I run it. If you dont have one dont worry about it. I dont really tutor for it much but its good when those matches come up.
Thespian's Stage its great with any of the other ramp lands we run in here.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth we have a few lands that dont themselves tap for mana. If you dont run those then you dont need this. Urborg has no downsides though so there is no reason not to run it other than if you dont run lands that dont tap for mana.
Vesuva given that extra mana lands are so important as are some of our strong utility lands, the option to double down on them can be huge. This is an ETB tapped land but it potentially provides really strong snowballing to strong lands.
Wastes its important to run at least a few of these for the few land ramp options we have like Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart. Generally speaking its rare to search more than a few times in a game for these so I would say 5 is more than enough for most general use. They are a good option for those looking for budget options but a lot of the non basic lands are also relatively cheap. I wouldn't focus much on buying your way into a lot of these because generally speaking they are not that much cheaper than the utility land options. I have heard of the question about running a heavy Wastes count with Extraplanar Lens but in the end, my thought process is why build your whole landbase around one card you are going to have trouble getting on a normal basis. My thought process is that its better to not build that way and have a lot of ramp in your lands as well as utility. The only real reason to consider building waste heavy is if people are playing things like Ruination Back to Basics and or anything else that hates on nonbasic lands.
Winding Canyons having flash opens up options. It also potentially makes it harder to wrath you and cuts some of your opponents sorcery speed responses.
Building on a Budget
Let me get started by saying I totally understand with anyone who is looking to build a deck but is on a budget. I felt I would at cover some of the easier cuts and adjustments for those trying to build up their own Kozilek, the Great Distortion on a budget.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale / Bazaar of Baghdad these are nice cards to own but by no means needed to play this deck. I almost never tutor in this deck so I come across them when I come accross them. Feel free to cut these for really any land. Tabernacle is very strong against token and swarm based decks and there really is no colorless budget friendly option to replace it with. You might consider using a Geier Reach Sanitarium in place of Bazaar of Baghdad if you want to have a similar effect but to be honest part of why I use Bazaar of Baghdad is to cheaply move my hand and prepair for casting Kozilek. Any lands can suffice in their place without too much worry. They are nice if you have them by by no means are they required for this deck.
Mox Diamond - its a solid card but it nowhere near reflects its price tag to be totally honest. Its good but if you are looking for cuts this would be one of my early ones for price reasons.
The landbase - use whatever you have on hand. I would not suggest going out and "buying" a bunch of wastes because honestly they are not that cheap to buy. Use any lands you have on hand that are legal to run first and foremost and when you look to expand your landbase start with the lands that produce 2+ mana as your first priority for putting money into the landbase.
Grim Monolith - its a great bit of ramp and given that we mostly need to focus on burst ramp it works well for this deck. That said, it represents a $50.00 investment I think can be cut if needed.
Lion's Eye Diamond given that it rolls in at the $100+ range this is one that can be cut. I consider it one of the strongest mana stones for casting Kozilek so I think its totally worth considering in the long run but early on, I think it can be omitted to get everything else in place. It is lower down in my cut for budget reasons because it really is amazing here.
Mana Crypt - I would put it higher but its reprint in Eternal Masters brought its price tag back down to a relatively reasonable amount. It is incredibly powerful but it is still a $50+ card so when looking for it cuts it can be considered.
In place of most of these cards, my suggestion is to consider any other budget friendly mana stone out there such as Sisay's Ring and or other land options. You can delve out into other card options to as when it comes to playing budget the important thing is to not spend much money for replacement option cards. Use what you have on hand over buying into alternative cards whenever possible. If you were to cut all of the above cards from the list, my pricing at time of creating the strategy OP would put the list at approximately $600.00 (only omitting the 2 specified lands). The deck at the time of this assessment just removing the 2 overly expensive lands runs somewhere around $900.00.
Strategy
Our Commander
Kozilek is a many purpose commander but first and foremost this is a commander damage style of deck. When you play with an eldrazi in your command zone you generally speaking build very specifically around them. I have often commented that colorless is the absolute worst color identity you can have so its very very important to have a strong central element in your commander to enable you to function as needed. When you pack Kozilek, the Great Distortion as your commander there are some very specific things you get from your commander:
Strong stats
Built in evasion
Card Draw
Very tricky counter magic
Some of the elements of this version of Kozilek are very important to keep in mind. You want to be casting Kozilek with as few cards in hand as possible so its important to purge your hand before casting him whenever you can. When you cast Kozilek with a small or no hand you get so much more draw out of it. I have designed this deck to try not to have many cards that situationally sit in hand. It means that sometimes something like Universal Solvent can be more productive than something like Spine of Ish Sah or even Karn Liberated because if you get all of those cards in your opening hand you will either have to sit on them or give up early turns to cast out the bigger removal effects but Universal Solvent can be moved to play early on cheaply and saved for later while also keeping your hand low and ready to be turned over.
Another very important and hard to manage concept of Kozilek, the Great Distortion is learning what to keep in hand and when. After you cast Kozilek your hand gets refilled and you often move to counter magic concepts. I often try to prioritize keeping a hand of varying mana costs especially if I can get something where I have lots of mana costs in a row. Consider if its worth playing certain cards and consider what things to counter would be at their costs. 1 mana often has things like Swords to Plowshares. 2 mana can be Cyclonic Rift. 3 mana could be Oblivion Stone. 4 - 6 mana could be wraths. In a lot of cases you want to sort of know your meta and think to yourself what are some of the worst case scenario cards they might have right now and what do I need to save for it. It is very very important to not just burn your counters because you could stop things. Keep those counters for very KEY moves from your opponents. Sometimes it can be right to deprive your opponents of value especially if your hand is like all 4 drops and someone plays an oracle of mul daya. In that sort of a case you have a lot of redundancy there so go ahead and feel free to deprive a value play because you are going to be clogged up on that. Some of the counterspell game of Kozilek is going to just take time to become accustomed to but think what your opponents might play and what your priorities are in your counter magic when you go to use it and or cast things post Kozilek.
Between the countermagic that Kozilek gives and the spot removal we have in the list. It is important to manage the menace evasion that Kozilek has. In a lot of cases I have used disruption to drop my opponents blockers down or to disable their chump blockers and force them to block with good pro active game-plan creatures if they want to stop my commander. Manage the menace and connect to the face where and when you can.
General Strategy
When it comes to what this deck is, in a nutshell its a ramp heavy tempo draw deck. I built mine to function in a way where it ramps excessively and uses Kozilek to tempo refill your hand as early as I can. Once I have refilled my hand I can shift my ramp game to countermagic or push it further for rebuilding or ramping even further if necessary. Kozilek, the Great Distortion rewards you for having no hand so in a sense he incentivizes you to ramp even harder than you otherwise might because emptying your entire hand plays stronger to his game-plan. In this sense you will notice a heavier ramp package than you might otherwise run in a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck.
~~~Opening Hands~~~
Get some ramp is the long and skinny of opening hands. I very aggressively mulligan for ramp in this deck in part because it really does run a good amount of it and also in part because we are often not punished by smaller hand sizes assuming you can still hit Kozilek quickly. 6+ mana cards in opening hands are almost always bad because they will get stuck in hand or be played when you stall out shy of Kozilek mana. Get ramp and get lots of it is the long and skinny of my suggestion for opening hands. I would also recommend being more ambitious in mulligans with this deck. Don't take a hand that is just acceptable because there are so many options to hit ramp that its better to get cheap draw and ramp as your opener with just enough lands to sustain your early few turns.
~~~Early Game~~~
Play all of the ramp you can. Ramp into ramp if you can and when you can no longer play lands and ramp, move to card draw if you can. Play out other cards as you can but the priority is ramping into more ramp so that Kozilek is available as soon as possible. Good early games can turn into turn 2-5 Kozilek plays with an average good hand probably being turn 4-5 and god hands being sooner. If and when you get Kozilek into play here start focusing on players who will be the most troublesome the furthest out which tends to be control players. If someone is putting up a lot of defenses though swing to connect assuming you cant easily get past their defenses.
~~~Mid Game~~~
Assuming Kozilek has not happened before this, its still the priority. Its important here to not over extend your board state into a wrath so start keeping up some counter magic options if you can and keep turning sideways as much as possible with Kozilek. Its important to bring your land count up in case a wrath does get past you on artifacts. Your land count can keep you in the game so keep them flowing and just watch how many permanents you are playing out. More consistent blockers are probably being played by now so lower the player count as quickly as you can to get past additional defenses later as well as more players being in the game to remove you.
~~~Late Game~~~
If this deck makes it to the late game without dying then its probably a game of a lot of control decks. Getting some lifegain to keep you sustained will help through using things like Loxodon Warhammer and Batterskull. Effects that give you evasion will be much stronger here because chump blockers will probably be plentiful by now. Hopefully by now the players in the game have dwindled so hopefully you are not being focused by multiple players still but if that is the case make sure to prioritize who needs to die first and use your tricks and removal to get past their blocks.
Overall, this deck generally speaking wants to be the attacker given the stats and evasion of Kozilek. Against a lot of generic control decks we have great resource generation to fight off normal removal and wraths. We have a little harder time defending ourselves considering we are not really creature heavy and Kozilek is non ideal when defending considering he does not fly and he is our attack gameplan. Whenever possible keep Kozilek attacking and defend with anything else if possible. If someone attacks you attack them back and see if they want to race and in a lot of cases that will keep people from attacking you in the first place.
Weaknesses
~~~Player Count~~~
Being that we are a voltron deck we suffer from additional players because it means additional time to kill them. 5+ player games are usually not a good thing for voltron decks because it means more players with more answers and it increases the chances of other players hitting fast starts and becoming problems for us. I try to primarily play this deck with 4 players because generally speaking I am at an unfair advantage at 3 players.
~~~Tokens~~~
Tokens are hard to attack into as well as hard to defend from for a deck like this. We dont have access to a ton of sweepers and while some of our tools are good against tokens, there are not as many of those tools. Kozilek's evasion of menace is also hindered by lots of cheap and small minions. Some of our tricks can break through their lines but its hard to always do and do it consistently. I usually try to prioritize token players a little higher because of the fact that I know its a pain to get through them with Kozilek.
We have a few very strong cards against tokens. Look to Silent Arbiter, Endbringer, Walking Ballista, Ratchet Bomb, Loxodon Warhammer, Staff of Nin, All Is Dust, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale are all tools in my list that have some good use against tokens. Keep in mind that most of these are very temporary use effects. Lots of token decks also tend to be more explosive as time goes on so my suggestion is to focus them early on if possible and use these effects as burst damage to get through their defenses. In most cases long drawn out matches against tokens will be a problem so give them some priority and punch through their defenses whenever you can to keep them from being a long term problem.
Keep in mind that you can grow and shrink your token hate package to your satisfaction. The OP list primarily reflects my own personal needs on that front but there are definately tools that you can move to that I have not put in such as Steel Hellkite and Engineered Explosives to name a few.
~~~Artifact Sweepers~~~
Artifact sweepers when executed at the right time can be backbreaking. Generally speaking the absolute worst time for one will be before your first cast of Kozilek. Its important to keep some of the cheap burst mana such as Lion's Eye Diamond in hand to surprise opponents as it bursts us into Kozilek range while not being exposed to the artifact sweep. As the game goes on, I rely on my landcount with a few mana stones to get me in range of recasting Kozilek. Mana stones are very very important in the first cast of Kozilek but have a diminishing return as the game goes on as I tend to use them more as counter magic once I am up to the mana counts I need.
Generally speaking there isn't much of an answer for this. If they have it they have it. Build up your early game like they dont have it because you cant afford to slow play your ramp game. Once you cast Kozilek it generally doesn't matter as much not to mention that you are keeping resources in hand for counter magic as well. You landbase often catches up after the first play of Kozilek assuming you do get swept.
~~~Theft~~~
Honestly I dont much mind if someone is going to kill Kozilek because to be honest recasting him is good for the deck. When someone steals him though, we have a little bit of a problem as we now need to somehow get him back or kill him. Ideally we just have countermagic for the theft effect but if he is stolen just know it can be a problem. If you cant counter it then you need to find Homeward Path, sacrifice him in response, or find spot removal.
~~~Fast Combo~~~
Keep in mind that we are a colorless deck. That means if someone is using fast combo kills we cant really interact with them for the most part until Kozilek is in play. These fast combo players are also probably running counter magic and will be looking to counter / remove Kozilek to keep his counter magic off of their combos.
If you find yourself getting to Kozilek too slowly it means either you need to get more aggressive in mulligans or move to a deck with more blue.
Powering the list up
I am not an individual who goes all out when it comes to my commander experience. I try not to execute infinite combos, mass land destruction, stasis effects, and a few other ones I chose personally to avoid. This said, I am trying to give the best resources I can to you as the reader so I will outline some things you can do to take things a little further in which I might personally avoid for my own list. I can guarantee how potent all of these things are considering they are things I avoid as do my meta but I will outline some of the better options.
Winter Orb - this would probably be my first inclusion of all of the cards that I intentionally avoid given meta constraints and feelings. Given that we are a mana stone heavy ramp deck locking up some of the lands and slowing down those without as many mana stone inclusions would be a strong move.
Infinite Mana - I dont execute infinite mana if and when it comes up in my list and I dont build intending to set it up. This said, I do run one possible option in my list to execute it. Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith costs 5 mana to generate 6 and can go infinite. There are also some more vague options involving Paradox Engine such as Paradox Engine + Cloudstone Curio + Mana Stones + Cheap Artifacts - the idea here is that you just keep bouncing cheap artifacts back and forth while generating mana. There might be better or simpler options than that using Paradox Engine but I dont know them offhand. (it was pointed out to me that Cloudstone Curio specifies non artifacts.) Once you accomplish infinite mana you just need a mana sink like Walking Ballista or Staff of Domination to name a few to close things out.
Mishra's Workshop - its the only card that I would include in this deck if I had one but cannot justify purchasing. I already owned Bazaar of Baghdad and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale where as Mishra's Workshop felt more narrow in where I would use and own it for. I also did not spend more than $300 on either of those other cards where as Mishra's Workshop has had a higher cost to it for several years now. It is the only card that is outside of my own personal budget for magic cards that I probably would include in this list if I owned one.
Change Log
The change log outlines changes that have happened to this list over the course of time. For the most part it is just me copy and pasting changes and comments I am making when I am making changes. This log can be useful though if you are interested in the progression of the deck as well as answer questions of if I have ever tried card X or Y before. I will still do my best to answer any questions regardless of if a card was changed out here so feel free to ask anything you might be curious of.
1/21/16
Torpor Orb -> Expedition Map cutting torpor orb for now as it interferes with some of the stuff I am trying to do. The map has so much utility lands to pick from in this deck as well that it seems good. I can probably call that ramp even considering in a lot of choices I can get 2 mana out of selective lands.
Mimic Vat -> Vedalken Orrery I cant control the mimic vat all that well here as I dont have much for destruction effects. I think its easier not to run it without sac outlets and destroy based removal effects. Orrery will give me psudo flash as well as having really cool interaction with Unwinding Clock. Its just a great effect that I often like picking up.
Blinkmoth Nexus -> Eye of Ugin I might occasionally use the nexus as an emergency chump blocker. I realized late last night that I had forgotten to put the eye into my list and had to fix that oversight.
Myr Retriever -> Bazaar of Baghdad I like the recovery of the myr but it doesn't have flying like the Junk Diver so I feel its an inferior card. I realized that drawing 2 discarding 3 isnt so bad when my commander fills my hand back up to seven. In this way I can pilfer away things I dont really need and even though my hand size suffers from it, I can just rebound off of my hand size setting commander. Nifty hu.
Urza's Factory -> Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth I am adding two lands that dont tap for mana directly so I figured adding an Urborg to a deck that doesn't need colored land is probably fine. It enables some of my utility lands that dont themselves tap for mana. I felt like it was going to be very rare that I wanted to pay 8 mana for a 2/2 token in general.
1/25/16:
Matter Reshaper -> Staff of Nin I kept looking at this new card and while I think its amusing it fits more of a deck where you have value off of sac outlets and or death triggers. I think its a great looking card and it is colorless but it doesnt seem to fit here. Staff of Nin should help me as some token defense as well as a means of removing some blockers to make that menace evasion more effective while drawing me more cards. I was worried about curve when I originally excluded it but I have so much focus on ramp that I think its worth risking it.
Phyrexia's Core -> The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale I honestly couldnt come up with much of an answer of situations in which I need to sacrifice artifacts in this list. I do however need token defense and I have been really enjoying Tabernacle more and more of late. It fits my low creature plan well as well as my heavy ramp strategy.
Springjack Pasture -> Icy Manipulator I didn't see a lot of value in making goats to be honest. Icy Manipulator is an odd choice of a card but it plays offense and defense for me. I kept struggling with how I plan to block flyers and get past mazes and so far Icy seems to cover me on a few fronts. This might just be a pipe dream but I want to try it out and see what it can do for me.
1/26/16:
Lodestone Golem -> Lion's Eye Diamond I think that the golem is cool and it could hurt my opponents but it slows my eldrazi down too. I feel like I would really need to be using like the Winter Orb strategies for this to really pay off for me. LED ramps me into Kozilek which is good. Its one shot ramp but it replaces itself super easily when I cast my commander so that alone is worthwhile to me. Discarding my hand is offset by getting a new one. In some ways I can use this when I dont like cards in hand and it gives me a new hand.
Myr Battlesphere -> Silent Arbiter the battlesphere seems like a bit of an oddball to me. I added it because its just kind of decent in most cases but thats not good enough. Silent Arbiter gives me token / swarm defenses and it makes Kozilek unblockable which is great.
Artisan of Kozilek -> Rings of Brighthearth cutting into my creature count and most of my in deck eldrazi shuffle my grave away. This guy is expensive and perhaps does not do enough with lowering my creature count. I wanted to add rings to my list as well given how many small interactions it has in the deck given all of the utility lands and artifacts with activated abilities.
Wurmcoil Engine -> Scrabbling Claws Wurmcoil, its decent. That said its just kind of generic lifegain. I felt that graveyard hate was probably superior to it. I like the idea of scrabbling claws with Unwinding Clock and or Clock of Omens. It also does some decent work with Rings of Brighthearth with either of its abilities not to mention it can cheaply cycle itself if I dont need it.
Haven of the Spirit Dragon -> Mirrorpool just trading out one niche utility land for another. I dont feel like either one will be used that frequently but the idea of copying an important creature is more likely than me recovering ugin considering I only have one target to interact with on the Haven.
1/27/16:
Hangarback Walker -> Chromatic Lantern lantern only taps for one mana itself but I have like 3 lands now that dont tap for mana at all so there is a chance that its a stone that costs me three and provides more than one mana. Having Eye of Ugin tap for mana on top of cost reducing eldrazi would be sick.
Junk Diver -> Sisay's Ring so the issue I have with the diver is that its slow and just kind of bad in opening hands. I like its recursion but I am not running a lot of sac outlets and recovery is less interesting than just ramping more right now.
Scarecrone -> Ur-Golem's Eye I cut into my artifact creatures quite a lot to the point that its looking unreliable to have artifact creatures for Scarecrone to rez. He can still draw a card.... but we can instead ramp so meh.
Not of This World -> Scroll Rack surprisingly I found that I dont care that much about if someone wants to mess with my commander. Its one thing if they try to steal him or something but for now, I dont really care if they go to kill him. Scroll Rack offers up some hand manipulation which I want to try instead.
1/27/16:
Sisay's Ring -> Walking Atlas ok, I dont know how this will go for sure but I care about being faster and what I like about the atlas is that he gets my lands into play faster which means a faster Kozilek and faster unloading of the lands I am drawing. He is good with good draw as it means putting more lands into play. It also has some synergy with the unwinding clock effects which my mana stones are hit and miss with sometimes depending on if I have flash and or if I have stones that dont normally untap. I decided in the end to cut one of the 2 mana producing 4 mana stones because it lets me do a little more testing and I dont think they are that amazing overall. I like that the atlas comes in sooner and can speed me up sooner in the game which is probably better than a mediocre midrange stone.
2/4/16:
Titan's Presence -> Loxodon Warhammer I feel like Titan's Presence is something thats just a little too unpredictable. If it could use a colorless creature in play or in hand it would be different but I dont always have colorless creatures in hand for it. The hammer gives me some punch with my commander and gives me a lot of defensive capabilities at the same time by just powering up some lifegain.
3/2/16:
Thopter Assembly -> Bane of Bala Ged generally speaking, when it comes to flying defense, I try to just race people and make them block rather than worrying about blocking myself. The bane has a decent mana cost and its ability on attack is rough. It is more or less an annihilate effect but the cost to cast it is low enough that I want to give it a shot. If my opponents are exiling creatures that makes it harder to block my commander and if they are not exiling creatures they are dropping important resources to it. This in my mind is a shift from a defensive responsive type of creature that I had a hard time pushing to a creature that is much more aggressive and can potentially force my opponents into spot removing and or just having a harder time defending themselves due to.
Platinum Emperion -> Artisan of Kozilek defending life totals is something more for a control deck. Because I end up being the aggressor more I want to be more aggressive. The artisan can act as a rez for several of the creatures in deck and annihilate 2 is still a very respectable attack effect. Shifting from defensive to offensive for now.
Shimmer Myr -> Palladium Myr I have not noticed flash for my artifacts to matter enough to justify this. I want flash for my creatures more than I do my artifacts. This potentially still has good synergy with Unwinding Clock but I have not found that alone to be enough synergy for me to keep it in. More ramp instead sounds good.
Darksteel Forge -> Voltaic Key the forge is really clunky it takes up a whole turn to try to put up a precaution that "might" matter. With how aggressive I have been so far I just find it awkward when it makes its way to my hand. I just want something else and I run enough 2+ mana stones that Voltaic Key seems like a fine mana stone addition.
Mirrorworks -> Breaker of Armies the problem is that I never seem to have time to drop Mirrorworks. Its a 5 mana card that you drop and then get value after that turn so I have to have it in my opener, ramp into it, and then have more ramp yet to go. So it either slows me down as I need more relevant things yet to drop. Its just been more awkward than I thought it would be here for me. Breaker of Armies makes Kozilek unblockable (huge lure guy in front) and it makes for some awkward combat math for my opponents as well as making them panic about their utility creatures. It seems fun
4/14/16: CUTS:
Duplicant he is expensive to cast and responsive. The problem though is that he can only target creatures, is ETB reliant, and that he sits in hand waiting to be used. Instead I am bringing in two creature spot removal options but ones I can drop in early and draw more cards from Kozilek while I wait for a time I want to use them. They also keep me more open to playing defense from big creatures by having the option of instant speed removing things.
Bane of Bala Ged trying to cut big fatty beaters and go to Kozilek as my main beat down strategy.
Sandstone Oracle I like the effect but its still very slow and expensive. Its also kind of doubling up on what Kozilek is supposed to be doing for me.
Breaker of Armies I like the effect but I need to trim some of the expensive cards.
Artisan of Kozilek I like the effect but I need to trim some of the expensive cards.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Hit and miss on cutting him right now to be honest. I need to be moving my hand more for my commander though and he can clog up my hand while also being a little redundant with my commander Kozilek. The other eldrazi offer me unique removal which is why I am keeping the ulamogs in for now but not Kozilek.
ADDS:
Brittle Effigy spot removal as needed but I can drop it out of my hand early and sit / wait on it.
Phyrexian Furnace a little more grave hate. What I like about it though is that its cheap card draw which is more of what I was going for. The fact that it can serve as additional graveyard hate though is nice.
Sensei's Divining Top I am a little questionable on adding top yet but it can use extra mana for a few things and I can dig for counterspells in a pinch. It also has good interaction with Rings of Brighthearth if it comes to that I can draw with them combined.
Triangle of War more cheap removal. I like that I can drop it and move on to use it later. My commander should be able to fight and kill most things.
Mind Stone I am hesitant to add mana stones that only tap for one mana but its still good in the early game and can cycle itself later. Its really never a "bad" draw so its good enough to get in for now.
Ratchet Bomb a nice sweeper for tokens. In a pinch I can ratchet it up and use it on something else too.
7/14/16:
Blinkmoth Urn -> Warping Wail after seeing someone hit me a few times with artifact + creature wraths it became a bit more obvious that Blinkmoth Urn seems more and more like an over commitment card. Its cool when you have a ton of artifacts and are not getting blown up. Its also expensive to drop and hard to multi task in a turn because it does not give me mana back the same turn. It also gives mana to opponents first all of which kind of annoy me. Warping Wail on the other hand can give me that middle finger to Austere Command as well as give me a one time ramp bump if I want it.
11/15/16:
Pilgrim's Eye -> Lotus Petal the pilgrim's eye felt slower in execution than I was really happy with. This deck is very much about moving a lot of ramp very quickly and honestly I felt like the eye was a little too slow. I did like it as a chump block but I needed to be moving faster and getting in play rather than defending myself. Lotus Petal at first glance might seem a little underwhelming but it might be the difference of a turn faster ramping which can result in a turn faster Kozilek.
Mindless Automaton -> Hangarback Walker mindless is a little odd as I like the things it does but its a little slow to be honest. I dont really like using it as a blocker but the hand moving was just a little slower than I liked with it. I like the Walker because I could see myself dropping it early or late and still getting good results form it. It seems like a card that would work well with the big mana this deck can provide.
Trading Post -> Avarice Totem I was just never happy to see Trading Post. It was a little clunky, slow, and expensive to turn things over. I like the totem because its very cheap to just put in play and it can really screw with people with its theft option. I can always later swap out a strong threat for a mana stone if I am at 11+ mana and in the early game I can push it from hand quickly both of which I like.
Reliquary Tower -> Mox Diamond I wanted to try to lower my land count slightly. Honestly this deck does not need the tower as more than 7 cards seems to not ever be a real issue. The mox should help me a little with how aggressive I mulligan and it should move me faster into my other ramp elements.
Mirrorpool -> Chrome Mox same thing as above. I am too creature light / spell light to really use this land. I am hoping to speed up my first few turns and how quickly I establish my ramp game.
1/9/17:
Conduit of Ruin -> Walking Ballista so, the Conduit of Ruin has been a little less impressive than I have wanted it to be for some time now. It can really only tutor for one of two cards and both do sort of the same thing and its tutor to topdeck which has really kind of sucked. I think the Ballista gives me something in place of something that has not really been working so I am interested in seeing its results.
Chrome Mox -> Universal Solvent I goofed when I added the mox and its not a card that works here. The solvent I am interested in from the perspective that I can get it into play early and not get things stuck in my hand when I go to play Kozilek. It is similar in some ways to Unstable Obelisk in that the oblisk is not really good ramp so you drop the ramp element of the card but make it cost less so its easier to get in with excess mana in a turn rather than spending a turn on it. I did consider cutting something like Spine of Ish Sah to make room for this but I needed to cut the mox and the Spine is still an interesting fetch option off of Planar Bridge which I am adding right now.
Chromatic Lantern -> Inspiring Statuary honestly both of these mana stones have pros and cons. The lantern only really becomes good if and when I get lands that do not tap for mana so shy of that its a really bad mana stone. Given the number of random artifacts that I just vomit into play I think this new one really helps me play Kozilek out faster so I suspect I will get more mana for casting my commander from it at the downside that it does not ramp into other ramp well. The lantern sucked at being ramp anyways so I think this is a fine switch.
Staff of Domination -> Planar Bridge I honestly had a hard time ever really using the staff. I was not playing the staff to go infinite and the one time I remember setting up the cards that could go infinite with it I did not execute any of the infinite combo with it. Given this and how usually, I am drawing fairly well in the deck I feel that the staff isn't the card that I really need in this deck. The bridge is a much better mana dump and it should give me both offense and defense in that I can toolbox better. Ugin is one of my most wanted cards for this deck so a tutor that can fetch Ugin seems great.
Yea, the Orb might not quite fit this time. I can drop it for now in favor of other cards.
DECK CHANGES:
Torpor Orb -> Expedition Map cutting torpor orb for now as it interferes with some of the stuff I am trying to do. The map has so much utility lands to pick from in this deck as well that it seems good. I can probably call that ramp even considering in a lot of choices I can get 2 mana out of selective lands.
Mimic Vat -> Vedalken Orrery I cant control the mimic vat all that well here as I dont have much for destruction effects. I think its easier not to run it without sac outlets and destroy based removal effects. Orrery will give me psudo flash as well as having really cool interaction with Unwinding Clock. Its just a great effect that I often like picking up.
Blinkmoth Nexus -> Eye of Ugin I might occasionally use the nexus as an emergency chump blocker. I realized late last night that I had forgotten to put the eye into my list and had to fix that oversight.
Myr Retriever -> Bazaar of Baghdad I like the recovery of the myr but it doesn't have flying like the Junk Diver so I feel its an inferior card. I realized that drawing 2 discarding 3 isnt so bad when my commander fills my hand back up to seven. In this way I can pilfer away things I dont really need and even though my hand size suffers from it, I can just rebound off of my hand size setting commander. Nifty hu.
Urza's Factory -> Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth I am adding two lands that dont tap for mana directly so I figured adding an Urborg to a deck that doesn't need colored land is probably fine. It enables some of my utility lands that dont themselves tap for mana. I felt like it was going to be very rare that I wanted to pay 8 mana for a 2/2 token in general.
Out of curiosity - why 39 lands? Your list seems setup with all the good ramp that you could cut back on lands. I ran Juwdah's list for a bit and found 34 was a pretty solid number in my testing.
Out of curiosity - why 39 lands? Your list seems setup with all the good ramp that you could cut back on lands. I ran Juwdah's list for a bit and found 34 was a pretty solid number in my testing.
38 lands is my default. I have two lands that dont actually tap for mana so I went with what I am used to. Keep in mind I have a much higher objective mana than usual and its possible to use excess ramp as counterspells so I feel I am ok where I am right now. Juwdah's list also runs things like Winter Orb and Storm Cauldron which I wanted to avoid using as I am focusing a lot more on land ramp which has the upside of being less exposed to mass artifact removal (my meta doesn't really run MLD or stasis effects) but I see plenty of Oblivion Stone and mass non land sweepers.
Cutting into the land count will still give me some issues with sweepers I guess is my short answer. I will give it some thought and its possible I cut some but until I get to testing things I didn't plan to lower my count.
The function that the commanders play is also very different so in general I was really not paying much attention to Juwdah's list because I feel that their goals and playstle is different enough that I feel the objective build is very different as well. They certainly have some similarities but the difference between annihilator and counterspells is a very big playstyle difference. With Kozilek 1.0 there is a lot more importance had in attacking with the commander where as the new version has a bit of a slower wincon but more of a control feel to him.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Out of curiosity - why 39 lands? Your list seems setup with all the good ramp that you could cut back on lands. I ran Juwdah's list for a bit and found 34 was a pretty solid number in my testing.
38 lands is my default. I have two lands that dont actually tap for mana so I went with what I am used to. Keep in mind I have a much higher objective mana than usual and its possible to use excess ramp as counterspells so I feel I am ok where I am right now. Juwdah's list also runs things like Winter Orb and Storm Cauldron which I wanted to avoid using as I am focusing a lot more on land ramp which has the upside of being less exposed to mass artifact removal (my meta doesn't really run MLD or stasis effects) but I see plenty of Oblivion Stone and mass non land sweepers.
Cutting into the land count will still give me some issues with sweepers I guess is my short answer. I will give it some thought and its possible I cut some but until I get to testing things I didn't plan to lower my count.
The function that the commanders play is also very different so in general I was really not paying much attention to Juwdah's list because I feel that their goals and playstle is different enough that I feel the objective build is very different as well. They certainly have some similarities but the difference between annihilator and counterspells is a very big playstyle difference. With Kozilek 1.0 there is a lot more importance had in attacking with the commander where as the new version has a bit of a slower wincon but more of a control feel to him.
I hear you on the differences between the Commanders, I just only commented because to me the more ramp artifacts you run, you can utilize them as counters later once you hit on Kozilek.
My list did not run the main stay/hate elements that Juwdah did, but instead was packed with colorless bomb creatures. 34 was the magic number so that I could hit lands and ramp artifacts to somewhat consistently get to a T5 Kozilek
I hear you on the differences between the Commanders, I just only commented because to me the more ramp artifacts you run, you can utilize them as counters later once you hit on Kozilek.
My list did not run the main stay/hate elements that Juwdah did, but instead was packed with colorless bomb creatures. 34 was the magic number so that I could hit lands and ramp artifacts to somewhat consistently get to a T5 Kozilek
I think its a little more concerning with the changes to the mulligan system though as well. I do have kind of a lot of ramp though so I will see what I can do on shaving a few lands off potentially. There is also the question of what I add in place of lands though so I will keep it in mind and look at it moving forward. The thought of cutting into my land count is not something that normally comes up but I can see your point on it.
I also have an issue which is that I keep wanting to add more lands that dont normally tap for mana like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale which is currently kind of high on my list of things to add for token defense.
I will see what I can do about lowering my count by a few. I doubt I would really go below 37 for now in part because I feel I would need to playtest my way down but I can see logic in what you are saying about land counts.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Making a few more adjustments as I am putting this together. I am hoping to get some playtime this Wednesday. It looks like most of the cards will be here today for this so I plan to put some time into it tonight.
DECK CHANGES:
Matter Reshaper -> Staff of Nin I kept looking at this new card and while I think its amusing it fits more of a deck where you have value off of sac outlets and or death triggers. I think its a great looking card and it is colorless but it doesnt seem to fit here. Staff of Nin should help me as some token defense as well as a means of removing some blockers to make that menace evasion more effective while drawing me more cards. I was worried about curve when I originally excluded it but I have so much focus on ramp that I think its worth risking it.
Phyrexia's Core -> The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale I honestly couldnt come up with much of an answer of situations in which I need to sacrifice artifacts in this list. I do however need token defense and I have been really enjoying Tabernacle more and more of late. It fits my low creature plan well as well as my heavy ramp strategy.
Springjack Pasture -> Icy Manipulator I didn't see a lot of value in making goats to be honest. Icy Manipulator is an odd choice of a card but it plays offense and defense for me. I kept struggling with how I plan to block flyers and get past mazes and so far Icy seems to cover me on a few fronts. This might just be a pipe dream but I want to try it out and see what it can do for me.
This change also cuts my land count down by one. I will see about pairing it down further but I have a feeling that for a while I will want to step it down gradually given game performance.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I like your list. I have been playing Old kozilek as my semi competitive list (nicer than mimeo/tasigur) and it really stomps face and has a lot of late game utility. Three cards that I have found increase that utility are rings of brighthearth, strionic resonator (when 1 anniolator trigger is not enough!) and lastly and maybe most importantly tawnos's coffin. It seems so simple but having an o-ring on demand that you can use multiple times off of untap abilities is just fun and bonus the creature comes back into play tapped. It gives you so many options in a list that plays pretty linear. Proxy it up and give it a go!
I like your list. I have been playing Old kozilek as my semi competitive list (nicer than mimeo/tasigur) and it really stomps face and has a lot of late game utility. Three cards that I have found increase that utility are rings of brighthearth, strionic resonator (when 1 anniolator trigger is not enough!) and lastly and maybe most importantly tawnos's coffin. It seems so simple but having an o-ring on demand that you can use multiple times off of untap abilities is just fun and bonus the creature comes back into play tapped. It gives you so many options in a list that plays pretty linear. Proxy it up and give it a go!
I honestly didn't think I had much for Rings of Brighthearth to interact with until I looked through my list. I normally think of like fetchlands as what I want to be doing with it and seeing I dont run fetchlands I kind of overlooked it a little bit because of it. The reality here is that I have very little for spells though because I am colorless and many of my lands have potential functionality in which the rings can also copy. I overlooked some of this kind of auto dismissing rings as something I use with fetchlands. Thanks for the tip as I will have to really look at the card much closer as I assumed it just didnt do much but I was mistaken in that assumption here.
Strionic Resonator - I think its one of the cards that drops a lot of its value changing from Kozilek 1.0 to 2.0. With the original you can copy the draw as well as the annihilate. Without access to these tools on my commander I think it drops a lot of why I would want to run it. I think its a great card in a build for the original Kozilek.
Tawnos's Coffin - Dang I use to own one of these lol. I will see if I cant test it as most of the time my issue with it is how much it costs to activate but with a colorless deck focused on ramping I think it mitigates a lot of that issue. I dont know for sure but I did just look at Icy Manipulator after all so it could be good.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I'm making a very similar list, though with a slight push for voltron and more control. I'll post my list when I get a moment and would like to see what you think.
I'm making a very similar list, though with a slight push for voltron and more control. I'll post my list when I get a moment and would like to see what you think.
Looking forward to seeing it.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Here's what I'm currently working with. Compared to your list, my list, which seems a little more general beat-down/control, my list pushes a little bit of voltron via Kozilek, the Great Distortion. I'm currently down four slots, and I would say this deck is still in a "rough draft" mode. Would be interested in what you think.
Strionic Resonator loses a of utility with Kozilek, the Great Distortion. Once the first copy of the "draw until you get to 7" resolves, you'll then have 7 cards in hand, meaning the second copy won't net you any cards unless you can somehow respond to ability while it's still on the stack.
From Gatherer:
Kozilek’s triggered ability checks to see if you have fewer than seven cards in hand when you cast it. Kozilek is on the stack at this time and not in your hand. If you don’t, the ability won’t trigger at all. If the ability does trigger, it will check again as it tries to resolve. If you have seven or more cards in hand at that time, the ability won’t do anything.
That being said, it does do quite a bit with other staples in colorless, so it's not a dud.
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Playing with proxied cards at sanctioned events is good, actually.
@Trav_Ragnar - I like your list. I am a bit heavier on the creatures and I think I am going to cut into my creature count some but at the same time I am probably still going to keep a little bit of a higher count than you are. For whatever reason I missed the Silent Arbiter interaction with making Kozilek unblockable which is hilarious. I will have to add him to my list.
@chikkenbacon - It does still have a lot of interactions but with my commander not having specific interactions with it I think it looses a lot of its stability I guess. There are still things it interacts with in my deck but at the same time I am not focusing on ETB effects.
DECK CHANGES:
Lodestone Golem -> Lion's Eye Diamond I think that the golem is cool and it could hurt my opponents but it slows my eldrazi down too. I feel like I would really need to be using like the Winter Orb strategies for this to really pay off for me. LED ramps me into Kozilek which is good. Its one shot ramp but it replaces itself super easily when I cast my commander so that alone is worthwhile to me. Discarding my hand is offset by getting a new one. In some ways I can use this when I dont like cards in hand and it gives me a new hand.
Myr Battlesphere -> Silent Arbiter the battlesphere seems like a bit of an oddball to me. I added it because its just kind of decent in most cases but thats not good enough. Silent Arbiter gives me token / swarm defenses and it makes Kozilek unblockable which is great.
Artisan of Kozilek -> Rings of Brighthearth cutting into my creature count and most of my in deck eldrazi shuffle my grave away. This guy is expensive and perhaps does not do enough with lowering my creature count. I wanted to add rings to my list as well given how many small interactions it has in the deck given all of the utility lands and artifacts with activated abilities.
Wurmcoil Engine -> Scrabbling Claws Wurmcoil, its decent. That said its just kind of generic lifegain. I felt that graveyard hate was probably superior to it. I like the idea of scrabbling claws with Unwinding Clock and or Clock of Omens. It also does some decent work with Rings of Brighthearth with either of its abilities not to mention it can cheaply cycle itself if I dont need it.
Haven of the Spirit Dragon -> Mirrorpool just trading out one niche utility land for another. I dont feel like either one will be used that frequently but the idea of copying an important creature is more likely than me recovering ugin considering I only have one target to interact with on the Haven.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I think the difference in creature count is reasonable. I'm trying to push a control heavy, voltron-esque list with Kozilek, so my creature count is definitely way below. Although, I'm unsure how well that will fare, since I have yet to sleeve the deck. I think I can win via Kozilek general damage, but I'm unsure how consistently. I've thought about adding the other Kozilek, the twoUlamogs and maybe Blightsteel Colossus. But I've never played a colorless deck, so I'm unsure whether or not army beatdown is necessary versus a small amount of huge beaters. I'm interested in hearing any other win-conditions.
What's your opinion on Planar Portal (maybe even Ring of Three Wishes) and Scroll Rack for their obvious utility but also being able to dig/tutor for a counterspell with Kozilek on board?
EDIT: Opinions on Bottled Cloister? It can definitely be a nonbo with Vedalken Orrery and would be terrible to just completely exile your hand in the face of a Disenchant, but also a huge combo with Vedalken Orrery and casting Kozilek during an opponents turn. Also the Phyrexian Arena effect is nice.
So far I like having the removal options that the Ulamog 1.0 / 2.0 offer me. I did a little playtesting last night with a friend of mine as he also had a new deck so we just did heads up which is very awkward for two multiplayer based decks to do. I got to see the deck in action with some level of opposition though and we probably played like 10 games with me taking something like 60-70% of them but as a whole I have to say the new mulligan system threw in some very interesting problems. I dont think I will go any lower on my land count for the time being given the lessened consistancies of the new mulligan system. I saw a large gambit of hands in my testing last night as we did something like 10 games in all. I got one game that I started with T1:CloudpostT2:Thespian Stage, Expedition Map, T3, crack the map for Vesuva, copy CloudpostT4:Thespian Stage copies Cloudpost, Land. This was an amusing game as on turn 5 I had 11+ mana with no stones in play.
In the testing I also noticed some issues with some of my ok on curve creatures as they dont get me towards Kozilek and interfere some with my ramp game. As such, I am cutting into them a little.
DECK CHANGES:
Hangarback Walker -> Chromatic Lantern lantern only taps for one mana itself but I have like 3 lands now that dont tap for mana at all so there is a chance that its a stone that costs me three and provides more than one mana. Having Eye of Ugin tap for mana on top of cost reducing eldrazi would be sick.
Junk Diver -> Sisay's Ring so the issue I have with the diver is that its slow and just kind of bad in opening hands. I like its recursion but I am not running a lot of sac outlets and recovery is less interesting than just ramping more right now.
Scarecrone -> Ur-Golem's Eye I cut into my artifact creatures quite a lot to the point that its looking unreliable to have artifact creatures for Scarecrone to rez. He can still draw a card.... but we can instead ramp so meh.
Not of This World -> Scroll Rack surprisingly I found that I dont care that much about if someone wants to mess with my commander. Its one thing if they try to steal him or something but for now, I dont really care if they go to kill him. Scroll Rack offers up some hand manipulation which I want to try instead.
WATCHLIST:
Titan's Presence - I keep pairing down my creatures in list which makes this continuously more questionable.
Mirrorworks - yea its silly but it seems like it comes a little bit late from what I have seen so far. Its being watched I guess.
What's your opinion on Planar Portal (maybe even Ring of Three Wishes) and Scroll Rack for their obvious utility but also being able to dig/tutor for a counterspell with Kozilek on board?
EDIT: Opinions on Bottled Cloister? It can definitely be a nonbo with Vedalken Orrery and would be terrible to just completely exile your hand in the face of a Disenchant, but also a huge combo with Vedalken Orrery and casting Kozilek during an opponents turn. Also the Phyrexian Arena effect is nice.
Planar Portal / Ring of Wishes - outside of selectively finding a counterspell for 5 / 6, I just dont see myself needing specific cards that often. They are really hard to use as well since they mostly eat turns. I think its kind of cute but I dont feel like I have to have the ability to counter anything and everything at all times. I feel like if I have Kozilek out I am probably doing ok as it is.
Bottled Cloister - it removes your option to use Kozilek counterspells. Thats probably enough reason not to do that.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
How does your play group handle infect? I was considering Phyrexian Juggernaut as a win-condition, as the ruling currently for play group is 10 infect.
How does your play group handle infect? I was considering Phyrexian Juggernaut as a win-condition, as the ruling currently for play group is 10 infect.
We go by the book at 10. We also tend to have a good bit of control decks in general and I have some concerns about creature theft and or clones not to mention that it seems like a pain in the ass to deal with if someone hits a bribery on you. I think its an ok effect but its really expensive and it provides zero value if it does not like outright kill someone. Its an effect that does not do well in half measures is my issue so its either great or completely terrible. Overall I have always felt that Blightsteel is overly easy to manage and it provides very little value if its not killing people. I have a feeling that a random mid range Juggernaut is probably lower on the ladder if you ask me. If your meta doesn't play much for control I would say Blightsteel is ok at that point but outside of that I dont feel its that great.
I was making the adjustments to my list over lunch and decided to make an adjustment as I was doing the changes.
DECK CHANGE:
Sisay's Ring -> Walking Atlas ok, I dont know how this will go for sure but I care about being faster and what I like about the atlas is that he gets my lands into play faster which means a faster Kozilek and faster unloading of the lands I am drawing. He is good with good draw as it means putting more lands into play. It also has some synergy with the unwinding clock effects which my mana stones are hit and miss with sometimes depending on if I have flash and or if I have stones that dont normally untap. I decided in the end to cut one of the 2 mana producing 4 mana stones because it lets me do a little more testing and I dont think they are that amazing overall. I like that the atlas comes in sooner and can speed me up sooner in the game which is probably better than a mediocre midrange stone.
Vorrac Battlehorns works well with your general. The way meance and this equipment reads basically means "unblockable." It will also allow your other Titans to swing through for damage as well and not chumped so easily since only one creature can block it.
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To the people that say that a card needs to be a higher rarity because of Limited... I hate you guys so much. I present to you with this.
Here's where I think I'm going to be starting from, and moving from there. There's definitely some kinks I'm going to work out over the first few games, but I need a list to start with. How is everyone else's build going? How powerful is Kozilek, the Great Distortion.
I ended up playing 3 games this week. I only won one of them but I wouldnt say that I wasnt in any of the games. I had another that looked like I was going to win but then suddenly the UG player took 6 consecutive turns without going infinite and his Kaseto, Orochi Archmage commander could one shot people at that point. I had an Endbringer with one mana up but sadly he took too many turns for me to stop him. It was a combination of the number of turns he took back to back plus tutoring Vorinclex in the first turn which made him one shot lethal potential with all of his mana. I could have kept more mana up but I honestly had not expected him to have so much action still which killed me.
Overall, it wasn't bad but I think I might need to bring up my overall card draw as often my commander would hit play and mostly stick to play. I could also use possibly a little better defense or lifegain so I might end up making room for Loxodon Warhammer because it gives me more evasion plus it allows me to trade blows a little better. We ended up having one player play a Rite of the Raging Storm on like turn 3 one game and it resulted in me casting and sitting behind my commander just given the amount of extra damage running about.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I still need to get a Scroll Rack and Null Brooch. I also think I might be a little heavy on lands, so that is likely what I will cut for them.
On Thursday, I played 3 games with this deck, twice against Daretti, Animar, and Daxos, and once against Phenax Eldrazi, Kalitas, Sissay, and another Daxos deck. The First game against Daretti, Animar, and Daxos I was able to ramp and do a fairly decent job of controlling the board, with the Daxos player killing the Animar player before I killed him. Then the Daretti player was able to dig for a Banefire to kill me. I would have won had I attacked his Daretti instead of swinging all out at him.
The second game I didn't do as much, as the Animar player started chaining creatures and killed me first.
The final game, I dominated the board with an early Kozilek, and was never really out of control of it.
I ended up playing a single game with my Kozilek deck last night as a 3 player FFA. I had the option of playing Kozilek on turn 3 which was amazing but it involved pitching an Ugin (Lion's Eye Diamond) I had just drawn which I didn't really want to do. I instead opted to cast him on turn 4.
T1:Eldrazi Temple, Mana Vault T2: land T3: land, Sculpting Steel of Mana Vault (I had the option of doing Lion's Eye Diamond into Kozilek this turn) T4: land, Lion's Eye Diamond, Kozilek not using the diamond. I pitch a 4 mana stone to counter an Oracle of Mul Daya. T5: untap one of the Mana Vaults, land, swing at the UG player who cant block me. Each of my opponents drops a few blockers to try to block my commander. T6: land, ugin, -4 ugin to kill essentially everything my opponents have. Swing and kill the UG player. My opponent drops a Rampaging Baloth and makes a token plus drops another dork to block. T7: I attack my opponent with my commander and he uses two chump blockers. I then Scour from Existence his Rampaging Baloths and bolt him with ugin. He drops an Avenger of Zendikar with no answer to Ugin. T8: Ugin -0 clear his tokens. Swing for a bunch of damage. He tries doing a Chord of Calling on his turn for x=5. I discard a Platinum Emperion as a counterspell. He scoops.
DECK CHANGE:
Titan's Presence -> Loxodon Warhammer I feel like Titan's Presence is something thats just a little too unpredictable. If it could use a colorless creature in play or in hand it would be different but I dont always have colorless creatures in hand for it. The hammer gives me some punch with my commander and gives me a lot of defensive capabilities at the same time by just powering up some lifegain.
On Watch:
Darksteel Forge I had it in my opening hand and I never really cast it. In longer games it probably makes more sense but at the same time its an annoying card and it doesnt prevent all types of removal from hitting.
Myriad Landscape checking rulings currently to see if I can in fact not fetch up wastes with it. It might need to go but it seems like an oversight that wastes do not have a land type but are basics. I am still a little confused with the fact that wastes do not have a land type listed like other basic lands do.
EDIT: Wastes can not be fetched up with Myriad Landscape so its going to have to go. I will have to go back through the list of lands and come up with a replacement.
Introduction:
Hello, my name is Brian. I have been playing commander since 2010 and my experience with deckbuilding varies over a lot of builds and commanders probably somewhere in the 50+ commanders and decks at this point. As a player and meta, we try to not play mass land destruction, infinite combos, and in general we try to usually have fun with what we are doing. I do build good decks and usually I like having unique spins and or flavor to decks over playing goodstuff.
This thread will hopefully give you an in depth guide to playing Kozilek, the Great Distortion. I started playing Kozilek right when he was released. What first attracted me to Kozilek was a combination of the fact that I could play a tempo ramp strategy with a commander who refills my hand, is my wincon, and acts as a control mechanism. I never really felt the want to build the original Kozilek as I felt that his annihilate was a little rough and unfriendly. Kozilek could still kill people in two hits but I felt like I could play more of a control strategy with the natural build in counterspells of Kozilek rather than a somewhat stax feel that the original Kozilek has. Drawing up to 7 cards also rewards blowing your entire hand before dropping your commander so it was interesting to me to be able to play even more ramp which can then later be used as counterspells so I definitely had some interest in the speed reward difference of the new Kozilek.
I will try to walk you through my design decisions of why I chose Kozilek 2.0 as my commander and some different options you have when considering what eldrazi overloard to serve
Why Play Kozilek 2.0:
Pros:
Cons:
Colorless is the absolute most brutal color identity in existence so your choices in the actual deck are going to be somewhat limited. Because colorless is so brutal you really have to have a high impact commander to carry you through the brutality of the smallest card selection out there. The reason to select Kozilek as a commander in my mind comes down to the number of tools he gives you in the command zone. With Kozilek you have your wincon, draw, and control elements all in one in your command zone.
Deck History
Alternative Commander Options
Decklist
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
CREATURES (12)
1 Hangarback Walker
1 Walking Ballista
1 Walking Atlas
1 Burnished Hart
1 Metalworker
1 Palladium Myr
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Endbringer
1 Oblivion Sower
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
ARTIFACT (46)
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Diamond
1 Avarice Totem
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Expedition Map
1 Mana Vault
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Triangle of War
1 Universal Solvent
1 Voltaic Key
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mind Stone
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Scroll Rack
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Inspiring Statuary
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Tangle Wire
1 Unstable Obelisk
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Clock of Omens
1 Hedron Archive
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Ur-Golem's Eye
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Eye
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Planar Bridge
1 Staff of Nin
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Warping Wail
1 Scour from Existence
SORCERY (1)
1 All Is Dust
PLANESWALKER (2)
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
LAND (36)
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Buried Ruin
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Cloudpost
1 Dust Bowl
1 Eldrazi Temple
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Glimmerpost
1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
1 High Market
1 Homeward Path
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Petrified Field
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple of the False God
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vesuva
1 Wasteland
6 Wastes
1 Winding Canyons
Card Options
Building on a Budget
Strategy
Our Commander
General Strategy
Weaknesses
Powering the list up
Change Log
The change log outlines changes that have happened to this list over the course of time. For the most part it is just me copy and pasting changes and comments I am making when I am making changes. This log can be useful though if you are interested in the progression of the deck as well as answer questions of if I have ever tried card X or Y before. I will still do my best to answer any questions regardless of if a card was changed out here so feel free to ask anything you might be curious of.
1/21/16
1/25/16:
1/26/16:
1/27/16:
1/27/16:
2/4/16:
3/2/16:
4/14/16:
CUTS:
7/14/16:
11/15/16:
1/9/17:
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[Modern] Allies
Yea, the Orb might not quite fit this time. I can drop it for now in favor of other cards.
DECK CHANGES:
Torpor Orb -> Expedition Map cutting torpor orb for now as it interferes with some of the stuff I am trying to do. The map has so much utility lands to pick from in this deck as well that it seems good. I can probably call that ramp even considering in a lot of choices I can get 2 mana out of selective lands.
Mimic Vat -> Vedalken Orrery I cant control the mimic vat all that well here as I dont have much for destruction effects. I think its easier not to run it without sac outlets and destroy based removal effects. Orrery will give me psudo flash as well as having really cool interaction with Unwinding Clock. Its just a great effect that I often like picking up.
Blinkmoth Nexus -> Eye of Ugin I might occasionally use the nexus as an emergency chump blocker. I realized late last night that I had forgotten to put the eye into my list and had to fix that oversight.
Myr Retriever -> Bazaar of Baghdad I like the recovery of the myr but it doesn't have flying like the Junk Diver so I feel its an inferior card. I realized that drawing 2 discarding 3 isnt so bad when my commander fills my hand back up to seven. In this way I can pilfer away things I dont really need and even though my hand size suffers from it, I can just rebound off of my hand size setting commander. Nifty hu.
Urza's Factory -> Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth I am adding two lands that dont tap for mana directly so I figured adding an Urborg to a deck that doesn't need colored land is probably fine. It enables some of my utility lands that dont themselves tap for mana. I felt like it was going to be very rare that I wanted to pay 8 mana for a 2/2 token in general.
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[Modern] Allies
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
38 lands is my default. I have two lands that dont actually tap for mana so I went with what I am used to. Keep in mind I have a much higher objective mana than usual and its possible to use excess ramp as counterspells so I feel I am ok where I am right now. Juwdah's list also runs things like Winter Orb and Storm Cauldron which I wanted to avoid using as I am focusing a lot more on land ramp which has the upside of being less exposed to mass artifact removal (my meta doesn't really run MLD or stasis effects) but I see plenty of Oblivion Stone and mass non land sweepers.
Cutting into the land count will still give me some issues with sweepers I guess is my short answer. I will give it some thought and its possible I cut some but until I get to testing things I didn't plan to lower my count.
The function that the commanders play is also very different so in general I was really not paying much attention to Juwdah's list because I feel that their goals and playstle is different enough that I feel the objective build is very different as well. They certainly have some similarities but the difference between annihilator and counterspells is a very big playstyle difference. With Kozilek 1.0 there is a lot more importance had in attacking with the commander where as the new version has a bit of a slower wincon but more of a control feel to him.
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[Modern] Allies
My list did not run the main stay/hate elements that Juwdah did, but instead was packed with colorless bomb creatures. 34 was the magic number so that I could hit lands and ramp artifacts to somewhat consistently get to a T5 Kozilek
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
I think its a little more concerning with the changes to the mulligan system though as well. I do have kind of a lot of ramp though so I will see what I can do on shaving a few lands off potentially. There is also the question of what I add in place of lands though so I will keep it in mind and look at it moving forward. The thought of cutting into my land count is not something that normally comes up but I can see your point on it.
I also have an issue which is that I keep wanting to add more lands that dont normally tap for mana like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale which is currently kind of high on my list of things to add for token defense.
I will see what I can do about lowering my count by a few. I doubt I would really go below 37 for now in part because I feel I would need to playtest my way down but I can see logic in what you are saying about land counts.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
This change also cuts my land count down by one. I will see about pairing it down further but I have a feeling that for a while I will want to step it down gradually given game performance.
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[Modern] Allies
I honestly didn't think I had much for Rings of Brighthearth to interact with until I looked through my list. I normally think of like fetchlands as what I want to be doing with it and seeing I dont run fetchlands I kind of overlooked it a little bit because of it. The reality here is that I have very little for spells though because I am colorless and many of my lands have potential functionality in which the rings can also copy. I overlooked some of this kind of auto dismissing rings as something I use with fetchlands. Thanks for the tip as I will have to really look at the card much closer as I assumed it just didnt do much but I was mistaken in that assumption here.
Strionic Resonator - I think its one of the cards that drops a lot of its value changing from Kozilek 1.0 to 2.0. With the original you can copy the draw as well as the annihilate. Without access to these tools on my commander I think it drops a lot of why I would want to run it. I think its a great card in a build for the original Kozilek.
Tawnos's Coffin - Dang I use to own one of these lol. I will see if I cant test it as most of the time my issue with it is how much it costs to activate but with a colorless deck focused on ramping I think it mitigates a lot of that issue. I dont know for sure but I did just look at Icy Manipulator after all so it could be good.
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[Modern] Allies
Looking forward to seeing it.
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[Modern] Allies
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Creatures
1 Metalworker
1 Burnished Hart
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
Planeswalkers
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Sorceries
1 All Is Dust
Artifacts
1 Mox Opal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Expedition Map
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Voltaic Key
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Defense Grid
1 Grim Monolith
1 Howling Mine
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Scroll Rack
1 Torpor Orb
1 Winter Orb
1 Inquisitor's Flail
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Coalition Relic
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Forcefield
1 Mana Web
1 Mimic Vat
1 Ring of Gix
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Semblance Anvil
1 Storage Matrix
1 Fireshrieker
1 Unstable Obelisk
1 Clock of Omens
1 Null Brooch
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Grafted Exoskeleton
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Hedron Archive
1 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Mind's Eye
1 Planar Portal
1 Staff of Nin
1 Ward of Bones
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Spine of Ish Sah
17 Wastes
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Command Beacon
1 Eldrazi Temple
1 High Market
1 Homeward Path
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
1 Winding Canyons
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Blinkmoth Well
1 Buried Ruin
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Here's what I'm currently working with. Compared to your list, my list, which seems a little more general beat-down/control, my list pushes a little bit of voltron via Kozilek, the Great Distortion. I'm currently down four slots, and I would say this deck is still in a "rough draft" mode. Would be interested in what you think.
From Gatherer:
That being said, it does do quite a bit with other staples in colorless, so it's not a dud.
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
@chikkenbacon - It does still have a lot of interactions but with my commander not having specific interactions with it I think it looses a lot of its stability I guess. There are still things it interacts with in my deck but at the same time I am not focusing on ETB effects.
DECK CHANGES:
Lodestone Golem -> Lion's Eye Diamond I think that the golem is cool and it could hurt my opponents but it slows my eldrazi down too. I feel like I would really need to be using like the Winter Orb strategies for this to really pay off for me. LED ramps me into Kozilek which is good. Its one shot ramp but it replaces itself super easily when I cast my commander so that alone is worthwhile to me. Discarding my hand is offset by getting a new one. In some ways I can use this when I dont like cards in hand and it gives me a new hand.
Myr Battlesphere -> Silent Arbiter the battlesphere seems like a bit of an oddball to me. I added it because its just kind of decent in most cases but thats not good enough. Silent Arbiter gives me token / swarm defenses and it makes Kozilek unblockable which is great.
Artisan of Kozilek -> Rings of Brighthearth cutting into my creature count and most of my in deck eldrazi shuffle my grave away. This guy is expensive and perhaps does not do enough with lowering my creature count. I wanted to add rings to my list as well given how many small interactions it has in the deck given all of the utility lands and artifacts with activated abilities.
Wurmcoil Engine -> Scrabbling Claws Wurmcoil, its decent. That said its just kind of generic lifegain. I felt that graveyard hate was probably superior to it. I like the idea of scrabbling claws with Unwinding Clock and or Clock of Omens. It also does some decent work with Rings of Brighthearth with either of its abilities not to mention it can cheaply cycle itself if I dont need it.
Haven of the Spirit Dragon -> Mirrorpool just trading out one niche utility land for another. I dont feel like either one will be used that frequently but the idea of copying an important creature is more likely than me recovering ugin considering I only have one target to interact with on the Haven.
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[Modern] Allies
EDIT: Opinions on Bottled Cloister? It can definitely be a nonbo with Vedalken Orrery and would be terrible to just completely exile your hand in the face of a Disenchant, but also a huge combo with Vedalken Orrery and casting Kozilek during an opponents turn. Also the Phyrexian Arena effect is nice.
In the testing I also noticed some issues with some of my ok on curve creatures as they dont get me towards Kozilek and interfere some with my ramp game. As such, I am cutting into them a little.
DECK CHANGES:
Hangarback Walker -> Chromatic Lantern lantern only taps for one mana itself but I have like 3 lands now that dont tap for mana at all so there is a chance that its a stone that costs me three and provides more than one mana. Having Eye of Ugin tap for mana on top of cost reducing eldrazi would be sick.
Junk Diver -> Sisay's Ring so the issue I have with the diver is that its slow and just kind of bad in opening hands. I like its recursion but I am not running a lot of sac outlets and recovery is less interesting than just ramping more right now.
Scarecrone -> Ur-Golem's Eye I cut into my artifact creatures quite a lot to the point that its looking unreliable to have artifact creatures for Scarecrone to rez. He can still draw a card.... but we can instead ramp so meh.
Not of This World -> Scroll Rack surprisingly I found that I dont care that much about if someone wants to mess with my commander. Its one thing if they try to steal him or something but for now, I dont really care if they go to kill him. Scroll Rack offers up some hand manipulation which I want to try instead.
WATCHLIST:
Titan's Presence - I keep pairing down my creatures in list which makes this continuously more questionable.
Mirrorworks - yea its silly but it seems like it comes a little bit late from what I have seen so far. Its being watched I guess.
Planar Portal / Ring of Wishes - outside of selectively finding a counterspell for 5 / 6, I just dont see myself needing specific cards that often. They are really hard to use as well since they mostly eat turns. I think its kind of cute but I dont feel like I have to have the ability to counter anything and everything at all times. I feel like if I have Kozilek out I am probably doing ok as it is.
Bottled Cloister - it removes your option to use Kozilek counterspells. Thats probably enough reason not to do that.
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[Modern] Allies
We go by the book at 10. We also tend to have a good bit of control decks in general and I have some concerns about creature theft and or clones not to mention that it seems like a pain in the ass to deal with if someone hits a bribery on you. I think its an ok effect but its really expensive and it provides zero value if it does not like outright kill someone. Its an effect that does not do well in half measures is my issue so its either great or completely terrible. Overall I have always felt that Blightsteel is overly easy to manage and it provides very little value if its not killing people. I have a feeling that a random mid range Juggernaut is probably lower on the ladder if you ask me. If your meta doesn't play much for control I would say Blightsteel is ok at that point but outside of that I dont feel its that great.
I was making the adjustments to my list over lunch and decided to make an adjustment as I was doing the changes.
DECK CHANGE:
Sisay's Ring -> Walking Atlas ok, I dont know how this will go for sure but I care about being faster and what I like about the atlas is that he gets my lands into play faster which means a faster Kozilek and faster unloading of the lands I am drawing. He is good with good draw as it means putting more lands into play. It also has some synergy with the unwinding clock effects which my mana stones are hit and miss with sometimes depending on if I have flash and or if I have stones that dont normally untap. I decided in the end to cut one of the 2 mana producing 4 mana stones because it lets me do a little more testing and I dont think they are that amazing overall. I like that the atlas comes in sooner and can speed me up sooner in the game which is probably better than a mediocre midrange stone.
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[Modern] Allies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8h2vp5Xis
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
//Creatures
1 Metalworker
1 Burnished Hart
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Silent Arbiter
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Conduit of Ruin
1 Endbringer
1 Phyrexian Juggernaut
1 Platinum Emperion
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
//Planeswalkers
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
//Sorceries
1 All Is Dust
//Artifacts
1 Mox Opal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Mana Vault
1 Expedition Map
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Voltaic Key
1 Defense Grid
1 Grim Monolith
1 Howling Mine
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Scroll Rack
1 Torpor Orb
1 Winter Orb
1 Inquisitor's Flail
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Forcefield
1 Mana Web
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Semblance Anvil
1 Fireshrieker
1 Unstable Obelisk
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Clock of Omens
1 Null Brooch
1 Trading Post
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Grafted Exoskeleton
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Icy Manipulator
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Hedron Archive
1 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Mind's Eye
1 Planar Portal
1 Staff of Nin
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Spine of Ish Sah
16 Wastes
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Command Beacon
1 Eldrazi Temple
1 High Market
1 Homeward Path
1 Mishra's Workshop
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
1 Winding Canyons
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Blinkmoth Well
1 Buried Ruin
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Here's where I think I'm going to be starting from, and moving from there. There's definitely some kinks I'm going to work out over the first few games, but I need a list to start with. How is everyone else's build going? How powerful is Kozilek, the Great Distortion.
Overall, it wasn't bad but I think I might need to bring up my overall card draw as often my commander would hit play and mostly stick to play. I could also use possibly a little better defense or lifegain so I might end up making room for Loxodon Warhammer because it gives me more evasion plus it allows me to trade blows a little better. We ended up having one player play a Rite of the Raging Storm on like turn 3 one game and it resulted in me casting and sitting behind my commander just given the amount of extra damage running about.
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[Modern] Allies
Here's my list:
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Creatures:
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Void Winnower
1 Conduit of Ruin
1 Oblivion Sower
1 Endbringer
1 Kozilek’s Channeler
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Duplicant
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Burnished Hart
1 Palladium Myr
1 Metalworker
Planeswalkers:
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Artifacts:
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mind Stone
1 Thought Vessel
1 Grim Monolith
1 Unstable Obelisk
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Semblance Anvil
1 Ur-Golem’s Eye
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Tower of Fortunes
1 Loreseeker’s Stone
1 Trading Post
1 Expedition Map
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Voltaic Key
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Darksteel Forge
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Nevinyrral’s Disk
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Warping Wail
1 Titan’s Presence
1 Scour from Existence
Sorceries:
1 All is Dust
Land:
7 Wastes
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Eldrazi Temple
1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Temple of the False God
1 Mage-Ring Network
1 Crystal Vein
1 Thespian’s Stage
1 Vesuva
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Dust Bowl
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Petrified Field
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 High Market
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Maze of Ith
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Command Beacon
1 Buried Ruin
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Urza’s Factory
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Ruins of Oran-Rief
1 Mirrorpool
1 Deserted Temple
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Homeward Path
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
I still need to get a Scroll Rack and Null Brooch. I also think I might be a little heavy on lands, so that is likely what I will cut for them.
On Thursday, I played 3 games with this deck, twice against Daretti, Animar, and Daxos, and once against Phenax Eldrazi, Kalitas, Sissay, and another Daxos deck. The First game against Daretti, Animar, and Daxos I was able to ramp and do a fairly decent job of controlling the board, with the Daxos player killing the Animar player before I killed him. Then the Daretti player was able to dig for a Banefire to kill me. I would have won had I attacked his Daretti instead of swinging all out at him.
The second game I didn't do as much, as the Animar player started chaining creatures and killed me first.
The final game, I dominated the board with an early Kozilek, and was never really out of control of it.
T1: Eldrazi Temple, Mana Vault
T2: land
T3: land, Sculpting Steel of Mana Vault (I had the option of doing Lion's Eye Diamond into Kozilek this turn)
T4: land, Lion's Eye Diamond, Kozilek not using the diamond. I pitch a 4 mana stone to counter an Oracle of Mul Daya.
T5: untap one of the Mana Vaults, land, swing at the UG player who cant block me. Each of my opponents drops a few blockers to try to block my commander.
T6: land, ugin, -4 ugin to kill essentially everything my opponents have. Swing and kill the UG player. My opponent drops a Rampaging Baloth and makes a token plus drops another dork to block.
T7: I attack my opponent with my commander and he uses two chump blockers. I then Scour from Existence his Rampaging Baloths and bolt him with ugin. He drops an Avenger of Zendikar with no answer to Ugin.
T8: Ugin -0 clear his tokens. Swing for a bunch of damage. He tries doing a Chord of Calling on his turn for x=5. I discard a Platinum Emperion as a counterspell. He scoops.
DECK CHANGE:
Titan's Presence -> Loxodon Warhammer I feel like Titan's Presence is something thats just a little too unpredictable. If it could use a colorless creature in play or in hand it would be different but I dont always have colorless creatures in hand for it. The hammer gives me some punch with my commander and gives me a lot of defensive capabilities at the same time by just powering up some lifegain.
On Watch:
Darksteel Forge I had it in my opening hand and I never really cast it. In longer games it probably makes more sense but at the same time its an annoying card and it doesnt prevent all types of removal from hitting.
Myriad Landscape checking rulings currently to see if I can in fact not fetch up wastes with it. It might need to go but it seems like an oversight that wastes do not have a land type but are basics. I am still a little confused with the fact that wastes do not have a land type listed like other basic lands do.
EDIT: Wastes can not be fetched up with Myriad Landscape so its going to have to go. I will have to go back through the list of lands and come up with a replacement.
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[Modern] Allies